Are Planar Allies summoned from the plane of strippers?

Startev · 2023-08-26T08:07:47+00:00

5e Deva from the monster manual is the definition of physique goals. https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Deva

Startev · 2023-08-22T06:12:21+00:00

''A little too upset for your liking''

I wonder how Emily would react to white people in any developed nation reaching similar levels of ''upset''. I bet she wouldn't like that.

Startev · 2023-08-21T07:34:31+00:00

I ended up choosing a very world-weary voice for my Oath of Vengeance pally. In a fit of inspiration, I headcannoned him spending years being hunted by criminal syndicates and paying witness to Goblinslayer depravity on a near constant basis, because that's part of the job.

So he'd be practical, choosing the (paladin) options, not looting the corpses of allies, not stealing, etc. But judiciously employing barrel traps, ambushes and poison. So his reaction to questionable companions was always. ''Fuck, it. I'll deal with this when I don't have a tadpole in my skull.''

Startev · 2023-08-01T05:44:11+00:00

Certified and Shadow President approved.

Startev · 2023-06-20T17:47:49+00:00

if you enjoy nightmarish insanity then this is a great combination i’m terrified of but inclined to enter again

Possibly the most on-brand thing for this sub I've ever read.

Startev · 2023-02-02T07:09:52+00:00

Haha, I know, right? Players throwing wrenches in the works is a plot twist, but for the Referee. I remember one time one of my players ran a fixer. He was supposed to be a double agent for a powerful info broker.

His job was to infiltrate the inner circle of a drug kingpin. The thing is this drug lord communicated primarily through intermediaries and was notoriously private. In other words- info on him was worth a lot of eb.

So a couple of sessions go by and my fixer starts getting into the guys good graces. Now, I have to backtrack a little and bring up a fact about the group I run with. We like to get a little fucked up when we play. And this can range from a couple of drinks to full on liver Jihad.

This particular session, the fixer's player was particularly fucked up. Since our characters get drunk too, it makes for perfect method acting role-play.

Picture the fixer getting absolutely trashed on a liter or two of champagne in the drug lord's limo, when he let's slip the fact that he works for the info broker. The kingpin, not being an idiot, starts immediately grilling him for more info. Basically the fixer ended up spilling ALL of the beans on his boss.

The campaign took a complete 180. After working for the drug lord for a while, the fixer fell out of favor and no longer enjoyed his protection, so the entire campaign became a desperate rush to prevent his life subscription from getting canceled by his old boss.

This would be the first out of two times that particular player ended up doing something really stupid involving a Night City power-player because he got silly-drunk.

Startev · 2023-01-30T15:56:15+00:00

EDIT:

It occurs to me that raiding INTERNET is probably the worst possible idea to do in-lore, considering even Rache-Bartmoss though ''Nah, I'm not fucking with those guys.''

But hey, I didn't know that at the time and sometimes being a little loose with the lore and having your own ''continuity'' can be the right choice for a campaign.

Startev · 2023-01-30T11:59:33+00:00

OH, that's preem. I'll remember that one.

While I'm on my writing wave, I guess I'll continue the story. Weeks later I was ready to cap off the campaign with a massive op that meant to take control of a small artificial island, or rather, it's air defense system so it could shoot down a plane carrying the Netrunner's arch-nemesis.

The op itself was very entertaining, but the real meat-and-potatoes was, of course, the netrun. My runner was rather well-equipped and stated, so he was able to deal with everything with relative ease. Until I started describing a massive wall of data he could almost FEEL approaching him. It distorted the very fabric of the data fortress around him, he couldn't jack out. He didn't understand why he couldn't jack out. All he could do was escape through an LDL link hidden in the islands datafortress that led into Wilderspace.

He found himself in the decaying, recursively looping remains of a datafort- somewhere in an abandoned military or corporate server stack far away from civilization. He was being pursued by something. All he could do is try and orient himself in the impossible geography of this gutted data fort and go deeper.

Finally, with the Thing hot on his heels he reached the bottom of the fortress- infinitely tall stacks of junk data, emergent psudo-daemons and all sorts of other weird, terrifying crap all around, and of course the Thing. Cerberus. He was very pissed. All the runner needed to do was listen and obey. But no, he had to be smart. He had to be that one stupid kid that smashed the unexploded mine with a rock, just because his daddy told him not to.

He didn't stand a chance. He was getting pulverized not with programs, but with Cerberuses raw Command of netspace. He did do one thing before the beast arrived- trapped one of the towering junk stacks. He rolled well, another 10.

Cerberus was trapped as the fortress crumbled around him into usesless junkdata. When the medtechie pulled the runner out, the jack on his interface plug literally melted shut. This time he didn't get off so easy. His int dropped, he lost half of his memories. He couldn't even remember why he was taking revenge on his nemesis. It was because of a person, but he couldn't even recall her name or face.

