Christopher

On 3/15/2019 at 5:01 AM, Shoug said:

We acknowledge the possibility that these character sheets are the overwrought brainchildren of a theory-wanking grognard, and might feature extravagantly avant garde applications of the rules that are satisfying only to the “clever” guy who thought of them.

If there is any issues, it is with the setting and the general Powerlevel.

Stuff like Videogames or Action movies is something I tend to simulate closer to the Superheroic end of the spectrum.

100-200 Points is about Agent Level for those games (175 is common in 6E).

This looks like it was more designed for a exact Imitation, with a unclear Powerlevel. Armor with a Activation Roll/limited coverage is a Heroic thing for me.

It also does not help that Surbook almost exclusively works in 5E as you can see on the Complication Amounts. So he is not the best place to learn with 6E.

The HERO/Champions game Systems was originally designed for the superheroic team game. If you want to learn it, that is the level you should aim at starting at.

Lower powerlevels are something you can thing about after you are more familiar with the rules and how each thing plays out.

On 3/14/2019 at 9:50 PM, dsatow said:

Sorry late to the game.

 

In the last fantasy game I run, I made everyone buy everything with points.  The idea was, it was a Xena/Hercules style game.  So weapons, magic or what not, that you would commonly have, needed to be bought with points or you would lose them between episodes. 

The Xena and Hercules settings are definitely more on the Superheroic Level.

It would also run a Star Wars game more like Superheroic.

GA's Andromeda and Star Trek also tend more towards the Superheroic imho, but it is more of a fringe case. Most aciton movies also tend towards this area of the spectrum.

On 3/15/2019 at 2:56 AM, Duke Bushido said:

If you are still entertaining questions, may I ask-- seriously; I'm not really "up" on Harry Potter-- why you think that is?  To clarify: I would like to know what reasons you think might lead to the spell not being used as a routine, go-to option of the bad guys.

 

Knowing that might help get a build that more closely does what you want it to do or one that feels more like what you're trying for.

Exactly that. We need to get a handle on J.K. Rowlings intention with this spell and it's uses, before we can parse the feel (and that includes it's limitations) to a different Medium (in this case Book/Movie to Role Playing Game).

I did spend a lot of time watching Star Trek Stuff, so I got the intention behind their "Shields at X percent" approach. And I think I have a reliable way to parse it now:

But my knowledge of Harry Potter is limited to a few movies and movie scenes. Not nearly the kind of information basis I need to even have a solid opinion on the mater.

8 hours ago, Cool_Manchu said:

The player and I talked about his vision of how the "only in shadows/darkness" works. He explained that all of the powers listed above only work when he or his target is fully immersed in shadow (i.e. you are fighting downtown, unless it's high noon, a side of the building will be projecting a shadow. So given that he's set a size/parameter, I think it's much more workable.

"Only if there is a path along shadows" is a lot more workable as a Limitation.

Have you asked how exactly night (de-facto the earth throwing a shadow) interacts with this? What about artificial lightning at night?

The only big downside is that you have to declare when the Limitation applies. With stuff like "only in strong magnetic fields", you have natural sources of those. Stuff like Labs, below a powerline, next to a transformer, etc.

While the stuff that throws shadows is always tehre, if it actually connects a path depends on how the sun is standing, if there are any signs sticking out of the top of the buildings, how the top of trees connect, etc. This could put pressure onto you.

If you are using a map/hexgrid, maybe just declare 1 half of the battlefield in shadow, 1 half not in shadow? And you can varry the percentages basd on how the sun is standing. Maybe roll a D8 or two, to get the cardinal directions the "shadow border" falls? I rememebr a old boardgame where you where sailing ships, and how the wind fell each turn was pretty important. And since it was randomized, it was inherently balanced:

i.e., take this thing and ignore the 3rd tier arrows:

If you roll 1D8 and it comes out 4, the shawdow border would go across SE and NW angles.

Alternatively you could roll 2D8 and if they come out 4 and 6, the border would be betwee SW and SE direections, covering either very little or most of the combat area (depending on from where the shadow falls).

