Baalbamoth

Was watching this week's Gotham and thought of another one. Clairvoyance, retrocognition, extra time (a day), limited: only information which could be known by criminal underworld. requires a streetwise roll. Special effect: beats up lowlives till he gets the answers he needs montage. Aka "the Gordon method" Aka "the Marv method" Aka "I'm not a smart guy, so when I don't know something I ask somebody, sometimes I ask real hard."

we were still teens playing a High level AD&D game, new DM had us take on an "army" of magic users... we really didn't believe there would be 100 spell caster's marching in formation... but there were... when they saw the party they cast 100 fireballs at us, how they all knew to cast the same spell at the same time was pretty funny... but one character survived... the monk was high enough level where he took no damage if he made his save, and had enough protection items that he rarely failed... 100 saves and he did manage to survive... the DM seems very angry there was one character he couldn't kill... he then says "CAN YOU TAKE 100 MAGIC MISSILES THEN MR SMARTY PANTS?!?" his response... "uh... no? so uh did you have fun running your first and last game ever?"

+3 to kick maneuver, only to hit puppies...

Thinking about that 6d6 luck as perfect timing power... Man that would suck for an eddy haskill type rival... Always shows up at your weakest point, always hits on your girlfriend after your worst fight, is always first to the hospital with flowers when your mom gets sick, always drives by in a shiny new 100k audi when your 93 minivan breaks down... And a few more... "Hits harder than you'd think" +6d6 hth damage, does no actual stun,body,or knockback,only to increase likelihood of con stunning. 4d6 mental illusion based on con, 0 end cumulative. Linked to punch causes little yellow birdies or stars to fly around head. (little too comedic though) "Beats you stupid as well as ugly" 2d6 int drain, delayed recovery 1 week, linked to punch, triggered by being knocked unconcious by bad ass. "ass thoroughly kicked" add +2 advantage all stats/powers to above.

Like BOMA's change environment suggestion above, "impressive entrance" +20 PRE only for attack, only upon entering scene, Lightning strikes, all conversation ceases, everyone knows a true bad ass has arrived and the beatings will soon commence. "Second wind" +2dc HtH, +10 PD/ED and 6d6 aid, stun, body, end, only to starting values, triggered when stun body or end reach 25% or less. "the hulk hogan effect" Desolidification 0 end, not to move through solid objects, invisible power effects, Triggered: when taking full recovery, useable only when taking full recoveries. link to +1 DC for every consecutive full recovery taken on these actions, or every opponent's attempt to damage during full recoveries, up to +6 dc, usable once per combat. "Is that the best ya got, ya friggin pansies?" +10 to ego roll only to resist interrogation. "MORTAL KOMBAT!!!" + 1 ocv, +1 DC each phase where a single opponent has remained in base to base, been struck and damaged by HTH. up to +5 ocv/+5 DC "FINISH HIM" 4d6 HKA only after reaching +5 ocv/dcv, if opponent killed by attack +20 PRE (from ripping spine through stomach, etc)

I started thinking about this when I heard Bruce Willis will be staring in the Charles Bronson roll in the remake of "Death Wish" I'm an old fart gamer, I remember being in awe of that movie as a teen. It wasn't about justice really, more about the difference between justice and vengance. The antagonists couldn't just be killed, they had to suffer... A lot. How bout +4 dc only to the last person who attacked him, or anyone who has made a PRE attack. "shaking hands" +6 dcv, only vs people who have been transformed by his "beat ugly" power, or watched someone be transformed by "beat ugly" power. Damage shield or link to all attacks Transformation attack major grants limitation "bad ass attacks cause target to be subject to limb disablement/destruction rules" Or Entangle based on con one limb/body location at a time, based on last hit location hit/targeted. "your not going anywhere" Martial throw linked to suppress any movement power, triggered when opponent attempts to leave base to base contact.

