Kaze9999

Re: New Game: Remnants of Hope

Okay, here's a first draft. First the background as the character knows it:

APPEARANCE

Hair Color: Brown

Eye Color: Brown

Height: 5' 10"

Weight: 130 lbs

Description:

Seline is tall and thin with fair pale skin and dark brown long straight hair and dark brown hypnotic eyes and an unearthly beauty about her.

BACKGROUND

Seline has no past before 'the event' which transformed the Earth (some parts of it more then others); her first memory is that day. She surmises that she was either transformed from some previous existence, possibly as a human woman, or created from whole clothe on that day. She is sure that in either case, it was the tremendous power of Takafanes which caused her current existence, apparently an inadvertant side effect of the cataclysmic power of the magic he employed that day. She hasn't aged a day since then.

PERSONALITY

Seline sees herself as a sort of farmer, practicing animal husbandry upon her livestock, the human race. She cares for humans as precious resources, and avoids killing them when it's not too inconvenient. She greatly opposes the goals of The Collective, The Pains of the Dead, the Black Reaches, and anyone else who would cause the human race to become unpalatable. She has only been a vampire for about sixty years, and has avoided creating any fellow vampires, though she is aware that she can.

 

Humans fascinate her; she could watch them for hours. She doesn't really enjoy interacting with them all that much, but she loves to watch them go about their lives. She has over the years tried her hand at encouraging some humans to mate and produce offspring in an attempt to improve the breed, mostly for taste.

 

Seline will ally herself with humans trying to defend humanity as a race for her own existence's sake. She will ally with humans trying to resist injustice and fight for freedom out of a sense of curiosity. She finds repressive police states to be boring; less variety among the humans. Freedom creates much more interesting variety, in her opinion. Out and out anarchy seems to quickly turn into repressive tyranny, however, and she does not support it.

QUOTE

I? Oh I am a friend. Just a friend. You would not want to be more then that.

POWERS/TACTICS

Seline is at heart an observer, a spy. She can do some damage in a sudden, suprise attack, but is not suited to a stand up fight. She likes to collect secrets, and she likes to release rather then horde them, at strategic times for maximum entertainment effect.

Now, unbeknownst to the character I am thinking that all the world-class magic spells going off--especially Takofanes--had the effect of stripping all the existing undead of their independant intellects and making them into slaves, and that Seline had been a very old vampiress and very accomplished sorceress and managed to survive as an independent intellect but only as an amnesic shadow of her former self.

Not sure if that's a good fit, but it would explain why there weren't any other vampires (either above or below her in rank and status) and also gives a nice path to future 'power ups' as she regains pieces of memory and mystic lore and spells casting abilities or innate mystic-but experience/skill-based abilities.

Okay, the mechanics. Uh...I have to say up front that I am much more of a role-player then a strategist or design engineer, and my builds tend to be more about how I will play them then about being efficient. Um, not on purpose, just not good w attention span and such for building really intricate effective powers. I started with the base template of the Bestiary's "Greater Vampire".

Okay I am totally open to suggestions from others on making her more able to pull her own weight (like how to do the same thing for less points and buy up her defenses); here's some .hdc files (plural cause she's got a multi-form):

http://www.herodesigner.com/getCharacter/222063/Seline.hdc

http://www.herodesigner.com/getCharacter/222064/Seline%20-%20Bat.hdc

http://www.herodesigner.com/getCharacter/222065/Seline%20-%20Mist.hdc

http://www.herodesigner.com/getCharacter/222066/Seline%20-%20Rat.hdc

http://www.herodesigner.com/getCharacter/222067/Seline%20-%20Wolf.hdc

Still open?

I'm thinking of an undead character who can 'pass' for human and who doesn't want to be a slave. Vampire probably, living among the population of either the Warlord's or Dr. Destroyer's domain. Does that sound likely in principle?

