AmadanNaBriona

Re: Cool Guns for your Games Speaking of cool homemade coil guns, check this out... http://www.walyou.com/blog/2009/05/09/coil-gun-diy/

Re: Steampunk weapon designs

Re: What do you really think of Champions Online? I'm not really qualified to say, because I decided not to play it. This was the first MMO that ALMOST broke through my "I ain't paying a fee to play a game I already bought" reluctance, then I read a few reviews and came to the conclusion that the above-mentioned problems, and more specifically the sub-par writing, wouldn't make it worth my filthy lucre.

Re: "Rolling a Critical" I've always found the stock HERO critical hit system mentioned above (Roll under half what you need to hit for maximum damage) to work well. If implemented, however, it does change the dynamics of a campaign. You begin to see attacks in terms of their maximum damage rather than their average damage, Crits come to represent more of a "really solid hit" rather than a "once-in-a-blue-moon spectacular lucky blow", there is far more decision making in the allocation of levels (because increasing OCV can also potentially increase damage), and the gap between Normal Damage and Killing Damage is fairly well closed (by allowing Normal attacks to break their otherwise quite restrictive bell curve and actually do max damage more than once in the life of a player). It's a very workable system once you get used to it... I've used both Crits and Hit Locations togetehr for quite a long time noppw, even in Supers games, and they do the job quite nicely. It's just another way to tune the system.

Re: A Thread for Random Musings The f#$%&ng Westboro Baptist Church just rolled into my town. I'm gonna try real hard to pretend I don't know they're here, lest I go do sumthing dumb.

Re: Herb that heals 'Impairing Effects' or 'Disabling Effects' You ain't whistlin' Dixie there. one of the things I kinda dug about Rolemaster was the amount of magic research the player had to perform to play an effective spellcaster.

Re: Lockheed Martin HULC Exoskeleton go ahead and rub it in. Yeah, The MARS and Sci teams get all the cools toys. Us poor Recon schlubs get stuck with a Commando Scout. Which is pretty sweet, anyway.

Re: Orion Drive space battleship There is also a variation of the theme floating around that uses an underground detonation to contain and focus the initial launch blast. I stumbled across it a couple months back while researching how the "casaba howitzer" works. I'll see if I can dig up a link later when I don't have to run to work.

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Things You See In A Graveyard- Repo! The Genetic Opera soundtrack

Re: Your Top Ten Science Fiction Writers, and then some. Heh... OK, so actually someone else mentioned Perry first I re-iterate... It's a great setting for a heavy martial arts oriented game.

Re: Your Top Ten Science Fiction Writers, and then some. As far as authors I've mined for Star Hero ideas, three not yet mentioned leap to mind Steve Perry, the Matador series, which was the foundation for my old game setting Mike Resnick, whose Inner Frontier just BEGS for a good game. How much is a verse in Black Orpheus' Ballad worth as a Reputation? and Julian May, who does psi's like no other

Re: Musings on Random Musings

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Ski Patrol- Bob Gibson

Re: How do you build a vampire template in 6E? To add to the thought mix... OK, so you can't transform something dead into something living.... But most Vampire builds include Regeneration with the Resurrection Adder. So Transform the Dead Human into a Dead Vampire and let it's own Regen bring the new Vamp back

Re: Orion Drive space battleship nice find! I still prefer the design for Michael, but Orion ship in general are groovy

