Markdoc

Re: I should add though...

Re: Clever Future Weapons Well, yes, but I recall reading articles in the 70's and 80's which said exactly the same thing. Lasers today are both lighter and far more energy efficient, but they still have the same maximum range as the 747-mounted dinosaurs of yore (5-6 feet - maybe a tenth of that against hard targets). I agree that (apart from space-based weapons) conventional lasers are unlikely to become real weapons simply because "ya can'na break the laws of physics!" - and to generate enough wattage on the surface of a target that you get explosive heating, you're gonna have to burn a hole through a lot of atmosphere - which is an effective convective coolant. However one possiblity is a microwave laser. Technically not feasible right now, but if you could develop better focussing and a suitably powerful portable power source, you could use it to shoot through ordinary walls - the energy would be mostly retained in electron-dense targets like metals and waterfilled objects (the later includes people). Probably not standard military weapons - useless against metallic armour (and therefore vehicles), easy to screen against, and not much use in fog, areas of high humidity, against rapidly moving targets, etc - but just the thing for a sniper. You could use it for giving a rival business exec or a government official a brain aneurysm without leaving much in the way of evidence: no hole in the window or wall, no wound - just a small cooked patch. cheers, Mark

Re: Winging and Playing It Loose With HERO Yes. Virginia, it IS possible. The trick is not to expect a direct or even really close conversion - that can't be done without number crunching, as Thia has been so eloquently demonstrating. But what you can do is what I call "threat conversion". If the scenario calls for 24 orcs, 30 goblins and an ogre, I translate that as "a bunch of base to low level humanoid threats and one tougher humanoid threat." Depending on where I am setting the game that could be 30 normal humans with light weapons, 24 10-20 point soldier types and a captain or 30 giant ants, 24 giant warrior ants and a termagent, or whatever. Basically, it's just a big mass of lowgrade, thinking monsters. If the threat is a multi-headed firebreathing dragon, just swap it out for whatever whupass monster you happen to have a couple of in the closet. Traps are largely descriptive - a d20 trap that does 1d6 damage is a wimpy trap, one that's "reflex save or die" is one that gives a DEX roll or a metric buttload of damage (that's 9.9 of the old imperial buttloads for you guys in the US). And so on. If you're relatively familiar with the rules, it's not that hard to make a best guess if the players start using powers in a creative way - and usually takes no longer to adjudicate than if they tried to use spells in D20 in a creative way. cheers, Mark

Re: And off we go! In answer to the question, I set fairly loose ground rules (ie: no outright evil characters, I squelched the guy who wanted to take "loner" as a 20 point psych lim etc.) But it's up to me to hook the players together and so far it's going OK. The way things are set up is that the initial part of the game is designed to let the players "test out" their characters - so a fair degree of freedom is permitted. Once the game gets rolling hopefully the plot will draw them in (I've been able to do this successfully with difficult players before). If they are interested in finding out "what happens next", they will be less inclined to wander. As a bit of backup, I am also going to bait some of the characters - they will be offered a magic gift by a dying man. Knowing players, few will be able to turn down a neato-kewl magic power for free. Of course, once accepted, they will also get a geas (they have alreday been intreoduced to the gift/geas idea), which means to *keep* the neato-kewl magic power, they cannot break the geas - that will shovel them in the right direction. I haven't decided what the magic powers will be yet, though I have a list of ideas - the exact powers on offer will be designed to hook the most troublesome players. cheers, Mark

