Jkeown

It went surprisingly well. My son (the impulsive "isn't my character cool" one of the bunch) was the one who started the fight.  The Psi-blade nearly killed him in one 2 1/2d6 HKA AP (5 shots) attack after he realized who Erickson was.

Brian (Capt Black) wanted all the participants dead. He accused everyone of everything and wanted revenge, cash, and heads on pikes, just like a proper space pirate.

My wife tried to be polite to John Ladra, the 100 Active Point Psionic, only to find out he's quite a nice guy with dreams of something called the "Pax Galactica" and he's willing to destroy all current governments to get it.

Chris and Dan (who play via Skype) stayed away from the auction, busied themselves with exploring the station and messing with Youngblood.

Attached are my adventure notes for today's Star Hero game. If you like, read them and comment. This evening, I'll post again and let everyone know how it went. I suspect it will all blow up in my face. I'm the type of GM that lets his players wander from the plot. For all I know, they'll not take the job and I'll end up improvising for 6 hours again this week.

Amaryllidaceae.pdf

I tried MegaRange and Trigger on this spell to represent the act of attaching a Fireball to an email.  Open the mail, get the Fireball. Is this enough? MegaRange certainly brings a target close enough, and if they leave the area, the spell fizzles.  The question is, can someone be targeted in this fashion? I almost think not, but I do not know what else I'd use to represent this kind of targeting.  A further limitation from the original work includes the requirement of including the spell name in the email subject line, though it could be hidden in a larger phrase - "Save Big on Fireball 1500XE Video Adaptors from NerdTek!!" The mail would detect as magical.

Fireball Email:  Killing Attack - Ranged 1d6+1, Trigger (Activating the Trigger requires a Zero Phase Action, Trigger requires a Turn or more to reset, Trigger can expire (72 hours); Opening the Email; +1/4), MegaRange (1m = 100 km; +1 1/2) (55 Active Points); OAF (Email-capable electronics; -1), Expires 72 Hours from Send (-1), Requires A Roll (Computer Programming roll; -1/2) Real Cost: 16

Inspired by "Emailing Spells" in d20 Modern by WotC.

You could give the gate Extra Limbs with invisible power effects. Or an Indirect Blast with Extra Knockback that does no damage.

 

Realistically I'd go with an AOE TK, though. That way if the characters want to fight the suck, they can try.

You are right. That's what's missing. The AOE on the TK.  I want the fighting bit.  

Thanks for the replies!

When a player (for example) wanders near this gate, it activates, sucking them in.

This trap (I suppose it could be worked into a spell) uses Telekinesis to drag players into a 2m Gate.  Is this how you'd do it?

Hungry Gate:  (Total: 64 Active Cost, 18 Real Cost) Teleportation 3m, Area Of Effect (2m Radius; +1/4), Trigger (Activating the Trigger requires a Zero Phase Action, Trigger requires a Minute to reset; Entering TK Range; +1/4), Constant (+1/2), Usable As Attack (+1 1/4), MegaScale (1m = 100 km; +1 1/2) (14 Active Points); OIF Immobile (-1 1/2), Gate (-1/2) (Real Cost: 5) plus Telekinesis (20 STR), Affects Porous, Trigger (Activating the Trigger requires a Zero Phase Action, Trigger requires a Minute to reset; Entering TK Range; +1/4) (50 Active Points); OIF Immobile (-1 1/2), Only To Pull Objects and People Toward Gate (-1), Limited Range (20m; -1/4) (Real Cost: 13)

In Caleon, we have an arch that purifies water, a floating castle or three, some spell-focusing bells for which I've never really decided a function.  Various magcal prisons that cage deities.  That sort of thing.  

As the title suggests, I'm wanting to do some Ripper-related mayhem in my game. Where can I find a 6E version of him?

How about this:

The Galaxy is in ruin following a Great Interstellar War. Hundreds of worlds have lost technology's benefits and most aren't aware of other occupied worlds. The ENEMY species is still out there, struggling to gain a foothold in space once more. The UNION is a legend. Once it ruled great swathes of space; now it's a meme for a war in Heaven. We focus on one planet, 1260 years after the fall of the UNION.

