AnotherSkip

Re: Adventuring company name

the Old Zealanders?

Hob's Knobbers?

The Old Order!

Re: Immune to Magic

Desolid is nice as there are few powers that directly circmnavigate that power if it is a magic only disad it should do well.

Invisibility when you have to buy 10 points of invisibilty for every Tom Riddle, Dick and Harry Potter that has a special sense not "related to any other sense" it gets a. impossible and B. Ridiculosly expensive.

Simply put Invisibility and other sense afecting powers do need a SFX sense group invisibilty. otherwise well spending 30 points to cove just one independant sense from each of the trio above would cost you 30 points. If you even knew what their independant sense was!!! which in some campaings is not very likely.

Perhaps after you buy 60 points of invisibility to all senses then an adder that blocks special senses independant or no of a given sfx (say 20-30 points) THEN you could buy invisibility to magical detection. otherwise any mage with half a brain will build new senses attach them to triggered spells and render invisibility useless.

Re: Difficulty ratings for Bestiary/MMM/etc...

It all rests in the GM's hands

Tuckers Koblods as an example for those of you with nuff' learnin'

Re: Democratic Republics in Fantasy Worlds?

We to try to steer the thread back on course....

For a fantasy society governed by a few of mostly uncorruptible people drawn from a wide selection of society try the Forgotten Realms Waterdeep as a model.

The Lords of Waterdeep are from all classes and strata of society, with most being hidden and known to only a few. Known of to all but not necessarily known who to much of anyone, who use powerful magics to hide thier identity.

howzabout that for a suggestion?

Re: High power magic (Brainstorming welcome and requested)

Looking at all of these cool army spells tells me one thing, which is the first thing you thow out is a Dispell magic Riiiiiight before the opposing armies clash, negating all their superbuff spells....

now in Hero to the best of my understanding when you throw AOE spells they affect everyone in the area. So throwing AOE spells in the middle of combat (especially armies in combat) isn't a good idea.

So now they have debuffed your army So NOW you have to cast spells in the middle of combat. Take for example AOE CE +1 DCV Linked to an AOE CE +1 OCV, if everyone gets this it will be a null result. If you as a DM allow -0 "disadvantages" like "Only affects the Soldiers of LaLaLa Lands" that's fine and everything but then what happens during a cvil war? or with mind control? (my personal problem has been I and my GM's have allways seen that as an advantage!)

My personal favorite suggestion is Selective. (and using the laws of averages means you only have to roll for those who matter)

This means you don't really know who gets it but it will swing the battle to a more positive result that looks like they have guys who are well trained or vetrans rather than a more dramatic "superhuman army". It also doesn't affect the opposition no matter who they are. with the reverse being true for "curses".

Ya know I think i'm rambling a bit too much.

Of course I cast Darkness to normal sight 1 hex Megascaled (+1/4), Selective(-1/4) with a 22 point VPP.... which should give the Gm's out there the screaming heebie jeebies.

Re: High power magic (Brainstorming welcome and requested)

Now for some nasties...

Curse of Idiocy: Drain/Suppress INT, large area. As little as 2d6 can reduce normal people to the mental equivalent of cows and sheep. 1d6 is less drastic, costs half as much, but enough to reduce normal people to unusually stupid normal people (No, I won't suggest that another name for this could be "U.S. Public School System." I won't say that.)

 

Curse of Leprosy: Drain COM, Sticky. A single die of "effect" turns into 2d6 of actual COM removed - enough to turn normal people absolutely hideous. The Sticky means you only have to cast it on one person to cause a plague - or even just a panic (especially when medicine and Cure Disease spells fail, since it ain't a disease!). To really get nasty, you cast it on the ground, which makes everything that touches that patch of ground ugly - ugly trees, ugly crops (perfectly edible and nutritious, but disgusting to look at!), (No, I won't suggest that another name for this could be "U.S. Public School System Food." I won't say that.)

Slightly modified your "leprosy quote"....

