tancred

Re: Astromancy I was going to say this sounded expensive (in terms of points the caster has to spend) but then I re-read what you said and it sounds quite reasonable. Looks like the actual cost of things will wind up similar to the Turakian Age system. We're playing TA now, and so far it works well. Squirrel, have you seen the 4th Edition College of Celestial Magic? I can't remember if it was actually published in one of the Fantasy Hero Companions or if I just found it floating around the web, but it has some good spells that I think would fit your Astromancy. I have the whole thing typed up in a Word doc; let me know if you want it. I can't wait to see what you do with this; it sounds very interesting.

Re: Switching Slots in a Multipower One thing that caused me to think of (and mention) Uncontrolled, though, is how it is used in several of the writeups in the Fantasy Hero Grimoires. In our group's last FH game, the GM required me to have every spell I could cast cost END. (This was intended as a balance factor, to keep my magic from unbalancing the game. It turned out to be needed.) This meant that my defenses COULD NOT be Persistent, by the rules. When I noticed that the FHG used Uncontrolled with Costs END (and/or Only To Activate) and a pre-defined duration, I modified my defensive spells the same way. Made them tougher to cast, of course, by increasing the Active Cost (thus the difficulty of the Power Skill Roll). The end result worked well, at least for us.

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... Harry Turtledove just finished his huge alternate history series, with Settling Accounts: In At The Death. It was at least as good as the rest of the series, if not better. But there was a lot of sadness, at least for me, all through it. I knew I was saying goodbye to all the characters I had enjoyed all through this series. This is really some of Turtledove's best work. And I say that as someone who absolutely loved his Videssos books, too.

Re: Switching Slots in a Multipower Thia, another thing to note (because I ended up asking Steve about it, too:D) just because a Constant Power has Costs END Only To Activate does NOT make it Persistent. In other words, even though he only pays END to start the Power, if he's Stunned or Knocked Out after that it turns off. You can't make a Power that costs END Persistent. In that case, you have to use Uncontrolled. (This came up in our last Fantasy Hero game, because I had some defensive powers that the GM required to cost END. Since they'd turn off if I got Stunned or Knocked Out, I had to make them Uncontrolled.)

Re: The Super Darwin Awards IIRC, the blast from a field of sunflowers is described as being equivalent to a quite large laser. And there I go again, assuming everybody's read the thing. Some goblins never learn.

Re: The Super Darwin Awards Mine is from Traveller. In retrospect, it's a GM Darwin Award, because I failed to give the players enough information to understand. This was over 20 years ago, in college. My roommate and our friends make up the group. The players have found Ringworld and are flying around exploring, using their grav belts. They fly over a field of sunflowers. (Yes, the entire story arc was swiped straight out of Niven; I made the mistake of assuming the players were familiar enough with the book to realize the danger.) My roommate's character was in the lead; he caught the full blast. Vaporized. Only PC I've killed in 30 years of GMing.

Re: Fairytale Princess Template Prefabs on demand.

Re: Catgirls (and Catboys) for Fantasy I actually wrote up the Kzin in Hero terms. I STILL think a Kzin warrior would have to be a human warrior's worst nightmare. Half a metric ton of sentient carnivore? Gives ME the shivers.

Re: "I shoot the escape pod!!!" Twenty years of GMing later I could think of that. Back then, he didn't and I'm not sure I would have either. But this whole thread sums up why I have that line in my .sig. I've HAD to learn to not get too attached to my plans, because the players WILL change them.

Re: "I shoot the escape pod!!!" Can't remember any off the top of my head where my players derailed me. Mainly because, as Dust Raven said, I think on my feet. I rarely have things figured out in enough detail that they can be derailed. Because the players will come up with something better than I thought of anyway. I do have one good story where I did it to the GM, though. More than 20 years ago, playing The Fantasy Trip, my best friend in college had slaved all summer over a mini-campaign, where he would run for a couple of weeks using our regular game and characters. Long story short, he had a beautiful, elaborate plot all figured out. We came to a door with 7 colored buttons on it. Each button caused the door to teleport us to a different location on the island. We were supposed to do them basically in order, although the exact order wouldn't have mattered as long as we did the last one last. The first 6 buttons are all pretty, sparkly colors; button 7 is ominously black. "Nobody would choose that first," his thinking obviously went. So of course, I had to push the black button first. Took us right to the end of the storyline, and we ended up following it backwards. The look on his face when I told him I pushed the black button was priceless.

