Rapier

Re: GATEWAY, the UNTIL space station

Re: Natural Powers VS equipment question I disagree. As a GM it's my job to use and push the characters. I drop EMPer: the Human Electomagnetic Pulse into the game. He unleashes his EMP (the dreaded penetrating RKA only vs tech equip). The poor maligned character who stupidly spent points on HRRP instead of getting it for free sticks his tongue out at the rest of the team and listens to the end of the game. After the battle he gets into his Jaguar that he bought, because he had all that cash left over since he didn't buy any equipment, and drives off with a hot blonde in the passenger seat. Game is balanced. EDIT: That came out really bitchy. Apologies. Just ignore the barbs. I can be a putz.

Re: Shapeshifting Someone brings up Stretching - 1 Limb Only and I'm out of here. Oh wait. I just did. DRAT! : stomps out :

Re: Have you ever taken a fall? Mental Powers can be such a pit though, a pit just as deep as the VPP pit. I had one very-ex player get into an argument with me because he ordered a villain to shoot himself. I said he was violently opposed to doing that. His contention was that if there was a giant slug eating his lower body he might shoot at the thing, so he would be inclined to shoot himself. Argument ensues on MC vs MI etc. Finally I had enough. DD flies in from off-map, fires his killer 20d6 Penetrating, AP x 20 RKA, kills the character and I tell him he can now leave and he shouldn't plan on coming back. This wasn't the first run-in with this player, but it was most definately the last. One of the hardest thing to GM in hero is these subjective tests "How likely is Plane Jane to shut off her flight?"

Re: Activation and RSR I was thinking the other way, a new limitation. Cumulative RSR: The limitation is particularly appropriate for magical characters. The penalty for the skill roll is determine by the number of active points in use FOR ALL POWERS WITH THIS LIMITATION. If the RSR is defined as requiring LUCK, all LUCK values are cumulative also. Value is x2 the normal cost of the RSR. Phase 2: MageyDude flips on FF (10 rPD/10 rED) after making his Magical Roll at -2. Phase 4: MageyDude needs to get some distance from the combat. He casts Flap Like a Bird (10" Flight). MageyDude needs to roll his Magical Skill Activation Roll. He is -2 for Flight and an additional -2 for the FF he has running, for a total of -4. Same scenario: Phase 2: MD flips on FF (requires 2 Luck) Phase 4: MD flies (requires 4 Luck) It could even be mixed. A CumRSR at -1 / 5 and a CumRSR at -1 / 10. I actually really like this idea. It makes a lot of logical sense since the mage would, in effect, be juggling spells. I think this would also do a great deal to even out the effects of mages. Mages can get HUGELY powerful in Hero and I think this would be a good way to even the playing field for the warriors/thieves etc.

Re: Natural Powers VS equipment question Not a CHANCE! This would DRASTICALLY overbalance your campaign and shove all the players into a particular archetype. You would be removing much of the control of the players to play the characters they wanted to. Character A has to pay 40 pts for natural Desol because there is no RL counterpart. Character B gets to pay 10 pts for 40 AP of (oh any power, lets say...) Flight because there is some kind of RL jetpack? You will be single handedly throwing out YEARS of work on cost/price balancing that have gone into Hero. Give em an Equipment Ration (a set point level to buy equip with) and let them pay the points for natural abilities. In a heroic game, the players SHOULD be able to aquire new equip through cash, chance (gee, lookee what I found on this table) or chicanery (I'll give you a shiney nickle for that spear, mr simpleminded savage). Characters with inborn powers are not at a disadvantage against players with similar powers through equip. At least, they shouldn't be. Equipment gets broken, lost, stolen, taken away, used up, etc. Natural powers don't. That is why equip has a focus limitation...and why it is cheaper.

Re: Shapeshifting

Re: Penetrating Killing/BOD Attacks There's a bit in there too about how to layer defences. I can understand the rule. It makes logical sense to me. If you want to harden 40% of your DEF what you REALLY need to do is buy the 40% separately and then harden them and layer them puppies. I envision the same thing with damage resistence. If you have 30 PD and DR 20 of it, it is acutally in two layers a 10 PD layer and a 20 rPD layer. One layer represents fatty/muscle tissue and the other layer is boney plates. Although layering DEF can get REALLY math heavy real fast. I tend to build characters rather rough and ready. I DR ALL the PD and ED, harden ALL the DEF etc. It makes book keeping SO much easier...even if it is not quite concept true.

Re: Have you ever taken a fall? True. As long as the playing field is flat, I guess it doesn't really matter other than personal preference.

