SteelDoom

Re: Super-sorcery Necromancer Ideas... Help! She needs a cool transport power. Extra Dimensional Transport (Underworld) bought as a gate (use the teleport gates modifiers) and then give her a x512 non combat modifier (w/ zero END cost) to her walking speed while only in the underworld. The underworld could have the same natural physical world as ours. This would allow her to enter un warded buildings on the ground floor and generally give her a sense of mystery (how did she get in this room that is blocked to teleport?). The buildings would not normally exist in the underworld, with the possible exception of really old or death (crypt) based buildings which means she couldn't appear on a second story or a bridge or something.

Re: Suggest a Name? A quick look on an online dictionary gives this: often Kabbalah A body of mystical teachings of rabbinical origin, often based on an esoteric interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures. A secret doctrine resembling these teachings. How about Rabbi as a name? The Teacher? Scripture?

Re: What fundamental thing would you change about the Hero system? One of the disatisfactions I have with the game comes from the imbalance with playing high or low level characters. People say that this game can play low level supers and powerful godlike creatures but it doesn't quite work. eg: if you are playing super high level then you will be rolling 20+ dice for an attack... does anyone really do this? The official exp amounts favour low level characters with rate of growth. If you are a 75+ character getting 3 exp a session then in 30 sessions you will have almost doubled your character. If you are a 300+ cosmic, then you need to play a lot longer to double your points, which effectively means that the weaker you start the quicker you learn! At low levels the granuality of the system can get in the way. A minus 1/4 limitation may not give a point break that is really relevant to the limit, especially if the limitation is being grouped with others. The mega scale advantages seem awkward as they are more for high power users than lower. An answer to this might be to apply scale to the character itself. You could go, for example with Normal, Heroic, Superheroic and Cosmic catagories. Then every character is a 150 + 100 disads with scaling rules applying to any interaction outside their own scale (whether vs NPC's or vehicles). This idea was taken from the very early (pre d20) Star Wars game. If you try and hit something on a larger scale than you then your damage is mostly absorbed and if you aim for a lower scale then it is difficult to hit (the death star would have trouble hitting a frieghter). While this would need to be modified to suit the chamions genre (a normal human should be easy for a super to hit). The concept then leaves everyone with making the same points in creation and with the same granuality when making characters. To illustrate more; a 50 strength Normal would have the same strength as a 5 strengh Hero and a 50 strength Hero would be as strong as a 5 strength Super. The exact numbers and scale would obviously need a lot of play testing to get it right. Would 6 Heroes be a match for one Super (end game villian)? The other thing I have a problem with is that I don't think Killing vs Normal attacks have the right feel to them. Normal Attacks should by and large (by definition) be the normal attack. Leaving Killing Attacks as something to be feared except by those that happen to have the correct defence, it might be that Hardening automatically applies full defence vs Killing. Or it that killing does a lot more body and almost no stun, so that for a (for example) killing attack is a +1 (+2?) advantage but it does body and stun based on dice total like Normal attacks do, with no multiplier... 3d6 rolls an 11, which does 11 body and 11 stun damage. Or Maybe taking a page from White Wolf and having Normal, Lethal and Aggrivated damage (or similar) where the damage is essentially the same but healing is different. In any event, give the types of damage a clear differnce, however it is done.

Re: My first Champions campaign

Re: KillerShrike.com Fantasy Update Heh, this question reminds me of the Rolemaster game I'm playing in. It's set in middle earth in the fourth age and we are all Gandalf (power) level characters. My character has so many spells now days that I generally just tell the GM what spell effect I want and he usually just lets it go at that. I'm trying to convince him to convert to Hero as we'd make great Champions level characters in a "normal" fantasy world. It's dificult though, I have to admit as he's computer illiterate (!!!) and as a collective we have about every single Rolemaster (original) book and MERP module. This would take a big chunk of time to convert... Hmmmm maybe I should buy him the collecters edition of 5ER for his birthday!!!

Re: My first Champions campaign

Re: My first Champions campaign Thanks for the links. I have a passing idea of criminal law and I'm aware this court case is going to be setting up some major precedents in my game world. There were various charges of property damge, two of attempted murder (the police snipers) and many counts of miscellaneous shock truama type charges (Battery etc). Part of SS's defence was that her judgement was temporarily impaired because of her change which caused her to act in a manor out of character of her good name. She also settled all the civil stuff out of court and generally splashed money at things. She is still legally her birth identity but the court did aknowledge the concept of "mutant" which will hold weight in the future. It also amusingly might allow for warewolves and other creatures access to the courts as they can pretend to be mutants. Fun times!

