Thia Halmades

Re: Free Strike Wait... maybe I don't understand the problem. If the concept is to 'reach out and hit him so fast he isn't really in range,' they why don't you ust buy an inch of stretching? Or purchase it as a ranged attack with limited range (no range, -1/2, can be 'one inch') or a Hand Attack with Stretching, 1". What am I not understanding where either of those are valid solutions?

Re: reincarnation Actually, I'd do this completely differently: 18 ReinCarnationEvaporatedMilk: Healing 4 BODY, Can Heal Limbs, Resurrection, Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2) (97 Active Points); Extra Time (Regeneration-Only) 1 Hour (Character May Take No Other Actions; -2 1/2), Side Effects, Side Effect occurs automatically whenever Power is used (Side Effect does a predefined amount of damage; Character goes through a complete transformation, becoming another invidividual entirely; -1 1/2), Resurrection Only (As Reincarnation; see text; -1/2) Because there's no "advantage" to becoming someone else, this power is (to me) Resurrect with a Side Effect, you wake up as something else. Because the S/E is Extreme and Always Occurs, its a GMO chew toy for the user. You can adjust this for flavor, but I think you get the gist. This really is just healing with an S/E; save the mess of Multiform and all that noise. Treat it as a Side Effect. If the character is to get a BONUS from getting popped, then that's a whole separate power. But you're just talking about an unwilling redistribution of points (and state of being). That's a Side Effect to me.

Re: "Outsider" perspective on Hero System Doesn't Bleed: healing, Xd6, only to close wounds or stop bleeding, Trigger, only when having been dealt a gaping wound. Note: Requires a game in which bleeding applies. Otherwise, use an automaton. A power lasting one Turn: Lingering (a minor cheat, it's in Fantasy HERO, okay FINE...) Uncontrolled. But Lingering actually addresses this problem outright. Or, stop paying END for it. Or, slap a limitation on it. No, NOTHING hits automatically, you CAN reduce things to 3 DCV (AoE: Accurate) and then pump up your accuracy with that attack, but that must be bought & paid for because the benchmark is to be 'average' in accuracy, not automatic. It can be done, it can vary in expense, and I know now why people were so cheesed off when I pointed it out the first time. Neither a feature nor a flaw; just a design element.

Re: Looking for a good name for a Martial Art Just a thought (as I tend to have and discuss them) but the roots of pankration don't really lend themselves to practice by females, and certainly not those likey to be 'working girls' or spies. The nature of the style relies on brute strength and muscle mass and toughness: not exactly the earmarks of such individuals. Have you considered looking to somethign like chi'na (Chinese small hand grappling), which focuses more on precision and skill than brute strength? Such a style would be a great counter to the brutish style of pankration. As far as nomenclature, how about the 'Silken hand,' or possibly the Silk Purse, for the art form with the combat method that counters the brutish 'sow's ear' of Pankration? [this post edited by by the LCpt. Thia Halmades]

Re: Looking for a good name for a Martial Art Er... why do they have a special style for female covert operatives? Sorry, that just... glares to me. The Roman Empire wasn't all that progressive, IIRC, so I'm stumbling here.

Re: Blasters in Dark Champions Variable Advantage validation rep. Thanks, KS.

Re: Noob question - Defensive Strike and Martial Strike? Thanks for the friendly, unnecessary and unsolicited advice that carried no meaning or merit. Why, if I didn't know better I'd say that response was so poorly aimed that there's only the slightest possibility it was aimed at me! I'll even go so far as to point out that friendly baiting in this case was met with my traditional added-value baiting/friendly antagonism, which KS knows all too well.

Re: Noob question - Defensive Strike and Martial Strike? Wort wort wort.

Re: Noob question - Defensive Strike and Martial Strike?

Re: A bit of advice for fellow newcomers... Welcome to the New World Order. Reminds me of MY first posts. *sniff* Oh, the memories. Insofar as patience: I have a (not entirely deserved, nor undeserved) reputation for biting the heads off of live newbies on stage, but that's largely because of something you touched on; when I (a convert, and a zealot) give an answer, often citing page & verse, I'm stunned into silence when the answer is met with not only resistance, but flat out contradiction. Please bear in mind: I (and almost all of my peers, whom I hold in ridiculously high esteem, and for those who know my misanthropic tendencies should take that as the high praise it's intended to be) only CITE the rules. We aren't telling you how you MUST use them, we're telling you what the canonical use of it is. Note the difference. We rarely say "that's wrong" -- we try and say "HERO does it this way."

