Christopher R Taylor

But... you're already aiming a rifle at the target...

Well, there's a difference between "average person" and "average hero" in my book. I am fine with 10's across the board for a hero, even if its a bit much for Joe Average.

I think once I get the Jolrhos project done, all the books out, I'm going to do a simpler fantasy hero campaign setting with a more humble, low magic approach. The kind where superstition works (you really do get bad luck if you spill salt, unless you throw some over your shoulder), where monsters are more simple than D&D, and where people are the main enemy. So dragons exist but they are alligator sized and dumb, not building sized and genius. Where goblins sneak around at night and steal children and alternate races are rare and frightening. The idea appeals to me a lot, and could focus more on political conflicts, wars, and small kingdoms rather than large established long histories. The kind of campaign that's more like Conan than Lord of the Rings. I think there's significant interest out there for that kind of thing.

Has anyone ever statted out the main characters from Kung Fu Hustle? Most of them are just martial artists with a few interesting attacks, that's all that would have to be listed, like the Lion's Roar But those two musicians and the Beast, now they would be interesting to build.

Dragonscale Dragons have a coating of strong, horn-like scales that is very durable and light. Not made from bone, Dragonscales are hard without being brittle. Dragonscale has a base PD of 9 and ED of 12. Working Dragonscale takes a -5 penalty. Armor made from this material has 50% resistant ED damage reduction of the elemental type the Dragon is (or the DEF x 3 in Power Defense). Dragonscale enchants easily, matching 1/5 BOD of the material made in real points of magic. Weapons can be made from Dragonscale such as maces or axes, or even crude swords. Such weapons have triple defense against the type of elemental attack the Dragon was of originally (or DEF x3 in Power Defense) and enchant easily, matching* 1 point per 4 weapon’s Body. *MATCHING POINTS: When an enchanted material has “Matching points” this means that it has free character points inherent in the material that someone enchanting the item it is made from can tap into. For every point the enchanter spends for a permanent magic on the item, the enchanted material will “match” that with a free point up to its maximum total. Thus, a sword made from Dragonbone will grant up to 1/3rd of its total Body in real points, each point added once the enchanter has spent one point.

Champions III had a great character generator in it too I used that a lot for really crazy, unique builds of unrelated stuff. The fun part was coming up with why it all fit together.

What? He really likes Naga. Who am I to judge?

Yeah I'd treat it as surprise: half DCV, half location penalties, etc. House Rule: I treat surprise attacks differently. Instead of doing double stun, I have them go against half CON. That way the target is more easily stunned but not knocked out. Reasoning? When you walk into the cupboard door by accident, you're not knocked out cold, but it hurts a lot and stuns you.

I always cut the complications/disads level back from recommended levels. Anything over 100 and many characters start getting stuff just to get the points instead of to define the character. Some take more than they need and 100 points is too few, but most of the time its a struggle to even get 100 for many players.

I agree, ultimately in WoW the NPCs have access to things that PCs don't and are just a little more powerful than the PCs, whatever power level they happen to be at. They don't usually do more damage, but they can do it in ways that the PCs cannot (archmage Khadgar blowing up the dam, Thrall blowing the entire ocean full of Naga, etc).

How else are you gonna get that 110 pound girl on the firefighting squad to comply with federal regulations these days?

Its like Democracy: the worst system of government on earth, except all the others. Point builds don't generate balance perfectly, but they generate balance better than every other kind of system.

I think stuff like Deadly Blow was just made up to simulate things in D&D to make the crossover more comfortable for players and GMs, but I do not use them in my games.

You used to be able to train some really horrific stuff into Stormwind, not sure any more.

Right, Dodge ends your phase because its assumed you're busy dodging and hence not doing anything else. Plus, its a balancing issue: you get +3 DCV but that's paid for by not being able to take any further actions without stopping that DCV bonus.

Seems to me that none of the basic combat maneuvers need to be rebuilt; they're already in the game. Block, dodge, set, haymaker, etc all are part of the rules as a basic system. All Martial Arts does is make them better.

The Free Market at work

Well its good to study the other frameworks for limitations and structures. For example: what are the limitations on Power Pool that make it have a discount over buying every power you can think of in a list? What are the limitations on Multipower? Because with that as a basic foundation it gives us the concepts to use for a new framework. For example, Elemental Control was rejected because it didn't really actually limit anything but just gave people free points to offset the cost of some build concepts.

I disagree with the first, because I think a framework that only can do one thing has no place in the hero toolkit; it should work well with martial arts, but be applicable to other concepts, such as spell systems, skill trees, etc. Certainly lit should be limited in some ways like other frameworks - require GM permission to put some things in. But the rest is just an attempt to duplicate martial arts as it is now structured, and I think that's not going back far enough. Whatever we call the framework, it should be more flexible, then can be limited to specific concepts when used for martial arts.

Disabling a location agree that it would be necessary to make sure that it either doesn't apply to some things (stats, for instance) or it is no more cost effective than, say, "only in Hero ID."

As they are presently priced and function, martial arts are a good deal ,but not overpowered. To me that means slightly cheaper than they should be, but not much - maybe a point or two at most. For example, Legsweep (3 points) is massively valuable, but if it was more than 5 points, probably not worth buying.

Well, and again, he didn't run in with two swords flailing, he used them as described above several times by various people: offhand is used primarily for defense, feint, distraction, and alternate attack.

Right we need to make sure we don't create another Elemental Control that just gives people cheap stuff for the sake of making it cheap. At present, neither power pool or multipower really does what we need for martial arts.

Balancing Fantasy Hero is much the same as with Champions, you just have to think in much humbler terms. Your damage class output is going to be more along the lines of 6 rather than 12. 30-40 active points is a lot for a spell. Having 10 resistant defenses makes you very difficult to harm.

Yes, it makes them require less strength to do the same damage. not exactly going to be a problem, is it?