tarragon

Re: when "automatic" perception gets limited From my point of view if it's bought at -7 it's -7. Everyone can stand without a roll on dry pavement but if there a simple -1 Dex roll ice patch CE even Super Dex Lad has to roll.

Re: Magic system wanted -- historical magic Spiritualism with it's trappings of mediums and séance, moving objects and ectoplasm was going strong at this point in time. Modern spiritualism blends faeries into the mix and they are also appropriate to the time frame, but not necessarily the setting. And if your dealing with a western setting you'll definitely need to deal with Native American shamanism. While I've never thought about a writeup of any of these they could be fun to deal with in game. Spiritualism implies a lot of things about the existence of ghosts and their abilities. Native American mysticism includes the Ghost Dance and Medicine men.

Re: New(ish) Magic System - Critique Me! I would give the terrain END, not REC. If you give the terrain REC a powerful mage can walk into a dead area and still cast for a while which seems to not fit your description. By giving the land END instead powerful areas are powerful because anyone can walk in and cast a lot of magic. If the end is common to all mages that even gives you the ability to wear down an area with excessive castings. I like the idea of colored end. Death magic is easy in a cemetery and hard in a jungle grove. I once built an ambient magic system that's a bit similiar. I never played it it so I'm not sure how well it would have worked but I'll describe it here. You might find some ideas you like. I had the land provide Mana (END) mostly along ley lines. When the lines crossed the greatest of magics were possible. But I also allowed mages to cast from their personal essence (Long Term End) so they could cast even in a dead or exhausted area, but it cost them. Resting in a high mana area would recharge the personal essence they had burned faster then normal LTE recovery at the cost of MANA from the area. Some areas had good recovery but low-ish END; the cemetery is good for 20 END of Necromatic magic every day. Other areas had huge reserves, but low REC; the undisturbed forest provides a huge pool of magic but once used it takes years to return to it's former level. Using mana from an area was limited (per phase), you could only pull it so fast. The limit was mostly related to the current mana available. As the mana dropped spells got weaker, until the mana was all gone and spells fizzled. A good magic skill roll increased the amount of mana that could be pulled. The character determined the actual max possible effect, they bought spell to the max usable level. But the area they were in determined how strong any casting was because the end they could spend was limited. A powerful mage in a weak area was limited. A weak mage was a weak mage even in a strong area. They Ley lines were generally stronger areas of mana. Where they crossed was even stronger. Also where they crossed the pull limit was raised. The Ley lines moved with the stars and were effected by moons like tides. Conjunctions could indicate crossings and could be predicted. Fights would happen over areas that would eventually have strong crossings. Finally not all lines were well mapped and it wasn't alway known what stars or constellation drove which particular line. Sometimes secret societies knew more about specific lines used that to their advantage.

Re: Immunity to Electric Attacks Even within electrical effects there has to be GM interpretation becasue there are powers that don't logically work against invulnerable to electricity guy. I would write up both Scrambling the Sense Neurons and a Bright Loud Lightning bolt as a Flash with Electrical FX. But I wouldn't let invuln guy be immune the the Flash part of a lightning bolt.

Re: Immunity to Electric Attacks I'm a big fan of the Fantasy Hero Absolute Effect rules. The cost of invulnerability is dependent on the DCs you expect to be facing. This is similar in that the cost is dependent on the campaign DC limits with is related to the DCs you expect to be facing. My biggest problem with pricing kind of invulnerability is that within some kind of range it's cost should be dependent on the points available for character creation. A fixed cost invulnerability that is expensive and rare at heroic levels (heavily limited spell perhaps) becomes a keeping up with the joneses power at galactic levels. A variable priced invulnerability, following DC or point limits, becomes a heavily limited spell at heroic and a schtick at galactic levels. -rr

Re: Your Gaming Group's Jargon In out group this is "Spock Mode". As in Spock's Brain.

Re: Immunity to Electric Attacks

Re: Immunity to Electric Attacks I agree that -1/2 is to low for Electricity Only. But I do not agree with the premise that that Only vs X and Not vs X should be mirror imaged prices for defenses.

