Character Creation Q&A

[dalamb]

1. Are you willing to waive the "secret class feature" requirement of Extra Secret? I would very much like to take Extra Secret: Amateur Hedgewitch (spiritualism) for the path benefit "roll twice for knowledge checks" and possiblyThere presumably won't be any magical traps, but the bonus to find mundane traps, and to disable device, could be useful... (tinker) for trapfinding. One of my character's intended roles is Scout, so knowledge skills are very useful.
2. Would you be willing to allow Barrage legendary talent Ceaseless Ammo (Su)? This would make accounting for bullets a lot easier; it could be refluffed as "always has another clip lying around" instead of "always can recover at least 10 pieces of ammo after combat is over."
3. Would you be willing to allow a modification of Legendary Scout talent Detect Surface Thoughts? As written it's surely supernatural, but could be reinterpreted as a more powerful version the skill some interrogators have of "face reading" - asking questions and knowing whether the person is lying and what emotions they are feeling (deceitful, ashamed, etc)?

[Paxon]

10 hours ago, Steel Warrior said:

If the GM permits it with the powerful limbs. or a Large Light Machine gun, which technically is the same damage with shorter range.

* HMG can only be fired mounted on a vehicle or emplacement
Aaahh.. 4000 gold even for a light machine gun.. so making it large would be not be possible especially with no pre-game crafting permitted.

Yeah, if you buy into larger limbs you can use bigger weapons. And yeah, some of those weapons are unavailable or push your fund limits at the beginning of the game. But there will be opportunity for crafting/buying/looting, so you'd likely get a chance to upgrade in the ways you want as play progresses.

10 hours ago, Steel Warrior said:

I was looking at taking the Unchained Barbarian Painted Savage Archetype.

Can we change up the Mystical Tattoos (Sp) to Mystical Tattoos (Ex) and replace enhancement talents with either combat stamina feats or berserker talents that only function when I use my stamina pool.

Example: At 4th level, and every 4 levels thereafter, the painted savage gains one Combat stamina feat or a (berserker) talent from the Berserker sphere as a bonus talent. She may utilize mystic tattoos to use any Combat stamina or (berserker) talent she knows as a swift action. When using mystic tattoos in this way, she may only target her own body or tattoos she possesses and their effects last for only a number of rounds equal to the painted savage’s Constitution modifier, or for 1 minute if the painted savage spends 5 points from her stamina pool when activating the ability. The effective caster level of (beserker) talents or abilities used this way is equal to her painted savage level, this does not stack with class levels from other sources. The save DC for (berserker) talents used this way is 10 + 1/2 her painted savage level + her Constitution modifier.

I would like to take the legendary talents Cone of Death, Death Blossom and Fragmenting Shot

Okay, so I don't see a problem with what you propose here, per se. I wonder if there is another path into what you're trying to do with this rather than rewriting a rule. Also, I can see the benefit of taking some combat stamina feats with mystical tattoos, but taking berserker talents is more of an odd fit. Are you thinking you'd use adrenalin talents in this way and that they'd stack with berserking/adrenalin abilities you already use with Berserker as a free action? 

Those legendary talents are all approve, they fit. I encourage you to take a close look at the firearm rules for automatic fire, since you can achieve wide range of fire through that (albeit a little differently, and one effect improves a bit with Cone of Death). Also the machine guns are automatic fire only, and the default automatic burst is a special attack action (and the other modes aren't attack actions). Fragmenting Shot only operates off of a Deadly Shot from the sniper sphere, which is also a Special Attack Action, and you can't combine two effects that are both special attack actions. That means you basically can't use Fragmenting Shot with fully automatic fire. And I'm going to uphold that. It's meant as a sniper thing. You can still take it and use it with other weapons.

11 hours ago, Steel Warrior said:

Clarification on the Mutant Feat line.
Per Mutation: You get Eternal Transformation feat and Improved Transformation Feat.

Now Improved Transformation feat says you get 1 talent for every 5 character levels, minimum 1, the feat requires 5th level.
In this case, are we getting Improved Transformation at 1st when we pick our mutation?, Meaning I get a talent at 1st and 6th?

