Markdoc

Re: I've got a story! I have no idea of the provenance of the map, so ... ehhh. But then, I don't think I have ever seen another map of Osgiliath, so who knows what everything is? Feel free to make it up On specific questions, IIRC, the Dome of Stars was a large building - perhaps actually on the bridge across the Anduin. That's why when it burned the palantir was lost in the river. There are two likely spots - one is the island where the broken bridge goes, the other is large building (? - something, anyway) on the bridge just downstream of that. As far as the Morgulduin goes, I dunno. The road to Morgul vale was supposed to run beside it, so it can't have been far from the city but as to whether it actually ran inside the wall, who knows? I think we're reaching a level of detail here that even the increasingly prolific JRR Tolkien hasn't yet plumbed. Osgiliath seems to move a bit - on the various maps I have looked at sometimes it seems far away from Morgulduin, at other times close by. Afraid that doesn't help much. As for the width of Anduin, it's a rare river that's uniform in width and it makes sense they'd build the bridge at the narrowest point, so I'd just handwave it. cheers, Mark

Re: How can an Napoleonic Era frigate fire a broadside every 12 seconds? I'm afraid I just don't get this. OK, so the ships are shooting at each other every 1-2 minutes. That's good. The players (who are on the ships) are in the meantime hauling away the wounded, putting out fires, getting their gear ready for a boarding action or standing on the poop deck shouting commands. So what on earth does this "the combat's over and the guns have only fired once" mean? Sure, the guns have fired once, the players are all still alive (assuming no-one's been cut in half by a cannonball) and the ships are still sailing. A couple of minutes later the guns fire again. Doesn't sound like the combat's over to me. Combat can take anything from a few seconds to a couple of months: I've run a siege in my game which lasted several weeks. I had no problem with the fact that the seige weapons being used, fired about once very 5 minutes, or that it took the players a day to make ladders.... The game system works just fine to incorporate actions of different length and I have never needed to use something as ridiculous as a 12 second reloading time for a cannon. cheers, Mark

Re: Yeah, but... Well at that point you are - ahem - out of combat, so your target is DCV 0 and the penalty to hit the head is only -4. The GM might also give you a surprise modifier cheers,Mark

Re: How can an Napoleonic Era frigate fire a broadside every 12 seconds? The answer is the same as for the USS Iowa question. Bad design. The fix? Drop the reload time back to 5 minutes and let crack crews use their levels to reduce reload time (dropping it one time slot would get you down to 5 shots per 5 mins which is not too far off). As to the argument that otherwise fights would take forever... um, so what? All it means is that the PC's on board a ship have a realistic amount of time to do things like get ready for boarding. It also avoids things like the players running to the fort as an enemy ship is sighted only to have 20 salvoes reduce the fort to ruins before they've covered two blocks.... It's not like you have to play every phase if nothing significant is happening, and if you have a player who insists you do, whap them with a marlinspike cheers, Mark

Re: Victorian Women's Art of Self Defense Actually I have seen in museums a number of teeny, tiny .22 cal pistols from victorian times. They are one shot and have no muzzle or grip to speak of. Very pretty though - all enamelled and decorated in gold and silver. When I commented to my dad that you'd have difficulty hitting anyone with them, he pointed out that they were women's pistols: if you needed to use it, your attacker would be close enough that you could just stick the muzzle in his ear. Cheers, Mark

Re: Newbie Question - Judging the Challenge If you are unsure of the power level try throwing a "layered challenge" at them. So for example, have them attacked by 1 to 1.5 times their number of thug types (bandits, goblins, wolves, whatever), with some more seen "in the background") the players cream the first lot, the other group can run in and help (while a third group appears, if needed). If the players are having a hard time but kill their opponents anyway, then the second group can get scared and run away. Run 3 or 4 encounters like this and you get a good idea of what kind of challenge they are up to. It's not just about points. there are so many more combat options in Hero that a smart player who blocks or dodges when needed and moves his levels around cleverly can often count for much more than his points would indicate. cheers, Mark

Re: Fourth Age Hero

Re: Fantasy Hero combat slower?

