Duke
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Post by Duke on Aug 9, 2021 22:52:58 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. Yep: Drain Recovery (or Power Destruction: Recovery) was pretty nasty in 1-3e. _however_, since there was no Time Chart, it got really, _really_ expensive straight by the rules to keep that Stat low for any length of time (though you can see up above what we did to work up something akin to the Time Chart in the time before the Time Chart. I honestly sort of prefer our method because with the Time Chart, it's insanely cheap (comparatively) to keep someone Drained for the rest of his natural life! There are a few variants on that (but the idea wasn't to post the whole spell book . One of them creates a duplicate at all "5" Primary stats instead of 10, then uses the "rebated" points to buy a couple of your skills or talents so that it can use them (though quite often, they were dumped into movement or speed, as the Golem was being used as an actual decoy or as a messenger). Be careful of magic users with Mind Control, though In the old editions, going up against an INT 5 was quite a boon.
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Duke
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Affable Moron
Posts: 162
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Post by Duke on Aug 10, 2021 1:46:05 GMT
Next up: Damage Reduction. Damage Reduction, some of you may recall, was a real bargain... as long as you didn't want the 75% version: 25% was 10 pts; 50 % was 20 pts; 75% was 40 pts. A similar progression occurs with Resistant Damage Reduction. So it was 2.5% per point for 25% or for 50%, but 1.875% per point for 75%. No; I'm not suggesting that's wrong: 75% Damage Reduction is a _huge_ advantage for a lot of things, and honestly, that's one of the reasons I tend to allow against special effects more than against damage of any kind. That becomes important in a moment. Hard as it is to think that we did cantrips with this, well... we did cantrips with it. Cryptic Shield: 3pts 5 percent damage reduction versus Mind Control. (note that the pricing was derived from the 40 pts for 75% reduction scale to prevent this from being "too much for too little.") Spell must be pre-cast (but does not cost END or Magic Fuel. It is simply "not automatic.") Time Limit: Caster rolls his casting skill at time of casting and determines his Level of Success. Cantrip lasts for one minute per Level of Success. Noisy: Anyone attempting to Detect Magic receives a +2 to notice this magic in use (does not apply to analyzing it, however). Corporeal Cohesion: 3 pts 5 percent Damage Reduction versus Drain against any _physical_ Characteristic. Yes; the first two examples offered both apply to things that do atypical "damage." Note that there is absolutely nothing in the early rules that discredits this approach, and at five percent, these cantrips don't do much against sword or spear wounds, but we realized very quickly how effective they could be against things that worked versus "multiples of a Characteristic" or against Drain and Transfer because of their unique mechanics. Limitations as above. (technically, the limitations would allow something like 9.7% Damage Reduction if factored all the way out, but again: we just felt that was too effective for a simple cantrip)/ Protection from Magic: 3 pts This one is 10 percent Damage Reduction, and works to protect the caster from any magic used against him. However, it costs END ("magic fuel) every time it is used. It costs 1 END for every 5 points of effect it prevents, with a minimum END (Magic Fuel) cost of 2 each time it activates. The caster may consciously choose to prevent the cantrip from taking effect to prevent this cost. The caster must activate the cantrip when he wishes it to be available, and it costs 1 END (magic fuel) per phase to "leave it running" in addition to the END costs each time it works to defend the character. Magic Fuel consumed by this cantrip returns at the rate of 1/Hour, so most casters don't leave it idling "just in case." In fact, most go on to learn full spell versions of Protection from Magic, learning the cantrip only as a stepping stone. Blunted Arrows: The caster may Bless an article of clothing worn by himself or another person, giving that article of clothing a bit of resistance (5% Resistant Damage Reduction) against the effects of ranged edged attacks such as arrows, thrown knives, spears, etc. that strike the protected hit location. Usable as Attack: Clothing / worn items only, only one hit location (though "both arms; both hands, both feet-- are permissible: who wears just one boot?). Effects last for as long as caster pays END (magic fuel) at the rate of 1 END / Phase per item (multiple items may be blessed, including those worn by multiple people). Must touch item to be blessed while offering supplication and praying to the appropriate personal deity (this was a Holy ability, reserved for Cleric-types in our games). Sorry they are brief, but it's been one brutal day, and I wanted to be in bed before I even logged on tonight, so no flavor text or anything like that this time around, I'm afraid.
