dugfromthearth

Re: what options for security devices around town? the town is a science outpost for a telescope. Basically everyone there works for the government. Rather than hiring a bunch of police they have him with his automated stuff. The scientists are fine with it - they are much happier being policed by cameras and robots than people.

There is a law enforcement hero who patrols a town. He is a tech guy and has built devices scattered around town - video cameras, stun guns, etc. Video cameras are probably some sort of enhanced sense for him. I'd like the guns to function on their own, so maybe allies? Any ideas on how to build a bunch of security devices scattered around an area that isn't a base? (Or should I just call it a base?)

I want to create a supervillain who starts out normal size but grows when he consumes something. This could be draining electricity, eating food, or something - haven't settled on what. But once he grows it is to be 0 END persistent (not inherent). The idea is the heroes have to stop him from consuming the thing and growing. So how do I make this growth happen?

Re: The Worst character in comics Captain Britain was fantastic in the British comics. The problem is that they took the hero with problems out of the British comic where everyone was flawed and put him in American comics where everyone else was perfect. And then they turned his sister in Psylock which is even worse. I have to say the worst character is the Hulk, the stupid violent version. Unlimited strength, stupid. The comics had to dream up inane plots so that he appeared somewhat heroic.

Re: need help with Rich Gates, Macrosoft Corp sorry for being so vague. My intent is to create the city with the conflict between the superheroes who represent the corporation and the villains under The Emperor. The players will be non-aligned superheroes. I haven't decided on whether the Gates Corporation is really evil and the players then have to eventually ally with The Emperor to defeat it, or if the corporation is just a corporation being attacked by villains scum. I do plan on having the corporation superheroes have "diplomactic immunity" to represent the corporation lawyers bailing them out of anything. What I want help with is figuring out the NPC's. Mostly what powers they should have. I've been away from hero for so long that I am having very bland thoughts of energy blast, strength, and armor. I'd like the NPCs to have more flair. Duplication, summoned allies, drains, aids, that sort of thing. Really make them supers rather than just guys in armor with claws.

Champions player since 1st edition but I've been playing other games for years (mostly CoH online). Living in Seattle, I want to run an adventure in a city themed with the tech community and need help figuring out the NPC's. The city is Sal Tasoras (Salt Treasure) a city on a penninsula of rock sticking out into a salt flats in the desert of central California (Crystal Valley). Since Rich Gates became a multi-billionaire with his Gates OS, he has diversified into weapons, cybernetics, genetic manipulation, pharmaceuticals (human growth hormone, steroids, etc) and telecommunications. Each division created its own superhero to show off its technology. Longhorn - genetically engineered with bull genes, tough, strong, horns Macrosoft Blob - pharmaceuticals more tbd On the salt flats are primitive and tech gangs in a perpetual Burning Man festival. They are led by The Emperor - a genetically engineered penguin. Firefox - 250pt, cybernetics. Has blowtorches for fingeres (RKA, no range, reduced penetration) - essentially super agents, there are many gang members with the Firefox modifications. Thunderbird - 250pt, cybernetics. Broadcast low frequency sound waves (subwoofer) that cause some effect. Use electric powers Gnome - 250pt, genetic altered. Tunnel into the salt Gnu - 250pt genetically altered. Attack with horns Lynx - 250pt generically altered. Attack with claws The Colonel - 450pt villain. The Emperor's right hand man. Superfast. Entangles by creating new threads.

Re: making killing dmg balance with normal dmg sorry, I was referring to what he had quoted - which didn't show up in my quote: a killing attack on someone with no resistant defenses - they still get their normal defense against the stun that does not make it any less lethal - it is about the stun. yes the change to how the dice are rolled makes it do less body for a 30pt attack. That is a side effect of making the die rolls be the same and is a rounding issue. It does the same for 5pts and more body for 10 pts. It is not intended, it just using dice to roll gives slightly different averages. 5pts = 1pt KA does 1 body 1d6 NA does 1 body 10pts = 1/2 d6 KA does 1.75 body 2d6 NA does 2 body 15pts = 1d6 KA does 3.5 body 3d6 NA does 3 body

