eepjr24
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Posts posted by eepjr24
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If you buy a barrier, by default, it sticks around until destroyed, dismissed or the GM says it disappears (6e1, p170):
QuoteA Barrier, once created, is a physical object that remains in existence until destroyed by attacks, the passage of time, or other factors.
Summon also has its own rules for how long it lingers (6e1, p289):
QuoteIf the Summoned being ever wins the EGO Roll Versus EGO Roll Contest, the Summoner loses control of it permanently (he can no longer make rolls to control the being). It may flee, attack, return from whence it came, or do whatever else it wishes.
And summon addresses Charges tangentially on 6e1, 291:
QuoteIf, for example, a character has a spell that Summons four imps, and the spell has eight Charges, he can only have four imps in existence at once, regardless of how many Charges he uses or has left.
These seem to be contradicted by the Charges text (6e1, 367):
QuoteEach Charge normally only lasts for one Phase. Therefore Charges of, say, Change Environment or other Constant Powers aren’t very useful (but see Charges Options, below, regarding Continuing Charges).
My guess here is that the intent of the wording above is to lay out the general case for Constant or Persistent powers and not powers that are Instant and have lingering effects such as Barrier, Entangle, Mind Control and Summon? Am I correct on that?
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That's not difficult or really a naked limitation. You just apply the Charges to power and add a -0 limitation "Shares charges with other powers having this limitation". Or you could just change the name of the Charges limitation to "Charge Pool X, 16 charges -0" or the like on all the powers that share the charges.
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Repel in this sense would be along the lines of "Find easier prey". If there is no easier prey to be had, it is not an absolute.
I like the change environment idea since it has a mechanic for resistance on a die roll. At -1 to EGO and EGO based rolls, for normal and large insects that are not summoned you would have a mechanism for a summoner to win their ego contest by more than the insect failed theirs and force them in anyway. Probably would be something like:
[Repel Wasps] Change Environment: -1 EGO and EGO based rolls, make EGO roll or move out of affected area, -2m Flying; Area of Effect Radius: 8m (+1/2);Only versus Wasps (-1), etc.
I think I will limit the effect to only "Animal Intelligence" or "Instinctive Intelligence". Outside of that you would need to go to Mind Control or they could reason around it by holding their breath, etc. Situational modifiers like defending the nest or extreme hunger might provide bonus of 3-5 on the roll.
Thanks for the ideas. I think the darkness would have been the second best. It does not have a roll mechanic, but being blinded in an area is a good reason to avoid it. Spiders and Scorpions would be especially difficult to handle with this though, due to special senses.
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What would you use to repel insects or animals, either of the garden variety or the giant type? Mind Control? PRE attack? Illusions or Mental Illusions? Something else?
And how would the above interact with those creatures having been summoned instead of stumbled upon or found in their nest / hive / den?
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Not sure what system you are coming from (if any) but in 5e D&D parlance, 2 OCV higher is like rolling with Advantage.... all the time. Or from the other side, trying to hit someone with 2 more DCV is close to rolling with disadvantage all the time.
For PD and ED, every 3 normal PD will on average mitigate 1x of STUN multiple or 1d6 Normal damage (Stun and Body). rPD is the equivalent for Killing damage.
Remember that a character with a variety of low level defenses is MUCH more effective than one with say, 8 rPD. A die or two of Damage Negation, 25% Damage Reduction, some normal PD, a level of combat luck and light armor is going to just keep going when the plate mail guy is down. Just something to watch out for as a new GM, not a common problem for inexperienced players.
If you are having trouble with one player being too hard to damage and need to level the playing field, normal foes like goblins or kobolds often have Teamwork, which can really help via multiple attackers and combined attacks. Not saying you need to wave in their face that you can take them down, but things get boring for players if they think they cannot be damaged.
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Penn has a good number sink holes, Florida has more though. Just more of our state is susceptible and we have more ground water to wear away the ground.
9 hours ago, dmjalund said:transform requires there be a way to reverse the change. choose carefully
Generally for changes like this I chose allowing wear and tear and nature to reverse the transform. Without maintenance the carts, horses and local flora will render the road unusable. In the Grimoire this is sometimes written as "Heals back through any natural means that would reverse XXX".
13 hours ago, MrKinister said:I skimmed through this real quick, so I hope I am not repeating details, but don't forget you can add "Cumulative" to a Transform effect. This allows you to make the transformation take more time, and it lowers the cost (and hopefully other requirements as well). It should allow simple "road engineer wizards" to work in teams over a large stretch of land, turning dirt, grass, broken land, into a flat paved road. If you add a small-scale Mega-Scale effect (1m = 100m), this could go REALLY FAST. And if the cost is reduced with Cumulative it might turn out to be more effective this way.
