Titan: Go Big or Go Home -Under Revision-

[Traskus]

I can't find much about how the armor plating trait interacts with worn armor or wholeness of body. As such, I am making a declaration: the armor plating trait stacks with itself and other sources of natural armor, but not worn armor or wholeness of body.

Titans

Before the materium became as it is now, it was like the warp; a primordial chaos erupting from the Wheel Cauldron. This proto-matter eventually settled into the Wheel and some coalesced into the Titans. The Titans ruled for countless eons before the Syrne were but a glimmer in anyone's eye. The Titans were massive, and for the longest time none could challenge them. They cared nothing for anyone, and the ancient races shivered in fear when one passed. The only way those races stayed safe was by being too small for the Titans' notice. Thankfully, one day they were overthrown by an unknown force that even they could not oppose.

The Titans were so big that in whatever war deposed them, they were torn apart but no afterlife could contain them. So these shreds still exist, and bind to certain mortals somehow, and they become nascent Titans, gaining powers like the originals may have possessed, except now they're limited by the mortal meat-shells they're stuck to. The original Titans would feel immeasurable shame at how weak they have become, but even other Exalts feel overwhelmed when a modern Titan is around.

Titans are kind of the Exalt's Exalt. Exalts are supposed to be larger than life, and with Titans this is literally the case. A daemonhost might inspire terror in people, but a Titan makes the entire scene quiet upon their appearance. They're big. They think big, they act big, they live large. Even Scions can't keep up most of the time. If not for most races on the Wheel being metaphysically incapable of supporting the Titans' soul-panoply, the exalts would eventually become new incarnations of the old Titans.

A Titan's power is often compared to that of a werewolf, albeit a werewolf on supernatural steroids. They both are clearly different from everyone else and occasionally completely let loose with their power. They both get bigger, but a Titan's size is its identity. A werewolf's size is incidental.

Powers

Big, Strong Hands: The Titan can use two-handed weapons in one hand with a -2k0 penalty to the attack roll. While size 6 or higher, her melee attacks have the Reach property. The Titan may use two Two-Handed weapons for two-weapon fighting, taking an extra -0k1 penalty on the attack roll. This power qualifies as the Monkey Grip feat for purposes of reference, qualifications, and interaction with other mechanics.

Getting Huge: A Titan can spend a Talent as a Half Action to add their Magnitude to their size (maximum size 20) for the next three turns or minutes depending on timekeeping. The Titan may also spend a Talent as a reaction to refresh the time limit. The Titan's worn gear (like armor) is absorbed into the titan's body while under the effects of getting huge unless an effect such as the dedication spell affects it.

Huge Guts!: The Titan's resilience when hit in the gizzards is halved.

Titanic Stature: The Titan's base size is increased by its Magnitude. He has to re-stock his equipment whenever his magnitude is increased.

Tell: As a Titan spends Talents, they start to overheat. Their face flushes, veins pop, and their bodies radiate heat that distorts air around them.

Power Stat: Magnitude
The magnitude of a Titan is most easily noticed in the size of the Titan themselves. They get big, and as their power grows, so do they. Even a weak Titan is noticeably larger than other members of their race. Titans with high Magnitude look like their muscles are about to rip their skin apart, and bulky armor looks positively slimming in comparison.

Resource Stat: Talents
A Titan's Talent pool is equal to her total Constitution + Magnitude + Willpower. A Talent is recovered by eating size 1 of meat.


Magnitude | Power Gained

• World Breaker: When performing a bull rush or charge, all structures and natural features with a resilience or armor (the greater) less than the Titan's size are either smacked aside or broken as he crashes through them. Anchored structures and features are broken, movable ones are smacked aside (on their backs, if relevant).

x Titanic Might: A Titan may pick up vehicle weapons and carry/use them weapon as long as it is larger than said weapon. Ranged vehicle weapons are qualified as Heavy weapons and impose a -2k0 penalty to dodge while wielding, the unarmed vehicle cqc weapon has the brawling property, and other vehicle cqc weapons have the unbalanced and two-handed properties.

== Smashing Hulk: Add half the Titan's size as a static bonus to their strength and constitution-based rolls. Add twice the Titan's Magnitude to their speed while under the effects of Getting Huge.

