Markdoc

Re: Least Abused Powers I'd agree that VPPs have not been a problem in my game. In fact, they are not even very popular among my players. The flexibility they provide is offset by a steep cost. You can have a lot of useful powers, but no really powrful ones. Unless, of course, you allow any of the house rule variants which allow active points to go above pool cost, in which case you deserve everything you get. One thing that hasn't been abused in my game, which used to really worry me, is Entangle. For heroic level games where 90+% of opponents have STR under 20, entangle can be fiendish - but players just don't seem to grok it, for some reason. cheers, Mark

Re: Weirdest Party You]ve ever had Oh - there was only one third eye given out, so that was you. Bernie must have gotten something else. It's a fair bet it wasn't something good

Re: Random powers? and spy training cheers, Mark

Re: Weirdest Party You]ve ever had Yeah - we've had some interesting characters, but no really off-the-wall parties. That one came close, though. Bjørn managed to get cursed for killing a druid in his shrine - when he was angry his STR, CON and DEX were increased by 10 and his INT, WIS and CHA went down by 10 (giving him a CHA of -4, IIRC, meaning he looked really scary). Although the brothers Snottgobblerson spent part of their first winter in exile with Bernie's man-hating druid, who had a man-eating yeti follower... But you missed one good one - before the brothers Snotgobblerson, you were in *another* party that got cursed - this time by a demon lord. Everyone got a "gift" . IIRC correctly: Your character (fighter/mage) got a new familiar (a quasit) which eventually tempted you into abjuring your old religion, and killing your old familar (taking damage yourself, in the process ) as the price for rescuing you from a burning jail. I loved that scene with you trying to kill your familar, getting ever closer to unconsciousness and the quasit sitting in the window cheering you on and stopping the old familiar from getting out. I'm not sure if I ever mentioned it was the quasit that supplied Bernie's character with the fire-making stuff and suggested that if the jail was on fire the guards would have to let you guys out .... Ivan's character (mage) started developing an aversion to light and gained some lumps that were growing in his armpits like buboes. If he'd lived long enough they would have grown into fully-functional arms (and his skin would have fallen off). Alas, when you guys had some vampire trouble I suggested to Christian (via the quasit again) that Ivan's character had been left on his own .... in the darkness ... and that he seemed to be hiding his neck.... I was amazed at the rapidity with which everyone else decided to stake him out, without even checking his neck I had difficulty not laughing aloud as the other players passed notes around. Ivan noticed that he wasn't getting any notes and started saying "Hey! What's going on? What are you guys dong? Hey, guys.... aaaarghhhh!!!" I can't recall what happened to Bernie's character (a cleric) since he died soon after... again. He got a third eye slowly growing in the middle of his forehead, but I don't recall what it did. Cast fireballs, I think. Immryan Wolfbrother (fighter/mage) got "the evil eye" which let him curse people - but which - he eventually found out - also showed him false visions from time to time, putting the worst possible interpretation on the events that were happening, naturally. When he worked out he couldn't trust what he saw, he put his own eye out with a knife, which is why Immryan only had one eye when (as Brok Bloodspear) you met him later on.... He'd reformed by then and was merely selfish rather than evil And Christian Hogue's character (female Mage) got preganant with .... something. I used to tease him with the possibility that it would eat its way out, but that was never the plan. The Demon prince's plan (I'm not sure I shared this before) was to impregate Christian with a little demonling (a shapeshifter/seducer type with powerful charm spells). Since it would be born of an earthly mother, it would be native to the human plane and therefore not subject to banishing, nor could it be kept out by magic circles, etc. The rest of you were being changed to be its bodyguard. Unfortunately the party exploded into internecine bloodshed over a big treasure shortly after so the plan never came to term - so to speak. If that party had survived, it would *certainly* have been the wierdest I'd ever run. For the general audience, I wasn't being a total bastard. The players had (against all advice) gone tomb-robbing and had ended up wounded and trapped by a horde of undead. As a last resort they had used their everlovin' wand of wonder (a silly magical item, I know) and gotten a fireball. In a small room. Death would have been too good for them, but one of the players (Christian) called on his patron, a demon lord, who wonder of wonders, actually appeared. He agreed to save the party if they would turn to his dark worship and accept his tokens (those were the gifts - and all the party detected as evil thereafter). Everyone accepted and they were whisked away from the flames - it was only later they started to think that maybe they had made a bad deal..... cheers, Mark