Next, Greater Mutation gives players the Alteration Sphere which allows players to use combat traits for Alteration talents.
Per the Alteration Sphere rules. You can have base 1, +1 trait per 5 caster levels cap. (with ways to work around that)

If we take a drawback (like vulnerability) and I already have 2 traits, does the bonus trait from the drawback give me a 3rd trait that stacks with the two I already have?
 

Finally Favored Form, that's self explanatory, I spend a feat I increase the cap by 1 and get to pick a talent.

 

In regards to the Alteration talent Greater Changes it says: Increase the number of traits you may apply with your shapeshift by 1.
Since it doesn't say I can take it more than once, but doing this means I have to spend 1 talent for Greater Changes, and 1 talent for the alteration talent I want to add. So my question is, can I choose to take Greater Changes more than once?

With Improved Transformation, you basically get 1 trait at level 1-9. You don't get the second trait from it until level 10.

Greater Mutation gives you alteration only for the purposes of having available talents/traits to apply to your transformation. You don't get the shape-shift effect, so ignore any rules from that. 

If you take a drawback (or spend a combat talent slot), that gains you an extra talent. Gaining a talent gets you access to other traits, but doesn't grant any further traits on its own. Since you don't have the shapeshift ability, instead gaining the new form through the Eternal Transformation feat, talents like Greater Changes don't apply. 

Favored form is indeed self explanatory, you get to apply 1 extra trait. It doesn't have you pick an extra talent, it just raises the trait cap by 1.

I know, the whole Tranformation thing can be confusing.

Here is how it should work. You spend 1 feat on Mutation. For your Eternal Transformation form you are most likely picking Anthropomorphic Transformation (most of the others are a little too far out there, and also make it so you don't have arms or whatever. I didn't explicitly ban them because I wanted to leave the door open for a player to also spend a feat on Hybrid Transformation if they wish, but many options here we'd have to really discuss). Since you are already an intelligent humanoid, Anthropomorphic lets you select another (body) or (transformation) talent, and apply two traits listed under that talent which don't count as traits (don't apply against your cap). Let's say you want to be an amphibious mutant, so you chose Aquan Transformation and apply Amphibious and Keen Scent to your form. The Improved Transformation part allows you 1 additional trait. If you only have Mutation, you are selecting that trait from Aquan Transformation or Blank Transformation because you don't have any other talents at this point. I wanted to add a little more flexibility in mutation though.

You want a different kind of trait, so you spend another feat on Greater Mutation. This gives you an option. Spend one of your combat talents or take a drawback to gain an additional talent containing the trait you want. Let's say you take the vulnerability drawback so you can take Powerful Limbs, and you can apply the Powerful Arms trait as that Improved Transformation trait. You could take another drawback at this point to get an extra talent, however you don't have any more available trait slots. You would at level 10 though.

You can then take Favored Form for that extra trait slot. You can select another from your Aquan set, Blank form set, or Powerful Limbs set, or take another drawback or spend a combat talent on another alteration talent, gaining access to other traits.

With base Mutation, you are getting two traits as non-traits (if you select Anthropomorphic) from a limited list. With Greater Mutation you are getting an extra trait. With Favored Form you get another. 1 feat for 2 traits, 2 for 3, or 3 for 4. 

11 hours ago, Steel Warrior said:

Also, looking over the EITR rules in the thread, do you prefer we use the updated 2021 pdf vs the original

An example is that they did not remove Point Blank Shot, now requires Precise Shot and Precise shot is now the requirement for many other ranged feats.

Just use the the rules as I posted in the Character Creation Guidelines thread. I made some changes from EITR rules, but most of what is in the blog post applies, I'm not using the PDF version.

[Paxon]

9 hours ago, dalamb said:

1. Are you willing to waive the "secret class feature" requirement of Extra Secret? I would very much like to take Extra Secret: Amateur Hedgewitch (spiritualism) for the path benefit "roll twice for knowledge checks" and possiblyThere presumably won't be any magical traps, but the bonus to find mundane traps, and to disable device, could be useful... (tinker) for trapfinding. One of my character's intended roles is Scout, so knowledge skills are very useful.
2. Would you be willing to allow Barrage legendary talent Ceaseless Ammo (Su)? This would make accounting for bullets a lot easier; it could be refluffed as "always has another clip lying around" instead of "always can recover at least 10 pieces of ammo after combat is over."
3. Would you be willing to allow a modification of Legendary Scout talent Detect Surface Thoughts? As written it's surely supernatural, but could be reinterpreted as a more powerful version the skill some interrogators have of "face reading" - asking questions and knowing whether the person is lying and what emotions they are feeling (deceitful, ashamed, etc)?

