Ockham's Spoon

Re: Millenium City Salt Mines Fascinating. Definitely a good venue for some nefarious plot...

Re: Disads for "Cheese Champions!" Brilliant! I love it! No doubt this hero got his powers from Charles Atlas, uses X-ray glasses, and has a sea-monkey sidekick.

Re: Tell me of your Hero Point/Dramatic Editing mechanics I tried giving the players a couple of rerolls per session, and (depending on the player) they either never used it because "they might need it later", or they used them quickly and begged for more. Now I benevolently allow a reroll when it makes for a dramatic climax type of thing, but generally when they ask, no dice (pun intended). Of course as GM I fudge NPC rolls whenever it suits the storyline, which isn't too often but certainly more frequently than the players get a second chance. ________________________________________________________________ "Some people spread joy wherever they go. Others, whenever they go." - Oscar Wilde

Re: Character special abilities I know you are thinking "death" curse as being done at the point of death, but how about if it causes death? Isn't that what the shaman would want anyway? Then you can limit the effect and buy it like this: 2d6 RKA Trigger - whenever victim is in a potentially dangerous situation, 1 charge, never recovers, and other limitations... Now if the cursed person is in combat that blow that just nicked him becomes fatal. Maybe he gets impaled by a pitchfork on a runaway cart, or perhaps a stone gargoyle falls from a church and decapitates him. Whatever seems appropriate. __________________________________________________ "The rich scare me. They can already evade taxes." - Grim Reaper

Re: Disads for "Cheese Champions!" Here's a couple of Psych Lims: "No sense of proportion" : character gets just as worked up over a jaywalker as he does over a potential nuclear holocaust. "Overblown sense of proportion" : character can't take seriously any foe who isn't bulging out of their outfit since all supers are supposed to have super bodies (see the Beefcake/Cheesecake poll for examples).

Re: How do you gain in power? I generally handle new abilities by spliting the XP the players get; roughly half of it they can spend on what they want their character to have, roughly half of it I hold back. When they gain an ability through the course of gaming that I think they should have or want them to have, I "give" it to them, paid for with the reserved points. This way the characters get powers that are reasonable from their development, but also lets the players shape their own characters. I think to some extent the Hero System allows complementary abilities to assist each other without being abusive or restrictive. Complementary skill rolls and Skill Enhancers help for some of that, levels with all INT skills or all DEX skills do as well. For powers, similar powers fit well into Elemental Controls or Multipowers giving a cost break for related abilities. I like the idea of "package deals" that give the acquired abilities some cohesiveness. To use Martial Arts as an example, I generally find it better for characters to choose a style and follow it rather than buying a mismatched set of manuevers. It makes the characters feel more real instead of just being a pile of points. I could see a good argument for basic packages for other sets of abilities as well, although I guess what is in them depends on the nature of the campaign. ______________________________________________________ My player: "I cast the Kill Them All spell." Me: "Okay, you die." My player: "Great. How many experience points do I get?"

Re: Trying to build a Medusa/Gorgon My apologies in advance for continuing on the derail about Gygax... D&D did a diservice by not being more "mythologically" accurate because the game could have been slightly educational if it had been, and some of the corruptions were truly apalling. But in Gygax's defense, an "accurate" game would have required a lot of time and research (which I myself as GM only do occasionally), and source material doesn't always translate into RPG's very well. At least as much blame rests with the people who played D&D and took it for gospel instead of a game and not looking up the myths themselves. ____________________________________________________ "Why follow me to higher ground, lost as you swear I am?" - Ed Roland

Re: Help with a Star Wars type Campaign It sounds like you are going to have to define the whole Light-Dark/Good-Evil/Love-Hate thing pretty well before you get going, and I leave you to that since it is your campaign. But I will throw out a thought on mechanics. Assign all Dark powers some xd6 of Cumulative Mind Control as a Side Effect. This makes Dark powers slightly cheaper and hence more tempting. Once per session (or combat or whatever) total all the Mind Control dice of the powers used and see if the character is Mind Controlled to become more dark/evil/hateful. Then use the guidelines for emotion control in the rule book to moderate how far the character has been pushed to the Dark side. The more times they fail, or the more Dark powers they use, the further over they go. This approach makes wiser characters (that is, more EGO) less susceptible to the Dark side. Characters with amoral tendencies will be easier to corrupt since it will take a lower level of effect on the Mind Control to convince them to become evil. It also allows for characters to break free of the mind control to go back to the Light side, most especially under circumstances that violate their Psych Lims (such as the Emperor killing your son). ________________________________________________________ Books we would like to see: 101 Ways to Cook an Ewok

