Markdoc

Re: Magic... but not Magic One other possibility - along the same lines as suggestion #3 is to simply require Tribals to buy (or give as an everyman skill) KS: tribal rituals, with the limitation "side effect" - triggered by breaking taboo. Players would be OK with this since you are requiring the "believes in tribal ritual" disadvantage which gives the players some points they don't have to scrounge for. Joe average tribal with his default KS roll will know what a fetish looks like and if it means good/bad Juju. An apprentice shaman might know that a specific fetish means "Danger, don't go here" while a shaman might be able to work out "Radiation sickness" (though probably not by that name ) If they break taboo, the side effect goes into action: unluck, blindness, summoning a thing that stalks you in the dark of the moon, whatever. This has the advantage that you can set a variety of side effects of differing power, so the players won't necessarily know what to expect (unless they buy up their ritual skills). But they can expect it will be bad. At that point you don't need to rely on roleplaying. Tribals will react to fetshes they way you want to because the PLAYERS will know that something bad will happen. And since side effects might affect the general environment or other people around the taboo-breaker, they'll be pretty damned uneasy about being around while other people do it too.... cheers, Mark

Re: Aid...still broken? Look at the active points. Is it a mega-cool power? Sure. He'll be buffed up until exactly the point that someone who spent 315 points on their RKA nails him, at which point he's a highly buffed, expanding cloud of moisture. What that really means is that the character has spent a lot of points, so you'd expect him to be impressive.But he's buffing ALL his abilities. That means he'll have a pretty impressive Stat line but he'll still likely be slower than the fast characters, weaker than the strong characters and so on. Also as a GM I'm not sure I would accept "one use" on a power that is continuous, since there's no real limitation - it really only comes into play if the character is knocked unconscious. So the real cost goes up to 157. cheers, Mark

Re: Are Jacks of all Trade Effective PCs? I like playing JoAT (or perhaps Jack of quite a few trades: JoQFT?), but it only really works well if the player is prepared to accept a secondary role in combat, which is an important part of the game - and if the character is well designed. It helps to have a schtick of your own, even if it not a "powerful" one. In Mike Surbrook's Kazei5 game it was Kenji, a powered armour guy. Decent martial arts, decent defences, chameleon camoflage and computer/ knowledge skills. He was essentially an infiltrator with enough combat skills to survive until the cavalry arrived. His "schtick" was battlefield ECM: messing with the opponent's communications and getting the team inside a secured target building. In Mike's Silent Mobius game, Takahashi Jones - martial artist/sorceror/Girl Magnet. Not as tough, or as fast as the rest of the team and with much smaller attacks, but a competent, if low-powered combatant, made flexible by having a small variety of spells. His schtick was "occult knowledge and connections" - also having a cooler hairdo than anyone else on the team. There are other examples, but you probably get the idea. cheers, Mark

Re: Purpose of Playing a System-Philosophical, Unscientific and Wordy I hadn't commented on it so far in this thread, because it had already been done in the "chargen" thread, but no one else has mentioned it, so maybe I should. For me - as a GM and a player - one of the appeals of Hero system is not just the character creation, but the consistency and ease of the play experience, which in turn is due to the consistency of the creation process. I can and do run an entire evenings playwith out needing to access the rules book. There's no table-hunting, no complex cross comparisons, etc. The same is true of players. That could of course be due to my familiarity with the system: but in fact it's not. I'm very familiar with DnD in its various incarnations (more than our GM, it appears) but I cannot do without reference material in that system. The same is true of RQ and for the same reason. There's no metasystem underlying design decisions, so the only way to know effects, duration, range, etc of abilities and spells/powers is to memorise them. That spills over into play, since the interaction of various powers/abilities can yield a rich environment for making conflicting and essentially unverifiable assumptions. That in turn means assessing penalties/bonuses for various actions becomes more difficult - and generates more possibilities for misunderstanding/conflict. Simply put, what I love about Hero is not just the flexibility of the character generation system, but the consistency (what Zornwill called Coherence) of the play experience. As a player, it means I can with some confidence estimate my chances of (for example) bouncing an attack off a roof beam to hit someone and as a GM I can assess the chances of success when a player tries something novel and assign a penalty or bonus without interrupting the game flow. cheers, Mark

Re: Turakian vs Valdorian? Also a common trope in swords and sorcery is the idea of the "golden age" of magic in the past - that humanity has fallen. There's a good reason for this: it lets the writer/GM litter the landscape with artifacts of high sorcery, without having any annoying higher sorcerors to get in the way. I've been running an S&S game for a couple of decades. It's not "low fantasy" in the sense of not having much magic - magic is everywhere and very powerful. But in general I have handicapped magic so that it is not very useful in combat - or that it can be used decisively but only rarely in combat. I also use the "fall from more powerful magic" theme - though not as cataclysmically as in the Hero settings. It's an excellent excuse for "dungeons" cheers, Mark

Re: Anybody playing Valdorian Age?