Re: Make them Pay! It seems we do the "charge for maogc items" thread in the FH forum every 18 months or so and the "charge for mundane items" about every 2-3 years. First off, when we actually started playing Hero system in a Fantasy setting we actually DID charge for a player's stuff. We were coming from Champions and Joe the mutant policeman pays for his .38 and handcuffs, right? Looking back I smack my forehead in disbelief, but hey.... First off, if you go this route, certain things will happen. 1. People will start behaving wierdly. They will leave behind things they can - and should - carry with them because they "don't have the points". Sometimes they will throw away perfectly good and expensive gear so that they can carry something they just found, regardless of the size (I remember one PC throwing away his armour and most of his weapons so that he could carry a ring. Higher point characters can carry more stuff than lower point characters, regardless of STR 2. You have some bizarre arguments. "No, you can't use the rope to climb down to the balcony - you didn't buy climbing with it, only entangle" (or alternatively you can't tie someone up with rope because you bought +3 with climbing not entangle - and anyway you can't afford a transparent entangle that will hold a strong man.). Do you have to pay points for a rope? A meal? A torch or lantern? What about clothes? Do you need instant change with extra time if you have more than one set of clothes? 3. You will have even more bizarre discussions. "So, where does the armourer get all the points from to make all those swords he sells?" (Don't laugh - we did that one, on this here very board). Even if you can live with the wierdness, consider: 4. Mages will replace fighters. Fighters become highly unatttractive when you have to pay for multiple variants on HKA if you want to carry a spear, a shortsword and knife (for example). Basically unless you are running some kind of extremely deviant setting where you can justify this, I'd say it's really not a good idea. cheers, mark

Re: Herophile Fantasy art And another from the same game - the every-lovin' Smead. Kath took one look at him and said "He's evil isn't he?"

Re: And off we go! #3 is a kind-of noob. Totally new to hero system and also new to face to face roleplaying. Is a world of warcraft freak and likes video games. So he's new to the system but quite happy with troll, monsters, dungeons, etc. He should be OK, as he's almost pathologically happy to be playing an actual live roleplaying game. #1 has me concerned too! He did ask me worriedly afterwards if he was laying it on too thick, so we'll see. If not, well, his character is awfully fragile Seriously though, it should be OK - I also had an exposition-mad player with weird powers (one of these players who always has to have a really different chracter from anybody else) but he calmed down and became a good trooper once the story started to roll - and actually ended up giving us some good belly-laughs along the way. Also, the game is designed to start off light-hearted and "adventury" before it turns towards more serious stuff. That was intentional, giving me time to shake the players out and give them some experience with the system and the world, before starting to feed them into situations that could get them killed. cheers, Mark

Re: VPPs -- what's the logic? And that's the point - when you have lots and lots of slots in a multipower, it behaves more or less the same as a VPP and costs more or less the same - especially since some powers like the summon would usually be built as ultras instead of variable slots in a MP, allowing you even more slots. Sure, you get slightly more with a VPP, but there are only a limited number of ways you can usefully modify the allowable powers. You soon begin to hit diminshing returns. cheers, Mark

Started the new FH campaign last night, with the first session. I was worried about getting enough people to play - in fact, now I'm worried about having too many (we have 7, with one more interested if we get a gap) Two players could not turn up to the first session (both had good family reasons, and promised they would be present next time...). We made the first 5 characters up - which I had thought would take the whole evening - and then launched the game. Not bad really, considering that the group are 2 complete noobs and the other 3 have made about 4 characters between them. They are 100 point starting characters. Anyway, we have: 1. A noble from another Dimension. He comes from a fairytale universe, with his faithful steed and has no idea about how he got to where he is. He is puzzled that the animals here cannot speak and don't always seem to understand him (he can in fact talk to animals, although the power is not reliable - and he can't understand their replies). He wishes to raise an army and go back to his own land and reconquer his beautiful castle. Talks with an outrageous french accent, peppers his speech with french swearwords and expressions and cries when he is reminded of his lost castle. Is actually not a bad fencer (martial arts) although he uses a weapon called a Flauburge that nobody else has ever seen before (in this world or any other). 2. The 7th son of a minor noble. Pretty useless as a fighter, but has lots of courtly graces and is actually a pretty good musician and dancer. Pretty. Cuts a nice figure at balls. Has the disadvantage "cannot fend for himself" since he grew up with servants doing everything and relies now on his extensive network of cousins, aunts,uncles, etc. 3. Batman. No, really, that's his role model. A grim and gritty thief-type, with a robin hood sense of justice, who has attached himself to the two nobles in the hope of earning some cash. The best fighter in the bunch, ironically enough. 4. A huge hairy hillman - who's a merchant. A vast towering, scarred, one-eyed figure with STR 21 and PRE 20 who strikes fear into many. Until they realise that he is also DEX 10 and SPD1 ( he bought his SPD down!). Talk about lumbering! He's a damn fine merchant though, and he has the magical gift of being literally able to smell treasure. Already nicknamed Hagrid the merchant. 5. The daughter of a qurrock-breeder (riding birds used in this part of the world). A decent hunter, a great rider and good with animals. Has the magical ability to enchant items by talking to them (although it's very unreliable - no conscious control) like Sophie in the book of Howl's Moving Castle. Getting them all together and getting them engaged in the plot (a ritual contest to select the yearly husband of the fertility goddess, which has been infiltrated by the forces of naughtiness, with possible dire consequences for the coming year) was an exercise in inventive GM'ing as they completely ignored all the set plot hooks and wandered off in different directions. Argh. Wotta bunch of misfits. Running them throuh the epic storyline I have devised will be fun! cheers, Mark

