Hmmm... difficult terrain prevents charging in 3E? Or is this pathfinder? I never really fully utilized terrain back in my 3E days. All I know is that in 4E it halves move speed.
Although actually, with how slow a zombie is to begin with, you'd think that if they were also moving half speed, anyone could just outright outrun them. Though, perhaps swamp based zombies have a terrainwalk type feature, allowing them to ignore any terrain penalties to speed, hence why normally slow-moving zombies are actually a threat.
<Nods sagely>
Incidentally, isn't it a bit "off" to have all of the zombies have the same stealth check roll? I mean, a surprise round would have been averted if even *one* of the zombies failed its stealth check, right?
edited 24th Sep '13 10:49:38 AM by TheyCallMeTomu
Well, we're straying a bit from the topic of the thread, as we're more getting into the hair-splitting on various rules applications.
This is specifically a Pathfinder game, though charging has not been allowed through difficult terrain since 3.0 - that's one rule that hasn't changed across any version of d20. I think the players are grateful for that if nothing else. At least this difficult terrain isn't potentially painful to them (swampy terrain is just hard to move through, while exceptionally rocky terrain can act like caltrops, at GM's discretion).
I'm going to see if my players have the foresight to start kiting the zombies - they do explicitly only take partial actions (either move or standard, though they can do a charge for 30 feet), but based on what my players have said so far, it's unclear if they realize this. I predict only half of the players will think to do so, and that Problem Gamer will complain when the zombies start doing charges and don't run away from Channel Energy (I'll remind him that he didn't take the Turn Undead feat and that better be that).
Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.I'm not saying that Friend Computer is untrustworthy or slipshod in safety protocols (of course not, The Computer Is My Friend)... but depending on the source of said food, cannibalism might have seemed like the safest food choice. It's Paranoia - it's got a reasonable chance of being correct.
My own players managed to completely ignore a plot hook that I set up for later (well, at least they saw the gun on the mantlepiece, even if they didn't look closely at it), plus ran headlong into another plot point and forgot their own characters' skillsets.
Basically, the merchant guild they're working for had a warehouse robbed - the one they just arrived at. They quickly (thankfully) realized that they probably should solve the theft... especially before their cargo gets robbed too. There are two parts to the crime - one is the theft of several large jugs of milk, and the other is that one of the guild's guards is now missing.
As it happens, the party is roughly divided into one half that would be good at investigating the crime scene, and one half that would be good at conducting interviews on the street to find and/or eliminate suspects. So what happens? Team Charisma decides to investigate the warehouse, while Team Investigation goes out to conduct interviews. This... naturally, did not work. It wasn't until the end of the session where someone had the idea to swap duties... lo and behold, two minutes contained 90% of the advancement on that particular plot thread. I almost think mauling by wererats (the culprits for this one) is too good for them.
Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.Sweet Crystal Dragon Jesus, my players are monsters, Monsters!
Well, okay, they're playing vampires so they technically are monsters, but yesterday's session went above and beyond!
I had a group of vampire hunters ambush the players last game and did well enough to force them into retreat. Their boss basically told them to take care of the problem, and so they start searching for the hunters. They find two in a hospital (one got pretty banged up last game) and kidnap them, make the conscious one believe they're "good vampires" and convince him to set up a meeting with the hunters to talk things out, promising to hurt neither him nor his sister. Then the torture started. They slit his sisters throat, forced him to reveal their base, ghouled him to keep him from dying mid torture, then give him to a chained up super-vampire who was last arcs Big Bad as a snack.
The attack on the base was only slightly better. I wanted to introduce moral ambiguity so I made it one of the hunter's homes, they then proceed to use the children as hostages to get the sister of one of the hunters to call them over. When the hunters arrived they killed two outright and forced the father to disarm by using the kids as hostages again. The only line they didn't seem willing to cross was killing the kids, which may be why they also blackmailed the hunter with killing him, the kids, and their descendants for generations if he or they started attacking vampires again.
And here's the kicker: one of my players is an assassin from Renaissance England, and I wanted to do something interesting and nice for him by bookending the session by starting with a flashback of the mission just prior to his embrace (even describing his previous victims as evocative of the ones in the present). In the past, he kills a jeweler that looks like the father/hunter in the present. So far so good. In the second flashback which capped the session his soon to be sire asked him to kill the wife, which he does. Then he asks for one last thing, kill their child (which I thought he'd refuse or trick the guy). He thinks it over, I thought he'd refuse since he didn't want to kill kids... But he accepts for double the fee. So he kills the boy by throwing him out a window!
(He explained his character thought it would be more merciful than stabbing the kid. The bad part is we all started laughing after because of the Dead Baby Comedy humor of it)
I'm not sure whether the sessions was a success or failure. I felt it was some of my best STing, and they certainly roleplayed and seemed to/said afterwards they enjoyed it, but man! In the context of a Requiem game it was awesome, but I guess I was sort of hoping they wouldn't toboggan down the slippery slope with such relish.
