AlHazred

I have been considering this while doing various Talislanta Hero conversions for my own Fantasy Hero campaigns. Tal magic is very versatile. Essentially, magic users learn an Order, a school of magic, then develop skill ratings in various Modes which represent the different ways to use the magic of the Order; thus the Move Mode skill rating would be tested if the caster wanted to move a rock, or fly, or deflect missiles. Similar to Hero, the "special effect" is less important than the result. Each Mode represents hundreds of spells the magician knows -- the player is encouraged to make these up, but he only has to develop a skill rating in the Modes themselves. It costs about 100 XP to develop a new Order, in a system where each experience point represents about a week of training. A new Mode costs 25 XP to develop in comparison. These seem to be Variable Power Pools, with a special set of Limitations to the Control Cost. Let's see: Requires a Skill Roll, since there seems to be a chance it doesn't work. I'm thinking it may require a separate Skill for each Mode. Limitations based on the Order chosen: each Order has its own special bonuses and penalties associated with it. For instance, Crystallomancers require crystals to make their magic work, Cryptomancers must have a writing surface, Cartomancer magic only works with a specially-prepared deck of Zodar cards, etc. I think all of them require Gestures and Incantations, except maybe for Mysticism which requires Concentration. Powers Can Be Changed At Any Time (+1) No Time To Change Powers (+1) Strongly Limited Powers Based On Mode Skills (-1 to -2). Basically, there are 12 Modes, each of which is strongly attached to a number of effects: Alter (Aid/increased stats/decreased stats), Attack (EB/HA/RKA/HKA), Conjure (Transform used to create objects), Defend (Armor/FF/FW/etc.), Heal (Healing), Illusion (Images), Influence (MC/increased PRE), Move (any Movement Power), Reveal (Detects and Enhanced Senses), Summon (Summon), Transform (Transform), and Ward (?; have to check the book when I get home). If you charge a character to learn each one as a seperate Skill, charge for the Pool, and forbid Skill Levels to cover the Modes, then you have a cost structure remarkably similar to Talislanta.

Thanks, man! Ah well, at least someone remembers them; it means I wasn't hallucinating... I was going to redo them under 5th edition Hero, and using the newer 4th edition Talislanta version of the martial arts. This just means I can start with a clean slate, and no preconceptions...

"Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side." I noticed that noone brought up the idea that Jedi routinely "punch up" their lightsabers' damage/advantages/whatever with their Force Powers. I think some of the concerns people have could be addressed with this one point.

Yeah, I suppose I'll come up with a package of defenses to make you "almost fearless". The alternatives I came up with were all either really clunky (Mental Desolidification, new Mind Group, 100% Damage Reduction) or required more work than they were worth (defining all fear attacks as AVLD and making a LS: Fearless). Let's see now, what would be in the Fearless package...

Not up on the comic books, but based on the Justice League show on Cartoon Network, that would seem fair. Although I wonder, would that be a Perk: Membership in the Justice League, or would that be like a PC contributing points toward the group's Base?

A looooong time ago (like, 1998 or so) I wrote four or five articles for the old Digital Hero that were conversions of Talislantan martial arts to Hero System. I can't find them on my PC; I can't find them on the web. Anybody got copies, or are they "lost in time, like tears in the rain"?

Good questions. The character in question is from a race that was sorcerously bred to be the perfect soldiers; they cannot feel fear because they are not "programmed" for it. Fear could be caused a number of ways. If Moe the Mercenary wants to cause fear, well, he yells his freakin' head off, makes threatening gestures, froths at the mouth, and otherwise hopes to intimidate his foe -- in other words, a Presence Attack. On the other hand, Merty the Magician, not very physically imposing, invests time and effort to research the source of man's fear of death, then develops Merty's Mordant Ministrations, a spell designed to impose that fear on the target (probably a Mind Control or Mental Illusions). Meanwhile, the Menacing Morly is a demon whose presence is alien to reality; because of this, normal creatures native to the Material Plane feel disquieted as his presence impinges on mostly-unused spiritual senses in the material brain. This is obviously a Distinctive Feature that causes a Major Reaction. Really, it doesn't necessarily depend on the campaign; rather, fear effects are specific to the character. Therefore, any solution should be universal, or should at least cover these examples. As I said, I don't see the Mental Desolidification rule in the book. I believe it has been removed from the 5th edition rules. I could add it, but I was wondering if the collective could come up with a legal alternative that I missed...

