MisterVimes Posted February 27, 2003 Report Share Posted February 27, 2003 Originally posted by Michael Hopcroft How do you model such special attack abilities as firing two arrows simultaneously at the same target or using an arrow as a meele weapon? 1) Use Rapid Shot and have the Faerie in question take PSL to offset this. This would be a good standard Tinkerbell Military tactic. 2) I define Arrows as HKA's and the Bow as Ranged on the HKA. With a STR min, the HKA will gain little benefit from STR (unless the pointy-eared freak has a high STR and this simulates having a greater pull). That way, if the bow is missing you can still stab with the Arrow before the Elf runs screaming like a girl. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GradonSilverton Posted February 27, 2003 Report Share Posted February 27, 2003 Originally posted by MisterVimes 1) Use Rapid Shot and have the Faerie in question take PSL to offset this. This would be a good standard Tinkerbell Military tactic. Just for clarification...the maneuver he's refering to is Prep Fire...not Rapid Shot. Rapid shot is a 1/2 phase draw and load...and a 1/2 phase fire... Prep Fire is (as stated earlier) desighed to fire 2 arrows as a full phase... p. 89 Fantasy Hero Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MisterVimes Posted February 27, 2003 Report Share Posted February 27, 2003 Originally posted by GradonSilverton Just for clarification...the maneuver he's refering to is Prep Fire...not Rapid Shot. Rapid shot is a 1/2 phase draw and load...and a 1/2 phase fire... Prep Fire is (as stated earlier) desighed to fire 2 arrows as a full phase... p. 89 Fantasy Hero Is Prep fire an Optional Combat Manuever for FREd? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GradonSilverton Posted February 27, 2003 Report Share Posted February 27, 2003 Originally posted by MisterVimes Is Prep fire an Optional Combat Manuever for FREd? Dont believe it is in FRED.... but the page listing above is where it is located in Fantasy Hero... The prob with Rapid Fire (per FRED rules) is that it doesn't take into account the loading of a arrow... it is based on powers.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MisterVimes Posted February 27, 2003 Report Share Posted February 27, 2003 Originally posted by GradonSilverton Dont believe it is in FRED.... but the page listing above is where it is located in Fantasy Hero... I remember that from 4th Ed Fantasy Hero, I was just checking to see if it had been updated for FREd. I have a feeling that it MAY be presented as an optional combat manuever, but if it isn't (barring a house rule), rapid shot may fill the bill. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GradonSilverton Posted February 27, 2003 Report Share Posted February 27, 2003 Originally posted by MisterVimes I remember that from 4th Ed Fantasy Hero, I was just checking to see if it had been updated for FREd. I have a feeling that it MAY be presented as an optional combat manuever, but if it isn't (barring a house rule), rapid shot may fill the bill. Its not in FRED...I just checked..... I edited my repl above to explain the problem I see with Rapid Fire in FRED.... jsut think in a few months we'll have a new Fantasy book and it will all be OK again! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jguerin Posted February 28, 2003 Report Share Posted February 28, 2003 Why bother? All elves are evil..they just dont know it yet. Kill them all and everyone will be happy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Man Posted February 28, 2003 Report Share Posted February 28, 2003 *gasp* I am stunned speachless at such a lack of common decency towards the faerie folk! How could you say such a thing! Sentiments like that are just...rude! _______________ I am the ELFLOVER Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MisterVimes Posted February 28, 2003 Report Share Posted February 28, 2003 Originally posted by Shadowpup *gasp* I am stunned speachless at such a lack of common decency towards the faerie folk! How could you say such a thing! Sentiments like that are just...rude! To quote G'kar.... Let him go! If he wants to die, let him! Listen to me, Ambassador. You're time is come and gone. It's our time now. One night you'll wake up and find our teeth at your throat. Sleep well, Ambassador, sleep lightly Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Man Posted March 1, 2003 Report Share Posted March 1, 2003 Hey, I like elves. Them's good eatin'. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Syberdwarf2 Posted March 1, 2003 Report Share Posted March 1, 2003 Originally posted by Old Man Hey, I like elves. Them's good eatin'. Usually need hot sauce, though. Plus, they tend to be a bit stringy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Man Posted March 1, 2003 Report Share Posted March 1, 2003 Well, what you do is fillet them and then fry or grill up the fillets... kind of like chicken strips. I like them with a tangy honey mustard sauce. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mutant for Hire Posted March 1, 2003 Report Share Posted March 1, 2003 *starts driving a stake through the heart of this thread really hoping it will die now* Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Man Posted March 2, 2003 Report Share Posted March 2, 2003 Too bad. This thread is lycanthropic, not undead, and it wears kevlar as a defense against silver bullets. Elven hair makes really good underwear. Nice and soft, like silk. Aaaah.