CraterMaker

Re: Implementing a magic system for Garrett, PI I'm a big fan of the series myself, so I'm happy to see someone attempting this. I don't remember much about Alchemy in the books, I'd be tempted to drop this. Have you thought about how silver fuels Sorcery? That might be what will keep Sorcerors balanced with the other characters.. -CraterMaker

Re: Powers of Undeath Erm - realized I didn't explain why the idea was similar... nevermind! Chalk it up to the meds... Yah, I'd just leave it for the GM to fill in, then. Good backstory, he'll love it! -CraterMaker

Re: Powers of Undeath Neat idea.. I've been floating something similar: an ancient demi-god who, when his people were destroyed, started doing odd jobs for other dieties and eventually lived in a SandMan type Necropolis as a beaurocrat... eventually, with the return of magic in the real world, he put in for retirement and became the closest thing to being worshipped he could find: Being a superhero. May I suggest that those who sent this emissary to the world are probably concerned about the rise of Takophanes? It's right on so many levels... -CraterMaker

Re: Designing a show stopping villain I'm torn between having a believable justification for being a supervillain, and having a completely off the wall reason for being a supervillain.. I guess it just depends on the flava of the game to run. Either can help make a villain remarkable. -Cratermaker

Re: Operation OVERDRIVE I like the idea. Mecha in Champions has allways intrigued me, from Robot Hero's and Red Doom till the present. They are easy to .. overbuild .. so they present their own unique design challenges - Can't wait to see the build! -CraterMaker P.S. - I'd keep him 15 feet tall, which would allow transport in the trailer of a big rig. Plus, it sounds as if Jack is a charismatic bloke.. Buying the mech as a vehicle should save enough points to buy a fistful of followers who serve as the pit crew for the hero.

Re: Are we Ready to Rock? I dunno...are we? I like the idea of the guitarist being an alien - Do these ladies have secret ID's or are the publicly "outted" allready? I they are outed, the guitarist should have four arms - she's gotta have a double guitar, one of those seven string/12 string combos! For powers, perhaps an alien martial art and being poisonous would be enough.. throw in an origin from a high g world (say, 25 strength), make the MA based on powers rather than the m/a skills... Call her "Fury" - AKA "Georgia Stann" AKA (when her teammates are teasing her) "Furious George"... -Cratermaker

Re: Operation OVERDRIVE How big is the Mecha? sorry for the short post, gotta pick up the kids - CraterMaker

Re: Western Hero Resources Not an RPG supplement, but I stumbled upon this collection of of Western stuff through Amazon Dry Goods (whilst looking for costume patterns). I've only perused the Cariboo journal online stuff (great stuff there), but peeking around it seems that it's covers a pretty broad selection of stuff. http://www.victoriana.com/directory/west.htm -CraterMaker

Re: Mad, Beautiful Ideas My buddy had AirBear, a cigar chomping teddybear looking alien with lil' cupid wings, kamikaze rising sun head band, shrunk to fit Iron Maiden t-shirt, submachine gun, grenades, and a really bad attitude.. Another had FireCracker, a guy who made his millions designing and selling fireworks who became a superhero. And Ginsu - Actually, he wasn't really that funny, a really good martial artist with a LOT of really sharp knives.. but his name allways cracked me up. -CraterMaker

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Just picked up an Iron Maiden compilation album - "The Trooper"

Re: Doc Savage Treasure Find I don't think I'll be donating these.. I'm sure I'll cherish them. But books of mine usually get read hard, y'know, with dog eared corners and broken spines.. eventually I pass them on to someone I think would like em. But... These books seem like they need to be treated a little more carefully. Just finished Resurrection Day - Doc Savage has perfected a technique to raise the dead! But he can only do it once (or at least, once every ten years) so he asks America to vote on who will be raised from the dead. Little does he know, the brilliant but evil General Ino has hatched an insidious plan to switch the body to be resurrected! Out of all the villains in history, who has General Ino chosen to further his sinister plans? Que action music... -CraterMaker

Re: Support Villain Concept My take? No reason he's NOT earning money as a plastic surgeon in BevHills.. He's a rumor told at cast parties, a whisper in the back room deals of movie moguls - That theres a man who can perform miracles the canvas of the flesh, but what he wants in return is never cash or accolades... It's your soul, buddy. Your eternal soul! -CraterMaker

I wanted to share with you the good news - I was out and about the garage sales in the area this morning with the kids and found a box of Bantam (circ 1963+) Doc Savage Books - 46 in all, in excellent condition, which I bought for ten bucks! Now, I'll read through them, of course.. But once done, do I put em on the bookshelf or do I take greater pains to preserve them? I really don't know much about old book markets and such, or even if they're worth Moolah (I took a glance around the web and the prices for the bantam books vary from 3 to 15 dollars..) Anybody have any advice? Thnx - CraterMaker

