CorpCommander

Re: OK, Math And Science Experts: Cubic Hexes Personally, I see the thought process behind listing in clubic hexes. The table of body/def for materials is in cubic hexes. However this is usually too much volume for most things where it's mattered in my game. Usually its only a few centimeters of wood between the party and the next room. Occationally a similar amount of stone. In some cases large amounts of stone and earth present themselves. However I am not running champions so we'll have to see how useful this is. I think with some simple calculator time it can be quite useful. --Pete

Re: OK, Math And Science Experts: Cubic Hexes Sounds like The Ultimate Brick is going to be one great product. I am really looking forward to it. Gadgets and Gear is out at my FLGS so I'll get that in the mean time!

What comes in these shapes? What comes in the shape of a cubic hex? Not much stuff. What comes in the shape of a sphere? Lots of things. What comes in the shape of a cube? Even more things. I am not sure cubic hexes mean much. Conceptually harder than cubes, they also have some other issues in that namely doing math with them is more difficult. I think the example of the motorcycle is a good one. Though it rests in 2 hexes, it does not come close to filling 2 cubic hexes. I wish I could be more constructive and offer an alternative that is clever and wise but I am going to have to think on this one a bit more.

Re: BATTLETECH HERO : Campign Journal , 1 April 3025 . Player Conflicts are the Tools of the GM to keep the proletariot in line! Honestly, player conflict can be used to keep the game better balanced and fun. In fact I hate all lovey dovey party members. Real life isn't that way. Just turn the conflicts into rivalry and away from stalemate. In the Battletech world I can see that as being fun! --Pete

Re: What Books do I need for Fantasy hero I used MMM the first night we gamed after I got it so, I will politely disagree with Killer on this book. It has a lot of clever opponents in it. FH is extremely useful and will take a long time to digest, but bring it everytime you and when questions come up check the index. I like the Grimoir and its very useful as an idea book. I think reading this forum is the best first step.

Re: What character concepts make you cringe? first off, Whoa! They've change the board software... Ok back on topic - one guy had a character who had a weapon called the "Fuglurizer" which was a COM drain... I've had some bad concepts - mainly just hyper-inefficient projectors. However they were all Hyper-Patriotic so I am sure that made everyone cringe!

Re: speeding up combat That rules! Wow, what a great idea. I knew a GM that used to spring a surprise on players, quickly ask them "What do you do?" and when they responded with "Ahhhhhhhh?" he'd respond and say, "that's what I thought you'd do," and move on to the next player! What conventions do you run your game at? I'd love to see it or play in it!

I could do it I could put up a list of spells that people submit. What I would need is that the submission come in Hero Designer 2 HDC files though. That way I can customize the HTML output. Just set up all the spells in your system in the powers section and list all of the rules for spell construction in your system. For example a system might be laid out like the following: When building Arcane spells the following rules apply: You must declare a focus (material components, staff, wand, etc.) You must have Gestures and Incantations You must have Side Effects Spells cannot Cost END They Cannot use Frameworks They get the -1/4 Spell limitation They are priced at Real/3 The largest spell you can cast is your PS:Spell Casting skill check * 3 + PS:Mechanica skill check * 2. Example. Bob the Mage has PS:Spell Casting 15- and PS:Mechanica 8-. The largest spell in active points that Bob can cast is 15*3 + 8*2 = 45 + 16 = 61 active points. Then what I could do is create a web page for each system that has the rules for spell construction and the list of spells and place that with the HDC in an easily downloadable format. That wouldn't be a lot of work and it might be fun.

Yeah that was my response too. On page 12 of Champions II, published way back in like 1982, the first appearence of The Goodman School of Cost Effectiveness appeared which basically made min/maxing officially sanctioned. REMEMBER: Goodman Says: "3 and 8 are very cost effective numbers."

Heh, wish I could claim it but it was a group brainstorming effort. It makes the most sense though. Plus I like the quest part as well. Lets me design opponents tailored to be a challenge to the MIQ (Mage in Question!)

Solution found Ok came up with the final solution with help from Killer Shrike. Here is what I proposed and the player agreed was good. This is simplified from a lot of campaign specific rules but basically it goes like this: To take on a familiar you have to have been in the campaign and have earned at least 20 experience points. When you decide to take on the familiar you have to go on a quest. You'll face 3 opponents you must defeat singlehandedly. Once that quest is complete your familiar comes to you and you gain the following disadvantage that pays for the first 15 points of the familiar. Physical Limitation: STUN Feedback with Familiar (Frequently, Greatly Impairing) If the familiar is killed the players character loses 15 STUN permanently, recoverable only when the character survives and succeeds at a quest for a replacement familiar. Its great because the player takes an interest in the well-being of the familiar instead of looking at them as something to sponge up attacks against them. Consequences lead to good role playing I think.