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Post by Chris Goodwin on Aug 10, 2021 21:11:05 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. I think that conversely, Healing or Restore in FH would restore destroyed stats. And REC could certainly be Aided, though keeping it going for at least a week might prove expensive. One of my 3rd edition Champions GMs liked to drain or destroy my Shapeshift, for the character who had a big wacked out VPP Linked to Shapeshift (solo game). As the points would inevitably return, I'd do my best to keep quiet until I got at least 10 of them back, 10 being enough for 1 BODY worth of Regeneration. At which time the points come back at 1 per Recovery.
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Duke
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Posts: 162
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Post by Duke on Aug 11, 2021 0:10:31 GMT
Perfect timing, Sir; Healing is next up in Champs III. I wish I could say that we used for something other than Healing, though. HA! So here we go: Staunch: 1 pt This cantrip instantly heals 1 pip of Body. Essentially, this spell stops bleeding from wounds. Following the 2e rules, it may only be applied once to each wound. Healing: 1 BODY pip only. Ritual: must touch each wound and pray a Blessing. Costs END: 1 END (personal END) per use Soak: 3 pts This enchantment may be cast on anyone expected to enter combat. Essentially it is a single die of Healing, but it cannot be used to to heal BODY. When the enchanted person takes Stun damage, the Healing is applied _prior_ to determining if he is CON-Stunned. It is, in effect, a random amount of CON: Only to counter Stunning. The Caster may enchant as many people as he wishes, though he must track anyone with the enchantment to keep it active. Further, he pays END (magic fuel) per Phase per person who is enchanted. Unfortunately, anyone who has cast this cantrip on another person may not do any additional Healing to the wounds received while under the effects of the cantrip (the rules say "only once per wound;" the caster is simply using his Healing as the wounds occur ). Healing: 1 Die, Based on ECV (for line of sight), Stun Only; Ritual: must spend 2 Phases enchanting (to include physical contact) the recipient. Costs END (caster pays 2 END (magic Fuel) per Phase per person enchanted in order to maintain the cantrip, even if no STUN damage is delivered. Caster must maintain line of sight to all enchanted Characters-- anyone leaving LoS will lose the enchantment instantly. Noisy: Caster is clearly using Magic, and anyone Detecting Magic will get a +2 to find the caster using magic and that the enchanted Characters are using magic. This bonus applies to anyone attempting to analyze that magic as well. Side Effect: Caster is at -1 DCV per person enchanted as he will be busy ensuring that he can maintain line of sight to them. Knockback Resistance: owing to the costing structure of KB Resistance, there is no special build for a cantrip here: one point of KB Resistance _is_ a cantrip, by default. Was a real scorcher today, and I got dehydrated pretty badly. I think I'm going to bed a few hours early. You folks have fun.
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Post by CRTaylor on Aug 11, 2021 15:08:30 GMT
Restore, yeah. It also would reverse damage from disabling or impairing wounds, a concept that didn't' come back until 5th edition.
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Duke
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Posts: 162
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Post by Duke on Aug 12, 2021 2:18:52 GMT
I will have to refresh my memories of FH when I have time. We didn't even know this game existed for years; the first time I ever saw "Fantasy HERO," it was the 4e genre book! A few months after that, I found the 3e game on a clearance rack. By the time we found out there was such a thing as Fantasy HERO, we'd been playing fantasy (and most every other genre) using Champions. Worked fine. HA!
Tonight's entry is a bit disappointing, I'm afraid.
The next power up is Mental Paralysis.
We had a different take on this, even before we tried playing other genres with Champions-- even before we had Champions II, let alone III.
We had tried the "call it entangle, but the SFX are like a mind control kind of thing" angle, and it didn't really ring true, what with using your STR to break free, etc. So we tried "use your EGO instead of your STR," and even as we began play testing that, we were all hit with "Well, shouldn't that cost more? Isn't that exactly what Based On Ego Combat Value does? I can target with my ECV instead of my OCV (perfect for a mentalist), and it skews things toward EGO / INT instead of STR / DEX / CON, right?"
And immediately we had created "Mental Domination" (forgive us; it didn't occur to us to call it paralysis), and, per the 2e rules, it was TWENTY points a die; not fifteen. After all, BoECV was a +1 Advantage. We are all (I was still mostly a player then)-- even the players-- a bit annoyed to see Mental Paralysis come along at 15 pts per die, as reading the description, it was _clearly_ Entangle mechanics at work, and therefore was just Entangle with BoECV. We never stopped playing it the way that we always had; even to this day, you buy Entangle: BoECV for 20/ d6 (assuming you add nothing else).
We have a few spells built around it and variations of it, but no cantrips. I mean, we have a few on Entangle, and I posted them, which by our house rules means that Mental Paralysis becomes a double entry, and I can say "see?! We had one for every power!"
