Lezentauw

Re: Coming from D&D-question about power level of starting hero

KS has done some real good work. Especially if you like High Fantasy. Even if you prefer lower scaled versions of Fantasy, his sight has a lot of good things in it. He has put a lot of work into doing D&D conversions, and as a person asking for comparisons, I would highly recommend checking his site out...

Re: Coming from D&D-question about power level of starting hero

It is very understandable for the comparison that you asked for, as you understand D&D. HERO is new to you, so you were looking for a comparison to something that you and your group knows.

I agree with a previous poster that a Standard Normal is the 0 level character. The Skilled Normal is the 1st level character. While the Competent Normal is about 3rd or 4th level or so.

But it really depends on what you want for your game. Your characters do not necessarily need to start at an interpitated level 1. If you want your characters to have better stats, then it is perfectly acceptable to start them out as Competent Normals. This will give the players the comfortability range to get the stats that they want, and all of the skills that you will want them to have.

Re: Crippling VPPs

I am not that fond of VPPs, especially cosmic VPPs. The reason that I do not like cosmic VPPs, is that it always seems like a character with the VPP constantly steps on someone else's schtick. What is the need to have teammates, if you can do everything by yourself anyways? The rest of the team is then left feeling like extra baggage.

To me if a VPP allows for a character to step on another character schtick then the answer is no. If you want to use a VPP as a solo character, I "may" consider it. But like others that have posted, all of the powers must be predefined.

The VPPs that you must define what is in them prior to gameplay, I am a bit more tolerable with. Like a gadget pool, that can only be re-arranged at the base as an example.

I also don't like the idea that a character that pays full cost for all of his abilities is suppose to only have one AVLD or NND attack at most. But, a character with a VPP left unchecked can keep changing his, till he hits paydirt.

Re: Starting from 8's in Primary Characteristics

According to the Hero 5th rulebook, the average person has 8's in their primary characteristics. Yet when designing a hero or superhero, the starting point is set at 10 instead. Has anyone ever run a campaign with the starting point for primary characteristics set at 8 instead of 10? Admittedly, we are only talking about 25 points (23 if you buy SPD up to 2 from 1.8), but it strikes me that it would be a method of helping to hold back stat inflation in Heroic level games (since it probably would not affect higher-pointed Superheroic games very much). A 10 would be something that required an investment of precious starting points, and a 13 or 15 would be more noteworthy than if the character had already started from 10 just by virtue of being a PC.

 

Anyone agree? Or am I a heretic for suggesting this?

I have seen it done, or at least attempted. There was some gripes from the players about losing points over the situation as well. I think that the players never really understood the desire for such a rule, and only saw a decrease in allotted points. I even helped to create a Hero Designer Template, so that characters could be built correctly in HD.

The only drawback to doing this, is that you need to also look at all of the age categories and adjust them as well. So it is not just as easy as making one decision.

Re: Fourth Age Hero

I never said that the Witch-King's ring had any power. I said it was used as a focus for sorcery, which is an entirely different matter. There's two types of "magic" in Middle Earth. There is subcreation of the sort that the Elves perform, which isn't really magic in the conventional thinking of it. Then there is the evil sorcery which taps into the essence of what Morgoth put into the creation of Middle Earth, the stuff that people like the Mouth of Sauron learned.

 

What I'm saying is that people who studied that lore, which wasn't dependent on Sauron at all, used the Ninth Ring to draw the Witch-King's spirit back from wherever it went to. Presumably to learn the lore of the Witch-King, who was tutored in the dark arts by Sauron himself.

Thanks for the explanation. I obviously read into what you posted, and made some bad assumptions based upon not having all the information.

Your idea is definately more plausable then when I first read it!

Re: Fourth Age Hero

The Witch-King' date=' the Head of the Nazgul. But he's dead? Well, he wasn't exactly alive in the first place when Eowyn slew him. And remember, the other eight Rings of the Nine were consumed by Mount Doom, but the Witch-King's was left on the battlefield. Even Tolkein states in the books "He was never seen again in that age", which leaves the possibility open that he might return in another Age, save the Fourth.[/quote']

 

This is an interesting twist for a campaign idea MFH, but it violates what I believe is cannon for the rings of power.

 

The way I understand it, once the One Ring was destroyed. All of the rings of power, became nothing more than worthless trinkets. That includes the rings of power that the Elves bore, and they were no where near Mt Doom, when the One Ring fell into the fire. I could be wrong, but that is my understanding of the Rings of Power.