Re: DM of the Rings

Re: Artifacts Well - sounds pretty amusing - not to mention you've got your maps and stuff pretty much already done, plus an explanation for any number of bizarre monsters and races. cheers, Mark

Re: Skills? How many points are normal?

Re: Mandatory limitation for HA, but not for HKA?

Re: Mandatory limitation for HA, but not for HKA? Yeah, but that's worth more than a -1/2, since +5 STR, no figured CHA is far more useful and gives the same -1/2. IMG, STR is priced at 2 points per, and "only to hit things" gives you -1, balancing everything out nicely. cheers, Mark

Re: Mandatory limitation for HA, but not for HKA? Well the correct answer is because STR is too cheap. But basically STR costs 5 points and gives you 1d6 HA, plus assorted bennies, so the mandatory, "free" limitation was added in a feeble attempt to make HA worth buying. cheers, Mark

Re: Spending experience points

Re: Skills? How many points are normal?

Re: Skills? How many points are normal? And this, I guess, comes down to a matter of preference. To me, AK: Smallsville is only appropriate if you really, really know Smallsvile. Like you, if a player bought this kind of thing, I'd try and work it into a game, but I would certainly never assume that its absence meant he had no desire to return to Smallsville, ever. To me, AK: means a great deal more than "has spent time there" - that's what an everyman roll is for and why Clark knows more about Smallsville than Bruce, even if he didn't buy the skill. Well, yeah - but good roleplayers will often find a way around that lack. In the example you give above (from our very first Champions game) when confronted with the really big bomb we couldn't defuse, one of the characters grabbed it and flew as fast as he could into the sky - and was still going upwards when it went off in his hands.... You know, I don't think some skill rolls would have improved the roleplaying in that session. Now I'm not saying that players shouldn't have skills - quite the reverse. I encourage them in my game. But there is a wide, wide ocean of difference between encourage and require. I likewise encourage a decent background description, but I don't require a 15 page essay (in fact, I tend to *discourage* that, since it often involves "Using the spells he had learned from his parents, he fled from the laboratory where he gained his cyborg enhancements, to the monastery where he was trained in martial arts by...") For me, simple, succinct and flavourful is the way to go. cheers, Mark

Re: Skills? How many points are normal? I've snipped the rest, because this sort of makes the point - though you could lump Iceman and a few of the other X-men in with him, I guess. Indeed, his skill set is every bit as solid as Jean Grey's (at least she now has a fancy backstory even if it is inconsistent, filled with continuity errors and added years after the character debuted). And for all of that, I don't see him as an invalid character (In fact I kind of like Cyclops). You could say he's bit boring, but his psychological disad.s have driven plenty of stories over the years. Certainly Cyke's backstory is not as filled out as say, Woverine's, but then Wolverine's backstory has been so filled out it looks like Juggernaut after a 30 year eating binge - it's become kinda grotesque. cheers, Mark

Re: Skills? How many points are normal?

