The Weapon

Neither is right.  To simply murder people because you think they're guilty means you're just a killer.  To be so obsessed with not killing someone, even when they are IN THE ACT of trying to kill innocents shows no respect for life.  Whenever someone Superman had the chance to kill, and kill morally and legally, kills it's down to him.  Just killing because you have half an excuse is wrong.  But so is pretending that you're not in mortal combat and that the people you're fighting deserve every chance to live.  They don't, and they haven't since they started trying to kill you or others.

How to write up certain spells that might appear in the Grimoires of FH mages whose players have missed several days worth of their medication.

 

Rain of Cows: "It's raining cows! Hallelujah!" This spell causes a downpour of (temporarily) live cattle over the area of its effect. The effect of having one of them land on you is the same as it would be had a cow fallen on you from several thousand feet in the air under normal circumstances. 

 

Assuming you live a life where cows normally fall from several thousand feet in the area. 

Summon 64* 0 pt. creature (cow), linked (-1/2)  (30 pts. active 20 pts real),  Telekinesis 35 STR, AOE 32m radius (+1),  linked (-1/2),  only to accelerate cows to terminal velocity (-2).  (70 pts active 20 pts. real)

Re: Bizarre Spell Ideas

 

 

Reflection: You stop to consider your life, behavior, situation, and probable future.

Didn't Obi Wan use that one in one of the Star Wars prequels?

Re: Bizarre Spell Ideas

 

Instant Llama

A low cost summoning spell good for creating instant barricades, bridges or landfills of the Camelidae kind. Some stacking or weaving may be needed in order to make the barricades more stable.

Not be confused with Instant Lama, which summons people who are the reincarnations of previous heads of religious organisations.  This is much less useful in constructing barricades, since they are often infants and far too cute to be used as fortifications. 

Dwarven weapons are tough! if you plan to use weapon breakage rules, i would give dwarven weapons +1 to +2 def and +1 body.

 

I would also drop the strength minimum by 1 point. if their weapons are supremely balanced, i'd give them +1 ocv. if they could be honed to a razor edge and keep that edge for long periods of time, i would give that weapon +1 damage class.

 

I would only ever give the weapons 1 or 2 of these benefits. you can also vary the benefits depending on the specific smith and his families blacksmithing secrets.

 

Perhaps the macdougal clan creates light, but razor sharp blades and axes, while the stoneflagger clan makes supremely balanced, yet durable weapons...

Or they just don't break, period.  If you buy a Dwarven weapon your grandson's grandson grandson should sharpen it every year.  Not that it needs it, just a respect thing.

It's not the gerbils that are the problem, it's the droppings.

If both sides stayed covert (and both sides have reasons to - The Star League due to it's rules on contacting undeveloped societies, Xur because he doesn't want the League to know what he's doing), then the general population would likely remain blissfully ignorant of the whole shebang. Not so governments - at the very least, a disappearance pattern of people with high reaction times, skilled pilots (why re-invent the wheel?) and high intellects (Alex was smart) would set off all kinds of red flags in intelligence agencies. Not to mention the fact that counter-intel groups would come to the conclusion that there was one (or more) new "players" in the game pretty quick.

OVERT interaction would change everything. This could have almost any political outcome - best case, we create (or repurpose the UN to be) a new world government responsible for off-world interactions. Worst case, The planet forms pro-Xur and pro-League blocs and faces off in a new Cold War - which might well not stay very cold.

One certainty is that the US would be one of the big losers. In addition to the religion problem (see below), the uS just got demoted from top of the heap (or at least first among the developed world) to just another nation. The US suddenly has no technological edge over anyone, and if either side starts offering military aid to those on it's side, suddenly the US would find that a great many nations won't trade with it any more. Without fear of US military might, much of the developed world will simply kick US companies out as soon as possible.

Religion would take a BIG hit. Pretty much every major world religion gives humankind a central role in the universe. The fact we're just one among many would meltdown a lot of people's world views. In places where religion is less important (say, most of the west, China) this would translate to strong social disruption. In places where religion is strong (Africa, USA, South America) you could see countries coming apart due to religious disintegration of mainstream sects and the rise of new forms.