 

There may be a way that the Witch-King comes back, but as far as I understand it, it is not by a ring of power. As well, there are no rings of power left.

 

I think that if you wanted to use an antagonist, that a Balrog would be better suited. They were equal in power to Istari, both being compared as lesser Valar. I vaguely remember mention somewhere that there were more than just one Balrog, and that they came over with Morgoth to Middle Earth.

 

Perhaps a Balrog raised the Witch-King from ashes to serve him in his conquest of Middle-Earth.

Re: hit location

The majority of LotR is spent doing anything they can to avoid combat

Completely unlike the average fantasy roleplaying game

"Oooh look, mortal danger, and a chance to be impaled, cut, horribly maimed and contract an infection! Let's go!"

That is not really the impression that I got out of LotR. I got the impression that they would fight the battles that they needed to fight, and not take the uneccessary risks when they could afford not to. This to me, shows that now matter how good the main characters are, that combat involves certain risks. Risks that even they can fall victom to, if they allowed themselves to engage every opponent that they ran into. And, in that it makes it a more realistic depiction IMHO...

I would rather see something like that, than "Look another group of Orcs, let's squash them!" Two days later one little group of 'adventurers' wipes out a whole Orc tribe or some other nonsense like that...

::shudders at the rememberance of old D&D games that did just that::

Re: Ye Ole Wheel of Time MAGIC SYSTEM

If the main problem requiring immense pool size is sheilding (ie cutting someone off from the source) how about this :

 

Instead of buying the skill to manipulate the pool as a regular ol' skill, buy it as a special power (FRed p. 141), then allow people with One Power access to buy Suppress vs that special power. If they succeed in completely supressing the power (cutting the person off from the source) then that person will be unable to use his power pool, since the VPP is usable only by those with the One Power manipulation skill. To adjust how hard it is to suppress the pool manipulation special power (skill) you could buy it with some levels of difficult to dispell. If the person being suppressed is actively defending against it, meaning they are devoting some of their power pool to Power Defence, it could become quite difficult to shut them off. Best to take em by suprise.

As a side note remember that it took a group of Aes Sedai to still someone. That would be using ritual magic, which would be more powerful than what any individual could master...

Re: Things I'd like to see more of in fantasy gaming

Even if every other player on the table is an experienced GM?

 

 

I remeber a post ón the WoT Forum where the poster wrote he wouldN´t play with players who wouldn`t see it when they would get lead by the nose.

 

btwevery time I played with a Scroting GM one thing happened, a player /PC who acted on his personaltiy and took initiative broke his game, because they weren`t able to scope with a Game a PC doesn`t follow the script to the letter and wholedn`t be themselves forced to follow the Scripting.

 

OTOH Players who were blunted by the Scrpted by the Letter Style couldn`t function with GM and their adventures who expected and needed initiative, they waited passivly for something they could react with.

Whether you are an experienced GM or not, if a GM does it correctly, you do not know you are being led by strings. You may have experiences where it is obvious, but it is possible to be lead and it not be obvious. An experienced GM knows that you will most likely want to pursue a certain avenue, and will set things up so they can do that. By them setting up what player's characters are most likely going to want to do, they will be scripting the events for the night.

I think that you are being argumentive over a bad experience. Not every GM is the same. And at some point some scripting is necessary. If there is not some form of scripting done, then you would have a very boring story.

GM: 'So what do you guys want to do tonight?'

Players looking at the GM with a blank stare: 'You mean you did not prepare anything for us to do? Great another haphazard game again...'

Scripting allows for a GM to know things about the area and plan for possible actions that the players will take.

A GM wants to set up a certain string of events. So he comes up with a couple of hooks to get the pcs to bite on his string.

While not neccessary written in this manner, but the GM then goes about setting up a flowchart: If the pcs does this, then this happens. If they do not do that, then this happens. If a GM fleshes this part out enough, there is no detecting the scripting. Because they have already thought of contingency plans in advance to get the pcs involved.

Re: Scripting encounters

What would you`d done If the PCs had scouted their path?

Had they`d a fair chance to detect the ogres?

If they`d them detected and hide themselves successfully, silenced the mule, would the ogres had found them automatically?

Were the actions, reactions and the outcome of the encounter defined beforehand?

 

I try to plan an adventure beforehand on the knowledge and personality of the NPCs, this include the motivations against the PCs and the ressources they`d available.

OTOH i consider in my planning the likliest actions of PCs/Players, sometimes i`m are right.

