D&D 5E: Gear Maidens of Pergerron

One more time for the Gear Maidens. Here's my rough D&D 5th edition interpretation of them, at least until the DMG arrives shortly and provides more precise monster design rules. And yes, this means I am currently running or conspiring to run some D&D 5E games in Pergerron.

Gear Maidens

Medium Humanoid Construct, chaotic neutral (usually)

Armor Class:      18 (natural; equivalent to plate)

Hit Points:          40 (6D8+12)

Speed:  30 feet 

STR 16 (+3), DEX 10 (0), CON 17 (+3), INT 13 (+1); WIS 9 (-1), CHA 11 (0)                 

Saves:                   Constitution +5

Immunities: poison, necrotic, mind-affecting spells and enchantments

Resistances: cold (plus reduces movement by 20 feet for one round), bludgeoning, slashing or piercing weapons that are not magical

Senses:                passive perception 13

Languages:         usually an ancient dialect (old Saric) plus common

Challenge:          CR 4 (1,100 XP)

Terrain:                                any ruins

Special: lightning damage heals

Construct: does not breath, eat or sleep.

Actions:

Multiattack: Gear maidens are equipped with two retractable blade arms. They may make up to four attacks (two with each blade). 

Retractable Blade Arms; melee weapon attack; +6  to hit, one target, 1D8+4 damage each.  Special: critical attack on a 19-20.

Gear maidens are an unusual construct sometimes found in the ancient ruins of Pergerron. Each gear maiden has the appearance of a suit of armor or a mannequin made to look like a woman comprised of complex clockwork moving parts. Most of the gear maidens appear to be one of three types: jackal-headed, elvish-looking, and on rare occasion smooth, featureless faces with a mirror of silver where eyes, nose and mouth would be located.

Gear maidens may have served some other purpose in the ancient past, constructs designed for amusement, or to serve as guards perhaps. Today they are relics which haunt the ancient ruins, acting erratically and without purpose. When a gear maiden (or group of such) is encountered roll to see what their pattern of behavior is (D10):

1-4 - the gear maidens function as if the ruin around them is still alive; they prop skeletal remains up on chairs, serving them empty platters of food while serving long-dried bottles of wine. They will grow antagonistic to anyone who tries to point out the absurdity of their actions or the deathly nature of those they "serve."

5-7 - the gear maidens are mad, and appear to have suffered some sort of mania, which they may call "malfunctioning" to those who can prompt them to speak coherently. These are deadly, usually attacking randomly before fleeing, only to circle back later and strike again.

8-9 - some may be found which are coherent, usually hunting for parts. These gear maidens salvage relics of lore and preserve them, as if enshrining the lost civilizations of old Sar and other empires of the past. They are not above cutting down maddened versions of their own to salvage parts to repair themselves.

10 - Occasionally a cunning and vengeful gear maiden will be found. These are the deadliest, for they remember the fall of the old empires, and the destruction of those they served. They will seek to hunt down and exterminate all humans and demi-humans they come across, and will do so with great cunning and relish.

Aside from the retractable blades (about as long as a short sword, but much sharper) gear maidens have the traits of other constructs, and are immune to any gaseous or poison attacks, as well as any attacks that affect life force (negative energy draining, for example). They are also immune to mind-affecting spells, for their magical artificial brains cannot comprehend or react to the magical influence of the mind. Lighting damage heals them. Cold damage deals 1/2 damage to them but they are slowed to a Speed of 10 feet for 1 round after being subject to the cold-damaging attack (until the end of their next turn).

An entrepreneurial fighter with some weapon smithing skills could extract the arm blades of a destroyed gear maiden to find that they will make enchanted short swords of amazing quality (+1 short swords which crit on a 19-20).

Advanced Warfare is Surprising Me

Considering I was bitching about it last week it only seems fair to update that status from "aggravated at what seems to be a Titanfall ripoff" to "I'm liking this more than the last three CoDs now."

I'll talk more when I finish the single player campaign, but it did something I was very pleased about after playing further in: jumped the rails a bit. Still CoD's tired old design, but the story is more interesting for once, and the game's focus on military tech of the future continues to impress.

Not the most amazing AAA release for the holidays, but definitely worth playing...I'm no longer regretting my purchase.

First Impressions: Alien: Isolation (PS4)

It's that time of the year: new titles for PC and consoles all over the place as a nightmare of triple-A titles and their smaller kin flood the market in time for the holidays. Since I have only so much time in the universe to actually play, getting enough time in to properly review a game can take a while. That said, I can get some play time in.....so here's my first impressions of Alien: Isolation a few hours in:

Graphics: wonderful graphics with a very evoactive atmosphere. After playing so much Dead Space the Alien-inspired appearance of the ship and station portrayed in A:I is awfully clean, but then again this is a game about one space station gone mad with a single real alien threat, as opposed to an entire planet being turned into necrites ala Dead Space.

