Markdoc

Re: Martial Art: The Pathfinders Way Well, you don't need to buy both armed and unarmed styles - you buy one style and then add the weapon elements. For example, if you buy the first package: 4 1) Martial Block: 1/2 Phase, +2 OCV, +2 DCV, Block, Abort 4 2) Reversal: var Phase, -1 OCV, -2 DCV, 25 STR to Escape; Grab Two Limbs 4 3) Shove: 1/2 Phase, +0 OCV, +0 DCV, 25 STR to Shove 3 4) Legsweep: 1/2 Phase, +2 OCV, -1 DCV, 3d6 Strike, Target Falls 4 5) Fast Strike: 1/2 Phase, +2 OCV, +0 DCV, 4d6 Strike 4 6) Martial Strike: 1/2 Phase, +0 OCV, +2 DCV, 4d6 Strike 4 7) Nerve Strike: 1/2 Phase, -1 OCV, +1 DCV, 2d6 NND that's your unarmed package, and then you simply add 2 points to be able to use it with clubs and staves as well. If you want to include Dodge and Offensive Strike as well (which are in the armed but not unarmed) then you can just add them to the package. You don't buy the same maneuver twice. That saves you a bunch of points, but the package as a whole is still pretty damn expensive - especilly for a heroic game. That's because you have nearly every possible maneuver in there. I'd be inclined to only put in the basic package the martial arts skills that every practitioner of the style has - and then list the rest as optional maneuvers, which can be added as the player develops his style. For staff fighting, that'd be (for me) Block, Legsweep and Martial strike, with (maybe) Dodge for a cost of 11-15 points - call it 21 points total with Acrobatics and Breakfall. There is a game mechanics point to consider too - the current system for martial arts was designed to balance at around 4-5 maneuvers. It's not very flexible and outside that range it's either very cheap or too expensive. That's a big deal at Heroic level where even 30 points is a major investment. Heroic level players are generally not going to be interested in martial arts with lots of maneuvers: it's simply too inefficient: a player with a martial arts character pretty much by definition wants to be good in combat and they'll soon get tired of getting their tail handed to them by vanilla fighters, who were smart enough to buy CSLs and CHA instead. If this bugs you (it bugged me ) I have a different system based on the concept of using multipowers to model the current martial arts maneuvers. I designed it specifically with heroic level games in mind, though it scales better for superheroic games than the current system. It's here: http://www.geocities.com/markdoc.geo/Gaming_stuff/martialarts.html cheers, Mark

Re: Stronghold Concept Art Actually I'd go further and say Robot bug-looking security things. That shoot lasers out of their frickin' eyes cheers, Mark

Re: What gives the "rightful" king the right?

Re: Middle-earth I'd agree it's not a flash, but I'd model it using a PRE attack: victims who are overwhelmed cower or run away, which sounds about right, with possibly a small PRE drain with a delayed return, to explain the long term effect, whereby repeated cries ground down even the toughest. It'd also explain how the hobbits (who seem to have Power DEF; this explains their resistance to many things such as the corrosive effect of the ring, some poisons, the morgul blade, etc) were able to bear its effect. As for a physical template, I'd start with a wyvern. cheers, Mark

Re: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks Hero

Re: "Never Miss" powers They don't always lose. They can feint and then shoot the lying-down, 1/2 DCV target in the next phase, after he's DFC'ed. The person DFC'ing can fail their DEX roll or simply fail to get out of the AoE. Or - if it really irritates you - you can use my house rule, which is that dodge and DFC are the same thing. Any dodge gives you the possibility of up to a half move if you make your DEX roll at -1/hex, (which ends with you prone as you dive away) and gives you the +3 DCV (or +5 for martial dodge). If you end up behind cover, you get the cover bonus. You can't, however avoid a non AoE attack by simply moving one hex. That means for regular aimed attacks, the attacker gets a chance to hit (versus your DCV + dodge + cover, if any) and for area effect attacks, you get hit, if you don't get out of the area. For the player's point of view no discussion about whether to dodge or DFC is required - a dodge is a dodge is a dodge. The defender's only decision is whether to risk a DEX roll to try and make it behind cover (if it's available) or to get away from a potential explosion or dodge where he is. Either way, you can't automatically escape a non-AoE attack simply by moving one hex. cheers, Mark

Re: Am I explaining genetics correctly?

