Markdoc

Re: And off we go! And here, as promised are the heromaker files for the group, including a new character who hasn't worked through her disadvantages yet, and whose joining the party will soon be described. Cheers, Mark

Re: And off we go! Khatz, and Bellona take up defensive positions, while the rest of the party bolt down the narrow alley in the direction of the council chambers – except for Aquila who runs back a few steps and then swarms up the side of a nearby hulk, disappearing out of sight onto the roofs. From there he runs along the roof (really the upside down hull of a boat), springs across another narrow alley and arrives, panting on top of the ramshackle building opposite the bridge to the council chambers. Meanwhile, below in the alley, drawn blades are crossed. None of the fighters are wearing armor so there is a deal of blocking and dodging. Bellona holds off two opponents while Khatz crosses blades with Adriana, the pirate queen. For a few moments, they are evenly matched striking and blocking, but then Adriana feints high, Khatz blocks – and she kicks him in the groin (GM’s note: this is a fighting trick – a triggered HA). Khatz goes down like a deflated balloon. Suddenly about to be surrounded, Bellona decides discretion is the better part of valor and races away after the rest of the party, followed by a tide of angry pirates. The rest of the party make it to the building which gives access to the bridge – bursting in, they find it’s a bar, with several surprised pirates goggling at their sudden entrance. Dalarna and Thana run for the bridge, where the pirates who had been lounging there, spring to their feet and draw their blades. Gen and Khelsen set about trying to block the door. Gen drags some untenanted tables to the door just as Khelsen lets Bellona in, and then pulls the door to, barely holding it closed against the efforts of the pirates outside to force their way in. Eventually, they pile several tables up against the door allowing Khelsen to hold it closed. At the other end of the bar, a door and two windows give onto the deck with a rope bridge across to the council chambers. Thana rushes onto the deck and immediately engages two of the pirates – when a third tries to flank him, Aquila hurls a dagger (missing) and then leaps from the roof, hitting his target so heavily that the man flies back, hits the railing, back flips over it and drops two stories to the roof below – where he lies still. Thana throws his hat in another’s face, then punches the man with the guard of his sword while his foe is blind. Two other guards join the fray, but too late – Dalarna casts a whirlwind spell, lifting Thana over their heads and dropping him at the other end of the bridge. Adriana, who has decided to follow Aquila comes up over the roof and drops to the deck, followed by a few pirates. Gen fences with one of the pirates back and forth through the open window into the bar. When Adriana joins the fight, she is distracted by a barrage of beer mugs hurled by players in the bar, pausing long enough to let Thana disappear into the council chamber. At that point, the fighting slowly eases and both sides draw apart. Adriana slowly crosses the bridge and also enters the council chamber and both PCs and pirates draw as close as they can get to hear what is going on. The assembled captains are already in place and Thana lays out his grievance and demands the return of his ship. The other captains seem very impressed, one of them drawling “Thana, we ‘eard you was dead.” Adriana doesn’t deny the mutiny but instead charges Thana with betraying his own first mate by sending him off to steal a magic map – and sending him to certain death, because he was courting Adriana. She had planned to sail back and rescue him before they got into the sea fight with the Samadrians and had to turn for home and repairs. Thana counters that there is no evidence that Thomas is dead – he’s merely missing - and anyway, stealing the map was Thomas’ own idea. Thana says he only helped him to give him a sporting chance – after all, if he had the magic map then he might be able to compete with his magnificent self – and his magnificent ship. Adriana refuses to yield the ship without a fight, and for a moment it looks like the fight will break out again in the council chamber until Thana shouts “All right! I’ll sail to the Tooth and rescue Thomas! If you” and he points at Adriana “will marry me.” There a moment’s stunned silence and the Adriana mutters “I’ll think about it”. She stomps out of the council chamber and it is clear that Thana has got his ship – called the Goldenprow - and crew back. That afternoon, after the council is finished, Thana rows out to the ship with PCs and explains the situation. The magic map in question apparently shows the position of ships, so that the Lord Jasos, who owns it, has been able to sweep the shores around free of pirates. This lord lives in a strong fortress called the Thorn, on a peninsula called the Tooth, a day’s ride out of Jasshai (the capital city), commanding the straits to the city. It’s a naval base. That’s where Thomas went. The next day, Lamoniak turns up with Sea Ghost and over the next few days, the PCs are busy helping with repairs, doing a little trading and plotting. They buy a fine knightly suit of armour in red and gold from Klithe (where Vathmar Boat burner comes from) and Khelsen puts another bounty on his head of 3000 silver sails. He’s not a man to forget a grudge! They also hire some more sailors –several enlist for free, just for the chance to kill Samadrians. Before they sail, Khatz scries some of Thomas’ belongings to see if he is still alive. He gets an image of slimy steps going down into darkness, a stony snarling griffin’s head and a feeling of despair – but at least he’s still alive. Then, the crew replenished, they head out to sea, bound for the Tooth. On the way, they interrogate the few sailors who have been there, about the Tooth. What they hear is not reassuring. The Lord Jasos is said to be able to talk to drowned men. The Thorn is impregnable. There’s a funny Temple there – and lots of Armigers. The best plan the players can come up with is to scout the town out and try to get into the castle … somehow.

