/tg/ - Traditional Games

>>333980

It's time to finish the Starfinder review. This is a lot shorter than I feared it would be.

Skills work more or less the same as they did in Pathfinder: you get a number of skill points, which you can spend on skills. You cannot have more points in a skill than you have class levels. Rolling a skill is still 1d20+skill ranks+ability modifier+other modifiers. Anyone can learn any skill, but if your skill is a Class Skill you'll get a +3 bonus to your roll. Armor penalties are a thing for 4 skills, you can still take 10 and take 20, and some of them can be used untrained. Languages are now linked to your Intelligence, and the Knowledge skills are based on other skills. Many skills have been folded together, so you don't have to waste points on lots of one-trick skills. The skills are:

- Acrobatics; includes Balance, Escape (grapples and ropes), Fly and Tumble.

- Athletics; includes Climb, Jump and Swim.

- Bluff; includes Diversion (hide what you're doing), Feint (your opponent is flat-footed for your next attack), Lie (classical use of Bluff) and Pass Message (doublespeak to get something across).

- Computers; includes all sorts of hacking skills, crafting computers and the Forgery skills.

- Culture; includes deciphering writing and knowledge regarding alien customs.

- Diplomacy; includes Change Attitude (like the old Diplomacy) and Gather Information.

- Disguise; for Change Appearance.

- Engineering; to use explosives out of combat, find structural weak spots, making and repairing tech items, Disable Device, and identifying robots and technology.

- Intimidate; includes Bully (classic Intimidate) and Demoralize (make someone Shaken for a few rounds).

- Life Science; to craft drugs/poisons/medicine/food, identify non-magical creatures and have knowledge of life sciences.

- Medicine; includes First Aid, long-term healing and treating wounds/diseases/drugs/poison.

- Mysticism; includes making and repairing magical items, Disable Magic Device and identifying anything magical.

- Perception; includes Spot/Listen, seeing through disguises and Search.

- Physical Science; includes hard scientific knowledge and the creation of drugs/poison/medicine (just like Life Science).

- Piloting; includes flying spaceships, vehicles and firing their guns.

- Profession; if you want to be lame and work for your money rather than adventure for it.

- Sense Motive; for defenses in social interaction, detect secret messages as well as mental effects.

- Sleight of Hand; includes Entertain (juggle), Hide Object (hide something on your body), Palm Object (steal object) and Pick Pocket (steal item from person).

- Stealth; includes Hide and the use of invisibility-granting things.

- Survival; includes Endure Severe Weather, Follow Tracks, Animal Handling, Live off the Land, Orienteering, Predict Weather and Ride.

Still some one-trick ponies there, but they are at least useful. Except maybe Disguise. Feats work more or less the same as they did in Pathfinder, except that there are not as many noob traps or extensive feat trees where you have to pay a hefty feat tax to get what you want. Less than a half-dozen of them have two prerequisites, and the Soldier already has one of them. The proper feats will generally add to your character in some way or another. Some of them can be quite powerful, like getting to make an attack during your move action or with 15 Int and no levels in Technomancer you can get 2 at-will cantrips and a level 1 spell with 1/day per 3 levels. Weapon Specialization is still a thing and adds 1/2 damage per level to all your attacks with pistols and Operative weapons, and 1 per level for all other weapons that aren't grenades. Except EVERYBODY gets this at 3rd level, which really helps.

>>334938

Magic is a simplified system from Pathfinder. Spells are listed on a 0-6 level scale, but don't count on being able to port them on a 1:1 scale. For example, the 5th level spell Crush Skull deals 18d8 damage (4d8 on a Fortitude save). That is massive damage that you can't expect to be able to simulate with 5th level magic in Pathfinder. Damage doesn't increase per level anymore: the Starfinder equivalent of Shocking Grasp always deals 4d6 damage regardless of your level. Both the Mystic and the Technomancer cast spontaneously and know a limited list of spells: six of them of levels 0-4, and 5 level 5 and 6 spells. Both get bonus castings per day based on their relevant attribute (the limit is otherwise 5 castings of each level per day), but your number of known spells is fixed and limited so choose wisely. The spell lists are limited as well: both classes get all their spells and short descriptions listed on a double-page spread each, and some spells overlap between the classes. Concentration rolls are gone for spells with long casting time: if you take damage or fail a save while casting the spell fails. The eight schools of magic are still around as well. Some spells carry over from Pathfinder but are renamed like Token Spell and Psychokinetic Hand (aka Prestidigitation and Mage Hand), while others like Grease and Restoration keep their names.

