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Steve

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Posts posted by Steve

  1. I personally find travellermap.com to be an excellent resource as a GM, especially since it will give me the book reference for more details.

     

    Since I’ve seen books reference that it exists “in universe” as a database players can look at, it also helps them determine where they’d like to go and what kind of planet to expect when they arrive. This is helpful if they prefer to skim a gas giant and process their own fuel, for example.

  2. 8 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:

     

    Now I like the almost Sith-like idea of the master and apprentice but how does a low entry and low number of wizards sit comfortably with the extensive supply of magic weapons and items?  Whatever else, Greyhawk has a magical economy with potions, scrolls, wands etc as part of its essence.  or is that not the Greyhawk you experienced?

     

    Are we saying that casters are rare but smiths, apothecaries, etc., are reasonably common?  That, given time and the right materials, many folk can imbue magic into an item, and that master-craftsmen are the ones creating the finest stuff?  But it takes a wizard to walk the world and cast magic at will?

     

    I can see that working. I can also see the economy of adventurers out hunting for the materials for the finest stuff and possibly just getting by, selling the detritus that goes into the more common magic items.

     

    I can’t recall how it was portrayed in Greyhawk’s history, but magic items, the more powerful ones, could be relics of an older time when magic was more common.

     

    Maybe there has been a gradual falling off in the number of powerful wizards, so “common” magic items like +1 or +2 weapons, weak wands, and potions are made now but things like a Staff of the Archmagi are relics of that elder age.

  3. In Greyhawk, I don’t think you’d ever find a Harry Potter-like wizard school, even in the city of Greyhawk itself. Magic was instead passed down from wizard to apprentice. That would really tend to keep their numbers down. A school would be like an assembly line making new wizards every year.

     

    Based on D&D having an INT minimum to even be a wizard back in early editions (I think it was 9 or better), that seemed to be the main barrier to entry rather than some kind of inner talent. Most characters treated INT as a dump stat unless they were going to be a wizard, so I guess you could say most people were too dim to handle the subtle intricacies of magic.

     

    Holding to the wizard-apprentice setup helps explain why there are so few wizards.

  4. I’m no historian, but I think Horatio used a pile of dead bodies as an arrow shield and funnel for the onrushing enemy Etruscan soldiers. They had to go through him rather than around him. It might be an honor thing was going on too.

     

    Change Environment works for me. It could also include a DCV reduction as well, making it easier to kill enemies. Change Environment is apparently not subject to the halving effect of Adjustment powers from what I can tell.

  5. Kenzer Company had a take on orcs in their game world that was reminiscent to me of the LOTR movies. I thought it was interesting as it got away from some of the moral questions raised in fighting and killing orcs.

     

    Basically, there are no female orcs or orc children. Orcs are instead germinated within foul pits under the earth or dark, hidden places that are the result of evil magic. These pits normally churn out “common” orcs, a few spit out each month, I think was the rate. However, if a being of another race is brought and sacrificed into one of these pits, a stronger, smarter, tougher orc is made from them, emerging forever corrupted by the pit into one of these superior orcs.

     

    Orcs were monsters, a corrupted creation of dark magic. The concept could likely be expanded into having lesser pits producing goblins.

  6. In my Pirates of Drinax campaign, some of the characters are fighter pilots, so I came up with some ranged martial arts maneuvers they could use.

     

    Fighter Pilot Skills

    3  Defensive Shot:  1/2 Phase, -1 OCV, +2 DCV, Range +0, Weapon  Strike

    5  Dodge/Jink:  1/2 Phase, -- OCV, +4 DCV, Dodge All Attacks, Abort; FMove

    4  Trained Shot:  1/2 Phase, +2 OCV, +0 DCV, Range +0, Weapon  Strike

    0  Weapon Element:  Vehicle Weapons

     

    What might be some other maneuvers a skilled fighter pilot would have, like Maverick from the Top Gun movies?

  7. 13 hours ago, bluesguy said:

    About a month ago I asked ChatGPT to do the same thing and it couldn't because it didn't have any information about the Champions game system.  It could generate 5e DnD characters all day long.  Someone 'provided' ChatGPT with the information necessary to generate a Champions character.

    Why would this get a downvote?

  8. 3 hours ago, Hermit said:

    I saw Dungeons & Dragons: Honor among thieves yesterday due to having a friend who is an amazon prime member. I had mixed feelings about going. On one hand, it would serve Hasbro right if it flopped or sucked so it got bad reviews. On the other hand, I love high fantasy and a good D&D movie is long overdue. Quick sum up, it was good (A lot of fun imo). And I couldn't help think THIS is how Hasbro/Wotc should cash in on D&D.. not trying to shut smaller creators out, or squeeze every dollar out of folks for the 'privilege' of using their imaginations. I think it's going to be a hit, it has an early Marvel Movie vibe and energy (And I mean that in a good way), I just hope Hasbro/Wotc learns the right lessons from that rather than deciding they now have the money and goodwill to double down on the evil cash grab on the TTRPG players again.