Know I don`t even know what the PCs even will do after the aftermath, most likely they will went to a neighbouring kingdom but I don`t even know which route they would take.

The end of this chapter the finishing Encounter come from an very good spot check from one, with which I reacted to give them a trail that led in the end to the adventure starter, it was not a trail from the adventure starter, and it wasn`t planned, and they reacted verydifferent than expected to the encountering.

I am not sure if you are use the same definition of scripting as Keith Curtis or HoutonGm is. I think that you are use the definition that is closer to cut screens on video games. Where you just sit back and watch what is being shown to you. I tend to think that every GM scripts to some extent or another. Unless of course you are spending a thousand hours to detail every spec of your world for each gaming night, just so your characters can do what they want when they want....

These guys are talking about writing up a set of events that will in all likelyhood take place. Just like you, they know their players, and they can plan for the most plausable actions of their players. In the case of Houston's he put his players into an situation that they did not have many choices. That helped him fulfull the story as he intended. I am sure that he did not have the dialogue all laid out, he just had 20 or so prepared lines ready. As things played out, so did he.

I am not sure why you are so against scripting, but I loved Houston's "Friendly Ogre" write-up. I think it would of been even more enjoyable role-playing though it!

For scripting to work the players need to be able to trust the GM. They also need to have the understanding that there may be times that the only victory that they will achieve, will be to live another day to strike back. 'Defeat' sometimes can be very profitable for a campaigns success. Then your character would have even more reasons to take a certain person down.

As an example, that may require some scripting. Perhaps your character needed to lose just so you looked into who that person was working for. If you just killed him, you would of never found that out. Then the arch-villian gets to complete his plans without you having a chance to stop him.

Re: Things I'd like to see more of in fantasy gaming

Okay, since I'm helping to get this off topic, let me throw one in...

 

Why must players always fight to the death in situations where their characters would have run, surrendered or tried something else long ago?

 

I know they have a "hit point" counter, but have you ever noticed that players seem to often ignore the most basic of human instincts...self preservation? I mean, I understand they are foolhardy and overconfident heros, but even the wise elven mage always seems willing to fight to the last hit point rather than even consider the simple word...retreat.

 

This has always irked me, no concept of "live to fight another day", it's always "fight or fall", even in the most trival battles which don't seem to be going their way.

 

Rob

I use to play with a group that play this exact way. Once characters starting dying, I got blamed for putting them into a situation that they could not get out of. When I mentioned that they could of retreated, I got scoffed at. That happened to be the last fantasy game that I GM'd for that group...

Re: Things I'd like to see more of in fantasy gaming

I will agree with most of the other posters that I would not be running this Emperor in the same light that your GM is...

@Arcady

 

If you kill the Regent, at least half the nobility would applaud you.

Even if your character has the backing of 75% of the nobility, she will have some nobles gunning for you. These will be nobles that will soon be out of favor when the new Emporer steps in. I would imagine that some of them, that are in favor with the Demon worshiping Emporer are not very nice themselves. The sort that could come up with some very cruel ways to get back at your character for ruining their lives.

Re: Enterprise vs. Enterprise

I can see a couple of interesting options:

 

 

In either case, while deciding on the terms, the two captains agree upon the wish to be asked -- to return both of them to their rightful places in time and space and have Q never again interfere with any race or individual in the universe (which he will of course find a loophole in somehow).

Well technically that is two wishes. The first wish would be to restore the time continium. The second wish would be for Q to not meddle in the universe. When he had Picard captured, and they were going through Picard's question, Picard worded in a similiar fashion as your wish. Q counted it as two questions...

Re: Exotic Methods for Executions?

Since we are using methods posted in books, you could follow in the steps of Steven King.

Tie a person in a chair with a rope placed horizontally about 2 feet above his head. Then tie the tails of two cats together, and then place the tied section of the tails at the rope. The two cats will dangle and claw each other, and anything that gets in between apart, to get down.

Re: Exotic Methods for Executions?

Yeah I remembered something about an ant hill, but I was not sure if they smoked it or not. Hence the reason I did not post it.

Re: Exotic Methods for Executions?

One of the more gruesome, was an American Indian method. I think it was the Souix the implemented this one. I know that it was used in the west where it gets hot during the day...

