Duke
Triple Digit Mad Dog
Affable Moron
Posts: 162
|
Post by Duke on Apr 20, 2020 3:02:00 GMT
Wow! We have gained five hundred thread views-- almost twice as many new views as there were existing views-- since the last time I posted here! Yeah; I've been really, _really_ busy working on actual job-work, and lots of other writing projects lately, my favorite being a small piece I did for Chris to go with a potential Western-themes game he was toying with. I won't bore anyone with a lot of details, but I have opted to try to take these precious few minutes, while I have them, and edit this post (which was just a place holder with a cryptic numeric reminder to myself) into another entry of cantrips. So let's move to Champions II, quite possibly the best Champions supplement of all time, at least at the time. For those of you who haven't looked here since the last post, let's remember that we're doing _cantrips_ here, and not full-on spells. Accordingly, you are going to see very tiny results for very tiny prices, and lost of "rules twisting" to make it work. For those of you who can't survive any deviation from the rules without having massive coronary problems, I suggest you look away. For all of you, I encourage you to remember that this was all based on 2e, which I still play, and which _encouraged_ creativity, tweaking, etc, as it came from a time long before the hyper-specificity and "no, you must always do x in the presence of y" mandates of the latest rules sets. Interestingly, rather like deep sea fishing, the tighter you make your nets, the less variety of interesting things you catch. Moving on: Energy Absorption Recoup Magic: 3 pts this cantrip, often used as a stepping stone to the larger and more complicated spell of the same name, is able to pull a bit of the magic with which the caster is attacked and use it increase his own pool of magical energy. Using the steps shown in previous builds, this spell is built on the idea that 3 pts of Energy Absorption yields 1 pip of the power. Thus, each time the caster is struck by a magically-powered attack that does BODY (or EGO, owing to the way magic works in most of our fantasy campaigns), one pip of the BODY damage is converted to buy a single character point's worth of whatever magical energy reserve fuels magic in your own campaign. If there are multiple sources in your campaign (such as in many of my own campaigns), the caster determines which type of magic against which this spell works; it will feed his own reserve for that type of magic. The caster may have multiple instances of this cantrip running, but no more than one of any "type" of magic in terms of what sort of "magic fuel" powers the spell. Energy Absorption: One "pip" of Body (or EGO) damage; fade rate at +2 (3 total) segments. Only versus Magically-powered Attacks. Caster must suffer BODY damage You Have Marked Your Beast: 3 pts This cantrip allows the caster to use his assailant's magical powers to increase his own ability to use his magic against his assailant. This cantrip is designed for those campaigns where the use of Magic requires a specific skill roll and is based on the idea that, in 2e, INT-based Skills (and in later editions, what would become "knowledge skills") all allowed a +1 to the Skill roll for every +2 pts spent in addition to the cost of the base roll for the Skill. This cantrip draws magical energy from successful attacks and focuses it into a magical bonus that temporarily increases the caster's skill with his own magical abilities, but only for casting magic against the opponent or opponents that have dealt magical damage to him. Thus, for every 2 pips of BODY damage absorbed, the caster's Magic Skill roll takes a +1 bonus to his target roll when casting magic against an assailant that has done him magical harm. The Fade Rate of the points has been bought to +3, or a total Fade Rate of -1 pip per four segments. There is a bit of bookkeeping required here, as typical speeds in non-supers games mean that this cantrip will only rarely result in more than a +1 bonus, and the danger to the caster for acquiring a larger bonus is very real. However, those using 4e+ can adopt the build to use the more modern Time Chart, which will up the cost only slightly, and may make this cantrip far too effective, even at the risk proposed (like the above cantrip, the caster must take BODY damage in order to absorb any of his opponent's magical energy). Energy Absorption: One pip of BODY (or EGO) damage; fade rate at +3 (4 total) segments. Only versus Magically-powered Attacks. Caster must suffer BODY damage
|
|
Duke
Triple Digit Mad Dog
Affable Moron
Posts: 162
|
Post by Duke on Aug 1, 2021 18:06:45 GMT
Okay, the next entry isn't that useful: Gadget Points. Not to say that some high-fantasy setting couldn't easily cobble up some sort of appropriate gizmo-themed magic spells, but the fact is that none of the groups I have played with, even at the first publication of Champions II, have been overwhelmed with Gadget Points. Truthfully, very few of us were even just regular whelmed, as the scent of cheese is hard to get rid of. We tend to like the modern "Power Pools" even less, because of the cheese factor, though we have used a few heavily-- and I mean _heavily_ -- limited power pools as the basis for magic systems where you learned skills as spells. That is, the "pool" was the amount of magic you could potentially draw, and the individual spells were learned as skills: the better you rolled, the more powerful that instance of the spell could be, as your success determined how much pool you could place into that instance of the spell. Even then, it was a lot of bookkeeping, unless we were doing an extremely rare high fantasy, we didn't bother with it.
