Rebar

A hex is 2m across. A hex is 2m from centre to centre. Sorry, what exactly is the discrepancy? Are you talking about calculating the area? well, everything in HG is rounded to easy-to-calculate numbers (people are 2m tall, weigh 100kg, semo-log scale of weight is rounded)

Ooh! This is good stuff!

Yeah, but it seems silly to have two ape-like species-with-mysterious-origins in the same campaign, yet have no connection between them. You'd never see that in a book - comic or otherwise. 1] Complete creative freedom for the PCs. I don't want to have to say 'Great idea. Now here's a clean sheet of paper, try again.' 2] I am still forming the campaign end-story. At first, it was enough to have them in episodic A-team like adventures, but any good story will still have a story-arc. Even if it's not revealed what the campaign end-game is, I have to start foreshadowing it. Yeah, but I still need to have a omniscient knowledge of what the connection is, even if it isn't revealed yet. Actually, I kind of like that. Between you and massey, you've given me an idea. The PC was their first attempt, but was too primitive. So they used a more modern hominid. Hm No, that won't work. They've appeared on the scene in the wrong order. They would have been cultivating/enslaving Homo N. for the last 10,000 years. Yet the Ra-chett is here in modern times. Hmm. Maybe Ra-chett has a whole people who were part of the first failed experiment 15,000 years ago, but one band of his people escaped extermination. They fled to the Amazon where they've hidden for 10,000 years. Doesn't explain his origin though. He's a human mind in an ape-body. Thinking... Yeah. But that means I can't even use the coolest aspect of the campaign as ready-made opponents. (Every town is going to have to have their own pot-stirring gangs. Which I guess is fine. Lots of short plots to have fun with.) It is actually a Pulp Campaign, yes. But the question I'm asking isn't genre-specific, and this way I have a broader pool of creative thinkers (not to mention a much more active forum).

RA-CHETT - DO NOT READ Help me find creative ways to resolve this. A creation story of one of my characters is a little TOO close to my campaign premise. As soon as I introduce some plot threads, it'll kind of blow wide open. This is a 1930's pulp adventure, travelling (nautical) circus theme. The thread that ties the characters together is the granddaughter of Madame Tassaud (of Wax Museum notoriety). She has a collection of weird things (skeletons, preserved monsters, cultural/religious talismans, etc.) from allover the globe. One of her primary specimens is one of the other PCs: an intelligent ape-like creature named Ra-chett (he's good with mechanics - get it?) His mind is, in reality, that of a WWI pilot who crashed in the Amazon (lots of proto-Nazis hanging out there, just sayin') and mysteriously woke up in the body of this ape-like creature. My story's premise involves Neanderthals still alive and well and living in the remote regions of the Earth, possibly enslaved by an ancient, highly-advanced race (not necessarily Nazis). My plan was to have the team travel down the coast of the Americas by steamship (eventually ending up in S. America and even further south), encountering new lands and people and getting involved in A-Team-esque adventures. While that's going on, I would weave in encounters with giant ape-like men (which they would eventually discover are Neanderthal), ultimately leading them to a shown down with the superior race. So, the problem is this: the moment they come face-to-face with the first N. in a battle, even if briefly, the focus of the campaign will shift to the obvious tie-ins between the PC and the N. I must determine ahead of time what these two ape-like critters have to do with each other. A unrelated coincidence would just be bad writing. I'm looking for inspiration on how I can have this PC in my game, and still give me enough room to play out my campaign plot over many episodes. Or involve him directly, but without every single episode being coloured with attempts to capture a N. and solve the primary mystery. See the problem? The plot is too important to the heroes to let it resolve at a campaign-spanning pace. We have only played a single game of the campaign so far (they got chased off the pier by tommy-gun-toting thugs), and Ra-chett wasn't present, so nothing is set in stone. I'm open to changing things: - PC could be a N. - PC could be a similar experiment (perhaps failed, perhaps successful) - of which N. is also a part, but not the same part - by the superior race - the superior race (*sigh* I can't get away without full disclosure) is Atlanteans (the land-dwelling kind, not necessarily the ones with flukes) there COULD be a tie-in to proto-Nazis but this is not essential.

Question: I know you've done this by the rules, I'm questioning the rules. Why is the 'unified power' lim allowed on a multipower? I thought the very definition of multipower is that the power are unified for no points.

I too have always set my campaigns in my home city. There's a touch of vividry that comes from battling Mechanon at the very intersection where you're actually stood. The way we deal with any discrepancies is to put the campaign set 10 years in the future. This kills two birds with one stone: 1] 95% of the city is familiar to all, but anything I want to change is simply something that's changed in the last 10 years of the campaign (still in our future). 2] It explains where all the extra tech came from that my games invariably have. There was (is) a technology revolution.

