Markdoc

Re: Ramming Speed Right. Who could resist a Space fleet game where the captain orders all the starships into line, crosses the enemy fleet to give them a broadside and then shouts at everyone to "Grab something solid, we're going to ram!" Admission - I play Battlefleet Gothic occasionally, where starship ramming actions (and exhortations like "Grab your swords, brother marines - we are about to board!") do in fact occur. But I've never been able to take it seriously. I would however cheerfully play in such a game as long as I was allowed to go "Yaaaar!" a lot. As a GM, though, I'd let the player go for it. Assuming he could actually hit something with a movethrough at 17.7 million inches per phase (Hmmm, let me see: that's a pretty big minus on your diceroll....) taking half damage (and the resulting expanding cloud of plasma where the ships used to be) should prevent anyone doing it again.... cheers, Mark

Re: Epic Poetry, Sagas, and the like: any fans?

Re: Combat Changes One way to deal with that is to do as I do That is, I have no hard caps in my game: the result is that after a couple of years play, I have players who can either dish out 3d6 HKA if they max out their damage or hit OCVs in the 12-13 range if they max out OCV. The result is that very often fights tend to end with someone getting something pointy in an unarmoured bit. That can be fatal or severely wounding depending on target and hit location. It also puts a high premium on block/dodge and tactics. More typically, damage is around 2d6 and OCV 8-10, but even with an average of 7 BOD, a hit to unarmoured regions is still going to inflict serious harm. In this setting armour is still very, very important - but skill is more important. Tactics play a role too. In a recent fight, a PC was crossing blades with an NPC. Since there was fair deal of blocking going on, the PC had all their levels in OCV - a serious mistake when the NPC feinted, the PC blocked an attack that wasn't actually intended to hit - and the suddenly DCV5 PC got a haymaker'ed kick in his unarmoured 13's the next phase (Block at -2 not good enough!) cheers, Mark

Re: Combat Changes

Re: What would be your take on She-Grond?

Re: Two Weapon Fighting We used to do this with a limited version of damage shield, but under 5th, that got way too expensive, even including limitations like "not on own attacks". So yes, it's an option, but it's a rough one for Heroic level characters. cheers, Mark

Re: Optional Rules

Re: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks Hero

Re: Champions games you've run I've played plenty of Champions, but only run two campaigns, both short ones (less than 6 months of weekly play). The first was a reaction to the high-power, JLA style game that was our regular Champions fare in the early-mid 80's. It was called "The Nu-men" and was an X-man-inspired game where all the players had to choose a single "theme" for their powers. Aliens, Supertech (and IIRC, Magic) were specifically disallowed as origins. The general tone was Uncanny X-Men (Days of Future Past, etc: relatively serious - people were gunning for our heores, but no-one ever actually died excpet minor NPCs). I shared co-GM'ing duties with our regular Champs GM, taking turns at running story arcs, with our own characters being "off-screen NPCs" when we were running. My character was Nexus - a time-manipulating type that Fitz dubbed "Most irritating character EVER" - high praise indeed There was also some cross-over from the main game, with a few of the lower-powered characters leaking over. Basically we spent most of our time fighting moderate level threats: crime gangs and organizations like Viper, while the main group "The Protectorate" took on world-spanning threats like the Alien Invasion and the Megalomaniac Criminal Mastermind. Characters involved a female Pyrokinetic (Frazzle), a guy who could mimic other people's powers (MirrorMan), a guy who could fly really, really, fast (Wing), a guy who could go desolid (Ghost), and a catgirl type character with claws and regeneration (Danged if I remember what she was called - the team usually called her the mad slasher) and a guy who could manipulate darkness (Shroud). Sigh. It was a fun game, but writing this makes the team sound like "The Civic-minded Five" The second game run in '88-'89 was called "Team Omega". This was not 4-colour and verged on Dark Champions. Again each of the characters was required to choose a single power/theme, but this time limited to 50 real points. There was also the requirement that the characters could all pass as human (we didn't put that restriction on the players ). In this game, the characters were all operatives of the secretive "Omega project" - basically super-powered agents, called in for projects that the regular authorities could not handle. In the course of the game, we had The Super-sniper, The Regenerator, The Bulletproof Guy, the Really Strong Guy, the Telekinetic Kid, the Irresistible Woman (High COM and pheromone based mind control), the Immortal and the Shapeshifter. The 50 point real limit on powers meant it was a heavily skill/gear based game: this was the game where we came up with the idea of Equipment pools, as later used in Dark Champions. Tone was Watchmen-like, though perhaps not quite as grim: deaths occurred, though characters drew the line at killing except in self defence. Themes were a covert conflict between various covert"superteams" and other elite units. There were no "caped heroes" and superpowers were apparently a recent appearance. As the game went on, the players discovered that the covert conflict going on was actually the result of an invasion from a parallel earth where superpowers developed early on and the "powered people" had eventually conquered and then enslaved the non-powered "Norms". However, reliance on powers had meant that technology and social structures were relatively primitive compared to our Earth. The dimensional gate had actually opened back in the 1940's - and everyone with powers was either an invader or a child, grandchild or experiment of the invaders. To complicate things, there were three factions: one simply wanted to invade our earth and enslave the un-powered weaklings, one was trying to prevent this for fear of sparking a war in which the advanced weaponry and huge armies of our world would inflict vast losses even on their superpowered forces. And one faction wanted to infiltrate our society and secretly control it, while looting its resources. Eventually the characters were able to make an alliance with group Number#2 - with the goal of closing the gate. It was a fun game, but we never got to finish the story arc due to player attrition - people moving away, having kids, etc. cheers, Mark