The build in "you missed your AoE" rules however define the direction with a D6 (6E2 40) as for Historical reason, HERO asumes a Hex Grid Map.

2 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

I would ensure the player understands that switching the multipower will shut off the darkness.

 

It would be interesting to see an opponent with Darkness (same or different SFX) - which would remove LoS.

Or Flash (Sight Group) for that mater.

It still am very carefull regarding this power. It is like 3 warning Signs stacked on top of each otehr:

- Sense Affecting Power

- Personal Immunity on a Sense Disabling Power (rather then a seperate sense)

- Useable as Attack

"What keeps it in the air? Magic?"

"No, something way more powerfull: Engineering!"

On 3/10/2019 at 6:15 PM, Duke Bushido said:

The past few days, I have been helping my brother do some research (in exchange for some art restoration to my scan projects) online, (notice I haven't been here much lately?  ) and have been to numerous "comments" sections that feature the done-to-death "American's be so ignant!" comments..... 

This was mostly about the Ignorance about a certain Government Official. Some person that had a thing with walls.

On 3/10/2019 at 10:00 PM, Pariah said:

I'm speechless. This shouldn't happen in a developed nation.

 

CDC: Unvaccinated Oregon boy almost dies of tetanus; $1M to save him

I can not see the Insurance covering that.

On 3/11/2019 at 11:24 PM, Rails said:

I don't get it.  Maybe I'm missing something.

 

Why punish the team he was supposedly a fan of?  How is it Birmingham City's responsibility that they have (had?) a nutjob as a fan?  If something like that happened in an NFL or MLB game here, would we expect the team to be punished for the actions of a fan?  (Raiders and Chiefs, I'm looking at you.)

In Europe the Fanclubs are strongly tied to the Sportsteam itself.

Sports Hooligans are a pretty big problem. And nothing is a better deterent then penalizing the club for their missdeeds.

Indeed the areas around the goals are not sold fully publically. The cards are given to the Fanclub for sale. By the Sports Club.

On 3/10/2019 at 12:43 PM, Rails said:

 

Beached?  ?

Beached, Blue and Broken

On 3/12/2019 at 4:42 PM, Starlord said:

So now that a good portion of folks have seen it, who is everyone's fav female Marvel character? 

 

1.  Black Widow

2.  Scarlet Witch

3.  Mantis

4.  Okoye

5.  Valkyrie 

Mantis
Black Widow

Scarlet Witch
Valkyrie
Okoye

29 minutes ago, Pariah said:

I'm a high school teacher. This is literally every day of my life.

Ah yes. Work habbits are the hardest to beat.

18 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

A 60d6 blast may be way past the campaign's power levels but if its only usable once a day, its still worth a -2 limitation.

For me at least, you would need to take the Mechanical Equivalent of a -2 Limitation without getting a -2 Limitation to even have this power.

The Limitation is the price you pay to even have something that far beyond the limits. That you have this power at all, is the "bonus" you get for what would normally be a -2 Limitation. You do not also get reduced costs.

All that asuming I would allow a 60DC power even with such a Limitation. I mean that is so widely above Standart Superheroic Level, it can kill a Brick with Normal Body Damage.

In a game of 12-14 DC, 16 DC with a -1 Limitation would be a more apropirate example.

9 hours ago, archer said:

Exodia is the cranial unit of a diplo-bot from Altair VII. Exodia currently has no superpowers per se since recently losing his body during a cruise when Leroy let Weevil Underwood "look at Exodia for a moment" then Weevil threw the Exodia body overboard. Exodia, though miffed, still tries to keep Leroy from getting lost and/or walloping the wrong target. Exodia often acts as the team spokesman. 

You put a YugiOh reference into this?

Kudos for that.

On 3/5/2019 at 9:22 AM, Scott Ruggels said:

If anyone missed last week's episode of the Orville, they had an epic space battle of the type not seen since DS 9.. Very nicely done.
 

WoooHooHooHooo!