Re: Western Era Firearms And archive.org didn't grab it. Looks like it's gone

Re: Pyrokinesis and TK Strength

Re: Free equipment side discussion. Sure, no problem. Are you implying it would be overpowered? Sherman will either do half damage to every supervillian he meets or he has to buy the tank with points. I'm explicitly reducing the effectiveness of normals and normal equipment in a superhero world so a free tank shouldn't hurt anything. And... I don't think any GM will accept "OIF tank of opportunity (-1/2)" I didn't say Roy Harper was obscure, I said I had to look him up. You brought up a specific scenario from a book I don't read involving a character I don't read. Even so by adding a rule for dropping the scaling with surprise I think the scaling system handled the scenario well while still keeping to the intended feel. On the other hand Superman is a special case at least in terms of the surprise rules. You said it yourself "Taking Superman by surprise has never seemed to have a lot of impact". Either Supes has enough points of defense that even surprises doubled damage doesn't bug him or he's not effected by the surprise rules. As you say other heroes deal with the surprise rules normally. Fine, sure, call it quadrupled damage. But... The important point isn't what we call it. If the Thug's 4d6 from surprise isn't unbalanced without this system it's not unbalanced with.

Re: Free equipment side discussion. I know how you feel. My original intention was to offer the idea that has basically boiled down to "Real X (-1/4) equipment does half damage to supers as a campaign ground rule". This was offered up as an attempt to deal with the problem of free equipment being over powered in a superhero campaign. Reading it again in the first post I spent way to much time describing the system I am working on for getting a certain feel in a campaign and not enough on the smaller idea I wanted to convey. The conversation followed the original post and has spent way more time talking about the full system and not as much about free equipment. At this point several people, Hugh and Sean at least, have suggested roughly equivalent systems using Damage Reduction. So the smaller concept is well covered mechanically. The question still remains is this smaller idea useful for people in their campaigns? And the conversation about the full system rages on.

Re: Free equipment side discussion. I agree this isn't as clear cut as I would like. I've been using a couple of rules of thumb that I haven't formally defined yet. Anything gotten as free equipment is Normal. Anything that can't be gotten as free equipment must be bought with points and can not be Normal so therefor is at least Super. Things that could be free equipment/Normal can be purchased with points and become Super. This last rules basically covers Gunbunny in one of two ways. Either GB owns special versions of otherwise normal weapons such as a pistol designed to take down supers. The pistol would be a one off special version and probably wouldn't look like the normal version. The weapon itself is Super and it's purchased as a standard OAF (-1). Alternately, for some reason, either through intense training, blessed hands, or pure luck, GB is so good with Normal equipment that he can damage Supers with it. In this case the power is GBs and is bought as OIF pistol of opportunity (-1/2) In terms of what is and isn't available as free equipment I plan to allow any items that exist in todays world and are not prototypes as free equipment. Anything that the real me in the real world could get using the right contacts and enough money can be free equipment and can be gotten with the right contacts and money. In other-words anything manufactured today, even if it's just small runs for the military. You have to admit Superman is a special case however you use him. If supes is your campaign benchmark then this scheme is inappropriate. Just pile on the points on and go. And as you indirectly point out supes doesn't really interact with the surprise rules normally anyway. Nope they get double damage like everyone else. OK sure, it's effectively 4x the reduced damage but the final effect is only 2x from initial value. It might be more of a surprise for the player than usual (as in unexpected number of dice) but it's not any more imbalanced than a typical surprise attack would be in a campaign not using this.

Re: Calm the Storm The Until Superpowers Database covers Weather Control as a power on on p. 251. It even gives an example of canceling a storm. It's written up as a Mega area CE using the Varying Combat Effects and Multiple COmbat Effects adders and a couple of minor rulings about how to use it.

