Theros

But I will use your idea.

I am going to use END reserve as stat with separate REC and END. I think adding AID will make things too complicated?

Second thing came with Orcs...this is related to above: Resistance to Cold: Orcs are children of the north and as such have a natural tolerance for cold weather. They are immune to nonlethal damage caused by cold dangers like cold weather, severe cold or exposure, or extreme cold. Additionally, orcs suffer only half the normal damage (rounded down) from the lethal cold damage caused by extreme cold. What will be the cost for this?

I am now finishing PC race conversions. I came up with following: +1 CON rolls when resisting cold and exhaustion. The Dorns are a hardy people. This bonus reduces recovery lost by one level in cold temperature and END duration is extended to 40 minutes.Additionally, Dorns suffer only half the normal damage (rounded down) from the cold damage caused by these effects. How much this costs CPs?

I am going to put Innate Talent. Cost maybe 10 points. Then every school of magic will be bought as separate talent. Maybe cost should be 5 points for those. Heroic paths I am going to do so that every path gets list of skills. Players can buy talents/powers from list using character points. I think that the CP cost will keep players to buy Resurrection as first talent. Maybe I will some limitation as prequisite. Some powers will have daily charges to limit use of Midnight talents. In midnight heroic path feats don't use spell points.

About heroic paths I have idea to change Feats to powers in Hero System...some are spell like powers without uses END limitation. That needs quite bit of work to do. Still...setting seems to be into my taste and I will work with those.

Magic thing is hard to create. Races and classes are easier. I won't strictly follow original rules. I am looking for Hero version that is close to original with same feeling. Definitely not spells per day rule. I think that it is artificial thing... so...?

1. How I can use END Reserve in setting? It sounds good enough. Some example? 2. I am thinking that "overcasting" should consume Body. After END Reserve (see above) is consumed character starts to use Body. 3. Innate yes...I am going with the thing that characters have to learn every spell separately. Divine magic is actually only for Evil Priests. They get their powers from "the superpowerful nasty Evil" who is the only god at the point when game begins. Priests have separate spells. This setting is different than other D&D/AD&D settings. There are no class spells, which is good. Every character can cast every spells, if their skills and wits are good enough. Spells are categorized by schools and talents (Innate, Divine ...). I want to separate "pure casters" from other characters (e.g. Wizard vs Fighter) OT to this. I read through the history of game world. It is kind of funny. Forces of Darkness did won the good guys, heroes of good guys turned to evil and they are liuetenants of evil. Also other gods tried to punish evil god, just sending him to mortal world. They did mistake and now the good gods are behind the barrier in their own plane and evil god is in full strenght in mortal world...haha...well invented thing I would say. The easiest thing to understand this world is to compare it to Middle-Earth where Sauron won and rules almost every corner of the known world. 4. No Variable Pool, something else. I am poor with those for some reason I haven't every get to those really and avoid those when ever it is possible. 5. So called basic people don't cast spells in Midnight. Casters are more intelligent, so that is why I wanted some int requirement. I am going to categorize spells using "standard" Active Point / Real Point calculation formula.

Thoughts that I have: 1. It is needed to limit "non spell casting professions" spell casting / day. Maybe selling END back from non spell casting professions? 2. Spell casters should be able to use Body to cast spells 3. Three main talents for casting (affinity). Channeled, initiate and divine. Channeled and divine should cost much more than initiate, or channeled should be bind to one particular profession? 4. Magic schools need separate casting talents. 5. Intelligence based spell "levels". Like INT 11 can cast first level spells and so on 6. No components, except in ritual spells 7. Something else?