Overt intervention is revolutionary. Mankind gets access to a massive technology boost even if they only spare us their obsolete junk. The US would be no better at adapting to it that smaller, poorer countries, so it would lose out relatively.

But religion wouldn't really be affected. Sure God made us in his image, and he made them in it too. See how humanoid they look? So let's covert them.

Calculate the velocity for an orbit equal to Earth's surface (that's something like 8 km/second, I think). Then, to calculate a velocity for any orbit for any planet, just multiply that velocity with the square root of (planet's mass in Earth masses divided by orbit's radius in Earth radii).

Easier to find the figures.

Re: The "Essay"(ESSE/UEH) Project(Warning: mature/controversial content contained her

 

Strange Ideal #37: Martial Arts "Eros Fencing" (using the penus as a weapion, but not in the way feminist warn about). I don't have a write up on this, but I'll just toss it into the air and see if anyone grabs it.

 

Anyone know if Hojojustu got a decent martial arts write up? A grab based martial art with the chain/rope element.

Sergeant O'Leary patrols the street during the day and works as a bartender at Mr. Catchitorre's at night.

CES

Don't even get me started on Hotel California...

Unless of course the rumours are true and they make a clone of you, input your memories and send that out the door. If so then you could never leave, even though you seem to.

Ask them to come up with a test to determine whether something qualifies as a person.

If they could make animen then they could easily have made people intelligence with 5 or 6 standard deviations above normal. This means the AVERAGE "smarty" is IQ 175-190, and about 5% of them are 205-220. Some of these could be socially talented as well. Now the technology to make them might have disappeared, but they haven't. They can breed (even breeding with normal humans gets people in the top 1% of IQ) and they can clone themselves. Some of them would have the long-lived modifications too. So do they therefore run everything since they're so smart?

Are they discriminated against or presecuted by jealous people? Do they conceal their nature to avoid that? A smart, socially adept, long lived group would be the ultimate conspirators.

If the intelligence enhancement and longevity treatments are incompatible (maybe made that way deliberately) then anyone who can discover secret of overcoming that will be owed big by some very smart (and therefore probably very rich) people.

Blakes 7, the cult classic British sci-fi series, had a situation like that on the planet Cygnus Alpha. The evil Federation would take dissidents and criminals, ferry them to Cygnus Alpha on prison ships, and then turn around and leave them there. As long as they could continue to dump undesirables they didn't care what happened once they got there. There was no need for guards because, as one character mentioned, "it's a long walk" back to Earth.

 

A religious cult of sorts had emerged and was ruling the planet. They didn't want outside contact or anyone leaving. But Cygnus Alpha was the first stop of the Liberator after it had been seized by Blake because he wanted to find a crew there (in the end he only got two men). The cult objected, with the result that its leader found himself teleported into hard vacuum, which turned out to be rather unhealthy.

 

They never went back to Cygnus Alpha so we don't know what happened there next. It can't have been pleasant for the poor sods left behind.

 

Cygnus Alpha had "never more than 500" people on it. Given how over a dozen of people were dumped there on Blake's flight alone and the colony was several generations old that means the death rate must have been horrific. Of course they didn't actually give the prisoners farming equipment so food was originally a bit of a problem.

Since you can do it for followers why not?

Heroes or not sure.

Militiaman

The Privateer

The Unexpected

The Collective

Villains:

Illegal Alien

Heat Death

Re: Kitchen Woman

Originally posted by zornwil What in the world is wrong with Kichen Woman? I don't mean in any PC way' date=' either, I just mean it's easy for me to envision a superheroine possessing these powers. [/b']

If the first publication that comes to mind when I read a name is Too Much Coffee Man, said name is unlikely to make it to the next roundup.

You're just afraid of offending Trade Mark Copyright Man.