Mercedes Lackey

Though not as far from the ideal as some would think, the ruling council of Valdemar has a broad section personages with a strong voting ability. the council can team up against everyone else and get measures passed EXCEPT if the Monachs own and the Monarch specifically veto. Peasants can rise and eventually become leaders in this august body but (generally only as guild repersenatives). There is a bunch of stuff in the 15+ novels about Valdemar wich do deal with some political theories but mostly its decent fantasy horsey fluff.

Hopefully the new stuff ML is putting out (the 500 kingdoms stories) will significantly delve into this more interesting category soon as Mrs Lackey has some political ideas and with 500 kingdoms some have to sooner or later avoid the strict monarchical template.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

A quote from tonight's elder Vampire game...

 

"Oh, God forbid we say rude things about the Tremere. Why, the anger from it all might force them to turn into a pack of intriguing, vitae-thieving, bloodline-ending vinculum-aping backstabbing murderers..."

 

"... whoops, too late!"

 

 

 

(For those who don't play VtM, suffice it to say that the Tremere are the vampires who are so sleazy that the other vampires noticed. You have to start hitting the Followers of Set or the devil-worshipping Baali before it gets worse.)

*stands up looking indignant*

"I RESEMBLE THAT REMARK!!!!!!"

( I play a Tremere is Vegas that has allready blood bound one primogen... plans on forcing him to be blood bound to the Prince of Vegas and getting clan Tremere the Status/Boons for this act in exchange for more maigical instruction.... And I think I have a good chace of blood binding the rest of the party to me too....)

Re: Off color warning

This one's off color, for those easily offended.

 

(are they gone? OK...)

 

After that, you can see why the cavern of groin seeking piercers was avoided the rest of the adventure.

Actually this reminds me of a session I witnessed in Hackmaster, a character without armor gets attacked by weasles. The five fierce critters make their attack rolls and one gets a crit.

Groin Shot. The little fiend clamps and holds, plus it bleeds like you would expect.

The players were scrambling like mad trying to figure out if they could get the weasle off or apply a tourniquet. Or just kill all the weasles before they did this again.

but the character was low on HP's so he dies anyways... they strip the body pretend to be a priest ("mumble mumble mumble")and kick some dirt over the body and leave it.

funniest thing I ever saw.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

"I can now officially say my mother is 9 of 11"

-No context

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

Well this looks like the best place to put this real quotes from my gaming group....

"Hey, did you know this cucumber was here?"

-No Context

Re: CHAMPIONS OF THE NORTH -- What Would You Like To See?

How about suggestions on how an american should "responsibly" play a canadian?

After all if you head due south of Michigan you run right into Canada (we are surrounded, man, Surrounded!!!! )

Re: VILLAINS, VANDALS, AND VERMIN -- What Would *You* Like To See?

How about something along the line of inventor villians who supply poduct to the master villians, this is probably where brain trust comes in, but more along the lines of solo villians who occupy the lieutenant nich of power without significant loyalty, providing necessary but odd skills to the main villian. Rogue scientists/inventors and mages/alchemisits who try to provide an independant line of thought or ability to the main troublemaker.

I kinda like hired guns.

Re: Dealing with Stun, End etc in Fantasty

 

7d6 normal (I'm assuming you mean normal damage... that would be insane killing damage) damage is 24.5 stun and 7 body on average, subtract someone's 6PD, and you get 18 stun (rounding down) and 1 body. If he has 10 body, you'd have to do 180 stun to get up to 10 body to kill the guy.

 

 

 

-Nate

On the other hand if you only do that twice a turn and he has 6 rec then you only get 150 stun... wait that is still bad....

Re: freeze spell

if you count nipple rings as a subset of chainmail bikinis then no they cant cover any less.

Re: What would you like to see in Enchanted Items?

One thing that practically all RPG Enchantment rules system omits are strategically significant magic items; what I refer to as Battle Items in my homebrew system. Items like the Ark of the Covenant, or the Oriflamme. You'll need to give them effects that tie in with the Mass Combat rules from Fantasy Hero.

 

Just to clarify: I'm not talking about Grond, the battering ram from "Return of the King". That one has a physical effect which is quite easy to simulate. I'm talking about "subtle-but-large-scale"-effect, rather than a siege engine on steroids...

