jaws

Re: Mapping the galaxy

Great Maps, Extremely useful. I am considering them for a MASS EFFECT Campaign since it takes place in our Galaxy.

Re: Gunpowder, Reason and Plot.

Great work!!! keep it coming

Re: 3D Star mapping software

Great to here there is still work going in to this! Don't stop the excellent work!

Re: Another: StarWars in my Sandbox

What happened to thes thread?

Still working on things rick?

Ran out of coffee??

Would love to see more.

Re: Gith, flayers and othe psions

Great help guys. Polishing off some details and characters. Will be posting a few powers to your Psionic powers page this week too KS.

Anything else psionic will be helpful thanks all.

JAWS

PS: Repped everyone it lets me rep. Never enough.

Re: Ideas for combat runes

So' date=' I know this is topic drift... But, how do you, without metagaming, limit the 'runecaster' to only a maximum number of inscribed runes?[/quote']

 

Try this Link to Killershrikes Rune casting system.

Works quite well for my campaign

Anyone have heroified info, package deals, prefabs, templates dealing with psionics. Aside from what on Killershrike's website of course.

I would appreciate any info on this. As we are starting a campaign in a couple of weeks dealing with psionics.

Re: 10 Burial Ceremonies From Around The World

Its just impossible to give rep where it is deserved these days! Grat find

Re: Legends Setting

Is this the end of musings on the setting? I was enjoying this a lot.

Re: Fetishes and Charms

I actually have a character in my campain that works similar to this. I am using Killershrikes Runic casting model. Just change the special effect to a charm and change from Physical manifestation Limitation to the apropriate focus.

It is working quite well in my campaign.

Re: Machine Class of Minds

Well' date=' we see that there is a lot of things that you could use mental powers on. Of course how usefull it is use them on my bathroom scale is very debatable. On the other hand, cell phones could be useful to read, control or fool.[/quote']

 

Have your hated rival go bulemic by playing with his electronic scale to make them think they are always to fat.

 

 

I'd include any optical or electromechanical control or sensor in 'machine class of minds', too, depending on special effects.

 

Thermostats, motion detectors, smoke alarms, carbon monoxide alerts, closed-circuit tv cameras, the visual interfaces and the movement actuators in powered armour, the pacemaker in a DNPC's chest or the 100-year-old pocketwatch in his breast pocket, or Big Ben.

 

Mechanical is a bit to much though, no "mind", for a mind I would require some kind of digital processing or programing as a minimum.

Re: Can you look this character over

One possible way you could play this character is as he is, basically, without any real major defences, relying on luck and skill BUT (and what a but it is), horribly, horribly dangerous.

 

I'm talking about a slight re-design on the lightsabre:

 

Hand-To-Hand Attack +4d6, No Normal Defense (Force Fields (sfx); +1), Does BODY (+1) (60 Active Points); OAF (-1), Hand-To-Hand Attack (-1/2), Required Hands Two-Handed (-1/2)

 

That is monstrous. 20 real points, 60 active, it does 7d6 damage with strength and ignores all defences except force fields (the sfx, not the power) which it can't penetrate at all.

 

That sounds like a light sabre to me Averaging 7 Body and 24 stun, which goes through pretty much anything material. Armour? Pah! Two strikes (or a rapid attack and you can kill at least 60% of opponents.

 

Also explains why lightsabres can't cut each other: the ravening energies are kept in place by a force field which deforms and opens under physical pressure - the ony thing that can contain them.

 

Basically this character can take down almost anyone (unless they have a force field) very quickly, but is highly vulnerable to getting hit. I'd personally reduce the Body score almost by half (although I do understand why you would want it that high) to make things more interesting.

 

It's a though....

I agree with Qelan. Scarry.

However hte main defense of a light saber is not geting hit, so I would atleast a low defense from Combat luck or something similar.

Re: Chocolate Orc

The only thing I can think to add might be a Susceptibility to Direct Sunlight, seeing how chocolate melts when it's hot outside.

 

I know this for a fact because of a birthday party we threw for our son several years ago, which included an easter-egg-type hunt in the back lawn for various little toys treats. Among those treats were chocolate coins. Well, it being August, and there being some unexpected delay between the laying out of stuff and the start of the hunt, well, the coins didn't keep their shape. At all.

