Thia Halmades

Re: Statting out a Gamemaster Dependence: Crunchings & Munchings for poor Gurgy. The DM requires fuel in order to operate; he runs on an END Reserve, which drains every scene. Some DMs have larger END Reserves than others, and all END Reserves share two requirements: - A good night's freakin' sleep. This will refill any DM's END Reserve. - Crunchings & Munchings. Most DMs can be temporarily satiated with the appropriate mix of snack food (OIF, 1/2, anything that isn't nailed down). Some DMs are on restrictive diets (Atkins, South Beach) and their fuel limits are more restrictive (-3/4) but the principal doesn't change.

Re: No Framework Proposal: Thoughts? This is back to my original question, really - how is the current system broken? I'm asking because it was the first question that was asked of me in my first days on the boards. "I'll do it the crazy way!" And everyone said "What's wrong with the current way that it warrants a new & crazy way?" Yes, I see that you clearly have a reason for wanting to make the switch, but with three variations to choose from, why dump all of them to build a whole new version that may not offer the same flex as its predecessors?

Re: Make them pay!! You know, I should've posted this earlier. I'm already doing what The Anticrisis suggested; because my players all (all, regardless of class) have Ancestral Weapons. These weapons can be 'awakened' to certain powers and abilities so long as the PC invests points to the weapon to do it. The weapons are like minor characters and are definately OIF. Now you can have each PC, effectively 'building' their own version of their Ancestral Weapon, and you sidestep a great many messy things, like "Did they pay enough for the cool effect?" Well, yes, automatically. They paid for every power the sword has. They want their sword to channel magic? In d20, they can't do that. In HERO, they could. They can have it fulfill just about any fantasy concept they can think of, but it's inherent, instead of separate. If you're going to go the whole hog route, then oh my yes, it's fantastic. But if we're just talking about generic weapons (+1 OCV & DC, for example) then I see no reason to force someone to pay for that in a Heroic based setting.

Re: Duration Caps on Spells? Yah yah, Continuing Charge is the answer in the VPP/Wizard format, but not the answer for the Sorcery format if I go with an EC, as I'm planning on doing. I need to find a way to curb their effects so they don't get out of hand, even if the duration is "a scene." Hrm.

Re: d20 Monster Conversion: Babau Demon into HERO HEY! You built an SR mechanic! BRILLIANT! Thanks, I was looking for that!

Re: d20 Monster Conversion: Babau Demon into HERO Nope! But I wanted to get there myself. That you built the guide is fantasic, but I get satisfaction out of learning by doing, hence, the post. If I just let you do all the work for me, it defeats part of the purpose.

Re: No Framework Proposal: Thoughts? I can't do enough of the math on the fly yet to wholly follow what you're doing, so I'll ask my normal question: Why? How would this improve the game? Can you give it to me in an example based format, similar to what Supreme Serpent did so that I can get a better idea of where you're going and what you plan on doing when you get there?

Re: Make them pay!! 1) Please post to Fantasy HERO. Easier for those of us who run it to post there. 2) You can go ahead and do that, and that suggestion exists within HERO, but it's more for Superheroic level campaigns, rather than Heroic ones. The assumption is that a Superhero doesn't buy a cell phone for his superheroness - it's out of genre. A Hero buys a cell phone. And a car. And everything else under the sun, including his weaponry. In a Heroic setting, making people burn points isn't all that Heroic - it's more of a limitation. If you don't want people toting around gobs of weapons in Handy Haversacks, then don't allow Haversacks. HERO is also fairly restrictive on not just what you can swing, but what you can swing well. A player is already 'paying' for weaponry when they purchase CSLs, WFs and the like, as discussed prior. Leave the points for the major element; while HERO naturally eschews any sort of leveling class system, it sounds (from over here) like that's something you're beating around trying to simulate; everyone should pay for everything. Tom brings up an excellent point - that also depends on the magic system you're using. In a Magic/3 system, then they become fairly accessible and maintain a certain 'superheroicness' as they burn END, replace END, and so on. I use a VPP for my Wizards, so they have to slot a charge and burn it - but they don't pay for spells per se. They can research new ones for free, but it takes time. They can find them and draft them into their spell books as well. Speaking as someone who has a measure of tank affinity, I don't think as a player I'd enjoy having to burn heaven-only-knows how many RP for my super cool new shiny sword, only to have said sword taken away at a dramatic moment. The purpose of the weapon being Independent is that it can be removed; it can be regained. The villain can pick it up and smack you with it. So, to back up a moment, what exactly are you looking to accomplish by doing this?