Re: Attack type Inconsistancies Yeah, it's cludgy. How about 1d6 of no range damage = 5 points.. Ranged, +1/2, add Strength (or other stat) +1/2, Killing damage +2, BOECV +1, etc.. Might raise the cost a little bit, but starting heroes have 350 pts to spend.. If they end up shaving a little here or there on the character to pay for it, probly wouldn't change the feel of the game too much. -CraterMaker

Re: Sonics - tired power, need new ideas A particular frequency of sound could be used to "Liquify" the ground - causing things to sink rapidly into the earth. This happened to Anchorage, AK, when the Great Quake hit us.. The earthquake vibrated the ground in just the right way, and the foundations did a nose dive (taking the buildings with them). True, for it to be naturally occuring, it has to happen to the right type of ground.. -CraterMaker

Re: Building Whirlwind Attack Dang it.. Thought this would be a good place to pick up some powers for my new villain, "Hurricane Harry".. Still , you guys do good work! I like Markdoc's version.. Thats the way I'd build it. -CraterMaker

Re: Tricks for a Triplicator? I have these cool images of vintage WWF tag team matches running through my head, now... Can you Martial Throw someone (for distance) to another guy who martial throws the target (to the ground for damage), with the third guy following up with a flying elbow smash? That would be cool... *grin* A search on Array Fighting techniques would be useful.. Google search, that is. Old M/A movies would be a good source, too.. -CraterMaker

Re: Sonics - tired power, need new ideas Do a google search on Sonoluminescence ... I posted a char a while back based on sound (With his own SonoCrawler, which used a soluminescent lance to tunnell through the earth) .. If you're interested, KingTone is Here http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=49579&highlight=Sonocrawler -CraterMaker

Re: Who Is... Your Favorite Villain? I think my favorite is ... Fenris! From a mechanical point of view, he's a very elegant build. He has a lot of untapped potential, too - I'd like to see a few more adventures with him in it. OH Wait! I love Mirage, too - my two favorites, then. -CraterMaker

Re: Something we're doing tonight... Cool.. Does he have general RP experience? Tell us how it goes - I think everyone benefits from hearing what worked or didn't work when explaining the Hero System to a new guy.. -CraterMaker

Re: The Professions of Arms Well, PS Soldier should be complimentary to Survival, definately.. I'm not particularly versed in the Long Term Endurance rules, but I could see a successful PS: Soldier roll slightly reducing a characters (or squads) LTE expenditure for the day.. -CraterMaker Err.. Sorry, see now that it's PS Infantry, rather than Soldier..

Re: Humans are "Special" I like the idea that the Human Race's advantage (over other galactic civilizations) is the ability to empathise.. This would give some advantage in trade, peace, and war. Perhaps other races are inept at understanding the motives of their fellow aliens, which breeds misunderstanding, confusion, and conflict, and encurages isolation... -CraterMaker

Re: Now THIS is a SUPERCAR my friends! Yes, indeed.. Beautiful cars for the stylish Hero! I wonder how that second one turns, though - must be superscience.. -CraterMaker

Re: Total Newbie Here; prospective HERO-er Welcome aboard and have fun! A turn is composed of twelve 1-second segments, so a turn is 12 seconds long. A characters SPEED score indicates how many actions you have in a turn.. Each action will take several segments, or seconds, to complete. For example - let's say your character has a speed of 2. He will get an action on segment 6 and segment 12. When he acts on segment 6, he is commited to his action untill the end of segment 11.. when segment 12 rolls around, he can choose a new action to pursue. His segment 12 action will "last" untill segment 5 of the next turn. A characters PHASE is the several segment window that the character commits to an action. A 2 speed character has 2 PHASES that last 6 seconds apiece. Heres an example of a 4 SPEED - The character gets an action on segment 3, segment 6, segment 9, and segment 12. His 4 PHASES last 3 segments, or seconds, each. Each action is broken down into how much of a phase it commits a character to. For example, an attack is a half phase action that ends your phase - I.E. you cannot take any more actions for the phase after attacking, no matter how much (or little) time it takes. Moving your full movement is a Full Phase action, so if you move your maximum you do not have any room in your phase for other actions. Moving only half of your maximum move, or less, is a half phase action. So, you can move half of your maximum move (a half phase action) and then attack (a half phase action that ends your turn). If you chose to just attack, it would be a half phase action that ends your turn - that would be all you could do. At the end of every turn, you have a recovery - called the Post Segment 12 recovery... It happens right after the 12 segment of every turn, and right before the first segment of the next turn. You get your RECOVERY score of stun and endurance added back to your character, up to your maximum score. If you are hurting pretty bad and need to RECOVER during the turn, You can take a RECOVERY as an action - it's a full phase action, and you get your RECOVERY score back in endurance and stun. Theres more to it, but that's the basics.. -CraterMaker

Re: Furious Counterstrike Wow.. That's a pretty nifty idea! I probably wouldn't do it like that, but way to think outside the box! -CraterMaker