Re: Irksome players The problem with this plan was tying together a couple hundred chickens, cows, goats, dogs, etc., and getting all the animals to cooperate (as well as convincing the villagers they should let some strangers "help" them by leading all of their livestock off into the woods). Logistically it just wasn't going to happen. This was also his first idea to tackle the problem, not something more sane like ask the villagers if they had any idea where the troll was, or ask THE RANGER IN OUR PARTY TO TRACK THE MONSTER, or if you were dead set on using an animal, borrowing a villager's bloodhound. I did try to be reasonable with the guy, because I liked his enthusiasm, but the other players just couldn't stop laughing.

Re: Good old Phasing I like the Phasing concept as opposed to the all-or-nothing Desolid construct (for many sfx anyway), and I like your build, but I will throw out another suggestion. Instead of a STR roll, how about basing it on a Power Skill "Phasing Tricks". That would reflect the idea that it is a function of the phasing, not STR necessarily (although it might be a STR based roll). It would also potentially allow for other phasing tricks (extra STR for Disarms or something) that would encourage creative character design. _______________________________________________ "The rich scare me. They can already evade taxes." - Grim Reaper

Re: Irksome players Lots of bad roleplaying comments posted that I can wholeheartedly empathized with (although I confess I have trouble holding still myself). My most irksome player was frustrating because he was really trying hard but he was just clueless. He was really enthusiastic and had all sorts of nicely creative thinking that was just totally wrong. For instance, the heroes faced off against a big netherworld creature. The mage throws a fireball at it and it is unfazed. So this guy tries to throw flaming oil on it because "Maybe this fire will hurt it because it lasts longer! Besides it has to be really distracting to be on fire!" Or the heroes are battling a powerful wizard who is tromping them. Now the point of this combat was to show the players that they would have to retreat and out-think their foe instead of battle with him. When the other players realize this and start to pull out, this guy goes over to the wizard and gives him his magic ring "as a show of good faith so we can be friends. Then when his back is turned and his defenses are down I stab him!" Or the heroes are trying to hunt down a strangely powerful troll that has been terrorizing a village. This guy's solution is to buy all the livestock in the village, string them all together with a lot of rope, and then parade the animals around the wilderness. Then the troll, lured by all the food, will grab some of the livestock but the heroes will know it because they are all tied together and they can swoop down on them. It was kind of sad really. Eventually the guy got discouraged and left, which was too bad because in most other ways he was really a pretty good player.

Re: A mentalist who takes it for the team I would try limiting the mentalist's range; don't try to be a jack of all trades. For instance, your mentalist's primary ability is Mental Illusions. Of course he has Mental Illusions, but he also has Can't Feel the Pain: Aid to PD/ED only vs. STN Enhanced Time Perception: Aid to DEX and/or SPD Your Most Painful Memory: EGO attack Wracking Pain: Drain vs. DEX and/or SPD etc. or for Mind Control specialist Mind Control (of course) Push It: Aid to STR On Your Feet Soldier! : Healing vs. STN You Need to Focus! : Overall levels usable by others This Is Really Going to Hurt: Drain vs PD/ED Indecision: Drain vs. SPD Don't Move: Entangle BOECV etc. Good luck with this!

Re: Need a seventh character Of course a mentalist would be the obvious choice, but I don't blame you for wanting to avoid them. I would go with a time-manipulating (not time-travelling) speedster, because I think that kind of character can really showcase some of the flexibility you can have with the HERO system as well as rounding out your team. Also, I would give this character some kind of pre/retrocognition with no conscious control so you can throw the players a bone when they are stuck, because you never know with a group of unknown players. Good luck!