That takes us to light illusions, but even then, we had already been allowing Mental Illusions to be used in this very way (see the cantrips built on mental illusions; you will see that at least one of them is very, very visible). I _suppose_ we could rework "Illuminate," "light area," and "Noon Bright" to be based on Light Illusions instead of Change Environment, but no; that's not going to happen (because it's fucking stupid) no matter what the latest rules sets have to say about it.
That brings us to Presence Defense, which we had already been using as a Base-Zero Characteristic using almost exactly the same pricing scale (essentially: Presence: only for Defense, which works out to 2 DEF per 1 cp spent). We _did_ have two cantrips based on that build, though, and I guess it's appropriate enough to share them here:
Take Heart: 3 +5 Presence, only for defending against Presence Attacks, useable against others, Area Effect (all characters within a 10" Radius), Time Limit (two minutes), costs END/ Magic Fuel, Caster pays all END/ Fuel costs for everyone using the enchantment, Concentrate: 1/2 DCV, Power Word: Take heart!"
------------------
Embolden: 3 +10 PRE, only for defending against Presence Attacks, useable against others (only), Time Limit: 10 minutes, costs END / Magic Fuel, Ritual: locks eyes with target of spell, speaks spell of courageous enchantment,
That's that. Two powers down from Champs II.
More to come.
|
|
|
Post by CRTaylor on Aug 2, 2021 0:18:28 GMT
It is the small builds, the low-powered stuff that I find the most interesting and creative in spell building. Anyone can build the vast mega spell, but when you limit your power level to 9 active points, that's when you get fun stuff.
|
|
Duke
Triple Digit Mad Dog
Affable Moron
Posts: 162
|
Post by Duke on Aug 2, 2021 0:34:09 GMT
Seriously, Christopher: this game is open to anyone, any edition, etc. Put up a little cantrip!
|
|
|
Post by CRTaylor on Aug 2, 2021 1:10:31 GMT
I'll have a host of them available in the Codex But sure, I'll share a couple interesting ones
|
|
Duke
Triple Digit Mad Dog
Affable Moron
Posts: 162
|
Post by Duke on Aug 2, 2021 1:18:38 GMT
There is only one more power in Champions II, so why not go ahead and put up the cantrip for that before turning in, right?
The last "new power" in Champions II is Reflection; a modified Missile Deflection that allows the attack to be deflected precisely back at the attacker (which, for the record, contributed to a lot of "personal immunity"-advantaged powers shortly afterward.
The build for this one is, as are many of the cantrips I have put up here, a bit meta.
Why? Because _ideally_, the cost of a cantrip in my games is one point or less, with a sweet spot of three-for-a-point or so. There is an upper limit of 3 pts, though sometimes it's necessary to push on to five points, for the really expensive powers.
This one, however, comes in nicely at 1 point!
No; it doesn't start there, because that would be too abusive of the spirit of the rules, at least in this GM's opinion. it comes in at 2 points after a couple of modifiers.
Like so many of the other little cantrips here, it's based on the idea of the "smallest possible amount" of something-- not the smallest rules-legal amount, strictly, but "what can we do with the minimum investment in this power?"
The pricing for Reflection allows an 18- roll for 30 pts, (2e, remember? Long before it all got rolled into one thing) with modifiers based on the size of the incoming attack.
on 3d6, there are precisely 16 possible numerical outcomes: 3 through 16. Divide that into the thirty points cost, and it breaks down to _roughly_ 2 pts per "level" of the skill roll. So for 2 points, the caster gets a 3- roll to reflect. For those who wondered about the "meta" part, well that's it: there is no need to adjust for the size of the incoming attack because in HERO, a 3 always succeeds, period. No matter what it is you are trying to do, there is a one-half-of-a-percent chance that you will succeed even under the most unlikely circumstances. It's the Champions "nat 20," only much, much sweeter because it's exactly ten times as hard to achieve (a 20 on a d20 being a five percent chance, obviously).