The basics of combat still work the same. Roll for initiative (1d20+Dex), do a surprise round and that's when the fun begins. Standard/Move/Swift/Full actions are still the same, and you get one Standard, one Move and one Swift Action per turn, or trade them all in for one Full Action. There are no more iterative attacks in Starfinder: instead you get one attack with your weapon per attack. You can opt to make a Full Attack to attack twice at a -4 penalty to hit on both attacks. You still roll 1d20+BAB+Str for melee attacks and Dex for ranged attacks. Instead of rolling against the traditional AC everything has TWO ACs now: Kinetic Armor Class and Energy Armor Class. Kinetic Armor Class involves all physical attacks, bullets, explosions and falling, while Energy Armor Class protects you from lasers, plasma and heat/cold/electricity/sonic weapons. Attacks with both features roll against KAC. Bonuses from your Dexterity apply to both number as normal, limited by your armor. Your KAC is often higher than your EAC, but the difference is rarely larger than 3 on all base armors. For the rest combat is the same grid-based fighting of Pathfinder. Attacks of Opportunity are still there, but there's only three ways to provoke them: moving out of a threatened square, making a ranged attack and casting a spell that doesn't say that it doesn't provoke AoO. The five-foot step is still there as the Guarded Step, which takes a move action and doesn't provoke an AoO.

Weapons received a bit of an overhaul. Clocking in at seven and a half pages of beautiful tables to pick from, there's a gun for every occasion. Every level as well, since guns now have levels. Levels determine how powerful a gun is, which one's right for that level and availability in settlements (character level +1 for small ones, +2 for large ones). Guns can get pretty expensive, and if you do get your hands on very high level one at low level selling one might very well be worth it. Weapons can do all sorts of critical damage and most of them require to be loaded with something. Most energy weapons use carry batteries with charges. Batteries come in sizes of increments of 20, with the more potent guns being able to hold larger batteries. When firing a portion of the charges is consumed based on how potent a gun is. For example, a mid-level laser pistol can hold a 40 charge battery and consumes 2 charges per shot, for 20 charges per battery. If you put that same battery in a high level laser pistol you'll consume 4 charges per shot, giving you only 10. While this requires some bookkeeping, it means that batteries can fit in all energy weapons as long as they're not too large. Batteries can also be recharged in many places, making them reusable. Rounds for guns are bought in bulk and are cheaper than batteries, but in the long run are more expensive (but RAW don't require to be put in magazines first). The same goes for specialized ammunition like rockets, shells and arrows. Guns behave in different ways (laser weapons have long range but don't do much damage, projectile weapons are cheap, can deal explosive damage and are often immune to hacking, shock weapons deal little damage but can stun and so on). Automatic weapons are out there and avert the normal shooting rules: instead of dealing normal damage they hit everything within a cone the size of half the weapon's normal range (but still require you to have enough remaining charges per target to hit them), and this will empty your gun.

>>334939

Armor comes in two flavors: Light and Heavy. Neither intervene with your spellcasting, so that's nice. Like weapons armor has a level; the better it is the higher its AC. With level the armor's maximum dexterity bonus increases, as does the armor check penalty for the most physically demanding of skills. Heavy armor also inflicts a speed penalty of up to 10 feet. Most suits of armor also have access to armor upgrades to make them more effective. This can include force fields, uses of the Haste spell, get increased saves, add in a jetpack and all sorts of other things. Armors have a number of usable slots, with upgrades requiring either one or two. You can also forego subtlety and wear power armor: these grant you a new Strength stat, can have guns mounted on them or grant a number of additional benefits like flying or spider legs. They also require batteries and drain them at the speed of one charge per hour/minute so keep extra batteries on hand.

All items also have Bulk. This is the weight system of the game, and it's pretty streamlined. All items have either negligible Bulk, light Bulk or a number of Bulk. You can carry a number of Bulk equal to half your Strength score (so NOT modifier) without being encumbered. Add up all your numbers of Bulk, as well as your amount of light Bulk. For every 10 light bulk (no rounding, so 9 light = 0 extra bulk) you gain one number of Bulk. If you go above half your Strength you become encumbered, lowering your max Dexterity bonus to AC to +2, reduce you speed by 10 and take -5 to all Strength and Dexterity checks. If you go above your Strength in Bulk your speed drops to 5, you lose your Dexterity bonus to AC and take the same penalty as above. Items with no bulk can be carried in large numbers until your GM tells you to stop it. Do yourself a favor and get an industrial-grade backpack for only 25 credits: it increases your Strength by 2 for the purpose of carrying Bulk. Every 30 rounds of ammunition is one light bulk, so 300 rounds is 1 Bulk. Batteries somehow have no Bulk, but don't stretch this by carrying several dozen of them. In case you do run short on batteries, check if you can pilfer them from your fallen enemies.

