EVEr Idle

 I still have my accounts.  They are still training skills... I have game characters older than drinking age kids. 

Blackjack Betting

There are two aspects to playing blackjack "well".  Playing strategy and betting strategy.  There are many guides to both.  Wikipedia actually has a great matrix of what do based on what you have and what the dealer is showing.  The very short form of the playing strategy is you generally assume the hole card is a 10.  Therefore you should hit until your hand total is higher than whatever the dealer has showing.  So if the dealer is showing a 7, then you assume he/she has a 17 and therefore you should hit up to 17 or bust trying since the dealer is likely to beat you anyway.  There's more to it than this and I would encourage you to read up on the full strategy--or sit down with me sometime as I explain it.

Betting strategy is something I don't see as often, but I'm sure it is out there.  My research is all based on no actual money--just a very realistic simulated environment.  In class, I would "buy in" for $200-$300 and play all night trying to only work with that initial buy in.  Most nights I made it last for 3 hours with little to nothing left over, but there were a couple of nights where I ended very up.  My record was $3800, but I did get over $1000 more than a few times.  I wouldn't encourage real gambling unless you really can afford it, but playing with a good poker set is most of the same fun.

My betting strategy uses two hands on a $5 table.  To play 2 hands you have to double the minimal bet to $10.  So Bet 1 gets $10 and Bet 2 gets $10.  From this you have fundamentally 3 outcomes.  2 winning hands, 1 win / 1 loss, and 2 losses.  1 win / 1 loss happens the most often and it results in a wash.  You win $10 and lose $10.  You take the $10 you won and move it over to the bet that lost and keep playing as is.  You just having fun for free at this point.

If both bets win, then you get $20 in pay out.  Add $5 to each bet and pull back $10.  Now you have $30 on the table--two bets of $15.  Just play normally.  Chances are you'll get the 1/1 result and you can keep moving the $15 winning bet over to the loss and you're still playing for free.  As long as you're winning or getting 1/1 you keep up the same pattern of adding $5 from winning bets or just moving over bets.  

If you lose both hands you basically start over at $10 bets and build up again.  If you're lucky you will have built up some winnings from pulling back winning bets.  If you want to play more aggressively, then double your starting bets to $20 and $20.  If you lose again, then double again to $40 and $40.  If you are applying good blackjack strategy then the odds of winning remain about 1 in 3 so you're bound to win back what you've lost if you can keep doubling the bet on the losses.  However... this is a game of a chance.  If this is real money, then it is your real $160 on the table to win or lose based on a 30 second blackjack hand.  Obviously, some people dig that.  Some don't.  Don't bet what you can't lose.

Overall this strategy allows you to stretch out play time.  It does require that you know your blackjack playing strategy.  While it isn't really possible for most folks to count cards in their head, you can keep a casual track of things.  There are 96 Ten cards and 24 Aces. If you're most of the way through a full 6-deck "shoe" then the percentage of 10's / Aces has likely altered.  Good playing strategy requires using Double Down and Split bets effectively in well timed ways.

Again, this is just my personal observation.  I make no claim about this strategy as likely to win you actual money.  All casino gambling favours the house.  My observations are my own and do not reflect the recommendations of any agency public or private.

Blackjack!

Blackjack... a relatively simple game.  I've spent the last month playing about 4 hours a day, 5 days a week in training to be a dealer at a local casino.  I've always wanted to be a better blackjack player--it feels a bit "James Bond" even if his game was baccarat.  You know the basics.  You start with 2 cards and total the pips of each card to get as close to 21 as you can without going over.  All suited cards count as 10 except the Ace which can be either 1 or 11.  Simple enough with a few extra bits to remember.

You're playing against the dealer and only the dealer.  There may be 7 people at your table, but the only hand you have to beat is the dealer (me).  In this regard I am entirely a machine, the dealer can make no decisions about his/her hand.  My casino must hit on all hands "soft 17" or lower and must NOT hit on any hand of "hard 17" or higher.  Thus if I have an Ace and a 6, then I have a a soft 17 and must take another card.  If I have an Ace and a 7, then I have a soft 18 and must NOT take a card.  The dealer has only one card visible when you (the player) must decide if you want additional cards or not.  The hidden card (or hole card) is what you're betting against.  If your hand totals higher than mine or if I bust (go over 21) then you win and I match your bet.  If I beat your hand or you bust, then I take your bet. If you get a true "blackjack" hand (one 10 card of any sort and one Ace on your first two cards), then I pay 3:2 or 1.5 times your bet.

That's the basics of it.  Most of the class was more about handling the cheques(chips) than anything else.  You see casinos rarely lose money from players, but apparently employees cost them money all the time. Everything on a blackjack table is watch by multiple cameras.  They can count the cheques on the table--probably better than I can standing at the table.  So everything I do as a dealer must be very transparent to the cameras.

Now a public service announcement.  DEALERS ARE PAID ON TIPS!  The hourly rate of an American casino dealer is making less than minimum wage like any waitress or bartender.  There are a variety of ways to tip a dealer.  A popular route is to place a dealer bet next to your own on the table.  If you win, then the dealer wins that portion of your bet.  Certainly this is fun, but don't feel shy about just giving the tip (a cheque/chip) straight to the dealer.  You see if your hand loses, then the tip is lost as well.  The casino doesn't give the lost tip bet to the dealers...  Every dealer needs to make about $15 per hour in tips to make a good wage.  That's not very hard to do at a table of even 3 players.  Consider giving $5 per hour to the dealer as a general rule.  However, if you did just score big on a $500 bet, tipping a $25 is just fine!  This reflects only my opinion of tipping dealers.  You stick to whatever mechanism feels right for you.  My opinion is not a reflection of any organization or casino.

There is no "trick" to blackjack.  There is no magic formula to win consistently even if you are a master player.  It is a casino game of chance which has to take in more than it pays out in order to work.  That said, you can definitely hedge the odds a bit.  Generally, one hand in three is going to win.  Each hand has one of 3 outcomes, win, lose, or draw (called a push).  If you win, you get double your money. If you lose, you lose your bet.  If you push, then you neither win nor lose any money.  As with all things based on chance, you can get a string of 10 losses or 10 wins.  The odds just say what is likely to happen, not what will happen.  Again, no system can turn blackjack in to a consistently winning game, but it's fun to play and get lucky.  If you have the means to spend the money, enjoy yourself in a casino, and like to smoke and drink inside... then blackjack is a pretty enjoyable hobby.  Most people won't walk away "winners"... but a few will.

EVEn Now

The years go by and games come and go, but EVE seems to be eternal.  The big draw this month is that CCP is creating a real life stone monument to the game in Iceland with the name of every active pilot etched on it.  So yeah, Masada Akiva and Porter Thorne will be cut in stone along with 200,000 variations of genitalia euphemisms.  In strange, very unlike Eve fashion, I haven't lost my station or alliance.  I'm still with Apocalypse Now in Providence space and doing fine.

