Lucius

New Adder Idea for Psych Limitations In some cases, what makes a psychological limitation limiting IS the way it's reacted to by other people. I'm afraid I don't quite see the point of this adder, unless you had a concrete example to think about? Lucius Alexander For example, my compulsion to put a palindromedary tagline at the end of each post doesn't really "limit" me except in that it makes people think I'm strange....

Re: The Role Models Transgendered?? Please Explain. Lucius Alexander The palindromedary has a Y chromosome and a Y-Not? Chromosome.

Personal Immunity...to What exactly? Okay, let me get something straight. What I'm talking about is a Personal Immunity to ONE SPELL. One Spell that was built as a multipower because, as I explained, that was the ONLY way to build something as flexible as the original I was trying to update for the current Dispensation. I'm not talking about taking one spell with Personal Immunity and being immune to All Spells. I'm not talking about taking one spell with Personal Immunity and being immune to All Spells of a Given School/Order/Cabal/Whatever. I'm talking about the ability to set up a given, very flexible spell, to grant immunity to other aspects of That Particular Spell. The only things that makes it a wild card are: 1. The fact that I'm talking about a multipower. However, I think it's been established elsewhere as a general principle that in some ways, a multipower can already be thought of as "different uses of the same underlying power." 2. The fact that I'm talking about selecting it as part of a Variable Advantage. Otherwise, it's no different than if it were a straight spell with Personal Immunity, that could easily be ruled to grant immunity to the exact same spell cast by another wizard who studied the same sort of magick you did. Lucius Alexander Where was that palindromedary?

Chronicles of Gor Mr. E: You're right that at least SOME of the materiel in Ultimate Martial Artist should have been in the core rules. Mr. Halmades: What, exactly, do you mean you say your "360?" I get the impression you're talking about a wife, but I'm not familiar with that particular term. Back to the topic: I refuse to believe in Tuchuks until I actually see them. People in the SCA talk about them, but I think they're all pulling our legs. I've never even seen a picture. I'll admit to having read several of the books, which makes interactions with the online "Goreans" amusing sometimes. Lucius Alexander And the inevitable palindromedary

Re: Fixin' what's broken - switching from d20 to HERO If I recall correctly, wasn't Runequest one of the very first RPGs after D&D and Tunnels and Trolls? Runequest doesn't have classes. Althought it does have cults. Lucius Alexander None of them have palindromedaries.

Personal Immunity...to What exactly? I would think that's obvious. Just as you can take any slot and set part of the variable advantage to "personal immunity" you can set part of the variable advantage to "counter immunity" and then that slot's blast will hit someone who may have thought they were protected by their "personal immunity." And it's not just a matter of "wanting more experienced spellcasters to be immune to less experienced spellcasters." After all, this whole thing started because I asked myself "WHAT IF they picked 'personal immunity' as one of the advantages?" I may just say it won't even happen unless a player decides to ask the same question. And it's certainly not a 100% "I'm a Master Wizard and no puny apprentice can possibly hurt me" thing. You'd have to have your spell set up that way, for one thing. And there may be ways around it even then, for another. Lucius Alexander The palindromedary is singing along to the radio, but I don't think it got the words right.... "He's got this dream about frying some ham, He's gonna get up some stews in his one nice pan, And then he'll settle down And quietly chow down....... what do you mean, the name of the song's not 'Baker's Treat?'"

Fixin' what's broken Killer Shrike: And while we're at it, how about getting rid of Desolidification? Moving through things is obviously a form of Tunneling, No Normal Defense. Invulnerability is just the next step up on Damage Reduction, although of course you have to balance it just as you do with No Normal Defense.... And if we can put range on STR and have Flight Usable Against Others, do we need Telekinesis? Lucius Alexander The palindromedary remarks: "Watch out. These two will simplify the game out of existance given a chance. Or maybe complicate it into complete obfuscation. Depends on his mood...."

Personal Immunity...to What exactly? I can see what you mean. Well, for one thing, if I were to do that, it would be more than a -0. But notice, the way it's set up, each power in the slot has a VARIABLE advantage. If you want immunity, you have to give up something else - admittedly not much, unless I increase the cost of the advantage (and I think most people would think increasing it is reasonable, if it's made as powerful as I'm talking about.) Also, I would say you only get the immunity if a power slot with that advantage is ACTIVE at that moment. That may require buying Delayed Effect or Damage Shield or the like, too. Admittedly, if you're expecting to duel someone with the same spell, you'd probably set up that way....of course, if I did allow a countervailing advantage as well, it could become a guessing game..."how many levels of counterimmunity is he likely to be using?" I might even say that even a less-experienced mage could get around the immunity with an Analyze Spell roll to find a weakness..... One player's barbarian was given a magick sword as a reward, made by one of this school of magick. The sword had a limit "Does not work against members of ...." He never did figure it out, because he never tried to attack a member of that order. Well, he acted like he was going to once (the wizard was boasting that his magick force field made him invulnerable....the barbarian figured if that was so, swinging a sword at him shouldn't hurt him.....) Even when the normally glowing sword kind of "fizzled" and went dead, he thought it was a spell the mage cast....he didn't realize it was a property of the sword itself. Lucius Alexander Insert palindomedary tagline here