Re: Free equipment side discussion. Aw geez. I take a day off to play L4D and my thread gets all covered with snark. You have to watch these things like a hawk. I didn't intend it to be done that way. It's not that 75 point characters do full effect to 250 point characters and half to 350 point characters. It's part of the definition of the campaign. The PCs are superheroic characters because the campaign defines them that way. The cops are normals and the Viper agents are normals carrying super-level guns. Someone mentioned this idea in another thread, Viper agents carry blasters because assault rifles suck against supers. Anyway, moving on... Situation 1 and 3: 3 Body 9 Stun. They have 0 resistant defense to this attack but damage is halved for being a level up the scale. Still a good hit, but not life threatening. Situation 2: (Only in hero ID) That's a good question because I don't know the answer. If we say the damage is halved because he's a scale level up then he's always scaled up and no one can ever be taken by surprise. If I say full then characters change scale based on state. Thinking about it a bit I'm going to say full damage 6 Body, 18 Stun. I'm going to extend the idea a little bit; Scale differences go away with surprise and when not in Heroic ID. That would model a comic booky situation where the hero can get knocked out by a sap to the back of the head by a thug who surprises him but once the hero recovers and is ready for it then it's impossible for that thug and his 10 friends to win. This also lets us handle Hugh's Speedy [1] example:

Re: Free equipment side discussion. A big thank you to jtelson who I can't rep again without spreading the love and who is defending my idea better that I could. But I do want to add a little bit to the discussion I started. It's not who fires it, it's the definition of what the gun is. Is the gun made with not well understood super tech at a high cost (points)? Or is it made with well understood milling technology and sold at Walmart? Gun guy firing that Walmart rifle is different because because he's a super hero who has trained for years hit vulnerable spots (and he paid points). To me this is no more arbitrary than a campaign where the PCs and the villains they face don't have to worry about Normal Characteristics Maximum but the normals in the world around them do. It's no more arbitrary than the advice I've seen on the boards (and in one of the books maybe) to not even bother tracking stun for Mooks. Just have them drop when they take a good hit. This is a better way of applying the idea to the narrow problem of free equipment. The question is, is this narrower focus useful for the free equipment discussion? [1] The problem appears to basically be that the weapon familiarity and skill levels need to use and the contacts needed to get a powerful item are a lot cheaper than to buy that item with points. This also leads to problem with returning weapons and Foci after they have been taken away when they have been bought in different ways and it gets into meta play issues like: "how come when we lose our equipment Bob (who paid points) is always seems to find a rifle to buy first, even though he's got the worst interaction skills and least money out of all of us (who use free equip)?"

Re: Free equipment side discussion. I initially built this idea (unplayed) trying to get a feel of a world where supers were a scale above normals. Different scale people still interact just fine but unless the aren't much of a threat. Lower scale people aren't much of a threat but can be if they work together or simply overwhelm with numbers. Think New Mutants (Teen Hero scale) and X-Men (Hero scale). A single Sentinel (Hero scale) is a significant threat to the NM, but the X-Men take out 2 or 3 each. At the same time I didn't want the higher scale people to be a lot more points. In direct comparisons of power levels the X-Men aren't that much more physically powerful than the NM. They're just a level above. The only answer I have is comic book feel. In a comic a soldier hitting a villain with a an RPG has less effect than a fire guy hitting that same villain. Yet if they had both hit a wall instead they would blow the same sized hole. Anyway, the main point of bringing this up is free equipment. To me it seems like this idea solves many of the problems of (points) free equipment in a supers game that have been brought up in bunch of threads. If normal equipment can be grabbed freely, but it is only 1/2 effect then there is still incentive to take it where appropriate. It will be useful against other normal people and things but not overpowering in the supers world.

Re: Free equipment side discussion.

