Highlander shtick

[Bygoneyrs]

Hello there everyone,

 

What or how would you define the Highlander movies/series concept?

A player would create a character, one of these swordsmen immortals

and serch the world with his special sense for other immortals and

hunt them down. Once killing each of these others they would gain

more points inwhich to build up their character. Remember in the end

there can be only one?

 

It could be a short but fun couple of games to play at?

 

Penn

[Sketchpad]

Re: Highlander theme

 

Over at Star Hero Fandom, TKDGuy has a Highlander Hero PDF

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Highlander theme

 

Im not a fan of Highlander myself, but in a campaign past some of my players were, so I semi-secretly integrated an Eternal subplot into the setting. I wrote up mechanics, a long list of special powers (of which each Eternal had one), and so forth.

 

Im a bit busy right now, but later tonite ill look 4 my notes.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Highlander theme

 

Sorry, can't find my notes from that campaign; they must be in storage.

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Highlander theme

 

Back in the day when the internet was fledgling, there was a White Wolf conversion you might be able to find, "Highlander: The Quickening." It was a shockingly well balanced conversion, a perfectly acceptable "6th Pillar" for WoD. You can find it here:

 

http://vampirerpg.free.fr/Rules/Highlander/

 

Good heavens that's old. Back in the usenet days, my memory didn't fail me. Anyway, you can easily convert the powers they list for Immortals into HERO system mechanics with your eyes shut. Let me know if you get stuck (since I'm familiar with the source material & the original system).

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Highlander theme

 

That Storyteller (First Edition) Highlander game is considered a classic, although it cribs rules from several (Old) World of Darkness books, so it's not a complete game in itself. You'd need the sourcebooks to fully utilize it.

 

Highlander is a pretty popular game setting, apparently. Besides the fine HERO and Storyteller versions above, I'm aware of two other quality free games on the Internet: one for Unisystem, the other for D20.

[Bygoneyrs]

Re: Highlander theme

 

But guys there can be Only One Game...LOL...and it has to be for Hero System only!!!

 

BTW I watched on SciFi the made for SciFi movie..."Highlander Source" and I was

far less than impressed!

 

Penn

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Highlander theme

 

Didn't I send that memo?

 

All Sci-Fi movies suck. I mean. Really, really suck. No matter WHAT the name of it is. They're just plain bad. Badly directed, low budget crap. Wow, Brett Favre looks old.

 

See what I mean? I'll think about anything other than Sci-Fi Movies.

[tkdguy]

Re: Highlander theme

 

Over at Star Hero Fandom' date=' TKDGuy has a Highlander Hero PDF

Thanks for the mention Sketchpad. I owe you some rep.

 

My Highlander HERO was originally written for 4th Edition, but I rewrote it for 5th. Here are a few links:

 

The HL HERO stuff I posted here

 

Another Highlander thread posted by Stone

 

Immortal Package Deal

 

Duncan MacLeod and Methos write-ups

 

I second the Highlander: The Quickenng rules. I've seen a lot of Highlander adaptations to WoD, but this is the best by far.

 

As for Highlander: The Source, what can I say. It was Highlander 2 all over again!

[Curufea]

Re: Highlander theme

 

But guys there can be Only One Game...LOL...and it has to be for Hero System only!!!

 

BTW I watched on SciFi the made for SciFi movie..."Highlander Source" and I was

far less than impressed!

 

Penn

 

There can be only one movie, as well.

[Bygoneyrs]

Re: Highlander theme

 

I can whole heartly agree with that...all of the other Highlander

moves were a not very good at all!

 

Penn

[cutsleeve]

Re: Highlander theme

 

Highlanders concept is immortals playing king of the hill with swords with the prize being godhood. With queen as the soundtrack.

 

I think thats why Connar Mccloud won he had Queen on his side.

 

In truth there was a game made along the concept of Highlander Legacy: war of the ages. I actually have a copy, i bought rescued from the discount bit, squirreled away somewhere.

[tkdguy]

Re: Highlander theme

 

I have that game. I think the author used to be on these boards for a while.

[cutsleeve]

Re: Highlander theme

 

It was neat in a way, if your familiar with the storyteller system then you'll be able to pick up play pretty quickly since its very similar. Not to insult the creator if he's still around but it wasn't a spectacular game, fairly lackluster, but worth picking up for novelty.

[tkdguy]

Re: Highlander theme

 

Do you have the Blades sourcebook? It features 14 magical swords that enhance an Immortal's power. Some ideas are cheesy, but there are also some good ideas.

