Kamigakari Thread: "Can i be X" Edition

Oh yeah, forgot to ask.
Would Ryu from Street Fighter be just a straight up God Hand A & B style combination?

Probably. Hadou aside, he's pretty much just a straight up fist fighter.

You could make the Hadou stuff his Race talents if you pick something other than Human.

Magus wouldn't be bad, since its got a nice spread of stats and its first talent could act as a hadouken, but the rest of it isn't exactly well suited to ryu.

I'll look in the supplemental stuff and see if there's a better race.

Looking at this it seems quite interesting, but how would you go about running it?

The hyper-structured and very Japanese approach isn't exactly the kind of thing my group prefer, but it's tied into the mechanics in a few places, like Appearance rolls. How would you adapt it to the more open, less rigid style of most western RPGs?

Well, thats dependent on what you mean by hyper-structured. Thats a really broad question to answer, honestly.

Starting off, if you plan to do a more regular campaign with a party of adventurers doing thing, you will likely want to do away with the appearance rolls entirely. After that would be changing how experience and bonds work. Basing XP off of kills or encounters, and as for bonds, well. I dunno how you'd deal with that.

Frankly, it depends on what part of it you think is too regimented.

The very nature of the GMing advice, generally. Everything being quite a rigid progression of scenes with the focus less on player choice and more on the details of how they proceed through that structure. It's something I've seen in a lot of other japanese tabletops, but not often so mechanically embedded.

Frankly, for the social sections you could do it completely freeform, and use the associated maneuvers as skillchecks whenever they come up.

The process isn't nearly so rigid as the book makes it sound. You can easily take the majority of the system and use it in an average type of campaign, you'd just need to fidget with how things work a bit.

Getting rid of appearance checks gets rid of "scenes" as well, since there's no need to differentiate between one scene and the next without them. you'd also need to rework bonds as a result, as bonds have a mechanical effect on gameplay by way of using spirit crest.

That said, and i hate to say this, you may just be better off using a western system to start with if its that much trouble. it pains me to say this, but when you are looking at something so deeply rooted in anime culture and wondering how to westernize it, you may be putting the cart before the horse.

My suggestion is to do a one shot with the system. See how they take to the combat and such. social situations can be completely free-formed, so the combat portion is what really matters. If they aren't interested in that, they won't be interested in the system as a whole.

After looking through some of the books, i read marebito in the second expansion, machine god of damocles, and that seems to be the race that best fits ryu. wanderer from another world, good spread of stats (Aside from int), a magical attack as a talent, and ones that can be various powered up versions or just power ups in general.

That seems the way to go.

Looks good.

Browsing the 1st Expansion, the whole Dragon Lord race reads like it's taken from Tenjo Tenge.
This gives me ideas.

My group does enjoy JTTRPG's, we've played Tenra Bansho Zero before, we just don't like the classic japanese method of having quite a lot be predefined, preferring a more player and character focused progression and more improvisation on the GMs part.

I'll wait till Kamigakari user uploads new PDFs to really delve into the system, but I've got a pretty good idea how I'd want to run the game and have a fairly long campaign roughly planned out.

Can someone post a pdf for the expansions?

It's in the works. The translator said in the last thread he'll put up some eventually.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the system. Could someone explain how combat and the use of Talents works in brief?

Signing out for tonight. I'll lurk again tomorrow.

Is there a weapon like this in the rules somewhere?

Legacy User B. Open the True Regalia of Chronos file, CTRL+F for "Titan Armor".

There's one additional book I've yet to really do anything from, which is really light on player options. It's mostly just more items, though it does seem to have an interesting idea in offering "cantrips" for Form: Magic items. Basically 500G additional effects that have small-scale benefits. It otherwise is dedicated to Cthulhu, including having stats for named Cthulhu entities, the big guy included.

Beyond that, I'm expecting at least one more book but it's not announced or anything, and it's been pretty quiet other than monthly Role & Roll Magazine stuff (which is just more items or more Mononoke). Who knows if there'll be anything else, truly.

