Markdoc

Re: How many character points do you think a 20th level DnD character would have? As already noted, there's no real hard and fast rule. I tend myself to use a rule of thumb that a level is "about" 25 points. However, while 25 points coresponds relatively well to say a 1st level rogue or fighter, it's actualy damn near impossible to build a 1st level cleric for that. My guiding rule for "first level" is that they should be able to take a few angry townsmen (Hero Stat.s in the 8-12 range, no armour, no weapon proficiencies) but not a dozen or more, because that's about what a first level character in D&D can do. However, for many a 1st level character, a single wolf is a pretty decent challenge in D&D, while a Hero system wolf would give your average 25 point character a really hard time - indicating the fact that not everything scales nicely. cheers, Mark

Re: HERO SYSTEM MARTIAL ARTS -- What Do *You* Want To See? Although I enjoy watching parkour in movies, I wouldn't call it a martial art - it's basically running, climbing, acrobatics and some extra leaping. Those are useful skills for most martial artists, but they're not a martial art. Neither is football, to be honest, and one thing I'd like to see is non-martial arts go away to make space for more martial arts goodness. cheers, Mark

Re: Too Transform

Re: Love for Non-Casters?

Re: Asian Horror? Only a sad one. We started with a game where the players were recruited to trace a missing british civil servant in the India of the Raj - that got them involved with a forbidden Thuggee cult, an evil butcher (guess where the cult victims ended up!) and a mysterious Russian agent. So far, so good. But after only a few sessions, from being all gung-ho to play a pulp setting game, my players went through several sessions and then decided they didn't actually like a Pulp setting. I killed the game at that point rather than try to jolly them along and started a fantasy game instead which is now in it's 5th year. Sigh. I had so many cool ideas that are just waiting to be exploited. I've actually recycled some of them into the current game, but it would have been much more dramatic to layer them onto real world setting: monstrous creatures are far less "monstrous" when the players also have magic and strange powers. cheers, Mark

Re: What do you have in your coinpurse?

Re: Love for Non-Casters? I wouldn't allow both gestures and restrainable, since although they are slightly different, the overlap is too great for them to be worth a cumulative limitation. While in many cases, OAF and Gestures place you at a potentially similar disadvantage (ie: if there's someone nearby who can grab you) they are different enough that I'd allow both - the OAF allows the GM to seperate from your power for a period of time, restrainable allows the GM to interfere with your power even if he doesn't get the OAF away from you. Both make you more vulnerable than either alone. Cheers, Mark

Re: Dispel Undead I've also hated (and never used) the suggested 5E mechanism. Where appropriate in my games, undead have simply had susceptibilities. You could if you wanted, simply give them a susceptibility to PRE attacks by holy persons - and then let holy persons buy limited PRE attacks. It's worth noting that the current versions of D&D have done away with turning in favor of damage-based approaches, which personally, I prefer. cheers, Mark

Re: What do you have in your coinpurse? All my cultures have their own currencies and also rules about taxation and what is/is not acceptable tender. Some of them even have pictures of their coins! The current game uses a simple gold/silver/crap-metal coin system where the coins are called Crowns/Sails/Oars respectively with 20 Sails in a Crown and 24 Oars in a Sail. The coins get their names because the gold coins are the traditional province of the high nobility (and usually carry their symbol on the face), while silver coins are typically minted by lesser nobility called shiplords - and they are, yes, typically emblazoned with a ship on the face. There are various oddball sizes minted by different lords, which are referred to half-crowns, double sails, etc, but that doesn't change the basic structure. cheers, Mark