There is something weird about the graphics, though. The developers were so determined to remain faithful to the original movie that we see a lot of retro-tech SF floating around in the form of old CRT style monitors, tape decks and other incongruities. It's a bit off-putting, because it places the game squarely on the side of nostalgic recreation rather than sensible reimagining. The reason Alien used tapes for anything back then...or old CRT monitors....was because that was what we had in the 70's to present the future with. Had the original Alien set design crew been gifted with the power of foresight to stick shiny discs and SSD drives everywhere with flatscreen monitors, I can guarantee you they would have.

Now, instead, we get to play a game about a SF exploration/mining company so cheap it buys all its equipment from the 1970s. Hmmm.

Game still looks great, though.

Story: The story so far is fantastically well done, the voice acting is impeccable and the models of the characters are very decent. However, a couple caveats:

First, there are thematics in the game that suggest the games which inspired A:I's design. Among those games it is obvious Bioshock had a bit of a say, perhaps more so than any other title. I won't try to spoil anything but....SPOILER ALERT....the degeneration of the space station and the behavior of much of the surviving crew is reminding me a lot of a cleaner, tamer version of what happened to Rapture.

This is problematic because the story is so well conveyed in so many other ways that there are moments when I think, "Ripley Jr. would probably try talking to these guys, and they seem reasonable...just scared....so why is my only option here to get shot at?!?!?" Maybe the reasoning will become more clear as I play on, though.

The other caveat is the cutscenes. They have some serious framerate/stuttering issues that are baffling. No idea why, and heard they may try to patch this soon. It should not have released like this.

The Alien: The star of the show, the alien is terrifying in this game. They have without question proven that you can make a game with a real story in the Alien universe and stick a single alien on a single station and that, right there, is more than enough to scare the hell out of you. When it first shows up....it's some of the most unnerving moments I've experienced in this kind of game since....well, a long time now. Massive kudos.

So does this make up for Aliens: Colonial Marines? Yes, yes it does. And I'll be honest, it sets the bar high enough that we can't get low-expectation titles in the Alien franchise anymore. Alien: Isolation has done for the Alien universe what Batman: Arkham Asylum did for Batman games.

Overall: so far its worth every penny I spent, and it looks like it will have a lot of play time. It's actually really enjoyable getting to play a strong survival horror title where the horror is downplayed at times and less frequent....but far, far more intense when it jumps out at you.

Warlords of Draenor - early impressions

What I tried playing this weekend

It's probably worth noting before I (or anyone) talks about World of Warcraft that I may have played this game a little too much back in the day,* because alas Warlords of Draenor isn't really grabbing me like I had thought it might. Part of the problem is that I think I used my "Warcraft nostalgia" energy slogging my character out of Cataclysm and through Pandaria to get ready for the new expansion. Even though this is the best time to level (leveling speed accelerates dramatically for older campaigns right before the new expansion comes out) it was still apparently all I could manage.

That's not to say Warlords of Draenor isn't worth checking out. Rather, I'd suggest that if you are not burned out on WoW (or the concept of it) then WoD is worth your time. But if you might be on the fence, here are a few things to consider:

1. The graphic overhaul on the characters is incredibly nice and about six years overdue. This would have looked impressive in 2008 (for an MMO). The cartoony look and exaggerated environments remain, however. It's a WoW style, but if you're tired of it this is not the expansion to make it go away.

2. The talent/ability mechanics in WoW got a serious overhaul. They are now so simple and free of any real decision making that I am finding it hard to not wax nostalgic about the good  old days, when I used to think WoW was ridiculously simplistic with its three unique talent trees with their own branching progression paths. I miss the odd stuff too, like weapon training, feeding your pet to improve its mood (for hunters) and other flavor elements that have been utterly purged from the game.

3. The fights just feel stale and there's no drama: you're either gonna clobber your foe  (99% of the time) or you know you need an extra buddy or a couple more levels. Whatever skill used to be involved....it's gone now. Example: my son can play the game and manage to both stay alive and level somehow. He is not quite 3 years old, and his priorities include swimming wherever he can take his character, hiding in odd places and smashing spiders (not big spiders; tiny imaginary ones in bushes and on walls0....and he's somehow able to stay alive and advance.**

 I think playing too much Elder Scrolls Online has screwed up my ability to enjoy older classic-style target and click MMO mechanics...especially the WoW style of this genre.