Re: Two Weapon Fighting Oh, no - it wasn't terrible at all - it was his signature move and he paid for both the trigger and the HA. I don't recall it ever being a problem. I'm just pointing out that that's one way to build multiple sequential attacks. We had a situation once - very amusing where two fighters faced off who had a similar shtick called "counterstrike" - an HKA triggered by being hit in HTH combat, with the special effect that if someone successfully attacked them, they were fast enough to sneak in an extra blow in return. You can see where this is going - each time one of them stabbed the other, they got stabbed in return. It was very short fight. cheers, Mark

Re: Optional Rules My suggestion - use hit locations, but NOT impairment, disabling or bleeding. Then limit access to, or use of, heavy armour and heavy weapons in a "realistic" fashion by enforcing Long Term End loss and social aspects, so that players don't go shopping in plate armour with a two handed axe draped casually over their shoulder. That means that fights can be lethal and people will often be injured quite severely, but that one-shot kills of healthy characters will be rare. cheers, Mark

Re: Stacking resistant PD/ED My simple rule of thumb is that you can't stack powers and free (real) stuff. So if you have a forcefield and (real) armour, you get the better of the two. If you have armour and Combat luck, you get the better of the two. If you have a 1d6 HKA and a shortsword, you have 2 x 1d6 HKA, not a 2d6 HKA. You don't - ever - add them. (Note: this means that I do not allow Deadly Blow, though I do allow other, more expensive constructs that do the same thing) If, however you pay points for both, then they are regular powers and you can add them. The reasons for this are simple: layering defences can rapidly make characters almost invulnerable to normal weapons. Stacking attacks renders mundane armour all but useless. Mages *can* become invulnerable to normal weapons - but that's manageable. Not only is it in genre, but unless your magic system is set up to control magic in some way (duration, casting limitations, whatever) mages will eventually trash every other character class anyway. having mages be powerful is not such a big deal if every major character uses magic anyway. cheers, Mark

Re: Martial Art: The Pathfinders Way

Re: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks Hero Heh. I still have Melee, Wizard and In the Labyrinth. We actually played it fairly intensively for about a year and a half, before converting the campaigns over to Hero. IMO, it was .... OK. Not a bad game by any means, and innovative for its time, but a bit limited. We also played Boot Hill (2nd Ed.) pretty intensively for about a year in the early 80's and that was a real blast. It remained a favorite for quick one day games. Mechanically, it was kind of primitive, but with all the source material, gave a very rich game. Damn, now I have Ennio Morricone themes in my head! cheers, Mark

