Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Interloper Miniatures!

Hello everyone,
 Sorry my posts have been sporadic of late, I got a promotion at work and find myself quite busy of late.
Anyways, I know it seems like every time you turn around there is another Kickstarter popping up.  I've kept away from most of them (although I jumped happily on the Starships & Spacmen wagon er uh starship) but being an old school Gamma World fan I would be remiss if I failed to mention and contribute to the Interloper Miniatures Kickstarter!
 Check it out!! I hope this is very successful and we see more mutant beastie minis developed!!

Sunday, October 14, 2012

Pathfinder Woes

 I've been running a Pathfinder game for several sessions now. My players are great and seem to be having a good time.  Me behind the screen, not so much.  Don't get me wrong, my players are awesome and we have a lot of fun, but the older I get the less and less I like rules heavy systems and for me Pathfinder is a rules heavy game.  For me its strengths are also its weaknesses. You can really create a unique cool character with all the multitude of options, skills, feats and variables but those same options and variables can be a chore for the DM to manage, at least this DM, especially once the campaign starts reaching some higher levels.  This was what eventually caused me to quit playing 3.5.  It's kind of a shame from my standpoint.  Paizo puts out top notch product, with some really great ideas, adventures etc. and I really would love to go whole hog all out for Pathfinder, but I hate having to refer to a rulebook during a game, for me it takes away from the session and even many sessions in, I still find myself having to look up alot of stuff.  Even my players, have to looks up alot of stuff, and it just seems to take away from our time at the table.  I don't mean to sound whiney, I know my experiences and opinions aren't shared by everyone, but I saw another blogger (Tenkar's Tavern) post something similar today and thought I'd chime in with my thoughts as well.
Anyways just curous what some of my reader's thoughts and feelings were about this.  Feel free to comment.
I've done enough prep to last me for a few more Pathfinder sessions, so I'm going to try to run it a bit longer, but after that, I will definately be switching to a different system.

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Spears of the Dawn Kickstarter!

A quick post, because I just had to share this!
Kevin Crawford, the main man behind the Stars Without Number RPG, that I frequently talk about on this very blog, has just launched a Kickstarter for an African themed Fantasy RPG based off the SWN engine!
WOW and Double WOW! 
Check it out!
Come Pay day, I will definately be forking over some $$ to support this awesome project!!
Talk to you later!

Saturday, October 6, 2012

Lion the Bounty Hunter, a Stars Without Number NPC

LION the Bounty Hunter

Str: 16 +1  Class: Expert Race: Aslan* Background: Bandit
Int: 9          Level: 5 Training Package: Bounty Hunter
Dex: 10      Hit Points: 22
Wis: 7 -1      AC: 4
Con: 15 +1   Attack Bonus: +3 with weapons, +4 with Dewclaws
Cha: 13
Saves
Physical Effect: 14
Mental Effect: 13
Evasion: 10
Tech: 9
Luck: 12
Racial Traits & Abilities: *
Requires 10-11 hours sleep for every 32 hours of activity or will be fatigued.
+1 BAB with all weapons, +2 with Dewclaws
If unarmed he may make 2 dewclaw attacks per round 1d6 damage, he will only do this in a life or death situation of last resort.
Low Light Vision
Heightened Hearing- +1 to any listen based Perception checks.
Base Speed is 40'

Skills
Combat Primitive - 0
Combat Unarmed - 0
Culture/ Tarlkin's Landing- 0 (replace with whatever world is needed for the Campaign)
Culture/Criminal -2
Navigation- 0
Persuade- 1
Perception- 0
Security - 1
Stealth - 1
Survival - 1
Tactics- 0
Vehicle/Grav- 0
Vehicle/Land-1

Weapons & Gear
Bounty Hunter Badge
Combat Field Uniform – "Bounty Hunting Duds" AC 4
Feathered braid "thing" in his hair
Telescoping Stun Baton- range 1.5m, 1d8 damage (stun only), ** Lion prefers to use his hand sprayer but will use this on particularly tough bounties.
6-shot hand sprayer – range 2m, damage either SopSpray or Pepper Spray (see below) **
     SopSpray- Target is sedated and becomes drowsy. The target must make a Physical Effect save but even if fails the save they will rarely become unconscious, but they will become apathetic and incoherent. They will attempt to defend themselves if attacked but will be very sluggish -3 to all rolls and will cease resisting as soon as they are no longer attacked. Otherwise, they will try to stagger off and collapse into a deep sleep. The effects last 2-20 minutes. **
     Pepper Spray: Causes irritation of nose and eyes, and intense burning sensations in both. On a failed Physical Effect save the target is rendered incapable of much beyond reeling around flailing at the air for 1d6 minutes.**

Tranq Gas Grenades x 2- 6m radius, anyone is area of gas must make Physical Effect save or fall unconscious, gas will persist for 1d3+6 rds. ** For when he has to take on several baddies at once.

