Markdoc

Re: Exoplanet detection news I'm rather fond of "Great Cockup" from England's Lake District Or the ever-popular but NSFW cheers, Mark

Re: World without horses

Re: HEROEs of Athas One way to approach this is simply set set your tiers to represent active points and the branch points on your tree certain "families" of advantages and "types" of power. For example (taking an easy option) your tiers are - let's say - 30 active points. Your branches are (let's say) the schools of Hidden Fire, The Salamander and The Dragon. Hidden Fire gets access to Reduced END, IPE, firebased illusions and HA The Salamander gives you access to defensive fire powers (immunity to cold, magical ED, etc) The Dragon has the offensive advantages - AF, AoE, AP, etc and the ranged attacks (EB, RKA) Then simply make certain advantages "tier dependant" - for example you can''t get reduced END until tier 2 in Hidden Fire. This way, you don't need to create each power, but just general categories of power. The players get a fair degree of flexibility, but they still have to build to "theme" cheers, Mark

Re: Actual usefulness of Jetpacks/Jump-packs/Powered Gliders/etc Well, in WW2 the Germans had the "Heaven-stormer" - an actual jet pack that let you jump about 50 metres. You can see how well that worked out for them In real life, jet packs would be a niche tool, if they could be safely used. You don't want your infantry popping up in the air essentially saying "here I am! Duck shoot!" during a firefight. The most likely uses I can think of - rapid assault from airborne troops (used instead of rappelling). Placing specialist troops into otherwise hard to reach places (assault pioneers, for example). Of course if you can clad them in bulletproof armour and arm them with chainsaws, that's a whole 'nuther deal! * Cheers, Mark *Actually I keed - raptors and space marine assault marines suck in Dawn of War: a conventional, upgunned marine squad will tear 'em to pieces. Oddly enough they are occasionally useful as assault pioneers, to get to place you can't easily reach so you can drop pod or teleport troops in.

Re: 5e: Speed Reading vs. Rapid Sense What game benefits would it provide? Speed reading is easy enough to understand - but would it (for example) grant the benefits of extra time? If a guy examines a box to look for a secret latch, would the guy with speed sight get the 1,000 phases "extra time" bonus? cheers, Mark

Re: Technologically advanced Neanderthals? Ah, but modern humans turned up, we were the minority ... the Neanderthals had already spread out over the landscape. cheers, Mark

Re: Fantasy Art Thread here's a picture of an event from last game. My character is typically the point guy (because he's fast and hard to kill and suffers from an over-developed sense of duty). Lar's character - the big lumbering meat-shield - volunteered for "pain duty" up front after I nearly got killed anyway. You know it - five minutes later he's looking into an urn he's found and whattayaknow - it's full of Bloodmotes (sort undead hell-mosquitoes as far as I can work out). My character is thinking "Damn, I'm glad I didn't open that!" and preparing to see if they can be washed off with fire [ATTACH=CONFIG]37138[/ATTACH] Cheers, Mark

Re: Technologically advanced Neanderthals? We know however that modern humans and Neanderthals competed directly - not just for food, but also for living space and probably (given the tool finds) for things like easily accessible flint. So, as to the first point "slow extinction" is a given. We know that happened and given the current state of genetics we know that Neanderthals were not simply absorbed into the greater human population (though there does seem to have been some small degree of interbreeding). We also know that Neanderthals expanded and flourished for about 150,000 years before their gradual disappearance (maybe a half million years if you include the proto-Neanderthals). Either way you slice it, they colonised the middle east and Eurasia long before modern humans. We also know that as modern humans spread out of Africa they first overlapped with and gradually replaced Neanderthals everywhere. Again the question is "Why?" And the best answer we have so far is "Some small - as yet undefined - competitive advantage". Originally people proposed that we were smarter. Maybe, but we have no evidence for that. Then people proposed it's because we were better (or more advanced) tool makers. That hypothesis seems to be under threat too, as more and more unequivocally Neanderthal tools and jewelry turn up. The one hypothesis that seems to have gained in strength with time is the idea that anatomically modern humans may have had a slight advantage in walking and running. It's likely we'll never know for sure, but the idea of a minor edge allowing one population to displace another is certanly consistent with all of biology and also with what evidence we have in this case. cheers, Mark