1. I'm very hesitant to open up extra class feature feats for general use, without an existing path to those in your class. That means I'll need to address all possibilities of extra _ without one of your classes otherwise having access. For trapfinding, you can get that through the Trap Sphere: Trap Finder. For rolling twice on knowledge, consider using the scout sphere and selecting Perception with the All or Nothing origin talent. Or dip into classes that do knowledge well, i.e. scholar, investigator. There might be other methods I'm not aware of.

2. No on Ceaseless Ammo. While I'm not going to be super hard-core around resource management, ammunition isn't such an abundant resource in the wastes that it can be hand-waved away, and some functions around the firearms rules for this campaign depend on managing your ammo. 

3. Yes on Detect Surface Thoughts, and it is available without any mechanical changes. Just as you described, you are basically an expert at reading micro-expressions, body language, etc. to an extraordinary degree. You won't be literally hearing their thoughts, but you get very accurate ideas of the kinds of thoughts they are having, emotions, and the like.

[Steel Warrior]

1 hour ago, Paxon said:

 

Mutation Feats

I took both the Mutation and Greater Mutation feats.

So at this moment I have only 1 blank transformation talent, and a second one if I take one of the Greater Mutation Drawbacks.
I am allowed to now use my combat talents (per greater mutation) for extra alteration talents, but they only apply to the blank transformation (Eternal Tranformation form)
Again the Alteration Sphere allows me to have base 1 talent, +1 per 5 caster levels. This also applies to Blank Transformation.
So just for clarification, if I take one of the Greater Mutation drawback, does it count against my cap? Which is 2 currently, unless I take the other feat.

I am kinda making a theme build to fit my character's build. So I am trying to take certain things that would actually fit from a "mechanical" point of view lol.

At the moment, the only two talents I chose were Low-light vision and Darkvision,  I was thinking of taking a drawback vulnerability (sonic) for the limbs, but haven't decided just yet.
Thanks for clarification on the Greater Change talent, I was thinking it also applied to blank transformation.

Painted Savage
In regards to the Mystic Tattoos and the suggestion on taking berserker talents in place of the enhancement sphere talents, was to move away from the magic of the enhancement sphere. My initial thought was it would work like the Brawler's Martial Flexibility. But in this instance gain access to Talents under the Berserker Sphere and or Combat Stamina feats.

 

Enduring Temper: At 1st level, a painted savage gains Berserker as a bonus sphere and Combat Stamina as a bonus feat

and
Rage Powers (Ex): A painted savage may spend 2 stamina points from her stamina pool when under the effect of mystical tattoos. This allows the painted savage to be treated as if under the effects of a rage, though she gains none of the other benefits or drawbacks of raging. This effect lasts for the remaining duration of the mystical tattoos effect. New instances of mystical tattoos will require additional stamina to be spent. Rage powers, that require additional rage rounds, may instead use 5 points from her stamina pool per required rage round. In addition, whenever, the painted savage would gain a rage power from her class levels, she may instead gain a bonus talent from the Berserker sphere.
 

Now, the last part of the Rage Powers (Ex), it says I may instead gain a bonus talent from the Berserker Sphere in place of a Rage Power. I am interpreting that as I get the talent, it's always active, not just when I am raging (using mystic tattoos).

Legendary Talents
I was thinking of having 2 separate firearms, Long range with a couple sniper talents and then the machine gun.
I found it kinda fitting that Cone of Death, Death Blossom  would apply to the fully automatic machine gun. I'm waving my machine gun from side to side, instead of a straight line. Death Blossom, I was picturing firing bullets up in the air and the bullets raining down all around me. Although technically not really plausible given that it would probably take a couple rounds for them to come back down lol

Cinematic movies, you always see people with machine guns just spraying bullets everywhere, like a person is running inside a building with thin walls, and the person outside with the machine gun is trying to shoot them through the wall in the direction the person is running. Or the guy with the Gatling gun in the Predator movie he's not aiming in a straight line. Although technically the Predator is completely camoflauged/invisible.

