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Showing content with the highest reputation on 12/26/2019 in all areas

  1. How can you ruin the Thundercats when it was already ruined by Snarf ?
    2 points
  2. Playing as an additional PC, for a girl and her mum that want to learn how to play D&D - In thick Russian accent “Ey... am Victor the Decapitator... do not be alarm ... is family name. Poppa vas Victor the Mad. Grandpoppa vas Victor the Butcher of Blevmoi. You may call me ‘the Decapitator’” “When all you have is axe, every problem look like neck”
    2 points
  3. I got Blu Rays of the Ultra Q, Ultraman, and Ultraman Geed shows as well as the latest Godzilla movie. Also got D'aulaires' book of Greek and Norse myths and some additional figures for my kaiju collection.
    2 points
  4. My first concern would be viability of characters with no Sensory Protection or exotic senses. Take the example of Obscure Sight 1 (5 AP). If I hit somebody with no Sensory Protection and pay 1 END a phase, they stay blind for the rest of the fight. There's nothing they can do but pray somebody else Stunned or KOs me. That's frankly absurd for 5 AP. Related to this is END scaling. If I'd instead bought Obscure Sight 12 (60 AP), I'd be paying 6 END a phase and the benefit of the added cost wouldn't apply until I stopped spending END. Which is a little strange. My next concern would be verisimilitude. I buy Sight Sensory Protection 12, defined as sunglasses. My friend doesn't buy Sensory Protection. An evil wizard puts us in an Obscure Sight 8 AOE defined as magical darkness. I, the person with sunglasses, see better in the dark than my friend who is not wearing sunglasses. In general, common Flash Defense SFX don't make much sense as defenses against common Darkness SFX. By merging Flash and Darkness, you get a lot of oddball behavior. I do agree with the sentiment though. I think I'd personally work the opposite direction you did though. Ditch Darkness. Tell people to build it as Flash, AOE, Constant, NND. Or prebuild it as, say, 12 points per Targeting Sense, 7 per Non-Targeting Sense, definition of uncommon but existent defense (as per +1 NND/AVAD) and purchase of AoE mandatory.
    2 points
  5. A lot depends on the "advancement" desired. D&D is very much a "zero to hero" model. Most of its d20 descendants are similar. If the average CV, defenses and DC of the campaign continue to rise, the PCs simply need to match that rise. Most growth of character power is an illusion, as the opposition simply grows in power to match the PCs - the world becomes more powerful as they do. Most Hero games have caps to various key elements. These can be raised as the campaign progresses, and we see the PCs get more powerful (as do their adversaries). There's a bit of pushback in some systems now - for example, D&D's move to "bounded accuracy" instead of constantly rising AC and BAB, to maintain some threat from mooks as the heroes advance. Practically, if we dropped the OCV and DCV of every character in a game by 3, dropped their DCs by 3 and their defenses by 10, they would interact in much the same way after this "deflation" than before. Only their relative power over some arbitrary baseline (normals, for example) would change. The focus on growth in power often decreases any focus on actual role playing and character personality. I've seen some games keep the xp, but keep the caps largely constant. Characters grow in breadth, perhaps growing up to the caps in any areas they did not initially max out, but do not increase in overall power. The system can accommodate many different styles.
    1 point
  6. I’ve allowed too without Multiple Attack . I think I allowed a Hero point spent. New motto for 2020 for me is less getting hidebound for RAW and more of does this make sense in a common sense or dramatic sense?
    1 point
  7. This actually came up relatively recently in actual play. I exercise the "Unless the GM rules otherwise," clause and allow a Grab & Throw as a single action, and I treat a thrown person as a person-sized & shaped AoE. I assign either or both the unerodynamic / unbalanced penalties and potentially other penalties depending on the situation and how the movement is described / what makes sense to me given the givens. I do not treat this as a Multiple Attack. A secondary target who is aware of the attack can abort to Dive For Cover, or may abort to attempt to catch the thrown person / object and potentially reduce or cancel the damage depending on what makes sense.
    1 point
  8. Greywind

    Snippets

    Brad stood in front of the painting of Nightwing, glass in one hand, the other shoved into his trouser pocket, thumb hooked on the outside. It took a few moments before he realized Emily was standing beside him. “Mrs. Deveraux,” he said in greeting. “Mr. Michaels,” she said in return. She spoke without ever turning to look at him. “It would behoove you to know that everyone here this evening is here because Jason invited them. He had the sole say in tonight's guest list. If you are here it is because he requested it.” Emily turned away from the painting and made her way to another group of guests. Brad watched her walk away, lost in his thoughts.
    1 point
  9. *taps shoulder* Now that family has left, can I PLEASE play with my toys?
    1 point
  10. pinecone

    In other news...

