Lowly Uhlan

Re: Dune

It has been too long for me since reading to be of any real help but eyeballing Lowly's post he seems to have covered many of the bases. I would give them some non-powered powers to add a little.

 

FREX: Read the motive 10d6 Telepathy - extra time 5 minutes, requires a conversation roll, fully invisible. Only to dectect surface thoughts.

 

I would make the Sign Language a Mind Link - requires LOS, restrainable. Nobody knows they communicate so it does not have "gestures" that are observable but if you bound them it might defeat the communications.

 

 

High Presence. High Reputation.

Good job on Read the Motive. And I did intend to make sign language a mind link, just wasn't clear enough.

Re: Dune

Yeah, I was thinking along those lines, they'd have to have a grip of skills.

Re: Dune

How would you handle the ancestral memories (the Reverend Mothers having the memories of all of their female ancestors)?

Re: How do you get players to role play in genre?

Run 1 or 2 sessions in a row that have no combat. Go ahead and allow skill checks for investigating, building things, ect.(make sure they are interesting sessions and play on the character's backgrounds, biases, whatever). Start with a perfect experience score, then set up specific instances where you would normally award XP for roleplaying. Each time they blow it and don't roleplay, take a point off. All the way to the dreaded 1 point for the entire sessions award. Don't judge whether it's good RPing, just as to whether they even halfway speak and act in character. This may seem harsh, but if they get 1 or 2 XP 2 sessions in a row, then you need new players. D&D combat-mongering has ruined them.

And don't explain ANYTHING. As far as how you want them to play, anyway. You are the GM and you are running the game you've put your hard work into. It's your world. If they whine, take points off.

Re: Dune

EVERYONE: Subject to orders. No lone wolves in any part of Dune.

Bene Gesserit:

CHAR: High PRE, CON, INT, DEX, SPD, END,

Skills: Could be basic for an acolyte, through the roof for reverend Mothers

Perks: Contacts, Favor (excellent manipulators), Follower(s) (for Reverend Mothers), Fringe Benefit (Diplomatic Immunity, Membership), Reputation

Talents: Combat Luck, Lightning Reflexes, Lightsleep, Resistance, (and I want to include Combat Sense, Eidetic memory, Simulate Death but am not sure)

Powers (at Reverend Mother level):Enhanced Senses (Sight and Hearing, add to PER roll), Find Weakness (unarmed or knife), HTH Attack, Life Support (Extended Breathing, Longevity, Immunity-take your pick), Mental Defense, Mind Control (Voice; Must speak aloud), Mind Link (only between a dying Reverend Mother and a living one; Sign Language- must be in line of sight within 2",only works between Bene Gesserit)

Disads: Addicted To Melange (Dependance, Melange withdrawl can kill), Distinctive Features, Psych Limitation (Bene Gesserit Schemes), Psych Limitation (Cannot Love), Reputation (Untrustworthy), Reputation (Witch) Rivalry (Guild),

I don't want to deal with the racial memories thing, I'm tired. The above is pretty rough but I think I've covered most of the abilities. I was only considering the B.G. as presented in the original trilogy. The Mind Link from a dying Reverend Mother was in Chapterhouse or Heretics not sure which. I'm trying to forget the Brian Herbert/Kevin Anderson books, didn't include any of that schwag.

Re: How do you get players to role play in genre?

What have you been trying to do to get them into the roleplaying aspect?

Re: M&M: this is a Nightmare?

I too own M&M and it's a pretty nice little game. I'm not a D20 fan but M&M is kind of far from the standard D20 stuff. Similar in that there's feats, skills, BAB and saving throws. Other than that it's a different system. No hit points (thank God) just a damage save and no AC.

My group used it as the core rules for a Fading Suns D20 game and it worked really well. You don't get all of the chargen options or detailed combat of Champions. You do get a game that plays fast and smooth. Point based with caps on how tough you can be according to your character level. But not even close to the levelling rules of regular D20. Have yet to play it as a supers game, but one of our players is threatening to run it. It won't replace Champions as my favorite supers game, but so far its' proven to be a good product.

