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## After Sundown tweaks/house rules

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Lokathor
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Post by Lokathor » Mon Nov 11, 2013 4:16 am

The actual actions are that you get the target you want in front of you while your missile system is active, and your targeting system will target it, then give an indication (audio or visual) that a target is locked, then you press the fire button and the missile shoots.
You have to keep the target in a roughly stationary position relative to you while the targeting system is locking onto it, which is all using the flight stick and coordination, so I'd call that Agility.
In terms of it being Drive or Operations, I don't really care. Whatever. Making a personal jet go is somewhere between making a car go and running a power plant or a traffic grid system. Making the jet go at all and getting it off the ground is pretty simple, compared to knowing what to do and what equipment to employ when various kinds of emergency flight situations occur. Your group can decide which skill goes for that, or even allow both skills to do it if they want. My line of reasoning would be that a top airforce pilot is more likely to also be an ace driver than they are to also be an ace power plant manager.
[*]The Ends Of The Matrix: Github and Rendered
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erik
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Post by erik » Mon Nov 18, 2013 4:54 am

I'm working on tweaking HEX into being more compatible with AS and on the way there I was organizing AS things in a spreadsheet.
This may be useful to someone, it may not.
My rendition of how I prefer to organize the various powers.
I've dumped some powers (Patience of the Mountains, Tracking the Echoes, Adaptive Resilience), renamed some, recast Devotions into Universals. I added Persistence of Form (Grek's Inanimacy redubbed). I renamed 2nd Empty Body into Phase Body and Trail of Tears into Depths of Despair.
Several powers don't have activation time noted on in their description so I just went with what I thought was best. I probably should've tagged which ones I took license with, but too late now. Only one I remember for sure is Flames of Panic and it could be Simple or Complex; for most I didn't need much internal debate in picking an activation time.
There will be transpositions and typoes since I was doing this late last night mostly, like 'immolate' becomes 'ummolate' when I am touch-typing in the dark some nights. I'm correcting them as I find em.
I rejiggered some monster powers a fair bit. Icarids seem to need Clout more than Depths of Despair. Deep Ones fit Depths of Despair better anyway with their contagious mood and aquatic theme.
I added a Sorcery Steve (Mage) and my preferred Witch layouts.
I'm not religiously attached to anything and could certainly be persuaded into changes, or someone can just download it and mod it to their liking if it they cared. Powers are alphabetized in their circle within paths because.
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Username17
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Post by Username17 » Tue Nov 19, 2013 12:15 am

> On another matter: Theoretically a Kaiju whale is not too different from a sumbarine, and you'd handle combat against it with a giant strength score and ten boxes of condition monitor. The scaling damage system is supposed to be able to allow us to scale up our attack and toughness as high as we want and get somewhat sane results. However, thinking about what it would mean in AS and what we would expect based on other RPGs, the real problem here isn't that the numbers wouldn't ever work if you just scaled them up, it's that we expect to be able to damage one part of a vehicle and not another. If you set half a boat on fire, the rest of the boat will be fine for a while even if the whole boat eventually does burn down. But the part of the boat that's on fire will be totally on fire. Right now AS doesn't have a system that handles that because the creatures it deals with aren't really big enough for such systems to be applicable. On top of the fact that usually creatures don't lose individual operational subsystems like vehicles do.

Attacks against inanimate objects, especially large inanimate objects, pretty much require the ability to target individual hit locations. Obviously, you need to be able to kick down a door, but a door is just a specific part of a house, and if you were a kaiju you should be able to kick down the whole house instead. For that matter, you should be able to break the lock on the door, instead of kicking in the whole door. It's turtles all the way down, something which is extremely undesirable for living creatures.
With a couple extra paths of sorcery and whole chapters given to each of the Syndicates, the Syndicates are getting their own cultic sorceries. This ties in with the idea of Syndicates really just being cults that got big enough to have foreign policies and territories.
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CatharzGodfoot
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Post by CatharzGodfoot » Fri Nov 22, 2013 5:37 am

> erik wrote:Trail of Tears into Depths of Despair

Nice. I like that better, regardless of the debate over the appropriateness of "Trail of Tears".