I am not going to do that, of course, because I said "every 2e power." I'm not even going to weasel out by pointing out that Champs III _could_ possibly have been intended to go along with the 3e rules, and point out the formatting, etc.
But I'm not going to do that, either.
What I am going to do is point out that at 20 pts / d6, it would take at least 4 pts to buy a set effectiveness of 1 BODY pip or 1 Stun pip, meaning that this would have likely been a 3 pt cantrip, etc, but just what do you do with a single point of DEF and a single point of Entangle "BODY" (such as it is in this case)? When even the villagers can reasonably be expected to have a 10 EGO, you'd be extremely lucky to see a brief pause result from using such a cantrip, so it never really happened.
At least not with people. We did have _two_ cantrips written around Mental Domination, though I'm certain looking at them (and recognizing the source from the handwriting) that they were fairly tongue-in-cheek and the result of having too much energy and not enough focus after a particularly satisfying game.
They are... well, they are functionally useless, but here they are:
Stay: 3 pts The caster can quell in animals the urge to take action against him. This only works for animals that would prefer not to take action against him in the first place (a startled snake, a guard dog who is on "watch" duty, but hasn't specifically been told to attack, etc). The effects are short-lasting, and at best it may buy the caster a Phase to effect a retreat or select an alternate path to travel.
Mental Domination: 1d6. Only versus surprised animals / creatures (if we say "species" instead of "race," it's a valid target; if we say "race," it won't work on that particular target). Time Limit: 2 Phases (the Phase in which it was cast and the next one-- the creature's Phases; not the caster's). increased END (Magic fuel): costs 8 magic fuel to cast. Power Word-- caster must be able to speak. Cantrip must be cast before target acts or it will not work.
Jedi Mind Trick: 1 pt
A single pip of STUN and BODY for Mental Domination. Caster must state something that the target agrees with enough to have no interest in taking further action. Yeah: funny joke. Remember though, that before Casual STR rules, the target would have to waste an attack action to clear it, even if it was his "free" breakout roll, meaning he couldn't really do anything until his next Phase. Very meta, probably very funny once upon a time....
Good night.
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Duke
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Post by Duke on Aug 16, 2021 1:32:11 GMT
Multiform is next, and it's actually really difficult to make cantrips from Multiform, simply because of the rules regarding the costing. After all, by the original rules, the cost was 1/10 the total cost of all forms. There was no minimum cost listed, but those forms include the "base" form, or to put it another way: the actual Character who _has_ the spell, plus the cost of his additional forms. Now assuming a group was playing Fantasy HERO with Champions rules, it wasn't unreasonable to find starting Characters with as many as 100 points straight out of the gate, and sometimes more! (Sure, sometimes less, but remember that we did not _have_ and in fact had never heard of Fantasy HERO: we really were tweaking Champions rules. Accordingly, the idea that we didn't have to buy swords and tents and food and torches and armor etc, etc, with Character Points simply hadn't occurred to us. Yes; we had money / treasure and we bought and consumed stuff. The stuff bought with points were those things that we _always_ had at the start of every adventure, etc. Things we just _had_. We don't do it that way anymore (thank you, 4e Western HERO and Fantasy HERO for the concept), meaning that the "Basic form" would cost 10 or more points all by itself. One thing we tried to make cantrips out of this spell was to follow the examples and carry them further: the "base 10" Primary Characteristics and the Figureds derived from those were not held as part of the Character's cost, according to the example. It wasn't a huge leap of logic to decide that the "100" part of "100pts + Disadvantages), for our purposes, should also not count against the Character Cost of the base form. (don't worry: this model was eventually dropped and Multiform as a cantrip-- even as a full-blown spell with this kind of rebate proved to be way, _way_ to effective a way to cheese things up. Also, be aware that the "free" points varied depending on the kind of campaign we wanted to run: sometimes it was 75; sometimes it was 50. Still, 75 was the most common as we were buying our equipment with points instead of money. Yes; this changed, too-- see the thank yous above). Suddenly a 130 pt Character was a 30 point character, meaning that he was only 3 points! Essentially, the "cantrip" version of Multiform was "(([Character total cost]-["Free" building points])/10) + up to 2 points, meaning that the Character had up to 20 points to build one or more additional forms with. Because this was a cantrip, generally more than one form was disallowed-- you'd need actual spells to get multiple forms, etc. Alternate forms were _not_ given the "free build points," but did get the "blank character sheet" to build from, meaning that they could sell back lots and lots of characteristics to achieve additional building points. House rules meant that the cantrips held to certain themes: animals were particularly common. The problem was that as the Characters improved, they'd have to keep adding points to the "cantrip" to maintain it, meaning that very few people actually bought the cantrip for more than "I turn into a bird and spy on such-and-such" or "I turn into a marten and hide myself in the woods." (For what it's worth, I was completely fine with that ). But that's it. That's all of the cantrip versions of Multiform; select SFX and form to taste.
