Jab’s Builds! (Beaker! Sam Eagle! Miss Piggy! The Swedish Chef!)

Where in all of your character write ups will go.
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Batgirl III
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Exotic Weapons! Bows! Guns!)

Post by Batgirl III »

Weapons and armor have always been locked in a cycle of one-upsmanship. Every innovation by armorsmiths leading to a counter from weaponsmiths and vice-versa. The two are intrinsically linked... and yes, deciding to forego armor entirely was also part of this cycle.

One’s choice of weapon and weapon design is all based on coming up with answers to questions. And not just “will this kill the other guy?” But things like what defenses does he have? What terrain am I in? How many people are with him? With me? What am I wearing? What is he wearing? What is the likelihood of my encountering him? Etcetera.

Choice of armor and armor design works the same.

A samurai’s daisho, yari, and ō-yoroi are meant as answers to very different questions than a modern soldier’s carbine and kevlar. The light revolver in my pocket when I’m walking around an American city is very different from the full-size autoloader I have in a holster when I was on duty in the service.
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FuzzyBoots
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Exotic Weapons! Bows! Guns!)

Post by FuzzyBoots »

In terms of materials you wouldn't think would be useful as armor, silk is actually pretty decent against slashing and piercing damage. It's not bullet-proof, but it used to be used as one of the bottom layers because, if a bullet did penetrate, there was a good chance it was still caught in a web of silk, making extraction easier.

Since it also had some mystical descriptors attached to it (it's one of the materials that's supposed to dull magic, part of the reason so many fortune-telling decks get wrapped in it), it was sometimes worn as much as a talisman as anything else. Capoeiristras, for example, would wear a silk scarf around their throat, both to ward off someone trying to slit it with a razor and to ward off any curses or other bad magic.
Jabroniville
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Siege Weapons/Old-School Artillery

Post by Jabroniville »

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SIEGE WEAPONS:

-These got a lot of use back in the day, and were eventually overrun by the amoung of fancy new guns and moving vehicles available. Despite their incredible power (each one can equal the powers of your average Superhuman adversary), they are intensely flawed in that you have to spend an enormous amount of time setting up (often one or two full rounds), the machines can't move (though Ballistas could be mounted on a Chariot or Wagon), and they could be easily-broken. Adding weapon-costs to such things is difficult, so I'll just make note of what they can do.

"Ballista" Blast 8 (Inaccurate -2)
-Ballistas are sometimes called "Bolt Throwers" (especially in Warhammer). They are essentially gigantic crossbows (that predate the weapon considerably- much like the Cannon begat the Gun, the Ballista was micronized and turned into a handheld weapon). Sometimes they were pulled on wagons and the like. Generally they were aimed at walls and stuff- things that couldn't move out of the way.

"Trebuchet" Blast 10 (Feats: Extended Range 3) (Extras: Burst Area 6) (Inaccurate -3)
-A massive catapalt thingie, a Trebuchet could launch a 350 lb. stone!

"Cannon #1" Damage 10 (Extras: Area- 500 ft. Line +5)
"Cannon #2" Blast 11 (Inaccurate -2)
-Invented by the Chinese, these spread to the Middle East and later Europe, where they effectively replaced all kinds of Siege Engines. They were smaller, needed only gundpowder instead of a complex pully structure, and used smaller cannonballs for similar effect. Ideal for smashing up buildings, walls and ships, Cannons changed warfare forever. Technically, they never left- military vehicles often utilize modern cannons as weapons. I built two different versions- one will cut through an entire enemy line (if fired into troops, it could keep going for 500 feet!), and the other is better for attacking buildings or vehicles.
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Mounted Combat

Post by Jabroniville »

DESIGN DIARY XI- MOUNTED COMBAT:
-Mounted Combat only has a tiny section of one book that I can find- the 2nd Edition Mastermind's Manual. Most of it's pretty good, and I had some of the same ideas. Generally speaking, Mounted Combat doesn't come up a lot in comics (The Black Knight, Valkyrie, The Phantom Rider and The Dreadknight are the only characters I can think of who do this regularly, and two are utterly minor while Dane Whitman dropped the horse eons ago). It's a bit more common in Fantasy Campaigns for various reasons:

- Horses were the most-reliable source of transportation in the time before personal vehicles.
- Horses are more acceptable in olden times- it's a lot weirder to wander around with one outside of Ye Olden Tymes.
- Horses are NOTORIOUSLY hard to draw- animators HATE them, and comic book artists are probably the same way. No one's gonna want to do it, so if often gets ignored anywhere where it's not easy.
- It draws attention away from the characters themselves, and makes scenes harder to "block" (ie. set up on-screen so everyone can be seen clearly).