    I used that as a game idea once a company of cultists were launcing several com-sats for just that reason. The good guys interupted the summoning though...
    1 point
  11. Cancer

    In other news...

    Didn't see any go down, but all I had was Mk I eyeball for targeting and bare hand for pointing. And they were low on my southern horizon, so had they gone down I might not have seen them do so in any case.
    1 point
  12. tkdguy

    The cranky thread

    Sorry to hear that, DT. I've been in a really foul mood these last few weeks, and today was no exception. It took all my willpower to avoid ruining Christmas for everyone by screaming and cursing. I barely achieved that.
    1 point
  13. The big question is "Will this character take advantage of their energy being nature by leaving the suit?". If he will, it's a Multiform. If he won't, it's a Physical Limitation: Assumes weaker alternate form when suit damaged/destroyed. If he says he won't but then demonstrates he will, fill a spray bottle with cold water and aim for the face while saying "No! Bad player!" in a firm but calm tone of voice.
    1 point
  14. Bazza

    Musings on Random Musings

    And irritating the Tribble is its own reward.
    1 point
  15. The Scarlet Pimpernel, the last two Honor Harrington books, Big Week (a WW2 book), Storm of Steel and Churchill's Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, some chocolates and mugs
    1 point
  16. Wrapping, reminds me of how my dad used to wrap his late brother-in-law's gift in about 3 layers of wrapping and oversized box just to mess with him. (they were always pranking each other)
    1 point
  17. I know your favorite edition is Champions 3e while mine is 6e but I read your post and pretty much agree with all of it. Having 6e as my preferred does not mean I agree with everything that was done (I dont).
    1 point
  18. Fingerless gloves, a better TV antenna, a blue laser that is bright as all get out, a bottle of Jamesons Black Barrel, some nice warm garments, fungibles, etc. Pretty nice haul, and the stuff I gave was well received.
    1 point
  19. Dinner tonight will consist of a spiral sliced ham, cornbread stuffing, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes with marshmallows, and dinner rolls. The wine will be a '14 Snowden cabernet. Dessert is pecan pie with coffee or Angels Envy egg nog. It's a good day. Kids are happy in their rooms playing with their toys in the case of my two high schoolers, while my 19 year old slipped out to see her friends for a gift exchange. Watching Its A Wonderful Life myself, and reflecting on the year. Swag was a bluetooth waterproof speaker for my office and camping, a PS4 pro, books (Witcher series and Pat McManus stuff), and clothes for work. Merry Christmas
    1 point
  20. FRED priced +1 with All Combat at 8 points, not 10. 10 was the cost of an Overall Level. I have to disagree. No generalization of OCV Limitation is possible. It has to be done on a per-character basis. Melee Marvin has twelve different attacks and none of them are ranged. What does he lose by taking his OCV Only For HTH? Is that really a Limitation? Beam-Eye Bob has a Blast. That's it, that's his entire offensive selection. Does it actually limit him if he makes his OCV Only For Beam-Eye Blast and Block? No! Neither of those limit the character. But if Switch-Hitter Sam has a Blast and an HKA, OCV Only For HTH is actually limited. If Four Blast Frank buys OCV Only For Blast #2 and Block, that's a limiting Limitation. Edit: Figured out how to word my point: For an OCV Limitation to be a meaningful Limitation, it needs to (be able to) be phrased as "Not with this useful thing on my sheet". Sam's OCV is "Not with my Blast", Frank's OCV is "Not with these three Blasts". Both of those are excluding valuable things that the character always has access to. But Bob's OCV is "Not with my fists, my useless feeble 2d6 fists" and Marvin's is "Not with uh... maybe I'll pick up a gun?". The former excludes something that's not useful while the latter excludes something that's not part of the character or generally available.
    1 point
  21. Available at Amazon. I'll try to do a book review after my copy arrives.
    1 point
  22. Pariah

    In other news...