Re: 10 Sci-Fi Weapons That Actually Exist I like the ramjet bullet idea for SF tech... even if it needs an onboard source of energy, 90% of all technological advances are improving on existing tech by discovering new materials & applications. I could see something at the core of the bullet that heats the airflow at the compression point. This may simply be a case of not throwing out the baby with the bathwater, taking the description at face value rather than adapting it to fit physics. Which brings up my next subject... For a while now, I've been wanting to talk about Plasma Weapons. Yeah, I know... a bunch of sites debunk the idea... sort of. They take the cinematic/dramatic depictions (low temp, slow moving, etc) and proclaim NO. I consider this similar to saying revolvers can't exist because in old Westerns they shoot through long firefights without needing to reload. I've seen passing mention, at a couple of points in the various de-bunking sites, that SOME sort of vaguely plasma-ish directed energy weapon might be possible, but would be more like a particle gun. I'm good with that. AFAIK (or U), the problem with the classic depiction of a Plasma Gun is that low density gasses like hydrogen, squeezed in a magnetic bottle, superheated, and released will disperse rapidly at the aperture when it opens. Somewhere between a steam hose and an explosion. That being said I can think of at least two real world examples where high energy high density plasma is directed to destructive potential (at least in theory). One is the Casaba Howitzer and other "Directed nuclear weapons" (frex, the Hellbores in the Bolo series). The main example my brain keeps booting up, tho, are shaped charges, such as the ubiquitous IED... the angular blast wave and the shape of the explosives and the copper/metal dish compress and focus the energy of the blast, turning said dish into a lance of superheated high pressure high impulse vaporized metal. So, if the tech level allows for the containment and power supply, why couldn't they do something similar? You'd need cartridges like Drake's Powerguns, or some sort of feeder rod (wire feed plasma guns!), but I don't see why it frankly can't work. Wouldn't look much like most depictions of plasma weapons (except possibly Sgt. Schlock's), being more of a ravening beam of death rather than a explosive "packet", but hey... that's good too Oh, yeah... Steve Perry, in one of his later Matador books, used the more typical hydrogen plasma as the propellant for a projectile rather than the projectile itself. I think the aforementioned DD has something similar (firing osmium penetrators if memory serves) as well. Could be really nasty.

Re: Was Tony Stark's player a bonehead? I recall an issue of The Avengers back in the 70's where Shellhead got one punched by some Atlantean warlord who ripped the power supply out of the armor on his first shot. Ironman spent the rest of the fight immobile. No real point, just sayin'

Re: Musings on Random Musings

Re: Was Tony Stark's player a bonehead? Bonehead? Maybe. Powergamer? Oh, yeah. OIF on everything. End Reserve on a SEPARATE Focus. Crippling Physical problems mitigated by his Focii. Which is more likely than not also a Dependence and possibly Side Effects on his End Reserve. Most likely a Gageteering/Tinkering with the suit VPP and quite possibly a Multiform for different suits. Bet he originally tried to sell the GM on letting him build the suit using the Vehicle rules. So he could Summon them. From his OAF Briefcase.

Re: What Have You Watched Recently? It's got some catchy tunes in it, tho.... rewatched both Heavy Metal and Wizards last night. I'd forgotten how Sean, the Mountain Faerie Lord, just punks Avatar in midconjuration. All in all, some enjoyable High Post Apocalypse animation

Re: Charging points for tech gear? In my campaign I used "Resources" as a perk, but rather than using the Resource Pool rules I just considered it to be essentially a limited form of Wealth. In general I find that charging points for gear in SF games doesn't really support the genre feel very well.

Re: Firearms in fantasy? Indeed. I've always liked Perrin's original suggestion, and I had a house ruled Advantage similar to this in my Star HERO campaign (although that removed DEF until repaired rather than providing just extra penetration). It's a workable variant, but as written it's probably only worth +1/4 per level to get something closer to balanced values

Re: Firearms in fantasy? hmmm, looks like a variant on the variant AP suggestion Steve Perrin made back in AC#20, except totally nerfed. Note that, while it won't matter for free gear, I suggest that NO ONE will pay the points for a +1/2 Advantage that removes an average of 1 DEF per 3 DC's worth of KA. That's what... 3 or 5 points worth of Piercing?

Re: "Needler" -- sci fi projectile weapon Slick build there, Sean The HERO is strong in this one.

Re: A couple of brain cells connected... Which is why they use so many interesting herbs...