Free equipment is getting a lot of discussion over in 6th ed. I wanted to run an idea past people before I write something up for 6th forums. My goal was to make a system for a supers campaign where vastly different power level can interact in a meaningful way but to prevent very un-comic booky situations like a lucky shot killing a super villain. In one campaign a beat cop killed Red Rapier after he helped defeat the heroes. As a side effect this system should make free equipment work well in HERO. The plan I have for my next supers game is to invent a scale of Superness. It's runs from Normal, to Super, then Galactic. [1] As you move up the scale powers have half effect. A cop's Normal gun does half damage to a Super, and a normal pair of handcuffs has half the DEF and BODY when Super level Grond tries to break out. A borrowed normal radiation suit works to get a Super hero safely into the reactor core but the Unobtainium-235 powering Dr. Megaton's flying fortress produces Super Radiation and cuts right through it. A hero's innate Super fire blast does half damage to a Galactic villain who just dropped by to eat the world. Finally a cop's Normal pistol does 1/4 damage to the Galactic villain. Moving down the scale has no effect. A Super fire blast does NOT do double damage to a normal. Anyone including supers can get free Normal equipment they might be reasonable able to get. Anything available in the real world, basically anything in production, that you could buy with money and the right contacts is available as normal equipment. That includes military hardware with is still classed as Normal. In addition Normal equipment alway has the "real" limitation. A Super can carry a flash light, but they have find a way to carry that in their tights. A super flash light can be small and easy to carry, it could even come from hammer space when needed. The distinction between super equipment and normal equipment is based purely on concept. Cops are normals with normal level equipment. The Champions are Supers. A Super can get free equipment, but they can also can pay points for a Super version of it. A SWAT sniper's rifle does half damage against pulsar. Gunguy's otherwise identical rifle that he paid points for is super equipment and does full damage. If Gunguy's gun gets knocked out of his hands his backup free pistol does half damage.[2] Finally agents are Normals who have some super equipment. They can play in both worlds. That lets them get shot up by teh SWAT team, but also pose a credible threat to Supers. Comments? [1] The number of levels really doesn't matter, as long as there are levels. You can define more and narrower levels to get a different feel in the campaign. Normal, Teen Hero, Super, World Shakers, Galactic. [2] Something I hadn't thought of before, what if Gunguy picks up that SWAT sniper rifle. 1/2 damage or full? Hmm.

Re: Time Stop (its harder than it sounds) For small things I'm a big fan of Penalty Skill Levels to reduce the penalties for doing a task faster than normally required. This technique should scale up to long tasks [it's been a long time since I've had a chance to play or GM, my numbers will be off] You want to do a 6 month task in a day. Buy a spell as enough Penalty skill levels to counteract the penalty of doing any skill (3 points per although for utility and convenience of math I'll charge 4 per) 6 steps on the time chart (I think) at -2 per level (again I think) for a total of 36 points. In 6 real months you could get bonuses to a skill roll for taking extra time, penalty skill levels do not cover that aspect. So you'd also have to buy some regular skill levels to cover that. 6 levels of any non combat skill (5 or 8 points each) for 48 points. As a GM I would let you put these two sets of levels in a multipower as a single spell. "All the time in the world" - In a single day the caster gets a subjective 6 months to work on non combat related task. 48 Multipower, 48-point reserve 10m +6 with all non-combat Skills (48 Active Points) 10m Penalty Skill Levels: +12 vs. Doing a task faster than normal with Any Skill (48 Active Points) 68 pts before limitations In use it's pretty simple. Timmy the Mage buys the worlds biggest crossword book and wants to finish it and finish it right by tomorrow evening. At a normal pace it'll take him about a month. He sets the Multipower to cancel any faster than normal penalties (2 time levels -4?) and bonuses for extra time (4 time levels +4). So Timmy gets +4 to his linguistics roll to finish this normally week long task by drinking time tomorrow. If he fails anyway it's up to the GMs dramatic sense if he didn't finish or if he got some wrong.

Re: Fallout 3: Postapocalyptica My version: http://frontiernet.net/~rreay/ScreenShot0.JPG I was in a good spot and Talon mercs and bots kept coming at me around the this one corner. -rr

Re: Sell my friends on DCV

Re: Sleep Spell? For me the suppress has the same problem that all STUN based sleep effects have. It doesn't make sense that someone who is in the middle of a fight and all hopped up on adrenaline is easier to make fall asleep. Basing a sleep spell on STUN means that it is hard to make the guard who is at the end of long boring guard shift fall asleep. It's easier to make that same guard fall asleep if he's just been sucker punched so he's is down a bit of STUN. I like the mind control version better because the levels of effect allow for this kind of distinction. At the end of a long guard shift you might be inclined to fall asleep. Just woke up in the morning leaves you pretty awake and not inclined In the middle of a fight for your life you are violently opposed to falling asleep.