Re: Poisons and Diseases

Re: Poisons and Diseases It's also an open question as to whether LS ever protects against powers belonging to a character. It's life support - not a defence power. It protects against a special effect - in much the same way that desolid protects 100% against bullets. The simplest solution is that LS: terrestrial disease means you never get a cold (or AIDS or Marburg Fever or whatever) even if you spent a week rolling in old patient samples. It protects you not one whit when Germlad sneezes on you unless he bought his attack with a limitation that excludes that LS - that's pretty typical for NNDs, for example. If you really go out of your way to be specific that your character's "disease attack" can only inflict real, terrestrial diseases, well maybe - though in that case I'd expect it to have an effect delayed by days to weeks. In short, don't confuse special effect "disease" with power (Drain or RKA, NND, does body, or whatever). cheers, Mark

Re: Infinite Loops Yeah, I have used it. The abuse potential is limited by the fade rate (as you have already noted) and the fact that it takes a long time to get up steam. In my FH game - apprentices in the Dymerian style of magic learn an Aid spell that works in exactly this fashion, so that apprentice 1 casts the Aid on #2, who casts it on #3, etc until apprentice #20 casts the boosted Aid on his master who lets rip with the Big-*** spell . It's never been an abuse problem, because of the need to drag a whole bunch of apprentices around. I've also used it for sorcerors who cast the aid on their sorcery VPP and the Aid itself. This allows them to make the VPP bigger so they can add advantages to their other spells or make them more powerful. It gives you powerful and flexible magic - at the cost of the fact that you can't do diddly without 6-8 phases of preparation and hand-wiggling and chanting. I've also had a Gawain inspired chracter who got progressively stronger as the sun Rose - same mechanism as for Hulk. Cheers, Mark

Re: Anybody playing Valdorian Age?

Re: Filthy Rich Burghers

Re: Heroic Limits On Entangles? This is the problem - if someone is throwing 60AP of entangle, haymakering your STR is probably going to be utterly pointless. Also - as you noted, but I don't think everyone gets it - you can't necessarily use a focus when entangled. So even IF you have your sword out, it may not do you much good. A 10d6 EB will rock a tough fighter character, but it won't necessarily drop him - especially if he's armoured. 50 points of entangle may not kill him but it will certainly remove him from combat - probably for the duration. I've been careful with entangle in my game, so it has not caused problems, apart from one time, early on. My wife was playing an Earth Mage and she could cause the ground to suck someone into the earth: an area effect entangle with a linked NND (suffocation). By herself, she consistently accounted for 90+% of casualties inflicted by the party in combat. It was only when they were inside, she had to revert to other spells. Thank god that was a short "one-off" series of adventures, designed to test character concepts, so the character was retired after. But in games where I've been a player, entangle has consistently been a problem. I well remember the GM's disgust when we were attacked by two prirate ships bursting with pirates. A couple of well placed area effect entangles and both boats were filled with helpless targets to be sent to the bottom with their ships. In one amusing game (I offended the player of another character, and the game degenerated into "Hunt and kill Mark's character!"). I wiped out two whole parties of experienced players - on my own - with entangle. Don't get me wrong: I *like* entangle. So I don't want to remove it from the game, or significantly weaken it. I just advise caution. As for flash, it sounds innocuous enough. But wait til you see it in action. I had a paladin-type with relatively low pointage "holy light" spells. There's nothing like springing into a mass of foes, popping an area effect or explosive flash and then either head-shotting or sweeping your disadvantaged foes. Sure, it's only a couple of phases, but it gives a huge short term advantage, for relatively few points - and few foes in a fantasy setting have flash defence. cheers, Mark

Re: open door spell Hey, go ahead. Anything I post is open source as far as I am concerned cheers, Mark