Re: Recommended power level Start and Max Depends entirely on what "feel" you want. I do the opposite to KS, which is stat the bottom of the scale and then work up. My basic guardsman type (yer basic combat foe) typically runs OCV 4-5, SPD 2 and has a spear and light armour - if any. We're talking 10-25 points total. On that scale, a 100 point PC (which is where I start most games) who emphasises combat is capable of tackling a patrol of city guard by himself, but there's still a reasonable chance that he could get himself gacked. A stealth character can be highly stealthy and still have enough combat ability to go toe to toe with a couple of guards if he has to and so on. In D20 terms, we're talking about equivalent to a non-munchkinned 4-5th level character. Personally, I don't use active points caps, as they warp games and character design in ways I don't like. They are also largely unneccessary. If you hit 90% of the time with OCV 9, spending points on working up to OCV15 is likely to be wasted - making you *less* effective than your fellows. Players pretty quickly learn that there is such a thing as enough. Not having caps leads to interesting developments - in none of my games have the PCs developed entirely as I expected: in the current game there is a tendency developing towards really high skill rolls in specific areas. So even with NCM, I have one character with a 23 PRE and he's starting to buy up nobility-associated skills, allowing him to command random guardsmen, etc - another has a similar approach, but emphasising "soft skills" (dancing, conversation, etc) The two of them working as a team are awesome, intimidating or seducing their way through scenarioes. One character has adopted the "servant" role specialising in stealth and information gathering, while another has become "the strong guy", heading for 23 STR (no mean feat, in a game where STR costs 2 points per). Quite different from the combat-oriented PCs of the last campaign and I like the fact that the players feel free to experiment with different approaches. cheers, Mark

Re: Morlocks in our Future! 1. The "reptile" in question is a sock puppet. Saying the special effects are better is like saying Ann Coulter is strident. 2. Reptilicus has more gratuitous boobies than Dr Who ever did. 3. Gratuitous boobies are not sufficient reward to watch Reptilicus! Despite which, they haul it out every couple of years for some film festival or others to show to drunks. cheers, Mark

Re: INT question Int score? 12 or 13 Perk? Not just no, but hell, no! I wouldn't charge anyone a point for membership: rotary either, which in truth is likely to be more useful. The flip side of "a limitation which is not limiting is worth no points" is that a perk which confers no advantage is worth no points. cheers, Mark

