AmadanNaBriona

Re: Cool Guns for your Games wow... just... wow

Re: December 27, 2004: The Day Earth Survived the Greatest Stellar Attack -Ever We can always count on you to point out these nice ravening beams of doom articles

Re: What Have You Watched Recently? At my GF's suggestion I started watching Jack of All Trades last night, slugging through the first 8 episodes. I LIKE it! Not really very surprising, all things being equal... Over the top Sam Rami swashbuckling Regency era action, what with Bruce Campbell in the title role (as well as the identity of the masked rebel The Daring Dragoon), and Verne "Mini-Me" Troyer as Napoleon. Oh, there's a fair bit of Steampunk influences as well, as his partner/boss (the pretty English spy) is established early on as an inventor.

Re: What Have You Watched Recently? In no particular order... Repo: The Genetic Opera: I can't believe I missed this one as long as I did. Added to my list of favorite dark musicals. Diary of the Dead: Romero takes his zombies back to zero hour. I was rather impressed. Day of the Dead (remake): *meh* I've seen worse zombie movies, but I've seen MUCH better. Still... Ving Rhames and zombie movies always go well together. 30 Days of Night: Not a half bad Vampire flick. Felt VERY White Wolf/VtM/Sabbat. At least they didn't even for a moment try and make the vamps sexy, which I deeply appreciated The Devil's Rejects: Good flick, tho I don't expect I'll be watching in again anytime real soon. Irreversable: Woah. That. Was. Pretty. Messed. Up. Technically very well done, but you'd best be able to stomach some amazing levels of brutality in your foreign arthouse movies

Re: Firearms in fantasy? I'm inclined to agree, although I can say that even being intimately familiar with firearms, the first time I was downrange from a coordinated barrage of cannon and shot there was a strong urge to grab some turf and get my head down... and that was firing blanks. The smoke aspect I've brought up on other threads before, as Minor(but accumulative) Side Effects... something around a -2 to Sight Perception and Range Modifiers in the adjoining hex, subject to wind and lasting about a turn. Multiple ranks firing in volleys can make a fairly dense smokescreen pretty quickly.

Re: Parkour At a base level, I agree with McCoy... Environmental Movement at a more advanced level I'd favor adding the "Usable as an Alternate Movement Power" advantage to your Running as a Naked Advantage, adding appropriately Modified Flight like PanPipers build above. Although I'd probably add RSR to the common build

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? due to a disk burn error I didn't discover until I was at work (called in to solo on a Sunday... Grrrrrrrr), I just listened to... Legal Assassin from Repo: The Genetic Opera on repeat for over an hour.

Re: Postapocalytpic Antarctica (Problems/Questions)? Very cool thread Vondy. One thing that popped into my head when reading your society notes... A lot of cultures with similar sexual divisions and strict "manhood" requirements would leave a loophole for failure other than death by allowing for some failures to become honorary women (possibly involving castration). Just a thought, besides, REH stories seemed to feature eunuchs fairly often...

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? "Zydrate Anatomy" -Repo, The Genetic Opera Soundtrack

Re: Firearms in fantasy? Ooooohhhh... it just hit me that adding the Opposing Skill Roll modifier to the RSR, with Magic Skill as the opposing the skill is a nasty simple way to do it, especially if the Major Side Effects are *BOOM*

Re: Firearms in fantasy? My FH setting features black powder & guns, but as some of my primary influences on the design were The Saga of Recluse and The Coldfire Trilogy, the main limit to firearms is magic. Guns and powder are hideously vulnerable to magic, which means that either the weapon and associated magazines, etc all have to be protected by some form of anti-magic, be it inherent Order-infused construction, magicked to be protected or simply protected by the abilities of the wielder. I adopted a form of the "water is inherently anti-magical" trope from both these series' to allow the same thing they did... tall ships with cannon. While the specifics are setting related, the point stands... Creating a spark is an apprentice trick to most magic systems, but enough flame to spark a candle can kill a whole unit of unprotected gunners if you catch 'em close enough to the powder magazine. Having to figure out how to protect your expensive weapons and/or troops is sort of vital to integrating them into any game also involving magic... Maybe THAT'S the lost secret of the ancients... how to make an anti-magical alloy to protect the weapons and flasks from interference. Could be a good reason for having them decorated six ways from Sunday too.... the ornate inlay is the anti-magic stuff

Re: Firearms in fantasy? A couple of nice visual references... The Rifle Shoppe Catalog Dave Luckhardt's site for The Earl of Stamford's Regiment of Foote (especially note the guns made by Dale Shinn.... he's one of the best in the biz)

Re: Firearms in fantasy? just an FYI, there aren't really any special tools needed to make simple smoothbore muzzleloaders. A foundry to cast the barrels, an auger to bore'em, a hacksaw and files are all you really need. (speaking from personal experience on this one)

