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MrKinister

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Everything posted by MrKinister

  1. In my observations, fantasy is more "black and white". It is easy to say, "Orcs are evil", and then you proceed to slaughter the entire tribe, no moral, ethical, or any type of, quandary or fallout. Fantasy also carries the old medieval romanticism of the "shining knight" and the "damsel in distress". Admittedly, fantasy is "fantastic", with wonder and discovery aplenty.
  2. The link to your game takes me a "page not found" page. Have you perhaps set it to private?
  3. You don't need to pay for it. The client is a free download. And there are so many open public servers, you can easily squeeze a dozen people into one of them and it will only barely register since the system is so bandwidth-efficient.
  4. I'd be interested in a Fantasy Hero game. I've been looking for something that might fit me for a while. Do you have a particular schedule in mind? Bluesguy: Have you tried TeamSpeak? It is takes very little bandwidth, you can access open servers easily (which don't require paying for them) and the sound quality is high.
  5. Hello Steph, I would certainly be looking for a GM. Would you be interested in running a Fantasy Hero game? You have at least three players here. That would make for a fine party. Keep us posted. =)
  6. Anyone running a Fantasy Hero game online looking for one more player?
  7. I like your idea of using the magic roll, taking the doubles, and then using the third die to determine how far off the norm the spell went. Brilliant. =)
  8. Interesting thoughts... I would recommend the following ideas: First, consider that in 3D6 the range of divergence from the bell curve's apex (11 or less) is pretty low. +/- 3 already makes a huge difference. You'll want to consider that when assigning chance of failure. Here's a simple table that shows you what the chances are of rolling a specific number on a single throw of 3D6. This is what measures your difficulty. It's noteworthy to see that trying to roll 14- is already at 90% chance of success, while 8- is at 25% chance of success. This is why I believe your +4/-4 may be too far off the range for minimum results. You'd very rarely, if at all, see the effects. 6- : 9.26% 7- : 16.20% 8- : 25.93% 9- : 37.50% 10- : 50.00% 11- : 62.50% 12- : 74.07% 13- : 83.80% 14- : 90.74% 15- : 95.37% The rest of the ideas I am making up on the spot. Use or modify at your discretion/heart's desire: A. I would suggest a fixed magic roll threshold number, based on how hard you want the control to be. This would be based on the typical -1 to skill roll for every 10 active points in a spell. For Example: Small spells, with only 10 or 20 Active Points, would only warrant a -1 or -2 to their rolls. Let's say, for the sake of the example, you have set your fixed failure roll at 14-. For these easy spells, the final success rolls would fall into the 13- or 12- range. That is easily doable, in the 83% and 74% success chance range. That's pretty good, since these are easy to moderate spells. I am imagining that these sorts of spells would rarely fail, or if they do, would have moderate consequences. The higher the spell's power, the harder it will be to make that success roll. Spells at 30 AP have an 11- or less chance, spells at 40 AP have 10- chance, and so on. B. Assign your difficulty based on your fixed threshold roll. 14- seems good to me for a common system with powers in the 40 AP range as strong, anything above it as very powerful. (60 AP spells in Fantasy Hero are pretty strong, in my opinion). You can lower the fixed threshold number by 1 or 2, to 13- or 12-, but you'll be making casting spells very hard, meaning that it will be easier to get failure results instead of success results. Raise it if you want to make casting spells easier. C. If you want to reflect different skills between casters, you can have them buy pluses to roll on the casting skill. Because magic is supposed to be uncontrollable, I suggest you make those pluses be very expensive, reflecting either great study, or mastery of a very difficult subject. I would recommend 10 points for each +1 to the skill. It's enough to give any player good pause, and have them see it as a significant investment. You can make it higher or lower depending on how hard you feel it should be. Of course, perhaps in your game world it is not possible, so players may never be able to get it on their own... D. ... which leads to the idea that perhaps such a thing is possible but with magical items that grant the user temporary bonuses of +1 or +2, either by charges, limited uses per day, or which ever way you feel this ought to be handled, but not unlimited. E. Finally, the ranges of failure and success side effects need to reflect your dice probabilities. I would recommend the following: Difference by 1: additional cosmetic effects or very minor side effects, nothing that will actually