What do you folks think about giving Bagheera more Orphic sorceries?
[*]Touch of Night (Lure of Darkness; already had this)
[*]Eyes of Night, Cloak of Shadows (Play of Shadows)
[*]Silent Toll (Symphony of Silence; or Missing Voice)
Plus
[*]Clinging (Clout)
[*]Quickness (Celerity)
[*]War Form (Celerity or Clout?)
And one of Vigor (Clout), Nimble Feet (Celerity), or Shadow Casting (Play of Shadows) to finish it off. (Lost powers: Revive the Flesh, Hide from Notice, Alacrity, and Vigor or Nimble Feet.)
The law in its majestic equality forbids the rich as well as the poor from stealing bread, begging and sleeping under bridges.
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erik
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Post by erik » Fri Nov 22, 2013 11:56 am

> CatharzGodfoot wrote: What do you folks think about giving Bagheera more Orphic sorceries?
> [*]Touch of Night (Lure of Darkness; already had this)
> [*]Eyes of Night, Cloak of Shadows (Play of Shadows)
> [*]Silent Toll (Symphony of Silence; or Missing Voice)
> Plus
> [*]Clinging (Clout)
> [*]Quickness (Celerity)
> [*]War Form (Celerity or Clout?)
> And one of Vigor (Clout), Nimble Feet (Celerity), or Shadow Casting (Play of Shadows) to finish it off. (Lost powers: Revive the Flesh, Hide from Notice, Alacrity, and Vigor or Nimble Feet.)

I like giving Bagheera Cloak of Shadows for their stealth factor and Eyes of Night are a perfect fit. Silent Toll I'd like a lot more if I didn't feel the power itself was a bit silly in use what with the singing. I'd imagine a Bagheera to be more Dark Angel and less Julie Andrews dancing through Germany with mute on.
I prefer leaving Vigor off since that makes Werewolves the default bruisers.
I'm thinking throw in Supernatural Senses to round out the Bagheera as the more stealthy, scout Lycanthrope, otherwise Quickness is still good.
I can't bear to part with Revive the Flesh to emulate fast-healing.

- Shadow Casting
  War Form
  Eyes of Night
  Touch of Night
  Nimble Feet
  Supernatural Senses
  Clinging
  Revive the Flesh

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CatharzGodfoot
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Post by CatharzGodfoot » Fri Nov 22, 2013 1:53 pm

You're right that it's a bit too ridiculous to have bagheera belting out 'With cat-like tread!'. And Revive the Flesh is important. But I'd still give them Missing Voice over Supernatural Senses.
First, Eyes of Night already gives you the most common use of Supernatural Senses (see in darkness). Second, if they want better senses, picking up an advanced Song of Silence will give them sonar. And don't believe the hype; their 'song' is usually yowling and roaring.
That all said, replacing Eyes of Night with Shadow Casting and Song of Silence with Supernatural Senses would make them almost as stealthy and with just as good night vision.
Last edited by CatharzGodfoot on Fri Nov 22, 2013 1:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
The law in its majestic equality forbids the rich as well as the poor from stealing bread, begging and sleeping under bridges.
-Anatole France
Mount Flamethrower on rear
Drive in reverse
Win Game.
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erik
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Post by erik » Sat Nov 23, 2013 3:12 am

I was thinkin Supernatural Senses for the super sense of smell and hearing to Compliment night vision. Also just the general +2 Perception (tho I dunno what the general sentiment on passive power bonuses has come to)
I'm not opposed to Supernatural Senses+Shadow Casting.
I'm actually tempted to modify Silent Toll anyway tho. If it works without requiring that you actually make music then it becomes a less silly power and that can work for Bags.

> Silent Toll:
> The character can suppress sound. The character makes a Logic + Artisan or Charisma + Expression test, and can reduce the amount of ambient noise generated by within Short range raising difficulty to be heard by 1 per 2 hits. Use of Silent Toll is a free action that can be used once per round. Silent Toll can be dispelled as if it had 3 hits.

*shrug*
To backtrack to my parenthetical at the top of this post. I'm alright with getting rid of the mad stacks of passive bonuses from powers. I'm thinking we ought to give quirky minor bits to sorceries and universals can do without. Universals got all dem Devotions added in anyway.

Call of the Wild | Wild animals will not attack you or flee from you unless provoked
Chasing the Storm | You can predict the weather
Coil of Thorns | You can make food, arts and crafts out of plant matter as though they were the finest raw materials
Depths of Despair | You can breathe in water as easily as air
Veil of Morpheus | You are always treated as being alert and aware even when sleeping. Can see creatures of Maia.
Descent of Entropy | Objects break down in your presence. Can cause machinery to jam, stall or break
Names of the Blasphemies | You choose a True Name. Can see creatures of Limbo. Know the names of people you meet.
Progress of Glass | You can read/write in mirror image and target using reflections without penalty
Song of Swarms | Your presence does not bother mundane insects. They will neither attack you nor flee from you
Walk of Flame | Know direction to nearest open flame. Can ignite fires as if always having a lit match in hand.
Lure of Destruction | Increase Death Threshold
Necromancy | Can touch and be touched by Orphic users of Empty Body. Can see creatures of Mictlan
Play of Shadows | Ambient light can be dimmed in your presence
Path of Blood | Treat Terminal Wounds as only being Incapacitating Wounds
Symphony of Silence | You have perfect pitch and can perfectly repeat rhythms