Re: 7 Sci-Fi Series Ripe for Movie Reboots

Re: Love for Non-Casters? As I've noted above, I'd allow all of those things. However, I was imprecise: what I should have said is "All the barbarian's free axe gives him is one power - HKA" I was responding to the idea that the ability to leverage free equipment like KA (or HA/EB) more efficiently makes up for the wide powerset available to mages. In our games (with multiple GMs and multiple quite different GM'ing styles) it doesn't. To me, the obvious answer is to let non-mages buy powers as "superskills" or magical gifts (bath in the blood of a dragon, gain invisible armour, etc.) and to let both mages and non-mages use power frameworks. That's exactly how I run my games. The same goes for mages, too: the other abilities you mention like climbing, healing, herbaism, etc. Indeed, i still fondly remember an earlier mage/martial artist character I played in one of Mike Surbrook's games. He was recruited onto the team after reputedly killing a kind of lycanthrope. The team leader was skeptical Saying "You expect me to believe you killed a hengyokai with your bare hands?" Ironically, shortly thereafter, we were ambushed by hengeyokai and with a great damage roll, I do one 24 BOD with a killing strike (magically augmented, of course!) basically tearing it in half. I turn around, splattered in blood and say "Yeah. With my bare hands" Just as Barbarians don't have to be limited to HKA, mages don't have to be feeble or incapable in combat. cheers, Mark

Re: And off we go! I'm sorry I have been so bad about this: the game is still ongoing - in fact next session is this coming Wednesday. However, I have also started playing in a game (next game tomorrow!), so time to write things up is at a premium. I do have about 120 pages of handwrittten notes from the game, however, so the "history" of the game is not lost! cheers, Mark

