Markdoc

Re: Mega-damage, bit by bit This. I cannot count the number of fantasy GMs who comment that they have problems balancing their encounters ... who then note that their players are built on 150 or 175 point bases. In earlier editions of Champions superheroes started on 150 points base. Now things have gotten a little more expensive since then, but not so much it invalidates the basic point. If you are starting at that level, then you need to be aware that your NPCs are going up against a party of Conan-level adventurers and plan/build accordingly. Basically at 175 points base, a 3d6 (or even 4d6) HKA isn't outrageous, so you need to plan for opponents who can face that sort of punishment. cheers, Mark

Re: How do GMs out there handle late arrivals

Re: How do GMs out there handle late arrivals This is exactly what I do. Since I award XP per person, not to the whole group, the PCs usually have a pretty broad band of XP anyway. I do almost the same if a PC dies: the new PC starts off with the "group minimum" plus however much they got for their "Death scene" If tehy have really awesome death scene, they can actually come out if it ahead (though, to be honest, that's only happened once). cheers, Mark

Re: How do you feel about House Rules? I'm with the crowd on this one: many house rules I have seen have been horribly broken at worst, or can cause occasional "WTF?" moments at best, so I prefer to run the game as vanilla as possible. The only house rules I have had, have usually been either to address things that originally weren't in the rules at all, like mass combat or "setting-specific" (like for example, rules on how magic worked in a fantasy game or "only these powers are allowed" in some heroic games). There have been a few exceptions, though: I house-ruled the 5E version of Deadly Blow out of bounds and substituted one that worked like the 6E version, for example. Also, I like to clearly outline what house rules are in play in a setting document that everybody gets before they start designing characters cheers, Mark

Re: Resistance is useless Ummmm. Yeah. If you hit them with a 4d6 KA. Imagine! If Spidey took a 20 mm high velocity shell from an attack helicopter to the chest, there's a 66% chance that he'd be stunned ... You know, actually, that doesn't sound unreasonable to me. Now you are right, that it'd change gameplay. There would be reason to have a much larger range of defences, and killing attacks would become scarier to people with low levels of resistant defence (though more because of the chance of being stunned than because they were more lethal). Characters with a higher proportion of rDEF would have better defences against killing attacks - at the cost of increased vulnerability to normal attacks (assuming the same total cost of defences) But I'm cool with that: it increases PC variety and the range of viable options - and at a negative cost to game play (ie: decreased complexity). cheers, Mark Edit: though I like even better the idea of making Killing simply an AVAD and simplifying AVAD. That reduces the volatility of killing attacks which, as illustrated by this discussion, is still a problem.

Re: Resistance is useless I have long been a fan of this approach. It simplifies play, it simplifies the rules, it differentiates between "tough guy with bulletproof vest" (6 rPD/12 PD) and "Guy in Battlesuit" (20rPD) far better than the current rules, and as you note, mathematically it works better. I also suggested a while back that we simplify (and change slightly) the AVAD rules and then simply treat killing vs PD/ED as an AVAD with very common defences. There's a whole chunk of extra text in the AVAD rules that exists because KA works "kind of like AVAD, but not really". cheers, Mark

Re: Archery shields? Actually if an archer's buckler is worn while shooting (not usual), it could be worn on the bow arm, not the draw arm. It's on the outside, so under most conditions wouldn't interfere with the string and you can wear your guard over the buckler straps. (As an aside, yesterday at "work", we had a whole day of teambuilding, but instead of the usual dreary exercises with planks and bits of string, what we did was mostly fun. I am now undefeated in my company at Archery and Fencing! ) More practically, I don't think archers actually wore bucklers when shooting. While the buckler wouldn't interfere with your string very much, it would interfere with your sighting, and it adds extra weight to what's already a pretty physical exercise (the last thing you want!). Also, if you suddenly want it, it's in an inconvenient place, strapped to your forearm (and maybe worse, strapped under your guard). In use, a buckler is typically held in your hand, not on your forearm (like this). [ATTACH=CONFIG]45181[/ATTACH] That's probably why I can't recall off the top of my head, any contemporary illustrations of archers using the buckler while shooting - even though there are plenty showing archers with bucklers. When shooting, the buckler is in the sensible place - worn on the hip, along with your sword, like in this nice illustration from the late 1400's, so that you can get it quickly when you need it. And after all, why would you want it on your arm anyway? While using the bow, it offers approximately 0% protection in exchange for all the disadvantages. Yes, I know, in D&D, it's allowed, and in truth I encourage my wife to get her PC, to wear her +4 mithril buckler on her arm while shooting, but that's a rules artifact, not a real-life situation. After all, I encourage her to do the same while casting spells! cheers, Mark

