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An Infinity of Possibilities

Discussion in 'Modiphius Entertainment' started by Noctavigant, Mar 17, 2018.

  1. Noctavigant

    Noctavigant Samaritan Extraordinaire

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    (Pardon the pun, but it is the title of my campaign ;) )
    Wow. I just realized how long this post became. So fair warning, it's pretty long!


    I've just about rounded the 100th hour of play in my first Infinity campaign, and here is a bit of the description of stuff for the interested, and a few loose unpolished thoughts to follow.

    Let me just say that I had a rough start with the system. I have made every mistake. Most of it is probably related to the spontaneous purchase of the book, and the hour of preparation I had while my players followed their first lifepath. I did not get a lot of time to learn the system as we were halfway through a week long lan-party, but hey: It worked out. Kinda.

    So for the mistakes ...


    1. Don't let your players go elite/hyper-elite if you aren't ready for them to have money up to their necks. Of course, this was complicated further as we somehow got into our heads that assets could be spent 1for1 as cashflow, allowing a character with cashflow 9 and 8 assets to buy.. well, most items on the list.
    I have returned to vanilla.. after 90 hours of the other system. Luckily my hyper-elite had no lifestyle and was incapable of succeeding most restriction rolls.. That and starting in the human edge was nice. My elite ALEPH aspect however.. power armour, rocket launcher, flamethrower, siren Lhost, and titan Lhost. And explosive knuckledusters, because they are cool. From now on the players will have to quest for items beyond their cashflow, trading favours for favours as it should be.

    2. Momentum is weird. We misunderstood it to begin with (and to be frank, I've read the part over and over trying to grasp it) and only when I wrote Modiphius did I finally resolve it once and for all. Momentum from talents and items is added to a separate pool that the player can only use on the specific action - so buying dice immediately, or buying effects afterwards. It doesn't enter the main pool. We had understood it as being that a successful roll granted that amount of momentum afterwards, so social-fu'ing a scrubby with the right talents and a siren Lhost granted 3 momentum for his friend's stealth. It can still happen I suppose, but it requires the character to spend the momentum on dice and roll well, which is usually less than 3. And with focus, sometimes it is more!

    3. Reaching 20 in a stat is bad. Reach 19 is the same, but less. Just last week I got to be a player. I backed the complete pdf pack, so I have the Ariadna supplement and the GM allowed me to roll up an antipode. I hit 20 close combat as a starting character. And the combat rolls were some of the least interesting rolls I've ever rolled. The system changes completely when you have an average equal to the amount of dice you are rolling. I argue to cap your players at 18. That is more than enough to be among the best in the universe + the player talents are pretty strong. And tell them to take focus instead of going for 20.

    4. Heat is weird. But it's growing on me. I like the measure of 'how dangerous is our situation' and to keep the heat score public. The players will cringe when someone uses a lot of heat and the GM has a bunch already. In that way they lower their heat expenditure, right up until the moment everything comes crashing down, and suddenly a horde of goopers will answer the alarms or a group of elites will pin the PCs down. I don't think the 'heat for XP' system works however, as it seems a lot more heat is used in combat scenes, and a lot less is used outside of combat. That makes non-combat scenes worth less? Or we might have made another mistake. Instead, I calculate a rough estimate going that 4 hours of game is 300 xp, and every notable story progressions gives 25-50.

    5. The nemesis characters provided by the book are a bit awkward. The majority seems to be at the level of a single player or a little below (or maybe my players just min-mixed on their random rolls). Without help they are no threat for a well-equipped PC party (again, my party is too well equipped due to previous errors). So I've made a few of my own and cranked them up a notch.
    My favorite so far was using the -redacted- player character against the party, using the full strength of the close combat tree and a monofilament sword against the party. But even then he was joined by an Umbra Legate hacker to provide quantronic defense and extra dmg output. This encounter was meant as above their level, but they took victory by hacking his voodoo-tech foldable sword, and abusing his -redacted- state to sneak a shot through the guard action, rather then shooting him head on.

    6. And now that I'm discussing close combat: My biggest pet peeve in the system is without a doubt the 'block bullets' talent. I don't like it when attack and defense is gathered in the same stat (that now also extends to ranged), and I don't consider actual bullet blocking to be a part of Infinity fluff. I know there is anime inspiration, but no. I've banned it from all other characters than the one who started with it, on the grounds that he got it from being an experimental test subject for the EI.

    7. Piercing. It is applied on every effect rolled. An oversight on our part, as we are used to the static piercing of many other systems.