Re: And off we go! Meanwhile, the others have been picking their way across the darkened mountainside. They arrive at the palisade and much as Gen did, creep close. However, they have Dalarna to help. He raises a mist and they cross the palisade under cover of the fog. In the blockhouse, Gen peers out through the cracks around the door of his cell – the guards react swiftly to the fog springing up, immediately taking defensive positions. Interestingly, two of the guards also take covering positions over his cell door as though they were preparing for him breaking out. He can’t however, and soon the mist disperses. It is clear, however that the soldiers are pretty jumpy. The rest of the party goes their way unaware of how close they were to Gen and moves through the ruins. This is difficult – though the moon gives some light, the footing is treacherous – a combination of fallen ruins, trees and bushes. The deep shadows hide gaping cellars and rubble and they must proceed slowly, even with Dalarna’s magic senses to guide them. Dalarna catches glimpses of figures moving further up the mountainside, so they start looking for a defensible place to spend the night and settle on a space defended on two sides by crumbling walls. They have not paused there long when they hear stealthy movements and what seems to be heavy glutinous breathing. The party ready their weapons and then three burly forms rush out of the darkness. There is a brief by violent struggle. Although the party outnumber their attackers, only Bellona is unhindered by the darkness, and in the ensuing fight, Lamoniak is stabbed, and Bellona and Aquila are both seriously bitten. Their opponents are clearly not human, though they are manlike, since as well as weapons, they have a savage bite and cruel hooked claws. In the end though they are all killed, Bellona stabbing two to death with her swords, and Khelsen cutting one in half with his greatsword. Once the fight is over, they decide to risk a little light. Torchlight shows that their foes are horrid fusions of sharks and men, with grey skin and a shark’s head rising from powerfully muscled shoulders. While searching them, they hear sounds of movement in the undergrowth and on investigating find a boy, tied up but trying to wiggle away. They cut his bonds and assure him that that they are not going to hurt him. He informs them in turn that they have to get away and get away now. There are more of these creatures (he calls them Destroyers) and the light will bring them. He says that there is a fort nearby and he has a brother there – he can guide them. When the players question what he was doing, he explains that he was guiding a party of adventurers who were ambushed by the Destroyers. He was captured was being carried away for sacrifice – or worse: the Destroyers relish human flesh. The sound of rapid movement behind them galvanizes the party into movement – fighting three of these creatures inflicted serious wounds: they have no desire to face a larger group. They race through the ruins, stumbling through the darkness and eventually come to a stout stockade surrounded by a cleared area and well lit by torches. The guards on the walls refuse to admit them at first, but the boy (whose name is Garm) calls for them to send his brother up and his brother convinces the other guards to give them shelter. They are let into the fort through a small door that gives access to a small cell-like room, with heavy reinforced doors on two sides. Garm explains that no-one would readily admit anyone from the ruins at night into their fortification: there are too many monsters and some of them are shapeshifters or can cast illusions. This room offers sanctuary, but also protection to the fort’s inhabitants. The PCs persuade him to ask for food and after some haggling, Gennon - Garm’s brother provides them with beer, breed and qurrock meat, which is pushed through a sliding portal in the door. He also chats with them from the other side of the door. After they eat, the PCs ply Gennon and his brother with questions about this strange city. He explains that the city was ruined by an earthquake which sunk part of the city into the sea and caused the volcano to erupt and buried much of what was left. This was a very long time ago (he says “thousands and thousands of years”) but that the strong magic which protected the city has meant that many of the buildings are still intact or partially intact. Sometimes, he says, the ruins even try to repair themselves, but most building are too damaged for this to have much effect. The original inhabitants hope to one day restore the city to its former glory, but that the destruction of the city’s defences left it open to invasion by barbarians and pirates, who still infest the ruins. He explains that the destroyers are the descendants of pirates who later came to the city and seized the big castle he calls Stone Mountain. Over time they fell under the influence of evil cultists who controlled powerful sea monsters. Garm explains that the Destroyers are not mindless monsters but are as intelligent as humans – it’s just that they are often seized by bloodlust, as seemed to be the case when they fought the PCs. The Samadrians are just the last invaders among many. They arrived 15 years ago but proved unable to completely conquer the ruined city. The original inhabitants have long fortified their dwellings within the city, and the ruins - and the things that stalk them - made a siege unattractive. In the end, the Samadrians contented themselves with conquering the town that had grown up outside the walls and sealing the ruins off. The buried riches of the city attract all sorts of fortune hunters (he assumes the party is here for that reason) and the Samadrians claim the right to tax – or purchase outright – anything hauled out of the ruins. As a result, adventurers also try to sneak into the city, to avoid this – and based on the way the party was sneaking through the ruins at night, Garm assumes this is what the PCs have done. Garm (and his brother) assure the PCs that since they owe them Garm’s life, they will let them leave the fort in the morning and Garm will guide them to what they call the “real city” – one of the last surviving bastions of the original inhabitants, now a fortified town in the midst of the ruins. If they stay in the fort here, Gaimon, the fort’s ruler, will probably try to enslave them: he has made a deal with the Samadrians and being in the ruins without a pass makes them outlaws. They also ask about Gen, but Gennon says that there are no strangers recently arrived at the fort. The PCs sleep, and the next morning, true to his word, the external doors are opened and Garm guides the party through the ruins. They note that he does not take the most direct route, keeping to cover where possible, and he explains as they go that while all of the ruins are dangerous – they are home to monsters, cultists like the Destroyers, and outlaws, while the clans that live in the ruins are often at war over territory or blood feud. The town outside the walls originated from adventurers who established and then fortified a base from which to raid the ruins but over the years, the arrival of travelers and traders has turned it into a small city. Today, it is a polyglot place with arrivals from all over the world, and even with the arrival of the Samadrians is only a slightly more lawful place than the ruins. It is full of what Garm dismisses as “half-castes and semi-civilized barbarians all mixed up with the scum that washes in off the sea”. After an hour’s walk the PCs arrive at a hill, which is terraced and intensely cultivated. The top of the hill is girdled with a strong wall and a path leads up to a fortified gate. The party is briefly stopped at the gate but Garm vouches for them and leads them through. On the other side, it is like another world. Narrow streets, overlooked by 4 and 5 storey buildings are full of people going about their business like any city in the seven kingdoms – though the town’s walls are high and strong and the houses all have narrow, barred windows and strong doors. Garm leads them to an inn and introduces them to the owner, his uncle. After explaining how he met them, this uncle agrees to give the PCs an attic room to stay in until they find a place to live. Garm then runs off, saying he has to “report” but will be back later. Meanwhile, Gen is taken out of his cell, hobbled and with several other prisoners, marched through the gate and under strong guard, they walk to the fort, arriving some hours after the rest of the PCs had left. There they are admitted to the centre of the fort, which is built around a huge open pit. There is some bargaining between the Samadrians and a powerful-looking fat man who is apparently the leader and it becomes apparent that they are being sold as slaves, to be used in excavating the pit. When a satisfactory deal is reached, the Samadrian soldiers take some items apparently excavated from the pit, and turn their prisoners over. The fat man introduces himself as Gaimon, and he explains “the rules”. The prisoners have been bought to excavate the buildings that lie buried under the fort. They are looking for “valuable items” and Gaimon explains that if they work hard they will be fed and treated well. Everything they find will be tallied up and they can buy their freedom: he says that if they work hard, they might be free in a few years. If they find a specially rich find they might even be free in weeks or days. But if they try to conceal anything they find, he’ll have them crucified. There are two crucifixes standing guard over the pit which lend grim weight to his words. He also explains that they should listen to their guards – the buildings under the pit are trapped and full of magical dangers. Obeying the guards’ orders is their best chance of staying alive. While this is being explained, Gen looks around. Most of his fellow prisoners look like ordinary people, but two of them are muscular, wiry men with heavily tattooed skin. They converse briefly in a language he cannot follow. The guards are a similar mix. Some look like Samadrians, others resemble the tattooed men, while yet others are dressed in clothing and armor he cannot identify. At the end of the speech, the guards start to remove the hobbles and attach ankle chains. Gen speaks up and says that he is a healer. Gaimon comes over to him and pulls him aside, calling the guards to fetch and injured man. This turns out to be a guard hurt in the pit. He tells Gen to prove his powers and when Gen does heal the man, Gaimon says, OK, he doesn’t have to go down the pit. He can earn his freedom by acting as a healer. Several guards lead him to small hut off to one side and then to his rage they fix him there by holding him down and driving a spike through his heel behind his Achilles tendon. This spike is hammered into a loop attached to a chain fixed to the wall. After they have gone, Gen swears vengeance!

