Markdoc

Re: Advice Required: Indistructible Force Field

Re: Valdorian Age in 6th Edition? Looks good! He's fast and strong and pretty damn nasty with an axe. cheers, Mark

Re: Valdorian Age in 6th Edition? Post 'em and we'll critique. If it helps, my baseline for "realistic" is baseline plus 50 points (25 points base + 25 complications): people will often sell down some characteristics in order to get their most important stat.s higher, so you don't get heroes who are better than ordinary people in every way. This level has proven appropriate for "viking saga" style games and "thieves' world" type games. At this level, mages can't get one-shot-kill spells and fighters can't afford much - if anything - in the way of martial arts. Any serious fight is potentially lethal at this level, and magic tends to focus on out of combat stuff. 15 active points only buys you a crummy 1d6 RKA, but it can buy you flight, simple illusions, enhanced senses, mind link, etc and useful protective magic - missile deflection, better than plate armour level rPD, etc. The emphasis at this level is on cunning plans and hitting things with sharp bits of metal. Players who like playing fantasy energy-blasters will hate it. For "movie-level competent" I start players at 100 points (50 points base + 50 complications). At this level, PCs tend to be better than ordinary people in virtually every way - slightly tougher, slightly stronger, slightly faster - and far better in their primary role. Expect to see characters with 18 or 20 in STR, DEX, or PRE for starting characteristics. Mages won't dominate combat, but they should be able to hold their own and of course will be very useful out of combat. For me, "heroic" starts at 150 points (100 points base + 50 complications, or 75/75). Fighting characters at this level will typically have martial arts and/or fighting tricks that let them carve through largish numbers of minions, and mages will likely have spells which dramatically affect the game (major healing, invisibility, mass flight, mass underwater breathing, short term invulnerability, etc) or have potent combat application (ballista level missiles,, area effect attacks, flash, entangle and telekinesis, etc) They won't be dragon killers, but your adventures will likely involve highish fantasy. Dropping all stat.s to 8 as a starting base will affect this, but I suspect not as much as you might think - players will likely leave some of them at 8 and focus on their strong sides, which means those won't be much lower than if you started at 10. That's not an argument for starting at 10, of course: I kind of like the idea of starting PCs who are not above average in every way. One last point: if you are going the valdorian route, mages get multipowers (which I think is fine) - but to balance the board a bit, I let non-mages buy "skills as powers" so that they can have a "fighting tricks multipower" or "Thiefly stealth multipower" and that also ups the power level somewhat, so fewer points compensates. cheers, Mark

Re: base 5 point stats? problems with that? I'll go against the stream and say that in the hands of a good GM, this could be excellent fun. We've played a couple of Hero system campaigns where players started on base stat.s of 10 but only got 50 points to play with (25 base points/25 disad.s ... er complications). Great games! We've also played the D&D equivalents, where it was roll 3d6 for Stat.s and play 'em as they roll. I have a fondness for my old - and pretty useless - illusion-using mage Korlass the Grubby, that many much more powerful characters have not evoked, and the saga of the Brothers Snøtgøbblerson was appropriately legendary.* I've never, ever bought into the idea that mo' points, yo mo bedda. It's perfectly possible to build a dull 250 point character and actually somewhat easier to build an interesting 50 pointer, since by definition, you are not going to cover all the bases. Your characters are going to have weak areas, and you'll need to work around that. The only catch is that the GM has to give your character-strength appropriate adventures. At this level, you're going to be petty criminals, stout-hearted farmboys, hapless apprentice mages or spoiled but essentially useless princesses escaping a dire marriage, rather than Conan, Elric or Red Sonya. But ya know, playing an assistant pig-keeper on the trail of an oracular pig is not necessarily less fun than playing a bronze-thewed slayer of men and trampler of armies who's wandered into yet another ruin haunted by eldritch horrors. *and their adventures started with a fight over sheep-grazing rights cheers, Mark

Re: Another "Battle Royale" Question: John Preston Vs Judge Dredd ? Actually, both times they fought it's been what I'd call a draw. The first fight, when Batman went to Megacity 1, was a walkover for Dredd - unconscious batman carted off to the cells. But that time Dredd caught Batboy by surprise and one-punched him. In the rematch, when Dredd came to Gotham, Batman got the best of it, but Dredd was just trying to keep him busy, and so wasn't actually fighting to win. Even so he went toe to toe with the Bat for a prolonged period: there aren't many people who can do that. And then, after beating up on each other for most of the trade, Dredd called a time out and said "OK, time travel paradox thingie averted. We can quit fighting now." cheers, Mark

