As a normal human kid, none, apart from him being modestly more agile and persuasive than the typical teenager. His magical jacket, his patron’s first gift, is faintly alive, however, granting him substantial (superhuman) bonuses to Dodge and Parry (as the buckles move to intercept blows or drag him out of harm’s way). His patron’s primary gift, the Chains of Perdition, are semi-animate, striking with unerring accuracy, dealing significant physical damage, locking down foes (and granting Twilight the power to drag and throw people easily 5x his own size), and eventually filling them with feelings of crippling guilt that incapacitates them if they don’t break free.
When he transforms over into the Umbral Warden form, he gains limited flight from his Sephiroth-inspired angel wing, an enormous bonus to Intimidation, generates a sphere of harrowing darkness that cloaks him and his allies and hampers foes, and enables him to “cast” Harrowing, an effect that forces foes to relieve their worst memories and deepest fears, incapacitating anyone with a weak will in a large area around him.
Finally, in the form of the Quicksilver Chevalier, he gains a magical unicorn steed who can run over water or along walls, deal excessive Charge damage with her horn, and makes flowers grow. His armor in that form reduces his Dodge/Parry noticeably, but grants him superhuman toughness and immunity to most weaker attacks. Finally, he is able to create a burst of brilliant rainbow light, blinding and stunning those too slow to react.
All of that comes at the significant cost of his mortal soul, and he’s recently learned that every action he undertakes with his powers spreads the name and influence of his patron in not just the fae world, but the mortal one as well. It would appear the Twilight Darkness seeks to expand its domain into the realm of humanity in the near future. . .
Well, here’s a thing. In a full 180 degree change from what they’ve always said about the project, Monte Cook Games has just announced you can buy Invisible Sun in PDF form- $99 for the whole shebang. Which seems expensive for a digital-only thing, but it is very nice digital versions of everything in that absurd minimum-$250 box they produced. According to the site:
The four corebooks, fully hyperlinked and bookmarked.
The roughly 1000 cards, laid out in a printer-friendly format.
Approximately 70 additional files including handouts, props, an art book, big maps, five different character sheet designs, secrets, posters, and much more.
I admit, I’m tempted. As I said back when the original Kickstarter was running, it’s right up my alley, even if I’ll never play it. Perhaps this summer when I have some extra cash.
I skipped that one and their reboot/repackage/reimagining of Isle of Dread (my players seemed to like my version of it just fine), but I think I am going to pick up their version of Expedition To The Barrier Peaks.
Combined with the Lost Laboratory of Kwalish adventure Wizards wrote last year (I haven’t run it yet, but I’m excited to after reading it a few dozen times) and the Monte Cook Kickstarter where he spreads his Numenera all over 5e, there’s all kinds of opportunity to indistinguishably slot sufficiently advanced technology next to magic.
after @Brooski tweeted of this purchase and copied me, I insta-ordered both it and the Isle of Dread one. I will almost certainly never play any of them, but it just makes me happy to read through, etc.
Not exactly. Wizards of the Coast put Against The Giants in the “Tales of the Yawning Portal” hardcover. Like these Goodman Games books, that book revamped a half-dozen or so adventures for 5e.
They didn’t have the same aims, though. For instance, this version of Against The Giants didn’t bother to scan and include the original module, untouched. WotC isn’t necessarily trying to pull on long-time gamers’ heartstrings. I think they just wanted to provide shorter adventures, a niche which hadn’t been filled by their 5e print offerings.
I still prefer 3.0, or maybe 3.5 though. Everything since has been pointless. The 5th edition stuff is really high quality though - love the artwork.
And I’ll always be biased in favor of 1st Edition AD&D, since that’s probably the only version I’ll ever play as a tabletop game. I wish it had the clarity of rules that the 3rd Edition does, however.
I agree with Jorn, 5E is solid. I’m one of those weirdos who actually enjoyed 4E for what it was. But I didn’t mind 5E at all, and like it significantly more than what 3rd/3.5/Pathfinder eventually morphed into (and which I still suffer from GM PTSD thanks to).
It’s fairly clean and fast, includes a few good modern story-game type mechanics (mechanical benefits for playing up character flaws and beliefs), manages to stuff in all sorts of classic flavor (albeit updated, sometimes), and does some really neat things with the in-game math that mean that there are more and (to me, at least) more interesting ways to challenge players over the course of the mythical 1-20 campaign.
It’s not perfect, and if you’re looking for a game with ludicrously in-depth customization, extremely explicit and clean rules-boundaries, or newfangled mechanics, this ain’t really it. But it’s a lovely revamp of the classic game featuring some of the best elements from the last several major iterations. I enjoy it a lot when I am rarely seeking d20-style gaming.
To expand a bit on the “not super explicit rules,” 5E returns to a very OD&D/AD&D “feel” for some spells and effects, where the description in the rules text is very narrative, or at the very least, shies away from using tons of super clearly defined game-terms/mechanics to describe every single thing.
Which has the end result of a moderate amount of GM interpretation to figure out how some of that stuff really functions in-game. Not an obscene amount, and it really is mostly restricted to spells and some abilities from my fairly limited experience running 5E, but it’s worth noting that it is not going for 4E’s Wargame/Boardgame-as-RPG hyper-specificity.