Ok but for this there is always the M&M version. Melts in your mouth not in your hand.

Remove suceptibility to sunlight add Suceptibility to bite atacks

Extre PD only Vs HA

Re: Setting a real point limit, instead of AP limit

[English Nazi Mode]"Mute" means "unable to speak". http://www.thefreedictionary.com/mute

 

"Moot" means "of no practical importance; irrelevant"

 

Moot arguments on the Web tend to be by text, so I suppose they're also mute. [/English Nazi Mode]

LOL I have been by a Nazi

The only thing I can say in my defense is that my weakness in English comes from living in the beautiful beaches of Cancun for the past 23 years

Re: Setting a real point limit, instead of AP limit

It will take less than 5 months to do it. Maybe you don't do it all at once.

you buff yourself take care of the first one shot. You are already buffed so it is easy tot take care of another one... so on and so forth

do one a week you have got all of you in a bout a month, maybe 1.5 months. OK now you have 5 months of overpowered muchkinyness your GM has to work around. Can be dealt with. Sure! but it changes the whole power level of your campaign.

However this whole conversation is mute. There is no such thing as razor straight guidelines or control factors. All powers and characters as a whole need to be revised by the Gm. And you don't just let stuff like this through. Simple enough. No need to discuss.

AP limit/RP limit: its just a guideline to minimize the number of powers you have to scrap and rebuild. Any power even remotely like this should be scraped. It is munchkin material, scrap it, unless it fits your game style.

Re: How to build: A gorup of coordinated Men as a single "entity" (Charactersheet)

Like the mass combat for unit vs unit, however the idea here is unit vs. char. I will however take in to consideration a few of the ideas in there that do apply

Well i have a party of high powered high fantasy characters I cant really chalenge them with normal soldiers and stuff (in small numbers), but I wanted to see how they will fare against a large group of trained coordinated men. Power level is between 375 - 425 points, though the way they are spread out they are build more as a "Batman" than a full fledged super, so i have a very versatile team more than a super powered one.

So the objective is, I want to see how they fare against "many average opponents" as in 10 to 1 (IOW 50) trained soldiers. Well equipped and slightly better than average soldiers but not really special. However I really don't want the fight to drag on forever, managing 50 individual men. So I was thinking of making the force of men as various "units" of 5 men (a la SWARM). The idea is each unit is a single char sheet and they act in highly trained tactical unison. Alone they are week but together they work in an excellent team ending up with 10 "units" of 5 men each all working as a coordinated force.

So how do I make each "group" as a single entity with that can be managed as a single character but has the SFX of a group of men?

Examples: As the players hack away at a units numbers its ability to fight is slowly weakened until it is entirely broken or the remaining men flee

A beat up unit can combine with another similar unit to reform the 5 man combat team.

etc.

PS: Sorry for the longwindedness of the question

Re: Masterful Ambush

Think the trigger is unnecessary. I like all the other Ideas, but the way it was built in the first posts works well. Just get rid of the trigger, make it a skill vs skill and and base the bonus on the success level of the roll.

That is my take at least.

Re: Setting a real point limit, instead of AP limit

I would love to know how it works too please. This sounds interesting as I am finding I have trouble modeling the effects I want when limiting AP. Where the power really isn't that overpowering as its AP's would indicate due to the limitations on it being so effective.

I know I can just hand wave as a DM, but I like consistency my players can count on, and the less I have to hand wave the better.

Re: Killershrike, I summon thee...

Lets pick up a collection to get KS a secretary to type up all the goodies!

Set a donation link on your site see how it goes

A RPG gamer secretary would be thrilled to work on it for peanuts, especially one that goes to school in stead of working.

Re: Must-have books?

I hope you get commissions Thia, I am sure anyone reading this thread that doesn't have UEP will run out and buy it NOW.

Re: Flexible Active Point Limits: What Do You Think?

Very often, synergy is the key - not just point totals or even DCs.

I' making it a habit to quote Sean Waters But seriously It is all about synergy. You can limit or not limit all you want, the proper synergy will always work around limits easily and nicely. It takes eyeballing and a willingness on the players part to create a credible balanced concept with in the game.

 

Why not just get rid of it altogether and allow / veto power levels on a holistic, ie "total character", basis?