I've been cycling through various games.  My playing time has been drastically reduced, but I've passed through Star Wars The Old Republic, Defiance, more Star Trek Online, and a tiny bit of Elder Scrolls Skyrim.  Just playing around with this and that.

Defiance is a great little game for some light-hearted shooting and some fun racing around in dune buggies.  SWTOR keeps packing in more expansions which are adding to the game, but it feels like drips and drabs.  It never has quite enough meat to really bite in to.  STO keeps adding more and more content and all of it is pretty well done, but the game so completely easy that it offers no real challenge.  Plus I think STO should be a game full of moral quandary and the MMO offers zero real moral dilemmas. Elder Scrolls isn't online yet, but from what I'm hearing of the beta, I probably won't even try it.  The fantasy clones are just not compelling.

I am looking forward to Titanfall, but that's won't be an MMO of course.  I keep flirting with the idea of GW2, but then never feel like spending the full price even though I know it is only one time.  I just picked up Shadowrun and while I'm not a fan of the "retro" top-down playing format with static text, it is a good story and I always love a game with cyberware.

The next BIG adventure will be a foray in to real games.  I'm training to be a Blackjack dealer at one of the local casinos.  It isn't a lot of extra money, but it's more than minimum wage which is good enough for a second job.  I won't be quitting my day job, but it is fun to think I could shift careers in to professional gaming.  That might be cool.

Game on!

In the darkness of Dishonored

I put some time in to Dishonored over the last couple of weeks.  While not an MMO (or even multi-player), it has the sort of compelling story-line I enjoy.  It is somewhat darker than I like, but the world had a gritty reality to it that hooked me.  In my opinion, the backdrop was more interesting than the actual story.  The story is an un-original "avenge the murdered Empress and save the young princess" cliche.  Which is too bad as the whole rest of the game is one of the most original I've played.  I actually put off buying this title for months because of the dull premise.  I'm glad Steam finally had it up for $10!

The backdrop is a sort of steampunk world based on whale oil.  The city of Dunwall is on a harbor where one can frequently see the whaling ships come in with their still living harvest held suspended over the deck.  Technology is a blend of what looks like whale oil diesel and Tesla-inspired electrical fields.  Dunwall is suffering a massive plague, flooding, and internal corruption.  There isn't much hope in this story.  The game starts with the Empress of Dunwall murdered in front of you and her daughter.  The rest of the game is bringing those responsible to justice and rescuing the princess and here is where Dishonored shows a bit of uniqueness.

While many games have different outcomes based on decisions, in Dishonored the story alters based on body count.  If you work your way through the game murdering anyone and everyone in your path to ultimately eliminate a major target, then the game plays along a path of "high chaos" and the already dark story gets darker.  There will be more rats, more plague victims, and NPC's mutter darker phrases in your presence.  Alternatively, you can choose to knock opponents out or avoid them completely to achieve a "low chaos" victory.  The epilogue for each is different while the quests on the way are exactly the same.  The variation is subtle, but well done.  It isn't a radical story shift in either case.  In the end the bad guys are dealt with and the princess restored.  Still, I was left wondering what happened to Dunwall.  The epilogue hand waves over it, but I wanted more.  I wanted to see such a dark place become brighter.  I wanted to see more positive impact of my actions instead of merely avoiding the worst outcomes.  Justice never quite seems to be served.  Any story that can make me wish for such things has in my definition become worthy of recommendation.  It's a good journey with some interesting questions.

Interface Zero: Upgrade

In order to keep the creative mind active, I've started working more frequently on tabletop gaming and story building.  I use these sorts of things a muse to keep my mind in a particular world where stories happen.  My latest tool for this is Interface Zero; a campaign setting for either d20 Modern or Savage Worlds.  Since I've been keeping my eye on SW for a while now, I figured I'd give the system a shot.

IZ is a cyberpunk setting which attracts me as I see cyberpunk as a step in to transhumanism.  Transhumanism has less "humanity is in decay" and more "humanity is evolving and adapting".  So let's chat about Interface Zero and Savage Worlds.

SW is (in my experience) a step between the utter simplicity of True20 and the more common complexity of D&D 3/4 ed.  There are no levels, but rather "Advances" where you qualify for an upgrade to a stat, skill, or power.  This allows for great character flexibility.  The fundamental mechanic is based on the love of dice.  Traits like Strength are assigned a die type like d4, d6, d8, d10, and d12.  When making Strength checks the player rolls the die type they bought for Strength.  Most target numbers are just 4 so using a d12 makes such checks pretty easy while having only a d4 makes it harder.  When you roll the max on your die type, it "explodes" allowing you to roll it again and add the new roll to the first.  Thus you can pull off incredible acts of success.  Every time you beat a target roll by 4 points it counts as a "raise" with some bonus effect like extra damage or maximal effect.  Raises can stack so beat a number by 8 points and get two raises.  Everything works on this mechanic.

Damage to characters is handled by a wound system where by if your personal toughness and armor are exceeded by the damage dealt then you are shaken and/or wounded.  Incur three wounds and you are incapacitated.  Combats are short once one side gains an advantage.  For its simplicity, SW still contains a lot of nuance that can make every encounter different (players, read the damn rules).

Interface Zero is the setting on top of the system.  David Jarvis of Gun Metal Games (www.gunmetalgames.com) has fronted this system and scored 7 "raises" on his Kickstarter campaign to fund the second edition printing.  He landed $84,000 in funding for a $10,000 project.  The new beta versions of the setting are just starting to roll out and they look pretty darn cool.  Unlike more "traditional" cyberpunk, IZ pierces space to introduce colonies and space stations.  It also has "gollemechs" and of course augmented and virtual realities.  I've been daydreaming this world for about 5 years so it is fun to see some game mechanics behind so I can actually play in this world.  See you in my own universe...

The Federation, Klingons, and Romulans... OH MY!

Star Trek Online remains a common favorite.  You just can't beat free and as far as "space combat" goes, it doesn't get much more painlessly fun than STO.  So what's new with good ol' STO? Romulans, of course.

This "season's" expansion is Legend of Romulus and features the lesser known pointy eared space elves.  Let us review the timeline...

The Star Trek that original fans remember officially ends when Spock is thrown back in time in the JJ Abrams reboot.  From that point we were on a new timeline and we have seen two movies of the "new" Star Trek starting back in the early days of James T. Kirk.  So what about the original timeline that Spock left?  Romulus was destroyed and Spock had disappeared.  Those days were fairly far in the future of the to the original timeline and many of the old characters were retired or dead.  This is where Star Trek Online takes over.  STO is the original timeline told well after Romulus has exploded.

In this season, we see the Romulans attempting to rebuild their home on a new planet while the politics and warfare of the galaxy continue around them on all sides.  This is one of my problems with the STO game is that it turns Star Trek away from its roots and squarely back in to the space combat genre.  I lament this track, but I do actually enjoy space combat so I'll forgive it.

