Zeropoint

Re: RapidFire-Aholic

Exactly: if you want to spray prodigous amounts of lead downrange, look at advantages and limitations other than autofire.

For starters, if you fire a large number of bullets, you can do more damage, but armor should protect against each bullet individually. You can simulate this by buying a larger attack and putting Reduced Penetration on it.

With all those bullets in flight, it's going to be hard to miss: buy Combat Skill Levels for that attack.

Maybe you can saturate a large area with bullets, indicating the Area Effect advantage.

Don't forget that you can use a very high ROF attack in different ways--perhaps a multipower would be in order.

I personally don't like the way Autofire works in the Hero system. Firing more rounds just means you'll miss more.

Zeropoint

Re: Using d20 instead of 3d6 (DON'T KILL ME!)

First, I DO agree that modifiers should have more impact when near the 50/50 mark. It reflects my experiences in life: if a task is so difficult that failure is very nearly certian, making it slightly harder or easier isn't going to change things much. Likewise, if a task is trivially easy, making it slightly harder or easier isn't going to make much diference. It's those times in the middle, when something is hard, and your full concentration is required, when it's tough, but you think you can do it if everything goes smoothly, THAT is when your odds of success can be shifted greatly by little things.

Second, the randomness issue. In real life, my experience is that most people perform at a fairly consistent level of ability most of the time. In other words, knowing a person's skill, and the approximate difficulty of the task, we can make pretty good predictions as to whether they will succeed. The 3d6 roll reflects this--the rolls will cluster around the middle of the range, and characters will get average results most of the time. With a single die, as in d20, you are just as likely to perform spectacularly well or spectacularly poorly as you are to perform near your skill level.

Lastly, in connection with the randomness, is the fact that a d20 will yield a critical result 10% of the time, which is just too often. Consider: no matter how good you are, no matter how skilled in the arts of defense, no matter what armor or protective items you may have, the weakest and least skilled opponent you can find will still hit you one out of every twenty attempts. Likewise, you will fail at any task, no matter how easy, no matter your skill, one out of every twenty times.

That's just not right.

Zeropoint

Re: Resistance is futile...

Originally, the Borg were/was conceived as a distributed consciousness, a single mind inhabiting myriad bodies. I'm thinking that some kind of huge duplication would be the way to go here.

Of course, the original concept was, I suppose, too difficult for the folks at Paramount to grasp, and they were changed into an insect-style hive with a queen who controls the whole collective and recieves information from each drone.

Remember this: in the original concept, there is only one Borg. The drones are no more separate individuals than your neurons are.

Okay, I'm ranting about an interesting concept being dumbed down, so I'll stop now.

Zeropoint

Re: Miniaturized Manufacturing Units?

It is the same author. He's also written Snow Crash, a cybyerpunk(ish) novel with an interesting take on cyberspace. It also deals with couriers, the mafia, the development of language in ancient Sumeria, and pizza delivery. The Diamond Age is set in the future of the Snow Crash world, although either can be read and enjoyed with no knowledge of the other.

You might also look the Baroque Cycle, three massive books (900+ pages apiece) which are set in the late 1600's/early 1700's. I've only started the first book, which is at this point dealing with the rise of modern science thanks to the efforts of people like Newton, Hooke, Boyle, Huygens, and company. The Cycle also serves as a prequel to Cryptonomicon, containing the story of various Waterhouses and Shaftoes, as well as occasional references to the Cryptonomicon itself.

I'd also reccomend In the Beginning Was the Command Line, a non-fiction book examining computer OS interface, the philosophies behind them, and how they reflect our society's interaction with technology.

Zeropoint

Re: Miniaturized Manufacturing Units?

I'll second the reccomendation for The Diamond Age. In addition to being a good look at the possibilites of wide-spread nanotechnology, it is an excellent story with well-written, compelling characters and plot.

Zeropoint

Re: Hollow ForceWall

It may not be official, but I've always considered a Force Wall to be a quasi-solid "object" (assuming it provides PD). I would rule that a force dome would support a rock placed on top of it--after all, it would stop the same rock if it was thrown at you. Likewise, I would rule that a horizontal force wall could be walked upon, if it had enough PD to support the weight of the people.

Recall, however, that the rules (and common sense) prohibit using Force Wall to duplicate the effects of other powers, such as Telekinesis. This means that while you can use it for a bridge, you can't use it as an elevator. Or, it you've got a rock on top of your force dome, and you try to move the dome up, the rock somehow pops through.

It just doesn't make sense to have a Force Wall that will stop my foot if I'm kicking it, but not if I'm standing on it.

Oh, and if you're using a Force Wall to make an atmosphere containment field, remember that they don't normally block gasses.

Zeropoint

Re: Computers In Star Hero

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadowcat1313

I was going for something similar to old traveller or space opera in the first place

 

Well, then you do want computers from the late 1970s. I said that if that's what you wanted, then your idea would be fine.

Ah, the days when men were men, women were women, and computers had reel-to-reel tape drives and magnetic core memory. Those were the days. You could perform a software shutdown on a system that didn't have that feature by writing 1's and 0's alternately to the memory near the cabinet temperature sensor.