Re: Shunamitism ... I hate doing this. I'm with them. KS has given you a decent answer. I ... can't. I'm sorry. All I can say is: Determine what whatever you're doing... er... DOES, and build THAT, with the applicable lims. I am NOT building this.

Re: Working with Multiform Multiform can be confusing, but there are instances where it's warranted. For example, Beast Boy from Teen Titans is a pure multiformer, while someone like Iron Man is often built as an OIHID (Only In Heroic ID) type. My personal rule of thumb is: If you've got one big trick up your sleeve (a personal power armor, all that kind of thing) you should go OIHID. If you're looking at someone who can turn into many things (my PC, Karas, has four slots although he's only using one currently) that's more an argument for Multiform. Multiform, Vehicles, Summons, etc. all follow the same 5:1 rulesset, the idea being that these things are of comparatively limited utility. For example, Karas spends large chunks of his fights in his "human" form -- I took NCC intentionally to keep him from being a super-broken BS machine, because the points I get for Multiform can be viewed as highly advantageous against someone who built their character straight. But you know, it's paid for. So it's a question of what all you intend to do with it. For me, because I have (theoretically) 3 forms outside of my human form, it's multiform. For Iron Man, for Colussus, for Sailor Moon and heaven knows who else, it's OIHID. But as always, that's my rule of thumb, and YMMV.

Re: Cursed dice My problem is, back in the die, I couldn't make a too hit roll if I had to not roll a 1 (back in the d20 era). Then, my friend Beau brought The Pack back from a con. The Pack are three gray dice, with Wolves for 1s. My players dread my die rolls. I do not fudge. I do not hesitate. I do not miss. I do not deal damage. No, seriously. Characters with DCV 12 against an OCV 6, and I rocked his funny little world for... 3 BODY, 12 STUN. This happens CONSTANTLY. The problem then isn't hittin' 'em, it's hurtin' 'em. There's an upside, though. When I hit? Party members drop. I tagged the party Paladin with Black Dragon spit. 3 dice killing that came up on 16 Energy Damage and a full blow 5x STUN.

Re: Tentacle Sheath Cthulu sez... "Your PC has a first name! It's NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM"

Re: Chrono Trigger-themed Dual Techs HERO: Combat Evolved, for all your FPS HERO needs. Moving on. There are really a silly number of ways to do this; but if I were to pick two, they would be: 1) The rules-heavy version; both characters purchase the power (i.e., Frog + Chrono both have Lightning Rod, they both select it and that executes the Team Attack) and you put on the appropriate limitations, including Requires a Teamwork Roll, and so on. This is a fairly heavy handed, but throughouly workable version. I'd advise doing things like allowing it to go 1 die over the cap, and having either Charges (to keep it from being crazy) or increased END (to keep it from being crazy) or at the least make sure the total AP goes against both Teamwork rolls. 2) An "open" setup; so if Bob, Kate or Jim-Jim stick a sword in something, and make a teamwork roll, then Chrono, who owns the power, can fire it off, but it always requires a) the setup be done and the teamwork roll. Then Chrono pays the END cost. With both parties requiring the Teamwork it lets anyone help the setup for the big attack, and everyone can feel special without waiting while Jack & Jill combine and discuss how awsum they are for five minutes.

Re: Blasters in Dark Champions I do love me some miniguns.

Re: Blasters in Dark Champions I dunno. Do you allow miniguns? You can do 'blaster' (i.e., a character who specializes in RKAs) without breaking the SFX of a Dark Champions setting. It's a question of what SFX you want; do you want energy weapons? HVAP rounds? What specifically do you want to acheive here?

Re: Entangle two characters Or build it as an Autofire, or as an AOE Entangle. You can build it as englobing effect with Lockout and Feedback, so if the "entangle" (i.e., you) gets damaged, it's still standing. There are a bunch of ways to get the effect you want. It boils down to SFX. Reason from effect. Truer words were never spoken.

Re: Tentacle Sheath I think this is a question of design preference; as an SFX you can use the XDM, but HERO by design does not support insta-glick without a significant number of dice; not even an NND would work as an NND has to define a reasonable defense (although it could be "Must be a huge creature or larger" and be done from there, letting it eat anything medium sized and down). Speaking purely for a GM standpoint, I'd call "cheap" because of the general premise; it isn't REALLY killing them. HOWEVER. Drama trumps everything; so if this is a CTHULU type setting, then there's an expectation that not all attacks can be defensed. And getting UAO gated to an alternate nom dimension falls into that category.