BUT if you want to do it, here's some stuff.

The Rules:
- It's a DC 5 Athletics Check to get a mount to do something as a Free Action. Certain acts are more complicated. Some Knights will have Athletics (Limited to Riding), since "Ride" was its own 2nd Edition Skill, and here it's been tossed into Athletics.
- Being mounted on anything Large-sized (like a Horse) gives you a +1 bonus to attacks for being on Higher Ground.
- Enemies are -2 to hit someone so high up without a weapon with a bit of range (generally big-ass sword), unless they actually climb onto the mount itself (a DC 15 Athletics check and a Move Action) or are jumping super-high. The penalty goes up to -4 on Rhinoceros-sized mounts. Riders on sufficiently larger animals are impossible to attack without great Reach Weapons (but the riders are likewise incapable of attacking without similar armaments).
- Ranged Attacks can more easily pick out a Rider among foot infantry (normally a mass of people will provide Cover for each other)- Riders are at -2 to Dodge because they have more difficulty moving in the saddle. You use the Dodge rating of the highest Dodger of the pair (usually the Rider, unless the mount is a super-fast creature). Also remember that most Mounts are typically easier to hit with Ranged Attacks than smaller riders.
- If the mount Charges, you gain the benefits and drawbacks of a charge as well.
- Polearms (Spears, Lances, etc.) do +1 damage on the turn in which the Mount charges.
- Using ranged weapons while the mount is doing Double Movement get a -4 Attack, and -8 if the mount is going All-Out. These penalties can be halved with a DC 15 Athletics Check.
- Falling off the mount is dangerous- if the mount falls, its a DC 15 Athletics check to avoid taking damage. Falling off the mount is Damage 1, while falling WITH the mount is Damage 2 (more with each Growth Rank past a Horse's, should your mount be larger).
- The rider can only turn around in combat with great difficulty, as most animals can't turn around as quickly as can bipedal humans. As such, he is -2 to defend from attacks to the rear while mounted.
- Cavalry can get bogged down in combat- a Horse can be surrounded by more people than a man, so it's dangerous to be off on your own. Cavalry is at its best when a large group charges at once, then pulls back for another charge. Repeating this can disrupt the enemy badly, and run them down.

Also note that Heavy Cavalry also Armors the STEEDS as well, giving THEM +1 or 2 to Toughness. And bringing down a full-sized horse (who may or may not be panicking- accounts are varied on how mounts actually do in combat themselves, and a panicking horse is a FRIGHTENING opponent) with its own chainmail ain't easy.

Using Cavalry reflects old-school combat very well, as the Elite Troops were nearly ALWAYS Cavalry. Not to mention Skirmishing troops who often shot arrows and harassed enemy formations while being nigh-impossible to charge in turn. Lightweight horses made the best scouts & skirmishers, while middle-weight ones (1,000-1,200 lbs.) were the best for combat cavalry. Any heavier, and they were supply & draught horses. Generally speaking, only Horses are used, though Camel Cavalry was known in arid regions (like deserts- Napoleon used them, as did the Muslims during The Crusades- Camels were actually infamous for disrupting enemy horses, who apparently just don't like camels AT ALL). Anything else is either too small (ponies), too hard to control (rhinos, who are prone to charging everything within 10 feet and have terrible eyesight), or too dangerous (any animal with horns that point backwards makes a poor mount).
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Exotic Weapons! Bows! Guns!)

Post by Ares »

Ken wrote: Tue Jul 10, 2018 1:04 pm Whenever I've seen pictures or statues of Bohemian general Jan Žižka, I couldn't help but notice that...

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...the Czech is in the mail.
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Giant Cavalry

Post by Jabroniville »

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WAR ELEPHANTS:
There is also a tremendous history of War Elephants, generally using a large howdah as a battle platform (for Archers and the like). Elephants are borderline-impossible for humans to kill with melee weapons, making them LETHAL combatants- they were trained to run straight into the enemy lines at 30 mph, sometimes swinging around spiked balls attached to their trunks- enemy soldiers unfamiliar with Elephants were prone to utterly breaking and panicking at the very SIGHT of the beasts (and really- could you imagine being a medieval soldier, never having seen something bigger than a bear in your entire life, then seeing THAT?). Their relative uncontrollability (elephants panic badly from fire, shots to their legs, and loud noises- horses are more easy to calm down since they're, you know, smaller and you can grab the reins and stuff), and the fact that colder environments can mess badly with them, is a major drawback- The Romans soon began badly hampering Elephant-based armies, such as King Pyrrhus's (he beat the Romans once, but he's got a pretty famous saying named after him for a reason) and Hannibal's. Plus you have to feed and keep an elephant, which is NOT cheap. The advent of modern artillery (ie. cannons) made Elephants, usually resistant to even musket shots, a pretty bad idea.

