dugfromthearth

a weak heart would be 2 disads: dependence - you have to take the meds regularly or have a heart attack and susceptibility - even with the meds too much exertion or shock will get to you. I would say susceptibility to PRE attacks that do EGO+20 and using more END in a turn then twice your recovery.

I would have two modifiers: AVLD to reflect that it is going against a cha not normally used to attack. and then I would do a straight cost multiplier using the cost multiplier for the cha to account for the extra cost per d6 of the cha. ie entangle vs CON would have an AVLD modifier, and then the cost of the power would be doubled (after all adv and lims applied) to reflect that CON is 10pts per d6 instead of 5. whereas entangle vs COM would have an AVLD and then the cost of the power would be halved.

by type: Conan - the best "hero as deus ex machina". He isn't a character so much as a force of nature. The world is explored through him. A great example of adventures as mysterious places and problems to solve. Fafhrd & the Grey Mouser - best "real people" within a fantasy world. Lots and lots of things are casually mentioned in the preamble to the their stories. But really they care about themselves, each other, and women. A great example of how power is not the most important thing to a character. Various low rent characters from Thieve's World - The best underbelly and normal folks in a fantasy world. The series was spoiled by the sudden proliferaton of gods and invincible characters. But the early books with the street adventures of characters of no importance are great very, very low fantasy. A Wizard of Earthsea - best wizard in high fantasy. He really has no interest in the lives of others. Wizards have their own place in the world and their own interests. They exist outside of the rest of the world.

I recommend powerful characters. when trying to introduce new players I used to go with weaker characters. They always like powerful characters better and they are easier to understand - stealth 18 instead of 13, strength 25 instead of 15. That way they are totally stealthy or amazingly strong.

At sunset the victim is placed on a stone altar with their hands and feet tied to stone pillars. The victim is on their back, their feet pointed east (so they are "facing" the rising sun). A concoction of alcohol is poured over them and set alight. It burns very quickly and cold, but it burns off all of their hair so that their skin is clean. Oil is then poured on them and scraped off with a strigil to remove the ash and any dirt. A scared brush made of white and gold eagle feathers (from the bald and golden eagles) is used to paint on symbols in a thick black paste consisting mainly of tree sap. Symbols are painted on the face, chest, etc. Over most of the body. As the sunlight fades torches on the pillar are set alight. The victim is warmed by the torches except under the paste which is chilled, and as the night wears on beings to feel like ice. At midnight the victim is released. The pasted is left upon them. It marks them as a heretic, but if left on will protect them from the sun. It will of course dry and flake off over time. When the paste is removed those patches become extremely sensitive to the sun and a few minutes exposure will make them red and sunburned, re-drawing the symbols upon the flesh. The cure for it is to have the symbols re-painted at midnight with a different mixture which heals the condition. Note that usually this means the symbols must be sunburnt to be visible. Note: Greeks and Romans bathed with oil and strigils to scrape themselves clean. They did not set themselves on fire to burn off their hair, but they did use lamps to singe off unwanted hair from armpits and the like (the women mostly according to paintings)

I would not allow it due to problems figuring out when people go. I mean does a spd 15 character go twice first on 12, or first then last? "bullet time" isn't high spd. it is high dexterity. you can't shoot any faster, just more accurately. Dodging bullets is DCV not speed.

some suggestions: allow double knockback on some of the dice (say 20 str), which would add about +4" to the knockback but not so much. add the extra time +1/2 phase limitation (this is probably the best) representing that he has to wind up to do it. add the 1/2 dcv limitation to give it more of a "maneuver" feel. with +1/2 phase and 1/2 dcv limitation he can do it, but it takes time and leaves him vulnerable.

is it literally those age 19 and younger? 21 and younger would include a lot of the basic soldiers in the army, so I'm iffy on that one but -1 is probably right. It cuts out pretty much all politicians, executives or people in positions of real power. high school and younger definitely a -1 or greater. I would probably go with a -1 1/2 since they really couldn't do much except serve as distractions.