I have already done some conversions (races and classes). Magic system seems to be similar to Hero System (no spell lists or class spells). Following text, which is magic system explanation, is borrowed from Midnight 2nd edition book. What kind of way general guidelines can be made based on Hero System? Just as the veil that separates the mortal world from the celestial realm prevents outsiders from returning to their native planes and souls from ascending to their final rest, so to does it prohibit any magical travel to or through other planes of existence. Spells that rely on planar travel or communication, such as contact other plane, etherealness, and teleport, have not been practiced since the Sundering. This isolation from the other planes is just one change to magic and spellcasting in the world of MIDNIGHT. Magic is rare and powerful on Aryth, and new rules for learning and casting spells have been introduced to better represent the role of magic in the setting. There are three types of magic in Midnight: channeled, innate, and divine. Divine magic is that granted by the gods. Divine magic allows true miracles to be performed, from the communion of a worshiper with his deity to the raising of the dead. In MIDNIGHT, however, miracles are few and far between, and those that are granted are always bent towards evil ends. Only one god answers prayers in the Last Age of Eredane, and he is neither benevolent nor merciful. Whether because of trickery on his part or by simple cause of nature, the dark god Izrador, the Shadow in the North, is the only god of Aryth still able to reach his followers and grant them spells. Innate magic comes not from some outside source, but from within. This is the primal and dangerous magic of fantastic creatures as well as the hedge magic of the halflings or the instinctive magic of the elves. Channeled magic is the type most often used by PCs. It is the manipulation of the energy and power that surrounds and binds all of Aryth to create miraculous effects. Channeled magic includes spells from the bard, druid, or sorcerer/wizard spell lists from the core rules. A spellcasting character can learn spells from any of the schools of magic she knows, regardless of the spell lists in which they are found in the core rules. Channeled magic uses a feat-based system, and is not tied to your choice of character class—any character can learn to cast spells in MIDNIGHT without multiclassing! This change in magic rules and the rare-magic style of MIDNIGHT also has an effect on character classes: core classes with secondary spellcasting or supernatural abilities like the monk, ranger, and paladin have been removed. In some cases new core classes have been introduced to fill their niches. Beyond just offering new core classes, however, MIDNIGHT’S feat-based magic system lets players tailor their characters with as much or as little spellcasting ability as fits their vision of their character. Any hero, whether a clever rogue who benefits from illusion and enchantment magic or a fully armored fighter who wants the added utility of being able to cast his own healing spells between battles, can now dabble in magic in general or focus on the few specific schools of magic that best suit his needs. MIDNIGHT introduces a new character class for those who wish to master the power of channeled magic, called the channeler. The roles once filled by core spellcasting classes are filled instead by subclasses of channeler. There are also new prestige classes that reflect a channeler’s intense focus on one style or area of spellcasting. The path of the druid is a true prestige class in MIDNIGHT, for instance, whose adherents excel at natural magics and gain power over the plants and animals of Aryth. The wizard prestige class, meanwhile, offers true mastery of high-level magic through more traditional study and the use of arcane texts. Beyond just separating spellcasting from class abilities, the feat-based spellcasting system of MIDNIGHT also presents entirely new rules for learning, preparing, and casting spells. The class- and level-based spell slot system, appropriate for other more civilized fantasy settings but clunky in the more naturalistic and intuitive magical traditions of MIDNIGHT, has been replaced. In MIDNIGHT, every time you cast a spell, you use up a pool of points called spell energy. For channelers, this pool grows as they gain levels. For other characters, the pool is small and increases only slowly, and for the most part they will find it difficult to cast more than one or two spells each day. When the need is great, however, as is so often the case in these dark times, great sacrifices must be made. Therefore, even when a spellcaster runs out of spell energy, he may continute to cast spells at the expense of his own life force. The number of channelers who have given their lives in valiant last stands is untold, and many are the tales of those who traded their own lives to cast a direly needed healing spell on a wounded warrior or a suffering innocent. MIDNIGHT’s new magic system also allows characters to cast spells spontaneously and, quite important in this dark age when materials are few and trade is a luxury, often without material components. Rituals allow spellcasters to create more powerful and varied effects than the traditional limited spell list system, and spell talismans let channelers cast specific spells or spells from certain schools of magic much more efficiently. These factors all combine to give the spellcasters in MIDNIGHT unmatched versatility, offsetting the lower number of spells they can generally cast each day.

