shnar

Re: Avatar: The Last Airbender I never got far in formulating my version, since my group is still occupied with Rolemaster and Traveller, however it's still in the back of my mind. To go along with your thoughts: - I can see the "masters" as either have a *ton* of powers or just having a VPP. I kind of think the progression should be a MP that eventually leads into a VPP for the bigger stuff. I keep thinking back to Season 1 where Katara found the scroll of water bending moves and used that to help train herself and Aang (before going to the North Pole). That very much sounds like an MP or at the very least martial maneuvers. So I kind of think lower "trained" or powered benders are MPs, but the "masters" have gotten all the pre-trained maneuvers and are now creating their own. And it very much feels like the masters can do anything they can think of on the spot, not limited to knowing specific maneuvers (sounds like a VP to me). Maybe it's just a VP with a limitation that can only be used on learned maneuvers and once you're experienced enough, you can buy off that limitation and becomes an open-ended VP? - I think all the kids in the series are prodigies. Toff is "the best earth bender in the world" and proves it by discovering Metal Bending. Katara, unschooled, impresses an aged master with her raw talent and eventually learns Blood Bending. Mai and Ty Lee, while not benders, can hold their own against benders. Jet is the same way. Azula is described in the series as a prodigy. And of course there's Aang. My point is I don't think you should model the game too much of the characters in the show. I think other benders have a more difficult time learning their abilities. Even though I made little to no progress (I did buy the 6th Ed books, though am having a hard time finding Fantasy Hero 6) I'd love to see if you piece anything together -shnar -

Re: Avatar: The Last Airbender I don't like the VPP idea, except for the Avatar himself. The series talks a lot about specific "forms", movements that do specific things. I think this translates very well into a set of powers, a mix of martial arts and a power framework. Pre 6th Ed, I would have gone with an Elemental Control. Gotta figure out how that will work 6th Ed now. I also think that the END comes directly from the bender. Look at Zuko when he fights Azula in the first episode of season 2. He knocks over two guards on the ship with a fire kick/punch, lights his Fire Daggers and then swings about 4 times at his sister. Then there's a pause for some dialog and Zuko's breathing rather heavily. That's not a lot of action to get winded by if you were using an END Reserve. Maybe the more powerful benders take on Reduced Endurance advantage? And limiting a bender to only 3 choices and a whole phase to change it up seems extreme. In the series, they're doing different forms all the time without any pauses between forms. Which, if you did a set of powers or a power framework other than a VPP (a Multipower might work well) then that works great. I'm leaning more and more towards Requires Guestures and Skill Roll. I don't think you'd even need a Focus limitation, since of all the elements, there's something to be found everywhere and I don't know that it'd be a limitation, or at best 1/4. Anyways, still cataloguing everything, we'll see where this takes me -shnar

Re: Requires another power limitation? I'm envisioning a training necessary to learn the higher abilities. There will be a pool of "Rank 1" spells that the caster has to learn first, representing his familiarity with the raw element. These would be spells like "sense" spells (i.e. can feel the source of a fire 50 feet away), simple manipulation spells, maybe some defense spells. Then "Rank 2" spells have a bunch of heavy defense type spells and some basic attack spells. "Rank 3" has all the heavy attack spells. Most of the spells would not be replaced by the "heavier" spells. For example, a Rank 1 Defense Spell might be something like a fire shield (limited cover), a Rank 2 would be a full fire shield, and Rank 3 a fire wall. However, I could see that a player would not care about a fire shield spell and so never buy it, but the magic system requires the user to learn these smaller spells so they can wield these more powerful spells easier. If an accolyte were to try to jump straight to the higher magics, he would most likely lose control and be burned by the magic. I figured the best way to represent that was to force learning the spells in an order like this. If anyone has other suggestions, I'd love to hear them -shnar -shnar