Re: 2 more questions

You rock, Doc.

Re: 2 more questions

Depleted Uranium is used as radiation shielding as I understand it. As I understand it, any of the really dense elements will work, unless the element is already seriously radioactive. I'd expect Osmium to work well, if you want something that sounds cool.

 

Rich/Decadant folks might go in for Gold or Platinum shielding, too.

Osmium does sound cool.

Thanks for the link as well, Talon.

Anyone else?

My SH game will finally commence this Friday and I've got 2 questions for the science-minded.

1 Where in our Solar System can you find deuterium? It will be used to fuel fusion reactors in my game and I need to know where it would be mined. I'm thinking Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus but am not sure. Getting it from Earth isn't an option (Dead World Syndrome).

2 What materials would be used to build efficient radiation sheilding? The type to be used on spacecraft to protect the crew from solar radiation effects during interplanetary flight. I would rather not tell the players"You're protected by 2 meters of lead"

And thanks to the users of this forum for answering past questions

Re: I need help with a grenade launcher

I think that's what Hawksmoors was getting at...

 

The charges are the number of clips/rounds you carry, so the grenade launcher could fire 80 times if you had 20 clips of 4 rounds each. But if your GM were being nice and let you find an extra clip in a weapons cache that happens to fit you could in fact fire it even if it exceeded the number of clips you purchased as charges already that session.

 

in other words the grande launchers ability to fire is only limited by the number of clips (charges) you have on hand.

Ok. I'm being particularlly thick-headed I guess. And I'm designing this as the GM.

I appreciate the input, fellas. I think I can get the launcher to be the way I want it.

Re: I need help with a grenade launcher

No, you are limited by the number of grenades you carry. Not the number of times the launcher fires right?

 

Hawksmoor

No, I want it to carry a set number of clips (of 4).

Re: I need help with a grenade launcher

Don't have the books with me to lookup up numbers, but how about something like this.

 

+30 STR (or more depending on how much range that gets you)

with these for limitations

Doesn't add to normal STR

OAF

STR can only be used for throwing grenade charges.

Thanks for posting some stats.So would I buy charges normally? I don't want the thing to have an infinite number of shots.

Re: I need help with a grenade launcher

Right. I threw in the -1/4 limitation at the last minute and it didn't at all seem right. I kind of knew that all I intended to do was buy off the range based on STR. Wasn't sure on how to do it. And I was kind of perplexed by all of the grenade launchers presented in the Star Hero supplements being based on the specific attack.

Re: I need help with a grenade launcher

Buy the grenade launcher as extra (or seperate) STR, only for "throwing" grenade-like objects, plus whatever lims you want for setting up the launcher (extra time, concentration, OAF, etc).

 

Grenades would be AOE/explosionive attacks with the range based on strength limitation. Personally, I wouldn't worry about Indirect and just attribute that to special effects.

 

!DrFURIOUS!

I like this. I'll get to work on it. Thanks, Doc

So I'm trying to build a grenade launcher. I don't want to build it as a multipower and am looking for a weapon that translates in game terms as something that only fires them, having the grenades of several different types bought seperately. Those grenades will also be useable without the launcher and the idea is that the user can slap a clip of 4 into it, whatever the type or simply have them (bought in clips of 4) to throw. I don't want to end up with 4 different launchers for 4 different grenade types, and multipower is only a last resort.

My original idea was to buy a 1 pip RKA, Indirect (+1/4 originates from launcher), Increased maximum range (+1 100"), Limited power (-1 launcher does no damage, damage by grenade only),STR Min 12(-1/2 no damage add), 2 handed (-1/2), Real weapon (-1/4), OAF (-1), Charges 3 clips of 4 grenades (-0) Total cost:3 points

Something about it seems wrong. Here's some example grenades:

FragAP grenade: RKA 2 1/2 d6, AP (+1/2), AOE (+1 6" radius), OAF (-1), 4 charges (-1), Range based on STR (when used as thrown weapon) (-1/4), Range limitation (-1/4 when fired from launcher) Total Cost: 29 points

And I'm not going for realisim when compared to contemporary weapons.