Part 2 from first session... When Heroes arrived to Marathon Free Station they rented transportation to take Emergency Medical Care unit to TGO office. Rhylla Vellis was expecting Heroes to arrive. At first he wondered why PCs brought that person to his office, but after explanation from trip, he understood and ordered his men to take EMC unit to backroom...they should investigate all possible clues about missing and destroyed ships. He told for PCs that they should go to hotel (where they have room) and then start to look for person called Jason Donovan. Jason was suspected from piracy and he might have some clues about missing ships. Heroes got the picture of Jason, but Vellis asked to keep possible searching in secret. They should also bring Jason to TGO office as soon as possible. Jason should be able to speak and in relatively good condition. PCs started to look for person, they asked around the station. Results were not that good. They also find out that there is a bar called "Blind Spot", but location of that bar was kept in secret. PCs went around in different restaurants asking questions, suddenly one of the got an idea. If they ask to buy drugs bigger amounts, maybe someone will take them to Blind Spot or in the best case they will meet Jason. At this point they thought that Jason is drug dealer and me as GM, I did not have any clue why they thought so. They met couple of young guys in bar, asked about the drugs. One of the PCs bought drug called The Ape's Rage. Drug was high addicting, gives "good trip", but it also brings up users tendency to aggressive behaviour. After testing drug (which did cost 15 credits to try), they decided to ask much bigger amount. 100 metric tons to be delivered for their "army". Those younger guys told for PCs to come to restaurant at tomorrow, 07:00 pm and meet the right person for dealing bigger amounts of drugs. PCs agreed. At next day PCs went to bar to meet guy, there were same younger guys and also one additional person. Person did wear sunglasses, he was wearing long reinforced coat. He asked about PCs intentions, do they have money and also about deliveries. Price was 1.6B credits. Heroes agreed with that price. They also lied extremely well that they owned private army and one of the heroes was son of Istar General who was buying drugs for their soldiers. As GM I still wonder how PCs came to this situation. Man asked PCs to come to at tomorrow here, show 500.000.000 credit for him. He did have chip reader to check that they really did have that amount of money. PCs agreed, but at this point they did not have any clue where to get that amount of money. Those guys left from the bar and PCs few minutes after them. Heroes decided to ask from Vellis to loan them money. Vellis said that he did not have that much, but he adviced PCs to find uncoded chip. One of his fellows could code chip so that is shows around 500 000 000 credits, but it is not real money. They don't link it to bank account, it is just chip which shows right amount of money. PCs agree and they went to look for chip from black market. After several hours of searching they found the chip and got it coded in TGO office. Then they went to meet Drug dealer (which was not Jason). Drug dealer did check the chip and agreed with PCs. He asked PCs to join him that he can show his drugs for them. They went to Warrens...far from mapped areas of asteroid and heroes eyes was covered to prevent them seeing where the exact location was. Drug dealer did have two body guards with him. When heroes arrived to right cave, they saw ten big coffin like storage holders. Those holders were radiation, weather and vacuum protected. Drug dealer said that there are exactly 100 metric tons of drugs. That drug in the coffins is 5 times stronger than normal, so PCs should cut it before giving it for their soldiers. At this point drug dealer asked also that why PC, who was supposed to be body guard, asked all the questions and the person who was paying the drugs did not ask anything. PCs forgot their roles during playing and I decided to use it against them At this point one of the PCs, who handled the speaking most of the time, rised his sub machine gun and shooted drug dealer + his bodyguards. With amazing luck, he did hit all of them by one burts and also did hit so hard that those died. After this Heroes cleaned the cave and decided to get away from there. One of the PCs did use navigational skills to get rough idea from their location when dealer covered their eyes and brought here. After few hours of wondering PCs did find out from the cave. They were so excited that did have 100 metric tons of drugs. They even took two kilograms of drugs to be tested. They already planned how they will use 1.6 billion credits... They took sample to TGO office and reported that they did not find Jason yet and they will continue their searching. After two days they find out the place of Blind Spot and decided to go to there to look for Jason. When they were walking to Blind Spot, they were ambushed. Three street thugs with knives stepped from the shadows and told for PCs to go back and never return. People in here don't like that PCs ask questions and they have messed up with wrong people. PCs were overconfident at this point, as they thought that three street thugs are not going to take them down. After few insult, one of the PCs did hear sound which comes when two shotguns have been reloaded. He looked to direction where did came. He noticed that there were two more street thugs with shotguns, and those were aiming PCs. After short arguing heroes decided to attack. After 12 seconds, street thugs were down and PCs did get only few scratches. They noticed from their Augmented Reality Network that local law reinforcement was coming and they decided to go to Blind Spot to hide. They got Blind Spot, after evading law enforcement personnel. Almost immediately they noticed that Jason was sitting in Blind Spot. PCs made The Plan...usually this is the point where things will go terrible wrong. They looked at Jason and noted what he was drinking. Jason was drinking Fluorescent drink, which was blue. Drink was made form moss, which was brought from distant planet. Drink was sweet in taste. PCs bought few ecstacy like pills from bartender (after several negotiation rolls). They bought similar drink that Jason was drinking, they put five pills to drink. After that their idea was to charm one of the ladies that were handling Jason's drink orders and change glasses. Actually Field Agent, who is very charming guy seduced one of the ladies and with good dexterity he did change those glasses. After that heroes waited that Jason wants to go to toilet, as he will get sick from overdose. That happened after 20 minutes and Jason decided to go to toilet. Two of his three body guards came with him. PCs went to toilet little bit before Jason and they were expecting him. One of the guards went to help Jason to toilet and one was standing near the door. PCs grabbed guard from behind and choke him to unconscious. Other guard noticeed that and went to toilet to cover Jason. After short fight PCs got the other guard unconscious too. PCs did shoot few times and at that point doorman of Blind Spot started to take customers out of the bar. PCs were stuck in toilet as third guard alarmed backups. There total of four bodyguards aiming to door with their Laser rifles. At this point I decided to give players to roll luck roll if they use all their HAPs. Players did succeed in roll. Suddenly they heard some shouts outside of the toilet and heard familiar voice. Vellis did come to help them. Vellis brought few agents to place to clean up the mess and clear all the security records...that was the end of the first gaming sessions. Next time PCs will need to investigate Jason's apartment and decide what to do with information that they find out.