On 3/6/2019 at 5:24 AM, archer said:

I didn't think the Orville battle lived up to the last season of DS9 epic battles. But I wasn't expecting the Orville storyline to ever go in for an epic space battle at all so I was very pleased to see it.

Seeing this, I can not really see a lot of similarties with Star Trek. Maybe because there is a Federation of sorts?

But if anything, this is more like a Star Wars Battle:

Poorly definied Weapons and Defenses, wich means any ship can explode with a few hits at any moment?

Color Coded Weaponry?

On 3/12/2019 at 3:53 PM, Gnome BODY (important!) said:

Take the guy with a 12d6 blast, 0 END cost.  90 AP.  Take the guy with a 12d6 blast and an END reserve large enough to spam this blast forever.  Cost depends on his SPD, but this doesn't breach 60 AP.  Both have roughly equal power and utility.  Why is the former banned but the latter permitted? 

For me both would be pretty much the same. I do not see a basis to treat and judge them differently.

In 5E and earlier, Endurance Reserve could be used as a partial cost saving measure.

But in 6E it is just a different and more granular approach to 0 END, Charges, or the like. And I treat it as such. I asume RDU Neil would have done the same.

I also want to remind you that the AP is caps by default are also a bit higher then DC Cap*5. Standart has:

12-14 DC but 40-80 AP.

12 DC, 1/2 End (+1/4) at 75 AP; That would be both below the AP and DC caps.

18 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

An AVLD/NND Does BOD with a defense that every major character has would simulate the source material quite nicely - instant death to anyone who is not a major character.  Do you have an alternative mechanism which would reflect the fact that only minor characters, offscreen characters or someone who wanted to be killed are ever killed by the "infallible" killing curse? 

IIRC combat Luck stops working if you drop it (what Dumbledore did) or if you intentionally take a bullet via the Interpose rule (as Harry did).

So NND(Working combat luck) could be a good Advantage to simulate this with.

On 3/8/2019 at 4:41 AM, RDU Neil said:

Wow it was bad.

 

I'm sad to say, but Marvel made its first really bad movie. (I've not read other comments in this thread, yet, but I will.)

 

The writing and directing were the level of a bad after-school special. The Action scenes were badly staged, the plot was... pointless. Everyone, not just Larson, was stiff and awkward, with dialogue that was completely flat. The movie lacked heart in every way... I honestly shocked that this was allowed to be released. It didn't know if it wanted to be Guardians funny (it wasn't) or Avengers dramatic (it wasn't) or Ant-Man heartfelt (it wasn't)... it was a mess.

 

My wife was very unhappy. She wanted... badly... to like it and said, "Like thirty minutes in, I realized, I just didn't care about any of it. It was so stiff and just... whatever. I kept saying, "But this is Captain Marvel!" and am just SO disappointed."

 

So bad... I'm frankly amazed Feige let this be released.

There is some argument that it suffered from the "Prequel" Problem. Similar to the Star Wars Prequel Trillogy, we already knew how everything major would turn out:

We knew the Kree were A-holes from Guardians.

We knew Fury would end up with the Tessaract again from Thor/Avengers 1.

We knew she would end up free, but away fromt he planet.

We knew she would kick all the Kree's behinds.

We knew she would give Fury that Galactic Pager.

There was no room for Huge surprises, so they focussed on the little ones.

And at least for me and my friends, that did work out. But then we also enjoyed the story of Star Wars 1-3, so it might be a fundamental difference in goals from a movie.

22 hours ago, Scott Ruggels said:

I could not make any sense of the clues presented.  Mysteries are hard. If I had to do any of them, mostly they were interrogations, so there was never any room for mis-interpretations of clues. I found clues also started somewhat unproductive arguments at the table. Not all of us are deductive detectives. 

For me the issue is never finding interpretations. It is excluding interpretations as unlikely.

21 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

One might start by checking whether Benjamin and Theresa Duffey reported a burglary in their house on the night of December 18th.  Asking what the DNPC is investigating could not hurt.  Perhaps some effort to identify the other woman?