Re: Have you ever taken a fall? Ug. Sometimes I hate MC. In a head-to-head game I played a while back one of the players was playing a villainess mentalist. She was getting pwned by a rubber hero. She hit him with her MC and gave him a "I'm no longer here" command. Do you follow the letter of the MC or the intent? Ensued a HUGE argument. Rubber Hero was arguing that he was going to continue to attack the space in front of him because even though he couldn't see her he knew she was still there. He was trying to rationalise his knowledge as a player that he hadn't seen her use TP or something so she couldn't have escaped. A little player knowledge bleedover. About the same as a Ranger I had in a D&D game ONCE that ran around disbelieving everything. I ruled that the intent was what was important...and gave him the benefit of the poorly worded command buffer. Not that any of this would have made a lick of difference, he had a x2 Effect vs Mental Powers vulnerability. MC Command: Attack your teammates. Hero: I'm going to attack the highest DCV person with my lowest OCV attack. Does it satisfy the letter of the command, certainly. Does it satisfy the intent of the command? Highly doubtful. Where do you draw the line? Since there IS such a penalty as Poorly Worded Command, I'm tempted to come down on the side of intent.

Re: Penetrating Killing/BOD Attacks Ditto. I don't have players that would pull this kind of construct. They would just expect me to yell MUNCHKIN and take away their cookies. If they did try something like this, I would start hardening FWs. IMO, the construct is pure cheese. Legal cheese...but cheese nonetheless.

Re: Steriaca's Champions-paloza

Re: Steriaca's Champions-paloza Now that I've got that weirdness worked out. It looks like you put quite a bit of effort into formatting those docs the hard way (with tabs etc). If this is your only method of character depository-ing, I would suggest either: 1) Get a couple of the HeroDesigner export templates off the FreeStuff section. While they are in HTML, you can open them in word and still use them as a default character sheet (after some editing to remove the XML tags etc). This has the added benefit of allowing you to pop them up on the internet with little, if any, problems. 2) Convert one of your character sheets into using tables (this will make it easier since the table will managing the spacing and you needn't play with tabs. 3) GET HeroDesigner!! Obviously, I would urge #3. It is buy far the best. Not only does it act as a nice little utility for character sheets...it does all that yucky math and DRASTICALLY speeds character creation. Heck, I think there is even some kind of demo thing (not sure what functionality is missing...but it should give you an idea of how useful it is).