 

However, in the interests of being constructive if I were to institute something like this I would do it based on a formula of Total Character Points / 6 rounded to the nearest 5 points. So for 350 point characters, the cap is 58.333 rounded up to 60. As the characters gain XP their AP cap slowly rises.

What I try to do on both counts. Auto scaling meaning no recalculations and

 

What I would like to have: If you spend 150 points in an obviously meaningful way, then you are useful. If you powergame as much as possible, you are about as strong as the 150 cp character if he got 15 exp. Result: We powergamers would be allowed to do it because it had nearly no consequences (10% improvement is tiny) but we (at least I) enjoy building something with high synergy a lot.

 

I ave to disagree, my power gamers will get a lot more than 10% percent out of their meddling if I let them. Sadly I lost a player over this (not too much because we are still great friends) but the game is so much better for it. Enjoyment levels increased at least 50% if there was an objective way to measure it.

And it is not a systemic problem as it was the same issue with d20 when we played that. Finally the other players just said... hey we like this guy but he need to bring his character down a notch. When we broached the subject, he said I'd rather not play.

Honestly my monitoring of the rest of the characters is hardly necessary. AP guidelines are there but they are NOT limits. My players just build knowing what their power level needs to feel like and limit or role play accordingly.

By the way we are all new (read under 1 year) to actually playing the system and are doing fine.

Re: Social versus Physical/Mental Conflicts

There's truth in that, but then I'd argue it is because I'm willing to be persuaded by rational thought and argument - a facet of my personality. If you approached me with arguments about 'have faith' or such, it wouldn't be working.

 

To model that you would need some sort of Social Maneuvers and defenses:

 

Rational Argument: +2d6 social damage +2/-0 NB added damage only affects someone with 'respects logic' personality type

 

Spurious Logic....

 

Force of Personality....

 

That's going to get real comlpicated real quick. Still, show me how it might be done and I'll wave the banner too

I think the above might fall under how the "attack" is described or role played similar to surprise manuvers. That's where psych lims' date=' character background Gm and player discretion would come into play. OR the player would just say "I try to Persuade X of Y" just like you can say "I use my Strike manuver". No bonuses, no penalties.[/quote']

 

"SHAZAM" you have jsut created the basis for social combat LOL. You previous Idea of Traits with their opposites based on a center combined with the already existing SFX mechanic where SFX is logic, reputation, faith, emotional, knowledge, confusing blabberskype, or something like that. We already deal with interaction of strange SFX all the time and how they work together as well as their secondary effects.

 

I say create basic GENERIC maneuvers as they already exist (no martial arts) that are modified by the personality traits. So if you are Logic +2 vs faith and some one tries:

 

"I think it works the same way as having your character fight two opponents at once. You might defeat one and be defeated by the other. You might defeat both. You'd have one Social Stun score just the same way you have one Stun score for tracking physical damage.

 

Suppose Amazing Man stumbles upon Ogre stealing some paperwork in an office while Grond is stealing some beer from the pub next door, he might just end up fighting both at the same time. I imagine you'd have no trouble running that fight."

Strike at SCV +2 but if they try the....

 

"well social interaction is defined by the spirit of the person and when there are 2 or more spirits working in conjunction to obtain a result god is there and that will strengthen the argument providing bonuses. And since he is involved you should obviously be convinced"

 

Strike at approach is SCV -2

 

Then play with complementary skills for additional modifiers... surprise maneuvers etc...

Re: Social versus Physical/Mental Conflicts

 

...SNIPED ...

 

Now here's an idea, for modelling personality; crude, inaccutate and incomlpete, but, hey, it just might work.

 

A lot of personality typing systems use dynamic opposites: introvert v extrovert, for example, or at least seperate points around a centre.

 

Perhaps we could dynamically create our character's personality as we go?

 

Whenever you make a choice, in game, a choice that dentoes a preference, you note it as a sort of personality profile. It could be as specific as beer v wine, it could be as general as doer v thinker. You could even assign a number to it, say 1 to 5.

 

Say you are 'beer v wine 3'. That means you like beer over wine, and it means that in a social situation where someone tries, for example, to get you to come out for a drink, if they suggest going out for a beer, they get +3 on the roll, and if they suggest going out for a glass of wine then they get -3.

 

You can set up as many of these as you like when you create the character, or just note them as they come up. Over time you'll gain a pretty comprehensive picture of people's preferences and what pushes their social buttons.

