Old Man

Originally posted by Aroooo

I stand corrected. It is on the list... Its the Victory Class Heavy Destroyer, listed under the Interstellar Alliance. Sorry for the confusion. B5 Tech Manual data can be found here: http://www.b5tech.com/isa/excalibur/excalibur.html

 

Aroooo

Dude, that site looks cool but you gotta take some of what he says with a handful of salt. I mean, yeah ok Whitestars are cool but no way in hell do they have more firepower than an Omega Destroyer.

I've also seen another site that claims that Whitestars carry Nials, but I've never seen it on the show. As far as I can tell, they carry Flyers, not Nials.

Out of curiosity, do you or have you ever played B5Wars?

I would highly recommend it as a game in itself as well as a resource for fluff and ship designs.

While waiting for Aleister and Macarrandir to recover from their wounds, Yor received a message from his brother. Brother? yes, brother. The information contained in the message could only be known to a Strulie. Intrigued by the prospect of meeting this man claiming to be his brother, Yor set off for his homeland.

Running with the Grace of God, Yor was able to reach Cliffside in record time. Booking passage to Seabrook was a simple matter as the monks of St. Sebastian are well respected in that city. Before boarding Yor sent a messenger to Cowscrossing to let his companions know where he had gone - this trip might take longer than expected. The sea voyage was for the most part uneventful.

When he reached the fishing town of Seabrook Yor went in search of the man calling himself Yor's brother. Lars Strulie was tall, blond, and blue eyed. Looking at the two of them, the resemblance was remarkable. As it turns out, Lars was indeed Yor's brother - half brother anyway. To make a long story not so long, Lars inherited the name and preservation recipe when Sven disappeared years ago. Lars was told by a passing trader about a man that looked just like him. He decided to take a chance and confirm the story that his brother might be alive after all these years.

Although Yor was happy to meet his brother, he didn't wish to neglect his duties to Aleister and the people of Cowscrossing. He could stay for only few days. The brothers spent the time getting to know each other better and going over the Strulie family recipe. They were on an excursion in a sea cave to collect ingredients when a massive quake shook the island and nearly collapsed the cave around them. When the dust cleared Yor and his brother found a new section had been openned. This new cave held several small ceramic figures and a single yellow metal one. They took the figures to Gunter the dealer in pre-Seige antiques. Gunter was very interested in them as he had never seen them before. Another trip to the caves was planned.

The next day during an exploration of the caves, there was another earthquake. This time the explorers were not so lucky and the darkness took them all.

-------

Yor's companions spent many days getting to Seabrook and searching for Yor. So far, they have not found him.

oops, sorry, I don't rememeber seeing that one...

With a satisfied gleam in her eye, the dark haired woman reversed her grip on her sword and plunged it into Aleister's chest. "Ha! He's dead Jymn." Apparently she did not know here employer was down for the count.

Yor seeing that brutal act, overcame his moral objections and ran towards the woman. She tried to defend herself but the attacks of twin swords and flying fists were too much. In a last ditch effort she lunged at Mac piercing his gut with her sword. A final kick from Yor ended the fight. She was bleeding badly but still alive.

Lavenus happily got another grip on the blond woman suffering only minor bruises in exchange. The Toth was able to swing her around right into a double handed mace blow from Chip. The impact powdered her pelvis, she was dead before Lavenus droppped her to the floor.

"Aw man, you mashed the good parts."

Calling upon the power of the All-Father, Yor closed Aleister's wounds just in time. The pale man was even more pale than normal and in spite of Yor's healing power he did not rise.

Macarrandir's wounds looked bad, and smelled worse but Yor was able to heal him as well. While binding Mac's wounds, Yor heard the whacking of a hammer on stone?

"I can't watch this" Chip declared, leaving with the body of the Vashon priest.

Lavenus had taken it upon himself to remove hands and feet from Jymn using of all things, the Vashon's own hammer. Macarrandir greatly angered by the assault on his companions staggered over and made sure the Vashon didn't die from the ragged wounds. When that done, Lavenus dragged the two female corpses out to the forest to bury them.

"What you are doing isn't right, just kill them and be done with it". Yor carried Aleister's body as if it weighed nothing. Taking him up the stairs, Yor put the necromancer to bed.

Further details really aren't necessary. It goes without saying that Lavenus should be the evil necromancer.

Originally posted by Dr.Unpossible

Armour.

 

Hmmm. Powered. well you could try to just use a END Batter powerd FF that only looses END when it takes damage? ofcourse dunno how that would work

 

And Albative, I thought there was a rule for that somewhere already in the mountains of Hero material? Each time the PD or ED of the albative armour is exceded? the PD,ED drops by one, till its non existant.