change the result Difference by 2: small side effects, perhaps spell power alteration by 25%. Difference by 3: moderate side effects, perhaps spell power alteration by 50%. Difference by 4: strong side effects, perhaps spell power alteration by 75%. Difference by 5 or more: catastrophic/extraordinary side effects, 100% spell alteration, GM fiat Note that difference of 1 is just cosmetic (extra sparks, colors, wild flowers, what have you). A difference of 3 already starts to get dangerous, and a 5 or more is utter ruin or surprise, where the character will probably be looking at his own fireball straight in his face, a rain of fire, or whatever you feel is appropriate. Based on the chances given in the previous table, you can make the results weaker or stronger if you shift the numbers up or down by 1, maybe 2 if you'd like. This difference does not have to be the same on the failure and success rate. You can shift the failure down and the success up higher if you wish to lessen both effects, or only success down if you want to see more "extra effects" if a caster succeeds. You can achieve the same effect by changing the casting roll penalty by a different Active Point threshold, like -1 per 8 AP, or -1 per 5 AP to make it harder, or make it easier by raising it to -1 per 12 AP, or -1 per 15 AP, your choice depending on how powerful you want to make your mages. So, those are the ideas that came to mind. Feel free to cherry pick them, rework them, what have you. I still think that the base numbers I quoted you in the example will work wonders for your "unruly magic power" system, in that you will get easy to manage spells at a lower AP level, and hard to manage spells at a higher AP level, without things getting out of hand. You'd see a lot more small or medium effects, because it is easy to get those in the smaller range, and very few huge effects because it is hard to roll those numbers. But in general, you'd be seeing some sort of effect (good or bad) very often. This would reflect a broad unpredictability in the magic stream. (Remember not to cross them.) Consider the dice probability table to see how frequently you'd like to see success and failure based on different casting rolls, and then pick spots for where you think it would reflect your desired magic feel. Adjust as necessary. =)
  9. Octomom? All I have to say is: Rapid Fire: 8 shots!
  10. Well, as the GM, you are the one in charge of pricing the system. But a -1 sounds ok to me. I would give it a -3/4, which is the -1/2 for 8 charges, and then borrow the 'Unified Power' -1/4 concept to signify that if you spend a charge on one power, then all other powers lose a charge as well. (This is for instances when you are NOT using a Multipower, which has its own costs mechanics on the pool when using charges.) This way, it would be based on the number of charges you get, plus the -1/4 for "Shared Charges".
  11. Hah, what an interesting idea. I would stat out the book with one power and two effects: 1. Transformation Of course you need this. You will change a character permanently. 2. Effects: a) Psychological Limitation: Loves The Beer, will do anything to keep drinking it b] Dependence: Needs the beer, will do anything to keep drinking it. How you can work these two out I leave up to you, but since it is a permanent effect, it will mostly likely involve GM fiat. So, I agree with the MacGuffin option. Just like artifacts, it's more of a concept than an actual thing. =) As for the game atmosphere, I agree, you can do it anyway you want. I think it will depend on your players, or whoever the protagonists are. If the people looking for the beer are there to have a good time, then it can be funny or slapstick or what have you. If they are more serious, then the whole thing can take on conspiratorial overtones, with plots within plots within plots. As far as it being enjoyable, that will depend on your players. If they like that stuff, heck yeah, they will jump at it. But if they don't, if they would rather do some hack & slash, or perhaps simple episodic A-B-C quests, then a deep level of political intrigue and power mongering may not interest them at all. How your players enjoy it, or what they enjoy, does not in any way diminish the merit of the idea. =)
  12. If you are looking for weapon speed, I'd say, you can get the thief Lighting Reflexes with his daggers, to go first maybe at DEX 20 or so. You then get him Two-Weapon Fighting and Rapid Attack, and a few combat skill levels with daggers to offset the multiple attack, and he could do something sneaky like running up to the barbarian before he can attack, and strike him two or three times ... and hopefully hit. Of course, the inevitable counter attack will follow, so play defensive. This method however, describes a trained combatant who is masterfully practiced at using her daggers. It is not so much weapon speed, but personal training in using a weapon very fast. It is entirely possible for the barbarian to be just as good.