Re: Steriaca's Champions-paloza EDIT: Hmmm. Not too bad. When I tried to cut and paste directly from Word it gave me some screwey error about having too many images in my post. But when I pasted this into notepad and then copied it from there and pasted here it works fine. Although, its not too shabby. Yeah, me!! ------------------------------ The Red Death Value Char Cost Roll Notes 10 STR 0 11- Lift: 100kg. 2d6 [1] 16 DEX 18 12- OCV: 5/DEC: 5 10 CON 0 11- 10 BODY 0 11- 16 INT 6 12- PRE Roll: 12- 16 EGO 12 12- ECV: 5 16 PRE 6 12- PRE Attack: 3d6 16 COM 3 12- 5 PD 3 Total PD: 15 PD (10 rPD) 5 ED 3 Total ED: 15 ED (10 rED) 6 SPD 34 Phases: 2,4,6,8,10,12 10 REC 12 40 END 10 30 STUN 10 Total Chartistic Cost: 117 Movement: Leaping: 2â€/4†Running: 6â€/12†Swimming: 2â€/4†Cost Powers END 72 Death Touch: Killing Attack-Ranged 3d6, NND (Defense is active Force Field, or Destiny Control Powers, +1), Does Body (+1) No Range (-1/2), No Knockback (-1/4) 14 15 Scythe, Blade: Killing Attack, Hand-To-Hand 2d6, OAF (Scythe, -1) 3 17 Fear Aura: +30 PRE, Attack Only (-1/2), Visible (“A black auraâ€, -1/4) 40 Ghosting: Desolification (Affected by Force Fields) 4 20 Armored Costume: Armor (15 PD/15 ED), OIF (Costume, -1/2) 6 Scythe, Handle: Stretching 2â€, Reduced Endurance (0 END, -1/2), No Non-Combat Stretching, OAF (Scythe, -1) 0 Perks 2 Fringe Benefit: Privet Investigator License Skills 16 +2 w/all combat 10 +2 w/Death Touch, Scythe Blade Strike, and Punch 5 Acrobatics 14- 5 Breakfall 14- 5 Climbing 14- 5 Concealment 14- 5 Conversation 14- 5 Criminology 14- 5 Deduction 14- 5 Lockpicking 14- 5 Stealth 14- 5 Tracking 14- Total Power Cost: 252 Total Cost: 370 200+ Disadvantages 20 DNPC: Diana Wilson (girlfriend, normal, 11-, unaware) 15 Distinctive Features: Mutant (Not Concelable, Cause Fear, and Detectable by Unusual Detects) 20 Hunted: The Police (As Powerful, 11-, NCI, Capture) 20 Hunted: The Underworld (As Powerful, 11-, NCI, Kill) 20 Psychological Limitation: Hatred of Drug Sellers and Drug Abusers (Common, Total) 15 Psychological Limitation: Causal Killer (Common, Strong) 10 Psychological Limitation: Morbid Sense of Humor (Common, Moderate) 15 Social Limitation: Secret Identity (Edward Allen Lewis, Frequently, Major) 35 Experience Total Disadvantages: 370 Background/History: Edward Allen Lewis always wanted to be a privet investigator. He studied hard, got his license, and eventually set up shop in the heart of the city. He was doing well without using a gun, especially since his mutant power of “ghosting†gave him an advantage few other privet investigators lacked. He even found time to charm his childhood sweetheart, Debra Wilson, and take care of his teenage sister Rebecca (since their parents died in a car accident, and Edward was her last surviving relative). Then, one day at the office, he got a shocking call. It seemed that Rebecca got involved in drugs, and died of an overdose. Edward was distraught and angry. Finally, he could sit on his hands no more. Using his skills as a privet investigator and his mutant powers, he tracked down the street punks who sold her the fatal drugs, and without mercy, destroyed them. After new of the mysterious slayings occurred, the media gave the slayer the name “Red Deathâ€. Inspired by the turn of events, he developed a costume and starts epic crusade agents drug dealers, and drug users which continues to this day. Personality/Motivation: Edward uses to be a fun loving man who cares about people. Now, because of the death of his sister, he has become a grim man who puts himself into his work (both in his public identity and his secret identity). While he still sees his girlfriend on occasion, even there relationship has diminished. The only ‘fun’ he allows himself is when he is killing drug dealers and drug users. Then he becomes a man of grim humor (much like an old horror movie show host or host of a bad horror comic book). Quote: “This is a bag of cocaine. This is someone’s disembowel brain on a bag of cocaine. Any questions?†Powers/Tactics: The Red Death has the ability to “ghost†through solid objects. This ability can only be stopped by force fields. He can also partially “ghost†his hands, go into the victim’s chest, and damage their internal organs. This ability (referred to as his “Death Touchâ€) is what he uses to kill his victims. You should note that, like his “ghosting†power, he could not use it through force fields. Also, he can not use it if the victim has any way to alter their destiny (like the powers destiny increase or desolification). He is also able to generate an aura of pure terror. And, finally, he carries around with him an armored costume and collapsible scythe, which he is capable of using his “death touch†power through. Tactics wise, he uses his position as a privet investigator to investigate potential targets. Once he has found one, he waits until nightfall, then plays a macabre game of hide-and-go-seek and tag with them. Most of the time, he wins and his victims die agonizing deaths. Campaign Use: The Red Death is meant to make heroes think. He is almost like the heroes, except he is a bloodthirsty vigilante who also hunts down and kills drug users also. He should make normal heroes sick. The perfect way to introduce The Red Death is via his other identity, Edward Allen Lewis. Have Edward be the perfect privet investigator, except for bouts of distachment and complaints about how superheroes are not doing enough agents drug crimes (“All you do are public service announcements which do nothing, cause everyone laffes at them and drug crime continues.â€) Then, toss in some stories in the news about dead drug dealers and drug users who look normal from the outside, but when examined medically, revealed exploded organs and mysterious sightings of a man in red fleeing the scene. To make The Red Death more powerful, increase his Death Touch power. To make him less powerful, reduce or remove his other powers (but keep his “ghosting†and death touch powers). The Red Death will hunt anyone (and I do mean anyone) who he suspects of being a drug user or drug seller. He might hunt any hero who has experimental drugs as part of his public origin (like, say, some sort of “super solder formula†or the like). Even if he just suspects such an origin, he will investigate the hero. When hunting, he gathers all the facts he can, gets to know the victim’s habits, and then strikes with maximum fear and maximum deadliness at the target. Then he fades back into the night. Appearance: Edward Allen Lewis is an average looking man with short blond hair and steel gray color eyes. As The Red Death, he wears a red armored bodysuit covered by a loose red jumpsuit, large red cape, a red skull mask, and a red fedora with a red feather sticking from it. His scythe he carries has a red handle, and metallic silver blade. The Red Death Plot Seeds The Super Solder Solution: Edward starts to become paranoid about the government after learning about Primus and the Cyberline project. He decided to start hunting Silver Avengers, so that he can scar the government to remove Cyberline from their agent training process. “Cause there is no good use for drugs.†The Hospital Of Death: Believing that a drug ring is operating out of the local hospital, Edward starts killing off doctors. Can the heroes stop him? Murder Factory: Someone has found an abandoned building that held many dead bodies. Investigating, the hero’s find that the cause of death fits The Red Death’s MO exactly. But none of the victims test positive for drugs, nor any evidence that drugs were near them. Has the Red Death finally lost his sanity? Or is something else even more sinister going on?