Re: Fallout 3: Postapocalyptica For fun, I've started collecting schematics. I completed a quest, Stealing Independence, and in exchange received the Railway Rifle Schematics. Amazing what you can make out a crutch, a fission battery, a pressure cooker, and a steam gauge assembly. Not only does it make an AWESOME sound when it's fired (much like a train whistle) my Repair skill makes sure that it starts off in good order. I managed to build two of 'em, used one to repair the other and wound up with a weapon in pretty decent condition, which is a lot of fun to fire. It's satisfying on a number of levels; it cost me no bottlecaps, the railway spikes I've been lugging around forever, and I have a weapons rating in this group (Small Arms). The more I play the game the more addictive it becomes; I love exploring the wasteland. Whereas I considered Oblivion this broken, frustrating fantasy life simulator, I LOVE exploring the Wasteland. I love wandering around, adding locations to my map (DING, gain XP) disarming (and keeping) landmines (DING, gain XP) and then watching monsters blow themselves to smithereens when I put them back down in strategic places. Don't want to be followed up those steps? A couple of traditional frag mines, a bottle-cap mine and a few maniacal laughs later, and my XP counter dinged as a few bad boys blew themselves to smithereens. I've sealed off hallways against multiple opponents because they're monsters, and monsters don't try to disarm mines. One of the flat ugliest monsters I've faced, a yug-oi or somesuch, tore me (literally) in half. Second time I fought it, I got my stealth on. I snuck up, nice & quiet. Waited until he became aware of me, and dropped a Bottlecap Mine. Then I backpedaled for my life, because I still wanted to see the results. I waited until he was on top of it, went to VATS, sighted him down my trusty huntin' raiful, and watched him flip bum-over-teakettle. When the smoke cleared, he was done, and that was the best 10 caps I ever spent. That's when the game shines; in moments that the player has created through the tools of the game. I had the skills, I built the mine, I'm sure I could have played tag with the mutated black bear wolverine badger thingy, but I elected to blow it to kingdom come instead. My way worked REALLLLLLLL nice.

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? It's So Easy When You're Evil,, Voltaire, the Devil's Bris.

Re: Which is better for a beginner: Champions or Dark Champions? Hi. By way of introduction... nah. Never mind, the sig says it all. To echo the general concensus, I came in to this system with that same wide-eyed, "Whaddya mean there's no limits?" sort of sensation when I began with the Big Black Book some 3 years ago now. Bluntly put, the rules live on the edge of impenetrable and simple. The system, because of its open ended nature, hurts the brain when you start using it because they only define the broad concepts of the available powers. The trick to HERO, for me, was building things, which remains my area of expertise. Once I started building things (for me, CharGen came much later) I "got it" and I've been a junkie ever since. I'm so much a HERO snob now I won't touch another system. I'm totally serious. I won't play another game, I don't see the point, since I know the rules backwards and forwards for the most part (even I get caught off guard at times). So with that being said, yes, as my peers said, what you'll play is up to you. I have a slightly different take on the texts, however: 1) Dark Champions is, basically, indispensible for street-level gaming. Guns, armor, gear, all that stuff is prebuilt. Don't like a build? Modify it. Everything is laid out in (fairly) plain English. We can get into debates over the general layout and such, but for the most part, this is THE book to have for any setting from 1960 - 2020. 2) Champions I own because I own the Limited Edition, but I've never opened it, because there's no need for me to use that text. Supers are so insanely easy to build in the system that the CU acts primarily as setting material, and my Super Heroic setting would look more like Iron Man or Spider-Man than it would HEROES or an anime. 3) Fantasy HERO, because it's easier to use a pre-built sword than it is to design one. Now. Insofar as the rules go; you really don't need to know many of them for the game to work. Once you've got character generation down, and you know how to distribute points (I cannot recommend Hero Designer enough for this very reason) then what you really need to know how to do is resolve skills and basic combat, and you can evolve from there. There's no wrong way to play the game; it's a matter of personal preference. Once you've got the basics, the sky is the limit.