Egariah is a single-world of ATRI 7.5 or so, struggling to make it into space. However, space is dangerous; so bad in fact that there is a group of intersteller spies on-planet trying to retard technology and (perhaps more importantly) acceptance and trust of space travel. Call them GROUNDERS. Counter to this is a group of folks working with certain government elements to counteract the first group. Call them STARFARERS. Both work against each other toward one goal: Rebuild the UNION. They are small teams of humans waging a war against their unseen counterparts.

Recently STARFARERS have infiltrated the PCs government (and most others) and started a progressive movement to explore the moons and other worlds of their system. When the PCs world is ready, they will reveal themselves and the UNION. Egariah will have a part to play in resettling the galaxy. They aren't conquerors, but rather want to drag humanity out of the long night quietly. They are active on dozens of low- and mid-tech worlds. If the ENEMY finds this world unprepared and earthbound, they're toast. Getting them into space makes them ready to fight when the battleships arrive.

The GROUNDERS oppose this. Far out in space, the remnants of the ENEMY and the tatters of the UNION rage on against one another. Space is unsafe and deadly to low-tech worlds. It's better to keep such folks from making too much noise. Already Egariah's first radio broadcasts have reached a 200-ly radius and might be detected by the ENEMY's picket ships. its a long shot, and the energy of the signals is very low. If that happens, even a single ENEMY ship could do tremendous damage to Egariah.

Where do the PCs come in? Glad you asked. They are members of the government of the superpower that will first make it into space if left unchecked. They have government organizations (Kingdoms) to run and bureaucracy above and below to contend with. Over the course of the game, they will learn about the two teams influencing their world. The timeline includes elements such as deaths of NPCs, newly-opened fields of research, incidents involving GROUNDERS or STARFARERS and such, the discovery of a 1300 year old fighting ship in orbit around a distant moon and many other clues to the TRUTH. An election year might see a PC run for higher office, and new resources will be heaped upon the PC to represent the increased political power.

But it's not all politics. They have the option of a second character, who acts as a minion or other representative in a more intimate setting. Regularly, we'll focus on these lesser PCs who will do the actual legwork of uncovering the secrets of the game.

I have much more detail available, but this is enough to get a conversation started, yes?

Has anyone every tried running FH without any fantasy elements? Just a bunch of guys hanging out in Mercia c. 1200, doing what Henry, George or John tells them to do?

If so... what did you leave in? Monsters? Perhaps only those that appear in heraldry? Or not even those? I'm planning on buying Here Be Dragons for just this purpose.

Re: Here Be Dragons [PDF] now available.

That's awesome! Consider it sold!

Re: Here Be Dragons [PDF] now available.

I'm keen on getting this. I'd like to know how many critters are contained within and if other middle-ages support material will follow...Perhaps even a table of contents?

Are there any rules for Sanity in the current edition? I remember that Horror Hero had such rules, but it's long out of print.

I'm writing a conspiracy/horror/x-files thing and need some SAN LOSS effects.

Thanks for reading!

Re: Random Pondering: Istvatha V'han

This all has me thinking I need to use Istvatha V'han in my summer Champions game. Perhaps start with an NPC... Isabella Vayne... this universe's version of her, totally non-powered, completely normal...until the destruction begins...

The PCs will blame her somehow. Could be an interesting character moment.

My sleep troubles forced me to nap a bit yesterday and this came to me whilst I was drifting in and out of consciousness. An Images Ring (OIF) with 10 active points is a 6 or 7 real point magic item.

Say you could program the image or a set of them, customizing it for each buyer. Thus, mercenaries put on a Sell Sword Ring when they're out of work, merchants can post basic price lists that follow them around, guides have Wayfinder Rings that produce light, rather than carry a lamp or torch at night. Runes floating above a character's head indicate all sorts of things, and most folks use them as public notice of one thing or another... I even imagine Just Married Rings, Baby on Board Rings for pregnant females and Looking For An Elvish Girlfriend Rings for some lonely guys with distinct taste in women.

The PCs will be immediately suspcious that I'm about to pull something. They'll be waiting for the rings to be revealed as mind control devices, power channels for evil wizards or something...

So the question is, what percentage of the population should have them to make a PC question them? I'm not going to do anything odd or dangerous with them, but I think I want to make the PCs crazy and paranoid.

Re: Religions in SF settings.

I've got something like the Orange Catholics from Dune in my SF Campaign. Also, some of the more ancient AIs are worshipped as gods. Some of them ignore such worship, others wallow in it, still others actively discourage worship, but get it anyway. I've kept Christianity and Islam alive in my game, and splintered it further. I suppose I might have 100,000 Christian sects and 70,000 Islamic sects in there...not that I've named them, mind you. I might throw in an Intelligent Design element into most of them, considering Dover...