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Duke
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Post by Duke on Aug 17, 2021 1:08:38 GMT
Neutralize: Owing to the fact that Neutralize dice are compared to Active Points (which don't go down no matter how many Limitations you put on them, and do go up with every Advantage), and owing to the fact that Characteristics are rarely Advantaged, most of our Neutralize cantrips-- being exactly 3 points, or one die-- were applied against Characteristics, though generally they featured Limitations such as "magically-granted Strength" or "Neutralize: Potion of STR" or something particular in the SFX so as to bring the cost down to 2 pts (there's reasons for this). Why would these cantrips have such Limitations? Well, because they are cantrips-- quick and easy bits of magic-- as opposed to full-fledged spells. And those Limitations that brought 3 points down to two would quite often bring 6 points down to 3-- ie, a 2d6 Neutralize cantrip. As with Multiform, there is little reason to bother you with multiple examples (and there are _many_), as they were all based this exact same way; all of them. There was no interesting fiddling with the components, etc-- Oh, yes. You see, the one-die cantrips. Sorry about that. The 2d6 cantrips _generally_ applied only to those Characteristics gained through some magical boon. (Not always, though: there was one that applied to the Character's innate SPD.) The 1d6 cantrips were something of a mixed bag: some of them applied to magical boon Characteristics; some of them applied only to a Character's "innate" Characteristics. Innate Characteristics? How did that work for a single die?! Even PRE would require you to roll at least a 5 to Neutralize it! Well, we had a house rule in effect for _any_ Neutralize: Characteristics (Fantasy or Sci-Fi or Champions). Neutralize could not apply to the base score of the Character Template. (Yes: we used the word "Template" thirty-five or so years before Steve told us it was okay. I am terribly sorry for having been such an awful person). Before finding out what "Package Deals" were (that was a ... 3e? 4e thing?), the GM would build "Templates" for alien or fantasy races which would raise some Characteristics and lower others. The template included a small list of "racial disadvantages" to balance the template. To be fair, at first we started off by requiring that the changes have a net zero difference in Characteristics Cost-- that is, if you raised stats by a total of twenty points, you had to lower stats by a total of twenty points, but not only did that lead to some bizarre creations (you can buy a crapload of PRE by dropping DEX and CON just 1 each, for example), it also felt a bit too much like Talislanta when we discovered that game. Anyone remember the multitude of "races" for Talislanta? Every single one of them was "pick 2 Characteristics. At two points to each of them. All Done!" The "Human" template with the blank Character Sheet. At any rate, we had no rules concepts of Normal Characteristics Maxima at that point, but gauging off of STR and some of the examples of SPD, we figured 20 to 25 for Primaries, and Figureds would be whatever they came to when figured with "maximum non-super Primaries," and we came pretty close like that. The NCM for non-human species was 20-25 above the Racial Template. Simple as that. Sure: that was sort of like a package deal, really, since the lowered Characteristics were essentially a Disadvantage, and we did balance any net gains with Racial Disadvantages. The only thing we didn't do was "Package Bonus," partly because it never occurred to us and even once we had stumble across the concept, we really couldn't figure out just how those bonuses were derived anyway, except possibly by rolling 3d4-2, and that didn't feel very HERO Games..... Anyway, I told you all that to tell you this: First: this is probably why I wasn't at all phased by whichever version of Steve's Game removed Package Deals / Package Bonuses: I was never using them anyway, at least not in their book-presented form. Much like the vehicle rules, I just preferred what we had going already when we stumbled across the Hero Games version. Second: no Neutralize cantrip could affect any Characteristic below the Racial Template value. Thus, if I fought a human and I wanted to Neutralize his STR, I could (with the cantrip) only neutralize that part of his STR which was above 10. If his STR was 3, I had a reasonable chance of doing it. Third: we did use the "all or nothing" aspect of Neutralize (because there was absolutely no doubt that being able to affect "only what the dice rolled" was nothing but a Drain anyway, and I wasn't allowing Drain for 3 pts a die! ), but in the case of Characteristics, it was "all of the points above the Template Value," meaning that a 1d6 cantrip was useful more often than not against the most "common" opponents like ruffians, thugs, and town guards. All in all, it was one of the few things that worked precisely as desired the first time, and never really got tweaked. Well, we're almost at the end of 2e, folks.....
