The Mad GM

Re: Team Tactics While the concentration advice is very sound, it is a little out of genre. Perhaps team manuevers, like Minotaur tossing Cerebus at an opponent for a move through/HKA attack (he looks like he can take some damage from the landing). Cannon-ball special (oops, copyright Marvel Enterprises ) Or Marvel Man controlling/TKing enemies to line up so Bolt can 'run the line' with a multiple passing strike move-by. Or Marksman doing a takes-no-damage entangle on a target who can then serve as ammo for Minotaur to throw at another target (works well if the entanglee is someone Minotaur would normally have trouble hitting). Start out with the high DCV character drawing fire, distracting the enemies for a suprise from behind. These are just the ones that popped to mind, surely there are others.

Re: Monty Haul DnD vets: need your help for NPC villain team Have two characters with the same unique item, and they argue over who really has it. Disads: Dependency: Jolt Cola or similar Psych Lim: Will argue with a stop sign Susceptible: spilled drinks (on character sheets, it erases stats) Distinctive features...I ain't going there. IIF on all powers: Character sheet.

Re: hanging PCs together One of my longer running games started with the question to the players: "So why does your character want to overthrow the Evil Emperor?" Other than that, I've encouraged players to plan their own connections before the game, to whatever extent, and then bring in the others in various ways: Coming across a scene of a crime/battle, the dying messenger with a treasure map, the old man in the bar with knowledge of some important wrongdoing, being hired by a noble, etc. I've played in a game that started out as a theatrical troupe. I originally wanted to play a sort of doe-y eyed thespian with magical talents suited for the stage who gets pulled into a real adventure with more typical characters, but the other players flocked to the idea. The only real dungeon worthy PC was a bodyguard we hired to help going through some orcish areas. In one game we were all voyaging on the same vessel towards a newly discovered continent (think Australia). We were explorers, missionaries, exiles, and thieves running from the law.

Re: Exotic Methods for Executions? Most ancient forms of execution are both public and fairly inexpensive, so magic is probably not appropriate, even though there was a fair amount of ritual to it. There was some story where a vampire who ruled an area would execute people by turning them and placing them in a cage where the sun would get to them. Or maybe the vampire was merely a courtier, I can't remember. Another story that sounds alot like Dr. No on a budget involved an enormous lens that would focus the sun on a single burning spot that would travel across an arc every day, burning the pattern of it's movements into a steel sheet for astronomical study. Simply put the condemned individual somewhere in the 'afternoon' section of the path. They could serve as targets for experimentation by the alchemist guild apprentices. If they survive a month of hourly imbibing, they are let free. The Maenads tore Orpehus apart, and there was some story where the gods caused some ruler's wife and daughters to go berserk and tear him apart. Compelling violence against a loved one would be a possible punishment for complicity in treason (a crime where expensive methods might be allowable) and one party was less culpable. I'm not sure who gets off easier if the love is sincere. Imprisoning them in a major bell tower that is tolling noon. Apparently the vibrations of that decibel for so long were enough to rupture arteries. There was a murder mystery with that as the premise, Lord Peter Whimsey series by Dorothy Sayers, though the title escapes me. Have them watch as their character sheet is fed into a shredder.

Re: Spells that work against pain Those would be handy for a sneaky evil spellcaster to hand out to the heroes seeming to help them. Of course, he wouldn't mention the drawbacks. Even better (worse), he could add illusions to cover the bleeding. Especially efffective if the heroes are on water and hesitate to wear heavy armor.

Re: Spells that work against pain The main disadvantage to not feeling pain in the real world is not tending to wounds, not realizing when you're bleeding, or when your doing irreparable damage to yourself. There was a recent article about a girl who can't feel pain, and its consequences are pretty horrific. She can feel other things, by the way, just not pain. In a gaming situation, it would be like handing over all the numbers to the GM, who would eventually turn to the player and say, "You drop dead." Player: "But this guy hit me once with a dagger. What gives?" GM: "You took three arrows yesterday, a falling rock this morning, and a mace to your ribs just after lunch." Player: "Oh woe, I shall repent of taking obscure physical limitations just for the points ever again." Actually this would just start an argument about noticing how much blood was lost, shortness of breath, and all that other stuff. But back on topic, I've always thought there should be a power that requires a target to make a stat/skill based roll to escape, like a cross between an entangle and change environment: DEX roll for a dizzyness spell, EGO for pain, PRS for courage, INT for forgetfullness, CON for nausea etc. Change environment might stretch that far, but maybe not.