 

I came up with my own legend about swords of power, which I used in my campaign.

[BobGreenwade]

Re: Highlander theme

 

Am I the only one who looked at the title of this thread and expected a discussion about music?

[Bygoneyrs]

Re: Highlander theme

 

LOL...sorry I guess I should have said Highlander Genre..."I'm Bad!!!"

 

Penn

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Highlander shtick

 

This may have been resolved already, but I had an opportunity to get into my stored game stuff today and remembered to look for my notes on the Eternus mechanics I did for D&D3e. It's not a 100% literal interpretation of the Highlander movies or TV show, but it is an obvious derivation of it. As Im typing this up, Ill take a stab at HERO versions of the abilities from the hip...

 

 

Eternals:

******************************

PROS:

Stats: Roll 4d6, keep all 4 (4-24) {HERO: NCM = 25, trickle down thru figureds}

 

Eternal: Age normally until physical maturity, then roughly 1 year per 100 years lived, never suffer old age penalties. {HERO: LS: Immortality}

 

Vitus: Each Eternal starts out with a proclivity of some sort at which they are better than normal; this is a manifestation of their hyper vitality. These abilities are typically subtle, innate, usable at will, and represent enhancements of basic abilities or logical extensions of an Eternal's powerful life force. When an Eternal is slain, their ability flows from them to the nearest other Eternal, where ever they may be, who absorbs it and becomes more powerful. Due to this, Eternals that slay other Eternals become quite powerful; the healing ability and several other abilities of an Eternal are affected by this. Some sample abilities are given later. Further, Eternals that have absorbed many abilities, over twenty, usually being to manifest more powerful, more obviously superhuman abilities as well as they reach a sort of critical mass; however these abilities tend to be unique to the Eternal and are not transfered to another upon their death.

 

Fast Healing: Character Level +1 per Eternal Power per Turn. Severed Limbs can be reattached [some rules on Fortitude checks] in a timely fashion, or else regrown {HERO: Regeneration with From Death & Regrow Limbs, high Recovery}

 

Immunities: Immune to Disintegration, cannot be slain via Level Drain or Ability Score loss, Immune to Disease, Immune to Poison, Resistant to Paralysis, Immune to permanent Polymorph (including Petrification), Immune to permanent Ability Score loss, Immune to permanent Blindness and Deafness, Immune from Drowning and Asphyxiating, Immune to Starvation and Dehydration {HERO: Appropriate Life Support, Hardened Power Defense, Self Only Heal with Variable Effect}

 

Undying: An Eternal reduced to -10 hit points seems to be dead, but will self-revive via their Fast Healing returning their hit points to 0 or higher unless their head is severed or destroyed. {HERO: Regen from Death}

 

 

CONS:

 

Sense Presence: Eternals emit a palpable presence that can be felt vaguely by other Eternals. This is not directional or totally reliable, but an Eternal generally knows when another is near. The range of this sense is generally 1 mile per power an Eternal possesses in both directions; thus an Eternal with three powers is sensitive to other Eternals within three miles and is detectable even to less powerful Eternals within the same range. A rough sense of magnitude can also be communicated, though the emphasis is on rough. Some Eternals hone their awareness and become more discriminating, and some also become adept at damping their presence down so that they are not as easily detectable. [some rules for custom skills for Sense Eternal and Cloak Eternal]. This awareness of each other makes it easy for predatory Eternals to find other Eternals and slay them for their power {HERO: DF: Eternal, Custom Detect Eternal using built in options to "personalize"; either Invisibility to Sense Presence or a custom Self Only Change Environment that imposes penalties across the necessary range}

 

Cannot Be Healed: Healing other than their own native ability to Fast Heal causes an Eternal damage instead, such as is true of some forms of undead. Thus if an Eternal were "healed" for 10 points they would instead take 10 points of damage. This cannot take them below 1 hit point however. {HERO: Physical Disadvantage}

 

Beheading: An Eternal is permanently slain by being beheaded; they will not heal back from such damage, and their vital forces will immediately flow invisibly to the next nearest Eternal on the same material plane, where ever they may be. {HERO: SFX of Regen from Death}

 

Massive Damage: An Eternal can be permanently slain by Massive Damage if it reasonably would destroy their head. Being tossed into a volcano head first if the head were vaporized, for instance. Other more unusual means might also be dreamed up by creative enemies aware of an Eternal's nature; this is left to the GM's discretion. {HERO: SFX of Regen from Death}

