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Any D&D/D20

Shadowrun

World of Darkness

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[highmax28]

I didn't know those were things. I'll look into it.

Also, what did you have in mind to make an avenger vigilante?

[BlackFlyme]

Avenger is alright for a Fighter-type. Good with unarmed attacks, thanks to the talents 'Fist of the Avenger' and 'Sucker Punch', but aside from that and their more Fighter-esque stuff, I don't actually find them too notable.

I think I like Stalker more. They get some of the fun stuff, like Hide in Plain Sight.

And since I forget to link them, here's Sap Adept and Sap Master. They are a core part of a non-lethal bleed build I cooked up. You need a weapon that can do bludgeoning and either piercing or slashing at the same time, which more or less limits you to guns or a morningstar. Grab the Rogue Talent that deals an amount of bleed equal to your Sneak Attack dice. It now more than double bleed because of these two feats. Add in a Wounding weapon for even more bleed.

[highmax28]

Oh god... If it wasn't for using shortswords for flavour, I would totally use that. I'll consider it for later levels

[Jimmy]

We're looking down the barrel of a full party wipe!

Last night saw our dead druid arrive with a new character, a human witch. She meets up with our gnome kineticist in the market when they both intervene in a domestic violence event. Rather than confront the man in the market, our gnome follows him to his home and lobs a brick through his window. Man proceeds to come outside and punch him unconscious with nonlethal fisticuffs. Our witch arrives at the scene and heals him, sneaks up to the window and peeks inside, whereupon our wifebeater comes out with a crossbow and tells them all to get off his lawn.

Gnome decides to throw more crap at the guy, and gets knocked unconscious again, waking up in the local guard lockup and spending the night in a cell. Witch doesn't get arrested since witnesses don't report her getting in on the fight. The guards release the gnome the next day with a stern warning that he's not to go near the house again, and he meets back up with our witch to thank her for the healing the previous day.

He's present when our witch gets a task given by the leader of her local coven to go investigate a local farmer's troubles with reported zombies on his land. She decides it'd be good to have another person along, so she casts Sow Thought on him to get his assistance, which works. They meet up with the third party member, an elf magus/cavalier, and go investigate the farm, tracking the zombie's path into a nearby wood.

Encounter time! Four void zombies are seen deep inside the wood, and two get taken down with ranged attacks before the rest can close with the party. Then things go south. The elf goes down bleeding with one shot, the witch has no spells that can affect undead, and the gnome gets chased around the forest for six rounds and seemingly cannot roll higher than a five on his attack rolls. A critical fumble roll lands the witch unconscious for four rounds, and her familiar actually does a decent job tanking the third zombie before it gets hit and goes down bleeding.

We end the session with all three characters unconscious. The witch has stabilised, but the gnome and the elf are both bleeding out slowly. The good news is that next session our party samurai should be present, meaning it's up to him to come save the day before his companions get eaten by zombies!

[Rolan7]

Damn, sounds like some crappy rolls all around.  Not just the zombies, but the POS beat up the gnome character... twice?!  I know he's a gnome, but I hope he's a caster or something to go down that easy.

[BlackFlyme]

Kineticists are psychic casters. A D8 hitdie, but most can't do melee well, provoking attacks unless they have the right talents. Using their abilities may also cause nonlethal damage that can only heal through rest. It can easily be avoided, but you have to be knowledgeable about the class, so it isn't a good class for beginners.

Think of a blaster caster with a bit more health but an extremely limited list of spells.

[Amperzand]

I'm pretty ignorant of World of Darkness stuffs, but I wanted to ask: is there a human module for the system/setting? Something along the lines of Call of Cthulhu, I would assume.

[Rolan7]

Totally!  The base rulebook describes making a typical human person.  Vampires (and I think most other supernatural PCs) start by making a someone like that, then fucking them up with a supernatural template.

There's also a book and playstyle dedicated to hunters, mundane humans who have had enough of said supernaturals.  I haven't peeked, but I do know they get some extraordinary abilities like ignoring fear and pain.  Along with Blade-style equipment.  The one we faced had a knife that glowed (and burned) like the sun...  and a dynamite vest.

Furthermore, the morality system is a lot like sanity (especially for vampires, but even for mortals).  As the characters do things which shock them and corrupt their worldview, lowering their morality, they have a large chance of gaining "derangements"... CoC-style mental issues.

[Neonivek]

It is sad that 4e is currently the only dnd book (and I am counting Pathfinder) that had the genius idea of having a Class that is basically you becoming a more and more powerful supernatural being.

As in the Vampire Class for 4e.

A genius idea that should have seen a lot more use. Heck I originally thought Pathfinder HAD stuff like that (Turning Templates into a limited level class) but nope.

[Amperzand]

I thought it made too much sense not to exist, but am too ignorant to know. :V

Thanks.

[Rolan7]

Pff I didn't know much about WoD until a few months ago when my group decided to give it a shot

Well I knew some about OLD World of Darkness from the Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines game.  But some things changed in New WoD (mostly for the better, I feel).

Well...
3.5e had monks become outsiders at level 20.  Not that *anybody* takes 20 levels of straight monk, but it sorta fits with the general flavor.  Monks are arguably powerful spirits limited by their flesh.

But more explicitly, Complete Arcane had a prestige class where you turn into an elemental.  And I think one for becoming a construct?
And libris mortis had undead PC classes with advancement.  They were mostly ass, but that's just balance.  Thematically it did work pretty well for our mummy, clawing his way out of the ground then advancing in strength and supernatural powers.

[Neonivek]

None of those really count in the same way (monks especially since all they did is change their creature class... except not really because they suffer none of the disadvantages for being an Outsider)

It is the difference between the Dragon Disciple and playing a Dragon. As the Vampire class you were a Vampire, you were just advancing through stages of your vampiric power.

Well MAYBE the Libris Mortis had it, I wouldn't know. Savage species also had a precursor to it where you slowly transformed into a monster (and was a total mess and usually useless)

---

Want to know another book that used it?

My Little Pony... Yes there are My Little Pony Dungeons and dragons books that actually use those concepts making certain types of ponys classes on their own.

[Rolan7]

Hm, I don't know 4e at all, but I honestly think Libris Mortis has what you're talking about.  Upon becoming undead (by whatever means, necromancy or infection) the player basically just gets the undead template.  Then has to advance along the monster class (instead of other classes), gaining all the expected abilities of a ghoul/vampire/mummy/whatever.

In return it goes beyond the basic monsters, granting upscaled abilities.  And when the class is complete, the PC can take proper class levels freely.

It's pretty expensive, though, and hardly perfect.  A mummy under the system can't really be a sorcerer as the fluff suggests.
They can be an absurd melee powerhouse, but interestingly their BAB will be low!  Their strength is just high.  This actually worked out kinda cool, because it meant our vampire PC didn't get many extra attacks or qualify for a lot of martial feats.  Much less receive the typical fighter bonus feats.  But when it hit, it hit HARD - and because STR determines accuracy, it HIT.

Edit:  As for MLP, I'm not surprised   We actually all enjoy the show, but never used the dandwiki MLP content.  Or looked up any fanbooks.

[Neonivek]

Ohh so Libris Mortis used the broken Savage Species system... That couldn't have been good.

[Rolan7]

I didn't read Savage Species myself, but my best friend did for his polymorph-specialist wizard.  From what I heard it has a lot more options than Libris Mortis, which is painfully linear.