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Duke
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Post by Duke on Aug 18, 2021 1:10:21 GMT
Piercing. For those of you who don't remember, 2e Amor Piercing (the Advantage) cut your opponents DEF straight in half. Then Champs III gave us a way to do it point-by-point: for every two points spent, you could simply remove 1 point of your opponent's DEF. Yes: we had all the mathy types constantly doing the math to see which was a better "spend" of their points. Later editions simply made "Piercing" an Advantage, but damned if I remember what it did, specifically, but I think it offered "guaranteed damage" of some sort. I don't remember because after we did a lot of mathing, etc, there were just better ways to spend those points if "combat effectiveness" was what you were after. Honestly, the same _kind of_ goes for 2e Piercing, but it _is_ a bit more fun. Now here's the weird thing: Piercing, if you read the power description, _isn't_ a Power _per se_. It's listed as one, described as one, but when you start getting into the examples and trying to make it work out in your game, you quickly realize that Piercing is a rather unique Adder: unique in that it fits to pretty much any offensive Power (like an Advantage would), but it doesn't cost an additional percentage of the Power's cost (like an Adder doesn't), and it is useless without a Power to which it can be attached (like both Adders and Advantages require). There were a _lot_ of weird things about Piercing, actually. It cost END-- like, all by itself-- not the way that Advantages and Adders add to the AP of a Power, thus increasing the END cost, but in as much as you could put "Piercing Points" onto a 0-END Energy Blast, but the Piercing Points themselves cost END. You would have to put "Reduced Endurance" on the Piercing as well as on the power to which the Piercing was tied. There was a brief detail of just how Piercing interacted with certain other Advantages (the first such thing of its kind, looking back). Anyway, it was really, _really_ odd. I have always suspected that it was something that played well at the original group's table, grew a bit here and there as the certain house rules (and eventually official rules) came into play, but was so popular (I can't help but think of it as the "leg up" Power for martial artists in a Superhero world ) that it made it into the book without regard for how incongruous it was amongst-- well, amongst everything else, really. Anyway, that's far enough down memory lane, I suppose (you know; it occurs to me that there is an armored and cowled villain illustrated fighting with Gargoyle on or near the page that discusses Piercing. I had always though of him as a carefully-composed, not-too-similar Doctor Doom clone, penciled up just for that picture, but as I think about the mask and cowl, it's pretty easy to imagine that even way back when, Professor Muerte was character in the Champions Universe.... Either that, or Doctor Destroyer got a whole new look just for that shot. Most of the cantrips we had around Piercing Points were a bit.... well, I hate to say "cheezy," particularly now that the thing we all used to do is an actual official rule (probably because Steve used to do it, too ). You know what I mean: that "free-floating Advantage" thing, or, in Official Parlance, "Naked Advantage." (Again, you can see why having declared this a new Advantage or Adder would have really been more... _right_?... than was calling it a power of its own.) I can't remember when "Focus of Opportunity" became an official thing, but we had been using a similar idea (though that meant the Focus only got 1/2 the total Limitation Bonus) and calling it "any suitable object," where suitable objects were usually defined as a class or category (to keep it from going nuts. Davien was with us then. He would have put Piercing Points on a canoe if it could have proven to be some benefit). However, in the following examples, I will use "Focus of opportunity" as opposed to "any suitable object," because it's a term any readers will immediately recognize (though I do still require that category definition as to what would qualify and what would not, just to prevent problems down the road). As you may have surmised, given the way that "magic" works, most of our cantrips for it were "Blessings" of a sort (also Curses, or, as Jim preferred: "Reverse Blessings" ). Sharper Than Arrows: 1 pts. The Caster picks up an arrow, sights along it, and gently draws is backwards across his bare fingertip