Nuke

Re: A terminology question This is how we did it in our campaigns, and I've always thought it made the most sense. -- Nuke

Re: Ultimate Grimoire... One letter at a time... If I were to make a simple guess, it is because somebody simplified 3d6 of DEX "points" drained as 1d6 of "DEX" drained. That changes the base cost from 10 to 30, and is where you get 67 AP. This used to be very commonly done in older material. A 10d6 drain speed would be written up as 1d6. This saves a lot of dice rolling, but added the difficulty of making you read the fine print to understand what the power REALLY was. -- Nuke

Re: Summoning Spell Limitation Question If the intent is moving people around, I'd probably also require the subject to be willing and let them feel a ping that somebody is trying to summon them. I played a MUD online for years, and "summon other player" was a common group activity to bring the group back together. -- Nuke

Re: D & D Diatribe

Re: D & D Diatribe A good DM and players will make almost any system fun, because the system should be the secondary reason why you are playing. Good roleplaying and DM cooperation can allow you to play the character you want under any system. I think FH and D&D each have their places. Here recently, we had 8 players in our higher powered FH campaign that had been running for around six years (started on 175, ended at around 550). As you can guess, combat took so long it wasn't fun. At this point, we revised the FH rules to become more D&D-like so that it was possible to move from 1 combat encounter every other adventure to nearly 2 every adventure. I will disclaim my thoughts by the following facts: 1) My D&D experiences were always with custom DM written adventures. 2) My DM always modified monsters here and there to keep you on your toes. I was fighting 3rd level goblin wizards 15 years ago. 3) I have been very lucky to have always played with "pretty good" players. Sure, we all maximized to the best of our abilities, but we also were focused on story development. 4) As a group, we worked to extend the rules as needed when something was impossible to do that we thought should be there. Even though it may have copied, I think 3rd edition did a good job integrating some important features it was missing. And yes, hands down, I will always believe that Hero is superior in creating "the EXACT character you want". I have not seen anything to compare with it in that aspect. -- Nuke

Re: Spells that work against pain

Re: Spells that work against pain Also, to me there are two concepts to consider: enduring pain and reducing pain. Enduring pain feels to me like the EGO roll, where you use your willpower to overcome the effects of feeling the pain. On the otherhand, reducing pain would be eliminating the feeling of pain, which could be both useful and dangerous. I'd say if you implemented the optional rules somebody mentioned, an "endure pain" spell seems easy to write, it would be +EGO levels, only to resist pain effects. Eliminating pain would be more difficult to write, unless you have a standardized AP rule for pain. The damage reduction method somebody suggested seems to work fairly well, because that will work regardless of the implementation of the pain inflictor. I could easily argue that eliminating pain would be like inflicting a physical limitation on a character as well! -- Nuke

Re: Anybody ever play Fantasy Superheroes? It took over 5 years, but my most recent FH campaign took the characters to near immortal status (not quite demi-gods). We have since retired. I did play an interesting Champions adventure once where our supers were placed in a fantasy adventure. -- Nuke

Re: Thoughts on Shields I agree with everything people said here. In addition, you might consider allowing "Shield Bash" to do knockback. I wouldn't allow it to knockback if you increased the stun multiplier, though, it seems like it would be one or the other...

Re: Did anyone else... Ah, but see it is CHAOS magic! It is so wild and unpredictable that it affected even the cover art!!! -- Nuke

Re: Deadly Blow talent too powerful?

Re: Doulocracy: how's it work?

Re: Doulocracy: how's it work? What about in medieval England? -- Nuke ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ DENNIS: I told you. We're an anarcho-syndicalist commune. We take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week. ARTHUR: Yes. DENNIS: But all the decision of that officer have to be ratified at a special bi-weekly meeting-- ARTHUR: Yes, I see. DENNIS: By a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs,-- ARTHUR: Be quiet! DENNIS: But by a two-thirds majority in the case of more major-- ARTHUR: Be quiet! I order you to be quiet!

Re: Trying to write a magic system... If all magic works this way, I believe you could probably just double the cost of the magic and say each level of ET increases the power one notch. Sure, you theoretically have "infinite power" from a single dice of EB, but it also would take infinite time to cast it. Start the base power at ET: Full Phase and let them "fast cast" it for 1/2 power for a nice change of pace. Just another viewpoint, but basically it is what you described. I'd have to investigate the convergance of the extra time limitations, but my guess is that it will end up either at double or triple the cost of the power.

