CraterMaker

Re: Martial Arts Element vs. PSL Sounds cool to me.. I've thought of something similiar, but it was using Lightning Reflexes built into the manuever.. So a Fast Strike would really be a Fast Strike! -CraterMaker

Re: Character for suggestions Did the final draft of her change, or are you playing her as is? Probably scared the bejeezus out of the other players, eh? Heh heh.. I like scary magic.. _CraterMaker

Re: I finished reading 5th Edition, Revised Ayup. If you're having problems with the 5th edition, Robyn, maby you should pick up SideKick (easily affordable at 10 bucks) and start with the lite version of the rules.. Might get you kickstarted into really grokking the system. -CraterMaker

Re: I finished reading 5th Edition, Revised Mmm.. I can imagine how frustrating this is for you, Robyn, but I seriously think you're overthinking things. Relax. The rules aren't written to trip you up, or play word games, or even make you think really really hard on what they really meant to say. Read the rules, spend just a miniscule amount of effort to relate them to each other, play with them and see if you like the effects or discard them where necessary. No One Way, eh? You're familiar with Fourth, right? The changes from fourth to fifth are miniscule. They changed how Regeneration works - but you can use the old way. They changed life support a bit, but you can use the old way. They added in Multiple Attack as a combat manuever, and Rapid Strike - A lot of people aren't big fans of these in certain genres, so ditch em. Flash is modified slightly, but for the better.. Everything else is pretty much the same. I mean, it HAS to be panic if you don't remember from Fourth if bonuses to Block last for the Phase or a whole Turn.. Def and Body of focuses is covered in Fourth, so when it says ""treat the manifestation like a Breakable Focus for purposes of determining its DEF and BODY" that's telling you how to determine a Manifestations Def and Body for purposes of breaking it - It seems pretty clear to me, and I've never used the mechanic before. Just take a deep breath, don't look at the rules like they're a word puzzle, and you'll do fine.. Erm - English is your native tongue, right? My advice would definately change if you didn't understand English very well... -CraterMaker

Re: City of Heroes (Champions of Champion) I have to admit, I'm very interested in City of Heroes.. But I've avoided all online games because I just use a dial up connection. I allways figured you needed a cable modem to participate in order to avoid lag time -- am I incorrect on this assumption? -CraterMaker

Re: Reading FRED for the First Time Welcome aboard, Lord ScatterHawk! I don't have much to add to what these other fine gentlemen have said, just wanted to emphasize that we're here if you need some help, so don't be cautious about asking questions. Post what you come up with, too - Theres probly 3 or four other people new to the system who are not asking the questions they might have here, so your questions will help others as well.. did that make sense? More coffee, please.. -CraterMaker

Re: It's all about de fences I understand completely, Sean.. And when you flex your brain, you get cool ideas like building an infectious disease as a character! I loved that.. I'd expand upon it and submit it for a Digital Hero article, I think it's that good.. Schir1964 - Would it be some sort of extra on the Continous advantage? Doing damage every segment would be an enormous advantage.. Wait, buy it as .. whats that limitation that splits damage up over time? Gradual effect? Hmm I'm not too familiar with it - Someone know how it works? -CraterMaker

Re: Is Find Weakness mispriced? I'd note in that sentance that a defense can be reduced by a maximum of ten points per roll... The way it reads makes it sound like 10 pts is the max effect of find weakness.. *very nice* -CraterMaker P.S. Oh, and a blurb needs to be put in mentioning that Find Weakness Defense Reduction only works for the character with FW unless appropriate advantages are put on it.. (!)

Re: It's all about de fences Yeah, On thinking about it I'm right there with Gojira.. I think it's advantageous to keep SOME level of generic(ness) with the defenses, even if it's to give some sort of return to the players point expenditure.. -CraterMaker

Re: Is Find Weakness mispriced? Boy that looks good - How about extrapolating on how it's related to senses and how to narrow the SFX Find Weakness II effects? _CraterMaker P.S. Thanks for doing the Heavy Lifting!