Bad ass: think of any great semi-antihero action hero... Get beat up but never quit, when they are getting the tar beat out of them, when it seems like they are gonna drop they get pissed and erupt with energy and violence. When that happens they don't just knock people out, they beat on them till their faces are brushed bloody and missing teeth. They are vengeful, intimidating, darkly funny, and endlessly determined. I could easily just give him 50+ resistant defenses, 80 str etc... I'm looking for those nifty gimicy powers I see in so many write ups. Without getting specific, here's an example... The "you're pathetic" look... 2d6 aid to PD&ED, delayed return 5 per min, no concious control, triggered when an attack hits but FAILS to cause any effect. Requires eye contact.

so was reading the Gestalt book and was wondering about how you might write up a quirky Gestalt of bad assery... suppress striking good looks triggered by punch? Transformation attack adds the "distinctive features strong reaction complication- beat ugly" triggered by doing body with hth? Healing triggered by... (causing con stun/body, KO someone, head shot, etc) Added PRE only for intimidation/defense? causes knock back? PRE drain damage shield? what other powers would you give the ultimate bad ass?

Looking to start a campaign based on Larry Correia's 3 book series. Had a few questions for anyone who might be familiar with them... 1) What books would you suggest having? (5th ed Pulp Hero? Champs complete or MHI?) 2) Has anyone else done this yet? Any suggestions for writing up the active types? (brute, heavy, massive, etc?) 3) I found a so-so wiki page on the series, and an M&M campaign on their forums... Anyone else know any good resource or background sites for the setting?

Ok, I just cant take it anymore. People talk about "modern game design" I'm not sure what in the heck that means. If I'm looking at "current popular game design" that means FATE and disassociated mechanics, player narrative control, bennys/fate/action points, and a bunch of other stuff (dumbed down creation mechanics and resolution systems) that I feel actually kills the immersion you get from a nice crunchy simulationist RPG. Does that mean "I dont like it so nobody should have the option" no, but dammit Hero System is one of the last bastions of crunch RPG. If you want popular storytelling game design (I don't really consider storytelling games RPGs) then by all means, go play one of those but please don't try to get HGS to become a storytelling game. I personally don't feel action points (or other dissassociatve mechanics) have any purpose being in a simulationist game. I don't care how popular M&M is, or how much a new FATE based system is making in sales, or what other systems you think might be kicking champions's ass. HGS is as far as I am concerned is as near to perfect as a simulationist game can ever get and I don't see any reason to change that. I'll admit, when I take new school players and introduce them to champs, most of their eyes gloss over and they cant wait to get away from numbers and back to 15 minute "no imagination required" character design, but then there's always one or two guys in a group that suddenly fall head over heels in love with ultra crunchy. Mostly because, I think, all that they've ever seen before is lite or lazy game design. I make a group of those more rare people and they absolutely love HGS. Is it really that bad to be different than the common place? and yeah I guess I'm a hardcore grognard, but can't I, the rest of the grogs, and the bored new school gamers just have one game system that does not cater to the dumbed down "math and complex rules are bad" new school of game design? Does the goal of every game on the market really have to be "MOAR NOOBS! MOAR SUPS! MOAR MONIES!" Really?

Re: Hero-D&D system merge? I'm in a pathfinder game now, and since there are more people playing that than D&D many call it D&D 3.75... Pathfinder has over 200 feats, and something like 50 archtypes, and 20 paragon classes... there are a heck of a lot of feats and abilities that grant AOOs, as an example... one character (flowing monk) can trip you, stomp on you, when you get up & try to attack him again trip and stomp on you again, and do this to anything that attacks him, all without taking a single action of his own. there are other feats that let you attack anybody who misses you when attacking, or feats that let you hit anyone who hit you. like I said... its pretty game breaking...

Re: Hero-D&D system merge? as I mentioned in the beginning of this, the town I live in is pretty small. There is one gaming group... thats it. I really dont have a desire to go out and pamphlet neiborhoods looking for potential gamers who never played a tabletop RPG. D&D 3.5 has huge problems in that clerics and wizards are walking divine/arcane engines of destruction, there is very little ballence involved. In Pathfinder, the 200+ feat system encourages power gaming soooooo much that its almost hard not to create a power gamed character... a 11th level magus/sorc melee attack is throwing 10d6+38 shock dammage+crits on a 15 or higher, and vorpals (instant death on a backup) an 11th level vanilla fighter is attacking 2-3x per rnd for 1d8+10 or so... again HUGE problem in ballence. Thats sort of why I wanted to do this, so I could make an attempt to fix the system of PF... but I started a tread on the PF boards about it... and while discussing it, discovered that none of the changes I was proposing would completely eliminate all the imballence of PF, that there would still be huge rule raping holes in the system even with my changes... so I've given up. I am checking out both Mutants and Masterminds and its fantasy version Warriors and Warlocks as a possible point system conversion to PF. but I dont really know that game well and am not sure it will work as a conversion. above Shrike noted that the things I felt slowed champs down were central to the HGS, he's probably right, the thing I liked most about champs and HGS was the manuver point system for martial arts, the lack of AOOs, and pulling actions to perform defensive actions, and thats really all I wanted to transfer. I wasnt trying to make a hero game using d20, I was trying to import what I liked about HGS and get rid of what I didnt like about pathfinder but ultamately I found its pointless because pathfinder is completely broken. I guess I'll just keep my fingers crossed for D&D Next (IE 5.0) and wait a year or so before I DM again.

