Blue Jogger

Re: FRPG Ideas from D&D that ain't necessarily so 32) That magic can only be done by a select few who either spend years doing research or grovel at the feet of a god or goddess. 33) That magic is a simple act of memorizing or being granted a spell which when cast either works 100% perfectly or fails producing nothing. 34) That you can't do something until you reach a certain "level". Upon reaching that "level", you gain a complete understanding exactly equal to anyone else of that "level". (No mage left behind.) 35) All mages must keep spellbooks. Mage rarely share spells, and if they do, they fact that another mage is willing to teach a spell never makes it easier for the original mage to learn it.

Re: FRPG Ideas from D&D that ain't necessarily so Before I started my campaign, I worked out the mechanism that caused otherwise perfectly normal magic items to decay into either sentient and/or cursed items based on the fluctuations of the local mana and poor magical maintenance or neglect. With the idea being, that no one would willing make a cursed item. And if a wizard makes an item was too complex, it might up and demand voting rights.

Re: Measuring Cunning It can be represented in any number of ways, INT being represented mainly thinking quickly on your feet and Skill levels representing a bonus to skills when being particularly clever or devious. I've gone both ways on this. Creative: +10 INT, Lim: Only to be incredible creative (bonus applies half the time, -1) Deceptive: +3 w/all Deception based skills (roughly 5 point level)

Re: 6th Edition Hero System Sadly, it is over a terabyte of text reaching the theoretical functional limits of a single human mind to contain. Luckily, it will fit on a Holographic Versatile Disc the size of a sugarcube. Plus with S.T.E.V.E., all questions are instantly adjudicated and transmitted to all other 14th editions. Which was really the problem with the ill-fated 13th edition, I mean really, the partially limited, hyper framework bought with the dangling variable advantage on the meta-control cost... whst were they thinking?

Re: Old Enemies Dead or Alive: An elven necromancer, he's immortal, but only the right side of his body retains an impressively beautiful elven appearance. His left side is completely white bone with just enough regenerating flesh to house a seemingly endless supply of maggots that constantly feed on it. Of course, he wears a hood that puts his left half always in shadow and a black glove on his left hand. Any grab manuver makes a sickening squish sound as the maggots squirt out and cover everything in the same hex (no game effect, just really disgusting). Of course, he was wanted (wanted) Dead or Alive.

Re: Superhero! Here's Gigantix, a not-to-shabby 30 STR brick. Unfortuately, in the heat of combat, the square-cube law can be a harsh mistress. Character name: Gigantix Alternate: Paul Benson 10 / 20 / 30 STR 0 14 DEX 12 13 CON 6 10 / 12 / 14 BODY 0 10 INT 0 10 EGO 0 15 / 20 / 25 PRE 5 16 COM 3 10 PD 8 10 ED 7 3 SPD 6 4 REC 0 26 END 0 22 STUN 0 47 11 10 pts of Growth (up to 8 feet), 0 END, Persistent +10 STR, +2 BODY, +2 STUN, -1" KB, -1 DCV, +1 PER to be seen Concentrate 0 DCV -1/2, Extra Segment -1/4 4 +10 pts of Growth (up to 16 feet) +10 STR, +2 BODY, +2 STUN, -2" KB, -2 DCV, +2 PER to be seen, +1" Reach Concentrate 0 DCV -1/2, Extra Segment -1/4, x2 END (-1/2) 2 +10 pts of Growth (up to 25 feet) 3 Continous Charges lasting a Turn (-3/4), Charge requires a week to recover (-1/2), Cost END (-1/2), Cost x2 END (-1/2), This power cannot be Pushed (-1/2), Side Effect: Take 3D6 STUN afterwards (-1/2), Must have really good reason to do something this stupid again (-0) 16 Long Stride: +8" Running, 0 END, Lim: +4" per 10 point in Growth active (-1/2) 7 Impressive: +10 PRE, Lim: +5 PRE for each 10 points of Growth active (-1/2) 11 Tough even when small: +3 PD / +3 ED Hardened Armor 9 Even Tougher when big: +3 PD / +3 ED Hardened Armor Lim: Only when 8 feet or more (-1/4) 2 +2" Leap Skills 6 +2 OCV with Punch, Grab, and Stomp 2 Paramedics 11- 2 Mechanics 11- 3 Persuasion 12- (+1 or +2 w/Growth) Disadvantages 5 Distinctive Features: Really Big Man (Easily Concealable) 10 Psychological Limitation: Likes being 6 to 8 feet tall when he can (Common, Moderate) 15 Psychological Limitation: Wants to be a superhero (Common, Strong) 15 Psychological Limitation: Overconfident (Very Common, Moderate) 15 Susceptibility to using 20 pts of Growth or more (Common, 1D6 per Turn) 5 Reputation: Injuring many people by fainting while nearly 25 feet tall (Frequently 11-, small group) Quote: "Well, try this on for size!" Background: Paul is not sure how his powers came about, just that sometimes he could fit under doorways and sometimes he couldn't. With effort, he learned that he could change size fairly quickly and tried out to be a superhero. He was rather impressive, with his large stature, so they thought he was perfect. Unfortuately, on his first mission, Gigantix pushed himself to the very limits of his power and became 25 feet tall. This prove to be a mistake, the blood rushed out of his head and he fainted, injuring several people as his huge form toppled down. He then shrank down to about 8 feet tall and the heroes had to swoop down and rescue him being in the middle of the battle. Tests quickly revealed that Paul just wasn't a good superhero, he was able to maintain 8 feet tall effortlessly, but holding 16 feet prove difficult and anything more was just asking for trouble. Paul moped around until he heard there was a new superhero group that was...well, less planet saving and more donut shop saving. Description: Gigantix can be 5' 10", but he's only that size in small spaces, normally, he's 6 to 8 feet tall. His tends to wear very baggy clothes that fit best at that size, become noticable small and uncomfortable at 16 feet and would shred if he tried 25 feet again.