 

Greater Power: At the GM's discretion an Eternal can be permanently slain as an act of will by a Greater Power, but not by Intermediate or Lesser Powers. Note however that such beings can always fall back on Beheading or Massive Damage if need be. {HERO: SFX of Regen from Death}

 

Cannot be Returned to Life: Under no circumstances can an Eternal that is actually slain via beheading or massive damage be raised, resurrected, reincarnated, or otherwise returned to life. {HERO: small Physical Limitatio}

 

Social Ostracism: Normal people are typically not very accepting of people that never age and / or don't die when they should. This side effects of this take many forms and is left to the GM's discretion to work into their campaign as and where appropriate. {HERO: potentially one or several different social oriented Disads and / or just part of the setting}

[Nolgroth]

Re: Highlander shtick

 

Looks pretty good. I think I would make the Cannot Be Healed a combo of Physical Limitation and Susceptibility, but that's me. Otherwise looks good. I recall seeing a Highlander-esque magic system in Fantasy HERO. Could be adapted into a full on Highlander baseline.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Highlander shtick

 

Some Sample Eternal abilities:

 

Note that most were rooted in D&D 3e specific boosts, but basically it boiled down to an ability that was roughly as good as 2 feats. In HERO terms they should be around 10 to 15 points in scope, though some characters might have a bigger investment -- this is kind of self fixing, because they also make themselves a more attractive target to other Eternals that would want such a cherry ability.

 

They also all had flavor text around them, but I don't feel like typing it all; I'm also skipping all the boring and obvious bonus to a stat or bonus to an obvious combat related skill items...

 

Hyperactive: extra Partial Action each Round; HERO: +1 SPD to NCM and Base

 

Bound: +10 Jump, jump range unrestricted; HERO: +5 Leap and Accurate

 

Cypher: Double # of Languages, may leave slots unallocated and learn new languages on encountering them upon exposure (basic communication immediately, mastery within a few days of exposure); HERO: pretty much the same trick -- put aside some character points at character creation and spend them to rapidly pickup languages. Alternately retool as Universal Translator, or Cramming

 

Healing touch: May channel vitality to heal others via hit point transference; thus an Eternal could transfer 25 hp to another but take 25 hp of damage and have to Fast Heal it back. This can also, at the GM's discretion, allow the recipient to reattach a very recently severed limb, but this cannot return another character from death. An Eternal cannot transfer their last hit point in this fashion. HERO: straightforward Healing with a Sympathetic Side Effect on it.

 

Adrenaline Boost: May boost Strength up to +10 points, but suffer an equal amount of damage each round they do this. An Eternal cannot use this ability if the damage suffered would take them below 1 hit point. HERO: STR as a Power w/ a damage causing Side Effect.

 

Perfect Vision: The Eternal receives a +5 Spot bonus and doubles the first range increment before taking penalties when using ranged attacks. HERO: +2 PSLs vs Range and +2 Telescopic vs range, and +2 PER for Sight

 

Night Vision: blah blah blah sees perfectly at night and in darkness; HERO: Nightvision and Infravision

 

Blindsight: The Eternal has one of the forms of Blindsight listed in the DMG (Sonar, Energy Field Detection, Life Sense, Hyper-Sensitivity, Hyper-Cognition); HERO: Sonar, Radar, or some form of Spatial Awareness or other 360 degree targeting sense.

 

Rapid Healing: The Eternal's vitality is even greater than normal; their Fast Healing rate is doubled; HERO: Up the Regen and REC.

 

Resilient: The Eternal is so durable that he ignores minor injuries; DR: 3/-. HERO: Armor 3 / 3 Hardened, Inherent.

 

Uncanny Deftness: The Eternal can increase their poise and deftness to potentially superhuman levels, though at the expense of their ability to deliver force effectively [some D&D rules manipulating STR and DEX bonuses that make no sense in HERO]; HERO: DEX bought as a Power with a Side Effect imposing an equal AP's worth of Penalty to STR...like +5 DEX, SE: -15 STR, used when desired to the level desired (ie +2 DEX, -6 STR one round, +0 DEX, -0 STR then next, and +5 DEX, -15 STR the third, etc).

