Vestnik

My apologies if this has been posted here before, but this site made me laugh so hard I cried: http://www.superdickery.com/dick/3.html

Re: Hyborean Monsters from the world of Conan

I had to go back a few pages to see how we got to Slake-moths from Hyborea.

 

Interesting...

Slake-moths would wipe the floor with Conan.

Re: Hyborean Monsters from the world of Conan

I modelled them like this-

http://www.curufea.com/games/crobuzon/slakemoth.php

http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=25023&highlight=slake+moth

That is a really nice site. I hope you can get some new stuff up soon -- I think New Corbuzon hero is a great idea. I do, however, refuse to play a woman with a bug for a head.

Don't you think the wings' effect is a bigger area effect than that? They bind the cactus people in the dome from some ways off. And isn't it only in front of the moth that observers are at risk?

Re: Hyborean Monsters from the world of Conan

Yes' date=' but how many shots of flame and acid did it take again? And wasn't it already wounded from gunfire? They are [b']very, very [/b] tough.

Assuming a New Corbuzon flamethrower to be a 2d6 RKA, I would give them about a 5 resistant ED and 50% resistant Damage Reduction. That would be an average of 1 BODY per shot getting through. Then a BODY of about 20 or 25. Thus about 20 or 25 shots to take one down.

Re: Hyborean Monsters from the world of Conan

As it turns out, there's a writeup for a slake-moth here: http://www.curufea.com/games/crobuzon/slakemoth.php

Re: Hyborean Monsters from the world of Conan

Something like that. I'd need to re-read it and take notes on the effects described. Slake-Moths are also nearly impossible to kill. Huge amounts of BODY and/or Damage Reduction.

SPOILER

The immature, stunted one survives (for a while) having several tons of steel and concrete being dropped on it. Then again, at the end one gets taken out just using Bas-Lag technology flame- and acid-throwers.

Really terrifying beasties.

Re: Hyborean Monsters from the world of Conan

Entangle Based on Ego Combat Value. The effect is nigh impossible to break. There's also that Mental Transform -- devouring memories and the like.

Yes, that would have to be a linked partial transform that lowered INT and EGO, no? (It also knocks you out while you're under the effect -- Entangle blocks all Sense Groups?)

Re: Hyborean Monsters from the world of Conan

Toldja

Dang - wish I had more time to work on Crobuzon Hero....

How would you model the slake-moths' wings? Something like a really big mind control (since it seems to get a +30 EGO on everybody), no range, AE cone (with a big expanded area), Restrainable, only vs. characters in front of the slake-moth, characters must be looking at slake-moth, always on? Or an Entangle based on ECV?

15d6 Mind Control, AE cone (28" cone; +1 1/2), Continuous (+1), 0 END (+1/2), Telepathic (+1/4), Persistent (+1/2), (356 Active Points), one command ("stop!"; -1), No Range (-1/2), Restrainable (-1/2), Always On (-1/2), only vs. sighted opponents (-1/4), target must be looking at slake-moth (-1/2) (84 Real Cost)

Re: Hyborean Monsters from the world of Conan

I agree. Iron Council didn't work well for me. But man' date=' all of them are crammed with wild concepts.[/quote']

 

In IC, I thought his politics were so overdone it was like being hit over the head with a hammer: "this book is really about the Russian Revolution!" (THWACK!) "Get it!" (THWACK!)

 

How much more obvious can you get than exiled revolutionaries coming to help the revolting workers of New Corbuzon in an armored train, then being immortalized by the phrase "the Iron Council was, is, and will be!"?

Re: Hyborean Monsters from the world of Conan

I thought Perdido Street Station was brilliant (and it contains BTW a very funny D&D parody). The Scar I liked a lot too. IMO, in Iron Council, Mieville lets his politics get far, far too involved -- he's a Trotskyist, and the book is transparently a tribute to the Russian Revolution. ("Council" = "Soviet," for instance.) It also has a really lame deus ex machina either.

Boy, those books are full of ideas.

Re: Speedster limitation

Would you accept "cannot hover" as a limitation on Flight at more than -0? (Something I have seen in character builds.) This would be a variant.

At present, the comic book trope of the guy running so fast that he can zip across water/up walls is usually done by buying Flight, only along a surface (-1/4).

