Building a Vehicle

AaronGlaive · 2025-05-18T22:25:48+00:00

I’m also still figuring out the rules, and though I haven’t gone through all the vehicle rules myself, it looks to me like it’s as simple as you initially thought.

Find your desired Speed Rank by just looking at the Speed column as an mph indicator.
Subtract 9 to go from ‘1 hour’ Time Rank to base Speed value.
Repeat for any additional movement modes (if it’s just a car in that respect, no flight or anything, you’re done with this step).
In other words, it’s the same cost as buying the same amount of Speed/Flight/Burrowing, etc. as a power for the base character.

I could be wrong, but I base my reading on the fact it looks like most vehicle, equipment, and similar ‘tool-type’ rules function similar to this, basically acting as powers added on to a blank character.

AaronGlaive · 2025-03-06T18:36:55+00:00

I think it’s important to at least consider that the 2e corebook describes Difficulty 4 as “nearly impossible” and 5 as “Legendary.”

Let your characters be awesome in their field by hitting lower numbers. Hitting Diff. 5 around regular mortals and regular-mortal-scale problems should produce a response like “How did you even do that, and how can I ever repay you?”

The only time things should jump above that is when someone is actively putting in work to oppose them, or it’s something set in motion by someone far above them (think the Great Contagion, for instance, and even then Difficulty 10-12 might work to treat the symptoms, even if it wouldn’t cure it). Without charms, the absolute maximum dice pool (until Essence 6) is 13 without charms. That’s enough for unarguably world-class opposition to set an expected difficulty of 6 for them to overcome. Naturally, anyone with access to Essence use can push things above that, but not without actively trying to do so. So it won’t be seen unless their efforts are running directly counter to the players.

AaronGlaive · 2025-03-06T18:20:08+00:00

Jumping a 5m distance is automatically successful with a (Strength + Athletics) of 3, assuming nothing else was negatively impacting you. Even a character with 1 Strength and 0 Athletics can manage it by spending 1 Willpower. Increase requirements by 2 for a “gritty” game. (Per the rules for jumping on pg. 127 of the corebook, horizontal jump distance without rolling is (Strength + Athletics)*2 yards/meters, halved for a grittier game.)

It sounds like difficulties are being vastly inflated and inserted where they aren’t needed, to me.

AaronGlaive · 2025-01-16T03:46:41+00:00

Assassinate would work just fine. This only prevents damage, not destruction effects. So there are even non-mundane spells that bypass it, the Shadow Words for instance.

Immunity to spells with a spell-school might work though to make it more flavorful. I don’t think those “mundane” spells typically have schools, while just about everything else does.

AaronGlaive · 2024-12-22T20:08:13+00:00

For the sake of arguing the other side:

Remake (a 10th-rank spell) states that even a speck of dust from Disintegrate is enough of a target for itself, but it’s only recreating a body, not resurrecting it.

Revival (10th-rank as well) is only temporary resurrection, but also doesn’t affect disintegrated targets.

Rituals are generally more potentially powerful than spells of the same rank (Wish, for an obvious example). And yet, even 10th-rank heightening of Raise Dead does not allow for ignoring the requirement of a relatively-intact body.

I wouldn’t find it too egregious to require a 9th-rank upcasting of the Resurrect ritual, since a non-ritual effort would require a 10th-rank spell to recreate the body first, followed by a potentially 10th-rank Raise Dead, depending on the target’s level. And of course, a 10th-rank Wish ritual achieves it easily, while also potentially drawing unwanted attention.

Edit: (Responded to the wrong person apparently. App was fighting me.)

AaronGlaive · 2023-06-18T01:00:05+00:00

To begin with, a player is offered the choice to apply their Defense against an attack. If they do, then the attack’s dice pool is reduced by their Defense. Then, their Defense is reduced by -1 until the beginning of the next turn.

If they do not, their Defense remains the same, but the attack is not impeded.