First, some flavor:
Crescendo: 1pt Based on principles first discovered by composers, early students of magic realized that as their use of magic altered reality by shifting the balance of magical energies artificially, so, too, was there the possibility that some of this energy would leave a "residue" of sorts. In the event of sorcerous combat, this energy could accrue quickly, often forming knots or bubbles of mystic energies that swelled and rebounded against further saturation of focused magic. Those who could learn to properly attune themselves to this buildup of mystical tension could learn to "pop" these bubbles, creating a brief instantaneous outpouring of magic that can literally repel magic headed toward it: consider tossing a pail of water at an on-rushing tsunami. Careful focus and effort are required to track the build-up of this tension and again to "twist" it such that it ruptures in the correct way to achieve the desired results. However, those who have mastered this ability have found themselves able to reflect powerful spells directly back at those who cast them.
Reflection: 3-. Magical attacks only; Automatic (our version of what would become "Trigger;" essentially No Conscious Control combined with "only when certain condition met." In this case, the "condition" would be that there was an incoming magical attack that could possibly be reflected). Costs ENDx2 (magic fuel x1; personal END x1). Must be activated and Duration / number of attempts pre-payed: Caster pre-pays "magic fuel" to fund a certain number of attempted reflections (one pip per attempt). END (personal END) spent with every attempt at reflection, successful or not.
We didn't have two different cantrips for that, really. There was a three-point version that wasn't limited to Magical Attacks Only, but was limited to ranged attacks only; all other restrictions for the build above also applied.
There.
Now I feel a bit less guilty for being too busy to swing by here and finish up---
Next up is Champs III, but there really is very, very little for that.
|
|
|
Post by CRTaylor on Aug 2, 2021 18:12:52 GMT
Every school of magic in my system has at least 10 cantrips. These are reflexive magic, things people can do with little to no effort, taking a flat skill roll and 1 mana to cast. The max active point cost is 5, but most are less than that. For example, they all have "detect magic". These are the first spells people learn or are taught as they study magic and try to formalize the power they have. Examples:
ARISE: Flight 0m, Position Shift CANDLESNUFF: Dispel 1d6; any fire effect CAUTERIZE: Healing 1 Body (won't be enough to heal an actual body, because it is a "defensive" power, but will stop bleeding by closing the wound as partial effect. See, if someone heals 1/2 a point, then the next heal finishes it -- which means there's a partial effect). DISPATCH: Blast ½d6, 4m radius, only normal insects or vermin HUE: Cosmetic Transform ½d6 to different color, fades in an hour, any object or person INTANGIBLE GRASP: Affects Desolidified on up to 8 STR MINOR AUGURY: Skill Level +1 (next skill roll by seeing a glimpse of the future) NATURAL VITALITY: Life Support (Animal based diseases) while mana paid SLY: +1 to Concealment Disguise, Mimickry, or Stealth rolls STONE WILL: EGO roll +2, only for battles of will TACK: Entangle 0d6, 1 PD, 0 ED, only inanimate objects
Just a few of the various ones out there. I also am working on a system of allowing people to merely use their Magic Skill Roll and 1 Mana to do anything of 3 active points or less as a very basic expression of magic without any training or discipline.
|
|
Duke
Triple Digit Mad Dog
Affable Moron
Posts: 162
|
Post by Duke on Aug 3, 2021 3:03:40 GMT
Sweet!
Good stuff, Christopher; thank you for playing, and feel free to keep doing so!