Though of course for my D&D-verse, I pretty much threw every fantasy & real-world animal out there into the mix as Animal Mounts, because that's just pure awesome. I mean, RHINO CAVALRY? Flying Pegasus Knights? DINOSAUR CAVALRY? How can you go wrong?
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Swing Low

Post by Jabroniville »

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CHARIOTS:
-Chariots are a fairly old-school type of war platform that peaked years before Cavalry really fully-developed (it took a long time to develop a proper saddle)- some very ancient cultures used them (Ancient Egypt, the Hittites, and others, circa 18th Century B.C.). Their primary purpose was rapid travel, charging into lighter troops, and as an archery platform- they aren't any good stuck into combat. When Alexander the Great's armies defeated Darius III's, it signalled the end of the era for Chariots, as Cavalry was now more agile and heavily-armored.

A Chariot is a generally pretty vulnerable piece of Vehicle by modern standards, but does provide good Cover for those atop it. You can see a bit further, benefitting archers and leaders (Commanders generally gave order from them, even once the Chariot had been mostly rendered obsolete).
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Exotic Weapons! Bows! Guns!)

Post by Jabroniville »

And that's the end of my Design Diaries for Weapons & Cavalry! Odd how it took me so long- I had most of this stuff written more than six years ago, and the info has barely changed since then. But I think every time I got the idea, it was when Batgirl wasn't around, and I didn't wanna throw down a bunch of Sword Info without getting one of our resident "SCA Nerds" into it :).

Next up- a day or two of "Random Marvel Builds" (ie. I have names to re-post from seven years ago and it's bugging me that I haven't gotten to them yet), followed by Brutal: Paws of Fury!
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Exotic Weapons! Bows! Guns!)

Post by KorokoMystia »

My favourite: Random Marvel builds and fighting games! Looking forward to Samurai Shodown and Mortal Kombat, too. (And Killer Instinct, whenever that happens) Also, while Mortal Kombat does have a couple neat new characters for MKX, most of the newbies are just Generation Xerox, so I think the new Killer Instinct had more interesting newcomers in comparison. (They even finally brought in Thunder's brother, Eagle, as a playable character!)
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Exotic Weapons! Bows! Guns!)

Post by HalloweenJack »

Jabroniville wrote: Tue Jul 10, 2018 10:47 pm And that's the end of my Design Diaries for Weapons & Cavalry! Odd how it took me so long- I had most of this stuff written more than six years ago, and the info has barely changed since then. But I think every time I got the idea, it was when Batgirl wasn't around, and I didn't wanna throw down a bunch of Sword Info without getting one of our resident "SCA Nerds" into it :).

Next up- a day or two of "Random Marvel Builds" (ie. I have names to re-post from seven years ago and it's bugging me that I haven't gotten to them yet), followed by Brutal: Paws of Fury!
alright. I was actually coming in to ask when the weapons builds were going to be over.
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Batgirl III
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Exotic Weapons! Bows! Guns!)

Post by Batgirl III »

It wasn’t just developing a saddle that kept chariots in use, we also had to genetically engineer larger, stronger, and sturdier horses.

The standard chariot horse of the Ancients would be dwarfed by a modern quarterhorse, let alone a medieval knight’s destrier.

Archeological evidence, suggests that in the Ancient Near Easy, most horses were between 12 to 14 hands (48-56”) and quite lightly built. Whereas medieval destriers averaged from 14 to 16 hands (56-64”) in height, with a strong and heavy physique. Compare that to an American quarterhorse at 14 to 15 hands (56-60”) and much less stocky.

A horse’s spine will only let it bear a rider of about 25-30% of its total body weight, but they can easily pull 100% or more... Development of riding horses took millennia, development of cavalry took about half again as long.
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Jabroniville
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Devlor

Post by Jabroniville »

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DEVLOR
Created By:
Tom DeFalco & Paul Ryan
First Appearance: The Fantastic Four #391 (Aug. 1994)
Role: Forgotten Character
Group Affiliation: Fantastic Force
PL 8 (91)
STRENGTH
8 STAMINA 8 AGILITY 4
FIGHTING 8 DEXTERITY 3
INTELLIGENCE 2 AWARENESS 2 PRESENCE 1

Skills:
Athletics 5 (+13)
Expertise (Science) 2 (+4)
Insight 2 (+4)
Perception 1 (+3)
Technology 2 (+4)