Re: My first Champions campaign It's a bit of a mixed bag. 1/ Silver Streak - pro mutant with a total pysch lim vs killing mutants. SS is an out of the box flier, energy beam w/ armour, the armour is persistant and always on which ties in with her distinctive features. The distinctive feature is that she shines and has a soft glow like highly polished chrome, quite cool really. She was upper crust type that never worked a day and has Trump as a surname. I hope to get her to work on contacts in that field. 2/ Sailor Moon - there is a teenage girl playing and this is a good hook for her although I don't know much about the concept. She's set her character up so that she now owns the Trade Mark. 3/ Spider man clone - complete with media ties which should be handy. 4/ Lockstock - vigilante speedster and the combat machine of the group, no really useful non combat skills. 5/ Dr Strange type - limitted magic via VPP and has a sword which is a focus for a multiform (almost Dr Jeckyl and Mr Hyde) 6/ Techno Armour almost Iron Mannish type with 15 points in wealth and good tech skills. Should be useful.

This is mostly FYA(musement) I've run countless Whitewolf, DnD and Rolemaster campaigns and a couple of low level Hero games. So when the players asked me to run a Supers game I was a little at loss for plot lines. I settled on a World of Darkness type game where the Supers are inadvertantly violating the Masquerade. That's the back ground plot any way. For the short term I was going to let the player's disads give me plot hooks and things to keep them generally busy while they learn more about the world. The very first session I set them up a moral / ethical situation where a good intentioned npc was destroying (100 STR) public property to try and get to an "evil" telepathic super. Most of the players are ariving on a light air craft and will bail out as it flies over. One of the PC's (the Silver Steak) can get to half a mach so she got there very quickly, amd then interpretted her dis ad's to mean that she had to attack the police snipers. The rest of the players eventually arrived and aprehended the maveric brick while SS started running from the police and air force. It was quite amusing to watch her hiding in uptown New York flying through buildings in an attempt to hide. You gotta love players that give them selves unconceilable with major reaction distinctive features... don't you She then completely de railed my plot with court cases and such as I had intended that one game year after start that something would happen in the world. Now with the court cases and such it's already been nine months... hahaha like the saying goes. "No plot survives first contact with a bunch of players"

Re: Help me name my team; Part Three: Australia How about Terra Australis or something derived from this? Terra Australis (also: Terra Australis Incognita, Latin for "the unknown land of the South") was an imaginary continent, appearing on European maps from the 15th to the 18th century. The country of Australia was first termed Terra Australis by Flinders when he wrote a book of this title containing the maps he had made on his several voyages. Yes it is

Re: Star Fleet Battles Actually I was conidering whether the actual SFB board game could be converted to Hero. However I don't own any of the star hero or vehicle books. I was wondering if it could be done with any sense of elegance and which books I would need to buy.

I've been thinking recently of converting SFB to Hero. Seems to me that the fine folks at ADB have a great game but the rules are too complex and then it occured to me that this might be the first time anyone has wanted to convert to Hero to make things simpler! I'm going to order some books in the next few days so my question is which would be best for this task?

Re: Entangling giants How about a limitation on Glue Girl's Entangle, cannot entangle larger than one hex targets - 1/4

Re: Presence attacks never work? It's pretty easy to get a bonus to the roll. Sure, if you talk calmly to yourself you are not going to be impressed. However if you yell and have an appropriate speach and maybe brandish a weapon... then you get enough to go for brown trowsers time. Especially when you realise you are yelling into a mirror and are likely insane!

