AmadanNaBriona

Re: Semi-Heroic Criminals

And of course there is a great example of this genre convention currently in theaters... Sin City

Re: Semi-Heroic Criminals

well, I admit to being utterly biased here, but I could totally run this kind of campaign during the pulp era with all the players as members of the IRA (this would be during the Michael Collins/Eamonn DeValera era, when the Irish were inventing modern terrorism because the British authorities refused to treat the defeated soliders of the 1916 as legitimate soliders and instead executed and or imprisoned them as traitors despite public and world opinion).

Re: Sci-Fantasy at the Super level..

I thought about doing something like that. The campaign would have knights wielding light sabers just like the Jedi, except they also ride cyborg or android horses. Martial artists would be able to fly and shoot balls of chi energy. Airships that look like galleons would fly to floating cities.

 

The question is, how would you model ranged weapons? My solution was to use Hank the Ranger's (D&D cartoon) bow and Chewbacca's bowcaster as models.

 

Melee weapons also presented a problem. I decided to make a lance version of the light saber. Maces could cause extra damage by sending sound waves when they hit something. I don't have a good model for axes, though.

hmmmm...

*ripping brain off the Hawkmoon track and into Thundarr the Barrbarian mode*

howabout scepter like weapons that create a crescent shaped energy arc (or arcs) at the bulbous end. Perhaps with the ability to "throw" the arcs off the haft like a boomerang.

Other tech ideas could be stolen from Hawkmoon with ease tho..Like Ornithopters (first seen in Dune, actually), flamelances, and weird seige weapons that do things like launch glass globes filled with a lighter than air iridescent gas.

Re: Newbie Submitting character For Critique

Nice work. Great looking final write up. a very well put together, solid character that I wouldn't even blink twice at if someone wanted to play him. Kudos

Re: Favorite Abuse

No sh**! What a hoot! Defeats the whole drawback to a Multipower with just 5 points!

Doesn't it tho?

It really almost flattened me when I put it together in my head.

a MAJOR munchkin whole in the system.

Re: Newbie Submitting character For Critique

Incompetent waitress? I sat in her section today

 

You're still rockin' too many psyc lims. I usually cut them off at 50 pts. I'd go with another hunted, perhaps a Kingpin-style crimelord?

Maybe shorten the name to just Paradox.

 

But by far the best 1st character I've ever seen. Much better than Inviso, the disappearing man!

So beats the heck outta my first champs character too.

Can't remember his name, but I do recall that he could teleport by flying into a solid object...as long as he made his activation roll....

I agree that you're still a bit psych heavy, and I think that a gang related hunted would be entirely appropriate. Other possible disads could include a negative rep as a wanted vigalante (wider area then his good rep... the police will be sure to try and spin the press to make their zero toilerance policy look good, especially if he has lots of community support, which the good rep implies) and, in the same vein, perhaps a Watched by the press.

Re: How to do this Celtic myth power?

I might not be as knowledgeable about my Celtic mythology as some, but I don't know that I've ever heard of a 'good geas' in any of the stories I've read. It sounds more like prophecy, which can always be subverted. For it to be a 'geas' like you've described there would have to be negative consequences for breaking such a geas, and I can't think of a single thing bad about not dying where one sleeps.

 

I'd simply contrive ways to keep the character alive if/when he's ever attacked in his own home (last-minute saves, doctor on hand, etc), but it's not a 'geas' in the traditional sense.

Basically, I agree with you, at least on the surface.. so I decided to look it up

*busts out Gaelic dictionary*

geas, ges n. f. spell, taboo, charm E. Ir. geis, ban, tabu

GURPS Celtic Myth really addressed the idea of "good" geasa, such as the Death Geas (You will die by the hand of a woman type thing). Its easy to get messed up thinking only in terms of Bans... all geasa in the source materials are prophecy, in effect. A childs Geasa were revealed by the druids shortly after birth, and as life went on, others could be earned, accepted freely (I swear I will NEVER drink whiskey again ) laid upon one by another, or otherwise gained. These will have varing degrees of effect on a characters life. Good sources for examples of how they can play in a game can be found in most of Morgan Llywelyn's books (Red Branch and Finn MacCool get top marks, as well as Last Prince of Ireland, tho its long past the Epic age) as well as an excellent if somewhat obscure novel by Risa Aratyr called Hunter of the Light which deals with geasa as a ongoing plot device (this is a book I consider almost a must read for a epic celtic campaign) While I can't really think of any point in the source materials to point specifically at the term geas to imply a good prophecy, it seems a reasonable application of the word. Could be a translation issue from way back, in fact... English has words for charm, spell, prophecy and the llike, but we didn't get taboo into our lexicon till much later (its an islander word, after all).