What about BODY and/or STUN OIF, Does Not Affect Figured Characteristics, Only vs 1/2 Damage Taken, Only vs Physical Damage, Special Effect Skein Suit.

Or 50% Resistant Physical Damage Reduction, OIF, Ablative, Special Efect Skein Suit.

Maybe convert some (maybe half?) of the dice to Standard Damage?

Instead of a cannon doing 4d6 it does 2d6+6 or something like that. 3d6+6 would work too to keep the maximum damage the same but keep the average high.

That way the 2d6+6 WWII cannon would never damage the M1 DEF of 20+ but would still have a hefty kick.

Maybe a few sample thugs.

So if they're dangerous and you can't kill them, what do you do with them?>

Missile Deflection isn't all that expensive. Getting to the "Can Deflect Anything" level is expensive. However, the last 5 points should have "Only With Lightsaber".

The thing is that while using a Lightsaber the Adder of Missile Reflection should only work with energy based attacks. I would rule that bullets arrows and thrown things just get vaporized by the Lightsaber so cannot be reflected. Adding the "Not vs Heavy Missiles" would be good too. Jedi seem to dodge cannon fire (or die from it) rather than block it with their Lightsabers.

Originally posted by Aroooo

WEG's Star Wars had Light Saber Combat as a Force power. Anyone could wield the weapon, and do its standard damage. But someone trained in the Force could add (part of) their Force skill dice to the weapon's damage.

 

Often wondered how you'd do that in Hero. Maybe weapon as described (with the STR does not add damage), PLUS extra damage classes, up to your ECV level (to represent Force ability) (-1 limitation).

 

Aroooo

Naw, again it's the user not the weapon. You said so yourself. It's just CSLs used to increase damage. Maybe 'Only With Lightsaber'

Originally posted by Toadmaster

Same goes for tanks a Sherman is something like 5d6 RKA (76mm gun) DEF 10 (2.5" armor) vs an Abrams 6d6RKA, DEF 20 (12" armor), in reality the Sherman couldn't hope for more than a blown track but in HERO terms they are fairly equally matched, and that is with equipment built in the same century.

Actually I think you're foregetting that the M1 has AP, Pen attacks, and the Sherman does not. The M1 might also have extra Armor, Ablative installed. Of course, a blown track is a blown track - meaning that some damage is better than no damage.

This doesn't take into account that the M1 can fire at the Sherman when the Sherman is a dot.

What I also think some people are forgetting in regards to WWII tanks is that they have the limitation Damage Reduced by Range on their main attacks. It's a fact that the Shermans could affect the German Tigers - but only by firing at them at (effectively) point blank range. Farther than that and their shots bounced off - sounds like DRR to me.

Originally posted by Gary

The Empress wins because it has higher defenses, not because of more damage or better ROF. If both the Empress and Missouri fired upon a third stationary target, the Missouri would probably destroy it quicker because it has 9 16" guns and dozens of 3-5" guns.

You're so wrong here. The distances involved in space combat make it possible for the Empress to destroy the target before the Missouri gets a shot off. If the Missouri does get a shot off, the Empress will destroy it before the shells hit.

The reason 20th century war ships had so many guns is because they had crap for accuracy. I'm assuming that 30th century war ships have fewer because they can start shooting from farther away, they're more accurate, it's more efficient on hull space due to needed things like life support.

I'm fairly certain that STR does matter for Lightsabers. Sure they can cut through anything but that doesn't mean that it does so efortlessly. Qui Gon cutting through blast door as example. It looked like he was puttin some mucle into the effort.

Missile Deflection/Reflection is a funtion of the user not the weapon. It might require a Lightsaber to block a blaster shot but the Jedi will not suddenly forget how to block arrows if he's holding a normal sword.

The tavern common room was large, smokey and fairly crowded. That being the case, Jymn did not notice that his target was in the same room with him. Aleister meanwhile was watching Jymn and wondering when the fool would notice him.

It did take a while. Zin finished her meal and bade her friends good bye and happy travelling. The necromancer finished a fine meal and was on his second cup of wine before Jymn choked on his beer and a firey gleam lit his eyes. "There he is!" pointing to Aleister. "Kill him! go go!" pushing his three hired swords forward.

The tavern's patrons were as fast as any in the kingdom, they got out of the way and made for the walls. Some few were beginning to place bets as the three attackers closed on their target. The stocky Vashon pulled free a heavy hammer, the dark haired woman unsheathed her great sword and the blond gave her staff a practice spin. Jymn jumped behind the bar to hide.

Our heroes continued to sit and drink.