Re: Some questions...... If I understand you correctly, you are saying the character does not purchase the actual powers that constitute the spells. Not sure why you want to do it that way, but here are ideas. One is, a variable power pool. Then each spell (already pre-designed) can be bought out of the pool points. It means a big investment for the pool, though. Is that what you wanted? Another is to have each character in a given cabal pay points into the cabal. It is recorded as a perk on the sheet ("Member of XYZ cabal") but think of the points as a "donation" like when several characters buy a base or vehicle or something together. The Cabal as an organization is assumed to have bought the spells, and members who make their skill rolls are assumed to have "tapped in" to the cabals powers for those effects. Or you can just "wing it" somehow - just say by fiat that if you spend the points for the skill, you can use the spells. LA p

Chronicles of Gor For what it's worth, the "online Gorean" world is not necessarily that bound (pardon the expression) to the books. Many of them have never SEEN the books. Much online Gor is, if anything, probably even more disconnected from reality than the Gor books - and they start off as Edgar Rice Burroughs ripoffs. And some of it is so badly written.....so badly written I'm at a loss for a metaphor to say how bad it is. As an example: several characters are trekking through a jungle, including two slaves referred to only as "the blond girl" and "the other blond girl." Eventually, only the blond girl is mentioned. It's never said what happens to the other blond girl. Maybe she was eaten by a panther but that wasn't important enough to mention. I won't say there's nothing to be said for them, but for most people it's probably not worth it to read them. How did we get on this topic anyway? Lucius Alexander The palindromedary points out that if you rearrange the letters of his name it spells "I cure sexual land." Say what?

Personal Immunity...to What exactly? Those that remember the FIRST edition of Fantasy Hero may recognize what I was trying to do. That magic system had a power modifier that allowed you to take a certain number of active points in a power and create with it any given combination of advantages - or no advantages at all - up to that active point total. The school of wizards featured in that game and in the scenario that came with it had a "blast" spell that worked that way. The ONLY way under the current dispensation to get that kind of flexibility is to use a multipower with "graduated" slots as I have described. I actually created this set-up before FREd came out, and it was intended as an exception - I meant spells to mostly be bought straight-up without frameworks, but this one couldn't be constructed any other way. I just got to wondering what would happen if one of the advantages were Personal Immunity. Somehow it seems "logical" to me if that provides an immunity to any "lesser" slots (i.e. the ones with more raw power but fewer advantages - remember, I stated they had to be learned in order.) Oddly enough, apparently that IS "Book Legal." If I understood Mr. Long's answer correctly, the LEAST the power would do is protect against itself - and protecting against other people's powers is up to how far the one running the game wants to stretch the optional "may (or may not) protect against 'similar powers'" clause. It could be said I'd have a generous interpretation, but then if I introduce a +1/4 "counter-immunity" advantage too...... Lucius Alexander The palindromedary begins singing "Then we raised our might/ in a ring of light/ to fight in a wizard's war...."

Re: TK Pondering To me, that exposition FAQ seems to imply that while yes, you can grab many many targets with Telekinesis (at the cost of much ENDurance) you can only ever LIFT as much weight as the Str of the the TK allows. That would resolve the initial question. Now, that business of Force Wall stacking.... Lucius Alexander The palindromedary wonders how much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck had STR 10 Telekinesis....

So the "By the Book" answer is the first one - personal immunity grants immunity ONLY to that one character's own power, and protects against area effects or someone with missile reflection - the basic use of the advantage. And if it protects against anyone else's powers AT ALL, and if so HOW MUCH, depends on exactly how the Game Operations Director wants to interpret the optional "similar powers" clause. When I put it like that, it seems so darn obvious I'm embarrassed I asked...thank you. Lucius Alexander The palindromedary is kidding me about getting old and dense......

