CraterMaker

Re: Fantasy Reproduction Wonderfully self consistant.. I like it a lot! I can't come up with anything cool to describe their distance from the pit.. Pitbourne? I got nothing..wait.. Spawn for direct from the pit.. Descended for successful generations.. Bastard or Hybreds (sp intentional) for living creatures transformed by the magic in the pit.. So "We're facing a thousand OrcSpawn, led by Hybreds(Bastards).. We're expecting the Descended to start joining up as the Horde makes its' way inland." -CraterMaker

Re: [Worst Ever...] Reasons to be a superhero My namesake "hero", CraterMaker, became a SuperHero to conquer the Earth - He's an alien, his species is incredibly powerful, and as a rite of passage they're supposed to conquer a planet. Normally, you drop on a planet of neanderthals or vikings, and mop up the place, get worshipped as a god, etc. etc... CraterMaker landed here in his energy form, started mouthing off and destroying things, and got his butt handed to him on a platter by some run of the mill heros.. He was sooo embarrassed he hid out and tried to come up with an alternate plan. With his Int of 8, he decided he'd be a hero and build up a cult of personality, and start his conquering by being elected President of the United States... He's basically a brutal thug pretending to be a good guy, so he makes a lot of faux paus.. The fun part of playing him was that, and his evolution into being a real hero, even if only accidental. He did start up an organization called "The CraterKids", juvenile delinquents who roam in packs and beat up drug dealers.. At least, they accuse them of being drug dealers. -CraterMaker

Re: Is Find Weakness mispriced? I have had a couple of problem spots with players and their Find Weakness before, mostly from being torn between a character having his cool moments and trying to keep it from being a gamewinning power ALL the time.. Finally, I just rejected the characters with an abnormally high Find Weakness roll..(18- and higher) eventually , when it was taken it was mainly to damage inanimate objects and such, usually at a 12- to 14- level. I've stated before I dislike it - it doesn't Grok for me - but I didn't dislike it untill I had to do the whole balancing act in my games. AP and Drains/Suppresses are more evocative of how I picture something like that to work. Your mileage, of course, varies. -CraterMaker

It's late - I should be in bed, but I can't sleep.. I was thinking about several of the clunky fixes to things that are difficult to do in Hero, like reducing somethings mass, and think I might have hit on a solution for some games.. If you added in a new stat, Mass, that worked like the power Density Increase (without the end cost), it could be affected by Adjustment powers as any other characteristic could. Price it just like DI with the advantage Reduced End 0 endurance.. and instead of buying Density Increase, they could purchace the Mass stat with "Costs End" limitation. And then I was wondering how many games out there use an additional stat (and how it helped/changed your game) to simulate specific things.. Sort of a master list for people to refer to if they are interested in doing something like that. So here it is, the call to post your house rules involving extra characteristics.. -CraterMaker

Re: Character: Big Jim Walker Have you heard Darkest Of The Hillside Thickets "Big Robot Dinosaur"? Big Robot Dinosaur Dad's working on something special down in the basement I yelled goodbye as I headed out to wait for the bus At school it's the usual torture Pushed and tripped in the hall Hit in the head with a half eaten orange Facewashed in the snow Got home so fed up and angry My dad came to me Took me down to the basement and said "It's finally ready, son" My senses reeled my heart stood still Before me glowed a glory The Fruit of my father's laborious weekends Towering three or four stories. Behind the shiny candy red skin, the monument hummed its electric tune My dad said "Why don't you climb on in?" and unscrewed the hatch in the back We squirmed through its artificial innards He showed me the controls I watched him struggling to conceal his pride and I said "Papa, let's kill some people" We're on a rampage in a robot dinosaur We're on a rampage in a robot dinosaur -CraterMaker

Re: Solidification Could it easily be built as a vehicle? That way, if the vehicle is damaged/destroyed, the character is *still* in his desolid form, thus unhamed.. The vehicle could easily be written up to be "driven" by some sort of magnelectric manipulation, not needing conventional hands to drive.. -CraterMaker

Re: Not Quite Galactic... Yes, very nice.. One question- without Anti-Grav tech, all the spaceships are limited manuevers within human g-force tolerance? Or do you have a workaround? -CraterMaker

Re: Everyone Have A Happy Thanksgiving! (8^D) (grumble grumble) Happy Thanksgiving to you too, and all you folk out there.. And if you're stuck going over to your mother in laws to CLEAN her FRIKKEN HOUSE!!!, try not to kill anyone with the carving knife... The things my woman talks me into..... _CraterMaker

Re: high-level presence erm, for weak willed people who aren't phased ("Buddy, I've been married for thirty years - nothing YOU can do can scare me") by PRE attacks - PRE defense. Or other limitations on EGO to salt to taste .. -CraterMaker

Re: Magical House Locks You can also work difficulty of dispelling these trinkets into your campain, when your using the toolkit to craft your game- it can be added on the front side rather than the back side (the points characters must pay for the item).. ... Come to think of it, frontside is a good place to take care of a lot of problems like this.. hmm.. -CraterMaker

Re: Help me create a Pulp Island..... We could flesh out the Island first, then get into surrounding areas - Tho with a pulp game (which usually has travel elements as staple genre bits) I wouldn't make things TOO close together.. I've allways been partial to big huge whirlpools myself, particularly if they appear and dissapear at seemingly random - maby make it a way to get to Hollow Earth? -CraterMaker

Re: Limited Lifespan For that matter, Does Not Age falls into the same category (tho it's slightly more useful, of course..). The aging issue only came up in our games when Time Travel did. It was, like Flare (rep to you for bringing this up), more of a mental mindset than a physical "Power". On the other hand, it's only a few points, and I'd pay a few points for "Membership In Mensa".. But I'm wierd like that. -CraterMaker

Re: KB discussion I think my problem is imagining one set of kb rules for heroic games and another set for superheroic... My brain keeps saying "Okay, for THIS heroic type game, how do I want kb to work... " I'm parsing the distinctions much finer than you, apparantly. But that's cool, and the name of the game (It IS called the Toolkit).. -CraterMaker But I like the idea of Manuevers that change the amount of KB done, like Roll With The Blow and Pulling The Punch.. More like this I'd love to see, Sean - even if I use them in a way different from what you might've intended..