Most notably I decided that Depths of Despair is a superior source of water breathing than Chasing the Storm, since I recently came around to thinking Deep Ones fit better with DoD than CtS.
Last edited by erik on Sat Nov 23, 2013 3:15 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Whipstitch
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Post by Whipstitch » Sat Nov 23, 2013 6:14 am

Re: Bagheera
Shadow Casting is a nice complementary power but giving up Hide from Notice for it when you're not grabbing Advanced Play of Shadows or otherwise buffing your social fu with Magnetism kinda hurts. So unless you're really bent on diversifying these guys as well as bumping up their sorcery count, I'd recommend just keeping it simple and swapping Alacrity out for Glimpse of the Abyss. That takes them up to one basic, one advanced sorcery, and several supernatural types are rocking two basics or less. Beyond that, it's a strong ability that fills the same general niche of getting ahead in the action economy. Plus, having the ability to magically fill your prey with a sense of their own mortality hits me as a pretty appropriate thing for big spectral cats to do.
bears fall, everyone dies
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erik
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Post by erik » Wed Dec 11, 2013 2:20 am

> erik wrote:Right, so we're writing up Iconics.
> Barbara Stanwick- Werewolf, Black Hand FrankTrollman
> Hector - Fallen, Makhzen Maxus
> Michael - Frankenstein, Makhzen (presumably) Maxus
> ?- Troglodyte, Glasswalker Orion
> Citizen Gregor- Nosferatu, Cauchemar Vanguard erik
> Gregor finds acceptance and acclaim as a Vanguard, hunting down targets judged by the Commune's Council of Public Safety. This night he is stalking a Baali cultist in the WCL's backyard of the Bay Area, whose fraying sanity has led him to violate Cauchemar Syndicate traditions.

The tumorous raven waited in his perch as movie-goers filtered out from the midnight showing at the Alameda Theatre. Even as a bird Citizen Gregor’s hideous Nosferatu lineage bore out. Misshapen claws gripped the edge of the rooftop. Gregor turned his head to watch with one eye as he spied the marked man exiting and walking off on his own from the exodus of movie-goers. Gregor flexed his gnarled talons and clicked his beak nervously as he followed his prey away from the theatre.
The man, the Condamné, was not particularly dangerous himself, but this was not Commune territory. The city’s World Crime League leaders would not approve of this night’s mission from the Committee as it violated the Tradition of Hostility, murdering a Baali cultist under WCL protection. That is why Gregor was chosen as Vanguard when the Committee convened to doom the Baali as Condamné. Gregor was not the strongest Vanguard by any stretch of the imagination, but he had a reputation for discretion and getting the job done.
Gregor had used cut-outs for all the arrangements and would only be in town this single night. It had cost him considerable money to afford the Nezumi’s price to locate the man, and much more afford keeping her in the dark as to his identity. Gregor had lifetimes to accumulate money and little to spend it upon. Reputation and acclaim among his brethren were a far more valued coin.
Gregor melded with the night, unseen as he silently followed the man into the apartment building. Slipping into the room behind the man, Gregor moved about the small studio apartment and planned the murder and his exit. Gregor was not naturally much stronger than an average man and he did not wish to draw undue power to complete this job. Even feathers can be deadly with timing and surprise; Gregor had brought more than just feathers. Gregor was would not feed on this man. As a rule he never fed upon the Condamné. Blood would come freely after the mission. Gregor had never wanted for hunger since becoming a Vanguard.
Gregor did not concern himself with the justness of his actions as a Vanguard. The Committee decides what is just. The Vanguard only executes the collective will of the Cauchemar. Questioning the Committee of Public Safety only made the job more difficult. He had seen it become the downfall of others, but that was no concern this night.
The man went to sleep and never woke up. Gregor left the locked apartment through a small window opening.
The victim had not broken any of the Vows, but he had earned his death. Those horse puns were truly terrible.
[edit: It's a "gregorsalad" up there. I had procrastinated so much I wanted just to get something in ink as it were. Needs polishing, my goals were to give some perspective on being a Vanguard, Condamné being the nom for someone marked for death by the Cauchemar uppities. And that prestige will trump money for some.]
Last edited by erik on Sun Mar 02, 2014 4:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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RadiantPhoenix
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Post by RadiantPhoenix » Sun Mar 02, 2014 3:48 pm

If you're swinging a 4m object around, is the threshold to hit someone with it always 1?
EDIT: By that I mean the contribution from the range chart -- i.e., they don't get to add their agility+combat to not get hit.
Last edited by RadiantPhoenix on Sun Mar 02, 2014 4:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Lokathor
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Post by Lokathor » Sun Mar 02, 2014 6:03 pm

If it's a melee attack I think they always get their "resisting a melee attack" bonus.
Honestly that chart is one of the few after sundown things that doesn't work too well when you scale things up out of the human scale :/
[*]The Ends Of The Matrix: Github and Rendered
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Midnight_v
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Post by Midnight_v » Sun Mar 02, 2014 8:24 pm

So is it a full switch back to this thread?
Don't hate the world you see, create the world you want....