 

 

Also a note: I don't like "trap" items. Cursed items are utterly un-fun for players, and it was an excellent move for Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition to get rid of them.

 

Permanently magical items require time and effort to create (and sometimes also special ressources, such as the "Vis" in the Ars Magica RPG), and therefore the vast majority of them should be created to be useful to the creator (or to whomever the creator intends to give the item to as a gift), rather than to annoy the world at large.

Soooo what did you think of the hammer i suggested?

Re: Alignment Issues

the problem with D&D Alignment is some people think that it is Total Psy lim others think that it is Ego roll at -5 and others think that it is a slight.

Part of the problem is the thing about charting a players alignment. the more time you spend looking at something the worse it looks.

Re: Fantasy Hero Problems and advantages

7. Package deals do not include powers typically associated with a "character class" (e.g., no ability to turn undead for clerics, and no good way to build it to mimic d20, if you wanted to).

 

Two problems with this "problem" number one what if you want to play a priest in D&D w/out turning ability? Or run a world wherein priests cannot turn undead(many instances whenrin this occurs in fantasy)? now the GM or player or both is hosed.

And on the D&D line what if you dont like the spell list for AD&D? then what make your own w/out even knowing the rules behind the choices they made?

at least you can see alot of the (in D&D is behind the scenes) decisions for Hero.

number two having actually built a Turakurian Age priest I found the 60 points in spells or spell like abilities to be something I started having problems with. Eventually I ended up with 2 Deadly blows (only while doing the work of my god, 14 pts) and 21 points in turn undead (which gave me 110 Pre. to turn undead whihc means on an average I rolled 66... which means buh buhy greater Vampire on a freaking average !)

Re: Vast Underground

Has anyone seen the megadisasters show on Megavolcanos? apparently there are five on the planet earth and they are huge caverns slowly filling with lava...... that will eventually explode.

I have a map for a "planar dungeon" imagine a rubber band ball with many different colored rubber bands all of which repersent different regions (ie Red for Romans, Green for undersea, Yellow for Chinese, Blue for Norse etc...) with the "empty spaces" being rooms and doors in odd locations and a floorwarp gravity.

My planar dungeon map ball is bigger than my fist but smaller than my head.

Re: What would you like to see in Enchanted Items?

run over the list of Powers/Advantages/Limitations/Disadvantages and thump through some of the less obvious ideas for incorporating them into items.

To swipe from another game there may be some items that could be considered cursed that may be too advantageous to not use. How about a Sword that has +3 overall skill levels(with OAF) but only does 1 pip damage? Place that puppy in the Turakurian age and watch the mages duke it out over that.

or variants on the classic moorcock sword.

Or a weapon that drains armor in a radii, continuosly, even your own....

Re: Fantasy Rant

IF this hasn't been said then it needs to be, (sorry I have ADD) try running (or thinking/reading) some indo/asiatic/amerind stuff? AD&D had several good ideas for campaigns other than euro fantasy (yeah I know about the probs with AD&D so dont even bother, this is straight ripping off not selling the product)think about one of your favorite worlds and then think about how a stone age tribe would have influenced it.

Heck have the players be gods in a pantheon(and too busy squabbling to make the attentions of the priests matter). That should be high enough to aim for

IE Get out of the box.

Re: New Spells for a New Player in a New Campaign

The simplest solution on LOS Teleport is to build the teleport spell as a multipower with the caveat that whichever version fits gets used.

Noisy isn't an increase for powers visible from a greater than normal distance it is more along the lines of adding special enses to detecting power usage. Just because i can "see" a nuke going off doesnt mean that I can tell who (or what) set off the nuke.