Re: Help needed designing a magical store catalogue

Re: Cities of the Future Really? We get the bulk of our food from Israel, Spain, Greece, the US, Africa and South America. Even fresh produce. Given efficient transport, fresh food can come from anywhere within two days travel. Back in the day that meant two days by wagon (about 30K). Today it means anywhere on the globe within a half day's drive of a major airport. In 300 years I assume (hope) anywhere on the planet - and perhaps nearby planets as well, depending on how up we are with terraforming. As for transport/city design as noted that depends on how people live. Here in Copenhagen (and many European cities) public transport makes good economic and practical sense. Because their urban cores are both pretty densely populated and multiuse. Not cunning planning, just that they haven't changed much in the last few hundred years. I sold my car after a few years here because owning it made no sense at all - metro's faster, cheaper and far less stress. If I need a car, I hire one and save a ton of money in the process. However, when we lived in Washington, DC, a car was essential (for a while we had two, in fact). Despite the fact that DC has a metro (and I used it a lot to go downtown) there were simply too many places in that city where public transport cannot take you conveniently. Plans to expand metro in DC have foundered on cost, because the population is not dense enough to make it economically viable, whereas metro in Copenhagen has been so successful that a new extension is now being planned. In both cases, transportation is designed to suit the local situation. I agree that nobody is going to tear down all of New York's skyscrapers, but most of them won't last 300 years. So what replaces them is going to be anybody's guess. Mine would be mixed use, medium density buildings in the shorter term - which have been gradually replacing low rises for the last 30 years, but after that? cheers, Mark

Re: Gyren Dark Magic, as reflexive effects Actually I understated it in my last post - the second spell of the monstrous form allows you to change into forms of up to 1000 points - my costing was for the no skill roll, rapid version with "many more forms" (up to 64) meaning for a handful of points you could turn into any one of a swarm of absolutely lethal monsters in but a single phase. The reason I mention it is because it gives you the answer to Beast Boy: you don't need a VPP. All you need is Multiform with multiple forms. The Grimoire spells are limited to things like "monsters" or "animals", but since there *aren't* 64 useful monsters in the 1000 point range in the bestiary, as a GM, I would be happy saying "any monster up to 1000 points" since the difference between 64 forms and any form is not huge - the player could spend a bit more and buy more forms as he got experience if you demanded, but you get the idea. If I was Beast Boy's GM, I'd allow a limited group "creatures recently encountered" at the 64 forms level - that should cover months of gaming. The green thing I would not make a limitation on the power - since it doesn't really limit the power nad gives a decent price break for little real effect. If he's a real dragon, who cares if he's green? It's a limitation on the character, who's always readily identifiable. So I'd give him a distinguishing feature - "always bright green" and leave it at that. cheers, Mark

Re: Help needed designing a magical store catalogue in addition, simply make the focus unbreakable, universal. Then it doesn't wear out and can't easily be detroyed, but can be stolen. cheers, Mark

Re: Start BODY at 2 instead of 10

Re: Start BODY at 2 instead of 10 Yeah, but it's a good thing death is ugly - otherwise everyone would do it ! Oh, hand on a minute.... cheers, Mark