|
|
Duke
Triple Digit Mad Dog
Affable Moron
Posts: 162
|
Post by Duke on Aug 7, 2021 0:28:43 GMT
Okay, we're in the home stretch (for me, anyway). We're going to start Champs III. First, I want to say something about Champs II and Champs III. These books exist in both 2e and 3e. Used booksellers can't seem to figure that out, so I'm going to help anyone who is interested in collecting them: Look at the title of your Champions II book. Look at the cover, too, but look at the title. If the Champions logo matches the 2e Champions logo, you have the 2e version of that book. If the Champions logo matches the 3e Champions logo, you have the 3e re-issue of that book. Sure, there are easier ways to tell: if you have a comic book scene illustrated by Mark Williams and colored in that "dots of colors" comic book style, you have the 2e version. If your Champs II book features a what appears to be a colored pencil (or possibly pastels) drawing of angry (and possibly constipated) looking heroes charging more or less directly at you (and a little to the right) -- except for Giant, who is clearly squatted on one knee), then you have the 3e re-issue of the book. These probably won't be valid by the time someone stumbles into this information (hence the verbose description above) 2e: dtrpg-public-files.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/images/115/256848.jpg3e: dtrpg-public-files.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/images/115/257029.jpgChamps III can't use the logo match method for 2e. Fortunately, it doesn't have to. If your Champs III logo matches absolutely no other logo ever published on a HERO Games product, then you have the 2e version of that book. In fact, if you have Champions III, then you have the 2e version, period. Or maybe it's the 3e version. See, the third edition of Champions and Champions III printed in the same year: 1984. Further, the layout of Champions III matches the layout of the third (and eventually the 4th) edition books, not the second edition books. Still, Champs III beat Champions 3e to the stores in my local market, so I've always considered it to be a 2e book, as do most other collectors. Sorry for the side-track, but the difficulty in tracking down a 2e Champs II when you just want to have an extra one or give it as a gift is _ridiculous_ when dealing with actual book sellers (as opposed to private individuals) because they list them _both_ as "first edition" or some such... I have bought so many of the wrong copies over the years.... For what it's worth: the material inside is _identical_. None of the content was changed. Even the splash page is the 2e splash page with the 3e logo for Champions proudly displayed. So this book _is_ a 2e book, being an identical copy, but it's also a 3e book, having been released with a new cover intended for the 3e product line (with which it is perfectly compatible). Again-- sorry about all that. But it brings me to this: I said some time back that we didn't get much for cantrips out of the Champs III book. Let's find out why!
|
|
|
Post by CRTaylor on Aug 7, 2021 0:40:47 GMT
Champions III had a lot of neat ideas in it, was a great addition
|
|
Duke
Triple Digit Mad Dog
Affable Moron
Posts: 162
|
Post by Duke on Aug 7, 2021 2:00:05 GMT
"Detect" is the first entry in the New Powers section. Using the examples, we can easily determine that "Detect Magic" is a 5-pt category, mostly because Detect Magic is used as an example of a 5-pt category. I have never agreed with this simply because in the 10-pt examples, "Detect Cosmic Energy" is listed. Seems that "Cosmic Energy" and "Magic" in these cases are both SFX-- as in, "Detect _anything_ that has this SFX." Look at all the examples: 5-pt: Gold, Hemoglobin, Magic, Electricity, Human, Arachnid. Everything on this list is a very specific thing. A case can be made that Electricity could be an SFX, but what's it usually an SFX _for_? Electricity, that's what: becoming or manipulating or shooting electricity. There is a squishy (not quite solid, not quite not-solid) case that Electricity is a very specific singular thing. The 10-pt list is Mutant (any mutant of any kind, presumably), Flight (again: from telekinetically throwing oneself through the sky to riding the ley lines like a mighty sky whale to strapping on a pair of rocket boots-- any kind of Flight), Detect X-Ray vision (see, like I have always felt that "Magic" belonged in the 10-pt group, I have always felt that X-ray vision belonged in the 5-pt group: It's a pretty singular thing, really), and Cosmic Energy. So right off the bat, in our books of magic spells over the years, Detect Magic was a minimum of 10 pts. Now let's remember that by the 2e rules, Detect has 0 range (you have to touch the Magic), is not a Sense (other than "being aware of the presence of," and _presumably in whatever you were touching, as there is no range), cannot be used to locate the thing detected, nor can it analyze it in anyway. For 10 points! To get a _reasonable Detect: Magic spell, you have the 10-pt buy in, an additional 5 points to make it an active sense (so you don't have to stop and "scan for magic," though for spells, I rather prefer it that you _do_ have to stop and scan for magic), and then it gets _really_ goofy: For +5 points, the Character