Re: Love for Non-Casters? I see where you're going - but we've already been there and left, because we didn't like it. The argument falls apart because the Axe-wielding Barbarian has one power - HKA. The mage can have anything he can get past the GM. So when the Barbarian starts frothing and waving his big scary axe, the mage simply rolls his eyes and sighs sadly .... because he's not only invisible, but he's also desolid - though his psyche-draining dagger isn't ... In general, the ability to have a whole suite of powers that aren't accessible to all characters is incredibly useful in itself. Combine that with a price break, and .... well. There are of course many ways to balance this situation - allowing similar price breaks to any archetype is a good start. Plonking limitations on the broader power sets is another. But in my experience (and looking at how many people just in this thread have learned to gimp spellcasters a bit, it seems to be a widely spread experience) the GM does need to design the game to reflect the benefit ofa broad powerset. cheers, Mark

Re: 7 Sci-Fi Series Ripe for Movie Reboots I saw that episode. It's the only one I've seen. I also realised instantly that "Hey, they can cure anything now - even old age. They have near total immortality!" at the same time as I realised the technique would never be used again. At which point I decided that ST:TNG was too mind-bogglingly stupid to watch ever again. cheers, Mark

Re: Alas, no more Independent! I can see why Independant was dropped: it's a limitation that was useful in only a limited number of cases, and mostly useful only in one genre: Fantasy. That said, in those case, it was useful. I've never used it much, and in general I discouraged (though did not forbid) it in PCs. However, I don't really miss it: it's extremely easy to add in as a custom limitation called "Independant" - and that's what I'll be doing. cheers, Mark

