hammersickle59

Re: Shrink/Growth/Density for items Yep. I'm using the Mass limitation on most items. Str Aid and concealment are both good ideas Thanks guys Dean

These powers seem well suited for people but not for items. I want to create some utility spells that temporarily modify items, so they are lighter or small etc.... How would you guys go about doing that? Transform is a bit expensive, unless thats considered cosmetic....but then i would have to make the duration....hmm....the heal back could be a comand word....maybe... Dean

I buy EB. It wont let me buy Damage shield till I buy Continous. I buy continous, now I buy damage shield. Ok, so when someone hits me, they take damage, but I want them to keep taking damage, after just hitting me once, like a normal continous would. It wont let me buy continous twice (meaning the HD program). Buying it once doesn't normally have that effect with Damage Shield. I buy sticky too, so that when other people touch the first guy, they get it. Sticky says that after someone moves out of an area effect attack that is sticky, they keep taking damage. If damage shield counts as aoe, then it works. If not, how do I build it? Dean

Re: Time Stop (its harder than it sounds) Thanks for everyones input. I've been working on a few versions with everyones advice in mind. The crux of the problem is this. In this game world, you pay for the ability to learn spells, not spells themselves. Since spells cost no character points, its hard to objectively say how powerful it is to research them faster. It would make it so you have a lot more spells available than other mages, but not more powerful spells (your still limited as far as AP caps). I have to make it not too cheap and not too powerful. One version costs 18 points (treating it as a research skill and doing it faster on the time chart), too cheap. One version cost 6000 points (slow down whole planet to 0 speed), too power powerful. I'll go with the mid version that cost 50 points (this was the EDM one) Dean

Re: Spell upgrades another spell Thanks Chris! Nic signature too. Hero system doubling....lol Dean

Me again. How would you guys build a spell that does this. "Upon casting this spell, the next spell you cast automatically gains the "difficult to dispel" advantage. I'm drawing blanks on how to build this. Note: I want all the point cost to be on this spell, not modifiying the receiving spell if possible. Thanks again, Dean

This is a utility version, nothing to do with combat. A mage is in his tower and wants to study for 6 months. But he doesn't want the world to progress 6 months. What builds can you guys help me with to either stop time from progressing, outside his tower/room (except he can still move around, eat, sleep, and study), or slow down the ratio of time (i.e. I experience 2 days of time, they experience 1). Thanks! Dean

Re: How to Build Delayable Absorption Hmm....I'm stumped. Can you absorb into a power framework? What if you absorb it into a VPP, with delayed return rate, and then later assign the VPP points how you want? I'm probably wrong here, but i'm just shooting. Dean

Re: Hero System: Design and Intent Interesting Post. I just want to point out that all gaming systems I can think of focus on Combat, not just Heroes. This is because gaming is about challenges and overcoming conflicts, and the biggest type of conflict is usually a fight. Also, you have to consider the origins of gaming. It started as wargames/battle re-enactment. There is a good book on that that one of my players bought me for my birthday oh so many years ago; The gamers bible. Dean

Re: Extra energy damage in HTH Thats guys! Lingering is what I needed. Dean

Re: Extra energy damage in HTH Does that really work though? Mechanically, they would still take damage every phase after you hit them once. Right? Remember, you have to make the HTH continous before you make it a continous charge. On a side note; how do i give someone "rep". I've never done that before. Dean

I want to create a spell that makes my hands "icy" and does additional cold damage with my HTH attacks. When I apply continous to HTH it makes it so after I hit, they keep taking damage, but I don't want that. I want the spell to stay up for say, 5 mins (but thats solved, I'll use continuing charges for that). I assume I have to buy an Energy Blast and link it to my HTH right? something like that. I'm stuck on the mechanics. Or maybe its a compound power? Thanks for all the help Dean

