AmadanNaBriona

Re: Musings on Random Musings Yeah, it was a pretty decent time. Generally that was a good Vegas trip, tho it kinda sucked when our GF's got us kicked out of the strip club...

Re: Chess Grandmaster - KS, PS, or something else? Thx ,K I get to be The American "It's the Philippines, or Hastings, or, or... this place."

Re: The great debate, this time with Java! Funny... I suggested a similar thing during an earlier iteration of this debate a while back. As I said then...I don't see the problem being with KA's for being too variable... I see the problem with Normal Attacks because there are too many dice...it tends to average out the bell curve and remove most of the potential high and low rolls, making them far too predictable

Re: Chess Grandmaster - KS, PS, or something else? Yeah, seriously. I gave my Gadgeteer KS:Chess at the 3 point INT based level (Reduced due to Scholar) and wound up as a pretty effective Grandmaster:a 23 INT, 2 Overall levels, 2 INT based skills levels, Tactics at 16-, Analyze Tactics at 13-, and SS: Psychology at 13-. whats that? A 17- plus Complimentary skill rolls? Of course, I had all the other skills anyway... if I rewrite him for 5th edition I might add a Grandmaster Perk just for fun But yeah, them Batman superskill types can become hideously effective quick, without a lot of points invested. That's a groovy Talent/Superskill right there. For this and your other post, consider yourself repped.

Re: Creating a Shield I read an interesting bit of research about the "proper" construction of a Jacobite style Highland Targe. 2 layers of ship lapped bog oak planks glue laminated at crossgrains, with a bull or ox rawhide facing shrunk fit and a final layer of oiled leather as the replaceable "skin" and waterproofing. Supposedly the elaborate patterns of metal studs were additional reinforcements to anchor the layers together. A targe built to these specs was able to fairly reliably stop a .70 musket ball at 30 paces. Makes the Scots Charge tactic seem a bit more viable if you know that your shield is bulletproof (-ish, at least). I'd be inclined to treat an edge strike as a Reduced Pen, Extra StunX KA slot, especially for a metal banded edge. Done well, an edge strike is at least as focussed as a mace.

Re: Homo Sapiens and their guns Yeah, he's a pretty good excuse how Hudson City can exist in the CU without any real supers getting near the place. He's potentially a one man WMD all by his lonesome, and the world conquering types don't want to risk getting unceremoniously executed by a sudden double-tap to the eyeballs. It'd be bad for their rep, even if they somehow manage to come back from the dead

Re: Homo Sapiens and their guns you know, I just picked up Hudson City, and thus have gotten a chance to look at the 5th edition write up for Harby. I'm pretty sure he could take both Dr. D and Taky in a single post 12 if they were using full DC rules and neither happened to have his VPP's set to "Defend against Madman with a gun"

Re: Musings on Random Musings

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Come By the Hills-Noel McLoughlin I'm really liking this guy. he's got an amazing voice

Re: Musings on Random Musings Alright, enough of that! You're all grounded

Re: A Thread for Random Musings Apparently I have some kind of magnetic attraction related to 9-11 year olds, especially girls. I've acquired a fan club among the cast of my show (Stuart Little) which is an outreach show working with the local elementary school system. There's around a dozen or so who are constantly asking me if there is anything they can do to help, and try and find excuses to stick around and help. They're really cool kids. I'm gonna see about recruiting them for our main theater, because we always need cast & crew who are that psyched. In totally unrelated news, Black-freaking-47 are headlining at the Sonora Celtic faire. ahem.... let me rephrase that WOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!! BLACK 47's gonna be at Faire!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! *appropriate incoherent screaming fanboy noises and running in circles* Ok...I'm better now.

Re: Cool Guns for your Games I was fond of that phrase even before Snowcrash came out, but I'm an old school cannon geek

Re: how do you deal with guns and superheroes in your campaign No, that was Kennedy. Being an assistant manager at a game store and/or leader of a Ren Faire actors guild and/or running my own clothing business gave me ample personal power to attract Lewinsky quality partners.

Re: Cool Guns for your Games And here I thought the American Derringer Co. 45-70 derringer was crazy...

Re: Homo Sapiens and their guns These days the "Spandex" is the same stretchy material that the Olympic Skiing team suits are made of, that undergoes a state change on impact and diffuses the energy of a blow, with a woven carbon nano-fiber outer shell. In the 70's bulletproof spandex was a silly hedge. Today, it's more or less a reality...they just have to improve the manufacturing processes to make the fullerene fabric.