Re: No Horses For You

Re: Gothic Fantasy Hero

Re: Gothic Fantasy Hero If and when I finish my current game, I've been thinking I'd really like to run a Girl Genius game, with the PCs as a set of minor sparks or nobles. I'm hoping SJG finally gets around to getting their Girl Genius game out so I can plunder it for maps and places. cheers, Mark

Re: Norse Campaign: Social/Political Structures needed. Minor comment: the norse breakdown (King>Jarl>hersir>thane>thrall) leaves out about 90% of the population I'd suggest adding Bonde (freeman/farmer) between thane (a household servant, often a warrior/guard) and thrall (a slave)

Re: Learning from the mistakes of others This is essentially what I have been doing for years. I've moved to a new city and/or country 6 times since I started GM'ing Hero and I've set up new groups every time. Only rarely have I been lucky enough to find actual Hero players. So I start new groups - often with people who have never roleplayed before, or have only played MMORPGs or D&D. I don't give 'em the rule book unless they are actively interested (and some of them are - we have two copies of 5ER in our gaming group now, apart from mine ). Instead I find a hook - a game archetype, or character from a book or film that they'd like to play and then say "OK, lets jot down the abilities and then I'll tell you how much it costs to do these. If you can't buy them as a starting character, you can always save up XP". That removes the complexity and hero-phobia from the beginning. You could almost cut most Hero books into two - one for players, one for the GM, with flavour text and powers/maneuvers/skills in one and mechanics in the other. cheers, Mark

Re: Ships of the Dark Ages and Medieval Period

Re: Ships of the Dark Ages and Medieval Period A lot of the best roleplaying source material is like that cheers, Mark

Re: We Loves Us Some Elves, Dwarves, and Orcs

Re: Ships of the Dark Ages and Medieval Period 'nuff said. cheers, Mark

Re: Ships of the Dark Ages and Medieval Period

Re: No Horses For You

Re: Need suggestions

Re: No Horses For You I never write off wiki "just because" but in this case, it's dead wrong. First off "hardness" can be measured lots of ways, but regardless of whether you use Brinell, Knoop, or Rockwell hardness values, iron is 2-3 times harder than Bronze - for example Brinell values of 183 - 234 for cast iron or around 150 for wrought iron versus 60-80 for Bronze. If you want to do your own comparisons, go here: http://www.matweb.com cheers, Mark

Re: Characteristic inflation Except for characters like Wonder Woman, the whole super-family, Marvell, Supreme, Miracleman, etc, etc. There's an equally solid convention for lightning-fast bricks, as well. Now I agree there's a good game balance rationale for reining in such characters, but they're certainly common enough in the source material. cheers, Mark