Re: Same magic system, different problem To tisuji: What we're discussing is sort of off topic. This thread wasn't addressing any balance issue. It was "how can I change this magic system so that taking limitations would help you make the spell more powerful in other ways" Right now, it cant do that. You can take 100 different limitations and still have no additional advantages over a power that took no limitations, because you both hit the AP ceiling and the real cost ceiling doesnt matter. In regards to the "balance" issue, I still think you misunderstand me. You said "lets say 4 pcs start off, 2 mages a fighter and a thief". I stated already, PC's cant be fighters or thiefs, only mages. This is the way they want it. The campaign setting is designed so that the people who have magic are ruling the nations and everyone else is beneath them. Your correct, a mage with 100 spells will be far more effective than a mage with 10. If both mages have been playing the same amount of time I would find it hard to believe that that could occur unless the GM allows it. Whenever there is a time jump to study magic, everyone would be taking that time jump and gaining a new spell. Unfortunately, It looks like I will be not using a VPP to represent a sphere of magic. Not because of a balance issue, but because I haven't found a good solution to the problem stated. Dean

Re: Same magic system, different problem i dont disagree and think it sounds like a good fit too. I was just throwing it in as an answer to why have lower pt spells, an easier skill roll to succeed. Which, to my way of thinking, makes "spells known" an even more important issue... one worthy of being "on the books" as opposed to being a role-playing handled function. the "cost" for a mage with "a selection of sp0ell including an offense or two, a defense and several movement power" which he can run all at once using "contining charges" ought to be much more than a similar mage who just has "an offense and a couple movement spells". The lack of defense will severly hinder the latter guy but he has no compensatingly lower cost. EXAMPLE: Two mage start out relatively equal. over 6 months of play, they gain 50 xp. mage 1 uses a lot of his time doing the rping stuff to gain new spells, at no xp cost, and during this time spends his xp on a variety of things like higher int and higher occult lore and maybe a magical item or two. mage 2 doesn't go in for much spell stuff but does spend his time doing socializing and making friends and such, improves his social skills with xp, buys new contacts, acquires wealth all of which cost xp. so now mage 1 has +50 xp of goodies AND new spells which were free, while mage 2 has +50 xp of goodies and, well, nothing else. playing in the same game, with similar performance, they now arrive at differeing levels of effectiveness in a complex point buy cost = effectiveness system. thats seems very counter productive. Which is why i dislike removing the cost for known spells. Ok so will rp focus in other areas also "earn you" bonuses in effectiveness that are accounted for "off the books". Take a mage a thief and a fighter who adventure together for six month. All gain some amount of xp and the mage spends his on stuff (new spells are free so stuff other than that.) The fighterspends his 50 xp on stuff. the thief spends his 50 xp on stuff. They all acquired some goodies in terms of items and friends etc... and on top of that the mage has, let speculate, taken his known spells from 10 to 30. What did the fighter do "off the books" that adds as much to him for free as this does to the mage? maybe its not 30 spells but maybe he went from a few fire spells to a force field and a flight spell and so now often, even usually, he enters combat with aerial capability and plate mail level defenses. What could ()and will) the fighter be doing while the mage "earns his new spells" so that his character remains comparable in effectiveness? Do you run adventures for the fighter and thief leaving the mage out "while he learns new spells" or are you giving the mage "downtime benefits" that accrue while the rest remain static? now one possibilty might well be to invent "downtime xp" where the fighter can "while the mage learns spells" rent himself out as a bodyguard and gets paid or the thief breaks into shops and steals stuff so that when the mage benefits from his "off the books" power up the others dont just have to be in stasis. the mage "earning" his off the books gains is fine as long as everyone else has a similar amount of "off the books learning opportunity but if it is one sided, it really kicks the balls out from under the whole cost = effectiveness reason behind doing the math entirely. Dang, didn't get the quote to work right. Below is my response. There is no "off the books" points really. A mage with 100 points in a VPP can learn any spell that is 100pts or less. He paid for that ahead of time. Comparing this version of a mage (the continous charges for durations) to another isn't valid in this setting, cause the other guy doesnt exist. Every person, NPC and PC, in this world would be using the same fundamental magic system rules. The only question of Imbalance would be for those NPC's that dont use magic, and as part of the setting, they're supposed to be weaker.

Re: Same magic system, different problem

Re: Same magic system, different problem In regards to the skill roll to switch powers at negs. I like the fact that the more powerful the spell, the harder it is to cast. In this case I would make them roll for casting a spell, not switching. I've mulling over wether or not to buy that off, and then have them buy "needs activation roll" for the spell, or just keep it as it is, since it almost perfectly fits. In regards to having an offense/defense/utitility up at the same time. Its a non issue. Duration spells will be using continous charges for their duration. Also, the certain lims not apply to vpps almost never applies in this case. Because they wont be creating the spells and they will spend lots of in character time to try and get a variety of spells. If they know some that are better in certain situations, then they earned it.