can "scan in a radius." At _no_ point anywhere in the description does it state just how _much_ of a radius! Nowhere! Seriously! Don't believe me? Run to the official board and buy a PDF copy-- they're _cheap_! Do it anyway, just to support the company so that it can continue to be around! Now we can _assume_ -- no; let's not say that "we can," because ever though we damned-well _can_, the ever-increasing verbosity of the rules indicates that there are _some_ people who damned-well _can't_, so let's just say that it's what _I_ assumed: We can look at the default for Area of Effect to determine just how much of a radius. Area of Effect determines the radius based on points invested (sans points spent on AoE, of course), so we pop back into our 2e book and we see that our 10-pt Detect Magic has a radius of ............. One Inch. Yep: for every 10 points spent in the Power, the Power gains a radius of 1". Now the rules stipulate that melee combat is possible at 1", as this is literally the adjacent hex. So instead of having to touch the thing you're Detecting in order to detect it, you can know detect it if it is.... within the reach of your touch. Sure; you're not flailing about randomly touching things anymore, but _still_.... The thing is, _even then_ you still have to grasp about blindly, as you need the _additional_ 5-point adder "Locate" to see (within your radius) just where it is without actually touching it and going "Aha! It is here!" Sure; if you have that big ol' 1" radius, and you're searching for something gaseous, and the vapors have entered that area, then you will be able to detect them (assuming you have either made it an actual sense for +5 points _or_ have randomly decided to stop and scan about for it), but that's _it_. Liquids and gasses are the only physical things you now don't have to hunt for. Intangible things like "magic" and "ghosts" can be assumed to pass through your radius and alert your sense, but you know what isn't going to do that? Gold. Unless it's hot enough to be molten, in which case you don't want it passing through your area; it's going to hurt a lot. So here was our solution: Based on ECV. You had to buy the five-point "sense" adder to make it an active sense that didn't take an announced action and a half-phase, of course, but once you did that, and you decided you wanted it to be a sight-based Detect, you had to buy it BoECV. Why? Line of Sight. It's built into BoECV. So what happened then? Well, we had a massive rift between Players: about half of us wanted BoECV to apply only to the 5-pt adder; the others thought it should apply to the whole power. Either way, to "fix" Detect: Magic and make it the ability to see magic being used, it cost _either_ 20 pts (10-point Detect: group of SFX-- fixed; 5pt adder at +1= 10pts) or 30 (10pt detect + 5 pt adder = 15, +1 Advantage = 30 pts. Ultimately, we all came to agree that 30 pts "felt about right" because of the pricing of N-Ray Vision: 30 pts for N-Ray vision. In this case, the same exact "Detecting" could be done with N-Ray vision: Define the thing you want to detect as the thing through which you cannot see, and boom! Detect. After about a year or playtesting, we decided 20 pts was our price-- that is, +1 just on the 5-pts "make it a sense" thing, since we didn't really get the same utility we got with N-Ray vision. Sure, we could see it through walls, etc, but we couldn't see anything else through the walls. Arguments were made about X-ray vision also having more utility for 20 pts, and on and on, but we just stuck with the groove: a sight-based detect was 20 points. For 20 more, you could make it 360 degree (we kind of turned 360-degree vision into an adder way, way back when). Suppose you didn't want a sight-based detect? Suppose you wanted a hearing-based Detect, or just didn't want the full line of sight as your option? Then we ignored the +5 "radius" adder and added AoE, the actual Advantage, to the Detect. Got a bit pricy for "Locate" and "Analyze," but since our primary uses were "detect: magic" and it's variants (Detect Devout Believer was one. I really came to regret allowing that, but the player was running a demon character, and-- well, that's for another time, I suppose). So you'd take your 10=point detect and for +1 you added a radius that got you 1". Now because there weren't any solid rules for this, we had ways to increase the radius. I explained way up above how we got NCM out of FTL movement. Assuming that the DETECT was only functional under noncombat conditions, you could buy NCMs to double and double and double again that radius. If you wanted it to be effective in combat (really helpful for determining who has the blessed sword or which character is casting a curse on the party), then you'd buy the AoE advantage multiple times; each time increased the doubling. So for a 10-pt detect at +3, you'd have a radius of 4". Sure; it was way pricing (since it would cost 40 pts), but we had other options as well-- remember that in 2e, there was no "AoE: Cone" or "AoE: Line" or AoE: Single Hex." We had some house rules that worked well enough: For a +1/2 Advantage, you could get AoE: Hemisphere. You got the same radius as AoE, but it only applied to the hemisphere in front of you. So for a 4" Hemisphere, you