LoR does some pretty cool things with characters.  Besides adding Romulan as a fully playable starting race with its own storyline, the Klingons are also being given their own storyline starting from 1st level.  This is new ground for STO where Klingons were only playable *after* you had run a Federation character to 24th level.  While awesome! I also find this really annoying.  For years, Dan Stahl, the lead developer for STO has said he isn't developing the Klingons as a fully playable faction because "most of the players wanted to play Federation."  Well if that really is true, Dan, then why create a 3rd non-Federation race?  I'm glad of the change of heart, but I'm not sure what to believe out of you now.  Either your numbers were really bad or this was just the best thing you could come up with.

Anyways... There are new ships, new worlds, and graphics improvements across the board.  I personally saw less bugs than usual for STO, but the whole system has been suffering beta disease with daily outages and multiple patches.  This is partially due to Cryptic Studios also deciding to beta launch an entirely new title, Neverwinter.  Two betas at the same time... Really, Cryptic? Kudos for bravado if not brains.

The missions are good, the visuals are good and there are enough buttons and knobs to have fun with it.  There are some annoying bits... Free 2 Play doesn't mean free of course.  The developers count on gaining some revenue which I fully support.  In STO this comes in the form of buying access to ships and convenience items (like more bank slots).  These purchases are often tied to each individual character and thus would need to be purchased many times if one were to make many characters.  A theme of Cryptic game design is the encouraging of creating many characters... Cryptic games have lots of options locked in to the classes you pick and level quickly.  It is designed to create alts and each alt requires some revenue... that gets a bit annoying when you look at the total spend on a game.  Federation ships purchased are not available to Klingon characters for example (or visa versa).

The expansion is well worth a look for the price (free!).  I do love the ship combat.  Ground combat needs some work (still).  Overall there is easily a month or two of content in STO worth exploring.  PS: the picture is Masada as a Lethean... Game ON.

WhatEVEr Happened to...?

Eve Online? Well it is still out there and still cranking out updates and changes.  The latest release is Odyssey.  There are many full and better reviews out there so I won’t attempt an exhaustive list of features, but I can comment on what my experiences have been.

When last we left our intrepid pilot, Masada, he was deep in Providence with the CVA alliance.  While I always try to keep tabs on general events in Eve, I can’t always keep up with the actual personalities involved.  Eve is still a full monthly subscription game and that makes it prohibitive to play compared to free titles like Star Trek Online or Neverwinter, but something is still compelling about the silent expanse of Eve.  

When I returned, Masada was right where I left him and even in the same alliance and still in a friendly station.  This is something that can actually go wrong in nullsec regions like Providence.

I reconnected my Planetary Interactions (basically planet side manufacturing), tweeked my ship configurations a little bit and bolted out in to our home pocket to do a little ratting.  Everything worked about as I remember and then a drone got popped and another was almost dead.  WTF? Mobs almost never locked drones before.  I thought maybe this particular combat site must be special, but nooooo.  As I ran more Cosmic Anomalies (randomly spawning combat sites), it became clear that drones were definitely first on the mob menus.  My ratting Dominix battleship was vastly diminished.  I could tank forever, but I couldn’t keep my drones alive long enough to clear a site.  Replacing drones is expensive and time consuming.  A Heavy Assault drone in Providence can cost 2 million ISK a pop and are often many warp jumps away.  Dejected I clone jumped back to Empire to try some missions.

Rather than waste more drones, I went ahead and fit a modest Raven battleship.  The Caldari ships focus on missiles which have gotten a lot of love from the Eve developers in the last year or so.  Missiles now have fully animated launch sequences and leave these awesome vapor trails as they smash on to targets with new explosions.  It was very satisfying.  Many ships (like the Raven) have seen some changes to help balance them out.  This makes the "lower" end ships like the Raven better while shaving a little off the top of the "higher" end ships like the Rokh.   I made some isk and had fun chatting up my new corpmates in the same alliance.  Without putting in long hours I was making isk and enjoying the pretty stars (and explosions).

About this time my son decided he wanted to trial Eve so I helped him get started and then sent him a few million.  After figuring out the new mob mechanics I decided to jump Masada back to Providence to continue ratting and to poke at exploration.  I didn’t want to leave the boy all alone in Empire so I activated my 2nd account.  I figured I’d leave my alt with the boy to help him figure out mining and running missions and when he wasn’t online, I could run Masada in Providence.

So far it has all been working out nicely.  I give the new release a big thumbs up.  It is a good expansion on top of a decade of developed mechanics.  Eve continues to be a beautiful game with a lotta buttons to play with.  For me it is still a slow game—easy to keep up with—but it sure doesn’t have to be.  PvP remains fast, furious, and pulse pounding.

Will I be in space every day? Oh, I dunno.  I tend to think no, but it is fun for now.

Scarlet Blade: The Strip Club of MMO's

Scarlet Blade… wow.

Okay, I’ll deal with the female avatars later.  First let’s just do a quick once-over of the game ignoring the models.  The TL/DR version is Free 2 Play MMO, classed level advancement, targeted combat, grind questing, with auction house, microtransaction store, limited crafting, limited gear options, skill trees, and giant robots.

SB shows the finesse of an Asian game engine with high detail and a huge portion of pleasing ascetics.  I love a good sci-fi game and this one has a great girl-merges-with-robot feel.  The start zone is a nudge big and can take (IMO) too long to travel from quest to quest even with the monocycle you get for free at 10^th level.  The game contains a “good” feature whereby you can just click on the quest object linked in your quest log and your avatar will auto-run to it.  Most of the critters in the start zone are passive so you don’t get a lot of agro.  While convenient, it gets boring as you don’t even need to look at the map.  The map is also pretty crap—being too small and non-intuitive about where you are in relation to your objectives.  It’s functional, but I’d call it below average.

There are 6 classes and 2 sides.  The two sides have no differences—one is “good” and the other is “evil”.  On my server there were a lot more evils than goods.  The 6 classes are totally predictable with a sliding scale of DPS, tank, and healer.  I played Punisher (ranged DPS), Sentinel (faster ranged DPS), and Medic (healer?).  The Medic is, of course, a healer class, but as far as I could tell you never need it… so what’s the point?  Class selection seem mostly a choice of which avatar you find prettiest and combat style (big guns, pistols, whips, or melee).

The quests are 100% “go here and kill X bad things”.  The quest dialog banter is laughable and sexist without even being intelligently flirty which I suspect as the Producers intent.  However, you don’t need to read any of the text as you just need to accept the quest and then click on the auto-run to zone link.  Thinking is not required.  While grindy, it wasn't heavy grinding.  The scenery is pretty and mobs are interesting.  Nobody I fought had any unusual traps or tricks in combat.  Fighting was all just button-smash all your powers in a timed sequence.

There is an auction house, but with no alternate gear options, the AH is pointless.  All your gear is presented from questing.  You can’t use the gear or get the quests until specific levels so there was initially no variation between characters (up to 20^th level).  It takes a few days of casual play to get to 20.  The same limits apply to the skill tree.  There are not a lot of options in the skill tree.  There doesn't seem to be any way to create meaningful variety in builds.

