Markdoc

Re: Fantasy Race Bloat?

Re: Evil

Re: Evil Actually, I would argue that war is not intrinsically evil (Edit: and having had to deal with the results up close, I'm under no illusions of what it's actually like). I view it as the political equivalent of cracking someone's ribcage open and resecting an infected part of their lung. In both cases, it's going to be an bloody experience, it's nothing any sane person would do if there was an alternative, and you do it (hopefully) understanding in advance that there is going to be significant suffering in the wake of your actions. But taking all those things into account, if the odds of success are decent and the alternative to not acting is even greater suffering and death, then, no, I don't see launching a war as evil. Choosing not to act is also making a choice. regards, Mark

Re: Evil I would have thought the actual existence of angels would render any discussions about who had the One True Faith pretty much moot, to be honest. cheers, Mark

Re: Fantasy Race Bloat? How much is a burden? That's going to vary from GM to GM. I did a rough count of my game and came up with over 60 cultures, many of which have subcultures, 4 races (all human in origin) and about 20 ethnicities. That's not really a strain for me (or my players) and a fair amount of the world remains to be mapped in, so, we can safely say more than that. How many before you strain credulity? That's also going to be up the GM and the cultures he/she wants. The real world has hundreds, which suggests the number is probably pretty high. cheers, Mark

Re: Familiar group, wanna teach 'em Basic 6th first, for a Girl Genius campaign I kicked around the idea of a Girl Genius campaign for a while, and here are my thoughts: Characters seem to fall into various archetypes: Sparks. Inventors, dominate others, are physically superior, but are also prone to madness Heroes. Most heroes we've seen seem to be sparks, but clearly not all sparks are heroes, and from the discussion, not all heroes are sparks. Heroes have extreme survivability and are apparently immune to being dominated by Sparks. They can also go toe to toe with sparks. Minions. Minions have two powers that I can identify: first, extreme survivability (though less than heroes). Second, a more limited version of the Spark's domination ability. They can't dominate Sparks (or heroes), but they can dominate other minions and other ordinary people. Cannon fodder. This is everyone else. As for building characters, VPPs seemed like the logical way to go, but it does not actually seem to model all of their powers very well. When a spark builds something, it stays built. It's not like they move their points around and older gadgets fizzle or fail. And they build gadgets that can have long-lasting effects, even when the character is long gone, or dead. They can build replicating/replicatable gadgets So I'd suggest that Sparks have the following power set: 1. A VPP (optional) for all the minor gadgets many sparks seem to have on them. 2. The Spark: a transform power. This allows you to add powers to a target. Most Sparks have a specific transform they have mastered: Ferretina, The Weasel Queen, for example, makes giant carnivorous rabbits. As far as I can tell, that's her only power. More powerful sparks, OTOH can make all kinds of gadgets. But they all have themes. Agatha is an enormously powerful spark ... but she seems to have little or no biology knowledge. Gil is gifted medically and mechanically ... and so on. This suggests to me that Sparks should buy their transforms individually, with varying levels of the advantage "Improved Results Group" to reflect the flexibility of their powers. All transforms should have skill rolls of course: sparks need lots and lots of science skills The transform should also require a side effect: the Madness place! And of course the transform "heals back" when the device ceases to work: either it simply runs down, it explodes, runs amok, tries to set the atmosphere on fire, etc. That allows Sparks to build armies of devices. Either by building (Transforming) the devices themselves, or by building a device to build other devices (that's how you get armies of clanks, or Jægers. The heterodynes didn't build each jæger. They simply invented the jægerdraft, which itself transforms men (or women) into Jægers. Or kills them.) 3. The Madness place is a combined psych lim. and power set. Treat it like a berserk or enraged, triggered by opposition or technical difficulties. However, the Madness place also grants great power - bonuses to PRE and also physical stats. Gil doesn't just get bossy when he's mad: he physically beats Vole to a pulp and Vole is strong even for a jæger. I'd let sparks buy physical stats (including INT, which would boost their science skills) via the Madness place. If you are using Characteristic maxima (which I'd recommend) this would allow Sparks to easily transcend human norms .... but only when "mad". 4. Domination. Sparks should have very high PRE. This reflects (IMO) the way they work better than mind control - mind control is what slaver wasps do. Heroes can have the VPP, and can have the spark, but they don't have the Madness place. This means that your average Hero should give a Spark a solid workout when the Spark is in control, but probably not if they get a good mad-on. Heroes should probably also buy luck. Lots of luck They might have high PRE, but could probably get by with PRE defence Minions, as far as I can tell, have most of the powers of weaker sparks, without the madness - or maybe even a weaker level of it: Fru Snaug is pretty messed up! You could maybe dispense with minions as an archetype and simply file them as a weaker type of Spark or Hero. cheers, Mark Edit: I forgot an important one. Constructs! Constructs can clearly be characters. They get to exceed human norms, but (Agatha's mini constructs aside) can't have the spark and get some serious psych lim.s about serving their masters.

