Light up the last night of 2016

I bet you thought I was done posting for 2016. I did too but then inspiration struck.

To celebrate The Protomen’s release of their new music video for Light Up The Night, I marathoned both Acts of the saga, which inspired me to stat these guys. I used AD&D but they should be easy enough to convert to B/X or LL. I kinda suck at AD&D so you might need to tweak these guys.

Wily’s Robots

	Robot	The Sniper	Robot Master
Climate/Terrain	The City	The City	The City
Frequency	Common	Unique	Very Rare; see text
Organization	Solitary or patrol	Solitary	Solitary or squadron; see text
Activity Cycle	Any	Night	Any
Diet	Electricity	Electricity	Electricity
Intelligence	Average	Above Average	Average to Exceptional; see text
Treasure	Nil	Special; see text	Special; see text
Alignment	Neutral (Evil)	Neutral (Evil)	Lawful (Evil)
No. Appearing	1 or 2d4	1	1; see text
Armor Class	6	5	0
Movement	12	14	12
Hit Dice	2+2	3+3	8+8
THAC0	18	17	12
No. of Attacks	1	2	Varies; see text
Damage/Attack	1d6	Punch 1d6 & Knife 2d4	Varies; see text
Special Attacks	Nil	Gun 3d6 damage	Varies; see text
Special Defenses	Immune to mental effects	Immune to mental effects	Immune to mental effects; see text
Magic Resistance	Nil	10%	20%
Size	M (5½’)	M (6’)	M (5½’-7’)
Morale	Fearless	Fearless	Fearless

“WE HAVE CONTROL - WE KEEP YOU SAFE – WE ARE YOUR HOPE”

---Robots, Will of One

Mass-produced by Dr. Albert Wily based on the designs of Dr. Thomas Light, robots are ubiquitous throughout The City. The Robots perform all the labor necessary to keep The City running; the Human populace never has to work, for their metal helpers do it for them. The Robots also enforce the laws of Dr. Wily, violently and without mercy. The City is a mockery of utopia, where the fear of uncertainty overpowers the fear of the machines. The Human populace seems incapable of and unwilling to overthrow their oppressor and his metal servants.

Robots and Robot Masters are immune to poison, disease, hallucinatory (but not illusion), emotional, telepathic, charm, and domination effects, as well as both positive and negative energy. Typical Robots can function for 48 hours of continuous use or 1 week in power-saving of mode. Robot Masters have advanced power supplies that allow them to function for 1 week of continuous use or 1 year in power-saving mode.

Average Robots don’t use weapons, preferring to beat enemies to death with their bare fists. Solitary Robots may be found anywhere in The City; Wily often like to place one in a busy bar or concert where it will try to act inconspicuous, at least until it sees or hears something Wily doesn’t like.

The Sniper

The firstborn of the Robots, created by Light and modified by Wily, The Sniper was Wily’s lethal enforcer against those who still stirred dissent after beatings from the common Robots. The Sniper was equipped with a removable helmet that featured a HUD-based threat scanner and an alert system which pinpointed any disturbances reported by Robots. It was armed with a reinforced carbon military-grade knife (2d4 damage; wt 1 lb.) and a high-caliber revolver (6 shots; 3d6 damage; wt 3 lb.; -4 to hit if the character isn’t proficient with firearms), although it preferred to use its fist and knife rather than its gun.

Robot Master

The Robot Masters are Wily’s lieutenants, unique and independent robots equipped with experimental and very powerful weaponry. Robot Masters are almost never encountered: One conducting routine procedures will be encountered alone; one dispatched to investigate or suppress disturbances will be accompanied by 3d10 Robots. Robots will obey Robot Masters without question, if their orders are obviously suicidal. Some of the Robot Masters are noted below; there are many, many more that exist.

Cutman
Intelligence	Above Average
No. of Attacks	1
Damage/Attack	1d6
Special Attacks	Rolling cutter
Special Defenses	Nil
Size	M (5½’)

This Robot Master has a gray jumpsuit on. His forearms, shins, and head are covered in red armor. His eyes are bulbous crystals lit by white light. On his head or forearm (50/50 chance) there are a pair of mechanical shears attached. In melee these shears act as a sword of sharpness but Cutman can also throw them like a boomerang at no penalty; if thrown, they return to him at the start of the round unless somehow prevented by obstacles. If any other character tries to use the Rolling Cutter, a natural result of 1 or 2 means that the character has hit himself and has a 50% chance of dismembering himself.

