Markdoc

Re: Brass knuckles and high strength characters I had exactly this problem in an earlier game - there, the character "only" had STR 20, but the net effect was similar: brass knuckles did nothing, and if he pushed his STR, caused him to do LESS damage. Uhhh. Brain hurty! In the end, I house ruled it: 1. A weapon cannot do less damage in DC than the STR used or wield it or DEF+BOD (whichever is less) 2. A weapon which is harder than your hand always adds a minimum of 1 DC. This means that if the big brawler picks up a chair or a pool cue and hits someone, odds are he'll smash it in a blow or two, but until then it gives him +1 DC. Brass knucks are solid enough that he can't break them and they add 1 DC. That allows the use of "stuff" without getting too gross. cheers, Mark

Re: Rough Magic Actually my dislike for charges is based on three things: 1. It "feels" wrong. Yeah, I know, that's totally subjective Strangely enough, I do have a Vancian-inspired magic system and a rune-based magic system that do use charges: but they both are restricted to a single recoverable charge on any power, so it's more like "prepare and use" than having multiple charges stashed away. 2. That "other game". It's hard to escape the taint. Charges feel totally arbitrary mostly because in D&D they WERE totally arbitrary - but when we used charges on magic spells it seemed to encourage players to act like D&D spellcasters. We had a caster whose spells recovered once a day, at sunrise, so she would wake up just before sunrise to use up anything left over, and then - ahhhhhh. All spells back again. I dunno, it just felt "gamey" And that leads to 3, in game play charges seemedto encourage a slightly different more video-gamey style. All totally subjective, of course. I have no problem with charges as a mechanic: I just don't like 'em on most magic in my game. cheers, Mark

Re: Rough Magic Like you, I don't much care for charges (well, except for magical items, then it seems more reasonable). END use helps somewhat, especially if you disallow reduced END, but it has two problems. 1. It's cheap 2. It does nohing to prevent out of combat spell use - because all you need to do is take a breather for a minute and you're good to go. So, to take the door opening spell above, the 8 END requirement is unlikely to be meaningful because that END can be recovered in 3-6 seconds. END use does restrict combat spell use somewhat because it's harder to maintain a forcefield and still sorcerously rip the living hearts out of your foes for more than a couple of turns One fix is to make magic run off an END reserve, which fills up a bit more slowly than from regular recovery (as you note above, and that'd be my choice). That way the mage can cast a lot of spells off the bat, but if they use up all their juice, then they are out of power. That also has the advantage that the END reserve is one more thing the mage has to buy, reducing their initial power somewhat and putting off the awful day when the mage reaches Horde-obliterating status. cheers, Mark

Re: Rough Magic I hope I'm not one of the overly negative types! I like the nice, clean layout very much. Although I can see that the "requires 6 lower-level spells" will stop you reaching Ultimate Power level in a hurry, it seems that you get a lot for not many points. The "Open doors" spell as written essentially allows a mage with it to outshine any rogue-type when it comes to opening things. Not only does it give a roll that the rogue would have to spend 25 points to equal, but it alows locks to be picked at range (and theerfore much more safely) The same is likely to be true (albeit by not as much) at lower levels. Is the intention that all characters will be mages, or do you have other counter-balances planned for the character guidelines section? It seems like Mages would start off slightly weaker than other characters (because of the need to buy the talent and a decent EGO), but gradually pull further and further ahead, being able to buy increasingly more powerful spells for the same price. By the time the characters have earned 50 experience points, 3 XP buys the fighter +1 CSL with swords (say) and the Mage a 5d6, 5DEF area affect entangle (say). A couple of suggestions which might help. Keep the echelon formula the same, but allow active points to modify the skill roll. In that case, for the more powerful spells, paying 5 points to get a 14- roll might not be good enough (I figure Mages will hit EGO 18-20 pretty quickly). That way, heavily-limited spells with high active costs will be avaialble at lower echelons, but you will need to sink more points into the skill roll to use them, which will balance to some extent. The other possibility would be to change the formula so that high ative point powers are found further up the tree. That would not change the ascendancy of mages, but it would slow it. Also, you could avoid some of these issues by controlling the spells which are available, so that there is not too much combat magic. cheers, Mark

Re: Herophile Fantasy art They're both old DnD chracters - the two strongest men in the world, pretty much. Ah, it gladdens the heart to see Smirnoff again. cheers, Mark