How big of a party do you recommend? I like to "try" new systems DMing my nephews one shots or short campaigns. But they are only 2

The game itself recommends 3-5, 4 is probably the sweet spot. If you mean 2 as in only two of them, I don't think it would be particularly bad or anything?

Well, its a good thing you just need to improv as a GM to make it more character focused, then.

Basically, your character has initiative, and when their turn hits they get specific "timings" these are your move actions, full actions, etc in other systems. Make sure to pay attention to when a talent says it doesn't use up a timing. This means it can only be used at that time, but can be used with other talents that do use up that timing.

With timing start and prep, you use these to activate certain talents or to move.

With timing attack, you... well. attack. You choose between using your weapon to attack, or using a talent that uses [timing: attack]

The interesting timing, though, is [Unique]. You can use as many of these talents as you wish at a time, assuming you meet the criteria, so long as you don't use the same one twice, once per round each. This means that any talents that say "Unique" can be stacked for increasingly strong effects, assuming you can afford the cost of it.

The cost of a talent is based around what you have in your spirit pool, which is 4 dice you roll at the start of each scene, and reroll the exhausted ones at the beginning of each round.

The last thing to take note of is Engagements. Engagements are any group of 2 or more opposing units that touch sides directly. When you are in an engagement, you must use the withdraw action to move, unless you have talents that ignore engagements.

Basically, you buff or move with start and prep, you attack or use a special ability with attack, and with unique you alter the effects of those abilities.

>book about eldritch entities
I'm waiting with bated breath on that one. Not many things are as fun as eldritch monstrosities.

As for legacy user B, i should have thought of that, honestly. Thats good to know.

Most systems assume around 4 people. Its the sweet spot where the group doesn't get terribly disorganized, but still has enough variety to take on most challenges.

If you have a smaller player size, you just need to adjust some things on monsters accordingly. Reduce health a bit, reduce armor a bit. Reduce damage a bit. Nothing drastic.

Think that's all it will take? I was a bit worried from the mechanics linked with the structure like Appearance rolls and devaluing Luck if I just removed them without replacing or reinterpreting them into something else helpful.

My DM didn't read through the rules entirely for the first couple sessions, and ended up running something akin to what you are talking about.

Simply taking out appearance rolls and the importance of scenes went a long way toward a more character focused story because characters could act more naturally. From there, you just need to work a bit more actively on involving the player in events, which isn't all that difficult. Just make them need to use the maneuvers more often. call for them like you would skill checks. Treat each episode as its own "Dungeon" so to speak. waves of enemies and obstacles until such a time you reach the boss man.

Luck itself doesn't have a terribly high value anyways, even tying it in to appearance rolls. If you want to, you could have it affect what loot is rolled for them, or maybe determine if some lucky event happens based on a luck roll.

there's some really easy ways to get closer to what you want. Try the simpler more overarching ones out first, and go from there. Make changes as needed for the feel you want.

How well does this setting do traveling and non-combat roleplay?
Can I make a campaign with lot of fights but also lots of traveling and npc interaction? Can I even make a session with no fights at all and make it interesting? Or is this just for the action?

The system excels in combat, but you can totally have a lot of social interaction if you so wish. Its much more freeform in this case, with only a scant few maneuvers having to do with social situations, but if your players can roleplay to any degree it can be interesting.

Technically the baseline setting is set in a singular city, but this is just a premade example. If you wanted to set it across several cities, each with its own agencies, people of interest, and unique issue's, thats totally possible as well. So far as travel goes, characters get cars and motorcycles, some even get talents that let them move at equivalent speed to a car.

It just takes a bit more effort to do those things.

I am interesting in doing a campaign that involves lots of traveling to New cities and places. Roleplay isn't much an issue tough

Thats pretty easy then. One thing you can do is have overarching agencies across a region, with them having branch offices in many of the cities they go to.