Six seconds is a pretty long time to fire off a burst of bullets, so it's very easy to make a cone or strafe with it.

Here's a thought. Cone of Death/Death Blossom deals half-damage if using it with a fully automatic weapon to every target in it's cone/area of affect. Since the bullets are being spread thinner.

Edited May 27, 2022 by Steel Warrior (see edit history)

[Paxon]

25 minutes ago, Steel Warrior said:

Mutation Feats

I took both the Mutation feat and Greater Mutation.

2 for sure? 3 if I take a drawback?
I am kinda making a theme build to fit my character's build. So I am trying to take certain things that would actually fit from a "mechanical" point of view lol.

At the moment, the only two talents I chose were Low-light vision and Darkvision,  I was thinking of taking a drawback vulnerability (sonic) for the limbs, but haven't decided just yet.
Thanks for clarification on the Greater Change talent, I was thinking it also applied to blank transformation.

Right, so with Mutation, you would select Anthropomorphic (transformation) as what you transform into, and that lets you pick two traits as non-traits from Blank Form options, so you got Darkvision and Low-Light vision from that. You have 1 trait remaining (the Improved Transformation part). And since you took Greater Mutation, you can take that drawback and find the appropriate talent to draw from (i.e. powerful limbs). With Anthropomorphic, you select another (transformation) or (body) feat to draw traits from, so instead of low light vision, you could always select, say, Object Transformation as that other option (staying on theme here as mechanical) for the construct plating trait.

33 minutes ago, Steel Warrior said:

Painted Savage
In regards to the Mystic Tattoos and the suggestion on taking berserker talents in place of the enhancement sphere talents, was to move away from the magic of the enhancement sphere. My initial thought was it would work like the Brawler's Martial Flexibility. But in this instance gain access to Talents under the Berserker Sphere and or Combat Stamina feats.

 

Enduring Temper: At 1st level, a painted savage gains Berserker as a bonus sphere and Combat Stamina as a bonus feat

and
Rage Powers (Ex): A painted savage may spend 2 stamina points from her stamina pool when under the effect of mystical tattoos. This allows the painted savage to be treated as if under the effects of a rage, though she gains none of the other benefits or drawbacks of raging. This effect lasts for the remaining duration of the mystical tattoos effect. New instances of mystical tattoos will require additional stamina to be spent. Rage powers, that require additional rage rounds, may instead use 5 points from her stamina pool per required rage round. In addition, whenever, the painted savage would gain a rage power from her class levels, she may instead gain a bonus talent from the Berserker sphere.
 

Now, the last part of the Rage Powers (Ex), it says I may instead gain a bonus talent from the Berserker Sphere in place of a Rage Power. I am interpreting that as I get the talent, it's always active, not just when I am raging (using mystic tattoos).

I see. The way you worded the changes, it specifically stated "She may utilize mystic tattoos to use any Combat stamina or (berserker) talent she knows as a swift action."  which isn't really giving you that flexibility, it's just letting you use ones you already know. The feature in painted savage is there to basically let you use those Enhancement talents as part of a rage-like state without having to spend spell points on them. They aren't quite equivalent to berserker talents.

There actually is a conscript specialization that is more in line with what you are looking for, in fact called the same thing: Martial Flexibility

Is what you are trying to do with that 4th level Mystic Tattoos ability actually activating a combat stamina feat without paying stamina? 

50 minutes ago, Steel Warrior said:

Legendary Talents
I was thinking of having 2 separate firearms, Long range with a couple sniper talents and then the machine gun.
I found it kinda fitting that Cone of Death, Death Blossom  would apply to the fully automatic machine gun. I'm waving my machine gun from side to side, instead of a straight line. Death Blossom, I was picturing firing bullets up in the air and the bullets raining down all around me. Although technically not really plausible given that it would probably take a couple rounds for them to come back down lol

Cinematic movies, you always see people with machine guns just spraying bullets everywhere, like a person is running inside a building with thin walls, and the person outside with the machine gun is trying to shoot them through the wall in the direction the person is running. Or the guy with the Gatling gun in the Predator movie he's not aiming in a straight line. Although technically the Predator is completely camoflauged/invisible.