Re: Firearms in fantasy? I know we've covered this in depth a few times before, but my search attempts have failed,so I'll summarize. Normally I'd load this with quotes, by I can't find my copy of Elizabethan Military Science, so I'm improvising based on memory. Some general notes that haven't been covered yet. While pistols and arquebuses (carbines) have been mentioned appropriately, it's worth noting that the next step in shoulder arms is the caliver, while a musket is properly more of a light support weapon (up till the early to mid 17th century, note the name, which follows the "birds of prey" naming conventions used in period artillery), fulfilling a similar role to a .50 anti-materiel rifle in modern terms. Muskets were too heavy to be properly shoulder-fired without a rest, and were fairly long ranged weapons... a common period method of testing them was to determine the range, in paces (one pace is about 1 m.), at which they would penetrate a "proofed" breastplate, then at which they would penetrate non-proofed harness, then at which they would penetrate unarmored flesh, thus establishing various range bands. Commanders each had their own ideas about what was the best mix of shoulder arms for a unit of shot, with arquebuses being favored for cavalry and skirmishers, while any of the three could be found among footmen. The extra range and stopping power of a musket was offset by the weight, bulk, and length (made 'em harder to reload without an assistant), reducing the ability of the gunner to wear armor and increasing the likelihood that the gun would be abandoned during a retreat. the various types of gunlocks should all have slightly different Limitations to reflect the quirks of the varying types. Note that early precursors to flintlocks were introduced almost a hundred years before the flintlock was refined and started edging out the competition.. no reason in a Fantasy world that Snaphaunces & doglocks couldn't have gained an earlier ascendancy. Rifling and double set triggers were both known in the 1500's as well, but were uncommon in fighting arms, but rather were the province of hunting guns... rifling in particular was un-fun under battlefield conditions, what with having to drive your ball down into the grooves with a rod & mallet. Another important thing to remember when constructing write-ups is that black power is fairly slow burning, and thus barrel length is possibly even more important to damage than it is in modern guns. I'd suggest choosing a starting DC value for a particular bore (caliber), then knocking it up +1 DC per "category". I give my guns a +1 Stun Mod to reflect the renowned (at the time) stopping power they had compared to arrows. I'm not sure if I prefer going with Semi-AP for pistols & arquebuses and AP for calivers & muskets, or building them with varying amounts of Piercing (perhaps limited so you get to use one point of Piercing per point you make your attack roll by, to represent the adding punch of a solid hit). Another thing mentioned frequently in period discussions is the benefits of shooting at point and blank range, not only for the accuracy, but the extra hitting power. With this in mind, I favor building them with extra DC's of damage with the Lim "Reduced by Range". Oh, and they should use Boostable Charges, and fairly nasty Side Effects. While Jammed would be appropriate, I tend to prefer Requires a Skill Roll, as the vast majority of catastrophic failures I've encountered have been operator error. Ack... out of time on my lunch break. I'm happy to field any questions later.

Re: Too Transform I'm in the opposite camp entirely, in that I quite like and enjoy the simple way Transform now handles things that used to require rather convoluted power builds. Although I do miss some of the original Champions III modifiers.

Re: Quote of the Week From My Life. Driving home from the holiday weekend, just after being paced by a SFPD patrol car. "Honey, would you PLEASE take your breast off the windshield!?"

Re: Dispel Undead My intent wasn't to replace the PRE attack mechanic, just the (IMO) not so well balanced PRE+40 "damaging" level. As for the cost, I'd probably make this a separate Talent like "Destroyer of the Unclean" on top of the basic Turning Talent, so not all priests can muster up the faith to actually banish the undead, but most can at the least repel them. I'm still heavily favoring adding a naked Does Knockback construct for the basic ability.

Re: Bag of Holding got him You're right, it's a very smooth build. It's using the same basic principle as the TARDIS build, which is exactly right.

Re: Dispel Undead this was bouncing around in my head and I realized that for the most part, in most of the games I've run, I've pretty much always considered Undead in my games to be effectively "Summoned" (in game terms) creatures, so they're valid targets for Dispel. Following that logic, linking in a Dispel Undead that uses the same roll as the Presence attack dice could work well. Lower level undead would crumble under the power much sooner than higher point level examples... hmmmm....

Re: A Thread for Random Videos indeed Although, being right in the immediate vicinity at the time, let me assure you that rolling an 18 on your Systems Operations : Trebuchet roll is hair raising to everyone in the immediate blast zone.

Re: What do you have in your coinpurse? I've always been fond of the idea of "bits" as PA small change, inspired by the scene in Blood of Heroes where villagers are buying their way into a party with various nuts, bolts, washers and other small but occasionally useful pieces of scrap

Re: Dispel Undead I've also been considering using Does Body. Meebee not strictly book legal, but it conveys the desired effect nicely. Another idea that crossed my mind was using a naked Does Knockback. maybe a tiered system? Does Knockback, requires PRE+10 Effect X1 1/2 Knockback, requires PRE+20 X2 Knockback, requires PRE+30 +Does Body, Requires PRE+40

Re: Ranged attacks while engaged in melee

Re: Ranged attacks while engaged in melee A couple of additional notes of interest (coming from someone else with a background in the appropriate real life skills, including sword-fighting, archery, and some mass combat) that might help dial in the realism... Concentration, as a standard limit on bows, doesn't just cult DCV in half, it also restricts ones actions to a degree and allows for "disrupting" the Concentrating Characters ability to use the Power. So the bowman is gonna be even more hosed than just taking the DCV penalty, which I see as totally apropos. And if his Concentration gets broken before his attack, the attack simply fails... no OCV penalty. Brutal enough? Another point I can't recall ever seeing mentioned in this sort of discussion is the size/length of a bow... By function you have to be holding this long stick interposed between you and your target. Any attack coming in from the "sides", the way most melee weapons swing, is going to stand a very good chance of hitting the bow by my eye. I figure this one's covered under the 'Real Weapon" limit, but am not quite sure how to apply it in play. Oh, and a reasonably sharp weapon catching a bowstring under tension is almost certainly gonna sever it, releasing the stored energy in a potentially ugly fashion.

Re: A Thread for Random Videos One of my old guildmates (who tried to learn to fly last weekend with the help of a trebuchet) posted this on Facebook, and I had to share... Ballad of the Monster Manual