    I endorse this plan. Cobalt-60 for everybody!
    1 point
  23. Riley Howell Is Now A Jedi Master
    1 point
  24. Doesn't Common Core Hero make you divide the cost by 1/4 plus another fraction which will be calculated from your figured characteristics using an equation which will appear in a future supplement?
    1 point
  25. It's for the upcoming Common Core Hero. 😉
    1 point
  26. Anne Of Green Gables. The Canadian tv series.
    1 point
  27. PhilFleischmann

    Roll High

    I've always preferred a roll-high system. The "Stealth +2" notation that Doc Democracy mentions works very well and is more intuitive, IMO. I understand the idea of the roll-low system, because when you express the roll as "X or less", the higher the X is, the better. But that's the same as "+X to the roll, trying to hit a target number of 10 (or higher)" - again, the higher the X, the better. For a combat to hit roll, you just have to roll at least the target's DCV+10 on your 3d6+OCV. "+10" is pretty easy to calculate - easier than working out "I rolled an 8, and my OCV is 9, so I hit a DCV of (9+11-8=) 12 or lower."
    1 point
  28. Doc Democracy

    Roll High

    I did it in a game I ran for D20 lovers. I customised a character sheet and told them that the test for success was to beat 10 on a modified roll. So roll + levels and bonuses - difficulty and penalties. In combat, OCV is a bonus as are skill levels and sundry situational modifiers; DCV is the difficulty with range etc providing penalties. With skills, the difficulty was 10. I treated every improvement to base skill as a plus on the sheet, so Stealth 11 or less was listed as Stealth on the character sheet; Stealth 13 or less was listed as Stealth +2. Worked a treat, everything was about beating 10, rolling high was always good. However, to show the fickleness of gamers, not one of them complained about Runequest when looking to roll under a percentage to hit and roll high for damage.... Doc
    1 point
  29. From the Savatage concept album, Dead Winter Dead:
    1 point
  30. You're the GM, right? Why not just houserule it? Hero Designer will happily let you buy PSLs and call them PSLs against Multiple Attack penalties, and Steve Long isn't in the habit of coming to people's houses and telling them they're Having Fun Wrong. Heck, 6e has a bit in the front saying that some things used to be different in 5e and if they weren't problems then they won't be problems now so let it stay.
    1 point
  31. Buffing the party and our new Scorpion-men with Heroes’ Feast and a bunch of other prayers to aid us against any likely undead, we head into the Temple of the Faceless Sphinx, after an invisible Nemat deals with the cultists left on guard. Zenobia: How loud are cultists when they explode? Nemat: Doesn’t matter - I’ve also cast Silence >:) GM: The cultists don’t see anything. Zenobia OoC: Right up until they see their own headless body, upside-down. The other cultist wouldn’t be likely to see anything at all, with two of Asrian’s arrows in the eyeballs, but Nemat growing to giant size and using the cultists as tent pegs is also a problem. GM: *sigh* you just took out two Level 9 Monks. Zenobia: Just as well we persuaded the Scorpion-men to go have their Burning Man festival - every cultists we lure out here to stand guard is one we don’t have to deal with later. The door to the temple is magical, of course, and the temple built to frustrate some of the trickier spells. Still, we’ve got the advantage of Greater Invisibility and a back-up Mecha, and enough archeologists in the party to figure out the trick within seconds. The doors still grind noisily as they open. Nemat: Of course they do. Zenobia: You ever notice how the traps are always still in perfect working order? One of the traps has True-seeing, too, which makes our invisibility useless. Fortunately, the trap summons four fiendish Heiracosphinxs, who look around and can’t see us. Unfortunately they’re bright enough to try the spell-like attack Shriek anyway, just in case. Fortunately, some of the cultists come in to see what the noise was, and get attacked by the Heiracosphinxs instead. We lean up against the wall, snacking on figs and nuts as we enjoy the show, but press on before our invisibility wears off. Nemat: It still lasted long enough to get us past that door, that trap, and gave us dinner and a show. Hurrying through the complex, we come to an opulent bedroom, with the bed currently in use by two of the Forgotten Pharaoh’s disciples. Zenobia: Time for some coitus interruptus? And how badly do we need to surprise them to ensure vaginismus? Nemat: *casting Blistering Invective* IF I CAN’T HAVE ANY, NEITHER CAN YOU! GM: Cultist one tries to Withdraw Nemat: He can’t do