Re: Technologically advanced Neanderthals? Just a couple of minor points: It now looks like neanderthals and modern humans co-existed for tens of thousands of years. If there really was an evolutionary advantage possessed by modern humans, it must have been a pretty slight edge - so slight that major advances like domesticating animals or established agriculture are almost certainly not it. It's probably something so minor that we are going to have a hard time identifying it, for the simple reason that if it was a noticeable advantage, it wouldn't have taken H. sapiens sapiens so long to displace their slightly heavier neighbours. The most convincing explanations I have seen so far simply suggest that modern humans have a skeletal structure that is slightly better adapted to a bipedal gait, giving them more endurance for walking and running, letting them travel on less food than neanderthals. In good times that wouldn't matter but in times when food was scarce (or when energy demand was high, like during a conflict), it could be life-saving. And over time, even a small advantage is likely to prove decisive. As for agriculture, the definition I am familiar with is the intention to settle down and cultivate crops. That requires a larger investment - you not only have to plant and harvest the crops but you have to preserve them - and implies a sedentary lifestyle. The idea of planting (deliberately or not) and then simply harvesting the next time you are passing by and the plant is in fruit is what I have always called pastoralism: many pastoralist peoples today supplement their animals in exactly this way. It's grey zone, of course. There's no single feature that divides peoples into hunter-gather <-> pastoralist <-> agriculturalist and there's plenty of grey zones: pastoralists, hunter gatherers and even agricultural societies all use the "swing by this place when the fruit is in season" or for that matter "when the fish are running". Pastoralists and hunter gatherers will occasionally set small deliberately protected gardens to return to later. But agriculture - as I understand it - removes that "come back later" part. It's the avowed intent to stay more or less in one place* and live off what you can get to grow there. cheers, Mark * I say "more or less in in one place" because some agricultural societies have seasonal sites.

Re: DnD 3.5 to HERO 5e Conversion Actually in 3.5E they did allow this ... sorta. You could buy off level adjustments, though the way it worked was so draconian (no pun really intended) that only +1 to +2 LA creatures could plausibly expect to do it in most games. Cheers, Mark

Re: New Campaign Idea: "Blood"

Re: DnD 3.5 to HERO 5e Conversion Yeah, Gollum clearly couldn't get it with just a grab - he had to bite Frodo's finger off to get it. cheers, Mark

Re: DnD 3.5 to HERO 5e Conversion

Re: DnD 3.5 to HERO 5e Conversion

Re: 6E What happened to HKA? Umm .... from reading the rules? Page 73 6E2 "Multiple Attack requires a Full Phase to use (the Rapid Attack Skill, 6E1*87, reduces this to a Half Phase). Using it reduces the character to ½ DCV." The half DCV point is reiterated on page 77. Sure it can - by prorating STR and costing DCs accurately it means you get extra DCs for high STR, but fewer DCs than if you simply bought the attack straight. Since you get the advantage of STR as well, that's exactly the effect I'd like to see. Nothing. Just as I pointed out that doesn't limit STR, only the other powers. The implicit disadvantage for that (on the other powers would be -1/2 in the current system) Oh I read it. I even understood. Now I have read it again, and my conclusion is the same (I'm assuming we are still talking about why one should be able to add STR and the other add OCV). As I noted, OCV gives you a bonus to hit while STR gives you the ability to add damage. If you want your OCV to both add damage and give you a bonus to hit, then clearly that's an advantage. The fact that both have 60 STR is utterly irrelevant. He could have spent those 60 points on EB. Essentially you're asking "If I deliberately try to make the character inefficiently, how are you going to prevent me?" We could produce a more or less infinite number of characters who have spent the same amount of points but do different overall damage - none of which would be enlightening. Yes, you are. As I pointed out, the system I was suggesting is that the KA would be much more dangerous to targets without resistant defence, since killing attacks (both STUN and BOD) would ignore nonresistant defences. Against a target with a decent amount of resistant defence, the normal attack would be preferred. There is a tendency for Hero gamers to look at killing attacks not as attacks for killing soft targets but as a way to generate Max BOD (the same way they used to be used for generating Max Stun, using the Stun Lottery). I'm suggesting a change in perspective - use killing attacks for soft targets (ie: those with rDEF) not simply as the preferred means for doing damage to any kind of target. More to the point you seem to be still talking about killing attacks as a d6, doing 1-6 BOD. My point was to eliminate that dichotomy - a "killing attack" is just a normal dice of attack (does 1-6 stun, 0-2 BOD) that ignores non-resistant defences. It's a specialist attack, not a substitute for raw damage. If you buy an NND, you'll get fewer dice too - or an area affect attack or ..... etc, etc, etc. That's who it should be, IMHO. As for the other questions, they are self explanatory. If a player doesn't want to buy high STR, he doesn't buy high STR. If he wants an EB, he buys a DC usable at range. Ah, but here I agree, which is why I looked at the actual cost of a DC (3 points) and then noted the ways it can be augmented - with STR or by being usable at range. If it can do nether of these things, then logically, it should be cheaper. cheers, Mark

