Hierax

Re: Power "Cooldown": how to write up If that's the case, then it's perfect using it every phase is the +0 Baseline and anything less often down from there, nice! +0 Phase -¼ Turn -½ Minute -¾ 5 Minutes -1 20 Minutes -1¼ 1 Hour -1½ 6 Hours -1¾ 1 Day -2 1 Week -2¼ 1 Month -2½ Season -2¾ Year -3 5 Years ... I'd probably tweak it putting in an intermediate step of Extra Phase, like the Extra Time Limitation to make 1 Day be -2 like a regular charge: +0 Phase -¼ Extra Phase -½ Turn -¾ Minute -1 5 Minutes -1¼ 20 Minutes -1½ 1 Hour -1¾ 6 Hours -2 1 Day -2¼ 1 Week -2½ 1 Month -2¾ Season -3 Year ...

Re: Power "Cooldown": how to write up good point, moving the Limitation value around on the Charges chart as a Recoverable Charge could work, maybe somehow based on the steps on the Time Chart...

Re: Piercing Good idea! 1 or 2 CSLs is about right because 1-point of Piercing is effectively 1 DC or 1 BODY like 2 CSLs but since it only negates defences and doesn't do extra damage it is a bit less useful than the 1 extra damage. But since it is too hard to call, I like Edsel's idea of 1 CSL for non-resistant Piercing and 2 CSLs for resistant Piercing. Regardless of whether it is 1 or 2 CSLs worth to get 1 level of Piercing, it's a great idea!

Re: Alternate Advantage and Limitation configuration Regardless of the exact mechanical implementation, it's definitely a cool concept -- "With Great Limitations Comes Great Power"! or perhaps "with greater limitations comes greater power"!

Re: Alternate Advantage and Limitation configuration Or build an Aid (possibly with Standard Effect) with a Trigger that goes off when additional Limitations are utilized.

Re: Alternate Advantage and Limitation configuration Oh, yeah, you could also have each -¼ worth of Limitation = +1 to the Skill Roll, effectively letting you cast spells of 10 (or 5 or 20) Active Points more than normal.

Re: Alternate Advantage and Limitation configuration A second method is to use Variable Limitations and have them connected to an Advantage (possibly even a Variable Advantage): Have the Variable Limitations be optional and the Advantage (or Advantages, including increased Power, +1 Advantage = x2 Power, +2 Advantage = x3 power, etc.) be restricted by the amount of the Limitation(s) taken. If you take an extra of -2 Limitation(s) you can take up to a +2 of Advantages (including up to x3 power). The Heroglyphs article (DH.17.3-5) on Proportional Modifiers allows for this sort of useful power boost. Variable Limitations (up to -4 of Limitations; -2)

Re: Alternate Advantage and Limitation configuration Use an Elemental Control. I know it sounds weird, but hear me out: EC's don't have an Active Point Cap on them like MPP or VPP, I like them precisely to have spells that are more powerful than normal because they need to have 2x or more the Base Cost. If you put a Real Point Limitation on spells put into an Elemental Control then you'd get it so that the spells that use more Limitations could be more powerful than the spells that use less (or rather lesser total value) Limitations. Give the EC a Limitation "Real Points of spell EC must not exceed EC Base Cost (-#)" or "can't exceed Base Cost xN (x2, x3, whatever)" -- for easy math sake let's call it -1 for RP = EC Base... tweak the value to what makes sense after this is just a start* -- apply this Limitation only to the EC Base Points of the Pool not to the individual slots. e.g., with a EC 30 Base Cost, you'd have to buy at least a 60 AP with the Limitation "Real Points of spell EC must not exceed EC Base Cost (-1*)" it costs 15 points for the Base Points of the Pool. Now, for the 1st power to get it down from 60 AP to 30 RP so you need at least a -1 Limitation, for the 2nd power to get it down from 90 to 30 you'd need to have a -2 Limitation, for the 3rd power to get it down from 120 to 30 you'd need to have a -3 Limitation, etc. If you focus on what the EC does mechanically and see how it is perfect for using spells of greater than normal power, add the Real Point Restriction Limitation to encourage/enforce more powerful spells being more limited. Hope that makes sense and isn't too far out there for you.

