GreyGuardian

Re: If I were to write 6th edition Terran Empire I'd...

Things I'd clarify or tweak in a new edition - fuel vs. reaction mass. An antimatter reactor having enough fuel to last 6 months of normal operation is perfectly reasonable - fuel is the substance that is undergoes the energy releasing reaction. If you rely on rockets of any form (antimatter, fusion, chemical, whatever) you still need a huge amount of reaction mass - the stuff ejected out the back of the space craft to push it forward. There is no way rockets would remain in use more than a few decades once reactionless drives became commercially feasible. The cost and weight savings of not having to move all the reaction mass with the ship would be enormous. If the reactionless drives were limited in their delta V per turn, then having maneuver rockets would make sense; however, you would get to orbit using the reactionless drives. Ship size should be a measure of useable space and or volume not just area. I'd add mass and volume constraints for all the modular systems - possibly with an explanation on how to tweak it for different settings - similar to how fantasy hero presents multiple magic systems and the game effects of the rules used to get the "feel" of each system to be different. Some representative deck plans would be nice as well.

To keep things simple use flight in atmosphere normally and as a space drive have inches of flight equal to delta V with no cap (other than light speed). 60" of flight is not 1 gravity of acceleration unless you can increase velocity by 60" each turn. Possible use an assumption that space combat generally requires all participants to be at a relative stop compared to each other aside from use of flight under the normal rules. For example while all the ships are in motion with respect to each other their all moving at about the same speed in about the same direction with respect to planets, stars and such.

Speaking of which, hyperdrive mentions that the velocity of the ship while in hyperspace determines how far the ship actually travels... which gets complicated when the hyperdrive engine keeps the ship in hyperspace up to a maximum time and specifies a maximum distance. That means if you upgrade the normal space drive you can go the maximum distance allowed by the hyperdrive in less time and that conflicts with how the drive is bought. Actually more than that since momentum and velocity transfer with the ship, if you spend time in real space accelerating to close to light speed you probably can get to the maximum distance allowed by the drive before the minimum time has elapsed... of course once on the other side you have a lot of deceleration to do. Having the hyperdrive propell the ship towards the desired exit point in hyperspace as well as to enable entry and exit of hyperspace would eliminate that complication. Normal space flight would work for manuevers but would not affect the distance or time in hyperspace.

The distance from a planet / star that hyper or jump drive can be used has a huge effect on how long it takes to move goods from once system to another. System to system time has lots of implications on what is likely to be a reasonable type of cargo.

All these changes would require a revision of the economic system. It should be balanced so that operation of a merchant ship, or group of mercenaries, etc.... should be sufficiently profitable on average to have a middle class lifestyle. Maybe lower middle class for unskilled crew. However, it should be insecure enough that a few bad cargo's could cost the ship and thus the business.

And add weights for all the equipment (assuming 1 gravity) - weapons, defenses, supplies etc.

Pulp Science Fiction Magazine Covers

Anyone know if there's some sort of internet (or physical) archive for the old pulp magazines?

Re: Name Something You'd Allow That The GM At The Convention Didn't

Using player generated characters would be possible if character creation guidelines could be provided to everyone registered for the game at least a few weeks before a convention. Those character guidelines would need to be more restrictive than build a 350 point super hero using any hero system rule or variant. A "living game" like the rpga d20 living greyhawk might be possible if you had enough people with enough spare time that could write clear guidlines and coordinated scenario releases / publication.

With that said, expect convention games to use pre-generated characters because it solves several potential problems. 1) No character legality check needed, 2) game master knows what the characters are capable of and can balance opposition to provide whatever level of challenge is desired, 3) player character agendas and dynamics can be set to get players "into the character" and give them each something unique to strive for as well as providing built in role play opportunities within the player group.

Re: Weapon Design Question

Good Old Wikipedia has an article on Plasma

"A plasma is typically an ionized gas. Plasma is considered to be a distinct state of matter, apart from gases, because of its unique properties. Ionized refers to presence of one or more free electrons, which are not bound to an atom or molecule. The free electric charges make the plasma electrically conductive so that it responds strongly to electromagnetic fields.

Plasma typically takes the form of neutral gas-like clouds (e.g. stars) or charged ion beams, but may also include dust and grains (called dusty plasmas).[1] They are typically formed by heating and ionizing a gas, stripping electrons away from atoms, thereby enabling the positive and negative charges to move more freely.