Please enlighten me.

Re: Suddenly Alone on the Stations

Star Trek: Voyager would be indeed be another example . Except they had replicators. And with that show you never really got the "feel" that they were in any real danger of running out of supplies, just like previously mentioned. I'm a diehard Trekker, but Voyager kind of sucked. Maybe it's a bad example of the survivor thing. Or a bad example of Star Trek.

Re: Suddenly Alone on the Stations

I like your premise, Michael. There's similarities to the setting of my SH game-a whole lot of humanity lives in artificial habitats, Earth is an uninhabitable wasteland. The time of my game is in the late 24th century, however and hydroponics and recyling are sufficiently advanced to support large populations.

The society the player characters hail from has a warrior code that is kind of good for keeping the population down (ritualized duels), add to that some wars every 20 years or so. And some aforementioned reproductive control results in close to zero population growth.

Psychologists and just a little genetic tweaking have played a large part in humanity's adaptation to enclosed living. Sure, anyone can go take a walk with a spacesuit on Miranda, but none of the inhabitants have ever walked under Earth's blue skies. But the inhabitants of some of those societies have adapted, and many have a strong sense of duty (and some haven't, so I have Outworld Raiders from Oort cloud planetoids to use as villians). I don't know how realistic that is but,hey human behaivor could change a lot in 400 years. In your setting though the social turmoil mentioned by Dr. Anomoly sounds very feasible, it will take awhile for the Stationers to adjust. Player characters could be an idelistic group, striving to build a new society as well as keep the recyclers running. If there is space based industrial capability this will be mangeable. And a nut with "space madness" could be a problem if could say,blow up those orbital factories.

Re: Why do folks that dislike Hero hang out here?

Hey, but I like HERO!!!

 

 

Naw, that's not true...I also have a cat!

OK we'll redefine "cat" as "friend" and "Hero" as "life".

Re: What superhero character concepts are you tired of seeing?

Any mutant that is dodging a registration act. It's getting old.

And super-snipers (especially the MUTANT ones).

Re: What superhero world concept are you tired of seeing?

Internatioinal superteams have been done a lot, the last Champions campaign I played in had us playing one. It was OK, the concept really doesn't bother me.

What I am tired of is Mutants. Everyone besides my character in that game (and all previous games that I had heard about being run locally) had mutant PCs and a registration act. Give it a rest. I love the X-Men but the whole mutant threat/registration thing has been done to death.

Re: Things a wise super hero should NEVER say

"Those innocent bystanders are in no danger"

"They'd never incinerate the Lincoln Memorial" (actual play)

"The disease that turns them into mutants is 100% contained" (actual play)

Re: My FTL drive: comments? (warning: this is kinda long)

I know nothing about physics so it sounds plausible to me. I like the part about subatomic bonds falling apart and the need for a sheild. My first thought was "What kind of nasty aliens live in t-space?"

Re: Help: Sniper Syndrome

The sniper sydrome was a problem in the Champions game that my GM ran previous to the one I played in. Kind of the same deal, a mutant with n-ray vision, high speed, and a really big gun that could shoot through walls. A few of the other players took the gamist approach (except we called them miunchkins) as well. Things got really out of hand. The GM was a Hero newbie, he basically stopped the game, told one of the munchkins he wasn't welcome back, made the other one create a new character and started over with new caps on active points, PD/ED, ect..Kind of drastic, but it worked.

If it was my game I would take the suggestions mentioned earlier of adding a villian that was quick and stealthy and had a nasty attack power to stalk the sniper character.

But the Alex Raven's suggestion to have a mentalist force the sniper to take out his fellow heroes is wicked and sounds like it would be really fun to GM.

Re: Artificer Rough Draft

I guess your "retirement" didn't last long!

Not bad work. Characters that create magic items as a profession have always been just a little too high fantasy for my liking though.