They would lay a person on the ground and bind each limb with a leather cord to a stake as far apart as they could. So far nothing to exotic. Then they would take another leather cord and soak it in water, double it up and insert an arrowhead into the middle. They then tied that to the persons head like a sweatband, only difference is that the tip of the arrowhead was set right in the middle of the forehead. The rest was up to the sun to dehidrate and shrink the leather cord, which would slowly pull the arrowhead into the person skull...

Re: Two-Weapon Fighting

Another option, would be to let a person that purchased TWF to buy +3 DCV (Only vs 1st Hand attack, when not attacking with both weapons.) This would give the character that paid the extra cost for TWF more options in combat.

He could then attack twice, attack & have a limited block, or be very deffensive when blocking...

Then while yes this is still more expensive, the cost effect is balanced by being able to have more options available in combat.

Re: Adapting D&D Worlds

If you've done any formal notes for this effort I would love to read them. I'm a big fan of the Kalamar setting and had started gearing up for a Fantasy Hero game using - but changed my mind at the last minute regarding the setting (went for a setting based on M. Lackey's Valdemar novels instead).

I don't have much that I would call done in a finished format. I have made some progress with areas that Kalamar did not address, notably the non-humans. I have also made certain changes so that things better fit my vision of the world, but there are still quite a few things that are very Kalamar. With that being said, I have to be carefull with the information that I release in a public format.

Re: Enterprise NC1701A vs. Imperial Star Destroyer

On the other hand' date=' there's the comment in [i']The Empire Strikes Back[/i] about not being able to jump to hyperspace while in an asteroid field -- which kinds of puts it back into the "maybe they can't jump near a mass" side of things.

 

On the other hand (the third hand?) given Han's comments about precise calcs needed for a hyperjump ("...or you'd fly right through a sun or bounce into a supernova, and that'd end the trip real quick, wouldn't it?"), it may be that every material object projects some kind of hyperspace "ghost" or "shadow", likely based on its realspace mass, and that you could collide with a hyperspace "shadow" just like you could the real thing. If that's the case, perhaps you can't jump to hyperspace in an asteroid field because you'd pretty much be guaranteed to fly through several hyperspace "shadows" of the surrounding asteroids.

The second paragraph is correct as I understand it. Everything in real space provides a shadow in hyperspace. If a ship was to travel through that shadow, a collision would occur. It has been described that ships have created blockades to force ships out of hyperspace. All ships in Star Wars have sensors that detect for these shadows, and when they encounter one, they drop the ship out of hyperspace.

Re: Enterprise NC1701A vs. Imperial Star Destroyer

Its the same ship - different regime' date=' though, yes, it carried republic fighters instead. I think its counter to the nature of geek debate to base the outcome on "who the good guys are."[/quote']

 

Sorry, I did not mean to just through out the counter to the discussion. To me there are enough significant differences that could affect the outcome, and they are all valid from a certain point of view. Following human nature, the "good guys" usually get these calls in their favor. So I feel that if this situation was to take place, that things would be done by the Star Trek set of rules. Which like you say, the Enterprise wins hands down.

 

Another factor, for the Star Destroyer if it used in the New Republic era. The standard practice for the NR is to have its snub fighters run escort through hyperspace. So the Star Destroyer would already have some of its fighters deployed and ready to respond to the situation. Where as, in the Imperial load out, all of the fighters would still be in the hanger bays.

 

The only real chance that the ISD would have with in the Star Trek assumptions being true, would be in the initial moments of the engagement. The ISD would have to make the first strike and do enough damage to lower shields and cripple the Enterprise. Even at reduced power, 60 turbolasers "should" have enough of an effect to drop the shields of the Enterprise. Once the Enterprise is able to go to warp, the engagement is over, as the ISD will get shelled with torpedoes in the aft. That is a very specific, and not good condition for the ISD victory.

 

With the Star Wars assumptions being true. The Enterprise is severly underpowered. It will need to use the photon torpedoes to match the damage of the ISD's turbolasers. It will still need to position itself in the aft of the ISD, but it will have a harder time getting there. The Imperial snub fighters would not really pose much of a problem, as the Enterprise could just beam the pilots to space. The pilots already wear vaccuum suites, and the Tie fighters do not have shields. So it would not violate any moral issues. Using the teleporters in such a manner would give the Enterprise more mutlitasking capabilities. The question then would be, is the Enterprise maneuverable enough in real space to make it to the target location intact?

Re: Enterprise NC1701A vs. Imperial Star Destroyer

What if we wait 3-5 years and call it a New Republic Star Destroyer? Same ship' date=' new regime. What then?[/quote']

 

I am not sure if this is just me, or if it really is true or not. But, when you say Imperial Star Destroyer, it means a Star Destroyer used by the Empire. Otherwise would it not be a New Republic Star Destroyer? So I was answering the question based upon how I understood it.