Lightning is an example of plasma present at Earth's surface. Typically, lightning discharges 30,000 amperes, at up to 100 million volts, and emits light, radio waves, x-rays and even gamma rays.[11] Plasma temperatures in lightning can approach ~28,000 kelvin (~27,700oC) and electron densities may exceed 1024/m³."

If you handle a lightning bolt as a normal damage energy attack then normal damage is reasonable for a plasma weapon.

Re: GMing for Dummies

Or you could try and find a copy of this:

Robin's Laws Good Game Mastering

Re: Pulp SF magazine Cover Art

Another pulp magazine covers site... seems to have things other than science fiction.

Re: Using N-ray vision to read a book on a shelf

If you only wanted to be able to speed read books (even when closed and on a shelf in a dark room) you might also build it as a detect written words, with sense, discriminatory, analyze, and rapid (probably a lot of rapid). You can do a lot of funky things with detects that are not tied to an existing sense. You can also create game (or plot) breaking powers.

Re: PDFs on Kindle

My ideal electronic book reader continues to revolve slowly in Platonic ideal-space, but the Kindle comes close-ish, sort of...

 

What I REALLY want is something portable I can use to read PDFs, not just the HERO pdfs I have but many others. I think that the true answer to this desire of mine is called "laptop" but I don't have the bread for that now.

 

So...what I'm asking is...has anyone had experience reading the HERO pdfs on Kindle? I know the PDF support on Kindle is "beta"-ish, so I'm just wondering how "beta-ish"...?

 

ntb

Go to engadget - seek Asus EEE PC (or something like that) 7" or 9" screen runs linux or win xp and costs about $400.

Re: I got some players!!!.... But I need some help..

http://www.herogames.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1553382&postcount=2

Good advice for a convention game and a clean format for a character sheet - it may help to keep things simple.

There are combat summary sheets posted somewhere on the Hero site as well as a short intro to the rules that are very useful... as I recall they include the how to take damage discussion.

Keep them focused on what is going on (the story) rather than how the rules work.

Knockback is good for Champions, hit locations, wounding etc... probably not so much - if you were talking about street level type heroes (dark champions) then heck yes... but start with the basics before worrying about options.

The published 5th adventures are actually pretty darn good.

Re: Massively Article On Champions Online

Biggest problem with WoW compared to CoH - It takes too long at the high levels to go and do things. With CoH I can log in, complete a mission, and deal with drops (dump in base storage or sell) and be done in 30 minutes. About that fast even when I get in a group probably because travelling takes a lot less time in CoH.

Re: Creating a Shield

Aren't skills that are used as powers listed under the powers tab in hero designer? That might solve the problem with the skill / power warning. Also 5 point combat skill levels are the smallest levels that can have limitations.

Re: Musing on Movement: Is Velocity "Persistent"

Unless it is going to matter a character moving at combat speed can be presumed to accelerate and decelerate so they end their phase at 0 velocity.

1st the situation should provide some sort of dramatic tension and then it's probably one of these sitations when velocity matters:

• Accelerating so you can go to non-combat movement next phase and whenever moving at non-combat velocity.
  
• Move through, Move by, being thrown
  
• movement modes with a turn mode when used in a small space - this includes flying characters that dive towards the ground and need to have room to pull out of the dive.
  
• most vehicle movement
  

Re: New Campaign Help

I wouldn't worry about them buying gear ... if you control their money supply you can keep them as poor as you want / need to.

It's a good idea to have the players coordinate the particular things they will be good at (a sneak, a pilot, a convincing negotiator, a doctor, etc.) you probably don't want them to know anyone's background other than their own... and if you assume brainwashing, torture, bad nutrition and beatings, well they might not even remember their own background completely - which means you can do reveals on background as the game goes on... You need to be sure the players are ok with having pasts radically different from what they assumed if you need to for story reasons... just reassure them it doesn't change who the character is in the present even if he was a mass murderer canibal type.

Re: 3 spell potions arent working...

I need some help with 3 potions:

 

Im trying to duplicate a Fantasy Trip (TFT) potion called Berserker, which comes from the berserker mushroom. This gives the drinker +1 combat, and allows the drinker to take no penalties from combat (stun for instance), for 12 hours. If the hp of the character reaches zero before the end of 12 hours, he dies.

 

I tried doing this with the 60 point automaton ability takes no stun, and combining it with +1 HTH melee 5 point level. But it doesn't look right. Suggestion?

 

-- -- -- -- -- -- --

 

The other potion is called Pyrotic Ability which lets you start 1 hex fires that persist for 12 turns each. After taking the potion you can start making fires for 12 hours, we can call it 6 hours for the sake of continuing charges. EB lets me start fires. It costs the user STR points in TFT, Endurance to start each fire. So I did Ranged, area effect, persistant, but some how I got sucked into doing a damage shield using HD. I don't remember why... I think its because once the continuing charges are set they take no extra end.