Re: Fantasy Race Bloat?

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities Why wouldn't they be? From the male side of the counter, pickup artists seem mostly to be dysfunctional, deceptive douchebags. I can only imagine how much worse they'd look if they were actually hitting on me. cheers, Mark

Re: Fantasy Race Bloat?

Re: They made a Solomon Kane movie I though it was wretched - but then I was a fan of the hellfire and damnation original Solomon Kane not the weepy emo pacifist from the movie. Also - io9 said "If you're hankering for a supernatural period piece guest-starring Max von Sydow that sways between affably ridiculous and "I can vacuum my house to this," look no further than Solomon Kane" which I wouldn't take as a ringing endorsement. The good thing about the Solomon Kane movie is that I picked it up in the bargain bin for 4 bucks, so I don't feel that I overpaid by too much. If you feel like watching it, I'd recommend you do the same. cheers, Mark

Re: Evil I'm pretty much down with Lord Liaden's description. For me, there's a difference between evil and bad. Evil, as I understand it, is the deliberate, intentional infliction of suffering. It's the intent that is the defining feature, not the degree or presence of suffering. cheers, Mark

Re: Healing Vs Undead In the game material this is function of the universe: undead are healed by negative energy, harmed by positive, and living things, the reverse. A player can't change the way this works and can't choose to heal some undead and harm others, using the same energy type. Edit: and in the source material, an undead PC can't choose to be healed by positive energy - it's baked into the setting that if you are undead, negative energy is good. So, I'd make it a +0 advantage on the undead's physical stat.: harmed by positive energy, healed by negative energy (this has the advantage that it doesn't change the cost at all). Living things get the -0 limitation: harmed by negative energy, healed by positive energy. Although, as noted above, players are more likely to channel positive energy - suggesting it should be a limitation for undead, where you find undead, you also find necromancers, like flies on .... well, zombies. The ability to be inside the area effect of your boss's negative energy attacks and get healed at the same time as he zaps his foes, seems like it should be an advantage. I'd rule the two cancel out, leaving it at +0. As for the damage, in D20/pathfinder, the existence of a saving throw indicates you get some defence against it. Since healing goes up against power defence, it seems reasonable that negative energy attacks do too. So I'd build negative energy attacks such as channeling positive energy, or inflict spells, as EB or HA (respectively), kicked up the AVLD table so that they do BOD vs Power Defence. That's expensive, but it's a nasty attack, so expensive seems reasonable. cheers, Mark

Re: Fantasy Race Bloat?

Re: Fantasy Race Bloat? Heh. You forgot Asherati, Bugbear, Buomman, Bullywug, , Catfolk, Changeling, Daelkyr, Darfellan, Dark One, Duskling, Dwarves, (10 different kinds!), Elan, Elves, (10 different (11 if you count Eladrin) kinds plus 4 kinds of half elf), Faun, Genasi, (4 different kinds), Gibberling, Githyanki, Githzerai, Gnoll, Gnomes, (7 different races), Goblin, (2 different kinds), Goliath, Grippli, Hadozee, Halflings, (9 different races, 10 if you count, kender!), Hengeyokai, Hobgoblin, Humans, (now in seven different kinds!), Jermlaine, Kalashtar, Kenku, Killoren, Kobold, Krynn Minotaur, Lizardfolk, Locathah, Maenad, Merfolk, Mongrelfolk, Mul, Neraphim, Nezumi, Nilbog, Norker, Orc, (3 different races), Orog, Rakasta, Raptoran, Rilkan, Saurial, Selkie, Shifter, Skarn, Skulk, Spellscale, Spiker, Spirit Folk, Swanmay, Tasloi, Troglodyte, Vanara, and, Xeph. And that's only a sample of the player races listed. There's also a bunch of underdark and aquatic races not on that list, none of the intelligent monster races, few of the halfbreeds and none of the templates. So you can probably multiply that list by a factor of 5 or so ... That's a lot of sentient races. Each to their own. I'm not saying people shouldn't play in a Mos Eislely cantina style world - just that it's not my thing. I do remain bemused by the idea that a monocultural game world is boring, though. Whether a game is boring or not depends on the plot and the characters, in my experience. Pointy ears neither make a game less boring or more boring.

Re: Fantasy Race Bloat? Given that many of these "races" are apparently interfertile, I'm not sure that race even covers it. That said, the proliferation of "race of the week" was one of the things that drove me away from D&D. My own feeling is that if being a different race doesn't mean that much (and our second-line D&D game has two humans, an orc, an elf, a half-elf, all of whom interact more or less equally) then really having different races is pretty pointless. Make them all humans or make them all orcs, keep the personalities the same, and it wouldn't change the party dynamic at all. From what I have seen so far, it wouldn't change our interaction with NPCs significantly either. My own games have been human-only PCs for many years now, and nobody seems to miss non-human races. cheers, Mark

Re: What have you used Hero for?