And those TE religions are quite tasty. Most folks in my game are Agnostic or Atheist, but in a galatic population of trillions, there are still plenty of strange cults to go around.

If there is one thing I've learned in watching people and cats all these years, it's that no matter how technologically advanced a species becomes, there are those that will always need the unseen and mystical to provide purpose, ethics and guidance... That shouldn't change in the next 2000 years.

Re: Anyone working on a Fallout 3 conversion?

Here are a few things I've done.

Re: Hero System Good Idea/Bad Idea...

Good Idea: Fallout HERO

Bad Idea: Fall Out Boy HERO

I made this to hold a prop for next week's Fantasy HERO game. The game kicks off the first FH outing for us in years, and to commemorate, I made this little box for the game's macguffin, a Deck of Many Things. I've converted the card descriptions to HERO effects, but a lot of them are just 10D6 Transforms, not terribly elegant or original. A stowaway will have the box on her person, running from the demon lord she angered by drawing one of the cards.

Deck of Many Things

A deck of many things (both beneficial and baneful) is usually found in a box or leather pouch. Each deck contains a number of cards or plaques made of ivory or vellum. Each is engraved with glyphs, characters, and sigils. As soon as one of these cards is drawn from the pack, its magic is bestowed upon the person who drew it, for better or worse.

The character with a deck of many things who wishes to draw a card must announce how many cards she will draw before she begins. Cards must be drawn within 1 hour of each other, and a character can never again draw from this deck any more cards than she has announced. If the character does not willingly draw her allotted number (or if she is somehow prevented from doing so), the cards flip out of the deck on their own.

Exception: If the jester is drawn, the possessor of the deck may elect to draw two additional cards.

Each time a card is taken from the deck, it is replaced (making it possible to draw the same card twice) unless the draw is the jester or the fool, in which case the card is discarded from the pack. A deck of many things contains 22 cards. To simulate the magic cards, you may want to use tarot cards, as indicated in the second column of the accompanying table. If no tarot deck is available, substitute ordinary playing cards instead, as indicated in the third column. The effects of each card, summarized on the table, are fully described here.

Anyhow, I've plucked many a fruit from the tree of the HERO Games Forums while preparing this run of Fantasy HERO, and I'd like to thank the bunch of you.

Re: Airships

Here are the remainder of the hull templates...

So I'm sifting through the dross of the d20 glut from a few years ago, and there are a couple of books that seem to cry out for HERO conversion. Airships and Doom Striders. This is what I've set about doing.

I converted most of the parts, and used Templates to create the base hulls of different materials.

Any thoughts?

Re: Look at this and build it (or just suggest stuff)

Here, for example, is a larger Shard, a sessile Blackshard Monolith. There are a few things to be worked out; why does it attack everything it sees, should it get points for not having hands, if it has TK? How exactly is its life-force maintained?

From a distance (and it is often very flat in the Shardlands) they appear as large translucent black crystal towers. Up close, they appear as large translucent black crystal towers that are trying to kill you with TK, sonic blasts, and any other energy powers they have developed over their long lives.

The one below is fairly representative of its kind. Belligerent, insulting and generally at odds with every other Blackshard Monolith in existence. Even though they have probably never met, they hate each other with all the darkness of the Pit Itself.

Angry Ned, the Blackshard just outside Paarm.

Val Char Points Roll Notes

55 STR 0 20- HTH Damage 11d6 END [11]

16 DEX 12 12-

10 CON 0 11-

20 INT 10 13- PER Roll 13-

23 EGO 13 14-

27 PRE 2 14- PRE Attack: 5d6

9 OCV 30

5 DCV 10

10 OMCV 21

5 DMCV 6

5 SPD 30 Phases: 3, 5, 8, 10, 12

10/20 PD 8 10/20 PD (0/10 rPD)

19/33 ED 8 19/33 ED (0/14 rED)