My thought is that, in a world where people are running around that can fire energy bolts from their hands, the fragility of ATMS is the LEAST of their problems. ALL forms of violence and crime would be scaled up by an order of magnitude. And that means crimes much more heinous than grand theft will be scaled up too. Frankly, the idea of a demigod deciding he wants a few grand in small bills is an artificial construct, made up by the genre, to keep things normal. If there were such a demigod for real, he would set his sights a LOT higher than cash. He'd take over the world. And therein lies the problem. The whole genre is highly contrived specifically so that we get serial, episodic action. The moment you pick at one thread of the artificiality, the whole thing will start to unravel. It can be fun picking (and modifying our games). But there's not much logic to it aside from the fun.

Teleport, alternate dimension, Usable as attack. Putting someone in such a loop is tantamount to isolating them completely from this universe. (We continue to move forward in time, they are marooned.) And I note that defining the properties of this alternate dimension is trivial. It is identical in all ways to our universe in terms of history and space-time dimensions (x,y,z,t), except that the extent of 't' has been shrunk to 24 hours. (Thus just like a spatial dimension, once you reach the end, you find yourself back at the beginning.) Dr. Who used this on an attacking war fleet in the only episode I ever saw.

Wow, is the judginess really necessary? This is the only board I've ever heard the expression used on. I thought it was endemic to this board.

I keep seeing this phrase. What does it mean?

It can be pretty useful to have everyone forget you. How about an INT Drain - only memories of character (-4?) area effect, megascale.

HG is effects-based. What effect do you want your rain to have on combat? L. Marcus has suggested a couple.

This applies in 5E as well. It might go all the way back to III (anyone remember III?).

Wouldn't exactly call it hidden. And it's not unique. You could say the same thing about a multipower. As you increase the slots beyond starting limits, you will have to put more points into the multipower itself to cover it.

For my pulp campaign I have implemented the 'one stat free' meta-rule. All characteristic maxima are lowered from 20 to to 15. Beyond 15, they cost double. BUT - each character gets one cha that they can raise up to 25 at normal cost. Now the brick is strongest but not the fastest. My knife-thrower doesn't have to have an arms-race with the brick to distinguish himself as highest DEX. And all without me having to disappoint the brick by having to tell him that his 18DEX is not very brick-like in a pulp campaign.

Cool idea. I've always liked the idea of XP for out-of-game things. Then again, maybe I like it more as a player than as a GM. Being the only artist in the group, I churn out all sorts of pics and strips and stuff. (Gotsta have something to do while I'm unconscious!) GM: "Hex map please. It's Phase 12!" Me: "I tune my Electro-VPP to a 60PD electro-force-field and electro-superleap 30" into the compound!" GM: "Great. at the top of your arc, you are hit with an 18D6 missile for. 63stun and 18body against your ED. You make a small crater when your unconscious body lands. You will regain consciousness ... mmm... tomorrow." Me: "I'll get my sketchpad." True story. I balanced my Force-field after that. Also, next time the GM said "This is a dangerous mission." I listened.

We had a character many years ago called Train. Powersuit with a locomotive's headlamp and a cowcatcher grill for a mask. He evolved over time (got less campy). We based v2 on one of the original cardboard miniatures. (Wish I could find that mini online. A power-suit in black, white and red with scoops over each shoulder and instead of gloves, he had mittens.) The scoops got larger - much larger. And he acquired a ridiculous amount of running - only on train tracks (-2). Had an awesome presence attack when he blew the train horn and charged.

Heh. That made me think of something unrelated. Ever want to see a real life demonstration of combat with all levels on DCV? Watch someone trying to kill a bee.

Doesn't Mental Defense have a minimum of 5CP? That way, you go from 0 to 9. But yes, for 0 points you get nothing. As soon as you buy the minimum (whatever that is), you also get your Ego/5.

"I kkhug him until he skktops." - Beartrap - Russian brick with one attack: Crush

Yep. SPD 4, so that it always always has a saved phase.

It occurs to me, it might works better the other way around. Consider the fly as default size, with the human as having 9 levels of growth. With its inches of flight not limited to <1"/segment, the fly's flight, combat pilot and acrobatics can come into play.

It'll have a +18 DCV for size alone. (1cm = 9 levels shrinking)

Oh, I've got a whole page of Pulp archetypes.

If you wanted to simulate different abilities associated with reach arm, it could be as simple as buying two multipowers, one for each arm. If your right arm has both the pistol and the smoke bombs, then they would be purchased in the same MP, so that only one could be used at a time.