Mr_Yuck

Re: Ideas for a new fantasy campaign

A few nights ago I had a dream about a fantasy world. It seemed like one of the books Burroughs or Howard could have written. There were gods of death' date=' a beautiful but evil queen, and a brawny swordsman who explored secret underground passages and fought orcs.quote']

 

 

This sounds VERY much like the John Carter of Mars series by Edgar Rice Burroughs! Replace orcs with Tharks in the paragraph above and you'd have it exactly.

 

I've always thought it would be kinda neat to run an JCoM type campaign. I would only want just a couple players... Like 3 at most not including myself. I haven't been able to get any of my local group to bite at the idea yet.

 

Perhaps some day.

Re: How many plots do you have going?

Yes, 4 or more plotlines going at once.

I also throw out red herrings and dead-ends for the players.

It makes things seem more 'real'.

Re: Falling Asleep While On Watch

Funny story...

A friend was in the Marine Corps at boot camp.

He was beat tired after a full day of rigorous training.

That night he was to pull a guard duty shift.

He was assigned to a guardshack next to a gate in a fence.

As he stood there he leaned up against the shack and put his chin on his chest.

Soon he was sound asleep.

He was awakend by the sound of approaching bootsteps.

He realizes that one of his DIs is walking right for him and that he is toast.

He says one word that gets him out of all the trouble he was surely in...

"Amen!"

Re: Star Wars Hero - General "The Force" power

After reading through this, I think that as much as I love the idea of a VPP (Jedi/Sith Force Powers), I would not go that route.

My issue with it is that the Jedi/Sith would then have access to ALL the Force Powers he or she can dream up and get the GM to approve before game. I think the genra has shown that many powers are aquired and learned only after being taught by another user or intense self-study and training/meditation.

If I were to run said campaign, I would favor the MultiPower. Force adepts and users would 'learn' powers over time and purchase new slots for their MPs.

This would allow the GM to keep a careful watch on what powers were available to the players moreso than the VPP IMO.

Re: Would you allow this?

A metamorph player in our group has shapeshift. He has almost every option in it including Cellular (has to touch the subject to imitate DNA.) During an investigation they find an unusual hair. He picks it up and trys to find out what it is by using the DNA in the hair. Would you allow him to shape shift into the appearance of the creature based in the DNA in the hair?

I haven't read this whole thread yet, but you said just a 'hair' was found?

Most often hairs shed or lost do not have the folicle attatched.

Without the folicle, I understand you cannot get DNA.

So, no... I wouldn't allow it without the folicle.

If the hair had the folicle and the tone of the campaign was right, then sure! Does it fit in a dramatic sense?

If the player wanted to continue to do this often... I would require that he get other skills/powers. (Analyze or Detect or something)

Re: Surviving fall from orbit

Best way to survive is to have all the above mentioned powers and convince the GM that you are NOT falling.

You are attempting a move-through on the planet.

Figure up the damage for this and you'll see what I mean!

Re: 6th Edition Hero System

No.

 

Look up Mayan Calendar in wikipedia or see some of Steve's entries in the What Do You Want To See for the Post-Apocalypse Hero book. That date came about because people misinterpreted the Mayan Calendar completely.

No. No?? Wow... that's a little arrogant of you.

You don't actually believe everything you read on Wikipedia or the Internet do you?

And you don't take everything a Role-Playing Game designer says as gospel, right? (No offense to Steve, I think he's brilliant!)

I would say that there are two sides to this opinion.

To flatly state NO leads me to believe that you've already formed your opinion off these two sources.

Now, that's fine... but if you're really interested in this material, you should check out a show on the History Channel called Decoding the Past: Mayan Doomsday Prohpecy. There are also MANY books available at your local library on Mayans and other Meso-American cultures.

On the History Channel program, they talk about the Katunes of Chelam Belam and the Mayan prophecy. They also talk about the end of the age dated Dec 21st, 2012. Some scholars feel this is the end of the current age and predicts the destruction of our world as we know it. However, the next age DOES continue... whether or not we as a people will be there to witness it.

I put a little more faith with these Historians of Meso-American cultures than other sources. (even if they ARE on TV!)

Just a thought.

Re: 6th Edition Hero System

From the Champions mailing list:

 

Date: Fri, 14 May 1999 09:41:10 EDT
From: (Steve's e-mail address redacted)
Subject: Fifth Edition

For those of you keeping score at home, I thought you'd like to know
that, after over a year of work, I've finally turned in the completed 5th
Edition HERO System manuscript to Hero Games as of today. Time for editing
and layout....