Re: Speaking of Speed I have had this type of situation come up, except where two characters had similar Contining Charge on attacks, but one was SPD4 and the other SPD6, and the SPD4 player was a littled cheesed he had paid the same amount for a lesser attack. Our solution was, as suggested above, to make the attack occur on the target's PHA instead of the attacker. In the case of a gas grenade this makes sense since a high SPD character should be breathing faster. And if he is in a gas cloud, he can voluntarily reduce his SPD, similar to drowning rules. Other sfx may not work as smoothly, like say an acid attack, which would logically be best with a "standard" SPD. Fortunately I have steered my players away from too much of that (or had them use END Batteries), but I like seeing good sense mechanics solutions.

Re: Tie Me Up Ah, you have excellent point that about the players getting complacent if they know they will always get out in the nick of time; this sort of thing has plagued me in the past. That does make having a mechanic behind it nice. Thanks for that.

Re: Flight Usable As Gliding Maybe my coffee has worn off, but I am having trouble figuring out why you would even want to use Flight as Gliding. What's the point? _______________________________________________________ "No I didn't forget. I just wasn't paying attention." - R.C.

Re: Help with Mental Power All good suggestions here on making the mentalist tougher. I will throw out a few others, or just different flavors of what others have mentioned. If you want to link the DCV levels to Mental Illusions, just give it a "skill roll" defined as "Must roll EGO+10 with Mental Illusions (-½)". Through use of Mental Illusions on herself or shear willpower, buy "Ignores the Pain" as +10 PD/ED only vs. STN. And to make players think twice about targeting her, buy "Feel My Pain" as Mental Illusions, Damage Shield, Ranged, only to duplicate incoming attacks onto attacker. For a mentalist with Mind Control buy "Pull Your Punch" as extra PD/ED, requiring the "skill roll" as above but with Mind Control instead of Mental Illusions. For a telepath, try +4 DCV bought as "Forget to attack me", again with the "skill roll" limitation using Telepathy this time. Or for a more powerful effect "Forget I am here" bought as Invisibility, which will make the mentalist much harder to target. The telepath could also buy a version of "Feel My Pain", but probably with a straight EGO attack. Finally you might buy extra CON or Healing vs. STN, only vs. self, Requires EGO roll, to represent the mentalist's willpower to stay on her feet. ____________________________________________ "These aren't the droids we are looking for..."

Re: Tie Me Up First off let me say that your approach looks mechanically very reasonable and well thought out. I would probably also throw in a modifier for Double Jointed. And since cinematic types frequently rub the rope up against something sharp to cut (or wear) through it, I might give modifiers for the environment. You might also want to consider some level of failure absolute; that is if it is going to take more than, say, and hour, then no matter how hard he tries he will never get free because he is just bound too tightly. That said, I think the easiest way to handle this is to set the amount of time it takes to escape is dramatic license. Buck escapes with just moments before the bomb goes off, or just long enough for the villains to escape, or whatever. No rolls, no computing, just good storyline. Oh, and the subject line at first glance also suggests additional modifiers for being covered with lubricant...

Re: Is "Its cheaper this way" enough for you? I have dealt with a player that tried to use Limitations solely for the purpose of shaving points so the points could be spent elsewhere. And no, I didn't let him do it. But the real problem was (because this happened for more than one character this player tried to make) his conception of the character was too broad and he was trying to buy more powers than he had points for. Basically he was imagining every possible thing you could do with a given sfx and tried to do it, instead of scaling back and figuring out the source of the character's abilities and how they developed. So really the incongruous Limitations was the symptom, not the problem, and ultimately he ended up with better characters once the problem of character definition was resolved. As for teleport being abusive, almost anything can be abusvie if the GM lets the character get away with it. I had a player in a AD&D game who was running a druid and wanted to have a pet chicken that could be trained for combat like a fighting rooster (I am not sure the term fighting **** is going to make it through the filters). Fine, the paladin had a hawk, the druid could have a chicken. Then he wanted to have a squadron of attack chickens because they were cheap to buy he could get 500 of them. __________________________________________________________ "Them chickens is up to something, I know they is."

Re: Alternative Superman I agree with Starfighter on how a non-white hero should be handled if the comic isn't going to become preachy or bigoted or some land in some other pitfall. That said, if you were to introduce a black superhero into the 1940's culture, the racial issue would dog him everywhere. Look what happened when black athletes started to appear in national sports. Now we take it for granted, but back then it was a real issue because there were no high profile black people. A powerful black superhero would have that problem ten times over. It isn't that the hero defines himself by race, but everyone else would, and so he would constantly be confronted with the issue. Even today our society does that. What do you think the first line of Colin Powell's obituary will be when he dies? First black secretary of state. Whatever other attributes he has, good or bad, that is how society has defined him first and foremost. Pity. _________________________________________________ No quote here. Just go watch Blazing Saddles again. The best in stereotype bashing.

