LaughingLunatic

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... I found this story/quote mixed in with notes from an old Saga Edition Star Wars game set in the Legacy era. Unfortunately, I didn’t find my list of player to character names, so I’ve generalized them below: Female Twi’lek pilot, former ‘dancer’ Male Human bodyguard Female Zeltron smuggler captain The YT-1300 we flew (cliché, I know… still fun) belonged to the smuggler captain and the nav-computer had a tendency to reset itself createing alternate flight historys whenever the ship was inspected by customs. The first time this happened no one knew the computer could/would do this… the ship was being inspected for contra-bandwhile the captain was out securing cargo (contra-band jedi as it turned out). The twi’lek pilot and the human bodyguard were the only two people on board at the time… it got interesting when the imperial inspector reviewed the nav-computer logs. Imperial Inspector: I see here that you were on Hoth for a week, seems like a long stay, what wereyou doing there? Pilot: Hoth?**player looks around confused** um… we were there for vacation? Inspector: VACATION!?!? You expect me to believe that you spent a week on Hoth for a VACATION?! Pilot: **player completely flustered** um, yeah, why not? Inspector: **face turning purple** Bodyguard: Excuse me, Inspector, could I speak to you a moment in the access way? Inspector: **nods,numbly and steps out of the cockpit** Bodyguard: Inspector, I’m sure that you may have noticed that the pilot is a little… different? You see, while she’s a fantastic pilot, the captain doesn’t keep her around for her… conversational skills, if you catch my meaning. Inspector:**wide-eyed, jaw hanging open, begins nodding slowly** Bodyguard: I thought you might. Unfortunately, as I was not on-board until after Hoth I cannot speak to that week either; however, the captain will be returning shortly and can answer any questions you may have. If you’d like, we can reach her on the com and ask her to expedite her return to the ship? Inspector: I believe that would be a good idea, in fact,my crew and I will just wait here for the good captain… purely as a formality, you understand… **One com call to the captain and an awkward scene with the captain and three jedi padawans later. The captain, returns to the ship** Inspector: Are you the captain of this vessel? **Staring wide-eyed at the female, Zeltron** Captain: Yes, this is my ship, Inspector. I understand that you have some questions regarding our recent travels? Inspector: **still staring, obviously trying to get past the mental image of the captain and the twi’lek, together** Yes, I find it curious that you spent a week on Hoth even more so, because your pilot seems tobelieve that it was a vacation? I’m sure you can understand my confusion. Captain: *sigh* Yes, I could see why that would be…odd. Truth be told, I don’t keep her around just for piloting skills, as phenomenal as they may be, and definitely not as the ship’s purser. Inspector: **shifts on his feet and blushes a little** Of course, captain, your bodyguard has already enlightened me to the nature of your relationship; however; you still have not explained your visit to Hoth… Captain: Of course, that’s easy enough to explain. The sector Moff’s daughter turned 16 last week and Moff [smith] wanted an ice sculpture for her Moff-Mitzva party. As you can imagine, he spared no expense and hired legendary sculptor Leo Angelo to create it. Artists like that tend to be somewhat…eccentric and he insisted the only ice that would work was from the ‘rainbow’glacier on Hoth. We were hired totransport Mr. Angelo to Hoth, wait while he created his sculpture and then return both Mr. Angelo and the sculpture to the sector capital for the Moff-Mitzva. Inspector: Ah, that certainly explains the time you spent on Hoth. I am familiar with Mr.Angelo’s work and would have loved to have seen the sculpture. However, why would your pilot think that the trip to Hoth was a vacation? Captain: Certainly, Inspector, that’s also easy to explain. Hoth is a very, very cold world and Mr. Angelo absolutely insisted that he not be disturbed while he worked… so, the pilot and I had to find *something* to do with ourselves and stay warm as well. Inspector: **jaw-hanging open, eyes wide and blushingfrom his neck to the top of his head** Captain: I have holograms if you require some evidenceof our… trip? Inspector: Uh… N… N… No, C… Captain that will be fine. In all fairness to the player of the pilot, she wasn’t veryfamiliar with the setting and was a guest of a regular player. -The Laughing Lunatic

Re: Energy Weapons with Variable effect... You've got it. That is more or less what I was going for an attack that was more effective against one type of SFX, less effective against a different type of SFX and baseline effective against all others. Where all FF based SFX are equally common. I like the advantages/limitations canceling each other out... although, I'm leaning more toward the +0 effect than the +1/4 & -1/4... the +0 effect has the advantage of not increasing the actual active points, it just increases the effective active points. Thanks everyone!

Re: Energy Weapons with Variable effect... I don't think he meant the multi-power at all... after I built the compound power that he suggested, I thought it looked a lot like a multi-power with ultra slots as each of the compound powers can only be used one at a time. This is, of course, assuming that I understood what Hierax was suggesting in the first place.

