Ring Side Report-RPG Review of AMP: Year One and Attack of the Buzz

~ fineyoungmisanthrope ~ 1 Comment

Product– AMP: Year One

Producer– Third Eye Games

Price– ~$15 here http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/132784/AMP-Year-One

TL; DR– Want some amazingly customizable superheroes? Look here! 93%

 

Basics– When they showed up, everything changed.  AMP is a near future, heroic RPG.  Players take the roles of super humans in 2015.  The mutants have only been around and in large numbers for about a year, and the world isn’t really read for what they have to offer.  Will you fight to save mankind or destroy it?  Are you here to put these monsters in their place or will you stand with the mutants?  All of these are important questions that you will have to answer as you struggle to find where you fit in.

 

Mechanics or Crunch-This is a new RPG theme and with a ton of new mechanics.  Let’s do a rundown of some of the high points that are offer.

Base mechanic-This game has echoes of its d20 past, and I mean that in a good way.  Everything in this game is a d20 + skill A + skill B or d20 + 1 1/2 skill A.  That’s it.  It’s simple, it’s quick, and it’s fun to play.  Want to treat an animal’s wound?  That’s a d20 + beast handling + medicine.  Want to shoot a gun?  That’s d20 +marksmanship*1.5.  Simple enough.  It only gets slow when both the target and the attacker have to roll to determine if a hit is a success.  In my game, I found myself just saying 10 plus the skills for the attack or defense.  That change made my game run just a bit quicker.

Character Generation-This character generation is complex but has several walkthroughs.  This is a true everything point by.  You can really screw up your character if you try to min/max and fail horribly!  Everything from your speed, to your health, to your attacks is all bought via points.  You don’t have to take any points in speed, but you will move really slowly.  I love this style of customization, but newer RPG players really need to look over the example characters to make a useable character.  Unlike DnD5e where you make about five choices, when you make your character in AMP, you have at least 20+ decisions to make.  It’s easy to do as the math of the system doesn’t operate like the point buy from Shadowrun 4e, but don’t expect your first character to be made in five minutes.

Loyalties-One thing I wanted to point out from the character generation was loyalties.  This game has lots of different themes that are really well integrated into the mechanics.  One way that is done is with loyalties.  When you make a character you decide how important various aspects of your life are.  These range from your community, yourself, and to lovers you may have.  Each rank in these provides in game bonuses with ranks varying from rank zero to rank five.  I like the addition of mechanical benefits from role-playing choices, and these loyalty ranks really provide that connection.

Powers-It wouldn’t be a superhero RPG without superhero powers.  Powers come from several different general areas ranging from batteries (you store up energy) to behemoths (you are the Hulk!).  These powers all have augmentations that provide extra benefits like the behemoth has the crush augmentation that adds extra damage on melee attacks or the bolt ability which allows you to fire elemental blasts at people.  Most of these powers are dependent to on Juice.  Juice can be thought of as adrenalin, and it powers the superpowers of the heroes and villains.  Each broad category has a number of smaller augments that you get as you level up in the power.  Some categories have several different augmentations, while some only have a few.  It’s a quick and easy way to broadly provide the foundation for lots of different hero powers, options, and flavors.  Some of the names might be somewhat confusing, but looking over the powers the descriptions provide the rules and the story to how each power works.

Summary-The mechanics of this book are well done.  The game provides near endless customization and the ability to create the heroes and villains you want to be and see.  The new ideas such as the loyalties are excellent mechanics that other RPGs should employ that really developed the mechanics and the theme together.  However, this isn’t perfect.  Some aspects are a tad fiddly such as rolling for both attack and defense on both sides of the GM screen.  It’s not the worst thing in the world, but sometimes dealing with the amount of rolling in combat can be annoying.  Also, character generation is somewhat difficult.  If you know what you’re doing, you get all the tools you need to make any hero, but if you are just by yourself readying a character for a friend’s game, you might be lost in the amount of options you have to choose from.  4.75/5

 