Re: New Game: Remnants of Hope

As requested (I think) over in my "Next in Line" thread, I'm starting up a thread for the specific discussion of Remnants of Hope and character concepts for it. This will be where questions can be asked, answers given and, eventually, campaign highlights posted for the perusal of those interested. First order of business... establishing the setting and characters.

 

Setting details

Some thoughts on how 500 points characters can survive against people like Takofanes and Destroyer

 

Specific, Character-Creation Related Information: At this point, I'm mostly looking for concepts and recruiting players. However, characters will be created within the following guidelines:

 

Base Points: 350

 

Disads: 150 (up to 75 from any one category).

 

Campaign Limits: Within about 50% of the Champions limits, with much the same guidelines in mind. OCV/DCV should be in the 10-15 range at most, typically, even considering maneuvers. Active point limits can and probably will be blissfully ignored if the power itself isn't too unbalancing as built; I'm a firm believer in the idea of some powers (say, Shapeshift or Regeneration) getting far too expensive too quickly for their general effectiveness.

 

Special Rules - Disads: Hunted by various *major* villainous agencies and groups (Dr. Destroyer, VIPER, Eurostar, the Warlord, etc.) will be looked at very carefully; you'll need a rationale beyond "we're going to be fighting him eventually, I want the points for it" before taking something like that. The primary reason for this is because, at the start of the game, the odds are that none of those groups even know you exist, or you wouldn't anymore.

 

Special Rules - Hooks: Characters should have at least 1-2 hooks for "power up events" - radiation accidents, retraining, unlocking hidden reserves of internal power, whatever. These hooks, if used, will be worth 100-200 points of power increase. There will also be some in-game events that work like this for everybody (or do so effectively, possibly by reducing the power of a particular villain), but I'd like some that are personalized to the characters and the players who run them.

 

At any rate, if you don't have a writeup yet, don't worry about it - I'm mostly looking for concepts, as stated above. I'm willing to answer any questions, and actually kind of eager to do so - it's easier for me to flesh out a world when I've got a direction to go in while doing so.

 

Remnants ETA: Unknown (probably a good long ways out there yet).

Fascinating idea! Are you still taking apps for the Hero Central version of this game?

Re: Traveller Hero Update

Will these products be available in the Hero Games Online Store in the 'Licensed Products' area? Please?

General guidelines more then rules, really...

Actually Lord Liaden there is....

 

Namely Luck is (at least to me) a VERY VERY ambiguos (forgive the spelling) power (talent - as I show my 4th ed roots) that has never been helpful for more than helping out characters to find clues the players might have missed, or having something occur during a game as distraction or help.. i.e. the bomb timer glitching for a few seconds to give more time to disarm.

 

I have never really understood how it could be used to have actual game affects. (such as damage from a falling wall or at least some sort of STR check to free oneself)

 

Does that make sense?

 

 

Thank you very much for the swift reply also

Sort of off topic here but regarding luck effects I find the whole 'five points per level' assumption to be helpful. That is, whenever a PC's 'luck' kicks in, I don't generally do anything more then 5 points per level in some other power would have accomplished.

So if a wall does fall on someone because they're attacking someone with five levels of luck, it isn't going to be more then a 5d6 normal damage wall in my game...though that would certainly be enough to luckily warn the PC someone was sneaking up on him....

Re: Real life drug effects in Hero terms?

I think that the old Eye for an Eye suplement (pre 5th Edition) has write-ups for a selection of drugs. I'll try to remember and have a look when I get home this evening.

Perfect, thanks! I found it on sale online and in near mint condition! Whether it has the drug write ups or not, it will be a fun pick up. Thanks again.

http://img234.imageshack.us/my.php?image=151708hc0.jpg

Re: Real life drug effects in Hero terms?

Dark Champions most likely has something, yes, but what you can for the most part do is just ask yourself, 'what does it do?'

