Monday, September 8, 2014

Monsters and Mutants and Manticores, Oh My: Entry 1

In my ongoing, slow-going quest to finish up the first book, I've started working more and more on the monster template sheets.  I use the word monster here loosely, of course - I'll be making sheets for Zebra, Ponies, Ghouls, Alicorns and many of the other strange fauna that inhabit the radioactive wasteland of Fallout Equestria before I'm done here and can truly buckle down and focus on the second book and its dark and foreboding secrets. 

So this post is a promise, both to myself and to you, post-apocalyptic pony fans:  For the next two weeks, and for as long after that as I can manage, I will be posting one new critter sheet a day, every weekday. 

Look forward to it!  Today's post: Dogs. 



Dog – Mare’s best friend, in spite of what the jewelry companies might want you to think.  Dogs survived the wars hiding out in primarily the same way as ponies – in stables.  There were at least two stables that were specifically designated to allow pets.  Many dogs actually survived with ponies in other ways as well – in tunnels, caverns, and other fallout shelters that weathered both the blast and the following… well, fallout. 
Many packs of wild dogs, the descendants of those whose owners died in the wasteland or who simply abandoned them to fend for themselves when the end came, still roam the wasteland today.   

Monday, July 14, 2014

Hello, Ponies from EQD!

Hey, that's neat.  Based on my traffic monitor, apparently my blog has been linked by EQD!
...
...

So yeah, apparently I'm listed in the Equestria Daily Gaming Index as of some time in the last three months.  I was never notified about it in any capacity, just sort of started getting traffic hits from that page about two and a half months ago.  Didn't actually track it directly until these last few weeks when I was buckling down to finish the core. 

My RPG is listed second from the top of the "D100 (percentile dice) based:" category under the Complete Games heading, directly below the savage-worlds based PNP Fallout Equestria system.
(Ctrl+F "d100" will take you right there, since the page is sort of long). 

(And directly above a system that, not to be mean, makes me sort of laugh and cry simultaneously every time I look at its rules document.  Seriously, that poor person or persons who are responsible for that thing really ought to take it down... it's just not playable.  I should know, I tried.)

Dunno when that happened, but thanks for stopping by, EQD people.  I won't let my Trixie-based recognition go to my head.  :)

Drop me a line if you see something you've got questions about!

--Archer 

Saturday, July 12, 2014

New Version (v1.22 Complete) Posting Notification

Hey there Wastelanders?
How's everybody doin'?

I'm pretty excited myself. 

In honor of my new campaign that is starting tomorrow, "Post-War Ponies, Pre-War Problems," (coming soon to stores near me) I finally got over my perfectionism and said "To hell with it, I'm posting this now." 

That was approximately 8 hours ago.  After about that many hours of editing and compilation work (and fixing the table of contents - it's now 100% completely filled in for the first time ever!), I give you:



Here's a brief summary change log of what's new in this version... Sadly, one of my working changelogs was deleted by accident in a freak accident involving about 6 GB of Anime, so this is probably only about 80% of the changes this update actually captures. 

CHANGELOG
v1.22 (Pre [27])
- L15 and 30 Character examples.  ALL of them; that's what took so damn long. 
- Update the Character Sheet Guide pictures to match the Mk XIII sheet. 
- Finishing up the BBEG section
- Balancing tweaks including critical damage multiplier reductions
- Rules for continued-substance abuse relating frequent use to addiction chance. 
- Hind Leg Stance for Zebra, now an optional perk for ponies. 
- Unicorn Magic Limitations per spell level
- Wearing multiple sets of Armor (Variable ablation and degradation cycling; how much armor can a character wear?)
- Lightening Spell (for use with talismans, ala a skywagon)
- Repair talismans for powered barding. 
- Reduction of Unicorn strain pool (balance)
- Modifications to addiction rules (and corresponding perks, hindrances, traits)
- Friendly Fire Rules
- By Request: Zonkeys.
- Complete Overhaul of Flight maneuvers.  New maneuvers added referencing the pilot, MLP comic. 
- Authority and mirrored sunglasses give a bonus to Stare intimidate rolls.
- Complete reorganization of Perks.
- Addition to Initiative - Agility affects your rolls more directly now. 
- Altered requirements for several perks to make them easier to acquire based on playtester feedback and to align with Canon.
- First wave of Monster Templates added (Raiders, Ankha and Phoenix, Radscorpions)
- Double Team Fix
- Fixes to zebra talismans, including special ingredient clarification. 
- Throwing things with TK and STR
- Overhaul of Greater Dispel, all TK related spells to more clearly represent effects and interrelation. 
- Overhaul of multiple appropriate spells to reflect Willpower (a semi-derived stat that is actually a combination of CHA and INT; roll both, take best). 
- Talisman Creation overhaul (See Talisman Creator spell)

