Tabletop Games Thread

[arkturus]

waku waku

[Zurvan]

>Sorceress

dear god please no

[SpoonyViking]

I believe I should get some kind of an autism award for this.

[...]

5) Shichougan:

I can't believe this isn't a Lone Wolf and Cub reference. I am disappointed in your otakuness.

[Draconic]

[Ratman]

I can't believe this isn't a Lone Wolf and Cub reference. I am disappointed in your otakuness.

Just kinda looked up cool kanji to use for what I wanted them to do. Guess I have a new manga to read.

Out of those, Ketsuryuugan actually exists in canon, and Mabyogan was used by a character in a previous campaign. Two, even.

Spoiler:

UA1: Fatty's Eye (Aspect)
Fatty's surgically transplanted eye. Allows the character to share vision with Fatty, including out-of-combat practical use.
While Fatty is summoned, he is always considered to be in formation with the character, no matter the distance.


UA2: False Style: Tick Throws (Style)
Requires 9 Grit to activate. Activates with Charge.
While this Style is active, the Grapple manuever can be used with Nekote. Additionally, Charges with Nekote can count as the Spear manuever from Clan of Power, as long as the Grit cost is paid.

Spear: You must have "Charge" to use this ability. When you make a basic "Martial Arts" "Attack" action from "Charge" you may choose to use your body as a projectile and grab them. If they "Defend" with a skill that is not "Martial Arts" and their speed is not greater than yours by 2 or more you automatically hit them. You may then "Grapple" them as a free action. Costs 2 Grit.


UA3: Doujutsu - Mabyogan (Mode)
Right eye of the bake-neko. Bestows the fortune of a cat onto the user.
Req. 16 Grit to activate, removes all debuffs and makes one immune to debuffs.

Channeling chakra through the eye in a proper way grants a revelation of the most optimal path through combat, and adjusts anything that doesn't fit. This is a reality warping phenomenon similar to Izanagi, much less potent, but active over a longer period of time.
While the Mode is active, the characters rolls of 2 grant double successes. Additionally, the first roll they take on their each turn is rolled twice, and the better result is picked.

Spoiler:

UA1: Marisha's Eye (Aspect)
The summoner's surgically transplanted eye. Shares the summoner's vision, and allows for enough communication to use the Support role actions at any distance. Additionally, Fatty cannot be flanked while in the same zone as the Summoner.


UA2: Veteran of Warfare (Aspect)
Fatty is an old cat. He got fat and he's pretty washed out, but he's served many masters, and understands the battlefield very well.
Grants the Strategist perk. Treat his ranks in Genjutsu Training as Strategy Training ranks, to the maximum of 4. Strategy Specialization cannot be purchased, and any further perks must be bought separately.


UA3: Doujutsu - Mabyogan (Gambit)
Left eye of the bake-neko. Carries a curse of misfortune.
Genjutsu-based. Costs 4 Chakra and 4+3X Grit to activate, +X ASB to the Genjutsu roll.

This Gambit is a special Genjutsu, which can be completed with a single partial action. It can either be performed as a regular Genjutsu, or, being single-action, can be used as a defensive jutsu, also through the Support role, by rolling Genjutsu+Genjutsu Training+1 upfront. In either case, it must be performed as this Gambit, and cannot be used outside of it. If used offensively, it works automatically, like any Genjutsu, but if defense with it fails, it fails to work. If the defense is succesful, it proceeds to Grit Lock the caster, and work as any Genjutsu from there.
The Jutsu has two twists: Pinwheel Eyes, as befiting an eye-focus doujutsu technique, and a special Twist, Curse of the Cat, which cannot be used anywhere else.

Mabyogan Release [CC: Gambit /Rng: Burst 20, one person /Spd: 3, Partial Action /Eff: Grit Lock, Pinwheel Eyes, Curse of the Cat]

Pinwheel Eyes (Twist, normally Requires "Kekkei Genkai: Sharingan Eye" or "Kekkei Genkai Sharingan Eye (Acquired)"): Instead of an ostentatious display of light or something like that you choose to hypnotize with your clan's eyes. This effect changes the range and is not usable as a Twist unless you use it as a Warp. You may use your Genjutsu on a single target that you can clearly see and that can see you. If you pay double the cost of your Genjutsu you may use it as a "Counter" with a successful "Genjutsu Training" roll against their "Attack", so long as you are not suffering any penalties from their enhanced speed.
WARP-While this Twist cannot be used like a Twist normally, if you pay the Warp cost you may cause them to feel horrific dread of your powerful ocular techniques. You are considered to have "Aura of Malice" against the target for the duration of the encounter and whenever you meet this shinobi again.

