Drell

Hey folks, I'm needing some good ideas for shadow-based powers for a sneak-thief-assassin type character. I have a number already, but would love to hear any and all ideas. Couple examples I have already are: Teleportation - Only from shadow to shadow RKA's - Indirect (can fire an arrow into a shadow, and have it come out from another) Please, throw me some ideas - anything and everything is welcome!!! Thanks folks!

Re: Having trouble with a Power Build - Herogame Fantasy Forum Gurus GO!!!

Re: Having trouble with a Power Build - Herogame Fantasy Forum Gurus GO!!! Oh yes, the character can do plenty with the fabricated body - move, attack, interact with the world, all of it - it's essentially an actual body that is theirs, just made out of random material. However, the bodies--depending on what they formed out of--might have slightly to greatly different characteristics/powers, etc. Like a body that formed out of stone & earth might be able to take more of a hit than one that formed out of mud & water, but it would be much slower; one made of wood & underbrush might be more susceptible to fire attacks than one made of clay, etc. Eventually, way down the line, the idea is that the character might toss away their own body, and just be a spirit-form that creates different bodies to inhabit, and could make them out of just about anything from water to fire, to light to magical essence, bla bla-bla bla-bla. It's almost like the character would need a repertoir of Golem-like body templates to work from whenever forming a body to inhabit. I dig the Duplication + Teleport idea - that very well may be the ticket. The last write-up I was tinkering with involved Desolid with a host of limitations, along with a VPP for the purposes of Summoning bodies which the character would then possess. Thanks!

Hey folks, need some help here with a power build. Buddy of mine is trying to put this character together, and we're having some trouble with putting it together. Here's more or less how it's supposed to go: 1) Character can leave his body in the fashion of the Desolidification / leaving the body behind option, and then either uses Clairsentience to see a far away location that will be their destination, or travels there in their spirit form. 2) Once the Character chooses the location they want to go to, a body begins to form out of whatever material is in the locale, which they will inhabit (body could be a collection of underbrush & dead leaves/vines, or rocks & dirt, water, mud - really whatever is in the area). 3) After the body is formed, the character's spirit is transported to the new body, which the character can then inhabit, or possess, leaving their Original Body behind. 4) The new body is more or less a vehicle for the character's spirit - if the body is damaged, it's only damage to the body; if it's "killed", the character finds themselves without a body, and they are whisked back to their original body - hurting the created bodies they create only damages the body - it doesn't hurt the character whatsoever - although attacks that work vs. the spirit or mind would still work, since the spirit and mind of the character is there. So - the Clairsentience bit is easy enough, we got that. We also got the leaving of the body - just some Desolidification & leaving the body behind limitation - Easy done. It's really the forming of the body we're having a bit of trouble with - we've thought Summons, possibly a VPP only for the creation of the bodies, etc., but we're not sure. Can't really nail that one down. Suggestions?

Re: Hero Philosophy - SPEED That's absolutely brilliant. Great idea!

Hey there folks - looking to get some advice and/or write-ups of a power for a game I'm running. Long story short there's a dragon in my world that, among several other breath-weapon attacks, has one that produces a number of small cyclones that move around uncontrolled for a minute or so after the power's initially used, thrashing whatever is in the way. The AP maxima for the power is 150 pts., and I was thinking that the number of little tornadoes its' breath weapon creates is 3-5. I have a few different versions of it written up currently, but would love to know what everyone else would use...

Re: how do you like your fantasy games I dig very low power nitty-gritty that eventually (over the course of a few years' worth of campaigning) becomes absurdly demigod-like high fantasy. If done right, it's a blast.

Re: Music during sessions? Unless the industrial music is very ambient, which more than half of NIN's "Ghosts" is.

Re: Odd Swords -- Real or Fantasy? They're definitely fantasy blades, but whether or not they're useless in a melee depends on what from & how they're made, and whether or not the person using them knows how to use a blade. For the most part, someone who has actual, real edge-awareness and makes a point to study the weapon can use it in an effective way, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's more or less effective than weapons that have existed for centuries. As the blade is there, in that picture, I'd say for the most part it's pretty flimsy. I'm a bladesmith (primarily knives), have made the study of blade steel an important part of my life, and can tell you that (most) factory-pressed 440 stainless steel never sees a heat treatment in its life, and because of that it's primarily decoration. It could be heat treated properly and be fairly lethal, but such steel isn't good for a sword - heat treated or not. Stainless steel in any length longer than a big knife (9" or so) reaches its shock point, where if you were to harang it into something, or defend a sword blow using the thing, it would break - IF it were heat treated. If not it'll just bend and fill up with gouges.

Re: [Killershrike.com] Reorganized Domain Packages Agreed. Very cool.

