| From: | MC23 <mc23@****.NET> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Bugz and MC23 |
| Date: | Mon, 6 Jan 1997 12:39:40 -0500 |
Bugz, their threat ratings and threat ratings in general.
Having a huge termite group (the largest single colony insect spirit
in North America) in my campaign you could say I have this foundness for
them. I use the standard spirit threat rating for them, force/2 and that
works fine for me. In general most of the spririts PC's fight are
between force 1 and 3. On the other hand I play up the other scary
aspect of Bugz, the Swarm. Rarely do you encounter one by itself and
only a handful represents just a scouting party. When it gets deep it's
just like the bug-hunt from Aliens with that type of fun paranoia. Once
my party followed a lone spirit into a warehouse. As they entered the
warehouse I kept rolling secret perception tests to see if anyone noticed
the ceiling. Once they were in the center of the warehouse someone
finally decided to look straight up (an automatic success) to see the
whole warehouse ceiling swarming with termite spirits which then dropped
to the floor. <evil grin> (I got to use all the plastic Genestealers
from my then roommate's Space Hulk game) Needless to say, there was an
immediate responce of a panicked retreat as the fought to make it to the
exist to escape and torch the warehouse.
If I recall they were only force 3 maybe with a threat of 1 and they were
scary in masse.
As far as threat ratings in general go, I like the treatment in
prime runners if you have access to the book. Also don't forget that
threat ratings were originally set up to mirror the Skill Success Table
(SRII p68) in that the disciption should be the difficulty of the
opponent. Since this is a very subjective system it should be modified
for each persons game. If what you use is far from this guideline (I
dunno, 3 or more depending?) then I would want to know why it warrents
that much deviation.
I would question why anyone feels that a typical bug spirit would
need a threat equal to its spirit ratings, Queens and special fleshforms
are as always special exceptions. And as far as PC's summoned spirits,
let them have access to the controling PC's pools if you feel it is
appropriate, that's balancing enough for me. Who ever said magic was a
cakewalk anyway.
Ancient cultures believed that names held great power, personal
names more so and they were guarded very closely. To protect themselves,
they answered to another name, because if another discovered their real
name, it could be used against them.
History repeats itself.
Welcome to the Digital Age.
I am MC23
