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Secondary Vampires

mobuttu wrote:

Hotrod wrote:What Rifts monster/demon/creature would you want to see me try first?

Pick one: Brodkil, Gargoyles or Secondary Vampires.

mobuttu wrote: ↑Mon Sep 18, 2023 10:43 am

Hotrod wrote:What Rifts monster/demon/creature would you want to see me try first?

Pick one: Brodkil, Gargoyles or Secondary Vampires.

Brodkill,

While there are some NPC stats in various books they don't have equipment to arm and armor said threats.

Rockwolf66 wrote: ↑Sun Jan 07, 2024 2:18 pm

mobuttu wrote: ↑Mon Sep 18, 2023 10:43 am

Hotrod wrote:What Rifts monster/demon/creature would you want to see me try first?

Pick one: Brodkil, Gargoyles or Secondary Vampires.

Brodkill,

While there are some NPC stats in various books they don't have equipment to arm and armor said threats.

Brodkil would be handy for eastern European/Russian or western Canadian/Tolkeen campaigns.

Yes they would and Brodkil are one of the "Classic" badguys from Rifts Sourceboook 1.

Brodkil are on the to-do list, but I'm going to make a Deevil Infiltrator generator first to go with another project I'm working.

And holy moly, there's a lot to making these Deevils. They get as many skills as most player characters, plus magic spells, plus natural abilities, plus equipment (which they do use)... keeping the whole thing organized, coherent, and concise is a challenge.

I've decided to break down Deevil stats by functional category: Combat, Spying, Evasion, Manipulation, Movement, and Business/Utility, maybe some other stuff. Each category will include natural abilities, skills, and magic.

Deevil Instigators are nuts! 28 skills, 15 magic spells, can see/turn invisible, dimensional teleport, knows all languages... sheesh just getting a basic one done is going to take 2 pages, and that's just for the infiltrator. Warriors and variants would likely take up more space.

The way these guys are written, a competent Deevil should be nearly impossible to kill and win nearly any kind of encounter imaginable. Go invisible + blinding flash + cloud of smoke + metamorphosis + dimensional teleport = so many options to escape/evade... and that's setting aside the fact that even if they're killed outside Dyval, they're not really dead; they just respawn.

The Deevil NPC Generator is drafted! Here is Page 1, and here is Page 2.

Notes:

-I plan to add some functional icons to the different categories of abilities in this generator.
-With 5 W.P.'s and Horsemanship: Exotic bonuses to work in, plus all the magic spells, skills, and special abilities/weaknesses to include, the basic generator is a full 2 pages.
-There will be no variants for the Deevil generator. Although Deevils can take the Mercenary Soldier, Grunt, or Assassin O.C.C.'s, I opted for the built-in Deceiver/Instigator skill set, as it was the first and primary skillset for Deevils. I'm skeptical that taking one of the alternative O.C.C.'s would make much of a difference over the standard Deevil Deceiver, as they cannot take the O.C.C.'s hand-to-hand skill.
-I grouped skills, abilities, and spells by their functional categories for this generator. This goes against the traditional Palladium stat block arrangement, but I find it's handy in GMing to group abilities this way, so I can quickly see the NPC's options and make a quick, sensible decision according to what the NPC wants to do.
-Optional skills were a bit tricky on this one. I tried to opt for weapon proficiencies that were thematic to Deevils: a trident and dagger for the two ancient W.P.'s (I also considered a whip instead of a trident, but daggers seemed more appropriate for sneaky shanking attacks). They like heavy guns, so W.P. Heavy M.D. seemed like a good choice, and pistols are good for sneaky assassination attacks.

-DANG! Deevils are freaking potent! It's a good thing they're hot tempered and tend to drop their disguises/make bad judgments when angry, because it should be almost impossible to kill a Deevil and very easy to lose to one.

As always, critiques, criticisms, suggestions, and other comments are very welcome.

I had some time yesterday and made revisions to the Deevil generator. Mostly I added some icons to each functional area of skills/abilities. Here's Page 1, and here's Page 2.

Lots of good work here. Still think this would have been a much better use of the pages in a GMs guide.

Warshield73 wrote: ↑Mon Apr 22, 2024 7:30 pm Lots of good work here. Still think this would have been a much better use of the pages in a GMs guide.

Thanks! I've made that suggestion to Kevin and Sean. I think they see the utility of this, but there's an open question of how such an approach would affect sales for a given book. I'm not sure how much fans would get jazzed over a book half-filled with stat block spreadsheets.

Hotrod wrote: ↑Tue Apr 23, 2024 8:06 am

Warshield73 wrote: ↑Mon Apr 22, 2024 7:30 pm Lots of good work here. Still think this would have been a much better use of the pages in a GMs guide.

Thanks! I've made that suggestion to Kevin and Sean. I think they see the utility of this, but there's an open question of how such an approach would affect sales for a given book. I'm not sure how much fans would get jazzed over a book half-filled with stat block spreadsheets.

I agree it probably wouldn't.

It should be a PDF and just have basic stats and illustration, no descriptions or information that is not needed. This is a resource to add to the books not to replace it.

Huh. A PDF-only... yeah, that might work.