≡= Warlord Titan: The Titan gains a fear rating equal to half their Magnitude, rounding up, while under the effects of Getting Huge.

≡≡ Imperator Titan: Spending a Talent for Getting Huge automatically increases the Titan to size 20 (if not already size 20 or larger) and lasts five turns/minutes.

Titan Perfidious Assets

A Titan may take up to two Exaltation assets. Once at character creation, and once at Magnitude 5. Crystal Skin still only counts as one asset even if taken twice.

Agile: The agile Titans have mastered their size so much they move with an unnatural grace. The Titan only takes their size as a penalty to static defense under the effects of Getting Huge, instead of twice their size. However, their resilience is reduced by 2 while under the effects of Getting Huge.

Colossal Titan: Titans get big. This one is so large it makes other Titans look tiny. The Titan's maximum size as a result of Getting Huge is increased to 30. Imperator Titan automatically increases the Titan's size to 30.

Crystal Skin: The Titan gains armor plating equal to his Magnitude. He can take this asset again at level 4, but counts as wearing heavy armor with a max dex of 3 at all times. This armor plating stacks with other armor plating, but not worn armor.

Agriculture: You adhere to stereotype. But hey, stereotype works. The Titan may use organic material as required material or focus when casting spells. The Titan may also spend a Talent to grant a newly planted seed the ability to grow to an appropriate adult size 20 plant over the next 24 hours.

Ocean: The Oceanic Titans appreciate the freedom of water and the darkness it holds. The Titan can breathe water, gains the amphibious trait, ignores the effects of pressure, and can see in water regardless of available light.

Sun: Fortunately for Titans, people confuse them and trolls all the time. The Sun Titans took advantage of this. The Titan is immune to the effects of heat and the Fire condition. Lastly, the Titan may recover Talents by basking in natural sunlight for 15 minutes per Talent.

Vitriol: Gain one rank of the Infernal Monster sword school. The Titan can advance this school as if it was part of any class progression they possess. The tell is green fire, and starting at the 2-3 point level his melee attacks deal E damage.




Titans: Larger than Life

Titan Physical Features:
The most obvious way to spot a Titan is from their size. They're significantly larger than other members of their race, and not in a conventional way. There's being tall, and there's being a Titan. They're built like brick walls, strong and tough. Their skeletal and muscular builds are massive, but not exaggerated like a Scion's.

Young Titans may be mistaken for Goliaths or Aasimar, and this is expected. They are larger than most races can ever dream of. However, a Goliath is merely an average member of a race of giants. A Titan will be able to stare them down in due time.

Titan Tells:
A Titan's tell is dramatic and some find it terrifying. When growing larger, a Titan is enveloped in an electrical fire. This can come from the sky, but does not need to. This only applies when a Titan is using its Getting Huge power, and is sometimes accompanied by the Titan shouting.

As a Titan spends talents, they begin to overheat and show the primordial nature of their power. Blood rushes to their head, their veins all become eerily pronounced, and their muscles all ripple with energy. A weak Titan will only look like they're exerting themselves a little too much, but a strong one will look like their body is gaining even more mass and their skin is about to rip apart. Some Titans have other tells, making them look like metal or water.

When a Titan goes beaucoup cuckoo with spending talents, the outline of the original Titan that gives them power becomes faintly visible. This outline is an aura around the exalt, mimicking their movements. Their eyes glow, lightning runs across their bodies, and they become less intelligible as they yell.


Becoming a Titan:
Most Titans are made purely by accident. A mundane gets struck by lightning and suddenly they're a full head and shoulders taller. It isn't something people actively seek out, either. Being huge might sound appealing at first, but most societies operate under the basic assumption that their populations fall along a predictable range of sizes.

There are ways to become a Titan on purpose, though. The soon-to-be Titan must visit an area that has changed little since the primordial era, not an easy feat. There is often a well or pond in these areas, each containing a sliver of the original Titan whose power they want. The first person to submerge themselves in these ponds gain the power they seek. The water evaporates instantly, only leaving the newborn Titan in its vessel. These places are reminiscent of the warp, but are in fact nothing like it. They are saturated with chaos, the primordial formless mass of the universe. It defies description, and those who see these places often go mad from their mind playing tricks on them.