    Characters:
    First group: (Sessions 1-11)
    Yui: Hyper-elite, Yu-Jing oniwaban wannabe, spec obs.
    Keiko: Yu-Jing Guijia TAG pilot. (killed by speculo killer, cube recovered by Yu-Jing)
    Pretas: ALEPH aspect, proxy with two bodies. (one body killed by speculo killer)
    Cyril: Nomad, Observants wannabe, elite. (former PanO playboy) (Killed and replaced by speculo killer)

    Second group: (session 12-24)
    Yui: Hyper-elite, Yu-Jing oniwaban wannabe, spec obs. (lost body to Magister Knight panzerfaust)
    Pretas: ALEPH aspect, proxy with two bodies. (lost body to Magister Knight panzerfaust)
    Juliet Ann Jackson: PanO Hacker. (lost body to O12 agents being pressured by antagonist)
    Nyx: Nomad/space pirate.

    Third group: (session 25-now)
    Pretas: ALEPH aspect, proxy with two bodies.
    Juliet Ann Jackson: ALEPH Hacker, siren Lhost.
    Nyx: Nomad/space pirate.
    Dr. Lupos: Ariadnan, Merovignia Dogface.
    "Yui": Traitor turned to Combined Army (killed by the party)

    Memorable scenes:
    1st session, the characters come into contact with what appears to be a rogue AI in the human edge, that has taken over the abandoned mining facility (and secret cloning lab) in which it was created. They smash the illegal equipment at the bottom of the facility, but before they can get up the AI splits into the many unused Lhosts and walks them into the mineshaft, actively trying to drown the players in bodies.

    6th session, they break Yui out of a prison on a space station ... by venting him into space, having the titan Lhost grab him and force a mask over his face, hoping for him to survive the vacuum until he gets inside again.

    8th session, antagonist Flynn Archer is appointed to help them root out the shasvastii on Sol Ring, a triad controlled space station. He destroys their biometric visor before leaving them in the hands of Triads (they find out that his body is 'infested' by the rogue AI from the human edge).

    11th session, Cyril is killed and replaced by a speculo killer, who tears the rest of the party a new one. A timeskip follows as two players shift characters, and Yui wasn't in the scene where it all went down.

    16th session, they are tasked with killing Damarion Defollil, a PanO hyper-elite, on the board of Directors of OBXiLuS Hyper-Corp, before he unveils a longe range biometric scanner that also serves as a soft brainwashing device. Furthermore, they must destroy his body and backup simultaneously, or his backup program will take effect and shutdown his personal cube vault. Yui and Pretas snipe his body, while Nyx and Juliet pilfer the backup from its space vault within seconds of each other. Juliet, having fallen in love with Damarion, decides to keep the backup for a later revival, but she is wounded and Nyx forcefully takes the backup before shooting it into space and blowing it up. Pretas and Yui both lose their bodies as the Magister Knight bodyguards panzerfaust their sniper's nest.

    20th session, the group has travelled to Yui's human edge holdings to investigate the loss of contact with the Terraplax mining facility. They find that it has been infiltrated by aliens and the session becomes Dead Space/Alien inspired as they flee from the newly hatched creatures. They return the following session with HMGs and flamethrowers to clear out Yui's holdings, but in the process cause the asteroid to collapse, saving the mining equipment

    21th session. They investigate themselves for the possibility of having been infected with alien gunk, and a scientist, Mike Kowalski manages to convince Juliet that something is wrong with her brainwaves. She panics and runs excessive testing, until finally discovering that he played a prank on her while disposing of the alien corpses they reclaimed from the space station. A session later, they get down to killing him as he uses a fancy knife to take a cube scan of Juliet and send it out among the stars.

    22nd-24th session. They travel to Paradiso because Yui wants to find out what happened to him when he was experimented on by the aliens. He almost discovers it, but cuts communication and turns traitor before the others can find out what it was all about. They find out that Pretas was actually named for the first body Pretas ever had - a body intended to infiltrate the combined army, and thus based on the 'pretas' type of alien. They fight Yui and use the reverse engineered alien dagger to take a copy of his cube, hoping to return it to ALEPH for 'cleaning'.
     
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  2. AdmiralJCJF

    AdmiralJCJF Heart of the Hyperpower

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    You're a lot more hours in than I am.

    Thanks for sharing your experiences!

    I particularly like the "alien dagger", and the Speculo.
     
