Starwolf

Re: Weapon Pool? The rules you are asking about are on pages 150 to 153 of Dark Champions. Basically each player is assigned a pool of points, for free, that can only be used for standard equipment. The points cannot be used for anything else. The book suggests setting up several different types of pools, for example one pool for equipemtn always carried, one pool for equipment carried when heavy combat is expected, etc. The only place characters can change their alloted equipment is back at the base/HQ/armory, and the only equipment they can choose from is what the GM allows. Characters can buy extra resource points as a perk, and they can invest experience points to increase their resource points. The points are used just like character points to buy stuff based on active/real point cost. It is important to note that the point limits are how much a character is allowed to carry at any one time, not what they are allowed to own. So if Gi-Jane takes out an enemy agent and picks up a really cool SMG, she can add it to her weapons locker. This means that very often the characters may have many more items in their pool than they can actually use at any one time. These rules allow a GM to control access to restricted items, and still allow the players a measure of freedom in selecting their own stuff. I hope this helps

Re: What books? Sheesh I am going to start sounding like a dang sales rep... One other thing you may consider that drastically reduces the character creatin overhead is the new Hero Designer v3. There are data packs available for all of the books mentioned by everyone so far. That way all of your races, spells, magic items, creatures, etc are available with just a few clicks of your mouse Hmm... I wonder if I can negotiate a commission?

Re: What books? The four basic things you need ar Fantasy Hero which goes into great detail on creating your own magic system, Fantasy Hero Grimoire I & II, these are spell, and magic items prebuilt and are easily adapted to whatever magic system you design or choose from FH, and of course the core Revised Hero 5th edition. If you have some players that are new to Hero I would recommend Hero Sidekick, it is a sort of Hero lite that introduces al of the basic core character construction and game mechanic rules, you only need 5ER to introduce advanced concepts and options. One last thing I would recommend is Monsters, Minions, and Marauders. It is a book of creatures and races for Fantasy Hero and complements the Hero System Bestiary.

Re: [storytime] Birth of RAVEN One word... WOW! Didn't the old RAVEN have some pretty cool vehicles including a giant submarine?

Re: why the lack of.. One great one but very old IF you can find it is Here There Be Tigers. It was a military dark champions adventure where the players are a group of ex-military that is recruited to go back to Vietnam and rescue POWs. Move the location to Iraq and have them be a Merc or SPEC OP team assigned to rescue hostages from terrorists. There were also some old ESPIONAGE adventures for earlier versions of Hero that are very DC centric. If you decide to go this route Noble Knight Games(an online vendor) specializes in collecting and selling old game stuff, that is where I got my copy of Here There Be Tigers.

Re: why the lack of..

Re: Takes off like a helicopter, flies like a plane! (Crosspost from Champions) I heard that Doctor Clark Savage Jr. owned an actual fully funttional autogryo. One of the assets of the Hidalgo Trading Co.

Re: Horror Hero: Cliches to Avoid

Re: Need help with Weapon Levels I think the primary differences are volume of fire and lethality. Police and Military forces largely depend on volume fo fire to suppress the bad guys, the difference being that most of the time police forces are facing either individual or at the least small groups of bad guys, while military forces almost always face larger groups of opponents. Another factor is that where possible police forces prefer to avoid an actual fire fight and almost always want to capture the bad guys, where military forces are trained to use lethal force first. I remember an incident about 20 years ago when some california legislators suggested using Marines to patrol the california - mexican border. The commandant of the marine corp refused saying that his marines were not trained for law enfrcement, but rather to charge over a hill and kill every living thing on the other side. Obviously this was an over-statement, but not by much. In game terms I would look at the organizational challenges and goals when setting the lethality of weapons. If police forces routinely face armored bad guys then they would have to deploy weapons heavy enough to deal with the armor and still allow capture. Military grade weapons need to be hefty enough to deal with common military personnel armor and make the bad guys keep their heads down. I am reading a series of SF novels, by John Ringo, where earth is having to face an invading alien race and while we use armor and every weapon from standard issue 20th century M16s to near future energy weapons and powered armor that would let a man crush a tank, the aliens take a different approach. They breed reEALLLLLLLLLYYY quickly and a standard invasion force consists of several million troops. So the alien tactic is to throw troops at you en mass until you are over whelmed. No tactics to speak of, just charge to the sound of the guns. if you shoot a thousand, two thousand more just take their place. And they take no prisoners (or very few). They are carniverous lizardman-centuar hybrids, and simply want to eat you, they eat the bodies of not only your fallen troops but their own also (yes they are cannibalisitic like that). They simply pick up the bodies as the front line apporaches them and pass them back where they are processed at the rear into rations, and the line keeps moving forward.