Re: Tiered Equipment or "How to fit Arrows and Antimarter in 60-90 AP" I believe I've mentioned in the past that this is similar to how we've done "very stabby" weapons. The costing was quite different, however: -3/4 gets you "Reduced stun -3" and -1/4 get you "only to negate defences". That last bit doesn't sound like much, but in a game where most serious targets can be expected to have resistant defences, it doesn't lose you too much, because a lot of damage is simply expended overcoming defences. We've also usually tossed on "standard effect" so that 7 points just lets you ignore 3 points of DEF and 15, ignore 6, etc. It makes combat faster than rolling two sets of dice and then trying to work out damage and how much armour you ignore for every hit. A typical example: Try a 2d6 killing attack (30AP): vs Plate armour (r8 PD backed up by 4 PD). Average roll is BOD 7/ 14 STUN, doing no BOD and 2 STUN, after defences. 'Tis but a scratch. High roll is 12 BOD/36 STUN, doing 4 BOD and 24 STUN - a wounding KO against a normal target Vs Chain mail, (r6 PD backed up by 4 PD). Average roll is BOD 7/ 14 STUN, doing 1 BOD and 4 STUN, after defences. 'Tis also but a scratch. High roll is 12 BOD/36 STUN, doing 6 BOD and 26 STUN - a KO against a normal target. Vs a sturdy peasant in his best shirt (4PD). Average roll is BOD 7/ 14 STUN, doing 7 BOD and 14 STUN, after defences. OooH! That's gotta smart! High roll is 12 BOD/36 STUN, doing 12 BOD and 36 STUN - the target is down and dying. Now try the same approach using a 1d6 killing + 2d6 "stabby" dice - which costs the same, before other limitations. This attack simply ignores 6 DEF of armour. vs Plate armour (r8 PD backed up by 4 PD). Average roll is BOD 3/6 STUN, doing 1 BOD and no STUN, after defences. 'Tis but a scratch. High roll is 6 BOD/18 STUN, doing 4 BOD and 12 STUN - a significant wound, but the target is still up Vs Chain mail, (r6 PD backed up by 4 PD). Average roll is BOD 3/ 6 STUN, doing 3 BOD and 2 STUN, after defences. 'Tis a bit more than a scratch. High roll is 6 BOD/18 STUN, doing 6 BOD and 8 STUN - a nasty wound, but the target is still up. Vs a sturdy peasant in his best shirt (4PD). Average roll is BOD 3/ 6 STUN, doing 3 BOD and 6 STUN, after defences. Tis a bit more than a scratch High roll is 6 BOD/18 STUN, doing 6 BOD and 18 STUN - a nasty wound, and the target is stunned. With this approach, weapons tend to do more BOD against armoured targets - but virtually always do less STUN - than regular killing attacks. They are also more consistent at doing BOD. On the other hand, they just ping off very heavily armoured targets and do less damage to unarmored or lightly armoured targets. You can "tune2 different types of attack, by varying the number of penetrating to damage dice and also by buying up (or down) the stun modifier, to get weapons that are good at penetrating armour, weapons that are good at putting STUN through armour and weapons that are more or less dangerous to armored targets If we used your numbers, that 2d6 attack (30 points) could be bought as 2d6 (does damage only: 20 points) and 2d6 penetration (10 points), which on average rolls would do 7 BOD to anybody in Chain or less, and on a slightly better than average roll would do 7 BOD to the guy in plate ... and it does the same STUN. It's significantly superior to the standard KA, suggesting to me that while the concept is sound, the numbers are way off. Having said that though, after experimenting with this approach, I mostly abandoned it as adding more complexity than it was worth cheers, Mark