Re: PTOLUS Conversion Open Discussion

Re: And off we go! And the next session... The walking corpses in the graveyard and the crypt having been messily disposed of, the fight moves into the temple itself. There they try to save the priest Vesos, but it is already too late. The remaining very persistent walking corpses turn on them, and among other assaults seize Khatz by an arm and a leg, and then bite him in the neck. The priest's last action, apart from screaming and being torn to pieces, was to sound the temple gong to awaken the villagers. They are just now stirring - and to demonstrate what is happening, Khelsen grabs an animated corpse and throws it out into the street. It obligingly shambles to its feet and goes for the villagers. In their panic it is easy for the players to spread the message that they need to check all the houses and make sure everybody is safe. While armed villagers are doing that, Bellona kills the last corpse, and Lamoniak explains to the headman and the villagers what has happened - laying the blame on the Samadrians and their book, and incidentally also on their own priest. Khelsen tidily lays out all the newly dead bodies and their heads, 14 in all. The priest is laid out on the altar in the crypt. The villagers who see the carnage in the temple react with shock, horror and vomiting. Most of them barricade themselves in the village hall for the night, though a few brave men come with the PCs to see if the hunchback is still alive. But his hut at the edge of the graveyard is deserted; the door has been torn off its hinges, the window kicked out of its frame, and the hunchback is gone (he went out the window, when the zombies tried tearing down his door and lit out for distant parts, figuring (correctly) that he’d probably get the blame from the villagers for anything that went wrong). Next the players convince the viallgers to let them examine the cemetery to make sure all the zombies have been disposed of and that there are no more lurking under the earth. The ‘coincidentally” choose to dig up Drass' grave. The soil has clearly been disturbed recently, and the coffin likewise. Drass' bones are there, but a large roundish piece has been torn in the gravecloth, at about the level of his hips. Aquila takes an extra little snippet from the edge of the hole (the PCs think there mioght have been something written on the cloth), and the players fill the grave back in. In fact the gravecloth has been torn by the weight of something heavy, which had lain on top of Drass’ body and tore the cloth as the body (and the cloth) rotted. This thing is now in the possession of the Samadrians The villagers decide next morning to burn all the dead bodies, including the priest *just to be sure*. While they are doing this at some distance from the village two of the PCs and a local hunter try to track the hunchback. The village smith has been telling everybody that the hunchback is responsible for the horrors of the night (he never did trust him – everyone knows hunchbacks are bad luck, etc, etc), and they hope to catch the hunchback before the lynch mob does. But even though his tracks lead back towards the stream, they find no trace of him and give up after two miles. The PCs try to convince the villagers to leave him alone if he returns. Castor goes through the dead priest's books and papers and burns all the unorthodox ones. Lamoniak and Aquila inspect Draga's house by daylight, and notice some carved picture frames. They appropriate one, thinking it may have been carved by Drass. On reading his letters again the following questions occur to them: Did Drass carve the head of the headless Smiler statue that Khatz' saw in his vision? And was Drass murdered, and if so, what for? GM’s note – yes, Drass was murdered (though it has nothing to do with the players or the current game: and he took a secret with him to the grave. I didn’t expect the players to work this out so quickly though…. The players tell the villagers as much as they need to know before leaving - they want the PCs to ask the temple in Theyre to send them a new priest, quickly. They also get them to take a written message of the nights' events to the Hermit back on the mountain. They have already sent word to the local lord. The PCs travel on, and stay that night at an inn where their quarry the Samadrian merchants also stayed, but they paid with local coins. No sign of the hunchback. The next morning they arrive at the city of Theyre! With its fortified walls, castle, grand houses, great temples, lighthouse and relaxed gate guards, who refer them to the captain of the guard if they want to find out about other new arrivals. But first they clean up a bit at an inn, and follow Khatz in search of another cousin. This one lives in a narrow townhouse in a disreputable harbour quarter. The players have to stable their mounts at an inn, and when the innkeeper hears Cousin Dmitri's name he insists on cash in advance! A woman opens the door in response to their beating oin it – the players think she is Cousin Dmitri's wife (actually she’s a slattern from a nearby tavern) says he'll be back that evening, so they go straight to the Grand Marketplace Temple. This turns out to be the one in Khatz' vision, although the statue of the Smiler still has its head on. Actually, thinking back, they realize it must have had its head on in the vision too, or Khatz couldn't have identified it - but he had the distinct impression that it was headless! They get the head priest (a member of the cult of the Laughing God) to see the them immediately when the characters mention black sorcery and heresy. Castor starts to tell their story. Then the Laughing God priest calls some colleagues to join them, and they all listen intently for a while, until one says 'This is an interesting coincidence - there was a horrific murder here last night!' An old priestess of the Crone is brought in; it was she who prepared the body for burial. It had been ripped up and roughly bitten and clawed. Later she allows that the marks were blunt enough to have been made by human fingers. An