Curse of the Cat: 1s rolled by the target do not provide double successes, save for Genjutsu Release rolls. The affected loses the Lucky trait if they have it, for the duration of the Genjutsu. Furthermore, the first roll that the target performs after being affected is rolled twice, and they are forced to pick the worse result, even if it is the Genjutsu Release roll. If the Jutsu has been used defensively, this effect is considered expended in order to divert the attack, but the rest of the Twist still applies.
WARP - Additionally, if the Genjutsu is not broken before combat is over, and the affected is not a cat, this Warp may be used. If it is, the affected treats all feline creatures they encounter as if they possessed Aura of Malice at rank equivalent to that of the Genjutsu's caster, for the next year of their life.

As you may suspect, sheets can get pretty long in this game, especially for summoners or people who can use people who all get their own gimmicks too.

[SpoonyViking]

What type of game is it? Is it PBP, or is it a more traditional tabletop experience?

[Ratman]

It's a pretty classic roleplaying game with more tactical combat than usual (that can take an entire session, as it goes). It gets more rocket-taggy as you go up in power, so it goes. I guess you could compare it to Mutants and Masterminds, but now I am confident in saying it's less broken than M&M.

The thing is that since it focuses on espionage and power struggle between the villages (once you're not a Genin anyway), you generally want to try avoiding combat, because you're playing for the most part mooks from minor clans or no clans, and have to earn those gimmicks. If you pick the wrong fights, you're eventually going to run into some bullshit snowflake ubermensch with some bloodline ability like Dust Release that just kills you when they look at you funny. Or, well, a guy with 7 different Doujutsu in his head. I've gotten a PC cut to ribbons before, fighting a puppeteer, upon taking like 400 damage (three times their total health) and 30 instances of poison, which would have gotten them killed five times over every turn they ticked.

So it flips to the other side of that problem: the only slightly annoying thing as a GM is that you have to make mostly complete sheets for enemies, and the players will make every effort to kill them from stealth or flank them to death with shadow clones, or just run away if they don't think it's going to be an easy fight. Outside of the Chuunin exam tournaments there aren't a lot of encounters where two sides start on two sides of the map and take turns running at each other. Right now I'm running a Hidden Mist game and one of the players made a Kaguya, who are pretty overpowered in combat, but at least I am happy that I get to use all my chuuni material.

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Oh, we're playing on roll20, it's a complete tabletop system, not a forum game. Using discord for IC, but that's just me, other GMs lay out the entire thing on roll20.

[castor212]

it's practically a given that you already lock in Stealth, Sleight of Hand, and Deception.

why?

I get stealth. But SLH and Deception feels more like an RP decision. Point buy-wise, I've made Scout rogue who is an expert perceptive survivalist, or an Arcane Trickster rogue who is amazing at investigation and great at perception. Both dumped Charisma, and both works fine not having any social skill since they have a different team member that can do that for the team, while contributing in a different way.

I don't think it's a given skill so much as a character choice. Am I missing something here?

[Deathhappens]

why?

I get stealth. But SLH and Deception feels more like an RP decision. Point buy-wise, I've made Scout rogue who is an expert perceptive survivalist, or an Arcane Trickster rogue who is amazing at investigation and great at perception. Both dumped Charisma, and both works fine not having any social skill since they have a different team member that can do that for the team, while contributing in a different way.

I don't think it's a given skill so much as a character choice. Am I missing something here?

I was fairly generalising, since of course you won't be playing the same character every time you roll a Rogue, but generally speaking when you play the sneaky underhanded guy you expect to be skilled at being sneaky and underhanded. That means being able to tell a lie (and you NEED that proficiency bonus, since Charisma is another potential dump stat for you) and picking a pocket (which, iirc, you can only do if you're proficient in Sleight of Hand).
I focused a lot on Perception earlier because of the aforementioned paradox of the (potentially) naive Cleric being so much better at noticing things than the (potentially) paranoid Rogue, but this is really a slight against 5e's skill system as a whole. Sure, the lower DC's mean you have a better chance at succeeding at a skill you're not great at, but the flat proficiency bonus means it's also hard to specialise in specific skills unless you invest your Ability Scores unwisely, and Rogue has traditionally been a class that needs to specialise in a LOT of skills to fill its niche.

Tl;dr 5e is easy to run and play at the expense of actually being able to make a character truly specialised at doing specific things (among other losses, like actual complex combat maneuvers, but tbh I'm not gonna miss tallying up an endless list of +/-2's every turn to determine my attack roll).

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Seven Diablo sheets were submitted for consideration for the new slot. Here is the breakdown of the submitted classes:

2 Assassins
2 Paladins
2 Druids
1 Sorceress

Now to start balancing my scales...

THE SUSPENSE IS KILLING US HERE MAC

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World of Five Nations.

It's not such a big deal for me, but I'm running my second campaign, and already played in two as a player, both to completion. Much as with FFG Star Wars, it turns out that Naruto is a really good setting to play wizard ninja Metal Gear games in. As long as you remove, well, Naruto. And anything else about it you don't like, like tailed beasts and senju/uchiha being the only clans that matter and konoha being the only village that matters. And ancient aliens from outer space.