Re: Energy Weapons with Variable effect... Thanks for the feedback guys! Bigbywolfe: You're right, I got the limitations backwards... it should be written as: 3d6 EB Weapon A (15 Active pts) Plus 1d6 EB; Only vs. FF type B (-1) (5 Active; 2 real) Plus 1d6 EB; Not vs. FF type C (-1/2) (5 Active; 3 real) Total Cost 20 points Hierax: Is this what you are suggesting? Weapon A: 4d6 EB; Only vs. FF type A (-3) (20 active; 5 real) plus 5d6 EB; Only vs. FF type B (-3) (25 active; 6 real) plus 3d6 EB; Only vs. FF type C (-3) (15 active; 4 real) plus 4d6 EB; Only vs. "Not FF" (-3) (20 active; 5 real) Total Cost: 20 points If I understand you correctly, then this seems like an overly complicated method for a multi-power... Now that I type it "aloud".... I wonder if that would be the way to build it... Weapon A: Slot Real Active Power 25 25 25 Energy Rifle: 25 point Reserve 1u 11 20 Attack vs. NOT FF type B or C: 4d6 EB Limited (Not vs. FF type B or C; -3/4) 1u 13 25 Attack vs. FF type B: 5d6 EB Limited (Only vs. FF type B; -1) 1u 8 15 Attack vs. FF type C: 3d6 EB Limited (Only vs. FF type C; -1) Total Cost: 28 pts. hmm... it's a lot clearer without building a summary table... but it's also more expensive without adding anything. In fact, it actually may limit the character more by requiring a zero phase action to switch slots and adding a 'trigger' advantage makes it prohibitively expensive.

Ok HEROphiles, I got a new build for feedback. I’m trying to simulate the effect of ship weapons from an old video game (“Freelancer”). The interesting part (to me anyway) is that the energy beams worked differently vs. different shields. Something like this: Shield A Shield B Shield C Armor Energy Weapon A X X + y% X – y% X Energy Weapon B X + y% X – y% X X Energy Weapon C X – y% X X + y% X I’ve come up with two ways of modeling this behavior in HERO… but I’m not entirely happy with either one and would like some input from the assembled masses. I'd prefer to place the burden on the attacker to identify which damage to apply as opposed to making the defender figure out what he/she is being hit with and how it impacts their DEF. That being said... I'm open to considering a defense based effect as well... Build #1 – An EB plus ‘naked,’ limited, advantages and disadvantages 4d6 EB Weapon A (20 Active pts) Plus Armor Piercing (only vs. FF type (10 Active; 7 real) Plus Reduced Penetration (only vs. FF type C) (-5 Active; -3 real) Total Cost 24 points This build would do the following: 4d6 against the full DEF of a type A FF or Armor 4d6 against the half DEF of a type B FF 2d6, twice, against the full DEF of a type C FF Build #2 – An EB plus limited extra dice 3d6 EB Weapon A (15 Active pts) Plus 1d6 EB; Only vs. FF type B (-1/2) (5 Active; 3 real) Plus 1d6 EB; Not vs. FF type C (-1) (5 Active; 2 real) Total Cost 20 points This build would do the following: 4d6 against the full DEF of a type A FF or Armor 5d6 against the full DEF of a type B FF 3d6 against the full DEF of a type C FF So… What do you think?

Hey Herophiles, I need some feedback on a build. Background: A player in my group is playing a sentient robot made up of nanites. The 'builders' have given him a 'hard-coded' 'protection' from "Magic". They believe that the existance/use of magic could cause damage to the robot's intelligence due to it's 'illogical' and 'impossible' effects. To this end, they have given him an automatic defense in the form of a magic suppression field which automatically prevents the use of "Magic" within a 14 meter radius. Unfortunately, when this field is activated, it prevents the use of all of his other powers due to the strain on his system. The field remains active as long as a magic user/item remains within the area of effect of the field and automatically ends when they are removed. Unbeknownst to the character, he can attempt an EGO roll to de-activate the power but this is very difficult and will create dangerous feedback if it fails. Here is my first run with this build: Suppress Magic 10d6 (SER: 30 Active Points) --All Powers with a Magic Special Effect (+2); --Area of Effect (21” Radius, +1); --Trigger (Magic user/item within Area of Effect, Character doesn’t control activation, +1/4); --Uncontrolled (until all Magic user/items are removed from Area of Effect, +1/2); --Reduced Endurance (0 END, +1/2); [263 Active Points] --*Reduced Radius (7” Radius, -1 1/2); --Does Not work When Wet (-1/2); --Does Not work in Intense Magnetic Fields (-1/2); --Lockout (-1/2); --No Range (-1/2); --**Requires EGO roll to intentionally de-activate when Magic user/item is within Area of Effect - ----Assuming EGO roll is: 11-; ( Active Point Penalty is -1 per 5 active points; -1 1/2); --***Side Effect (failed de-activation EGO roll, ??); 44 Real Points *I felt that this reduced the power's effectiveness by 2/3 per the limited power limitation (21" radius down to 7") **This is the Requires Skill Roll, but used to de-activate instead of activate. The huge active point penalty to the roll will be used as a role-playing/development hook for the character. i.e. writing new 'software' to help deal with "magic", opportunities to buy down the disadvantage with experience points, etc. While the player knows what the penalty will be, his character will not and will want to 'grow beyond his limits' and will attempt to override the field, particularly during dramatically appropriate events. ***This is where I want to include the side effect when the EGO roll fails to de-activate the power. (I'm thinking a Mental Group Flash to simulate his O/S re-booting after a 'BSD'...) However, I'm having trouble coming up with a value for this limitation. Thanks for your help, -The Laughing Lunatic