Re: DnD 3.5 to HERO 5e Conversion Or maybe, he used to have PS: Lute 18- 120 years ago, but having never touched a lute in the 12 decades since he got bored with it, he now has no lute skill at all. To me it's a common fallacy that Elves (or in Supers games, immortals) should have this huge list of skills. In reality, unless they also have perfect recall, and utterly inhuman memories, much of what they once knew, they've probably forgotten. For humans, at least, I have noticed that most skills get pretty rusty after only a decade of disuse. My memory is still pretty damn good - relatively speaking - but I have forgotten virtually all of the Latin I learned at school, much of the basic chemistry I used at University, pretty much all the Portuguese I learned in my early 30's, etc and a ton of other stuff. When I look at photos from my class in primary school, I am lucky if I can recall the names of much over half the class - and I spent several years together with those kids. The only ones I recall for sure are my particular friends and my enemies. And that's after only 4 decades. How much of that would I recall (if my brain didn't deteriorate from age) in another 4 decades? Damn little, I am guessing. The same goes for things like AK. I've done the thing where you go back to a place you used to know well - and find you can barely find your way around. Things have changed. Even things that haven't changed are often not where you expect them, because while you remember some specific places, your memory has excised the boring un-memorable bits in between. So for me, the easiest way to simulate this is to give the immortal (or merely very old) a few slots in cramming, with the proviso that they can be used for things recalled. It gives the immortal a vast range of Fam.s they can acquire, which better (IMO) reflects the "Oh yeah, I remember that .. now how did it go again?" or "Well, I'm pretty sure it's around here somewhere..." It means they can be half-ass about all sorts of things, but they'll only be good at the things they regularly practice. cheers, Mark

Re: 6E What happened to HKA? No other Stat causes Damage. OTOH, STR does not affect your ability to resist Mind Control. Different Stat.s have different purposes. That's why we have them. So no, I don't accept the idea that all stats should add to damage just as if they were STR. Because one is tightly logically linked by real life experience and was designed from the get-go as a damage-adding stat. The others were not. No - obviously. Which is why I proposed a unified cost structure, precisely to avoid this. Right now you are making exactly the argument that I did: that the current costs structure gives weird results. It shouldn't be. That was what I was suggesting. Seriously, you are so fixated on this STR thing, that I get the feeling you didn't take on board my post at all The penalty you take (in numbers of dice) is severe enough that I am not sure that an even higher penalty for Stun would be warranted. I was suggesting simply applying AVAD as written to the entire attack (STUN and BOD). That means that they would be devastating to soft targets, but actually kind of ineffectual against armoured targets - which I would see as an improvement. They would - for sure - no longer be the preferred method for breaking stuff, but since DEF has now been split into PD/ED, again I see that as a plus. If you recall, I actually suggested going one step further - and allowing increased stun and increased bod to be bought (I'd have to dig out the spreadsheet, but IIRC, I suggested +1/4 for each - it might have been +1/2). That combination worked very well to allow you to tune the lethality of attacks and didn't start to produce odd effects until you got up above a total of +4 advantage or more spent on Extra BOD/STUN. That would have been a departure from current rules, but no bigger (probably smaller) than removing figured characteristics - and would have been more balanced, simpler and more flexible than what we have now. cheers, Mark

Re: 6E What happened to HKA?