Re: Fallout 3: Postapocalyptica A lot of reviewers have cited that the music is repetitive; to which I'm forced to reply, the game can take you well over a hundred hours if you're taking your time, which I tend too. I let myself get sucked into it; I stop thinking about "questing" and "loots" and find myself reacting in a survivalist fashion. Can I get close enough to get the thing without getting enough rads to turn me into a minor fission reactor? How badly do I want to be able to use this here Minigun? Or at least, use it well? Having scoped weapons is GREAT, but I wish there was a more HALO style, multi zoom variety. I can envison many character concepts here; whether you're going for a straight assassin, or for a hard core brawler. You get a lot of options as to how to progress. I was thinking of doing a Desperado next, and being all stealthy and sciency and skipping my repair skills, but ... BUT. There are some things you just plain need. You must have enough repair to not waste spare gear or change equipment moment after moment. There are also two perks that absolutely, in my opinion, MUST be taken. There's a Perk that gives +4 skill points a level (a must) and another that gives +1 skill point per book read. Again, a total must, since you can effecitvely double the number of skill books in the game if you don't read any before you take it (which I didn't). Even if your character isn't skill based, those are so insanely useful that it seems criminal to NOT have them. Like most of my own first time characters, they're very Jack of All Trades. I'm "okay" in a number of fields but not GREAT in any of them. Which is a blessing, and a curse. Oh, and I should mention: Cherry Bomb + 10 Bottlecaps + a Lunch Box + A Sensor Module = OMG NO YOU DI'NT. (A Bottlecap Mine, which is an obscenly powerful explosive, especially with the Demolitions perk).

Re: Fallout 3: Postapocalyptica I never -- ever -- cease to be amazed at the people we have just HANGIN' AROUND. Scott Bennie. Creator of Dogmeat. Which exists in FO3, by the way, and is probably one of the strongest memories of it we have. Holy CATS.

Re: Fallout 3: Postapocalyptica I keep meaning to purchase the Fallout Pack; 1, 2 & Tactics and dump them onto my PC. I anticipate some nostalgia and some hair pulling moments; I never got a chance to play any of them at length, so 3 is really my first properly purposed foray into the world itself. I'm now about... oh, 20 hours in. Here's what we've got so far: Like most other games in this genre, it doesn't take long to figure out what you need to do to survive. There are some skills which are just "better" than others, although this speaks as much to gameplay as it does to personal choice. With the lack of any sort of magic, there are only so many skills and options for combat. Early on, I'm still finding my traditional reliance on projectile weapons is serving me very well. I have also discovered that you can point & shoot well at things from a distance, and I've scored some really gory head shots while hidden. If you can do that, you're doing great, and the game becomes "user controller skill" based for the moment. The downside continues to be the weird hybrid of FPS/Real Time. Once something is in your grill, you almost have to go to VATS, and that's been how i've handled the last few hours, in fact. At range, it's all about pumping 10mm rounds from my trust pistol into whatever I'm fighting. When they get close, I switch to VATS and start making head shots until they fall down. Which begs the question, just how good do you get? Really good. If you stick to your mental character concept, you can become very potent in a comparatively short time. Additionally, because there are almost always healing options near at hand, you're rarely facing a death's door situation unless you're just stingy (which I am, I am incredibly stingy). I spend most of the game around half health. Rads are a potent factor to consider, but can be dealt with. To speak to something Killer Shrike said, and I completely agree, yes, you can get lost in this setting. They do a number of things very well; the Pip Boy 3000 is your "guide" to the world. It tells you where your quests are, keeps you updated, all that kind of thing. You can, because of it, go off exploring somewhere else entirely and come back to your current quest when you're good and ready. There's a powerful incentive to do this, because you can find more cool stuff to blow mutant's heads off with, and that's why you're carrying all this hard ware in the first place. But. Because of that, I've revised my definition of what this game really is. It isn't an RPG; an RPG, as I'd discussed with Jason at length, and agreed with him for the most part, is a small unit tactical combat simulator, especially when played on a console. Most of what you do is follow the linear plot, and fight. That's it. Player choice comes in leveling up. That isn't Fall Out, anymore than it was Oblivion. The best way I can describe the game is a Post Apocalypse Simulator. You choose how to approach life in the wastes, and with those choices come both truths and consequences. You learn how the world reacts, you learn how you feel about that. Because of the way you, the player, control the movement of the story (a love it/hate it sort of thing; why does the plot freeze because I'm not there? Who knows?) you are really entirely free to spend time becoming whomever you want to be. Sinner, Saint, or Merc. I haven't really scratched the surface of what all the game has to offer; I don't have all the schematics, I haven't even begun my bobblehead collection save for one I found by accident, and I still get shredded by Super Mutant Leader Lordy Thug things with Miniguns. But the game sucks you in; even with the drudgery (fast travel IS here, you CAN bounce from place to place, but you must always walk to a place the first time, even with a map flag) there's something incredibly compelling -- and much more so, if you're me -- about Oblivion with guns. if they rewrote Oblivion, and put guns in it? I'd play it all over again, and probably with a lot less hate.