Re: Divine Grace? It's difficult to describe properly, but our campaign handles priests by having a VPP. Priest's have a special power called "divine intervention". Basically, they make a skill roll and they get a power effect equal to the AP they make their skill roll by times 10 (or how much END they have left in their battery times 5, whichever is lower). Doing so is very tiring to the priest, and it lowers their END/Recovery in their battery to 0, and they get back 1 recovery a day (makes that END battery recover slowly since the recovery is bought at ET: 1 hour). This gives the priest a way to "control" his miracles, at least on when to call them. It gives the GM a good idea of the power the priest can command (which is based on the priest's "faith", which is the size of the priest's VPP). And it gives lasting effects that are hard on the priest. (as a general "rule of thumb" it is understood that you should avoid calling upon "divine intervention" often or for frivolous use, because you'll get in trouble with your deity). -- Nuke

Re: If magic cost full price... Responses are always hard to deal with on these posts, and I broke my own rule of replying without explaining how our campaign works. I play in a high fantasy campaign (although I'd really call it medium fantasy). We are based on 100+75 points (yes, some of you will gasp), but everybody in the world is scaled accordingly. Our GM did some stuff similar (yet very different) to Killer Shrike, and has created several wonderful warrior and mage progression paths. This limits both classes on what they can do and when. For example, a newbie mage does not know how to mage a "triggered" spell, but an advanced warrior can do a "weapon storm". Overall, the progression has proven to be very balanced between the "classes", and the classes aren't mutually exclusive. My character has followed the path of a priest and a warrior. The classes have abilities that are limited by gaining certain knowledge skills. This gives the GM good control over when the players gain powers, and gives wonderful roleplaying opportunities for the characters to seek out and learn new stuff. I know that Turakian has a lot of these things as well, I think our campaigns just implement it in a completely different way.

Re: If magic cost full price... We pay full price for magic in our campaign. Sure, the mages may start out weaker, but they end up more powerful in the end. Warriors hit brick walls with weapon strength maxes whereas a mage just buys up his attack. Warriors can only sweep so many foes where the mage fireballs. Most fantasy games use this concept where mages start a little bit underpowered and then pass up later. I consider this the norm. We have plenty of variety in our spells from our casters. With a good -3 in limitations being typical (gestures, incantations, focus, side effect, skill roll, extra time), spells aren't all that expensive?

Re: Is "evil race" an intrinsically rascist concept? I've only loosely followed this thread, but my comment in response to your initial question is that for every enjoyable hobby, there are those whose mind is such that it can be influenced by it. Some people are ensnared by good food, some by alcohol, and I'm sure some people by the violence in RPGs (where it's racial or not). It was always my belief that the reason why the arguments of the 70s regarding the evils of D&D faded away was that people began to realize that it did not globally affect gamers. However, inevitibly, some gamers had the weaknesses I described above and could not separate fantasy from reality. It's my belief that in general, racial stereotyping in gaming does not affect gamers in much the same way that playing Monopoly does not cause you to want to drive others bankrupt for your own gain. Our minds are pretty good at separating reality from fantasy, it's only the few isolated incidents of those with a mental "weakness" (if you will, knowing that we all have weaknesses in some area). My characters (note that I purposely do not say "I) have slayed orcs, goblins, and kobolds by the thousands, and yet I have been called one of the gentlest and non-aggressive people my whole life. Killing them has not been a release for me because I had no aggression pent up. It is more that in the world of fantasy, often concessions are made that reduce realism and add enjoyability. The world we live in is grey, and the world we live in is dull. Most fantasy gamers long for the world of simplicity, where being heroic means avoiding the greys most of the time. Not all of the time, a good GM always puts in scenarios every once in awhile to make the world more real (the "evil" orc family that on your way to slaughter you find out had just had all their children killed by the local community just for being orcs and made a retributive strike). Lots of people on this board seem to thrive on "grey" campaigns, and more power to them. To me, though, I have enough grey to deal with watching the news! In fact, I'm longing more and more for a nice 4-color supers campaign, now those are a nice escape! *giggle*

Re: When Heroes become Villians This is a good point. Our GM whacked our conscience in one adventure when we fought cloud giants in their hovering fortress, and when we had cleaned the place and sunk it, it fell into the waters causing a huge tidal wave that wreaked havoc on the eastern shores of our homelands. We gained a "heroic deed", which basically means we did something so awe-striking that people will remember our names for it. Granted, this one probably more on the villainous side, but either way, it was a moment in the campaign where our "heroics" did something we didn't think it would do. It sounds to me like your players handled it very well around the campfire. We had a similar discussion in our campaign, and we're still trying to atone for our deeds, although it is all coming from ourselves (no GM prodding to atone). The best thing a GM can do in these case is make it clear the severity of the actions, even if they are "right".

Re: Why must humans rule? I think human's are mostly written as "dominant" in the society because often, there is some inkling of viewing fantasy worlds as a "long ago" current world. Typically, histories will have the other, ancient races once ruling, but fading away, and humans beginning to take over. The current times will be during the "rise to height" of humanity, and is often the transition point between then and now. Since we are humans, it's natural to see this setting as desirable, because it portrays US as the heroes. It's just like watching the Patriot and cheering for America when you're an American, because "hey, that's us winning!" I don't think that ever closes the doors for other settings, especially if you close the ties between your campaign world and the real world. But I would say that Tolkien made special points about how humans were taking over as they were learning the important things to "be in charge". Just my 2 cents =)

Re: Once more in English, please? I think we found the language of the "Keeper of the Sacred Words". Niet, pang, and "NEEEWANT". They were just talking heraldry?

Re: [Campaign World] Clockwork Fantasy

Re: Why play Fantasy Hero over other fantasy games?

Re: Speed in FH

Re: D&D 3rd ED convert