Re: Help: Building the disc from Tron Yeah, my first thought was "Well, this is a Capt. America shield, basically." It would work as an EB, it can Deflect Attacks. Hitting the same person continuously is a Sweep, per 5ER. That's easy. The bouncing rules account for any manueverability, and I think indirect is a good plan. If it changes targets, I don't see a need for SFX here; new target, new phase, new attack roll. I may be missing something, but that seems like the easy version. Knocking multiple weapons out of people's hands is an Autofire variant and the rules for that are in Dark Champions. Nailing people in a sequence, also Autofire. You could even reasonably use it as Blazing Away, if the GM allowed it to fly willy nilly, 'buzzing' people as it goes by to keep their heads down. If you want to make it "intelligent" in terms of following orders, than I'd make it a follower, with Flight, its own stats, etc. That could account for the multiple ways it goes about hitting new targets. So I'd make it an OIF EB with various permutations on smacking people; the SFX is that it's a disk, not a blast. Within the multipower you can stipulate when held, provides DCV as a shield. My thoughts.

Re: A Good Word for "Abusive" Framework Uses This sums up my thoughts exactly; I have one of those remarkably abusive players, and it really frustrates me as a DM when they feel absoulty no need to work within the construct of the defined game itself. None. What. Soever. And it's rough, on me as a writer & architecht, to constantly battle with the player, who's always polite, and always listens, but comes back with the same bizarre build as before all in an attempt to pummel the rules. However, when the framework exists purely to forward the character, and not to be abused (i.e., is used primarily for dramatic effect when appropriate) then I'm all for making the most out of the toolkit.

Re: d20 Monster Conversion: Babau Demon into HERO Probably in the 5-7 range, on average.

Re: Duration Caps on Spells? Can't, using Charges on spells in the VPP structure. For Sorcery it might work differently, as they use END to fuel their spells, but that's also a good point, John.

Re: Duration Caps on Spells? A full day isn't limiting, but I want something closer to d20 mechanics instead of the normal "Fly until you're done flying" bit. If I do that, they'll never land. However, under a Charge mechanic, it may force the use of a Continuing Charge to account for its Constant effect, since the PC can't spend END. That might do it. I think.

Re: And off we go! What are your ground rules? Clearly you weren't concerned about keeping the group together initially; what do you do when someone wanders off to sniff daisies for an entire session? How do you deal with that? I just stopped letting it happen, by enforcing a certain amount of common-sense into the PCs characters, but you didn't. So how do you handle when all five people chuck the whole plot? Do you railroad them? Let them wander and have them 'lose'? I'm curious! Thanks!

Re: Chronicles of Narnia Sure, it could be. You certainly have all the trappings of fantasy. I personally eschew religion within my campaign, but if that's what you're into, there's no better setting. Read the books, get a feel for the world, be willing to let the characters meet/work for G-d (Aslan) and they could start off in a way similar to the Star Wars novels. We know that at the end of The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe that the children are now rulers of Narnia. They win, the Witch is dead. With a very small mental leap, you can cast the PCs as soldiers in the New World Order, tasked with hunting down renegades and other evil folk. Foom, new plotline. You can create new villains, have them be involved in the war against Tash, be on Dawn Treader, take your pick.

So if someone purchases the spell Flight, how do I keep them from Flying all day on one spell? What's a 'normal' duration for something like that? Is it instant? Do I force them to buy it as a Continuing Charge? Is there a built in mechanic I'm unaware of that automatically prohibits this? Help?