until it draws blood. He then rubs this blood along all edges of the blade while Blessing the Arrow. Using the blood itself as a polishing abrasive, he can magically hone even a stone arrowhead to an edge so sharp as to glisten prismatically in bright light. Arrows so blessed will automatically puncture up to two points of rPD even before damage is rolled. The edge is so fine that it is instantly dulled to normal after striking a target only once. Piercing Points, Resistant, 2 rPD (6 points). Ritual, Requires Focus of Opportunity; Must be pre-prepared (for those following along on the official board, you now have a much better idea how I tend to model that), to include pre-payment of END (magic juice) for a single use per Blessed arrow; caster may Bless only 8 arrows with a single Blessing (he's only got eight fingers), Burnout (special): Caster may not Bless additional arrows using a finger that still bears a cut from performing a blessing (so he has to wait until his fingers heal -- and the scratches are relatively minor; they will be healed in (1d3+1) days. Note that there is no special Limitation to make this a one-time Blessing; that is implied by the END cost: the caster can pay only for a single use with any Blessing. Holy Edge: 2 pts This Blessing can be cast on any 2-handed edged weapon that is being used against the Undead. (the "Sworn Enemy" variation of this is applied to be used only against against of a rival kingdom/ government, etc).The sword or Axe becomes somehow more balanced, lighter, even possibly sharper when being used against a particular class of enemy. The wielder must act quickly, though, for the Holy task must be accomplished within one minute, however, for that is the time given for the Blessing. The Devout must work hard to prove their worthiness. No weapon may be blessed twice within 24 hours, and any weapon that fails the task for which it has been Blessed may never be blessed by the priest again. Note that this does not mean that the warrior must be victorious within the one-minute limit of the Blessing; it simply means that he must not lose this combat, even if it takes ten minutes or longer. Piercing Points: 3 rPD. Ritual Blessing (as appropriate for the caster's religion, though it should last at least one minute, during which time the Caster is at 1/2 DCV); Time Limit: One minute. Must be prepaid (Caster pays all END (magic juice) up-front for the full minute (as determined by Wielder's SPD, owing to the wonky way in which the Piercing power works in 2e) during the Ritual. Other Limitations as detailed above. You know, there's no need to post more than two examples of this. As I stated, for whatever reason, it just kind of worked out that the bulk of the cantrips built with this (at least as we bothered recording in this notebook) all seem to have been blessings, and all seem to have been variations on the theme of these two examples: The "Blessing" is an amount of Piercing (or "DEF Negation," if you will) for a single DEF, sometimes resistant, and sometimes not, in an amount between 1 and three points of Piercing. The Limitations are worked to make the cantrip cost the same as the amount of negation provided (I think that was a coincidence, but gad-- after the decades, I really can't remember if it was coincidence every time, or if we had it in mind from the get-go). You folks have fun with that; I'm going to bed.
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Post by CRTaylor on Aug 19, 2021 17:08:24 GMT
This is one of the cantrips that I worked up for Illusion magic.
SPRITE EFFECT: Show target very unconvincing, simple mental images Active Cost: 2 Range: mental Real Cost: 1 Spell Roll: no MANA Cost: 1 POWERS: Mental Illusions 1 point
What does 1 point of mental illusion do? Well its not going to equal anyone's EGO but that's not the point. You still perceive the illusions being attempted even if they fail, you just realize that they are fake. So you can, with minimal effect, get someone to see an illusion as long as you don't care if they believe in the illusion or not. So you can send messages, show them a picture of a place or a map, or something useful and informative, even if they realize its an illusion.
I always liked the piercing adder (as Duke points out, it did not quite behave as a power), but it was mathematically a poor choice in most cases. However, stuff like that, which is bad bargain for players, I find very useful in creating interesting and unique magical items. It doesn't matter what the math is, nobody is buying this stuff with points.
