Rebar

Awesome! Where do I sign up??

If you don't mind 2-D and a little work, I've always found this site useful.

 

http://makezine.com/2009/06/26/how-to-shrinky-dink-gaming-minis/

 

Creating custom stand-up miniatures using shrink film and binder clips.

What is the purpose of shrinking them? Why not just print them smaller? Then you don't have to fuss with any shrink film.

Is it just because it gains you a 50% greater resolution in the image?

(I mean, it's MakeZine, so the only reason needed is CUZ I CAN!! But still...)

Take the above figure, rebase it on a circular 25mm base, Paint the legs Black and the jacket and hat the correct color for the PC. Then you are done. Repainting and otherwise Modding Hero Clix is an awesome thing.

Yeah. I can always add the jodhpur's "wings" with a touch of epoxy and a coat of paint. But if I can Frankenstein two minis together it's faster and leads to better results.

Excellent! I found Zatanna (via this thread about Heroclix minis with top hats! http://www.hcrealms.com/forum/showthread.php?t=475842) but they were all of her in bikinis. I'm trying to break from RPG canon and have our token female character NOT be the most naked one in the group.

This is great. Thanks!

And since you're so great at this, do you know any Heroclix that wear jodhpurs?

Funny stumbling across this thread. Just on Friday, after asking around, I located the best shop in Toronto for Heroclix. Went there at 9PM and bought a bunch for my new campaign.

Not only will I take them off the bases, but I kit bash them to get what I want. ($4 for a tophat from one mini? Sure! Nice cape! $5? OK. )

I'm going to follow up on all these links.

The one mini I haven't been able to mimic is the character that looks like this (riding jacket, top hat, jodhpurs) but female (so, if one come to mind, I'd be eternally grateful):

Per as its own CHA makes sense to me.

I'm writing up a couple of devices and i'm running into a problem I often encounter. How do you define a weapon that does several things, some of which aren't even powers?

Consider: a peugh (the thing fishers use to fling fish around - anyone with a better name, please speak up)

- it's a club

- it's a stabber

- it's a throwable spear

- it is 5 feet long

- it can hook, grab and trip someone

(actually, peughs don't have a harpoon-like hook, but I like the idea, so I'm adding it)

So, do you throw HA/HKA/RKA/AP/stretching into a combo power? Multipower? How do you handle the martial skills? Can you buy martial grab as a power? Or is it already accounted for by normal grab with stretching? OK, but then you can follow with a throw/trip...

How about a net?

- it's a strike

- entangle

- stretching

etc.

To be clear, I know how to buy the individual powers to make an individual attack - but how do you package the powers, skills and maneuvers into a piece of equipment that can be given to a character?

And, though martial arts can be bought with the 'weapon' element, can it work the other way round? Can a weapon  element give someone a martial maneuver?

At the power level of my campaign (where bad guys are just thugs, they might have an 11DEX) a net or harpoon built this way can give a significant boost to their lethality, so counting up these little details (like martial throw at range) tends to be worth it to build it out.

Actually, this is something I was considering making for Hero Games (well, for any system really), just a book of mechanical puzzles, each ready to be inserted into a game. (with some to no assembly required)

My approach is pretty much the same as this, I know what I am like as a player, especially for thinking no where near the box (depends on my character of course) and looking for unusual ways to do things.

 

I also take in to account that as GMs and players differ in their intellect/cunning that the characters they represent I feel I have to make allowance for this when I GM - if the villian is a super-scientist with high IQ, then there is plenty of things that he will think of that I (as humble average-IQ none-sciency-type) will not be able to think of. The question then comes down to how clever are the PCs by comparison.

 

This has to be 'by ear' as the players think of things to do, could/would the villian have thought of this - even if I did not - then act accordingly.

Nothing like a GM who looooooooooves inventing puzzles matched with a group of players who hate solving puzzles.

I That GM spent far more time crafting the props than writing the adventures. One of my his favorites was a hand-sized cardstock, spaghetti, glue and paint gold medallion with 7 concentric rotating rings, each covered in indecipherable markings. If the players found the appropriate shaped key-piece, the rings would line up and reveal a map to the treasure. The real genius was in beveling the rings so that the entire thing held together while still allowing independent rotation of all the rings.

Or so I'm told.

I kinda like the idea of a natural underground spring with healing powers. I'll make its potency dependent on location, so the town benefits but the heroes don't get any funny ideas about filling 50 gallon drums...

But I wonder how to get some of it into one of the heroes for some cool (though possibly temporary) effects. They won't  discover the caves until ep 3 - too late for healing effect to be a clue.

And I haven't yet thought of a way they'd encounter it at their big top circus set up.

