The Monster

Re: Help with Serial Killer story Rather than vampires, you could rip off Frankenstein (and in a world with super-science, maybe he's onto something!). A serial killer who *reassembles* parts of his victims to see if he can make them function again. Thus, the police would find, say, an arm and a hand at once "dump site" - and it would only be discovered later (after the manhunt begins) that they aren't from the same victim! Also, you could take a riff from real serial killers and have an old case file with similarly di/vivisected animals (many of them do torture and kill small animals in their youth), with crude attempts at reassembly (this really creeped me out when they did this exact thing in Toy Story!). The killer may even have a few pets made from assorted pieces of pets and maybe even a few human parts. I'm going to stop now and recover from a serious case of self-induced willies....

Re: I need help with a couple power ideas, please. Unless, of course, the coat is secretly an alien symbiote.....

Re: My new campaign Many thoughts - I've been running an airship-based campaign for years (at 1-3 session per year), so this is familiar territory. The timeline looks good enough as it is. Note that there were a couple Europeans working on inventing the airplane as well, so they wouldn't be totally absent, just delayed a few years. Not that this would likely affect your campaign, but just a point of information. Though it would an ironic twist if the Wrights dies in a plane crash at Kitty Hawk! One note of interest: the ONLY source of helium until at least WW2 was the United States - techniques to produce it didn't exist then. This made for interesting issues (and why the US funded a "Strategic Helium Reserve" until the last few years of the 20th century): among other things, the Hindenberg would have been a helium ship if it weren't for US dislike of the Nazi regime (speaking of which, given that Germany won the war, it's unlikely the Nazis rise to power - Prussian militarism would still be going strong, though, so German villains are still plenty). Hydrogen does lift better than helium, so it would still have been used for early models, but its flammability is an obvious problem. If the US had been freer with its helium (interested more in profits than in security - as if that ever happens ), *or* if methods for producing helium had been invented earlier (German scientists would be likely enough to do this; they were world masters of chemistry), the WW1 zeppelins would have been a lot more dangerous - less lift, but they don't blow up! An issue with the "engine room" concept: zeppelin engines were mostly external, so the "engine rooms" are actually pods on struts outside the skin. Some later ships - Akron, for example - had internal engines with belts/chains out to the propellers: better safety for the techs and better streamlining. So there wouldn't really be an "engine room," though you might have a workshop where the chief engineer does his tinkering and organization. Weapons: not so much turrets, but WW1 ships did have machinegun nests in various places. This is about all that's reasonable, unless you want to rubberize your science a bit - I did; my airship (the Archangel) carries an MG in the nose, one in the tail, and two along the top spine. They also carry some bombs and even a small cannon (useful only for engaging ground targets). Turrets would be too heavy - as it is, I push the science by making them .50-cals rather than the more realistic .30s. By the way, I based Archangel on the Akron and Macon, sister ships of US manufacture and the two most advanced military airships ever actually built. There's a fair amount of info on them if you go digging for it. I'll see if I can come up with some links, or you can just Google it and go from there. Also check out the Lakehurst, NJ air station, the primary airship port in the US (and where the Hindenburg crashed). The one in California is Moffett Field (then named something else, but they have a display/museum there, IIRC). Just as an additional tidbit: The opening scenes of "Sky Captain," where the airship disembarked passengers onto the mast of the Empire State Building, is based on reality - the top of that building was actually designed for use as an airship terminal! It never was used because the winds around tall buildings are too messy, but it was heartwarming to see it in action.

Re: Help with my concept VPPs can be a box of worms - might I suggest Multiform? Certainly cheaper, and for only a few points, you can double the number of different forms you can change to. Of course, you have to design each form before you can play it, but that takes out the abusive potential of VPP (especially Cosmic). It also forces you to decide just which characters your hero knows well enough to shift into, as well as a mechanic for growth as he dose more reading/watching. I can see it now: "There's a new criminal mastermind on the loose! The police are stumped because he leaves almost no clues!" "OK, let me pop over to Barnes & Noble and pick up the boxed set of Sherlock Holmes mysteries. Call me tomorrow!"

