Author: fineyoungmisanthrope

Ring Side Report- RPG review of Raptor Ruckus RPG

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Product– Raptor Ruckus

System- Raptor Ruckus

Producer– Snapback game Studios

Price– FREE here  https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/epicrpgs/raptor-ruckus-rpg-0 

TL; DR– Super Simple Not-Jurassic Park fun!  98%

Basics–  Welcome employee!  Raptor Ruckus has you play different characters in REDACTED Park when things go wrong.  Let’s break down the pieces.

Core Mechanic- This is a d20 game where you add -3 to +6 to a roll.  Your average DC is a 12.  That’s it!

 Survival- Survival is a character trait and the leveling up mechanic.  You can spend survival to reduce the DC of a check,but you get that back later.  You can permanently lower your survival and you level up.

Crits and Chaos Tokens- If you roll five above a DC or 5 below, you critical.  Critical successes result in double damage, while critical failure results in the GM using the chaos charts.  These charts have RANDOM events happen.  Some are honestly good.  Some are crazy bad.  You can also trigger these with Chaos Tokens.  Chaos tokens are tokens everyone starts with; you get more when you critically succeed.  It’s fun randomness.

Panic- This game has a sanity mechanic.  You roll panic tests when things get crazy.  You gain panic and when you get two panic, you fumble on a 1 to 2 instead of always a 1.  When you hit five panic or fumble, you then roll on the panic table.

Hit Points and Tenacity- Hit points are the ones we know and love.  Do enough damage and things die.  Tenacity is like hit points, but for how much you want to keep going.  You do tenacity damage, and the target might decide to run away.  That human isn’t worth this much trouble or you’ve hidden so well the creature loses interest.

Turns- This game is decidedly old school.  You roll a 1d6.  Low?  Enemies go first.  High?  Humans.  Easy and quick.

Ok, that’s the basics.  Let’s review this.

Mechanics or Crunch– This is a very simple game for fast game play.  It’s as simple as a simple D20 can be.  I also love any game that has degrees of success for criticals.  You blow past a roll, you get a critical.  I also enjoy the simplicity of combat. The addition of tenacity really helps the game go past “punch till dead” and helps GMs know when an animal would be driven off.  You don’t need to kill everything to win.  And in a game of giant dinos, that’s even more important!  5/5

Theme or Fluff– This is the book I wish I had as a kid addicted to Jurassic Park.  It’s clearly wearing its influences as the book looks like the posters and props from the movie.  It’s pretty and really draws you into the theme of the world.  5/5

Execution– Snapback made a fun product, but here is where I’m an old fuddy duddy.  They lean HARD into the theme here making a solid product, but that always leads to a bit of style over substance as it might be a bit harder to follow all the pieces to completely understand how to play.  That’s a tiny gripe as the book is pretty, reads fast, is well laid out, and even has an adventure with several pre-gen characters.  The book was a bit harder to see all the pieces compared to some cleaner, more bland books, but this book is pretty!  4.75/5

Summary– I do love me some simple horror RPGs.  I don’t think I’d want to run this long term though.  Horror is always a one shot for me, but what’s here is fun.  There might be some issues as I love the theme, but it does make seeing all the flow a bit more difficult.  I got it, but style vs visibility.  That said, I’ve already kickstarted the PDFs, so I think this will be fun.  Give this one a look.  There is even a whole one shot adventure for you to check out.  It’s another free to check out promo, so you honestly can’t lose!  98%

Daily Punch 9-5-25 Admonishment divine spell for Pathfinder 2nd Ed

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GOD DAMN YOU!

Admonishment [two-actions]Spell 1

Manipulate Mental
Traditions divine
Cast [two-actions] somatic, verbal
Range 60 feet; Targets 1 creature
Defense Will

Your God breaks those whom you damn. When you cast this spell, you choose a target in range to make a Will saving throw with the effect determined below

Critical Success The target is unaffected.
Success The creature becomes sickened 1.
Failure The creature becomes sicked 1 and is blinded, defined, and restrained while sicked.
Critical Failure The creature becomes sicked 2 and is blinded, defined, and restrained while sicked..

Heightened (+1) You can choose one additional target.

Daily Punch 9-3-25 Bloodburn alchemical consumable for Pathfinder 2nd Ed

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Let’s build enough consumables for an alchemist to inject into a target!


Bloodburn Item 1+

Alchemical Consumable Elixir

Usage held in 1 hand; Bulk L
Activate [one-action] (manipulate)

Bloodburn is a potential emetics that burns as it causes the vomiting.

Bloodburn (Minor)Item 1

Price 3 gp
Bulk L
When this is consumed you gain  1d4 persistent fire damage and sickened 1. The flat check ends both conditions. 

Bloodburn (Lesser)Item 5

Price 30 gp
Bulk L
When this is consumed you gain  2d4 persistent fire damage and sickened 1. The flat check ends both conditions.

Bloodburn (Moderate)Item 9

Price 150 gp
Bulk L
When this is consumed you gain  2d4 persistent fire damage and sickened 2. The flat check ends both conditions.

Bloodburn (Greater)Item 13

Price 600 gp
Bulk L
When this is consumed you gain  3d4 persistent fire damage and sickened 2. The flat check ends both conditions.

