Aroooo
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Posts posted by Aroooo
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Small Update
I've added the Drazi Fighter, and the Tonka Construction Fury to the ships list.
Aroooo
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Originally posted by Citizen Keen
Arooo-
Your site made me order the Babylon 5 season 1. Never seen the show, but it seems like an interesting conversion. Yea for NetFlix!
Wow! I'm flattered.
Aroooo
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Web Site Update
I've posted an update to the B5 site:
Activated the link to the Psionics Section! (Still need to work on the latent telepath section though.)
Added the Asimov Luxury Liner.
Updated the Icarus and Skylark writeups with some missing skills/programs/systems. Updated the rest of the ships (nothing new, just sorted the skills and program listings.)
I want to finish up the fighters section with the Drazi fighter (I'll leave the fighters of the Older Races for much later), then its off to the capital ships!
Aroooo
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Re: Re: Re: psionics update
Originally posted by Syberdwarf2Is that "Woring" with a "k" or with a "h"?
Its with a "k" - I don't think my wife would like the "h" variety
Aroooo
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Ah, APOD = good. And remember, thats just a SMALL portion of the night sky...
Aroooo
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my 2 cents
As a few others have mentioned, I'd like to see a) at least an index of all the Advantages and Limitations, or better,
all the Advantages and Limitations written in the Advantages or Limitations chapters. I find it very confusing now that these are scattered through out the book now. But I realize thats a lot to ask on just a reprint, so a sidebar listing in the advantages and limitations chapters with page numbers shoud not be too hard to add.
Aroooo
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Use the Extra Time limitation, and define the f/x of the extra time as a cool down time. I've seen plenty of Hero examples in SH and TUV that do this very thing.
Aroooo
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My take would be that Stealth allows you to be quiet while walking over stuff other than a carpeted floor in soft shoes. Think about sneaking up on someone in a forest in the fall with all those leaves on the ground. Or cowboys who always seem to be stealthy walking in boots on creaky wooden floors. Stealth also covers the ability to hide in cover - although there is another area of overlap (with Concealment) - or maybe its interpreted as using common objects like crowds or dress racks for cover.
Personally, we just use the mods for Stealth, and limit the 'walking quietly' mod to at most -1 (okay, -2 if you are in soft shoes on carpet
).Aroooo
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Steve,
While reading the latest FAQ, there is a question about purchasing the Psychic Bond adder multiple times to cover multiple links. My question is, do you have to purchase the Psychic Bond multiple times if you've purchased the multiple links adder? Say I purchase Mind Link (5 pts), usable with 4 minds simultaneously (+10 pts). Do I only need one 5 pt Psychic Bond to cover all 4, or do I need to purchase it 4 times (+20 pts)?
As always, thanks!
Aroooo
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Re: Psi-Ratings
Originally posted by KawangaKidInteresting that the Security Manual says that they don't pull you into Psi Corps unless you're a P5. Wasn't Ivanova concerned that she'd be pulled into the Psi Corps even though she "didn't even rate a P1"?
The Security manual is not the most accurate source out there, which is why I actually listed the source for that scale. The scale is pretty accurate, but I have my doubts about the validity of all the details, especially the lower end (P1-P4). But it was the best source I had at the time. I'm still looking for better.
However, if it is fairly accurate, we can rationalize it like this: Ivanova was probably more concerned than most because her monther was a telepath. Even though Susan was not very strong, she had the gene. We've seen how Psi Corps loves to play with the gene pool.
Aroooo
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psionics update
While I'm still woring on the latent telepath section, I've done some semi-major updates to the psionics section:
http://www.aroooo.com/rpg_stuff/b5/psionics.php
I've taken the general advice and ditched the talent for the Centauri Death Dream. I've also added a section to the Centauri covering the Emperor's telepaths, as well as other changes here and there. Let me know what you think.
Aroooo
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Originally posted by Mastermind
Just recently acquired a copy of STAR HERO and am blown away, like I usually am with most HERO system products. I really like what you are beginning to do with the B5-Hero project.
I like the P, rating scale...so what are your limits for powers in the 75 + 75 scale?
Thanks for the nice words!
As for your actual question, I'm not sure I follow. Can you expand on it more?
As for point levels, we've been playtesting 150 point and 200 point character builds. Like most heroic level games, 150 seems to work well for most characters. We upped the points to 200 to make a) some more experienced characters; and
some psi characters. For psi's their actual powers (strength thereof) are limited by the multipower pool - i.e. 50 active points for a P5 rated commercial telepath. The P rating is what B5 Earth Alliance Psi Corps used as a measuring stick. I just tried to put a resonable point value to their scale. So far it seems ballanced enough, but to be honest we have not done extensive psi playtesting. I'm hoping for folks on the boards to give me some independent feedback on that. If that did not cover your question, please post a follow up.