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kage Neko Posted March 2, 2003 Report Share Posted March 2, 2003 Personally, every time I have fought a lycanthrope in a game, the only guaranteed way to take them down before they killed you was a head shot. I call one on this thread! Kevlar is not going to help against me (I have run across this beforem ). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Man Posted March 2, 2003 Report Share Posted March 2, 2003 But this thread is an automaton... knock off the head, and it keeps coming! Muahahahaaa! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Hopcroft Posted March 5, 2003 Author Report Share Posted March 5, 2003 Getting back on topic Let's mention another topic regarding Elves -- Elven longevity. We all know that elves age a lot slower than humans. Whether they physically mature a lot more slowly or not is open to conjecture. But one of the mostg heartbreaking sequences in The Two Towers was Arwen grieving for Aragorn alone, eternally, because she would live forever and he was doomed to grow old and die. Whether elves are actually immortal or just live a long time before they grow old and die is a matter of conjecture for humans. Of course, it is possible to kill an elf in just about any setting. No amount of magical immortality will do you any good when you're sudden;ly lacking a head. When designing an elf character, what is the preferred way to handle the extended lifespan issue? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Man Posted March 5, 2003 Report Share Posted March 5, 2003 Usually three points' worth of life support vs. aging. That's how much it used to cost, anyway. LS has been worked over in 5th but I'm too lazy to get up and go look at the book. Three points is pretty expensive considering that it's just not going to come up in the course of the game except on the off chance that the PCs get hit with some kind of aging spell or attack. What ought to be done is to have immortality as a psych lim. Usually we see elves played as quick humans with pointy ears. But if you were immortal, you'd probably not be real inclined to do anything quickly, nor would you be interested in the affairs of mortals who live and die in the space of a breath. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Agent333 Posted March 5, 2003 Report Share Posted March 5, 2003 Originally posted by Old Man ...But if you were immortal, you'd probably not be real inclined to do anything quickly, nor would you be interested in the affairs of mortals who live and die in the space of a breath. That's always been my stumbling block when it comes to portraying an "active elf". I mean, why bother doing anything when you've got the money, wealth, power, knowledge and patience to get others to take care of it for you? It forced me to write the following passage in the character generation handout for my own game: ...The most stunning of realities about High elves is their apparent immortality; no High Elf in their recorded time on Terranerth has died of anything but violence or suicide. This is a major factor against the Quenya ever becoming adventurers or risking their lives for anything less than life or death, they simply have too much to lose. However, it is not uncommon for young Quenya (between the ages of 40 to 200) to journey into the world and test their mettle against the wide world before them. It usually takes the time of a couple of life spans before a High Elf grows weary of the struggle and death around them before they resume life among their own kind. Only here can they be with loved ones who will not abandon them and they may live life in quiet contemplation (at least that’s supposed to be how it works). The High Elves immortality has also been a source of restlessness for them. Those who are ambitious or crave power find that there is no chance for advancement among their own kind. Because of status or birth they are denied their ambitions, hamstrung by tradition and saddled with a growing frustration. This has caused a few High elves to strike out on their own and claim a part of Terranerth for themselves. A Quenya who feels they have no place among their people may be very willing to risk their immortality for a chance at something he or she may call their own. Please don't correct my usage of Quenya or anything Tolkien here. I know it's not right, but it sounds good to my players and that's what matters. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucius Posted March 13, 2003 Report Share Posted March 13, 2003 Elven Immortality I thought of this recently while reading one of L'Amours' westerns. He was describing spring in a high alpine valley and remarked "flowers that grow that high in the mountains don't have time to fool around." Similarly, in the Arctic, where the winter is lightless and utterly frigid, all living things take advantage of the long, long days of summer to get all their business done. I think more ephemeral sentient beings must strike Elves that way. Sure, a Human can become as skilled and knowledgeable in a few decades as an Elf who may be centuries older, but the Human HAS to learn much in a short time if their pathetic short lives are to amount to anything worthwhile at all. After all, if you have forever, it must be easy to procrastinate. To put off tracking down