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Gaming Advice / Re: Best Online system?
« on: September 13, 2012, 10:00:36 AM »
How about the GUMSHOE system? Does it have any magic for the PCs?
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For any sort of modern setting with 'magic' of whatever form, if you want a narrative system, I recommend a good hard look at Dresden Files RPG. It does basically everything nWoD does and more, only better. The FATE system it's based on might take some getting used to, but it's the best narrativist system I've had the pleasure of playing and GMing with. While its books are very focused on the Dresdenverse that the game is based on, it's nearly trivial to adapt to many other settings - if so inclined, you can very easily recreate the nWoD splats in spirit if not in exact mechanics, for example. Other FATE-based games may work in the same vein, but DFRPG is the only one I've personally played.
As online play goes, it's hard to gauge what will be quick and what will be slow, really, but mechanics-light systems in general will run faster than mechanics-heavy ones for obvious reasons. In DFRPG, the chat environment can be very useful for working things like aspect invocations and maneuvers out as a group, which the game heavily encourages.
For other alternatives... Mutants & Masterminds will work with practically any setting, but is probably less than ideal for online play, being very involved and mechanics-oriented (though a chat enviornment can help with descriptors in a similar way to aspects).
Modern, or postmodern? If the latter, then I submit Magipunk.
Ah, then you might have problems yeah. I think even WoD games handle having regular conflict better.
I was thinking of the 20-level setup beguiler 6/swiftblade 10/abjurant champion 4. Look under the "Skill" Blades spoiler here.
But would a full-sorcerer or full-wizard be up to par with other classes? Are they good enough all by themselves? Not that I want to be a melee fighter, but I don't want to die in combat either....That's why you have to look at...Where I can find Mystic Shield?Empire of Shade.
What kind of campaign are you guys interested in running? B/c, as Veekie and I have both indicated, saying "I want to play GURPS" is kind of vacuous.
TC, how do you feel about a skills/control/melee triple threat, albeit one that's a little slow to mature? A beguiler/swiftblade/abjurant champion should provide you with a drastically different experience from a warmage, while still being an arcanist and retaining the tactical flexibility of being a spontaneous caster.
Even a full caster (like wizard XX) can go melee with the right spell selection. You only have to care about improving your defenses really high. I.e. Ghostform+Mystic Shield (for immunity to damage for CL rounds) is good at high levels, then you can go melee and use spells like Death by Thorns (it allows a save but even if your enemy makes the save he will be most likely dead).
But you said low levels, no idea there, but Combust is a really nice low-level melee-spell. I used it auto-empowered on my Wu Jen (that damage was crazy, 68 average damage on level 7 with a level 2 spell).
@phaedrusxy: Daggerspell Mage could work, too, while we're at it... They are melee and not beeing seen is a pretty good defense.
Well, the worst part of it is probably the fans whose answer to every roleplaying question is to 'Use GURPS' .
Cleric or Druid. They do melee better than fighters.
Flanking Foil is an abomination of the greatest order, and as a rogue lover, it infuriates me that it exists. It isn't a nerf to rogues, it completely neuters them, it'd be like a feat that made spellcasters lose the ability to cast spells (and that worked at range, because unlike Rogues, who in PF can't really do the ranged SA thing, casters don't need to melee)! The DM refused to ban it when I asked, but I will not sink to that level of bullshit even if faced with a sneak attacker, it just isn't right. *cue link to Honor Before Reason trope*
Better idea I think is to go with Rejakor's suggestion, multiple foes that ping through his defenses, or around him while he blockades a few. Wolf pack tactics, where several enemies limit his mobility physically(say a pair flanking him), and then other high mobility enemies harry his allies.+1. I actually play a supermount character whose AC is actually kind of too high (45-50 at level 13), so I've given my DM a list of options to get around that. I could post it if you're interested. I like things like Emerald Razor and Wands of True Strike b/c they make me feel like my AC has a real effect -- the baddies are wasting actions, etc. so that even if I do get hit, I'm nerfing them. I'm also quite good at taking hits, which also makes me ok with that tactic.
The other one, as others have noted, is the ganging up tactics. If a swarm of baddies have to waste their actions to accumulate enough Aid Another actions to hit me, then I also feel pretty good about myself. It lets the PC take damage, which is I take it part of the goals of this thread, but it also helps him feel awesome: look, it took 15 of them working together to even scratch me!
how bout leaving ac alone and attack w/ will saves.
Better idea I think is to go with Rejakor's suggestion, multiple foes that ping through his defenses, or around him while he blockades a few. Wolf pack tactics, where several enemies limit his mobility physically(say a pair flanking him), and then other high mobility enemies harry his allies.