would only pay 10 pts at a +1.5 Advantage. Still a bit pricy, but those same 40 pts for a 4" round area could now buy six doublings, or a radius of 16." And again, you could always simply say that the spell (or power) could only be used out of combat and go for the _way cheaper_ NCM-derived model of adding radius. Problematically, the NCM-derived one could _really_ derail things for you. We learned to be very careful of just how much and what kind of Detect spells we would allow this on. If I recall, I was the last GM in our group to eventually just drop the NCM method (ironic, since that's pretty much how later editions would deal with it: A cheap adder to double range, though they allowed it as an in-combat thing, too). If that still cost too much, then you could go for the +1/4 AoE: Line. Those 40 pts now got 12 doublings. We had one other option: The Power Advantage: Range. It was +1/2, and we opted to allow folks to put it on their radius (after buying the radius, making the total cost 15 pts and then adding Range), which immediately gave them a radius of 3". As with AoE we assumed that buying the Advantage multiple times meant doubling the effect each time, so for 45 pts (3" plus 3 doublings) the Detect had 24" radius. Using Range was much cheaper, but it imposed a penalty: -1 to the PER roll per 3" away that the detected thing was located. Honestly, this one was my favorite, as a GM, simply because it was pricey enough that no one bought a ridiculous amount of it and it had the increasing range penalty that made it difficult to use at extreme ranges; ultimately it was, at least in our games, a nice trade-off of "secret weapon" that only _rarely_ became a genuine plot-wrecker. As to why we still kept multiple builds: the BoECV version became tied to Sight. It was vulnerable to Flash. The other versions were not tied to Sight, but were unique, all-new senses that allowed "an awareness of the presence of." So I told you all that to tell you this: A single non-analytical, non-locating Detect spell in our games was going to cost you 15 points at a bare minimum. What you got for that was a bare minimum. Chopping that up to see what a one or three-point version of that would be just didn't amount to anything. On a lark, though, someone (probably Jeff) scrawled into our book of cantrips (it was a group effort across the years; I think I mentioned that already) the following detect cantrip: Detect Magic: 1 pt Detect: Magic, 10 pts. Incantation, Concentrate (1/2 DCV), Extra Time: Full Phase, Costs END (Magic Fuel), Increased END Cost (x2). Always returns a positive result when cast. See how long it takes the caster to realize that he is only capable of detecting the Detect: Magic spell that he himself is using. That sounds like a Jeff thing. Anyway, 2e Detect from Champions III: Kinda broken. A lot broken, really. Fixing it with 2e rules resulted in a fairly pricey build, but really, shouldn't it be?
|
|
|
Post by CRTaylor on Aug 7, 2021 18:48:08 GMT
I always took that to mean 360-degree perception, so normal perception rules. But yeah, its stuff like that which led Steve Long to be so specific and exact in rulings.
|
|
Duke
Triple Digit Mad Dog
Affable Moron
Posts: 162
|
Post by Duke on Aug 7, 2021 23:39:20 GMT
I always took that to mean 360-degree perception, so normal perception rules. But yeah, its stuff like that which led Steve Long to be so specific and exact in rulings. I won't say you were wrong-- mostly because I _can't_ say you were wrong, given how horribly broken the final write-up was. I recall that the description specifically said there was no range, though, which is probably why we never leapt to "then radius means it's like hearing, and we can sense it from every direction" concept, what with normal senses having a range. And of course, if they had said "detect as with any other sense" for +5 instead of "can now perceive in a radius," we wouldn't have immediately began to wonder just how large that radius was. :lol: It was like any other old-school game, though: things that the authors thought would be clear and obvious to the players just weren't clear and obvious to any player. Oh! How about this: only very recently have we discovered the ancient formula for Roman concrete! No; I'm serious. Don't get me wrong: we have had the formula forever, but our modern concrete still sucks compared to Roman concrete. Now, we finally know why! Do you know why? The Romans used _saltwater_. It never _once_ occurred to them to write that down because it was just so damned obvious to them: "Saltwater is everywhere! It's free! You don't have to dig wells or construct elaborate aqueducts; it's everywhere you look! Why would you waste precious velum and precious, precious ink on writing that down?! What kind of idiot is going to think to use not-saltwater?!" And here we are. My wife points out to me that should there be a societal collapse, archeologists of the future will never be able to decipher cookbooks because we don't specify chicken eggs or cow's milk or butter from the fat of cow's milk. There's a chance that they are going to assume we found the trick to getting women to just lactate forever, and their omelets are going to be all kinds of dicy with ostrich eggs are lizard or even fish eggs...... So yeah... just