What I linked isn't really current version, that's because it's worked on. We've been fixing up the system's nicks for a while now and it's starting to become actually pretty solid. An accidental lovechild of /tg/'s, it might very well be the most anime system ever made. It lives and breathes teleports behind you and nothing personnel. The spoiler posted is one of its core mechanics, where every character gets to create several special snowflake ways in which they can totally break the game's rules, as long as they work for it. Thing is, enemies tend to have their own gimmicks.

If you're unironically interested in playing, I can drop you a discord link or something.

I've never been much of a Naruto fan,TBH, but the way you describe the game actually makes it sound interesting. Sure, fire away.

[Saiga]

World of Five Nations.

It's not such a big deal for me, but I'm running my second campaign, and already played in two as a player, both to completion. Much as with FFG Star Wars, it turns out that Naruto is a really good setting to play wizard ninja Metal Gear games in. As long as you remove, well, Naruto. And anything else about it you don't like, like tailed beasts and senju/uchiha being the only clans that matter and konoha being the only village that matters. And ancient aliens from outer space.

What I linked isn't really current version, that's because it's worked on. We've been fixing up the system's nicks for a while now and it's starting to become actually pretty solid. An accidental lovechild of /tg/'s, it might very well be the most anime system ever made. It lives and breathes teleports behind you and nothing personnel. The spoiler posted is one of its core mechanics, where every character gets to create several special snowflake ways in which they can totally break the game's rules, as long as they work for it. Thing is, enemies tend to have their own gimmicks.

If you're unironically interested in playing, I can drop you a discord link or something.

Yeah, that sounds incredibly interesting. I really like Naruto's setting, would love to play an RPG set in it.

[castor212]

well
maybe its just me

but i feel like rogue being the sneaky underhanded guy is a trope-induced generalization in and of itself

but thats neither here nor there

[Deathhappens]

I mean, every class has to have some base flavor to it, right? Like the Bard works around inspiring people, or the Druid works with Nature, etc. You could make an emo Bard that depresses people rather than cheering them up (*cough*Dirgesinger*cough*) or a Druid who is more at home in a desert rather than a forest, but the core concept is still there. The Rogue is a guy who uses every trick in the book, whatever spin you put on it later. At least that's how I see it.

[Saiga]

I think 5E has done a good job at breaking the Rogue out of the trappings of being a thief or assassin (well okay the PHB was literally just this, but Xanathar's tho) with stuff like the Scout, Inquisitive or Swashbuckler being characters I'd make that wouldn't necessary take any of stealth, sleight of hand or deception. I think there are other concepts - an enforcer, acrobat etc. that would also fit the class but not need those skills.

Also I've never heard of Wis penalties being common for Rogues. Actually, since rogues are so SAD, it's easy to have a decent score in any one mental stat or even multiple if you want to generalize.

[Deathhappens]

You can run any concept you want, but really, that just makes matters worse for you skill-wise: Inquisitive doesn't want Stealth or Acrobatics, but now you're stuck trying to fit Intelligence (for Investigation and relevant Knowledge checks) and Wisdom (Insight and Perception) into your build, to say nothing of Deception or Persuasion for interrogation. You want to play Scout, sure, you might not need Sleight anymore, but now you live and die depending on your (still meager) Stealth score. Past edition Rogue was a skill monkey that could do several things well or a couple of things great; 5e Rogue is still relied upon for most of these skills but can use none of them effectively.

As for attributes, you want STR at least neutral to avoid getting tripped/grappled to death, DEX is your main stat, CON is a must for a primarily melee class (sure, you can SA with a shortbow, but your damage output suffers). You can't really afford to invest more than a +1 to a mental attribute, maybe +2 if you dump another one. But you eventually need all of them, and that's a problem because your proficiency bonus won't be enough to cover the difference, if you even have proficiency on the skill in question.

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tl;dr pretty much the only skill checks you have good odds to succeed on are the ones on your main stat, which works for the Barbarian who just wanna smash but less so for the skillmonkey Rogue.

[castor212]

Why would a Scout stealth be meager?
My Scout has really great Stealth, really great Survival, really great Perception, great Nature, great Investigation, really great Acrobatics.

An Inquisitive can let the Bard/Sorcerer/Warlock do the interrogation while he's at the back, gauging the interrogated's response. An inquisitive can have great Investigation, really great Insight/Perception, and still has leftovers to be really great at Stealth or great at knowledge skills.

Tripped and grappled can be escaped using DEX. My 8 STR rogues never had any problems.

tl;dr pretty much the only skill checks you have good odds to succeed on are the ones on your main stat, which works for the Barbarian who just wanna smash but less so for the skillmonkey Rogue.