 

Sprinter: The Eternal's movement rate is doubled. HERO: +6" Running

 

Calming Grace: The Eternal's force of personality is so strong that they can assert order and reason upon others; this effect is identical to the Calm Emotion spell, save that it is an Extraordinary ability usable at will if the Eternal can make a Will Save vs DC 18 to activate it and lasts as long as the Eternal maintains it, assuming the normal criteria for ending a Calm Emotion effect are not met. HERO: either +20 PRE Only to Chill People Out, or a really big Conversation Skill.

 

Spell Resistance: SR 15 / gets a +5 bonus against Save vs All effects. HERO: Whatever method is being used for SR in the setting.

 

Supreme Balance: The Eternal has perfect balance and never suffers any penalty for poor footing or precarious situations. They receive a +10 bonus to all Balance checks. HERO: PSL's vs Environmental Movement Penalties and Acrobatics

 

Iron Jaw: The Eternal is unphased by all but the hardest of blunt strikes (DR 10 / not blunt); HERO: +10 PD.

 

Resist [Element]: The Eternal is resistant to damage of a particular type (DR 10 / not [element]); HERO: ED Armor vs appropriate element

 

Bicameral Brain: The Eternal has no "off-side" and has enhanced coordination (Ambidex feat, +1 DEX); HERO: Pretty much the same thing -- full Ambidexterity and +1 w/ all DEX based Skills

 

Wolf Nose: Scent feat; HERO: Tracking Smell, various enhancers to Smell.

 

Rending: The Eternal's teeth and / or nails are abnormally hard and sharp and can be used in combat without penalty [blah blah blah some D&D 3e mechanics around unarmed vs armed combat]. HERO: 1d6 HKA w/ Reduced Penetration and VSFX: Teeth or Claws.

 

Hardy: The Eternal's life force is particularly strong. When rolling hit dice, roll two dice of the appropriate type rather than one and choose the highest one to determine hit points. Further the Eternal gains a flat bonus to their total hit points equal to the number of Eternal Powers they currently have. HERO: Extra BODY and STUN.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Highlander shtick

 

I've also got a fairly detailed back story on the origin of the Eternals to explain them away; the very very short version is that long long ago in a nearly forgotten earlier age of power humans came to the settings world from somewhere else and found themselves in direct competition and ultimately war with much longer lived races -- ancestors of "elves" and "dwarves" etc etc and basically found themselves on the losing end because of the short lifespan of humans by comparison. Basic manpower problem -- the long lived races champions lived for many generations and were awesomely skilled and powerful.

 

blah blah blah very high fantasy wand waved, Eternals were created to be humanities champions against their long lived enemies. As an aside, the effect of an eternal's power flowing to the next nearest eternal was an intentional design feature so that if an Eternal were slain in battle, some other Eternal (likely in the same battle) would grow stronger, thus at the end the aggregate force of vitality was never lost -- or to put it another way by killing an Eternal an enemy of humanity only made some other nearby Eternal even more powerful. The ability to detect each other and gauge basic power was also a battlefield advantage allowing the original Eternal troops to rally to one another and back the plays of their most capable members....of course eventually a bad seed Eternal caught on to the idea of murdering other Eternals to make himself more powerful, etc etc etc....

 

Anyway, humans eventually won the war de facto, and the device to make new Eternals was destroyed in a power struggle. The surviving Eternals mostly fell apart and fled from one another as it became more common for one to slay another for their power. However, despite the destruction of the apparatus the Eternal effect was passed down via bloodlines as an extremely recessive trait that crops up very rarely among humans (and even more rarely some half humans) and, at such a far historical remove, is seemingly without cause or pattern.

 

And so on...

[Wyrm Ouroboros]

Re: Highlander shtick

 

I prefer the original Highlander concept -- True Immortality, rescindable by getting their head lopped off. With a cute side-effect when that happened, as a 'transfer of power' took place. No extra funky powers, no juju, nothing but 'regular' people -- with the ability/curse to live until either all the rest were dead, or their own heads were cut off. They could drown (theoretically), but they'd essentially just stay alive -- because that's the power.

 

True Immortality: Healing 1 BODY, Resurrection, Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2), Persistent (+1/2) (60 Active Points); Extra Time (Regeneration-Only) 1 Turn (Post-Segment 12) (-1 1/4), Self Only (-1/2): Real Cost 22.

 

True Immortality: Life Support (Immunity: All terrestrial diseases and biowarfare agents; Immunity: All terrestrial poisons and chemical warfare agents; Longevity: Immortal; Safe in High Pressure; Safe in High Radiation; Safe in Intense Cold; Safe in Intense Heat; Safe in Low Pressure/Vacuum; Self-Contained Breathing): Real Cost 46.