Re: Making Hero more deadly Something to consider - why is everyone cranking around with 20+ rDEF? That's far from typical in the games I've been in (in fact usually only bricks had that kind of defence). The one exception was the "grimworld" game (an iron age, near-future game), where killing attacks were common (and often large).* Maybe everyone in the game has high amounts of DEF/rDEF because ... um... you know, they don't want to die? If it's low rDEF/high DEF that is bugging you, then you can simply rule that only rDEF stops STUN from KA. That will make KA more fearsome but won't kill people. Alternatively, if it's blood you want, increase the multiplers for resistant defences (by 2 or 3). That'll let people whale on each other with fists in superhero fashion, but still let your Midnighter/Wolverine types leave a trail of bloodied corpses behind them - but in that case expect a) more KAs and more rDEF from your players. cheers, Mark *immortal dialogue from that game: GM: "OK, Warhorn hits you for 18 BOD, 54 Stun, killing. What's Gecko's resistant Defence?" Gecko (in a very, very small voice): "Ummm. Resistant Defence?" Gecko was the last character in *that* game to rely on his agility to survive. My character - supreme survivalist that he was - could muster 40+ rDEF PD/ED or a 6d6 HKA, depending on how he used his powers, if memory serves. Ugh! I'm actually glad we don't play those kinds of game anymore.

Re: Herophile Fantasy art Oh, took a while of digging about, but the bird model I used is: Mock's Riding Bird - avialable for 0 dollars and 0 cents from R'osity. I just checked (two minutes ago) and the download was functioning. And since this is an art thread, here's an old and much loved PC of mine - Angror Ironfist: friend/rival of Fitz's character Smirnoff the Mighty cheers, Mark

Re: A new look at shields Actually in all the shield-geekery, I forgot the main point. Although in real life shields do provide some armour-like protection (ie: they can soften a blow, even if it then hits you) I recommend - very strongly - against using them that way in FH. When we started using Hero system for Fantasy - before FH came out - that's exactly what we did. It was armour - at first with an activation roll, later with a skill roll (block). But it worsened the highly protective effect of armour in an FH game - and thus greatly lengthened combat. Get a warrior in chain with a shield and 4 PD - not an outrageous combination - and you start needing 16+ stun to get ANYTHING through if he blocks with his shield. Forget doing BOD. It means that player characters are much more wiling to rush massed troops since the chances of them being significantly hurt greatly decrease. Sure, to get that extra protection, requires a Block roll, but 4 points gets you +2OCV with shield block, which is plenty, on top of the shield bonus... The problem is that current weapons and combat are roughly balanced. Light to medium hand weapons can menace a lightly or medium armoured figure, though the the armour usually prevents one-shotting. They are less of a threat to a heavily armoured man. Heavier weapons are a significant threat to a heavily-armoured man. But add in 3-6 points of extra armour and lighter weapons drop off the bottom of the scale. It could be argued that the extra DCV a shield gives you (which means a clean miss) also slows damage and thus combat, but in real life it hasn't worked out that way. I think that's because it's easier/cheaper to boost your OCV than it is to max out damage. It also means that you end up with slightly higher lethality since shields used as armour ends the chance of doing BOD - fights always end with lots of KO's. So we use the bonus to DCV with the proviso already noted that if the attack would have hit without the shield bonus, then it hits the shield instead, which takes damage. It's not unreasonable - saying that soaking a blow with a shield so that it does little damage is extra DCV rather than armour makes just as much sense. People are too hung up on the special effect of "didn't hit me" One last point - if you decide to go the "shield takes damge" route, note the special rules for foci whose main function is to soak damage - otherwise they are ridiculously fragile. cheers, Mark