Zeropoint

Re: Computers In Star Hero

Seeing as how I forgot to adress the main point of this thread in my post, I'll just post again.

On the one hand, I like the idea of a computer that has a large library of programs, some of which can be active or inactive, or running at diferent levels of priority.

On the other hand, by my own numbers, it looks like a typical early twenty-second century middle-of-the-line PC could run all the software ever written as of 2004 as a screen saver, so it's hard to imagine anything using up the system's capacity.

Maybe it's OS bloat.

Zerooint

Re: Computers In Star Hero

Moore's Law (which is what's known as an "empirical law", meaning that it's just an observation that holds true much of the time, as opposed to a scientific law, which describes the way the universe works) states that computing power doubles every eighteen months.

A desktop computer of 2104, by this standard, will be roughly 1.20 x 10^20 times more powerful than today's models. That's 120 quintillion, folks.

What could you do with that kind of processing power and storage?

Zeropoint

Re: Fifth ed revised name?

I believe it was decided that FREd stood for "Fifth Rules Edition".

Of course, we had the name before we knew what it stood for.

Personally, I think that 5ER is concise, accurate, and not nearly as contrived as FREd. Steve Long has asked us to use this name for it as well.

Plus, it reminds of the psychic rabbit from Watership Down.

Zeropoint

Re: Points to pull the trigger

Remind me not to get in a gunfight with Zeropoint

KS: Firearms isn't going to help me all that much when the lead starts flying. I've got WF: Small Arms, but a low DEX (definitely no higher than 8) and no CSL's.

Speaking of KS: Firearms, how high is Rally Vincent's (of Gunsmith Cats)? Maybe it's actually a superpower of some kind with a Skill special effect.

Zerooint

Re: Need a name for a hero...

Apollo (god of physicians, IIRC)

Panacea

Booster (as in "booster shot")

Painkiller (interesting how these beneficial compounds contain "pain" and "kill" in the name!)

Lancet

Cadaceus

Angel of Mercy

The Human Hit Point Battery (well, that's GOT to cheesier than what you've got)

Bones (from the old nickname for doctors: "sawbones". Plus, you get automatic dibs on announcing, "He's dead, [team leader].")

I'd better stop before I start suggesting things like "White Mage."

Zeropoint

Re: Points to pull the trigger

Presumably the target wasn't moving or shooting back at you.

An excellent point. Given that the rules for hitting one's target with a ranged weapon are written to simulate combat, I have believed for some time that a substantial bonus should be applied to characters firing a weapon out of combat. By the rules as they stand now, it is no easier to hit a target while standing at a shooting bench on a pleasant Saturday afterrnoon than to hit the same target while jogging along (half-move) dodging bullets, flying debris, and the occasional plasma bolt.

That doesn't seem right.

On the other hand, accounting for this would add complexity, and I suppose that most players would like to imagine their characters as cool enough to fire accurately in a combat situation.

Zeropoint

Re: Physics students needed

To start with, the formula for kinetic energy is E = 1/2 * m * v^2. Using the numbers above, this works out to 1.425 x 10^7 joules. That's fourteen and a quarter million joules.

But let's take a different approach. Assume Spiderman brings the train to a stop in twelve seconds (I'm just pulling this number out ot the air--watching the movie with a stopwatch would give you a much more accurate final result). This gives us an acceleration of 29.0576/12 = 2.421 m/s^2. (Incidentally, this is about 1/4 g)

Force = mass x acceleration = 33762.2 x 2.421 = 81740 Newtons. So how much is that? A Newton, the unit of force in the metric system, is the amount of force which will cause one kilogram of mass to accelerate at one meter per second per second. At the surface of the Earth, gravity imparts about 9.81 m/s^2 acceleration, meaning that a kilogram weighs 9.81 Newtons. So, exerting 81740 Newtons of force is equivalent to holding up 81740/9.81 = 8332 kg, or 8.332 metric tons. This works out to a STR of about 43 or so.

You could also just multiply the mass of the train by its acceleration in gravities for the same result: 33762.2 x (2.421/9.81) = 8332.

For Spidey's actual STR score, consider that he may have been Pushing and adjust accordingly.

Zeropoint

Re: Thunderbirds are Go!

in real world terms, it makes a power work over longer distances at the cost of loss of resolution, so to speak. Some examples:

Megascale flight: "I can fly REALLY fast--so fast that I have trouble stopping in the right county."

Megascale energy blast: "This blaster cannon can relieably hit a target out to 30 light-seconds. Of course, to get that kind of precision, we had to gear the servos WAY down, so it can't move fast enough to track a target within 500 kilometers."

I hope that helps.

Zeropoint

Re: Points to pull the trigger

Only if they are holding the gun with both hands AND using the Weaver stance. In the isosceles stance, the weak hand is wrapped directly on top of the strong hand, with the weak thumb over the strong thumb (DO NOT wrap the weak thumb around the gun--this leads to a phenomenon known as "slide bite") and the weak index finger either just under the trigger guard or wrapped around it. Both arms are extended fully, lining up the pistol with the shooter's centerline.