Maybe an attack of biting cave bats, disturbed into swarming by the tent posts they'd been pounding into the ground? (kinda bad for the town's future business op - and a bit contrived)

Maybe they hit a small spring? (Nah, don't want to play the underground labrynth card too early)

Fall down a hole into a pool? (Nah, same thing).

I can't have one of the villains just hand them a vial of it. (1] It won't keep its potency, and 2] they won't drink it)

Man, I lay awake till 2AM last night beating this one up.

Since you posted this thread in the Pulp Hero sub-forum, I'm assuming pulp is the genre you're running now. If adventures are what you're lacking -- and you wouldn't mind using Fifth Edition HERO materials -- the Hero Games website store has a literal dozen quality pulp adventures in PDF form, dirt-cheap: http://www.herogames.com/forums/store/category/16-pulp-hero/

Oh, I've got most of em. 

In fact, they've been helping me construct my own in a way that doesn't cost me sleepless nights.

Those are great ideas. thinking...

This is the first adventure so I'm hoping for the weirdness to build over time. Atlantis is a bit too big a jump. (though they will get to Atlantis once their entourage make its way around the Caribbean).

I will seed the plots with artifacts whose significance doesn't reveal itself for many adventures. The "Collector of Curios" PC will certainly pick up anything weird she finds - but that should be a subplot.

My wife's helping me too.

- peat bog with major dinosaur find

- underground river that can be tapped for a new hydro dam (very 30s-ish),

- or the dam that was about to be built in valley X - unless the river is suddenly rerouted to valley Y

- maybe the caves themselves are the motivator - if the area is unstable, they can't build their new interstate highway through the area - or they mae have to go around it - across other parcels of land

All good, though all but the first one will change my scenario significantly

(Ra-Chett, if you follow the Pulp Forum, stop reading!  )

Because I can't leave well enough alone, I'm thinking about moving the locale of my campaign's first adventure from the Louisiana bayous to the Eastern Seaboard.

The heroes' base is aboard a steamer, so locales are close to rivers, lakes and oceans.

The premise of the adventure is a seaside town in 1932 whose canneries have closed, putting much of the town out of work. Our subvillian (just a guy) has stumbled upon a family diary that mentions a treasure that will "make our family rich for generations to come" (i.e, enough to be a motivation for murder!).

It will come to a climax with an explosive chase through underground caves where a dropped stick of dynamite takes out the villain and exposes the treasure. The villain was assuming the diary referred something straightforward like a pile of gold, (which is why he's never found it) but it turns out to be an oil field.

Trouble is, in moving the locale, I've removed the treasure. There are no oil fields on the East Coast.

I'm looking for a plausible substitute for a "treasure" that could be exposed (ideally in spectacular fashion: "it's raining crude! The town is saved!").

Any ideas of some natural resource that I could substitute? Gotta be within a mile or so of the shore.

I suppose, if nothing else, a rock fall could expose an ancient treasure-filled shipwreck holed up in an underground cavern, but I was looking for something with more of a broader take on "treasure". In fact, for an even broader take, any maguffin might do.

Ideas?

Drat. Based on the title, I thought this was going to be a subgenre game. Everyone in platform shoes and flying Vista Cruisers around the stars...

Gotta love pulp-era stuff.

 

Though I notice it doesn't have a roof to protect against grenades or molotovs.

No need to worry - it will never get near danger.

It can't turn!   

 

Here is the text description of the talent Fascination: 

 

Description: A character with this Talent has such a melodious voice, or such a knack for speaking or singing, that he can almost instantly attract an audience. He has a harder time getting the attention of distracted people (people who are in the middle of a battle, for example), but sometimes his power even works on them.

 

Its a relatively easy build.

 

Perfect, thanks. So, +25 PRE

In Pulp Hero there is Let's Talk and Sexy Distraction.

 

In Fantasy Hero there is Fascinate.

 

They are all basically iterations of the same mechanical construct.

 

It would be easy to adapt to a new FX.

Yes, but if it already exists and has a game-balanced mechanic, I'd rather just do that.

Trying to build this tractor:

http://www.tractordata.com/farm-tractors/003/8/8/3880-massey-harris-gp.html

At 3m, it's only got a SIZE of 2, giving it a mass of 400kg, so I bought 2 levels of DI to bring it up to 1600kg

What about its STR? The DI will give it an extra 10STR. But not sure how to determine its STR.

(Hm. Maybe I don't want it too realistic anyway - I want to use it to haul a trainload of carts - like a baggage handler at the airport. That's probably gonna need more than 15hp at the hitch).

Anything else it might need to get traction? I guess 1600kg will give it traction...