     

     

    It’s on Amazon Prime?

  9.  

    9 hours ago, Tech said:

    Finally settled on a second villain: Ogre. However, this time, he's highly intelligent with Mental Powers, speaking like a proper British man. That should throw them for a loop. Of course, after he's defeated, they'll be easily able to dispatch the bug, leaving ordinary Ogre to wonder what just happened.


    If you’re looking at classic villains, Green Dragon might be a good choice to round things out.

  10. It took a few sessions, but our intrepid group of pirates made their biggest score yet, finally looting the Imperium Treasure Ship and making off with about a hundred million credits in booty composed of various items. Thanks to an extremely high PRE attack from @Durzan Malakim’s speech to the crew, the pirate gang has grown with the addition of about forty Imperium naval crewmen.

     

    Their next stop was Tech-World to use their newfound wealth to repair and upgrade their vessels. After later making a clandestine deal with the planetary leaders and discovering an ancient, slumbering AI aboard their vessel, they then had to chase after a scientist who was the victim of a nanotech infection a bit reminiscent of the protomolecule from The Expanse series. They are trying to stop the scientist before she reaches an Imperium world in the Spinward Marches and potentially unleashed a catastrophe.

  11. I suppose another option would be to have the ninjas be a small horde of weaker “mookbots” that obey the main villain robots but are not very smart. I’m thinking of the combat robots from the Star Wars prequel movies, only instead of them saying “Roger! Roger!” when given orders, a Japanese equivalent phrase is substituted.

     

    If one of the mookbots managed to be memorable, perhaps it could be promoted, rebuilt and increased in power.

     

    Imagine an entire ninja clan composed of only AI robots, from agent-level types up to full superhumans.

     

    Hmm. I’m starting to feel the beginnings of a Mechanon plot can be built from this.

  12. 32 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

    I've mentioned this before but back in 3rd edition the "Destroy" mechanic (very long term drain) recovered based on your recovery score. If you had 6 recovery, you got 6 points of a stat back per time period.

     

    So... if you destroyed Recovery below zero it never recovered.  You inevitably, certainly will die from burning stun to zero and starving.  I even came up with monsters who died this way, zombies who were drained to death.

    You can effectively do this in the current edition by delaying the recovery period. Set it to recover five points per week or per month.

  13. 1 hour ago, Opal said:

     And there's already been a "Universal Translator" in at least one version of the game, right?

    Of course, but that is a borderline magical Talent based around an INT-roll, so it has a fair chance of failing at a critical moment.

     

    I was approaching it as a Skill-based, customizable construct using parts of the system that have been around since at least 4th Edition and tweaking them a bit.

     

    For ten points, one could buy Universal Translator for just spoken languages at a -1 Limitation and risk a skill roll failure, or use my suggested build to be able to speak and read seven languages without any roll. Adding in the language chart’s effects, lesser fluency with additional languages is also possible.

  14. A mention of Jack Of All Trades from Traveller Hero probably deserves a mention at this point, since it was just a construct of skill levels. A more limited form of it could be easily constructed to just apply to Science skills or any other grouping of similar skills.

     

    I could also see an argument for buying a Skill Enhancer like Linguist and then just buying single points in different languages and calling them full fluency thanks to the enhancer’s effect. For ten points that would mean the character is fully fluent in seven languages, which seems reasonable.

  15. I’m wondering if the comic book age of a setting will affect how skills should be treated. Some of the examples given above are straight out of the Silver Age, which had more of a whiz bang view of science than a modern setting does.

     

    For Golden, Atomic or Silver Age settings, a much simpler skill structure seems better, but maybe something more granular fits for more modern settings?

  16. 2 hours ago, GM Joe said:

     

    I hesitate to say it, but would something like an EC for skills fix a lot of the cost issue?

    I like using Expert for this, grouping a bunch of skills together and giving a -1 point cost modifier to each of them for following a theme.

     

    It reminds me a bit of the old package deal modifier from early editions and works pretty well in saving points on skill lists from the various package deals in the current books.

  17. 6 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

     

    I agree, and I hope to maybe get to at least one further step in that in coming years with a project to give GMs and players a whole campaign with info on how to build characters, etc.  The tentative name is Champions One (for the beginning), and would be a followup to Champions Begins

    Maybe call it Champions: Year One to make it reminiscent of some comic titles that came out with that naming scheme.

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