Re: Not your father's D&D Mugging people Yeah, although we have had several adventures that were legimate jobs, some of the players want more lootable monsters. So, I'm writing up low-power stuff to introduce into the party. One of the more interesting jokes is that the most useless coin is the realms is the "Ol' Yellers" or fake gold coin. When magic went away, over 99% of the world's gold coins proved to be counterfeited with illusionary magic. Ol' Yellers are worth roughly a quarter.

Re: Not your father's D&D "Divine" vs "Arcane" Since there was a thirty year hiatus on magic, divine magic tends to be less direct and more mysterious than your classic D&D spells. As a result, clerics tend to learn the new ways of learned magic, some of these spells seem to be influenced by the caster's faith, then again it might be the luck of the dice. Some of the "New Gods" will make deals or contracts to gain followers. Magic is not clearly defined into spells and is usually worked into a personal fetish which holds a certain number of charges. The system is more chart based (lending itself from aspects of D&D, Ars Magica) and is full of surprises. Because of this, players did not had to pay for their VPP. Everybody can cast magic, just like everyone can sing. However, just as American Idol proved, just because you can do something does not mean one should.

The premise for mine was roughly 60 years ago (before the campaign started), the world was a perfect high-fantasy world complete with a large castle in the clouds, numerous dragons, pegasi, it had it all. Then it all came to a crashing end, literally, in the case of the castle in the clouds. Magic simply stopped working, the races that depended on magic all died out. Humans were plunged from their magical utopia back to the middle ages. Thirty years later, magic came back, but it was much different than before, a lot less stable, much less powerful, but it came back. The magical races that came back were nothing that the legends remembered. (I did, however, come up for keeping half-orcs and half-elves who had enough human blood to surrive. "Elven wannabees" who are humans that use magic to look and become more elven (this explains the new half-elf race even though only a few true half-elves surrive). Orcs that were close to human surrived without magic, but tended to reproduce early (Orcs can mature as early as 9) and more often than compared to humans.)

Re: Teen adventure ideas? Family Secret The teen has some secret that he/she must hide (or embarassed about), trouble is that his high school project wants him/her to talk about his family. Afterschool episode (a.k.a. the Special episode) Teenagers get involve with using drugs (perhaps to curb youthful superpowers or increase performance). The possiblities are endless: the speedster needs to take Ritalin, the mentalist hears "voices", the brick is taking "vitamins", the duplicator is suffering with "multiple personalities", etc. Depending on the players, play it deadly serious, or with tongue firmly in cheek sounding like a bad 80s episode. Of course they are my REAL parents Teen tries to skirt a parent-teacher conference by using robot duplicates, shapeshifting friends, or mental possession. The Teachers are ALIENS Shapeshifting teachers have taken over the school. Live out the teen fantasy of vaporizing the entire school board. It's ok, they're shapeshifting lizards from another planet. More later.