Playing a Titan:
A Titan is constantly trying to fit in. Their size and strength make them feel like they live in a world of cardboard. Constantly worrying about breaking something or someone. Their height makes entering and staying in buildings a hassle, their weight crushes chairs like it's nothing. Their strength and massive digits crush most things, even their voice is booming.

A Titan's personality has been altered by the primordial entity whose power they draw from. Their sense of self remains intact, there is no other mind trying to take over. Their personality simply takes on new traits to acclimate to their size. They offer to stay outside, or stay standing. It makes them more polite and likely to use peaceful resolutions in most circumstances. Others, obviously, use their size and strength to coerce others into behaving a certain way.


Titans in Game:
Titans present an opportunity for beginner-to-intermediate level players. The book keeping and calculations concerning the size of Titans can put players off, but the raw power and majesty that a Titan provides will help players feel powerful when using them. Keep a quick reference sheet for size/resilience/static defense/what have you so the game's pacing can survive despite the character's size changing.

Discuss with players what kind of experience they want with Titans. If they just want a "hulk out, hulk smash" character, that's fine. Make them think about the consequences of their actions. Alternatively, if they want an eldritch experience that can be just as fulfilling. Presenting situations that make no sense to most but perfect sense to someone can make a Titan player stretch to adapt and role play.


Titan Culture:
Titans are solitary beings. They don't interact much, and that's for the better. When two Titans meet, the surroundings are scarred for years from the rumble. They're territorial; they have to be in order to survive.

Some Titans take up hermitage in the wilderness, cutting down trees and befriending bison. Others set up small kingdoms using their size as an authority. They can start cults to the original primordial Titans their power comes from. The possibilities are numerous, and all of them are larger than life.


Adapting Titans:
Titans are a specific thing, but there are other concepts that work with it. A transforming hero like Ultraman could be a Titan if playing up the size angle. Focusing on the primordial mindset of the Titans can make them Lovecraftian, especially when they become so big they inspire Fear in others. They could be deep ones, creatures from the black lagoon, or some other sort of hybrid.

For a comic book feel, the pictures of Bane and The Incredible Hulk should tell you that these are perfectly valid ways to play a Titan. Science fiction experiments gone wrong-turned metahumans are a fine way to play Titans, and a primary inspiration behind my variation of this exalt in the first place.

[Traskus]

Added in a clause about using vehicle scale ranged weapons since infantry were never intended to use them. Conveniently, the two-handed vehicle cqc weapon doesn't actually require two hands in the book.

Changed getting huge's effect on equipment to be more in line with werewolves and give the dedication spell more use.

Titanic stature's effect on gear is changed to be less bank-breaking.

Changed smashing hulk's speed bonus to double magnitude.

[Traskus]

Gave getting huge an action type so it isn't as good as vampire's potency but still good.
Titanic might has a little more drawback to balance it.
Smashing hulk only gives the speed boost while gotten huge.

[Traskus]

Added an action to world breaker.

[ScrapyardDragon]

I think I can officially say that this exalt, isn't very good.

Before anything else; them getting permanent reach the moment they hit size 6 isn't always a good thing, since some setups will WANT to count as being in melee.

Taking a look at what it CAN do, it...trashes its static defense to get a little bit of extra resilience if the level-averaging works out in your favor. You can also use the comically OP vehicle weapons as 'regular' weapons, meaning they get to apply their feats and other bonuses, as well as do trickshot shenanigans with them (not that vehicles couldn't do the later, it just cost extra for the component), and at ps3 you get, a static bonus to a handful of rolls and be very fast sometimes. The latter is pretty cool and I still feel that smashing hulk should be gotten earlier, but letting infantry use vehicle weapons is how you break the game in half.

But all this is at the cost of constant equipment management through the campaign, and also dying to anyone who remembers that called shot is a thing or just rolls the 1/10. Its not like they're very hard to hit even with the called shot penalty. Its like if you were playing a werewolf but EVERYONE had silver weapons.

Overall, I still like the idea of the exalt, but having officially seen it in action and what befell the character, I just think its too riddled with unavoidable issues.

[insertnamehere]

To be fair, the character in question wasn't very well optimized. Being he was a goliath, who have a starting size 6, and had 1 Dex dot and 2-3 dots in Wisdom. So he would have been hit by attacks regardless of his size.