Re: open door spell

Re: a warrior's prowess, a thief's skill What you could do is adapt the idea of "normal skill maxima" to be based off how many points a character has. So (for example) you could say that no-one can have a skill higher than total points/10 and no OCV can be higher than points/15 (giving you a max of 15- and OCV10: these are just examples, rather than hard and fast suggestions - you could use points/12 or whatever). That would let you cap levels and such but allow room to grow as the game progressed. There's two problems, that I can foresee immediately. Players may well whine or try to get around the rules in other other ways (for example, by maxing out on SPD and Damage and buying Stat.s instead of levels) - or they'll do both those things. The second problem is that everyone will look much the same. If you cap OCV at 10, expect everyone to have OCV 10. If you cap SPD at 4, expect everyone to have SPD4. I get the feeling that's not exactly what you are after. My solution - if you want to have a combat-oriented game but don't want stratospheric combat skills, is a dramatic and seldom-used one. Start them on less points. Once game starts, it is easy enough to get characters to spend points on other things: languages, AK, TF, cool fighting tricks. A character who starts with 150 points almost always starts with higher combat-relevant stat.s than one that starts with 100 and earns his way up to 150. And he usually has less points on "ancilliary stuff". Secondly, spice your combat up with more than just "Whack the pinata". Mr "I bought 10 2-point levels with longsword" will deeply consider your suggestion that he should broaden out after someone catches his weapon in a swordbreaker, snaps it in half and then plays kidney-massage with their armoured fists. Or after 20 archers feather him as he runs across the courtyard. Or after he has to *sneak* into the castle before he can righteously maim someone. Or when the critical fight takes place in the rafters of the great hall, where the ability to jump and keep your balance is as important as raw OCV. Third - do the same for everyone. Even if the game is combat oriented, blind-fighting looks like a good deal after someone dumps a waggonload of flour into the warehouse and kicks the snot out of the whole group because they can't see. Danger-sense seems like a good buy if the opponents du jour make a habit of attacking by surprise. Trapfinding and climbing (and swimming) are all ways to soak points if the environments you dump your players into are dangerous. Combat-riding is a necessity if they have to fight mounted, while ship-handling is useful if they have to do it on water. Stealth and concealment can be crucial while interrogation might be useful. *Don't* go out of your way to punish them - simply put them in situations where the players WANT to have other abilities than raw OCV or raw damage. I tend to give my players hints. "To reach Ondean, you have to cross the Sea of Grass. It'll take you weeks on foot, but without combat riding, you're going to look like meat targets in the saddle..." "If you try and cross the forest of Roncevalles without any survival skills, bandits will be the least of your problems - you'll starve to death before you get out..." And if they persist, well fast-riding bandits who rain them with arrows and flee hand to hand combat with opponents on foot, or letting them starve in the forest until they are so weak they have to abandon their gear to keep moving, will encourage them to think smarter. cheers, Mark

Re: Magic system question Amusing side-note - in the game King of Dragon Pass, one of the events that can happen is you get visited by wandering adventurers. My tribe invited them in for dinner and then ambushed them (hey, they're not of our people, the rules of hospitality didn't apply). Although the 5 of them killed as many people as a full-fledged battle against a rival tribe (I didn't expect them to be so tough...) we got more loot and magical stuff than the whole tribe had made in 5 years of exploring, growing crops and fighting our neighbours. Not enough to get to be king though.... cheers, Mark

Re: A new look at shields

Re: A new look at shields Alas, only partly true. It may be true of medieval shields - but grave finds from the pre-viking Vendel, Välsgarde, and Thorsbjerg sites all contain shields with metal rims, as do bog finds from northern germany. Since these are made of metal plates rather than a cast rim, it has been argued that these were decoration, repair or reinforcement (and in some cases, it probably is), but the difficulty of casting a rim that size, together with the finding in the Viking contemporary Birka graves that the metal rims have been butted to provide a continuous strengthened rim, tend to argue for protection. The vikings may not have used metal rims on their shields, but at least some of their contemporaries did - the famous Sutton Hoo shield has a metal rim, though other anglo-saxon shields do not. Likewise, going back in time, both the later period (rectangular) and early period (oval) Roman scuta had metal rims. The brass rims on the UK finds may well have been decorative, but the Dalamatian Scutum had a fairly heavy iron rim, which appears to have been more protective than decorative (it also had a woollen facing - something you don't see very day!) This is not unusal - Roman army standing orders from the first century BC specify an iron rim and brass boss on all scuta (soon replaced by an iron boss). Both bosses and rim reinforcements in a variety of forms have been found: I have seen them with my own eyes in museums. Now this is not to say that all shields had metal reinforcements - no viking era shields have been found that have this, for example. Celtic shields also seem to have lacked metal reinforcements, apart from the boss. But so few shields have been found from these eras, that all we can say is that shields might - or might not - have metal rims, depnding on the culture and period. Somebody should have told the Greeks then, who for hundreds of years used large, very bloody heavy, bronze shields. By the classic era the greeks had dumped the all-bronze version for the aspis, as did their macedonian successors, who went on to kick the living snot out of the surrounding cultures. The aspis was wood with a bronze facing (still bloody heavy) or sometimes only a bronze rim - this is the shield that the scuta evolved out of. Moving right along, museums in both Aalborg and Copenhagen have quie a lot of iron shields - the spoils of battle apparently smashed and dumped in bogs between the 6th to 9th centuries, while iron shields were used by middle eastrn armies from the 9th century onwards. The Arabic Nihayat al-Su'l wa'l Umniyaya fi Ta'lim A'mal al-Furusiyya - written sometime after 1240 AD - was used as a mamaluk training manual and specifically discusses the use of wooden and iron shields. Genuine iron shields from the 14th-19th century, survive in large numbers - I've seen plenty in museums both Turkey and Egypt. Metal shields - both bucklers and heater shields start popping up in Europe in the 15th century - the Ross collection in NY at the Met has a 14th century steel heater shield from France, if memory serves. There are other examples, but you get the drift, by now, I am sure. In other words - metal has been used as both reinforcement and material for shields in many places and by many cultures. Just not all. cheers, Mark