I posted this to Steve Long, but I decided I wanted to know what everyone else thought too.... I'm crafting a spell designed as a multipower. The first slot is a straight energy blast. The second adds Variable Effects and Variable Advantage. Each succeeding slot has fewer dice, and more Variable Advantage. (Three guesses what I was trying to recreate here....) You have to buy the slots in order; as a wizard grows in wisdom, his basic blast spell becomes more flexible. My question is, what happens when one of the advantages chosen is Personal Immunity? Does that grant immunity only to THAT particular spell, i.e. useful if you want an area effect, but no help against another wizard's blast? Does it grant immunity to another wizard who happens to be using the same EXACT configuration of advantages? Does it grant immunity only to that particular SLOT - i.e. if it was chosen as an advantage on a slot 3 power, it makes you immune to another wizard's slot 3? Or could the concept of "similar powers" be stretched far enough to say it grants immunity to any spell cast with this multipower by any wizard who bought it? Lucius Alexander The palindromedary notes that Lucius knows how he WANTS it to work, which is none of the above - that it would protect against any power of the same or LESSER slot, and leave you vulnerable to the more experienced mage with higher slots....but that's surely not Book Legal.....

I'm crafting a spell designed as a multipower. The first slot is a straight energy blast. The second adds Variable Effects and Variable Advantage. Each succeeding slot has fewer dice, and more Variable Advantage. (Three guesses what I was trying to recreate here....) You have to buy the slots in order; as a wizard grows in wisdom, his basic blast spell becomes more flexible. My question is, what happens when one of the advantages chosen is Personal Immunity? Does that grant immunity only to THAT particular spell, i.e. useful if you want an area effect, but no help against another wizard's blast? Does it grant immunity to another wizard who happens to be using the same EXACT configuration of advantages? Does it grant immunity only to that particular SLOT - i.e. if it was chosen as an advantage on a slot 3 power, it makes you immune to another wizard's slot 3? Or could the concept of "similar powers" be stretched far enough to say it grants immunity to any spell cast with this multipower by any wizard who bought it? Lucius Alexander The palindromedary notes that Lucius knows how he WANTS it to work, which is none of the above - that it would protect against any power of the same or LESSER slot, and leave you vulnerable to the more experienced mage with higher slots....but that's surely not Book Legal.....

Role-Playing Exercise #1 I decided to post before seeing anyone else's answers, to avoid being biased by what others said. No open conflict of a military nature, but in a confederation of democratic republics, there is probably a LOT of competition of an economic nature. And information is wealth. I might design an industrial spy, possibly even with sabateur abilities. Want to know if the next system over is close to duplicating your latest tech? Want to know how to duplicate THEIR latest tech? Do you suspect someone's found an unsuspected resource in an uninhabited system and is exploiting it without registering it with the Confederation...and you want to know for sure, preferably with a map so you can cut yourself a piece of that action? Maybe we can do business. Lucius Alexander Palindromedary Enterprises

When Aid Cost Went Up..... I've heard most vitki have a lot of rune for improvement... Lucius Alexander The palindromedary thinks Lucius is being a pain in the Asatru, and should get ready to rune for cover.....

Re: Aid Succor and 0 END I don't quite think that's fair. Just because someone doesn't know ALL the ways to break our lovely complicated little gaming system, doesn't mean they're not a good Game Operations Director. Now, if you bring them a character embodying the problem and they don't go "hey, wait a minute, I can't let you do that...." then they may not be a first rate G.O.D. Not necessarily bad, but not one of the best and most experienced. If you get away with it in PLAY and they STILL don't quite catch on that there's a problem, perhaps they shouldn't be running the game after all... Lucius Alexander Unless, the palindromedary notes, you like that kind of munchkinism and so do they and they know what they're doing...in which case, watch out for the next villain or monster using the same munchkinized mechanics on you.....

Re: Not Quite another Killing Attack Thread Re: The business about the bullet and knife not damaging a wall - - That's covered by the "real weapon" limitation, which says that you can't use a weapon to do things that it can't do. Lucius Alexander As opposed to the unreal palindromedary advantage, which allows the palindromedary to do things it can't do....hey, wait a minute, how did that get on the character sheet?

Aid Succor and 0 END And they thought Aid was abusive at 5 points per die?? By the way, the "say what?" commen was after I'd figured out a more recent edition than I had, did allow uncapped Succor. I can't believe they didn't think of what would happen with 0 End and Uncontrolled. Of course, game balance is ultimately in the hands of Game Operations Directors. As it is, I think they probably do too much in the way of restricting game-breakers, rather than labeling them and leaving it up the G.O.D.s judgement. As long as it's got a stopsign by it... Lucius Alexander Palindromedary copyright Palindromedary Enterprises

The Munchkin Build Contest That would be Talos, the bronze giant who guarded the island of Crete in Greek mythology? Lucius Alexander Palindromedary copyright Palindromedary Enterprises