My problem is that it sounds like the Mystery only progresses on external input (like the GM having the DNCP call).

That would make it a railroad plot, where the Players can not even decide the pace the Locomotive moves at. Wich is one of the few things more frustrating then a Railroad plot.

That is why I said that I can totally understand the players reaction. And might react the same way.

8 minutes ago, dsatow said:

 

That is HERO.  A minimum of one STUN taken per BODY taken after defenses and other modifiers such as hit location.  

I thought so, but I failed to find the rule. But your confirmation is enough to be certain.

48 minutes ago, bluesguy said:

The last adventure the players ambushed (out of combat) a large band of brigands in a narrow space.  The mage used his big AoE and rolled max damage (2d6KA) - being surprised out of combat is really bad (2X stun and in that case it was 12 Body, 36 Stun X 2). 

That is why Military Training teaches everyone "do not stand close together uselessly. You are MG/Grenade/Fireball bait."

Traps like these are exactly why modern miltiary focuses so much on Scouting. One scout/vanguard force can detect (or trigger) the ambush just as well as the full army.

AoE's like these is why we use Multilayered defenses consisting of several strongpoints.

Of course it can make sense to retire that Character anyway, because you do not want to dig into modern Military tactic.

18 hours ago, Gnome BODY (important!) said:

I'd suggest you sit down with him and ask what circumstances he thinks it should work in and what circumstances he thinks it shouldn't.  Once you know when it won't work, you can assess what you feel the limitation is worth.  You also should be very clear up front as to if you'll allow his Darkness power to count as the darkness/shadows his other powers require. 

16 hours ago, Killer Shrike said:

Limitations such as this are subject to GM interpretation. 

 

If your interpretation is, there's some shadows somewhere in the scene and therefore such abilities work nearly all of the time, then yeah it's not very limiting. 

It is not entirely up to the GM however. Let us take two example Limitations on Telekinesis:

"Only Works on Water (-1/2)"

and
"Only Works on water, but inlcuding the one inside the human body (-1/4)". WIch can be shortened to "Only Works on Water (-1/4)"

Player intention does mater a lot.

42 minutes ago, Hugh Neilson said:

BTW, the rules do require a counter.

 

 

 

 

This is not under the "Usable as an Attack" model, but under "The Recipient's Willingness" on p 355. 

We have a reasonably common counter for Telekinesis.

Any UAA Power that forces movement will by nature have a less common defense. That is usually why we pick it to begin with.

9 hours ago, Christougher said:

Concentration and Extra time seem thematically (calm) appropriate limitations, but also seem like they should be applicable to all magics.

Everyone might have it, but Water requires it to an exceptional degree.

I am also uncertain if I would call water "calm". Everyone that has ever been on the receiving end of a flood would beg to differ. But then all 4 Elements are in equal measure required to live and able to kill you on a whim/by accident.

5 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

But more to the OP. Has anyone suggest perhaps a large Drain? It’s already all or nothing and can be deadly.

I am 90% sure Drain is not all or Nothing. Transform is the only power I can think off being close to "all or nothing", and that one was brought up.

On 3/10/2019 at 9:34 PM, Hugh Neilson said:

Would you then charge different amounts for the 6DC and 12DC attacks, discounting one which is underpowered (i.e. less than 5 points per DC of a 6DC attack) or premium pricing the overpowered one  (i.e. 12 DC is overpowered, so it costs more than 5 points per DC)?  If the limitation values should change, it seems like the base prices should change as well.

I can not answer this with less then:

- Setting (Heroic/Superheroic).

- Campaign DC limits

- Specific Power

- Damage Classes

- Active points

There is too much uncertainty to ever give a non-solid answer and I do not want to give a non-solid answer.

39 minutes ago, Territan said:

Do nothing about the mystery, claiming that "I don't have any leads; I'm just waiting for information at this point,"

What you describe certainly sounds like it could cause this reaction. It definitely could cause it from me.

But then running a Mystery is always dang hard.