Re: Moving Hit Locations The closest I can remember to a rule on this was Interposing, whereby you take the hit for someone else. Seems like there was a comment somewhere about deciding where you would take the hit. Have to look that up again, to see what it actually said.

Re: Has anyone done a skilled normals game I haven't run 25+25, but our last Fantasy Hero game my co-GM, who is new to running Fantasy Hero (and a long-time D&D DM), started us at 50+50. The goal was that we would grow into 125-150 point characters, but start at a low enough power level that he could get used to the game. Worked very well indeed, especially since we had to concentrate on exactly what skills we wanted to start with. It made sure that none of use stepped on each other's specialties.

Re: Steampunk/Victorian fantasy setting questions Ditto Mayapuppies' comments; this sounds very cool. I'd think guns and (especially) artillery would be extremely difficult to create without iron (although I do remember reading that there were brass cannons in the Napoleonic era). For an interesting take on a society using magic as technology, check out Hell's Gate and Hell Hath No Fury, both by David Weber and Linda Evans. These novels have a non-magic-using technological society (that has psionic powers instead) colliding with one that does use magic as technology. Some VERY cool ideas there.

Re: Language? I actually built (and posted) an HD template for my Turakian Age game that implements the Language chart from the TA book. Building it ain't rocket surgery, but it does require some work. KS carefully pointed out the drawbacks of using a template for that purpose. For my game, the template won't encounter those issues mostly because we aren't using any other custom templates.

Re: T5th give me a break

Re: A Torch is a Torch? On The Big Bang Theory the other night, one of the characters came up with glow-in-the-dark fish. The last scene of the episode was him turning out the light in his bedroom and the little fish in the fishbowl glowing. That was funny.

Re: How do i introduce new plyaer? Dr. Divago, for a good introductory game of Fantasy Hero, you might want to take a look at The Turakian Age. It's Hero's "generic High Fantasy" setting. It has a magic system already built (and 2 supporting books, the Grimoires) and there is a book of adventures available for it, too (Fantasy Hero Battlegrounds). There are all the usual fantasy races (elves, dwarves) and some not-so-usual ones (Erqigdlit, Leomachi). I've just started a campaign in it, and the players are having a lot of fun.

Re: It's Spooky Around here Tell me about information overload. I've been playing since 1st Edition (1982 or so), converted my long-time D&D-playing friends into Herophiles, and I STILL find rules I either never read or that are new to 5th Edition. Your just starting might actually be an advantage; you aren't remembering how things used to be and getting confused by them. My current group started playing Champions with 4th Edition and we frequently have to stop and look something up in the middle of a game. And Gradual Effect is a sweet way to get the originally-requested result.

Re: It's Spooky Around here Nice catch on the Change Environment, Thia; that looks to be exactly why Change Environment works the way it does. It's a perfect power for this effect. The only drawback I can see is that it doesn't increase over time, which I think mayapuppies said he wanted. Honestly, on the Drain, I'd have been Stunned (pun intended) if that hadn't turned out to be the case; I've ALWAYS played Drains that way, as far back as we've had them (was that first edition?).

Re: It's Spooky Around here Thia, I double-checked before I posted; didn't want to put my foot in my mouth (a common problem for us goblins). Absorption, Aid, and Transfer have maximum effects, as it says on 5ER page 106. (It says there, "Absorption, Aid, and Transfer have maximum effects. These Powers can Adjust a maximum amount of points equal to the maximum amount you can roll on the dice...".) However, Drain is explicitly NOT capped, as this quote shows: "There’s no limit to the amount of Character Points a character can Drain from his victim; he may use the same Drain repeatedly on the same target, provided the target still has points left to Drain in the Power or Characteristic (see below regarding negative Characteristics)." That's the exact words from 5ER page 151. Hope that helps.