Re: Another "Battle Royale" Question: John Preston Vs Judge Dredd ? Yeah, I'd have to go with Dredd as well. In addition to being incredibly fast, he's also got years of experience, and is deadly accurate. He's also an incredibly effective HTH combatant, going up against (literally) inhuman foes and surviving. Against merely human foes he tends to leave a path of moaning bodies behind him. All of that might match off with Preston (though based on what we see in the movie, I'd doubt he has quite the expertise or combat savagery Dredd has) But in addition, Dredd has a weapon that outshines any conventional handgun, plus a utility belt with a variety of useful items. And unlike Batman no illusions about honour or "fighting fair": if the best way to beat an opponent is by blinding him with a flare and then lighting him up with a homing bullet, well ... cheers, Mark

Re: Valdorian Age in 6th Edition? Ok, well, next question is where you want to set your "baseline". In the Valdorian age book, competent guardsmen are DEX/SPD/CV 12/2/6, so a 175 point fighter type should be able to dispose a half dozen fairly handily, or would be more than a match for about a dozen standard gang members, who are 8/2/5, without much in the way of problems. If you are using the Valdorian rules, a sorceror type should be able to have pretty reasonable stats and still summon 200 point sprits plus have a 60-80 active point multipower of spells. Is that the level you are aiming at? cheers, Mark

Re: Valdorian Age in 6th Edition? That'd work, but you might want to consider starting even lower: I started my current game at 50+50 for a more swords and sorcery style (and it uses a magic system that borrowed heavily from Valdoria, just jazzed up a little). That worked pretty well: at 50+50, the PCs were more than a match for a city watchman, but would run from a pack of them. At 125+50, your fighter types will easily take down a mob of rampaging normals by themselves, and will make even tough city watch hesitate. What sort of game were you thinking of running - Elric, Conan or Grey Mouser? cheers, Mark

Re: Build a Vanship? Could be, but it was such a major part of the background (ie: even when it didn't happen to our heroes, it happened to other people, and was a recurring topic of discussion) that I'd probably include it. Doing so would be a sure way to ensure that players regarded vanships as "a bit unreliable". cheers, Mark

Re: The fine Elven Mithril/Mithral Shirt from the Lord of the Rings movie I'd put a limit on the drain, because it appears to need a killing attack to do BOD to start the process. If a morgul blade hit perfectly normal plate armour, nothing suggested it'd go through. It sounded like it was designed to stick into the victim. As far as the mithral chain, all I'd do is write it up as normal chain mail, ditch the "real armour" limitation and class it as IIF. A suit of armour that gives the same protection as a chain hauberk, but which weighs nothing, never seems to need maintenance, and can be worn under clothing without giving itself away? That's plenty magical. In my current game, the players have finally gotten themselves suits of magical armour. It's just regular plate armour without the real amour limitations. However, from their point of view, it's essentially weightless and makes no noise. They can swim in it, or climb in it, or stealth in it and take no penalties. Their DCV is improved. It doesn't rust or rot. They are awed by their new phat lewt! cheers, Mark

Re: Mad Skills

Re: Mad Skills A dog and a whale are both mammals. That doesn't mean they are the same, or even terribly similar. I still remain unconvinced that a superficial similarity means that we should use similar systems. I understand the aesthetic appeal - but that's where it ends. Whereas I'd say my analogy is far more accurate: the two things in my opinion are actually far more different than simply movement through different mediums. Shrug. That's entirely a GM call. If you want to make the skill system much deeper, the tools already lie to your hand. I have played in a game where police related skills were laid out in much more detail - probably because it was a police procedural game run by a former detective. Strange: I run a heavily skill focused game - have done so for years. We've never had any problem (indeed, until discussing this with you and Hugh it hadn't even occurred to the various groups I've run for or played in, that such a problem existed). The simple and elegant skill system we have now can be (and in our games often is) applied in an interesting way. It's also capable of as much (or as little) depth as the GM and players want to put into it. Now it is true that we never try the disconnected and annoyingly weird "I oppose his persuasion with KS: Early estruscan pottery!" thing that you can with some systems, but I regard that as a feature, not a bug. And as for the lives and dies thing ... good. I'd want a fairly detailed system for something that can reliably have that sort of effect in very short time periods, just as I wouldn't want it for resolution of "soft" issues. Shucks, there was a lot more opinion than that! Then I'll say the same as I said to Hugh Go for it, laddie! Don't let me hold you back! You will however, have to do it yourself, because, honestly, nobody else seems at all interested. cheers, Mark

Re: Mad Skills

Re: Mad Skills Interesting - but really on reading these, the degree of complexity does not seem to have been altered significantly: the names have been changed, as has the presentation, but overall, it looks to me much the same as Hero system (and interestingly, has some of the same house rule simplifications I use, like dropping END use). cheers, Mark

Re: Mad Skills This bit misses the point entirely, however, since none of the items you listed are a apart from, and work differently from the core system - with the possible exception of disabling. Otherwise they are all either fairly minor modifiers to the existing system, or parts of the core system itself (like combat modifiers).