That being said, Huge Guts! is very deadly for a drawback. With your resilience reduced to half (or 1/4 if you use the Getting Huge) and all it took was a called shot which is something almost everyone can do. That dissuades anyone from using the Getting Huge power at all because it turns your achilleas heel into a an outright detriment.
I suggest reducing the resilience penalty (maybe half magnitude rounded up or something) and just outright removing the penalty increase for Getting Huge. Maybe have your size give you the Higher Ground condition or determine where a enemy hits you in melee combat due to you being so big they can only smack your legs or something?

Example: If your size is bigger then the enemy melee attacking you, roll a 1d10. If you roll equal to or below the amount of size you have over the target you get hit in the legs instead. Otherwise, roll hit location as normal. i.e. Titan is size 6 and enemy is size 3. Enemy succeeds a to-hit roll and rolls 1d10. If the enemy lands on 1-3, the legs are hit automatically.

[GuardianTempest]

It's certainly a more valiant attempt than the very first version. I'm a fan of exception-type abilities (revised Daemonhost boosting damage rolls, Gemini taking two of the same half actions, etec) so the idea of adjusting the hit location table to favor the legs is a novel one. Maybe restrict that to only melee attacks since a gunner can aim for the head.

[Traskus]

Nov 3, 2022 10:50:42 GMT -6 ScrapyardDragon said:

Taking a look at what it CAN do, it...trashes its static defense to get a little bit of extra resilience if the level-averaging works out in your favor. You can also use the comically OP vehicle weapons as 'regular' weapons, meaning they get to apply their feats and other bonuses, as well as do trickshot shenanigans with them (not that vehicles couldn't do the later, it just cost extra for the component),

They still don't get proficiency bonuses (vehicle weapons don't have proficiencies) so they aren't as accurate as using infantry weapons. So unless you're going after other titans or vehicles, you'll want to invest style points into accuracy. And getting martial techniques is as easy as a component, a non-base exalt power is a fairly comparable restriction.

and at ps3 you get, a static bonus to a handful of rolls and be very fast sometimes. The latter is pretty cool and I still feel that smashing hulk should be gotten earlier, but letting infantry use vehicle weapons is how you break the game in half.

I did consider earlier but thought you're more likely to encounter vehicles by ps3 and ps3 is where I've traditionally understood exalts to be "realized." Vehicle weapons mean vehicles, and vice versa. If a titan got a vehicle weapon, they either got it off a vehicle or bought it. If they got it off a vehicle, you're already fighting vehicles. If he bought it, the sm allowed it and is duty-bound to introduce vehicles or titan npcs to compensate.

But all this is at the cost of constant equipment management through the campaign, and also dying to anyone who remembers that called shot is a thing or just rolls the 1/10. Its not like they're very hard to hit even with the called shot penalty. Its like if you were playing a werewolf but EVERYONE had silver weapons.

Roll two 7s for hit location in a row is a 1% chance. The dice betray us all. Called shot-ing a titan means either they have taken a lot of damage and you want to crit damage them to end things quickly (like everyone else without the weakness) or you already know about the weakness. If you already know about the weakness, you're familiar with titans as van helsing is familiar with werewolves. If you don't know the weakness and you're called-shotting a relatively unharmed titan anyway, you're metagaming or can skip hp and go straight to crit like a modron.

I can fine tune this as much as I want but a player or sm acting in bad faith cannot be balanced.

Really the best counter to a titan is another titan. Let them fight. The problem there is the combat turns into roshambo.

That said:

Getting huge now allows armor and such if you have dedication.
Huge guts penalty reduced to universal 1/2.
Removed "use like an infantry-scale weapon" from titanic might to dissuade confusion. It's still a vehicle weapon, folks. You aren't proficient.

Looking for a drawback to unarmed cqc vehicle weapons. As it is it's the most obvious go-to.

[GuardianTempest]

Traskus

Remove the static damage modifier. Maybe halve strength (round down for Vehicle CQC weapons until <prerequisite>. If you want to be especially mean, give it Subdued.

Alternatively, for each point of size the parent vehicle exceeds the Titan by, have -1k0 (or -5? I dunno) to damage, but that's a lot of bookkeeping, and a Titan that's hanging out with Gremlins would have a jolly time..