Re: Magic system opinions Er, depends on your Framework design. If you're using END, then the only time it's consuming power in the Framework is during the casting. Once it's up, unless it's a Constant effect and you're still paying for it, the ability to cast a new spell is suddenly available, even though the shield is up, because the effect is a variation on Instant, IIRC. If you're using a Charge system, then once you've cast Force Wall the spell is consumed, and can't be cast again unless you have another copy of the spell memmed. In a Multipower, same thing - if you have multiple charges on the framework, foom, easy. Burn charge, toss spell, next phase, new charge, new spell. Lingering is for people who aren't using Continuing Charges, and yes, you can apply Lingering, but you shouldn't need too. I believe the power Force Wall by itself will remain standing once its been coughed into existence until it gets knocked down, or after its normal duration has passed (although HERO is intentionally sketchy about Duration, I'm still casting around for a way to make sure people can't Fly all day). Does that answer the question?

Good morning! I have part-two of a one-shot coming up (one-shot in this case being a closed campaign, as opposed to my normal epic length material) and I have to finish converting the Babau from d20 into HERO terms. Well, part of that was really easy; stats didn't change, HP went into BODY (as Killer Shrike suggests) and the bulk of it was pretty straight forward. I'm looking for help with some specifics. The creature has some nasty innate abilities, including a Dispel, a TP, and what have you. In d20 terms, it has all of these powers as part of being a Demon, so I grouped some of them into its 'Demonic Talents' as a Multipower. Because it's a 7th level caster, I know using Killer Shrike's recommendation and my own math that drew me to the same conclusion, the Multipower is worth about 60 points (which is significant). And, since it can use any of the abilities within the Multipower at will, there's no need for Charges, and I may even slap "Cost 0 END" on it, as it has no 'combat' manuevers. So that's a 60 point Dispel Magic (ow), a Teleport to Darn Near Anywhere (used generally for spying and bailing out of combat situations, it reasonably can't Teleport & Dispel in the same phase, that made sense to me), Darkness in a 4" radius, and it also has a Damage Shield, and can see the Invisible. Yeah, it's absurd. But hey! I need to build it. Almost exactly. So here's the bits where I'm stuck: - Immune to Poison (LS, easy) and Electricity (I'm going to buy this as an rED vs. Electricity only and apply the FH Absolute Effect rule). - Resistance to Damage Acid/Cold/Fire 10; in d20 terms, this is an Armor. What's the most efficient way to add specific elemental resistances (not the Damage Reduction percentage, but literally, armor against that attack type) in HERO terms. I was just going to buy Armor and give it a -1 Limitation, "Only against specified energy attacks" and call it good. But there has to be a more mechanically preferred way of doing it. - See Invisible. Obviously this is Enhanced Senses, and I'm assuming its worth 15 pts (Sight, Important to Combat). That seems really cheap, but if anyone knows better, please let me know. I think it was late when I tried to build this, and I was going nuts. - Vulnerability, Cold Iron. That's easy. It also gets past its natural Damage Reduction (Armor, in this case). This is another math question; in d20 terms, the sumbish shrugs off any melee weapon (rPD) dealing 10 or less points of damage. Your average tank class is swinging 2d6, plus STR or magic bonuses (in HERO, probably around 2+1/2d6) which is an average of 9 points of BODY. Should that number then stand, representing its ability to shrug off any normal persons attack form? This ties into the question directly preceeding it; it has a LOT of basic variations on Armor defenses, and the numbers (oddly enough) seem to carry correctly from system to system without too much effort, but how do I make sure I'm expressing it correctly in mechanics? - Damage Shield I should be able to work out on my own, but suggestions are welcome. It deals 1d6+1 directly to weapons (or people who touch it), and it specifically ignores the weapons DEF. - If you look on the skill list for the creature, you'll see a whole bunch of plus yadda yadda (about a +15 on average) and that's on a d20 roll, which means that without being under significant duress, it's an automatic success, and on average, the creature will succeed admirably (every +5 is impressive in and of itself). d20 uses a "Difficulty Class" system, or "DC" (which means something totally different in HERO terms). So I'm looking for some skill advice here: * 1st, how do you (as players/DMs) adequately portray skills? In d20, the roll is always "DM sets a difficulty, player rolls d20 and adds modifiers to meet or exceed difficulty." In HERO, you already know what you need to roll - the GM simply assigns modifiers based on circumstance then, yeah? Do I have that right? * 2nd, if that's true, how do you properly 'challenge' a PC? Only via conditional modifiers? For example, let's say we're dealing with something basic. A computers check. It must be harder to crack into the IRS Dbase than it is to crack past a small sized corporate Firewall using out-of-the-box hardware. How do you represent that shift? By assigning a penalty? How big? If my player has a 14 INT (12-) and buys a level in Computer Programming (13-) and then busy a couple more for good measure (15-) he's got a great chance at any basic task. How do you modify those challenges within the math of HERO without making things impossible? Do you: + Set a threshold of success (must succeed by X or more?) + Preset the diff (must roll under X, and then succeed by Y or more from there) + Assign a flat penalty (-X to all rolls). Multiattack I'm going to set up as a TWF variant using Sweep. Do I need to buy Sweep? I'm assuming it isn't a standard combat manuever judging from the TWF thread I saw earlier, but again, Killer Shrike went right over my head, so I'll reread the rules. Cleave I have the rules for in Fantasy HERO. How would y'all handle Power Attack? Susano has a method, but I'm curious what other folk think. It's DEX is garbage, which means that it's ability to smack people (+7 to hit in d20, which is excellent - it means you're likely to hit a normally equipped opponent) and it's good at avoiding blows (armor = harder to hit) but I can see in HERO I don't need to worry so much about people not hitting it - I need to worry about them hurting it. Would you simply improve its combat abilities via CSLs? What would be considered 'dangerous?' OCV 5 (natural weapons)? OCV 7? Lastly, it has Sneak Attack but that's a normal Deadly Blow in FH, that was the easy part. I've gotten through vast amounts of this believe it or not, I'm just putting everything up here to get feedback and suggestions. Thanks!