I will post the second part from first gaming night tomorrow...that was only first 3 hours.

This is part 1 from first gaming session. We started our first Terracide campaign. Brave adventurers were travelling from Complex to Marathon Free Station. Earlier PCs did lose their own ship, Sarah's Tears in mystery attack which destroyed their ship totally. Attacker was unseen and un recognized. That is why PCs have to use public transportation at this point. They used passenger cargo spaceship, which was capable of FTL 3.0. Galaxyfarer, is fine ship. It is 46 meters long, in three floors. Two floors are for passengers and one floor is cargo bay. Heroes, like they sarcastically call themselves, were bit bored during their trip. Two weeks in spaceships is rather boring, even they used Augmented Reality Interface to play games, read books and chat with each other. Three days before arriving to station, two of them heard some people speakign outside of their sleeping boxes. Those person did speak about pilot change (there is always atleast one pilot monitoring ship, even it uses autopilot during the longer journeys). What heroes heard? A: "- Do you know that, did the pilots change monitoring shift already?" B: "- I am not sure, we should go to check it. Lets do that now, before other passengers will wake up." A: "- Ask Dargo, to join us. You and Dargo will stay watching outside the cockpit. Don't let anyone come inside, use the necessare force." B: "- Lets meet outside of the cockpit, after three minutes." A: "-Ok" Then those persons left. Heroes did hear how those persons used elevator to get from third floor (where passengers sleep and spend time) to second floor. Heroes knew that they did not have weapons, only two of them did have Stiletto. Weapons were down in the cargo bay, where they don't have access. Only Security personnels on this flight did have key to there. Heroes thought that those persons are passengers. Most of the passengers were familiar to heroes, as they did travel with others for two weeks now. Heroes did check all sleeping boxes, but all the passengers were there. Only place where heroes did not have access was staff sleeping boxes and relaxing area. Heroes used elevator to get to downstairs. They started to walk towards cockpit. They noticed that two security personnels were standing at both sides of the door that went to cockpit. Heroes approached security personnels and asked why suddenly those were guarding the cockpit door. That was not usual procedure, as there were only one security personnel awake at one time. They were working in three shifts. Heroes asked few questions, but answers were not that polite. Suddenly one of the heroes, who is trained Spec Ops soldier, grabbed from security personnels throat and did hit his head to wall behind. Small crack did hear from neck, but security personnel still managed to stay in conscious. That was surprise for all. Luckily all other heroes realized what was happening and one of the heroes did grab the other security personnel to his bear hug...Ursa genome have it good points. Big guy with 150 kilograms and 220 cm, can easily grab arms of 170cm security personnel. Third person, Agent of TGO, grabbed the stun gun from security personnel. When Heroes were struggling with the security personnels, they heard someone speaking in central speakers. Person demanded Heroes to release his fellows and then return back to the third floor. Heroes decided stop that madness. They Threatened one security personnel to open cockpit door, which could be opened using five digit code. They strenghtened their demand with stun gun and couple of punches. Other security personnel tried to brake free from grab, he almost succeed but TGO agent did hit him pretty hard using martial arts strike. That personnel died. Heroes managed to get into cockpit and they used stun gun to shoot the last security personnel. They noticed that pilot was unconcious and they need to wake him up. One Hero with paramedical training started to help pilot and others questioned last security personnel which was still concious. They searched him through to find possible bombs. They found only some small circle metal from his chest. It was pulsing at the same time with persons heartbeat. They questioned person more and he started only to laugh madly. At that point heroes realized...that one security personnel, who accidentally was killed two minutes ago, is dead like a rock. They run to that person, tried to revive him, but no success. Then they asked from shuttle staff that is there any medical deck or something to keep person alive. There was one movable coffin like emergency treatment module. They moved dead security personnel there, and with all the equipment they were lucky enough to revive guy. They sealed coffin and asked pilot to slow down speed of the shuttle. They dressed up terrorists with space suits, opened air lock and sent two terrorists to float into the space with spacesuits. They left one person, in coffin to be transported into the TGO office in Marathon Free Station. Rest of the journey went in nervous atmosphere. Other passengers were kind of hysteric because of terrorist strike attempt...heroes just suspected everybody in the plane. They got to station on time. At that station their target was to take contact to Rhylla Vellis, special agent of TGO. He did have job to do for heroes...he needed their help into the undercover mission.