Theme or Fluff- The basic story of AMP year One is that after World War I governments around the world worked on a super soldier project to stop war altogether.  Over the generations, the children of the experiments developed these super powers and passed them on.  Now, lots of super powered people are emerging.  How will the world change because of this?  What kind of person will you be?  This is a standard comic book intro, and this is semi-cheesy.  But, its super powered people.  You have to expect a little cheese in that territory.  Just look at the number to times Batman has died and come back to understand.  While it might not be my absolute favorite intro story, it does leave a lot of room for the GM to design a story in the near future world of 2015.  The first half of the book describes the history of the future, and provides lots of different story hooks as well as doing an excellent job of introducing the various groups at play in the lives of the mutants. Does this feel like the X-Men?  Good!  This RPG specifically mentions that as one of the main inspirations behind the themes of the game.  And since there is no currently published X-Men RPG out there, this is the best solution if you want to play in that world.  I think AMP does a great job driving home its theme while providing lots of different stories for the GM to run. 4.75.5

 

Execution– AMP is done fairly well.  The powers section is a bit wordy, but all the powers get nice flow charts explaining what augments you have to take to take the next one.  A little more art would be nice as well as color, but for a black and white book, it’s done really well.  The font, words, and layout all work well, and the hyperlinks don’t make my iPad slow to a crawl.  I would have liked a few more pre-generated antagonists for the PCs to face as well as a better guide on how to generate encounters.  But, on the whole this is a well done book that was fun to read. 4.5/5

 

Summary-If you want to play a free form superhero RPG?  Then, pick up this book.  The mechanics are simple, the powers work well, and the execution is great.  I have my minor gripes, but overall, this is a fun super hero RPG that isn’t too crazy or cheesy.  The world is fresh and interesting while providing enough open-endedness to give the GMs free reign in the stories they want to tell.  I was actually pretty entertained by the story that this book had to tell.  Since the tile of the book is AMP Year One, I hope the authors keep up with other AMP books or splat books to keep the metastory going.  93 %

 

How about two products today?  Here is the first adventure for the AMP Year One RPG-Attack of the Buzz!

 

Product– Attack of the Buzz

Producer– Third Eye Games

Price– ~$3 here http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/137727/Attack-of-the-Buzz-Adventure-for-AMP-Year-One

TL; DR– Know your group, and this will be a blast. 90%

 

Basics- Alice, Texas is under attack! Not by the mutants that are running around but by bees! Hundreds have died, and no one knows why the bees won’t give up attacking people.  Can you and the other AMPs you travel with find out how to prevent the bees from killing the town or will you end up like the rest of the town?

 

Mechanics or Crunch-The adventure is a fun one, but there are some problems depending on who is playing.  This isn’t a bad adventure for mechanics as everything presented makes sense in the AMP work and is balanced, but bees are swarms.  And, swarms are always hard to fight.  Especially with new characters.  Some characters will be completely useless for some of the major scenes in this adventure.  If you have a super computer hacker, then that character will spend most of his/her time running from the bees.  It’s a bold move for the first adventure put out by a system to feature swarms as the main villain, and I think it hurts the fun a bit.  However, the adventure does provide some new powers as well some equipment to help smart players.  What’s here is good, but the mileage your players will get out of the module really depends on who is at the table. 4/5

 

Theme or Fluff-This is one of the major events in the AMP Year One story.  My players enjoyed being part of the world and solving a major mystery that is presented in the main book.  It was fun for the players to work out how to solve some problems as well as fighting for their lives!  Also, the major groups all have reasons to send characters to this location helps me as a GM bring all the players to this location while still allowing the players to be whatever they want to be.  I didn’t feel like I had to shoehorn my players into this one size fits all adventure. 5/5

 

Execution-This product was laid out like the AMP Year One core book.  Overall, that’s good as I like the text, font, and layout, but I felt this lacked a few things.  Alice, Texas doesn’t have a map.  That was somewhat troubling.  However, I did like the fact that there is some new art like the main villain and the bees attacking the town. The art was well done, conveyed the sense of terror from a bee swarm attacking people, but didn’t go gory.  The RPG was still pretty age neutral, and that makes the super hero genera fun.  I would have liked a bit more art, but for the price of the module, it’s worth it.  4.5/5

 

Summary-As a mod that’s a cold intro to the system, this one might not be favorite.  The main enemies that are thrown against the player are kind of hard to deal with when players have limited resources and powers.  That said, if your players know that swarms are a problem here and they can plan accordingly, then this is a fun module.  I’d like a bit more to the module like a map, but for the price, I had fun and so did my players.  It’s a quicker mod as it doesn’t have tons of scenes, but that’s not a large problem.  If you need your AMP fix and want to learn one of the major secrets in the AMP world, this is a great way to get some more of the system. 90%

Daily Punch 10-16-14 Blurring Speed feat for DnD Next

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How about a feat for DnD Next?