Zeropoint

If a character with a Force Field which provides PD is splashed with a liquid, does the liquid contact the character? (will he get wet in the rain?) Does it matter if the liquid is an attack? (would thrown acid burn him?)

Also, can a character use a Force Field to protect himself from dangerous objects, such as a red-hot piece of metal or super-sharp sea urchin, when picking them up?

Thanks in advance,

Zeropoint

Re: Opinions on Cthulhu Fantasy Hero wanted.

You're very welcome. It's always nice when the information rattling around my head proves to be usefull to someone.

Zeropoint

Re: Opinions on Cthulhu Fantasy Hero wanted.

Well, I've read a fair amount of Lovecraft, and the sanity issue has always been a bit of a sticking point for me. The first source of SAN loss is simply finding one's self in a terrifying position, threatened by a vastly superior force. That will put some mental stress on anyone.

The second mental stressor for a Lovecraft character is both more potent and more subtle: knowledge that doesn't fit your current worldview, and which requires you to either accept highly unpleasant (to put it mildly) concepts as truth, or deny your own senses and reason. Either of those options could be considered a form of insanity.

The problem with this approach for the modern gamer is twofold:

First, we are typically familiar with a large variety of non-real concepts, and are used to mentally handling concepts with no concrete backing. This gives us an edge in dealing with a deeply weird new concept, because we can keep it at arm's length mentally while evaluating it. (I've noticed that mundanes seem to have trouble dealing with ideas not grounded in reality)

The second issue is that Lovecraft tended to base his horror on the assumption that both the protagonist and reader would be operating from the assumption that the universe was set up to be beneficial to humanity and individual humans, and the revelation that it wasn't would be a hard mental shift to make. I think most of us here in the twenty-first century are quite comfortable with the idea of a universe that is uncaringly neutral at best and possibly slightly hostile. (recall the short story "The Cold Equations")

Between these two factors, most of the sanity-bending horror of Lovecraft's work is lost on me. His stories typically present an insteresting study of someone uncoering clues that point in a direction they really don't want to go, but fail to connect on a visceral level.

In terms of actual constructive advice, I give you a quote from Lovecraft himself: "The oldest and most powerful human emotion is fear, and the oldest and most powerful fear is the fear of the unknown." To keep your players on edge, keep them in the dark. Put them up against something that they know nothing about, not even its name. The key is not giving them enough information to make predictions or manipulate the situation to their advantage.

I've been on the recieving end of this treatment in a Deadlands game, and the GM had us fearing for our lives every round of combats that we were winning easily, and fleeing in terror from a place with no acutal indications of a threat.

In a nutshell: the less your players know about the Beings From Beyond the Veil of Reality (cue theremin), the better.

Zeropoint

Re: Images or Shapeshift?

This is a good example illustrating the benefits of breaking down Shapeshift by sense group. It seems tailor-made for Shapeshift vs. Sight Group.

Zeropoint

Re: The Timing of Extra REC

If a character had 0-End flight, could he just hover in place while taking a recovery? After all, it's not any harder for him than standing up but not moving would be for anyone else.

Zeropoint

Re: Weak Supers who just needed better writers

My understanding, having taken both chemistry and physics classes in college, is that "chemical reaction" is reserved for a reaction involving electrons and electron shells, and "nuclear reaction" ("Nuclear, adj. Of or relating to atomic nuclei) is used for a reaction involving a nucleus/nuclei.

Zeropoint

Re: 6v1 Even Fight

By that logic, DCV is a problem. After all, if Grond misses when he tries to punch you, you've avoided a lot more damage than a punch from a normal would do.

Zeropoint

Re: "Magic" Through Scientific Laws?

I suppose it all boils down to the tastes of the setting designer, and what they want to emphasize (how's that for a cop-out?).

You are absolutely correct about magic needing some kind of structure. I believe it was H. G. Wells who said, "If anything can happen, then nothing is interesting."

I've read one of the Lord Darcy stories (I'd like to read more, but haven't seen a book around lately), and found that magic whose properties are well understood by both the author and characters makes for intriguing and intellectually satisfying storytelling, and lends a strong sense of realism to the work.

My own preferrence for magic, though, would have it draw from art as well as science. In the same way that chemical laws, optical laws, color theory, and composition theory can never completely account for, say, Van Gogh's "Starry Night", it seems to me that magic should have something that goes beyond simple cause-and-effect laws.

Of course, I could be making a false distinction here. Computer programming is a wholly deterministic, rule-governed field, yet programmers recognize that truly great code is spawned in beauty, art, skill, and perhaps a little "magic".

I think I've just argued myself out of my point. Or shifted to a subtly different distinction, or something.

Zeropoint

Re: Weakest Supers in books you've read?

Used properly, an ordinary man who doesn't think twice about making a suicide/sacrifice attack could be pretty powerful. Especially if you get to reuse him.

Zeropoint