Six seconds is a pretty long time to fire off a burst of bullets, so it's very easy to make a cone or strafe with it.

Here's a thought. Cone of Death/Death Blossom deals half-damage if using it with a fully automatic weapon to every target in it's cone/area of affect. Since the bullets are being spread thinner.

Yup, that makes sense, just making sure you were aware of the rules around that. Again, those are all approved, they do fit. And no need to modify. I was mostly pointing out that there is built-in functionality to automatic weapons (Suppressing Fire) that will let you spray bullets in a cone or in a circular area attempting to hit all enemies, they just have different conditions. Cone of Death and Death Blossom are (potentially) better ways to do it, they just cost you talents. And I'm not so sure about that arcing thing, lol, it would simply do to turn in a full circle spraying lead, and .... hmm, I was about to type out that you avoid your allies, but upon closer inspection Cone of Death states you attack "every creature within range" so you better take care to avoid your allies with these abilities 😈

[Steel Warrior]

4 hours ago, Paxon said:

I see. The way you worded the changes, it specifically stated "She may utilize mystic tattoos to use any Combat stamina or (berserker) talent she knows as a swift action."  which isn't really giving you that flexibility, it's just letting you use ones you already know. The feature in painted savage is there to basically let you use those Enhancement talents as part of a rage-like state without having to spend spell points on them. They aren't quite equivalent to berserker talents.

 

Painted Savage
Yeah, I mean, if you think my character gaining access to enhanement talents as part of the Mystic Tattoo (rage). That's perfectly fine. They only work during the rage part. Currently I would have only 1 enhancement talent at 4th and I won't have another one until 8th. (this was the only thing that was being changed from enhancement to either a combat stamina feat or berserker talent)

 

Now the Rage Powers lets me choose actual rage powers or exchange it for a berserker talent. Which I was curious does that mean I get the talent flat out or does the talent only work during "rage" at the cost of 2 stamina pool.

BTW I do like the idea of the construct plate trait, but I had spent the Conscript specialization to get DR /- to 1/2 my character level, so I now have DR 3/- instead of adamantine.
What was mentioned in your last post. I pretty much have Darkvision and Low-light vision. I then have 1 more I can take (powerful limbs).

 

 If I take the drawback, you suggested the Construct Plate, but in my case, I would pick something else IF I took the drawback. Now, if I want to use the trait I would have to swap out from my Eternal transformation form and switch to the Object Transformation form (all it's features + select one of the options)? I had not thought about taking another alternate form, I was only considering adding to the existing one.
I guess if I did choose the Object Transformation, I had initially had the terminator in mind lol

• Luminescence: The target may choose to shed light from any part of its body, ranging in intensity from a soft glow of a candle (shadowy illumination in a 5-foot radius) to the full brightness of a torch (bright light in a 20-foot radius and shadowy illumination for an additional 20 feet). The target may duplicate any color of light, even creating multiple colors, and may cancel or resume use of this ability as a free action
• OR
• Material Weapons: The target’s unarmed strikes and natural weapons are treated as silver and cold iron for the purpose of bypassing damage reduction. At 10th level this improves to counting as adamantine.

Again sorry, I am probably over thinking things. LOL.

Edited May 27, 2022 by Steel Warrior (see edit history)

[dalamb]

Thanks for the suggestion about Trap Finder; I hadn't looked at the Trap sphere. But All or Nothing gives about 10% chance of significant failure, so I'll have to think hard about whether or not to take it.

And thanks for approving Detect Surface Thoughts; I'll have a few suggestions for how to limit it in my character thread.

[Paxon]

36 minutes ago, Steel Warrior said:

Painted Savage
Yeah, I mean, if you think my character gaining access to enhanement talents as part of the Mystic Tattoo (rage). That's perfectly fine. They only work during the rage part. Currently I would have only 1 enhancement talent at 4th and I won't have another one until 8th. (this was the only thing that was being changed from enhancement to either a combat stamina feat or berserker talent)

 

Now the Rage Powers lets me choose actual rage powers or exchange it for a berserker talent. Which I was curious does that mean I get the talent flat out or does the talent only work during "rage" at the cost of 2 stamina pool.