Re: Fantasy Hero Campaign (ala. Space Opera) You could always use real ships, on a sea populated with dangers. That more closely mimics a spaceship in any case. You are stranded in a hostile environment, and the only thing between you and death is the hull of the ship, which annoying pirates and imperial gunships are trying to poke holes in. Perhaps the perfection of mithral cladding for an immense (city size) ship or some such has given the evil empire and their Storm Warriors (equivalent to Marines, very flexible small unit land fighters conveyed over water) the edge to conquer the good kingdom that had been acting as a buffer all this time. And with the fall of this good NPC kingdom, as it were, the game is afoot. A small band of adventurers must get aboard the uber-boat and sink it from within, but must rescue the hostages from NPC kingdom first. You could go 70s anime with it and make it an immense insectoid iron golem or something. Storm Warriors could be lead by Thunder and Lightning (in German, Donner unt Blitzen, if I recall correctly)

Re: FH Racial Balance question for the GM's At 35 Str, that's 7DCs, which is respectable but not unbalancing, even throwing in a Deadly Blow or whatever. Now if he was a martial artist troll, That gets munchkin.

Re: Talking with Ghosts: Alternative Necromancers. As an information source, the dead have many potential advantages that have nothing to do with an appetite for brains. The whole zombie legion stuff came out of making a villainous necromancer. In a culture where death is merely another part of life, a necromancer may seek the forgiveness of food animals that had to die to feed the tribe, to settle their ghosts so they don't curse the living. As such, a necromancer is a form of large scale luck. They would also calm spirits of the murdered or slain in battle for the same reason. I've been writing up a city setting in which one of the major lines of magic is necromancy, and the practitioners see themselves as a form of social service to the bereaved, and so they dress in bright, welcoming, colorful fashions, and decorate their offices in plants and flowers to put their customers at ease. Sort of shiny, happy necromancers. But their darker cousins are out there, rooting through crypts and burial chambers to pillage the remains of the dead, oh yes indeed.

Re: FH Racial Balance question for the GM's We had a character play a troll, before FH came out, and it was a hoot. As long as the player isn't simply being a munchkin, I say go with it.

Re: Help GMing travel through a mountain pass... Large avalanches can travel up to 150 mph, according to a PDF I just saw. They mention skiing and loud noises as setting them off. Perhaps the ogre and his cronies have specially tuned horns they use near susceptible areas (the PDF also lists the perfect conditions). Apparently wind piled drifts on top of several layers of snow and remelt are key, as well as angle of the ground. Anything over 35-40 degrees from horizontal is suspect. Trouble areas can be hundreds of feet across, so dive for cover might be out of the question if the ogre knows what he's doing. The guide might sniff the air, tell them "be quiet, this is avalanche territory", moments before the horns sound. If they are on the slab of moving snow, they'll feel the snow suddenly move under their feet, then the surface breaks up and it's like standing in cotton, and the snow really hits the fan. Trying to 'ride' it is a near superhuman feat, more luck than anything else. If they are below it, they will see a crown of rapidly moving snow descending like white death at unimaginable speeds (Remember that before cars, the only way a medieval person went over 40mph was jumping off a cliff). One main problem is being carried off of cliffs and into crevasses and such. A few seconds at a hundred miles an hour can sweep you hundreds of feet. Disorientation isa big problem for those who stay on top (and by on top, I'm talking within a couple of feet of the air and able to wriggle free. From my own (very limited) experience of the European Alps, the things you should stress are the enormous expanses of uninhabited areas (and this was modern Europe). It was a shock to me, who always thought of mountains as being covered by trees and apple cider stands. There were snow covered areas in July, so by fall you could easily be talking about potential avalanche conditions.

Re: Movies

Re: Movies And taking a cue from proditor's sig: Bubba Ho-Tep would be troublesome to do in DnD.

Re: Movies Vegetable Hero, the new sub-sub-genre of Dark Champions/Modern Horror/Just-Plain-Silly. 'It reached a point where merely saying the word tomato caused a panic. "Tomato".' I knew I had a reason to hate veggies as a kid. And just to make a nod at staying on topic, you would never see 'Vegetable d20, now would you?

Re: Movies Why did the horse have a flute?

Re: Movies The King Arthur movie is pretty close, a small group of highly skilled warriors going against an entire army, in a fight that is not their own (said in a booming voice). It would have worked better if they hadn't pushed the 'reality behind the legend' shtick, maybe even dropped the Arthurian references altogether. The other two were about epic wars, not the small group of adventurers. LotR had both, of course. When i think of fantasy, I think of the small group fighting the good fight against all odds, with the Leader, the Loner/Misanthrope, the Jock, the Geek, the Brain, and the Good Looking One. Oh wait, I'm thinking of Battle of the Planets. Or was that Starblazers? Thundercats? Scooby Doo? No, no, it's the D&D cartoon. No wait, the X-men. Umm, Aliens? Now I'm all confused.

Re: Movies Fire and Ice! Ahh.. Ralph Bakshi, for a little mescaline with your fantasy. Wizards - When I was in high school/college, it was considered a classic geek film, with quotable lines and everything. "I'm glad you changed your name you son of a bitch." "They killed Fritz! Lousy stinkin fairies!" And horrible to model on D&D. Excalibur Krull Harry Potter is fantasy, but not in line with everything else here. Trencher - Comic book movies are filling in the escapist/empowerment slot in modern movies. It may be a year or so for it to start swinging back (though sweeping the awards SHOULD have brought out some grade-B fantasy action stuff at least).

