Ghost Archer

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now?

The Satan Bug by Alistar MacLean

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now?

The Guns of Navarone by Alister MacLean

Re: Where are all the write-ups of published (Marvel, DC, whatever) comic characters?

More than a few of us have been converting published characters for a number of years. If you are unable to find a specific character I am sure that if you ask here on the boards you'll have a dozen intrepitations by the end of the week.

Meanwhile, as far as 5th Edition versions go of Marvel's X-men:

http://x-men.the-wild-hunt.org/

Granted, they are very powerful and 15 years out of date but I tend to pack as much of a character's published skills/powers as I can into a design with no regard for points and that is my preferred Marvel time frame.

Re: Circle of Protection ("Realistic")

If this is a heroic level game' date=' I think you are going about this in the wrong fashion. In a heroic level game, the easiest way to simulate this is to put a physical limitation on the monster, subject to "rules of magic". In this aspect, anyone who puts down a circle of salt may be protected from the monster.[/quote']

 

This is my approach as well. One thing that should be noted is, from everything I've read, the creator of the circle does not necessarily need any magic skill. To simulate this without a great deal of powers building I use the following:

 

Magic Circles

i. After considering many options for a Magic Circle as described by the author, I decided the easiest and cheapest way to simulate this power would be to place a limitation on ALL magic: Cannot Penetrate A Magic Circle (-1/2). I don’t see it as any more than a -1/2 as it is not going to be a commonly used ‘defense’.

 

ii. As for beings of the NeverNever and Underworld not being able to pass a circle, I have chosen to place the following on ALL magical creatures: Physical Limitation: Restricted By Magic Circles, if a Circle is in place the creature cannot affect anyone on the opposite side of the Circle unless it makes a skill vs. skill EGO roll at -5 against the caster (Infrequently, Fully Impairing). The EGO roll test gives a Summoned creature a small chance of escaping and eating its summoner. This design allows such magically inept people as Waldo Butters to establish a magic circle with minimal instruction and no magic whatsoever.

 

iii. Magic circles have no affect on mortals, in fact the power of the circle is broken if the circle is crossed in any way by a mortal. This includes throwing something mundane through the circle as well as actually stepping across the circle wall.

 

NOTE: This is taken from my Dresdenverse campaign 'house rules' that can be found here:

http://dresdenverse.the-wild-hunt.org/dresdenverse_outline.html

Re: Need Help With Urban Fantasy

I have an archeologist book store owner that specializes in rare and dangerous magical tomes. Another is a con artist, using her magic to make her cons more believable without volating the Laws of Magic. A third is a sculpter that prefers to work in ice. We have a college student brand new to her magic. Also a recluse that tried to avoid people in general.

Our minor wardens include an organic gardener, fashion model, wood carver and photographer.

Away from the wizards we have to semi-vampires from the Order of St Giles, an ex-bodyguard and an ex-cop. Then there is the pair of White Courts, mother and daughter. We also have a shape-shifting cat and a dog that is the re-incarnation of our college girl's father though she doesn't know it yet.

http://www.the-wild-hunt.org/dresdenverse/

There is also a rough outline of my take on the Dresdenverse converted to Hero.

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now?

Just finished Terminal Freeze by Lincoln Child. Debating over Fever Dream by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, 61 Hours by Lee Child, Black Magic Sanction by Kim Harrison, or Kitty Goes to War by Carrie Vaughn. Optionally I could go back and finish High Profile by Robert B. Parker.

Re: The Hero System is bland and over complicated

We all realize the possibilities of a genre book, such as Champions, that includes the appropriate rules from the main rules books is about as likely as peace in the Middle East. I suggest instead a ‘boxed’ set for various genres. This boxed set would include the Hero System Basic Rulebook and a second book of approximately the same size with information on a specific genre. This would contain a list of suggested powers and such from the Basic book, indicating the page. It could also include pre-made powers to illustrate their use as well as half dozen basic pre-made characters. Part of the book could be dedicated to a generic setting, ‘The City: a Superhero setting’, ‘The Castle: a Fantasy Hero setting, ‘The Spaceport: a Star Hero setting’, ‘The Haunted Mansion: a Horror Hero setting’, etc. that would provide a couple of quick adventures, one or two pages, with a few DPC in very basic form and a single main encounter with a ‘big bad’ to fight. Heck, we have a lot of talented people on these boards that might be able to come up with such a book and it would provide something not as intimidating as two bright blue ‘Tomes of Door Stopping ©’.

Re: Have you ever built the same character more than once?

No, can't say I have but then I only have like six PCs I've played over 28 years. I make a point to make them as different as possible. One thing, however, always ends up the same . . . I'm always the damn leader, no matter if the PC is mousy lawyer type or Ghost Archer. Dynamics of personality, I guess.

Re: Avatars: The -other- Patriots

Ghost Archer: "Knew an avatar, once upon a time . . . never again."