Re: Brainstorming a mystical superhero mansion and the people in it. I don't care how much you pay me, I'm not cleaning the MC Escher room. http://www.mcescher.nl/Gallery/back-bmp/LW389.jpg

Re: Order of the Stick I've seen these come up many times (especially in AD&D): Lawful Cranky - Gives you a ticket the second the meter reads zero. Lawful Naive - All laws exist to help all people. Even stupid nonsensical ones. Lawful Compulsive - Knows every sub-paragraph by heart. Lawful Blind Eye- "I'll be back in about 15 minutes..."

Re: Old Enemies Maxine - A jinn that truely wants to help people, but her powers often cause more harm than good. "Please do not yell, I am only trying to help."

Re: Vehicle Fragility Buy redundant equipment for 5 points. It takes a full-phase to switch from one system to another with a succesful roll. (half-roll might allow it to take only a half-phase, while a failure might mean taking two phases) Also, when you take damage to a critcal system, roll on 8 or less, if successful, the secondary system took the blow so everything is fine as long as the primary holds out. This allows your mecha to be "CON-stunned" because a critical system got hit.

Re: I was expecting someone taller... My favorite trick. Zero to Hero: +8 COM, +10 PRE, -1/4 Only in Hero Id He is your typical soft-spoken average guy, but suddenly, he seems taller, more confident, and much less nerdy.

Re: need NPCs Strange Guy They say he's gifted. Most of the time they mean that he's slightly off his rocker. However, on a good day, he can manage to take care of himself and will do almost anything honest for a halfway decent price. On a bad day, he suffers from a form of mania and/or mild delusions (nothing too serious, but annoying to those around him). He knows there's something wrong with him, but that doesn't help him all that much. Still, even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Re: Spell Storage Items I don't think the item needs the UBO, since basically any universal focus (as oppose to a personal focus) can be handed over to anyone and they are free to use it, although they would still need a caster to store spells for them. Remember, however, if you give the ring to someone else and they lose your points, then the caster is going to be out four character points unless he manages to get it back.

Re: need NPCs Young Boy This is someone's young kid, he's full of energy (8 REC) and works at one of the trading posts doing things like sweeping, fixing things, and running errands for the owner. Old Shopkeep He looks like he's almost ready to retire, but still manages to open the trading post every day. He's got bad eyesight, but remarkable hearing. Has an uncanny knack for knowing if you're a straight-shooter or a con-man. His prices start out fairly high, but will cut you a good deal if you can haggle or be very persausive.

Re: Strange Hero Concepts: Discuss Your Own! Vindicator - Werewolf disguised as a guy wearing a wolf-themed armor. (Helmet would clamp shut to prevent him from bitting people, but he would break if he tried hard enough.) He would playback recorded phrases as he was often too entralled with bloodlust to speak normally. He had a bionic ear and eye which wasn't much better than his supernatural senses, but had HRRH so that he could transmit what was going on. "Hello. I'm Vindicator, I'm hear to help." (Snarl, Grrr...)

Re: WWYCD? Women City Savers Only Ultimatium is your typical teen hero and has too much of a "tough boy" image to spend even a week as female. He's a blantent Ultraboy ripoff. If he was convinced or tricked into it, the side effects would, of course, make his hair blond and turn him into a young Supergirl ripoff with the added problem of still being able to use only one power at a time. His personality would turn from a "typical jock" into that of a shy and unsure teenager. Overall, it might be good for him to fly a mile in high heels boots.

Re: question for gm Dans mes yeux, Telekinesis (inclure manpulation fin) est simular à être près du troll. Par conséquent il exige de la plupart des serrures d'être ouvertes avant le troll est sans armure. Pensez à l'angle vu, druid ne pourrait pas voir toutes les serrures. espérez que des aides... ...et ces deux personnes avec l'anglais comme langue étrangère peuvent se comprendre. (maybe this also helps...peut-être ceci également aides...)

Re: Hi, Gene! Magic, Sanitation and Cleanliness In my high-fantasy campaign, everyone has access to a small VPP (an everyman magical VPP). At the 10 active points level, you get your basic ability to Clean, Polish, and Mend and all those nifty minor magics that that OTHER role playing system has. Usually this counts as a simple 1 Hex Change Environment, +1 Variable Effects, because it is fun to watch six or seven adventures all try to cram into one hex.

Re: Why hasn't magic changed the world?

Re: Make Love, not Warcraft

Re: Munchkin powers on legal active point costs Usually it is just explained a psychic feedback; or they tack on a Physical Manifestion onto it and the manifestion takes the damage instead of the character.