Re: Movies From IMDB: Archer: Fugitive from the Empire, The (1981) (TV) The hero is given his mentor's bow (the Heartbow) which chooses its new owner when passed on. It fires arrows that blow up like grenades, but can only be wielded by the one chosen to wield her. The hero is a member of a nomadic tribe wiped out by the Draikian Empire's forces. He attempts to find the wizard Lazar-Sa who might be able to help him. He is joined by a thief looking for adventure and cash, and the daughter of a goddess, Estra, looking to revenger herself on Lazar-Sa for crimes against her mother.

Re: Possible solution for common GM problems Like swimming, climbing, or sneaking.

Re: Spell: Animate Object. Help... me.... I think he's saying it's hard to build a 40-pt automaton, not that it's expensive to summon them. I'm a little uncertain why he set the cap at 40 pts, though. Even slavishly loyal (+1) , summoning two 40 pt critters is only 26 active points. It seems a low cap

Re: What Would Your Character Do? #68 My reply as Magister is simple: he doesn't see himself as a hero because he can beat the crap out of people. He sees himself as a hero because he helps people, even at the risk of his own life. Saving the innocents is always his first option. If fighting Mega would save innocents, then that is what he'd do, but it would have to be pretty obvious threat. Both Magister and Slingshot took a "wait and see" attitude because they are very cynical about the current government, and see an obvious villain taking charge instead of a conspiracy laden institution as merely a change of guard. Their actions stem from a lack motivation about the situation. Everyone else sees it as a clear violation of every person on the planet's civil rights. I'm unfamiliar with the Authority comic book, so I'll shut up now.

Re: What Would Your Character Do? #68 Assuming any of them didn't die or get hospitalized already: Lash - The UN gave him authority, not me. Viva la resistance. He would also start fighting the UN because they clearly have no right to rule anymore. Slingshot - He'd wait to see how things were looking under the new regime. If things go rotten, he'd begin planting bombs in Mega's underwear drawer and poisoning his corn flakes, while simultaneously trying to galvinize the community to do what it can to save itself from depravations during the coming struggles. He'd also dress up as Mega and leave crank calls on other villains video-phones, calling them wusses. Tempest - Probably would fight the guy immediately, no hesitation. He's kind of dumb that way. Kensai - Realizing that power backed by threat has no true authority, Kensai would organize the remaining heroes into a brilliant multi-pronged assault on Mega, utilizing all his known weaknesses, and then try and rebuild the shattered dream that was the UN. Magister - Provide assistance to the numberless civilian casualties of the epic battle, and wait to see how Mega fared as a ruler. If he stays villainous, support the revolutionaries.

Re: Possible solution for common GM problems I agree with ChibaBob and Arcady that in-game reasons should be more than compelling enough. If you wear armor for several days straight, you will develop serious skin rashes and problems that could easily limit Com and Pre (stinky), eventually Dex and Con. After a week or more, open sores would even lower Body and increase the chance of catching diseases (the skin is the first line of defense against infection and gangrene). I wouldn't give a character points for doing something realistically. Another in-game motivation is that you have to maintain armor, which can't be done while wearing it. Leather can rot, chain can rust. It's part of the Real Weapon/Armor limitation on all equipment. Frankly, in my game it's the mages with their FF spells that almost never go out that bugs me. How do you eat or excrete through those things? As far as the character getting bored or their attention wandering, the characters are heroes, not normal people. I certainly don't have the drive and stamina to win a gold medal, but that doesn't mean it's unrealistic. A key component to any hero is a sense of purpose, a drive toward some goal, and not letting anything, even their own well being (physical, social, mental, or financial) get in the way. I've never been fond of money oriented characters for just that reason.

Re: Spell: Animate Object. Help... me.... Automatons are darn expensive, no doubt about it. If you could just define them as basic characters with resistant defense and no need to breath, eat, or sleep, you'd probably save yourself alot of headache. You could buy other stats fairly low, 5 dex, 5 str (or less), buy running down to 2", most common objects would have less than 5 body. Buying intelligence down to negatives more or less assumes they have to be constantly be monitored by the wizard. You could also drop the x2 and get 25 more character points for your animatronic. If you want them to have a valid attack, 8d6 is 40 points, which is 10 more than the spell itself is. Starting to smell a little munchkiny. Option 2: This might be a bit of a stretch, but instead of a summon, you could call it Change Environment, with a bunch of different effects - TK, slight attack, etc. Might be too expensive, though.

Re: Turakian Age: Drakine Population Dynamics You're obviously not reading the right fantasy. I was primarily thinking of book covers, Frazetta, Valejo, Bell, and their imitators, rather than the book contents. It is enough of a stereotype to spawn a series of short story collections refuting the basic idea of woman as helpless-victim/sex-object: Chicks in Chainmail.