This also presupposes that because you are dextrous (or agile/dextrous) you act more often.

How often is this not the case?

 

I honestly don't see the advantage,

Neither do I. That's why I'm asking around. He swears by it. Frankly, not using the rather rigid turn chart is rather freeing.

segments. The only way that would happen is for a SPD 2 character to be running with a SPD 12 (and SPD 11 for half the turn) character. If these are both PCs, I have to wonder why they have such disparate speeds. Your example was the ultimate extreme, but the same holds true for SPD values nearly as far apart.

The problem is that this leads to what I like to refer to as the Shadowrun problem.

 

Any system like this is automatically going to run into this wall. SPD is still better.

 

What problem? You didn't describe it.

Otherwise, you get weird values like 31, 21, 11, and 1, which is WAY more effective than 30,20,10, back to the top.

As opposed to 23, 18 and 13? Yeah, I see how that's different.

A GM friend runs his combat turns a little differently. Essentially, he ignores SPD, or at least SPD is derived directly from DEX. Terefore the turn chart too goes out the window.

So, what you do is start with the highest DEX and just work your way down.

Any ... er ... multiple of your DEX you go again.

.

Say you have 3 characters: DEX 30, DEX 19 and DEX 10.

DEX 30 character goes first.

Then you count down.

At DEX 20, the DEX 30 character goes again.

You keep counting.

At 19, DEX 19 character goes.

When you get to 10, DEX 30 goes again, followed by DEX 10.

Count to 9 and DEX 19 goes.

Finally, at 1, everybody goes.

So, in that turn:

DEX 30 has gone 4 times,

DEX 19 has gone 3 times, and

DEX 10 has gone twice.

The key here is that no one has sat around for, like, 6 segments in which they cannot do anything but eat chips and knit.

Naturally, it messes with the relative values of the characteristics, but it's less confining than the 12 segment turn.

Right - because an attack that succeeds by that much MISSES THE JAW.

 

Steel Jaw:  (Total: 18 Active Cost, 8 Real Cost)

+2 DCV (10 Active Points); Limited Power Hand to Hand only (-1/2), Perceivable (-1/2), Limited Power Can be negated with a Tactics roll or by devoting 1 Combat Skill Level to countering it (-1/4), Unified Power (-1/4) (Real Cost: 4)

<b>plus</b>

Change Environment (-1 to Characteristic Roll or Skill Roll), Persistent (+1/4), Personal Immunity (+1/4), Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2) (6 Active Points); Conditional Power Only affects someone who misses by 1 or 2 pt due to Steel Jaw DCV (-1), No Range (-1/2), Restrainable (Only by means other than Grabs and Entangles; attacker may take -1 OCV and not risk hitting the jaw; -1/4), Unified Power (-1/4) (Real Cost: 2)

<b>plus</b>

 +1/+1d6 Striking Appearance when Struck (vs. [a specific group of characters] - those hitting the jaw); Unified Power (-1/4) (Real Cost: 2)

 

Steel Jaw grants +2 DCV only vs hand to hand or melee attacks. If such an attack misses by 1 or 2 pts (i.e. misses because it hits the jaw) the attacker rolls CON at -1 if attacking barehanded; failure means the attacker recoils in pain clutching their hand and is 1/2 DCV until their next phase. The attacker rolls DEX at -1 if using a weapon such as knife or club, and loses the weapon if the roll fails. In either case the attacker suffers a PRE attack. Character does not have to pay for Variable Combat Effects because the character cannot control how the attacker chooses to attack. An attacker may deliberately avoid hitting the jaw, in which case treat the bonus as +3 rather than +2 DCV.

 

ovel, 

Personally I think +2 DCV is a little high; I'd have done it as +1. My version here doesn't do actual damage, but that can be added back in of course.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary asks why I'm sitting around jawing when there's things I need to do

I like this:

Perceivable (-1/2), Limited Power Can be negated with a Tactics roll or by devoting 1 Combat Skill Level to countering it (-1/4

But I'm not keen on the CE. A simple Damage Shield will do STUN to the attacker. No need to complicate things.

+2DCV is high, yes; in fact I would say it is cinematically high. To wit: in the Doc Savage books, this would come into play virtually every novel.

Yep. Thanks.

I'm a bit rusty with HD.

Wow. This is essentially teaching them their powers while teaching them the mechanics of power creation at the same time.

Not for my players. They would say "I don't care what a naked advantage is, that's math"

I write up descriptions but I'll keep it to one paragraph that describes the essentials in "in-character" terms.

However, I do like your use of Trigger to cast the smoke bomb. That means I could go back to using Darkness, which is even more true to the power concept than Invisibility.