It all depends on what is required. For occupational and cultural package deals, I always go with the absolute minimum ability that is essential for the occupation. This means few of them have "Choose three Intellect Skills from the following list" or anything like that. I do that partially to combat point inflation and partially to avoid dominating the point requirements for low-point NPCs; if they've only got 25 points to spend to make them unique, I want as many as possible for personal quirks and such. Look at it this way: how many specific "skills" does your job absolutely require? Chances are, if you need more than three or five, you've got a really involved career. On the other hand, for racial packages, I go nuts. I want to reflect the race's abilities the best possible way; therefore, I never let myself be bogged down with point values -- it costs as much as it costs. This does mean that some races with special powers may require a huge package cost, but chances are they'll be rare anyway. I mean, if the GM wants to make energy beings a possible PC race, I know it'll cost me an arm and a leg, and expect him to take that into account when doling out the starting points.

How would you do a character that is completely immune to fear? It's relatively easy to do a character immune to a particular energy or physical attack with Desolidification, but you can no longer make your Desolid character immune to Mental attacks for an additional 20 points, right? And giving a character very high Mental Defense and Presence, Only To Resist Fear, makes him resistant, but does not make him immune. So how do you guys think this could be done?

As far as starting out with a "green" character... If that's what you want, Hero is as capable of serving you as any other game. In D&D, because they use level to determine ability, they have to start out very low to accomodate those who want very unskilled characters. Dark Sun got around this by giving everyone a couple of levels at the very start. In Hero, you can start at any level of play. The 150 point "standard" allows you to start out as good as most fantasy novel characters. At 100 points, you are "grittier", like one of the main characters in the Black Company series. If you want to be really gritty, you can shove that starting total all the way back to 0 point base + 25 in disads, as one of our group's GMs was thinking of doing. Would have made things challenging...

I think Duplication is overly complicated for most Dual Brains I've seen portrayed. It works really well where the brains are slightly different, but in most games, it just makes you harder to affect with mental powers, let's you concentrate on two different things at the same time, and (usually) control both arms equally well. Taken seperately, that's One Brain Per Hand: Ambidexterity (3 Penalty Skill Levels). Total Cost: 9 points. Concentrate On Different Things: +3 Skill Levels with Intellect Skills (15 Active Points); Only To Counteract Combat and Limited Time Frame Penalties (-3/4). Total Cost: 9 points. Twice As Resistant To Mental Attacks: Mental Damage Reduction, Resistant, 50%. Total Cost: 30 points. YMMV

I don't know that two brains would let you react more quickly; if they're both as slow as my one brain before caffeine, well, let me tell you... Powers for two brains would be pretty unusual - think two different things at the same time, maybe use both hands equally well. If the guy's a mentalist, maybe you can use a variant on the Multiple Power Attack rule to make his two attacks without crunching a lot of rules...

I run a Harn Hero game, which I try to keep low magic. So, none of the players had any magic weapons for the longest time, but they had cash to spend. So I decided to let them buy "fine" weapons. I defined them as normal, with an additional power: +1 DC, Reduced Endurance Cost (0 END; +1/2) (7 Active Points); OAF (-1), Standard Effect Variant (Does +1 BODY only; -0). Real Cost: 3 points. The 0 END and lack of STR Min limitation means that it's not any harder to swing than a normal sword; if it was made lighter than normal, but still as good (different alloy or something), I'd have knocked the STR Min down a point or two as well. It's not much, but I'm trying to combat point inflation in my games.

What Mavnn suggested is actually pretty good. One thing I'd considered is defining a new Power, a defense which requires the target to be struck twice by any attack roll. It occurred to me that you could apply this as a physical power as well, to reflect Cloaks of Displacement or similar effects. However, as much as I think this would be an interesting mechanic for the Hero System, I think that defining a fixed cost for it would be difficult. One of my friends said it best, "If the character has a low DCV, a high cost would be too much, but if he's a superhero with a high DCV a low cost would be too cheap." Probably the most elegant solution is the 50% Mental Damage Reduction, which would reduce all Mental Power effects by half... I like that too...