that while prone. Zenobia: And first he’d have to withdraw before he can Withdraw. A crocodile-headed, stone-fisted humanoid bursts into the room. Rathos: WHAT ARE YOU TWO DOING IN MY B- wha? Nemat: Dying. As does Rathos, after a vicious fight. Of course, the room is on fire now. Nemat: This is fine. Onka OoC: Now all we need is a dog person. Zenobia OoC: Do gnolls count? Nemat OoC: Thanks to you I nearly wrote down ‘Amulet of Mighty Fisting’ The room Rathos ran in from is clearly set up as a scrying chamber. Zenobia: … so he was busy scrying in here while two of his minions were ****ing on his bed. GM: Yep! Not a very perceptive voyeur, was he? Onka: Worth searching? Asrian: Probably not. Zenobia: We can always come back after we’ve killed everybody in the temple. Zenobia: Are there any convenient cupboards we can stuff the bodies in? Onka: No need, these cultists explode, remember? Zenobia: Does exploding count as improper burial? At one point we need to make an offering to Sekhmet, despite being in a temple dedicated to an entirely different god. Freshly caught meat is best, but Zenobioa does wonder whether beer would be acceptable, given that it was giving her a mixture of blood and beer that ended her original rampage. Nemat: Would have to be blood and beer then. Do we have any blood? Onka: None that I’m not using. GM: I’ve never heard of that spell… hmm. Googling ‘Shocking Image’ without adding ‘pathfinder’ was a mistake. After a few more rooms of altar desecration, neat magical items like Marvellous Pigments, and a near-TPK, we find a route up to the head of the Sphinx. Just as well our new scorpion-men allies warned us about one of the Forgotten Pharaoh’s pets and gave us a bag of giant scorpion treats. Nemat: How did they get a scorpion that big into this room? GM: Potion of Gaseous Form. Nemat: And how many cultists did they lose trying to feed a potion to a giant scorpion? Asrian: Just one. They told him to open this bottle and wait. The room beyond used to be the chambers of the local high priest, but is now the quarters of the Forgotten Pharaoh - or rather the priestess that the Pharoah’s Ib is currently occupying. And she’s had no warning that we were nearby. Pharaoh's Meatpuppet: Wait, what? Asrian: We’re here for the Ib. Nemat: My goddess denies your claim to the throne. Zenobia: Please surrender if you’d prefer this to be painless. Pharaoh's Meatpuppet: You have been a thorn in the side of my faithful for too long. This ends here and now. You will give the mask to me and prostrate yourselves at my feet. The Forgotten Pharaoh will be forgotten no more! I live and breathe and shall not lie down again! Nemat: Mask? We melted that down for scrap. Zenobia: And I’ve heard how you treat non-humans, so … no. The claim about the burial mask a bald-faced lie, since the mask is currently vibrating wildly on Onka’s face, inside the mecha suit, where he’s been wearing it to enhance his spellcasting for the last few days. Nemat OoC: As if he wasn’t creepy enough. And when is she going to realise that I’m an Inquisitor, and the mecha suit is one she commissioned back when she was alive? Still, Nemat is pretty convincing. And following it up with a Shackle spell to immobilise her certainly gives us a further advantage. Zenobia’s Orbital Friendship Cannon and Spiritual B****slap are a nice addition. And then the Pharaoh gets her jaw smashed so she can’t even say the command word for the only weapon she can use with her hands shackled. Her minions aren’t much use since every single one is entangled in Onka’s illusory web spell. But after we’ve dealt with the Pharaoh’s meatpuppet, and her assorted minions, and failed to stop the Pharaoh’s Ib flying off through the wall, and patched each other up, a huge dimension door opens and a giant sphinx steps out. It’s Areshkhesbed, the half-fiend embodiment of Areshkigal, to whom the Sightless Sphinx temple was originally dedicated. Nemat: *in Sphinx* Your temple is liberated. Areshkhesbed: I thank you for your service, but your services are no longer required. *attacks* Onka OoC: Well, that was intense. Zenobia OoC: And now we have to do it again. Onka OoC: Well, it happens. At least we had a few rounds to patch each other up. Zenobia OoC: While Areshkigal was checking her Google notifications. Areshkhesbed has no nose. Zenobia OoC: A relative of Voldemort, is she? Nemat: Another one that lost a “Got Your Nose’ game against a one-year-old. Onka: At least it’s Areshkhesbed and not her sister, the demon of Sand, Thirst and Scorpions. Areshkhesbed: FEAR THE POWER OF ARESHKIGAL! Zenobia: Fear the mercy of Sarenrae. *HOLY SMITE* It doesn’t work, but Zenobia can suddenly feel the attention of her goddess on the scene. Areshkhesbed doesn’t