Sociotard

Re: Susceptibility questions Thanks guy's. Now, as I was going over the cost of the susceptiblility, I gave myself another question. Y'see, the susceptibility is listed as being -40 points. -15 because sunlight is very common, -15 because the troll takes damage every segment. Thats -30, leaving -10. That corresponds to 3d6 damage, or since this is a major transform, 30 points of transform. (the rules day each die of stun corresponds to 10 points of another attack, such as drains or transforms) 30 points of major transform would be 2d6 iirc. Except it isn't written as 2d6. It's listed as having 3d6 major transform, which would make it a 45 point disadvantage. Am I missing something? It wasn't listed as being wrong in the errata.

Okay I have some questions about susceptibility. First, how do you simulate a susceptibility that a character can protect himself from somehow? For example, superman is susceptibility to kryptonite, but he can carry it arround with him in the led lined compartment in his belt. If someone made him a lead Suit of armor he could handle big chunks. (but nobody does, cause that's just not his style) See, I'm getting into a Fantasy game and I wanted to play a Troll Druid (two package deals lifted straight out of fantasy hero) but I wanted to temper his susceptibility to sunlight. First I changed it from every segment to every phase. Second, I wanted him to have a big thick shroud that could sheild him from sunlight. There's the problem. Should I just say that sunlight is now uncommon instead of common? Or should I put a limitation on a disadvantage? Oh, and the book doesn't say how this particular transform is healed. Any suggestions?

And so, with a final blow to the neck, the cave troll falls dead. I don't know why I let you buy all those Hit location PSL's. I alway's thought it was because you didn't like cave trolls. The fight round continues until the player gets his next phase I place one foot on the cave trolls head, let out a victory cry, and collapse unconcious. What? Oh sorry, did I need to roll something to do that? No, I mean, what do you mean you're unconcious. You haven't taken any hits since you downed that troll, so you can't have been knocked out. I have a whopping 3 points STUN left. I took a lot of damage back there, and this way I get to take some recovery. So? You don't have to be K.O.ed to recover. Sure. I could say I'm just hunched over and breathing deeply. Collapsing, however, is much more dramatic. If I just pant, I'm not nearly so heroic. Obviously, I still have stun, this is just special effects. I was kind of impressed with this. Taking a dive, just so it looked cool in the mind's eye? I admit, imagining one warrior taking down a savage monster, only to collapse on top of it would make a very cool scene. Would you let a player do it? Have you done it?

Re: Interesting Megastructures Shoot, I'm trying to remember what David Brin called them in his uplift novels, but he mentioned a varient of a dyson sphere that covered its interior surface with fractals. it was interesting.

Re: Hero Designer 2 Praise I recall on the NGD boards, Von D-man was describing his computer troubles, involving windows royally screwing him over. After seven days in the abyss, he recovered his data. Here's how he tells it: It's really too bad I've never managed to get the demo program to work on my machine. Oh well.

Re: A black hole in orbit: what would it be like? This is some awesome stuff guys. Here's a thought I had while wondering how you could contain a black hole in order to use it as a matter-to-energy device: Can a black hole have an electric charge? What if we just started bombarding the thing with a load of charged particles? Well, they'd all get sucked in, but would their lines of force still leave the hole? If so, you could maybe use some big magnets to contain the thing, much as they're used to contain antimatter today. That still leaves the gravity problem, but whatever.

Re: Batman's two-wall jump Lol. Yeah, I remember that frustration.

Re: A black hole in orbit: what would it be like? The lunar gravity well would remain mostly the same (once you got a reasonable distance away, anyhow), so wouldn't it get nearly as many meteors?

Re: Goodbye Washington DC If DC goes, we can expect a major dip in the cash flow to Columbia and Equador. Who's gonna buy all that cocaine? Oh sure there's miami, but even the floridans can't buy all of it.

Re: Batman's two-wall jump By "Horizontal Leap", do you mean the standing long jump or the running long jump? Glad to know somebody else thinks this can be done with skills. I'd rather not blow points on more powers.

Re: Ranged OK for HKA, not for HA What the . . . And I thought I knew the Hero System. Here's one thought as to why though. Building an HA is +5 str, only to do damage (-somthing). Ranged is a +1/2 advantage. This all means it would be cheaper to buy a ranged HA than a EB with STR adds to damage, going back to the old rule that you can't use one power to make a cheaper version of another power. *edit* dang my slow fingers! I didn't post in time!

In one of the old NES games, one of batmans movement tricks was to get between two walls and jump towards one. Once he hit it, he'd just jump right off before he could start to slide, and hit the other wall. He'd ricochett (sp?) off the two walls till he hit the top. Kind of like a mountain goat. Now, would that just be an acrobatics roll at the end of each jump? Breakfall maybe?

Re: A black hole in orbit: what would it be like? There'd be an awful lot of engineering problems with a black hole power plant. How do you contain the thing so the plant itself doesn't touch it? not to mention building equipment that can handle g force strain. even a mile or two away from the event horizon it'd be significant. I think that's how I'll treat this: Currently surrounded by a dozen warning satellites orbiting at high velocities (beeping "don't get to close, quantum singularity" on all radio frequencies), along with a group of old engineers trying to figure out how to harness the darned thing.