Maybe while traveling they need to stay somewhere for a night and mysterious shit starts happening, culminating in fighting a big boss thats a ghost or youkai or something.

Travel shenanigans can be interesting in and of themselves.

Actually, a game like princess resurrection/kaibutsu oujo would be pretty cool now that i think on it.

May need to wait on the aforementioned eldritch stuff though.

I don't like the idea of having the power to kill chuthulu

The possibility exists! If you can deal with 3d6+104 damage, four times a turn, and him halving all sources of damage if certain minions are in the combat zone, plus other abilities.

And that's without Boss modifiers.

>and thats without boss modifiers

Damn. Cthulu is a beast.

Please do remember that you are essentially a demigod in the game, and actual gods exist. You even fight and kill some fallen gods.

For that matter, aramitama in japanese is a state of being for gods, generally describing anger, rage, and destruction. It is literally the wrath of the gods. Opposed to it are Nigi mitama.

I know that and I wouldn't mind killing Zeus or other gods and shit. But the whole point of chuthulu is that we can't do anything to him, that's the fear factor of his stories. Having him as a killable opponent (even if it is really difficult) defeats it's actual story purpose. If you want an enemy to battle you have shit tons of other beings, but please don't call it chuthulu, it doesn't have any sense having him as a "frikking powerfull being that can be defeated" instead of "a cosmic force of nature that is undefeatable and is so big even in a cosmic level (and there are bigger and stronger beings) that human race can't even gasp understanding it".

With strange aeons, even death may die.

Cthulhu is no exception. what makes cthulhu so powerful and foreboding isn't his relative abilities, but that him and other eldritch monstrosities are simply outside the understanding of regular humans. That doesn't make him an inviolable destructive force, it just makes him outside the realm of our understanding.

Also, its just a game dude. If you don't like it, don't use that expansion. Problem solved.

I need the Cthulhu stuff. I decided to make Nyarlathotep the Big Bad for the campaign I'm outlining. (Probably will get used in summer sometime.)

at the rate he's been going with the translations, it will probably be at least partially translated by then. If you need something specific thats not in the book yet by then it'd be better to ask him when the time comes.

Combat is the be-all-end-all of this system. There are very few talents that even do anything outside of combat and everything is built around the expectation that the PCs go around dealing with Haunts before a big showdown fight.

It will take a long, long time for players to reach the Big Boss: There's lots of mid bosses to fight before the big confrontation, which is pretty much the campaign climax.

(I'll probably use Nyarlko as a cover identity he uses to travel hidden among humans. It'd be a nice nod to the anime)

Be careful of that approach. If any of your players have watched the anime, they'll call you on that immediately and there will be no end to the references.

Instead, consider another cover name. Perhaps lotte, from the "Lot" part of nyarlothotep.

I wasn't gonna name the character Nyarlko, just emulate her appearance. Just a generic background character glimpsed from time to time.

I plan on mashing the Filthy Frank cosmology into the game. What boss abilities and shit would best suit the retarded nature of the setting?

Frankly i have absolutely no fucking idea. For that one, you'd be better off going to youtube or google and looking up strangest video games or boss fights.

Thats about as left field as it gets, so i can't really offer a lot of advice.

>"Can i be X" Edition
Can I be a real /m/an.

Can you be a male? easily. Can you be a MAN? thats entirely dependent on you. Most of the martial classes facilitate manliness in one form or another, if you role play them out well, but that's up to you to do.

So this is the thing I cobbled together over the last two days.

CAMPAIGN STRUCTURE

I decided to embrace the episodic nature of the game and went with an anime-like structure with 4-episode "arcs".
The whole campaign is basically one "season", with a maximum of eight "seasons" (i.e. campaigns) planned.

The structure looks like this on paper:
Part 1 = slice of life; basically a role playing section; ends with Incursion alarm
Part 2 = investigation, minor battles
Part 3 = rising action, start of climax (boss battle); cliffhanger
Part 4 = true climax, boss fight; second half = denouement

Rinse and repeat.