Now that is neat Physical Limitation: STUN Feedback with Familiar (Frequently, Greatly Impairing) Hmmm, didn't think of that. I like that a lot! I think since the familiar that the player wants is 15 points I will combine them taking this additional disadvantage PLUS a dangerous quest to get the follower. --Pete

Munchkin The player is a munchkin. I generally have to put the breaks on most of what he comes up with as unreasonable. In this case I wanted to see what others were doing. Just because Hero Designer allows for limitations on Perks doesn't mean I have to allow them, which is what I was getting at orginally anyway. My campagin rules are slowly developing. I didn't get back into Hero until last summer after a 10 year hiatus so its taken me a long time to figure out what I should and should not allow. In this case I am going to treat the familiar as a follower and instead of having the character pay a lot of character points I am going to send them on a dangerous side mission and if the follower dies then whatever points I charge them are lost. That will satisfy me and help push the campaign forward and the player will like it too.

ok, here is the problem. There is a player in my game that wants a follower/familiar. Basic cost is 15 points. What, if any, are appopriate limitations for such? In my opinion a follower/familiar is immensely cheap and useful. I am inclined to not give any access to limitations for perks. Am I being to harsh here? What do other GMs do?

Wow Killer, you are prolific man! How do you deal with Familiars? I know there is something on it in the beastiary but I don't have a copy of that. I've been working on a package deal for familiars bought as followers. One of my players was thinking of doing them up as a summon but I am leary on that idea. They can summon some pretty powerful creatures, though, cheaper than a follower would cost. However I've nixed it. I've also ruled that a summoned creature can be dispelled which disuaded them from that approach. Do you have a template you use or do you not use familiars? --Pete

UXB STEVE LONG: Company Officer, Editor, Newsgroup UXB Defusor. Is there nothing this man can't do??? How many points is he built on anyway?

well actually... Actually I like the marginalia in FREd quite a bit. I can see what you are saying but at the same time I like to find treasure in the outer inch. You must hate paperbacks - the margin is non-existant in them!

Yeah Bonedaddy, what you wrote was scintillating reading. You have already noted Von D-Man's extremely well written response. Now go back and compare it to the response you gave. It’s really low in content. Treb's original remark was also not useful. So what if he wouldn't want to do this? I didn't ask him that and I didn't criticize him on the useful content he later provided. I see a lot of stuff that I don’t see the point of on these boards. I don’t go around to each post and reply with some disparaging remark. As for your comments about your alleged military activity, we'll just have to take your word for it. As it applies to simulation I have seen too much data and read too many anecdotes and unit histories to think that men in battle aren't affected by the circumstances of combat. All I want to do is simulate that. You come off sounding like a braggart and worse since you haven't added anything of value to the discussion it appears you are a bandwidth waster. Are you smart enough to actually contribute usefully to the conversation? If so then why don’t you? I actually thought that you were 14 years old when I read your original remark. However, since you’ve posted to this thread and have shown an interest in it I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. Use your first hand knowledge of military training, whatever exercise or perhaps real life combat experience you’ve had, and come up with a realistic way to handle non-heroic NPC’s in the circumstances of being under fire. If you remain silent on this or just respond with more abuse then, well, I guess we will all know where you stand.

A lot to think about V DM You definitely have given me a lot to think about. I like your method because you are capturing the feel of what I am looking for. The players will feel more like heroes because their men will absolutely and directly require their leadership. Perhaps a PRE roll that fails knocks the soldier back one level, with additional levels for each 4 points. I like your ideas though!

Fantastic This is the best approach. I am very glad this isn't going to be edition 5.5! wink wink nudge nudge! I am looking forward to the new revision. I'll have to bequeath my FRED to one of my poorer players who doesn't have a copy. --Pete

Presence Von D-man, that sounds fairly reasonable. The fact is that in real life when you get attacked you generally have an involentary reaction that you may or may not be able to control. In Heroic games the Hero has no issue with this but the NPC might so if yo are leading a squad of normals into combat then you have to deal with the fact that they aren't going to do everything you say. The wording of the PRE Attack results on pg. 288 have more to do with being given commands by an attacker rather than just simply reacting to danger. What do you suggest the base Presence Attack dice be for, say, a pistol shot, an LMG burst? Characters of course never check when underfire - that's what they are there for. How about for finding yourself under concentrated fire from many of those things at once? It can add up to a lot of dice, I would think. If you have players running half squads of 5-6 NPC's this becomes way to much work for what I am trying to do: a one off situation where the party leads a platoon into combat. I think it would be easier on the GM (me) to simply just have a few modifiers to an EGO roll. I agree with the above that what I am describing is one simple PsyLim and not three. It's worth about 20 points and represents a non-heroic/realistic reaction to danger. Another advantage to have multiple rolls to totally break an NPC is to show the degredation of morale. I don't like one unlucky roll causing someone to go from normal to routed. Soldiers don't usually act like "Dr. Smith" from "Lost in Space"! Oh one thing should be noted, the characters are not gaining access to these PsyLims - they are heroes. Thanks for your comments D-Man, you've risen above the rather lame remarks of some of the others in here. Its odd, you don't usually see people making such juvinile remarks on the Hero boards, but I guess it happens every once in a while.