Re: Fighting against more speed Instead of dropping the speed chart entirely, why not just make the initiative within the segment variable? Instead of each player proceeding through their phase in descending order of DEX, try the following: Each player rolls initiative: 3d6 + DEX/3 Then use the results of the initiative roll instead of each characters actual DEX to determine the order of the phase. This way, those who paid for the faster DEX/SPD will still get their benefits but the lower DEX/SPD character could get lucky and go before them.

Re: Multi-Configurable Armored Exoskeleton Whoops! I blew the math on the Armor, at one point I had the armor bonuses up at 28rPD/rED, but I thought that was a little excessive so I lowered it to the current values and didn't change the numbers. As for applying the limitations for the multi-power slots... Is that in the errata or FAQ somewhere? I followed the steps on page 317 in 5ER which indicate Slot Limitations are applied first to determine the real cost, then the Multipower divisor is applied to find the slot cost. And looking at the example builds at the bottom of 320-321 (Armadillo's and Laser's Multipowers) appear to follow the same point expenditure, of course in both of those examples the numbers work out the same regardless of the order you do the math. My thought using the two limitations with the extra time was two-fold. 1.) Conceptually, I wanted to have to configure the armor and have it take a turn for the new configuration to kick on (More advanced models will overcome this limitation) 2.) Mechanically, I wanted to prevent somone from deciding on segment 8 that he wants to up his speed from 3 to 9 and get a bunch of extra phases on segments 9, 10 and 11. (I can imagine this getting particularly confusing if there are 3 or 4 players equipped with this suit.) That's why I wanted the extra limitation that the configuration could only be altered on segment 12 or post-segment 12. Or does the "(Post-Segment 12)" comment already accomplish that? Thanks again guys!

Need a little help fellow herophiles... I'm working on equipment for a Star Hero Campaign, one of the items is an armored exoskeleton. I'm building the suit as a collection of multi-powers (body, helmet, etc). One of the things I'm having trouble with some of the limitations. Here is what I have so far for the "body" multi-power: Armored Exo-Skeleton Slot Real Active Max Power 14 14 60 - Multi-power Reserve: 60 Points OIF(-1/2); Real Armor(-1/4); Half-Mass(-1/2); Extra Time(1 turn, -1 1/4); Only Change slot configuration during Post-Seg 12(-3/4); 1m 6 30 30 Increased STR (+30) No Figured Characteristics (-1/2) 3m 14 60 60 Increased DEX (+20) 3m 14 60 60 Increased SPD (+6) 2m 12 50 50 +25" Running 2m 12 52 52 24 rPD Armor Hardened (vs. AP, +1/4) 2m 12 52 52 24 rED Armor Hardened (vs. AP, +1/4) Total Cost: 27 pts Default configuration: 7 rPD Armor <13 active pts> 7 rED armor <13 active pts> +5 STR < 5 active pts> +5 DEX <15 active pts> +7" Running <12 active pts> Total Active Points: 60 Here's the idea, the trooper can wears the suit in the default configuration most of the time. However, the suit can be reconfigured to emphasize one or two characteristics as the expense of the others. This reconfiguration is not instantaneous, taking about 12 seconds to fully reconfigure. To keep things simple (and preventing players from changing SPDs in the middle of a turn) the suit can only be reconfigured during Post-segment 12.