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

Re: Planetary Value? Woohoo! A new planet? Awesome! cheers, Mark

Re: Planetary Value? Any society where the energy was available to make interstellar travel as easy as crossing the street presumably has control of sufficient energy that they could just build new planets/habitats. So it'd be annoying (maybe even traumatic) but hardly catastrophic. Just think. "Flash, Flash, Mong's going to destroy the planet!" "Well, I guess we'd better leave then." "But ... but .. he'll destroy the planet! Aren't you going to fight?" (rolling eyes) "Let me guess: you didn't back up your stuff, did you?" cheers, Mark

Re: I hate naming villages/Kingdoms At the other end of the scale I wen to a friend's marriage last weekend. It was held in a village called Ølsted or "Beer place" cheers, Mark

Re: Hero-D&D system merge? The AoO mechanism can be bit clunky at times, and it's easily exploitable, but the rationale was good. There were two major design concepts behind it. The first was to make spellcasting in combat a bad idea: the designers wanted casters to be vulnerable in melee. The second concept was to decrease freedom of movement. This made the game more tactical, and also prevented people simply zipping around defenders and whacking the squishies in the back line. It's not a perfect mechanism*, but it does do those things to some extent. It doesn't do to think too hard about "number of blows" - the whole combat mechanism can be best thought of a series of exchanges of blows, with each attacker being able to find one or more openings per round, where they can get a good blow in. The AoO simply reflects the fraction of a second when you see a sudden opening. Cheers, Mark *indeed, my character is built to exploit this design paradigm: in every fight, it's my job to swiftly bypass the defenders and kill the spellcasters at the back, something he's very efficient at

Re: Magic and END cost? I don't limit recoveries for regular actions, but for magic I specifically use LTE. Kind of like the point you make in your first point, rather than adding another stat. I simply decided that telling the laws of physics to sit down and shut up was deeply physically draining, so the END cost is paid in LTE, not regular END and therefore recovers on a scale of hours, not seconds. This leads to effects like Gandalf in Moria trying to shut the door on the Balrog: he needed to sit down and rest for a while afterwards, and after that, move slowly and avoid casting spells, because he was wiped out. In-game it has the effect that if you cast too many spells in a short period, you completely deplete your END - which means you are exhausted, have to creep about slowly, can't carry heavy weights, need to lie down and take a rest, etc. I allow players to expend STUN if they are exerting themselves and out of END (and then BOD, once out of STUN), so on occasion, we've had 'casters going grey around the gills, sweating and trembling, and then starting to bleed from the ears and eyes, as they attempt to keep a magical effect going beyond the point that their bodies can stand. Very dramatic! At the same time, a caster who is engaging in physical activity and using END has that much less to use on spells. So the two play off against each other. All that said, where and how magic is powered is going to vary on how you want your magic to "feel" in-game. As you can see above, this is exactly what I have done in my games: I haven't seen it elsewhere in the rules, but I rate it at -1/2. Based on experience, I think it's worth more than -1/4, because it does significantly limit how many times you can cast spells in a day, but it's certainly not worth more than a -1/2, because it rarely limits how many spells you can cast in a fight. So what it means that in combat situations, casters are good for one, maybe two good fights a day - or 4 or 5 if they are careful with casting. Out of combat, it means that they cannot walk around all the time, spelled up to the gills, but they still have substantial capacity to do magic every day. cheers, Mark

Re: Why I prefer HERO System over Pathfinder/OGL/D&D for fantasy Ummm. No. The d20SRD is here, and it says quite explicitly "Each cleric must choose a time at which he must spend 1 hour each day in quiet contemplation or supplication to regain his daily allotment of spells" Not only that but the SRD does not over-rule the actual rules. Also? I have the MIC PDF and just scanned it for sleep, rest and recovery. I find no such item. None of our gaming group has even heard of such an item. I'll have to be ... sceptical. Heh. If daze - or stun - instantly wins you an encounter, our party'd be a lot more powerful than we are. Daze prevents taking offensive actions (you can still defend), but does not otherwise inhibit a creature - for one round. Stunning's better, but hardly a fight-ender by itself. Neither of them affect saves, so there's no easy instakills. Blasphemy/Holy word is a great spell, but .... attrition. You only get a few of them and loading up on them means you give up other options. Not to mention that it has SR affects, so there's no guarantee that it will take effect. And I don't think saying that the guy who wrote the rules and specifically discussed the effect of attrition of design is wrong is going to earn you a lot of pixie points.

Re: Attractiveness - Comeliness Vs. Striking Appearance Ugh. I just noted we're back onto the COM debate. Nobody convinced anybody last time, so I think we can call this a wash at this point. cheers, Mark

Re: Attractiveness - Comeliness Vs. Striking Appearance You skipped PRE which is every bit as culturally subjective - and also INT. I commented ages ago that holding meetings in Danish shaved 30 points off my IQ: to which my boss replied "Now you know how we feel when we hold meetings in English", Yes, most characteristics are culturally and situationally fluid - we get it already. cheers, Mark