4. The new storyline is dropped on you without enough preamble (in my opinion). Not least of which is why current-era game world is being invaded by the orcs of pre-Outland era Draenor from 35 years earlier. It is possible that I did not play some raid/group endgame content I should know about, but that said, this seems like an important detail that bears explanation. Also note that it's not the time travel issue that concerns me....WoW already has had time travel events (Caves of Time). Rather, it's the lack of any sort of explanation....even somebody like Khadgar telling me, "This is very weird and we need to find out why this is happening" would be nice. Maybe he says it later on....I only got about as far as building the fort when I developed this gnawing feeling that I'd rather jam hot pokers into my eyes than play anymore.

5. Although this expansion pumps a lot into trying to make it all feel very serious (in a summer action blockbuster sort of way) which is appreciated after the shoddy joke so much of the revised world post-Cataclysm turned in to....it's still got that sort of super-cartoony "Saturday Morning Cartoon Logic" thing going for much of the storytelling. Again....I think I've maybe been too spoiled by other MMOs that actually took themselves seriously (cough Elder Scrolls cough). The idea of going back to wasting time on a game that perceives itself as a joke narrative with moments of semi-seriousness is hard to conceive of.

Anyway....I'll play for a few weeks until my sub runs out, see how much time I can spend leveling up and exploring it before interest wanes. Or maybe I'll just keep playing Elder Scrolls Online, which after it's fifth update is shaping up to be a very tight game. Speaking of which, I was really surprised to see that Elder Scrolls' weekend population did not dip perceptibly despite the WoD release this week. (Yeah, yeah....I actually played more ESO this weekend than WoW. Says a lot about how much WoD grabbed me.)

What I actually played this weekend

*According to some of my old WoW cohorts (around BC era) I was a "casual" since I played less than 30 hours per week. Dumbasses. 

**There's a whole different article worth exploring that points out which games have control schemes or operate in such easily-grasped/identified conceptual space that a three year old can play. The game my son is "good" at as he approaches age 3 are really interesting.....and WoW is one of them (fyi Sunset Overdrive is another). Yes, at the rate he's going his Tauren will be level 5 by the time he turns 5, too....but it's letting him learn how to maneuver with a mouse, which is really interesting seeing him learn to do.

13th Age: Heroic Icons in the Age of Strife Campaign

My 13th Age campaign jumps ahead a century and adds some new (and classic) icons to the mix. Here's a run-down on the Heroic Icons of Lingusia's Age of Strife:

The Archmage – Lord Warenis (Heroic – LG)

The immortal champion of order, Lord Warenis works behind the scenes in this era to thwart the machinations of Xauraun, the Crusader. Warenis recruits from the likely heroes of the land to send them out against the diabolical forces of his nemesis. Warenis’s aims are singular: if he stops the Crusader, you save the empire.

If you serve the Archmage: You are likely a scholar, mage or dedicate to lore who understands the true nature of the eternal conflict and why it is so important that the gods of chaos do not win. You may belong to the Esoteric Order of Hodon Systalien, one of the most dedicated servants to the archmage, or you may be an independent operator.

The Emperor – Anton Patraeus (Heroic – LN)

Anton Patraeus is a great leader of men who has struggled against the civil war that the War of Strife became, as well as the army of demons his enemies conjured up. He holds the empire together against great adversity and needs agents abroad to do his bidding.

If you serve the Emperor: You are either a vigilant solarian knight, a member of the Shadow Watch, an envoy or agent of the emperor who seeks out trouble in the land to quell it, or to hunt down the enemies of the empire.

The Priestess – The Sacrimori Setianne (Heroic – LG)

Setianne is the young, new high priestess of the Temple of Naril and the voice of all faith in the empire of Hyrkania. Setianne carries a great influence on the land, and is noted for her caring nature but her willingness to use the force of her two dedicated paladin orders (the Solarians and the Ebon Ankh) to enforce the will of Naril. She is singularly dedicated to stamping out all worship of the chaos gods.

If you serve the Priestess: you are a true champion of Naril and the empire, seeking to better humankind and his allies against the tide of chaos. You likely are a priest, scholar or advocate for the church, or a paladin or fighter who has taken up arms and joined the solarian knights. Inquisitors wield magic to root out evil and destroy the demons of chaos at the behest of the Priestess as well.

