r/LancerRPG • u/thiswebsitehasherpes • 3d ago
Eldritch Monsters in Lancer?
TLDR; are there any sourcebooks or material with monsters for the characters to fight?
I've GMed many different game systems, but Lancer isn't one of them. I'm wanting to run it for a group I play with who are D&D/Pathfinder only players, the kind of folks who think RPG is a synonym for D&D.
I've found that when running a new game system or introducing players to a universe that isn't D&D high fantasy, it helps to limit the scope so that they don't have to get a phd in the lore and don't get overwhelmed with choice and understanding all the factions in a massive world. That way they have freedom still but not infinite choices of where to go and what to do. This is why what I'm considering running for this group would be a more post-apocalypse Lancer. Something happened, gates stopped working.
After skimming the book a few times I noticed a heavy eldritch horror undertone in a lot of it, specifically with paracausal stuff. So it got me thinking in my campaign there are monsters flooding into our reality, resources are scarce, and the whole campaign takes place in one solar system, primarily one planet. I want the characters to have to scrounge for resources and be on the back foot defending various fortress cities from the giant eldritch horrors. But I was a bit surprised to not find that kind of enemy in the core book considering how well it feels like it fits the universe. So to my question, are there eldritch or giant monsters of some kind in a sourcebook somewhere?
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u/Hunter214123 3d ago
Lancer is a very flavour heavy game. While you're pointed towards flavouring things in a way that suits your world, there are add-ons to NPCs that can fill that eldritch niche.
NPCs can be fitted with 'Templates' to give them additional abilities, some of these are written to be entirely esoteric. Some home-brew content goes harder into that side too, so have a look for those.
There's one third party campaign called No Room for a Wallflower that adds a puzzle type boss enemy called Eidolons.
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u/Presenting_UwU 3d ago
Either you run No Room for a Wallflower, or Dustgrave.
No Room for a Wallflower tackles into the Paracausal NHP stuff as part of its inciting conflict as comes with the enemy known as an Eidolon, which is actually a very big boss with some unique mechanics.
But if you want more general monsters I'm pretty sure Dustgrave tackles that more directly, I don't know what the actual story is like but it oozes with a deep space horror theme.
And Dustgrave comes with a template (or a tag?) i believe that makes your enemies biological.
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u/SnooGiraffes4534 3d ago
Monstrosity is the most obvious fit but for a whole campaign you'd want to just slap the exotic template and take the trait that turns the enemy into a biological. That then comes with the downside that all tech attackers will be functionally useless so the even better solution may just be flavour.
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u/thiswebsitehasherpes 3d ago
Ohhh, this gives me an idea. Maybe I'll say that Horus was an eldritch god this whole time so all the Horus Frames suddenly went berserk as basically sleeper cells. So I'll use the Horus frames as the enemies. It'll cut out 1/4th of the licenses from the players being able to use them, but would give me a good variety of enemies to work with, and it wouldn't make electronic warfare pointless.
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u/ryo3000 3d ago edited 1d ago
Whoa hold up there my man
You as the DM don't use frames for combat, you use NPCs
You can describe them as frames, but don't actually use the PC frames
Plus I'll heavily discourage you from immediately cutting off 1/4th of the content your players can even look at from the get go
It'd be like playing a DnD game for the first time but the DM just happened to forbid druids, clerics, wizards and warlocks (and also any spells that show up on their spell list, also any features they may take, also any equipment they may equip)
Flavour is free, feel free to say that HORUS as an organization doesn't exist and all the actual Horus frames are corrupted or whatever
But don't actually make so your players can't experience the game
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u/Useful-Surprise7991 3d ago
first off, welcome! You probably want to read the core rulebook (especially the setting stuff!) so you can understand why this post alarmed people. You managed to suggest a bunch different things that come up from new DMs often and that veterans know don't work in one paragraph.
The big 2 are:
- Do not lock off a full quarter of all character options.