CAMPAIGN STORY

Earth is like the metaphysical center of this universe (for Reasons), wanna-be invaders have to take out Earth first
to conquer the rest of our universe.

Reality Incursions happen frequently. The various Factions have allied with each other and formed The Union (thus named
because my naming sense is shit.) Branches of the Union exist all over the globe in various cities. The players are part
of that Union and are all stationed in Japan.
There are five Japanese cities of special interest to this (because ley lines, seals, bla bla, whatever). These are Tokyo,
Osaka, Kyoto, Sapporo, and Okinawa.
To provide changes of pace and to avoid boredom with one location/character all Players create (x number) characters, one
for each city. This allows Players to switch to another location and another character after a story arc is done.

A great danger approaches now. A terrible foe has made himself known. Interdimensional invaders of awesome power have
appeared and intend to conquer our universe.
One of the Dire Emperor's Grand Generals has been assigned to subdue Earth's forces and to open the way for conquest.
Our heroes do not yet know that this is just one of many formidable foes they will have to defeat to protect our universe
from enslavement. Will mankind triumph over the Elder Gods?

ENEMY STRUCTURE

Cthulhu = the Dire Emperor

Bokrug = the planet-sized Realm Ship home of the Ancient Ones (fearfully called the 'Elder Gods' by their subjects)
-> can shift between the various CONQUERED dimensions and universes with ease

The 7 Grand Generals:

Azathoth (the most powerful, magically)
Hastur (the weakest)
Nyarlathotep (the most cunning)
Shub-Niggurath (the only female)
Yig (the most mysterious)
Yog-Sothoth (the most powerfuly, physically)

-> each Grand General has numerous Generals beneath him, which control their diverse forces

(I don't have stats for these guys yet, so their descriptions will most likely change down the line.)

Is there a magic point system for enemies? Cuz that would probably work for the chromosomes as power level/magic mechanic of the setting.

I intend to start this sometime in summer: Hopefully I can get together my standard five players.

Now that I think about it, this is basically a Sailor Moon type of story. One enemy is defeated and another one appears. Hmm.
Maybe a player will even create a Sailor Moon type character. Old school mahou shoujo, heh.

The spirit dice pool mechanic in and of itself would act as that to one degree or another, though i don't know how that works with bosses.

Seems neat. This is also the type of thing the game's setting excels at, so good luck to you on that.

It appears that you did not understand my query.

>>/m/

ah, mecha. In that case, your query was answered earlier in this same thread.

Please see these comments
In short, yes.

HMMMMM

... Dooden, if you're listening, I will blame you for anything that goes wrong.

forgot one General:

Ghatanothoa (the most destructive)

>using Nyaruko as a base
>not wanting the references

Pick one.

Bonus points if everyone plays a Rider knockoff.

If thats what you are going for, there's no point in it being a cover identity.

I had a bit of time, so I went ahead and translated the names of the Chaos enemies in the Cthulhu book. There's more enemies than just Chaos types, but these ones have some of the more recognizable mythos names. (And I say that relatively; I like Cthulhu Mythos stuff but have never been really acquainted with a lot of it, so I had to look up a lot of the names)

LV02 Eihort's Scion
LV03 Carnivore of Time (this appears to be a Hounds of Tindalos reference)
LV04 Moon-Beast
LV08 Deep One Master (this one seems to be a general term, but also references Dagon)
LV10 Child of Tsathogga
LV11 Ithaqua
LV16 Cthulhu
LV16 Cthugha
LV18 Hastur
LV18 The Bloody Tongue
LV19 Yog-Sothoth

LV16 Abhoth
LV16 Eihort
LV16 Chaugnar Faugn
LV18 Tsathogga
LV18 Yig
LV19 Ghatanothoa
LV19 Shub-Niggurath
LV20 Azathoth

Seems to me that Nyarlathotep never appears as just "Nyarlathotep" but always as a version of itself. The Bloody Tongue is one such version.

That's pretty much all the ones that are available in the Arkham Horror board game.