Re: Jumping Move Through/By? My quick take on this: Falling Damage to both faller and target (though both faller and target qualify as a softer surface, unless heavily armored or putting a hardpoint forward, like a fist or weapon); plus damage to the target according to the faller's weight (quick lookup on the Strength Table); plus whatever attack maneuver and weapon (if any) the faller uses. Less math/physics details the better, IMO, at least in mid-session! Since velocity is already accounted for in the Falling Damage, I don't think I'd use the regular Move Through calculation. Now, skill bonuses and defenses built specifically for MT might apply for the faller, depending on the SFX (e.g., Stego-Man could fall head-first to let his head armor protect him from the impact). To fall properly oriented, though, would require a roll against Acrobatics or Breakfall. BTW, since the faller is trying to cause damage with this fall, I wouldn't allow Breakfall to reduce damage to himself. Probably.

Re: How would you build this character? Summon works best, IF the ninjas can be fought like normal ninjas, i.e., with regular stats and skills and such. If they're more of a mystical attack form, then you could build it as a twisted form of EB with Continuous Charges, maybe with Area Effect (selective) and/or Autofire... There's always more than one way to build a power!!

Re: War HERO Looking at it as an RPG rather than a miniatures game... I'd really like to see a coherent role-playing sourcebook series a la "War HERO," especially if it's up to the standards set so far by Star Hero and Pulp Hero. It is true that some eras (especially WW2!) have been heavily covered by other games, so it might be most productive/useful to focus on other events, such as Vietnam, American Civil War, WW1, and the like. Personally, I'd suggest taking a tip from the way Pulp Hero is set up: it's what, a third or more through the book before stats are even mentioned? Package deals and specific weapons/vehicles, plus a sample of appropriate special powers (if any) and some characters, both stock and specials, and it's good. Mostly I think you want a good general overview of the event, with enough specific info to get hooks and consistency. BTW, there was lots of stuff going on in WWI besides the French trenches. Theaters in Africa (including an epic flight by a zeppelin!) and the Middle East come to mind as fluid settings with some fine room for small-unit activity to play a significant role. Navy or air groups also might be playable to good effect. As far as a miniatures game, I think Hero would work quite well on an individual scale. I've played minis at conventions, so I'm no expert, but Hero is certainly no more complex than some of the regular mini rules I've sampled. The complexity really comes in character/weapon/vehicle design rather than execution, and for a typical minis game, all that would be pregenerated. (Hmmm...may have to try this at a local con and see what happens... ) For large-scale action, there are a whole range of things that have to be accounted for in a different way than for an RPG or single-man scale, that to take Hero to that level in any consistent and playable way would be way beyond me: more power to those who would try! (And I'd be willing to playtest!)

Re: Killing Damage and Defenses Most of the Hero games I run are norm-type games, with guns and swords. Method B is absolutely vital in my opinion. From stuff I've read and the testimony of the geeks who actually use the stuff, armor will prtoect you pretty well from most actual injury, but you can still get your bells loudly rung by a good blow. To me, that means you're avoiding BODY damage but still taking at least some STUN. Otherwise, armored knights become pretty much totally invulnerable to normal weapons. Done correctly in Hero, heavy armor is a major advantage, but you're not quite invulnerable - which feels right to me. Of course, in my normal-hero games I always use hit locations, so die rolls for STUNx feel funny to me. It also adds combat options for creative players and skills characters.

Re: I need help with a couple power ideas, please. I'm a little shaky on the specific rules about this, but might be worth exploring: Buy Absorption which takes EB energy and pumps it into an END Reserve. The END Reserve powers your own EB through the cloak (which doesn't recharge any other way). It probably isn't too much of a stretch to simply say that the EB you release has the same SFX as the last blast which it sucked up (a bit of note-taking during the game, but not much). The GM might impose the "variable SFX" Advantage, but a counter-argument is that you don't have any control as to the SFX, which largely negates the edge of having that variability. I'm not sure how Missile Deflection would work into this; maybe the cloak could have two effects to choose from.