Aroooo
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Originally posted by Geoff Speare
If it's a property of the campaign world (i.e., all deep scans cause it), I'd write it up as an external effect -- the character doesn't pay or receive points for it. Since it has bad (you can hurt or kill someone) and good (you can hurt or kill someone) effects, that seems fair.
The writeup could also include means for bypassing it (don't know B5 well enough to know if skilled and/or powerful mentalists can get past this side effect).
So far I like this reasoning the best. Keeps is simple, and the costs down. Have to think this out further and post more soon.
Aroooo
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Originally posted by Gary
Just have a campaign rule that all telepaths must buy a -1/2 Side Effects limitation. That's enough for 1.5D6 ego blast does body. And Side Effects don't allow mental defense to protect.
I thought about making it a Side Effect, but those are usually applied to the caster of the power, not the recipient, correct? So, I thought it would be against the rules to have a Side Effect on Deep Scans, causes x damage to target if y effect is achieved. Which is how I originally wanted to do it till I re-read the Side Effect limitation. I've also thought about using Damage Shield on Deep Scans if y effect is achieved, but haven't played with DS's in 5th ed. yet.
Aroooo
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Re: A few notes for clarification and an opinion.
Originally posted by nolgrothDoes the P level have an impact on the size of the multipower pool? I noticed that your sample P5 has a 50 point pool. That's one hell of a pool size for a Heroic (I presume) game. Does that mean that a P12 will have 120 point pool?
What about how Bester "programmed" Garibaldi in the later part of the show.? My opinion is Mind Control with Gradual Effect and/or Trigger added. Maybe you or somebody else has a better way.
The Centauri Death Dream seems like it would do nothing other than drive the plot, so I wonder what the use of making it a Talent or Disadvantage is. I think that I would make it a freebie since it is an insignificant ability.
Besides those rather unimportant quibbles, it looks like your Psi rules are quite usable. Overall I think you have done a great job with the site.
Thanks for the feedback.
First, the pool value is 10 x P rating. I think I made sure that was in there. I'll double check that. Honestly, I'm not sure if 10x is too high or not. I first played around with 5x, but that seemed too low. We're still playtesting that in our group. Hopefully others will be able to give some playtest feedback. But so far it has not been too bad. I've tested a P5 commercial telepath, and it seems to fall in line with how things worked on the show. Oh, and yes, presumably its a Heroic level game (75+75 points - but we're still playing with those numebrs too).
Bester's reprogramming I would work as a Major Transform -> 'normal' Garibaldi into 'messed up' Garibaldi. But thats just how I would do it.
As for the Death Dream, it started out as just a disad - I was looking at it from the point that the player would start the game having had it already. If you knew how you were going to die, wouldn't that mess you up? But then one of my players asked some valid questions, so I made it an option. But you're right, 10 points for a Talent that is mainly story line is too high. Maybe 3 points? After all, it does convey some glimps of the future for you. And, like my example, if you know you are going to die a peaceful death, wouldn't you be more gung-ho? If you wanted to treat it like a Talent, how about a sliding scale?
1 point = quiet death
2 points = not quiet death, not related to GM plots
3 = violent death, not related
4 = violent death, related to GM plots
Aroooo
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I need some second opinions. For my B5 writeups, I'm trying to figure out a way, either as a power advantage or maybe a linked power, to simulate deep scans causing pain from prolonged exposure to the scan or from probing too far.
I'm currently leaning to just calling it special effect and leave it at that, but there have been cases where subjects have died from deep scans. (Okay, they were NPCs
) So, anyone care to share opinions?
Thanks,
Aroooo
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Psionics Update
While I have not gotten any comments from the board members yet (hint hint
), my gaming group has reviewed, so I present an update:http://www.aroooo.com/rpg_stuff/b5/psionics.php
I've also added notes on telekinesis, and telepathy for the other major races.
As always, thanks!
Aroooo
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Psionics review
I've posted the telepath/psionics guidelines to my B5 site for review:
http://www.aroooo.com/rpg_stuff/b5/psionics.php
I have not made any of the links to this page live yet. I'd like interested folks to review over the next day or so, and let me know what you think.
Aroooo
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Update
I've added the Thunderbolt Starfury to the ships list, as well as posted a minor update to the Icarus (I forgot to adjust the END reserve from the duplicated template).
Aroooo
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Originally posted by Wyrm Ouroboros
Having read the Jump Gate rules, I think I might suggest something different. Jump gates each open to a specific location in Hyperspace; one navigates from beacon to beacon in hyperspace, until one reaches a 'jumpgate-interrogator' beacon. Pinging the beacon requests/makes the jumpgate in 'realspace' open up, and you slide into realspace.