The coolest feature so far has been the robot form you gain at 15^th level.  At first I was like “YES THIS ROCKS” and then my energy ran out.  You see the robot form drains “CP” as a resource at a constant rate.  CP isn’t used for anything else except robot form.  It depleted in about a minute and took about 10 minutes to slowly restore.  In robot form I gained access to a number of untargeted AoE attacks which were fun.  But the extremely short duration of the form and the really long recharge time detracted from the experience.

Overall, I’d rate the game as nothing special.  It’s okay, but nothing about the game play was unique, the writing was annoying, and most of the options were on rails.

Okay, time to deal with the giant 44 DDD’s in the room.  SB has no male avatars.  Each class as a static female form.  You can change the face and hair, but nothing else.  Every model is dressed in a thong one-piece swimsuit and all of them are impossibly endowed *except* the Sentinel model who is child sized… Nipples are barely covered *sometimes*.  Other times they are not covered or are clearly visible through translucent costumes.  A great deal of CPU is given to independent breast physics.

On one level, SB is a male gamer fantasy come true.  We have skin movies, skin magazines, skin websites so why not skin video games with giant guns and robots?  It’s not high-brow.  It is pandering to the same audience that might also like visiting a strip club.  It isn’t good for you.  It’s fattening as all hell, but curiosity draws you in.

From a feminist perspective, the game is yet another ridiculously biased title squarely aimed at the teen male market.  The only unique bit to SB is its complete sell out nature.  It doesn’t even attempt to hide the focus on naked women as robot pilots where those women are pretty sexual objects.  It is a naked anime game.  Typical of the sex and titillation industry the game makers hope you’ll spend extra money to see your avatar completely naked and dressed up in a small variety of sexier outfits.  Scarlet Blade isn’t trying to be a forward thinking title or an innovative game.  It isn’t going for good writing or an awesome story.  It is going straight up for sexy women/objects as a hook.  Playing feels a lot like visiting that strip club on the really bad side of town.  1 part sexy fun and 2 parts uncomfortable adjustment.  You know instinctively this isn’t “right”, but I guess we all make a trip to the Adult Bookstore at least once.

I'm not defending Scarlet Blade or the gaming industries wide-spread problems with inclusion and diversity.  SB is just another sexist title on a heap of sexist titles.  

Not the Few, Butt the Many

Sexism in video games is a slippery problem because it isn’t a problem with one game.  The problem is with the trend or the mass of games in total.  Most of us spend more of our lives as adults than teens so it isn’t completely inappropriate for adults to want to play adult / playful games where there are sexy options.  If the ratio to sexy was some arbitrary number less than 80% sexy to 20% not applicable (i.e. games that don’t feature humanoids of any kind), then maybe we would be on the right track.  But honestly, every game that features a female character seems to make sure that character is sexy, objectified, or straight up abused.  A “good” game might only suffer one of these traits where a bad game just says “fuck it, slap that bitch.”  There are exceptions, but these shining gems numbering only a small handful.  This is the problem.  It isn’t that any one game can’t just be “good fun” or “just a game”… it’s that all of them are.   So we might have titles like Tera Online and that’s okay as long as for every one Tera there should be at least one Mass Effect (where even ME suffers Miranda Ass Syndrom).

The excuse that these are games marketed for men is bullshit.  The excuse that this is all that teenage boys want is bullshit.  The excuse that this is all that sells is bullshit.  I would buy, “We sorta suck at game design/writing so we put in a lot of boobs”.  This I would believe.  So get some better writers.  Follow some real world examples… We don’t have strippers on Wall Street.  We have a special section of town for that.  Build worlds with adult options in certain locations.  Make them age restricted.  Sure kids will get around it, but really if the kids want sexy online options, they have plenty.  What I want is a place where I can play “normal” and maybe go visit “Online Amsterdam” if I feel like it.  We can develop social values inside these games and we should.  We actually already are, we’re just not paying attention to what we’re developing.

So again… it isn’t that sex is wrong or sexy is wrong or any one sexy game is wrong.  It is that having sexy women in *all* games with no options to avoid it is wrong.  Not OMG it should be illegal wrong… but “Please, for the love of Mike give us some realistic options.”

I'll add one more easy to understand concept.... Simply let everyone pick all options.  If design requirements mandate separate modelling for female vs. male characters make sure that both genders can opt in to all the available options where some of those options should be not-sexy.  Let men where bikinis, let women put on full body coverage.  Options to be what you want instead of what the game designers want you to play.

Tera Online

Tera... A new(ish) morg from En Masse in the US and Blue Hole Studios in Korea.  First the obvious stuff.  It’s fantasy genre with a more asian theme.  It uses a “standard” class system.  There are 7 races and 7 classes; humans, elves, castanics, barakas, popori, and elin with warrior, slayer, bezerker, lancer, sorcerer, mystic, and priest.  Humans, elves, and castanics (satyr-esque) are dual gender.  Barakas appear to be made of stone and are only male.  Popori are cute little animorphs with no obvious gender.  Elin have an extra set of animal ears and a tail and appear to be all 12 year old girls (more on this later).  All the avatars depicting humanoid anatomy are... umm... buxom.  Even the males are pretty.

But if you could sum up Tera in a word, it would “pretty”.  Everything in this game is beautiful.  Every character, every avatar, every landscape, every cut scene. The attention to detail is boggling.  They must have 10,000 Korean texture mappers working slave hours.

What isn’t obvious is a different combat system more akin to a first-person shooter than a morg.  There is no “target locking” and all abilities must be aimed with the reticule in the center of the screen.  Movement is WASD combined with always-on mouse look ala Halo.  Abilities are mapped to keys which does prove clumsy sometimes and especially at higher levels.  With both hands busy with movement and targeting and 15 separate abilities to fire off, combat becomes challenging, more skilled, and thus more exciting than the typical morg button mash.  For me, at least, this combat system is the WoW-killer.  I was utterly done with the fantasy morg as tired, overdone, and just plan over.  But Tera won me back with this new combat mechanic and it’s amazingly artful beauty.

The ugly... Well there is some controversy.  The female character models are nothing short of complete anime fan service--lots of upskirt shots, lots of impossible cleavage, lots of panties, lots of breast physics (jiggle).  While pleasing to the male eye, it is grossly sexist to the point where I am partially embarrassed to even admit I like the game.  Especially in light of recent gamer events regarding gender and trolls.  I am having a bit of a struggle with this.  But I do enjoy the game and while I’d like to discourage this type of gender bias, I am not yet ready to vote with my wallet yet.  But when I do find another morg that catches my eye, I have a significant bit of extra motivation to end my Tera subscription.

Added to this controversy is the Elin, a race of beings who all have the appearance of innocent young girls, but who are actually an old race of tricksters and malevolent fairies.  This is something of a traditionally asian trope which is lost on European/Western players.  They just see scantily dressed girls and instantly assume “pervert”.  Well... possibly yes.  But universally? No.  Cultures are different and they see things in different ways.  The Elin are not called human for a reason--they aren’t.  It’s a fantasy made-up creature.  I know it is quite easy to argue, “yes, but they look like girls!”  I don’t have any response other than, “my imagination is capable of suspending my disbelief.”  This ability will differ greatly across players.  But again, it will be another controversy I will be glad to leave behind when I leave the game.  PS: Yes, one of the characters I created was an Elin Priest.  Her name is Louy and “she’s” supposed to be a trucker that was thrown from our world to the Tera world by a vengeful goddess where he learns to be a better human being.  Does that make up for it?