Say you pulled out the "Beer Can Crusher of the Gods" and started to compress the moon, keeping it's mass constant. Eventually, it would get so dense that, even though it doesn't have that much mass in astronomical terms, it will collapse into a black hole. According to Pierre Simone de Laplace (circa 1795) You'd need to squeeze it down to a radius given by r S=2*m*G/c2 Where M is the mass, G is the graviational constant, and c is the speed of light. Using that we'd need to get our moon (7.3483*1022 kg) down to a radius of 0.109 millimeters. What I started to wonder is: what would it be like to have a miniature black hole in orbit around a planet? As far as I know, once you got a reasonable distance away from the event horizon the orbital hole would have the same tidal effects on a planet as a regular moon of the same mass. It would put out gamma ray's as cosmic flotsam inevitably got sucked into it, but probably not very much. I just thought visiting a planet with a black hole in orbit would be a cool place to visit in a star hero game.

Re: [Release Schedule] Dark Champions Battlegrounds? This surprises me. Wasn't Dark Champions a good seller? I would've thought that would make supplements sell well too. Still, if battlegrounds books rarely sell well, the decision makes sense. I'll admit to not having bought one yet.

Re: Are Oaths too general for triggers? Oh, and one more Item I've reminded my character, any trigger should be visible to some sense, and defusable. I told him that anyone with ch'i senses could possibly notice there was somthing around the guy's throat, and maybe defuse it with a power skill roll.

Re: Are Oaths too general for triggers? I think I'm starting to agree with you on this. I'll tell the player. Besides, it's still 4d6 damage, more than enough to get the average dude bleeding to death, if nothing else. I don't know. Most hero's I've seen on TV don't mind guarding prisoners with a gun at their head or a knife in their back. It's just prudent. And yes, we used declared hit location rules. I don't bother with them for generalised attacks. True. Point taken. I don't think range matters. The trigger example in FREd shows a wizard leaving an AOE entangle with a trigger (if person enters and doesn't invoke a password). The wizard doesn't have to be in range for this to happen. I'm going to disagree again. Trigger means that a power has been "prepared and activated, but not yet used". When he set the curse, he had to pay END. The attack had already been put into place. I wouldn't rule that he couldn't reallocate his advantage later if he wanted to.

Re: Are Oaths too general for triggers? So wait, you think that if he puts armor around his neck (chainmail, perhaps) it should still mitigate the effects of the curse? I mean, clearly any natural rPD the character had would still apply, maybe even combat luck, but I can't see any focus based armor working. Maybe something that changed his personal physiology temporarily, like drinking a stony-flesh potion, but no normal armor would work.

Our Ch'i weilding martial artist has +1 variable advantage (any + 1/2 advantage one at a time) on his HKA, simulating a variety of ch'i attacks. He came up with one application that I let him do at the time, but told him I'd think it over and might change my mind. The party had captured a minor villian, and, after he begged for his life, decided to use him to infiltrate the bad guy's base. Then they started worrying that the NPC would double-cross them, so the Ch'i user said: "I place my hand around his throat. Do you want me to roll to grab him?" "Naw. He's bound and trying to be submissive" *roleplaying* "Swear on your life that you will not betray us!" *roleplaying* "I Swear! I swear on my life I won't betray you!" *Roleplaying* "See that you don't. I just placed a curse on you. Oh, don't quiver. You'll live. Probably wind up with a nice quiet life somewhere. Unless you break your oath. In which case your head falls off." "Um, hold on, I have your character sheet here. You don't have any curse powers." "I set my advantage to "trigger: trigger can be changed each time". My current trigger is "target breaks his oath". He didn't have any neck armor at the time I used it, so if he ever breaks that oath, my 2d6 HKA, 4d6 with strength, will be brought down on his throat. Considering that's a vital shot, I doubt he'll survive. If he doesn't betray us and lives till we're done with his master, I'll use my dispel ch'i power on him, undoing his curse" Eveyone thought that was pretty cool, so I let him do it. just that once. I'm just not sure that "oathbreaking" is sufficiently concrete to base a trigger on. Isn't that kind of subjective? Like "doing something evil".

Re: How to: Three guy's with one bullet. Yeah, I looked at the online store, and I think I'll wait till december or so. I like to order two or three books at once to get the most out of the shipping charges, and since I don't generally buy setting books, it'll be a while before the ones I want come out.

Re: How to: Three guy's with one bullet. Dang. That does make the book sound cooler. Oh, now look what you did. You made my wallet cry. Now don't you feel bad? Good thing I'm getting a book to read or I would't be able to ignore it.

Re: How to: Three guy's with one bullet. Area of Effect was my first thought too. The thing is, it means a flat DCV of 3, which seems odd somehow.

I was watching Indiana Jones the other day, and they used the old schtick where there are 3 or 4 goons coming at the hero in a line, he shoots, and the bullet goes through all of them (must've been full metal jacket with a good size callibur). Is there anyway to do this in Hero terms?

Re: Exotic Methods for Executions? Dang, alot of the good ones have been taken. A current form of execution used in third world countries here and there is 'necklacing'. It's easy. A tire is placed around the neck of the bound victim and lit on fire. that's all. There's the old trick of pirates: burry a man up to his neck during low tide, and let him watch the high tide roll in. The ancient mongols (iirc) tide a man to a wild horse and sent him off into the wilderness to meet whatever fate came upon him.

Re: HERE THERE BE DRAGONS: A Medieval Bestiary *blinks* why wouldn't they appear in a bestiary? Unless I've been horribly mislead, they did believe in fair folk in the medieval era. Is it because they're a sentient race and not mere beasts?