heh..my train of thought is derailing... this is good enough for now...I'm gonna keep pondering.

Re: Favorite Abuse

You can buy two Multipowers for +5 points now?!?!??!?!??!! Okay! THAT is just WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Only if its a gadget. The reasoning is that having two of the same gadget isn't all that much more useful than a single one. However, in the case of an extrememly flexible gadget, the logic kinda breaks down, doesn't it?

Re: Newbie Submitting character For Critique

Looks like a pretty solid Martial Artist, with a couple bits of weirdness. The main thing being the immense load of Psyche limits. Most games have a max number of disad points you can take from a single category. I was going to comment on his relativly low STUN, but then I realized that he's running at a base DCV of 12, which is pretty nasty, and thus compensates for fairly low defences and damage stats. If it were a character in my campaign, I'd probably suggest he loose the +3 DCV levels in favor of either levels with block, dodge and missle deflect (active vs passive defence) or a "reflexively rolls with damage" dex roll based Damage Reduction. He doesn't really seem to have much in the way of a shtick to make him unique, but thats never really a requirement. What's his background, and where did he get the name Paradoxman?

Re: Spiderman vs...

I don't really see much point in discussing it, really. Spidey is pretty much Marvels top iconic character, and as such he gets a whole lot of writer fiat that lets him win, period. Same thing that Supes and Bats have in DC. my $.02

Re: Psionic Hero/Psi World

I always liked Psi world, and ran a short lived Espionage campaign based off that game. Nice to see that some of the great creative minds of the past are still poking around out there

Re: Horror Hero Point Levels - convention game prep

I'd probably go with the 75+25 model for a con game, with a card for each character that describes in Narative terms the characters strengths, background and weaknesses, then either keep the actual character sheets to increase the fear and loathing factor, or give them over to the players only after they've picked out the characters. My inital thought was to go with the system suggested way back in prehistory (in Lands of Mystery for JI) about varing the point levels depending on the character role, but with a con game, that wouldn't be very fair, so I'd lean more towards giving the less obviously useful characters each a good useful shtick to fill out the rest of the points. Maybe the gas station mechanic drives in demoloiton derbys. Maybe the mallrat skatepunk has scads of luck. The insurance saleman could have been a college football player. You're the GM so you can build a nice balanced group of PC's who all are useful, but no one is so broad that they can afford to throw their fellow players to the wolves without consequence. MY one BIG suggestion is that if there are any obvious "combat moster" types available (like policemen, off duty millitary, gangmembers, etc), load them with some of the more restrictive disads to counterbalance the immediately obvious advantage of being the best fighters, otherwise you chance having to deal with munchkin players squabbling over the "best" characters.

Re: How to do this Celtic myth power?

I ran a Epic Celtic Myth campaign for FH a few years back, and I handled Geasa mainly using the Luck model, as it seemed to fit with the thematic style of the myths in question. Howeveer, it really depends on the flavor you're going for. Some of the more outlandish sources allow for more "super"-ish death geis...the stading there with a bunch of arrows sticking out of you style. The main reason for my chiming in is on the other side... bad geasa (bans) can be modeled really well as Susceptibility, with Unluck replacing the damage. In every case from the sources, breaking a personal geis leads to the dire dice of destiny landing on the hero with both sixes down, often with fatal results. Neither Psyches nor Physicals seem to have the same effect. Some of the more moderate lesser geasa could be handled as social limitations, but its a case by case basis. The celts had a fairly complex heirarchy of behavoir based on geasa, and some trumped others.