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Duke
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Posts: 162
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Post by Duke on Aug 20, 2021 0:49:07 GMT
Next up is Power Destruction, and I have found four of them in our little notebook, but I won't bore you with all of them. I will start with one of my personal favorites, though: Dismiss Foolishness: 3 pts This particular cantrip has always been popular with instructors in magical colleges or mages who have students of any kind. It also tends to pop up from time to time that a great and powerful sorcerer enjoys using it to give his would-be adversaries a taste of what they are getting themselves into. This cantrip allows the wielder to dismiss other cantrips. The caster rolls his Destruction Die and applies those points against all cantrips active in the area covered by his AoE. Because of the base build, this cantrip has a range of 5" (10m)2" Power Destruction: Ranged; Area of Effect: Radius(2"; 4m). Increased END (Magic Fuel) x6 (caster pays Magic fuel per hex affected by the AOE), Gestures, Power Word, Only versus Cantrips, All-or-Nothing (if any cantrip in any of the covered hexes is not dismissed by this cantrip, then _no_ cantrip is dismissed), Side Effect: dismisses _all_ cantrips the caster has running (though does not "Destroy" them, even if they are running beyond the affected area), only versus cantrips: does not work against "full spells." That was my favorite because it was pretty nasty against Blessed Weapons and the like,nullifying them and any number of boost cantrips applied to the attackers. There are smaller variations on a theme, of course: Dismiss Blessed Armor, Dismiss Blessed Boots; even Dismiss Charmed Sword. Those builds are much less complex, having no AoE or Range, etc, but there's really no reason to go on beyond stating "1 die of Power Destruction" and "season with campaign-relevant Limitations until you get the cost between 1 and 3 pts." Enfeeble: 3 pts 1 die of Power Destruction: STR. Increased END (pay both Personal END and Magic Juice with each use). Delayed Effect: Takes effect one full Turn after physical contact with target. Requires Skin-to-Skin contact; requires eye contact, Power Word. Taint: 2 pts This is another extremely popular one, though the pricing may vary depending on how you do magic juice (we do it essentially as an END Pool labeled "Magic Juice" ). This was _usually_ seen as a clerical or druidic cantrip, and only worked against those whose magical ability was derived from the worship of some other deity or concept. Essentially, the caster would damage the opponent's ability to receive the special sauce from his deity, leaving him "tainted" in such a way as to have reduced his ability to perform magic. This one's pretty simply, but remember we are starting with dice that cost 7.5 / die because we're targeting an END pool. 1 die Power Destruction: END. Increased END (caster pays double magic fuel to "force" his deity's presence between his target and his target's deity, creating the philosophical "taint"). That's going to wind up the evening, folks. Enjoy yourselves!
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Duke
Triple Digit Mad Dog
Affable Moron
Posts: 162
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Post by Duke on Aug 21, 2021 21:52:58 GMT
Go ahead: call me out on it. You are not going to see an entry for Shape Shift. I _could_ do one, I suppose, but I have never done one in the past. Some of you know the reason: I do the very earliest form of HERO Shape Shift: shifting shape is the SFX for powers with the "only in X Identity" or "only in X form" Limitation. Done enough. Now we have lots of cantrips for those; I'm only going to post one, though, as the rest are more of the same: Hidden By Candle: This is no more than two Skill Levels applied to Stealth (Useable by others; Costs END (Magic juice); Concentrate (1/2 DCV); Incantation, Laying of Hands; requires Stealth Skill, only in the pool of light around a flame When applied, the target Character's physical form melts away to become a Character-shaped shadow (tied to the base of the object creating the flame, and elongated or shortened based on distance from the light source to the surface against which the shadow is projected). If the Character is spotted, the shadow will immediately shrink and re-coalesce into his normal physical form. That's it. Call it cheating if you want, but frankly, we _don't_ (never have, and never will) used any subsequent version of Shapeshift (and really, we only used multiform a few times during 4e, just to feel it out. Given that "only in X ID" works perfectly fine without all the cheezy cost reductions, it just folds into "shape shifting," which-- again-- we handle with "only in X ID." This is the sort of thing that will see in any of our "shapeshifting" magics (or powers, for supers games). So I _have_ provided a cantrip for Shapeshift, just not the way folks might have wanted or at least expected to see it. Forgive me, but like anyone else, we do very few builds based around constructs we just don't use. Let me fall back to "toolkit." From the first edition, there were claims that you could "build anything you wanted" with what was in the book. Frankly, that still stands. I find the volumes of new powers and new modifiers to all have a very distinct "my imagination wasn't up to the job so build something that does it mechanically" feel to them with the sole exception of Damage Negation and Transformation Attack. Weirdly, T-form even specifies in the text of the original write up "well, if you can kill them, why can't just turn them into something no more useful than their corpses would be?" It stands to reason, really, but the upshot of that is that at the time it was introduced, it wasn't even a new _mechanic!_ It was just Killing Attack. What it _actually_ was turns out to be a new _special effect_ for Killing Attack. Then it just got stupid with the "kinds of T-form," etc, etc. and the arguments "if I'm not _actually_ killing them, then it should be cheaper than killing them, blah blah blah...." Sorry. I digressed again. Anyway, I've had a really, _really_ rough week to the point that I couldn't even really enjoy a conversation with Hugh properly, so I'm going to call this a night.
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Post by CRTaylor on Aug 25, 2021 3:17:40 GMT
Its later edition stuff, but Aid can be used in very interesting a subtle ways. Technically you can only aid things a character already has (like characteristics, for example). But everybody has a lot more than you might initially think.
For example, one of the powers in 6th edition is to be able to hold your breath longer (in Life Support). That's a power everyone has, though: everyone can hold their breath a certain amount of time. All LS Extended Breathing does is make it last longer. So you can aid that. And you can Aid people's skills; everyone can get skill levels, because they have skills.