 

The setup can even be dynamic: if a roll, that is modified, is made, then the player can chose to move that 'slider' toward the appropriate preference by one point, but they don't have to.

 

For instance, if you are persuded to go to a wine bar, by a gorgeous co-worker, despite egnerally preferring beer, that might change your perception of wine positively. You are now 'beer v wine 2'. Much more of this and you might beceom 'wine v beer'!

This is great! And is also the solution to some of your worries below. As you feel differently about different aspects and will react in a different way depending on how your personality has evolved.

How does that square with social combat? To my mind, how you are and can be influenced is a very complex thing, based on a lifetime of observations and prejudices. We just don't have enough paper to accurately model that.

 

What aer the possible outcomes going to be?

 

Agrees

Disagrees but goes along anyway

Agrees but likely to change their mind soon

Disagrees

Disagrees but pretends to agree

Agrees but pretends to agree out of orneryness

 

...could be a long list...

 

This is like asking us to consider chaos theory in our combats... "So you hit the guy with 50N of force of which the vectors are 39N horizontally and 11N vertical that gives us an arc of 25 degrees taking gravity in to account he will travel 2m and land on a stick that was accidentally kicked there during x and y's combat it was broken of at a 45 degree angle causing a puncturing wound on landing of an extra .032d6 + 1d6 of knock back this causes a butuerfly to scare and ..... 6 weeks later.... you see a tornado headed towards your camp, suddenly you remember the butterfly you scared a few weeks ago. blah blah blah...

You generalize and use your excellent idea on the personality profile to give general indications and directions. As i Mentioned. Unless it is for very specific and short term actions social interactions will only give general feelings and ideas unless there is prolonged exposure to ideas.

Even prolonged exposure will not convince an person violently opposed to something unless the character willingly complies and concedes certain pivotal points. So you personality profile of hates orcs vs loves orcs -5 will not change unless something like "orc saves your life" even if you are forced to live in a camp full of "orc huggers for years" in fact you will probably only hate them more and reinforce it many times over.

However if you hear all the stories of these people whe were saved, fed, clothed, befriended, raised by this great clan of orcs, you may willingly concede that at least that clan of orcs may not be so bad after all. You run in to them and it only confirms the point... then you run in to another (however unlikely) group of orcs in the desert just before you pass out from sunstroke and awaken nursed back to health by this other clan who then promptly provides supplies and ejects you from their camp.

Hey maybe it isn't just that clan, orcs may not be THAT bad after all. Hat orcs 3... so nex time your party runs in to an orc at the tavern you probably wont walk up to him and spit in his face and tel him there isn't enough room in the tavern for both of you. You wont sit with your back to him either though.

This is good stuff. I'm a good way to being convinced this just might work . My concern though, I suppose, falls into two parts;

 

1. Can you just ignore social combat? If so, there seems little point in engaging with anyone you don't want something from. If not then, whilst one beggar may not be able to defeat you, two...or three, probably will.

What some one else said... i think it was Utic the rational

2. How do you deal with two seperate social situations at once. If your boss is putting pressure on you to finish the paperwork and your friend is putting pressure on you to go out for a drink' date=' where does that leave you in the social combat stakes? Does each request have its own social stun pool?[/quote']

 

Same as a mental combat I guess if you have conflicting "social influences" you will go with the strongest one. Of course if they are conflicting you PROBABLY agree with one more than the other so it gets bonuses and will probably win out. We always take the path of least resistance in situations like this.

 

Thing is that an ill considered approach or unappreciated argument can actually make you more entrenched in your position. There is a certain 'Dale Carnegie' sales patter than inevitably makes my blood boil. I bloody well won't buy whatever is being sold' date=' even if I want it. It seems to me that with a 'combat' system, all you do is wear your opponent down. Practically, if you allow people to say 'well, I don't respond well to that argument', then the basis of social combat is that it can only work by consent, and logically, you can therefore only convince someone of something they either don't care about, or have alerady half decided to do anyway.[/quote']

 

Read your social profiling idea. Use limitations. Use your characters in game history... what does he dislike or react aggressively towards. Grand rule of GMs "know your players". Unless obviously or stately different assume most character traits are only reflections of the player as is generally the case. So if the player HATES 'Dale Carnegie' sales patter then assume the character would to unless it has been demonstrated otherwise in game... even with different characters. Players usually define characters on Highlights and differences from their own personality.. everything else is pretty much the player.