to be snooty, I assume you are referring to the Flavian Amphitheatre, the Roman name for what we call the coloseum in Rome. It was used for gladiatorial games including animals and could be flooded for naval battles. The Emperor Vespasian started building the Amphitheatre. It did cost a lot in theory, but not compared to the wealth of the Empire. And it was not built based on a business decision that it would make money, but to curry the favor of the mob. Remember that Rome had a population approaching 1 million people. So getting a large audience for a free show was not hard. It did have fans, but it was not that popular. (dictionary.com pop·u·lar adj. Widely liked or appreciated). note the phrase "bread and circuses" refers to the Circus Maximus and chariot races, not the Amphitheatre and gladiatorial games.

the recommended method of world building is this: draw out a very rough map of a continent or part of a continent (like Europe). place the major countries and name them. place the major cities and name them. decide which country the adventure will start in. Come up with a ruler of the country and a few other details. come up with the name of the town that the adventure will start in. come up with the name of the tavern that the adventure will start in. make up the rest as you go along.

Charlemagne was crowned by the Pope and called a Roman Emperor, the term Holy Roman Empire is made up by historians, like the Byzantine Empire. A google search for charlemagne and "holy roman emperor" will get you 8,510 links to confirm it. http://www.hfac.uh.edu/gbrown/philosophers/leibniz/BritannicaPages/HolyRomanEmpire/HolyRomanEmpire.html The Roman title of emperor, which had lapsed in western Europe in the 5th century, was revived in 800 by Pope Leo III and conferred on Charlemagne, king of the Franks. After another lapse when the Carolingian line died out, the title of emperor, or Holy Roman emperor, was borne by successive dynasties of German kings almost continuously from the mid-10th century until the abolition of the empire. The Latin phrase sacrum Romanum imperium actually dates only from 1254, though the term holy empire reaches back to 1157, and the term Roman empire was used from 1034 to denote the lands under the emperor Conrad II. The term Roman emperor is older, dating from Otto II (d. 983). The term Holy Roman emperor is a convention adopted by modern historians; it was never officially used. The prospective heir to the throne was called king of the Romans.

the western roman empire fell around 500 ad. although it was theoretically revived by Charlemagne around 750ad it was even more theoretically revived as the Holy Roman Empire (I have no idea when it was founded, it was put to an end by Napoleon in 1804 or 1805). The eastern half of the Roman Empire survived until around 1300 or so I believe. But the gladiatorial games would have been at their height around 100-200 ad. Note that gladiatorial games were never all that popular in Rome, chariot races were the favored sport. Especially in the eastern roman empire.

I think LL has the right idea just naked power advantage usable against others.

okay duplication is 1 per 5pts, then 2x duplicates for +5pts So suppose we want 50pt creatures. 50pts 1 creature 60pts 2 creatures 65pts 4 creatures 70pts 8 creatures 75pts 16 creatures 80pts 32 creatures or conversely for 60 pts you can get (in paren is real cost) 1 60 pt creature (60) 2 50 pt creatures (60) 4 45 pt creatures (59) 8 40 pt creatures (58) 16 35 pt creatures (57) 32 30 pt creatures (56) 128 25 pt creatures (60) summon has the exact same point cost. 1 per 5pts, 2x creatures for +5pts. However you aren't paying full cost for the first one. So buy 60pts of summoning with the +1/2 advantage animal class, but only 1 creature. Cost 90pts Then summon a 60 pt creature, or 128 25pt rabbits (which would probably be very tough rabbits). This seems acceptable. After all the cost to summon 128 rabbits would be 40, since you don't pay full price for the first creature.

I actually have worked up Attack as just one power that can be used for EB, HA, HKA, RKA, Drain, Suppress, etc. Someday I will post it. Changes I would make (and have house rules for): all primary characteristics cost 2pts per +1. That makes it so much easier for players to figure out. (Divide dex into dex and agility, one for OCV the other DCV and Spd). Also changing char rolls to 8+char/3. This matches OCV/DCV which is dex/3, and default is 8- so going from default to bought skill follows a logical progression. 8- to 8+char/3 or less. At 2pts per +1 char it costs 6pts for a +1 instead of 5, very close numbers. And it makes the spread for normal humans 8- to 15- (for a char of 20).