The local currency of Starfinder is Credits, which come on Credsticks. These are small things that can hold large amounts of credits without being bulky, and are completely anonymous. This means that they make for easy trading with less than wholesome elements, as you can trade them by the sack without any way to trace the cash. This makes it easy to drop large or small sums of cash with enemies based on their level. Another interesting item to be found or bought is the UPB, or Universal Polymer Base. These come in the form of rice grain-sized components that can be made to build just about anything. As long as you assemble them in the right way they can become just about anything: electronic devices, medicine, weapons and armor, munitions, food, magic items and more. This makes them incredibly useful and almost an entire form of currency in and of themselves, with 1000 of them counting as one Bulk and costing 1 credit per UPB. Crafting an item merely takes enough UPBs to match the item's price, and enough ranks in the right skill to make it. If you have enough ranks it takes 4 hours, if you have 5 or more ranks than you need it only takes 2 hours and if you beat the number you need by 10 you can do it in 1 hour. This means you can't make things then sell them off for profit, since you'll get only 10% of the price if you sell something. So no, you can't become a drug lord by hitting the market with your excellent space cocaine.

Then there are the character upgrades. They come in two forms: Augmentations and Biotech. Augmentations ar your robot limbs and cybernetic implants to let you play Cyberpunk 2020/Shadowrun while playing Starfinder. Options include hands that turn into tools, dermal armor granting DR, extra limbs, turbo legs, eyes with low-light, infrared, ultraviolet and heat-sensitive vision. You can have only one upgrade per area, so you either need to have the legs that increase your speed by 30" or the quickdraw holster on your leg. Bioware grans you access to things like suction pads for easy climbing, water breathing, chameleon skin, superior hearing, getting a breath weapon like a dragon (requires regaining of SP via rest to recharge) or get the biological equivalent of any Augmentation at a 10% increase in cost. Finally there are the special Personal Upgrades. These can take any number of forms to fit a character, from magical crystals to advanced implants to even symbiotes. These come in three levels, and what they do is increase any one of your attributes. Mk 1 increases an attribute by 2, Mk 2 by 4 and Mk 3 by 6. You can have only one Mk 1, 2 and 3 each, and they can't stack according to the writers.

>>334940

Magical items are still around as well, but limited in number because the designers wanted to avoid "temporary" upgrades from things like the Headband of Intellect. Note that you can use only two magical items at a time because with more than two the magic starts to interfere with itself. You can wear two rings as one item, so there's that. Magic items include Aeon Stones (Ioun Stones), an amulet that gives you Predator-style camouflage, tiaras that let you teleport anywhere from 200 miles to anywhere in the galaxy (depending on their level), a ring that lets a Solarian auto-attune to the opposite mode when going unattuned (aka a flat-out tax for the class), rings that increase one of your saves by up to +5, gems that can store spells and a few more. There's also magic potions: healing potions, 1-hour bonuses to certain skills and, interestingly, the Serum of Sex Shift. Costing only 350 credits this potion will make your body "instantly transform to take on a set of sexual characteristics of your choice, changing both appearance and physiology accordingly". It also notes that this potion is easy and inexpensive to obtain unlike how it used to be, and shifting back is as easy as drinking another one. I'd like to think that Paizo is taking the piss here with the wreck that was their adventure path with the paladin selling their sword to buy a potion of gender transformation, but I am fairly certain that they're not this self-aware. Also, while the wording suggests that you need to will yourself into this form (so no dropping it into the water supply of a settlement as a joke or forcing someone to change), it is vague enough to allow intersex bodies. Which can work really well for that Drow matron who wants to show the uppity underling who's boss. There's also a set of items that's part magic, part technology like a bandolier that can easily produce pre-stored ammunition for a variety of guns, a space compass pointing at Absalom Station, a telepathy circlet, a digital Harrow deck (which is the Not-Tarot of Pathfinder), a portable hole generator that can only work for a part to sleep in at mark 3 and above, and a one-use device that lets you change your choices from your last two levels.

Magic weapons still exist, but they've been changed a bit. Called Weapon Fusions, these can be installed into any weapon in order to make it magical. Fusions have levels on the 1-10 scale, and while you can put multiple fusions in one weapon the combined levels of your fusions can never overtake the gun's level. Fusions can either be installed in a weapon or made into a Fusion Seal, which can be attached to any weapon up to a particular level and costs 10% more. The base cost is based on the item level of the weapon involved, and it's the same regardless of the level of the Fusion itself. This means that installing the Returning property (level 1) on a 19th level weapon costs 90k credits, while adding the Vorpal property (level 10) costs 90k as well, as does installing both. Potential Fusions include the holy/unholy/axiomatic/anarchic set, changing the damage property of your weapon, damaging incorporeal creatures and a whole slew of other Fusions you'd normally see on magic weapons, but no damage increasing ones.

"15000' long (that's almost a mile!) and are AT LEAST 8000 tons"

This is out of whack. 15000' is over four and a half kilometers. 8000 tons over 4 kilometers is something like a foot-wide rod of steel. Nothing. The Nimitz is over a hundred thousand tons.

>>335802

Why the fuck would weight even matter in space?

>>335803

Weight not as much, but I think mass does when it comes to moving something in a different direction than it already is (inertia and such).

>>335802

Jesus fagbanging Christ, that is retarded. 20ft ships at 20 tons are something like a city bus, and it just GETS WORSE FROM THERE. How is weight increasing linearly with size!? 300ft at 150 tons!? 2000ft at 8000 tons!? Their UPPER BOUNDS weight with LOWER BOUNDS lengths are… divorced from reality.

