General Skill Prerequisites Legendary in Society Frequency Once per day
Let’s see if the government will help. You can spend one hour discussing your needs with a local official and attempt a Society check. The DC is usually a standard-difficulty DC of your level. If you succeed, you gain the help of the local official and a NPC of that can help with a CR equal to 3/4 your level, rounded down. This NPC helps you for one week or until the task is completed.
TL; DR– Good, but this doesn’t cover most of the basics. 80%
Basics– What’s your statement? The Magnus Archives is a podcast that was adapted to the cypher system. Players take the roles of investigators looking into paranormal events. WIll you find what’s causing all these strange events?
Base Mechanics- This is the cypher system. Players state an action, and the GM states a difficulty. The difficulty times 3 is what the player needs to roll on a d20. If the player wants to lower the DC, players can spend points from a pool for mind, body, and dexterity to reduce the level. The GM doesn’t roll dice!
And that’s it. It’s built on the basic cypher system.
Mechanics or Crunch– This book gives the very basics of the cypher system, but dont expect to play the game with this alone. You can’t build characters with this. Nor can you really run a game with this alone. You get the base mechanics of this game with a good explanation, but you get no options. It has pregenerated characters, which I love, but it’s very bare bones. 3.5/5
Theme or Fluff– There is more here, but it’s very basic. I don’t know what the Magnus Archives are and why there are statements. I know there are podcasts about it, and I’m interested in them now. But I don’t really know why or who is doing the investigating. What’s here will draw you in, but you will need the full book to get those answers. 3.5/5
Execution– Monte Cook Games does solid work in production. The book reads easily, has solid art, and is well laid out. Overall it’s just a well done book. 5/5
Summary– For the price of free, this is a good intro to the Magnus Archives. If I had paid for this, I would be upset. In a player’s guide, I expect a bit more character options and explanations to the game. This has a decent explanation, but no options. I also expect a bit more in terms of world building. I’m intrigued, but I have no answers to what is going on. As a product, this is a good book for production. I want a lot more, and all of that is found in the main game book. Worth a look at free if you want to see the basics of the system and world. 80%
Let’s learn about where these came from. When you attempt a check to learn about a creature using a non-Society skill check and succeed, not only do you learn about its weakness as normal, but the creature gains weakness 10 to all damage till the end of your next turn. You can only do this to a creature once per day, but you can attempt this against each creature you encounter. If you encounter multiple of a same creature, all creatures of the same type only gains weakness 10 to all damage till the end of your next turn, and you can not attempt this against another of the same creatures again that day.
Get those steps in. As an action, you can load an empty energy based clip into a slot in this item. After four hours of walking, you reload the clip. You can use the clip before four hours of walking but the clip is only reloaded by 1/4 increments, rounded down, for each full hour.
General Skill Prerequisites master in Society Frequency Three times per day Target Allies within 30 feet
The histories can lead us! Attempt a Society check. The DC is usually a standard-difficulty DC of your level. If you succeed, you and all allies within 30 feet gain a +1 competency bonus to attack rolls for one minute.
Why not use that pain? As an action, you can load an empty energy based clip into a slot in this item. When you are dealt energy damage, any damage you take in also used to reload the clip at the rate of 1 shot per 10 damage taken. Effects that reduce the damage you take also reduce the amount of energy converted to shots..
General Skill Prerequisites master in Society Frequency Three times per day
You have to know this if you learned history! When you make a recall knowledge action for a non-Society check, you can use Society in place of the normal required skill.
Basics– Welcome to the shadow war! In CthulhuTech, magic has returned to the world and it has merged with all the tech of the day. However, strange Gods and Cults now use this for their own goals. This will not end well for mankind! This book has several pre-generated characters and a walk through of a very simple adventure with mechanics to introduce the new version to new players.
Base mechanic- This game uses a d2 system. Basically you have a skill and an attribute. You roll dice equal to their total for an action. If you get odds, you fail on that die, and evens are successes. Get enough successes and good things happen. This goes all the way through to combat and chases. It’s a VERY simple system.
Mechanics or Crunch– This is a simple game intro for a simple game. But it works. This is not crazy complex with all kinds of modifiers. I’d put this closer to a Fate system. If you want rules lighter but with some choice, this might be the system for you. 5/5
Theme or Fluff– This adventure is good, but the layout is both good and annoying. The characters have their own sections which is nice. The GM doesn’t get a lot of introduction to the system before reading box text. The game primarily teaches about the world and mechanics by box text. This is good as an intro,but I still don’t know too much about the world itself. I also feel its not really tech-based any more. I feel this is just magic or even more closer to Persona with the characters basically using summons to fight. I’d like more tech and less Cthulhu in this game. 4/5
Execution– This works well. The book has separate character sheets, pictures, and a nice layout to make it easy for players. For the GM, there are nice sections to guide the GM so they can guide the players into the story. It flows easily and quickly for a fun one shot adventure. 5/5
Summary– I am intrigued by this. It’s fun and simple. I typically like more crunch, but this works well enough for what it wants to be. The world might be better served with more build up. There is story here, but I feel like I’m missing a lot. This is due to it being a quick start. I am interested in the full book, so it did its job. 93%
Concentrate Manipulate Mental Traditions Occult targets a creatures comes within five feet of you Defense Will save
Stay away! When a creature comes within five feet of you, you can force the target to make a Will save..
Critical Success The creature is unaffected. Success The target stops the action that moved it within five feet of you.. Failure The target stops the action that moved it within five feet of you. It then uses another action if able to take a stride action to move away from you. This action can provoke reactive strikes. Critical Failure The target stops the action that moved it within five feet of you. It then uses another action if able to take a stride action to move away from you and you determine the path the creature takes. This action can provoke reactive strikes.
You’ve learned how to get the max out of your weapons. When you score a critical effect, you may gain the base effect one additional time. As an example a technical flaming module would deal 3d10 persistent fire damage on a critical hit..
Throat Punch Games 