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  3. Noctavigant

    Noctavigant Samaritan Extraordinaire

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    27th session. Trying to escape from an Umbra Samaritan and his Fraacta squadron, they happen upon a highway filled with a stream of other refugees, blocking their path. They rig their hovercar to hover slightly higher, allowing them to move it over the other vehicles, but at the cost of making it unstable. In a heated car chase, players vs. unstable vehicle, they manage to pass the line of refugees, finally discovering that the entire holdup was due to a hyperelite unwilling and incapable of moving his yacht. They proceed to fix up the yacht, drive the silk sheik out, and steal it and the two trucks pulling it.

    I ruled the rules for rigging their vehicle to hover above other cars as such: The vehicle took 1 fault after the initial D3 tech test (as the security systems of the engine must be compromised), and suffered 1+4N dmg every movement action. They later tried to divert some of the overheating into the yacht, but in the end it was not enough and the hovercraft reached 5 faults as they pushed it off. In other words: It exploded in an E/M blast.
     
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  4. AdmiralJCJF

    AdmiralJCJF Heart of the Hyperpower

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    Nice bit of rules improv there.

    I'd probably do something similar for "overclocking" style changes.
     
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  5. Noctavigant

    Noctavigant Samaritan Extraordinaire

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    Thanks. I thought it made sense for something only usable for a relative short while. With on-the-move tech tests the Ariadnan Doctor fought hard to keep the vehicle afloat, but the engine had already taken some damage from the thrown blade of the Umbra antagonist.

    Can I ask, if you are also GMing a campaign, how much damage can your players roughly dish out and how good are their stats?

    I might have made an additional mistake by allowing characters to get explosive melee weapons (they were inspired by Ajax), but we're at the point where one character will roll up towards 40 damage split on 1 hit and 4 spreads.
    I think the one is rolling 1+8 dice, being brawn 16 with spiked knuckles (area (close), spread 1, piercing 1, vicious 3). For a single momentum one can reroll any dice, and he'll just reroll to hit as many 6s as possible.
    So on two rolls he's gotten four 6's, triggering 13-ish dmg with 4 piercing (he did admit to claiming piercing 2 by accident, but it hardly mattered against a Soak 2 character) on the main strike, followed by four times 1+4 dice. I haven't watched over his dice personally, but he reported dealing 6, 8, 7 and 9 (remember that 3 vicious).
    So my 13 vigour 2 armour character goes two wounds from initial strike and two wounds from every spread, for a total of 10 wounds. And this was on a retaliate strike, meaning that any attempt to strike him in melee automatically resolves in death.

    .. so,, did he just happen to break the system? I mean, this would also be possible with ranged attacks delimited slightly by the munitions tag.
     
  6. AdmiralJCJF

    AdmiralJCJF Heart of the Hyperpower

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    lol

    Yeah, I think Explosive CCWs are probably not the best thing to give easy access to (Spread is insane, that rule alone is an issue any time it appears).

    But as it is I think you need to be paying more attention to dice rolling, because those don't sound like particularly credible results. Average damage on the primary hit should be around 9, (with one or two Effects) while the secondaries aren't rolled (they straight do half damage).

    Don't forget Explosive changed to be only Vicious 2 (I think that was the iteration where they added Spread), and there's no Piercing (which would have separately impacted on the damage as Armour applies every time). I also don't think that Spread is intended to be treated as entirely separate instances of Damage, so you can only cause two Wounds (one for 5+ damage and one for filling the Vigour track) on the one hit. So it's a little nest of small errors producing a big overall mistaken result.

    But, to be fair, I've got a character throwing at a CC target of 22 with Focus 2, with 1+8N on his sword and 5 Martial Arts talents (Martial Artist, Deflection, Master Deflection, Riposte, Quick Draw) making him nearly as deadly when opponents attack him as he is on his own turn. If I let him get an Explosive CCW it'd be insane.

    Still, it's literally only a problem 'till their next police stop or border security check because you can simply have it seized and destroyed.

    At the same time, this could easily happen with a Multi-Sniper Rifle firing Needle ammunition. It's not quite as bad, but it's nearly as bad, and it's not even a breach of the Concilium Convention when you use it.
     
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  7. Noctavigant

    Noctavigant Samaritan Extraordinaire

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    Yea... I have another player who just got her hands on a needle multi-sniper.

    The whole piercing 1/vicious 3 thing comes from adding the explosive ammo qualities to the spiked knuckles qualities. But yea, I can see how we might have played wrongly from the very beginning. As far as I remember he had it from his very first session, the one where I had an hour to glaze over all the rules, and had no idea how anything worked during character creation.

    Regarding the spread dealing repeated wounds, it's written kinda strangely, as the whole inflicting additional hits individually reduced by soak kinda sound like it could bypass the 2 wounds max, but I suppose for balancing purposes it needs to be ruled the other way. Especially as the system seems to aim for that it is not possible to die from a single attack, unless otherwise wounded (or flaming, or toxic, but those can be absterged/treated).