Solution to keep sane: Add a zero at tiny upper bound and all other values. Add another zero at Medium and all other values. Add yet another zero at Large upper bound and all other values. And finally, add yet another at Gargantuan and above.

Did you count how many zeroes we added? Do you realize how FAR OFF THE MARK they were here?

>>335803

Mass matters for thrust, delta V, ramming. Additionally, weight/mass matters when you need to obtain replacement parts, fill a hole in the hull, transport construction materials, etc.

>>335822

We are talking about a game made by Paizo, where constructive feedback regarding bad numbers is ignored, feat taxes are seen as normal because a clumsy uncoordinated neckbeard can't flick up a mouse whose cord is tied to a wrist and when it's pointed out that a crossbow-based fighter is not very good you'll get mocked by a lead designer who'll compare crossbows to water balloons and low-key calls you a whiner.

>>347849

- Strength determines how much you can carry before being encumbered, how much you can lift over your head and carry, your difficulties for Bend Bars/Lift Gates rolls in percentages (aka bend prison bars or lift portcullis with your bare hands, which is 10% chance at 16 Strength), how easy it is to kick down doors (which is a more reasonable roll-equal-or-under number) and can grant bonuses to your rolls to hit and how much damage you deal. Unlike how it works in later editions however you'll need at least 16 Strength for the damage bonus to kick in, and 17 for the to hit rolls.

- Dexterity does three things: it grants you a bonus to your roll to see if you're surprised, makes it easier to hit when using a ranged weapon and grants a bonus to your AC against dodgeable attacks. The last one requires 15 Dex, and the other two 16.

- Constitution keeps you alive by granting you more hit points at high levels (+1 per HD at 15, +2 at 16, you need to be a fighter to get more out of this at higher levels and from 20 onwards for all classes certain rolls when rolling your Hit Dice you will always roll at least a fixed number), make sure that Resurrection actually WORKS on you (75% at 10 up to 100% at 18), make sure you don't die of system shock when you are petrified, polymorphed, aged or whatever via magic (70% at 10, 99% at 18), grants a bonus when saving against poison from 19 onwards and at 20+ even grants you regeneration.

- Intelligence is important for casting wizard spells: at 12, 14, 16 and 18 you can cast level 6, 7, 8 and 9 spells. It also affects how likely you are to learn a spell when rolling to do so: at 12 you have a 50% chance and it goes up by 5% every point after that until 19, where it jumps to 95% and goes up slowly to 100% at 24). It also grants immunity to Illusion spells from 19 onwards, and also affects how many languages you can speak. You speak two at 10 and one addition one per 2 levels until you jump to 7 at 18 and quickly get more. This number is also your number of bonus proficiencies you get at level 1, so a high number is nice.

- Wisdom is the primary casting stat for priests. It determines how likely your spells are to fail (0% at 13, increase by 5% every point below 13), your bonus priest spells from 13 onwards (and they're cumulative!), a bonus on your save against mind-affecting magic and at 19+ you get immunity to mind-controlling spells as well as things like Hold Person, Magic Jar and Death spells.

- Charisma determines how much people will like you (bonuses at 13+), how many henchmen (loyal followers) you can have and how loyal they are. These latter two are only used if you plan on gathering a lot of them, which in AD&D certainly has its uses.

There are only six playable races in the core book: Dwarves, Elves, Gnomes, Half-Elves, Halflings and Humans. Aside from the humans all races have a minimum and maximum racial ability requirement which you'll need to have in your attribute array to be allowed to play them. For example, Dwarves must have at least 8 Strength and 11 Constitution, while Elves need 8 Intelligence and Charisma. And if you didn't roll the required number when generating your abilities? Too bad, you can't play that race. Humans don't have such limits and go as high or low as they want. All but the Humans and Half-Elves have racial ability adjustments, adding 1 to an attribute while removing 1 from another. These are not calculated into the requirements: as such you can go above the limit of 18 with one of your stats if it's high enough. All races get a series of bonuses to give them an edge over humans:

- Dwarves (+1 Con, -1 Cha) are your stereotypical dwarves: short, bearded, like digging and shiny stuff. They get a bonus of +1 to saves against magical effects and poison for every 3.5 points of Constitution they have (so at 4, 7, 11, 14 and 18). Dwarves also get +1 to hit against orcs, half-orcs, goblins and hobgoblins, and all trolls, ogres, oni, giants and titans are at -4 to hit them. They can also see in the dark, detect all sorts of stuff about tunnels like sloping, new passages or even traps and moving walls. Dwarves do have trouble using magic items: if they try to use a magic item not fit for their class there's a 20% chance the next use of the item will fail as long as it's not a weapon, shield, armor, gauntlets and gloves.

- Elves (+1 Dex, -1 Con) are of the high elf variety. They get a 90% resistance against Sleep and Charm spells, get a +1 to hit when using swords or bows, can sneak when not wearing heavy armor and surprise an opponent and can easily detect secret doors.