The Origin of Louy

So, no shit, there I was... at the bar and there was this amazing blond down the way.  She was like Hollywood wrapped in Christmas and strapped to a dildo.  She was hot.  Me and the fellas couldn’t believe our luck.  Our crappy corner pub hadn’t seen a gal like this in... well, ever!  Girls like her didn’t even drive through our part of town where the truckers like me would shack up for few nights before hitting the road again.  

In these summer nights our street was a shimmering heat wave by day and radiated more heat all night sucking up any refreshing breeze that might have penetrated the city.  A lucky few had window unit air conditioners, but a lot of us didn’t bother since we were on the road all the time.  A girl like this tall drink of water might only be seen from the cab of my truck as a looked down on the all the rich honeys that would pass me in their fancy luxury cars.

Blondie didn’t seem too clued in to where she was.  She would cock her head as if trying to tune in single converations in the din of bar noise and bad music.  This would be followed by a sneer and then a sip from her frozen drink.  A frozen drink! I didn’t even know Al had a daiquiri machine!

Well the old pub hadn’t had this sorta action at any time I could remember.  We chatted and laughed and made up stories for what we’d do “if we got a piece of that”.  We started off tame, but as the beers rolled in I got braver.  I figured, hell there was never going to be a woman like this in here ever again, I might as well be the legendary dude to get shot down by her.  Being rejected by pretty women was practically my religion!  So after lucky beer number 14 I set out across bar.

All the locals could see my not quite straight path.  They knew the score.  But blondie was completely unaware.  I slicked back the hair, stood up straight(ish), and stepped up.

“Al! Get this *fine* lookin’ woman another fruity drink on me.  Make it a double!”

Blondie gave me a sideways glance slowly turning to face me.  Her dress was white, extremely low cut and appeared like it must be see through, but stare as I might I didn’t get a glimpse of anything good.

“Eyes up here, sailor.” She said through a smile that felt like a sneer.

You have no idea how much effort it took to pull my eyes off that rack, but then I met her eyes.  I felt my head lock as if something metal had slotted in to place.  No matter what I did with the rest of my body, my head wouldn’t move and my eyes couldn’t look away.   I felt the night’s conversations of everything I said I would do to this woman spooling out of my head like a reel.  She read it like a rap sheet while time seemed slow down.  She quirked an eyebrow as images of the beer-fueled boasts played before my eyes.  In that moment even I felt ashamed and yet excited.  She was pushing all my buttons.

On some subconscious level, in that moment, I knew she wasn’t human.  But my voice was gone.  My will sapped.  My body limp.  Her words echoed in my brain erasing all other thought.

“You will learn.” She said it casually, but it felt as if it was shouted by a hundred thousand angels.  I fell in to her eyes, a great white tunnel...

My first awareness was of a cool breeze on my exposed skin.  My legs were bare and I was laying on stone or brick.  The sun was warm and bright through my closed eyes.  I felt... small like my body wasn’t the same dimensions I remembered.  I brought my hand up to my face.  My arm felt weaker, thinner.  I opened my eyes to look at my hands.  Fair skin, long fingers, without scar or abrasion--these weren’t my hands!  I was ham-fisted and calloused with permanent grim under my nails.  These were the arms of a young girl.  I sprang upright shocked at my flawed perceptions.  I wasn’t me! I was frail, thin and short.  I could hear blood rushing in my ears.  I looked around bewildered taking in the world which was as strange as my body.  The sun was brilliant, but ringed in strange arcane symbols.  The trees were flawless, but strange and unknown.  Miles in the distance an entire ocean crashed over the most spectacular waterfall I have ever seen.  My vision clouded trying to shut out so much impossible input.  A strange signal was being processed.  Some appendage was squashed uncomfortably under my butt and demanded relief.  I staggered upright and twisted around to look at my perfect, white, fluffy, cotton, tail.

I passed out... right there on the platform to Isle of Dawn... and that’s how I came to Tera.

STO: Auxiliary Power

I found this info on the STO forums and wanted to capture it... A lot of this stuff is hard to figure out.

There is a lot of question of what aux does for any given power, so here I will list the effect auxiliary power has on any given power. Most of this information came from going into the game, and seeing what happens to the power information when I adjusted my aux power settings.

This information should be accurate as of season 3.

Color key:

This power gets significant bonus from aux power, and you probably want to use this with as much aux power as possible.

This power gets a very situational or marginal bonus from aux power and/or it may not affect the effectiveness of the power itself or its major effects.

This power gets no bonus from aux power, or the bonus is too small to be meaningful.

Auxiliary power does this for the given power:

Science Powers

Charged Particle Burst: Increases shield drain

Energy Siphon: Increases buff/debuff duration

Feedback Pulse: Increases damage reflected

Gravity Well: Increases damage and repel strength

Hazard Emitters: Increases heal and damage resistance

Jam Sensors: Decreases fragility

Mask Energy Signature: Increases stealth*

Photonic Officer: No discernible effect

Photonic Shockwave: No discernible effect

Polarize Hull: Increases damage resistance

Science Team: No discernible effect

Scramble Sensors: Increases duration

Tachyon Beam: Increases shield drain

Tractor Beam: Increases damage

Tractor Beam Repulsors: Increases repel

Transfer Shield Strength: Increases shield healing and increases shield resistance

Tyken's Rift: Increases damage and power drain

Viral Matrix: No discernible effect

Engineering Powers

Auxiliary to Emergency Battery: Increases power buff

Auxiliary to Inertial Dampners: Increases resistances and speed/turn rate strengths

Auxiliary to Structural Integrity Field: Increases Heal and Resistance

Science Captain Powers

Photonic Fleet: No discernible effect

Science Fleet: No discernible effect

Sensor Scan: Increases resistance debuff

Starship Dampening Field: Increases resistance buff

Subnucleonic Beam: Increases recharge time debuff

Other

Increases stealth detection rating on science ships

Increases stealth detection rating on non-science ships

Increases cloak effectiveness*

Decreases carrier hangar recharge times

*Cloaking mechanics are notoriously hard to test, however the magnitude of change when changing aux power settings was insignificant compared to the magnitude of the stealth granted, according to the tooltip.

Star Trek: Online and Free 2 Play

STO is a MMO title that has been out for a couple of years now. Developed by Cryptic, the game went free to play last week. Cryptic itself is as much part of the game's story. Recently acquired by Perfect World, a Chinese based MMO developer, Cryptic owns the Star Trek IP as well as 3 super hero titles, City of Heroes, City of Villians, and Champions Online. The first 2 titles are nearly defunct and Champions Online remains essentially static with only a trickle of new content. But after playing STO the last week I can see where all the time and attention has gone.