Re: Dual Strike So martial arts (regardless of whether you have DCs or not) have no effect on the "cannot more double damage from a weapon" rule. cheers, Mark

Re: We Loves Us Some Elves, Dwarves, and Orcs Oh I wasn't forgetting. But in this case, it was the graphics that made it "must have". It's like th ABC warriors - I was never a big fan (tho' I liked them well enough) until Simon Bisley started drawing them. He lifted a fairly limp storyline into something that I looked forward to reading every episode of. For me, comics are a visual medium as well as written one and it's a rare comic that perfectly balances both aspects. cheers, Mark

Re: Active Points For Spell Builds I don't worry about active points or DC. Neither means very much in isolation. What I tend to look at is effect. In other words, "how much damage (or other stuff) will this power do to an average target?" A 4d6 Lightning bolt will do - on average - about 8 BOD and 25 Stun, to a reasonably tough, armoured target after Defences. On a good (but not exceptional) roll, it'll do 12 BOD and 60+ stun after defences, meaning it'll almost always seriously wound and often one shot kill most professional soldiers. A good (but not exceptional) roll will let you seriously wound a Dragon in one hit and will incinerate a troll. By pretty much any definition, that's some serious weaponry there - on average rolls, you'd need to hit the same human target 10 or 12 times to do as much BOD with your standard sword and the sword's likely ineffective against the dragon. The two attacks are not even in the same league. The trick is to examine what the spell does, what the defences - if any - are and how likely it is to take effect. Even a 1 pip killing attack can be deadly, if most targets have no effective defence (like, for example a swarm of stinging insects). Make it continuous and it can be lethal - even though the active points are low. The same applies to most non-standard attacks. Even a couple of dice of Flash can be very effective, since most targets will lack any defence. So just think about what the spell would do to a lowly minion, to one of your characters and to a couple of what you consider tough and very tough monsters. Look at both average rolls and good rolls. If you are happy with the outcome, you should be good to go. cheers, Mark

Re: Loyalty To Ziandwyrth I'd go for a mean-tempered Robin Hood attitude. He could be the champion of the under-dog, and the enemy of heavy-handed overlords. His heart's in more or less the right place, but his methods are seen as "not paladinly"*. That'd be enough to get him labelled "good" by some people and "evil" by the powers that be. Add to that, a profound liking for pranks and you should be good to go. Cheers, Mark * "Sir Fnord! Hurry! The evil baron is escaping!" "Relax. Did I forget ..." Strangled scream from off-camera... "to mention that I put a rune on his saddle that teleports an upright spear onto it if sat on?"

Re: And off we go! There is in fact, no such sword as a flauberge, you're quite right. But there's not meant to be. The player wanted a unique weapon from his home world and coined the name. His weapon is basically a bladed flail - a heavy crescent blade on a chain, attached to a stout haft. cheers, Mark

Re: Ideas for combat runes We actually did in our game, without problems, because the "damage the rune = lose the power" meme meant that it could be removed out of combat fairly readily - make a cut, or (for something more permanent) a branding iron... In that, it's no different from a regular OIF, and the rule was that to be useful a rune had to be "visible" so you could not hide it under your clothes or armour. The caster had to be able to access it too, after all. cheers, Mark

Re: We Loves Us Some Elves, Dwarves, and Orcs

Re: No Horses For You In a long ago D&D game, my character Fonographix the bard was annoyed when his trusty horse of the week would get fireballed (or lightning-bolted or cone of cold'd or whatever) out from underneath him. He went up north managed to capture (and charm) a pair of Tyrannosauruses and then had our mage polymorph them into horses (for ease of riding). There never were more foul-tempered warhorses, but it was worth it just to have an 18 HD warhorse! cheers, Mark

Re: And off we go! Haven't forgotten - but have been busy with real life. I'm posting this from Delhi (have been in India for two weeks) and this is the first chance I've had to log onto the hero boards for about that long. cheers, Mark