Re: Steriaca's Champions-paloza

Re: Intelligent Question? Actually, this just occured to me. In my head, the brick is always the heavy hitter. The guy that dishes out the most damage. However, I don't think that is always the case. Oh sure, we've had a couple of REALLY heavy bricks that crush battleships with their teeth, but for the most part bricks do about the same amount of damage as the average Energy Projector. I think part of this might be left over to when we had AP limits. Over time the bricks have gotten stronger and the Energy Projectors have become more versatile, and the MAs have gotten more levels but lower damage. On the flip side, the bricks almost across the board have MUCH higher DEF than everyone else. How odd. Curious. You never know what is going to trigger one of these odd thoughts, do ya?

Re: [splinter thread] I have a problem with the way it is done: Dispel Foci

Re: what makes a "demon" a "demon"? Not sure how much this helps, but I was thinking that at its basest level you could define demon as "malevolent or evil spirit." I guess it depends on why you are asking. If it is solely for the player's benefit, I don't think there is any problem with generalising. Its like calling any disembodied spirit a ghost. Maybe its a poltergeist, or a ghast, or a ghost, or an astral projection that can't find its body. If you are trying to determine it because of a Dispel/AntiSummon, that could cause more difficulties. I would be (and still am) tempted to use the term 'Demon' in the same frame I would use 'Undead.' It's a general classification for a group of beings that are loosely related.

Re: Did you kill Malone? Naw. We've got plenty of brain-space. We only use like 10% of the capacity or something. 4% for the non-roleplayers out there!

Re: Brick in a Forcewall

Re: The Books Of Hero . . . ? Temptation! Thy name is Big Meanie!

Re: [splinter thread] I have a problem with the way it is done: Dispel Foci Obviously all this would be a lot easier in HD. All that extra math. I've been going through an inputting all the old characters into HD (as I'm sure I've mentioned 400 times by now). I can't believe the messy record keeping on some of these character sheets. I know that certain characters are built with stats OIHID. STR cost is listed as 12*, which for us was 12 RPs and there should have been a notation someone * OIHID -1/4. One of the true benefits of HD is that it really simplifies all the extra record/math keeping. Having said all that. I'm getting lost in a bunch of the math here. Could we break it down longhand? Say, similar to how it would go into HD? Ray Gun Gloves: TOTAL 50 AP, 36 RP - 8d6 EB (IIF: -1/4): xx AP, xx RP - DEF +x (IIF: -1/4, Focus DEF: -1): xx AP, xx RP - BODY +x (IIF: -1/4, Focus DEF: -1): xx AP, xx RP Is this what you are referring to? Not to cause a fuss, but sometimes it's hard to reconstruct costs etc when we are talking about rules tweaks. Thanks.

Re: Aid in a VPP and Charges Very much so. I would still be real tempted to come down hard on all these fuzzy constructs. Only at Night? Why? Because it's cheaper? NO. Only at Night? Why? Because its after sundown? NO. Only at Night? Why? Because all the powers in the VPP are derived from the Goddess of Night and Mayhem. Oh, OK. I've known a few players that count on their VPP to get around the GMs overview. It takes so much extra time and effort for the single player that many GMs (including myself) would tend to just wave a hand and say "whatever, move on" instead of dragging down the whole team. At any rate, any VPP requires quite a bit of conversation between GM and player before the game begins so that both understand what is and is not permissible.

Re: The Books Of Hero . . . ? Sigh. You are tempting me to wander through the boxes. Ack. I SO need to get ComicBase so I can inventory. But I think it's costed out too high for widespread distribution. So I keep putting if off. Sigh.

Re: what makes a "demon" a "demon"? I simplified things and took the definition Robert Aspirin uses in his Myth series. A Demon is anyone who is not from the local dimension. If someone from the dimension/plane of Hell is on Earth, they are a Demon. If you or I are in the dimension/plane of Hell...we are the Demon. Some Demons are from nice, fuzzy, happy planes of existence...others are REALLY REALLY not. This has the side benefit of grouping SFX. A Banish Demon EDM UAA power will send anyone to their home plane of existence. You don't need to worry about the definition of Demon (does it only work vs evil demons? only vs demons from a certain plane? etc).