Re: Requires another power limitation? That's pretty much what I'm asking. I'm trying to model a couple things: - Character must pay points in lesser used, "mundane" abilities to even be able to buy the more "useful" abilities. - The more abilities the character knows overall, the easier it is to perform abilities. I thought there might be a way to do this in the "normal" rules, rather than making them campaign rules, but it looks like I was wrong. -shnar

Re: Requires another power limitation? It was actually Martial Arts that I was thinking about originally, similar to Rolemaster's Mark system (they have 4 different marks of martial arts and to learn Mark 2, you have to have equal or greater skill in Mark 1, etc. And the attack charts max out at the different marks, so Mark 1 maxes on a roll of 90 or something, Mark 2 on 100, Mark 3 on 110, etc). So campaign rule it is. -shnar

Re: Requires another power limitation? I'm just trying to find game mechanics to force the players to buy the powers in-progression. Your STR example is a good one. You *have* to buy 15 STR to get 20 STR. You don't have to buy Force Field to get Force Wall. So I thought that maybe Limitations was the way to do that. I was envisioning a pool of spells at different levels (i.e. 10 or so "basic" spells, then a handful of "intermediate" that required X-pts in basic, and a handful of "advance" that required X-pts in intermediate, etc) that was enforced from the mechanics of the game (like you usually see in other systems) rather than the will of the GM... -shnar

Re: Requires another power limitation? So a Limitation has to have an affect in play? It can't be in limiting what the hero can buy? -shnar

Re: Requires another power limitation? True, however the "required points" I'm thinking wouldn't just be on any spells, but on some specific "basic" spells. Ones that players probably wouldn't buy anyways, and that's the limitation ("wasting" points on powers so they can learn the "good" ones). Without the limitation, why would a hero ever buy the mundane spells? Although, thinking of it a different way, rather than providing a cheaper cost to bigger spells, maybe the mundane spells offer better casting abilities, similar to what Markdoc was suggesting. Maybe it's not a limitation at all, but each X-points in spells adds a bonus to the spell casting roll? -shnar

Re: Requires another power limitation? I like that. Is that frowned on now-a-days? I was reviewing FH 5th Ed chapter on magic, and the part about armor and a wizard seemed like it would be "campaign rules" instead of an actual limitation on the spell (i.e. cannot cast while wearing metal -1/4 or something). Is it more HEROish to not make these limitations but make them campaign rules instead (with maybe new talents to surpass the established systems)? -shnar

Re: Requires another power limitation? That's kind of why I was looking for a limitation, so that characters that do the "proper" spell progression get a discount of sorts, but the prodigies that bypass the basics have to pay more. I'll take a look at that Grimoire and see if I like that and incorporate it in the campaign. -shnar

Is there a way for a power to require another power? I'm thinking magic, how many spells and abilities are learned in a specific order (i.e. must learn the Fire Control spell before learning the Fire Bolt spell, before learning the Fire Ball spell). Is there a way to enforce this in the game with a Limitation or something? I know I could just enforce it as a GM in my world, but that doesn't feel like the proper HERO way of doing things. Is there another way to do this? -shnar

Re: Avatar: The Last Airbender P.S. As an aside, I've updated my profile pic to what my Halloween Costume was last year

Re: Avatar: The Last Airbender I know this is an old thread, but I've been thinking about using Avatar as a way of getting into 6th Ed. Andrew, how far did you get on creating a HERO Avatar setting? Any info you can share, I'd love to have, get me started on my campaign. -shnar

Re: City of Heroes - Online Hero Game Yeah, almost all MMOs are doing this now, just leaving your toons in the DB, so if by chance you do come back, you can jump right back in (and pay the monthly fee again)... -shnar

Re: City of Heroes - Online Hero Game Why do this? I understand canceling your account, but why delete your characters? CoH will keep your characters in their DB for a *long* time, so you could come back on free weekends, or even in a couple years you might get that CoH bug and want to play again, your characters will be waiting for you... -shnar