I came across an idea for a creature that I really liked on the web... http://www.roleplayingtips.com/readissue.php?number=377#R3 Basically, the idea is that every time a small monster was killed (the article used kobolds as the example) all the other monsters got stronger. This concept, as opposed to the sfx, would work great for a Star Hero game that I'm putting together, but I'm having some trouble building it and wondered what the Hero gurus here would have to say about it... Here's what I've started, but it feels a little awkward and forced... Aid(STR,DEX,CON,BODY): 1d6 / 10pts (SER 3pts) Area of Effect(0ne Hex; +1/2) Selective Target(only others of type; +1/4) MegaScale(1 km; +1/4) Decreased Return Rate(20 minutes; +3/4) Trigger(at 0- Body; +1/4) Variable Effect(STR,DEX,CON,BODY; +1) Charge(One Charge; -2) Conditional(Only at 0- Body; -2) No Conscious Control(-2) -Thanks

The most common example that I've seen of a limited characteristic is STR with either the "No Figured Characteristics (-1/2)" or "For Lifting Only (-1)" limitations. Thinking along these lines, is there any reason why DEX couldn't be purchased with a "Only for calculating CV" limitation? And if so, what is a reasonable limitation? -1/2? -1? Thanks

Re: [Campeign Creation Project] Pirates of the Naebbirac Astroid Belt I like it so far. We've blocked the victims' escape route into hyperspace with the cluster of stars and strong gravity fields; but we still haven't mentioned how we're going to stop the target ships for boarding. On a related note it has not been decided if the ships of the cluster will use solar sails or powered drive systems. Working backwards, lets address the problem of sub-light drives first: Powered Drives vs. Solar Sails. Solar Sails: Advantages - Thematically/cinematically appropriate, allows for 'sailing' ships of the 'sea' - Cheap, sunlight is effectively free and no fuel reserves - Efficient, again, no fuel for thrust Disadvantages - Speed, very slow accelerations - Size, solar sails would be kilometers to a side (a 1km x 1km sail would generate approx. 2 lbs of thrust) http://www.solarsails.info/sailing/intro.html - Durability, solar sails would be very fragile, easily damaged by the debris within the cluster which would reduce propulsion to nil - Stealth, the large size and material of the sails would make them easy to spot via radar and active detection systems Powered Drives: Advantages: - Speed, a powered drive accelerates very quickly - Stealth, a powered drive can be turned off or run a varying power levels for maximum stealth - Size, much smaller than the ship that it powers/pushes Disadvantages - Style, not as romantic as 'sails' - Expensive, reaction mass / fuel costs money that eats profits - Stealth, potential 'vapor' trail to follow (actually.... that might not be a disadvantage) I think both propulsion systems have merits in this type of setting. I recommend using both, after a fashion... Why not use the solar sails for the large galleons; steal a page from the BattleTech universe and let the galleons use large solar sails to charge their hyperspace drives? This would give the galleons a potential achilles heel for truly bold and brazen pirates to aim for. The smaller ships (sloops, pirate ships, etc) that operate within the cluster itself would primarily use powered drives due to the higher manuverability offered by such systems. Which brings me back to my initial question: How do the lucky pirates convince the nice victims to 'heave to' and give up the goods? (besides shooting a warning shot up... er, across their nose) Here is a suggestion: 'Anchor' Class Interdictor Missile The missile was originally designed to safely disable 'runaway' or 'out-of-control' ships without putting the passengers, crew or cargo of said ships at risk. The warhead is designed to disrupt active propulsion systems; reducing a rogue ship's velocity/acceleration in a controlled manner. The missiles have a lifespan of only 5 minutes after which the interference stops and the ships propulsion systems begin working normally. Unfortunately, these missiles are not always reliable and occasionally do not work, even after successfully hitting their target. Additionally, these missiles are almost totally ineffective against Solar Sail based propulsion systems. 'Anchor' Missile Effect: Suppress (Flight) 5d6 Shots: 1 Range: 45 kilometers Suppress 5d6 - Increased Maximum Range (22,500" or about 45km; +1/2) - Indirect(Always fired forward from ship, but can attack from any direction; +1/2) - No Range Modifier (+1/2) (75 active points); - OIF Bulky (-1) - 1 Continuing Charge (5 minutes; -3/4) - Real Weapon (-1/4) - Extra Time (reaches targets within 2km the same Phase, takes +1 Segment per additional +2km; -0) - Activation Roll 12- (Burnout; -3/4) Total Cost: 20 points I decided using the format of the MAME missiles (Spacers Toolkit, p56) was simpler than using the Nuclear Space Missile (Star Hero, p195). Of course, by making the missile a vehicle, it can be given a guidance computer which would help it overcome those semi-permeable force fields... hmm... decisions, decisions. I was trying to come up with a similar method to use against Solar Sails. A 'Chain Shot' missile, but I didn't like the way any of them were coming out. Pretty much any damage to a Solar Sail will reduce its effectiveness permanently, until repaired or replaced. I'm thinking a Drain power of some sort with delayed recovery... Well... those were my thoughts, let me know what you think.