Taking this as the sign of an easy victory, the blond beauty leaped into the air, did a fancy spin, and landed on the table scattering cups and dishes everywhere. The move would have been truly impressive if she didn't land on her butt.

Lavenus took this as a great chance to cop a feel. The woman screamed in outrage and easily broke free of the horned man's embrace.

The commotion alerted Yor and Mac that something was wrong, they just reached the top of the stairs overlooking the common room when the Vashon found another stone-skin blocking his path.

"Stop right there," Chip said as he slapped the hired hammer. "We're both holy men, you don't have to kill anybody."

"Holy man? You're in league with that necromancer!" The Vashon priest took a swing at Chip but the hammer was deflected by Chip's buckler.

With a banshee scream, the brunette charged Aleister swinging her two handed death razor. Her blow would have split him from head to belly but lodged itself in Aleister's chair instead. The necromancer prepared himself to dodge another attack.

Yor jumped over the rail to land near Jymn. The floor behind the bar was very slipery. Poor conditions placed the monk at a disadvantage for only a second, but that second was long enough. Jymn swung his hammer and connected with Yor's shoulder. The force of the hit was enough to knock the young man out.

Mac pull out his swords and bounded down the stairs intending to help Aleister. The dark haired woman needed to free her sword from the chair and used Macarrandir's chest to do it. The Wythir fell to the floor among bits of shattered chair.

An exchange of attacks between the Vashon priest and Chip resulted in Chip resorting to lethal force. Chip was able to eliminate the priest by crushing skin and bones with his great mace.

Stick girl rolled to her feet and swung her staff over her head. With a single sweep of iron capped wood, she struck at Lavenus and Aleister. The blow to the necromancer's temple knocked him to the floor. Lavenus got a chill as the staff missed his groin by a hair.

Jymn seeing an advantage moved closer to make sure Aleister was dead. The woman with 5 feet of sharpened steel wanted to be sure as well. Her sword gave the pale man a very deep cut to the chest.

Macarrandir and Yor recovered within moments of each other. Both were a bit dizzy but the knew they were needed. Mac gripped his swords and attacked the woman with the great sword. His blades struck solidly but the deep cuts didn't seem to faze her.

Yor bounced after Jymn taking him down with a single kick to the spine. In spite of his armored skin, the Vashon went down in a heap. While Lavenus continued to make groping passes at the blond woman, Chip yelled for Yor to help Aleister.

"I can't attack her," he shouted back, "She's a woman."

Originally posted by Yamo

Okay, how does this sound:

 

1. All magic spells must be bought as fixed slots in a Magic Multipower. The Multipower is limited to a maximum number of slots equal to twice the mage's "natural" (i.e. unmodified by spells, magic items, or any Power) INT and once purchased, slots may not be "forgotten" or otherwise abandoned to make room for new ones. Lost INT will not result in lost slots, however. All slots must cost END, even if only to activate. All slots must take the Gestures and Incantations Limitations, as must the Multipower Reserve itself. Individual slots may take other Limitations, but only Gestures and Incantations can be applied to the reduce the cost of the Multipower Reserve itself.

 

I would make it number of slots equal to INT rather than 2x INT. 30+ slots is a crap load.

Originally posted by C_Zeree

As you said you put lims on spells because you want that flavor. Why don’t you put the lims on in a MP? The lims are flavor in the game, not because you want to shave points.

But there's no incentive for the player to put further lims on the mage's spells. Once the cost of the slot is down to 1.49, further limitations are pointless (at least from the player's perspective). Obviously there are limitations on the MP itself, but often there are other limitations that ought to go on a specific slot, such as reduced penetration or ablative. With multipowers you just don't see this, and that homogenizes magic a lot.

"4. Variable Point Pool: Too expensive, too abusive, and too slow in play." I agree totally.

"3. Elemental Control: Too expensive... Even at half price, spells with real costs over 40 or so are still too expensive to be practical in a Heroic game." I'm not so sure. An EC with a lot of spells in it is similar to having an extra -1 limitation on each slot, pointswise. And it does have the added bonus of discouraging the one-spell mage. The problem with ECs is that there are way undercosted powers, so that if the EC is set for 40-point-active powers, then the forcefield skyrockets to 14rPD/14rED 0 END.

"2. Multipower: Too cheap by far. Beginning mages end up being able to buy effective spells for ridiculous costs (like one point for an Autofire RKA)." I used to think MPs were okay, but then I actually built some mages using them, and I ran into this exact problem. The slots are so cheap that there's no reason to put further limitations on them, and limitations are what make Hero powers feel like magic as opposed to superhero mutant powers.

