Markdoc

Re: A question of balance Agree with the previous two posters. Yes, it is possible to act in a way that you don't gain any benefit from IPE, but it can be extremely useful. When combined with indirect or mental powers, it can be horrifically effective. It is true that a standard stand-up-and-sock'em-type hero will get less use out of it than a hide-in-shadows-assassin type - but then, the latter gets less use out of his armour. Should he get it cheaper? cheers, Mark

Re: Stacking a power?

Re: How to get swords on your starship It was the "semi-plausible" that set me off. We've had this precise discussion on the hero boards multiple times and no-one has ever been able to come up with a plausible (or even semi plausible) reason not to use guns, apart from Dune style "slow fields" or some thing similar. There just isn't one. The same problems apply to - for example - modern-day pirates attacking fuel tankers in the south china sea - and they use automatic weapons and grenade launchers. Thanks - maybe I came off a bit more ranty than intended. I'm willing to accept that some changes might occur that make swords useful again - but so far no-one has identified one in this thread, or its previous incarnations. I'm not being snippy for the fun of it (well, not entirely ) but as a service to the GMs reading this thread. In the far-off days of classic Traveller, Marines were apparently trained to use Cutlasses for boarding actions. (I kid you not). A few GMs actually expected players to use them too, but players, not in general being total idiots, of course threw them away and got something practical - even in the face of rules for "accidental damage". When it comes to "if I miss him I might hit the computer" vs "if he gets to me I'll die" - well, it was always an easy choice, just as it is in real life. cheers, Mark

Re: Spell Idea: Frost-Locked Hands A good approach in Hero is to reason from affect. OK, so you want to: 1)Interfere with spellcasting. The same attack should presumably also interfere with anything requiring fine manipulation. 2) You want a small NND. The NND is simple - build it as a linked attack (the defense is if the victim has quick access to heat, insulated hands or immunity to cold). The decrease in skills I would build as change environment, with a custom limitation that it can only affect one target (-1?). Change environment has the advantages that there is nothing to "attack" - you can't cut the coldness away, the way you can with an entangle and that it already has a mechanism for applying negative skill levels (in this case defined as "Skills requiring fine manipulation" - which should cover spells with gestures). It has the disadvantage that it only affects hands in a defined area and as long as the change environment is running - if the victim moves out of the area of effect, or the spell ends, his hands will recover. Since it's not that expensive, you might want to invest in continuing charge or uncontrolled and a larger area of effect. cheers, Mark

Re: Spell Idea: Frost-Locked Hands Just a point: "takes no damage" means you can attack the entangled person, without damaging the entangle, not that the entangle can't be damaged - with 1DEF, 1 Bod, most people could easily break out, though it would cost them an action. A mighty-thewed warrior could usually break out with casual STR. However, for 2 points it *is* a wee bit abusive (it could mess up a lot of magic-users) and as you point out it can cheaply be boosted to the point where it is *really* abusive: but that's a problem with the Turakian magic system, rather than the construct itself - abusive builds are more or less guaranteed with the /3 system. cheers, Mark

Re: Stacking a power? Yeah, the difference with the Aid is that it: a) maxes out at 6 points per d6, so your "standard effect" gives you 1d6 per 5d6 boost. Thus 100 points gives 30 active each time it's used - cast it twice and you are adding 60 active or +4d6. That means a heavy longbow can be charged up for several shots at 6d6 RKA and: can be used on anyone's weapon, meaning that if the caster wants to, he can have several colleagues raining down artillery-style death with their bows - he just needs to cast a small Aid once per turn to keep them at max Buying a 4d6 RKA - athough it'd work well to make a super-archer - only makes the person who bought it into a super-archer. He could of course buy it usable by others, but if he wants to keep it himself and "share" the power, then he needs to start adding UBO. At that point - well, whaddaya know, it's starting to cost about the same as Aid. cheers, Mark Edit: yes, it's an expensive power. It damn well should be - adding 2d6 to any RKA in a fantasy game is essentially the same as removing any protection due to normal armour. Also it adds to *base* damage. Cast this on a greatsword and a strong fighter should be able to add in another 1d6 from STR and CSL, giving him a maximum HTH potential of 7d6 HKA before any adds from martial arts .... Do you really need characters who can do 8d6 HKA in your FH game?

Re: Fantasy Travel Question Again, while I'm a bit dubious on the actual distances cited, I'll chime in with the rest - while horses can outpace men on foot in the short term, when it comes to sustained day to day travel, historically it seems they are not a great deal faster in good going and actually slower in rough going. The exceptions to this are 1) if you are prepared to blow out your horse with a couple of days rough travel or 2) you have a string of horses, so each one can be lightly loaded and you can switch mounts - in which case you should be able to roughly double what a man on foot can do. The biggest determinant of travel speed is actually food. A person on foot carrying his stuff, who can expect to have acomodation and food provided (ie: travelling along a road with plenty of inns) will do double or triple the distance per day of a person who has to forage and find a place to sleep, all things considered - if foraging is poor, probably more. cheers, Mark

Re: How to get swords on your starship And do security guards on cruise ships of passenger ferries (or airplanes) use swords? Nope. They use guns, like any sensible person would. As do modern-day pirates and hijackers. They only turn to blades - as on 9/11 - when they can't get guns onboard. Swords? Gimme a break. Even if the inside of a space ship was made of Fragilium panels over wires of pure explodium, I'd still use something more practical: fragmenting plastic bullets, gas, tasers, poison-tipped plastic flechettes. etc, etc. And we are assuming of course that spaceships are so fragile that damage renders them useless - what, they have no engineers in the future? The simple fact is that there is no good reason for choosing a sword over a practical weapon - unless you simply can't *get* practical weapons. But swords and swordplay are cool! To get the the cool, you need a reason other than practicality - and a social, cultural or religious reason seems like the easiest route. cheers, Mark