>>347850

- Gnomes (+1 Int, -1 Wis) can learn to talk to burrowing creatures, get the same magic resistance and difficulty using magic items as dwarves do, give -4 to hit against the same monsters dwarves do and get +1 to hit against kobolds and goblins. They also get tunnel sensing powers like dwarves, except only less good.

- Half-Elves get 30% resistance against Sleep and Charm spells and detect secret doors with ease. That's it. There's also simple genetics rules: a human/half-elf child is either human or half-elven. If there's more human blood than elven blood in the bloodline the child will be human, but if it's equal or there's more elves the child will be half-elven.

- Halflings (+2 Dex, -1 Str) have the same magic resistance as dwarves and gnomes (and dwarven poison resistance too), but don't have difficulty using magic items. They can sneak like elves can, and get +1 to hit with throwing weapons and slings. Some of them get tunnel sense while others can see in the dark.

- Humans don't get anything special stat or ability wise, but they get special access to something when it comes to classes.

Speaking of classes, AD&D has four class groups in the core game: Warrior, Wizard, Priest and Rogue. These determine how many proficiencies you have and when you get more, your starting cash, your hit dice, your saves and the ever-important THAC0. Starting off with Hit Dice, they are here and they are small. Wizards get a D4, Rogues a D6, Clerics a D8 and Warriors a D10. You get your Hit Dice as normal for the first 9-10 levels (9 for Warriors and Priests), but after that instead of HD you get a flat number of HP. For Warriors this is 3, Wizards get 1 and both Priests and Rogues get 2. This means that at higher level you'll see diminished returns on your HP, especially since the numbers you get are very low when on a roll with said dice. Another thing that has been dropped since is Class Ability Minimums. This means that you'll need at least X amount of points in a particular ability if you want to be that class: if you don't have those points you can't be that class. For Fighters, Mages, Clerics and Thieves you need 9 in Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom or Dexterity respectively. This is a reasonable number to roll on 3d6 (average: 10.5), but it gets hard with the other classes. Druids need a 12 and 15: Bards a 12, 13 and 15, Rangers need two 13s and two 14s and the Paladin requires a whopping 17 Charisma (chance: 4 in 216/1 in 54) to be allowed to play the class. So do you want to play a Paladin? Good luck rolling that 17, bucko. It's also interesting to note that classes within the same group don't necessarily advance at the same speed: the 1.5 million XP you need to be a 14th level Fighter only makes for a 13th level Paladin. All classes also have one or more attributes that, if they are 16+, grant a 10% increase of all XP. So yes, the difference between 15 and 16 Strength for a fighter means that once both have received 1.5 million XP the 16 strength needs only 100k XP to hit level 15 instead of 250k.

Warriors

- Fighters are the best at what they do. Good armor, big hit dice, extra hit points from high Constitution and a good AC. On top of that they are the only class that can pick weapon specialization: by giving up a whole bunch of weapon proficiency points they can up the damage die on their weapon in addition to increase its damage output by a flat number: how does four swings of 1d20+3 damage per round sound? I'll tell you what it sounds like: an average of 56 damage if all attacks hit. That doesn't sound like much, until you realize that the likes of Imix (the OG that Ragnaros of Warcraft fame was based on) only have 90 HP. On top of that, once a Fighter hits level 9 it becomes a Lord. This is a callback to earlier editions where the first bunch of levels in a class all had their own name, and around level 9 you'd finally reach your class' name (this is what was called the Name Level). In gameplay benefits this means that you can build a fortress, develop the lands around it and attract guards and soldiers to found your very own barony. For the followers you get three percentile dice rolls on a series of charts to see what your followers are: you get a leader of the troops, a bunch of troops and your very own household guard. And yes, in 3.5e terms this means that all Fighters have a toned-down version of the Leadership feat as a class feature. And the troops you get are pretty good: the leader is a level 5-7 Fighter with maybe even some magical gear. Troops are a varied bunch, as are the household guard. It's implied that they're all demihumans, so don't expect a bunch of lizardman skirmishers or kobold cavalry.