Re: Worldbuilding exercise Just to stir my pot: "The setting is a highly beaurocratic and oppressive norse religious country of political intrigue and backstabbing (ie my Western Shores where non-church magic is illegal (or strictly licensed)." Norse - is this simply a Scandinavian flavor, or is the oppressive religion based on the Norse mythos (Thor, Odin, etc.)? What era - medieval quasi-European? Modern? (I assume the former, but clarity is good.) Is the oppressive church more or less a national organization, or is it a Roman Catholic type international, even continentwide or beyond group? (I.e., is there any element of foreign intervention/influence?) Just so I don't offer nothing but questions... In earlier times, people were able to use magic as the gift was given to them, with whatever training they could find. Often, these magicians (more like shamans, really) would find themselves in the place of healers and restorers of the people left behind as casualties or collateral damage in the wake of the struggles of the great deities and their monstrous creations. Occasionally, when the depradations of some deity's crreation became too much to bear, they would band together and use their mystic knowledge to remove the threat, either by direct sorcerous power or by exploiting the creature's weaknesses to send it away - preferably to a deserted area (where it would only bother the wannabee heroes and saint who seek out such confrontations). Sometimes the best they could do was bind the monsters for a limited time ("limited time" could mean years or decades, or until their prison was opened). Sometimes all they could do was drive the creature out of their territory, unfortunately inflicting the curse on some other region, but at least saving their own lands and families. Besides defending against leftover monsters created for the gods' wars, magical items or energies were often left uncontrolled, and resulted in cursed areas, unnatural weather, and other hazards. The early shamans shared knowledge and effort in cleanign these up as well - though often with the sme limitations as they ran into with the monsters: divine/demonic forces are tricky to deal with, and often cannot be eradicated by mere human effort. These shamans never founded a formal organization - they gathered together as need or desire drove, then scattered to their homes and individual paths to seek such wisdom as they could. Then, as the Church began to impose its organization on the land, they found themselves first under suspicion and then anathema, since they lived by rules other than that which the Church defined, and often seemingly in defiance of the very gods the Church served. After all, the main reason they banded together was to clean up messes the gods left behind! The Church had its own sorceries, carefully controlled to avoid offending the gods and linked to its rigid hierarchy. As the Church gained power and influence, the shamans were driven out to the frontiers or underground - at least the ones who did not submit to ecclesial discipline and instruction. Today, the spiritual and intellectual heirs of those shamans are more tightly linked with each other. They have to be, to keep the ancient knowledge alive and find support and instruction among themselves, as well as their purpose of protection, healing and restoration where the gods no longer care to tread. Their sorceries and mission is largely forgotten even by the Church; the edicts and trials were so long ago that only a handful of church historians and obscure theologians even know of the shaman's existence in anything besides old fairy tales for children and fools. The Wardens of Human Spirit and Flesh (they are known as simply "The Wardens") keep the lamp of hope and knowledge alive as a secret underground society, a network of sorcerers and supporters who still hold mere mortals to be of greater and more enduring value than the constant bickering and clumsy manipulations of "higher powers." Their secrecy and subtlety has refined to the point that hardly anyone even knows they exist, and their magics reflect that subtlety, focusing on small effects that go unnoticed to causal observers. Only a minority are actual sorcerers; most are simply people who have found a way to resist and oppose the rigidity of the Church, or people who have been helped by the Wardens and want to help in return. The Wardens are scattered throughout society: the gift of sorcery knows no class or gender boundaries, nor is it always helpful in mundane business or politics. Wardens can be found among tradesmen and laborers as often as among scholars and professional. Most towns have a posse of Wardens; groups of up to half a dozen will meet on a few key holidays. Cities, because of the heavy hand of Church influence, rarely have more than that, while villages on the frontier may actually have a dozen or more Wardens - sometimes as an open secret, where everyone knows about their presence and at least claims to know at least one personally. On the Church's part, the Wardens are considered old wives' tales, to be ignored or suppressed. The few churchmen who know the truth can rarely get the support they want for the nitpicking, detailed search to root out half a dozen people in a town of thousands, so they must content themselves with keeping an eye out for Warden activities. Not many churchmen even know how to recognize, let alone counter, the ancient shamanic magic any more. ... Howzzat?

Re: Personal Immunity...to What exactly? Lucius, perhaps you could actually post an example of what you're proposing so that comments are relevant. It might be more productive and diplomatic than inviting comments on a a vague description and then lecturing when people go on explorations of concept which turn out to be tangential or irrelevant to your specific idea. From your recent more accurate lecture, it seems to me that you're best off just leaving Personal Immunity alone - that it just applies to your own spell and not anyone else's, period. Less confusing for everyone and you don't have to keep track of what slot(s) you have up every moment you're walking around (not to mention keeping track of what all the NPC mages are doing even when not expecting a fight).

Re: Personal Immunity...to What exactly? I think the generalized Personal Immunity mechanic has some very interesting potential. It does mean that magicians from the same school won't be able to hurt each other with their schools spells - IF they've got warning, so that they actually have the PI option up. So...the way to get rid of an opposing mage of the same school is to ambush him. It also gives people, even mages, a reason to develop a good sword arm, since magic doesn't confer immunity from steel. Also, it seriously encourages people to do research on potential enemies, so that they know ahead of time what they're likely to be immune to, and develop alternate weapons. Conversely, mages would work hard to develop (if the system allows) spells of other types, so that they don't suddenly find themselves useless - and keep their additional abilities secret from enemies. Really, it could put a whole other spin on the study of magic beyond "ooh, what's the next spell I get?"