BTW I do like the idea of the construct plate trait, but I had spent the Conscript specialization to get DR /- to 1/2 my character level, so I now have DR 3/- instead of adamantine.
What was mentioned in your last post. I pretty much have Darkvision and Low-light vision. I then have 1 more I can take (powerful limbs).

 

 If I take the drawback, you suggested the Construct Plate, but in my case, I would pick something else IF I took the drawback. Now, if I want to use the trait I would have to swap out from my Eternal transformation form and switch to the Object Transformation form (all it's features + select one of the options)? I had not thought about taking another alternate form, I was only considering adding to the existing one.
I guess if I did choose the Object Transformation, I had initially had the terminator in mind lol

• Luminescence: The target may choose to shed light from any part of its body, ranging in intensity from a soft glow of a candle (shadowy illumination in a 5-foot radius) to the full brightness of a torch (bright light in a 20-foot radius and shadowy illumination for an additional 20 feet). The target may duplicate any color of light, even creating multiple colors, and may cancel or resume use of this ability as a free action
• OR
• Material Weapons: The target’s unarmed strikes and natural weapons are treated as silver and cold iron for the purpose of bypassing damage reduction. At 10th level this improves to counting as adamantine.

Again sorry, I am probably over thinking things. LOL.

I'm mostly trying to dial in on what you are trying to do with Mystic Tattoo's 4th level ability, I'm not quite ready to give you access to those Enhancement sphere talents yet (though for the most part I don't think it would break anything). I think my confusion around switching it with a berserker sphere talent is that they mostly aren't activated in the same way as enhancement talents. But if what you are trying to do is gain a set berseker talent or combat stamina talent that you only have access to for a limited time (CON rounds or 1 min with 5 stamina) when you use that activation action, I'm okay with that.

The Rage Powers part: the Painted Savage loses the ability to rage, however it still gains rage powers at 2nd, 4th, 6th levels. You can activate a rage power with 2 stamina while using Mystic Tattoos, so the rage power is active but you aren't raging. However, instead of Rage Powers, you can simply gain permanent Berserker talents, which don't require any additional activation. 

 

For Mutation, what I'm referring to is the first part of the Transformation featBenefit: Choose one (transformation) Alteration sphere talent that does not cost a spell point. If you choose Anthropomorphic Transformation and are humanoid or of a similar makeup, choose another (transformation) or (body) talent to choose traits from for Anthropomorphic Transformation’s effects. (which eternal transformation simply makes permanent). One could choose Animalistic transformation and turn into a bear, or Object transformation and turn into a table, but those don't really work for the game. If you pick Anthropomorphic to still be a humanoid (which most players picking mutation probably should), you pick another (transformation) or (body) talent to select listed traits from, which you do even if you just pick them from Blank Form traits. That's why I suggested Object, but it doesn't matter too much really for what you are planning with your character. Just know you can select from an additional source of traits from one (transformation) or (body) talent if it makes sense to do so.

52 minutes ago, dalamb said:

But All or Nothing gives about 10% chance of significant failure, so I'll have to think hard about whether or not to take it.

Yeah, it definitely has a significant drawback! But this one is lower stakes for failure at least 🙂 - it would be fun to give your character inaccurate information that they are dead sure of on a failure though.

[dalamb]

1 hour ago, Paxon said:

Yeah, it definitely has a significant drawback! But this one is lower stakes for failure at least 🙂 - it would be fun to give your character inaccurate information that they are dead sure of on a failure though.

Helping the GM have fun is always a good thing.

[Demented]

Two more questions.

 

1:  We're using combat stamina, but the page says it can be integrated several ways, ranging from "everybody gets it" to "buy in with a feat".  So what's the exact level of investment you need to be able to use it?

 

2:  Do grenades count as ammo or weapons for the purposes of masterwork enhancement?

[Paxon]

5 minutes ago, Demented said:

Two more questions.