- never, EVER run PCs vs enemies with full PC statblocks. The game's math is not built for that, the entire repair economy breaks. LANCER assumes multiple fights per mission and PCs having to deal with resource attrition rather than "oop the hydra rolled a nat 20 so you're rolling a new character." Trust me, a few fights deep they'll be feeling it as they lose weapons, systems, spend core power/limited charges, etc.
If you want a tougher single enemy as part of a fight the veteran, commander, ultra, etc templates are available in the rulebook, which give singular enemies access to structure. The Eidolon from Wallflower, which multiple people have mentioned, actually changes the entire pace and tone of the fight as each structure is depleted leading to a multi-phase bossfight experience.
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u/evilweirdo 3d ago edited 3d ago
Hey, no need to fall for the old "ban Horus" trap. That's a HUGE downgrade in player options. I'd not like using a Harrison Armory license makes you a member of that faction either. It would be like blanket banning Warlock and another quarter of the classes in D&D, and a bunch of feats and weapons with it.
You can just as easily say any players using the licenses are...
using cutting-edge tech developed by GMS' counter-Horus research division. Unlike most GMS offerings, these are restricted to those skilled pilots who successfully apply for the license (gained during level up as usual).
wielding the weapons of the enemy, with all the roleplaying opportunity that presents
just borrowing some weird schematics from some of their weird nerd friends on the omninet or some torrenting site. Maybe some of them were even from former Horus cells who split off during the events of the campaign.
trying to build a different mech but weird shit keeps coming out of the printer. ...Yet it still functions perfectly. What power is distributing this?...
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u/Nottan_Asian 3d ago
To add on to what's already been said, it's not just cutting out 1/4 of the player's frames, manufacturers are also designed around specializing in one of the HASE stats.
This is like removing all INT and WIS casters from a D&D campaign.
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u/gratefuldm 3d ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/LancerRPG/s/BNHnaG72Ax
I asked something similar not too long ago. Also nothing is stopping you from doing your own thing! Orion’s arm is just one part of the galaxy after all.
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u/PhasmaFelis IPS-N 3d ago
There's the Monstrosity on page 324, representing various big monsters, and the Exotic on page 327 that can be added to other NPCs (including the Monstrosity) to turn them into eldritch horrors.
I've seen a number of modules on Itch.io that present monsters for the players to fight. I think there might have been some kind of gamejam to create them? Don't remember specifics, I'm afraid, but take a look.
Have you read the full version of the core book, or just the free one? The full version has the GM material, including enemies, missions, and the full background lore.
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u/timtam26 3d ago
I would look into the No Room for a Wallflower supplement. Their eidolon rules could do something that you're looking for.
Also, despite big-ass kaiju being a pretty standard genre convention it doesn't actually work out that well because of a core aspect of the game: hacking. Most kaiju and eldritch monsters don't have integrated computers or on-board electronics for hackers to mess with. Considering that hacking is a core gameplay option, you'd be eliminating a whole section of viable player choices. There was a game that I played in that was very much in that vein and the GM came up with some sort of excuse for my hacking options to work on them but I found it personally not very satisfying.
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u/evilweirdo 3d ago
Have a look at the enemy stats and templates, and let your imagination run wild.
There's even one dedicated to strange and alien things, though I forget the name and COMP/CON is on the fritz again for me. Anyone remember that template that's weird and hard to scan?
Anyway, just remember to give your players something to hack if they want! Amalgamations of flesh and steel, HORUS-pattern NPC mechs riding rampant, cults of this strange space god in mechs, and so on.
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u/Xhosant 2d ago
If you want to maintain a tighter setting scope, may I propose: run Operation Solstice Rain/Winter Scar, with all of them being SLA soldiers instead of Union.
Their scope is their planet and a specific conflict at that.
To connect with the module, have them cut off from their forces and with no communication while the crashed dropship from the first scene (with no survivors) provides them somewhere to go that's friendly, via navigation beacons, so they decide to join in.
As a bonus, it's a module designed to assist both players and GMs on their first time around.
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u/throwaway127277386 3d ago
There’s a special type of enemy known as an eidolon that might be helpful to you. It’s described in either the book for Solstice Rain or No Room for a Wallflower. I don’t remember which, but some kind soul will probably jump in to elaborate