Blue Jogger

Re: Acid

Re: Superbeing Rights Debate I have, in my fantasy game, summoned creatures which are lifeforms deemed "to be without a soul" and legally slaves. So, in my fantasy game, if Kon could demonstrate that he had a soul (which admittedly would be hard since animated plushy and even cat girls are consider soulless since they are usually summoned). My world hasn't encountered artificial souls and doesn't have an easy way to detect souls (except by shadow creatures being shadowy or by cat girls being cat girls and assumed to be created "ex nihilo" by a mortal being using magic) so the fact that Kon has an artificial soul would not be a problem so much as proving that he is a ensouled creature which would be a great debate indeed. The undead are also considered to be animated corpses, so it behooves them to not be detected as undead. Now, in the modern world, I like to think Kon could be entitled to basic human rights by the duck test. Although the law can come up with some fairly abstruse reasons.

Re: how do you like your fantasy games I start them out with 25+25, it's not horrible grim, but it's not easy either. This time, I took out magic and lowered the damage limit of the fighters (at the player's request). It's kinda the Hero version of D&D, at 1st to 3rd level, with a lots of races and classes to choose from.

Re: Late Victorian/Pulp/Urban Fantasy Base Setting: Bolskine Manor Here's a backup of the files on the house, just in case.

Re: Late Victorian/Pulp/Urban Fantasy Base Setting: Bolskine Manor First off, geocities is going down soon, so we need to make a backup of this entire site since it doesn't seem to be mirrored anywhere. House DRAWING ROOM (W). 26' 5" x 18' 2" (4 Hexes x 3 Hexes) PLAYROOM/FAMILY ROOM (N). 21' 3" x 18' 1". (3.5 Hexes x 3 Hexes) KITCHEN (W). 29' 7" (max) x 18' 1". (4.5 Hexes x 3 Hexes) DINING ROOM (W). 26' 6" x 18' 1". (4 Hexes x 3 Hexes) BEDROOM 1 (W). 18' 1" x 11' 6" (3 Hexes x 2.5 Hexes) BATHROOM 1 (W). BEDROOM 2 (W). 18' 1" x 11' 1". (3 Hexes x 2.5 Hexes) BEDROOM 2 (S&W). 19' 11" x 17' 11". (3.5 Hexes x 3 Hexes) EN SUITE BATHROOM 2. BEDROOM 4 (S). 21' 2" x 12' 9". (3.5 Hexes x 2 Hexes) BEDROOM 5 (N&E). 18' 1" x 16'. (3 Hexes x 2.5 Hexes) EN SUITE BATHROOM 3 (S). Lodge KITCHEN, LIVING ROOM (W). 14' 6" x 10'. (2.5 Hexes x 1.5 Hexes) BATHROOM (E). BEDROOM (S&W). 14' 6" x 10'. (2.5 Hexes x 1.5 Hexes) I'd draw these rooms on graph paper and then puzzle them out roughly to get the shape of the drawings.

Re: Hero System Good Idea/Bad Idea... You make me want to write up Super Grover now.

Re: Genre-crossover nightmares Star Trek Wars "The landing party will consist of me, the Jedi Council and Jar Jar." "Why'z we wearing red shirts?" "Consider it a promotion."

Re: Hero System Good Idea/Bad Idea... Good Idea: Four-color Champions Bad Idea: Four Crayons Champions Good Idea: Running a campaign loosed based on Bubblegum Crisis Bad Idea: Running a campaign based on EVERY anime Good Idea: Fantasy Hero Bad Idea: GM's Fantasies Hero Good Idea: Dark Champions Bad Idea: Playing Champions in the Dark Good Idea: Cyber Hero 2056 Bad Idea: Vista Hero 256K Good Idea: Holocaust Hero Bad Idea: Hogan's Heroes Hero Good Idea: Hero Sandwiches Bad Idea: Sandwich Hero

Re: How-to build a Defibrillator effect I would probably use 3d6 Healing (Simplified). Gaming-wise, defibrillation means that the character is going to die (his heart isn't necessarily stopped, but is unlikely to recover without help) and thus his BODY is negative. 3d6 Healing (Simplified) would give 3 BODY back (on average), which isn't a lot, but would count as stabilizing the character. Technically, anyone with a good roll on paramedics can stabilize but there's a -1 for every negative 2 BODY and there is no healing. CPR is good for something. If you want to say that you can bring back someone who is technically dead (as in he's at -12 BODY and he's only got 10 BODY), you need to add Resurrection, and a limitation that it won't work if death was due to bloodloss, poison or disease. This isn't very realistic, but very dramatic and mimics television drama.

Re: Spellbusters Change Environment - Slippery Floor, that'll be good for screwing up gestures, requiring a DEX roll at whatever minuses applied. For foci, if it is Obvious and Accessible, a simple TK will be quite disarming.

Re: Pointless Hero I did run a Hero game without character sheets. Everyone was "normal" and then weird stuff started to happen. The game was pretty good, but it was hard for me to run since I had to run the numbers in my head, on the other hand, we had a lot less of "that can't be right, let me check the rules". I did have to promise that we would have character sheets once everyone's powers had been settled so that we'd all be balanced. But the game ended before that happened.

Re: Summon Singular Creatures It is a bit of a problem with Summoning. If have "Summon (1) Kobold" and I have 8 charges, I should be able to get 8 kobolds. If, however, I have "Summon (250) Kobolds" should I really get the -1 limitation because I can only do it FOUR times per day? If not, can I really just keep Summoning another 250? Either answer seems wrong, for different reasons.

Re: Good resource for travel distances/day? Ok, let's try adding another factor, let's call it "unit quality": I think this covers it, now it is left to individual GM's to figure out "unit quality" and "travel conditions" which in Fantasy Hero is going to be very game dependent.