 

1:  We're using combat stamina, but the page says it can be integrated several ways, ranging from "everybody gets it" to "buy in with a feat".  So what's the exact level of investment you need to be able to use it?

 

2:  Do grenades count as ammo or weapons for the purposes of masterwork enhancement?

1. You do need to pick up the Combat Stamina feat in order to use combat stamina

2. I'm going to have grenades (even hand grenades) count as ammo for masterwork, but I'm likely going to waive the necessity of buying 10 at a time for them. I'm going to need to take another look at this aspect this weekend and come back around for a more definitive answer, but that's what I'm thinking.

[dalamb]

14 hours ago, Paxon said:

Yeah, it definitely has a significant drawback! But this one is lower stakes for failure at least 🙂 - it would be fun to give your character inaccurate information that they are dead sure of on a failure though.

Regarding the all-or-nohing (Perception) talent suggestion, I've decided not to use it. Event without the -5 to use perception instead of knowledge for scouting, I get better bonuses for Knowledge rolls than Perception rolls, and there are several knowledge rolls I would need to use. I suppose I could do some kind of analysis of "average of 2D20^1+N versus average of 1D20+M-larger-than-N" to see which is better, but I'd have to hunt down the troll program that does that.

 

I kind of went overboard on Knowledge skills for scouting, which might not be useful as often as I'd like, but my character has plenty of other ways to contribute.

[PigLickJF]

On the Firearms weapon tables, only one damage rating is listed. Does firearm damage scale up/down with size as normal weapons?

[Demented]

3 hours ago, dalamb said:

"average of 2D20^1+N versus average of 1D20+M-larger-than-N" to see which is better, but I'd have to hunt down the troll program that does that.

2d20^1 averages about 13.9.  But it skews the distribution, making it way less likely you'll get stuck with a bad result.

[Arklytte]

Firearm question: Would it be possible to add Bean Bag rounds for shotguns to the list of available ammo?  They're considered 'less lethal', just like Rubber Bullets, but they tend to do less direct trauma, and are designed to 'cause muscle spasms which render the target momentarily immobile'.

 

My thinking is that they would look something like this:

 

Beanbag Rounds (aka Flexible Baton rounds): Beanbag rounds consists of a small fabric "pillow" filled with #9 lead shot weighing about 40 grams.  They are intended to be a non-lethal or more specifically a less lethal alternative to metal projectiles, similar to rubber bullets.  Beanbags, however, are specifically intended to stun their target by causing intense and painful muscle spasms at the point of impact, that render the target momentarily immobile.  Targets hit by a beanbag round are Stunned for 1d3-1 rounds.  On a successful FORT save, they are instead Staggered.

 

Beanbag rounds count as Slugs for damage/attack purposes (20/x4 on a crit, Touch AC for the first range increment), but all damage is nonlethal.  They can be used to do lethal damage, at the normal -4 penalty.  Additionally they have a max range of 2 range increments.  Any target struck in the 2nd range increment by a beanbag ONLY takes the nonlethal damage and is not subject to the Stun/Stagger effect.

 

Cost/rarity would probably be commensurate with rubber bullets.

 

I pretty much just took that right off the Wiki page for beanbag rounds.  Their max effective range really is only about 20-ish feet, with them being completely useless beyond about 60, as well as the fact that they specifically render the target "momentarily immobile".  And they can do lethal damage (especially if you aim for the sternum, face, or throat), but anyone trained in their use always goes for the extremities, thus them defaulting to nonlethal and getting the penalty for lethal.

 

So, they're a fairly powerful option (with their stun/stagger effect), but you have to be right on top of your target to use them effectively.  And since guns are a thing in this setting, getting up close and personal is going to be challenging, to say the least.

 

What do you think Pax?

 

PS: If you're amenable to this, what about other specialty shotgun rounds? There are a bunchaton of fun shotty rounds that exist IRL, and many would be pretty reasonable to have in this setting.  I'd be happy to look them up/rulify them.  😄

And yes, my plan is to have Doc specialize in shotguns. The pic I found for him is literally holding a smoking shotgun, so I just had to run with it.  🙂

Edited May 29, 2022 by Arklytte (see edit history)