m.mavnn

As someone currently recovering from a bout of stress exacerbated post viral fatigue... look after yourself, and don't let your frustration push you into making the situation worse. I'm sure this isn't news, but I know I need people to remind me that it's okay to do that (without telling me that the situation is okay, because sometimes it's actually not). I, of course, always follow my own advice on this 🙈

Off topic, but where abouts in Italy? I'm in Viterbo. With that kind of set up I'd try and keep costs down while making mind blades feel a bit other worldly. How about just buying them as a small HKA with no limitations or bonuses at all? It's cheap to buy because there's no STR min to worry about (which it should be, because everyone else is just spending a bit of cash on their weapons, not points). And it feels 'different' because rather than having to have the object to use, you pay END to keep the weapon active. Then if individual characters want to add armour piercing, reach, multipowers, etc, they can go to town on it but the basic power is really simple and clear.

Do you have ideas around posting frequency/timing? I'd be interested but between being on Central European Time and having family commitments I wouldn't want to be the one making the game drag.

That... actually sounds not far off what I'm suggesting for characters of the same size (modulo some minor version maths tweaks). Which is encouraging 😀. I am planning to keep the element of large characters being easy to hit for small characters though. I did forget one other aspect of the house rule though, which is that large characters ignore the area effect advantage if it doesn't exceed the area covered by their own "hands". (This applies regardless of actual body configuration / hand size, use the default value from the size templates). Let's say that Eva-1, Solid Snake and a troll end up in a fight. Eva-1 is approximately 80m tall making it gargantuan. This gives a -10 penalty to OCV/DCV, a +10 RSL, and it treats area attacks hitting 4m of less as normal attacks (can be blocked or dodged, etc) unless the special effect makes that silly. At 1m range Snake can stab the Eva with an effective +10 to hit, and would be hard for Eva to hit except Eva's feet stomping on him count as a 4m AoE attack. The troll? Same but with +8. At 32m, Snake now has a -4 range penalty to hit Eva while the Eva unit is still slapping down on him with 4m radius hand to hand attacks. The troll is the throwing rocks with a -2 range mod. Against a human opponent they would be 1m area effect attacks but the Eva swats them aside with its 4m wide hands (a block). At 250m Snake's -10 range mod completely counters the +10 size bonus he's receiving for shooting at Eva. Unfortunately for him, the Eva still has no range penalty at all, and its weapons probably do around 5DC more damage. It does still have the -10 size mod to hit. At 1km Eva has a -14 penalty to hit Snake (-10 from size, -4 from range), but Snake only has a -4 penalty to reply due to the Eva's size (note that from 250m onwards this is exactly the same total modifiers as raw - within that distance the Eva is disadvantaged compared to raw). If two Eva's get into a fight, they can both use unmodified OCV/DCV and the standard range modifiers without changing any of the maths at all if each hex is assumed to be 32m across. Which conveniently is almost exactly the scale Battletech maps are drawn at, just retaining the ability to zoom in... It does leave one question though: is it disadvantageous enough compared to raw to change the values of Growth and the large size limitations?

I'm actually deliberately avoiding that kind of sharp divide. I used Rifts as an example because more gamers know it but the main inspiration is more UF, a universe where many fictional universes meet with histories tweaked enough to make them coherent. The kind of universe where the Norse God of Mecha (son of Skuld) teams up with the Avatar (Korra edition) to take down a sith trained Babylon 5 psi-cop who's recreating the 3m tall dark troopers from the first Jedi Knight game needs a sliding scale of power rather than 'mega/not mega'. (So does Rifts for that matter - the lore brilliant Pantheons of the Megaverse resorts to giving characters tens of thousands of MDC points to try and scale relative powers...) Interesting! I started with 4th and so missed Robot Warriors. How did it deal with multiple sized combatents in the same fight?