understanding that not everyone jumps to the same conclusions when writing down instructions---- that's golden, right there. On the other side of the coin, though: we _fixed_ it. It was something we did as a group of friends: we found a legit solution that worked for us and that we felt worked within the framework of the then-established rules, and we never looked back. In much the same way that you and your folks found a solution that worked for you and you never looked back. Our groups were both playing and having a good time, so clearly neither one of us was "wrong" in any way. So while the rules clarity that Steve tries to provide is appreciated, I think he may err way too far on the other side of the problem: without leaving any room for interpretation or creativity, he is increasing the complexity by increasing the need for more and more things: Once you absolutely nail down that Indirect cannot come from another dimension (by creating the separate advantage "transdimensional," you have narrowed the definition of indirect in all things. Frankly, if you look at Indirect, there is absolutely no reason that it _can't_ be declared as coming from another dimension save for the existence of transdimensional. (that's a borrowed example from a recent conversation with a dear friend.) So the more specific you want to be, the more words you need-- sure; we all understand that. But the more specific you are ("advantage X always means Y in the presence of advantage A, but Advantage B can compensate because in the case of X and A, then---) that actually takes up more page space than the actual power descriptions. Me? I say "define the advantages and let the groups figure out how to combine them to get what they want: they may actually be aware of shades or nuances of a concept that someone else isn't; stop taking it away from them." I don't say it with malice, of course, because hey-- he's trying. But the more of that you get, the more pages you need because you're going to have to create something to fill the brand new gap you just created by ruling out something that used to work this way (and, since I can say this on this board-- again, without malice, but just to really, accurately vent about how I feel on this) Fuck "you must use Images to create light." Fuck that; and fuck it with a twin-beater handheld cake mixer. Fuck that nonsense. Though in fairness to Steve, I know that several groups adopted a "create light" power to solve the problem once and for all. My conservative nature (you really wouldn't think that, given that this entire thread has been given to breaking the "minimum buy-in" rules pretty steadily HA! ) went straight to Change Environment, and it still does. If I can add magnetism, extreme heat and cold, vacuum, noise, etc-- why the Hell can't I add light? Pulling out this one change to an environment and specifying that "now if you want to change your environment in this way, then you have to do it some entirely unrelated way" leads to more and more pages, more and more special-case rules, and there are still _just as many_ unhappy people as there were before: it's just a different set of people this time. There. I feel great at having found a place that let me get _that_ off my chest. But this is not why we're here! At least, not in _this_ thread! Let's get back on track so that we can move forward. Just to make it easier to delete all this when I have my moment of clarity, I think I will begin with a fresh post. So, now that I may have ruined our family-friendly rated thread, let me move on to the next power in Champions III.
|
|
Duke
Triple Digit Mad Dog
Affable Moron
Posts: 162
|
Post by Duke on Aug 8, 2021 2:22:03 GMT
Sorry for the delay; the oven timer said something about my having an urgent need to be in the kitchen for a bit. back now. After Detect comes Duplication. Duplication in 2e had a minimum buy-in of-- anybody remember? Correct! The nice, round sensible number of 33 points. For that, you gained the ability to make a copy of yourself, so long as you don't cost more than 99 points. Has anyone figured out why we just didn't have a lot of cantrips that pulled from Champs III? If you said "really expensive stuff without smaller elements that have utility within themselves," you are correct. Another slight brokenness from the New Powers section of Champions III: it appears that the original author(s) just assumed we would know if the "cost" of the duplicate included those straight 10 Primary Characteristics and their subsequent starting values for Figured Characteristics, or if the points-value for those would have to be bought with Duplication points as well. Obviously, I don't know what you guys decided, but we decided that they didn't have to be bought, simply because most of the text assumed you were making a duplicate of yourself and referring to the points cost of the original character, for whom those "starting values" were free. If you were copying a 240-point character (the example given), then you couldn't make a copy of yourself for 80 points (drawn from the example given) if you had to buy everything up from zero. Again, it's not specifically stated; attribute it to the every-diminishing art of reading comprehension. Or maybe we just got it wrong; who knows? lol Anyway, Duplication