 

LSD is a powerful hallucinogen; Mental Illusions sounds like a winner there. Other drugs are depressants, euphorics, and the like, most of which can be seen as 'Mind Control, One Emotion Only'. All of them should probably be built Based on Con, NND (appropriate Life Support), that sort of thing.

 

Sometimes you'll also have a lasting side effect; LSD, for example, hardwires your brain and essentially gives you the Phys Lim of 'Flashbacks'. The frequency and totality of them is dependent on how frequently you've taken the drug, of course.

 

Read up some on what the drug does, and bam ...

Aw, your sketch of a write up perfectly sums up my own problem. I did look up the drug, and find that when I do my own write ups I end up sidetracked into way too much detail, much more then necessary.

Your suggested write up for LSD would be fine considering we're just talking about a game here, but if I did the write up myself I'd be frustrated at not being able to reflect the stuff that I learned about it. The 'hardwiring' part for example is much less defined and much more complicated IRL.

Anyway, I if I'm going to do my own write ups, I'll just do the research and then make up my own drug with a made up name so that I won't obsess over everything that's not 'right' when I use it in a game.

For some reason, I have no trouble using published write ups that are at a level of detail and accuracy sufficient for an RPG.

Hey, is there any place where real life drug effects are written out in Hero System terms? Like for example, if a PC gets dosed with LSD.

I was thinking that'd be in Dark Champions, but haven't located anything.

This has actually come up in a game I'm in, and I'm not sure how to resolve it without giving less then full value for either the power or the advantage or else just saying that the advantage cannot be applied to the power.

Okay, how would this work? The Darkness power does two main things, it keeps whatever is in the area of the darkness from being able to use the affected sense(s), and it keeps whatever is outside the area of darkness from being able to perceive what's in the area--and possibly what's on the other side of the area--of the darkness with the affected sense(s).

So, if the darkness power has the full +1 'invisible power effects' advantage, no one should know that there is in fact a darkness effect over the area, but they still shouldn't be able to see into the area or see at all if they're in the area or see what's on the other side of the area. Right?

I've got a player who wants to build a 1d6 Suppression of Technological devices with a one-hex area effect centered on himself at 0 end cost with the 'Cumulative' advantage.

It seems to me that for a relatively low cost in character points, he will be able to simply lean against any technological device for a couple minutes, and it will fall to pieces. Unless of course it has 6 points of power defense.

Is that pretty much the way that would work?

Re: How's *this* for a new setting.

Just a thought - has anyone ever had a 'Narnia HERO' campaign?

 

It looks like a potentially pretty decent setting: magic, but no high powered spellcasting, all artifacts firmly under control, etc.

Hm...well, this was posted 2 and more years ago now, but I am trying to ramp up such a campaign now. Well, with a twist or two.

http://www.herocentral.net/campaignInformation.htm?campaignId=462474

Anyone read and enjoyed John Ringo's Legacy of Aldenata series enough to try converting it into Star Hero terms?

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0671318411/ref=pd_sim_b_3/104-5087295-6820751?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance

I saw what looks like a promise of official licensed source material for traveller, probably d20...blech.

http://www.travellerrpg.com/Aldenata/

Re: Renaissance Hero Resources

Hm...armor piercing would do the trick nicely, I guess. I don't think the velocity of the thing would really justify it, but maybe relative to crossbows and such, it would make sense.

Hero Stats on early firearms?

I want to get some herosystem write ups for the firearms of the early 1600's, when it became more apparent that heavy armor would not protect against infantrymen with massed firearms.

I want my swashbucklers/musketeers to have a good reason for not simply loading up on armor beyond simple genre compliance. A prevalence of one-shot, inaccurate firearms which can be easily dodged by an unarmored man but which can put a man down even in the heaviest armor ought to do it.

I figure the projectile would be relatively huge, the accuracy would be abysmal, and the rate of fire worse.

Something like a 2d6rka w +1 stun multiplier and -1 to hit per 1" range, reload time taking total concentration for five action-phases? And of course a real good chance of a misfire on each shot....