V1.22 ([27]-[33])
- Overhaul of Magical Arrow Spell tree for clarity
- Overhaul of Lighting effects (for use with shadow magic) - compression of level differences. 
- Zony Shaman Overhaul. 
    - Consume removed.
    - Explicit conversions of Zebra recipes to Unicorn spells and vice versa. 
- Monster templates: Talon Company Mercenaries, Gawdyna grimfeathers, Manticore, Radscorpions, Raiders, Enclave Soldier.  
- Drip, Faucet, copied to kinesis tree.  Their tier 3 and 4 remain elemental exclusive, because they have less to do with kinesis and more to do with smashing people ponies to death with water.
- Ward of Containment fixed.  (whoops!)
- SERIOUS overhaul of the Talisman Creator spell (*again*). 
- Corrections all Zebra spells for consistent grammar in usage. 
- Compression of Zebra spellcasting modes.
///END CHANGELOG


Still to Come: 

V1.23
- Finish the other 65 or so monster sheets I've outlined for myself. 
- Sleep, occasionally.  
- Wasn't I supposed to be working on my master's thesis?
- Also, some Matlab code. 

V2.01 (SEPERATE DOCUMENT - This is the splat book)
- Shadow Magic outlining of core mechanics and spells (completed - I have 77 spells prepared, and the mechanics are all pretty much finished)
- Cybernetics integration (I need a good picture of a Vitruvian Mare...)

Thursday, June 12, 2014

Temporary Version 1.22[28]

So the reason I haven't updated in a while is a bit of a doozy.  For those of you not in the know on this (which is everyone except my rule-breaker beta testing group, Knights and Exiles), the [28] in brackets is what I use to mark significant edit iterations for a given issue of the rules doc.  Usually, I get to version [8] or [9] and release with the new modifier.  This version is now quite far beyond that point.  Why is this?  Two reasons: 

1. Work
As some of you who have gotten in touch with me directly, I'm a master's student in engineering.  On top of that course-load, for the last 6 months I've been preparing to manage a gaming convention known as PolyCon in the beautiful little town of San Luis Obispo, California. (Stop by if you can - there will be two FoE RPG events running during the con!)

2. Goals

My Goal for version 1.22 is to have all of the 'essential' monster sheets done.  There are lots of other things that have come up in between point 1.21 and that goal, but I don't want to release until I can guarantee that that goal is met. 
Sounds simple enough, right?  Of course, if it was, I would have released the finished edition month ago. 
Sadly, the template I've sort of cornered myself into using for the monster sheets is Microsoft-publisher based.  I haven't been able to recreate it within my specifications in open office-based programs.  This is sad because it's fairly intensive to copy all of the data and abilities of each unique sheet into a consistent format for each of the 100 (exactly 100, by some complete accident) different encounter-templates I'm creating.  

All of that said, I have not abandoned this project.  Not in the least!   In fact, I've been working to make monster template sheets so that I can finish the first book.  When the main book is FINALLY done, I can  get to putting all of these new and crazy ideas I've been getting these last 5 months or so into the splat book (right alongside Changelings, Crystal Ponies, Dragons, Shadow Magic, and Robot player characters!) 


I have 31 of them completed, which is what I've been doing these last three months alongside convention-planning and some extremely intense MatLab and Comsol.  Now that I have the draft templates created for each of them, I can finish about one a day on average, assuming I have time each day to work on them (which I don't usually).   

So, because I recognize that I'm taking way too long, I'm posting an unfinished version (Again). 
The link is >>>HERE<<<
It's not hyperlinked, but the table of contents is accurate up to its point of completion.  (Which is the beginning of the monster manual section.)