Re: A Question of Balance & Lethality Trust me, a 2d6 HKA is plenty scary to an unarmoured foe, even a hero. Let's look at those numbers again. Yes, an average hit won't kill a normal unarmoured person, unless it hits head or vitals. If it does however, they will be down, unconscious and will bleed to death without ever regaining consciousness unless someone reaches them in the next few seconds and makes a Paramedic roll at -3. Hope you've got a good healer standing by real close, because the victim's going to be dead before you can carry him to the end of the block. However, even a heroic PC with 12 or 13 BOD will still fall over and die (probably without regaining consciousness) if he takes one average shot to something important and isn't more or less instantly fixed up. So basically, to an unarmoured foe, a single average shot to any vital part is a one-shot kill unless they receive immediate medical attention. So is a slightly above average shot (about 1 hit in 3) or two shots to the rest of the torso or thighs. Basically, without protection, even a relatively tough human is facing the possibly that one or at most two hits could kill him unless he has a very good healer standing by. That's not unreasonable (or unrealistic). More realistically, most players have some sort of rDEF, even if it's only 3 points of Combat luck. But a 2d6 HKA will almost always do significant BOD to such a person, will often do a large amount of BOD and can still one-shot kill them. Against foes with 2d6 HKAs, you want to be wearing decent armour! PCs often face large numbers of foes in the course of a single session and so any attack that can do BOD can become a threat. An attack that can do 4-6 BOD becomes a real threat: most PCs can take at most 2-3 of those. cheers, Mark

Re: Sky Scorcher 1 megaton air-to-air missile (1956) Davy Crockett! Killed him a bar when he was only three! (Also himself and everything else in a half mile radius). Seriously, though given some of the ideas floated back then , you can see why the peace movement took off like it did. "Excuse me, you are planning letting WHAT off in our neighborhood?" cheers, Mark.

Re: A Question of Balance & Lethality Just to add to the mix, I agree, with what's been posted. I tend to run lower-magic games (there is powerful magic in game, it's just designed to be not readily accessible in combat, so PCs tend more toward swords and axes for solving combat problems). I use much the same solutions you have - Deadly Blow was banned as soon as I read it - the implications were obvious (and from what I understand, the 5E version of Deadly Blow has now gone away, to be replaced with a more expensive - but better balanced - version in 6E). Likewise, in my games, defence stacking is generally banned (the exception being that defenses bought with points do stack: that's not so much of a problem, since I've found it's hard for a mage to be invulnerable and still do much else, and such powers are rarely "always on"). With those safeguards in place, you can play the kind of game you seem to grok: in my current game the best armour the players have is DEF6 (better armour exists, but is not well suited to the sort of guerilla warfare they are currently engaged in). The biggest attack is 2d6 AP (a greataxe). And that's after more than 4 years continuous play with these characters. Capping off defences and attacks like this essentially prevents the arms race often seen in games. cheers, Mark

Re: Love for Non-Casters? Yep: that's exactly where it came from - old celtic and norse stories. People in those are always getting magical powers from people (or things), which usually come with strings attached. I first used it in a short one-off campaign where all the players were vikings and liked it, so added to the current campaign. I've had a house rule in my FH games for a long time allowing curses. Curses are worse - but more strictly controlled - than the version you described. I allow people to use already spent XP - in that case they lose some powers - as well as unspent XP to cast a curse. That makes dying curses supremely potent, since the dying person can use up all their existing life-force (ie: XP). It's not like they care! However to keep control of the whole deal, and stop curses being flung willy-nilly, to curse someone requires a magic roll. You can't be cursed by a butcher, no matter how badly you've treated him, unless he has at least a smidgen of magical power or some way to access it (he might be able to do it if some dark power hears him, for example, and agrees to help in exchange for a pact). That also means that it's hard to cast a 300 pt curse on someone, since the minus on your skill roll would be .... large. And a person uttering a dying curse usually doesn't have the time to get a lot of bonuses. Beware the dying curse of an arch-mage, however! Curses themselves are transforms - they can be cosmetic (a plague of warts is a classic) - minor or major. Like any transform, there has to be a way to "heal" the transform, so a curse has to have some way to end it. You can't just curse someone to drop dead on the instant. In addition, the skill roll simply has a couple of custom skill modifiers. One is "justified" and the other is "link". If you have a justification for the curse (betrayal, etc) then you'll get a bonus to your roll. If you're simply doing it out of spite, then you get a minus. Likewise, if you have a link to the victim - by blood, possession of a lock of hair, etc, then you'll also get a bonus. Cursing some guys you just met will net you a minus. In game terms these are merely applications of "Excellent conditions for performing the Skill" and "Character uses good equipment in connection with the Skill Roll", etc. Truly is it said "Beware a mother's curse!" - because you know she's gonna get a big bonus on the skill roll There's two subsidiary notes here. The curses I am describing are "spontaneous". Anyone can curse spontaneously, if they have any magical talent. However, some spell-casters can actively cast curses: these operate exactly the same way, except that they have the "Curse spell" bought with points - which makes it a regular transform, not one they purchase with XP. Secondly, this kind of "spontaneous magic" is not limited to curses: they're merely one example. People can - with exactly the same rules - give "benedictions". A dying mother might for example - cast a spell to protect her infant son from the powerful evil wizard who killed her and her husband She gets big bonuses for "justified" and "link" in that case. In-game, a long while back, we had a trapped and badly-wounded paladin who had been betrayed, use up his XP to create a sanctified area around his corpse, to keep evil things and people at bay - and protect the relic he was carrying against looters. "Gifts" fall under another category, though. Essentially to give someone a gift is analogous to creating a magic item. You are using XP (this must be unspent) and unlike a benediction, someone can, in turn pass the gift to another person. cheers, Mark