Re: Fantasy Hero combat slower? Maybe, except that the maths are are bit off (at least based on my experience). The DEF is OK, but attacks in all the FH games I have run tend to average about 2d6 - using the same rubric, that means 21 STUN or 10 going through a time - meaning KO in 3 hits, same as Supers. I don't think that's out of line - in the current FH game I am playing only the wussy healer/magic user type can't generate a 2d6 HKA (and these are all starting characters). None of our fights so far have gone much beyound 4-5 phases. Add that to the fact that FH characters tend to be OCV biased - often heavily (whereas supers are often a bit more balanced) and that explains my experience that FH fights go faster. Certainly in the last game I routinely would get through several combats in an evening, sometimes with as many as 6 players and 20-30 NPCs. Just one fight with numbers like that at the Superhero level (even given that most of the NPCs are agent level, relatively speaking) and I'd plan on it taking the whole evening. I guess it depends on your GM and gaming style - I don't think it's a generic observation that can be applied to FH. cheers, Mark

Re: Background skills For the language question, I allow a 1 pt "read/write only" option. Most people who can read latin can also speak it, so latin was perhaps not the best example. Members of the curia for example, do converse in Latin and I have known Jesuits who do also. However, I don't know of anyone who can speak ancient egyptian, though I know people who can read hieroglyphs - even fluently. This option also comes in handy for that pesky 1 point cross-family familiarity in languages. Having Danish gives me 1 point in German (apparently), but in truth I can't really understand much german (unless the speak slowly and very simply) and I can't speak it at all. On the other hand, I *can* puzzle my way through a german text as long as it's not too complicated (a newspaper article, say). Cheers, Mark

Re: What's the most ridiculous PC you've ever been subjected to? Urgh. Not quite up the standard of the first post (what could be) but... JanitorMan. For reasons I absolutely cannot fathom the player really wanted this character and submitted a sheet several times. A super-strong, tough janitor (No, it wasn't explained why) who fought with a mop, had extra running (floorwax) and a couple of other equally odd powers. His secret identiy was .... a Janitor! One that actually did get into play was Wing. He could fly, really, really fast and had a good turn ratio, so he could storm through downtown at high speed. In addition, he could ..... well, do nothing, basically. A really fast flying normal. What the hey? The same player also submitted (and played for quite a while) Ghost who could fly, turn invisible and go desolid all at zero END. No, he didn't have any other useful powers either - in a fight he could turn solid and punch people with his bony little fists (for 3d6 normal damage) but that was a bit risky with his PD and ED of 4.... At least we could send him on Recon missions. What really bugs me about those last two characters was they were played by the guy who was our regular Champions GM, who designed and ran a really fun campaign with some interesting villains and characters. My favourite - Captain Evil - was an NPC gadgeteer with a big funky ray gun who did bank robberies and similar low level crime. Eventually he ran across Shade - our group's grim avenger martial artist type (Think Midnighter) at which point it turned out he was a normal with a plastic gun that flashed interesting colours (people were too scared to challenge him because they thought he was super....). Ouch. cheers, Mark

Re: Background skills

Re: Background skills I agree with the comments on "skill roll inflation". Having character skills appropriate to background and genre is key (for me - as a GM I'm a bit of a skills martinet). But in my opinion, most people wildly overestimate what is needed to make a "useful" or "realistic" skill roll. You can see my skills rant here, if you want. http://www.geocities.com/markdoc.geo/Gaming_stuff/hero_houserules.htm#NewSystemofSkillPricing Basically, if a character wishes to be *good* at a skill then he needs to spend points on it. But for most instances - especially background - an 8- roll is plenty. If the character in question comes from London, then AK: London is part of his (free) everyman skillset - he doesn't need AK: London 11- unless he wants to be a London maven, familiar with its streets and twisty mazy backways. A navy man with a London background would know the docks of the Isle of Dogs, and where to get a sounding man at Greenwich but would he necessarily know the name of the slumlord who owns the rookery behind the docks, or where to find a certain brothel in that area? One hopes not! A Character with a roguish background might know that, as would any local, but would not necessarily know anything about the order of shipping in the roads, or what taxi fare to the village of Hampstead costs. Sounds like 8- to me.... Likewise *I* know that haggling is not just the rule in an indian market, but also that one does not haggle in an Indian department store - and I don't kid myself that I have KS:India at any level. KS: Asia at 8- maybe. If you buy a bunch of skills at 8- and perhaps a skill enhancer, 10-12 points can give your character a depth of background skill sufficient for most games, and relatively realistic, whilst at the same time allowing them to develop their particular forté without concern that everyone else has the same or an overlapping skill set. cheers, Mark