  

Fireman
Intelligence	Average
No. of Attacks	1
Damage/Attack	1d6 + 1 point of fire damage
Special Attacks	Fire attacks
Special Defenses	Immunity to fire damage
Size	M (6’)

This Robot Master is clad in metallic silver clothes with silver and red armor. His head looks like a knight’s helm, with glowing red triangles for eye and a crest made of fire. Flame wafts from the palms of claw-like hands. Once every 1d3 rounds Fireman may shoot out a gout of flame from his hands that functions as a burning hands spell cast by an 8^th-level wizard. Every 3d4 rounds he may launch flame from his head-crest, replicating the effect of a fireball spell as cast by an 8^th-level wizard. His equipment can only be used by characters whose bodies generate intense heat, which excludes most PCs.

Gutsman
Intelligence	Average
No. of Attacks	2
Damage/Attack	2d6
Special Attacks	Earthquake; hurling rocks for 2d10 damage
Special Defenses	Nil
Size	M (7’)

This hulking Robot Master is the size of a small Ogre. His limbs are red, his body black, and his face silver with a yellow helmet. His eyes are two glowing blue rectangles. He is covered in caution stripes. Gutsman can lift and throw rocks or other materials as large as himself is with ease. He can also use his gauntlets to channel seismic energy, duplicating the effects of an earthquake spell as cast by a 10-level priest, although he won’t use this attack unless commanded by Wily or in obvious danger of death. Gutsman’s gauntlets are too unwieldy for anyone with less than 18 Str and 16 Con to use.

Why Elves can't be Clerics

A while back I was arguing that it’s silly that so many people (especially fans of D&D 3.x/Pathfinder) are fine with “monster classes” but that Elf-as-class is somehow absolute madness. I was rebutted by a guy telling me that “Elves aren’t weird aliens. Are you telling me that elves don’t have clerics or thieves?” So here I am, telling you why Elves can’t be clerics (I might go into thieves later). Don’t think this means that I think that race-as-class is the end-all, be-all of D&Desque games; there’s a place at the table for an Elf Cleric, a Dwarf, and a Dragonborn Psionicist. Consider it an exercise in rules-driven world-building.

First, we need to consider why human clerics would exist in the setting. In D&D & Derivatives, Clerics are equipped with abilities to:

-Heal

-Cure diseases

-Remove curses

-Fight Undead

Next, let’s look at why a cleric would be important to humans. Humans both fictional and real are always worrying about mortality, which makes someone who cures diseases and heals wounds desirable. On the flipside, there are some human-exclusive curses (AD&D 1e lycanthropes) and undead are mainly spawned from humans (AD&D 2e wraith, older versions of vampires). So there’s a thread of reasoning that suggests that humans generally need clerics around, both to help the living and keep the dead peaceful.

Now let’s look at those clerics abilities in relationship to elves. Are they really that worried about mortality? If they’re long-lived like Tolkienesque and Gygaxian elves then probably not. They got through the first 100 years of their life without any of this magical healing and they can get through the next 500 just as easily (or at least, that’s what the elf thinks when he’s in elf territory). There aren’t any particular curses that necessitate a dedicated curse-remover and the only undead spawned from elves are basically just wyrds so they don’t need undead-hunters.

This also brings up a point about the relationship between gods and mortals. Did human “invent” or “discover” a way to become clerics? Did the gods approach humans and just drop this knowledge into their laps? Why is such magic, which is almost universally helpful to all humans, limited to a select few of them? It almost suggests that humans are actually terrified of the gods; that’s why they have a designated group (clerics) to deal with all that divine stuff while everyone else lives their lives. Therefore there might be another reason for elves to not have clerics, which is that their psychology cannot adapt the necessary way of thinking to access clerical magic. Perhaps humans view the gods as humans imbued with cosmic power, like nobles elevated to the Nth degree, mostly uncaring, rarely benevolent, and often malevolent; entities to be appeased, emulated, and feared. Meanwhile, elves may see the gods as elves who have reached a state of sublime perfection; entities to be emulated, but not appeased or feared.