Re: Megastructures: Bigger-Than-Worlds The problem with Dyson spheres and ringworlds is that they are so huge, most authors and RPG designers simply can't get their brains around it. The RPG there is a perfect example - it talks about "billions of people" flooding the Dyson sphere. But that's like saying that you "flood" the ocean by tipping your drinking glass into it. Even if you kicked it up a factor of 100 thousand to "hundreds of trillions of people" - let's say the equivalent of a hundred thousand Earths - that still leaves you with a population density one ten thousandth of the current earth's, assuming a Dyson sphere at 1 AU. To envisage that, think of the US. Now remove everybody except the inhabitants of Butte, Montana. Enjoy your new country, guys! It's all yours! If the refugees flooding the Dyson sphere numbered merely in the billions, the US and Canada would have a population of one, there'd be another guy in South America, two in Europe, Africa would be empty and Asia would have enough guys for a game of poker, if they all got together. Not ideal for a game - set out from your home base in a fast jet and it could be years before you encountered another settlement. So much for "factions fighting for control" - just leave. Pack up and go. If you fly away from them for a few months you can put the equivalent of 60 earths between you and them with little risk of ever seeing any other group ... ever. These things are big. The images posted show the same thing - majestic ring worlds curving up the sky, but get real - the horizon would be far, far, further away than the horizon on earth. You could no more see the curvature than you can see the Rockies from New York. Most of a ring world, unless deliberately made crinkly inside, would look like Kansas, only flatter. cheers, Mark

Re: Mad Skills Interesting - can you define for the difference between AV/RV? cheers, Mark

Re: Religions in SF settings.

Re: Mad Skills Any GM worth his dice will fix that right smart, just as he should respond to a "Paladin" who killed kiddies for the Xp. That's nothing to do with social interaction, merely GM'ing complications and character description.

Re: Fantasy art Yeah, on a different computer now, but the new batch looks pretty good. cheers, Mark

Re: Fantasy art For me, V2 is a clear winner. I'm not seeing a lot of lost detail and the colours are far more vibrant. Though they are almost over-saturated .. perhaps a teensy bit more brightness? Perhaps more importantly, though, the first pic has far more depth in version 2: I didn't really grock that the characters were supposed to be in a cavern on first glance at V1 whereas it is instantly obvious in V2. The depth/contrast makes the central figures "pop" in a way they don't in V1. As an aside, I've thought for years, that you were going for a deliberately pale, desaturated style as your signature. It only now occurs to me that might have been a purely technical effect! cheers, Mark

Re: What benefit does a Familiar grant a Mage type? What good are they? Right. Runequest has already been mentioned, but familiars were enormously useful there: essentially they acted as "magic batteries" - letting you use their energies to cast extra spells, and they also charged you up, making you more powerful in magical combat ... plus they could hold spells in their own mind, letting you know more magic. As a result, most mages of any power had a familiar or two. The beauty of Hero system is that you can decide what familiars can do. Traditionally they had several functions in european superstition: they acted as spies, and as a source of knowledge. They were thought to be linked to the witch or wizard who had them so that injuries to the familiar would result in injuries to the spellcaster. And they were also thought to act as an agent of the lower powers: so your familar could teach you magic, but it also carried away your soul when you died In my current game, some mages have familiars. They are bought as followers and offer these powers. 1. A conditional bonus to spells. The familiar can use complementary skills to boost a magic roll. 2. Mindlink: the familiar has this, knowing where its master is, and being able to communicate with him/her. Some powers are useable through this link. 3. Backlash protection: magic can warp the caster, when you miscast. The mage can choose to funnel all or some of the side effect onto his familiar, letting him recover faster from any negative effects. 4. Physical protection. Familiars are physically linked to their master or mistress. That means you take half the damage that they do, and they take half the damage you do. However, casters can choose to transfer damage to their familiar, making a mage with familiars surprisingly resilient when he has to be. Those three alone are enough to make them worthwhile since followers are cheap, especially with the side effect (you take half the damage your familiar does). cheers, Mark

Re: Mad Skills Ah, but I would. As I said, semantics. A player who tried to play against his character's skills and complications is unlikely to get far.

Re: Megastructures: Bigger-Than-Worlds Galactus says "They're crunchy!" cheers, Mark

Re: Mad Skills