Re: It's Spooky Around here There's no limit to the number of points that can be Drained (5ER, page 151); it's only limited to 2d6 at a time. It will keep Draining as long as the victim is in its Area of Effect. Maya, would Extra Time on the Power produce the effect you want? On second thought, probably not, because that would require the victim to be in the area for the whole Extra Time. Hmm; this is harder than it looked. Oh, and don't you need Continuous, to make it go off multiple times, without requiring an Attack Action each time? May want No Range, too, if it's centered on the Nightmare and moves with it. Cool power; would love to see the write-up for the whole creature when you get this figured out.

Re: Must-have books? The $30 HD packs are too expensive for me, too; I haven't bought any of them, and don't plan to. As Thia said, I enter those as I need them. The good values are the cheap packs: the Bestiary, TA, FH, Terran Empire and Spacer's Toolkit. All the ones that are less than $10 are a good buy; the time you save is worth that price. The Bestiary, in particular, is as good a bargain as HD itself, because it comes with all the Prefabs for the Options shown in the book and the templates to customize the monsters. And you can use ALL those add-ons for other creatures, like those in MMM. And Thia, you've convinced me that I've got to order UEP while it's on sale.

Re: Must-have books? 1. The HD packs include write-ups for whatever the book is about. For the Bestiary, you get EVERY creature in the book as a character file (.hdc) plus Prefabs for all the various options and templates. (Way cheap at the price.) Other books' packs may have more prefabs, depending on what they are about. Most packs have BOTH the .hdc AND the prefab file (.hdp) for each one. Some of the later packs (created after HDv3 came out) may actually include Package Deals (.hpk) files as well. 2. The Valdorian Age is a "swords-and-sorcery" setting for FH (think Conan). Haven't played or run in it yet, but it has a VERY different and interesting magic system. Looks like it would be fun if that's a setting that would appeal to you. 3. FH and TA do list prices for all the gear. I totally sympathze with your plight about deciding on costs; I'm having the same problem with my TA game, trying to add to the list of things from FH and TA to make a really LARGE list of everything the players could possibly want to buy. Edit: Eh, beaten to the punch. I need to look for that 10 foot pole book myself.

Re: Must-have books? FH is a guideline to setting up your game. Notes on styles, magic systems, etc., etc. I'd definitely call it a must-have. Ultimate Martial Artist (UMA) for everything about hand-to-hand combat. Styles, optional Maneuvers, special combat rules. A must-have for me, at least. The Hero System Bestiary lists (I forget how many) monsters as well as mundane animals. Plus templates to customize them, custom Hit Location charts for different types of creatures. A definite must-have. (And get the HD pack for it too, if you have Hero Designer. You don't? Buy it NOW!!! ) The Grimoires list the magic system for the Turakian Age setting. Spells of several different Arcana (spell colleges). The first is better than the second, in my opinion, but they're both good to mine for ideas. Must-have IF you're using the Turakian Age. The Turakian Age is Hero's "generic" High Fantasy setting. I'm running a game set in it, and it's a lot of fun. Lots of places to run different styles of fantasy games. The Fantasy Hero Battlegrounds book is a set of adventures set in TA, and I expect we're going to have fun with that when I get to the point of running it. If you don't have your own campaign world all set up, TA is a good place to get started. Monsters, Minions, and Marauders is another book of monsters. Some of them are specific to the TA setting, but all can be easily adapted to any setting. If you want a bigger variety of monsters to choose from, another must-have. Haven't bought the Equipment Guide yet; I think it's just a compilation of material that's already in FH and Dark Champions (and probably some others, too). Handy if you want a single reference. Last but not least, if you don't have Hero Designer, buy it NOW. It is the best $25 you'll spend on gaming. Period. Whether you're new to Hero or an old hand (I've been playing since 1982), it will make your job as GM much easier. And the Bestiary character pack (for a measly $6.99) lets you load a monster, customize it, and have a new adversary in 5 minutes. Way cool. Hope that helps. Feel free to ask for more.

Re: Suppress CSL You could use the Optional Rules for Negative Combat Skill Levels (5ER, pages 54-5), Negative Penalty Skill Levels (5ER, page 66), and/or Negative Skill Levels (5ER page 70). The Negative Combat Skill Levels rule, in particular, seems like it would do just what you're describing. It's not wildly cheap, but not as expensive as Variable Special Effect and so on. And while Optional, it is a rule, not a rules change.