 

Blurring Speed

You move so fast, your opponents can only feel you hit them.

Benefit: Gain the following benefits:

  • Gain +1 to dexterity, to a maximum of 20.
  • When you use your flurry of blows power, gain an additional unarmed attack.

 

Thoughts?

Daily Punch 10-15-14 Snake Speed alternative Monk class feature for DnD Next

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How about a different class feature for the monk?

 

Snake Speed

Immediately after you are hit with an attack and the attacker is in reach, you may spend one ki point make an unarmed attacks as a reaction.  If you spend two ki points, you may make the attack before the attacker hits you with an attack as a reaction.  If the attacker is still able to make the attacks after these attack, the attack occurs as normal.  Any effects, powers, feats, or abilities that require or use Flurry of Blows allow apply to this ability instead unless specifically stated different.  This ability is taken instead of Flurry of Blows.

 

Thoughts?

Daily Punch 10-13-14 Replicator for Pathfinder

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Numeria is in full swing, but I was kind of surprised that the artifacts list missed the most obvious item from Star Trek

 

 

Replicator                  Technological Artifact

Slot   none                      weight varies

Capacity   varies         Usage  See Text

 

A replicator is a box of various sizes ranging from a small foot, by foot, by foot desk model to a horse sized models.  This device will create any object that the user can describe to the device with a knowledge(engineering) check equal to the craft check of the object.  The device can only create one object per day and must be provided with enough raw materials (skymetal, gold, rocks, biological material) to create the object with the value equal to the cost of the item.  The entire process takes less the one minute but must be uninterrupted, or the object is destroyed and the components lost.  The number of charges varies based on the size of the object created.

 

Size Charges
1ftx1ftx1ft 25
4ftx4ftx4ft 125
10ftx10ftx10ft 625

 

Thoughts?

Ring Side Report-Board Game Review of Among the Stars

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Product– Among the Stars

Producer– Stronghold Games

Price– ~$50 here http://www.amazon.com/Among-The-Stars-Card-Game/dp/B00KD4LN36/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1413249689&sr=8-1&keywords=among+the+stars

Set-Up/Play/Clean-Up-One Hour (2-4 players)

TL; DR– Builds well on the drafting mechanic with a fun theme 97%

 

Basics– The galactic war is over, but how will peace proceed?  In Among the Stars players take the roles of different alien races building a communal space station to serve as neutral territory after an intergalactic apocalypse.  Players build their space stations over four rounds.  Each round a player receives some location tiles. Each turn, a player selects one tile and can either pay to build that location, discard it for money, or discard it to buy and build a reactor (some tiles need power that reactors provide).  Then, all players will pass the remaining tiles to either the right or the left.  The player then builds onto his or her station or collects money.  Some locations give instant points while others provide points at the end of the game.  A round continues until you only have two location tiles left.  After selecting your last tile, you discard the other, receive a new hand of tiles, and the game continues.  After three more rounds, the player with the most points wins.

 

Mechanics-I love drafting games.  I love planning and tile laying games.  This combines them booth beautifully.  Each choice you make maters and you never feel like you can’t do something.  Also, the alien races provide interesting powers that help you plan your moves.  This game feels like a combination of Suburbia, Carcassonne, and Seven Wonders, and that’s great company to be in. 5/5

 

Theme- The theme is good here, but not perfect.  The basic story is the alien races declared peace after a giant war.  The instruction book does an excellent job explaining all the nuances of the war and the races which I enjoyed.  However, the fact that this isn’t a co-op game loses some of the theme for me.  The story of cooperation is somewhat lost when the different races have to fight over who builds the better station.  I love the details and art that build this world, but the story and the mechanics fight at bit in the execution. 4.5/5

 