Re: Filthy Rich Burghers Ox is right - only in theory and only under certain conditions. Medieval England and France (also parts of Spain and Germany and Southern Scandanavia) distinguished (at least) three types of land: palatinates, fiefs and grants. A palatinate was a formerly independant area that had entered the kingdom by treaty. The ruler of a palatinate might be the vassal of the king, but he held his land "in chief" meaning he owned it himself. The king could not give it away or otherwise mess with its inheritance. A fief is a *hereditary* grant of land. The king owns the land itself - and he did have a say in its inheritance, but as long as it was held by the direct line of the fief-holder, exactly what he could do was limited by both law and custom. For example, if the fief was held by a woman, the king could choose her husband, but he could not (legally) take it away or carve it up into bits. Last of all is land actually held by the king and distributed to his followers. He could take it away, give it to someone else, chnage the borders, etc. This was referrd to as land "in the gift of the king" or as "a living" as in "the king granted him the living of Oxford". Livings were not normally hereditary. In early medieval England the king owned about 25% of the land - this is what made him powerful (this was up from 17% at the time of the Domesday book, as the king "acquired" the land that fell vacant through various troubles). In France at the same time it was more like 10% - and this is why French kings so often had trouble enforcing their laws. This has specific social conditions. Owners of palatinates were great magnates second socially only to the king and his heir. They were generally addressed by rank (ie: the Count of Chester or the Duke of Burgundy) Owners of fiefs were noble - the next step down. They were addressed by name (ie Count Redvers of Plympton or Count Pellewe of Poitiers). Owners of gifts or livings were gentlemen (ie: knights) - the next step down again. They wee addressed by name only (Sir Plessy) or by name and location, (Sir Plessy of Ely). Fief holders could (and often did) give fiefs and gifts of their own and the holders of these were not necessarily socially inferior to those who held lands direct from the king - it was a question of which was worth most, at that point. Just to confuse things different names were used for these things - in England palatinates were later called marches, but not all marches were palatinates. Livings were sometimes called fiefs - but it was understood they were actually "fiefs in gift", not real fiefs and so on. Not only that but certain livings also offered titles - so the warden of the Cinque ports might only be a knight, but he was still a magnate, because it was such a rich living, so he was politically powerful, but might be socially inferior (or might not be, if he also held a fief in his own right....) cheers, Mark

Re: open door spell

Re: Heroic Limits On Entangles? you're right - entangle is a killer spell in FH games. It's one reason mages designed with a little thought often are much more powerful in combat than their active points might suggest I didn't want to mess with the rules too much, so the way I handle it is I treat it as a STOP! sign power (together with Flash, most movement powers and defence powers). That means I check any entangle spell fairly thoroughly and normally require them to have a weakness, such as a susceptibility to fire (spider webs) or the ability to only entangle some limbs (a plant-based entangle spell, which causes vegetation to grab, for example: a -1/2 limit "only to reach of the plants"), etc. Otherwise, it's all to easy to entangle a whole mess o' foes (not just humans, but orcs, goblins, etc, etc) and then finish them off at leisure (remember, though, that entangles usually provide some DEF against attacks, unless bought with the transparent advantage). cheers, Mark

Re: Flaming Arrows, And Swords Of opportunity How? The continuous advantage means that it continues to burn the target (splashy fire) after each hit - it's not needed if all the player wants to do is make the sword burn while he is attacking - since it's "on" as long as he pays END for each attack - the fact that the sword is burning in between blows is just a special effect unless he buys damage shield. cheers, Mark

Re: Flaming Arrows, And Swords Of opportunity How? 1) so that you don't get to add your strength to it. 2) so that there are no issues about impact/STR at all. You could have STR does not add - but it's the same limitation, so the points cost is the same. It's a fairly commonly used construct. cheers, Mark

Re: Random "Stuff" generation tables I like this. "I am Jebtsundamba Punsalmaagiyn Buandelgereen, high Khan of the Horse People! But you can call me Jebs..." cheers, Mark

Re: Filthy Rich Burghers It's entirely up to you, and what sort of city it is. It could be as few as one or two - it could be as many as a hundred (although in that case their wealth would presumably be located at least partially elsewhere, and they've come to the city for a reason). In extreme cases, the number could be even higher - in medieval Swabia, the world's richest silver mines were found - enough to propel the Hapsburgs to the seats of thrones all over Europe (people surely didn't marry into their family for looks!). All that cash spilled out through the prince's family, making every one of them extravagantly wealthy, and all their major followers filthy rich. In a generation, the little town of Hasburg had more stone-built inns and fancy shops than cities ten times its size... cheers, Mark

