Markdoc

Re: Start BODY at 2 instead of 10 Real life numbers from US trauma centres About 3% of stabbings result in death. That includes multiple stabbings, so the actual chance of death from a single bottle/knife/secrewdriver/axe would is somewhere between 1-2%. Very few of these result in death within the first few minutes, so we can assume much less than 1% "instant kill" from a single stabbing (more than 1/3 live more than an hour afterwards). This of course does not include "lingering death from infection or blood loss" which is the way most people traditionally went after a swordfight. Firearms are a lot more lethal - about 12% of reported shootings result in death - again, this includes shootings where the victim was shot multiple times. A mortality rate of around 8-9% from a single firearms wound is probably a good best guess, though again few of these are "instant kills" - in roughly a third of cases the victim lives more than an hour. So 2 BOD appears to not only be too low, but ridiculously too low - 8 to 10 seems to be in the right ballpark, given standard weapon damage levels, especially if you use bleeding and impairing rules. I think the 2 BOD idea is inspired by the utterly moronic scenes in movies where someone is shot with an arrow (or a .5 Desert Eagle - in movies, they are more or less equivalent in damage terms) and instantly falls motionless to the floor instead of hopping around dripping and shouting "Jeezziz! He shot me!" like people do in real life. Regards real life - two months ago a kid got shot outside our hospital in Addis (actually a bunch of people got shot, but this was the first one to turn up in the morgue). He took two AK-47 rounds right through the chest - and I mean right through. Both rounds went in the front. One came out just under his shoulder blade, one spun and came out under the ribs. He still had time to shout something (probably "Jeezziz! He shot me!" in amharaic) and then ran a half kilometer up onto the campus before collapsing while trying to persuade the guard let him in through the gate. When he collapsed, they dragged him inside but he died 10-15 minutes later from massive blood loss. If a bullet goes right through your chest, where you keep a lot of valuable stuff, it's safe to say it's going to do maximum damage or close to it - so we're looking at 12-14 points minimum on that kid - and that STILL didn't kill him outright. People are a lot harder to kill in real life than in the movies, thank god. cheers, Mark

Re: Combat Skill Levels Because of the STR problem. STR is very cheap and gives you essentially 1d6HA, plus benefits. If HA cost 5 points, making HA/EB the equivalent of HKA/RKA, then who'd buy it? STR (no figured CHA, -1/2)* would do everything HA does, plus a little bit extra and still cost less. So HA is costed as though it was STR (no figured CHA or other benefits, still only -1/2) - which is why it behaves slightly differently from HKA. Cheers, Mark *Actually far worse is STR (sell back 1 point of STUN and 1" of leap) which gives you STR at 3 points per d6 - 1 point per d6 if you include the cost of the PD and REC you get for free.

Re: Wondering about ideas on conscription. And if they play D20, that's probably good enough . * I had to supress my wife's tendency to ask sensible questions when we joined our current D20 game. Like: Wife: "Why does this tiny village have a huge stone-built inn with multiple pivate rooms? Is there a major trade route?" Me: "All villages have inns like this in D and D." Wife: "Why is there a huge complex of buried rooms and traps under the farm's barn? How did you know to look for it? Who built it anyway? Why doesn't it fill up with water?" Me: "Oh, you come to expect these sorts of things after you've been adventuring for a while. I think they're built by gods - that's why they don't fil up with water even though they're 30 metres below the water table. Besides, I'm an illiterate barbarian - why are you asking me?" cheers, Mark *I'm mostly joking, but not entirely. Some of the D20 games I've played in make Braveheart look like a masterpiece of medieval simulation. They can still be fun, in a stupid video-game sort of way, though.

