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Tau Lore & Antagonists; WIP
Topic Started: Jan 14 2016, 03:32 PM (2,209 Views)
Kwak
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Tau are Underdeveloped in DtD


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The Tau Empire Homebrew

Lore and History


The Renegade Castes


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Player Options


GM Options
Edited by Kwak, Mar 10 2016, 03:48 PM.
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Kwak
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Basically, I hate DtD Tau fluff because it's just a direct port of 40k, but a weird one that makes all of their strengths into weaknesses. They go from the technologically advanced diplomats to the less-advanced recluses, the exact opposite of what anybody expects from Tau. That, combined with the fugly art on their race page, made it nigh-impossible to convince my players there was any reason to take them seriously. But when one of my players ended up being a Tau with Backing 4, I had to start really thinking about what is the Empire and what meeting it is like.

So then I thought, "What if the Tau Ethereals were also the XCOM Ethereals? And the Halo Prophets?" and converted some stuff from there to make fun antagonists.

None of this shit is fully complete yet, as you can see, but I thought I'd at least get the idea out there so others can contribute and critique. In particular, I've hardly even played Halo, and don't have XCOM 2. Nor have I ever done much alien-related tabletop roleplaying. So your additions would be great.

Mostly this is just to make fun bad guys so the Tau can be kinda scary and interesting to run into in a campaign, not like "oh hey its a bunch of playable blue communists".

As far as the Ethereal feat, I saw (after writing this) the Tau'va fanatic one and still prefer the one in this topic because

  • Ethereals are considered within their society to be the best and brightest of the Tau, and are described as having that same kind of vague charisma Paragons do.
  • All Tau players will have an alignment that (currently) has nothing to do with their racial politics, so the other feat's crunch and fluff don't match.
  • It's true that Ethereals make much more sense as antagonists, but isn't that also the case with Driders, Kythons, Goblins, Kobolds, Marrow, and gosh, Dark Eldarin?
  • Everyone uses Backgrounds in some way, so the feat will benefit just about every class in different ways.
Edited by Kwak, Jan 14 2016, 04:42 PM.
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Eisenritter
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...Having written the Tau'va Fanatic asset currently in the pdf, I approve and emphatically recommend the switch to the Ethereal Caste asset presented here.

Also...

Kwak
 

It's true that Ethereals make much more sense as antagonists, but isn't that also the case with Driders, Kythons, Goblins, Kobolds, Marrow, and gosh, Dark Eldarin?

Yeah, it was a poor excuse, I admit it. Would also like to toss out that almost everything I've put up as a PC race can be put into that category by someone, so... :(
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Kwak
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Different strokes for different folks. The castes in general are difficult, because making subraces a thing is such a Pandora's Box that I don't want to even go there. But then that's kind of the Tau's thing, so like...eh.

Thinking about it more, 2 dice to your Master Sword attacks and Millenium Falcon piloting and sweet-talking Gandalf might be a wee bit broken. Then again, my general opinion of the Paragon feats is that they're all broken, because I hate Paragon feats, so I don't have a very good perspective here. Would 1k0 or a free raise work better?
Edited by Kwak, Jan 14 2016, 04:30 PM.
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Eisenritter
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Kwak
Jan 14 2016, 04:30 PM
Thinking about it more, 2 dice to your Master Sword attacks and Millenium Falcon piloting and sweet-talking Gandalf might be a wee bit broken. Then again, my general opinion of the Paragon feats is that they're all broken, because I hate Paragon feats, so I don't have a very good perspective here. Would 1k0 or a free raise work better?
And I hate Paragons, which is why the subject of racial Paragon assets came up in the first place. If they're supposed to be the best and greatest of their kind, I don't think it's enough to hash out a generic Western badass template and call it a day, they need to have something specific to their kind as well.

That said, balance it as an asset, not a feat. Had to make that change early on to keep humans from getting their hands on them...
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Midboss57
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In your defense; nobody has played XCOM 2 yet.... at least as far as I know. But yeah, I can see where you're coming from.

If I may offer my opinion on the Tau as I was also pondering them:
- I imagine them very well as wanting to join the Council. One trait the Tau show a lot (especially in the Commissar Cain: Hero of the Imperium novels) is that they are heavy believers in Realpolitik. Open warfare tends to be a measure of last resort unlike the rest of the 40k verse. They prefer enticing other races with diplomacy and commerce and slowly assimilating colonies over quite a few years. In that eye, they would want to join the Council in view of eventually converting it to the Greater Good under the guidance of the Etherals.

- In that view, their technique would be far more like the Advent in the upcoming XCOM 2 with heavy emphasis on PR and using locals in their security forces all while making their own troops not look scary (see XCOM 2's archon, made to look angelic to not scare the natives).
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Kwak
Jan 14 2016, 03:54 PM
They go from the technologically advanced diplomats to the less-advanced recluses, the exact opposite of what anybody expects from Tau. That, combined with the fugly art on their race page, made it nigh-impossible to convince my players there was any reason to take them seriously.
I think that is a bit of a misunderstanding. Even in 40k, Tau were less technologically advanced. That is to say, the total level of their technology is less than other groups. They don't have good warp travel, or psykers or teleportation technology and various other things. The technology they do have however is quite advanced. And while they do try to expand as best they can, the Tau are still a teeny tiny blip on the map, in part due to that problem with their FTL tech.

No arguments about that ugly as sin artwork though. Most of the images from earlier versions of the book at least had their art cleaned up, but the Tau image was missed. There are some pretty cool Tau images in the second book though, if I remember correctly.

I do like what you did here though, useful stuff and ideas. Good work.
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Eisenritter
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In (admittedly weak) defense of the art in Book 1, I certainly prefer to see images in the race block without clunky armor on (if only because I'm used to arguments about whether dwarfs can be rogues), but I'm also finding it difficult to locate images of Tau that accomplish that without being fapbait at the same time.

That said, regarding Tau castes... maybe a single feat with different options should suffice? Granted, it would enable some weirdness where a Paragon could be both Material Caste and Ethereal Caste, but it'd still get those in, wouldn't it?
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weredrago2
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You could always add a "can't have a Material and Etherial caste at the same time" clause.
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Kwak
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My only concern is that if we start doing Earth Tau, then we've set a precedent for Grey Elves and Hill Dwarves and Acquatic Japanese Halflings and then next thing you know everyone's a Kython who speaks Sload. So I'm personally in no hurry to make subraces a thing.
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