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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 9282840" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dungeon/Polyhedron Issue 95/194: Nov/Dec 2002part 10/10The Mecha Crusade Campaign: The campaign advice is also quite short, but in a way that makes it feel quite sketchy and in need of further expansion. First up, a rough default setting. The year is 2053, humanity has been colonising the rest of the solar system for a few decades now and is just getting to the point where the colonies are fed up of the increasingly tyrannical earth government and thinking about declaring independence. They’re still massively outnumbered, but they have the advantage of a well-educated population with far better raw materials and economy compared to the tapped out, heavily polluted earth. Will they be able to renegotiate the deal and forge a bright new future for themselves, or will it turn into a lengthy asymmetrical war that winds up devastating both sides, possibly leading into some iteration of Gamma World after civilisation is destroyed? There’s definitely a lot of different ways you could take that and the PC’s could easily play significant parts in it, either following the orders of whatever military they’re with or striking out on their own. Then there’s a bunch of even less fleshed out alternate ideas, exploring the stars a la Vehicle Force Voltron, mixing your mechas with your cthulhu, which will get its own full setting a few years later as Cthulhutech, Mecha Gladiators, which makes perfect sense as a pickup game, and Servomotors & Sorcery, where you throw the full D&D kitchen sink in with the mechas and see just how broken you can make the combinations of magic and tech. All could definitely support a full book or more of expansion by the right writer. Finally, XP guidelines for encounters. Since the mecha makes such a huge difference to the power of your opponents, CR is determined 50/50 by the level of the person in the mech, and the number of points the mech has compared to the default amount for a character of that level. Squashing people like bugs when you’re in a suit and they’re not will not gain you XP, even if they’re actually higher level than you, because it’s still not a fair fight. (but it can still be satisfying, especially if they’ve been throwing obstacles in your way the whole campaign but you’ve only now got to meet them face to face) Once again I’m left wanting more, which is probably a positive sign overall in terms of quality, but still a little frustrating. Godlike tells the tale of Aesgir, a little kid wielding a toy spear who fought back against the nazis in Norway. Somehow in his hands it was a weapon capable of being thrown through tanks and returning to his hands. Unsurprisingly, the statue commemorating the place where he fell makes both him and the spear look a lot more impressive than they did in reality. Monster Tokens: A lot of repeated tokens this time, showing that this series may be starting to hit diminishing returns. In the regular size category we have a magma paraelemental, a grick, a satyr, a narzugon, a goblin, a fire beetle, two githyanki, two gnolls, two harpies, two mezzoloths, four yuan-ti with two each of pureblood and half-blood. In the big leagues we have a 10x5 ankheg, a 10x10 gulguhydra and a 20x20 dragon turtle that smaller characters can probably climb onto the back of. That could make for a very interesting fight as long as you have decent tumble scores for when it tries to roll over and crush you. A slow start, but there’s still plenty of interesting bits in this issue that do things they haven’t before, and the only big dead spot is the ultra-generic adventures at the start that are obviously aimed at far less experienced readers than me. Then again, every issue might be someone’s first so they have to keep on doing at least a few of those. Let’s see what mix of novelty and formula the next year brings. (hopefully a better ratio than Dragon did)</blockquote>

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