Re: [Killershrike.com] Reorganized Domain Packages Fair enough.

Re: Music during sessions? To be honest, both versions work well in their own ways. The Goldsmith version is just fantasy all the way around, and the Tangerine Dream version has a kind of melancholy, dream-like quality to it. Although, when using the Tangerine Dream version of the Soundtrack, I'd recommend skipping a track or two - like "Love by The Sun" which is the band actually playing a song - it's pretty cheeserific, and can ruin the mood set by the rest of the soundtrack.

Re: [Killershrike.com] Reorganized Domain Packages Dude...that's just pimp. I might have to get creative and find some strange, obscure Domain just to see how long it takes you to make it - it took you all of two hours to put this one up, and that's just disgusting. So awesome... Alrighty, how about Wrath? Might be a little more difficult because I don't know that all the spells under it are on your site, but it's a cool Domain. The Domain & Spells are out of the Book of Exalted Deeds just for reference (the book of Overpowered Cheesiness, but this Domain is one of the things that's just a cool idea).

Re: New(ish) Magic System - Critique Me! I actually do want powerful mages to be able to cast magic in dead areas - the idea of the characters having the END Reserve is that they are able to draw in & hold amounts of magical energy themselves, and would be able to cast (even though it's only a little bit) when entering a dead space. Eventually, casters who use this system and who were also knowledgable in astronomy (or whatever one chooses to have affect the waxing & waning of power from area to area) could undergo a series of rituals to, essentially, make a dragontail (astrological term that is basically like a leyline between the celestial bodies) node within themselves or a magic item, which would give them a permanent REC (albeit a small one at first, and much larger as they become more knowledgable & undergo more rituals) for their END reserve. But basically, I want for my players to know they're going into the mouth of the beast where their magic is going to be 100% limited, and then put them through the ringer knowing that they can only rely on their magic for so long. My hope with this is that they'll be forced to really use their heads & come up with some fresh solutions to dealing with the mess they walked into. I love your idea though - I had only briefly considered going that way when I was first putting this together, but now that I've read over what you wrote, an all new idea popped up: an amalgamation of both. I think, for my game, certain areas will have pockets of END that casters of this type can draw upon in addition to the amount of magical energy they store in their own body/aura/whatever. It really only makes sense since I was already creating dinky to overly-powerful magic items that had additional END Reserves for casters of this type built into them. This way these casters can roll into an area and be even more empowered than usual, and if the players get used to areas having both REC and END, much less one or the other, then it will hurt all the more when they find themselves all on their own in a dead area.

Re: [Killershrike.com] Reorganized Domain Packages One domain I would LOVE to see your take on, KS, would be the Decay Domain. Actually, if you're familiar with the Dark Sun class, Defiler, I'd like to know how you would convert the class over to hero system rules. If you aren't familiar, here's the general idea: A basic wizard or sorcerer that greatly augment their spells by razing the planet of life energy. They cast a spell, and there's a swath of dead land around them afterward where nothing can grow for decades or longer - HATED by druids. Of course the ability to raze the world for extra power is an option they choose - they don't have to do it. More powerful defilers drain levels away from people caught within their razing radius, and are able to raze even larger areas to empower their magic all the more. What do you think KS?

Re: Music during sessions? I think music during sessions can be extremely important, so long as everyone allows it to be. For the fantasy world I've been running on and off for the last 15 years (and am about to start running another era within it very soon) I actually have a personal soundtrack for it. A few good soundtracks in general that I would recommend any day of the week would be: Legend (has lots of very ambient sounds, calming, yet VERY fantasy) Conan The Barbarian (this one should just be a given!) Dune (this soundtrack is soooo underrated, it's so good it's absurd) Bram Stoker's Dracula (great for a slightly darker, tragic-feeling game) 300 (has a very epic feel, lots of intense battle music) Eaters of The Dead (The 13th Warrior) (mixing a Northern viking feel with arabic instruments - very cool for games where the characters are meeting strange & foreign people) Dawn of The Dead (the 2004 Musical Score - NOT the pop Soundtrack) (absurrrrdly good for scenes of desperation in a game) Gladiator (excellent all-around soundtrack) The Fountain (very ambient music - excellent for tragic scenes) Also, I'd recommend "Ghosts" by Nine Inch Nails - it's 40+ instrumental/electronic songs with no lyrics, which are all very well done. There's something in there for every genre.