The problem is there are multiple effects for the power. Reading from the book, Dual Encephalon (I got the name wrong, from memory *sigh*) has the following description: "... dual-encephalons ... have the ability to use both sides of their brains independently and can concentrate on two different subjects at the same time. They are ambidextrous, and can avert the need for sleep by resting one brain at a time. When one brain is resting, [reduce the character's Int bonus by half]. Dual-encephalons are allowed two chances to resist any spell or substance that affects thought, brain functions, or emotions." This is a suite of abilities. The simplest is the Ambidexterity Talent, bought to the 9 point level. Next is the ability to resist sleep; this is just Life Support (Diminished Sleep: Character does not have to sleep at all), a 3 point power. We can apply a limitation to the Intelligence characteristic bought for the character to reflect the special effects of this. Similarly, concentrating on two different thoughts at the same time is a trivial ability in game mechanics terms; we could just buy Int Skill Levels only to counteract the penalties of trying to use several Intellect Skills at once. The difficult one is the influence resistance. I think Duplication is a little complicated for this. I shall continue to ponder with one brain, while resting the other...

I'm currently trying to figure out how to reflect Sindaran Dual-Encephaly in Hero 5th terms. Briefly, Dual-Encephaly means that the Sindaran's have two brains; they are capable of thinking about two separate things at exactly the same time, they have two sets of skills, they get two chances to resist any attempts at Mental Influence, etc. I'm still trying to get my mind around the "two chances to resist Influence" bit...

For those who are unfamiliar with the Talislanta setting , it is a Fantasy Post-Holocaust setting, where a magical disaster has left the land reft with wild magic. Strange and alien races abound; the tagline reads, "Extensive World Setting. Updated Rules System. Still No Elves." I think there was some material for this on the old message boards. Anyone done anything with this? I think some of the races would make excellent additions to any fantasy campaign - I'm thinkin', Thralls and Neurians and Sarista, oh my!

I picked this one up. I have to admit, it definitely removed some of the alienness of the alien races for me. I like it when the author tries to remove aliens from the group of easily identified stereotypes; this book, in describing them and, even worse, showing you line drawings, puts the aliens right back into the stereotypes again.

This thing on? Wasn't sure there was any interest. I'll post more tonight when I get home. The only problem with making Moya a character was defining her "Capacity". In other words, I had to use Usable By Others and some guesstimations for maximum capacity.

I spoke to one of my friends who is a GURPS guru and has been a playtester. The bulletproof vests and metal chestplates in GURPS Cliffhangers were put in for the "Doc Savage" crowd, while the bulletproof vests at TL 6 in GURPS High-Tech represent the M-12 vest. Neither of these were evident during the Pulp Era in the real world. However, if you're running a true Pulp game, don't worry about it. Pulp Heroes wear dinky "chainmail vest made of the latest experimental metal" or "a coat woven of metal fibers." Somehow, they only got hit where they had coverage (allowing for a cliffhanger at the end of one episode of the serial and a revelation of their survival somewhere in the next). Also, the armor seems to weigh nothing, and never becomes a factor when encumbrance is important (like when diving into the water to fight that crocodile hand-to-hand). To answer some of your questions that haven't been answered: The GURPS Cliffhangers bulletproof vest represents very good armor that stops a bullet cold; assuming a normal round, I'd call that a 6 or 7 DEF vest. For the reasons given above, I wouldn't give it either the Limited Coverage or Real Armor limitations, although IIF might be appropriate. The GURPS High-Tech bulletproof vest represents the M-12, "a 12-pound vest of aluminum plates and nylon fabric" which made standard Army issue before the end of the War; it was primarily designed to eliminate wounds caused by shrapnel and metallic fragments, since making it truly "bullet-proof" would have made the soldiers clumsy and over-encumbered. I'd give this one 4 or 5 DEF (for the aluminum plates, Limited Coverage: Locations 9-14) and 2 DEF (for the nylon layers, Limited Coverage: 7-8 & 15-18). The concealable metal chestplate in GURPS Cliffhangers is probably best represented with a DEF 8 breastplate from the fenatasy armors section (Locations 10-12), with the same Pulp Era caveat. WW1 helmets were of variable quality depending on who made them. The British developed "Type A" helmets by 1915. I found a link which gives them the ability to stop "shrapnel ball travelling at 750 ft/sec". This would seem to indicate a pretty high DEF. I'd give WWI helmets DEF 5-8, depending. Coverage would be limited to locations 4-5, except for your "man in the iron mask" Doctor Doom types. Subsequent development of helmets has made them more comfortable, and standardized the DEF, but I'd say 5-8 is a good range. I normally just give them 1 or 2 points of DEF, with the Limited Coverage limitation. This represents well the miniscule reduction of damage from a rifle round, will sometimes stop direct low-caliber rounds completely, and provides some insulation from fire and electricity - all qualities of real world leather jackets.