 

You might catch a plague or two, but you aren't going to die of it. Bullets, all the other fun stuff. Admittedly, to get the most effect of the 'fast regeneration', you might want to take 75% resistant Damage Reduction for both Physical and Energy -- another 120 points. Then your sword, your skill, and get ready for the other Immortals.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Highlander shtick

 

I prefer the original Highlander concept -- True Immortality, rescindable by getting their head lopped off. With a cute side-effect when that happened, as a 'transfer of power' took place. No extra funky powers, no juju, nothing but 'regular' people -- with the ability/curse to live until either all the rest were dead, or their own heads were cut off. They could drown (theoretically), but they'd essentially just stay alive -- because that's the power.

 

True Immortality: Healing 1 BODY, Resurrection, Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2), Persistent (+1/2) (60 Active Points); Extra Time (Regeneration-Only) 1 Turn (Post-Segment 12) (-1 1/4), Self Only (-1/2): Real Cost 22.

 

True Immortality: Life Support (Immunity: All terrestrial diseases and biowarfare agents; Immunity: All terrestrial poisons and chemical warfare agents; Longevity: Immortal; Safe in High Pressure; Safe in High Radiation; Safe in Intense Cold; Safe in Intense Heat; Safe in Low Pressure/Vacuum; Self-Contained Breathing): Real Cost 46.

 

You might catch a plague or two, but you aren't going to die of it. Bullets, all the other fun stuff. Admittedly, to get the most effect of the 'fast regeneration', you might want to take 75% resistant Damage Reduction for both Physical and Energy -- another 120 points. Then your sword, your skill, and get ready for the other Immortals.

 

When I brought it over into DnD that really didn't stack up well for a couple of reasons. Firstly, raise dead / resurrection is so common and easy that the ability to come back from death wasnt that exciting; same thing w/ regen -- healing magic is very prevalent, so while it has its advantages, its not as remarkable as it is in a realistic setting where normal people stay hurt for a long time. Also, I wanted to inject an actual reason for Eternals to hunt and kill each other; a big part of the shtick of Highlander was the idea of dudes with swords wandering around killing each other in a modern day setting where people just don't do that generally. In a DnD setting on the other hand this state of affairs isn't really notable. Also, since they all get the same basic template, Eternals would be pretty generic / interchangeable which is a big flaw of class and level games in general; I wanted them to be distinctive in some way -- when encountering a new Eternal I wanted players to wonder "what is this guy capable of?". I also wanted to have some design flexibility to tailor an Eternal NPC if need be to fit a particular niche in a distinctive way. So I added the theft of abilities angle to provide a stronger hook.

 

 

{shrugs}whatever. I don't even like the concept myself, but I had a couple of rabid Highlander fans in the group at the time -- one even had a collection of replica swords from the movies / tv show. I added it in to cater to their tastes. Amusingly neither ended up playing one because they were afraid of being hunted down for their heads (both ended up playing demi-human characters), but a couple of other players did and really enjoyed the unique trade off in pros and cons and the story aspect of it.

 

I worked it in to the story line here and there as a background element and occasionally a main story element. I kept it a big mystery and it was never explicitly stated what was going on to the other PC's, which left them to wonder why a couple of the characters just never seemed to be as dead as they looked, took damage from healing (for a while the party's cleric suspected the groups Eternals of being some kind of undead or having made a dark pact due to their undying nature and taking damage from holy healing and was paying close attention, looking for cause to act against or denounce them if need be). The first Eternal in the group pursued a personal side quest at the end of which they encountered an old and powerful Eternal that clued them in to the exposition, but prior to that even they had no idea why they were different. There was a lot of different levels to it, and ultimately I think it was the story elements I incorporated around it that made it successful.

 

Anyway, short version is it worked out well and was a success, but due to my own lack of interest in it I probably wont ever incorporate the idea again unless in a similar situation.

[Mephron]

Re: Highlander theme

 

In truth there was a game made along the concept of Highlander Legacy: war of the ages. I actually have a copy' date=' i bought rescued from the discount bit, squirreled away somewhere.[/quote']

 

I remember when that came out, even if my copy of it has vanished. It was originally supposed to be 'Highlander: The RPG', but then the company raised the cost of the license and the people told them to go hang.

[tkdguy]

Re: Highlander shtick

 

I think that may be a different company. Legacy was already published when that company (I think it produced Towers in Time) went out of business.

 

It was a long time ago, however, and my memory is rusty.