Talon

Re: Want to critique?

Setting aside the moral issues, I think that if you're going to use that much Extra Time you're talking non-combat spells, so you'll see a lot of a) "curses" (as in, spells that can effect a foe not present) and long-duration enhancement spells. How you handle the allowed durations for those spells will be critical. Can a caster spend 5 minutes to set up a Force Field that will run for a month? I would suggest tying a maximum duration to each AP level (perhaps as part of the Spell Limitation).

I'm also blanking on what Arrangement is.

For advancement, I wouldn't make it based on accumulation of powers, but rather status within the organization. In order for them to reveal secrets of the next order, you have to do stuff for them. (A brilliant character could discover some of this on his own, but that would require very high skills and a lot of research.)

I assume that your players are OK with this sort of magic system (or are all planning to play non-mages)...I don't think it would be a good idea to surprise them with this if they are expecting to play magic using characters.

Re: How much information?

I'd just do local information that would be known around your hometown. Things like general info on your nation' date=' the surrounding nations, and anybody considered to be a big threat. You continent is huge - enough so that it rivals Eurasia so consider that when disemenating information (along with tech levels or ability to travel instantly).[/quote']

 

I forgot to mention -- with an area this big, you need to worry about context. Do the players have the freedom of coming from anywhere on the map, or are they assumed to originate from a smaller sub-area of the map?

 

Ideally, you need both a "omniscient overview" for players before they pick a region, and then region-specific descriptions of all the other regions, complete with inaccuracies and cultural biases. (The horsemen of the north might know nothing about the peoples south of the sea/strait/bay, while the merchants of the bay probably know quite a lot about everyone along the coasts.)

 

(I semi-dodged this in my current game by requiring all PCs to start in a single, small part of the world where the nations were all culturally and economically linked, so one overview sufficed for everyone.)

Re: The Last Dominion Campaign Setting

Looks very nice -- going to buy a PDF copy now. The Northrun map in the PDF is *saweet*!

I will post some impressions after I've had a chance to look it over, probably some time next week.

Re: Sea, Bay or Straight?

Clearly a sea; I might call the boundary between it and the eastern ocean a strait. My understanding of straits is that they are generally a connection and thus are relatively short; a 1000+ mile body of water, several hundred miles wide, is a bit big for that category.

I would go with Bay for the Nemera's Garden area, but Sea could do as well. I would base it on historical usage -- do the ships of that area regularly venture past the promontory (to the God's Eye area), or do they tend to stop? If they stop, then the body of water is more likely considered a sea; if they keep going, then more likely they would think of it as part of a larger sea and thus a bay.

Re: How much information?

My rule of thumb: provide a) only information that the "average" person on the continent would know; enough information that a player can make an informed choice about creating a PC from that area.

Overall, I would shoot for no more than 2 pages total, most players won't want to read more than that as a general summary. (YMMV, if your group wants more, you are a lucky GM!)

Re: Surely someone can do something with this: Oak Island

It was used (VERY loosely) in a GenCon pirate adventure two years back. I've also used the concept in a fantasy game, to the confoundment of the players involved. It's definitely worth reading about...and maybe someday we will figure out what the heck the real story is!

Re: Indispensable Books

I would add Sidekick...for new players it is indispensible.

Re: Size & DCV: A Big Problem

Just want to say that this method looks good...hope Steve is paying attention!

Re: A couple Questions from a (semi) old herophile

I have not used HDv3 yet, but HDv2 was a vast improvement over v1, so I would definitely upgrade one way or the other. While the feature set didn't seem to grow massively for v3, it's cheaper and apparently template-compatible with v2, so I'd go with v3 personally.

Re: How do I build THIS?

Since they function independently they need to be independent entities: Automatons or Summoned creatures, most likely. I would probably try to build them as a Summon (where the summon is defined as placing a disk; a placed but inactive disk is Summoned, just not doing anything). Then just build the disks with the powers you want.

Re: Invisable : Features

Yeah, if it's literally just a ski mask then have the character wear a ski mask for zero points. (As a normal ski mask, it can be grabbed, not to mention the fact that the character will be wearing a ski mask and will stand out.)

If you actually want an anti-recognition mind control field, then buy Shape Shift to Sight, special effect being that people don't remember what the character looked like, Limitation: overcome by sufficient Mental Defense.

Re: Slowly Buying Up CSLs

I actually recall Steve saying that is NOT technically legal -- a 2 point level and a 3 point level are two different things, after all.