Ship that I am going to use is in three floors. It is modified Nasa space shuttle from outlook. The lowest floor is cargo bay. Second floor is for passenger seats and the highest floor is floor for sleeping and other areas. Designed maximum trip will be 30 days. Ship is 44 meters long, 16 meters wide and 10 meters in height. Main thrusters are located behind the ship, like all other engines and air systems. Those are located in the lowest floor only. passengers should be seated during the take off and when ship is maneuvering. In other situations they are free to spend time in two floors. Ship will have three security personnel and around 40-50 passengers at max + pilots and other staff personnels.

Ok. I am just getting some cargo + passenger ships to my campaign. I am in need of layouts ( as there happens attacks and so on inside the spaceship, when it is transporting passangers + PCs. I need to check that size thing then.

Is it possible to get? If it is, how big ship need to be to get it?

I left encounters and few twists away from description to keep my players knowing everything.

As you wanted to know what kind of campaign I am GMing. I can reveal rough plot line in here, more detailed if someone wants to know in PM Characters are in my case premade. They serve TGO, some are more and some less loyal. There Combat Medic, Smuggler, Bounty Hunter, High Tech Mechanic, Spec Ops military soldier and Agent. Campaign starts in the situation where ships have been attacked around space. Some ships have been destroyed, some are floating in space without crew. Ships are transportation and military vessels. Characters have lost their spaceship, "Sarah's Tears", which was old smuggling ship. Characters did escape using escape pod, but they were not able to recognize attacking ship. They did not have any cargo there. Now they are travelling to Marathon Free Station where they will get job from TGO agent. TGO agent asks characters to do little bit investigation inside the station. After investigation there are decision to make. Should they go to abandoned space colony to see what is happening there, or should they go to space colony which haven't keep contact for 4 weeks. Those both have places have something to do with these attacks. When those places have been "investigated" characters will get clues from secret space station, that station is inhabitated by badly failed clone testing. Those clones are not human anymore...who has done that and why...information is in stations laboratory computer...then station should be destroyed...or should the players clear it and give it to TGO? At that point ISTAR is going after PCs...they have now something that they want. PCs have now rough idea what might be behind those attacks, but why? They need to find "organization" behind attacks...PCs still might get in time to save people...it depends how fastly they went through first parts of the campaign... this is very rough description from plot...

I will consider that. Still I want to discourage player to do "over casting" Maybe I should add some END cost, if character tries to cast spells that are in higher rank than skills are.