The big advantage is that when the cops find you in a mask at a crime scene they don't automatically haul you in or even ask you to take it off. A licensed superhero is something like a "confidential informant" in that he can report to the police or testify without giving his real name. Whether the police kick you out of a crime scene depends on whether the hero has a reputation for being careful about evidence.

My superhero character, Version One, was vat-grown and most of his memories were implants from Vibroman, another superhero. These included memories of his wife, thus causing him to have the same feelings for her Vibroman had. Some demons offered to allow them to be together. He pointed out marriage was till death us do part. They said they knew that. He told them to go, go now. He really didn't want to hear any more temptation.

Re: 1000 Star HERO Weapons

"I don't know how it happened' date=' Mr. Secretary. Best guess is that we somehow ended up staging a mobile IRBM in the cosmetics department down at Warbucks. Sure looked cute and cheery blowing up Moscow!"[/quote'] Please mind the Rule about not making comments and the like in this thread, as outlined in the OP: http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php/90128-1000-Star-HERO-Weapons?p=2346938#post2346938 The Species called "Psi-Volcan" always had an ability to project potentially deadly Bioelectric Current (Electricity Special Effect), but only on touch range. When the first came into contact with other beings, it were Slavers. Despite thier initial resistance the slavers quickly adapted to take and transport them savely, using ranged stun weapons to great effect. Then the Psi-Volcan adapted as well, turning thier natural defense into dangerous ranged waepons. Rules wise: These weapons are noteable for drawing Enduracne from the user, not having Beam or Charges Limitation and only having Inaccesible Foci. Do only work when the character ahs natural Electricity Projection powers and the damage depends on the Grounding of the Target. 0016: Psi-Volcan Pistol First atempt weapon. Edition: 6e Power Build: 8d6 Blast vs. ED (Electricity), OIF (-1/2), STR Minimum 6 (-1/4), Real Weapon (-1/4), Required Hands One-Handed (-0), Real Electricity (6E2 150, -1/4*), User must be able to channel Electricity based powers through Hand (-1/4) Real Cost: 16 Weapon Familiarity: ??? (It's a Glove you put over your hand. Propably unusual Energy Weapon) Description: A sort of "power glove" that is simply put over the hand. To fire it, one has to clench his fist and "release" the energy. *This weapon deals Damage as a Overhead Line/Light Industrial Current. The damage is 5d6, Stun Only vs. Insulated Targets and 3d6 Killing vs. Well Grounded ones.

 

To be fair that was the best spellling flame I ever got.

EDIT: I realised that I assumed that the Sidhe don't continue to take human mates after the initial rush of hybrids. Sorry about that.

BhelliiomRahl describes the results of a single gene inheritance well, although I should add that any "human" who can caste magic is effectively Sidhe for this analysis. So a mage/mage mating will always produce a mage. However you don't need to limit yourself to a single gene. There could be multiple genes, perhaps coding for different types of magic, perhaps just adding different amounts of power. Needing 2 copies of 2 or more genes to have magic drastically reduces the probability of becoming a magic user. Needing at least 2 copies of magic genes, but not necessarily of the same one means mages can have non-mage babies. The math gets more complicated though so I'll deal with just the one gene.

Sidhe from different bloodlines could have different abilities. This may be because they have different alleles, or different genes in entirely different areas. An allele of a gene is a gene that can replace that gene, so I have a gene and you have either the same gene or an allele of it. So suppose three alleles h (regular human), w (recessive, grants water magic) and f (recessive, grants fire magic) the possible combinations are hh, hw, hf, ww, wf, ff. Now ww and ff clearly grant water and fire respectively, but what about hw? Does that make them a water user, a fire user or a steam user? Or can they use fire and water, possibly at lower power than "pure" users?