Re: "Never Miss" powers

Re: What gives the "rightful" king the right?

Re: Level of success This is an interesting idea - it'd randomise damage a bit more, which depending on your gaming style might be exactly what you want. It also has the potential to speed combat up if you have attacks that use a lot of dice - they'd always do a fixed damage multiple. It doesn't specifically interest me, but it looks perfectly usable. cheers, Mark

Re: THE ATLANTEAN AGE: What Do *You* Want To See? Yep, Moorcock was what I was thinking too (though Hawkmoon, and Corum fit at least as well as Elric). Most of his games have "arcane technology" which fits the bill. that's what I want - world-spanning adventures. Flying cities. Castle-destroying sorceries. Extraplanar gates. Cults and religions of massive power wherein the very gods (or something that looks a lot like them) play an active role. I'd also point at sources like "Black Moon chronicles (if you can get it in English: not sure about that) Lord of Light, even the first Amber series: there's useable material in all those books, even if it's not the sort of setting intended. The trick I think to making it "not-champions" is in character design and making the lords (and ladies) of the world standouts. The heroes and villains are the focus - huge armies and fleets are merely backdrop and hired help. I would actively avoid the "superhero team clones". Not because it's a bad idea, per se, but because in-jokes actively work against the feel you want. cheers, Mark

Re: What gives the "rightful" king the right? I think that's one of the messages of that series - playing by the rules does not, in fact, always make for happy endings. As a matter of interest, who do you see on the iron throne in the end? Bran Stark? Tyrion? Jon Snow? Daenerys Targaryen? Or someone else? cheers, Mark

Re: Making Every Characteristic Point Matter And simple - as a GM, I like simple cheers, Mark

Re: Regression of Interstellar Civilizations A wobble in a quasar nearby fries their electronics, but doesn't irradiate everything to the point of eliminating all the people. Bereft of technology - including all the "no-longer-printed-on-anything manuals" you get social collapse and the survivors concentrate on learning how to grow things they can eat rather than somehow reacquiring all that knowledge that used to be accessible instantly online. Two generations on, people might still know that such things as matter transmitters used to exist, but since a working battery is considered a valuable and enigmatic treasure, no-one has the faintest idea how one works. Or alternatively, something disrupts interstellar travel - you could blame that pesky quasar again - and without the economy and transfer of goods that everyone had come to rely on, you got economic and social collapse. The inhabitants of technoplanets starved in their billions, while the inhabitants of agrarian and mining planets found that without the expensive technical gear they used to import (and lacking the specialized knowledge and facilities to build it), their own social systems collapsed back to a simpler level - and war over what resources remained pushed them even further down the tech scale. Instead of a quasar, you could have an interstellar war, or a computer virus that wreaked havoc on the wired brains of all adult citizens: society would collapse pretty definitively if only kids under 5 who hadn't been brain-wired into the 'net survived, or an experimental nanomachine that converted ferrous materials into iron oxide was accidentally released or ... you name it. cheers, Mark

Re: Making Every Characteristic Point Matter A very simple method that I use as a house rule is that in a skill vs skill contest, the highest CHA value wins ties. That way having a CHA just over a breakpoint is actually worthwhile - especially for things like DEX, where "DEX-off's" to see who goes first on held actions often occur. A true tie only occurs if the skill roll and the related CHA are identical. With this simple change, every point actually does count. cheers, Mark