I'm idly considering a campaign that might include a lot of large characters and vehicles (think Macross/Rifts/Undocumented Features). If it happens it will be a reasonably high powered and gonzo campaign, so strict balance isn't the goal here but I was noticing that the normal size rules don't quite cut it in this type of game. Because they operate by giving large characters a DCV penalty (in effect) it becomes very hard to represent the kind of agile, highly skilled hand to hand combat between mecha/large creatures that you often see in the source material - both parties will tend to have a much higher effective OCV than DCV, skewing the effectiveness of combat towards blocks and high defenses for large characters and making them feel "big and lumbering" even when fighting each other. As an alternative, I'm considering making size give the normal penalty to: OCV, DCV, Stealth and Perception rolls but a matching bonus in Range PSLs. This would mean two large opponents would fight against each other exactly the same way and with the same modifiers as two human sized opponents, just that they can fight effectively at longer range. When fighting against much smaller opponents they will find them hard to spot and hit at close range as they "get within reach" but at longer ranges size will become less and less of a factor. Although I'm not planning to use a strict "rule of X" I'd then let larger characters up their suggested attack and defence levels by 1 DC/3 defense per size category to compensate for their lower effective combat skills. Has anyone tried anything like this? Can you see any immediate issues I've missed?

Diving back into the "old times" of the board, but this collection of maneuver descriptions inspired by the Wheel of Time show how much flavour you can pack into a "standard" martial art and some skill levels: Going back to the original question, even a very small (10-15 point) multipower can make a huge difference to the "feel" of a character in play. Switch between "Eagle Observes the Flow: +1 OCV/DCV, cost END" and "Planted Oak Stance: +5 Resistant PD/ED, costs END, must be standing on a solid surface which takes the damage instead" and both your descriptions and tactical options will shift dramatically.

Oh, absolutely. The idea would be a story translation, not a rules one. One of the big frustrations for the players with pathfinder is the lack of flexibility, having to take options inappropriate for their character just to get to the ones that make sense, or metamagic being so prescriptive in what it allows. Many of the spells actually overlap from a story/special effect perspective. For example the majority of the attack spells can just be collapsed into an RKA with variable sfx and area, there's no need to buy dimension door and teleport as separate powers, and why model the limitations from mage hand when you have telekinesis? But a few spells, like this one, are flavourful enough that they've become part of the story of the character.

Penetrating dark vision with range penalty skill levels, all limited to only reading books. I love it

In the campaign I'm playing with converting, I (the GM) have used the spell several times to give the players specific pieces of information rather than (or more accurately, as an excuse for) the skill bonus. After all - it is actually showing snippets from books you probably haven't read. While the skill roll versions being proposed are simple and follow the *rule* effect of the spell closely, I'm beginning to wonder if some kind of 'no (or limited? You get to pick a topic) conscious control' clairvoyance might be more accurate to the special effect, and more fun to cast. That said, things like range become interesting - it feels like the 'range' should more be about how many books on the topic exist (easier for more books) than how far away they are.

I'm trying to think of the best way to model the spell Page Bound Epiphany from Pathfinder for a Hero mage. The special effect (which I love) is as follows: In Pathfinder, the spell gives +1 to knowledge skills per round you continue reading, up to a maximum of +10. But I'm not sure that fully reflects the description of the spell (which may reveal knowledge you didn't previously have at all), and also plays badly from a mechanics point of view with a lot of Hero magic systems as skill levels are wildly imbalanced in power frameworks. Any neat ideas, hive mind?

This sounds like some kind of regen (even from things that would normally kill you), or just extra body to avoid death - with the restriction that you get inconvenienced by injuries that 'go that far'. Which sounds like a limited power to me. You definitely should not need to spend points to represent the issues caused by the injuries; pretty much by definition the ability above should cost less than the ability to just heal without complications. Maybe a side effect that causes physical limitations chosen by the GM each time the "I'm not dead yet" effect triggers?