 

AM fighting Ogre and Grond - well, yes, but AM is trying to do the same thing to both - KO them without being KO'd. I'm not sure social combat would be quite so straightforward. It would mean that the best tactic for a beggar would be to wait until he stumbled across an argument, hold an action, wait until someone was about to lose then rush in and ask for a dollar.

 

IME someone who has just been in an argument, far from being compliant with social requests, is usually in the opposite state of mind.

 

Unless stressing the same topic social combats should be taken separately, just like different transforms. If they have similar ground consider bonuses and penalties based on how the other argument is going.

 

If you have just been soundly defeated in a social situation such as the guy that keeps showing up every week trying to sell insurance and you have let him in the door a few times just because you were bored and needed some distraction eventually convinced you and you bought his insurance... so he tips off his investment friend who knocks on your door a day later and has a bonus to convince you on investing for your own future as insurance is money you wont get to enjoy while alive. Of course if you are overspent because of insurance you just bought you will probably have a decent bonus to resist this guy as well.

 

Just like in physical combat Situational bonuses and penalties.

 

I am loving this thread it is really a good exercise...

 

Sean, it is like what is happening here... we have already STUNNED you as you have conceded this might actually work and even provided ideas so your BODY is wearing thin.

 

You could have just left the thread and remained in your happy position of "anti-social bliss" . However you continued to expose yourself to our ideas and not only that but provided argument we could counter strike and over time... you will join "THE SOCIALSIDE" (read as if I had scuba gear on and had my head in a can)

 

Signed: The Sean Waters Comentator...

Re: Social versus Physical/Mental Conflicts

OTOH my concern is that it implies that anyone, if sufficiently beset, can be made to comply with a social requirement, whether it be a request for information, or forebearance, or whatever. Moreover, it quite strongly implies that all social requirements have an equal degree of 'social force', unless you are going to define social defenses to a very high degree.

 

... shortened for brevity...

 

Any social combat needs, at very least, a 'fumble' mechanic so that, if you blow it, you've blown it. Moreover, any such social combat would have to be undertaken 'in the dark'. A large part of 'social combat'is that you only know how well you've succeeded with hindsight. Did you REALLY convince the guard to let you by without reporting you, or did he just let you by SO that he could report you?

People are complying with social requirements every day. Why shouldn't the characters. Then again they aren't bound by it if society is not important to them. The barbarian doesn't care what the nobles think of him, he is in a social tight spot, he leaves or pummels the culprit!... unless he is trying to negotiate a treaty or woo the noble damsel. If some social defeat forces them to do something to get to their objective it isn't much different than a cave in in the dungeon that forces them to dig or give up. They don't HAVE to dig, they still have a choice, but its another conflict due to a combat (social, skill or physical) failure.

Besides most social conflicts are not about changing people but about how others perceive them and their actions. Social conflict in the short haul is to ridicule some one in public, convince some one of some short term immediate action, increase or reduce reputation, etc..

A character should never be FORCED in to a line of action or thinking except through drawn out constant subtle manipulation... you do that all the time as GM anyway. No mater how much freedom you give your players you are always subtly nudging and directing in the end you get a compromise. Thats how social interaction works.

In fact if social interactions are the basis of a campaign the GM should keep track of "social body" for individual issues and record damage and healing based on things that strengthen or weaken their social standing on an issue or beliefs.

Prolonged convincing and cajoling and manipulation SHOULD be able to change any character (PC or NPC). If a character is willing to regularly parlay and discuss or maneuver on an issue with anyone they should run the risk of being convinced of an issue no mater how strong the players stance. Social conflict always takes 2 just like a fight. You can "socially run or avoid" conflict just as you can physical. If you voluntarily or by inaction allow yourself to be exposed to an idea long enough even "Iron Mind Negotiator" should be convinced if he looses often enough. Its hard to believe in ideas you have no support for or ar repeatedly shown to be weak.

As the Doc said, It is an excellent place to put in to play social and mental limitations.

Social conflict is fairly subjective, but so is physical when you take in to account SFX. The GM needs to use a little judgment, but we always.

Sorry if I rambled, but I had a lot of points to communicate.