Re: New(ish) Magic System - Critique Me! Well, when I wrote the first post earlier I wrote it in such a way that it was generic enough to be used in anyone's world. In my world, it works a little differently because the actual setting itself is rather wonky. Basically, in my world, depending on the positions of the moons, the planets, and their various aspects to each other as well as the world itself, not only do certain spellcasters' magical power wane and wax, but the power an area has wanes and waxes as well. (Different forms of diviniation - Astrology in particular - are a powerful thing in my world, and if one has a high enough skill in it they might just be able to find the pattern of how the different celestial bodies affects the world, and thus be able to predict when & where great magical power will rise up). So, because the power an area has waxes & wanes just as the spellcasters own power, it's difficult to just find a powerful place and sit there like King Mage. However, it does make for good myths within the world itself about areas that are innately powerful on a grand scale... I dig the idea about "coloring" the END certain areas gives you so that it functions better for certain things and not quite as good for others - I'm going to give that some thought 'cause that's just a cool idea all around. About magic items, well - this system is just one in a handful of different systems for using magic. I have an entirely different system for crafting magical items. The thing with my world - in order to be able to cast magic a character has to purchase a custom Talent called Moontouched, which allows them to harness and wield magical power, as well as giving them a Magic Skill Roll that is Characteristic-Based. The exact Characteristic depends on what the caster wants to do/be - for example, the world as a whole doesn't recognize the difference between someone who's like a Psionic and someone who tosses arcane energy around, and both are considered casters and can use the same systems. The difference would be that the Psionic would use EGO for their Magic Skill Roll, while the arcane shmoe would use INT. Other "casters", such as someone who bases all their magic around shapeshifting (or shapeshifting parts of their bodies into different things at the same time) could use CON. Really just depends on the Special Effect they're going for. But anyway - crafting magic items in my world has its own system that anyone with the appropriate skills can do - the appropriate skills being a Magic Skill Roll (which is given solely through the Moontouched talent), and Artificing, which gives the character a general knowledge on what materials are good for containing magic, how to craft the objects themselves, and how to properly infuse them once the object is ready. The crafting system itself doesn't depend upon spellcasting systems to function, it's just its own thing.

Re: New(ish) Magic System - Critique Me! I dig the suggestions - it actually answers a couple problems I saw down the road. In my case, the character I was putting this together for isn't always going to be totally at the mercy of their environment for REC, and would eventually gain a REC score for their END Reserve - letting them use the lesser REC between their own REC score, or the REC score of the environment can take care of that. I also dig the idea of a caster being able to, over time, change an area (their grove, church, tower, sanctum - whatever's appropriate) so that they personally recover more END for their VPP's END Reserve quicker (or in some cases could just make an area augmented magically for everyone in general). Cool cool. Thanks Shadow!

Hey there folks - here's yet another magic system open for critique & comments. I took my queue's from Killer Shrike as well as the 5th ed. Fantasy Hero Book, but it is, of course, altered. The core idea behind this system is that some spellcasters draw their power from their surroundings; that the land itself holds magic, and that the overall intensity of magic waxes & wanes with the cycles of the moon (or in the case of some worlds - moons). Other things can affect the intensity as well - such as other celestial events like eclipses, passing comets, planetary alignments etc., but also a character using this system who's a necromancer, for example, might have their spells augmented when in a cemetery or burial mound, while a druid would be more powerful when in a sacred grove, etc. Essentially, the character purchases a VPP setup very much like one of Killer Shrike's Prepared Casting Models, with a -0 restriction that all powers used in the VPP MUST cost Endurance. Then the character purchases an END Reserve of 1/3rd the total Active Points in the VPP (not counting control cost), with 0 Recovery. The END Reserve represents the character's ability to tap & store magical energies for use, which the VPP feeds directly from. The END Reserve doesn't have a Recovery of its own because it uses the Recovery score of the area they're in. One area may have a Recovery of 4, while another may have a 2, a 20, a 5/segment, 10/minute, or none at all - it completely depends upon what the GM decides an area has. Unlike the base model from Killer Shrike's site, spells cast through this system do not have to have the 1 Charge limitation (but can if the Player wants). The idea here is that a character can "memorize", or set what spells they have for the day (still using the Real Points' worth of spells = 3 x the VPP's Active Pool), and they can cast those spells as much & as often as they like, so long as they have the END to do so. With an END Reserve Maximum of 1/3rd the size of the VPP, running out of END can be easy to do if the character's in an area with a low REC. However, the character has the option of sacrificing STUN and/or BODY to replenish their END Reserve. For every 1 BODY, or 4 STUN sacrificed, the character's END Reserve recieves 3 END. BODY and STUN sacrificed can only heal back naturally. Characters who become exceptionally adept at casting in this method, or who become more adept at harnessing & storing magic within themselves (or within their aura, or staff, or whatever the Special Effect happens to be) might be allowed to purchase Reduced Endurance 1/2 for certain spells, or even for the entire VPP overall, which can essentially double their overall casting efficiency. Some options for the environment which casters of this type draw their power from are: - X Recovery at normal rate, per phase, per segment, per minute, per 5 minutes, etc. - Increased END Cost (as per the Power Limitation) - +Xd6 AID to PC's VPP - +Xd6 Suppress to PC's VPP etc. Again, what the environment does or doesn't do for the character is totally up to the GM to decide. If the character was born during a certain phase of the moon, their ability to cast might be enhanced when the moon is in that phase again while similar casters are unaffected. Perhaps the PC finds their way to an area where the border between the real world and the Abyss is thin - the Abyss pulling magical energy into itself from the real world like water into a drain, and the area not only has a 0 REC statistic, but acts as Xd6 Drain END (affecting only Magical END Reserves). Perhaps a Divine Cleric-type caster's spells are all at 1/2 END Cost when on holy ground of their particular god, or a Druid's powers are augmented when in a sanctified grove, whereas it would be doubled, tripled, or even worse when the Cleric is on unholy ground, or if the Druid enters an area that's been razed by a Defiler. It really depends on the flavor of the game, and what the character is. Let the imagination go crazy! Anyway, let me know what you all think!