>>347851

- Rangers are stealthy and fragile compared to their fellow Warriors. They are limited to using studded leather when at low level if you want to use their various ranger abilities, so a first level Ranger can look at being hit on a 13+. As such, staying out of direct combat is a necessity if you don't want to die a quick death. Rangers have the ability to dual-wield without penalty, netting you one extra attack. That sounds neat until you realize that a Fighter with weapon specialization can do the exact same thing without being limited by their choice in armor. Rangers also get the tracking proficiency for free and all rolls with tracking go up by 1 for every 3 levels the Ranger as. Rangers must always be Good aligned, which is odd when you consider their preferred enemy class feature. This lets you pick a single monster species once you hit level 2: all attacks against such monsters get a +4 on attack rolls, and all social interactions with said monsters is done on a -4 penalty. The choice has to be pretty specific: the book mentions things like giants, orcs, lizardmen, trolls, ghouls and so on. This is of course beholden to the DM for final approval, so if you want to pick "all undead" or "all monstrous humanoids" you've gotta have a talk with the DM first. Rangers also get to sneak and hide like Thieves, but unlike them this is a flat number that levels up as the Ranger does. Animal Empathy is a thing: when approaching an animal alone and fearlessly the animal has to roll a save (with a -1 penalty per 3 ranger levels): if it fails it changes its disposition as the Ranger sees fit. Rangers get access to Priest spells from level 8 onwards, but only get three levels and can only pick from the Plant and Animal spheres. Rangers don't get followers like the Fighter does: at level 8 they instead they get to roll 2d6 times on a special table to pick from. This contains a number of animals from bears and wolves to ravens, falcons and even Pegasi or hippogriffs: there are fae creatures like Brownies and Satyrs on there but also Treants, werebears and also more mundane followers… including half-elven and human Rangers. Some of these entries are limited to one per Ranger (like the great cat, Pixie, Satyr, Treant and WERETIGER), but the Rangers are not. That's right: with the right rolls you can have exponential Rangers". Your class features will have class features will have class features more powerful than entire classes! Sure, the chance of getting even one is only a rough 1/6 and the DM will likely put the kibosh on it, but it's a fun little detail. They arrive over the course of time and you can't order them what to do: only ask of them. Rangers are also beholden to a code of behavior: if they ever knowingly and willingly commit an act of evil they permanently fall. If they commit evil in a situation of no choice they have to either correct the evil that they have caused or enact revenge upon those who forced them to do it. And like the Paladin, until this is done you earn no XP''. Also, Rangers have to be loner murderhobos: they always have to be on the move, can't own more treasure than they can carry and can't have hirelings other than the ones they get from their class feature.

>>347853

- Paladins have in recent editions received a degree of leniency when it comes to their code. In AD&D? Not as much. Paladins are much like Fighters except they receive a bunch of bonuses: Detect Evil at will at 60' range (creatures only), +2 to all saves, immunity to non-magical diseases, Lay On Hands to heal 2 HP per level 1/day, no spreading it out; Cure Disease 1/week for every 5 levels the Paladin has, a 10' radius within which all evil summoned creatures suffer a -1 on attack rolls, use Turn Undead/Fiends as a Cleric -2 levels, summon a warhorse (doesn't have to be a horse) to his location (so not out of thin air), can cast Priest spells from level 9 onwards (but only the first 4 levels, max 3 per level an only gets the Combat, Divination, Healing and Protection Spheres), and when using a Holy Sword (old name for the Holy Avenger) it dispels all hostile magic within 10'. Pretty badass, yes? Except the restrictions are severe. Unlike the Fighter they don't attract followers at level 9, must tithe 10% of their income to a Lawful Good organization, all other wealth not used to support themselves, their henchmen/servants or maintain a castle/keep has to be donated to a worthy cause as well (and no, your own goons and other PCs are not a worthy cause), they can only keep up to 10 magical items (one suit of armor, one shield, four weapons and four other magical items)… and that's just the easy stuff. If a Paladin ever performs a Chaotic act they must go confess with 7th level or higher LG Cleric and do penance if they want to keep their abilities. If the Paladin ever willingly and knowingly performs an evil act, they fall immediately and irrevocably. Instead they become fighters and can't pick weapon specialization because they didn't start out with that class. And if a Paladin is made to do evil when being controlled by magic they temporarily lose all their abilities and have to perform a difficult and dangerous quest to get them back and you don't get XP until you complete said quest. Now you might understand why Paladins are such sticks in the mud: back in the day the risk of falling was real. Still, Paladins are quite the force to be reckoned with.

Wizards

- Mages are your main source of firepower, but they have to work if they want to get there. Starting out with a weaksauce D4 hit die and only ONE spell to start with, no weapons worth a damn (daggers, staffs, darts, knives and slings) and of course no armor. This means that as a low-level wizard you'll have ONE shot to make for the day, and after that you're on sling duty until you've gotten some rest. As you level up you'll quickly get access to more spells and higher level ones until you're a force to be reckoned with. Still, you're looking at 10d4 HD max (with a total of 70 HP max if everything goes your way at level 20), so make sure to support your buddies. Wizards can be either Generalists or Specialists. Generalists work as normal, but Specialists have a few tricks up their sleeves. For starters, they get one additional spell slot per level (so that's 2 spells for a level 1 Specialist), get +1 on saving throws against spells of that school, enemies suffer -1 when saving against those spells, spells of the school are 15% easier to learn while other spells are 15% more difficult, leveling up automatically grants a new spell and spells are easier to make. In return, all schools of magic have two opposition schools, from which you cannot learn ANY spells. So being an Enchanter means you can't use Evocation or Necromancy, Conjurers don't get Evocation and Divination and so on. Note that Illusionists have three banned schools (Necromancy, Evocation and Abjuration) while Diviners only have Conjuration as their banned school because Divination is not a very practical school. If you want to be one of these specialists you'll need either a 15 or 16 in a particular attribute and you're limited by race as well, so don't expect to see any Elvish Invokers.