That said, I do the same thing in my games and have for a long time.

Re: BL's Vehicle Movement Streamlining Thread

I also have been thinking that altering the turn mode factor based on SPD is a bit much -- but I think that using a more champs II like turn mode for vehicles, even if it's not based on SPD, makes a lot of sense. It was fun to do all the math though.

Re: Double Focus Limitations

I certainly wouldn't just add up the two Limitation values; I'd consider overall how limiting the two Foci are together and use a combined single value.

Re: I'm sensing something's wrong

Yeah, it was a big advance in 5th to have the Talents actually built as Powers, but a couple of them are a bit off. The nice thing, since they /are/ built as Powers, it's easy enough to change the build and/or point cost for your game!

Re: BL's Vehicle Movement Streamlining Thread

that leads into what i was going to ask... how much different are the Champions II rules from what was presented in Robot Warriors? I have the latter and not the former...

Based on a quick glance at Robot Warriors (own it, never read it all), it is closer to Champions 3rd-5th Edition than to the Champions II vehicle movement rules. One of the chief traits of the Champions II rules is that turn mode was proportional to the square of the vehicle's velocity (which, as I understand it, is closer to most real world vehicles).

An easy first step to make turn modes more realistic is to replace the "divide movement by 5" rule with a number based on SPD. I would probably use 10 / SPD (which makes SPD 2 work as per the current rules, and makes higher SPDs less maneuverable):

SPD   Divisor (precise number in parentheses)
1    10
2    5
3    3 (3 1/3)
4    2 (2.5)
5    2
6    2 (1 2/3)
7    1 (1 3/7)
8    1 (1.25)
9    1 (1 1/9)
10    1
11    1 (10/11)
12    1 (5/6)

If you divide velocity per Phase by this number, you will have a consistent (except for rounding issues) turn mode regardless of SPD -- higher SPD characters and vehicles are not automatically more maneuverable.

If you want more realistic turn modes, compare current velocity per Phase to a divisor which needs to be proportional to SPD squared (for example, 3 * 12 ^ 2/ SPD ^ 2):

SPD   Divisor (precise number in parentheses)
1    432
2    108
3    48
4    27
5    17 (17.28)
6    12
7    9 (8.82)
8    7 (6.75)
9    5 (5.33)

10    4 (4.32)
11    4 (3.57)
12    3

If you divide current velocity per Phase *squared* by this number, you will get turn modes fairly close to Champions II turn modes, and probably closer to real-life performance numbers than the 5ER rules. If I were re-doing vehicle turn modes, this would be my starting point.

Re: THE ULTIMATE METAMORPH -- What Do *You* Want To See?

I know you will do this anyway, but: good discussion on the Shape Shift power, as it is definitely one of the more complex powers.

Also, discussions on how to roleplay and GM metamorphs -- in particular, how to handle the metamorph doing "undercover" work away from the rest of the party without everyone else getting bored.

EDIT: Oh, and you should publish separate versions, one with the cover art from each other Hero book.

Re: Vehicle DEX

No Vehicle Combat Rules will work 'properly' as long as you are looking at a turn based system (whether they be Turns' date=' Phases, Rounds, etc...) unless everyone goes on every turn all the time.[/quote']

 

I often use per-Turn movement rules where the movement gets divided by whatever the driver's SPD happens to be at the moment...you get granularity issues like you always do with SPD, but otherwise it works fine.

Re: Vehicle DEX

Are you guys using Hex maps to plot out your vehicle chases?

 

...

 

If you aren't using mapped chases, then why would you even need to keep track of the vehicles phases? Simply keep track of the vehicles velocities in relation to one another to see if the lead vehicle opens the distance or looses ground. Have the PC's and villians make a few Combat Driving or Piloting rolls to make sure they don't wipe out.

For car chases I don't use a hex map -- but for naval battles or chases I sometimes do, and for space combat I sometimes do, and for vehicle vs. character combat I usually do.

The point is that Vehicle combat rules should be specific (and consistent) enough that you can use them well with a hex map...it's easy to abstract the rules if you don't want to, but it's a lot harder to make up rules if you do.

Re: Vehicle DEX

The problem I have with the vehicle SPD rules is that they seem completely alien to both the real world and the source literature. I'm not aware of any instances where a vehicle just kept going straight because the driver wasn't nimble/fast enough. I've driven sports cars, I'm SPD 3 if I'm optimistic, but I wasn't holding Phases in order to make turns at the right time. It just doesn't work that way.