that text, performing that experiment, practicing with the bow. Also, someone else on this thread raised a good point, that an Elf has time to learn and even more time to forget. Not to mention time for skills and knowledge to get out of date. That two centuries your character spent learning to intimately know the ways of the Woodland of Weir won't help much in the farmlands and cities that now stand in their place. Aside from buying the appropriate Life Support, the way to reflect the advantages of longevity might include - Scholar, Linguist, and other "skill enhancers." Reflecting that the character is probably "relearning" a lot of information when picking up a new skill. Some generic "lore" skill such as "Elf Lore" "History" or "General Lore." Basically, a skill giving some chance to know anything the G.O.D. thinks the character might know. Like any very "general" knowledge skill, only a very good roll will yield much detail. Skill levels, such as 10 pt overall levels or levels with all knowledge. Cramming, perhaps with a limitation that it will only help to "remember" a "rusty" skill if you can convince the referee the character used to know it. Finally, Elven immortality is something to consider when considering a character's motivations. Young Elves may be psychologically similar to Humans, and older ones may be motivated to adventure by boredom or frustration with limited prospects in their own society. Which brings up another topic. What motivations do you see for Elves and similar characters? Lucius Alexander ubiquitous palindromedary Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Syberdwarf2 Posted March 13, 2003 Report Share Posted March 13, 2003 Forgive me, I've been going on almost no sleep and am now on my 2nd pot of coffee..... Motivations for Elven characters? How about some form of wanderlust, similar to the desire of most sentient adolescents to 'do their own thing'? Or perhaps they want to see the world which the Culture that begat them in before the infestation that is man destroys it. Thus, they can preserve true History for the Culture (the People) to be passed on to another generation........ just my $0.02. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Markdoc Posted March 14, 2003 Report Share Posted March 14, 2003 One thing that people tend to forget about elves is that in general although fantasy elves are really long lived, if not downright immortal, they still live life 24 hours a day just like humans and they have to eat just like humans. You could of course alter this (I did for my game, in which Elves are Faerie-like creatures) but in most games, elves are just long shelf-life, new age, humans with trick ears. Given that, I see no reason to suppose they would learn more slowly than humans - they can read just fine - nor that they would idle their time away. "Legolam, Legolam, the orcs are attacking! Where's my new bow?" "Oh, I'd thought I'd get around to starting it tomorrow. Or maybe next month...." Farming, or even harvesting from the forest, making buildings - none of them work well on the "maybe later" principle. I can see elves learning to be more farsighted - but to be fair, most people live to 70-80 years old. How many of you are actively working towards what you'll be doing 40 years from now? cheers, Mark Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Whiplash Posted April 6, 2003 Report Share Posted April 6, 2003 long-lived uber elves If "immortal" creatures really lived, they would be very skilled but not infinitely so. I think there is a theoretical maximum to the skills a character can have, any character, no matter how smart. The problem comes with modeling them in a game (like Hero and every other one I've seen). The skill system just can't handle it. In real life, if you get to be really good at something, it takes a long time to get that way, but it takes a long time to stay that way. The more finely honed you have a skill, the more time it takes to keep it so finely honed, else it loses its edge and slowly fades with neglect. There are only 24 hours in the day. Eventually, you'll know so much that you can't keep it all up. As you learn new things, something has to go neglected. A 1000+ year old elf has probably hit that maximum. How to make that work in Hero is a very tough question (other than taking the very simple approach of placing a cap on the number of character points you can spend on skills). W. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mutant for Hire Posted April 7, 2003 Report Share Posted April 7, 2003 Re: long-lived uber elves I would give an INTx5 or INTx10 point cap to skills, though I can see Elves learning to store memories in objects. Anything that happened over a century ago goes into offline storage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Whiplash Posted April 7, 2003 Report Share Posted April 7, 2003 There are also physical limits to how strong and fast, tough and smart a character can be. In the real world, for example, I doubt that it is physically possible for a character to be stronger than the STR 25-30 range. If you buy my previous post about a max cap on skills, that places a max point cost on human characters, disregarding supernatural powers, contacts, perks, etc. But even there, there are only so many people you can know. W. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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