>>347855

Priests

- Clerics are the strong arm of their faith, spreading the word of their deity wherever they go. With a decent d8 hit die and access to all armor, they're one of the toughest classes in the game. They have access to more spells per day than a Wizard, but they are limited to 7th level magic. They have a broad range of spells to pick from. In 2e there is a stark divide between arcane and divine magic: a spells is either arcane or divine in nature. Mages use their schools of magic, while Clerics instead get Spheres. These work pretty much like the Domains of later editions, except all basic classes get access to the same magic. You have either Major or Minor access to a Sphere: Major means you get all spells of that Sphere and Minor nets you access to only the first three levels. The Spheres are All (the basic spells), Animal, Astral, Charm, Combat, Creation, Divination, Elemental, Guardian, Healing, Necromantic, Plant, Protection, Summoning, Sun and Weather (a later supplement, Tome of Magic, added Chaos, Law, Numbers, Thought, Time, Travelers, War and Wards). Normally Clerics get Major access to all Spheres except Animal, Plant and Weather, and minor access to Elemental. Going by the phrasing of the rules the Cleric does have access to the Spheres from the Tome of Magic since it only excludes the four Spheres mentioned earlier. It is also possible to play a Specialty Priest. Many gods have access to their own particular brand of Cleric, who have additional requirements (Attributes, Alignments, Proficiencies etc.) but get several new bonuses and abilities as they level up, at the cost of a severely limited series of Spheres to pick from (for example, a Holy Strategist of Red Knight have Major access to All, Charm, Combat, Divination, Healing, Law, Protection, Travelers and War with Minor access to Creation, Guardian, Necromantic, Thought and Wards). Clerics of most kinds (some Specialty Priests might not) have access to the famous Turn Undead, allowing them to force Undead to flee. A Cleric can do this only once per encounter and has to roll a single D20 and look up the Turning Chart. A successful attempt turns 2d6 undead present (in order of lowest to highest HD), with a sufficiently powerful Cleric can turn an additional d4 undead. Uses not spent are then moved over to the next lowest undead until all the results on the roll are used up or no successful attempts are made. And no, there's no range on this but you have to be in combat with the creatures you want to turn. If you're sufficiently powerful you won't just turn the undead, you'll outright destroy them in a single blast which is immensely useful. But roll well, since you'll get only one shot per turn. On top of this all, at 8th level the Cleric can build a place of worship and attract a body of followers some 20d10 strong. And of course, you should ALWAYS stay on the boss' good side if you don't want to lose your magical powers.

>>347856

- Druids are… competitive. They can only use natural armors like leather and wooden, have access to only a few weapons (club, sickle, dart, spear, dagger, sling, staff and scimitar; the last one is portrayed in the book as a really big sickle). They can cast spells from the All, Animal, Elemental, Healing, Plant and Weather Spheres (see the overlap with Clerics?) and have Minor access to the Divination Sphere. They can identify animals, plants and clean water at 3rd level, at which point they can also learn languages "of woodland creatures" like elves, centaurs, dryads, gnomes, Treants, sprites, nixies and pixies, giants (?), lizardmen (??) dragons (???) and more. The rules are a bit iffy since they suggest that if you use Proficiencies you have to spend a point in order to actually learn the language, which would require you to surrender all the points you get while leveling up. At level 7 they become immune to charms cast by woodland creatures (so you won't be made into a dryad's sex slave for a few years) and become able to turn into a mammal, bird or reptile 3/day. The sizes are limited from small bird to black bear and you can take an animal's shape only once per day (so no three bears per day). You pretty much become that animal at that point with all your stats being replaced with the animal's. As a Druid you have to be Neutral and have to live in nature and respect its creature and other such obvious druish ways of life. So when does the competition come in? At level 12. Before that you're leveling up as normal, but there can be only nine 12th level druids in any given geographic region, of which there are a few per continent. If there's more than nine of them you have to seek out one of the nine 12th level Druid and challenge them to a duel of some kind. The winner gets or keeps the position, while the loser's XP turn to exactly 200k, enough to be level 11. Each of the 12th level druids has three attendants: the most powerful one has three 9th level attendants, the second most powerful has 8th level attendants and so on. This would somehow mean that if you change your XP rate your attendants gain or even lose levels, depending on if you keep up the pace. To become one of the region's three 13th level Druids you have to beat one of them and take their position and attendants (all level 10). From that position you can take on the region's Great Druid and become level 14. At that point you can make a scramble for the position of Grand Druid, but this is a position for which one is chosen by the Grand Druid. The position is for life or when the Grand Druid steps down, whatever comes first. Obviously at this point being a Druid is less about protecting nature and more about the rampart druwery one has to perform in a bid for more power. After this point and reaching level 16 the Grand Druid can give up both their position and all but 1 XP, after which they become a Hierophant Druid. At this point the last four levels of the character are gained rapidly in steps of 500k, which is a massive amount at that point. But from that point onwards the Druid gets a slew of new powers: immunity to all natural poisons (not mineral or gas), no more aging penalties and being able to change their appearance at will. At 17th level they become able to hibernate for a period of time and also jump between the Material Plane and the Elemental Plane of Earth at will and survive and navigate the place with ease, which is immensely helpful given how dangerous the place is. At levels 18, 19 and 20 this also applies to the planes of Fire, Water and Air respectively.