Re: "Your Most Embaressing Game Mastering Moment"

A VERY long time ago, when the Wild Hunt was young, as is his way, the Master of Balance decided to send part of the team on an off-world adventure aka BUG HUNT. Think Starship Troopers and you're pretty close (this was BEFORE the movie, dammit!).

A newly minted superhero by the name of Sparkler, no relation, got caught up in the draft.

Enter our heroes onto this new world via dragon power and being a partly EVIL dragon, into a creek bed that had carved its way into the soil some 15 feet. Not my idea of a great entry point but the dragon figured they would be out of sight (and what does a dragon know about sneaking around?). They were...but couldn't see anything much either.

Sparkler to the rescue!

Our doomed hero vaults into the air, spreads his magnificent wings, (think fireworks) and soars into the sky...where he is promptly strafed by a recon bug wielding a machinegun...NATO rounds, FMJ, on autofire...

The embarrassing part? When I helped to build the character I neglected...resistant defenses...Sparker brand Swiss cheese.

Shortest lived character EVER!

Re: TASER in 5ER

So let's address the sticky.

 

Officers Toody and Muldoon respond to a DV report, see a man with a knife. Muldoon commits to a disarm maneuver just as Toody fires his TASER. Muldoon and the perp hit the floor.

 

Think things are going to be a little tense in Car 54 for the rest of the week?

You just sent half the boards scrambling for Google to figure out who Toody and Muldoon were.

Rep for fun (well as soon as I can, can't see the rep window at work.)

Re: DEATHSTROKE: 6th edition updateing

Arrowhead? After an unfortunate, involuntary, teleport by Captain New Jersey, Arrowhead became forever known as Pistonhead. We never did get that car to run afterward.

Re: How to Build: Team Communicator

I’d suggest Contact: NSA Analyst for 3 points. That would give them the assets of the NSA, including satellite and de-cryption capabilities.

The problem is, in real life, with the situation you’ve laid out, intercept and tracking of this type of communications is all but impossible. With a mobile transmitter, encryption, digital data micro-bursts and possibly narrow beam or microwave transmission the odds are a million to one for any usable intercepts. IRL

Of course, there is…the possibility of a minor, undetected by the user, system fault. Perhaps a harmonic of the carrier wave, something low frequency, below the AM band. Something short range, like 30 miles or so to an airborne receiver and only a few miles to a ground-base receiver. That, coupled with the terrain your target seems to be moving through, maybe canyon country in the Southwest, might limit this unnoticed side band to intercept only if the receiver is nearly overhead and the ground unit would have to find the right canyon to pick up the signal. Then you know those canyons, a maze, and RF does bounce off rock sometimes. Naturally no information could be gained from such a signal, it being a carrier wave and not modulated but it might still provide a direction. One never knows.

Re: How to Build: Team Communicator

BTW' date=' do you have a background in radio, too? You sound like you know what you're talking about.[/quote']

 

In a way. I was an Electronics Warfare tech in the Navy and the properties of anything transmitted sorta fell under my area. Radar, radio, all electronic intercept...well, no sonar since I didn't have any underwater antennas but then that would be acoustic frequency rather than radio frequency. Also I've been working electronics for over 37 years now, so long, in fact, I can remember tubes and single transistors.

 

One thing I wonder is why No Direction is a concern? Unless I missed something in 6th, I've never seen a rule in any edition to indicate HRRH(HRRP) or RTR(RPS) is capable of RDF(Radio Direction Finding). As a GM I would require an extra power be added to a radio such as 'Detect Direction of Transmitter' and increase the cost by 3 points rather than making it a limitation that you CAN'T 'Detect Direction of Transmitter'.

 

Also just FYI, RFD will give you a direction, but cannot give you a range so if you wanted to detect the range, I'd require 'Detect Range to Transmitter' to be added as well for another 3 points. Normally to get a range to a transmitter requires triangulation and that means more than one RDF unit or a stationary target and time for the single RDF to move to several points to allow different angles.

 

Of course this all goes out the window depending on the GM. There is no wrong way to build anything in Hero.

Re: How to Build: Team Communicator

Why use HRRP when Radio Perception/Transmission accomplishes what you want by being audio only to start. It is 10 points vice 12. Also note radio transmissions are generally omni-directional unless a directional antenna is attached to the transmitter. Radio reception is also omni-directional unless the antenna attrached to the receive side is directional, such as with a RDF (Radio Direction Finder). Directional antennas are primarily designed for tight beam line-of-sight transmissions such as Microwave. This reduces the chance of intercept and limits transmission/reception range based on height of the antennas above the ground. This would be useless to a mobile superhero.

I'd suggest:

Re: Cutting the Drama Out of Character Creation

What sort of game are you running where characters die frequently?

Suicide Bomber Hero?