Re: Re: Interesting ideas Yeah? So who asked you? Get a life.

Interesting ideas I will rework this. What I want is the feel that I get when playing a historical miniatures game. I want the NPCs to act like they are figures in one of those games. In retrospect I see that one Psychlim with extended states will get what I want. I'll continue to work on it and repost. Thanks

That's an idea. I'd have to calculate what level of endurance use would cause they typical operator to run out of endurance after 5 turns. Lets do that now. 20 END, 4 REC, SPD 3. 5 turns with post 12 recovery means we have 40 END. 40/5 = 8 END per turn. The endurance use for the typical main gun, per the rules being based on the Active Points of the attack, would be something quite rediculous, like 36 END. So we buy it off to 0 but state the operator pays 8 END. Since its based on charges it's already at 0 END so we add a custom limitation, Loader Endurance Cost -1/4. That works effectively well I think.

Here is my idea for simulating a military squad. What do you think? Disadvantages on soldiers: 10 points; Shaken Morale : If under fire, test EGO, on fail character becomes shaken and is 1/2 OCV (Frequently, Slightly Impairing) 15 points; Broken Morale: If Shaken and under fire, test EGO, on fail character becomes Broken and is 0 OCV (Frequently, Greatly Impairing) Is FREQUENTLY too strong? 20 points; Routed: If Broken and under fire, test EGO, on fail character becomes Routed and must move away from enemies and into total cover at Non-combat speed. If unable to find a safe path, character surrenders. (Frequently, Fully Impairing) Same question as above. This allows NPC characters to be built on 45 points. Add the following modifiers to this: Green Troops (still smell like the supply warehouse): -20 Trained Troops: -10 Experienced: -0 Veterans: +10 Grizzled Veterans: +20, but EGO maxes out at 10! Elite: +20 A character with the skill PS:Leadership(INT based) can do things to improve morale. For example for a 1/2 Phase action they can boost an individuals morale that they can communicate with. If they make their roll the individual is at +1 on their EGO roll. for every 2 points the roll is made by they gain an additional +1 to the EGO roll. So, a Sergeant with PS:Leadership 14- who rolls 14 can boost one soldiers EGO roll by +1. If they roll a 7 then the boost goes to +4 (14, 12, 10, 8). PS:Leadership can also be used to boost the entire squads morale (or at least those in the squad the leader can communicate with directly. 1/2 phase action. +1 to all squad members in communication if roll is made. Additional +1 for each 5 points the roll is made by. To return a soldier to a normal morale state takes a rally check. This is also done with a PS:Leadership roll. This roll is modified as follows: Shaken: -0 Broken: -3 Routed: -5 PS:Leadership can be complimented with KS:Military Science, KS:Military Lore and Legend, Persuasion or Intimidation! Typical Trooper, F Company, 2nd Batt., 116th Inf. Reg., 29th Inf. Div Player: Val Char Cost 10 STR 0 10 DEX 0 10 CON 0 10 BODY 0 8 INT -2 8 EGO -4 10 PRE 0 10 COM 0 2 PD 0 2 ED 0 2 SPD 0 4 REC 0 20 END 0 20 STUN 0 6" RUN02" SWIM02" LEAP0Characteristics Cost: -6 Cost Skill 2 WF: Rifles, Thrown Grenades 6 Weaponsmith (Firearms) 13- 4 +2 with M1 Garand 7 Breakfall 13- 3 KS: U.S. Army 12- 7 Acrobatics 13- 3 Paramedics 11- 4 Navigation (Land) 12- 1 Tactics 8- 4 Survival 13- Skills Cost: 41 Total Character Cost: 35 Val Disadvantages 10 Shaken Morale: If under fire, test EGO, on fail character becomes shaken and is 1/2 OCV (Frequently, Slightly Impairing) 15 Broken Morale: If Shaken and under fire, test EGO, on fail character becomes Broken and is 0 OCV (Frequently, Greatly Impairing) 20 Routed: If Broken and under fire, test EGO, on fail character becomes Routed and must move away from enemies and into total cover at Non-combat speed. If unable to find a safe path, character surrenders. (Frequently, Fully Impairing) Disadvantage Points: 45 Base Points: -10 Experience Required: 0 Total Experience Available: 0 Experience Unspent: 0