Keep in mind, these do not include Boss, Aramitama, or Avatar of Ruin(!) modifiers.

Shub-Niggurath / Class: Chaos / LV: 19 (4)
Size : 5
Wits : Low
Senses : Domain
Speech : No
Reaction : Hostile
ID : 35
Weakness : None
Movement : Walk
| ACC | EVA | INV | RES | CHK
{Combat Stats} | 30 | 5 | 9 | 25 | 4
{Fixed Values} | 37 | 12 | 16 | 32 | 11

{Initiative} : 26 (11)
{HP} : 422
Armor : 10
Barrier : 5

Attack Methods
[Weapon Attack]: Physical Attack / 7 Sq. / 4#
- [Element: Phantom / Form: Hammer] 5d6+47 physical damage to the target.

«Swollen Black Goat»: Start / User
- The target causes up to 4 [Chaos Kid] to [Appear], and they [Install] in any square within the [Combat Zone]. 1/Combat.

«Overlarge Tentacle»: Physical Attack / 10 Sq. / 1#
- [Element: Toxin / Form: Axe] 6d6+118 physical damage to the target. The user may [Install] a target that performed [Damage Reduction] against this attack into an [Engagement] with themselves.

«Gulping Mouths»: Unique / 10 Sq. / 1#
- Use at any time. The target loses 40 {HP}. 2/Round.

«Bubbling Meat»: Constant / User
During the target's [Turn], they gain an additional 4x [Timing: Attack]. Also, the target changes all [Damage] taken from [Targets] outside of [Range: Engaged] to 0.

Materials (2d)
Automatic: Inflamed Flesh/PD+5: 3000G (Potency: 5)

>avatar of ruin

Dude what, those sound epic

>LV16 Eihort

Aww yeah.

These are great. Keep 'em going.

I'd personally use their stats as a base for my version, which'd turn them into anime-style great generals of an inter-dimensional conquering race.

Well, thats what the boss and other talents are for. Rather, thats sorta the point.

I guess that's it for this thread. Be seeing you.

stat him

bump

These threads are extremely slow. Its to be expected of a new system, really.

Yeah, i have no idea what that even is. So in lieu of that, look for the stats of shub-niggurath. Its an eldritch monstrosity, so maybe the stats would be similar.

Or you could give me an idea what that thing even is and i can go from there.

It's an A Bao A Qu

Looking it up, i'm not even sure how to stat that thing. Its completely non-violent. All it does is follow a dude then tumble back down when he doesn't make it to the top of a tower.

Without some descriptor of strength, intelligence, abilities besides following, etc., there's no way for me to stat it.

I guess it could be a mononoke of some sort (as in the "good guys" on the mythical side of thing) but aside from that, there's no real way to even classify it.

But can you stat this guy?

I'd say some creative interpretation could make this a monster. For example, maybe the reason no one makes it to the top is because these monsters eat them before they get there. Or maybe, they just follow like creepy shadows until the person gets near the top, and when they finally reach the pinnacle, they eat them.

The former could work into it being akin to a guardian spirit that stalks its prey and eats them. The latter is more like a hunter stalking prey that just happens to haunt a tower.

Well, part of its backstory is that its trying to reach its perfect form, and has to follow a brave enough dude to challenge the tower up it. those that reach the top enter nirvana, and the a bao a qu attains its perfected form.

It could be spun that it eats only those that reach the top of the tower, i suppose, but its still not very easy to stat. It would have a singular special ability, to my knowledge. One method would be to have it use the same stats of the person following it, plus some special abilities referencing its color and the end goal.

>The system excels in combat
How is it with minmaxing?

Like i said, it excels. Rather, some degree of munchkinry is expected.

That said multitarget attacks and bound primals seem to be somewhat OP, at least in the early game. How they fare against later game enemies and bosses is wholly up to speculation.

To expound on this some, with [Timing: unique] talents, you can stack as many of them onto a single attack as is possible, so long as they don't overlap, and only once a round.