Re: Hero-D&D system merge? I'm listening to everybody... I started a thread on the PF forums about switching in hero combat and manuvers and basically everybody flipped except for the 3.5 D&D players who said "couldent hurt" basically. BUT one guy game an example of a spell that grants multi attacks that is a core spell of many casters and then I started looking at how damn easy it would still be for people to create OMFG THATS TOTALLY OP! min-maxed opted characters even with the greatly time consuming merger I "was" planning. Now I figure i'll look around a bit and see what else is possible. I want to keep the PF setting to keep the players happy and do my damnded to get them to consider a basic hero game... or if not that... these... http://stuffershack.com/warriors-and-warlocks/ http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/92601-using-mutants-masterminds-fantasy-game.html

Re: Hero-D&D system merge? Firstly, to address some points shrike brought up... If you wish to apply critical thinking and hard logic to my statements, you'd first have to begin by asking the question "what is D&D" or if we want to avoid the re-definition game, what will the players I game with percieve as D&D? I couldent answer the question outright but I'd say the first requirement for a game to be percieved as D&D is the use of a D20 for skill and combat resolution. As to "why must D&D be a part of it?" I would point toward my other posting where I went into the emotional connection many players have with D&D and D20's over 3d6 resolutions. and I'm sure your right, by changing things the way I am planning, I may change things so much it isnt a system they want to play, in which case I think your also right in that I will simply enjoy the process and maybe make the system I want to run more than the system others wish to play which would be fine with me. next, because ""Many of the combat feats are directly analogous to maneuvers and talents in the hero system" is the only reason why I think it may be possible to merge the systems (regardless of the amount of work, re-writing, and playtesting that will still be required) Regarding the interchange of feats/AOO and manuvers speed etc... In champions the things I felt slowed down HGS are: the large ammount of dice counting, applying defenses, deducting from END, BOD, and STUN, various types of attacks (drains etc) and of course the variable spd system. if you eliminate the majority of those things (limit the spd system, keep one roll to hit, get rid of damage reduction via defenses etc) I think the whole game will speed up, and I would see that as an advantage. With pathfinder/D&D the major slow downs are the feats which always seem to need to be looked up again and again with new feats being added every other level (IE power creep), and the many ways basic rules are broken by feats (manuvers dont do this), and AOOs which cause an action to be halted and other attacks/effects applied before the action can be completed, etc. elimate those and I think D&D combat speeds up. hopefully with these changes I can make a dynamic and fast resolving combat system without too much loss in detail. Zeropont- like I said, then you feel like your playing the special olympics version of the game, and the negitive associations with that... the same reason why many people switched from D&D to "ädvanced D&D" even though they may have actually prefered the simplicity of the box games. and I totally agree with the evaluation of D&D 3.5, 4.0 was a bit more streamlined, and pathfinder more so than that (at least at its onset) I only hope 5.0 is as mod-able as they say it will be. Nusord- tell that to the pigefant in my basement... and "flint axes and plasma rifles" sounds like a damn cool game to me...

Re: Hero-D&D system merge? PS. one of the biggest problems I forsee in this is with feats and abilities which give the character additional attacks ala two weapon fighting and monk hth attacks etc. what do you do when a character in a game can launch 8+ attacks in a round? do each use the same manuver? or do I gotta get rid of multi attacks in general (which would greatly GREATLY harm fighter classes and amp spell casters) maybe I just give the fighters the higher spd options?!?!