Re: Campaign idea! Another possible approach: inspired by Robocop. The PCs are an experiment in brain rebooting, seeing what happens when a new, largely "blank" personality is overwritten onto a brain. Thus the players end up sorting out two personalities: the one they start play with, which is largely a blank slate and determined as they go, and their original personality which begins resurfacing when triggered by certain events, phrases, images, as well as spontaneously. How the two mix is up to the players (mostly).

Re: Mythos of the Werewolf Of course, if nights are cloudy for a few days, there might be other problems - I imagine even a werewolf would have trouble digging from a coffin through six feet of dirt before suffocating (or starving, per earlier discussion). Let alone what happens when one is embalmed or cremated! (Maybe that's why there aren't as many werewolves nowadays!)

Re: Building Tech for Original Setting Stone knives! (and projectiles!) Guard: (running magscanner): Do you have any weapons on you? PC: No,sir, just a couple rocks in my pocket - souveniers, you know. Guard: (checking lie detector) Okay, you're fine. Enjoy the Chairman's speech! PC: (sotto voce) Now the chairman will finally feel the touch of justice! More seriously, I have heard of obsidian blades being used for surgery - they are brittle, but hold a keen edge (aren't those closely related traits?). Another random thought: magnetic satchel charges. Scattered among battlefields, they could ruin the aiming of magnetic-susceptible projectiles or even (rubber science alert) disrupt magshields for a few seconds. I figure these could be bursts of energy (kind of a magnetic equivalent of a small EMP), after which the power source burns out. These could be in the form of planted charges or artillery rounds or airdropped bombs. Another random thought: doesn't heat mess up magnetism? Could this mean that flamers/flamethrowers be nasty against soldiers relying on magshields? (Of course, in system terms, a PD-only FF wouldn't stop an ED, but the rule might be that the shield is knocked down by fire or heat, at least temporarily). Mag-seeking missiles. magshields, even personal ones, should show up like spotlights on any kind of EM detector (science nerds, please quibble). This means great targets for guided/smart ammo.

Re: Personal Immunity...to What exactly? If and only if the multipower is really the same spell effect just with different options, I could see that Personal Immunity might reasonably provide immunity to anything from that particular multipower tree. So, for example, a Fireball mulitpower could provide immunity from any kind of fireball - but not flaming hailstones or fire elementals, etc. A primary issue I can see is if pretty much all mages use Fireball for their attacks - it means mages would be mostly imune from each other...which does have some interesting ramifications. Not least of which is the desperate need to make sure you know what the other guy's going to throw at you, so you you can learn it to give yourself immunity! Question is, are you really having magicians buy a seperate Multipower for each basic spell? Seems kind of expensive, but it does have possibilities.

Re: Mythos of the Werewolf A couple clarifications: a blackjack filled with silver will hurt a werewolf? Does this mean that actual contact with silver is not necessary, just proximity? If martyr's blood is so toxic, it means that werewolves are Evil in a supernatural sense. I have no problem with that, but keep an eye on that when people make suggestions that sound more scientific than mystical (silver bullets are okay, but a Hellboy-style hollow bullet coated with silver with an ampule of wolvesbane extract goes too far). It also opens the door to some kind of religious defenses (can a werewolf enter holy ground? can a holy person deflect werewolves?) - not that werewolves should be as vulnerable to crosses and holy water as vampires, but there might be some kind of protection available in very limited circumstances. I don't know any stories about werewolves turning into vampires...sounds a bit off to me, but there are weirder things buried in folklore. Personally, I'd prefer to emphasize the Jekyll-and-Hyde nature and have the human form be completely human, thus as vulnerable as anyone else. Part of the drama of the werewolf is the shame and fear the normal human has of discovering he's a werewolf. Of course, if the transformation can be controlled, it would be a great source of power for an evil person. And while the bit about lycanthropy being contagious sounds kewl, I think it's far more reasonable to make it dangerous but not automatic - at least a CON roll, or work out a damage/effect progression like other diseases in the rulebooks. If any contagion was so easy to catch that a simple scratch would transmit it, and it was automatically fatal (or near enough), then it would not take long before everyone had it. If I were to to do something like this, I'd be tempted to make it a combination of a disease-like progression and an effort of the will (thus, an EGO roll and/or application of psychlims as well).