Re: making killing dmg balance with normal dmg

Re: making killing dmg balance with normal dmg minimum damage is 1 stun per point of body taken (isn't that the standard rule?). So if an attack does 2 body but would do no stun they take 2 stun as well. a killing attack on someone with no resistant defenses - they still get their normal defense against the stun, just nothing versus the body. And they take minimum stun damage as above.

for my fantasy campaign I don't want killing to be better than normal dmg, just different. And I don't want to have it have an advantage. So I ended up making killing damage and normal damage roll the same way for stun and body. Killing body is only resisted by resistant defenses. Killing stun is the stun rolled minus the body rolled and you get full defense against it. This makes killing attacks much better at doing body but worse for stun. Example: 5d6, 1, 3, 4, 4, 6 Body total is 5, stun total is 18 The normal attack does 5 body and 18 stun, resisted by all defenses the killing version does 5 body and 13 stun. The 5 body is resisted by resistant defenses, the 13 stun is resisted by normal defenses.

Re: how to do it: strength effect lingers after moving would it be no range? does the uncontrolled make it so that it would be no range when he placed it but then he could walk away? I am thinking a no-range uncontrolled invisible-effects tk. 10 str tk (15) uncontrolled (+1/2) invisible effects (+1/2) ap: 30 no-range (-1/2) rc: 20 or 15 str tk for rc: 30 is that it?

This is for a low-powered "super" agent game. The idea is that the character can apply strength to something and then move away but the strength effect continues. For instance he could hold a cup in the air, then move his hand away and the cup would keep floating for the duration. Or push against a door then run away and the door would still be "pushed" against for the duration. The strength would only equal his own (probably 15) and it would last for maybe 5 minutes (duration could be under his control when he set it but not something he could turn off later I think).

Re: Power Defence... Ugg I just consider any power vs power defense to be an NND and define some defense against it. Basically changing it from an AVLD to an NND. I like the flavor of it better.

Re: Dependence: A useless Catagory of Disads? first of all there is a point value to needing to eat/drink, sleep, and breathe. if you want to avoid having to do those you need to buy life support. The dependence on those things is built into the base value of your character. Fixing dependence The time between dependence isn't the problem, the problem is the difficulty of getting/doing the dependent thing a consideration of the disadvantage should be how long it requires to do it. Bathing for an hour in salt water is a much bigger disadvantage then needing to drink a glass of salt water. Likewise sleep is a bigger disadvantage then breathing in the sense that sleep takes 8 hours of your day and breathing takes no time. The bonus should not be based on the raw how long it takes - it should be based on how long it takes vs. the time of the dependence. Requiring 1 hour every year is basically trivial - requiring 1 hour every 6 hours is a much bigger issue. I would go with: takes 1 time period less then dependence to fullfil dependence -10; takes 2 time periods less then dependence to fulfill dependence -5. Availability is a big factor as well. A dependence that you cannot bring with you (a vat of salt water, the sun, etc) should be worth -5 points more.

Re: Any Arcanum-style campaigns out there? I've got rules for alchemy as a science (gunpowder, acid, etc) and I wrote up some stuff on steam engines. In my game world technology and magic don't work well in the same areas, but that is just a skill roll modifier for an area, it is not built into the magic or tech system. (IE in some areas you get a +1 on magic skill rolls and a -1 on science related skill rolls).

Re: What's the most useless supplement you'd actually like to see? in case it hasn't been mentioned there was an Ancient Egypt sourcebook for the Hero System (which I have and like) as well as an Ancient Greek (bronze age, not classical). They were for Hero/Rolemaster. I would like to see a book of non-magical and non-tech "powers" for use by all types of genres. Things like trap building (AoE entangle on trigger), stretching as an aid to Dex, etc. There is some of this already scattered around like the extra dice damage you can buy to use with a gun, etc. Would be cool to use for fantasy for non-magic characters, or pulp characters, etc.

Re: Calculating robot/AI idea - all Overall levels please do borrow it.