Re: DnD's Spiked Chain All of that's true - but it assumes you have a flail-sized head on your chain, whereas real life kusari-type weapons have a small weight about the same size as two doubled-up fingers. That's quite capable of breaking bones with a good swing (or even a good fast flick), but it ain't capable of denting much in the way of armour: it simply lacks the momentum. Not surprisingly though, it certainly existed (and was used) in the real world it was never a serious warrior's weapon - unlike the flail. The reason is simple of course - if you did have a heavy weight on the end of a 2M chain, you'd get a weapon that was almost totally unmanageable. It's the same reason that real maces are small, heavy weapons rather than the giant 100 Kg types sported by Games Workshop figures. It's also the reason that real flails have a chain that is usually one or two links in length - so that the head doesn't reach your hand, when you are using it and you don't have it far away from your leverage point. The only weapon I can think of that does have a heavy weight at the end of a long chain is the chinese "soft hammer" - much beloved by circus acrobats and generally unused by everyone else. Having said that though my current Dee20 character is a barbarian/cleric with combat reflexes and cleave (great cleave in one or two adventures). Maybe I should get him a spiked chain... cheers, Mark

Re: A new look at shields I think he meant on top of that. Actually using a shield *is* tiring and your arms starts to ache something awful after a while. We've talked about doing it, but never actually tried it. I think the feeling was that it was simply one more thing to keep track of and we didn't need it. If you wnateda more swashbuckling game where you wanted big shields to be less attractive, then it's an idea to consider, though. cheers, Mark

Re: No Levels for Familiarities Just sayin..' I use/allow FAM's as already discussed here - it gives an indication of something the characters knows a bit about. Since "easy tasks" don't generally require a roll, 8- gives you that. For non-combat tasks, where time is not essential, they are also quite useful. However, I have toyed with the idea of allowing skill levels to apply because it's one way of dealing with the guy who wants to be come a skill monster - which otherwise is really expensive. Crunch the numbers. To have 10 skills at 9+5/CHA (basically a min of 11-) costs you 30 points if bought straight. If they are all in a tight group, 10 FAM's plus 3 x 5 pt levels is 25 points to get to 11- each, if they are not 10 Fams plus 3 x 10 point levels costs 35. Granted the 10 point levels have utility all on their own, but in general buying lots of FAM.s plus levels is not a great way to spend your points, even if it were permitted, unless you wanted LOTS of skills at a moderate level. cheers, Mark

Re: Buying up Char in FH 5th Ed. doesn't really change anything with buying up CHA. Whether you allow it or not, is purely a matter of taste (I do). It is true that over time, players' Stat.s will tend to migrate to the top end of the scale, but that's also true of their magic and their weapons skills - I simply adjust the challenges they have to face, so there's no real balance issues (I should note that I price STR at 2 points per, simply because that was otherwise the first thing that got maxed out, But if it costs 20 points to have STR 20, people start to think a bit more about committing that many points) I don't see it as particularly "unrealistic" that a more or less constant lifestyle of walking, climbing, fighting, running and carrying heavy things builds strength and endurance, nor that having to puzzle out ancient riddles while climbing a rope under arrowfire improves your mental and physical agility. People in real life *can* improve their physical and mental abilities if they work at it. Perhaps more importantly, it's not that far from literary sources either. Fantasy characters often improve their abilities (Dr'zzt and Shadowspawn are two of the more odious examples, while Conan and even Pippin and Merry do it - albeit at a more reasonable pace). The only drawback I can see is that characters end up with similar CHA stat lines, but if that happens either you have players who *chose* to go that route, or you're not doing your job right as a GM. If all your players want to have 20 STR and 20 DEX, maybe combat with big chunky monsters is emphasised in your game, hmmm? In my last game, *all* the characters were fighters. But 2 1/2 years and 100+ experience points later, the Stat. lines (and characters) were actually quite different. One player had maxed out her combat-relevant Stat.s, it's true. But another had concentrated on martial arts and semi-mystical fighting stunts, another had emphasised stealth and infiltration, another had emphasised interrogation/intimidation, while another had pursued useful knowledge skills. cheers, Mark

Re: Strength Cost: 1 point or 2 I'm in the 2 points per camp, but I simply move the END cost for STR to the same "1 per 10 active" as everything else. That tends to give you a better range of STR in the typical party while not penalising the high STR guys too much. cheers, Mark