Re: Limitation Boondoggles? We actually tried this back in the day - but as you note, it makes powers extremely cheap if they have several limitations: too cheap, as it turned out. That particular experiment was rapidly abandoned. cheers, Mark

Re: A Question of Title Basil, I'm sorry if I'm making you testy, but I am actually interested in the topic: like you I have been studying it (admittedly as an enthusiatsic amateur) for more than thirty years. If I'm wrong, I'd like to know, and would appreciate some pointers as to sources. I'm not being snarky, I'd *genuinely* like to know. It may be that my sources with regard to the UK are outdated (and it could well be - history is a very flexible subject!). If so, it's a very widespread error - with regard to online sources, the BBC lists knights under gentry and states that baron is the lowest rank of nobility (http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A2791929). The abbreviated version from Debretts, which I had always taken to be authorative, says the same, namely "Baron (and baroness): The lowest rank of nobility .... If you have a life peerage this is the highest title you can carry". They also list Knight under gentry - although they also use the name lower nobility, which may be where the confusion arises. In France the same seems to be true - as Francois Velde (one of the moderators of rec.heraldry) says "Thus, knights were not necessarily nobles, nor were nobles necessarily knights." (http://www.heraldica.org/topics/orders/knights.htm). The same site reproduces some of the original texts (http://www.heraldica.org/topics/france/chevalier.htm) which confirm that "chevalier" although a mark of honour and of knighthood was not a mark of nobility until the late 18th century and the law regarding the making of unfree men into knights only with the king's permission indicates that in France, this could happen. With regard to Denmark (and to the rest of the North - see for example, this raher swedish-biased discussion on Soc.cult.nordic at http://www.lysator.liu.se/nordic/scn/adel.html) there's no question: here people distinguished (and to some extent still do - the special naming privileges of the noble familes were only recently revoked) between "friherre" (Free Lords or Free Men - basically gentry) and "aedelslagtene" (Noble Kin: basically the aristocracy or herditary peers). All knights (Riddere) were either friherre or aedelesmænd, but there was a sharp and strongly enforced line between friherre and aedelslagtene over which one could not lightly tread - though it was possible to go from commoner to Frihere if you were rich and powerful enough. And of course not all friherre or aedelesmænd were riddere: that was a quasi-military title, not a social class. This was a social and legal distinction, not an economic or military one. Some friherre were wealthier and more powerful than aedelslagtene. At the same time there were commoners who were as powerful and wealthy as either. Such commoners might fight as armoured shock cavalry, but they were never "riddere" (ie: not knights). They were numerous and competent though - in the 16th century war called "Grevens Fejde" - the baron's war - the common shock cavalry several times defeated the knights in straight combat. Hopefully this indicates where I'm coming from in the statements made previously. cheers, Mark

Re: Wondering about ideas on conscription.

Re: Herophile Fantasy art OK, here's Smirnoff with an unrealistically big axe. I figured it had to be cheers, Mark