If I were looking to keep to the current rules mindset, I would create a "Pilot Vehicle" maneuver that drivers can executes. This allows them to move the vehicle on each of its Phases regardless of which of their SPDs is higher. (A detailed version would have a 1/2 Phase version with a CV and Combat Driving penalty for those making drive-by shootings or making cell phone calls while driving.) A low SPD character could drive a high SPD vehicle fine, which IMO is how it should be.

Re: BL's Vehicle Movement Streamlining Thread

This thread is mainly intended to be a discussion of vehicle DEX' date=' SPD, Movement, Turn Modes, how they interact with one another, and how they ought to be changed (or not) exclusively in the case of vehicles, in order to better simulate vehicle movement. As well, new mechanics might be created to better handle vehicle movement.[/quote']

 

IMO, any vehicle movement rules fail if they are different / not applicable to character movement. The whole point of Hero is that things should work from the same framework.

 

Of course, that might mean a "moves like a car" Limitation or something, but the base rules should be the 5ER rules.

 

[*]Maximum possible Movement in Inches/ Turn is partially dependent upon character SPD. (Thus, a character with a higher SPD may be able to achieve a greater "top speed" -- in an identical vehicle -- than a character with a slower SPD.)

 

Yup, definitely needs fixing (of course, per Turn movement works well for characters too...).

 

[*]Vehicle DEX. In my opinion, only the size of the vehicle, the velocity at which it is travelling (in relation to the velocity at which the attacker is travelling), and the pilot's skill at maneuvering (combined with just how maneuverable the vehicle can be) should determine how hard a vehicle is to hit.

 

"Combined with just how maneuverable the vehicle can be" seems like the operative phrase there, and a very good justification for vehicle DEX as currently written (i.e., the lower of the vehicle's and driver's DEX scores is used).

 

[*]Turn Modes. According to the rules, a vehicle's Turn Mode is: Current Turn Mode = Distance Traveled This Phase/ 5. That means that every vehicle actually turns at the same rate, because all a Turn Mode tells you is how many Inches you have to travel before you can turn 1 hex side. Some Skill Levels can allow a PILOT to turn faster than that, and there is a -1/4 Limitation that means a vehicle can turn only 2 sides in a given phase, maximum, but Turn Modes are still, IMO, broken.

 

Amen to that -- I think Turn modes in general need revising. Whatever gets done to vehicles should be applicable to characters.

 

I think the reason that Turn Modes are important is simple -- the whole feel of most vehicles differs from that of people because of Turn Mode. A car moves a whole lot faster than a person, but turns a whole lot crummier.

 

Best of luck on your new thread.

Re: Innate combat skills

"Does Not Work If Two Or More of Character's Sense Groups are Flashed or Otherwise Blocked" seems like a -0 to me.

Re: Vehicle DEX

Aside: I generally use Turn-based movement -- not sure if my solution qualifies as clunky or not, but in essence I just have characters buy movement for the Turn and then divide it evenly amongst their Phases. Vehicles go on the driver's Phases splitting their movement as needed, so cars don't drive faster for certain people.

Getting back to vehicle DEX...from a realistic perspective, it seems like few vehicles actually use their nimbleness to avoid personal-scale weapons (guns, etc.). On the other hand, in a fighter-jet vs. missile kind of situation, I could see something like DCV coming into play.

My initial thought was to get rid of vehicle DEX and replace it with modifiers to DCV (base 0) and driving rolls (so the bulldozer would be a lot harder to corner effectively, while the fighter might have +2 DCV for being nimble). Something to think about.

The higher a vehicle's DEX, the more difficult it is to hit in combat. Thus, a fighter plane has a higher DEX than a bulldozer.

Thinking about this...is a fighter plane really more hard to hit? If a fighter plane and a bulldozer were both moving at the same speed, would the fighter be harder to hit?

Re: I don't quite grok the Multiform rules.

As for the wizard.... in general' date=' transformation spells like that don't actually make the wizard more powerful, he's just powerful in a different way - in melee instead of in spellcasting. Most GMs wouldn't allow you to simply turn into something more powerful... why bother playing your wizard if your über form spell is so much better?[/quote']

 

Because usually a powerful transformation will have other restrictions (material components, short duration, side effects, etc.) that make it undesirable to remain in the other form for a long period of time.

 

I do see the merits of having "true form = most expensive form" as default; the risk is that it promotes certain types of the power over others. At the very least the book should have a more explicit discussion of this issue.