STO is pretty good for what it has been through. Who could live up to the expectations of the Star Trek fanbase? What lunatic would put themselves in the line of fire to such a history? There are surely detractors, but for me STO captures a good flavour of the cannon and also complements the world with its new story-lines.

Every race is represented from all series'. Yet they all weave together pretty seamlessly. Not every race is playable, but all the iconic races are. Each player gets to select and customize a personal avatar which is used for "away missions". However, costume choices (for free) are severely limited. 90% of the costume options require some payment to unlock them. Each "captain" will ultimately have a 4 man away team which can also use all the customization options paid for. Each can have different gear equipped which also alters appearance (unlike Champions Online).

There are essentially only 3 ship types which correspond to the 3 character types--Science Team, Tactical Team, and Engineering Team. These match up with Research vessels, Escorts, and Cruisers respectively. These ships are given some variability based on rank with "light" ships at the bottom and "advanced" ships at the top of the 6 tiers. Ships you pay for have slight advantages over ships you are awarded for free. This roughly translates to 36 standard ship choices not counting "shuttles" and other vanity ships. 18 are free and 18 require payment.

Ship combat is nicely done. The tactics are complicated enough to give players options. No one ship or configuration will excel in all situations. Your flight tactics have a dramatic impact on combat effectiveness. One must manage speed, shields, weapons, and other special abilities. This provides a wide range of combinations and caters to a number of playing styles. Really well done by the Cryptic team.

Away team combat is a bit more automated as each team member is essentially controlled by the computer AI. It is still a lot of fun, but requires a lot less dexterity.

The crafting system is simple although it does take a large number of parts which all look very similar. There is a bank slot system, but you do have to have the parts in your "bag" in order to craft. I was disappointed at this feature as Champions Online crafting automatically uses items from your bank saving you from having to run back and forth pointlessly. But on the plus side it appears you can craft anything you can find or buy. In most MMO's I've played it seems crafting items is usually pointless as you can usually find or buy better items. I like knowing that I really can save up and build the exact part I like w/o immediately finding a better drop.

The skill system is a bit abstract. Each skill is explained and you can clearly see where you've spend ranks, but I could never spot dramatic differences in performance even after increasing ranks by +6 levels or more at once. I'm sure they are doing something, but it is hard to see.

In many cases you have more skill than you can use. Every power/ship/item is limited by your rank. For example, a Lt. Commander can't use level 5 Phaser banks until promoted to full Commander. Even though that ship weapon could be fitted to your ships. At least in my case, I had the resources, crafting skill, support skills, and the desire to use better modules/powers long before I had the rank to use them. This is a balancing hack, which I can understand, but just feels arbitrarily limiting--something game suffers from in many areas. There is no option to pay a lump sum for access to "most" of the content. So every customization confronts the player with options that have to be purchased. Purchased ships have more powerful options than free ships. I'm sure there are more examples. I suppose the upside is you can get exactly what you want without buying stuff you don't want, but it is perhaps too much reality in my fantasy game.

In the final analysis, I give STO two thumbs up. It is a great game at list price, it is a crazy good game for free!

Game On!

http://startrekonline.com/frontpage

Eve has some problems

I may expand this thought later. The controversy over Eve Online is all over community websites. I won't re-hash it here. But I have been pondering how we got here.

MMOs have been changing. No one has yet been able to pull off WoW-2 or the Blizzard success story. Many morgs have thus been forced to more creative billing strategies like Free-2-Play and e-stores of game goods/boosters. Also in the last few years, Social Networking use has changed the way remote friends connect and communicate.

Throughout these years of turmoil, Eve Online has remained fairly static. I have often felt that Eve was a really big, really pretty, chat client. It was awesome to connect with digital friends and go shoot things. The scope of an MMO provides more content and variability than even the largest First Person Shooters. So while many FPS have voice comms and friends do play together, you're still often limited to a smaller group, you typically have to be in the same time zone, and well the games are pretty limited. But Eve was innovative then. It was social networking before we knew what to call it. But... now we have fully developed ways to find gaming friends online and schedule any shared game. And let's face it, many, many games are Internet ready now. I can talk on vent and play half a dozen games with my friends.

Eve tried to keep up with evegate and evevoice... but predictably, these are not as capable as the competition of Facebook, Ventrilo and Team Speak; how could they be? So if you remove the social exclusivity of Eve Online, what is left? The game itself. But that's the problem, the game is boring. There is very little action and the only real game challenge is the endurance of your butt in the chair. Time is the only challenge Eve. Everything from skill training to mining to planetary manufacturing... All of it is click-and-wait. Often there isn't even a pleasing effect to watch. Missions are arguably the most active task, but with only a few hundred or so missions, you quickly see them all and begin repeating them. These too become mostly a game of time.

PvP is the real champion of Eve, but even this is often hours and hours of waiting and/or chasing followed by 30 seconds of combat. The rush is a good one, but a very short one.

With all my social needs being met... and a many other game tools that work better than Eve's I'm forced to consider the game itself. To quote the Goonfleet Executor... Eve is a bad game. It is mostly just spreadsheets in space. Although CCP often talks about introducing new mechanics to the game... they seem to miss the point everytime and just deliver more spreadsheets in space. More click-and-wait... no game.

Today (if you care and if you look) you'll find a million complaints about microtransactions and apathy for your player base... but at the core the real problem is that Eve is losing its edge. It is showing its age and it is losing its game...

Game On, folks!

Not EVEn

So I got this off twitter... "@Masadaco consider this. If skill and skillpoints are equal, the outlaw pilot will always lose."

I've come across lots of hypothetical PvP discussions in Eve that start this way "If skill and skillpoints are equal..." Well, as soon as those words are uttered you can stop listening. You don't need to because it never happens. The pilots in Eve train over time for each skill and there are like 200 million skill points worth of things to train. No one has exactly the same skills. If you managed to perfectly train 2 pilots identically, no two people will approach combat that same way thus there are no two of "equal skill". In this case the Eve commentor didn't even mention ships and fittings; another area of vast diversity. So in the case of equal pilots, with equal skill points, with the same ships, fittings, rigs, and implants you have to just give up on reality. This situation will never happen. It is pointless to guess and what the outcome might be.

Eve is raw mob power. You are either much stronger than your opponent or much weaker. There is no "fair". There is no "equal". The romantic notion of duels has been lost to Eve for years now. If someone is offering to "1v1" you, the odds are just as high that they plan to have their friends gank you as soon as you undock. Don't be fooled. Give no quarter to your enemies in Eve. You won't last long if you do.

Champions Online: Go for the Gold

I decided to go for the Gold membership option on Champions as an easier way to evaluate all the bits and bobs you can get in the game. The F2P option is still a great bargain, but how tempting are those archetypes and costumes? The costume bits will be attractive to players that love tweaking their toon’s appearance. But stoic players may not care. The archetypes I am a bit on the fence about.