Certainly those applications are possible. And when I move over to one of the more "advanced" continents, those applications may be used, but we are on the frontier here, they don't get the top caliber utility wizards and your average town is not going to have more than a couple of earth utility mages anyway. Megascale has restrictions (END and LTE cost) that magic it less common in this magic system for specifically these types of reasons. 😃
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My latest campaign actually has slavery in one of the two primary nation states where the players will be. Well, indentured servitude that is being abused to the point of slavery and enforced via magical tattoos. The enslaved will be debtors in this case, instead of captured members of another country.
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On the top map you see green for trees (things that have trunks taller than the average height person in this case) and bushes (shorter). On the bottom map you see shadows of the canopy of the trees plus the trunk, which you can hide behind and the bushes (not the shadow of their canopy). This gives people a better idea where cover actually is and is not, how much cover they get from a given thing, etc.
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This should get you a start, from the languages stand point the African continent likely has the oldest.
https://www.africaontheblog.org/african-holds-worlds-ancient-written-languages/
You can also check out the Wagadu Chronicles project. It's for DND, but has some good info on the peoples of Africa.
https://thewagaduchronicles.com/
You can also read up on the Sao:
And many people just seem to ignore that Egypt is at least partially in Africa as well and that it's people were (and are) dark complected.
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8 hours ago, theinfn8 said:
This is the first thing that popped into my head and the route I would probably go.
I ended up going with Transform. It's much easier to figure the math using area of effect, I didn't have to play with Opaque or Configurable (for rougher terrain), and I don't have to worry about people arguing whether they could turn it sideways and use it as defenses. There is another spell for that already. 😃
I will likely design another one with Tunneling for use in creating tunnels, still have to figure some things as I don't want matter to be destroyed as part of the process.
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16 hours ago, archer said:
He told stories about people coming in with bodyguards and test driving several different high-end sports cars. The salesman would ask them which car they liked.
The person would respond that he liked them all and snap his fingers at a bodyguard who would step forward with a very large case of cash. And buy three or four cars at a time.
Now this was back in the 1980's and a Ferrari would have cost back $85-100,000 each (which would be $200,00-$235,000 in today's dollars).
Now law enforcement might come back later and ask you what you can remember about the guy who made the purchase and get a warrant to look at the sale paperwork. But there's no problem at all with the money itself (assuming the money isn't counterfeit or from a bank robbery, of course).
My grandfather never financed a vehicle. He hated interest and always paid cash. Now for him, that usually meant something at or under $50,000, but he would bring the cash if he had called ahead and they would not take a check.
For private sales, cash is legal tender no matter the amount. So going to Craigslist and buying up several businesses in your city (Orlando used here as an example https://orlando.craigslist.org/search/bfs?sort=pricedsc) and then paying a property manager in cash to manage them would be a great way to launder. Pay for repairs and additions in cash, all employees paid in cash (at a premium for their inconvenience), etc. Or just pay a nice high rolling accountant to handle it all.
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I guess I'd say it depends on how into the details you want to get about it. Any large cash business is a good way to do it in the real world. Strip clubs, laundry mat's, change machines, vending machines, convenience stores in low income neighborhoods. You could go the Victor Von Doom route and just buy a country. I would personally look to digital currency where the regulations are still not dry on the paper, who cares if you take a bath once in a while on market jitters, laundry usually has a 20+% price tag anyway. Or fill a niche for your fellow criminals and let them launder for you by buying the hard goods they steal and fencing them.
Outside of these things, I'd look to the superhuman's particular strengths in disposing of money just like I do when acquiring it. You can teleport across the earth? Sweet, arrange for drop boxes where people pick up in one currency and drop off in another. Then convert back to the original by shifting the money one location over and all laundered. You are super intelligent? Shell companies. Other powers? Set up a legitimate business doing what your super powers let you do and wash it through your legitimate business.
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I rewrote my response here (before hitting submit even, maybe the New Year is making me more mellow) as I was initially a bit harsh as I perceived your post as rather unproductive. I have answered what I see as your concerns below, please clarify if there was a message I am not getting here.
2 hours ago, LoneWolf said:Keep in mind that incantations and gestures are usually a ¼ limitation. If you are giving more way to interrupt the spell you should also increase the value of those limitations.
I have changed nothing about the limitations, all I did was clarify when things happen regarding held phases. 6e, 19 leaves this almost entirely up to the GM, although it does suggest several different options (DEX off, Fast Draw, held actions, INT, PRE). It also notes that if you are simply wanting to perform a defensive action you can abort to that and always "win" the first action. And note that even if the character attempting to interrupt loses the DEX off he still has already declared his action for the phase and ends his phase after the attack.
6e1, 381 (similar wording appears in Incantations and Concentration).
QuoteGestures must be clearly visible at a distance and cannot be useful for any purpose other than activating that specific power (Gestures cannot include attacking with a weapon, for example). If the character takes damage from or is adversely affected by any power that requires an Attack Roll or MCV Attack Roll while he’s Gesturing, the power doesn’t activate or immediately turns off.