Re: A Question of Title Well, we did start with "nobilis" for nobility - I was merely pointing out that the origin of the word does not define its current meaning. Thus although knights started as merely paid heavy horse, they evolved into something else. Likewise although - in theory - all knights were noble, in reality, this was not the case. This was formalised in the 13th century in England by the law referred to as "Of Four Quarterings" which defined nobility as having descent from agentle family for all four grandparents. It was strongly believed that much of a person’s character derived from their ‘blood’ that is to say, their heritage. Merely being knighted did not do it. Likewise, being noble did not make you a knight - you had to be specifically knighted and some noble men (clerks, for example) never were. This also restricted their legal privileges, just as being knight - but not noble - offered some, but not all privileges. In medieval times families from the two states were referred to as "de militari progenie" or "de militari sanguine" - of knightly descent, and "sanguine nobilium generata" - born of a noble family. There is a difference between the two states, and it's one which men fought and died for. Alas, the germans also differentiated between "ritter" - which does indeed mean something very close to the english knight, and heavy cavalry (actually Germans differentiated between heavy skirmishing and heavy shock cavalry as well as between those groups and knights). In England the non-knightly heavy cavalry was referred to as the sergentry and (confusingly) could contain men of noble birth, since squires often rode with the segeantry. In Germany, the same sort of situation arose, where Rittere (including unfree knights) often brought with them an entourage of non-knightly heavy horse called "companions". By the 15th century German knights were generally required to provide 2-3, depending on their wealth. Unlike the English system, companions, as far as I can work out, never included men of the knightly class. And the Ministerales were Rittere (knights) with the special privileges granted to all knights under law. But unlike the nobility, their status was not automatically hereditary, and they were bound to their manor and could not adminster justice, render accounts or marry without permission from their leige. This different from an English knight (or, as far as I know, the knights of any other region), even one who held an Honour, not a fief. I think we'll just have to disagree here. As noted above, Sir John, being knighted, was a gentleman* - but he was not "of gentle birth" and therefore acording to the mores of time, was not a noble. Not only did he not have 4 quarterings, he didn't even have one - by the laws of England, he would not have entitled to attend court in his own right, nor could he compete in a formal tournament. He would not have been entitled to wear clothes restricted to nobles in sumptuary laws, and so on. Just as today, being knighted does not make you a peer. Peerage is (and for hundreds of years has been) hereditary, although the sovereign (and only the sovereign) can raise a person to the peerage. In contrast, any noble can make a knight. My godfather (Sir Patrick Moran) was a knight - but he was not a peer. *actually there was an ongoing debate throughout the middle ages whther a man could be come "gentle" by action, or only by birth. There would have been many in his time who would have said he was simply a knight, but not a gentleman. These distinctions were important to the time (and to some people, still today). To take two contrasting examples - I've already mentioned de Breaute, who was a powerful, non-noble knight, raised by King John. It's not merely a matter of speech - he controlled Plympton and Carisbrook, two important and very wealthy fiefs, though his marriage to Margaret Fitzgerold. But although he ruled them, those fiefs *belonged* to the Redvers family. In the language of the time he did not have the fiefs of Plympton and Carisbrook, he had the "honour" of Plympton and Carisbrook. He could not have pass them onto his sons. The fiefs reverted to the Redvers when he died. However the king could not confiscate them unless the Redvers were attainted - de Breaute held them by virtue of marriage, not in gift. He did hold Oxford in gift and that WAS confiscated at the king's pleasure (or displeasure). In contrast, his great rival Hubert De Burgh, though of gentle birth, was from a very minor family, was also raised by King John and also fell into disgrace under Henry III. The difference is that before his disgrace, he had been ennobled - although he also compiled his estates by marriage, he was made the Earl of Dover: and thereby held the fief in his own right. Thus his sons inherited his estates in the West (although the king confiscated the others in France and the Midlands that were held in gift), even though the title of earl was withdrawn by the court. If you are interested in this subject I'd recommend "Feudal Society" by Marc Bloch. Volume 2 is more or less devoted to exactly these questions, with specific sections on knightly and noble privileges, inheritance of knighthood and nobility and even a section on the segeantry and unfree knights (what he calls "serf-knights") - he discusses how they morphed over time into a class equivalent to the English knighthood. It's out of print but any good historical library should have a copy. cheers, Mark

Re: Barbarians I can read it - slowly and painfully. I read in Danish for pleasure - but in Swedish it's strictly a case of when I really have to. I can't speak Swedish, but can understand from a quarter to two thirds of a conversation depending on the accent. Older Swedes are usually pretty easy to understand. Younger people - especially from around Stockholm or Goteborg - tend to speak fast and run the ends of words out. That loses me fast. It also depends on topic - since my Swedish speaking is mostly work-related, I do better in medicine and science than - say - talking about roleplaying, simply because I know more words. cheers, Mark

Re: Wondering about ideas on conscription. Nope, well aware of the difference between peasants and serfs (though of course, the line in real life was fuzzy). But both of them owed some degree of service up the social tree (from quite a lot to practically everything). There are a few examples of fighting peasants - the Swedish Leidang, the English yeomanry spring to mind (though in fact the yeomanry we hear so much of was largely replaced by retinue archers after a few generations - they really only had about a century of glory) - but by and large the peasantry did not fight wilingly, well, or often. The Swiss are a good case in point. Call a Swiss of the medieval era a peasant and you were asking for a fist in the face (if not something pointier). They were largely freeholders. That means landowners in their own right and to the medieval mind that meant very much *not* a peasant. But perhaps I'm being overly fussy over terms... cheers, Mark

Re: Herophile Fantasy art And here's...Smirnoff! (well, my visualisation of him anyway). cheers, Mark

Re: Gyren Dark Magic, as reflexive effects If you do this, the fighter WILL get smote - but then, he'll get smote just as heavily by a conventional magic user, so I don't see a balance issue compared to other types of magic. cheers, Mark