Instructions-The instructions are well written and easily describe the game.  The mechanics are not difficult to understand, and the rules explain them well.  After the rules, the book spends most of its time describing the game universe.  Since this world is well developed, it’s a nice addition to the game and the story you get to play in. 5/5

 

Execution-I like the tiles, I like the art, and I like the pieces.  The components are all well done.  I would have liked a bag to shuffle the tiles in, as it’s always harder to shuffle tiles compared to cards.  But, what is here is well done. 4.8/5

 

Summary– A friend of mine brought this game with him when he stayed at my house for a weekend.  I played once and asked my local gaming store to pick this up right away.  It’s a great game that has a lot of replay.  The randomness of the tiles and the different races all provide a different experience each time you play it.  The story might not be perfect, but it does draw you in a bit.  The mechanics are a combination of all the things I love to make something better.  You can’t go wrong with this game. 97%

Book Bout-Book Review of The Legend of Drizzit: The Collected Stories  

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Book-The Legend of Drizzit: The Collected Stories

Author– R. A. Salvatore

TL; DR-Context hurts an otherwise excellent short story anthology.  85%

 

Basics-Wizards of the Coast gave everybody a GenCon present with this collection of short stories written by R. A. Salvatore.  Each story is from a different part of Drizzit’s life and the Forgotten Realms in general.  Each story narrated by different famous people ranging from Sean Aston to Weird All Yankovic.

 

Characters-I’ve never been a huge Drizzit fan, but this collection of short stories featured characters ranging from a young King Battlehammer to dragons is a fun listen.  Each character was well developed in the short period you got to spend with them.  My main complaint is each character was adrift in the sea of the history of the realms.  Everybody was a full character, but there was little context to each character besides what I knew about Drizzit from reading the books previously.  That kind of randomness hurt the overall story of Drizzit and his legacy as the stories range from long before Drizzit to the current day. 4/5

 

Setting– R. A Salvatore does a great job bringing the Forgotten Realms to life.  I enjoyed the different stories and parts of the world that I got to experience.  The each story’s world is well constructed and felt like a real place.  However, like with the characters, you won’t be able to place the setting in time and space with the other stories.  Unless you know where each location and story takes place, you will be somewhat lost as each story will feature a completely random place. 4.5/5

 

Story-The different stories are all well done.  Each story is a self contained bite-sized story explaining a bit of the history of each character in Drizzit’s legacy.  It was fun to learn so much back story in a quick way.  However, these stories really don’t have a context if you don’t know the world or how they’ve interacted with Drizzit.  Some stories feature connected characters and settings, but unless you’ve been reading Drizzit books for the longest time, you won’t have a clue who is being discussed and why. 4/5

 

Audiobook Extra but not Extra- This book is free through audible.com, so you get an audio anthology.  Each story gets a separate narrator.  Some are there because they are famous.  Ice-T was fun to listen to for about five minutes as he struggled to deal with the “nerd shit” (his words, not mine!), but others were excellent readers.  You know who I really want to hear do more audiobooks?  Wield Al Yankovic!  He has a little bit of the nerd slur to his speech, but honestly he did an excellent job as a narrator being serious when he needed to and an even better job bringing the characters in his story to life!  That was an amazing surprise. 4.5/5

 

Summary-This was a fun listen.  I think I’m more of a Drizzit fan now that when I went in.  The stories really helped me better understand the people I’ve been listening to for such a long time as well as build up the understanding of the Forgotten Realms.  This book isn’t bad, but what hurt this book a lot was the lack of continuity.  Everything was free in space, and that lack of connections or explanation would leave new realms reader lost in a sea of words.  If Wizards and Audible get a chance, I’d love it if Mr. Salvatore would give a minute or two introduction to each story and explain who the major player is in this story and who they are to Drizzit’s story.  Do that and I’ll revise this to a 100 % easily.  But as it stands it a 85%.