The most concrete complaint I have is that they succeed at no less than three Humanity Rolls, and seem to think that's enough to stay "moral". If they repeat this next session and don't show any remorse, I'm just going to rule they lose Humanity.
edited 6th Oct '13 10:40:18 AM by Earnest
I think you should have ruled the humanity loss this session. Well, I think so, at least, even though I never played Vampire and thus have no idea how humanity works.
That said, if I was playing D&D with my friends, they all took the Chaotic Neutral alignment and then proceeded to act like this, I would have ruled them immediately Chaotic Evil instead.
Humanity is a Morality Meter, the lower you go the more amoral and psychopathic you get, even gaining mental illnesses on a separate roll. The basic rule is that when characters commit a sin lower than their Humanity, they roll a set # of dice. Success means they hold on to their morality by feeling remorse and shame, failure means they don't care.
So yeah, I did let them know about the "contrition" clause. Though I want to give them a chance to show or do some kind of major penance — like trying to find other victims of vampiric violence and helping the survivors— I won't just let them coast by on lucky rolls. If they keep it up I'll just declare an automatic loss of humanity and storywise have them get into an escalating spiral of murder A, their friend/family member B comes. Murder B, then it's C.
Aha, so now they are supposed to roleplay remorse, non?
And these "hunters" were probably involved with the supernatural in their own way, right?
So how about this: rather than forcing more humanity rolls, you make a plot point out of them being cursed by one of the surviving family members. The curse takes form of some monster that can be killed yet keeps coming back even stronger the next time, until eventually the players will no longer be able to overcome it. The only way to permanently get rid of the monster would be by atoning for their sins in some way.
I don't know if this fits the game you got going, but if your players appreciate a chance for roleplaying, I believe this would be well-recieved. W Ell, or not. I'm just musing, really.
Très bien! That would actually be really appropriate.
They left one of the hunters at the tender mercy of the last arc's Big Bad as a cruel twist on keeping their word that specifically they wouldn't harm him. (Why they let her live and unstaked her, I have no clue.) Anyway, she's so powerful she can't feed on humans: only other vampires. And her goal was to create more cannibal vampires like herself and eventually they'd all consume each other into a sort of Pieces of God reuniting into the First Vampire scenario. So, she can't feed from him, and while it goes against her goal to create more vampires, she's more than happy to turn him into a vampire as a means of spreading her cannibal ways.
Of course his embrace goes wrong and gets twisted by a combination of her cannibalism tainted blood and his desperation and hate. He comes back as a sort of Emotion Eater, feeding specifically from the characters vices and unrepentance. Each time he "dies", he just reforms in the sewers and comes back stronger.
I'm not sure if you're running Masquerade or Requiem, but if it's the later, I may have a recommendation for the ![]()
idea.
In World of Darkness: Antagonists, there's a section about a monster called the Thief. It is basically meant to be to Supernatural characters what Supernatural characters are to mortals of Hunters. It starts out looking like a freaky skeleton dude, but hunts and feeds on Supernatural beings like Werewolves or Vampires. The more it eats, the more human its appearance becomes, until eventually it can pass as a normal human. My recommendation: make it one of the Hunters, who survived and is now very pissed and coming after them. Sort of reminder that they are not on top of the food chain.
Or you could go with the "strict enforcement of Humanity" plan. That works too.
EDIT: And you ninja'd me with another cool idea.
edited 6th Oct '13 12:18:30 PM by LizardBite
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Sounds nice. Do tell us how it works out if you are actually going through with it. Make sure that your players realise* that they can't murder their way out of this, and be especially careful to not leave open a way for them to murder themselves out of this anyway.
Because otherwise, your players are just going to murder themselves out of this, and all the delicious potential for roleplaying is lost.
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They're remarkably similar, it's kind of uncanny.
It's Requiem by the way, so if I can get a hold of a copy of Antagonists I'll give it a read to port some rules/concepts.
I think I like starting the guy out as a skeleton too though, to make them not know who or what is attacking them until he's been killed enough times to really start to freak them out. I think I may play him up to be a sort of ghost-vampire, in the sense he's motivated a lot like a ghost and can only be ultimately dealt with like a ghost, but feeds like a vampire and can gain physicality.
Edit: Too true. I plan to flip the tables on them by having the attacks happen when they're with people (actual humans) they care about (or at least value enough to try and protect). That this hunter-turned-monster now has no loved ones effectively makes it impossible for them to murder their way out of this. Since he's focused solely on the players if they send others to fight him he just ignores the hirelings.
It may come to a head in a mirrored scenario where the hunter holds said people the players care for hostage. Actually surrendering would be a near crippling blow since it demonstrates caring and remorse, forcing him to retreat. Letting him kill them just makes him stronger.
edited 6th Oct '13 12:49:12 PM by Earnest
Well, the most plausible thing to happen isn't that far from what's suggested. At it's most mundane with the least amount of supernatural gerrymandering, the hunter they left alive really would be embraced by the last arc's big bad because it's the only reasonable way for her to escape and accomplish her goals. The hunter would probably not release her— at first— because she's that insane and he'd be still rooted in human morality.