Re: How do you feel about Superheroes that kill? I think that was the point - the original series writer said "The Authority are the villains of their own story" meaning that if you go round killing people - even in a good cause - you end up as a villain. Of course this is a comic, not real life, where such clean distinctions can be made. cheers, Mark

Re: Another Deadly blow variant Sure, this version looks fine. Abuse-free and should do exactly what you want it to. Another option, generally preferred by my players because it's simpler, is to just buy HKA and then modify it. So for example, Reyvius the Ghostkiller has: 2d6 HKA, OIF (weapon of opportunity , -1/2), only versus undead (-3/4), requires a KS: undead roll (-1/2), cannot add more than 1d6 to weapon's normal damage. Active/Real cost (30/10). Note that since there's no STR min, he can do up to 3d6 with his STR of 13 - as long as he's using a weapon that would normally do at least 2d6. Slightly more expensive but he can use this all the time, so as long as he can identify the monster he is fighting. cheers, Mark

Re: Another Deadly blow variant Well, I really hate Deadly Blow as presented - it's a hideous kludge that fits nowhere in the Hero system. This, on the other hand looks fine I allow a similar power in my game but without the "fades immediately after attack" which allows a character to go into a flurry of deadly blows (seems like a better use of points). Did I mention, I really, really hate Deadly Blow? Cheers, Mark

Re: Guns vs. Armor

Re: Guns vs. Armor Actually, if you recall the ENG footage from the Bank of America robbery in North Hollywood back in 1997 (I think), what you are describing is exactly what happened. The robbers wore body armour on their legs and arms as well as vest and they were peppered by literally thousands of rounds from 9 mm Berrettas, plus slugs from 18G. shotguns broken out from a local gun store. I don't know how many of those hit, but it was a hell of a lot. All it did was knock them back a few steps: they weren't even knocked down. They were eventually taken out by head shots since they weren't wearing helmets, but the three robbers stood off more than 200 police officers and wounded 15 of them, before being brought down (one killed himself, one was shot at point blank range when the cops rushed him - that was ballsy - and one was taken out by a Swat team member as he tried to escape). It was similar in Richardson in Dallas in 2004, except there some of the cops had SIG .357s (which also failed to do any real damage). It's safe to say that yeah, right now body armour has outpaced handguns at least, and at medium range offers good to very good protection vs most assault rifles. cheers,Mark

Re: Something we should all look into.. Curses! Giving away the great poser secret! Well, OK, it hasn't been a secret for a few years now but... I use it a lot for Characters, important NPCs and the like. I find it helps to have a visual image - in fact most of my own characters start as a visual image. I think: woah, that looks cool - and build the character from there. I mostly run FH, so that's what I am set up for (see the Segrelles-inspired Knight attached, for example). For those new to the program, by itself, it's cool, but pretty limited. It comes with a set of stock figures (nude guy, nude girl, sorry Mightybec, no sheep, Business guy, etc). However you can get a swarm of useful addon's (Capes, goggles, Tyrannosaurus rex with harness and saddle, etc) either by buying them or scrounging them off the net. Or you can use 3D software to make your own. The knight shown is a mix of free items, one bought item, plus stuff I made myself. Basically, think of it as those paper dolls you could switch outfits on but in 3D. A couple of warnings. If you stick with stock figures, you hit a limit pretty quickly: all your figures are going to look the same. To get unique and cool-looking figures you need to invest some work and learn how to mess with figures. OTOH, I really enjoy all that kind of stuff. That's the second warning: if you do enjoy it, it can become an extremely time and money-consuming hobby. I'll freely admit I stumped up for a dual G5 simply because I wanted the extra rendering power Oh, last of all here's a quick pic (literally - I used about 30 minutes on this) of Thrak's character. It's not terribly good because I didn't bother to copy the description down - now I see I should have used an off the shoulder shirt rather than a slit tunic (but I wanted to show she had something on underneath!). And she should have grey eyes, not blue. Anyhoo... Cheers, Mark