Re: Musical Instruments of the Era Got 'im for you. cheers, Mark

Re: Love for Non-Casters? Heh. A good GM should always have a reason for "why it works" not just "how it works". It's pretty simple actually. As for "not adding swords together" or "not wearing two suits of chainmail at once" that's self explanatory. In the case of things like "Combat luck" which reflect skill, luck or divine favour, it's also easy. A character with Combat luck isn't made of anything hard, he just manages to not get hit by the full force of the blow. In that case, if he avoids the blow by dint of a dodge, I simply rule that the armour doesn't help much. If he is hit by the full force of the blow, then clearly his combat luck didn't work - but his armour might. With regard to magic, if you can make a forcefield that is (say) as tough as steel - how does that add to armour which is also "as tough as steel"? After all, having an extra millimetre of Steel on the outside of your armour isn't going to help much (real armours can vary in thickness by more than that!) And presumably forcefields are both more yielding than steel and also close to skin-tight in fit - forcefields don't render the user unable to pick things up, fit through doorways, etc. The same goes for making your skin harder. If the blow coming through your armour is hard enough to penetrate steel, is the fact that your skin (which is rather thin) is hard as steel going to help much? It might help a little, but the damage system is relatively granular: I rule (and my players, who are often an argumentative bunch accept) that it doesn't help enough to warrant adding the DEF. If the magical defence is harder than steel, how does having something softer underneath help? This is how the rules on breaking things work. Making a wall thicker doesn't add DEF. It just adds BOD, meaning it is just as easy to damage but it takes longer to carve a hole all the way through. In the case of living or quasi-living creatures, it is the "just as easy to damage" that is the crucial point. We're not talking about carving large holes in them, since they'd be dead by that point, anyway. One idea we have played around with (but never implemented) is the oft-referenced non-linear nature of Hero. You could - if you wanted - allow that every doubling of DEF by adding defences increased overall DEF by a DC (effectively, 2 points of DEF). So adding a 2 point forcefield to chain armour would have no effect: the armour is so much tougher), but adding a 6 DEF one would give to +2 DEF. I haven't bothered with this, but it should wrap up the logical arguments, without being too unbalancing. No, not at all. Aid is actually designed to enhance existing attacks and so tends not to be unbalancing: after all, it doesn't matter so much if it is applied to free attacks or points-based ones, it works the same way. The limitations inherent in Aid (takes time to activate, fades away with time, costs End, etc) means that it is much more expensive to augment a free weapon that way than it would be to just buy extra and add it to the weapon or armour, or to increase damage by using CSLs. cheers, Mark

Re: Love for Non-Casters?

Re: Giant Ant Lair

Re: Giant Ant Lair It sounds like Phase IV. The book's not bad, either. Though not as good as Lennigan vs the Ants. I loved that story when I was a kid. cheers, Mark