The Munchkin Build Contest Raabe Val Char Cost 5 STR -5 11 DEX 3 10 CON 0 7 BODY -6 13 INT 3 10 EGO 0 10 PRE 0 10 COM 0 2 PD 1 2 ED 0 2 SPD 0 4 REC 2 20 END 0 16 STUN 1 4" RUN -4 2" SWIM 0 Characteristics Cost: -5 Cost Power 8 +2 Levels DCV (10 base & active) Visible (small) -1/4 Powers Cost: 8 Cost Skill 3 Forensic Medicine 12- 3 Paramedic 12- 2 PS: Coroner 11- 2 PS: Physician 11- 2 SS: Medical Science 11- 0 Area Knowledge: Munchkinland 11- 0 PS: Singing (EveryMunchkin skill) 8- 0 KS: Witches & Witchcraft of Oz (EveryMunchkin skill) 8- Skills Cost: 12 Cost Perk 9 Organization Contact: Lollypop Guild (Wife is a member) 12- 6 Organization Contact: COWW (Committee to Overthrow the Wicked Witch) (Useful skills & resources) (Dangerous to contact) 11- Perks Cost: 15 Disadvantages 5 Physical Limit: Munchkin 5 Psych Limit: Fond of the color blue 5 Psych Limit: Tends to break out in song and/or speak in rhyme, especially when happy or excited 10 DNPC : Wife (normal) 8- 5 Distinctive Features, Munchkin, Concealable, not distinctive in Munchkinland (In Oz, being a Munchkin IS concealable. A change of clothes and a little practice with accent, and he could pass for, say, a Winkie) Disadvantage total: 30 Identifying Quote: "As coroner, I must aver I thoroughly examined her. And she’s not only merely dead, She’s really most sincerely dead." As coroner of a large Munchkin village, Raabe is a very settled, upstanding member of the community – to all appearances. Before the Great Cyclone that brought the outlander girl from faraway, civilized Kansas, the sort of adventures he is most likely to be involved in would be as a member of the Munchkin underground, plotting against the Wicked Witch – usually using his medical skills to patch up Munchkins who have had run-ins with the Witch’s creatures, or using his position to deceive her, such as by convincing her that a collaborator killed by COWW died of natural causes (“Yes, your wickedness, he was found in a poppy field and the autopsy proves he slept himself to death….”) After the Cyclone, his COWW contact is less dangerous (I didn’t see any modifier in the book for “dangerous contact” so I made one up) but also much less active; members still know one another as trustworthy, may be inclined to mutual aid, but are much less motivated. Still, Oz is an uncivilized land, and with two witches and the great Wizard himself eliminated within a short time, things are very unsettled. The Winkies now follow an emperor, a Scarecrow rules the Emerald City, and even the beasts of the Southern Forests have a king now, but the land of Munchkins now has a power vacuum…who knows what adventures await? (Note: Meinhardt Raabe is actually the name of the actor who played the coroner in the movie. I just thought Raabe sounded like a good name for a Munchkin. However, I frankly know the book better than the movie, and my write-up may reflect that. For instance, I don’t think the movie shows how the Lion became king of the Southern Forest.) Edit: Mr. Raabe, if by some crazy chance you ever see this, I hope you'll forgive me using your name and accept this character in the spirit of fun in which it was intended. Lucius Alexander The palindromedary explains things like this happen when Lucius has insomnia....

Opinions On Limitation Level For A "Cargo Only" T-Port A nice range of opinions. Clever idea by the way. I know it's a plot driven idea, but remember, we're supposed to "reason from effects." So why would a teleport device be unable to teleport a sentient being? Well, one possibility that ties right into the "unreliable" angle is that it always scrambles the target at least a little on the molecular level. This doesn't have any bearing on sentience, as such, but means that any LIVING thing won't stay living if teleported - so perhaps there's a block against working with a living thing in the T-zone, as a safety measure to keep the users from getting killed. This would also mean that ANY device that is sufficiently complex at a fine enough level would be scrambled. Another possibility is that it simply can't transport any target that is too complicated, because it's incapable of processing that much information. Thus a further limitation; it could perhaps teleport ONE small, complex device, as opposed to a hexful of, say, gold bullion. A large complex thing, or anything as complicated as a person of any size, is beyond its capacity. If you have a reasonable special-effects explanation, that may help it go over with the players too. Now, as for what it's worth as a limitation; I agree it's got to be more than -1/4. I think "self only" and "others only" limits are usually -1/2 and this is even more limiting than either I think. I might go as high as -1, but probably not much more than that. Lucius Alexander The palindromedary wants to try hiding a homing device in their next likely target....

Re: Aid Succor and 0 END Okay, we're looking at different editions of the rules then. All I can say is.... Say what?!? Lucius Alexander That could boggle a palindromedary

special mechanical effects I don't see this as a problem. If you inflexibly said "you HAVE to choose a mechanic that's immune, it can't be a special effect" then for one thing, you throw out the window a lot of the possible concepts that would justify taking these powers in the first place. And what about Desolid - would you say you have to specify, not a special effect you're still vulnerable to, but some mechanic you're still vulnerable to? How in the heck would THAT work?? Lucius Alexander The palindromedary is vulnerable to the dreaded crab cannon.....