On the one hand, they are a great introduction to the game and make a focused style character easy. If you’re not buying a monthly sub, then chances are you’re going to buy one or more archetypes. F2P subscribers can’t use “Custom Build” options so you’re going to either have to stick to the free archetypes or buy one of the newer ones. Free archetypes include Behemoth (tank), Grimore (general purpose), Blade (melee DPS), Inferno (ranged DPS), Glacier (crowd control/tank), and Mind (healer-ish). Each of these is fun and playable. Some of the premium archetypes are Void (ranged DPS), Specialist (melee DPS), Inventor (general purpose), Savage (melee DPS), and Tempest (ranged DPS). There is a power curve difference between the free archetypes and the premium. In particular, the Inventor is a monster at 11th level.

On the other hand, the archetypes are all underpowered compared to what a player can do with Custom Build. The archetypes are very rigid and typically follow one power chain from beginning to end. But with a custom toon you can pick 3 powers from Fire (Inferno), and 3 powers from Gadgeteering (Inventor), and 3 powers from Weapon Melee (Blade/Specialist), etc, etc. You can cherry pick the most effective powers in one toon. I put together one custom build based on ranged DPS that would most closely resemble the Tempest. The Tempest template grants the Gigabolt power at 40th (!) level. I took the power at 10th. Gigabolt drops a path of death from you to the target. Even at 10th level it universally obliterated normal villains and almost killed 2-bar villains. My custom build (Shazbolt), is a walking DPS super nova. I can barely see the screen from all the flare and radiant effects from Gigabolt, Orbital Cannon, Spark Storm, and various other bolts… not counting the artillery from her munitions bots. Nothing in the archetypes compares.

Custom build is probably the most compelling reason to purchase a sub rather than F2P. The archetypes cost 920 Atari Coins and that is going to break down to $11.50. Buy one or two archetypes and you’re looking at what it would cost for 1 month anyway.

The other really useful premium options are the travel powers. Without a Gold sub, you’re looking at very basic options for motoring around. But the Gold subscription allows for some fun variants like Jet Boots and Fire Flight. These work just as well as the free options, but look cooler. Jet Boots are supposed to be a nudge faster and they are, but you won’t really notice often.

Still… one thing that may not be obvious is that for all the stuff included in a Gold membership, you still have cause to buy and use Atari Coins… Light Speed (travel power) for example still has to be bought for 420 coins ($5.20) even with a Gold sub. Lots of costume options are still extra (usually 380 coins or $4.25). A Gold account is given 400 coins per month so it is arguable that these options too become “free” after you build up long enough.

I did a rough comparison of things “I would want” added to F2P vs the cost of a sub. If I bought 1 travel power, 2 extra character slots, 3 bag slots, 1 costume set, the 2 expansion zones, and limited myself to a single archetype then my total would be $56.25 (4280 coins at 1500 Atari Coins x 3). Four months of play comes in at $59.96. So if you had the dosh up front, knew exactly what you wanted (character wise), and were willing to live with the reduced (yet still very playable) power level of a premium archetype, then the F2P pays off in the long run. Of course, the cheap gamer in me still struggles to pay that much up front on a game I haven’t really tried. I predict most folks will end up with a couple of months of Gold subscription and that will hook them on the Custom Build character and that will lock them in to subscription for a long time.

Cryptic really has an evil marketing genius in its dark cubicles. Game On!

Champions Online: Free For All

I've recently been playing some of this with the boys. I was intrigued by "free" and thought initially the boys would like it and I'd save some dosh.

It turns out I like the silly game. It is only loosely an MMO by my definition. There are dozens of servers and there is lots of instancing between zones and in "dungeons". I notice that most areas only support about 60 players.

In case you can't guess, Champion's is a superhero genre RPG. While you may instantly conjure images of Superman and Wonder Woman, the hero building system allows you to create a very wide range of useful and interesting characters. From secret agents, to cyborgs, to demons and wizards. It all fits somewhere in a comic book, right? So about anything goes.

The questing mechanic is very much "amusement park" designed with hundreds of "Missions" to complete. Zones are roughly organized by level of difficulty, but they spread them out quite a bit so you will rotate between areas. You may start in Canada, move to Westside, then back to Canada. But there are always a few options so you can pick where you want to run your missions.

Character advancement is an XP / Level system where you gain access to more powers at key levels. If you play for free, you'll be limited to their pre-built "Archtypes". But if pop for the $15 USD monthly sub, you can get access to more archtypes and the "custom build". I'd recommend starting with the archtypes just to get familiar with the game, but you'll likely feel the lure of the Custom Build before too long.

This isn't my first experience with Free 2 Play, but this has certainly been the longest. I don't think Cryptic (the developer) has done a particularly better job with their game in my case. I just don't like wow/fantasy clones. If I want fantasy, I play WoW. There isn't any reason to play anything else. But if don't want fantasy, the options are much more limited. CO is a good departure from WoW-clones even if it does use a lot of the same concepts (missions, levels, classes, etc).

The game does offer classic features like banks, auction houses, and crafting. I've dabbled with these, but not fully explored them. The end-game seems limited. Level advancement stops at 40 and after that it appears your options are 1) PvP or 2) make alts. So it remains to be seen how far Cryptic will take it. It shows a lot of promise, but still falls short of the big dogs in the MMO industry.

But for now... POW! BAM! WHAMO! Game On!

Mass Effect (the first one)

A couple of cool video game things...

First, Mass Effect is a great game that is re-creating for me what Knights of the Old Republic did. With all the hype around Mass Effect 2, I thought I'd check out the first game now that it's getting cheaper. So far I like it quite a bit.

TL/DR: Good game, good graphics, good UI. A bit cludgy on Windows 7 64-bit. I had to run XP compatibility mode, but that seems to be working fine.

ME is a sci-fi RPG game where you control your main character with a party of 2 other support characters. You get to choose your team each time you venture out of your ship. Even cooler you get to run around on your ship talking to the crew and your strike teams. You can fly to regions, star systems and individual planets and moons. You can't land on all of the worlds, but do get down on to many of them. Your away team gets to land in an all-terrain tank complete with machine gun and cannon. You can freely embark and disembark from the tank to explore.

I love the non-linear story arc that lets you go where you want when you want. Roaming around the galaxy gives a giddy sense of exploration and discovery. Plus you can get out and shoot plenty of bad guys.

To me the crowning achievement is the great story. It is engaging and interesting. You can guide your conversations with the characters and have long discussions that have flow. It is the same feeling I get when I fall in to a book and I'm just hooked on the story. I love games that do this.

Second cool thing is the discovery of Steam game manager. Steam is one of the systems you can use to buy games online, download them, and manage your license library. It isn't too surprising in this day of "instant obsolete install media" that online stores are taking over. Steam is my first generally positive experience with these stores. So far it is working just fine.

Game On!

More Feats of Doom

Feats listed below are for a True20 based RPG in the Adventures of Doom campaign. I am capturing them here for convenience to me and my players. (Who never read this stuff anyway.)