And yeah, the spelling gets wonky. I just kinda picked a source for my gaelic and kept with it.

Re: Storn's Fantasy Art, Comics and Doodles

Swords Defiant.

 

An image that came to me and I've worked on, off and on, for a few weeks now. I did it as a speculative piece.

 

I hadn't looked at this thead in a while, but when I did, I saw this!!!!!!

And all I have to say is DAYUM!!!!!

I really like this peice. I've always admired your work, and this is my new favorite from you.

You are SOOOO repped

Re: Favorite Abuse

I had a whopper of an idea earlier while reading one of the EC threads. Someone mentioned that MP's are often dedicated to either offence or movememt. It occured to me that there is a huge potential abuse here..

lets make a character with, say, mystic gauntlets. Make them a MP at the campaign AP limit. Give them a variety of interesting attacks, movement powers and defences. make the offence fixed slots, while the others are variables.

Heres the abusive part.

spend the +5 points to have two of them.

Now, you have 2 identical multis that allow you massive combat flexibility, including the ability to do multi-power attacks with different offensive slots.

This strikes me as just sick.

Re: EC AN (Ad Nauseam)

I'm somewhere between #2 and Fox's #4

I don't use EC's all that opften, and am not horribly offended by the IDEA of the Drain one drain all mechanic... I just have major issues with the double dipping way it currently work... Most adjustment powers in our games have been based on SFX drains rather than specific powers, and I don't like how, say, if you hit a fire EC user with a "Drains one power with Fire SFX" power, you get double the effect against the target power and full effect against all others. One possible fix I may mess with is having all drains vs EC powers drain the EC pool first, no matter what the target power was, then take any additional drain off the target power if and when the pool is gone. I don't mind the double effect if someone takes the "affects all" advantage...thats pricey enough to be worth the extra effect. I'm even considering treating all EC powers as seperate once the pool is drained to zero, so you can't utterly cripple an EC user with a simple drain... Take half his active points away, yes. Incapacitate completely... you'll have to throw a lot more drains his way.

Thoughts?

Re: STR minimum question

Of course, we also don't know anything about you... you could be spot on in your assement of your strength. You could be a skinny 11 year old, for instance

I just pointed out the clarification because, IME, most people under rate themselves in HERO Str. terms. Of course, the Strength chart is kinda wacked at lower levels anyway. I recently reevaluated my own write up when I deadlifted an upright piano to have someone slip blocks under it. And I'm no strongman, tho I should write myself with some weapon strength... I've yet to meet a firearm I can't control, and I used to fight with a greatsword/and or greataxe on a regular basis without having a 17-18 str.

I call myself a 13 with +5 points (Only for Str minimums)

And on the rcoil subtopic...

Modern guns are designed to counteract physical recoil... to a lesser or greater extent. To say that recoil is not a matter of strength, however, is to say that you've never fired a 1530's style wheelock pistol with a 120 grain powder charge. The only other thing that I've EVER fired that kicked like that was a sawed off pistol grip (and very illegal) side by side 12 gauge. Due to, in the first, early and crude firearms design, and in the second by deliberately altering the weapon to something it was not designed to be, both wound up kicking like mules, and pretty much had to be muscled down to hold them on target. But I do tend to agree that the STR minimums on modern arms are a bit high. If I were to play them as written, I'd probably cosider the OCV penalty associated with insufficent STR to reflect that its a bit harder for a weak shooter to keep a heavy firearm steady. My sister has this problem occasionally when we go to the range... if shes at all tired, her groupings with the .41 magnum start to drift.

Re: STR minimum question

Another footnote rule you may have missed when evaluating yourself is the fact that the lifting capacity listed on the strength chart is specfically supposed to be the amount you can just barely lift using your whole body and stagger a few steps with. You may rate a higher strength than you gave yourself if you were using your best benchpress or something similar. I had this problem initally as well when writing myself up.

Re: Sci-Fi Game or Porno Flick?

 

But hey, at least you got to game with a goth hottie in black leather.

And THAT my friends, is the reason WoD flourished

Re: Why does the USS Iowa only have a 10 Defense?