I would, therefore, remove the 'megascale on ship's flight' (you can, after all, have fighter battles within jumpspace), as well as removing the 'Any Location in Hyperspace'. You have to travel from beacon to beacon, point to point (and can get lost!!), can get attacked, etc. etc. It's just that the distances travelled in hyperspace correspond to much larger distances in realspace. Instead of giving this 'power' to a gate or whatnot, it instead becomes a property of the dimension into which they're travelling.
Also, I suspect that these distances aren't always the same, nor is the equivalency constant. What I mean by that is that the 'realspace/hyperspace' ratio might be 50:1 from Earth to B5, but it might be 55:1 from Narn to B5, and 45:1 from Centauri to Narn. Earth to B5 might also vary, ranging from 48:1 to 53:1 -- you can never be quite certain. Undoubtedly the beacons have some way of checking their 'real' location and adjusting themselves for appropriate stationkeeping...
Good points, and many I'm aware of. Here's some of my reasoning (many of which I think are in earlier parts of this thread - or was that the old/temp boards?):
Why the megascale flight? I agree with you on this, but after talking with Steve and others about the nature of Extra-Dimensional Movement (especially the part that when you exit the other dimension, you return to the point you started from), I put it in to represent what 'happens' to a ship in hyperspace; i.e. the ship appears to travel faster than light, although it really does not. Since I didn't want to impose a house-rule sort of thing on GMs (giving the players/universe something for free), I put the megascale in there to cover all bases. From the character's perspective their ships travel at their standard movements in hyperspace, fight each other, etc. If your group is okay with the understanding of how the EDM works, feel free to remove the megascale flight.
Jump Gate openings... Yes, they open to one specific location in hyperspace. I'm not sure why I put ...Any location... in there, unless I was thinking about ship's engines at that instance. But it probably relates to the ability to leave the extra-dimension at any location (see EDM note above). Essentially you enter hyperspace at one location, but can exit from any location - another Gate or via your own jump engines.
As for travelling along beacon paths, you don't have to. Its the safe thing to do, and for ships without jump engines its really the only thing they can do. But ships with their own jump engines can exit where they want. Another thing to keep in mind is that each jump gate only has beacon pairs with a few other gates, not every other gate. If memory serves, the civilian jump route from Earth to B5 was through 3 or 4 gates. I think the military could do it in 2 (there was no direct beacon pair between B5 and Earth, although they are working on one).
Distance. Yup, not the same. Several B5 publications make that same point that the distances/scale/ratio in hyperspace to real space is not constant. About the only constant is that commercial gates are put at roughly 48 hours travel time apart to minimize the risks of commercial ships getting lost. I leave the rest of the space/time issues up to the various GMs as plot devices.
The Cham. Eclectic RPG had a pretty decent write up on Jump Gates. The B5 Tech site (http://www.b5tech.com/misctech/jumpgates/jumpgates.html) also does a good job of it.
So, after all that (I'm usually not this long winded), I'll leave the megascale in (GMs are free to remove it if their players are cool with the inherant nature of the hyperspace EDM), but I will double check to make sure why I have ...Any Location... in there.
Aroooo
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Big Update
I've just posted a big update to my B5 site. Updates include major revisions to the existing ships. I've completed my armor and flight speed charts for the rest of the ships, hence the update. I've also added the Icarus Class/Type Scout ship - sure to be a prime candidate for the player character ship. Based on ship speed increases, I've also adjusted the numbers on the Jump Gate write up, but the mechanics remain the same.
Aroooo
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Originally posted by TaxiMan
Why can't legions of fighters coordinate their attacks? Doesn't that increase their chance to hit and damage? Seems appropriate too.
Thats a really good idea, except Coordinated Attacks normally only add Stun damage that gets through defenses. How would you work it so it applied vs. the Body before defenses?
I'm also still thinking about the Find Weakness idea...
Keep those ideas coming.
Aroooo
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Hit locations... See, that never even occured to me (although we are planning on using them).
Do the Body multiples on hit location tables adjust the 'max damage' for ablative calulations? If so, then that probably solves the issue right there.
I'll have to look Damage Reduction over again. Was not thinking of using it for ships, but it might give me the results I'm after...
Thanks!
Aroooo
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I don't have my book now, but I'd probably do it as some form of Major Transformation - dead ground/flaura into fertile gound type effect. The SFX could be some form of accelerated plant growth. With only 20 points, the elf will be working at it for a while, but penance is penance
Change Environment might work too, but if penance is part of the justification, make it expensive.
Aroooo
all the Advantages and Limitations written in the Advantages or Limitations chapters. I find it very confusing now that these are scattered through out the book now.
Trek Hero PDF available
in Star Hero
Posted
Keep in mind though that a 5d6 Continuous attack can only get you a max of 30 points of effect. The Normal Char. Max for Stun is 50, so you may want to add a 2x total modifier (+1/4 I think) to the Continuous. That would give you 60 points of Stun damage - more that enough to stun the average humanoid.
Aroooo