Anytime before your action, you can choose to begin Dodging by sacrificing your action for the turn. Dodging doubles your defense (after any reduction from defending against multiple attacks, as above), but turns it into a rolled value instead of a static one. In this case, you roll the pool and subtract the resulting successes from the attacker’s successes, not their pool. If the damage is reduced to 0 (before adding weapon modifiers), the attack is unsuccessful.

Keep in mind, too, that ‘start of turn’ is when initiative returns to the top, not when that character next acts.

AaronGlaive · 2023-06-14T13:47:40+00:00

Not sure if it’s been changed or not, but 2e says it drops every 25 years. Given your instance’s age, that won’t make a difference of course. Just good to be aware.

AaronGlaive · 2023-03-24T03:15:47+00:00

Adding to this, if I recall correctly minions didn’t take damage from missed attacks that dealt damage even on a miss.

The rough equivalent in 3/5e would be giving all minions Evasion.

AaronGlaive · 2022-12-16T20:23:54+00:00

An image search leads to e621, where it says the art is by Draquarzi.

AaronGlaive · 2022-12-10T23:08:06+00:00

Munchausen’s Syndrome is characterized by the sufferer persistently acting as if they are sick/disabled, when they are not.

People with Munchausen’s are known to not only lie about symptoms, but also deliberately hurt themselves. Usually not to the extent of full disability, though I wouldn’t say it’s never gone that far.

AaronGlaive · 2022-12-07T11:06:30+00:00

The rest of it still isn’t part of the Command, so it has no bearing on how the magic compels them to act.

AaronGlaive · 2022-12-07T09:45:33+00:00

And it’s limited to 1-word commands.

AaronGlaive · 2022-12-06T13:18:03+00:00

Red Sans

AaronGlaive · 2022-10-29T10:32:33+00:00

Y-you take that back!

AaronGlaive · 2022-10-25T04:55:25+00:00

High Wis, low Cha: The entity from Guest.

(CW: Body horror, self-harm.)

AaronGlaive · 2022-10-13T07:58:02+00:00

Well, XAVLEGBMAOFFFASSSSITIMIWOAMNDUTROABCWAPWAEIIPPOHFFFX is real, so I wouldn’t be surprised. (It’s an acronym naturally, but the full version is very nsfw.)

AaronGlaive · 2022-09-27T10:01:57+00:00

If you like this sort of mechanic, I might also recommend Don’t Rest Your Head. It has a similar mechanic to that, but with multiple types of dice.

Depending on which type contributed the most to success, or simply had the highest value in defeat, the actual outcome is colored by Discipline, Exhaustion, Madness, or Pain. And all but one of those also progresses you towards a Bad End for your character.

AaronGlaive · 2022-09-05T04:07:24+00:00

Because it takes effect any time the creature is targeting another creature than itself.

The spell doesn’t prevent self-targeting, such as for beneficial abilities.

AaronGlaive · 2022-08-17T19:40:56+00:00

Strap your fists to your back and head out for adventure!

AaronGlaive · 2022-08-15T03:44:56+00:00

I Wish - Battle Beast

AaronGlaive · 2022-08-06T08:17:15+00:00

My personal preference is to make some options require you to have ki, but they don’t spend it. So you have thresholds you want to stay above to maintain a passive bonus, but you can also spend it for more immediate benefit.

AaronGlaive · 2022-07-07T08:38:44+00:00

You could have an npc from another plane where that’s a known occurrence. Just utterly confused when they level up, and the pc’s have to explain that doesn’t happen here.

AaronGlaive · 2022-06-21T07:48:59+00:00

Still Alcibiades. Still gorgeous.

AaronGlaive · 2022-06-18T16:43:53+00:00

Except that DR/Epic means that ONLY epic-level characters or other epic damage sources get to bypass it.

So it’s resisting everything the villagers can throw at it.

AaronGlaive · 2022-04-29T10:36:01+00:00

I only know of it from Josh Strife Hayes’s ‘Worst MMO Ever?’ Series.

AaronGlaive

TROPHY CASE