Rage

[LordSmerf]

In our little Homebrew world of Trithofar we have a race of beings called Kunjels. They're sort of a cross between cats and people, but these are big cats... They average about an inch or two taller and maybe 20 lbs. heavier than humans. What's pertinent here is that they have a racial Rage. High tension situations can send them into a beserker fury. This is a big deal as it means that they can punch through walls or chase you down and beat you to death with that arm you cut off of them...

Will (Mulciber) had a great suggestion on how to handle this. High tension situation, sounds like Steel test to me! Doing heroic things, sounds like Grayshifting to me! Essentially, if you have the Rage you gain a new Hesitation option: Rage.

Note: this is no precisely the suggestion put forward, but this is how i'm presenting it... it's by no means final...

Rage: When someone slips over into the Rage they lose all conscious control of themselves. Someone using the Rage Hesitation option hesitates for however many actions as they slip over the edge. This is mechanically identicale to Standing and Drooling. Once hesitation is over you may choose any Skill, Stat, or Attribute (with the Exeption of Reflexes; i think that would be too powerful) to Grayshift. This includes Mortal Wound. We haven't really discussed a way to determine how long this lasts... Maybe Will exponent Exchanges... Anyway, i think this is really cool, Grayshifting Mortal Wound especially as it allows you to shrug off a signifigant amount of damage that would otherwise seriously decrease your effectiveness. Of course a B10 wound is a B10 wound after you come out of the Rage so you might just drop dead...

As i wrote this up a secondary option occurred to me... simply Grayshift both Power and Forte (instead of whatever you want) which in turn Grayshifts Mortal Wound. This also allows for some pretty cool weapon breaking feats...

Comments, as always, are welcome.

Thomas

[LordSmerf]

I figured someone might possibly be interested in the results of what little playtesting we've done with this so far.

The Rage as we tested it (Shadeshifts Power and Forte, thereby shifting Mortal Wound, until the source of the Rage is eliminated) is incredibly powerful. The Rage is useful only for short term (think under an hour) goals. But in combat, it means that you can whip the crap out of your enemies. We essentially had a single Kunjel with 5 power and 5 Forte and B5 Reflexes (already pretty powerful) in the grip of the Rage eliminate a 4 man commando squad. He had some help: namely a number of incredible dice rolls (4 and 5 successes on 4 dice, the inability to fail an armor save, etc.). But in the end what helped the most was that it took a B5 to wound him Superficially and a B8 to wound him Lightly... It was pretty ugly...

Also, we were adding 2 to Power for determining IMS with weapons due to Gray Power. The book specifically says to do so for Unarmed Strikes, and Will seemed to remember it being mentioned in the forums somewhere to do the same for Weapons, which makes sense, but hurts (B10 Mark)...

Anyway, we actually kind of like the way this works, but be warned, if you use these rules for Raging of any kind for yourselves, note that it will make you incredibly powerful in combat... At least until the Rage shuts off and that B7 that was Light becomes a Midi...

Thomas

[luke]

very cool. it seems like it played out perfectly, and you have unlocked one of the secret joys/pains of the system: the gray mortal wound. It's great when you have it, not so good when your opponent does.

Still though, those guards could have helped each other out, tackled him to the ground and pinned him. It would have taken a little luck on their part, but it's completely possible with the scope of the rules.

glad you had fun, and just to tease you a bit: I think there will be some beasties in the Monster Burner to give your heroic Kunjel a run for his money. And I think that's a good thing.

thanks!
-Luke

[LordSmerf]

I may have given the wrong impression. The Kunjel was an NPC, and he was defending himself from the predations of a all-PC commando team that just finished slaughtering some of his buddies and his captain... Oh, and we were burning his barracks down, with the rest of his buddies inside and us at the door to kill them while they tried to escape...

The big thing was: our GM just doesn't know how to roll poorly, it doesn't matter who's dice he's using either... :)

PS. I'm excited to see what you have coming down the pipe in terms of Monsters...

Thomas

[Kublai]

I, too, thought The Kunjel was the PC! :lol:

Oh, those poor commandos! :oops:

[LordSmerf]

Indeed so... Despite the fact that we had one with Gray Agility no one was working with less than a B5 the real clencher was that he had decent armor (Plated Chain) and we were all being stealthy so we had some leather... Needless to say even when we were landing strikes it was pretty ugly...

One thing though... Earlier in the session the Gray Agility guy (who was serving as our room Sweeper) Made an obstacle 7 Throw with 6 Dice and a Fate Point... 6 Successes with 2 6s then 2 successes with a 6 then 1 success... Challenging Test! But obstacles like that should be expected when you are sprinting and so is your target...

We also had our sniper sneak up right behind someone and put a B13 through the back of his neck Pointblank... (Interestingly enough, the action this was scripted on one of the other commandos scripted: "Help Sniper shoot Enemy Captain." We decided that he just shoced him right back onto the crossbow.

We also had our Stealthy Killer guy sneaking up behind people and stabbing them in the eyes or slitting their throats... We're still working on rules for killing people from behind with a knife or garote... We're leaning toward Steel tests for Garotes in which failure means you can either go Faint or Stand and Drool...

Thomas

[luke]

i don't want to divert this thread, but if you're having issues with "sneak attacks" and what not, you should start another thread about it. Pete and I would be happy to answer any questions you have.

-L