Re: 6E What happened to HKA?

Re: Using Unlimited Mana with HERO A simple question. Since the points in a spell are not limited, how do you buy them? Normally 1d6, 5 d6 and 10 d6 points in a power have different effects and cost different amounts. If you can expand them at will, what keeps you from only ever buying a minimum investment in a spell? And if you allowed that, why would anyone ever play anything but a mage? cheers, Mark

Re: 6E What happened to HKA? First, there's the very strong appeal of logic, and secondarily because adding to damage is what STR does - it's the primary reason the stat exists. Your argument could just as easily be applied to removing damage from STR entirely and saying all damage should be bought as EB or RKA. It's true - it could be. But why on earth would we want to? cheers, Mark

Re: 6E What happened to HKA?

Re: 6E What happened to HKA? To answer your question, yes, you can and no, it doesn't. I've already noted that you prorate your STR by the same advantages, so your 20 STR allows you to add 2 DC, not 4. That's still 6 DC. You'd spend 27 points to get 6DC usable at range (ie: EB) but you are also paying more END (2 for your STR + 2 for your DCs, vs 3 for a straight EB) - and you already paid for your STR. And of course this system is self limited - it gets progressively less and less efficient to prorate your STR - meaning that even a really strong character can gain some flexibility this way, but can't outshine a dedicated blaster at range.

Re: 6E What happened to HKA? You can retain that, if you think of STR as HA + stuff - which it is. The concept that STR should cost 5 per DC because EB does has never made sense to me - it makes as much sense to me as saying HA+autofire+AP should cost the same as EB. Why should it cost the same? You get extra stuff. STR was never (and still isn't) just about doing damage. So if STR is a DC + other stuff, then STR should logically cost more. During the lead-in to 6e, I suggested that we should recognise that a "raw" DC actually costs 3 (not 5) and can be modified by ranged (+1/2) or STR adds (+1/2). As it was then (under 5E), AVLD (resistant defences +1 1/2), does BOD (+1), Increased BOD (+1) gave you killing attacks at 15 per dice. Sadly that suggestion (that we dump killing attacks as a seperate power and just fold them into what's now AVAD) was not accepted but the math holds up. That would have allowed us to ignore all this stuff about damage adding and special rules (for example AVAD, doesn't work normally if you choose "resistant defence" as the defence and "Does Body" - it has special rules to make EB or HA work the same way as KA). You'd end up with a simple structure: A DC costs 3 points. It's unranged and doesn't add to anything. You can use this for attacks where STR logically should not add to the effect (nerve pinch, a Taser glove, etc) It can add to STR (+1/2) or be ranged (+1/2) or be a killing attack (only vs resistant DEF, does BOD) or area effect or all the other things you can do with a DC: Mental Blast, for example is a 3 point DC with AVAD (mental defence +1 1/2, Line of sight, +1/2) so it costs about 10 points per D6 exactly as now. DC for martial arts is a 3 point DC with +1/4 "adds to martial arts maneuvers" And a DC adds to STR (if you bought that advantage) exactly as HA currently does - simply prorate the damage with regard to any advantages, removing all the angst about doubling rules. A lot of the clutter and special gotchas built into 6E would vanish. And gotchas and special rules are - IMO - a sign that something is wrong with your underlying rules anyway. I am actually thinking about houseruling this into my next campaign. Killing attacks are out: we use standard attacks for everything. Killing attacks are just attacks that ignore resistant defence. DCs cost three points, STR stays at 1 point per point of STR. cheers, Mark