    EDIT: Also, how come explosive uses spread? I mean, armour subtracted individually means that TAGs will actually shrug off all the instances of spread, but in real life and normal Infinity, missiles and the sort is also effective against heavily armoured targets? Strange, really.
     
    #7 Noctavigant, Mar 19, 2018
    Last edited: Mar 19, 2018
  8. AdmiralJCJF

    AdmiralJCJF Heart of the Hyperpower

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    Actually explosive rounds aren't that effective against armour.
    Specialised anti-armour explosives like HEAT rounds are thanks to the use of shaped charges:
    [​IMG]
    But that's not what I'd assume an Explosive round is, so I like the rules as they are.
    Vicious 3 and nothing else WAS one version of the Explosive ammo rules, and it may have even been in one of the early "complete" versions of the rulebook. But the ammo has never had all the qualities it does now AND Vicious 3 (not that I saw anyway). And I'd be VERY wary of simply stacking abilities for special CC weapons for this exact reason (and I'm not sure I'd allow Explosive on spiked knuckles to begin with).

    Needle is less of an issue, because it's using a Reload every time it fires. That's a pretty hard limit.

    I hear you on the wording of Spread, but I think it's supposed to be run as one "instance" of damage rather than several (and you are 100% correct that the balance goes hilariously out the window if it's not).
     
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  9. Noctavigant

    Noctavigant Samaritan Extraordinaire

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    Thanks a bunch. Really valuing your input, and will force some changes come next session, so I can actually enjoy my antagonists again. It's hard making them scary with the mistakes I've made with my first run of the system.

    I think the time of applying ammo to melee weapons will be mostly over. I've also just checked up on the other weapons, and those allowed heavy ammo generally don't have any inherent traits (other than munitions and area).
    I'm considering whether a special built explosive CC weapon would simply replace all the qualities of the original weapon with those from the ammo, and even then require the munition types. But for now I'm expecting to just kill off the concept of ammo on CC weapons outside of those in the books.

    I suppose needle ammo might actually be more along the lines of explosives meant to penetrate tough targets, whereas regular explosive is anti-many/soft targets.
    I'm curious as to how you've ruled the area effect versus combat groups?
    Considering them as a single group for the purpose of area makes for a lot fewer places where area actually has an effect, whereas considering each soldier individually means that troopers are incredibly vulnerable to the effect. Which might be the point of the keyword.
     
  10. eronth

    eronth Active Member

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    I'm confused as to what you're saying about momentum. How would generating momentum help a friend do stealth?
     
  11. Noctavigant

    Noctavigant Samaritan Extraordinaire

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    By the saving momentum rule, p. 33.
    "Instead of immediately spending Momentum,
    characters have the option of saving it. This saved
    Momentum goes into a group pool, which can be
    added to or drawn from by any character in the
    group, representing the benefits of their collective
    successes."

    So if you end with more successes than required on a social roll, you put your momentum in the pool. Then the stealth character tries to stealth, drawing momentum from the player pool to aid in his stealth.
    EDIT: My example specifically was about a social based character trying to make 'easy' rolls to put momentum into the main pool. Which as I argue they can still do, but unless they reach 20 in their combined stat, they have a chance of losing some momentum along the way.
     
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  12. AdmiralJCJF

    AdmiralJCJF Heart of the Hyperpower

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    Now, don't get me wrong, I'd probably let an Explosive weapon exist. I'd just over-write all the traits of the existing weapon with those of Explosive.

    Just like I wouldn't make a K1 weapon, I'd simply apply Monofilament and leave it there ('though in that case I MIGHT leave the other traits alone).

    Area just lets you hit another target in the Zone as a Momentum spend (with a special rule making it easier to avoid for the secondary targets) so I don't see any reason not to treat the members of a Fireteam as separate targets for this purpose. I agree that this means Area attacks work well against Fireteams (but I think that's kinda the point).
     
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  13. Section9

    Section9 Well-Known Member

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    By having the character generating momentum distracting the people watching the character trying to sneak. Like a magician's assistant.
     
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  14. inane.imp

    inane.imp Well-Known Member

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    Shouldn't this be managed as Group Test? With the character trying to sneak as the Leader and the 'magician's assistant' Assisting?

    But one of the things that struck me with Group Tests is that it doesn't necessarily allow you to do 2 things at once: Ie. The character can simultaneously be pumping the guard for information while distracting them. Whereas doing it the way you describe allows you to do that: the 'magician's assistant' makes a social test to pump the guard for information and hands off any additional momentum for the Stealth character to use.
     