     Lion the Bounty Hunter started out as a landless male Aslan running with a pack of rogue young males that quickly landed him into trouble with the law. After serving time in prison, he repented of his criminal ways and set out for a life of adventure, leaving his home and kin behind, he eventually found himself living and working among humans and picked up the nick name "Lion", after working as a Bounty Hunter his story was picked up by a Holovid company and overnight he became a star!.. sort of...this was all much to the chagrin of his people, many of whom felt the humans were making fun of him. He ran into several misadventures along the way, most of which made it to the spacewaves. He now resides on a backwater frontier world (Tarlkin's Landing) just trying to make a living still working as a Bounty Hunter and trying to reform as many criminals as he can, only time will tell where he will wind up next. Even though he has lived among humans for many years he still judges the gender of a others based on their profession (warrior types are males, scientist-scholary types are females, just like the rest of his race does, this has gotten him into several interesting situations.  One other curious thing about him, even though his profession is potentially a violent one, he refuses to use guns and only resorts to his powerful dewclaws if innocents are in grave danger.

*I based his stats on the Aslan from the old Traveller d20 RPG rules put out by Quicklink Interactive (now out as SciFi20 minus the Traveller setting references), if you don't want Aslan or Traveller references in your SWN Campaigns what the heck is wrong with you?! Oh sorry just kidding, seriously though just change the race to a felinoid alien race of your choosing. Oh and for you Traveller aficionados I know Aslan aren't so 100% lion-like in their appearance, but we always played them that way when I was growing up so for me it just kinda stuck. : )

**Adapted from the Traveller d20 Traveller's Aide #1, Personal Weapons of Charted Space, produced by Quicklink Interactive.

     I couldn't resist working this one up when I found the picture over on the Worth 1000 words website. I've liberally borrowed from many other sources to stat him up. I hope others don't mind me referring to their work, and of course a big tip of the hat to Duane Chapman for being inspiration for this NPC. Good Gaming! – B.

Lionisms- words of wisdom from Lion the Bounty Hunter (acutally from the real life Dog the Bounty Hunter)

"At the end of the criminal rainbow- there is no pot of gold."

"Start dreaming right now and planning your future."

"When you break someone down- make sure you always raise them up higher than they were before."

"#1 you never hit a women. #2- you never hit a pregnant woman."

"He now knows there's another side of life and he could get there."

" A lot of people won't change a plan thats how they end up not winning."

"The hunter when he understands his prey- its easier for him to find them."

"My grandfather would say they're all helpable if they wake up this side of the dirt."

"If you get a goal in your mind- go for it- you're not in hell yet, you can still make collect calls, you can still talk to your old lady, you can still have children and you can still love and be loved."

"Some guys you can look at and think - yeah he's a criminal and yet some guys who don't look like one - really are. So you cannot - obviously judge a book by its cover."

"You never know what a champion is or to be a winner unless you first learn to lose."

Thursday, October 4, 2012

Ghost Twins : Villains for Stars Without Number










Ghost Twins
(same stats except where noted)
Str: 13                       Class: Warrior      Background: Armsman
Int: 11                       Level: 4         Training Package: Assassin
Dex: 18 +2                                   Hit Points: 21
Wis: 10                                        AC: 5
Con: 12
Cha: 11
Saves
Physical Effect: 10
Mental Effect: 13
Evasion: 12 +2 due to Danger Sense
Tech: 14
Luck: 11

Skills
Combat/Primitive:: Ghost Twin #1 has Skill: 2, Ghost Twin #2 has Skill: 0
Combat/Unarmed: 1
Culture/Terra*: 0  *(Terra can be swapped to a different world if GM desires)
Athletics: 0
Combat/Projectile Weapons: Ghost Twin #2 has Skill: 2
Culture/Criminal: 0
Security: 0
Stealth: 0
Tactics: 1
Vehicle/Land: Ghost Twin #2 Skill: 0

Stigmata: Ghostly Pale white skin, stark white hair, pale eyes
Flaws:
Wrathful
Natural Daylight weakens them causing a -2 to Str Modifier, wearing shades reduces this
to -1 penalty.
Metadimensional Weapons (Shear Rifles, exotic TL5 Energy weapons etc.) are more harmful to them, roll damage dice and twice take higher result
Mutations:
Phasing
Danger Sense: Can't be surprised, +2 on all Evasion Saves
Resilient Body
Weapons & Gear
White Suit and Tie, Sunglasses, Armored Undersuit (AC:7),
Ghost Twin #1 - Monoblade –Razor 1d8+1
Ghost Twin #2 - Submachine Gun 1d8 (+ Burst Fire) w/ laser dot pointer +2 hit at close range.
     I have to admit not being a big fan of Matrix Reloaded, for reasons that I won't get into here. One thing I did like, well two technically, were the Ghost Twins, sadly they weren't used to their full potential IMHO. So for an experiment I thought I'd stat them up for Stars Without Number/Other Dust. I pulled the Mutations from Other Dust and went with Stars Without Number for class and skills. I know in the movie they really didn't seem weakened by sunlight but I thought it fit in with the "Ghost" concept. I can't wait to have these two show up as the BBEG's Elite Assassin/Henchman in my next SWN Campaign.


Ghost Twins are from the Movie Matrix Reloaded and are copyrighted by Warner Bros. No copyright infringement is intended.

update- I almost forgot to give a shout out to my fellow SWN blogger; Rather Gamey for giving me the idea of stat'ing these two up for SWN.  : )

update #2- I tweaked their skill points a bit, gave Ghost Twin two a vehicle skill. : )