Re: First meeting of game group to consider HERO System Here's how I would adjudicate this. If Blink bought have teleport AAU with all the right ranges and effects he can try it and if it works the car will blow up. This is an environmental effect, no different from knocking a villain through a gas station and igniting the gas that spills out. It's easy to TP that cup into a dishwasher. Your not in combat time, you are very familiar where it is in relation to you, the dishwasher is not moving, and you've done this before, maybe breaking a cup or two the first time. This to hit roll is hard. The car is moving, probably very erratically if they are chasing you. Blink has to hit the car, it's moving, and the tank is only a small bit of the car, call it a vitals called shot on the Cars DCV. Add another -1 or -2 since Blink needs to guess where precisely the gas tank is in the car. Is blink a auto mechanic? OK he can roll his PS and if he succeeds I'll remove that final penalty. So it's a hard roll, very dramatic, Blink may need several attempts to get it right. Finally he does and boom. yay! Where I have a problem is when he tries to do it again and again. The next night they are fighting agents in a parking lot and Blink decides to start blowing up any car an agent is standing next to. From my point of view this is a bit out of genre for a teleporting character, but I'll let him do it. It's still a tough to hit, less so this time because the cars aren't moving. I rule that explosion isn't very big out side the car it's mostly channeled by the body of the car. Still it should take out an agent. After the session I talk to Blink's player. If he wants to use that attack alot he will need to buy it. The cost of adding a 8d6 explosion gas tank of opportunity with an environmental side effect, gestures (lighting a match), requires skill roll (to indicate he not great at it yet, he'll buy this off soon) to an existing 60 TP MP is 1 or 2 points. If the TP isn't in a MP already it's a bit more to convert it over and add this. He might even have enough points to do this with the XP he got from this session. If not I may loan him enough to do it anyway. Now Blink can make any gas tank explode at will without having to make a vitals shot on the car. Well, unless he fails the RSR in which case something happened, maybe he missed the tank. SFX based I'll say that a small tank like a lawn mower only does a few d6 while a big above ground propane tank will get the same 15d6 it would have had if fire guy torched it off. The next clever idea Blink's player has we go through the same cycle. It's allowed maybe with a Power Skill roll or penalties or both. He can use it a second time before we have an out of game discussion about it. I've never had to do this, but if Blink decides to use a power in a third session without buying it then I let him do it, but *I* add it to his sheet and withhold 50% XP until its paid for. Then we have a talk about the GM-player contract. After a couple years of play time Blink is up to 15 or 20 powers in his multipower. We sit down and re-write the character with a cosmic VPP. FYI: my understanding is that there's not really enough oxygen in a closed tank to blow up well if at all but it's a comic, so yeah. Boom.

Re: First meeting of game group to consider HERO System From what it seems like you want to play this seems like a good start. I have a couple comments of course. Talk about reasoning from effects here. You figure out what you can do with your power and you buy those effects. I would avoid recommending people unfamiliar with the system go straight to a VPP. Multipower can be your friend. They are much easier to understand than VPP and easier to play with. You can add a completely new power with just a few points. I know your concern about what if I have no points but if you give everyone a secret reserve of 25 points or so and are willing to loan additional XP if they are out than this should never be a problem. Add the Power skill on top of that and you can do anything a couple of times with the power skill and if they like it they can add it to the sheet. Not exactly true, the section on FX talks about what the GM should allow people to do based purely on SFX without worrying about having the right advantages and limitations. If I remember right the examples talk about how someone with a Sonic attack can shatter glass, gets a few extra dice or a small AOE underwater, and can't use it in space, all for free. Plus again, the Power Skill can allow you to do anything appropriate. These do what you want to do and I don't particulary want to start this particular conversation here too but I have to admit I still don't understand why the Fantasy Hero Absolute rules don't do what you want. Add in a GM-player contract of schtick preservation. I've yet to play a game with action points, Pulp Hero calls them Hero Points, but it seems like an incredibly good idea. Hmm, they're not that different. Maybe explain them something like: " The inches of movement you buy is how far you can move and still be ready attack, dodge attacks, and generally react to the enemy. You can move faster than this if all you're worrying about is moving flat out. This is sprinting or head down as fast as you can flying and the like. While you're doing this you can't attack very well, try shooting a pistol accurately while sprinting, and you can't dodge as well as if you were moving slower. This is called non-combat moment but you can do it in combat if you're willing to take those risks.