Re: Tiered Equipment or "How to fit Arrows and Antimarter in 60-90 AP" Kevlar's about as good as old-fashioned padded armour against a club, and much less effective (even with trauma plates) than 1500's field harness This is the problem - kinetic energy isn't a really good indicator of lethality or effect. Modern firearms actually often deliver less kinetic energy than older firearms, but in a high-penetrating, more lethal form. The truth is, though, that Hero doesn't do a great job of simulating real world wounding physics. Better than a lot of games, but still not great. The reason for that is that lethality is not really terribly related to calibre, kinetic energy or any of that stuff, but almost exclusively to wound placement. A small wound somewhere important will kill you a lot faster and more reliably than a big wound to somewhere less important. What we're talking about here, is the perceived effect of weapons in the game. In a heroic game, it's one thing for a knight in plate armour to run into a hail of arrows: in real life, he had a pretty good chance of coming through alive. It hurts the game if he can safely run into a hail of machine gun fire, though. Going the other direction, it's perfectly OK for Ewoks to threaten each other with their tiny widdle awwows, but it just stimulates derision and laughter, when they take down elite armoured stormtroopers with them. The precise mechanism of wounding isn't the issue here: it's ... call it cinematic verisimilitude. In a superheroic game, it doesn't really matter: we don't balk at a guy going up against an armoured suit with his bare hands or a bow. cheers, Mark

Re: Tiered Equipment or "How to fit Arrows and Antimarter in 60-90 AP" I've got a really simple solution that has always worked well for me. It's got only 2 steps. 1. Don't get hung up on active points 2. Happy gaming! There is no reason at all to insist that all powers must fit into a 60-90 AP box. And that's the cause of the problem you outline, not the way the rules work. cheers, Mark

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

Re: Fantasy Race Bloat?

Re: Real Locations that should be fantasy Huh. I've actually been to half of those places. cheers, Mark

Re: Fantasy Hero Companion: Heavy Fighters Oh ... when you said "Heavy Fighter" I thought you meant ... [ATTACH=CONFIG]44936[/ATTACH] cheers, Mark

Re: After The Magic

Re: OIHID or Why Doesn't Billy Batson not Change Back? In Miracleman, the Shazam knockoff/homage, they address this very question. The short answer there is that the "heroic form" and the "human form" start to turn into different personalities. Even though they have to some extent shared memories, they see them from different perspectives. So Miracleman doesn't want to change back. But the human alterego wants his own life. The comic has the memorable line, when his pregnant girlfriend tells the normal form that she's leaving him. He asks "But what about the baby?" and she says "It's not your baby. It's Miracleman's", which really gets the point across: she wants his heroic alter ego - not him. I actually took this concept for an OIHID Brick called Valiant! Valiant was tall, muscular, insanely good looking, and of course faster, tougher, stronger and smarter than his normal form. So the Heroic form despised his nebbishy, weak useless - in his estimation - alter-ego and refused to change back voluntarily (there were of course situations that would change him back involuntarily, otherwise OIHID would have had no meaning). At the same time, Valiant! - had public ID and revelled in being a superhero and public figure, with a string of celebrity girlfriends, endorsement deals, a reality TV show, etc. Think of your favourite irritating celebrity and then give them superpowers ... The normal human form envied and disliked his Hero ID who he saw as shallow, egoistic, selfish and determined to put them both into potentially life-threatening situations ... and who made him look bad. So he wouldn't change voluntarily either - only if his own life was threatened (which oddly enough, happened on a regular basis ) or if he really, really needed Valiant!'s powers. Normally I play heroic PCs, and I often end up as de facto or official team leader, but I had a blast playing Valiant! who was a mixture of sullen, emo normal form, and irrationally optimistic Hero form. Being basically invulnerable, free of mundane worries like earning a living, getting sick, etc. the Hero form had the emotional depth of a 12 year old and tended to act (which in his case usually meant punching someone in the face) and count the consequences afterwards. The normal form felt like his life had been invaded and he'd been pushed into the basement - at the same time as he'd become dependant on his alter-ego. The whole question of why/how OIHID makes an interesting way to build some personality into your character. cheers, Mark