Re: An Old Quiz, But A Nice One. You scored as Storyteller. You're more inclined toward the role playing side of the equation and less interested in numbers or experience points. You're quick to compromise if you can help move the story forward, and get bored when the game slows down for a long planning session. You want to play out a story that moves like it's orchestrated by a skilled novelist or film director. hmmm... It seems pretty accurate. But I would have thought of myself as more f a tactitian.. var img_str1=""; var result_str1=""; Method Actor 75% Storyteller 75% Tactician 75% Butt-Kicker 67% Specialist 58% Power Gamer 50% Casual Gamer 0%

Re: Need help with Weapon Levels The equipment pool from DC are a very good idea. In addition consider this for power levels. IRL civilians are restricted from explosives, autofire, and armor piercing. Police are restricted from explosives and armor piercing, but have access to autofire, and new technology in the form of non-lethal (i.e. stun guns, taser, bean bag, rubber bullet) and crowd suppression (tear gas) type equipment. Military has unrestricted access to all/any weapons available including explosives, artillery, stealth tech, etc. As for body armor, there is really no difference between police and military body armors other than proliferation. Mozst street officers wear a lighter "under the shirt" armor during daily duty, but all have access to full combat armor as effective as military issue, especialy SWAT units, etc. Military troops on the other hand almost always use heavy body armor or nothing. I am a military retiree and in my 20 years of active duty never once saw a troop use light armor. Civilians don't normally use body armor of any type, but it is not restricted, just very expensive and uncomfortable to wear if you don't need it. A set of heavy body armor can run about $2000.00 were as Police and Military personnel are issued their armor.

Re: Guns on cards This is a pretty cool Idea. I may pirate it for Star Hero and Fantasy Hero.

Re: Lack of published material I am suprised no has mentioned The Turakian Age campaign setting. I have run a couple of campaigns set there and it is very well done. But I agree that if you want a D&D flavor a conversion is most likely the best option. I would like to see a decent conversion of the Dragonlance setting.

Re: I picked this up and only have this to say... Meanwhile a reporter from a small town rag has stumbled upon a mystery centered around barnstormers.... what are they really up to... and who are those roof top signs really meant for

Re: Galactic maps These programs are cool looking. From the author's web sites I think I prefer the look and detail of the mpas from Its Fulll of Stars (ifos). In addition on the ifos site I found maps of the B5, Spacemaster, and Traveller universes. Pretty snazy for freeware

Re: Jousting I don't remember all of the details so I'll have to look it up later, but there was an article about jousting rules either in Digital Hero, Adventurer's Club, or the old version of Fantasy Hero... I'll get back to you on it when or if I can find it again.