Here's the Military Flyer reposted as a Word document. I took the opportunity to reduce its STR even more, since further reading indicated that 400 kg was way, way too much for its capacity. I chose not to add Towed Gliding, or Gliding of any kind to the Flyer, since my further reading indicated that the runners were not designed for long term use; if we don't make regular planes buy a movement power to represent their landing gear, then the Flyer doesn't need any either. This represents the extreme low-end of military aircraft, and I thought it a good starting point for aircraft unlikely to make it into the Vehicle Sourcebook.

You can handle this by making it a multipower. Something like this: Multipower, 75 point pool (75 Active Points); OAF Bulky (-1½), 1 Fuel Charge lasting an 1 Turn (-1¼), Real Weapon (-¼), 2 Handed (½), 10 STR Min (Extra STR Doesn't Add to Damage; -½). Real Cost: 25. Slot 1: RKA 1½d6, Area of Effect (20" Line; +1), Continuous (+1) (75 Active Points); Limited Power (Not In Wet Conditions; -¼), No Range (-½). Real Cost: 4u. Slot 2: RKA 1½d6, Area Of Effect (Any 32 Hex Area; +1¾), Trigger (+¼) (75 Active Points); Limited Power (Not In Wet Conditions; -¼), No Range (-½). Real Cost: 4u. Total Cost: 33 points. For the Champions version, remove the STR Min and Real Weapon limitations.

I thought about this at lunch. Another way to do it that takes advantage of new rules in 5th Edition is to give the flamethrower Boostable Charges as opposed to a single Fuel Charge (Boostable Fuel Charges? Wouldn't like to do the math on that one!) The Boosting effect could reflect taking the time to "hose down" an area with flame.

I have the RW statistics for the USMC Portable Flamethrower M2-2: Weight=32 kg, Fuel=18L, Range=25-40m, Duration=10sec. Translating to Hero, I could see it as a: RKA 1½d6, Area of Effect (20" Line; +1), Continuous (+1) (75 Active Points); OAF Bulky (-1), 1 Fuel Charge (1 Turn; -1¼), No Range (-½). Real Cost: 20. 'Course, I'm at work, so the Advantage and Limitation values could be off. Also, I'm assuming that the damage looks right to you - I have no statistics on the survival rate among the... uh... flamethrown... so I can't say how damaging it should be. A 1½d6 Continuing Attack should do it, though, for your average 8 BODY soldiers in a "gritty" campaign, especially if you're using the Impairing rules. [Edited to add "No Range".]

I am not a GURPS guru, nut PD is Passive Defense (the effect of armor of causing blows to "glance off"), while DR is Damage Resistance (the effect of armor stopping some of the damage of a blow that lands). If I was to translate anything into Hero terms, I would just go by what it is, i.e. the actual item itself. Thus, I would translate kevlar according to Hero standard given in FREd. If GURPS says a suit is slightly more protective than kevlar, I'd give it a little more DEF than the standard medium kevlar. I'm also not an expert on the development of armor, but I know that many pulp heroes had something to stop bullets, usually something that fit under their trenchcoats. The idea was there, even if the actual armor wasn't yet.