 

------

 

the last one is magic fist which does d6-2 damage for 1 STR point, or 'X' end points. You can do stack the spell buy pumping more END into it. How do I do this?

I suspect you are over thinking the problem.

Berserk - Grants 1 overall combat level (8 point combat skill level), uncontrolled - lasts 12 hours (or use a continuing charge), Unless you are using optional combat rules there are no combat penalties for loosing stun or body aside from being con stunned and being knocked out. I just wrote out an exceeding complicated solution and then realised all you need is 20 points of PD and 20 ED that stops stun only. You can raise the amount of PD and ED if need be to avoid taking stun. The user will still take 1 stun for every point of body that gets past his armor, but that probably can't con stun or knock out a normal character. If that appears to be an issue you can adopt parts of the complicated version - which is:

the second ability is aid constitution maybe 10 dice total - uses standard effect which means 10 dice = 10 x 3 = 30 points which equals 15 points of con (because 1 con = 2 points). Delayed return rate so that it lasts at least 12 hours. limitation - does not add to figured characteristics, only to avoid being con stunned, uncontrolled fades instantly after 12 hours (usually adjustment powers fade in 5 point increments). And 4d6 aid stun (which is healing) which is triggered by any damage that would otherwise reduce the character's stun to 0 or less reduced endurance to 0 endurance, lingering (see fantasy hero) that lasts 12 hours.

If you want you can have the user die if Body drops to 0 but that might be overly lethal.

I'd use ranged killing attack (RKA) for the fires. 12 turns in TFT should probably be 12 segments in hero (1 turn). Damage shield, with range, and 1 hex area effect, continuous, uncontrolled - need to feed in enough endurance to last 1 turn (character's speed (spd) x the endurance cost for one phase) to start a fire, lingering (see fantasy hero) for however long the potion lasts (12 hours or whatever). You don't need to make them persistent. The damage shield means that anything entering or staying in the hex takes damage.

For the magic fist, as I recall that was a ranged telekinetic fist - so energy blast vs physical. If you want it to cost more endurance for each step of larger of the blast you can buy it as 4d6 eb, normal endurance, +2d6 eb at 2x endurance, +2d6 at 4x endurance, +2d6 at 8x endurance. Then the caster uses only as many dice as they want to pay endurance for... 4d6 costs 2 end, 6d6 costs 4 end, 8d6 costs 8 endurance, 10d6 costs 16 endurance. You can of course vary how many dice and how much increased endurance you put on each increment. I wouldn't worry about the d6-2 for each die of effect as that was a balance issue in the The Fantasy Trip (assuming that's what TFT is) system. Of course it's been a few years - by which I mean many years, since I've looked at those books...

Re: Power Creation Question

I have a player that is playing a Armadillo-Folk (don't ask). We brainstormed and were able to put together a fairly basic racial package for him. Both of these powers relate to his character.

 

Power 1: Roll-Up

He wanted a power in which his character can roll up into a ball in order to increase his PD/ED against attaks... but while in this form he is unable to do anything else. I looked at powers and concluded I could do this with force field or armor... we chose force field, and he bought 10 points to both PD and ED (cost of 20), but I can not figure out how to assign a limitation indicating that while in this form he can do nothing else. I read through all the limitations, but could not find anything even similar to this... any idea what I should do?

 

Power 2: Roll Attack

He wanted a power that he could roll up into a ball and hurl himself at an enemy... kinda like Blasting in the MURPG system if you are familiar with it. Basically it is just an attack where he would hurl himself at an enemy... and perhaps get a plus to his OCV in this attack form. I am confused at which power to use to do this... I looked at the various attack powers, but could not figure out which to use.

 

Tom

Unless the curl up power is mystical or magical in some way then I'd say armor is a more appropriate way of buying the extra defense as it doesn't require endurance every phase. If he is totally oblivious to surroundings when curled up then the concentration 0 DCV limitation works pretty well. If he is aware of his surroundings, can recover, communicate, use skills that don't require physical movement, then you probably want some variant of concentration - after all not moving is still going to leave him at 0 DCV. Or you can just write a custom limitation like, Curled in a ball -1.5 (which means can't attack, can't move) - or whatever seems to be an appropriate limitation value for that. Note - if he can recover while curled up it will only work if he uses no abilities that take endurance and he takes no stun and no body while he is recovering.