Re: Sixth Edition Showcase #4: Deflection, Reflection, And Range

Re: Sixth Edition Showcase #4: Deflection, Reflection, And Range Excellent, more good changes! Great to see Base Points being used as the umm... basis for range. Page looks good too!

Re: Catalyst Spell Casting Yeah, and the various MERP modules lots had special herbs in them.

Re: Catalyst Spell Casting Great, thanks! Now just have to wade into all those great RM herb tables and look at monster write-ups for appropriate power connections...

Re: Magic System thoughts I really like the -1/20, -1/10, -1/5 AP divisions on the caster types for the 3 types. I'd add a direct parallels with: END: 1/2 END (1 END/20 AP), x1 END, x2 END (1 END/5 AP) Side Effect -1/4, -1/2, -1 Concentration: none required, 1/2 DCV (-1/4), 0 DCV (-1/2) etc.

Re: Catalyst Spell Casting Any suggestion on how to improve upon / flesh out this idea?

Re: Catalyst Spell Casting I meant a name for the interval between Very Difficult and Extremely Difficult = _____ Difficult. I like a full range of values to chose from, pet peeve I hate gaps in progressions.

Re: Catalyst Spell Casting I'm initially thinking that for those players/GMs that like it simple they can use the standard Easily Replaced Expendable Foci (-0) as a baseline that just let the spell work and offer no real bonuses and no extra hassel to run -- effectively they'd provide no END (1 END for 1 END). But for those who are more appreciative of the flavour gain and less worried about a bit of detail keeping: Easy Expendable Foci (-0 more) give +0 to Skill Roll and provide 0 END (provide 1 END but cost 1 END). Difficult Expendable Foci (-1/4 more) give +1 to the Skill Roll and provide 2 END for 1 END, essentially +1 END. Very Difficult Expendable Foci (-1/2 more) give +2 to the Skill Roll and +2 END (provide 3 END for 1 END paid by caster). I'd add an extra interval of Limitation at the -3/4 [need a name] that would give +3 to the Skill Roll and +3 END (provide 4 END for 1 END paid by caster). Extremely Difficult Expendable Foci (-1 more) give +4 to the Skill Roll and +4 END (provide 5 END for 1 END paid by caster). These bonuses apply only for spells that use the baseline spell Easy components. Some spells would still require these higher levels of components (Difficult+) as the baseline instead of Easy, and they'd have bonuses scaled from there -- e.g., spell is written up as requiring an Expendable Foci that is Difficult to Obtain, so using it gives no bonus but using a Very Difficult gives +1 Skill and +1 END (2-1), using [need a name] type gives +2 bonuses (3-1), and using Extremely Difficult gives +3 bonuses (3-1). These could be empowered some already innately/naturally some artificially to give up to a maximum of a 1d6 Aid per level of the component: Easy 0-1d6 Aid and/or 0-5 Active Points of a Power(s) Difficult 1-2d6, and/or 5-10 Active Points of a Power(s) Very Difficult 2-3d6, and/or 10-15 Active Points of a Power(s) [need a name] Difficult 3-4d6, and/or 15-20 Active Points of a Power(s) Extremely Difficult 4-5d6, and/or 20-25 Active Points of a Power(s) It depends if one wants the baseline Easy components to be empowered or if the empowering baseline is Difficult (hence the #-# range).

Re: Catalyst Spell Casting FWIW, the other week in a D&D game our party killed a Beholder and I was thinking awesome all these eyes should make great spell components and hey why not turn some of the eyestalks into a sort of wand? Sadly the DM didn't go for it, having spell components just be there, but in revamping my own FH Magic I though I should definitely have these kinds of options for component based bonuses.

Re: Catalyst Spell Casting good point, that makes more sense. But, that said, perhaps while they have an innate bonus they could also sometimes be empowered with a greater bonus as well and get the most options available.