>>347858

Humans in turn get something special of their own: Dual-Classing. This is not easy to do: you need at least 15 in the primary Attribute of your first class and 17 (!) in the Attribute of the one you want to switch to. Once you make the switch you keep your current Hit points, but you stop earning XP in that other class and are forced to essentially start over from level 1, THAC0 and all. You'll be stuck as a new character until you reach a level higher than your initial class: at this point you get the bonuses of both classes and become a fully-fledged badass. The problem is that once you do this you can't take any levels in your old class and you have to get higher, so you'll never be able to reach 20/20. Plus, you have to start all over again, meaning that you'll need double the XP of what you'd normally get in order to reach the top. This makes the process incredibly slow, but once you reach the top you'll be pretty powerful.

And that's it for now, tune in next time for the second half of the look at AD&D 2nd Edition: Proficiencies, Equipment and a look at one of the most confusing things of 2e for people who can't read: THAC0.

>>347859

>>347858

Gnomes also replace Wizard/Mage in their multiclass with Illusionist specialization

>>347875

>Summary-anon

Very astute, yes.

The second part's still in the works, but a lot of stuff came up lately so it's been delayed.

>>347859

I've done it before in Baldur's Gate, but I don't see the appeal of dual classing within a tabletop setting. It seems like a grindy pain in the ass.

>>347849

>while Combat & Tactics is 2159

What needs to be added is:

1) AD&D 1e has unholy amount of tables, though if it's your fetish, give it a try. AD&D 2e removed most of this - there are still many tables and lots of other mess, but not everything is a table.

2) TSR product codes started earlier, but they are a little wonky due to several jumps.

3) Combat & Tactics (and Players Options in general) is what's considered "AD&D 2.5" version.

Bump for the spoonfeeding.

Anyone got a good summary of Vampire 5th edition?

If someone would be so kind, a word about savage worlds. I've heard it mentioned a time or two here, but other than scaling skill die, I know nothing about it. What's the setting, how's the writing, is the lore decent?

>inb4 Da Archives

not that interested to learn secret underground handshakes. Sorry, I'm a faggot.

>>396227

Imagine letting out a long, wet fart that goes on for so long someone calls some Chechnyan legbreakers on you just to make it stop.

>>396277

Any particular edition or book?

>>411150

That seems to undermine the entire point of this thread. I don't really have a ton of time on my hands to be wasting it on reading an entire book, only to find out it's shit. Worser still: buying a book and thinking it's decent, then finding out the rest of the core books are horrifically pozzed/flawed. A decade of playing means we're all wagecucks now, and most of us have wives and kids. This is why we haven't gone off of of the systems we knew when we were in high school. I tried looking up some stuff when I saw the books on amazon, but honestly it seemed pretty cryptic. Sounds like they'd remake books, but with added info and little way of sifting out which was which, and what splat books were no longer needed (since now the book you bought contains it). I'm sure if I spent the time on their site finding all this out, I could. I just knew there was a thread here pertaining to being lazy that'd introduce others to systems you might be interested in, and thought I'd ask.

>>411150

Do you know what this thread is, dipshit?

>>415387

>I'm looking for a fantasy RPG with higher lethality

AD&D 2ed, as long as you're very careful not to let smart casters survive long.

>>415387

I play a high lethality game with 5E by simply doubling all damage. Body counts go up in a hurry.

>>415430

Well it's not so much about just killing players for the sake of it, but also make them consider their actions and maybe get a bit more tactical in their approach. I know this is also on my part on how I design my encounters, it's a bit hard to explain as English is not my first language, I hope it makes sense.

>>415387

>>415430

If you're playing D&D, then the easiest way to increase lethality is to turn short rests into long rests (8 hours, minimum), and long rests into several days to a week. That means HP isn't constantly yo-yoing up and down, spells and other valuable resources stay spent longer, and foolish actions can really, really hurt.

>>415430

>>415473

Adding on to these, cap HP values early and low and re-scale damage values to match. Enemy encounters will have to be scaled accordingly, but a nice side-effect is it also makes the number crunching easier, which in turn makes it faster and keeps the action scenes moving. Another is that even a high level character is still in danger against a mob of low level enemies if outnumbered by enough. It's ultimately up to you, but I'd aim for something in the ballpark of two to three solid hits being enough to bring down your average character.