> Dear Midnight, you have actually made me sad. I took a day off of posting yesterday because of actual sadness you made me feel in my heart for you.

...If only you'd have stopped forever...
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Chamomile
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Post by Chamomile » Fri Nov 14, 2014 1:28 pm

So, I've been writing a medieval fantasy homebrew that uses After Sundown as its base. This means I've been not-quite-transcribing a lot of the basic dice mechanics and skills and such, which also means I'm going over things line by line and thinking about how I'd rather they be done. So I'll be posting any edits I make here, so that the Den will catch any bad changes and any good changes can get folded into Second Edition.
-Edge Points and the actual Edge attribute are referred to as distinct. This helps clarify a little bit how spending Edge does not decrease your Edge.
-I'm adding independent difficulty charts for each skill to help give MCs a better grasp of what the different difficulties indicate, because the difference between "professional," "hard," "extreme," and "crazy extreme" are seriously unclear. "Professional" is the only one of those that gives some kind of actual benchmark, the others are really unclear except in that they are harder than one another, something that doesn't really communicate any more information than the number of hits required already communicates. I'll post these charts when they're done so people can double-check to see if they make any sense at all - a couple of them are pretty much wild guesses.
-The "climbing" and "running" specializations listed for Athletics were replaced by just "parkour." Technically I could see distance running over flat surfaces being a separate specialization from just parkour, but for the most part it encapsulates both of them and is more immediately evocative.
-For a game intended to support investigation stories, there is a curious lack of any guidelines for how hard it is to find a clue with the Perception skill, nor any indication of whether there are intended to be alternatives to Perception for clue-finding.
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Lokathor
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Post by Lokathor » Sat Nov 15, 2014 10:55 am

Yeah, I'd probably call edge points "Action Points" or something. A name so that "edge" and the points that it gives you aren't the same, so that you can ask a player "how many edge do you have?" without them ever needing to ask for a clarification.
Each skill should have a suggested DC chart for stuff, yeah.
I would say that "climbing" is not at all the same as "parkour". Climbing could cover both small scale scrambling and bouldering, but it also covers rope climbing, belaying, using pick-axes to scale a glacier, all that sort of stuff. Specializations don't need to be unique and exhaustive, those are just example specializations.
I think you spot evidence that isn't obvious using Perception (sometimes you can skip this step if the smoking gun is in plain view on the floor), and then you turn the evidence into something actionable via a second skill use (probably Science, Research, or a Background).
I can send you my .tex files if you want to edit them directly as the base for your thing.
Last edited by Lokathor on Sat Nov 15, 2014 10:58 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Chamomile
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Post by Chamomile » Sat Nov 15, 2014 1:01 pm

> Lokathor wrote:I would say that "climbing" is not at all the same as "parkour". Climbing could cover both small scale scrambling and bouldering, but it also covers rope climbing, belaying, using pick-axes to scale a glacier, all that sort of stuff.

I suppose this is true. I would still argue that parkour is a better example than climbing or running. While players can invent new specializations, for most skills they won't. Not because example specializations are already perfect (though that is sometimes true) but because very few people go through their character skill by skill to think of better specializations. This is especially true for the technical skills, and thus I've done my best to make specialization lists not just a few examples to give people an idea but to be as complete and usable as possible even if you don't add a single specialization of your own - because in practice a lot of people won't.

> I think you spot evidence that isn't obvious using Perception (sometimes you can skip this step if the smoking gun is in plain view on the floor), and then you turn the evidence into something actionable via a second skill use (probably Science, Research, or a Background).

I'm pretty sure this is the case, but it's a bit weird that investigation isn't more explicitly covered. No one has to say "I think" when describing the basic functions of combat or chase rules.

> I can send you my .tex files if you want to edit them directly as the base for your thing.

I'm not sure if my thing has enough in common with After Sundown for this to work out ultimately, but it can't hurt. I'll PM you an email address to send them to.
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Username17
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Post by Username17 » Sat Nov 15, 2014 4:20 pm

Action Points is a good name for that. Keeps things nice and distinct.
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Lokathor
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Post by Lokathor » Sat Nov 15, 2014 5:28 pm

Since several folks have suddenly requested the .tex files, I edited in the Action Point terminology just now and then put it all up as a git repo:
https://github.com/Lokathor/After-Sundown
You can just click "Download ZIP" at the bottom of the right column if you don't want to fiddle with using a git program.
Last edited by Lokathor on Sat Nov 15, 2014 5:38 pm, edited 3 times in total.
[*]The Ends Of The Matrix: Github and Rendered
[*]After Sundown: Github and Rendered
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