cost a base of 33 pts to make a 99-point (let's say 100-pt, given the way rounding works, etc) character. To get that to House Bushido Cantrip levels, we'd have to divide it by more than 10-- well, by exactly 11, just to get it to a 3-pt cantrip; we'd have to divide it a lot more to get it to a 1-pt cantrip. Certainly, we could say that for one point, you could make a copy of yourself that costs up to 3 pts. The problem here is that this _totally_ works! No; seriously! If the blank character and the default 10s are free anyway, you can make a copy of yourself armed with either a 3-point weapon or a 3-point skill and have gained some truly incredible utility for a mere one point! Sure; I can't say I wasn't tempted more than once to allow it, but it really spit in the face of a the 20 points for a detect magic spell...... So we did allow it. Sort of. Decoy Golem: 1 pt This cantrip allows the caster to create an exact copy of himself, though it will lack all of his skills, talents, and abilities, to include the bulk of his education. The caster must first prepay personal END and magic juice into a pool, in addition to the point of each that the casting of the cantrip will cost him. The caster may recover none of these points until the decoy has been dismissed or the spell has run its course. The Decoy will appear directly next to him and appear identical in every way, right down to the clothing and any carried items. The Decoy may then perform any action that the Character could perform without his skills or talents. It retains the caster's mind (though it will have an INT and EGO of only 10), however, and will understand the needs of the caster. Every Phase for which the Decoy exists costs 1 END and 1 magic fuel from the pre-created pool, and any action performed by the decoy will cost normal END, which is paid from this pool, as well as is an equal point of campaign-appropriate magic stuff. The decoy will last for one full minute or until the END or the magic in the pre-paid pool have been used, in which case the decoy will simply vanish as if dismissed, even if it is in the middle of doing something. It will immediately drop all held items that were not duplicates of those carried by the caster. The decoy has up to 3 points that can be spent on relevant skills, knowledges, or defenses as the caster sees fit. The caster should be aware that all the duplication rules apply except for "merging," (because there weren't any back then) which happens immediately when the spell has run its course. The spell only lasts for 1 minute (five minutes at the 3-pt level), unless the decoy has exhausted one of its END or magic pools or is killed. Yes: the killing of the decoy rules are in play as well, as are the damage to decoys rules. Duplication: Concentrate throughout (1/2 DCV). Increased END: x2 (once each in personal END and again in magic fuel). Time Limit: 1 minute (5 minutes for 3-pt cantrip). Caster cannot recoup END or magic spent into the pool until the spell's time limit is expired. If the decoy is killed, then the caster will recover the spent END and magic at the same rate as healing BODY (yes; it's a nasty side effect). There are three different three-point versions. The first is as above, save that the decoy lasts for five minutes (assuming it has enough END and magic in the pool and isn't killed) Decoy Golem II: as the one-point version above, save that this one costs three points. It is a "useable by others" version that allows the caster to create a decoy of any character. It requires that the caster be touching the intended user (even if it is himself) for a full Phase during the casting of the spell. The build is as the 1-point version above, with the following changes: Replace "Concentrate" with Ritual: maintain contact with intended user for full Phase during casting, Useable by others. Caster pays END and magic into the pool. Magical duplicate: Item. This 1-pt cantrip allows the caster to duplicate any one item that costs up to 6 points. The copies last as long as the caster pays END/ Magic. Don't worry about bigger and better things; we had a full spell version of this, too. This is just the cantrip. Duplication: useable as attack (only). Non-living items only (corpses are a grey area). Costs END, Increased END x2: caster pays 1 personal END and 1 magic fuel for each phase that the copy exists. Caster may not recover the END or magic spent until the copy is dismissed. Ritual: must touch and meditate on item for a full minute. There. That's 4. Hopefully it made up for being so long in coming.
|
|
|
Post by CRTaylor on Aug 9, 2021 17:44:58 GMT
Regarding Drain, the evilest thing I ever came up with in 3rd edition (Fantasy Hero 1st edition) was Destroy Recovery. Since recovering your stat drained was based on your current recovery, you could make it just go away forever. 0 recovery = never recover again. I even created an undead that were killed by this, having used up all their END, then their STN, then their BODY and dying from the 0 Recovery stat.
By the way, I used your "decoy" duplicate cantrip for Summoner spells. Create an exact copy, except no stats or skills, and no complications (except a psychological complication "will die to protect original"). Run out of sight, pop that out and run or hide.
|
|