Re: Multi-form suggestions? Flash vs vision - bright sparkly flashes, for any gem form Invisibility with bright fringe - pure clear crystal HA/HKA - sharp edges/points, possible with any jewelry form, but especialyl suitable for gemstones EB/RKA - laser (I know, already mentioned, but for an odd limitation, make it dependent on having a bright light source, so that the hero is focusing light rather than generating it), especially for ruby Desolid(!) - changing into a pile of small gems, able to slip through small holes, kind of like a "mist form" Images - making jewelry-style signals and pictures on/with the body, especially for a primarily metal form

Re: Nazi My long-running Archangel campaign is in an Indiana Jones/Delta Green mode right now; their basic mission is to stop the nazis from getting too much kewl occult stuff. Their most recent exploit was arriving on the island of Helgoland just in time to prevent the SS from forming an alliance with the Deep Ones. (They also managed to steal a couple spanking new Bf-109's for the Western powers to examine.) I haven't had them run into Nazis with weird powers yet - though they did have to fight a mountain full of Chinese sorcerors a while back. Of course, they've also spent the last few sessions right in 1936 Berlin (Olympics and all). The thing with Nazis is that they are a national organization (well, after 1933 anyway), so they can have all the goons and guns they want. What power level/flavor of campaign are you looking for?

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... "I'm looking under the table. What do I see?" "A weird greenish goo!" "Excellent!!"

Re: Need Help with Scenario ASAP! Perhaps the device is not particularly accurate, so that the center of sonic attack must be "walked" to the target. So you would have a line of mild disruption for several minutes before an actual attack, then when the target is properly acquired, the power is turned to full (kind of like ranging in an artillery strike). Some sort of records (does the local university have a geology department with a seismograph?) might be consulted for guidance, and could be a source of tension as a new series of surges is reported. (Where's it headed? Can we get there and warn people in time?) This could be especially amusing if the device is actually a set of sonic generators spaced about the city, so that the targeting run does not always start in the same place (though it always starts from one of the generators).

Re: Third Magic System (Please Help) Another possibility is magic centered around sensory phenomena - illusions, light/darkness, enhancing/suppressing natural senses. Distinct from both elementalism and force/psi powers, and quite useful in combat. It also plays indirectly off the animal-human mix since they might be more likely to use natural weapons for actual combat rather than magic blasts or conjured weapons. Plus there's sort of a rock-paper-scissors effect in that the illusions can be trumped by elemental effects, if only you can find a good target.

Re: No Recovery in in Conbat No I'm not forgetting bleeding rules or anything else (I *do* wish people weren't so d*mn eager to assume I'm stupid and ignorant!). Technically, you aren't dead when you hit zero or -1 BODY, so even an attack that does do 10 BODY to a norm isn't *instantly* lethal. But that entirely misses my point anyway. What I wanted to say is that guns should be respected, from a dramatic point of view. Hero has little in the way of reflecting how much something really hurts - there's almost no rules for wound penalties, so a hero can fight largely unimpaired until he keels over wihtin seconds of dying (i.e., negative BODY). I don't have a problem with that per se - they're heroes, after all. But it does mean that it's too easy for people to fall into a mode where numbers rule: if I know his pistol only does 1d6K, and I've got 10 BODY, then I can feel almost no fear - he's not gonna kill me, and it's hardly likely I'll be KO'd, and not really likely I'll even be stunned. So I can just try to jump him and suck up the bullet. The numbers work out, but you lose the whole flavor of the threat a gun provides. If you start reducing the power of guns in a Hero game (and, by the way, I don't advocate either decreasing or increasing their stats), you lose way too much flavor and realism (even comic-book or pulp realism) for my taste. Or, more likely, you end up just giving the thugs bigger guns to make the same point. I'm not arguing for instant kills; I'm arguing for flavor and drama consistent with the genre.

Re: Victorian Hero (Sorta) Count me in - I knew Pulp Hero was on my "I WILL buy this" list, and it met and exceeded all my expectations! Victorian Hero is moving quickly from my "I want this" list to "I WILL buy," especially since two of my regular group have expressed real interest in the period, after I brought up the coming of VH.

Re: How to hide a sword Would it be as simple as making the sword an Inobvious focus? People wouldn't notice it until it was used (maybe a modifier on the Inobvious), but it's still there if they really look for it.