With regards to the population of humans with Sidhe genetics, the average number of Sidhe genes per 1,000 people in the population would remain stable unless they granted an advantage in survival or reproduction. Now magic is an advantage, but since it only grants that advantage if one carrier breeds with another, that means it depends on a) the percentage of the population with the genes and whether inbreeding is popular. Considering that Dark Ages peasants bred with people from the same village almost exclusively and that they therefore shared genes from previous generations, this might mean that carrier/carrier matings are far more common that simple random selection would indicate. Some communities would be relatively rich in magicians if particular family lines with the genes bred prodigously. Others would have the genes completely disappear. This is because genes in a stable population each person has an average of 2 offspring that get to breed and each offspring has a 50% chance of having the gene. So there is a 1/4 chance none of their children will have it. In a community with 3 carriers that means a 1/64 chance it will die out next generation and a 3/32 chance only one carrier remains*. This is reasonable with a gene rate of say 1% and 300 villagers. So if villages keep to themselves some will have to have no carriers at all.

The following is a formula for the probability of a carrier/carrier mating (assuming one recessive gene)

P(c+c) = P© *Max(P©, r)

Where P© is the probability that someone in the population is a carrier, Max(a, means the higher number out of a and b, and r is the degree of relatedness of the couple, the average probability that they will share a gene that isn't universal throughout the species.

Just remember to halve the relatedness going up a generation then add the relatedness of mother and father together for full siblings. Relatedness is 1/2 to parents, 1/2 to full siblings (1/2 relatedness to mother + 1/2 relatedness to father all divided by 2 on the way down again), 1/4 to half-sibliings, 1/4 to grandparents, 1/4 to uncles or aunts and 1/8 to first cousins. Historically first cousin weddings were common (and still are in many parts of the world) so the average relatedness of couples could easily be about 0.1. Someone who understood inheritance of magic could arrange sibling or parent/child matings to push up the odds of mage by up to fivefold. However this massively increases the chance of insanity, congenital defects, miscarriage or stillbirth.

If the Sidhe were 1% of the human population, 10% of them mated with humans giving an initial 0.1% Carrier/Half-breed rate then the probability of carrier/carrier matings (given relatedness average 0.1) would be 1/10,000 and rate of magic user births would be 1/40,000 babies whose parents aren't mages. If mages also held to the 0.1 relatedness to their mate pattern then 1% of their matings would be to other mages and would result in a mage. 18%** of their matings would be with a carrier and would result in a mage half the time (total 9%) for a total 10% chance a mage's baby is a mage. Assuming a stable population the average person born has 2 babies, so they have 0.2 mage babies on average. Take the formula for geometric increase and you get 25% as many mages born from mages as born from non-mages. This brings the total mages up to 1/32,000. England's population was between 1.2 and 2.6 million so there would be betweenn 37 and 82 mages born in each generation. Multiply this by how much longer they live than normal humans for the number of mages alive at any one time. Even assuming that they lived 5 times as long it's only about 400 max, so they concievably all be listed in one book, gather in one hall etc.

This assumes that neither being a carrier nor being a mage is an evoluntionary advantage (it may not be, sure mages are powerful, but are they targetted/exiled from society etc.?). Even if mages themselves don't breed helping out their relatives could spread the gene.

* This assumes everyone has 2 breeding kids, nobody has 4 while someone else has none and that being a carrier isn't an advantage.

** There is a 90% chance that won't they will share the first copy of the gene and a 90% chance they'll share the second copy for an 81% chance of no Sidhe gene. Since there's a 1% chance of a magic that leaves an 18% chance of a carrier.

Resistenceworld

A world where a brutal dictatorship is opposed by rebels who are seem able to hit government trooops and disappear at will. When the PCs show up a government agent/informer realises that their wormhole looks a lot like the way the rebels got into a military base. Turns out the rebels have limited slider technology and have been using it to escape, store supplies in parelle worlds, bypass military cordons etc. The rebels are worried that if the government finds the PCs they will acquire slider technology and they'll lose their edge.