Re: How many points for the Earth? (and everything on it) While I still prefer the mega scale concept that is a house rule because there is no maga advantage for Damage. Looking at the base size chart with an approx diameter of 20,000 km you get size 33 costing 68 points. Using the table on page 448 "Wall Body" to get an estimate of the earth's body we get a disapointing 67 BOD, costing 67 points. I'll buy DEF to the same amount to represent over all toughness, that's another 195 points. For a modest total of 330 points. The transform is a tricky one, but using the old KISS principle (keep it simple stupid) I will say that you are not making anything very large, but letting the components do that themselves. So lets say a 20d6 Major transform sunlight to biosphere healed back by entropy, AoE megascale +1.25, constant +1, zero end +0.5, gradual time -8 (a 1000 years, which may be a bit short), no conscious control -2 for a total of around 120 points. I think I'll drop the life support, we have been created to survive in the local conditions and therefore don't need any special action to continue operating. Base: 330 Followers: 200 (includes fauna) Evolution / Act of Diety (Major Transform): 120 Total of 650 ponits

Re: Build me a power How about using the Time Scale for all actions. So for a half phase action, they can take say 5 minutes with the appropriate bonus. I'm not sure how you'd "game mechanic" that though except as Tarek posted. A cool drug though... very cool.

Re: How many points for the Earth? (and everything on it) Lets see: Automaton: Maybe use starship rules to make a ship this size. You'd need 6 billion followers, all loyal because (to quote the Tick), that is where they keep their stuff. Granite (I don't have my book here) probably has a def of say 8? Body of 10? So apply mega scale to that to fit what is appropriate to a global AoE. Life support, usable on others, AoE mega scale Transform, Sunlight to BioForm, AoE selective megascale. You could probably bring that in under 1000 points I think. Of course, to interfere with the earth you'd need a mega scale power at least as large.

Re: Teleporting Oxygen into and out of a hex Sonds like a Multipower doesn't it. 1/ Teleporting Air out: AoE one hex NND EB 2/ Teleporting Air In: AoE one hex EB (maybe with penetrating) Linked with Flash 3/ Teleporting Air In (non combat): Life support, usable on others (w/ concentration) 4/ Teleporting Air Out: Suppress/Drain to maybe END or Fire Powers or something unusual. 5/ Burst of Air: Leaping w/ focus required of a cape.

Re: Age of Conan MMORPG I've been playing MMO's since about a year after EQ1 launched. Since then I've been hyped about many MMO's but now a days they all blur to sameness... About the only thing that stands out to me is that apparently you play the first 20 levels as an offline game. That's cool IMO.

Re: Your Favorite Fantasy Weapon? Sword Chucks!!!!

Re: Need a McGuffin Name There was a legend of and item that the Demon Princes once fought a war over. It was said to be outside their power and thus they covetted it. It was simply called Fate.

Re: Fantasy GM's - question... I think an interesting idea would be to copy some of the anciant real world cuiltures that believe when you eat something you take on part of its powers. So a limitation like: Must sample raw flesh to learn form -1, might work.

Re: Rolemaster level conversion I was thinking about it but more as a guide on skill limits or spell AP limits. Something for the players (more than me) to judge themselves on. I'm not committed to this idea tho. That works Interesting idea... Thanks for the ideas. FYI another reason I was thinking of using the Grimoire is partly plot based. I could tinker with that and allow the players access to standard RM style magic along with MPs after the game starts. We've been playing multiple games in Middle Earth for over a decade now (damn I'm old!) and I was thinking of something like this for a plot: The players start in something familiar like Freeport in the Forgotten Realms setting. The chaos wars seem to be starting up again and this time it looks like there is no holding back. Mages looking to other planes see it spreading and some of the minor planes have already collapsed. So spells are developed to Gate beyond any plane that has ever been traveled to (in meta game it would be parallel universes, other Prime Material Planes). They all seem to be having the same Troubles and things are looking grim. Suddenly all the portals start opening to the same place. A scenario like the Riftwar Saga where the refugees flee through a rift to escape the Enemy would unfold. The first thing they note is that there doesn't seem to be any sentient life but there is lots of flora and fauna.... basically they have come to the 5th Age of Middle Earth and discover that the fourth Age ended with a general exodus from Middle Earth. I'm not sure I'll run with this plot but that's the general concept I'm going with. I may give the players Amnesia when they go through and make it First Age.... When Man first treads on middle earth... hehehe

Re: Curiousity about vampires and werewolves That d4mn Potter boy is always hijacking threads!

Re: They wont die I can't remember all the details of the episode, but thet invented a virus that would have spread via the unimatrix. They were going to give it to a borg drone they found that was outside comms range. It would have worked but they had moral issues with it... go figure.