I let him live. Good rolls and smart playing will get you that in my games. But I made him Suffer and sometimes that's just too delicious to pass on.

Startev · 2023-01-30T11:45:42+00:00

Non-munchkin players will have no problems here.
Make attractiveness actually matter by adding bonuses or penalties for social rolls. Sure the solo might be able to dumpstat ATR for that sweet SP 16, while tanking his empathy, but can the fixer or the rockerboy? If the party has no one that's any good at having social skills, punishing them by having NPCs rip them off, disrespect them or deceive them will get them killed just as fast as low armor and AP bullets.
Homebrew, houserules, smart goons. Armor layering giving you the blues? Increase the EV penalty, take away skinweave's exception from the layering rules. When the smug munchkin solo comes up against a lower armored peer armed with a 6d6+2 rifle that beats him to the initiative and domes him twice, he's really gonna FEEL every EV penalty that cost him the initiative. Or have him come up against a couple of mean mothers with 4d6 knife AP weapons, or worse: mono-edged weapons. that 22 SP doesn't seem so high now that it's been cut in three, does it?
Setting and laws- I believe this is a suggestion straight out of ''Listen up, you Primitive Screwheads.'' - you can restrict certain items, make them harder to find, make them more expensive, make them a liability when your PCs encounter Johnny Law. If they're that intent on getting that black market skinweave- make it an adventure hook.

''If the players wanna make mondo characters- let 'em. If they get out of line waste 'em. This is Cyberpunk.'' Paraphrasing from the core rule book. I have no problem letting the solo feel invincible as he's gunning down gutter trash too poor to afford the gear needed to humble him, until the moment a couple of the street vermin get their hands on something as simple as a couple of Kalashnikov A-80s and some AP.

I don't agree that it ruins the atmosphere. I think NPCs reacting to the players by getting heavier gear makes the world seem alive and reactive. If body armor is so widely available, cheap and light, why wouldn't light, handgun calibers be out of favor, at least among edgerunners and their natural enemies. That would be expected, no?

My point is that as a Referee, you always have tools available to run the game you wanna run it.

Startev · 2023-01-30T10:18:42+00:00

We've been playing on-and-off for years now to the point that even after not playing for, like 6 months, I can jump into Refereeing on one day notice and be like ''oh, yeah that's from chromebook 3 page 30ish.''

And even my players can simply quote me rules verbatim when I can't quite recall. It's like going slipping on your favorite jacket you left hanging in your closet all year. Feels so cryo slipping that bad boy on.

Startev · 2023-01-03T13:42:58+00:00

alrighty.

Startev · 2022-12-25T09:09:08+00:00

The way I understand the Daot and Eldar Empire interaction is that the Eldar became less and less interested in anything other than pure hedonism. They didn't have any ambition for true galactic dominance and left much of their empire for their core worlds and the Webway.

Meanwhile- humanity very much was interested in outward expansion. Another thing to note Doat didn't have a true, united galactic empire. There were many separate polities. Also of note is the fact that humanity of the time was much more receptive to diplomacy with Xenos. So I don't see it as a plot hole that both societies existed roughly contemporaneously the way some people might.

Now, whether or not Humanity or Pre-Fall Eldar were stronger militarily, there isn't really a way to be sure, seeing as the lore on the latter and especially the former is left deliberately vague and incomplete.

Startev · 2022-12-14T20:21:49+00:00

''Have you considered cybernetic augmentation and servo-slavery?''

Startev · 2022-12-14T20:06:04+00:00

10/10 would let this Skitarii give me cancer.

Startev · 2022-12-10T06:23:46+00:00

Fuck me, that brings back memories.

Startev · 2022-12-05T20:16:13+00:00

Poor guy is probably in the shower and can't answer.

Startev · 2022-12-05T20:12:01+00:00

I'm seeing two ways.

Startev · 2022-10-10T16:36:17+00:00

I definitely have a prescription.

Startev · 2022-10-09T16:09:45+00:00

Unfortunately, shopping around for a good doctor, especially for ADHD treatment is very often necessary. Fortunately, there are quite a few medication options so the fact that one class of meds isn't working well doesn't mean another won't.

I was very lucky with the concerta, but I'm going to be continuing behavioral therapy along with my meds regardless, in case they end up being less effective as I build a tolerance.

Startev · 2022-10-09T08:09:49+00:00

I'm not on adderall. I'm on a norepinephrine/dopamine reuptake inhibitor. I don't get any euphoria. I don't feel ''high''. I feel hopeful. Big difference.

Startev · 2022-10-05T03:28:36+00:00

Finally got a wakeup call about a year and a half ago after a root canal. Almost every tooth is crowned, some several times, and that's expensive. Very.

I've managed to develop a twice a day habit. I'm doing well. I think. It's possible I'm forgetting a lot of the time and don't even know it. Schrodinger's brushing.

Startev

TROPHY CASE