Re: Half-Golem? Oh jeez...that was so bad. lol

Re: Half-Golem? Well, I've been playing hero system for 16 years, and while I'm still no expert, it's awesome to find someone with an incredible grasp on all parts of the system--and you put it out there for others to use to boot! Very cool to find answers to those strange, obscure questions.

Re: Half-Golem?

Re: Half-Golem? Well, long story short - the game I'm about to be running is taking place in an era of my world that would be inbetween two other games I've run before. I already have planned more or less what and who I want the PC's to be like / turn into by the end of the game (which is always fun to get Players to play their characters into the situations I've built that will put them in these places - it's tricky, but they have a blast as long as they think it was all their own choices ). In other words, I have to work extra hard to make sure certain things go certain ways, because I've already run games that take place later, and in those games this one would be ancient history. So while many details are lost (like what characters looked like, what they actually were like vs. what myth has built them up to be, etc.) there are certain events that occur, and things that happen that are...well - in those future games - historical fact, and I have to subtly push & pull everything so that it all fits together. In this particular character's case - my friend wanted to play an Artificer-type character, making scads of different magical items and using them like a gadgeteer and getting his magical effects in that way rather than casting, and he also wanted to be a golem crafter (you know, so he could have a big brick to hide behind while throwing bolts from wands & the like). That's all fine and good, however, I'm needing him to--eventually--have a big loss of humanity, and also at the same time present him with a moment of loss & downfall (which he will then either have to pick himself up from, or give in to the loss). This would be where he gets horribly mangled. Now, the way golems & constructs in general work in my world, in order to be animate it requires an amount of life-essence, spirit, a shred of soul, whatever you'd like to call it. So, when he gets all bashed up and maimed, he's going to be so far gone & comatose that (for story purposes) he's going to find his consciousness within the golem, looking down on his own muffed-up body. Knowing that once his body dies the golem dies, he'll be able to use all this knowledge he's gained previous that he had no particular use for in order to operate on his own body & hopefully save his own life. He'll just have some problems from then on he'll have to work on - like no fine manipulation (which sucks if you're an Artificer), loss of humanity, etc. It's just one in a long series of terrible things I have planned for him.

Re: Half-Golem? Good grief... Your site never ceases to amaze me. If you don't mind me asking - how many hours (roughly) do you have put into all the stuff on your site? My estimation is staggering...

Hey there folks - I would love some feedback and/or ideas on this: One of the PC's in an fantasy hero campaign I'm going to be running soon is eventually going to be horribly injured, and is going to lose most of his limbs. The thing is, he's a caster-type, is into crafting golems as a personal specialty, and I was planning on having his destroyed limbs replaced with the golem's pieces-parts. Now, as far as building this I'm not entirely positive on how to go about it. I was thinking it could be an amount of increased STR, then giving him the automaton power "Takes No Stun" & "Does Not Bleed", but applying a few limitations on them to where it only affects certain areas of the Hit Location Table (the arms, hands, legs, feet), and lastly giving him an amount of armor that only affects those same areas of the Hit Location Table as well. I don't know that the Takes No Stun would work though, as it eliminates the Stun statistic altogether, but I can't think of another way for it to work, where there's just absolutely no way to hurt him Stun-wise through his weird limbs. Plus, it would also make the limbs work on the automaton damage chart as well, losing STR the more they're damaged, breaking down, etc. (which is kinda what I'm going for). Initially I'd thought about the prosthetic limbs being Foci, but then thought a little further on it and realized that it would be just as hard to remove these prosthetics as it would be to remove the actual limb. But yeah, just wondering if anyone has some other ideas on this, or improvements to what I listed above. Any help would be appreciated! Thanks folks!