Grail Quest

Re: Velocity Discrepancies I think the issue is right here. For the sake of improving the gameplay experience, you are clearly willing to handwave away whichever system is "more correct". As the gaming experience has a higher priority for you, simply use different rules and get on with the game. As for FX, just suspend disbelief. We do it all the time in action flicks anyway, and it doesn't really take away our enjoyment. What you really have to do is manage players. What will someone driving a vehicle say when you use different rules for them and for the hero outside a vehicle?

Instead of a list of EveryCharacter Skills, I was thinking of doing the following: (a) Every character gets a 20-CP allowance (everyone is therefore worth 145 points in skills and a 10-score in all Primary Characteristics). ( Every character must take Cramming once (remember mid-terms?) This way, characters have the flexbility of, say, going to a library or online and reading up on stuff, or asking an expert. Many of the short-term things you learn, such as going to a seminar, and then promptly forget, can come under Cramming. © Every character generally takes 4-points of Language + 1 point for Literacy (the subjective rule of whether it is the norm for a society is discarded; considering how a lot of people short-cut or spell badly in e-mails, this is not unreasonable). Anything else, not explicitly bought, will have to be Untrained (6-) with circumstance bonuses. * What might be a fatal drawback of this approach?

Re: Armor and Shields Expanded It does look complicated on paper, but just think of how a shield should work, and don't worry about it. There shouldn't be any rules nitty-gritty with this shield writeup--that's the intent of it anyway. If you make calls fairly strictly based on the FX (and shouldn't all games be that way?), it'll all work out without having to interpret any of the modifiers on paper. Except the Focus DEF. It's really a whole other thread about why we shouldn't always use AP to calculate things like Area, Focus DEF, END Cost, etc... This is just one example. The power has a stack of Limitations, and it's clearly in a low-powered setting. Yet if we adhere too strictly to the rules, it'll take a nuke to demolish the shield. And good thing it costs no END to use!! * As for skill levels to improve the Shield Activation... My instinct is no, and to use the Hit Location coverage optional rule--that is, let the shield automatically cover a certain range of Hit Locations. There are tradeoffs. On the one hand, the defender is assured of coverage where he really wants it on the random Hit Location result. On the other hand, the attacker is assured of hitting a non-covered location if he accepts an OCV penalty (which, if you look at it a different way, translates into a better Activation for the shield). Additionally, if the defender wants to protect his head/face, he's also "blinded" to what the attacker in that arc is doing--remember, the shield is opaque unless you buy a modern see-through plastic riot shield. Existing skill levels already help by either putting them toward Block, or putting them toward DCV.

Re: Armor and Shields Expanded Hi! The Trigger and Focus modifiers are meant to handle it. E.g., You are carrying a wall shield, and a dragon breathes fiery doom on you. Your shield is DEF 8, but as a Durable Focus, it has a DEF of 56* with respect to whether it is damaged or not. (* A DEF 8 Wall Shield with Opaque and +1-3/4 worth of Advantages is 138 AP, which is DEF 28 x2 = DEF 56. I use Durable Focus because I normally house-rule with many things calculated off BP instead of AP--so in my game, the shield only has DEF 10x2 = DEF 20. Much more reasonable. One of the reasons why I use BP instead of AP, because focusing so much on AP blinds one to what else is going on in the power). Case 1: Your shield survives. In FX, maybe the heat is so intense that it just conducts right through your shield. Since your shield is not destroyed, just really really hot, you are hurt, but you can continue to hold up your shield for whatever protection it can still provide. In game terms, the Force Wall is, technically, destroyed by any incoming attack worth 9+ BODY. But the Focus itself is not harmed unless the attack does 57+ BODY. The Trigger portion of the power automatically and instantly resets the Force Wall. There is "no FX" to this. You just continue to hold up the shield. Like the Riposte example in the book, the Trigger is bought so that it can handle an infinity of instances of this. Case 2: Your shield is "broken". In FX, maybe your shield just melts or burns up, and practically falls off your arm. In game terms, an attack that does 57+ BODY will break not just the Force Wall, but the Focus. Since the Focus is broken, it loses its Force Wall power (it's only power), and hence the Trigger will not reset it. Cheers

Re: Armor and Shields Expanded Looks like some nice detail on your site, but can you provide a glossary or weblink for the location piece names? For example, I note a "habergeon" covers the same locations as a "coat", but what distinguishes them that they have a different name?

Hello! If you're not afraid of detailed writeups, have a browse here: http://www.freewebs.com/d20elements/herosystem.htm at my expanded Armor and Shield writeups. Armor is not changed much, but it was prerequisite to writing up Shields differently. Shields now use Force Walls so that someone can choose to either ignore the shield and cut through it, or try to bypass it (in which case the shield gives you a virtual DCV bonus). Looking for feedback for correctness! I want armor and shields to play as they "should" be (e.g., you can shoot through a shield if you want to and aren't forced to face a DCV bonus on your target). Don't bother telling me it's overly complicated in definition. If it plays just like armor and shields "should" in gameplay, no one will have to worry about what it looks like on paper beyond the DEF and Activation values.