Just recently I had a GM be frustrated by our group of 3 Charcters failing 3 Spot checks each to notice a plot detail in a row. He had to invent reasons and circumstances for us to retry.

I think what might work, is to adopt the "never a real failure" option of Narative Storytelling Systems. That way you can avoid the story ever being "stuck" on failing rolls or inventing reasons to re-do the roll. Without making the skill investment pointless. As a example, look at this thread:

Under "Failure is not an option".

13 hours ago, frogboy_1101 said:

Also a big thanks to Christopher for breaking it down into even simpler bites. 

 

The basic idea of Exalted to me is simply superheroes in a asianish fantasy setting. Not really reinventing the wheel on hero system much imo

I agree, it seems to be at it's base a Fantasy setting with Superhero Level Characters.

Essence is hard to map, as it is at least:

1. a Mana System
2. a Pushing System
3. a Luck System
4. and a Incentive to describte your actions (Stunts)

There is a big border between 1+2 and 3+4. We can simulate any one of those, but they propably end up being two seperate Systems if you want to cross that border.

For 1+2, see below.

For 3+4, Heroic Action Points fit the bill propably the best. But those are loosely defined to begin with, so they might fit a lot of bills. They may be tied into the pushing System, IIRC.

But getting a accurate value for "Power needs a HAP to use" is basically impossible. It depends too much on gain speed, wich in turn is based on the GM and Players.

15 hours ago, Spence said:

Exalted always made me think that they wanted to make the Anime X (Manga X/1999) into an RPG but didn't want to pay for a license or "alienate" US gamers by reveling it was an Anime RPG.   

I am seeing that Anime connection as well. And there was this one idea I developed and have been floating for Anime Conversions. It goes like this:

1. Use the Optional Long Term Endurance Rules
2. Let Pushing be Automatic, but cost LTE
3. Allow a "also costs LTE" Limitation and use it on powers you are uncertain will break the game balance/new powers in general. You can either keep powers like that, allow the Limitation to be bought off or have to retroactively forbid the power.
4. As a additional option, use these Rules from APG I: Contest of Power, Interference, Enhancement. They seem very fitting regardless of the previous 3 points.

38 minutes ago, Amorkca said:

I know M&M is its own RPG. I was unfamiliar with Emerald City, which is a supplement to the M&M system of games. 

 

I hope this clarifies any confusion. 

That was the other possible Explanation. So everything is clear now.

7 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

Doc isn’t Darkness now by default versus Sight Group so a simple UV googles ain’t going to defeat it. Unless your saying that the limitation-only in shadows limits Darkness to normal sight. Correct?

Indeed all Sense Affecting Powers - Darkness included - cover a whole Sense Group by default. And I think it was that way back in 5E too.

And UV Detects are very likely in the sight group*.

*Funny enough I can think of a way to detect UV that does not nessesarily go into the sight Group: Geodi LaForges Visor. It seems to operate more in the Radio Group, IIRC.

It might still be in Sight Sense Group, but I think it is more likely to be Radio Sense Group.

7 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

One example of an Obvious Focus is "a magic ring that glows whenever it’s used" - emphasis added - while an example of an inobvious focus is "a magic ring that gives no indications of its powers (it looks completely normal, doesn’t glow when its powers are used, and so forth)".  So being Obvious only when it is used is an Obvious focus, by RAW.  

Then my and your interpretation of RAW disagree:
" A character who buys an Inobvious Focus must specify a certain power, Skill, or set of circumstances that allow an opponent to identify the Inobvious Focus (for example, a device built nto clothing would be detectable by a search or Infrared Perception; anyone with magic abilities could identify a magic necklace)."

Wich leads me too:

Inobvious Focus (Glows if Active making it Obvious it is the source, but not in a way that breaks Invisbility or Stealth).

Done.

Now if you put that on the "Snowglobe" thing, it would be obvious that it is the source of the Invisibiltiy when you are turning it on in someones sight.

But not obvious in a way that breaks Invisibility by any interpreation of RAW.