The Dwarf King – King Madragor, Iron King of the South (Heroic – LN)

Madragor is also a young king a dwarves go, for his father was slain during the War of Strife when the forces of the Black Tower invaded the Iron Mountain strongholds. Madragor has sworn an oath of allegiance to the Emperor, and there are stories of how Madragor adventured with the emperor many years ago. He also seems to be especially fond of the Elf Queen, though the favor is not returned. Madragor’s interests are in eliminating all threats to his people, though the Iron Dwarves of his land are friendlier to the human empire.

If you serve the Dwarf King: you look out for your sovereign allies, but the dwarves come first. From the Deep Company, dwarves who stand against the terrors of the lower depths, to the army of the Iron Fist, the greatest general in the mountains to serve the king you are all about dwarven superiority and the destruction of those races and faiths which stand against your people. If you are not a dwarf, you are a sympathizer or one who has become enamored with the dedicated passion of dwarvenkind and seek to aid them in any way you can.

More about the Icons

The world of Lingusia is too large to have just a baker ’s dozen icons…and as such, while some icons may cast a wide net of influence, many of them are localized to their region of the world. The icons of the east are another set entirely, and the icons of the north are an enigmatic lot who greatly dislike the icons of the Middle Kingdoms. Only a few tend to be universal….the Archmage and the Crusader are known across the world for their endless conflict, for example, as is the Great Gold Wyrm who seeks the unification of dragonkind against the machinations of the Wyrmlords, who manipulate the elder brood queen to produce more chromatic spawn.

Some icons of cosmic note are not present in this era. There is no orc king, for example, and the orcs are but beastly tribes serving whatever lord of chaos happens their way in this era; but the Betrayer King fits the role nicely, and happens to be a half-orc, too. The Prince of Shadows is the avatar Wormie Vellsoth, who has taken on the mantle unwittingly from the former icon Tanis of an older era. Wormie has much to contend with in the form of The Assassin, the Fire Knife Celiobantes Astiriate, who has risen to great power as the lord of the most formidable guild of assassins in the Middle Kingdoms, one which will one day come to be feared even by the gods themselves.

Next: the Ambiguous Icons.

Adamantium Armor in 5E

ENworld has previews of wondrous item pages in the imminent Dungeon Master's Guide for 5E. While perusing it I had to do a double-take when I read about the properties of adamantium armor: it negates critical hits, turning them in to normal hits. Woah.

Back to 13th Age Again! Six ways your aging adventurer can make a comeback a century later

Source!

My Saturday group voted to return to 13th Age and give D&D 5E a short rest after the campaign wrapped up and everyone hit level 5. The 13th Age campaign in question will pick up a century after the timeline of the prior campaign (one of the perks of having run my Lingusia setting for close to 33 years is I have about 1,800 years of documented history to set adventures in) and everyone's getting a chance to either play their original character (with an explanation as to what they've been up to/why they are alive a century later) or make a new one at level 5. The fifth level in 13th Age is the start of the Champion Tier, so I expect the game to take on an interesting turn.

Not sure how I'm going to handle leveling yet.....the incremental advance is popular, but it's also a little sloppy and takes away a lot of the "impact" of actually reaching the next level. Also, not all classes level evenly using incremental advances....so if I did it, it would be once advance per session, and after advance #4 everyone levels. If I do that however then the campaign will have a timeline of roughly 20 games before level 10...and that feels too fast. I'd rather have 20 sessions for levels 5-7.....but I guess I'll play it by ear.

I may just drag out my XP mod and use that, actually. XP is a great way to offer up end-session rewards while pacing advancement. We shall see.

Since the new game jumps ahead a century, I offered my players the "six random ways a human or other short-lived adventurer from the Age of Empires era could be alive a century later in the Age of Stife" chart:

Start at level 5 or upgrade character to level 5 from prior campaign. This is the same setting, but it's a century in the future. If you plan to play the same character let me know so we can determine how/where he/she is in this era (i.e. elves have been doing -insert here- while shorter lived races may have a more exotic tale to tell of their survival into a new century....and trust me, there are some interesting ways. If you don't want to wait, roll 1D6:

1- spent last century in the feywild (but it felt like days to you). Secondary Roll: you were partying with 1-satyrs and nymphs, 2-gnomes, 3-goblins, 4-pixies, 5-sidhee, 6-ghaele and/or eladrin

2- raised from the dead by a necromancer of the lich king looking for a reliable agent.

3- fought in the Abyssal War against chaos during the Empire Era; caught in the Abyssal Rift when it closed up, trapped in the infinite layers of the abyss you only recently crawled your way to freedom; did not age while in the planes, but have the Mother of All PTSD disorders due to experience. Developed strong emnity toward a certain captor: 1-Orcus, 2-Demogorgon, 3-Grazzt, 4-Pazzuzu, 5-Koschtie, 6-Yeenoghu

4- Went plane traveling and found you did not age while on your grand journey through the cosmos.