Mind Touch*
Adept Power, Maintenance

You can establish contact with another mind. The base Difficulty is 10, modified by familiarity. An unwilling subject gets a Will saving throw to avoid contact. If the save is successful, no contact is made. If you do not want the subject to know you are making mental contact, you can make a separate opposed Mind Touch check against the subject’s Sense Motive, Second Sight, or check (whichever has the highest bonus). If you win, the subject is unaware of your attempt. If the subject wins, she is aware of your attempt (whether you succeed or fail in actually establishing contact).

While you are in mental contact with another being, the two of you can communicate at the rate of normal speech, hearing each other’s thoughts. You can also send a single visual image each round instead of speaking. Both you and the subject can choose to lie or omit information; you’re “speaking” to each other mentally, not reading each other’s thoughts. Mind Touch is two-way, meaning you are in mental contact with the subject for purposes of her powers and vice versa. Subjects do not need to share a common language. Targets with less than -3 INT have no "thoughts" but will have instints/feelings (see Empathy below). If a friendly mental contact turns hostile, the subject can make a Will saving throw to break contact. Once the subject has failed an attempt to eject the intruder from her mind, she can’t break the contact. The victim can attempt to beat the adept unconscious.

If your Mind Touch is broken, any other powers you are maintaining requiring mental contact are also broken.

Empathy: While in contact you receive empathic feedback from the target (e.g. hunger, fear, love, anger, etc). A targest who attempt to hide their emotions get a Will save to filter empathic content. This can sometimes be instinctively done even when the subject is not aware of the power. Using this power during other uses of Bluff, Diplomacy, or Initimidate grant +2 on the attempt. Uses of Suggestion (adept power) on a touched mind impose a -1 penalty to Will saves relating to the suggestion.

Mentally Aiding Others: While in mental contact with another character, you can use the aid action (a standard action) to grant that character a +2 bonus on Will saving throws or on any skill check where your skill rank is equal to or greater than the subject’s. The adept can also attempt to shake a subject out of a charm or beguiling. This grants the victim one additional save. If the save fails the subject is aware of the adepts attempt to manipulate them.

Try Again: You can retry Mind Touch freely, but retries on the same subject within an hour’s time are fatiguing.
Time: Mind Touch is a move action. It requires concentration to maintain.

*This power differs from the text in the True20 Handbook

Voudon Blessing
Adept Ritual

Adept may spend 1 hour crafting a voudon fetish of two varieties. A White Blessing grants the wielder +1 Attack and +1 Damage with any weapon. The fetish is creepy and usually constructed dead flesh of animal origin (including human). Anyone who spots the fetish makes all further reaction checks toward the holder at -1 (effectively -1 CHA). The fetish is a small object for purposes of concealment. Alternatively, the Adept can create a Black Fetish which grants the holder +2 Attack and +2 Damage, but drops the Adept's Charisma by -4.

The effects of either charm end at the next sunrise. The charm disappears at dawn. The Adept can spend 1 minute of concentration to absorb the charm.

Spirit Guide
Adept Feat (Familiar)

The adept gains a spirit guide with the same utility as a Familiar. The spirit guide is human (or humanoid). The spirit can only be seen and heard by the adept. Other Adepts with Spirit Guide can hear other Adept's guides, but not see them. Creatures/entities that can see in to the Astral Plane or other Ghosts can see the Guide. The spirit is an ally and friend to the adept and will act accordingly (warning her of danger, etc).

Spirit Guides are incorpreal. They can move through unprotected barriers and fly. They have Darkvision and normal hearing. Spirit Guides have one Wis/Int/Cha based skill per point of Adept Charisma. They have no physical stats (Str, Dex, Con) and can distribute 4 points in to mental stats (Wis, Int, Cha). They gain skill points when the Adept advances a level. They gain 1 Skill Point / point of Adept Cha per level.

Level 1-2: Spirit and Adept can speak and see each other. Spirit is bound to a physical object carried by the Adept and can not range more than 60' from this object. If the object is lost, the Adept can summon the Spirit back to a new object in a ritual taking one day.

Level 3-5: Guides can appear and speak to others within 60'. Guides can commune with the spirits of the dead in yes/no/mu fashion. Adept must be touching remains or a cherished object of the deceased.

Level 5-7: Guide and Adept can now commune mentally. Range increases to 120'.

Level 8-10: Spirit Guide can detect lies told in its presence.

Spartan Alpha Armor
Warrior

Grants the character the ability to use Spartan Alpha Squad armor of Atlantean design. This Feat is required to further enhance Spartan armor with additional upgrades.

Plasma Grenade
Warrior (Pre-Req: Spartan Alpha Armor, 3rd level)

Once per combat encounter the Spartan armor can produce a single Plasma Grenade (Dam +5, Radius 5', Range Increment 10' / +1 STR, Reflex save (10 + Warrior Level) for half). The grenade appears in the warrior's hand. If unused (held) it disappears at the end of combat. If the grenade is dropped it detonates as normal. On a critical hit the grenade sticks to the target negating the Reflex save.

Plasma grenades are luminous. Carrying one imposes a -4 Stealth penalty. It also draws attention and attacks. Plasma grenades deal fire damage for purposes of overcoming DR, but is not "flame" for purposes of igniting other flamables or explosives.

Every 3 levels the warrior gains 1 additional grenade per encounter (1 per round), +5' radius, and +1 damage. (e.g. at 6th level 2/combat, 10' radius, Damage +6). Max 5/combat, 15' radius, Damage +8.

Ki Dart
Warrior, Fatiguing

The warrior can focus internal energy and fire it as a bolt at a single target as a Full Round action. (Dam +3, Range 30'). The Dart hits automatically for either lethal or non-lethal damage. Target can either make a Reflex save or a Toughness save vs. DC 15 to avoid damage.

Ki Needles
Warrior (Pre-Req: Ki Dart), Fatiguing

Warrior can fire up to 3 bolts at up to 3 targets (Dam +3, Range 30') normal ranged attack. Three bolts could be fired at 1 target as 3 attacks. Full Round action.

This Won't Be Easy
Warrior / Expert (Pre-Req: Acrobatics 5+)

The character can always force combat on to unstable ground for 1d4 rounds once per encounter. As a Free Action, they spill a bucket of soapy water, kick over a barrel of apples, balance on a handrail. Something always seems to be around to make the fight harder.

The player makes a "power check" of d20 + Level. This becomes the Acrobatics check modifier for all combatants in direct melee with the character. Opponents must make an Acrobatics Check DC 10+result while the player makes a check DC of 5+result. A failed check results in -4 to their attack and loses their dodge bonuses. A failed result by 10 means they have fallen prone.

Aspect of the Sword
Warrior (Pre-Req: Improved Strike)

The warrior spends 15 minutes attuning to a melee weapon of superior quality and gains the damage and DR qualities of that weapon. The effect lasts 24 hours and requires meditation each day to re-establish. The weapon can not be changed once set until the next day. The weapon must be one the warrior can use without penalty. The weapon must remain in the possession of the warrior for the duration of the effect. If the weapon is lost for more than 1 minute per level, the effect ends.

The effects of Aspect of the Sword are subtly visible and alter the hands and feet slightly in representation of the tuned weapon.