(New RPG) Rogue: Clandestine Operations (comments are welcome)

[Kensen]

The characters always know how to use the special equipment given to them. The first activation clause is there mainly for the NPCs, or if you happen to find a new gadget and you try to activate it blindly.

[Kensen]

Equipment and weapon lists updated! Minor updates to skills! (No new skills yet but I'm working on it.)

Anyway, I have some good news and some bad news.

Spoiler

The good news is that I made the cut for the top 32 in an RPG design contest, which is totally awesome. The bad news is that the coming weeks will be so hectic that it's impossible for me to GM a playtest now, so I'll have to postpone the second part of the playtest... again.

Meanwhile, I'll do what preparations I can for the next mission so that we can get started once the contest is over.

[SamBurke]

EPIC.

Is there anything we can do to help the game out? Post reviews? Bribe Judges?

[Vixsor Lumin]

Congratulatons!!!!! I'm not surprised that you made the cut, this is an amazing game! On that note though, I'm very sad that its been postponed but I understand. Good luck in the contest and I'm very excited for the next mission.


EDIT: ^^ yes haha if we can help please just say something

[Cieyrin]

Originally Posted by Kensen

Equipment and weapon lists updated! Minor updates to skills! (No new skills yet but I'm working on it.)

Anyway, I have some good news and some bad news.

Spoiler

The good news is that I made the cut for the top 32 in an RPG design contest, which is totally awesome. The bad news is that the coming weeks will be so hectic that it's impossible for me to GM a playtest now, so I'll have to postpone the second part of the playtest... again.

Meanwhile, I'll do what preparations I can for the next mission so that we can get started once the contest is over.

Congrats on placing in the RPG Superstar 2012. You'll be the second person to place in this year's contest that I have a personal knowledge of. May I ask which item you submitted?

[Kensen]

Cieyrin, I'm trying to maintain some degree of anonymity on these boards (and I try not to derail this thread from its original purpose), so I'll send you a PM with the item's name. :)

Sam and Vixsor, if you have an account on www.paizo.com, you can vote on entries (round 2 voting begins on Tuesday if I recall correctly). I'd greatly appreciate any votes if it is not too much trouble. But of course, please vote for any entries you like - I also appreciate fair play and don't want to win by manipulating the votes. Send me a PM if you need more info.

EDIT: Btw, the contest is about the Pathfinder RPG, an offshoot of D&D 3.5. Round 2 is about organizations which are mostly flavor text, so it's easy to evaluate the entries even if you're not familiar with the rules.

[SamBurke]

I happen to have an account, so I'll give some other RPGs a look over to feel honest, then vote for you. :small tongue:

EDIT: Which one are you..?

[Eldest]

Would you mind sending me a PM with the name of the item as well? I understand the anonymity thing, this account handle is completely separate from my main online thing. No real reason for it for me, just wanted to keep it separate.

[Kensen]

Sent!

So, anyway... back to Rogue: Clandestine Operations. Are there more weapons or other equipment you'd like me to add on the list? I haven't added the portable polybolos yet because I haven't been able to decide what its stats should be. I'd recommend that we use either the crossbow or arbalest as the base weapon, and then add a new feature, like I did with the collapsible bow and the hidden blade.

[Eldest]

I have enough stuff to suit me for now, I just need to know if you are adding skills and how much XP we got to start working on updating Lydia.
For the other Rooks: Should we plan out what we're going to cover now, and any new gear we get? Lydia has her four things, she can't expand to something else if there are new skills.

[SamBurke]

My thought: It can fire 5 shots before being reloaded. When it needs to be reloaded, it takes two full rounds of no other actions, TN 20 Gadgetry check.

It should also be ludicrously heavy, maybe a large object?