Re: Level of success This has always puzzled me: I worked it out many, many years ago when I was still DM'ing D&D - yet players always seem to want critical hit systems. Can't these people do math? Yeah, so you critted my Big Bad? Well, guess what, buckos? That was a body double! The real Big Bad was watching to see what you could pull out of the bag and now he's comin' to get you! Oh, you killed all the mooks? I gotta million more where they come from.... etc. For the GM, criticals are merely a minor annoyance. For PCs they can be lethal. Yet players really like them ....* As it stands, I use the hit location chart which provides a touch (but no more) of what you suggest, but I honestly can't see much desire to add another series of dice counts to most actions. Plenty of people don't even bother with hit locations and for quick n' dirty games, I don't either. This to me, smells more like a house rule to give a particular flavour than a rules change that many people would use. Cheers, Mark *as a GM, I live to serve so when the players demanded a critical hit system, they got one - 18 is a fumble, 3 always hits: and if a 3 would hit normally, you get you choice of choosing the location or choosing maximum damage

Re: Storn's Art & Characters thread.

Re: Level of success Not only that, but I'm not even sure the idea is sound. It seems like a solution (a well-thought out solution, admittedly) in search of a problem. And it's a solution which brings several problems with it: not only a significant increase in complexity (extra dice counting, non-intuitive result: tho' I admit I saw at once why it was set up the way it was, I'm pretty damn sure most of my players wouldn't) - but also a strong incentive towards skill and OCV inflation. Fortunately, given the drive to simplify the system, we can be pretty sure this suggestion's going nowhere - sorry, Sean I can see your point, but more dice-rolling, we don't need. cheers, Mark

Re: Middle-earth

Re: Middle-earth Well, it didn't. It killed their horses, which were ordinary flesh and blood (if a bit psychotic) and shredded their clothes and gear. They all turn up again later, good as a box of fluffy kittens, and obviously spent their experience on mounts that wouldn't get washed away this time. Basically I read it as being that they can't be physically killed - being animate plot devices - erm... partially not-of-this-world. But since normal horses wouldn't carry them and black robes and magic swords being hard to come by in the wilderness, they straggled back to Mordor to say "Sorry boss, we lost him at the last minute - he made it to Elrond's place." That means - depending on how you see them - they're transdimensional or desolid (like ghosts) but can become physical, or just really, really, tough. Personally I'd build 'em as automatons, since nothing apart from the invisibility suggests they were desolid/intangible: just scary-dangerous. cheers, Mark

Re: A lot of new traffic from the Champions MMO website? Welcome to the boards! cheers, Mark

Re: What gives the "rightful" king the right? Not entirely true. Harold claimed the kingship - and was acclaimed king by his followers in London, pretty much immediately on Edward's death. He was only forced to go to the Witan because he was in no position to force his claim with both Harald and William certain to press claims of their own: he needed a united kingdom. So the Witan was not an official "kingmaking body" - no such thing existed. Harold merely used it as a legitimating body that everyone could agree on. After all, prior to 1066, its role had been limited indeed - the house of Wessex ruled England, and the throne passed by primogeniture: Egbert was succeeded by his son Ethelwulf, who was succeeded in turn by his son, Ethelbald. Ethelbad died without a son, so the throne went sideways to his brother, Ethelbert. When Ethelbert died without sons, the throne went sideways to his brother, Ethelred. Ethelred did have two sons, but they were both very young and the kingdom was in a war for its survival. So the rule of primogeniture was broken and the throne went to Alfred the great, the King's brother and a proven warleader. This is the first place the witan actually pops up in all of this succession, when Alfred took the throne but was forced to agree to secure his nephew's succession, to assure support from all the major families. He reneged of course - Alfred, in turn, left the throne to his son Edward the Elder. And so on - through Elfward, Edwin, Athelstan, Edmund, Edred, Edwy's, Edgar, and Edward we go son, brother, son, son, brother, brother, son, all the way down to the viking conquest and the first viking kings. It was this long line of succession by the direct male line of Egbert that allowed Harold - who came from the same line - to lay claim to the throne. Weak kings - Harold in 1066, Ethelred II for most of his reign - had to rely on the witan because they could not compel obedience by all the nobles and especially weak kings (Sigeberht in the mid 8th century) could actually be deposed. But the idea that the witan chose the king by election is patently false - for hundreds of years, the throne passed down the patrilineal line of Wessex to the applause and head-nodding of the witan. Generally the witan's role in the succession was to acclaim the king's chosen successor - hardly surprising, since the royal Witan could only be called by the king and he could - and often did - appoint some of its members. For the witan to assemble without his approval was considered treason. It was a royal advisory committee, not a true parliament. cheers, Mark