So if you use your [Timing: attack] to use Secrets of the destroyer, as an example, you would do rank 3 physical damage at your items range. But say the enemy is just outside that range, and you happen to be a scion with 99 regalia. You can use that to increase the range on your secrets of the destroyer that little extra bit. if you want to increase the baseline damage some, you could add Yang style mixed with mysteries of battle for a flat out extra 10 damage, not to mention a +1 to the accuracy check. Some unique talents are constant passive buffs, others need used during specific times. But any that can be used during a specific timing can stack, but only once a round and you can't use the same one twice. Unique talents don't stack with themselves.

Multiattacks are also too strong.

Bound Primals start off grossly overpowered and then become progressively more overpowered as the levels rise. They are arguably the single most overpowered thing in the entire system.

Consider a level 4 character with Contractor B as one of their styles, Amplify Attacks and Empathic Growth as two of their talents, and an Ashura Record and a Summon Card for a total of 2000G.

That is just a small portion of their build.

The character can summon level 5 mononoke with a +4 bonus to all Active Checks and +1d6+12 to their Damage Calculations. Have a look at the statistics of the level 5 mononoke and realize just how frighteningly powerful they are. Notice, as well, that a Bound Primal has its own set of actions.

That is what you are dealing with when you allow a Contractor B in your game.

I'd say that the relative strength of multi attacks is blown slightly out of proportion because A, people can barely even test it, and B, at the levels you get more attacks, things jump up in strength.

Multitarget attacks are too strong because they are equivalent to regular attacks in damage, but hit multiple things for no additional cost. there's next to no drawbacks.

Bound primals are OP because they break the action economy, and with a mix of items can be a level higher than you and dealing extra damage from there.

Multi attacking in and of itself though? thats just a matter of HP bloat or armor increase to fix. It really isn't as OP as you would think since you are likely exhausting all your spirit on the first attack, or using the first to set up for a second. Not to mention, the attacks themselves have a chance of missing, and are then mitigated by armor, halve effects, and the like.

its all well and good to say having multiple attacks is OP, but if you don't got the spirit or a way to manipulate it, then its moot.

Then stop using premades and build a better monster. maybe one specialized against bound primals.

Creating the right multiattack build can push out results without demanding *that* meticulous a set of spirit die numbers. God Hand A and/or Divine Talker A help a great deal with this.

It is worth noting that Armor and Barrier of enemies does not rise particularly high (in the core bestiary, even top-end enemies with high Armor/Barrier have, at most, Armor/Barrier 10-15, certainly enough to be blown through by PD stacking), and there are no core boss talents that affect Armor or Barrier.

As far as I am aware, there is only one boss talent (in one of the supplements, I believe?) that grants a boss extra damage against mononoke.

If you have to homebrew up boss talents just to let an enemy last longer with multiattacks, and you have to place a single specific boss talent on your major enemies all the time so that they can try to cut down a Bound Primal, then that is a sign that those two options have stilted balance, the latter all the more so.

Even so, a boss or aramitama appropriate for a level 4 party will have to make a serious effort to bring down a level 5 Bound Primal. Those are attacks that are not being directed at the PCs, and indeed, a boss talent being spent on something not quite as lethal towards the PCs themselves.

>armor/barrier only reaches 15

Dude what? my kamen rider ass dragon carrier B already beats that and he's level 5. That said, looking through them, many of them seem to be regular ass enemies appropriate for that level.

that aside, I never said extra damage. i said specialized against. First and foremost, the contractor themselves can be taken out and this will cause the primal to exit as well. An intelligent boss would obviously start with this. 2 for 1? what kind of idiot wouldn't take that up? So the answer is to give them abilities that allow them to ignore engagements, or ranged attacks, and have them targeted at the contractor.

This will cause the contractor to be downed, or another player to waste their turn protecting them, balancing out the action economy.

The second weakness is that bound primals still have the weaknesses they had as mononoke. Picking at those is an easy way to deal with a bound primal.