[Kensen]

I wouldn't change the size category. Sure, it's heavier than the standard crossbow, but not that much bigger. Crossbows already have the "brace" quality, which gives you a +1 bonus on attacks when you brace the weapon against something, so I'd work from there, making it a medium size weapon with free reload, magazine with 5 bolts, +3 (total bonus) on attacks when braced against something, but only +1 when it's not because it's very hard to rotate the windlass when you're trying to aim. It seems a bit underpowered for a Rare item but far too technologically advanced to be Common, so I'd have the magazine change take only 1 round not 2. You just pull the empty one out and slam a new one in.

How does that sound to you?

[SamBurke]

Originally Posted by Kensen

I wouldn't change the size category. Sure, it's heavier than the standard crossbow, but not that much bigger. Crossbows already have the "brace" quality, which gives you a +1 bonus on attacks when you brace the weapon against something, so I'd work from there, making it a medium size weapon with free reload, magazine with 5 bolts, +3 (total bonus) on attacks when braced against something, but only +1 when it's not because it's very hard to rotate the windlass when you're trying to aim. It seems a bit underpowered for a Rare item but far too technologically advanced to be Common, so I'd have the magazine change take only 1 round not 2. You just pull the empty one out and slam a new one in.

How does that sound to you?

Sounds great! I'll be using it, foh shoh.

[Kensen]

Excellent! I like the new Rare items. They're not just "masterwork" versions of the standard item. They add a twist that makes them unique but not gamebreaking. Thanks for the awesome ideas!

[Eldest]

This has not been abandoned, correct? Just working on your other homebrew?

[Kensen]

While the contest is over for me, there have been other things like adventure writing that has kept my attention away from Rogue: Clandestine Operations. I still intend to continue this project, sooner or later. Sorry to keep you waiting.

[Eldest]

Aw. I liked your entry, but I forgot to vote for it. And I haven't checked (chuck? looked at?) up on the contest for a while now. Sorry! And I doubt you would have abandoned this, it's just I wanted to make sure. Tis an awesome idea and I want to play again.

[Vixsor Lumin]

I'm sorry to hear that you didn't make it Kensen better lock next you're though, right? Also I really liked playing this and cant wait for the next game

[Kensen]

Arise, Rogue! Arise from thy slumber!

So, after a long hiatus from homebrewing, I decided to dig this game system up from its early grave. Below are some changes to the rules (not yet updated on page one). Comments, questions, suggestions?

Wounds and recovery

There are three severity classes for hits: Glancing blow (roll equals TN), hit (roll exceeds TN), critical hit (roll is equal to or greater than TN+10).

The effect of each hit type depends on the attack that was used. Different weapon types have different attack types available. The different attack types and their effects (glancing/hit/crit)are listed below.

Lethal (default): staggering/dying/dead (With most weapons, if you don't specify an attack type, you are using this attack. You try to kill your opponent.)
Knockout: staggering/unconscious/dying (You attempt to render the target unconscious.)
Wounding: distracted/wounded/dying (You try to inflict a flesh wound to deliver poison or to win a duel to first blood)
Disarming: cannot use weapon for 1 round/disarm/cripple
Crippling (arm): disabled for 1 round/disabled/sever (dying)
Crippling (leg): slowed for 1 round/slowed/sever (dying)
Stunning: staggering/stunned/unconscious (targeting solar plexus, armpit, groin, knee or other body part to inflict so much pain the target is unable to act for a while)

The effects are described below:

staggering: You are limited to 1 action on your round, and you take a -5 penalty to all checks.
stunned: You cannot take any actions or speak.
unconscious: You cannot take actions and you are not aware of your surroundings.
dying: You are unconscious and in need of immediate medical attention or you die.
dead: You can no longer be revived.
distracted: You take a -2 penalty to all checks for 1 round.
wounded: You are bleeding. You are also distracted for 1 round.
disabled: You cannot use your arm.
slowed: Each square you move costs 2 squares of movement.
bandaged: You are fully functional once again, but cannot be revived again without long-term care.
(comatose: You are unconscious and stabilized but cannot be revived without long-term care.)