Traderworld

A world where slider technology is used to get resources, market and cheap products from less technologically advanced world. These worlds have no idea who is mining their resources, selling them slightly better technology, and buying their stuff. They are "exploited" but not coerced. Only selected government agents and executives in the corporation that developed the technology have access to it. Possession of unregistered sliding tech is punishable by death. The PCs may find out that the restrictions are in part due to their discovery of a brutal, expansionist empire (they call it Grabberworld) that has attacked and tried to enslave every world it has discovered. Grabberworld thinks they're the only world with slidertech. Traderworld is supplying resistence movements on several worlds and even sending agents (spies are so much more effecive when they look just like important people). Once the Grabbers find out about Traderworld they will attack, and they have more troops, guns and equipment. Some Traderworlders propose becoming more like the Grabbers to resist them.

Re: Lock-On System

Simple solution

Add [some big number] CSLs Requires a roll (attack roll)

& the same limitation on the attack itself, defining it as the same roll as for the Combat Skill Levels.

So for instance:

Sureshot101 missile

RKA 4d6, Requires a roll (attack roll) (-1/2) Active: 140 RC: 93

+10 with Sureshot101 (3 pt CSL) Requires a roll (attack roll) (-1/2) Active: 30 RC: 20

So if you want to fire the Sureshot you first make the activation roll which is the same as a normal attack roll. If you miss nothing happens, if you hit with it you fire rolling at +10 to hit, which is an almost certain to hit. While it's not true that it will fire and miss it's very unlikely.

Re: 1000 Star HERO Weapons

0042: Macro-Attack Sensor System MASS 1.0

Edition: 6e

Power Build:

Detect Attack Direction and Trajectory (Class of things, Radar SG 5) Sense (2 pts.) Rapid x3 (9 pts.) Targeting Sense (10pts.), Discrimatory ( 5 pts.), IIF (-1/4), Only attacks that hit character (-1)

Active cost: 31

Real.Cost: 14.

Description: A sensor area and advanced software system embeded in any suit of armor, measuring energy, force, current etc. rapidly and accurately enough so that you know what hit you, how powerful it was and where it came from. Trained troops can instantly engage a hidden enemy that hit them using only the data from the MASS 1.0 (some attacks with peculiar trajectories excepted). Projectiles, lasers, plasma bolts, even zeta energy attacks, all can be traced back and fire returned within microseconds!

MASS 1.0 is fully compatible with the Omnitactical Data System

0043: Omnitactical Data System

CLairsentience; sight, hearing, radar, retrocognition : Mobile Perception Point (48m) (+15), Only through others senses (-1/2), Only through others with same system, max. of others (-1), IIF

Active Points: 95

Real Cost: 35

Description: MASS 1.0 is a fully integrated system for sharing data within a small unit. Up to 9 people can access the sensor suit of any integrated power armour suit. Data is stored and can be reviewed at any time to see if that sneaky sniper was caught on video before firing.

Re: 1000 Star HERO Weapons

0041: Micro-Commander 360

Edition: 6e

Power Build:

CLairsentience: Mobile Perception Point (24m) (+10 pts.) OAF (-1), One Sense Only (-1/4), Only through the senses of others (-1/2), Only through drone (-1)

Summon 75 pt. drone, Slavish (+1), Charges:4 (-1), OAF

Standard MC kill-drone

STR: 3

DEX: 8

CON: 5

INT: 3

EGO: 3

PRE: 0

OCV: 8

DCV: 8

PD: 6 (resistant)

ED: 6 (resistant)

OMCV: 1

DMCV: 1

SPD: 2

REC: 4

END: 20

BODY: 10

STUN: 20

Powers:

Flight 20m

RKA 2d6 ED, 0 END cost

Real Cost: 23

Weight: Rack and controller 2kg, drones 4x6 kegs.

Weapon Familiarity: Drones or VF: Vectored Thrust

Description Base cost level drone control system, the drones are not smart enough to operate on their own, don't have the firepower to take on power suits and are not that hard to knock down. The electronics are vulnerable to shocks, so they often drop from even a pistol shot. Be careful though, they can reorientate themselves and get up again (hence they don't have the "No Stun" power).

Variants with area effect weapons or more powerful weapons but limited ammo, AP capacity