5- journeyed some years ago with Lord Aleric and his mercenaries when they discovered the fountain of youth in the Amech Jungles. Drank deep and presto, still around.

6-you really have aged a century, but a curse by an icon you have a very bad relationship with won't let you die until you commit an unspeakable act in their name.

I'll post the updated icons for this age next entry!

The GURPS Repository plus: Post-Apocalypse vs. Pirates?

Despite my bouncing back and forth on the idea last week, GURPS is not only not "off the table" for my next planned campaign, it's looking like it will be the top dog in this coming race. My Saturday group will be returning to 13th Age....but I plan to indoctrinate the Wednesday gang in GURPS! Just gotta settle on a genre and setting now...

Anyway, while searching for GURPS resources and blogs online I discovered the GURPS Repository. This is a pretty cool resource....312 monster entries, 60 racial templates and more make for a very useful resource. My GURPS games are probably going to lean either post-apocalyptic or pirate historical (verdict is still pending) but this site still has a lot to offer a GURPS GM.

VS.

But wait.....why choose?!?!? Just....do....POST-APOCALYPTIC PIRATES!

Monte Cook's Cypher System gets its own rulebook

This is actually some really interesting news for fans of generic systems that let you make your own settings: Monte Cook's Cypher System will get a generic core rulebook. These are the rules used for The Strange and Numenera. If you are like me, you may have found the system to be intriguing but the effort it takes to absorb the settings for use at the table to be a bit much. I'll definitely pick this one up when it comes out.

Hulk gets intellectual Wiplash - A Review of the 2014 Series so far

I can't quite decipher my mixed feelings for Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare yet, as they border somewhere between disgust that I bought it and an appreciation for what is essentially a rip off on Titanfall (yes, no one's making the comparison but I'm calling it now: the juggernaut exo-suit is just a mini-titan). So more comic stuff instead!

Hulk issues 1-7 (2014)

I admit I really like the Hulk these days. When I was growing up Hulk was the least interesting or plausible character out there, or so I felt (next to Thor) and I shied away from several Marvel titles for this reason. In my defense I grew up at a time when the original Hulk TV series was an actual current thing, so that had a lot to do with my perceptions of the book.

Cut to 2014, and Hulk's kinda cool. The character has gone through the wringer time and again over the years, and a lot of detritus shows it (from all the other Hulk-like characters floating around to the number of times weird things have been done with the character). The new series is screwing with the formula --again-- but in some interesting and different ways.

The initial five issues address Hulk in the waning days of his connection to SHIELD (long story Bruce Banner talked SHIELD Director Maria Hill into letting him "work" for SHIELD; that's also a good series from 2013ish, fyi). We begin immediately with a Banner who's been ambushed by a sniper who knew exactly what he was doing....and a crew desperate to operate on Banner and take some blood samples while they're at it, all in the name of a good cause. What at first appears to be a SHIELD effort turns out to be a ruse, and then descends into a mystery as Hulk escapes, but with a massive open head wound from surgery. Maria Hill and her stalwart crew of idiots who like to fly highly destructible floating aircraft carriers everywhere (the SHIELD helicarriers go down in flames more often than helicopters in action films) find Hulk and seek to secure him safely away in another innocent town which is soon to be destroyed. Problems arise when they realize the brain damage done to the Hulk/Banner has made Banner himself a shell of what he once was.

Thanks to the magic of Comic SCIENCE! Bruce gets better, but toward issues 6-7 the plot line turns about on us as the cure to Bruce's affliction with retardation lies within the nanites of Extremis, something I know little about since I don't read Iron Man and can only infer from all his nigh-infinite appearances in other books is some sort of super nanite mechanism that dramatically improves mental capacity.

The twist, of course, is that it also works on the Hulk...and the Hulk in turn changes....for good. Turns out the Hulk doesn't want to turn back now that he is intellectually equal to Banner, and he takes to calling himself Mr. Green, then sets about righting many wrongs as only a super-intelligent Hulk could, including working to purge the world of the manny Gamma monsters unleashed upon it over the ages --which it turns out is a shitload; I had no idea virtually every supporting cast member of the original comic is now hulkified, including Banner's old ex!

If like me you've been around long enough to recall other eras when Hulk gained intelligence while hulked out, I can only assure you that the new title is doing a better overall job of it right now, and makes no assumptions about such prior events for this story.

Anyway, if you want a good single character read from Marvel, Hulk is worth it. More on Hulk later with the Savage Hulk, which is also worthy of attention...