  13. Hello, I have a curious question: one of my new players brought up the idea that foci are always available to his character, and that when "transforming" into the super character, the foci are just present and ready. This would go so far as them "suddenly appearing" into his hands (for weapons), or worn on his body (for armor), as needed. I've never played it that way. I always made sure the characters carried their foci with them, in one way or another. In this way, when changing to his super hero persona, he would need to make sure the foci were close-by so he could use them. Now, I understand this can be easily adjudicated with a GM ruling, but I wanted to see if I missed something in the rules, or if this particular question had already been answered and established. Thanks.
  14. That is actually correct. You can, however, buy regular bonuses to attack ("combat skill levels"), and restrict them to be used for blocking only. The drawback to that is that you have to pick a broad enough level of attacks with it, like "All Melee Attacks", which will make it rather expensive. Unless you don't mind being able to block for others with a very limited set of weapons or attacks.
  15. And, of course, Electric Body: Desolidification into "electric energy".
  16. Had a single "fluke" roll: 11 6s in a 14D6 normal attack roll. Huge amounts of stun. We were playing with "luck" at the time, where you have the option of re-rolling a roll for your luck point. Of course he said, "roll again". =)
  17. Hmm... this usually doesn't come up for me. I always spend a few points to buy my character's wealth up, so he can have 1) plenty of money in case of emergency, 2) plenty of free time to do his heroing, because he doesn't have to hold down a 9 to 5 job. Wealth! It's cheap! =D
  18. Nice... Samurai Jack "Jump Good". =)
  19. Remember, you can always buy up the Multipower's pool up to the point where you can have all the spells you want up at the same time. (Although the cost would be prohibitive, and it would be a silly idea.) For my magic system I have a limit on the multipower pool that is based on one of several stats. For example, for mages, the maximum pool points are based on their INT x 3. At max racial INT (say, 20), their max pool cost tops off at 60. Raising their INT in any way (pay double for above racial max, or use permanent magics or items) also allows them to raise their pool points. But it gets expensive. This way I keep taps on the maximum AP/DC for spells, and make those INT raising items (and the poeple who use them) valuable and rare.
  20. The military, with its vast funding machine, would be the first ones to try it out/order it in quantity/field test it effectively in real conditions. After mass manufacture, it would trickle down to regular law enforcement/private use, since the cost would come down to something affordable. At the same time, those who now feel they need to "overcome" this protection, would unwittingly create a new arms race to develop weapons that could bypass this protection. Perhaps heat or electricity weapons. It would depend on the weave's chemical and material properties. Ballistic impact being its high point, perhaps things like concussion and pressure waves would be useful (think: grenades) to disrupt internal organs. That would also be useful to attempt to hit non-protected areas (think: shrapnel) in the arms and legs. Automatic shotguns? The heads would likely already wear helmets.
  21. Having run Fantasy Hero for a long time, I wanted to add just a bit of detail on combat the way I see it, specially in the statistical differences between D&D and Hero System for Fantasy. (I think everyone else already did a good job of giving you the differences in the possibilities of the system.) In D&D the measure of a character's survivability is quite often measured in hit points and armor class. You can take more blows if you have more hit points, and you don't take any damage if they can't hit you because of your armor class. In Fantasy Hero (FH) there is something like that, but it scales differently. The hero system is based on skills and powers, and since FH is not super-heroic, it is more focused on skills. The more skilled you are, the more effect you have in battle. I will simplify things for the sake of the examples. Hit Points: Your average city folk or rural folk will have perhaps 5 to 8 BODY points, which represents how much damage they can take before going unconscious. They die when their BODY score goes into full negative (in this example, -5 to -8). Your average starting PC will have 10 BODY, your tough warriors may have 15 or 18 BODY. (That's a lot of BODY in FH, at least in my games.) Now, consider that a heavy weapon will do 2D6 BODY damage, and a well built warrior will easily increase that to 3D6, perhaps more. A good sword strike then will possibly hit you for 6 to 9 BODY, maybe more, not including criticals, if you are using those. So, how do you avoid that damage in FH? You don't get hit. How do you not get hit? Combat in FH is opposed skills. If you have a higher defensive skill than your opponent's offensive skill, it will be easy for you avoid the damage altogether. Just to give you an idea, evenly skilled combatants hit each other on an 11 or less on 3D6 (which is the system's "to-hit" roll). 