In hero the value of the limitation is tied to how limiting the restriction is. If he the restrictions are so limiting that he will only use the power once every 10 sessions then you want higher value for the limitation. If he uses it effectively every combat and you have at least one or two per game session then you probably shouldn't put more than a -1/2 or -1 limitation on it.

For the second power the manuever is indeed move through usually... but you can also use move by if he is not running directly into the target... which means he could theoretically roll around and hit multiple targets with a multiple move by. I recommend extra movement only useable for this manuever. If he can't go up walls or across water with it, buy running. If he can roll up walls etc, buy it as flight only in contact with a surface. - His curl up armor might come in handy for this manuever (but that of course would remove the can't move limitation from it) because he takes half the damage he deals from a move through that hits and 1/3rd of the damage he deals for a move by.

Remember reason from the effect you want back to the powers to build it.

Re: Fantasy Hero

Wasn't there a fantasy hero senario or two published in digital hero?

Other useful books - The Beastiary (and or asian bestiaries) and Minions, monsters and mauraders (err, the book with giants and such in it)

Re: Double The Hero Excitement!

Oh oh...I want to guess...not sure if anyone has already guessed these...

 

Freeport Fantasy Hero supplement?

Heroes (TV Show) using Hero?

Cthulhu Hero with Ken Hite? <- Ok...this one is a pipe dream.

 

I also gotta comment...

 

I WANT a Dr D plushie!!!

 

 

All excited about DunDraCon! ALRIGHT!!!

Strange you should mention Hite and Cthulhu - Trail of Cthulhu written by Ken Hite is being released on Feb 1 published by Pelegrane Press.

Re: Do you use miniatures?

I decided to use HeroClix. I bought a few boosters before hand and decided that they were suitable enough. I ended up buying a box of 100 randoms from a site. Now I have to get a carrying case!

the single layer tackle boxes you can get at target or walmart work nicely for clix figs.

Re: Clinging damage shield

I don't think Clinging is the power you want here. Clinging isn't a power that one character uses to affect another.

 

I believe either an Entangle or Telekinisis built with Damage Shield would be more appropos.

Page 143 in Hero System 5th revised - damage shield and clinging to create a tar baby like effect.

It does not say if the strength of the damage shield is the base 10 or the character's strength as the base. In the example of usable on others the base strength is 10 and is independent of the character's strength.

Re: Do you use miniatures?

For champions and science fiction games I use paper minatures. Mostly Steve Jackson Cardboard heroes. I supplement this by creating a character in City of heroes and taking screen shots that get pasted into a paper minatures rtf doc and printed on cardstock. I posted my swarm of viper agents on these boards somewhere.

Re: Do any of you still play 4th edition and FH Circa 1990?

If you haven't' date=' check out the game Ars Magica (assuming it still exists). I used to have that book, ages ago, so the game might not still be alive, or be radically different, but back then it used to have a killer magic system. Spells were basically what you describe: verb + noun. So a "create life" spell would heal you, a "destroy fire" spell would lower the room temperature, etc. Might be a great resource for you![/quote']

 

Ars Magica came out with a 5th edition a few years ago. The magic system remains very spiffy. Atlas-Games is the current publisher.

 

It's been awhile since I looked at this but, regarding 4th vs 5th - the weapon writeups in 4th made weapon types distinctive from one another but still roughly equivalent. 5th ended up making some weapons clearly superior to others. Which all in all is a pretty minor quibble.

Re: Songs that inspire(d) you to make a Champions Character

Harvester of Eyes

Flaming Telepath

Revenge of Vera Gemini

Magna Of Illusion

Back in the late 80's (when I was in college) I would routinely go through my album collection, pick an album, and have a nearly instant super villain team. Flaming Telepaths was the title I used for the story arc and Harvester of Eyes, Subhuman, Astronomy, and Dominance were the villains of the piece... It was the first times I managed to really get across horror in an rpg... at least two of the players had eeeewww reactions to my version of Harvester of Eyes. A mass of branching tentacles which ended in either eyes or knives. I suspect if I was creating harvester after Neil Gaiman had created the Corinthian it would have been a bit different.

Other albums / song titles I remember using Synchronicity (Police), Lighning's Hand (from a Kansas album), and Peter Gabriel's album with the melting face (security perhaps?).

Re: City of Heroes - Online Hero Game

Wasn't paying much attention to their level and got seen.

I've got a lvl 34 or 35 defender on Victory. I'm on the hero boards channel - my global is @greyguardian. I can give you a hand with those darn loyal citzens if we happen to be online at the same time.