augury was cast to determine the cause of death, but no one could understand the answer - no name was obtained, the murderer was both in and not in the town, and the last thing the victim (a draper) saw was uncertain (they cast a spell which reveals on the eyes of a dead person, the last thing they saw), since the murder occurred late at night and he had been at a tavern. The priests take the PCs story very seriously and are impressed by the heretical book, which Khatz had secreted in his backpack (Castor is angry Khatz lied about destroying it, but calms down when the other players tell him they needed it for evidence). They do check what the PCs say with the priestess of the Butterfly Girl back in Hounsgar (using a magical spell to communicate), however. They tell the players that the Smiler and five other statues were replaced after a fire about 20 years ago. In the morning the temple's records will be searched for anything they can reveal about Drass and his death. Unfortunately, the High Priest who commissioned the Smiler statue is now dead of old age. The priests send a message to the captain of the guard for records of all parties which might be the Samadrians, and that the gates are to be watched tomorrow to stop them leaving. Not only do the priests take the PCs seriously, they even feed them. Which is a good thing, since the players had sent Aquila back to Cousin Dmitri's saying they couldn't make it for dinner.... and he doesn't come back for several hours. The players are puzzled as to why people are generally being nice to them and haven’t twigged that unlike most groups of PCs, they have two upper class citizens, a priest and a guy dressed and acting like a minor noble with them, and apart from one person who generally look and acts like a bodyguard, no-one is wearing armour, the players are generally polite and have good social skills - acting, persuasion, conversation, etc. If most PCs acted like this, they would find life a lot easier When Aquila does reappear (he was lost in the dark, strange city streets, not murdered) he reports that although there was light in Cousin Dmitri's house, no one answered his knock. The priests let him make a close visual examination of the Smiler statue, and even scrape a tiny flake of paint off the back of its neck, but there is only stone underneath, and he can't find anything strange about it. Nevertheless the players offer to guard it overnight, and the priests have camp beds brought in for them. They will let the PCs stay in the pilgrim's rooms in future - the temple will feed them, and the temple washerwomen will even do their laundry. Nothing happens in the night, but at dawn a guardsman comes for a Crone priestess with the news of another murder! The victim (a baker) is brought to the temple, and Castor and Aquila go examine the body. Bellona and Gen visit the scene of the crime; a back alley in a nice neighbourhood not far from the temple, and in a different direction to the previous nights' murder. There is a great deal of blood on a house wall - from beating a head against it? The stones of the alley are scraped in a couple of places, as if something heavy had struck them. A kitchen boy found the already-cold body before dawn, and a maid in the house thought she heard thumps outside during the night, hard enough to rattle the cup on her shelf. The Crone priestess' reports the following: the face has been smashed in, there are black bruises on the back of the neck from bring gripped by a very strong but human hand (or a walking corpse, or an animated statue!), and the neck is broken. GM’s note: surprise again. It *was* an animated statue – but I didn’t suspect them to work it out so fast: I didn’t mention anything related to that so far. The captain of the guard turns up shortly afterwards, and takes down the PCs description of the Samadrians to circulate among the city guard - and of Sir Baharach and Vathmar, since the players would like to see them again too. Ships from Samadria or Sillith in port will not be allowed to leave without inspection. They move their qurrocks and the Horse to a closer stable. From the temple records the PCs learn that the Smiler statue was Drass' project. He had gained his apprenticeship through the High Priest Agira, who was impressed by the work Drass did in his free time. It was Agira who wanted him to do the Smiler's face. They direct the players’ enquiries to a wealthy master in the Fancy Carvers guild who worked with Drass when both were apprentices. He says that Drass was quiet but impulsive, always doing unexpected things, and a devotee of the Laughing God. He had strong fat fingers and his work was very good. He became a journeyman on a commission from a silversmith that earned him a fat purse. That was just before he was murdered, and the purse was not found on his body. Drass had claimed that he had a girl, and he talked about her a lot, but the carver knew no more than that. Strangely, Drass never mentioned her name. The PCs suspect that it might have been a daughter of the silversmith, Drass' last employer, so they head for the Silversmith's Market.... They’re on a roll here – Drass was having an affair (romantic, not physical) with the silversmith’s daughter – but again, I *really* didn’t expect them to guess this so fast.

Re: Need crystalmancy college Crystalline, yes. Food, no. cheers, Mark

Re: Morlocks in our Future! I have to admit on reading this, my reaction was: "Well Chris, what is it that it is - this theory of mine. Well, this is what it is - my theory that I have, that is to say, which is mine, is mine" etc. On the other hand anyone who predicts "Women, on the other hand, will develop lighter, smooth, hairless skin, large clear eyes, pert breasts, glossy hair, and even features" can't be all bad cheers, Mark

Re: Wanted - Comprehensive Western Martial Arts Design

Re: Wanted - Comprehensive Western Martial Arts Design It's a fair point - perhaps I should have said the musket "was replacing" rather than "had replaced" the arquebus. cheers, Mark

Re: Wanted - Comprehensive Western Martial Arts Design