Advantages: 
Fast Grab, Improved Hold, Improved Grab, Improved Initiative, Startle

Powers:
Leaping 1 (15 feet) [1]

Offense:
Unarmed +8 (+8 Damage, DC 23)
Initiative +3

Defenses:
Dodge +8 (DC 18), Parry +8 (DC 18), Toughness +8, Fortitude +8, Will +5

Complications:
Responsibility (Fantastic Force, The Inhumans)

Total: Abilities: 72 / Skills: 12--6 / Advantages: 5 / Powers: 1 / Defenses: 7 (91)

-Devlor is an Inhuman and the "Strong Guy" of Franklin Richards's Fantastic Force, though I have no idea HOW strong. Seriously- there is NOTHING out there on this guy, pretty much.
Last edited by Jabroniville on Mon Jun 13, 2022 7:19 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Ken
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Weight of Siege Equipment

Post by Ken »

Some 31.7 years ago, when I knew most of my first college gaming group, but before I joined said group, there was an incident after a gaming session.

The gaming session had run well into the night, well past midnight. The members of the group who were students returned to their dorm rooms. Well, mostly.

About an hour later, Eric came down and knocked on Terry's door. Lynda hadn't returned to her room. She went with Terry to his room. Eric should have realised this.

Eric persisted in his knocking. Finally, the door was answered.

"Terry, how much does siege equipment weigh?"

30+ years on, I still love that story.
Last edited by Ken on Wed Jul 11, 2018 11:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Vibraxas

Post by Jabroniville »

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VIBRAXAS (N'Kano III)
Created By:
Tom DeFalco & Paul Ryan
First Appearance: The Fantastic Four #391 (Aug. 1994)
Role: Forgotten Character
Group Affiliation: Fantastic Force
PL 8 (93)
STRENGTH
2 STAMINA 3 AGILITY 3
FIGHTING 6 DEXTERITY 4
INTELLIGENCE 2 AWARENESS 1 PRESENCE 2

Skills:
Athletics 3 (+5)
Deception 2 (+4)
Expertise (Science) 2 (+4)
Insight 2 (+3)
Perception 1 (+2)
Ranged Combat (Vibrations) 2 (+6)
Technology 2 (+4)

Advantages: 
None

Powers:
"Vibration Control"
"Phasing" Insubstantial 4 (Extras: Affects Others) (Flaws: Uncontrolled) (20) -- [22]
  • AE: Vibration Blast 10 (Feats: Improved Critical 2) (Flaws: Uncontrolled) (12)
  • AE: "Shockwave" Damage 8 (Extras: Area- 60ft. Cone) (Flaws: Uncontrolled) (8)
"Vibratory Control Suit" (Flaws: Removable) [6]
Removes Uncontrolled on Powers (5)
Protection 2 (2)
-- (7 points)

Offense:
Unarmed +6 (+2 Damage, DC 17)
Vibration Blast +6 (+10 Ranged Damage, DC 25)
Shockwave +8 Area (+8 Damage, DC 23)
Initiative +3

Defenses:
Dodge +8 (DC 18), Parry +7 (DC 17), Toughness +3 (+5 Suit), Fortitude +5, Will +5

Complications:
Relationship (Queen Divine Justice)- Vibraxas fell for a girl from the Dora Milaje- Ceremonial Wives of the Black Panther, and a leader of the Jabari cult. There were issues.
Responsibility (Power Loss)- Vibraxas must always wear his Control Suit, lest his powers rage out of control, and possibly even vibrate his own bones apart.

Total: Abilities: 46 / Skills: 14--7 / Advantages: 0 / Powers: 28 / Defenses: 12 (93)

-N'Kano III is a Wakandan boy who was given powers when his mother's experiment with Vibranium went awry, killing both his parents and empowering him. Sent away to the Fantastic Four in hopes of controlling his crazy powers, he instead hooked up with Psi-Lord and his "Fantastic Force" (a VERY short-lived team created thanks to some rumor-mongering that the Fantastic Four book was going to be replaced with a newer, more extreme book- instead they just made a spin-off). When that book was cancelled, he was used as a minor character in a Black Panther book, but he's still incredibly obscure. His powers were still out of control, and his love affair with Queen Divine Justice went awry because she was part of a cult that would lead Wakanda into civil war should she get with an outsider.

-Vibraxas is a pretty-standard Rookie Hero, albeit with higher damage-output than most, giving up some accuracy.
Last edited by Jabroniville on Mon Jun 13, 2022 7:21 am, edited 2 times in total.
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HalloweenJack
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Exotic Weapons! Bows! Guns!)

Post by HalloweenJack »

hmmm...is Huntara next?
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