Re: Any modules available? And depending on your taste, I've put 20 adventures linked into a campaign up here: http://www.geocities.com/markdoc.geo/Gaming_stuff/sengoku_adventures/adventures.html and bunch of short ones here: http://www.rpglibrary.org/settings/gothick_empires/entry.htm (under "adventures" obviously ) Cheers, Mark

Re: Possession Why not simply assume that ghosts exist - normally - on the astral plane or the realm of the dead, or whatever and buy their powers with Transdimensional? That way, the Ghost has to use Mindscan to target a person, before possession and if the mindscan is broken, they lose that connection - meaning eventually the person will break the possession. In this case, they don't have to "go" anywhere. This is how I run ghosts in my FH game. They normally have a link to the real world (a fetter, to use the WoD terminology) that holds them just the other side of the veil, so that they can - with effort - perceive our world and to some extent, interfere with it. How they perceive it varies. Some can actually see, or smell, others rely on mindscan, or clairsentience. All those need transdimensional, though. The fetter gives them a physical location in our world and if it's destroyed they go sailing off into the world of the dead - wherever that is. Normal people can't see them (unless the ghost manifests an illusion of some sort, or has the power to physically manifest in our world) but mediums (ie: people who have transdimensional senses) can. Thus a possessing ghost can "see" and possess anyone who gets close to its fetter (the well they committed suicide in, the letter they wrote that broke their father's heart, the treasure walled up in their old house, the last survivor of their noble house, whatever) - and if they have mindscan, they can use it to reach further out - but it's hard to find a target if they are too far away from the fetter. Hence haunted locations or haunted items: you don't usually get ghosts just randomly wandering about possessing people. Of course you don't have to use fetters - I like the idea, is all, but transdimensional would probably solve your problem. cheers, Mark

Re: Legsweep Yeah, well, no surprises there - they're coming off "Improved trip" and "Knockdown", two powerful feats from D&D3.5 that let you knock someone down and then whack them while they're down. As I understand it, no. You could choose to play it that way, but most GMs allow a "leg hit" with neither bonuses or penalties. If you're using hit locations, then yeah, the maneuver bonus would cancel the low strike penalty. Note that using a low strike gives an enhanced chance of stamping on someone's foot, so it's not all good in terms of damage Technically speaking, there's no reason why not - but in my games I ruled that "stabbing someone in the leg" was a strike and had to use a strike maneuver. People routinely used staves or the butt of a spear to sweep peoples' leg out from under them though. It is, in fact, a very powerful maneuver - perhaps the best bargain martial arts maneuver there is. KS has it right, as usual - putting your opponent prone is undervalued as a martial art component. It gives you a significant advantage, particularly when hit locations are being used. I'd say this is a sterling idea - since it's what I already do. Forget about using teleport or similar (or HA + Transform: Standing person to Prone person?). Legsweep is simply "Grab and throw prone". To build the maneuver as it stands, you need +2 OCV (to offset the grab penalty), another +2 OCV for the maneuver itself, and +1DC. Depending on how you cost it, it could be anywhere from 13 to 25 active points (depending on whether you use 2, 3 or 5 point CSLs). Building in the -1 DCV is a bit hard, but can be either a minor side effect, or (my preferred method) simply a negative level at -5 points. If you go this route, you can build martial arts as a simple multipower of attacks and defences. Someone's even done the math for you... http://www.geocities.com/markdoc.geo/Gaming_stuff/martialarts.html cheers, Mark