Steve Long

Woops! Pardon my mistake... talk to me in 2012 about 6th Ed then. (It was only 10 years between 4th and 5th... intentional or otherwise!)

On the other hand, the world comes to an end on Dec 21, 2012 anyway! (Or so the Mayan's thought)

I just really dread the idea of buying shelves full of 6th Edition books to replace my current 5ths. I mean, how many times do we need to see a rewrite of say the Ultimate Martial Artist?

Count me out of 6th Edition.

Re: 6th Edition Hero System

I'm not overly fond of the idea of yet another Edition.

It was how many years between Champions 4th ED and 5th ED?

Hint: Champions, 4th Edition was published in 1989

So there were some 13 years between editions?

Talk to me again about 6th Ed around 2015!

Re: Phase 12, GM's what do you allow?

The HERO System Combat Handbook has some great rules for Held Actions and such.

An example: A player having a held action and waiting to see what the villain does, then just as the villain goes to attack, the player calls out that he wants his action right then. This would usually require a DEX Roll with the character making the roll by more going first.

Say the villain wins the Roll...

What of the player with the Held Action? Can he then change his mind and Abort to a Dodge or Dive for Cover?

I found this under Who Goes First on Page 20 of the Combat Handbook:

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now?

I bring my Zune to work and pipe it through my speakers.

Being that I am the ONLY f00l left in the office... I crank it good.

Currently - Fear Factory, Archetype

Re: Hangliding and Hero

I'd buy it as:

 

5" Gliding, (5 Active Points), OAF, Bulky, 2 Real points

x8 Non-Combat multiple (10 Active Points), OAF, Bulky, Lim: Requires PS: Hangglider, with modifiers based on wind conditions (-5 flying against the wind, +3 with a strong wind helping); 3 Real Points

 

If he has a high speed, you might only need x4 non-combat multiple.

Would you not want a Transport Familiarity as opposed to a PS?

ie. TF: Hanglider instead of PS: Hanglider

Re: How many points does a person have?

The campaign, imo, is more important than strict accuracy. If it's appropriate for players to have 50, 100, or 150 point totals in the campaign, they'll be able to model themselves reasonably well, even if they end up having to lump some things together or indulge in a little padding.

 

It's hard enough to get two Hero-philes to agree on exactly what a skill or stat means in play even when both cite page numbers, let alone getting all of your players to agree that Player 1 is built on more points than Player 4. Better to say "You have X points, which should be enough for the challenges ahead. Build the best version of You you can on that."

I totally agree.

I have tried this style of gaming only once and quickly realized you have to have the RIGHT players. There were all kinds of annoyed people over how they percieved each other.

As a general rule for me... I keep gaming 'reality' and Real World 'reality' two distinctly seperate things. I don't let them cross over to each other. Beside EDM is a STOP power!

Re: Munchkin powers on legal active point costs

Whilst we are on munchkin powers, can I suggest one, straight out of the book: penetrating.

 

I've never seen a convincing in-game explanation for the use of this advantage, and it seems to me that pretty much every build that includes the advantage does so for some munchkin reason.

 

CAn anyone set me ont he path to appreciation of this advantage?

Coming from a military background... I think a real-world example of this could be a tanks main gun. (120mm smoothbore on the current M1A2 Abrams Main battle tank)

This thing is the finger of God.

Even the more advanced tanks in the world do not have armor that can stop this.

I would say this definately has Armor Piercing AND Penetrating with the modern sabot round.

Another real-world weapon I think may qualify is the GAU-8A Avenger 30mm autocannon as found on the A-10 Warthog.

We haven't even touched on the naval rifles of the 20th century found on battleships of World War II.

Bismark 15" main battery

Iowa Class 16" main battery

Yamato and Musashi 18.1" main battery.

DEFINATELY something I personally would build with Penetrating!

In short... if the attack is so wicked that even armored targets (Non hardened of course!) can be breached, then this is the advantage to use to simulate it.

I too as a GM would eyeball any attack powers with Penetrating... but can easily see justification in some powers having it.

Re: lets make this work: Instant Change

I use the new Transform power for Instant Change.

I like the way it is written for the most part, though based off of my reading here, I think I will impose a limitation Self Only (-1/2).

This may keep my more unscrupulous players from transforming Villain X's Costume of Dread into Villain X's Tutu of Hilarity.

I do like that it is a half phase action as well. We have a prevelance of powered armor types that my players like to create. This makes them take a half-phase to get into their super duds AND costs them a bit of their precious END.