S. John Ross sells a hex (pack also includes isometric and other variants) font with instructions on how to print to the scale and paper size you want, if the flexibility is worth five bucks to you, but a dedicated program feels overkill: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/product/220331 It's also very simple to overlay the font over an image using pretty much any image manipulation software you can think of, because they nearly all know about fonts.

Let's see if we can do this image some justice. ---- Carque the Dragon Killer VAL CHA Cost Roll Notes 13 STR 3 12- HTH Damage 2 1/2d6 END [3] 18 DEX 16 13- 16 CON 6 12- 10 INT 0 11- PER Roll 11- 18 EGO 8 13- 13 PRE 3 12- PRE Attack: 2 1/2d6 7 OCV 20 8 DCV 25 3 OMCV 0 5 DMCV 6 4 SPD 20 Phases: 3, 6, 9, 12 11 PD 6 11/21 PD (3/13 rPD) 9 ED 4 9/29 ED (3/23 rED) 8 REC 4 35 END 3 10 BODY 0 30 STUN 5 Movement Cost Meters Notes RUNNING -4 8m/16m END [1] SWIMMING 0 4m/8m END [1] LEAPING 0 4m 4m forward, 2m upward Characteristics Total: 125 Cost Powers Dragoon Magic - END= 6 1) Leaping 20m (10 Active Points); Increased Endurance Cost (x2 END; -1/2), Incantations (-1/4), Leaves A Trail (-0) - END=2 12 2) Resistant Protection (20 ED) (30 Active Points); Increased Endurance Cost (x2 END; -1/2), Only versus dragon breath (-1/2), Incantations (-1/4), Costs Endurance (Only Costs END to Activate; -1/4) - END=6 Powers Total: 18 Cost Martial Arts Halfling Axe Fighting [Notes: While most races think of the axe as an offensive weapon, halflings more tend to view axe fighting as "the art of the lumber jack while the tree tries to stomp on you." As such, they lean towards a very mobile and somewhat defensive style.] 5 1) Defensive Strike: 1/2 Phase, +1 OCV, +3 DCV, Weapon Strike 5 2) Flying Dodge: 1/2 Phase, -- OCV, +4 DCV, Dodge All Attacks, Abort; FMove 3 3) Legsweep: 1/2 Phase, +2 OCV, -1 DCV, Weapon +1 DC Strike, Target Falls 5 4) Passing Strike: 1/2 Phase, +1 OCV, +0 DCV, Weapon +v/10; FMove Martial Arts Total: 18 Cost Skills Halfling Culture 2 1) PS: Cook 11- 2 2) PS: Farmer 11- 7 3) Stealth 15- Dragon Slayer 4 1) KS: Dragon Weaknesses 13- 8 2) +2 with All Attacks (20 Active Points); Only when fighting dragons (-1), Requires A Roll (KS: Dragon Weaknesses roll; (when reallocating levels); -1/2) Experienced Warrior 20 1) +2 with All Attacks 3 2) Tactics 11- 4 3) WF: Common Melee Weapons, Common Missile Weapons 2 4) Navigation (Land) 11- Skills Total: 52 Cost Perks 4 Positive Reputation: The dragon slayer (Halfings) 11-, +2/+2d6 Perks Total: 4 Cost Talents 20 Weapon Master: +1d6 (Axes) 6 Combat Luck (3 PD/3 ED) Talents Total: 26 Value Complications 10 Physical Complication: Small (+6m kb) (Infrequently; Slightly Impairing) 15 Hunted: Evil Dragons Infrequently (Mo Pow; Harshly Punish) 10 Social Complication: "The Dragon Killer!" - famous halfling hero Frequently, Minor 15 Psychological Complication: Must live up to the example of the dragon slayers of history (Common; Strong) Complications Points: 50 Base Points: 275 Experience: 0 Experience Unspent: 0 Total Character Cost: 243 Annnnd a new image to replace him:

Really sorry to hear that @Simon. Hope you recover rapidly and safely.