Blurbs from the Booth-What I want in the DnD Adventure League

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First off, I love the Dungeons and Dragons Adventure League.  I’ve run a crap load of games and loved every minute of it.  I think I’m at least a decent GM who knows a ton of Forgotten Realms lore.  But, I need some help.  Here are I few things I think would make the Adventure League better:

 

1) Small change to the format of the adventures I know its space, but I would really love it you could give me an itemized list of the major stuff in the room/location at the top of each location right after the name and place on the map.  Like this:

Genera Features:

Mossy Cave full of gold

Traps:

None

Monsters:

1-Party one- 6 Kobolds

1 Wizard

2-Party two- Giant Dragon of death

Items:

Awesome sword of Awesomeness

All the gold ever

Why?  Well I read my adventures before every game, but when you’re going through the adventures and you have limited time like the 3.5 hours at GenCon, it’s hard to remember all the stuff that’s in a place or you have to take time and skim read the entire passage.  All the adventures WotC has put out including the Hoard of the Dragon Queen have all the important information buried in the text.  I hate having to reread a half page of text and explain to my players everything in the room that I just read and make it interesting.  Again, this isn’t hard, but a small change will really help me make sure I hit all the high notes in every adventures.

 

2) NPC mentors  My players are getting high enough to get mentors.  It might be time to consider providing NPCs who can mentor the players either through letters or items.  I don’t think these should be anywhere near as cool as real, honest to Amaunator PC mentors, but if my players don’t have one, then they won’t know how awesome one can be.  And, most likely won’t mentor other PCs in the future.

 

3) Starting above 1st level  Let’s start something really controversial!  I’d like the option to start above 1st level.  I’d like generic PCs to give players at 1st, 5th, 10th, and 15th level with items and such that they could/world have gotten had they played the previous adventures but not the awesome renowned points.  The first level five and up adventures are going to roll out soon, and new players are going to come to the store and be turned away as the two groups I have at my store won’t be able to keep a level one wizard alive during a CR eight encounter.  Giving me pregens for several levels will really help.  Pathfinder does that, and it’s amazingly helpful!

 

4)World Guide Even more controversy!  Everybody I know wants a world guide.  What the heck is up with the Realms?  Who’s still a god?  Who isn’t?  Who’s pretending?  What the hell is a Phlan?  Right now, we have the old 3.5/4e stuff.  But, there was a whole Sundering book series that people didn’t read that told them about the new 5e realms.  But, none of those books really talked about Phlan.  Heck the Sword Coast got a book, but only tangentially.  My players don’t really know the state of things.  Things are up to 110 years out of date, so imagine using a 110 year old map to understand European politics today!  Don’t give me hints.  Right now my players need firm answers to what the heck is going on.  And I think most GMs do too.

 

Those are my ideas.  I love the game, but give me the proper tools and layouts and I can make my games even better!

Daily Punch 10-10-14 Uncontrolled Aggression flaw for Pathfinder

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We all fly off the handle sometimes.  How about a problem that you ahve to face in Pathfinder because of it?

 

 

Uncontrolled Aggression

When you get mad, all you see is red!

When you take damage from an enemy, you must make a DC 5+Creature CR will save.  If you fail, that creature must die.  You can not stand to see the creature taken alive or knocked unconscious.  Other player characters are immune to this effect.

Daily Punch 10-09-14 Clockwork Horror monster for DnD Next

~ fineyoungmisanthrope ~ 1 Comment

There are a ton of magical suites of armor in DnD Next, how about some not so magic suites of armor?

 

Clockwork Horror

Armor Class 19 (natural armor)

HP 45 (7d8+14)

STR: 18 (+4) DEX: 10 (+0)  CON: 14 (+2  INT: 1 (-5)  WIS: 1 (-5) CHA: 1 (-5)

Damage Immunities poison, psychic

Condition immunities blinded, charmed, deafened, exhaustion, frightened, paralyzed, petrified, poisoned

Damage Vulnerabilities Thunder Damage, Adamintine weapons

Senses tremorsense 60ft

Languages –

Challenge 2 (450 XP)

False Appearance While motionless, the armor is indistinguishable from a normal suit of armor standing in a corner or hall.

__________________________________________

Actions

Charge The armor may act as if it has the charger feat

Slam Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target

Hit: 7 (1d6+4) bludgeoning damage. or held weapon damage

 

The clockwork horror remains motionless until the central spring is tripped.  Then, the horror uses tremorsense to target the closes intruder.  It continues until the source of the motion is eliminated.  Wizards who use these guardians must remember that they are not programmed to sense friend or foe, and some unfortunate wizards have become targets of their own guardians.

 

 

Thoughts?