Re: Reminiscing About Star Fleet Battles

SFB has been a favorite of mine since I picked up that little zip lock version in August of 1979. I'd played the Lou Zocchi version of Star Trek ship combat and was pretty fired up about this new game. Well, over the years, I taught more people to play SFB than Champions and thats saying something. When F&E came out the group I gamed with at the hobbyshop decided to use it as a strategic addition to SFB with galactic movement taking place on the F&E map and the battles being worked out at a tactical level with SFB. We ran three campaigns over the years, each lasting between six and nine months and involving as many as 15 players. After over a thousand battles, I pretty much have the rules etched on to the surface of my brain.

Federation by default, since no one else wanted to play them. Something about warp engine power and photons and two turn arming. I never found it a problem. And not many ships of a comparable class can take a well-timed Alpha Strike from a Fed ship and still be effective.

Re: Harry Dresden: Book one points vs Book 12 points

I am a long time reader of the Dresden series and enjoyed the TV series but see them as 'alternate universes'. Some years back I decided to create my own Dresdenverse campaign and have been playing with it off and on since. You can find it here. While I have used the Dresdenverse as the setting, I haven't built Harry though I have created a number of wizards from the ridiculously powerful to relative newcomers with a few in between. I've created a couple of monsters, a few examples of the four vampire courts, including a White Court PC. Most of the stuff, like werewolves and trolls generally follow established HERO produces but I've probably tinkered with them somewhat.

A lot of the tropes from Dresden are there, a dog, a cat, faeires, an apprentice wizrad, a master wizard (this one actually gets along with the White Council), old tech etc., St. Giles, and some interface with the Seelie court. I have also created an outline of my version of the Dresdenverse with my takes of such things as magic circles, tech destruction, thresholds, my concept of the magic, a lot of stuff I just made up, like the Black Council members, and wards. You can find that stuff here. Use it, ignore it, comment on it, curse it as you see fit.

Re: Predator: rough draft. Any comments?

The one I designed a couple of decades ago kept an experienced superhero team busy for several hours as they chased it through Candlestick Park in San Francisco.

My version can be found here http://villains.the-wild-hunt.org/solo/predator.html

Re: an overview for a classic X-Men Campaign

The basics of each character came from the character sheets of the old Marvel Superhero RPG using the old article from the Adventurers Club for converting MSRPG to Hero. Like I said, they are merely my SWAGs at the characters, adjust to suit.

Also, as with defenses, there were times I consciously altered a character's stats to make them more survivable in my Champions setting. It would be hard to justify not giving Wolverine a 6 in aa game were 6 SPr was better then 75% of the characters.

As for Wolverine's Mental Defense, you might want to note the full valve it against Mind Control only.

And Colossus has the Martial Art indicated by MSRPG and the AC conversion, I didn't look it up but I don't recall he getting any type of martial arts training at that time. My convertions are based on the team over 15 years ago even though most were created more like ten years ago.

Re: Worst Hero Names (of your campaigns)

Budman: Beer bumps and flatulence.

McNinja: A chicken nugget with a plastic cocktail sword.

Ninja Beaver: A beaver in a ninja suit, -4" running, extra knockback, every time he went through a door, a Big Gulp (Dr Pepper) appeared in his hand.

Chichita: dressed like Carmen Miranda, complete with fruit hat where each fruit was a different bomb, carried a watermelon making her look pregnant.

Ninja Chicken: think Godzilla, only bigger and with feathers, science has proven the Earth orbits Ninja Chicken not the sun.

And my personal . . . er . . . favorite . . . Ghost Fletcher, a Ghost Archer wannabe, about 12 years old, very annoying.

*Please note, NONE of these concepts or names were mine and all were GM'd by someone else though I did play with them.

Re: an overview for a classic X-Men Campaign

My own experience with the X-Men comics ended about 1994 and so the teams represented on my website reflect the state of the X-Men Universe at that time. Some find my versions to be too powerful, particularly points wise, but to make them more survivable in a Champions Universe I had to increase their defenses considerably. The other reason for the high total points also stems from trying to include everything Marvel has ever attributed to a character, hence a 900 point Wolverine and a 1050 point Rogue. You can find my stuff at http://x-men.the-wild-hunt.org/

Feel free to use what you like and ignore what you don't though I'd appreciate some feedback.

Re: Would you play a game with pre-generated characters?

No, pregen characters are to cardboard for me to play and as a GM the only way I would offer up pregens would be to beginning players and then only with the understanding that we would design a personal character for the next session should they find the game worth playing. Of course in the past I have had a number of pregen characters become PCs simply because the player liked what I offered but that was when I was constantly teaching Champions at a hobby shop.

Re: You Know You've Been Playing Champions Too Long When...

when the fifteen year old kid you taught to play Champions just RETIRED from the Navy.

Re: Quote of the Week From My Life.

I love crappy sci-fi movies, you know that junk that comes on the SCIFI channel? Well, when Ghost Fletcher was eight, he and I were watching a movie called Gargoyles, a 2004 epic starring Michael Pare. Somewhere near the end, the star is talking about a 'murder' by the gargoyle and my eight year old son says, "That's not murder, it's the food chain."

Makes a father proud