Re: Catalyst Spell Casting Would you go with them all as innately empowered as is foci or would you prefer them to have to be actively empowered as Independent Magic Items that provide the END and/or Aid? Yeah, I think that the 1 END is faithful to the RM original. It's also a way that if you give some foci an actual minor power of their own and have the required 1 END have to come from a Magical Mana END Reserve instead of personal END, then you can have it only used by the magically gifted/trained. You could take the 1 END idea further and run with it to create a whole school of spellcasters that have an END Reserve (and perhaps a Magic Skill) but don't buy any spells with character points themselves, they just acquire (and perhaps empower) these magical foci/items and use their imbedded power(s); the number of END in their Reserve would be the number of spells that they could cast with the proper components.

Re: Cool Guns for your Games Also, say one wanted to equip a Scar-faced Tony Montana clone character but for the 21st Century -- what sort of updated "little friend" would 2010 Tony use?

Re: Cool Guns for your Games Cool thanks! a 20-round Drum clip looks like the way to go here. What is the American equivalent?

Re: Cool Guns for your Games I remember hearing about a Russian non-pump auto- or at least semi-auto combat shotgun somewhere. Anyone know anything about this kind of thing? Seemed to me that it would be great as a zombie killer with a faster fire rate vs. being mobbed.

Re: Catalyst Spell Casting Thanks! btw, I'm eager to pick up your book as soon as I get some $ I'll get a copy!

Material Spell Components to enhance Spell END and Power Mayapuppies, I'm curious, what did you finally decided upon? I'm re-vamping my magic stuff and am looking at something similar (btw, good to see someone else drawing on Rolemaster too!). I agree that the Gems are pretty simple to do as END Reserves. For the Plant and Animal (and mineral) parts, what I was playing with was using a regular Expendable Focus Limitation as a baseline for using mundane material spell components but to allow a bonus to the Skill Roll for using better/magical material spell components. e.g., Fireball Focus of "a tiny ball composed of bat guano and sulphur" but say if you used at Red Dragon's tongue or Efreeti horn, etc. you'd get a bonus This is similar to taking additional time casting a spell to get a skill roll bonus. This simulates the Ars Magica spontaneous casting. This way it's only as much of a hassle as the player wants to make it (thus addressing Shrike's good point). Furthermore, certain things could serve as a magical energy reserve, as per the RM Essence Catalyst system. I think that for those the caster still has to provide at least 1 PP/END themselves to what the Catalyst stores. This could be done with these components having the Catalyst ability; essentially being Independent Expendable Foci for an END Reserve and/or an Aid. The caster would have to pay the 1 END minimum to access the END of the Catalyst, possibly more if it gave a larger Aid as well. Now these Catalysts could be innately usable "as is" with them being empowered as a campaign ground rule or (if this would make them too common and thus too unbalancing or burdensome) to restrict it a bit one could require them to be created like Magic Items where a creator pays a character point (or few) to empower them. With these Limitations they would be cheap to make. The cost might be worth it to a caster to have an extra reserve of power (END) and/or to have a power boost when needed. Or, another possible approach is to have Catalyst Casters buy an extra END Reserve and/or Aid that is built with a Trigger and has an Expendable Focus. That way they have to pay the points for the extra ability and can only use it when the appropriate material components are available. i.e., either have Catalysts innately automatically empowered (whether written up as Independent items or as a ground rule for Focus Limitation modification) or have points paid for empowering the Catalysts (by a Catalyst creator) or have a caster pay points for the ability to boost his ability with Catalysts. Again, those are just some quick ideas that I'm running through, what did you decide upon?

Re: Help with an Ineffective Ice Mage... Life Support vs. Cold is oddly absent appropriate and cheap power, add it. Either full powered as per standard rules or 50% effect for half-price -- e.g., Eosin's Last Dominion book nicely did this reduced effect for his tough Trollkins and it's even more appropriate here for a cyromancer! Heck, I'd put in some DEF vs. Cold SFX attacks as well -- rDEF and nDEF and/or Power Defence. Add some minor Vulnerability/Susceptibility to heat/fire as a Disadvantage/Complication.