 

For the majority of the public, they do not know that the New Republic actually used Star Destroyers. So to them, they would still associate the Star Destroyer with the Empire. With that, I feel that the writer would still be compelled to write the story in a manner to satisfy the majority.

 

As a side note this would change the load out of the snub fighters. Standard Imperial snub fighters do not have shields, while New Rebulic ones do. All New Republic fighters also carry photon torpedoes, which cannot be said about the Imperial fighters....

Re: Enterprise NC1701A vs. Imperial Star Destroyer

Oh Gawd No! Not this again!

 

This thread seems to start-up eventually on every forum I visit.

 

Like I always say... The victor would depend upon who is writing the script. It's kind of like the Batman vs. Captian America thread, or the Superman vs. Hulk thing. Whichever publisher has the biggest fan base (and cash) will dictate the winner. There are just too many things that writers can pull out of their as... Hat for these sorts of things to be clear cut.

I agree 100% with the above. While I am more of a Star Wars fan, since it is presented in a more consistent manner, I believe that ANY Enterprise ship would win soley because they are the good guys. I believe that a writer will set things up that puts the advantage to the Enterprise.

For this argument, some assumptions have to be made. The problem is that neither side ever agrees upon the assumptions.

The Enterprise has been stated to be able to destroy a world. Though I don't think that it could destroy a world the way the Death Star does. Nothing is stated that an ISD cannot do the same thing. But to be fair, since it is not stated, it should be assumed that they cannot. To use this as a basis in an argument, it has to be assumed that both worlds are figured to take the same amount of firepower to destroy. This is not neccessarily a given basis.

Next is the argument about both modes of FTL travel. Star Trek moves at Warp speek, and Star Wars moves at hyperspeed. As far as I understand, Star Trek ships just move faster than the speed of light, while Star Wars shift into a different dimension. While it is stated that Star Wars ships cannot fight in hyperspace, or detect another ship in hyperspace for that matter. Nothing is stated that they cannot detect a ship moving FTL in real space, like the Enterprise does. Nor is there anything stated that the Enterprise can detect ships in hyperspace either. IMO, this engagement would have to at least start in normal space at sublight speeds.

The next factor is the shields. Would the ISD deflector shields work the same as Star Trek shields to nullify the transporters? It is another assumption that would need to be made, for or against.

The next argument that I can think of, is the technology. Both are superior in their own way. If I remember correctly, ships in the Star Wars universe are capable of traversing half the Galaxy in under a week. I don't remember any ship in the Star Trek universe capable of going that fast. The Enterprise has replicators & transporters.

As far as firepower goes, every source that I have seen, shows the ISD has more. It is possible that this could be true, as there really is no true way to measure firepower between two ships in different universes. An ISD does not have to power weapons, like ships do in Star Trek. Each weapon works independently and not in an Array like Star Trek. Star Trek has the continious phasers and photon torpedoes.

Maneuverability is in the hands of the Enterprise, and that is not counting the whole fighting at Warp discussion.

The Enterprise can fight behind itself, while the ISD cannot. The ISD would need its fighters to keep the Enterprise out of its aft.

Once all the assumptions are made, then the writer has to come up with how the engagement is to take place. The Enterprise is an Explorer ship, and would be seeking first contact. The ISD is a military ship, and would be seeking to enforce the laws of the Empire.

Re: Five magics

You could always follow the set up of Magic the Gathering. Keith Curtis did a magic system that used them.

Re: Movies

What I want to know is why are there not coming out any new fantasy films!

With the massive sucksess that Lord of the rings was you should think that we would get a couple of knock offs atleast. I was full of hope after the trilogy. But all the fantasy films you talk of here comes from BEFORE the lord of the rings films. What do we get after? The scorpion king that's what. Hrmmmrm...

Ummm, they did.

Troy, King Arthur, and Alexander. All movies made to suck in the LotR fans, though not entirely fantasy movies, still pretty much in the same genre.

Re: Movies

13th Warrior, Ladyhawk & Excalibur are some of my favorites.

IMO the movies that I listed are on the low side for magic. DnD really struggles with anything but high magic campaigns.

A campaign made entirely of warriors/rogues would be a hard sell to a DnD group. While it is possible to create different characters from the same class in DnD, it is by far easier in Hero...