But this means that the character can, whithin the rules, use his "super speed" to whiz across a lake when only moving at 1" a phase. Shouldn't there be some sort of a "must be moving at least x inches" attached to the power construction?

Re: Life in the North

I imagine it would be a lot like this place: http://www.chukotka.org/root/?lang=en

Re: VPPs -- what's the logic?

 

What you have constructed there is a Straw Man. You have made a Multipower that is inferior to a Variable Power Pool and thus claim that ALL Multipowers are inferior to Variable Power Pools.

 

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Dunno. It seems to me that was a straight-up no-frills classic MP.

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Oh... and Cosmic is a +2 total advantage, not +1... so the VPP in your example would cost 150 points.

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Got me there -- thanks, don't have the book with me. But I'll just add on a couple more slots and the effect will be the same.

Re: VPPs -- what's the logic?

 

So after an hour of study and a skill roll, he has the following spells available:

Detect Enemies

Triaslor's Flame Control

Fire Whip

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Thanks!

Yes, I see the utility for situations in which the builds of the various slots that can be taken are predetermined and limited (as in your case). In this case the VPP is basically a Multipower with the Limitation "can only use certain slots at any given time; which slots are accessible are determied ahead of time and cannot be changed until a certain condition has been met." I see it too in the case of the gadgeteer-type character who says, "oK, we're about to invade the Aerial Nest of the Flying Snow People; I'd better prepare with a jetpack and flamethrower." Those seem more-or-less balanced to me.

What I have an issue with is the "I can change my powers to whatever I want to on the fly" sort of arrangement. I realize that this is limited by SFX -- but in many cases this isn't much of a limitation if you're creative.

Re: VPPs -- what's the logic?

Whoops, er, hit the "post" button there by accident. I had gotten as har as writing:

Thanks for the responses guys.

My reasoning was going something like the following (I don't have the book with me, so if I screw up the exact advantage modifiers, bear with me... the general point will still hold.

Allow me to prevent you with ... Exxon Valdez Man, Despoiler of the Waters! SFX are water and toxic waste. (sorry, this just popped into mind.) He can do a bunch of stuff involving his SFX.

Now, we can build him with an MP:

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And I continue:

Now, we can build him with an MP:

60 Multipower -- Master of Sludge

12m Sludge Blast: 12d6 EB

12m Field o'Sludge: 30 PD 30 ED Force Field

12m Friend of All Things Putrid: Summon 300-pt. Sludge Monster

12m Swims Like an Oil Tanker: +60" Swimming

12m Toxo-Bomb: 8d6 EB Explosion

120 = Total Cost

Or, alternatively, we build him as having a VPP, 60 points Active Cost, 30 points Control Cost, doesn't require a skill roll (+1/2), no extra time to change powers (+1/2). Total Cost for VP: 120 points.

So, for the same cost as the Multipower, Exxon Valdez Man can have all of the slots in the Multipower, plus he can have Teleport (only into and from areas of toxic waste), Extra-Dimensional T-Port (to the Dimension of Toxic Filth), 30" Flight (riding upon a pillar of sludge), 12d6 Flash (hunk of sludge thrown in eyes) and so on and so forth. In fact he has every power in the book at 60 AP worth, as long as it can be tailored so as to follow his SFX, for the same cost as buying a mere five MP slots. This is not right.

Re: VPPs -- what's the logic?

Thanks for the responses guys.

My reasoning was going something like the following (I don't have the book with me, so if I screw up the exact advantage modifiers, bear with me... the general point will still hold.

Allow me to prevent you with ... Exxon Valdez Man, Despoiler of the Waters! SFX are water and toxic waste. (sorry, this just popped into mind.) He can do a bunch of stuff involving his SFX.

Now, we can build him with an MP:

60

Hello y'all, I'm new here,

I'm taking up Hero again after a very lengthy absence (largely because the country I'm living in isn't very RPG-friendly). Since there aren't any viable players here I've found so far I'm more just making up characters for the heck of it, I guess, which is a lot of fun in itself. Anyway I was looking at the VPP rules in FRED.

I have always hated these things, but in particular I'm wondering what the logic is in the point cost for VPPs as given (base cost + control cost of 50% of base cost, modified by advantages etc.) Now a VPP, as far as I can tell, is basically a Multipower with an infinite number of slots, and so should therefore have a point cost of infinity, no? Obviously this is ridiculous, but they seem WAY too cheap. Am I missing something?