As was already stated tho... Very rarely are the heroes 'out of uniform'. Sometimes I will engineer a scenario just to catch them in their 'civies'... but most often, things happen with the team already geared up. For example, the team is going to a location to investigate a disturbance and are already in costume or change en-route in the team vehicle.

Re: Phase 12, GM's what do you allow?

If anything I have noticed a tendancy for people to do their pushing during that first segment 12' date=' since right afterwords they get a full recovery.[/quote']

 

The rules have a built in caveat for the pushing thing.

 

FRED pg 427 - "Pushing is only for crucial, heroic, or life-saving actions. Characters cannot Push whenever they want to just look impressive."

 

And...

 

"The GM Determines whether a character can Push in a given situation."

 

My point is only rarely would I allow a Phase 12 Push at the initial start of combat unles it meets these requirements.

 

Under 4th Ed rules in our game, it was far too common a war cry of "12d6 Energy Blast... Pushed!"

 

FRED has nicely taken care of this!

Re: City of Heroes to HERO conversion?

A rough guess looks to be 34-24-32

Hahaha!!

Some of the female costumes in that game are simply stunning... :eek:

I like to use COH/COV for character pictures.

I throw together anything, just to get a picture of the costume for use with Champs. It's kinda of a pain to clip them out, but not impossible.

Re: Munchkin powers on legal active point costs

My favorite has always been:

 

Simulate Death, Usable As Attack

 

Costs about 6 points.

LOL!! This is the funniest one yet!!!

Simple, but devastating.

Re: Bricks Get Hosed, Or Not

I would disagree' date=' mostly because many of the powers you describe are inherently more efficient than powers that cost END. A force field is almost always a bad choice for defense, and Strength is one of the most efficient powers in the game.[/quote']

 

 

Exactly! Bricks are IMO one of the cheapest and easiest character archetypes to build. This to me seems to even the balance a bit.

Re: Attacks OK Defenses No Way?

The technical rule is that a power that costs END by default can be bought to 0 END' date=' but a power that does not cost END must take the "Costs END" limitation.[/quote']

 

Thanks friends...

This all makes MUCH more sense now!

 

I was thinking something was really goofy the way it was initially presented. lol

Re: Attacks OK Defenses No Way?

There's a "no 0 END powers in an EC" rule. There's no similar rule I'm aware of for other frameworks. The general rule is "no special powers in a framework".

Sorry to dredge up this old quote... But I read this and am at a loss where to see it in the rules. In fact, FREd pg 312 gives an Example of Firewing buying an EC and 30" of Flight at 0 END.

So where does it say you cannot have 0 END powers in an EC?

Anyone?

Re: Is the Fantasy Hero book still in print?

Any more on this?

We are now at the end of May, but I haven't seen anything 'official' yet.

Anyone? Bueler? Anyone?

Re: Doing your own calendar: is it worth it?

Ive found that if you differ too drastically from real world systems, it becomes too cumbersome. Players will then not use it and it is dropped and forgotten.

Someone here said great for starting your own world, no so hot to integrate into an exisitng campaign. I would agree with that assessment.

I use a calendar that is similar to some plublished works by that *OTHER* fantasy gaming company.

I use a system of 12 months consisting of 3 weeks per month. Each week is 10 days long and each month and day has a unique name. So, this makes 360 days. Now for the remaining 5 days, I threw in 5 holidays throughout the year that do not fall under a month at all. (eg Midsummer falls between what we call June and July). And once every 4 years there is an additional day thrown in that again does not fall under a month to calculate for leap year. This gives us a 365 day year with a 'day' being 24 hours like Earth. Again, I feel this makes the players more comfortable as there is not a complicated conversion system just to figure out what today's date is!

On a side note... A friend of mine once saw in Germany (I think) a metric clock that told time in a scale similar to yours. I think that metrics are very very cool and would love to have seen this.

I just don't think most players are as 'nerdy' as I may be!

Re: Getting rid of Endurance

Those little four-for-a-buck calculators available at dollar stores around the country.

 

If they don't want a running total on scratch paper (they don't like changing END every phase, but aren't bothered by Stun and Body?), pass out the little calculators.

 

Let them enter their starting END. They can 'plus' and 'minus' as they go along.

I've used these little calculator for years now.

Also, another easy fix is to slip the chanracter sheet into a plastic sheet protector (Office Max, Staples, Office Depot, etc hs them). We use pens for use with overhead projectors or just waterbased felt tip pens to write directly on the covered character sheet.

Re: Combat Question: The "counter"

A damage shield would also do this.

I would set it up so that a to-hit roll was required, but it would match the criteria seen in the source material.