"1. Individual spells: Too expensive. Unless I load everything down with Limitations until it's weak and buggy as hell. I don't want ANY Limitations on my magic except Gestures and Incantations." Well, you could always crank up the limitations for Inc/Gest in your campaign. In 1st ed. FH they were worth -1/2 apiece. Or you could just give away an additional -1/2 limitation to the mages somehow. But part of the problem is that your example is poor--area effect attacks are very, very expensive in FH. So are drains and transfers. That's one of the peculiarities of the game. Try using force field as an example instead. =P

I should add that I prefer FH magic to have a lot of limitations to give it the right feel. Inc, Gest, Concentrate and Extra Time (full phase), in addition to the skill roll are what I would consider the bare minimum. But that's just me.

Re: I will offer suggestions, but first...

Originally posted by Lord Liaden

Yamo, the implications of this statement make me wonder whether your assumptions about spellcasting might be at the root of your problem. This is a very D&D approach to mages, turning them into mobile artillery at higher levels. Virtually nowhere in source literature or legend does a mortal wizard have the capacity to just wave his hands, say a few words and wipe out an army;

Pug

Sethra Lavode

But they're pretty exceptional.

Yamo did say he only wanted to require the limitations Gestures and Incantations. That being the case, a multipower might be the way to go. The slots are cheap but since they are only ever going to be -1/2, it's not so bad. Requiring that spell casters have Magic Skill to have spells in the first place is a good idea. The progressive background skills for higher point limit is a good idea along with something like 2xINT cap.

You can explain OCV/DCV like this:

(11+OCV) - DCV = what you need to roll or less on 3d6

Example: OCV 6 vs DCV 4

(11+6) - 4 = 13 or less on 3d6 to hit. Pretty simple.

I'm not sure what you mean by putting the CSLs in boxes but if it helps your players then go ahead and do it. Personally I would put WF first because if they don't have the WF for the weapon they are using it is a -3 OCV penalty.

I would second the recommendation that you start slow and low.

Grab the Skilled Normals or Competent Normals templates from p224 FREd and do a fist fight or knife fight. Just so everybody can get the hang of things.

After that you have to decide what genre you wish to play you campaign in. It all flows from there. You can always pop in here on the boards and ask for advice on ANYTHING.

Cleaning up the cuts and bruises took only a short time. Yor was granted the ability to close Chip's deep spear wound. Macarrandir while conscious, was no longer in fighting trim. With one member down, the group thought it would be a good idea to return to Cowscrossing.

Their return was thankfully uneventful. No more wandering blade beetles, no burning town, no ambush by Muskies...

"You! You're the evil necromancer that helped burn down part of the town!" shouted Jymn, the all-to-familiar Vashon. Jymn had recognized Aleister weeks ago and was a common irritant. He decided to confront Aleister just as the group passed through the town gates.

"Yeah, what are you gonna do about it?" Aleister glared "Huh? What are you gonna do little man?"

You'll see," the stone skinned man stammered "just you wait. You'll see." Jymn turned his back on the group and trotted off down a side alley.

Lavenus was just leaving the bath house and saw the little conversation. "Was that that same guy that's always harassing you?" At Aleister's nod, "I think I'll go have some fun." Lavenus took off at a jog. Mac shrugged and followed right after him.

--------

The next evening, Aleister, Chip, Lavenus and Zin were having a farewell dinner in the Prancing Pansy. Zin's entertaining troupe was to leave town the night and they wanted to say treat her to a good bye pint. Mac was abed, still recovering from his wound with help from Yor.

"Learn anything yesterday?" Aleister asked Lavenus.

"It turns out that Jymn guy is looking to hire some heavy hitters to teach you a lesson - a bruiser of a Vashon, and two ladies. They were prettier than me, I'm very bitter."

As if by fate, Jymn walked into the tavern closely followed by a thick, dark skinned Vashon, a tall brunette woman with a sheathed great sword, and blond woman of medium height carrying a staff. As already stated by Lavenus the women were stunning.

eeeewwwwww....stinky.

I'm actually a lot more interested in the non-Westerosi part of that setting. The Dothraki, Qarth, Braavos, Old Valyria, Meereen and Astapor... all much more exotic than Westeros, Wall or not.

From georgerrmartin.com:

"The May DRAGON (issue #307) will be a special Westeros issue. A spendid cover painting, by Hugo-nominated artist Donato Giancola, depicts everybody's favorite red priestess, Melisandre of Asshai. Inside, readers will find art and articles about the world of the Seven Kingdoms, including scenarios and suggestions for role-playing campaigns set on the Wall, or amongst the backstabbers and intriguers of King's Landing. The issue will also feature a full-color fold out map of Westeros, north and south, and a brand new interview with yours truly."

Should be a good resource.