2 hours ago, LoneWolf said:With the cover maneuver you have already rolled to hit so this should be automatic. Just roll the damage and if any gets through the spell is ruined.
5 hours ago, eepjr24 said:Covering (all types of actions):
If you are covered, the covering character has the option to attack, possibly interrupting the spell.
No further comment.
2 hours ago, LoneWolf said:FAST draw simply allows you to draw a weapon as a 0 phase action. If the character does not have a held phase it does nothing. I could see requiring a fast draw roll if the character wants to attack and does not have a weapon ready.
Fast Draw represents the ability to ready and use a weapon (or, at the GM’s discretion, any sort of attack) quickly. While I could have invented a whole new skill to manage this very narrow case of events (someone with a held action versus someone acting on regular DEX) I decided to add a little functionality to Fast Draw. I am not the first or last to do so, as you can see from the posts above re: Western Hero. This is indeed a house ruling, I'll note it as such in my campaign notes.
2 hours ago, LoneWolf said:Your half phase/full phase option should definitely increase the value of the limitation. A zero phase action does not necessarily take less time than a full phase action. The difference is how much of your concentration it takes up.
As zero phase actions I can become desolidified, summon Satan, or stretch my arm entirely around the earth to wave at someone in front of me. These take less concentration than a half phase action? In any case, I found no reference in the rules to how much "concentration" it takes defining the type of action. I get your opinion that Gestures or Incantations should be worth more, if it turns out this option is too powerful or disruptive I'll just change it to be the same as zero phase.
3 hours ago, LoneWolf said:The option to cast another spell is a mistake. Since you can already activate a spell more than once you could simply cast the original spell. In that case the limitation is not limiting you and should not be worth any points.
You cannot activate the same power more than once in a phase. 6e1, 18: "Some Zero Phase Actions (such as turning on a specific Power) can only be performed once in a Phase."
3 hours ago, LoneWolf said:Keep in mind that unless there are other limitations on the spell you can activate multiple spells at the same time. The descriptions of the limitations are quite specific that you can activate multiple powers with incantation or gestures at the same time. Also keep in mind that a zero phase action still has to be initiated on your turn. Once you start the action you cannot for the most part do anything else until it is completed. Even for actions that allow you to do other things that has to be done on your next turn.
I am not really sure what you are driving at here. I know you can activate multiple powers in the same phase as zero phase actions. I was simply clarifying that taking damage during your phase only affects the power being activated at that time and giving players the option to have a backup ready, since they cannot simply recast the same spell (see above). I did not understand your point on the last 3 sentences, they seem to contradict the first 2 sentences.
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37 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:
I would give Fast Draw some kind of bonus, because its a special skill and ability the character spent points for. Everyone has a DEX roll. Fast Draw represents someone that has extra skill in taking an action before others can react. I recommend looking at the Showdown section in Western Hero (which will be updated and in the new edition when it comes out) which covers two people trying to act before each other at the same time.
Ah, thank you and good catch, I meant to say "Lightning Reflexes counts as DEX". Fast Draw will either act as a complimentary roll to DEX or DEX can act as a complementary roll to Fast Draw at the users option. So characters with lower DEX scores can use Fast Draw in place of DEX and make a DEX roll as a complimentary roll. That will also give casters a reason to have Fast Draw if they are in that situation frequently.
- Ernie
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In the world of VTT this becomes less of an issue. If you need a roll that you don't want the players to know if they succeeded at, just roll it or worst cases, mute the mic for a second and roll it. The general reason I would do this would be critical failures, which are pretty rare honestly, or if I don't want the players to know how much they need to succeed by. Most of the time the rolls in combat are all open, even outside of combat many rolls are obvious from the results although some social situations may not be as cut and dry.
When I did this in person I would do the same thing really, since I am prone to fiddling with dice when players are figuring out what to do that works out fine.
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52 minutes ago, LoneWolf said:
Holding a phase is always a good tactic. Having the higher DEX does not mean you get to go first, it means you get to choose when you go. The mage casting a spell is a perfect use for a held phase.
Just because a power takes a zero phase action to activate does not mean it takes no time. What it means is that activating the power does not prevent you from doing something else. Both gestures and incantations specify that they are obviously out of the ordinary. That would seem to indicate a certain degree of complexity to them. A gesture is more than a wink, and an incantation is more than a single short sound.
I got all that. What I was looking for was the mechanic that people use to simulate it in game. Simon chimed in (rules forum) that you would need a held phase (or covering) and a Dex off.
I am leaning toward the following:
Fast Draw counts as DEX for these purposes. Spells eligible for interruption include those with Concentration, Gestures and Incantations. Extra Time limitations also modify these rules as below. Note that these rules do not modify the DCV penalties from Concentration or alter the fast that those modifications last until the characters DEX on their next phase.