CMIIW it feels like you want rogues to be great at ALL skill but that feels like a bad system balance.

Besides, from my own 5e experience, rogues that dump STR and either INT/WIS/CHA can be really great at DEX and either be quite great at 2 of the mental skill, or be really great at 1 mental skill and great at the other one mental skill. Which is line with your

Past edition Rogue was a skill monkey that could do several things well or a couple of things great

Your experience with rogue seems to be very, very different from mine.


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Hm, these dissonance between my image of rogue and your image of rogue is probably because i never played previous editions before.

[Saiga]

Going Int or Wis doesn't make your skills suffer at all. A Rogue doesn't need to be the deception/persuasion/intimidation guy, other classes can handle that better and in such a group it would be better to go for other skills (which the rogue can do). I don't see any reason why a Scout needs stealth to survive - just because the subclass is scout doesn't mean they literally have to separate from the party and scout ahead, it works just as well as a mobile attacker who is a nature/tracking expert. 5e can use plenty of skills effectively, as expertise goes further than ability scores.

You're also dead wrong about strength. You can oppose trip/grapple attempts with Acrobatics (dex skill), meaning the only forced movement a rogue has to worry about is strength saves. These are quite rare, and honestly, the difference between -1 and 0 is laughable and will rarely change the outcome. Strength is an eaaaaasy dump stat for Rogues, unless they're dedicated athletics builds (which requires an MC).

Dex is the only stat Rogues truly need. Uncanny Dodge, Evasion, Cunning Action, or subclass abilities Fancy Footwork and Skirmisher all do more for the Rogue's survivability than a few points in con. I'm not saying to dump it, but it's hardly mandatory. Meanwhile, using ranged as a rogue doesn't necessitate reducing damage output at all - Crossbow Expert actually results in more damage than dual wielding swords. Even without that, the difference between a shortbow and a rapier is negligible, the damage is all in sneak attack. It's trivially easy to have +2 in two mental stats, or +2/+1 in two mental and +2 in con, without dumping any other mental stat.

Proficiency alone won't cover the difference, but expertise will - at first level, if you have even a +1 in a stat, expertise will bring you to +5. That's equal to any class who started with a 16 in their main stat and proficiency in the skill in question. If you have a +2 (super easy to have), you're now better them the classes that . Naturally, at 4 and 8 classes that main mental stats will pull ahead, but then fall behind again at 5 and 9 as the proficiency bonus increase improves their expertise. And eventually, expertise actually outstrips ability scores, making expertise even better. And this isn't going into the class features Rogues have that make their skill checks more reliable even than those with the same modifier as them.

Not to mention Rogues get a bonus ASI, so they have an easier time raising secondary attributes or grabbing feats than anyone bar Fighter.

You absolutely don't need all attributes as a wrong, they're one of the most SAD classes in the game!

Rogues in 5e absolutely embody "can do a few things really well, or a lot of things decently". Expertise can flat out break the bounded accuracy of the skill system if they use it with skills they have a high ability score in, or it can just make them good at skills they're not as invested in.

edit: Also yeah what the hell, Stealth wouldn't be meager for any Rogue that wanted it. It keys off their main stat and passive perception is typically very low for monsters. Even without taking it as an expertise they'd still have a strong Stealth modifier.

[SpoonyViking]

Rogues also get a bonus ASI? Huh.

To be fair to DH, I think he's used to 3E's paradigm where Rogues could reasonably get a lot of skills (although Factotums were still better at being skill monkeys).

[Twelveseal]

That was really all the Factotum was, in a sense; skill monkey that pinch-hits for an absent role. 3e Rogues had their own niche.

DH's position seems like it's a more general complaint about how Skill Proficiency works in 5e... which is to say that there are few Skills but no one Class becomes the go-to for all Skill Checks, and no one really gets to completely blow the Skill Cap out of the water.

[Zurvan]

...but thats a good thing

[Deathhappens]

That was really all the Factotum was, in a sense; skill monkey that pinch-hits for an absent role. 3e Rogues had their own niche.

DH's position seems like it's a more general complaint about how Skill Proficiency works in 5e... which is to say that there are few Skills but no one Class becomes the go-to for all Skill Checks, and no one really gets to completely blow the Skill Cap out of the water.

It's not about one class becoming the go-to for skill usage; divorcing INT from skill growth is one of the few things I agreed with in this system, even if it did make INT a lot worse with in turn (Wizards don't really need cool side-effects to boosting their main casting stat; they're Wizards.) Rogue is just affected more by this particular complaint because it IS, by nature, a more skill-reliant class, and the fact that they get Expertise reflects this. My overall problem with 5e is that, to reiterate, unless you make some unwise ASI investments, you have a 30% chance to fail a DC 10 "Easy" check in a skill you have proficiency, but no ability bonus in, all the way to level 9.