Re: Barbarians

Re: A Question of Title You are sort of, technically, right - I've been using the word nobility in the commonly accepted sense. Today "nobility" has essentially replaced peerage in common use. But it's never been true (even in Britain) that all knights were nobles (at the beginning of the feudal period, of course, a knight - from saxon "cnight" meaning servant was just a paid soldier). And many of them remained that, right through the medieval era And of course this only applies to a limited era/area. Flemish knights were often wealthy burghers - not noble at all. Many German knights were indentured servants - also not of the noble class - employed by church magnates. The knights of the condotterie could be of noble birth (like the Sforza) - or like Sir John Hawkwood, of low birth (son of a tanner, reputedly - about as low down the social scale as you could go). He was apparently knighted on the battlefield - a perfect example of a knight who was neither noble nor even of gentle birth. And this is hardly a restricted incident - nor one limited to war or to the high medival period. Sir Walter Gray (Lord Mayor of London and member of parliament) was the son of smallfarmer before being knighted - and this in the status-obsessed Edwardian age. King John employed a great number of knights who were not noble (ie: not of gentle birth, nor of the peerage). This was major source of friction in his realm - as they were disdained by the knights who were of gentle birth. They were not just mercenaries either - some of them made it onto his privy council and were superior in rank to families of quite substantial wealth and lineage. Faulkes de Breaute became one of the regents for the next knig - although he was the son of a peasant and got his start by killing a knight with a hay-fork. But however powerful he may have been, he held his castles and fiefs (12 at one point) by the king's pleasure - because he could not pass on his titles and privileges - and he was always socially inferior. Some of these non-noble lords disappeared (like de Breaute), their lands being merely lent by the crown - while others managed to get their positions made herditary and hold them long enough that their familes became noble (ie: accepted as legitimately part of the peerage). So, even in Britain, it is true to say that not all knights were noble - and of course, when we use knight to mean fighting man, not all noblemen were knights (though they may hve been in theory). Cheers, Mark

Re: Wondering about ideas on conscription. Not to pick a nit, but none of those guys were peasants. Nobunaga made his reputation by skilful use of muskets, which were originally a samurai weapon and by massed used of spearmen - principally ashigaru, who also were not peasnts (technically speaking they were Zamabushi - a semi-professional warrior class who also farmed). Musketeers, pikemen and even crossbowmen were usually professionals (a crossbow was an expensive piece of kit, back in the day) although city levies did use both pikes and crossbows, they also can't be classed as peasants. The swiss were not certainly not peasants - they were all freemen, and the swiss mercenary companies were composed largely of well-trained professional warriors - their front ranks often fighting in full plate harness. Swiss soldiers got plenty of training from the day they turned 12 and often earlier. Real peasants - honest to god sons of the soil - were normally not conscripted to fight, but to carry stuff, cook dinner and dig holes. Without armour, without proper weapons and without training, if they got pressed into combat (ie: by someone behind them with a sword) their highest priority was getting away not striking a blow, which is why most armies didn't bother with them. The exceptions were just when you needed a lot of cheap, expendable bodies (cover against arrowfire, as somebody has alreday pointed out) although that sort of behaviour tended to be limited to particularly savage places like China and Poland. Conscription was only really common in sieges, where there were a lot of dirty, dangerous jobs to be done. It's only common sense really - a mounted knight was considered worth 20 armed peasants in a fight and armed foot worth 5-7. Since all the actual fighting tended to be concentrated, a wall of knights or armed foot would go right through peasants without even slowing down much and everybody - including the peasants - knew this. So if you rounded up all the peasants, you had to ensure you to use plenty of soldiers to keep them in line, otherwise, they'd leave as soon as they had the opportunity. cheers, Mark

Re: Barbarians Go here: http://www.hurstwic.org/ and especially, here: http://www.hurstwic.org/history/articles/manufacturing/text/arms.htm cheers, Mark