I am going to have Sorcerers, but more likely summoning and wild magic based. Psionics yes...I will use those more likely Rolemaster Mentalists

I would like to hear opinions and also possible suggestions to upgrade my idea of magic system that I am going to use. Currently I am planning to set up fantasy hero into the Shadow World (Rolemaster's fantasy world). Target: - I can use directly all the spells from Grimoire (no need to calculate anything when players pick up spells) - Magic should be "mid magic". Between low and high magic setting. - Magic is not rare, but not available for everyone. What I did pick from fantasy hero: - Spells will consume END like those are listed in grimoire. If spell casting roll fails, it still consumes full amount of END. - Spells willl be ranked by power. Spell rank will be (Active points / 10) + (real points / 10). This will limit purchased spells so that every rank that is above spells casters rank (see below) will give extra -1 to casting roll. Then comes question. If we think strictly based on rules, can I decide that kind of thing without braking the system. - Spell caster will be ranked based on casting skills. Spell caster with skill 10-11 is at rank 1, 12-13 is at rank 2, 14-15 at rank 3 and so on. - Caster should pick up a talent to be able to cast spells (Magic: Adept, 10 points). That represents natural ability to cast. It can be bought during the adventures too, but without training character might trigger some random powers. During and after the training character can buy spells using CPs. Not before that. - Spellbooks and spells should be bought by money or found from somewhere. Spells will cost a lot of gold. I was thinking something like 1 gold / real point or maybe even 10 gold / real point. Spells will take one page for every 2 real point cost from the spellbook. - Character cannot buy spell that don't have in book using character points. And if there are situation when character is not able study spells, he cannot buy spells even he has character points. If studying time should be calculated, it is 8 hour / day. Number of days is equal to real point cost of the spell. - Variable power and multipower are available from equipment only. Something like Wizards staff etc. - Lesser magical items (and in some rare cases more powerful too) can be bought from bigger cities. Those are relatively expensive. - Intelligence minimum is the minimum number that is needed to learn the spell. - Character buys casting skill separately for every magic school. - Diamonds can be used to power up spells (converted into the END). This I need to think more, as there are no ready system for that. - Spells are cast using casting time form the Grimoire book. I am thinking that I will add one extra phase for every rank difference that spell and caster have. Rank 2 caster is trying to cast rank 4 spell, he adds 2 phases to casting time of that spell. When caster goes up in rank to rank 3, he adds only 1 phase to casting time. Minimum is listed casting time. - Wizards should use focus, gestures, focus and so on...when needed. - Wizard can learn schools, but maximum number is their (INT-10)/2, which is basically 5 schools for humans. Then clerics... This is hard one. - Clerics spells use end from caster like the wizard's spells. - Cleric needs casting skill (Faith) - Cleric cannot cast higher rank spells like wizards can (as wizard have to buy spells to books), but they can cast higher rank spells. - Cleric have to use only focus (holy symbol) to cast spells. Something else? According to this clerics will be much better casters (even they have different spells than wizard's) than wizards are. Then about general things... Magicians will be trained, according to their rank (need to named later on) they have access to more powerful spells. Spells above rank 4 are almost impossible to get from magic stores. Those need to be found or got from magicians guild. Priest will have most likely ranks inside the church too. They start from initiates (others are lay members), and then increase ranks. Paladins start always from the initiate and increase in ranks (up to two from their starting point). Is there some sort of paladin template ready? I thank from comments and suggestions before hand.

Ok so all the apartments are basically inside the outerior walls? None of the apartments are inside the interior walls? Warrens is,basically slum part of the asteroid, there are only series of tunnels and rooms where possible people live?

Lets say that tomorrow. In anycase later is good too.

I am starting up Terracide campaign. I have read through station (asteroid) description several times, but I have some difficulties to figure out floor plan of it. Can someone draw rough picture from levels (how those are located), where the lake is inside the station and so on...

I started to create sample characters. I find that skill descriptions in templates are rather confusing. Firstly I wanted to create Spacer/Conman (=Smuggler) combination. In every template there are option at the end of skill list. "Choose one or choose one from list". Cost of that varies in different templates, but in conman template it is 9 points. With that 9 points you can choose one skill (9 points is rather expensive skill) or any perk or any contact. I think that choosing contact is better for 9 points, than paying 9 points from one skill. I am not sure if I understood this one right. Or is it so that if I choose one skills for 9 points, then that skill is better than 9+stat/5 ? So if I choose skill that uses intelligence and character int is 10. Then skill with 9 points will be 9+10/5= 11 + 6 = 17 How you have handled this in terms of game mechanics?