Re: Your Favorite Fantasy Weapon? For mundane weapons, the sword is classic of course, but I have also always had a love of chain weapons like the kusari; in the hands of a skilled weilder they are so versatile, so graceful. For pop-culture weapon (and I know this is horribly cheesy) but as a kid I loved that magic bow that the ranger had in that Saturday morning D&D cartoon; easy to carry, don't have to string it, never runs out of arrows, what every archer wants. For magic weapons I have used in gaming, my favorites have been: Spectral Darts: 1d6 RKA NND Does BDY AoE Line, 6 charges. Just throw it and it keeps going right through every opponent in its flight path. Assassin Gloves: 1½d6 HKA, Invisible Power Effects, 0 END, with +2 Levels to any action using hands. Living Kusari: 1d6+1 HKA, 5 Shot Autofire, 0 END, with 4" Stretching and +3 Levels. Here the Autofire allows the weilder to do impressive Sweep manuevers without the DCV penalty. ___________________________________________________________ "The most powerful weapon on the planet is a rear view mirror?" - Tom Servo from Cave Dwellers

Re: Help Requested: Name my Canadian team and it's members Hellfighter. Definitely. For your elasti-girl I think you might be better off with a name related to her shtick, that is, whatever it is that sets her apart from other generic stretchy people. Personally I would make her with "water" powers and the ability to instantly freeze her fists for extra pummeling damage (and maybe other parts of herself for a Force Field with a DEX roll) and call her Ice Floe (or maybe just Floe) ________________________________________________________ "Beam me up Scottie" - Captain Kirk, famous Canadian

Re: What's the best way to conquer Canada? I was refering to size as a function of economy and population. Going for the biggest country by landmass would be like trading dimes for nickels because the nickel is physically larger. Any villain that dim will be hard-pressed to conquer any country. But, that said, I did not know that Canada had more land area, so thanks for the geography lesson.

Re: I got a new idea for a supervillain team. I love theme groups and this is a neat idea. When I have done such things in the past and get stuck on some of the names, I can sometimes get around it by using corruptions of the name that are close enough to work into the theme, but give me some more room to create, as it were. Strawberry works well as a Poison Ivy-type character, but you also might consider something like Strawbury, a magically animated scarecrow that plows his victims into the ground. Green Corn. Wow, that is just a bad name for a supervillain. Or anybody. How about Green Cairn, a character made of living jade? For Worm you might go with Wyrm and make it a dragon-type character, although I think there are plenty of "worm" possibilities. I like the Cthulu idea, but you might also make a mentalist with psychic worms that effect telepathy and mind control. Good luck. _____________________________________________________ "Don't name your character The Invisible Girl if in fact he is a boy."

Re: What's the best way to conquer Canada? I think the real question on how to conquer Canada starts with the reason for doing so. Canada is a great country and all, but if you are a meglomaniacal villain, you are going to go after the U.S. because there is more glory in ruling a bigger country. For instance, if Mechanon decides that he wants unrestricted access to Canada's vast energy reserves, he might detonate a series of nuclear bombs to make the whole place uninhabitable to biological lifeforms. Then he uses radiation impervious robots to harvest the petroleum and tar sands and whatnot. Maybe your conqueror is an Inuit that wants to return the land to the Native Americans. He creates a virus that is targeted to the genetic markers in people of European decent. It doesn't kill them outright, but causes cancer in reproductive systems so that victims either die of the cancer or are rendered sterile after treatment. Sure this is a long-term approach, but it is subtle enough not to be treated at a terrorist attack. Then of course you might have space aliens who typically live in cold climes, so Canada looks like a great place to settle down. The aliens try to bargain with the Earth, something like "Give us Canada and we can coexist peacefully. Otherwise we will wipe your pathetic race off the planet and just take it." Finally Canada might have to fend off an invasion of all those Americans fleeing the Bush adminstration who want to set up American culture in their northern neighbor... _______________________________________________________ "Beam me up Scottie" - Captain Kirk, famous Canadian