Re: Start BODY at 2 instead of 10 Yeah, but that's because Tolkein was a good GM. A lot of those orcs were severely wounded and a few just lightly wounded but playing doggo. Aragorn wasn't worried about them, because you know in real life, decent fiction and good roleplaying, NPCs who have been severely beaten about don't go chasing after the people who did it to them. They lie there pretending to be dead, and then crawl away once the heroes have moved on. After all, how many people spring to their feet after recovering consciousness and shout "OK, they kicked the crap out of us when we were all healthy - now there's only a third of us left and we're all wounded. Let's get 'em!" Players do that - but that's why they're PCs. I never have the "throat slitting dilemma" in my games for the simple reason that I don't make my NPCs attack mindlessly until they are all stone cold dead. Beating the NPC unconscious or dealing them a severe flesh wound and knocking them down is enough to get the message across that the NPC in question would be better off doing something else with their time. Do it to enough of a group of NPCs and the unwounded survivors will normally run away. Wounded NPCs do plead for mercy - and if granted it scuttle away offscene. They don't (normally) come back that night and stab the players just to make the point that it's stupid to leave survivors. That way the players - if good - get to show that they *are* good. There's a teeny tiny risk, so the action is not without meaning but I don't use it to punish players who show a little mercy That has the side benefit that when I occasionally do use mindless fanatics who *will* attack until killed, that the players go "Wow! Those guys are fanatics!" instead of just assuming that everyone behaves like that. cheers, Mark

Re: Martial Arts versus Powers And this kind of silliness is why I prefer buy martial arts as powers! I agree while Steve/ the rules appear to be consistent on this, it is one of the things that when I noticed it, got red-pencilled in my book. Adding to base damage is bad (especially when martial arts are used with KA's in heroic level games which is what I mostly run) - allowing them to be added without pro-rating is not only bad, but makes no sense at all in the context of Hero system. cheers, Mark

Re: Another SPD thread The simplest way to do this (I think) is to apply SPD modifiers to each weapon. As noted, the fist is your base attack (SR1 in RQ) - punching is the fastest attack there is, but it does little damage (note, this was one flaw in RQ - I was playing a troll and with his 2d6 damage bonus from STR, plus 1d6 for a bite, he could do greatsword damage at SR1. Gobble, chomp, munch!). What I'd do, to save you much reworking, is to to take the already existing STR MINs and use them as SPD minuses, with the caveat that you round in the player's favour. Thus a weapon with STR MIN 5 or less would have no effect on your SPD, a weapon with STR min 6-15 would drop your SPD by one and so on - in that case it might be worthwile to have a SPD of 3.3, so you could use an 8STR weapon at no SPD penalty, suddenly making SPD much more granular. Add in a STR cost for Armour and you end up with a combined modifier that would drop most people to SPD1 (I assume you can't go lower than 1). You might want to choose something other than raw STR Min (STR Min -5, for example) but this way the math is already done for you. If you did do this, I would drop the damage penalty for STR min - the SPD penalty would replace it. Also with this approach, a higher base SPD makes you faster - but you would lose most of that if you chose to use heavier weapons or armour. In contrast, big muscular guys could use big muscular weapons without being slowed down so much - but using lighter weapons would not make them faster - thus avoiding the troll exploit above, where you end up with a character who does big damage AND gets to attack multiple times. cheers, Mark

Re: Things you do to acheive immersion Yep. I used to make gimmicks to aid the game, but as often they detracted from it. For me the one key element to immersion - the one thing that's never failed me - is to know your game world initimately. That way you can describe accurately what's there and if someone asks about a detail you haven't plotted in advance you can simply provide it - because you already know what *should* be there. cheers, Mark

Re: Gyren Dark Magic, as reflexive effects

Re: Combat Skill Levels

Re: Chronicles of Gor

Re: Martial Arts versus Powers Actually I don't really like the standard martial arts rules - there are too many exceptions and 'gimme's built in and you can get some really wierd builds. So I encourage (but don't require) players to build martal arts with powers instead. Makes life easier all round - especially for wuxia games. Linkage: http://www.geocities.com/markdoc.geo/Gaming_stuff/martialarts.html cheers, Mark

Re: Lion versus Gazelle / Buffalo Benchmark

Re: Start BODY at 2 instead of 10