Re: Favorite Abuse Actually the second-most most abusive character, I've ever played would slide past most GMs. A simple Brick with high DEX/SPD and moderate/high defences, masses of STR and all powers/stat.s bought in "only in Hero form" - a time honoured archetype. Easily outclassed any other character in the group in combat prowess - probably outclassed all of them in a group, if we had fought it out. Not *really* abusive, but really annoying: damage reduction combined with a triggered healing Aid, continuous. Character was nicknamed Weeble by the GM - he wobbles, but he doesn't fall down (actually he would fall down if hit with lots of attacks so he didn't have time to reset his trigger, but in general...) More abusive - a character with Aid (all physical Char) an increased maximum and a long return time, bought with damage shield. Fails the +2 in advantages requirement, but the character was fun to play - the more you hit him - and he hit you - the stronger, faster and tougher he got. I think from memory he maxed out at +50 points on all physical stat.s. That was the only power he had, but you had to take him out fast in any fight while he was still wimpy. Nothing, however, is more horrible in my experience than movement powers usable as an attack at range. Especially megascale tunnelling, or X-D teleport. cheers

Re: Weapon not up to the Armor Well, as Mike pointed out, this is not unrealistic - we have records from the crusades of mailed knights falling off their horses and being repeatedly stabbed with spears and light swords - but on being rescued, having nohting worse than bruising (Stun damage). So how did people without cool armour-penetrating weapons deal with this? 1. Get some cool armour-penetrating weapons. Maybe most thieves like short swords because they are easy to carry/hide. Give one or two (not all of them) a short, heavy beaked hammer or a misericorde: both AP weapons. The idea is not to kill your players but scare them from time to time. The first time someone takes a misiercorde in the kidneys (let's say 5 BOD, 2 goes through, doubled to 4 for location 13) they'll notice and start taking the thieves a bit more seriously. 2. Maneuvers. As noted, Haymaker puts your ordinary shortsword into potential BOD damage range. Adding a couple of CSLs to boost damage makes it even better. Martial arts is also good, and find weakness even better. Not every thief should have these, or any thief necessarily have all of them. But mix one or two "better quality" thieves in with the rest and the players will have to treat all thieves with a bit more respect because they never know if the guy beside them is 25 points with a shortsword, or 50 points with a shortsword, 3 CSL and find weakness.... 3. Gang up. 4 thieves take on sir Armourpants. He treats them with disdainful contempt, knowing their puny weapons are no match for his armour. The thieves circle around him and he attacks thief no. 1. Who throws his levels into DCV and blocks, hopefully surviving. Thieves #2 through 4 haymaker - quite safely, 'cos sir Armourpants has just attacked and can't attack them while they are low DCV. Hopefully, one or more will also get attacking from behind bonuses, etc. They are not going to kill him outright, but they could easily put some serious hurt on him with one or two good hits. If your NPCs use their numbers, things like watching your back, buying combat sense and so on start to be worthwile, while - to me at least - it is more fun because it rewards tactical play. 4. Fight dirty. Having dispatched the first 4 thieves with only minor wounds, sir Armourpants has learned his lesson. When reinforcements turn up, he puts his back to the wall and waits for the thieves to make their move. Thief number 1 throws a handful of quicklime into his face (3d6 Flash) and while he's blinded (at 1/2 DCV) the other three thieves pile in, haymakering away... Now dripping blood at every step, sir Armourpants staggers up the passage where he meets another 4 thieves. They've had enough of this guy. They just pile in, all levels on OCV and grabbing him. Sir Armourpants spits one thief wounding him badly, but one of the other threes grabs him and throws him to the ground, another piles on top. Next phase, sir Amourpants - at 1/2 DCV - is thoroughly grabbed. He's stronger than the thieves, but there are three of them. He's grabbed, so he can't use his sword. The one he wounded in the first phase takes off his helmet, exposing his DEF 0 face and smiling evilly.... It works for me. Mike can attest how frequently a party of kick-ass 125-150 point samurai got hurt by a group of 25 point ashigaru who were just a little bit more numerous, but fought cleverly And, to be fair, how clever tactics by the players often allowed them to take on much more numerous foes and do savage execution! cheers, Mark