Re: Good resource for travel distances/day? Ok, I updated the chart to include a x2 modifier for roads and inns. And a clarification that both "good roads" and "good roads with inns" reflect the ability to travel longer (not faster) which gives you 9 and 12 hours respectively. I recommend using the temperature rules and lose 1 REC per 20 minutes of excess traveling. At 0 REC, you might go a little farther by burning STUN for END, (say 5 STUN per minute which is generous) and then slowly dying (say 1 BODY per minute which is also generous).

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Ok, here's one from last night. Our group is a bunch of super cops, called in to deal with a drug bust gone bad. We're an eclectic bunch of superheroes: two mages, a physic, a powered-armor fox-girl, and a typical flying brick. We got into a fight with robots. Our typical attacks are just barely denting the shiny blue meteorite metal these things are coated in. Time to pull out some magic. I yell enthusiastically, "Shadow shards!" "What the heck is shadow shards?" The other player asks. "1.5d6 RKA, Any Special Effect, Penetrating." Damage is rolled, only 1 BODY is Penetrating. "The robot is going to take 1 BODY because the armor isn't Hardened." Another player pipes up, "Unless it has Combat Luck." GM looks up the robot and says with a straight face, "It has Combat Luck." I look back at the critic, "Now, we know what Shadow shards are. They are what deflects off the robot's Combat Luck instead of penetrating."

Re: Sword-Gloves Perhaps it is a Pata? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pata_(weapon)

Re: Good resource for travel distances/day? I guess the other thing to add is that horses walk at 4 miles per hour and can gallop short distances (on really good terrain, not heavily burdened) at 30 miles per hour, but... I am assuming that they can only travel 12 to 15 miles per day without risking injuring the horse.

Re: Good resource for travel distances/day? Consider it added.

Re: Good resource for travel distances/day? To boil it down to the oversimplified basics: 2 miles per hour, 6 hours/day of traveling by land. Multiple by 2 if running at breakneck speeds. (This risks damaging the vehicle, losing troops, twisting one's ankle if done too often) Divide by 2 if heavily burdened (more than 50 lb of gear for a normal adult male). (Thanks, gojira) Pick one: Multiple by 2 for ideal conditions (good paved roads with inns) * (suggested by Markdoc) Multiple by 1.5 for really good conditions (good paved roads) * Multiple by 1 for average conditions Divide by 2 for rough terrain (forest, rough grounds, hills) Divide by 3 for really poor conditions (heavy snow, swamps, mountains) * This reflects being able to travel longer in such conditions (9 and 12 hours respectively) and not (necessarily) an increase in speed. (clarification) One can travel longer than this, but this also risks damaging the vehicle, losing troops, twisting one's ankle if done too often. Now all we need is a system for calculating how much damage for exceeding the recommended limits.

Re: Bones As Armour I would give bone 2 to 4 DEF depending on the type, thickness, and age of the bones use. What gives bones its strength is the ability to ablate, so unless magical necromancy is used, bones tend to be brittle after a couple of solid hits and then shatters (fails the ablative activation roll).

Re: What if spells were like weapons? Hmm, you're right. Now I feel a little better about my magic system which will allows anyone to cast a fireball instantly (45 Active Points) on a 5 or less. Granted rolling a 6 or more will result in a bad failure which is why most people don't do it.

Re: What if spells were like weapons? Well, I'm not married to the idea of physicality, just what would make spells have the same type of complications that weapons. Spells could have different complications, certainly. Let's set aside physicality and it's half-brother "spell components" and look at some other complications. Spells are usually rare. The rarity might be a literacy problem, it might be that only 1 out of 10 people are mages and only 1 out of 10 become really good mages, it might be a guild requirement, it might be pre-requisite requirements (you need to know spells A,B,C before learning D or requires a magic skill of 15 or less to cast it safely). Although, like weapons, maybe someone of them are like clubs and everyone can use one. I think rarity is the big one. If the entire party can cast magic, it is certainly different than if it is only the mage's and cleric's bailiwick.

Re: What if spells were like weapons? It's not quite that simple. Take a simple water spell. A person needs 2 liters per day (simple for a Major Transform). Now 2 liters of water weighs 2 kilograms. So if I was going to cross the forbidden desert, I might need enough water for say 3 weeks, or 42 kilograms (92 pounds). But... if I buy that simple water spell, it is just a palm size crystal, not 92 pounds of water. Now, that's not a very realistic example, since most fantasy games aren't logistics oriented. But I might impose that water producing crystals might have so many charges until they run out of water and you have to buy another crystal. It's not just the physicality of the spell, it's also the physicality of what it is replacing.

Re: What if spells were like weapons? Hmm, weapons have a certain physicality to them. You may want to have 200 arrows, you could afford 200 arrows, but unless you have a magic quiver, you're probably going to settle for a number less than 20. A firebolt wand, however, may have 200 charges and be much easier to carry than a strung bow. Or even just the knowledge of casting firebolts without any foci. This isn't an argument against it, but one of the things I didn't think of before. The main reason that I haven't used magic as a commodity was I didn't want adventures who suddenly got lots of money to suddenly buy a bunch of magic. But, this doesn't happen with weapons, or food, or anything else since you need to carry everything around.

Re: Zombies Slow, Clumsy Zombie These are your basic stupid zombies, but don't underestimate them. Running -2" (-4) -5 DEX, but maintain SPD (-10) 50% Resistant Damage Reduction (Physical) (30) Tireless, +5 REC (10) LS: Does not sleep (3), Does not breathe (10) 1/2 D6 Major Transform Recent Dead into Zombie (10) x2 BODY from Fire (-20) Distinctive Features: Zombie! (Not Conceal, Fear) (-25)