New action types

Revive (1 round): You help an adjacent character to recover from the dying or unconscious condition. The revived character is staggering for 1 round, and distracted for 1 round after that. Can be revived only once per adventure. (Optional rule: Until the end of the scenario, the revived character takes a -1 penalty to all checks for each point the attack roll exceeded the TN.)

Dodge (1 action): Make a Mobility check to move 1 square and negate an attack. If there is no adjacent square you can move into, you cannot dodge.

Ready (1 action): You can ready an attack or other action to occur in response to a triggering condition. Your action occurs just before the triggering action/condition.

New weapons

Main gauche: Like dagger but also grants +1 to melee defence when dual wielded with another weapon. Requires licence.

[Vixsor Lumin]

HURRAAAAY ITS BACK!!!!!!! Kinda I like the additions, especially the wounds and recovery system. how does dodging work? Do I declare that I'm dodging for the round and lose an action? Or do i use it as a reaction and lose an action on my next turn? Can I declare a dodge and ready an action? It makes sense to be able to, but then you could say some thing like, "I'm going to dodge if the Invictus foot soldier attacks me, and I ready an action to attack him if he attacks me." Then (since the readied action occurs before the trigger) the dodge could be wasted, or I just got a full extra turn. Either way seems bad.

[Kensen]

Dodging works a lot like parrying. You use one (or both) of your actions to prepare a dodge action. You can negate the first successful attack against you that occurs before the beginning of your next turn (or two attacks if you used both of your actions). In a PbP game, it's useful to make the Mobility roll when you declare the dodge action and put it inside spoiler tags so the GM won't have to wait for you to make a roll later or do it for you.

If you kill the attacker with a readied action, you can still use your dodge against another opponent. You don't have to specify whose attacks you're dodging.

EDIT: Oh and by the way, I think I've solved most of the problems with the rules that were bugging me after the first playtest. With the new rules for reviving fallen allies, I don't have to add any new skills which is good because the current skill set covers pretty much everything you need in a stealth/espionage game. Some adjustments may be needed later, but at least there are no major problems.

So I'm thinking I might post a recruitment thread sometime soon, if there's still enough people interested in playtesting.

EDIT2: Now I've copy-pasted the new information in the first three posts in the thread. I guess it could use some editing, but at least the info is now there... I've been thinking about what would be the ideal format for the rules, though. A HTML page, a wiki, or a PDF... the messageboards don't have so many layout options, and it's a bit inconvenient to edit the text because the text editing field is really rather small.

[Eldest]

STILL INTERESTED!
Quite seriously, if you had left the system as is I would have requested to take over making it. I like this system.

[Yitzi]

Still interested.

[SamBurke]

I was still subbed, actually.

Interest still here.

[Snowfire]

Oh sweet god yes.

Still interested!

[Vixsor Lumin]

So much interest, that I was actually thinking about this a couple days ago haha. I think a pdf wood be best. Its more...professional

[Kensen]

That's good, many enough to run a second playtest.

There's another rules change, I forgot to mention it above: To move faster than 5 squares per action, you no longer need to make Mobility rolls. You simply add +1 to your speed for each 5 ranks you have in Mobility (5=+1, 10=+2, 15=+3, 20=+4).

[Vixsor Lumin]

Alrighty, now just to go find my stats and check my Mobility

[SamBurke]

Oh, in other news: I gave this to one of my GMs in a modern game, and he liked the system a lot. We were running behind, and I had a character for it in under 5; so we played.

So far, the game is very, very, slick. Every action moves with intense ease.

[unosarta]

This seems fantastic!

One question I had; how exactly does Rogue deal with a knowledgeable character? I mean, you could potentially do it with Manipulation, but there is no in game way to differentiate a character who is incredibly knowledgeable from a dumb character. Is this intentional? Did you want that to be more of an out of character thing? I ask solely because the knowledgeable character who is a master manipulator is one of my favorite character archetypes to play, and I found myself disappointed that I couldn't recreate it in the system.