WarstriderMeltingPot

This page is currently a melting pot for ideas related to War Striders. More particularly adding a simple construction system, cool addons and great decriptions. Its aimed at producing rules, descriptions and cool things for a more Mecha influenced style game.

• back to Warstriders

Why we started:
"I love warstriders as well, but I felt short changed by the chapter. The PC stats were nice, juggernaughts & scouts are cool, but I wanted a bunch of l337 addons, like thermoptic camo, jump jets, flight capability, power shields, enhanced visibility systems, self repair mechanisms, reaction enhancements etc etc. Ok so I can make all that stuff up myself but I do like to be spoon-fed cool every now and then!" ~ YerMum on Warstriders in S&S

What's here?

The War Strider Construction System - An attempt to produce a relatively simple system for producing War Striders with a more customised feel without relying too much on guess work. If a few of these are submitted they're probably best moved to their own subpages off this one.

Modules - Add-on modules for your War Striders.

Ideas - Ideas you would like to see fleshed out more.

Discussions

Expansion slot's taken need to be added to most of these - JackT

Added expansion slots cost to mine, suggest maybe 2 slots for the wings? They are a bit good! ;) - YerMum

Is it cool if I add some items myself? Not just ideas? - LiOfOrchid

Of course! it's a wiki! - JackT

As haren mentioned to me, I don't see what the point of this stuff is...Warstriders don't have these kinds of features because they are built into the Exalted. - willows

But not all these features are built into all Exalted. You need to think big! And watch more mecha anime! ;P - LiOfOrchid

LiOfOrchid talks sense, while it is assumed that these kind of things are possible, I want to run a game with emphasis on the WarStriders, because giant robots are cool! - JackT

Also not all exalts are created equal, a DB for example has no real way of leaping small buildings in a single bound when in his warstrider so I can envisage a lot of these being scaled up versions of the dragon armour abilities. - YerMum

A DB might not have a 'Monkey leap' Charm, but jumping distance is Strength + Athletics, and in a Warstrider Strength is pretty freakin' huge! B-) Have Fun... nikink

Earth-and-Wood Spiders might needs some tidying up. - JackT

aye, but self repair mechanisms are fairly standard for mecha, right? I can see the wearer dumping their spare essence into the strider before maintenance, perhaps limit it to only being able to remove half the maintenance time. Otherwise you'll just spend 4 per hour of use and not have to do any fixing. - YerMum

I'm kinda worried/amused by the idea of a Righteous Devil style practicioner kicking ass and taking names in his warstrider which has two fuel bolt launchers mounted on it *giggle* - YerMum

I'll come up with some numbers soonish. (Ah, GURPS Vehicles, you are my friend...) At the moment, ballpark figures: Scout 8 tons, Common 12 tons, Noble 18 tons, Royal 25 tons. (I may be grossly overestimating these, but I'll see if I can work out some plausible numbers before Tuesday.) -- JesseLowe

Okay, I ran some numbers. Base assumptions: Warstriders have the equivalent volume of a human of their height and a density of 343 lbs. to the cubic foot. (This assumes an average material density of 490 lbs/cf and that 3/10 of a warstrider's volume is, in fact, empty space.) The result is this:

Warstrider Size and Weight

Type		Height	Volume		Weight (before components)
Scout		16	51.2 cf		17,500 lbs (8.75 tons)
Common		18	72.9 cf		18,000 lbs (9 tons)
Noble		20	100 cf		34,300 lbs (17.15 tons)
Royal		25	195.3 cf	67,000 lbs (33.5 tons)
Juggernaut	20	200 cf		68,600 lbs (34.3 tons)

-- JesseLowe

Alternate view here. I think the Exalted designers don't give a damn (insert rant) about sensible and real-world plausible numbers. Savant & Sorcerer mentions warstriders as weighing several thousand pounds. It also give a table of common Strength rating for basic warstrider types. A better approach would be to assume that thematically, a warstrider in a weight class should be able to lift another warstrider in the same weight class with effort, assuming a competent pilot. So rather than using any realistic system, I suggest using the Breaking and Lifting rules on page 251, decide on an arbitrary number to represent a pilot's likely Athletics rating and Willpower roll successes (I recommend somewhere around 6-8), add them up, and then cross-reference it to the Feats of Strength table on page 252. Thus, if we assume that a competent pilot has Athletics 3 and Willpower 6, we get to add 6 when we reference the table. So the weight table would look like this instead:

          Alternate Warstrider Weight
          Type           Weight
          Scout          2500 lbs.
          Common         3500 lbs.
          Noble          6500 lbs. (adjusted arbitrarily upward to account for elite pilots)
          Royal          8500 lbs. (adjusted arbitrarily upward to account for elite pilots)
          Juggernaut     9500 lbs.

I extrapolated the Feats of Strength table for numbers greater than 20. Feel free to adjust the numbers in your game. NOTE THAT WITH THIS WEIGHT SYSTEM, WARSTRIDERS FLOAT! See what I said about Exalted designers not giving a damn (insert rant) about sensible and real-world plausible numbers. To avoid floating, you can either adjust the number (multiply it by at least 150% and it'll start to sink) or say that warstriders aren't air tight and X% of a warstrider is actually empty space, which get flooded when immersed. Jesse's 3/10 ratio will make it barely denser than water. Adjust it higher and it'll sink even faster. - TonyC

After (a lot of) consideration, I think I find TonyC's numbers more aesthetically pleasing. -- JesseLowe

If anyone wants a better damage system representing damage to the -warstrider-, rather than the pilot, remember that they are technically just objects. Thus, every attack that hits and beats soak will inflict damage... even if the damage -dice- fail (representing the attack not hurting the pilot) that damage will be applied to the warstrider. I imagine they have tons of health levels though. Still, it's a thought for anyone running a warstrider campaign.
-- Darloth

After reading the Autocthonians book, it looks to me as if you could cannibalize the Autocthonian charm list for modules. Maybe even as an in character action if you felt like it. Hrmm, there's an interesting though. A circle of Exalts from creation bartering for Alchemical charms and installing them into their warstriders. And on a random note, who here has played Super Robot Wars? -- Rooster

Oop, I had forgotten that this page existed. The rules I'll be using for my high-tech DB game aren't complete yet, but I suspect I'll be drawing from various parts of this. My rules, I'm afraid, are not all that applicable to normal Exalted games, though the damage rules I'm using may be of some use. - David.

Somone on RPG.net pointed me to this page after they viewed my own prototype rules for a slot based construction system. I must say it's eerie how close I am to everyone else's ideas. If you'd like to have a look they're still a work in progress on the WW forums and RPG.net. - Rhubardin