Re: Batman vs Midnighter

Re: Stat Inflation There's two problems here: At 75 + 75 points you are more or less asking players to take high stat.s: they are a very efficient way of being good at stuff. Players who start with 75 + 75 almost always have better stat. lines than players who started at 50 + 50 and then got 50 XP. They find other things to spend points on along the way. Higher starting total XP.s almost always translate to higher starting Stat.s. Likewise, characters started at lower points tend to diverge more radically as they optimise whatever *their* shtick is, so treading on each other's acts becomes less of an issue Secondly, STR is extremely cheap - in fantasy games, where it dictates everything from how much encumbrance (and thus armour) you wear through how much damage you can dish out and how much STUN you have it's simply too good to pass up. This is why all your players want 20 STR. A player has to consciously say "I will deliberately disadvantage myself by taking a low STR because it's in character" - and while such players exist, they are rare.... So, as others have noted, increasing STR to 2 points per stat point helps. Otherwise, you are faced with saying "No, because I said so" which I have always regarded as the last resort of the poor GM. cheers, Mark

Re: Of course we're criminals. We have to be. I've played in more supers Campiagns than I've run (actually I've never run a supers game that was more than a 6-8 session story arc). But from a player's point of view... They've ranged from: Modern age with silver age conventions (destroying the superbase filled with giant robots, defending the earth from slug-like aliens in walking war machine, etc). In that campaign, the issues you raise simply weren't addressed: if you kick in a door and lasers don't hose down the hallway,you figure you're in the wrong house. So you don't end up having to sort the bad guys from the normal - they live in discrete but overlapping universes. In this universe the players were high-profile and generally trusted. At the other extreme was a GM who always ran "grim" campaigns. This was set in the near future. The supervilians were utterly ruthless, superbattles tookplace downtown and even a "successful" defence more often than not just ended up minimising casualties. Battles always resulted in massive property damage. As the campaign developed taking down the bad guys became goal number 1 and we justified it by pointing out that OK, punching Ray right through two buildings might have resulted in 3 civilian deaths (and Ray's) but that was justifiable considering last time he microwaved a whole mall and got away with it. In that game, the "heroes" had to cope with a public that was occasionally supportive, mostly distrustful and a government that was publically supportive but behind the scenes was trying to get rid of all of us. Eventually all supers were outlawed as a public menace. Things got to the point we ended up taking over a small African country that had been used as a haven by several "bad" supergroups and setting it up as a place where "super-people" could live openly - but I am sure to the general public we were just "super-coup" number three. That game was "realistic" in many of it's precepts but I have to say I didn't really go for it. In hindsight, (this game was from the early 80's) it resembled the Authority crossed with Marshall Law, but without the snappy repartee. And last of all we played an X-man style game where the players were mostly mutants with Genocide playing a big role, so we had a hunted hero /low profile sort of game. Again there, civilians and law enforcement was simply a background for player wierdies vs nonplayer wierdies. There have been other games, including one where players were deputised as "special forces" and where we *did* get a reaming for not following procedure, but none of them lasted long enough to tell how it would have played out. I think, based on my own experience, if you want "realistic" then you are going to need a group that is happy with that line and some careful planning on the GM's part, otherwise "gritty" can easily turn into "messy" cheers, Mark

Re: Points or $