much like Sarenrae, which probably explains why the gynosphinx proceeds to pounce on Zenobia and take off half her face. The demon is about to take off the rest of it when the ethereal figure of a woman in full armour blocks the blow with a longsword. She’s clearly a paladin of Sarenrae. Zenobia OoC: Squee! Hashtag Blessed. Lady Sophronia doesn’t get to do much else, since Nemat and Asrian doubleteam the sphinx and Asrian soon cuts the monster in half. Nemat: Nobody gets to save her girlfriend but her. She’s not going to let some samite-clad bint turn up out of nowhere and show her up. Asrian: B************H!!!!!!! GM: The ghost stares dumbfounded. As you tear a half-demon temple guardian to pieces, IN ONE ROUND. Lady Sophronia: Well. Sarenrae sent me to assist you, but it would appear you didn’t need it. Nemat: I’m sure your presence was an inspiration. Zenobia: *nods emphatically* The GM then has to figure which of the various monsters we haven’t encountered yet are pissed off enough, and organised enough to join forces for the THIRD Boss-level fight. It takes a while. At least the ghost-paladin can turn Zenobia’s scimitar into a holy weapon until we finish purging the temple of evil. Our Scorpion-people allies outside the sphinx have been busily routing the rest of the cultists and mercenaries. And we’ve got the mummified body of Chisisek the architect back again, too. Admittedly the sarcophagus is a bit heavy but Onka can shove the whole thing into Hammerspace with Shrink Item, so it’ll be easier to carry back to his tomb. We find the temple’s sauna room. Onka casts Detect Evil and detects something casting Detect Good back at us. It’s probably the disturbingly organic-looking rock in the middle of the pool. Zenobia: Excuse me Mister Rock? Nemat: Hey, don’t assume gender. Zenobia: Good point, my apologies. The rock is unresponsive, so Nemat takes a bunch of educated precautions and smashes the thing to smoke. We have a nice bath and walk off with the treasure in the room, too. That doesn’t stop us running into yet another kind of undead Nemat will have to add to his lecture series. They’re accompanied by some of those Maftets who reawakened the temple. Zenobia: Userib! Your mother wants you to come home. Maftet: Userib isn’t here, dog. Asrian: *urge to kill rising* Onka: There’s steam coming out of your ears, Asrian. GM: You don’t have a Charisma bonus? Why not? Zenobia OoC: I’m a gnoll - I have certain social penalties against people who had relatives raped and eaten. And believe me I’m keenly aware of it. Nemat: If it wasn’t for Onka’s flexible morality this would be one of my most powerful healing spells. Of course Onka has gunport hatches on his mecha suit. Normally this would mean timing problems opening and closing them, but he has a familiar now that can jump up and down on the relevant levers. It’s also fortunate that Zenobia was killed once, back before she became a cleric of Sarenrae, because it’s the only thing saving her from most of the undead’s gaze attacks. MOST of the gaze attacks. Fortunately Onka’s skill with mixing and matching spell components, and satchel full of stuff like diamond dust, means he can Restore Zenobia as soon as we’ve finally killed all the bad guys. Nemat: Isn’t it strange that adventurers can somehow measure out exactly 10,000gp-worth of diamond dust, by hand?
    1 point
  32. Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1946) One of the very best film performances of the classic era can be found in this adventure film set in 1930s Mexico, and that is courtesy of Humphrey Bogart, a man who helped define modern film acting in the United States, If you are not familiar with Bogey's body of work, you need to remedy the situation. Bogart plays Fred C. Dobbs, an American drifter stuck in northern Mexico without a penny to his name. Even as a beggar, he retains a sort of quiet dignity. But when he and a friend take up an "old-timer" prospector to search for gold, Fred's fortunes finally take a turn for the better. Now all he has to do is protect the claim, and make sure he gets to keep his cut -- a cut that keeps growing as greed eats away at his mental and moral condition. This swift, tragic deterioration is terrifying to behold, and must have had a considerable impact on 1946 audiences used to seeing Bogart play anti-heroes like Sam Spade (The Maltese Falcon) and Rick Blaine (Casablanca) who always effortlessly kept their cool even when dealing with impossible moral choices.
    1 point
  33. Did anyone else flash back to Clevon Little for a second there? No? Just me? Well, crap.....
    1 point
  34. 1 point
  35. You should be fine as long as you don’t look black.
    0 points
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