Bloodburn (Major)Item 15

Price 1,300 gp
Bulk L
When this is consumed you gain  3d4 persistent fire damage and sickened 3. The flat check ends both conditions.

Bloodburn (True)Item 19

Price 8,000 gp
Bulk L
When this is consumed you gain  4d4 persistent fire damage and sickened 3. The flat check ends both conditions.

Thoughts?

Daily Punch 9-2-25 Religious Vulnerability for DCC RPG

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Back to more DCC fun for my Undead creatures!

Religious Vulnerability
Level: 1Range SelfDuration: permanentCasting time: noneSave: none
GeneralYou become vulnerable to a religious symbol. this symbol must be of one you could encounter on a daily bases from the area you are from.
Manifestationroll 1d4: (1) You begin to smoke and then burn at the sight of the symbol (2) Light shoots out of the symbol and begins to burn you (3)An invisible force pushes you down and back from the symbol (4) your brain is wracked by the words of that god and you are punished as an abomination by it
1Roll this mutation check again, plus roll one additional defect.
2-4You are weak to the symbol and while within 100 feet of the symbol, church, or holy ground of the god you light on holy fire 1d6 damage every minute
5-7You are weak to the symbol and while within 100 feet of the symbol, church, or holy ground of the god you light on holy fire 1d6 damage every 10 minutes
8-11You are weak to the symbol and while within 30 feet of the symbol, church, or holy ground of the god you light on holy fire 1d6 damage every 10 minutes
12-15You are weak to the symbol and while within 30 feet of the symbol, church, or holy ground of the god you light on holy fire 1d3 damage every 10 minutes
16-17You are weak to the symbol and while within five feet of the symbol, church, or holy ground of the god you light on holy fire 1d2 damage every 10 minutes
18-19You glow with the light of the god that hates you when shown wearing the holy symbol
20+You heal 1d4 hit points every hour while wearing the holy symbol

Ring Side Report- RPG review of Cypher Preview FREE!

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Product– Cypher Preview FREE!

System- Cypher System

Producer– Monte Cook Games

Price– FREE here  https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/534071/cypher-preview-free?affiliate_id=658618 

TL; DR-A solid product introduction.  100%

Basics– Don’t call it a comeback!  The Cypher System is getting a kind of second edition!  Not really, but kind of!  Monte Cook games has released a preview of their second edition of the game, so let’s dive into the preview of what’s the same and what’s changing.

Base mechanics– This isn’t changing.  Your Game master says a thing is level x.  You multiply that x by 3 and need to roll over that on a d20.  You have abilities that knock down that level by an amount and you still attempt to roll over that on a d20.  Still slick and easy to learn.

Effort –  This isn’t changing.  You have three pools to draw resources from.  You have Effort that reduces the amount you need to spend on a power.  You can spend from your pool to use a power or to reduce the difficulty level of a skill challenge.  You spend 3 points for the first level, reduced by effort, and 2 points per level after that.  Still slick as always.

Damage and armor– Here’s comes the big changes.  Armor now acts like an ability, reducing the level you need to go against when you dodge or block.  Also, damage now comes in three flavors as you have minor, moderate, and major.  You have three minor to a moderate, and three moderate to a major.  Once you have three major, you are knocked out.  Previously, damage went against your pools.

Cyphers- Cyphers are another big change.  Cyphers used to be more object based.  Now they are more like spells you can use each day.  Furthermore, they will also will focus on more subtle cyphers that are constant powers that provide a change to your character.

And that’s it.    

Mechanics or Crunch– I honestly welcome these changes.  The cypher system was fun before, but I felt the loss of points from my pools really hampered my character.  By changing the damage to go against something else, hit points if you will, it lets those points be used for waht they were meant for.  Also, armor reducing the level feels a bit more cypher system than it reducing damage.  This also lets heavy armored foes be possibly damaged by lighter weapons as previously heavy armor meant light weapons were useless. I look forward to its full implementation.  5/5

Theme or Fluff– So, you can’t really judge this product based on its theme because it really doesn’t have any.  You can’t judge it on a document updating the math of the world.  -/5

Execution– This document is pretty slick.  I feel like I could honestly start using this stuff in my current cypher games just based on this.  It’s easy to read and understand.  It’s also pretty, using art from across all the different properties that Monte Cook Games makes.  5/5

Summary– Monte Cook always gets about 100 bucks from me every year.  They put out a kickstarter for something, I throw money, and then stuff shows up later.  This year will be no exception.  I like the update to the system and it shows growth of his original idea in positive ways.  This is something you need to check out.  It’s free, so why not!  100%

Daily Punch 8-27-25 Injector firearm for Pathfinder 2nd Ed

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How about we make an alchemist who debuffs?!

Injector

Uncommon Fatal d6
Price 3 gp; Damage 1d2 P; Bulk 1
Hands 1; Range 30 ft.; Reload 1
Type Ranged; Category Simple; GroupFirearm
Ammunition Injector Bolt

This simple break-action firearm allows a single dose of a consumable to be loaded into an injector bolt. That bolt can’t be fired, delivering the consumable to the target on contact. This consumable is delivered internally. Any explosion or splash damage is negated, but regular damage occurs to the target as well as any other effects.

Thoughts?