11 or less is pretty average for 3D6, or about 62.5%. Now, if you separate the numbers by one, 11 vs 10 , your numbers skew to 50% to hit for the lower skill, 74% to hit for higher skill. Skew them by two, 11 vs 9, and you have 37% for the low number, and 83% for the high number. By three it gets worse: 12 vs 9, or 11 vs 8, or any other combination, the difference being three: 26% for the low number, and 90% for the high number. Skill makes a significant difference in how you survive in battle in FH. Armor: Now, sooner or later, you are going to get hit. So, how do you prevent actual damage: you use armor. In D&D, armor prevents damage by postulating that instead of having hit a vulnerable part, an attack hits the protection, so no damage happens if your AC defends you. In FH, armor mitigates damage by reducing the total damage points taken by the armor's defense rating. The heavier the armor, the higher the rating. For example, leather has a DEF rating of 3, while chain mail has 5, and heavy plate has 8. You can add variations to that by changing the materials, or piling on more armor layers, but the system has an encumbrance method that will slow you down and make you vulnerable if you wear too much. So, a lightly armored warrior would have leather and some chain; a heavy warrior, some chain and plate; and a tank just lots of heavy plate. So, with a heavy weapon, 2D6 damage, you get an average of 7 point of damage. With leather you would only take 4 BODY, with chain 2 BODY, and with plate you would take no BODY damage. The heavier the armor, the less damage you take. Put it all together, and you can get combinations of skilled, fast warriors with low armor but great defensive scores, or perhaps slow lumbering warriors with much armor, but relatively little skill (relying on their armor to mitigate damage), or anywhere in between. The difference between a "starting level" character and a "high level" character then is not in the hit points, but in the skills. Your low level characters may have perhaps 4 to 6 points on offensive/defensive skills with some armor on them. Your high level characters may have values in the 7 to 10 range, with some armor on them. Your elite characters may easily go into the 11 to 13 or higher range, with some armor on them, but that depends on your GM. As you may imagine, if you have, say, a offensive/defensive skill of 12, and you are surrounded by low level opponents who have offensive/defensive values of 6 (which is good for your average city guard, or savage orc), they will need a 5 or less to hit you (4.6% chance), while you will only need a 17 or less (99.5% chance) to hit them. Notice, that the guard or the orcs may only have 6 to 8 BODY, while your high level PC may have only 12. The characters are mortal, no matter what. The difference is made by the skill level. So, how do you get these skills? Character points. It's how you build FH characters. You buy stats and skills and special talents with character points. Low level characters may have only 50 points to buy their skills, enough to get moderate training and some special talents. Your regular FH characters will have 175 points to deck themselves out with superb battle training and a plethora of talents and specialized combat maneuvers that will make them both lethal and durable in a fight. This is why FH characters are often measured as "7th Level Characters" in D&D. They have the "skill equivalent" to affect the battlefield like 7th level characters. But note, they may still just have 10 BODY. =) Thus ends my discourse of Hero System combat analysis in FH. It helps to understand this part of the numbers so you can measure how D&D compares to Fantasy Hero, and how to think of what makes a skilled warrior vs an untrained stripling. There are, of course, many other details, including STUN (which may knock a character unconscious long before they reach a state of "dying"), SPEED, which measure how often you act compared to others (you may be able to attack twice, or thrice, or more, in the same time it takes your opponent to strike just once), and once you throw in magic things can change drastically for your "high level PCs", who may get hit no matter what their skill level is. Hope this helps to give you more of a perspective on the system. =)
  22. Well, I think in the end, you, as the GM, can just create a special house rule that says (something like) this: "Advantage: Damage cannot be healed by magical means - +1" This may double the cost of your weapon attacks, but you can always just say only a fraction of the attack works this way. "Making rules up: the Ultimate GM prerogative!" =D
  23. How about a long-term BOD drain that heals naturally at the character's REC rate? You can add it as a secondary (linked) power to the whatever weapon was being used.
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