As a vampire he'd have a much easier time locating the PC's thanks to supernatural senses. He'd likely try to regroup and discover his friends were wiped out and those alive are blackmailed. He'd spy on the players and if he sees they're really sad about what they did, he might stay his hand. If he sees them being as cruel as they were to him and his friends, then he'd probably conclude that feeding and releasing the vampire eating super monster that has already wiped every vampire off the face of the city might not be such a bad alternative.
I'll give a think to just how "mallet to the head" I need to be with these guys. One of the players is in his early twenties and may need the walloping, the other probably can handle a more subdued retaliation. At the most subtle I can have their NPC accomplices try to steer clear of them and have every human they encounter react with unbridled fear or nervousness. I may ramp it up from there by having their closest emotional attachments be put in jeopardy by surviving victims in an twisted reversal kind of way.
I may not be doing them justice: they were pretty horrified at how the whole session turned out, albeit mostly at each other's character's actions. So at least as players they may not be meaning to go the villain protagonist route. That said, if they keep choosing dark side after that then I'll just ask if they'd like me to run the game with them as villain protagonists and not mince words.
You don't have to allow them a roll to see if their Humanity degenerates. It seems to me that a character who willingly and wantonly engages in casual murder and torture and doesn't even blink and eye doesn't need a roll.
If they kick their own Humanity in the balls like that, then they are telling you that their Humanity as depicted on their character sheet is wrong. You're just adjusting it to its true level based on their own actions.
And also remember how Humanity acts as a die cap to interactions with mortals. So yes, mortals should react to them on a gut level with fear.
edited 6th Oct '13 3:03:17 PM by Lawyerdude
What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly.Minor gripe: That problem when one player is WAY better statted off than everyone else.
Read my stories!![]()
The more I think about it the more I agree. I'm meeting the pair tonight to play some Xbox; I’ll take a minute to tell them about the humanity loss and ask them if "sociopathic bastard" really is the direction they want the campaign to take. [sigh] I kind of hope they don't, my personal draw for VTR is the struggle to overcome the temptation to evil. I’m fine with them stumbling morally; but consistent and well planned villainy kind of makes me antsy.
I’ll just have to dig into the Chronicler’s guide and not mince words with having most antagonists no longer be created by me, but by their own misdeeds. Be it directly or indirectly. I don’t want to be a moralist angry god ST, but that’d be the only way I could keep myself sane while running the campaign.
Well, you could always introduce houserules to minimize min-maxing... or alter the first few challenges so the more balanced players shine more often. Kind of a reverse This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman to favor everyone else.
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Power gamer I'm guessing?
Yeah you really should just have them auto fail intentional and malicious acts. If you feel bad doing something and they go do it again you have not felt bad enough for it.
Since your players clearly have problem with differentiating good from evil have you considered offering them the path of enlightenment?
edited 7th Oct '13 6:02:05 PM by joeyjojo
hashtagsarestupidNot power gamer, just a smart gamer.
I'm running a pokémon tabletop, which has a fan made guidebook and whatnot. Therefore, some classes are not as balanced as they could be. Specifically, Ace Trainer, which is custom made to make you a better fighter. Which just so happens to be what commonly happens in a pokémon tabletop.
So anyway, said person chose to be an Ace Trainer, so a better fighter, then chose the following sub classes of Ace Trainer: Type Ace Steel, and Enduring Soul. What this means is that Steel types (a defensive powerhouse of a type, THE defensive type to end all defensive types) are even stronger under him, and Enduring Soul lets any pokémon you have fight at -25% health before going down.
Also many of his pokémon have the ability Sturdy, which protects from anything that might OHKO, guaranteeing at least one round of hits.
So yeah, less of a power gamer, and more of just a very good combination, especially compared to my other players, who are far less combat orientated.
Read my stories!@410: Tobagganing down the slippery slope? Sounds more like a swan dive to me. Also... since when does bleeding out from blunt force trauma count as more merciful than a quick stabbing?
I would have been tempted to rule automatic humanity loss, especially with the "torture before killing" move (including ghouling to prolong the torture).
@417 I like the idea, but never underestimate a player's ability to murder their way out of a situation. Particularly if it involves blowing things up.
@424 Hmm... sounds like a classic case of one person who found the Game-Breaker that the others missed. I'm a bit surprised that those options were even available at low levels (particularly the "can fight until they're at -25% health" ability... dear Arceus, that's broken), so some rebalancing using Rule 0 might be in order. What system is this? Among other things, based on the abilities described, I'm wondering if this is straying a bit much from the core that it's trying to cull from.
Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.

Yes, charges are available to zombies as a standard action. I decided against that for a few reasons.
1) It'd put the players at a severe disadvantage if they had to take a dozen strikes from zombies in the surprise round (we'd probably have a few downed immediately, and a chance to down all present).
2) They were emerging from a swamp - I decided that counted as difficult terrain, which prevents charging.
I know I mentioned killing off one player already; this does not mean I want to repeat that in the fourth session.
Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.