Re: Map of Hero System Players - Please Contribute! I posted on both - although Keith did a good thing by posting the original link. Thanks, Keith!

Re: Chronicles of Gor Eh, I'm no doctor, but I think I can take a stab at this. VDM or Markdoc will be able to correct any drift, but if I'm grasping at what VDM is saying: Naturalism is, by the dictionary (and the sense it's being used here) "Conduct or thought prompted by natural desires or instincts." A naturalist in the most extreme sense isn't going to work well in society because society assumes you curb those impulses in order to function. Ethics, simply, are those values we hold as conforming to societal standards. The Greeks considered homosexual relations among males to be ethical - if I remember my anthro, it was common practice. Americans as a generalization do not (there are laws against it, in many states, to this day). Ethical Naturalism is simply saying, then, that these behaviors fall under the purview of acceptable societal standards, to the point where it becomes the appropriate behavior. Guy flips you off? Kill him. That's okay, because he was weaker than you. Guy has a hot chick? Kill him, rape the chick, lock her up and show her off. You're only as strong as your last battle, yadda yadda. And I've never read the books, but the premise is that women are only happy when they're being controlled, having their decisions made for them, and are treated as nothing more than vessels for the satisfaction of the Gor males. The plant parody sums it up really well, actually, but Ethical Naturalism says, simply, "Do what you like without regard for others, so long as you can get away with it." Sort of like a really whacked, left field Darwinism.

Re: Complicate the Person Above L. Marcus is actually the result of an atomic gamma irradiation experiment gone horribly wrong. That's why you've never seen a color picture of him; he only appears in black & white.

Re: Complicate the Person Above ... when suddenly the station starts to shake from a heavy land bombardment of missile fire! The alien insurgents have figured out where our hero was, and he's now in the midst of a life & death decision - save the woman he loves, but barely knows, and risk certain death - or save himself and get his crew the hell off this station!

Re: Complicate the Person Above L. Marcus, under the false pretense that no gnus were good gnus, took guns to gnus in the news, and is now forced to run from the gnu news, in the nude.

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Red Hot Chili Peppers, Californication.

Re: Help needed designing a magical store catalogue PERK. This would explain why I didn't find it under Powers. Thanks, LoresLost!