Re: UK Student National RPG Championship Valdorian Age - request for ideas My only concern is that this looks like a fine adventure - but not a Con game. You run the risk of getting caught up in numerous encounters before you even get to the main event - which means you may not finish it. I have learned this to my pain, running Con Games. They have to be simple. No, not that simple - simpler. My suggestion would be collect the players, as suggested, get them onto the boat and then drop them off well up the tributary, so that the adventure breaks down as: 1. Cross a short distance from the tributary to the ruins - attract attention of a large gang of Kasogians - far too many to fight. Chase them to the ruins. You can even make a big deal of the Kasogians stopping at the edge of the ruins and then the priest doing a ceremony of ritual death on several of his fiercest, most fanatical warriors (being Officially Dead, they can enter the city: the tabu says "No living man" ). Of course this means that they cannot leave the city alive: slaying the tabu-breakers is all they are after now. The rest of them sit down outside and start sharpening stakes. 2. The rival party has had a similar experience. There are now TWO groups of rune-painted Kasogians hunting tabu-breakers, plus the rival party. They can team up (temporarily) to deal with the Kasogians, or not. Either way, plan to at least one ambush, possibly more. Play up the possibilities of 3D space using the ruins to climb on and hide in (or under), etc. The rival party's sorceror has a copy of the original map, and not only wants what it shows but he wants the original one back, since it may show things not on his one. 3. Whatever is IN the city. Personally, given time limitations, I'd go for a single big bad. From your description, I'd suggest something steamy and slimy - a bit like a giant animated hairball - or the Giant Armoured Toad from Hell. The players can try killing it, running from it, or leading it onto the waiting Kasogians That gives you an adventure breakdown of: 1 Startup (includes description of journey) 2. Short intro to the actual adventure area and chase by 200 enraged Kasogians. I'd start 'em off with one hunting party to give them a fight and then swarm them with increasing small groups to make it plain that this is a fight they can't win. 2. The city. More description (take your time here: this is the actual game setting) and then passage through the city. Let the players see their pursuers, and ambush them, or get ambushed first, if they can't take a hint. 3. Make it to the temple, library, or whatever and encounter "the thing". Get the Mcguffin and then either a big fight with the thing or flight from it. 4. Get past the vengeful waiting Kasogians, who are there sharpening sticks for some new skulls. This can be as simple as a secret path out into the mountains, a crumbly sewer (with some monsters) leading out under their camp, or as complicated as leading the hungry thing into their camp at night and fleeing to the sound of terror-stricken wails and the sound of crunching bones. 5. Play ending theme and roll credits cheers, Mark

Re: How would you model this Sadhana power? Either would work. The third option is that the possessing spirit would not die, but according to the rules, it would lose the points it spent on the duplicate, if the duplicate was killed, so it would be "diminished". It would not be able to possess anyone/thing again until scraped up enough points to buy duplication again. cheers, Mark

Re: Two Weapon Fighting

Re: Martial Art: The Pathfinders Way

Re: Martial Art: The Pathfinders Way It doesn't cost anything: the maneuvers where it is built-in are built as "grabs", since throwing a grabbed opponent is a free component - and the opponent automatically ends prone. So since "legsweep" (for example) works mechanically the same as "grab and throw to the ground + 2d6 STR for damage" - that's how I have costed it. cheers, Mark

Re: Martial Art: The Pathfinders Way Wilco! cheers, Mark

Re: Martial Art: The Pathfinders Way No, but that might change in the near future: I don't own HD and I've been meaning to buy it and get rolling with all my characters n' stuff. Next month (since I go on sabbatical) might be a good time to start that. cheers, Mark

Re: Holy Water

Re: THE ATLANTEAN AGE: What Do *You* Want To See?

Re: How would you do this? (disembodied spirits, possession, as a power) My feeling (see the possesion thread linked to above) is that you don't need a "spell" for the generation of a spirit: as you describe it, it's more like a "radiation accident" in Champions, where you redesign a character. It's not something that you train up and practice against "the day", is it? If it were me, I'd simply go for the EGO roll with humungous minuses and situation approriate plusses (traditionally, it has been easier to hang onto the other side of the veil to avenge great wrongs like the desecration of your family's hallows than simply to get that guy who never did return the book you loaned him). Since mages are going to need huge Ego rolls to function and they tend to have a good chance of getting bonuses via psychic debts and psych lim.s, it's logical that they survive more frequently. If they make the roll, they become a spirit. If not - well, they're dead. As for the corporeal body, though, I'd go for Duplication (with affects physical world) allowing them to create a duplicate physical body (note: duplicates do not have to have the same appearance, powers, etc) - exactly how is up the GM and player. If the spirit back on the spirit plane is entirely within the physical body, add in the concentration, 0 DCV throughout limitation, so that it won't be doing anything except keeping the "duplicate" animated. That should do the trick cheers, Mark

Re: Two Weapon Fighting Two points: First, as a general rule, when using two powers/Maneuvers together (for example in amultipower attack) you take the worst of the modifiers for both. That makes sense - if a grab gives you an OCV/DCV penalty, you are not going to find it any easier to grab or avoid attacks if you are trying to throw a kick or a punch at the same time. Secondly, the use of multiple attacks always occurs together: you can't - as a single attack - throw someone and then hit them while they are at half OCV, nor flash them and then whack them while they are blinded. That's two sequential attacks, not one simultaneous attack. There's a very solid game balance reason for this: especially if you use hit locations cheers, Mark