  15. Noctavigant

    Noctavigant Samaritan Extraordinaire

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    I could see it as either.
    But I wonder how big the difference is in the two approaches.
    The assisted stealth will presumably roll less dice (2+1 assisting), but will also only roll against the detection ability of the guard.
    Whereas making the rolls individually makes for a 2 dice vs. discipline/psychology test for the guard, followed by a 2 dice stealth vs. observation.

    Without doing the exact math, I'd guess the chance of detection is greater in the second example. Unless the social butterfly is good enough. If she can reliably generate more successes than she needs, the stealth character will have more momentum available (which was one of the mistakes I made, granting the momentum from siren Lhost and Talents to the pool after a successful roll).

    On the other hands, if the social butterfly (with +3 momentum from talents) is straight up taking part in the assisted roll, she would still get the momentum from her talents, making her roll 4 dice at her potent stat to aid a character that might not be good at stealth.
    But the system takes care of this in the 'if the leader doesn't get at least one success, the roll fails regardless of assisting characters'.

    My conclusion is that it depends on the context. If the social butterfly goes first and aims to distract the guard, I would argue it to be separate rolls, whereas if the stealth character goes first and the social character wants to help, I'd make it an assisted roll.
     
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  16. inane.imp

    inane.imp Well-Known Member

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    The other way to use excess successes/momentum to improve the result: so rather than using the +3 momentum from talents to roll additional dice (that probably won't be necessary) you could use then instead to increase the scope/degree of the success.

    Ie the social butterfly rolls 1 dice as part of assisting the Stealth player and uses 1 (talent based) Momentum and uses 2 (talent) Momentum to increase the scope of the success. You're probably rolling at least 4 dice on the Stealth at that point, and one assumes your sneaky character is at least slightly sneaky.

    Or at least I think that's doable.
     
  17. Noctavigant

    Noctavigant Samaritan Extraordinaire

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    True. I'm curious though, how much does your group work with scope of success in that case? Could you give me some examples? I find that most momentum ends up in the pool for later rolls, unless they are rolling Treat or dmg rolls, and I could use some fun/cool examples the degree of success more interesting in other cases.
     
  18. inane.imp

    inane.imp Well-Known Member

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    Unfortunately my group can't find a GM who has time at present. :')

    But I'm hoping to play and the system looks quite interesting. So I'm keen to get my head around it.

    But I think that is a perfect use of' expand the scope' momentum. You're already rolling enough dice to easily make the test and you have additional momentum that you either can't directly bank (talent / equipment based) or you have enough saved up, so you spend it on 'getting something more'.

    Basically, assign primary and secondary intentions to the action:
    Ie TAG pilot who's shooting 1 target but he wants to also get everyone else to focus him (classic look at me, not the squishy Hacker who's actually doing the mission) so rather than spending additional momentum on overkill you spend it to intimidate/grab the attention of your adversaries (ie not only did you just kill Mook 36, but Mook 37-39 now consider you the biggest threat around and are focusing on taking you down so they don't die). Sure your GM would need to ok it / your opponents might shrug it off with a successful Discipline check, but it might be enough for your Hacker buddy to get out of LOF safely.
     
    #18 inane.imp, Mar 21, 2018
    Last edited: Mar 21, 2018
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  19. stevenart74

    stevenart74 Well-Known Member

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    @inane.imp . . .

    I've yet extended to You the possibility of P.B.P. into My own project, but it seems that is ALL of our mates that does not found a Gamemaster. . .

    Will Your group be amenable to Play-By-Post with Me as a "Remote G.M." or are You all searching for an "Old Styled" kind of Game with all around sitting at a table. . .??

    @Noctavigant. . .

    Sorry to somehow sidetrack / hijack Your thread; by the way Your Game seems to be awesome and amusing for Your Players, even if the amount of "P.C. Kills" seems to be quite high for My relatively sedate standards (I'm not a "Monty-Haul Santa-Claus" style of G.M. but I tend to reserve P.C. Death for epic moments). . .
     
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  20. inane.imp

    inane.imp Well-Known Member

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    I'll ask the meta, TZs will be an issue though: we're all Australians.

    I'm happy to PBP but I think that the general preference is traditional. Not that it stops one or the other.

    I was hoping that there would be more interest in your offer in the other thread :(

    Edit: no bites, looks like it's just me :( / :)
     
    #20 inane.imp, Mar 21, 2018
    Last edited: Mar 21, 2018
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