Re: It's all about de fences [quote=Sean Waters;1217052) Why do it? Style, mainly - the divorce of sfx and mechanics at the basic construction level, and more flavour: because we have A division, it is comparatively rare for any further definition to occur (cold ed, or electrical ed, or cutting/slahing pd, for example). The removal of ANY definition may well encourage greater experimentation. Hmm. On the surface, I don't like the idea.. Parsing up, say, Energy Defense into Cold/Electrical/Cosmid ED would have the effect of making your ED rarely applicable to the broad range of attacks that might come your way. Now, EXTRA defenses with a narrow scope are fine by me, I encourage them.. And thinking on it, your method might not be bad at all for a street level Champions game where low defenses are the norm, anyways.. But then you'd probably have to come up with a list of EB SFX, so people aren't getting TOO outside the box. Shouldn't be too hard. I guess it would all depend on context, the style of the game. And this is the main reason why I admire the Hero system so much. They gave us a set of rules which, at it's core, is simple and progressive, then said "here, fiddle with this to make your game".. I can never understand why people can't see the beauty of this system. I mean, when people complain about "combats taking too long" - If you'd spend a day or too really thinking it through, you can easily change how combats are done! Hell, there's people out there who don't use the turn system, or are figuring out how to resolve combats with ONE DICE ROLL, and even stranger things than that! The permutations are endless and limited only by your imagination and daring! ...Ahem.. sorry, rant off.. When I use three sentances in a row with exclamation points, I know it's time to lie down for a while.. -CraterMaker

Re: Diceless Hero I've allways been intrigued with diceless systems - the only time I've done it was for a Larp, rock paper scissors, and it.. worked. What sort of diceless system might be appropriate for Hero? How do these thiings work? -CraterMaker

Re: Multipower and No Concious Controll Yeah, that looks good - Are you going to roll a d6 for a random start on the MP list, or do you start from the beginning and go down it every time? Just curious.. The only minor problem I see is that you added the limitation Str Minimum to it, which is rarely seen in a SuperHeroic game - But if your GM is cool with it, looks like you got a winner.. -CraterMaker

Re: Resolving a Combat in One Roll? The suggestions above are excellent, of course.. Another idea tho - if there is a mechanic from another game that works, port it over to your Hero game! Hero is incredibly flexible! Sometimes it takes adding something, sometimes it takes a little.. twisting. So how does this one roll mechanic work in the game it appears in? Another Idea - Before game starts, figure out for each character - Average DC of attacks (character A has a 2d6 HKA w Str added in and an 8d6 Offensive Strike - Average DC is 7) Average CV (OCV + DCV/2) Active PTs in SKill Levels /5 rounded up Which gives you a base Combat Rating Then figure out what modifiers you want to use, like adding 2 if he has an area effect attack, adding 2 if he has a NND, adding 2 if he has FW, Subtracting 5 if he has a susceptibility or vulnerability to any of his enemies attacks, etc etc... Take the Lowest Score out of the group, and add 1 for each teammate.. Do the same for the other side, then roll 3d6 for each and add their roll to their score - whoevers' is higher win, compare the difference to a chart you make up with outcomes based on what that difference is.. --------------------- What we used sometimes, tho, was one straight 3d6 roll, with the GM assigning a target number on the fly for how difficult he thought the opponents were or what he preffered the outcome to be (ssshhhh! don't ever tell players you're doing this) and then narrate the results depending on how much they either made the roll or failed the roll. It was simple, fast, and worked, so I can recommend it.. ------------- CraterMaker

Re: Fear of the dark Y'know, a power that instills fear reminds me of the Call of Cthulhu mechanic that instills insanity - maby buy it as a Transformation, and once transformed the victe... um, targets, would have a random roll on a chart to determine which way their character might react - everything from freezing, penalties to cvs or skill rolls, maby even a bonus to running or panic driven strength (plus a bezerk maby) .. It's tough to define one effect for fear, so unless you want to define what effect you want, perhaps a random chart is the solution. -CraterMaker

Re: Multipower and No Concious Controll What they said... No, I mean, what powers are you going to give it? Welcome to the Boards, FireLeaper! Hey, if it's a Fantasy Hero magic sword, theres a thread there for magic items (so other people can swipe yer ideas) - if it's a SuperHeroic game, I know I would like to peek at the hero in question - It's allways informative to see how someone else builds things, IMHO.. -CraterMaker