Re: Stacking a power? Yep, I saw that. I was just pointing out that as a GM I would certainly not permit it under any circumstances whatever. Note, that I *would* permit an Aid-based solution: it's not that I'm against increased damage, just against unbalancing approaches. That fact this suggestion would do what Aid is supposed to do - but much more cheaply, and with fewer limitations, should be a big red warning sign. cheers, Mark

Re: Stacking a power? Yeah, but's not rules-legal - 1d6 of HKA useable by others gives you a 1d6 HKA - it doesn't expand the size of an existing attack. I certainly would NOT allow a construct like this as GM, because if you allow something like this, it *will* cause you problems, guaranteed: it' an ultra-cheap way to blow out the size of attacks, with all the problems that entails. I'd go for Aid. If you don't want any record keeping go for standard effect. 5d6 of Aid to HKA, standard effect: 25 real, probably 5-8 points depending on what limits the player places on it. cheers, Mark

Re: God of Prosperity? If based on the real-life gods of prosperity: get really, rich - and tell others it's all due to worshiping the God of Prosperity. Make some expensive sacrifices. cheers, Mark

Re: Questions about my Castle Dracula 1d6 continuous gives you 1d6 mental illusion maximum - I'm guessing that's not enough for what you are after. I think a better build would be Xd6 (X being enough to fool your targets - that'll vary depending on the CHA level you plan to affect) gradual effect (which is a limitation) so that the illusion gets stronger as time goes by, eventually reaching its full effect. I'd also add area effect and Invisible power effects, so that the players would be targetted as soon as they entered the area - but at the same time notice nothing. cheers, Mark

Re: COM - What does it mean?

Re: How to get swords on your starship

Re: COM - What does it mean?

Re: Making paperminiatures Really? I did all the paper minis for the players (full colour front and back) in one weekend and did dozens of NPCs in less time than that. (edit - and that includes actually doing the character portraits, too) General method is outlined here: http://www.geocities.com/markdoc.geo/Gaming_stuff/OAT/cardboard_mooks.htm all you need are pictures and a graphics program. cheers, Mark

Re: FH Gripes Combat luck is OK, in my experience, as long as you don't allow it to combine with armour - and we've been using it for decades, so if there were any real abuse potential, I suspect we would have found it. cheers, Mark

Re: FH Gripes

Re: FH Gripes

Re: FH Gripes

Re: FH Gripes We have used it, and it is (as the original poster points out). In a game where one character has deadly blow, it takes almost no time until all of them have it. Because I wouldn't allow it in my games I was reluctant to take it for my own characters - but in the end, it essentially becomes the default because there is no other way to boost damage so high, so cheaply. Your choices are : take Deadly blow, play a non-fighter type, or be prepared to take a supporting role. cheers, Mark

Re: Tiger Fish of the Congo Hmmm. I've actually fished for Tiger fish (catch and release on the Zambezi at the Royal Zambezi lodge) http://www.royalzambezi.com/Royal%20Zambezi%20Lodge.htm We got quite a few, and they were fierce little buggers, with nasty-looking teeth but to be honest, I didn't realise they got quite so big as the one in your photo.... cheers, Mark

Re: FH Gripes Yeah, what he said. Personally, as soon as I read the rules for Deadly blow, it went directly on my list of "Never to be used" new rules (and it is a new rule - there's no other power that adds dice to an unrelated power). If you want the assassin who can kill with a single dagger-strike (and I have a PC like that in my current FH game, though he'd hate to be called an assassin) then let him buy HKA (1d6, no STR min, OIF - dagger of opportunity, real weapon). It's a whole 8 points for a 2d6 HKA with his STR - but it doesn't open up a whole mess of abuse potential the way deadly blow does. cheers, Mark

Re: FH Gripes I agree that it is more work than most (not all) systems - we're playing classic Bushido at the moment and there are so many little extra rules and gotchas hidden in those slim rule books that making up NPCs is actually more work and takes more time than the the Hero equivalent. Don't even mention FGU's "non-light" games (shudder). As for balance, I agree it is something that should be done at the beginning and the best advice is be *conservative* with what you allow. Personally, I have never had a problem, but I have played in plenty of games that imploded because the GM apparently never gave much thought to balance. This is most important with regard to magic - as the Llama says, nothing kills a game faster than an unbalanced magic system. Luckily, there's plenty of good advice on these boards, but it can be easily summed up in one: If magic users get significant price breaks or their ability to use their spells/powers is not significantly restricted they WILL trash your game. Generally I'd agree, but it's not actually crucial. Since I have group of newbies, I am running without END. I have explained the concept and the players know I plan to introduce it at the end of the current story arc, but I don't expect that to have too much effect on play - high END use characters tend to buy reduced END eventually. I don't know what your house rules are - but to some extent, players will chafe at any house rules. I have a few, but my house rules on house rules are: 1. Have as few as possible. Never make a house rule because you think it would be "cool" and never make a house rule without considering the effect on other powers and other characters. 2. Explain to the players - in advance - WHY you are maiking the change, not just what it is. Hope that helps. cheers, Mark

Re: Creature: Khysothemis That's kind of freaky, since one the adventures for my current game is "the isle of the Gorgon" which features a bow-totin' half-snake medusa. Not quite as pumped as your version, but otherwise, very, very similar! cheers, Mark