Re: Same magic system, different problem Yes, I spent a few hours last night pouring over those systems. I coudln't find the answer I was looking for. In one system he had this rule (Wizardry I think) in which the mages could go 3x above the normal pool limit in terms of real cost but not AP cost. I sort of need that except for AP not real cost. But that would be a big arbitrary move, so I'm looking for other solutions. Dean

Ok. A certain sphere of magic, say necromancy, is created using a VPP (limited class, necromancy). Can change slots as a zero phase action. Also has a -1/2 conditional limitation, can only use spells that character has found in character. The problem is this. When creating spells for this VPP, it is pointless to take Limitations. Since the character is only ever casting one spell at a time, the spell never has to share the pool with other spells. The cap for the spell is the active point cost, real cost doesn't even matter (cause it cant go above AP cost). No matter how many limitations you add to the spell, it wont help the AP cost go down. I don't like that feel. I want to be able to make the spell more powerful by giving it limitations. This will remain a problem at the higher end also. With a 200 point pool, you cap a spell at 200 AP. It doesn't matter that the real cost is 30 points, so why even bother with limitations. Any solutions? Dean

Re: Duration spells inside of VPP Continuing charges....hmm....I'll have to look into that. But what if the spell is supposed to last a few days. Woudn't that be a whole mess load of charges? (1 charge per phase right?) by the way KS, I sent you a message about meeting Dean

Me again. Still dealing with the magic system. FRED says I can use Uncontrolled on a power to keep the power working even after I switch points in the VPP to something else. Furthermore it states that if all I want to do is make the spell last some amount of time, say "1 hour" or whatever, then I can attach a Uncontrolled to it at +0. I dont like the feel of how thats handled though. I want to create spells, using a VPP, and that spell to have a set duration. But I want the duration to be factored into the point cost of the spell. 10 minutes should cost less than 10 days. Then I want to cast a different spell with the VPP and the first spell not drop until its duration is up. I have a feeling there is an obvious answer to this one. Dean

Re: Magic System Oh Crap! lol. I didn't even see that offer. I must have been tired when I read the post. It's towards the bottom so I thought it was part of his signature. That's definitely a good idea. I'll contact him (after I figure out how to send a member a personal message). Dean

Re: Magic System Thanks for the help everyone. I spent some time reading most of Killer Shrikes Magic System stuff (thanks to the first poster). I've nailed down what I wanted. Dean

Hi guys, its been a long time since I've been on the forums. I need help/advice on how to build a certain magic system. The crux of the problem is this. Mages will be able to learn "spells" (that are predefined and written by me) in the game for no cost. Just study time. However, before they learn the spell they need to have enough points in the associated "sphere of magic". So they have to pay for that. How would you best represent that? A variable power pool with a disadvantage that says "Can only use spells learned in game?" What if they learn a "flight" spell that lasts one hour and then they want to cast something in the same sphere? Dont they need to have the VPP points for both? or is there a way around that? (besides just forcing them to dump more points into VPP) The player will eventually be dealing with having a hundred different spells. Most arent in effect at the same time but some might be. What power framwork best handles this? Are there other disadvantages that apply to this idea that i'm forgetting? Forgive my foggyness, its been years since I played. Dean

I should be able to reduce my DCV for 5pts each right? (down to zero). I want to do this in order to represent that he's easier to hit because of his size. I dont like the method of the Physical Disadvantage covering that issue. The only other option I saw in the book was through negative CSL's but I couldnt figure out how to apply that; not using HD anyways. HD wont allow me to use negative CSL's on me and I get points for it. Advice?

Can you perform a zero phase action and then hold your entire phase? You would think you can since you can perform a half phase then hold a half phase. Further more...can you do this? Speed 4 (3,6,9,12) Phase 12 - Perform Zero Phase, hold entire phase Phase 1 - Perform zero phase, hold entire phase phase 2 - perform full phase phase 3 - perform full phase I think you can do this.....thoughts? its actually not that powerful considering that zero phase actions are never attack actions.