Re: Detailed (mundane) armor I thought about doing this for my games as well. Chain, for example offers a good deal less protection than plate, and while Cloth armour is effective against impact, and soewhat against slashing, it offers much less protection against piercing weapons. One way to simulate this is to vary the degree of PD/rPD as suggested, so that chain for example, would still be 6 DEF, but at 4rPD+2PD, while plate would still be 8 PD, but it'd be all rPD. But you know, I decided it'd be too much trouble (for me, anyway). I also thought about ED: but in the end, I'd rather have a metal surface (which might get hot, yes) than cloth or leather (which might burst into flames). So since the higher DEF armour looked like it'd also have higher ED, I just decided to leave it all alone. However, one area which I think is worthwhile is sectional defences. I priced out and worked out the weights of sectional defences so that players can decide where they want the heaviest armour. That works well and seems to hit the sweet spot between "too much detail" and "not enough detail". cheers, Mark

Re: Fantasy Race Bloat? Well, if most elves are your stereotypical D&D elves like this ... [ATTACH=CONFIG]44896[/ATTACH] And you wanted to play the rabid, death-courting elf, I wouldn't say you were playing it wrong (it's your PC, after all) but most NPC elves would think you were crazy. On the other hand, a lot of NPC humans think adventurers are a pretty dodgy lot in the under-the-hat department anyway, so it's not like you'd stand out. But as I have pointed out, for me at least, it doesn't have the slightest bit to do with "You're playing your character wrong" more "There are no elves in this game: having a race that is interfertile with humans but lives lives ten times longer than them wandering about is going to completely change the nature of the setting!" cheers, Mark

Re: Fantasy Race Bloat? Actually, I've no no problem with powergaming builds: I'm guilty of that myself! And I've run a campaign where all the PCs were immortals with bitchin' power builds: that was enormous fun. But I draw the line at weird half-this/half-that-with-a-template-on-top builds, because ... it's just not cool to twist the system until it bleeds. cheers, Mark

Re: Fantasy Race Bloat?

Re: Evil

Re: Fantasy Race Bloat?

Re: Fantasy Race Bloat?

Re: Fantasy Race Bloat? The thing is, that in a world where sentients are all pretty much the same - the "humans in funny suits" approach - there isn't necessarily going to be a "cat person" culture. You made the point when you talked about how you'd play an elf: patient, refined, sophisticated. My reaction was "Wait, what? Elves are treacherous, unreliable, impulsive and have all the patience of a spoilt 6 year old! This is a culture where sensation is the supreme goal and which uses the same word for rape and lovemaking." Of course the point here is that my reaction describes the dominant elvish culture in my game world. It's got nothing to do with elves as an RPG race, per se. A friend, for example ran elves as feral, xenophobic barbarians, barely above stone age technology, much like Runequest elves. And for me this is the core of the problem: culture and species/race are not the same thing. When someone says "I want to play an elf" they usually mean the diluted tolkeinesque verson from D&D - not necessarily whatever the local translation of the word means. In other words, they want to play something from another game. Sometimes that works. Sometimes, not. So I agree that some people play different races because they like the species - visually, or because they have a mental picture of what the race should be like. We had a player a while back who always - regardless of setting - wanted to play a samurai. Clearly, he liked the concept. I see those two things as pretty much the same.

Re: Evil Not really. Once the smiting started, it'd be pretty clear whether the angels were backed up with divine power or not. You could say "I don't believe!" to the Angels, but by going by the literature, all that'd mean is that you wouldn't be among the survivors/believers, so the question would still be moot. More to the point, once you start getting actual physical manifestations of the divine - or even something that looks convincingly like a manifestation of the divine, that does pretty much close the deal. Even if they were demons. OK, you have demons. Once you accept demons, the whole angels and god thing becomes easier to accept - almost a given, especially if you are religious to start with. Even if they were Aliens, who popped up and said "Yeah, we've been messing with you monkeys for thousands of years as representatives of the divine" ... how long would it take before their "correct" version of religion replaced primitive earthly ones? After all, they were the one who wrote the book on it, so to speak. Any way you slice it, if actual supernatural beings existed, it'd change the debate totally. cheers, Mark