Re: Usagi Yojimbo HERO Also, if you are interested there's an UY conversion of all the characters and generic NPCs http://www.geocities.com/markdoc.geo/Gaming_stuff/Sengoku/npc.html from my Hero system Sengoku game, which might be useful for reference. cheers, Mark

Re: Anonymity vs magic Simple. Buy invisibility to Unusual senses and Mental sense groups. Mental senses covers both Telepathy and Mindscan and Unusual covers Clairsentience and magical detects such as "Detect people who cannot be detected by my other detects" Relativley expensive, but then, it's a jolly useful power for somebody who's being hunted (or expects to be hunted) by cosmic horrors, pissed-off wizards and the like. cheers, Mark

Re: Fire Balls Spells and Hit Locations. Two points: even when I was playing/GM'ing DandD (and I'm playng in a D20 game at the moment) I tossed that ol' second Ed. thing about fireballs melting some metals straight out the window (the melting point of gold is about 1000 celcius or nearly 2000 farenheit). If the time of exposure was enough to melt even a small quality of metal, it'd be enough to turn anything biological to a rapidly expanding cloud of superheated steam and any other metal red-hot. If we go with the flash-burn thing that makes sense. My approach for area effect attacks (not counting 1 hex accurate or attacks defined as multiple blows) is that they use the *lowest* DEF and just roll standard stun (so, no multipliers). They cannot be aimed (that's the tradeoff for lowest DEF, so they don't get a limit for it). If your arms. leg and face are uncovered when someone shoots you with a jet of acid, it's not going to matter that much what you have on your chest. On the other hand, burns on your chest are no more disabling than burns on your arms. It's not like most area affect attacks are impact or piercing: internal organ/stunning damage is what the location modifiers seem to mostly simulate. For those attacks that ARE penetrating - like hails of spikes, flurries of blows, etc, they DO use hit locations and CAN be aimed - and take whatever defences are on that location. cheers, Mark

Re: Does anyoen use spell-multipliers? As to the multipliers question, no. Don't use them and see no situation in which I would ever be likley to (basically it gives all of the advantages and none of the disadvantages of a power framework). Looking at the spells in the Grimoire and dividing their real cost by 3 was enough to give me heart palpitations as a GM - Yay! 6 points to get near-immunity to physical weapons! 12 points to get a 6d6 RKA NND does body! As for balancing wizards off against fighters, my experience after decades of GM'ing Fantasy in Hero system - and this thread confirms it - is that the "advantage" the warrior has by having access to free stuff is largely mythical and supported by comparisons of a reasonably designed warririor character set off against a poorly-designed mage who for reasons unknown to us has chosen to simply ignore all the good stuff he could usefully carry, and without any of the many warrior-killing spells most mages in real FH games load up on (flash, entangle, invisibility, etc). My problem is - and always has been - keeping mages under conrol so they don't trample warriors into the dirt with their big studly mage-boots (and this in a game where warriors can buy martial arts, power stunts and as many CSLs as they can reasonably justify). That way, mages can shine out of combat and the warriors get their glory when things get messy. cheers, Mark

Re: open door spell The other possibility is simply tunneling (leave passage open behind or close as you like) limited for use only on doors. You'd need to buy enough to go through extra DEF - otherwise you could small wooden doors but not steel ones. The special effect is simply that the door opens. If you choose to close the door, it is still locked after you have gone through. cheers, Mark

Re: Firefly Hmm. I hadn't thought of it before, but that's not a bad comparison. It may just be the fog of nostalgia, but I'd give the nod to Blake's 7 in terms of plot and interest, while Firefly (cheapo as it is by today's standards) has it all over Blake's 7 in terms of visuals/design and an edge in acting/character. I must admit though that Vila is by far my favourite character from either series. I modelled my first Traveller character on him! cheers, Mark

Re: Magic system question

Re: Magic system question

Re: TGhe massively Multiplayer Snare Actually IIRC there was a Korean movie came out last year which basically has this plot, with the additional twist that the players need to get to a certain goal inside the game to get out. cheers, Mark

Re: Magic system question

Re: Herophile Fantasy art And the last of the series - two more Samadrians - a sword and buckler man and an archer. I'll get to work on soldiers from the other kingdoms at some point, but for now I concentrate on getting the magic systems, finished, rules for ships and ship combat polished up and the history/politics down. I've done the first two adventures, so if I do another half dozen, that should give me 2-3 months playing time so I can go ahead and write the rest as we go. I'm getting psyched about starting this game! It's been three years since I last ran a FH campaign. cheers, Mark

Re: Herophile Fantasy art Of the top of my head, I don't recall - but I'll check it out for you. It is freebie, that much I know. cheers, Mark