Re: Art Request Here she is version 1.0

Re: Hero System for Horror gaming I am not a huge fan of WOTC but they (or TSR their precursor, I can't remember which) produced a game system called Alternity. They produced 2 campaign backdrops for Alternity, Star*Drive, and Dark*Matter. They are both most excellent material for any campaign. Star*Drive is a Star Hero type campaign, and of more interest to this thread, Dark*Matter is a modern (20th/21st century) horror, gov't conspiracy type setting, the players get to get munched on ...uh I mean investigate demons, black magic, haunting, alien abductions, bigfoot, MIB type things. All of the creepiness of H.P. Lovecraft, and Stephen King without the sanity checks. Sort of "The Haunting of Hill House" meets "The X-Files". In the sample adventure in the Dark*Matter campaign book, the players start off stranded at a roadside diner, that is suddenly socked in by a freak snowstorm. Then people start vansihing mysteriously. The the bodies start re-appearing. If the players solve the mystery and survive, they are later approached by the Hoffman Institute (a private sector MIB type firm) and recruited as investigators of the strange and paranormal. If I was to run such a game I would use the 4th edition Horror Hero for certain "house rule" game mechanics, under 5th edition, and use Dark*Matter for campaign material.

Re: Art Request Ok I know this has taken a LOOOOOOOONNNG time, but I finally got the black cat thing to look like more than a black silhouette. I now have a 3D posable adult female figure of a black short haired bipedal cat woman (a female FEX ) I will apply costuming, a martial arts pose, and a medieval/fantasy background and get it sent to you/posted.

Re: Spaceship/Starship Volume Aboard a ship equipage is anything installed in the ship that is permanently anchored (like welded or bolted down), while equipment is any thing that is moveable even if bulky. So for example engines, mainframe computers, and weapon mounts are equipage, while desks, fire extinghuisers, PC, and small arms are equipment.

Re: Spaceship/Starship Volume As a rule of thumb (not super precise but close enough for game terms), an area 1 hex across, one hex, deep, and 2 hexes high is one displacement ton. In statting out a ship SH advises that about half of the volume for any given ship is usable interior space, with the rest being taken up by bulkheads, cabling, and equipage. By usable space it refers to passageways, empty compartment space, and cargo space. So here is your Naval trivia question for the day. What is the difference between Equipage and Equipment, and how do you reflect this in Hero terms. I will post the answer a couple of hours (I know the answer, I am just seeing who else knows)...

Re: You cannot defeat me! MIne was in my very first AD&D campaign back in 1978. I was playing a mid to low level barbarian (basically a 5th level fighter, as the barbarian had not yet been created as a class). I somehow wound up in a cavern being chased by Orcus the Demonlord ot the Dead. Obviously I had no chance of defeating such a power. So I offered my soul to Asmodeus in exchange for his saving me... The DM had him appear and this epic battle began between the Prince of Lies and the Demonlord. While they fought I slunk away... and spent the rest of the campaign trying to outrun Asmodeus as he tried to collect on our bargain. Hows that for a hunted by

Re: Alternity Hero conversion You are welcome. The Alternity Stardrive setting is one of my favorites. I would welcome any input for improvements, or if you do any additional Hero conversion/development I would love to incorporate it into a collaborative conversion. Eventually I would like to host a website with the conversion pdf and supporting Hero Designer templates and prefabs.

Re: A movie I recommend.. I just watched the Mini-Series Merlins Apprentice with Sam Neill, which I liked a lot. I got it at Hollywood Video, but I bet it can be Netflixed. I am currently Netflixing the Prophecy series of movies with Christopher Walken as the angel Gabriel. I watched part 3 last night. part 4 should be here tomrrow.

Re: Popular Guns There are legal inexpensive "for entertainment purposes only" devices that will make any semi-auto weapon fire full auto. They are legal to buy and own, but illegal to install. Thus the dealers add a little disclaimer to their sales that state they are for some other purpose than modifying a weapons rate of fire. The reason they are legal is that they don't actually modify the weapon itself. They are called trigger activators. There are two main models I saw, one looks like a little crank handle that clips into the trigger guard and each time you crank the handle a round fires, sort of like a gatling gun. The other was a little spring loaded clamp that inserts into the trigger guard and clamps there. If you pull lightly on the trigger it fires full auto, a medium pull will fire a burst, and a complete pull fires a single round. The idea is that with a little practice you control the rate of fire by trigger pressure. Each of these devices cost less than $40.00 and can be attached or detached in as little as 10 seconds. In addition they fit any caliber semi-auto pistol, rifle, or shotgun.