Another issue is that using those two items will stack up on expenses extremely quickly if you go by traditional money rules in the game. You only get 3000 from a kushimitama, and most items will likely go to upgrading your equipment somehow. On top of this, bound primals only last a single combat. So if you plan to use these items each and every battle or even every scene, then the expense will be high.

One thing i noticed though, one of the boss talents is missing its mechanical effect in the field. specifically, "Concept: invincible". This may simply be intended as a plot armor effect, but its counterpart defy common sense goes a long way to alleviating the damage bloat characters have against general stuff.

Another thing to note is that the GM sections for the expansions have not been translated yet. I would be willing to bet that there are effects in the first expansion to allow you to counter bound primals.

Wait, my bad. Those aren't consumables. Skip that part.

>Dude what? my kamen rider ass dragon carrier B already beats that and he's level 5.
You are a PC. Mononoke are not PCs.

>First and foremost, the contractor themselves can be taken out and this will cause the primal to exit as well.
The Contractor B's Power Absorption helps a good deal with this. That said, you are correct, and a Contractor B is one of the few cases where I would say it is actually a good idea to focus on personal defense even at the case of offense (though it is not a particularly pressing need, since being Taken Out is harder than being merely Downed).

>The second weakness is that bound primals still have the weaknesses they had as mononoke. Picking at those is an easy way to deal with a bound primal.
Enemies exploiting weaknesses is mediocre, since it simply amounts to an extra +1d6 damage. That will be significant only against many enemies exploiting the same weakness.

>Another issue is that using those two items will stack up on expenses extremely quickly if you go by traditional money rules in the game.
2000G is not that great an expense considering how affordable even solidly effective weapons and protectors are.

Yeah that Concept: Invincible will be fixed in 2.0. All it does is make the Aramitama invincible when it comes to conventional (non-Awakened) weaponry.

By conventional logic, most NPC's should be stronger than you on a 1 to 1 basis because there's invariably more of you. The reverse is also true, if the numbers are reversed.

>it will only be significant against many enemies exploiting the same weakness

well there you go, problem solved. Alternatively, having one boss tanking a primal and another dealing with the party is another method.

Another thing you could do, and all it takes is the boss to make 1 attack on the contractor, is use that talent of bosses that does 2d6 crest damage outright. A bound primal is summoned with the use of crest, and wasting the majority of their crest severely hampers them. They'd be at 19, max, so taking it down by a max of 12 would be devastating. Thats if and only IF they haven't wasted more between battles due to summoning another one.

On top of this, to deal outright damage to primals, stack an element on top of talent attacks. An extra D6 isn't all that great, but an extra D6 on top of what is already 4 will make that contractor crap his pants, surely. On top of this, stack up savage divinity and fearsome power. You have 3 talents to work with, use em. Savage divinity, fearsome power, and winds of death would be a devastating combination.

As for the cost, see My bad. That said, i don't know where your numbers are coming from. +3 damage isn't that great. and one level shouldn't be that devastating an issue, since they only ever get one attack. Like you said, an extra D6 is only an issue if there's a lot of things using it. also, 2 talents and 2000 gold for just an extra d6 and 12 damage? It also leaves the contractor with 2 less talents to use himself personally.

Actually, this is a fair thought i just had, you could intentionally whittle down at the contractors crest by beating down on their primals. If they've been hit by soul smash even once, they won't be too eager to just throw the primal too the slaughter, especially if he has to resummon it every scene.

I would like to refer you to the underlying point that *so many* metaphorical hoops have to be jumped through by a GM in order to reliably counter a dedicated Contractor B build. That alone is a testament to its strength.

>crest damage
3 crest for a Bound Primal is more cost-effective than any other use of crest in the system.

If you are stacking up damage boosts and the like on multiple attacks as a boss, it is better for that to go towards a Bound Primal than an actual PC, because at least the Bound Primal is relatively expendable compared to a PC. The Bound Primal is still doing its job.