Re: Combat Skill Levels This is where it is not clear. My take is "yes, only where reasonably applicable". Technically speaking, the swatting arrows away thing is a power, so your sword CSL would not apply: the sword is only a special effect. However, a block against an HTH attack is standard OCV vs OCV and your 3 pt level would apply there, so in this case, I might allow it. No - I'm not 100% certain, but I believe added DC simply add like STR - you still can't pump a dagger up to 3d6 HKA. HOWEVER - there is nothing stopping you buying your very own 1 1/2 d6 HKA, limiting it with OAF, dagger and caled it "really deadly with daggers" if you want a lethal dagger fighter. No, as noted all levels have to be assigned (so you can't use any of them if stunned, surprised or asleep). All of them can be used for OCV or DCV or +1DC except the two pointer : the different points values simply restrict the situations under which you can use them at all. You can think of them as: 8 points - any combat 5 points - any one aspect of combat 3 points - any one aspect of combat with a specific weapon or attack type 2 points - one single, specific type of attack. cheers, Mark

Re: The First Hurdle: Creating a *gulp* Magic System The thing with delayed effect and trigger is not that they can't stack - they can - but they are different things. A triggered power is prepared in advance and goes off when the trigger condition is met. That's it. A delayed effect spell is prepared in advance and goes off when you want it to. You could have a spell which combined both. Glyph of warding is a good example - you have it delayed, so that you can cast it - whammo - and then it goes off when someone crosses it (trigger) - whenever that is. You could - if you wanted - build a fireball the same way, so that you have it racked up (Dealyed Effect) and then it goes off (trigger) when you point you finger and flick some bat guano. But why would you? You're effectively applying two advantages to do the same thing. Trigger would be just as good (prepare in advance, flick bat guano to trigger) as delayed effect (Prepare in advance, use as required). cheers, Mark

Re: A Question of Title For the period you are looking at, there are a couple o' things to keep in mind. 1. Not all knights were noble. In fact the vast majority weren't. They were "of gentle birth". That just means that they came from a land-owning family or one who held lands for somebody else. 2. Nobles held land either direct from the king/emperor or in their own right (rare). This is important. Nobles (even poor nobles) were still somebody. They got precedence and people were generally nice to them because you never know - a sudden run of plague or a whim of the king and they could be rich again. Their names and titles were designed to differentiate them from the hoi-polloi and there were special privileges under law just for them "Of gentle birth" meant little. You could beat up on the peasants and usually get away with it, but that's about it. Squire, knight, banneret, etc are *job*descriptions*, not social ranks. A squire was a knight in training and usually - but not always - acted as servitor a specific knight or group of knights from the same household. Depending on how rich your knight(s) were that could be a good job ora crap one. The Duke of Burgundy was a squire at Henry's court, but he had his own rooms and arrived to take up his "squiring position" with a train of 120 servants and bodyguards. He might have been an 8 year old squire but he was still a noble - and a magnate as well. He carried a hell of a lot more weight than most knights at court -or most nobles for that matter. On the other hand, to be a knight, you had to have 133T gear. If you couldn't afford a horse and armour or find someone to provide them for you, you might stay a squire your entire life. There are records of squires in their '60's. A knight is just a professional fighting man, basically. Getting knighted simply meant you were judged functional. So you could be a knight and a noble - in which case you were somebody, or a knight from a poor rural fief, with no inheritance, in whch case you might be little more than a bandit. In Germany, some parts of Italy and parts of the low countries you could be a knight AND a commoner or knight AND a priest (Ministeralies). You didn't have to be of gentle birth. Last of all, usually one person got the fief: if it could be inherited at all - not all fiefs were heritable. In many cases the person who gave it could take it away and give it to someone else. That meant the favoured (usually oldest) son got the fief and the title, if it came with one. The second son got another smaller fief, if there was one to give, or he got a horse, armour and weapons and an invitation to get the hell out and make a living for himself. The third son got knightly stuff if the family was rich enough to afford it, or got shuffled off to the church with a small purse. That's one reason we got the crusades. Europe was awash in younger sons who weapons and weapons training, but no land, no money and no prospects. European kings were paying people's passage to the Holy Land, not out piety but simply to get rid of them. cheers, Mark