Covering (all types of actions):
If you are covered, the covering character has the option to attack, possibly interrupting the spell.
Zero Phase actions:
If one character has held an action that specifies "waiting for someone to cast a spell" will win automatically if they want to try to interrupt a caster with an attack, etc.
If one character has held an action that specifics "waiting for X DEX" and someone attempts to cast a spell on that DEX, the held action wins again.
If one character has held an action generally or just "waiting to see what happens", they can DEX off with the other character.
If two characters act on the same DEX (no held action) and one wants to interrupt the other, DEX off.
Half Phase / Full Phase actions (from attack or Extra Time):
Anyone who acts after this type of action has been declared but before half the dex of the casting character has the option to attempt a DEX off with the casting character to interrupt the spell by declaring so when the spell is cast.
More than 1 Phase:
Anyone who acts on any segment where the spell is still being cast has the option to attempt to interrupt the caster.
If a character wishes to do so, they may declare optional Zero or Half Phase (NOT attack) actions if they are interrupted ("If my armor spell is interrupted I try to also cast my mirror image spell"), those are also eligible to be interrupted per the above assuming they have a limitation that allows for interruption. Note that an interrupted spell still costs END and uses up time so anything longer than a half phase activation time would prevent additional actions.
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I just use the web when I need something. Try some place like this:
https://www.soundboard.com/sb/dndactionsounds
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1 hour ago, archer said:
That's a good idea.
I tried counters one time but no cups.
That just made the cats want to come over and run/slide through everyone's counters to fling them all over the room.
Repeatedly.
Very familiar with that phenomenon, the person I play WarMachine with had 2 cats and they loved playing godzilla.
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The slider sounds like it worked fine if you can come up with something like that. In a VTT environment it should be pretty easy to display END cost for a power as it is used, allowing whoever is tracking it to see clearly what the cost is. With my non-Hero familiar players I used little cups (erm... clear jello shot cups) and plastic beads for END and STUN. They just put however many END they had in the cup and took them out as they used them. Very visually easy for them to see how close to exhausted they were. And STUN was the same, pretty much. When they recovered, they just put some END and STUN back in the cups. I let them pick colors but used different for STUN and END.
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- Ninja-Bear and Duke Bushido
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1 minute ago, Duke Bushido said:
I've always played that anyone with an available action-- and access to do so-- has a chance to interrupt something. Honestly, I've allowed characters to Abort to pin the arm of a wizard beginning to make his summoning gestures.
I leave it more up to the dramatic appropriateness than anything else, but again-- they have to have both the access to do it (be close enough, see what's going on, etc) and n available action while it's going on.
And NPC's can and do try to interrupt PC's this way as well? I am specifically talking about zero phase actions here, not attacks.
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How do you handle interrupting zero phase actions in your game?
Activating a non-attack power is a zero phase action. If said power has Gestures or Incantations (both of which stop the power from activating if the user takes damage or is affected by an attack or MCV roll), there would seem to be a window of time to interrupt them. Do you limit this to someone who acts on the same Dex or who has a held phase and can act on that dex? Or is there some other method that you use?
I also posted this in the rules forum, but I am curious how others handle it today.
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So activating a non-attack power is a zero phase action. If said power has Gestures or Incantations (both of which stop the power from activating if the user takes damage or is affected by an attack or MCV roll), there would seem to be a window of time to interrupt them. Would this be limited to someone who acts on the same Dex or who has a held phase and can act on that dex? Or is there some other method to use?
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1 minute ago, Christopher R Taylor said:
But yes, you can summon inanimate objects (and with GM permission they are effectively "permanent" as in, if you drink the water it doesn't disappear from your body after a time limit). The trick to summoning inanimate objects is to have a cost, which in this case is minimal: life support vs thirst, 5 hour limited time.
Yeah, but it requires GM permission and it gets weird to figure the points on since it's a fractional point to start with (some portion of Diminished Eating once a week, so 1 CP), but then you start adding Amicable (+1) which is required for object summons, UOO, x100 (+2) as 1L is about the minimum a person can drink a day and survive... it ends up being about the same cost but makes less sense when written down.
2 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:Teleport would work, but you would need a source somewhere nearby and why bother using magic if you can just go scoop some up? You can put megascale on it to get the water from a lake hundreds of kilometers away, but then you have range modifiers, so yeah it can get expensive. Water is pretty heavy but you won't need a huge amount to fill an urn.
The reason for teleport would be if you have dowsed the water, but it is 15-30 meters under the ground. Same for the transform, but for transform it's just part of the special effect.
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Grimoire Arcanium
in Fantasy Hero
Posted
Will it be $19.99 on HeroGames? Lists as 24.99 for PDF on DriveThru.