Re: Possibilities With New Stats Erm - Why is that the best way? As a stat, and alterable by adjustment powers, it's much more easily fine tuned to match the appropriate special effect you want to mimic, in my opinion.. And the Mass stat wouldn't be any more complicated then an existing effect, Density Increase. For example, if you want a mass reduction ray that only reduces mass as long as the beam is on it, buy it as Suppress Mass.. If you want to absorb somethings Mass into your own, buy Transfer Mass If you want to "shift" a ships mass into another dimension in order to increase top speed, but over time it bleeds back into this reality, buy it as a drain. If you want to make something heavier, buy an aid or a succor.. The new options that open up for SFX involving Mass and adjustment powers are at the very least, interesting and illustrative of how you could use additional stats as a solution to some modelling problems - kinda the point of this thread, too.. ----------------------- Keith Curtis - I think I ken Morphia, how hard it is to change somethings shape, and Psyche, for mental transforms, but what is Anima representing? Oh yeah, Savage Earth! - Thats your cool post apoc setting, right? With animated scarecrows and such? -CraterMaker

Re: Need a Group Name The Samaritans The Liberty Legion Centurians SuperSentries -CraterMaker

Re: Populate a 17th century galleon The Bad Apple Scruffy and skinny, and perpetually cringeing along with anyone stronger and meaner than he is, Darro the Scarecrow is constantly muttering about how unfair everyone is to him. He complains that the sun gives him headaches, the night makes his teeth hurt, the rain makes his bunyons act up, and that his ice cream is too cold to eat. He'll go on for hours on his various bellyaches and grudges untill someone slaps him around a little, and then he'll sulk for hours afterwards, sneaking murderous glares when he thinks no one sees him. His peers tolerate him because he has a nose for trouble - More n' once, the bastich has somehow sensed ambushes when foraging inland for supplies, and he has a knack for avoiding troublesome spots. And the first time he saw your character, he fell into an open cargo hatch trying to get away from you... Now he's been heard darkly muttering to his "friends" about curses and doom, all the while keeping a sharp, murderous eye on... you. -CraterMaker

Re: Possibilities With New Stats

Re: Possibilities With New Stats Tell you the truth, Sean, I've often thought of doing away with a few characteristics myself - for the Super-Hero genre, at least. Why shouldn't Strength be a power, in a game where the Hero's are all extraordinary? Just as a rough draft, I might do this Stats ---- Dex Con Ego Rec - Ego/5 + Con/5 End - Con/2 + Ego/2 Stun -Con+Ego ----- I am intrigued with the Less Combat Tracking thread, tho I'm working on something a little different: Trying to come up with a system that tells you how much damage you do by your to hit roll.. Basically, base damage would be DC x 3 Stun and DC x 1 Bod, and every point you roll under the to hit roll adds 3 pts stun and 1pt Bod.. but I never seem to be in the right mind frame to really wrap my head around the problem to explore it's ramifications.. Outsider: My mass stat would cost 8 pts per level and run something like this 10 - base stat - 100 kg 09 - 50 kg 08 - 25 kg 07 - 12.5 kg 06 - 6.25 kg 05 - 3 kg 04 - 1.5 kg 03 - .75 kg 02 - .3 kg 01 - .1 kg 00 - 0 kg I think.. and of course double up KG as you go higher than 10. KB penalties for stats under 10, str loss for mass under 10 - Defenses would be unaffected. Over 10, you get the same benefits as if you bought additional levels of DI.. -------- Dust Raven: What would be the effects of splitting Dex up? I could see it making Characters more distinctive.. -CraterMaker

Re: high-level presence Umm- isn't that more due to his Extreme Reaction Reputation 14- ? Or at least, it could be.. If Spidey didn't know who Thanos was, I don't think he'd be overwhelmed by Thanos' appearance.. maby wary of Thanos' confidence, but.. Tho I see your point - some things ARE scary, but the PRE system is kind of clunky.. I'd definately prune it to fit different Genres, as suggested in the Hero Book. _CraterMaker

Re: Barbed Arrows I'm not a huuge fan of overcomplicating weapons, but I could see this being used in certain genres.. The only problem I have with it is giving a -1 OCV penalty a 1/2 disadvantage.. for a 2 pt penalty it seems WAY too high. And I'd make the extra damage from removing the arrow 1/2 d6, NND does Body, Defense is not having Internal Organs. (slimes, gelatinous cubes, golems, treants - I'd include Undead in my games, too..) Otherwise, interesting idea.. -CraterMaker

Re: Is Find Weakness mispriced? Yeeeaah.. Thanks for pointing out where I went wrong. -CraterMaker

Re: [Worst Ever...] Reasons to be a superhero No.. Hmmm.. _CraterMaker