"At the +1 level, it's too expensive an advantage. That's because you could simply buy double the dice for the same cost and you're essentially inflicting a 2X "vulnerability" on every foe you face." That is a good point. So maybe the way to handle it is to buy double the dice and have half of them with the limitation -1/2 only if the target has a vulnerability.

how about life support - immunity to poison Usable by others (or against others if they are unconcious, etc)? only would work for poisons and diseases that have the limitation that they do not work against a character with a given life support. this might sound cheesy, but it is actually totally realistic. the strength of a disease is not the same as how fatal it is. The fatality of a disease is dependent upon what it does to the body. antibiotic injections, antivirus injections, etc are actually fairly "low cost" to make once people know how to make them. I would allow this power, but I would make it only apply vs certain things which are known - such as immunity to rattlesnake poison. You have to have the right anti-venom or right spell. If you came across a poisonous hydra you had never encountered before you couldn't use this against it.

how about life support - immunity to poison Usable by others (or against others if they are unconcious, etc)? only would work for poisons and diseases that have the limitation that they do not work against a character with a given life support. this might sound cheesy, but it is actually totally realistic. the strength of a disease is not the same as how fatal it is. The fatality of a disease is dependent upon what it does to the body. antibiotic injections, antivirus injections, etc are actually fairly "low cost" to make once people know how to make them. I would allow this power, but I would make it only apply vs certain things which are known - such as immunity to rattlesnake poison. You have to have the right anti-venom or right spell. If you came across a poisonous hydra you had never encountered before you couldn't use this against it.

this is not actually a SFX. You fire a blast of 12d6 of "all energy types". You hit someone vulnerable to lightning. Not all 12d6 is lightning. Maybe 1d6 is ightning, 1d6 is fire, 1d6 is cold, 1d6 is laser, etc. So you could define it in that manner - divide it up by d6 and define the SFX for each d6 separately. Suppose you hit someone with a vulnerability to fire and lightning. Do you want the benefits of both vulns? What if someone has vuln to lightning but 50% damage reduction to fire? Or just +20 ED vs fire. I would not allow someone to define a power as simultaneously having multiple special effects. of course to switch SFX from lightning to fire, etc is a +1/4 advantage.

sorry, by the time I had my book I didn't see this thread. I will have to check at home.

I simply allow flash to be used as disabling. You can't disable the head, you can disable the chest and limbs. Count as flashing a targetting sense so 5pts per 1d6 I believe. You define the location at power creation (I allow choosing "arm" and deciding which arm when attacking). Target is disabled by default, but a successful con roll reduces it to impaired (like making a non-targetting perception roll for flash). I use "lack of weakness" as the "flash defense" for the power. It seems shocking to people at first to allow impairing with the flash power, but really most disabling is less crippling then being blinded, and the effects are of very brief duration normally.

other things for a wings multipower I recommend an AOE tk "wind" with some limitations so he can beat his wings and push small things aside a PRE bonus might be good for stretching up his wings AOE with STR (maybe not full str) for wing bashes

GMs should never say know to abusive powers they should allow them, then hit the character with an even more abusive villain. sure your character has an autofire penetrating damage shield. By my villain uses mind control and telescopic N-Ray vision to make you do the bank robbing for him from miles away.

Oh, wait I remember my brilliant idea. a group of rabbits isn't 8 rabbits it is one rabbit with X8 duplication - can't recombine. it is therefore one creature. That happens to have duplicates of itself.

I wasn't referring to you in general about the bogus argument. I thought you were asking for comments about why people thought DS was priced right or wrong and exploitable. I wasn't commenting on your specific comments. I have seen the argument used in regards to mental attacks, flashes, drains, and so many other powers where the assumption is made that a 1d6 attack will be effective because most character's have 0 defense.