Re: The First Hurdle: Creating a *gulp* Magic System My thought is he is confusing trigger (I *use* the power now but it takes effect when the trigger condition is met) and delayed effect (I *set*the*power*up* now and use it later, when I want). They are two different things. Note, I suggested using trigger INSTEAD of delayed affect, not as well as. With regard to trigger, your player is sort of right. You could set a spell with trigger on a doorway (trigger: when someone comes through the door not wearing a snake sigil) and it will go off regardless of whether you are there or not. So where you cast it matters. However, in the case of triggered powers that you carry around, if they go off on you, no problem, you cast it on yourself. If they are touch range, they go off just beyond your fingertip. For aimed spells, it's a bit iffier. What I - and most GM's I know - allow is "the spell goes off here, 2 mm from the end of my finger*, aimed straight forward, when I say ickity, tickity, boo". In which case, it's point and shoot (requiring an attack roll, naturally, to indicate the accuracy of your pointing). * or your pupil, or your nose or even, god forbid, other pointing body parts With regard to delayed effect, you get the power *ready* for use, but don't actually use it - you do that later. You can't, for example, use delayed effect to set up an attack that goes off after you and Elvis have left the building. cheers, Mark

Re: Combat Skill Levels Mostly what he said, with the exceptionof 3 pt levels: 2 pt lvls - OCV only, and one type of attack only 3 pt levels - one type of attack (close group), but can be switched between OCV or DCV (or + to DC). Exactly under what conditions it can be used for DCV are not well-defined. If you have (for example) +1 with pistols (tight group), one GM might allow you the DCV only when you were actually shooting/being shot at - another might let you use it anytime you were using a pistol. I'm fairly strict about it, so IMG 3 pts in Swords is only good for DCV when you are using a sword in HTH, for example. Holding the sword when you are being shot at does not help. A 3 pt level in Bows would help you shoot (OCV) or dodge incoming (DCV) but would be useless in HTH - unless you specified "closeup and personal bow-fu" in which case you could get the bonuses when using a bow in HTH or at point blank range, but not over longer distances. Basically I treat them like 5 point levels, but slightly more limited. 5 pt levels can be either: OCV (all OCV) or DCV (all DCV) or OCV or DCV in HTH, or OCV and DCV with and against ranged combat 8 pt levels - whatever you want to do with OCV or DCV cheers, Mark

Re: The First Hurdle: Creating a *gulp* Magic System They can improve the EC. Few things are fixed in magnitude in Hero unless you choose to fix them as a GM. cheers, Mark

Re: Shooting guns out of hands If you use the standrd Superheroic focus rules, then remember that it's -2 on the roll vs the target's DCV - so it's not that hard, but it's also not a sure thing. Others have already suggested the alternate "grittier" rules. cheers, Mark

Re: Limitation Boondoggles? My problem is not with those specific limitations per se, but the relative levels of limitations. I have seen a 14- activation come up often (just ask Susano about his Wildfire character who got swarmed by bad guys when he failed 3 x 14- activations in a row!) The chance of it failing in any one use is only 10% but as pointed out with repeated use, the chance of a bad thing happening is multiplied. However.... 14- is OK. Most of the time it will work. What is a problem for me is that you get a relatively small savings in points - but a big increase in chance of failure - if you move to 11- (or worse, even further down the scale). This problem is found lots of places. A 14- activation roll is often worth the same limit as a side efect, but side effect can often be a lot more gruesome. Not only that, but the relative value of a limit depends on the power itself. On a power which is often used out of combat (telepathy, for example) a 14- limit (or extra time, or many other limits) is a minor irritant. On your armour, a 14- activation roll can mean the different between taking a little damage and taking a LOT of damage. Not only that, but a 14- activation roll (or any limittaion) has the same negative effect, but gives you far less in the way of point savings depending how many other limitations you have on the power. It *is* an annoyance, but given the almost infinite variations, and the need to balance heavily limited powers, I can't see an easy fix. Even if the GM arbitrarily assigned the value of limits based on his best understanding of how limiting it would be, that is going to change depending on other powers and the situation. My approach is simply from time to time put the character in a situation where his limit hurts him. Ronson may figure that his "does not work underwater" limit is free points, since how often do they go adventuring underwater? Up until the point that Minotaur grabs him, holds him down in a fountain in the middle of the Hyatt lobby and starts to pound on him... a disadvantage of that kind may not (and should not) come up all the time, but when it does, it's going to hurt. cheers, Mark

Re: Herophile Fantasy art Ah yes I think I'll try to do a piccie. cheers, Mark