I was going to work on these for a character but the campaign ended. Summon animals came to me (pun intended) after our characters were stampeded by a herd of a thousand elk. It was very painful. There would be two versions of this. Normal summoning - animals are frequently attracted by salt and possibly the scent of some other food. The ranger either carries salt or creates a mix of minerals from antlers and bones and uses it to summon a small number of deer or the like (lots of extra time). Or they could use some other food or herb to attract a particular type of animal or group of animals (bear, crow, vulture, etc) that are attracted by the scent. You could have it summon crows with the side effect of summoning a hostile bear if it goes wrong "Reverse" summoning is creating a stampede. This could be done by summoning a huge number of animals, or as an attack like wildfire below. Wildfire is a large AoE (possibly megascale) with gradual effects. Unlike normal gradual effects it does the damage basically all at once, but the area increases gradually. Basically a big AoE cone with a couple of d6 killing, 1 recoverable charge (once you burn out an area you have to go someplace else to do it again) with a duration on the charge so the fire is not instantaneous and a gradual effect (affecting the area not the damage as noted above). Throw on "only downwind -1/2" and doesn't work in water or rain or perhaps some other such factors and you have a character created wildfire. Very handy when there is an army you want to take out.

I used this for some robots in an adventure. Some where automatons some were not (better AI essentially). They had their dex bought to 0. For actions the relied upon overall levels. The tough ones had 20 overall levels, the lesser ones 15. The idea was that when they did a maneuver they calculated the best way to do it - using their levels. So if they attacked they would put 5 in DCV and 10 or 15 in OCV (depending on the type). If they defended they put all 15 or 20 in DCV. So the could only be hit when they attacked. They had two limitations with this. They always announced their intentions "I will strike you down, I have 100% chance of success." "I will easily avoid your clumsy attempts to hit me." So players who caught on could figure out whether to attack or defend. The other one, which the players didn't catch onto in my adventure, was that they used the overall levels for everything. Being standard fictional computers/AI you could ask them questions and they would try to answer them. So if asked to calculate pi they would put 5 overall levels into math until they had finished (which of course they would never do). So very clever players could bleed off overall levels into pointless skills by asking questions. I really liked it, because it made the robots seem invincible at first. A 15 OCV is quite impressive and a 20 DCV is amazing (in my campaigns anyway). After they players figured out how to deal with it, the robots became mechanical to fight - take a recovery when it says it is defending, attack when it is attacking. And then the robots weren't so tough.

Re: I need help with the new transform - Mouth Breathers Yes I want to mechanic it out the effect is contagious. The problem isn't an army of violent thugs appearing that aren't really evil. It is that when you fight them you might get transformed as well. Having a couple of super teammates get transformed would make the encounter very different. Edit: oh, I was wondering how to do the contagious part. Sticky? Damage shield made AoE?

I'm not up on the new transform. I want to have a "virus" that is transmitted through the air. When you catch it you get +10 str, +10 Con, +10 dex, +1 spd (+2 total), a psych lim of enraged (by basically everything), and you have the transform power always on for those around you (you breath through your mouth, drool a little, and transmit the virus). How do I build this?

Re: Using Attack Roll as Burnout Roll I also use burnout for primitive weapons of stone, bone, wood, etc. Using the to hit roll is a good idea for reducing die rolls. I'll consider it. The basic problem with it is that realistically weapons break on hits not misses. But burnout can work on hits or misses anyway. One way to cut down on die rolls while still rolling all of the dice is to have different colored dice and roll them at once. We do this sometimes for to hit and location, roll 3 blue dice and 3 red dice. Blue is to hit, red is location. Speeds things up a bit.

Re: What if REC was based on EGO, not STR? I like using EGO for willpower to stay alive and stay active. But that isn't recovery. Stun = (Con/2) + (Ego/2) + Body Is what I use for that. Using Str or Ego for Rec makes sense for those who use strength or those who use Ego powers, but generically it doesn't make a ton of sense.

Re: alternate weapon design mod: undreadys -1/4 or -1/2 casual str rule is a nice touch. I assumed that drawing a weapon included readying - but I think you might be right that they don't consider that a weapon could be in hand but not readied. I hadn't thought of that.

Re: alternate weapon design mod: undreadys -1/4 or -1/2 you got me. the game calls it "draw a weapon" Fred 237