Re: Using Unlimited Mana with HERO In GURPS, you don't pay actual points for spells: they are essentially equipment for mages. You pay points for the skill to use the spell - and there's not a direct correlation. A hero system based on this idea has been around for ages: spells require a specific skill roll, but if you can find a spell and learn it, you can use it. So, to the way I'd handle this is to forget about active cost/real costs directly, but use their effects on skill rolls as your measure. Normally, a skill roll takes -1 per 10 active points. So simply state that mages keep track of how many minuses they acquire during a day's casting. That way, they can cast one large spell, several smaller ones or an endless supply of trivial magics that are so small that they do not inflict a penalty on the roll. In addition, Gurps Mages can learn some - but not all - spells at higher levels (these are their freebies). So the system translated to Hero would look like this: 1. Spells don't cost END to cast and don't cost points to learn. 2. All spells require a professional skill roll (each roll is spell specific) that costs 2 points for 11-, or 3 points for an INT roll and 1 per +1 to the roll. Spells of 5 active points or less inflict no roll penalty so they don't count against your calamity limit. Last of all allow Mages to buy Penalty skill levels that counters -1 to a specific spell for three points per level. These represent the mage's favourite spells, and since the calamity limit is based on how much penalty you accrue, that lets you casts spells without them counting against your daily limit. So, for example, a mage wants to learn "Firefinger" which is an RKA, 1 hex accurate (That's 26 points per dice!) to the point where he can use 2d6 at will. That costs him 3 points for a base INT roll (let's say he's INT 18, so 13-) 2d6 is 52 active points, so -5 to the roll! He'll need to buy 15 points of PSLs to cover that, meaning that he pays 18 points for the spell. That's a lot, but it gives him the equivalent of a heavy longbow, that he can use at will (if he can roll 13-), and any target has a DCV of 3. Nasty! It might not sound like it would be worth it - after all, a strong archer can do almost the same by simply buying CSLs, but the mage has several advantages, the archer doesn't. For a start he can do this with one hand, he doesn't need to stand up and present a target, and most of all - faced with a tough opponent, he has the option to choose to take another -5 on his skill roll and pump out a 4d6 RKA instead. He'd be smart to spend 5 more points, and buy his roll up to 18-. That way he has a no-fail 2d6 accurate RKA and can go up 4d6 if he wants at 13-. But doing so uses up half the points before he hits the calamity level. As a final refinement, you could allow a Talent: Mage blooded. This costs 10 points per level and comes in three flavours - Initiate, Adept, Magus. Each level allows the mage to increase his Calamity threshold by 10 points. It's expensive, but greatly increases the flexibility of a mage's spells. This system would have several direct consequences. 1. Mages would buy their INT up as high as possible. This matches what happens in GURPS. 2. Most mages would want to be Mage-blooded - even being an initiate doubles your normal spell limit. This means that although anyone can learn a spell or two, most mages will be specialists - this also matches what happens in GURPS. 3. Most mages will have lots of useful utility spells - it only costs 2 points for a spell at 11- and for spells that you don't need to cast in combat, you can always take more time to make sure you cast successfully, Funnily enough- this also matches what happens in GURPS. 4. The cost to have spells that don't count against your calamity limit is high enough that only the most powerful mages have more than one or two "signature spells" of any worth - and again - this also matches what happens in GURPS. There are a couple of other points. Spells are cheap enough that most, if not all PCs will probably have one or two minor spells. This isn't very GURPS-like and if you don't want this, you may want to require a 10 point "base level" of the Mage-blooded Talent to set your calamity threshold at 10. (So there'd be 4 levels to the Perk, each giving a +10 points increase in the calamity threshold, but starting at 0 points per day, instead of three, starting at 10 points per day). This would make magic cheap for non-mages but anything over 5 active points would be dangerous, so anything apart from petty magic would be rare. Mages would have to spend a lot to become mages, so would start out weaker in many ways than non-mages, but would become relatively more powerful over time. This is just a base system - you could "flavour" it much more easily than in GURPS - for example Mages of the Order of the Big Floppy Hat, might specialize n crafting Mages' Staffs that hold spells - letting them pre-load some spells into their staff that they can later call forth without needing to make a roll. Mages of the Temple of the Great Big God might be able to buy Mage Blooded at half price "Only when casting magic for the God's purpose", etc etc. That way you can have different types of mage, even though they all operate under the same basic magic system. cheers, Mark