Geez' date=' an Alien infestation in the Cretaceous would make the Chtorran ecosystem look like a good thing...[/quote']

 

That is looking like a hell of an idea for a "Fix the past to save the future" time travel adventure...

Re: Why does the USS Iowa only have a 10 Defense?

But it would have such tiny little arms...

Yeah.... but think of a t-rex sized extensible tounge with its own set of subjaws and acidic spittle...

And I sure as hell wouldn't want to be spraying one with a MAC-11... the whole bloomin' landscape would melt

Re: Why does the USS Iowa only have a 10 Defense?

Okay, we have to revise our hunting strategies to account for an invisible jumping T-Rex.

 

My new plan: leave the continent, buy an old missile silo, hide.

 

So what would an invisible jumping T-Rex/Alien hybrid be like...

Remember the old model for Aliens, that had them taking half their DNA from the hosts? Leading to some neat action figures?

Aliens from t-rex hosts.... woof

Re: Character link to Base Computer

I second the mind link. It'd probably be radio based, but wouldn't HAVE to be... its all in the SFX. If you consider the MindLink to be in the Machine group, then your normal mentalists won't be affecting it.

Re: Why does the USS Iowa only have a 10 Defense?

Hmm.

 

11 body, 110 stun vs. 50% damage reduction and no resistant PD...

 

Would end up being 11 body (impairing the head) and 55 stun. Would stun him, the follow up shot (aiming for the chest) would take him down.

 

Heck, I'd be better set to do two chest shots (5 body, 44 stun each). It wouldn't be dying but my hit chance would be 14- on both shots and it would be down before it could cover the 60 yards.

 

I think I like the resistant defenses better. It would be more useful for holding off the little stuff.

 

Now the nightmare is for it to have both... and be a chameleon.

I've been following this with interest and amusement, thought I might chime in. When I used dinos in my JI campaign, I took the basic stock write ups, then tweaked them to reflect "target side" resistance to damage. 50% DR to reflect the massive bones, dermal muscle layer, and fat that would be associated with a critter that big (And to make them harder to STUN into oblivion). Depending on the dino (and Mr. Rex had this in spades, IIRC) I'd add sectional defences to represent things like the really thick skull. An idea I've used for this is to double up on the "activation" roll limits... One limit to reflect the sectional defences (limit by coverage) and then an activation roll, to reflect the varing thickness of the skull in different locations. Then add a custom limit... Activation roll decreases -1 fro each point attack roll is made by, or -1 for each skill level allocated to reduce activation. This is your deflection limitation. I made the extra armor with minimal Invisible power effects... unless you made an Int roll, with appropriate skill modifiers, it was not obvious if you actually penetrated the skull.

So when Mr. Great White Hunter went after a T-Rex the first time with his H&H .600 nitro express, he plugged it in the head and left a big crater where he hit. it fell down. While the player sat there going "a crater... a crater? why did it leave a crater? Wait just a goldarned second..." other members of the expidition ran up to check it out and realized, as it woke up, that the crater was from the exit wound as the round deflected off the skull, leaving a barely unconscious t-rex with a bad headache to wake up in a few seconds.

It was tense, it seemed "realistic" and it was horribly appropriate to the genre, and it let me kill off a veriety of the throwaway NPC's I had along for just such a purpose.

This deflection model can be used to good effect in other places as well, such as armored vehicles

Re: When to use larger than normal weapons

Hmm. What I'd heard from non-gaming sources was that the greatsword gained in popularity as armour got thicker - thick enough to withstand most weapons, so shields became less useful. So they started using two-handed weapons, because they needed them to be able to penetrate the armour on the other side.

 

Not true?

Somewhat true.

Part of the problem is that there are a LOT more "categories" of weapons then are modeled in most games, and a greatsword used by soliders in a light armor, polearm heavy environment are completly different than ones used by knights on foot fighting other heavily armored knights. Even then, the advantage of greatswords is more in reach and economy of motion than in actual penetration. Hafted weapons have always been the prefered fror punching heavy armor.. they are just plain better at it. I'll let the midevalists on the board take a shot at this one tho, as I am mostly familiar with millitary history in a period where pikes and guns have stared making armor and sheilds obsolete.