Re: how do you deal with guns and superheroes in your campaign Yeah, I've become fond of using the Real Weapon/Real Armor limitations to reflect some of the more Super genre tropes without, for my taste, unduly gimping the more competent normal members of our society. And even I question the SpecForces Package Deals in Dark Champions. When you can't build a Green Beret on less than 250 odd points, JUST to get the packages, something seems a bit funny.

Re: how do you deal with guns and superheroes in your campaign I'll be the first to agree that the system is flexible enough to handle either approach, depending on how you massage the system, but as I've mentioned when the idea has come up before, I tend towards a broader interpretation and like to work from benchmarks. This is HERO, after all...there is no "right" way to do anything. Back in my college Archery days, just before I stopped getting credits for it (You could only take the class 6 times for credit), I used to occasionally impress the natives by sending a full flight into the target in essentially one continuous ongoing action. Not much extra time taken to aim, because I would do it blindfolded. Still usually put all 6 in the center ring. Most went THROUGH the prick (Proper name for the straw bale backing), because I was overdrawing my wimpy little 40 pound bow by a couple of inches. Sheer muscle memory, for the most part. It could be modeled with a bunch of 2 point levels, or a Power Skill :Archery Tricks, or PSL's, or.... My friend Jim (Used to shoot in archery competitions at Faire as James the Cabinetmaker) could out shoot me every day of his life I'd be happy to consider myself a 25+25 character with a fair bit of XP, but to be perfectly honest I've got more Disads than that

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? I'd forgotten about that song! Thanks for reminding me.

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? In order... The Firefly Main Theme Cold War -Styx All For Me Grog -The Black Irish Band Tonight is What It Means to be Young -Fire, Inc., Streets of Fire Soundtrack

Re: how do you deal with guns and superheroes in your campaign I kinda miss having my own Henchmen tho, and I think I could make a religion more fun than most out there. Vaguely funny true story... I was once investigated because someone in authority was suspicious that the Renfaire guild I used to run might have been a Militia. Too many competent recruits with a few too many skeletons in their respective closets.

Re: Are Heroic Characteristics Realistic? I remember hanging out at Dundracon WAY back in the dawn of time with some of the SCAdians who were doing demo's there. One of the fighters who had dated my G/F of the time (He later went on to become King of the West multiple times) decided (after a few shots) to show off by sliding under her van, grabbing the axle, and bench pressing it ten times. Rather arrogant guy, even back then, but yeah...he was damn strong.

Re: how do you deal with guns and superheroes in your campaign Damn Skippy! I'm gonna resist the urge to REALLY list my skill sets, because it'd track like bragging... but suffice to say I seem to have a natural talent for anything relating to violence, and I'm a total knowledge sponge. Somewhere way back in childhood I heard the term Jack of All Trades and decided that was what I wanted to be when I grew up. Added to that...I started gaming and decided that I wanted to learn how to do the cool stuff my characters could do. Many years of martial arts, archery, sword fighting, shooting, contact sports and the occasional foray into pyrotechnics followed. I also absorbed my Dad's survivalist tendencies. To top it off, I'm obsessed with history, psychology, and metaphysics I'd be a great Post Apocalyptic Warlord or Time Traveler. Neither of which is a very bankable skill set these days. All the fuss about Scientology lately has reminded me that maybe I should reconsider starting my own religion.

Re: how do you deal with guns and superheroes in your campaign Well said. To be fair, I might go so far as to say that we Competent Normal types tend to gravitate together, because the "I barely made it out of high school, work at McDonalds, and spend all my spare time gaming, smoking weed and playing X-Box" types are profoundly boring to be around if you're Competent in the ways our groups of friends both seem to be.

Re: Jugger Hero (Blood of Heroes) IIRC, besides the quick the other positions are Slash, Backdrive and Guard. I don't remember them mentioning another... I think each team has 2 Slashes. I spent a couple of years (back when I was hosting my annual Post Apoc parties and playing uber-violent Gaelic field sports) trying to figure out the rules so we could start up our own league of the Game. Making armor out of steel belted radials, BTW, is a tin plated bitch kitty.

Re: What Have You Watched Recently?