>one level shouldn't be that devastating an issue
A one-level jump in Bound Primals is a titanic upgrade, particularly when upgrading from level 4 mononoke to level 5s.

1000G for an extra +1d6 damage is not a particularly bad purchase.

2 talents for +level (maximum 5) to Active Checks and thrice level to Damage Calculation (maximum 15) is a very good deal by levels 4-5, if you purchase them early on.

> so many hoops
>minor alterations to already established battle archetypes

See, here's the issue with all the complaints around bound primals. First, there are methods to beat them without outright endangering your PC's because of it. Weaknesses and mass enemies being one. Multiple Bosses at the same time being 2. Aiming down the contractor like a smart person being 3, especially since whether the contractor goes down or the primal eats a full attack, it will have done its job.

Second, The arguments assume the player is in a completely fresh state. While this may certainly be the case, there are times when it will not be. going into a boss fight the worse for wear isn't that uncommon a thing.

Third, those are indeed good deals, but they've petered out at level 5. Past that, they mean nothing.

Fourth, its being treated as a completely destructive campaign destroying force, but at best its a lesser powered player. It is literally just a fifth person, assuming the average 4 man group. And to top it off, the contractor themselves becomes rather useless.

If its that big an issue, balance your crap around an extra person instead of trying to consider the bound primal some game breaking threat, because the best buffs peter out at level 5 and make it, at best, an extra person tagged onto half of a person.

People have been dealing with this kinda shit in every system possible for as long as TTRPGs have existed. Put on your big boy pants, fudge the numbers a bit, and get smart and think outside the box. Unique abilities require unique solutions. They always have and always will. Its not something that throws off game balance, its something thats different and needs to be handled differently.

Also, its only cost effective if there's only 2 seperate battles, or two instances of summoning. Force him to use it more, as it disappears between scenes.

For an online platform, how would one go about running this? My group have used Roll20 for most of our other games so is there an existing system/character sheet we can piggyback off of to get a decent macro set up?
or is it better to start from scratch/just use dice.

Most rolls are 2d6+mod. Just plug in whatever it is from the character sheet.

The record sheet and character sheet PDFs are in the mediafire link, but a google doc spreadsheet works fairly well.

so far as actually doing thing, you can freeform most of the social stuff through imagination, only switching to the grid based stuff when in combat.

If you give me a while, i can come up with a spreadsheet you can make a copy of.

>Weaknesses and mass enemies being one.
This is about the only thing that will endanger the PCs, and even then many weaker enemies will crumble in the face of an area or combat zone attack.

>Multiple Bosses
Will endanger PCs.

>aiming down the contractor
Is no easier than aiming down any other offense-oriented PC.

>going into a boss fight the worse for wear isn't that uncommon a thing.
Yes, and 3 crest for a Bound Primal is still more cost-effective than any other crest usage.

>but they've petered out at level 5
No more than many other talents available at levels 1 and 2. If anything, they scale better than most other level 1-2 talents. It is not as though Contractor Bs are lacking in level 3-4 talents.

>literally just a fifth person
Extra action economy is a major advantage.

>to top it off, the contractor themselves becomes rather useless
The contractor builds I have proposed still allow the contractor themselves to contribute in a non-insignificant fashion with their own attacks. Even a Divine Talker A spamming a Magical Jewel basic attack, and nothing else save for the occasional +1 Rank from their free Divine Talker A talent, will push out non-negligible damage.

>because the best buffs peter out at level 5
Again, no more than other talents available at levels 1-2. If anything, they scale better than most other level 1-2 talents.

>People have been dealing with this kinda shit in every system possible for as long as TTRPGs have existed.
And time and again, destroying the action economy with summons with their own actions has been shown to be stilted.

>Also, its only cost effective if there's only 2 seperate battles, or two instances of summoning. Force him to use it more, as it disappears between scenes.
Both sample episodes have only two encounters in the session. Even three or four encounters costing 3 crest each is fully manageable considering that defeating enemies recharges crest.