10 REC 6

50 END 6

29 BODY 10

60 STUN 20

176 Total Characteristics Points

Cost Name

3 Analyze: Magic 13-

3 Conversation 14-

1 Language: Ithynorian (basic conversation)

13 Energy Manipulation: Power 16-

6 Survival (Subarctic Desert) 15-

3 Persuasion 14-

29 Total Skills Cost

Cost Power END

4 Crystalline Re-growth: Regeneration (2 BODY per Week) 0

15 Crystalline Structure: Does Not Bleed 0

40 Crystalline Structure: Life Support (Eating: Character does not eat; Immunity All terrestrial diseases; Immunity: All terrestrial poisons; Longevity: Immortal; Safe in High Pressure; Safe in High Radiation; Safe in Intense Cold; Safe in Intense Heat; Safe in Low Pressure/Vacuum; Self-Contained Breathing; Sleeping: Character does not sleep) 0

10 Crystalline Structure: No Hit Locations 0

36 Crystalline Structure: Resistant Protection (10 PD/14 ED) 0

15 Shard Vibratory Communication: Mind Link , Alien class of minds, Specific Group of Minds (Shards), Number of Minds (x2) 0

27 Shard Reflection: Reflection (60 Active Points' worth) (40 Active Points); Requires An Energy Manipulation Roll (Skill roll; -1/2) 4

33 Domination: Mind Control 10d6 (Alien (Shards) class of minds) (50 Active Points); Requires An Energy Manipulation Roll (Skill roll; -1/2) 5

27 Gross Manipulation: Telekinesis (20 STR), Affects Porous (40 Active Points); Requires An Energy Manipulation Roll (Skill roll; -1/2) 4

40 Vibratory Blast: Blast 8d6, STUN Only (+0), Area Of Effect (18m Radius Explosion; +1/2) (60 Active Points); Requires An Energy Manipulation Roll (Skill roll; -1/2) 6

9 Greater Mass: +9 BODY

45 Greater Strength: +45 STR 9

9 Heavy: Knockback Resistance -9m 0

15 More Impressive: +15 PRE

45 Shard Mystic Awareness: Spatial Awareness (Unusual Group), Increased Arc Of Perception (360 Degrees), Range, Rapid: x10 0

9 Tougher: +9 ED

379 Total Powers Cost

Cost Complication

35 Physical Complication: No Manipulators (All the Time; Fully Impairing)

35 Physical Complication: Sessile (All the Time; Fully Impairing)

5 Distinctive Features: Large, Hostile Crystalline Critter (Easily Concealed; Noticed and Recognizable; Detectable By Commonly-Used Senses)

10 Vulnerability: 2 x Effect Sonic Effects (Uncommon)

10 Vulnerability: 1 1/2 x BODY Impact Weapons (Common)

20 Enraged: Berserk Near Lifeforms (Common), go 8-, recover 14-

115 Total Complications Value

Re: Look at this and build it (or just suggest stuff)

how big are they?

The purple ones are larger than the blue, smaller then the black. I figured the black shards are about 5 feet each, so maybe the purples range from 3.5 to 4.5 feet. The very largest of them (10 or more feet tall) are sessile, rooted to a cave floor or hillside. There they sit...being hostile.

I have done some thinking on them, that they are randomly-occuring golem-like creatures resulting from an interaction between magic and natural crystal formations. Some are clouds of crystals, others form pairs or trios of objects. Bound by magical fields, they behave as one creature.

So I've drawn a beastie. Right this moment it's a Purple Shard, from the cold, desolate Shardlands of my new FH game "Ithynor." The Shardlands are like the Gobi, but with angry crystals, gem dragons and weird crystalcrafting lizard-folk.

What's it like? What are its powers and needs? Provide a full write up or just suggestions.

If this proves popular, I'll do it again and maybe soon we'll have a menagerie... And a PDF could be created to pass around and use at games.

[ATTACH]36002[/ATTACH]

Re: Spell Multipliers in 6e?

In the Advanced Players Guide (I think) he suggests using a 0.2 multiplier to level the field against folks who don't pay points for equipment. Spells in this instance cost more like skills. We're using it in my Urban Fantasy HERO game and it seems to work.

Though that rule may be in 6E2, in the equipment section... do not have the books in front of me.

Re: Ghosts as Contacts

I decided on the Contact easily enough. The PCs loved the idea of the Ghosts of Indiana coming to life in this setting.

The game climaxed at the Indiana State Museum with a fight between the PCs and a necromancer, his forces consisted of a reanimated Dire Beaver, a reanimated Columbian Mammoth, and Zombie Abe Lincoln.

Why? I do not know.