Wind Pillar

You need to buy a REC for the End Reserve as well as possibly a frequency modifier. IIRC this looks weird, Im not entirely certain about this, do you want uncontrolled? You might want to look at that advantage

Circle of Wind : Trigger should be +1/4 the triggering factor is set (whenever someone crosses the chalk line)

"When I was reading the Entangle rules, I was a little unclear on one point. It says "1d6 Body, 1 DEF." Is that 1 DEF per d6, or 1 DEF for the Entangle as a whole, unless you buy extra DEF? I read it to mean 1 DEF per d6, which if this was true means that the above Entangle has a DEF of 6, correct?" (short answer is yes) G

enerally to avoid this confusion 10 points purchases 1d6 /1 Def making the thing 4d6/4 Def. Then adding two defense brings it up to 6 Def you should write it up as 4d6/ 6 Def

Re: What would you like to see in Enchanted Items?

I have my own campaign that I began before FH (not yet run though) A few of the stranger constructs I have built have been built the following way:

Hammer of the Star Clan: This weapon is responsible for some of the greatest victories in the Star Clans long leadership of the Dervi on the fields of battle. So long as the weapon is weilded the weilder can declare "his" troops to be better defended by the spirits of battle and use those same sprits to distract the opposing troops.

Change Environment -2 DCV, Selective, Megascaled (+1/2 1'=10, 000 KM), 0 End (+1/2), PLUS Change Environment +2 DCV, Selective, Megascaled (+1/2 1'=10, 000 KM), 0 End (+1/2),

Basically this weapon significantly adjusts the DCV's for a large number of troops on the field of battle. the Gm should use the law of averages to determine what percentage of the troops get affected by the weapon (selective is based off of OCV Vs. DCV) but since in most cases this influences 50% of the troops on each side this should do much to swing the tide of battle to the posessors side. This weapon also would be the main focus for a small band of determined heroes to posess in combat.....

If it seems too powerful there are a wide variety of limitatiosn that could be added.

Change environment is a pretty darn useful item. Even things like +3 to stealth or concealment in a Dagger of shadows with or without Selective and say a 2" radii would do wonders for a group of rangers/assassins.

And as a final note how about a device similar to a wand of wonder (you arent sure what it does but it could be good or bad) I even built a sword much like that once.

Other things I would like to suggest would be a few more ideas for getting the command words of magical items. (library research, deamon dealing, interrogation etc...)

Another idea would be an item that gives the weilder more power based upon how "aligned" the character was to its purpose. Not just good or evil but how about mercantilism? Bonuses for greedy merchants while severe penalties for the Priest with a vow of poverty (and not just in combat either how about +/- Presence for the mercantile item?) Other themes could also be explored with that idea.

and probably adding notes on changing items descriptions without influencing the pricing cost. oh yeah and a spell breakdown for all the items (a la the turakarian age enchanters) or even better yet an index with all the of base points figured out for each version of the spell ( ie 24 Active = Enchanting spell "A", 28 Active = Enchanting Spell B, etc...)

How about PSL's vs Lack of Skill penalties rather than buying a whole ton of skills?

After all Batman occasionally defuses nukes and could probably cook a nine course dinner if he had to(without his staff) . This could be take waaaaay to far of course but if you attached it to INT based skills then any brainy Skills would be at your INt Based roll whether or not you had the skill. This would shorten some Character lists and make some of the more fantastic (EG Batman-esque) characters much more affordable while still being true to the comics.

Of course some wouldn't apply but overall a skill based character would be cheaper.

So what do you guys think?

Re: Turakian Age: IS it just me, or is clerical magic overpowered?

Yes and no. I built a 150 point Orphiel Cleric, and as part of my minimum 30 points in Spells or Priest powers I took a few odd abilities.

things like Deadly blow, Only when serving the purposes of the god Orphiel (-1/2) for 7 points. And i really looked over the paladin as well as the USPD light powers section. Definately a one man killing machine here with that special Axe thrown in the mix.

But keep in mind you also can buy 3 point levels with all magic skills rather than spending 2 points per +1. This is in the main book (see the sorceror villian) and for flexible PC's built on a budget this is the better choice (after an 18-20 Int).

The other option is to buy PSL's for a tight group (spell magic apparently fits these requirements) after all there are quite a few times you will be facing negative pentalties for casting the big guns.... rather than increasing the base abilities (2 pts per +1).

Remember, go cheap whenever possible and it will make your points more valuable.

For NPC's, who really cares?