Re: Superhero Politics Hey Tunglashr, how's this project coming along? Alternate History games are allways a bit tricky if you're trying to get ALL the details right - my suggestion is to use a broad brush and retcon in the details as your Supers explore their world.. if only because it's so consuming to try and flesh it all out. But, as I said, Alt Hist premises are allways useful to us other gamers, even if for an alt dimension game.. so how's it coming? -CraterMaker

Re: OIHID vs Multiform? Well put and right on, Bloodstone.. OIHID is a useful mechanic for simulating powers which aren't accessible as a regular Joe.. Multiform is better suited for having 2 suites of disadvantages you can toggle too. Or if you have more than two forms, too.. -CraterMaker

Re: Has anyone ever played Superhero 2044? Way back in my high school days I had a copy - The world fluff was interesting, the characters (and villains) were all living on a big island with Super tech everywhere - that's about as much as I remember about the fluff.. Character creation rules were a tangle, incomplete, but it seemed cool enough that we WANTED to try and make characters even after not being able to figure out how to do it.. They had a system to figure out your patrol areas and what happens in the areas.. And this Quote- "The Doctor NEVER carries a gun!" with a Doc Samson like pic above it.. And the two characters in the back of the book, Multiplex (The Multiple Man) and ... some light guy, ccan't remember his name.. Bring your friend onto the board here so he can tell us about his setting! I'd be interested in hearing what he's done with it.. -CraterMaker

Re: Just an idea - Activation => Limited Circumstances that is a nifty "random limitation" mechanic - sounds apropro for a Teen Champions campaign.. -CraterMaker

Re: KB discussion Umm... I"m a little confused here - What I've got out of this conversation is that A) Knockback is supposed to mimic certain genre tropes, but is slightly flawed The mechanism of Knockback should be tinkered with to give you the general effects you want per genre C) Hero is flexible enough to do so... Without knowing what genre we're doing, how we gonna adequately model it? Or did I miss something? What were we talking about again?? -CraterMaker

Re: Lack of Resistant Defenses Do you have some specific characters in mind that you think need resistant defenses? Without knowing which character, it's awfully hard to tell you if they need some or not.. But, in general, you are right - Combat Luck is an appropriate way to model the effect of action movie heros not being hurt - so is a high DCV, low OCV in their Opponents, Missile Deflection defined as dodging, changing the range penalty chart, desolidification requiring a skill roll .... ......the list is, thankfully, long. All Hail Hero!! -CraterMaker

Re: high-level presence I really think the system doesnt need Presence as a stat at all. Presence attacks, yes - extra presence attack dice (either all the time or with limitations) should be a power - defense is ego - ego only vrs presence attack would take the place of Presence Defense. Presence based skills would be based on Ego.. But it would only minorly tweak the game, with such a huge change.. I'm not against Presence as a whole, really, just imagining a "how might I trim the game down"... -CraterMaker

Re: Affects Real World (+2) MMmm... I hate Find Weakness. I think I'm going to use AP with RSR to model it from now on - it models better for most SFX.. -CraterMaker - looking forward to Dust Ravens Adding Damage Rules...

Re: high-level presence Yeah, it's kind of wierd.. In the games I've seen, Presence caps around 40 at the top top end, tho there was one character with a 60 (that was his major pherome-power).. But theres no reason it should cap - Tho you shouldn't buy +16d6 pre attack just because you can.. The system I use for Pre is to scale the dice to the effect you are modeling- If you do this you'll be much happier with how the Pre system works. Look at the Pre attack chart to see what sort of bonus your characters' illusions might/should give for a start, with a couple dice boost to represent his mind control powers.. Remember to buy it as Attack Only, since he should be affected by pres attacks normally, even whilst using his mental powers.. Another thing you could do is buy your presence attacks AVLD mental defense, or with the limitation "ego defense adds to Pre Defense"... to represent a mental power that can be blocked by a properly trained mind.. -CraterMaker -CraterMaker

Re: Magical House Locks ... Lets say you have a hunk of metal that resembles a lock but doesn't have any way to be opened (no gears, no tumblers- just a hole for the key).. The only way to open it would be to magically change it's shape, from a closed lock to an open lock. Ergo, transform that only works on a hunk of metal enchanted by the Guild of Locksmiths. The key casts the transform spell. Tack on a limitation that it can be picked by other magical means, and it'll probably come out to 2 pts. -CraterMaker

Re: Lines-O-Death Curious - why would you make it a lockout multipower? In my minds eye, I can see (in an anime setting) someone wrapping someone up, then yanking him into pieces.. And if he had wires coming out of both arms, being able to wrap one person up and try to whip another while the first is struggling to be free.. -CraterMaker

Re: Vampires in Supers Setting Sorry to bring up something from a few posts back, but CAN you use mental powers on others while desolidified without buying said powers "Affects Real World"? I was under the impression that you are affected by others mental powers whilst desolid, but your own must be bought with the advantage - I know it doesn't really make sense, but I thought that was part and parcel of the down side you got with such a strong power.... Thanks - CraterMaker