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Duke
Triple Digit Mad Dog
Affable Moron
Posts: 162
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Post by Duke on Aug 27, 2021 1:21:40 GMT
Its later edition stuff, but Aid can be used in very interesting a subtle ways. Technically you can only aid things a character already has (like characteristics, for example). But everybody has a lot more than you might initially think. Yep. Good stuff, too! We used to have fun with Advantages and Limitations by themselves before they became officially ruled as being legal, too. Small spells like "Gladiator's Skill" was simply Area of Effect cast on STR, meaning you hit your opponent against a DCV of 3. "Giant's Stamina" was RED END cast on STR (and really great for long-treks under a burden-- we had a "Fatigue" stat very similar to today's LTE rules. Not identical, but close enough to make you think we'd copied it. But see? It's stuff like this-- the fact that this stuff has been around since the very first iteration of the rules; the fact that it was all right there, super-simple and fun to come up with-- that has always made me rankle just a little bit to see people claiming the "need" for more rules or official rulings on this, that, and the other thing. Perhaps I have just gotten too old, but all of my best RPG memories in _any_ game all come from the era of "if it doesn't specifically _break_ the rules, and the GM says it won't break his game, then it's legal, period." Were my grandparents right? Did TV really destroy the ability to create? Is that what happened?
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Duke
Triple Digit Mad Dog
Affable Moron
Posts: 162
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Post by Duke on Aug 27, 2021 1:56:59 GMT
Looks like the very last 2e Power was Transformation Attack. I wish I could tell you that we had nice clean or super-complex write-ups for this, but most of them were fiat. Still, some lip service to write-ups was given, so I'm going to include two of them here: Lead to Gold: 3 pts This simple cantrip allows the caster to turn any base metal to gold-- well, make it gold-like, at least. The resulting "gold" will not fool the discriminating inspector, though a quick cursory inspection will leave the impression that the gold is real. This cantrip can convert up to 1 kilogram of base metal to a gold-like metal: the weight, density, softness, and luster will be very gold-like, though anyone really looking will be able to determine that it is not genuinely gold. Further, the transmuted metal will revert back to base metal in (1d6)x10 minutes, then it will tarnish and crumble away to dust and oxides. Transformation Attack: 1d6. Spellement: "Base metal," as defined by GM. No more than 1 kg of Base Metal may be transformed; results are 1/2 the initial mass in "gold." Thus, 1 kg of lead yields 1/2 kg of Gold. Base Metal must be something the caster possesses. Pre-prepared (thirty minutes of enchanting the base metal prior to casting the transformation cantrip). Casting the cantrip requires full concentration (DCV: 0 ). Time Limit: enchantment lasts (1d6)x10 minutes. Side Effect: spellement is destroyed. Noisy: Gold will detect as "magical." Sustenance: 2pt This spell allows the caster to transform the blooms of any plant or any piece of natural wood (ie, "not lumber") into a pleasingly-flavored fruit. This fruit will have similar nutritional value to one meal of dry ("iron") rations. Transformation Attack: 1d6. Only against living blooms or "natural" wood. Inc END (x2 magic fuel) Time Limit: fruit must be eaten within ten minutes, or it reverts to a picked bloom (or piece of tree). Cantrip may only be cast four times per day. Harvest: 1 pt This spell allows the caster to turn any unripe bit of fruit or nut, or the blooms that will become such fruit or nut, into a ripe fruit or nut. It also works on over-ripe or rotten fruits and nuts, reversing the effects of time until they are at the peak of ripeness. Up to a dozen fruits or a double-handful of nuts or berries may be enchanted in this way with each casting. Addendum due to frequent player questionings: Yes; Pine nuts are real and have nutritional value, and yes; they count as a viable use of this cantrip. Transformation Attack: only to ripen existing fruits, nuts, berries. Time Limit: items must be consumed within ten minutes or they will wither and rot. Cantrip may only be cast four times per day. Weird Burnout: Food created with this cantrip _must_ be shared with at least one other living thing, or it will not be available to cast for 48 hours. Okay, I shared three, but those last two were variations on the same idea, and I admit it: on the rare occasion that I used magic wielders, I was particularly fond of druids. Well folks, we've reached the end. I did as promised: a couple of cantrips for each available power in 2e Champions, save Shapeshift, kinda, which we just didn't use in _any_ genre because the original version of that worked too well for our purposes. And we did get a couple of other players, too! I'm going to call this a success, but it would be even better if we got a few more contributions and it would be perfect if we got a few more players! Good night.
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