#HERO System

[oldschoolfrp]

Brian K Hamilton's cover for Fantasy Hero by Steve Peterson, Hero Games, 1985

[t0rschlusspan1k]

The real significance of Arendt’s report, and of Becker’s concept of hero systems, is that the emergence of evil is not tied to any specific people or to some malicious, villainous attitude, but to greater social structures that envelop us and blind us to their implications. And we all exist in such structures, structures that promise heroic victory to those on the inside, and makes evil into something external. After the Second World War for example, there were many who believed that by achieving victory over the Nazi’s, we also achieved victory over the evil they represented, which unfortunately isn’t the case. But it goes to show that there is a fine line between recognizing a real threat to one’s self or community, and using that threat to delude ourselves into believing that we can erase the shadow of our own light by violently putting out someone else’s.

— Like Stories of Old, Lies of Heroism. Redefining the Anti-War Film

[basic204]

In the lands of Savage Lands Of Agartha. Day and night doesn't follow a cyclic pattern no day and night are controlled by warring tribes of sun and moon elves it transitions from day to night every time one of them makes a decisive win in their nearly endless battles. When the night comes and the darkness spreads the world is dark barely enough moonlight to see your hands this is why fire tamers have become so important they keep the flames that allow us to see when the moon elves win.

Fire is the foundational element of tribal life. It is heat, it is weapon, it is medicine, it is religion, politic, food for body and soul and a ward against the dangers looking beyond your weak sight. But most importantly it is light

Light in this world is a currency made more universal than gold. The chafing dunes can practically bleed gold but without the light to see it or the heat to render it then the gold itself is worthless.

The people of this world never know when the darkness will come they can be working in the fields and suddenly they are plunged into darkness and in the darkness the demons come.

So too do the demons not know when the light will come back.

To this day people still search for where this battle happens Between the sun and the moon elves in hopes of either conquering both and taking control of the day and night for themselves or to bring harmony

[its-that-kattt]

Repostober day 23!

This is a toony detective character I played in my first venture with the Hero system

[filipfatalattractionrblog]

At the risk of taking shitpost seriously, let kme get in my combat pajamas:

RE: D&D: You’\re not supposed to have a gun in Skyrim or fight Macho Man Randy Savage in Skyrim or play a whole ass spiritual successor to the Gothic trilogy in Skyrim either. Doesn’t give you the right to imply there is something wrong with skilled and talented people who put their hard work into making those. Hacking D&D to do what you want with it is a tradition as old as og Tunnels & Trolls. Talk with game development veterans and a lot of them started by modding DOOM to do things DOOM was never meant to do. This whole attitude is basically shaming beginner ttrpg designers for experimenting and testing the limits of a system and their creativity, nothing more.

RE: Pathfinder: As someone who loves Cthulhu Mythos, fuck ‘em. Like seriously, Lovecraft’s work has already been mangled, transformed, salvaged and butchered by dozens of creators. Also, he’;s been a racist shit, so fuck ‘im. You know who wrote stories about his self-insert slaughtering cosmic beings beyond human understanding? Lovecraft’s best friend Robert E. Howard. Maybe we need to punch a quasi-dimensional space god from time to time in order to challenge and deconstruct some of underlying assumptions of the Cosmic Horror genre? Also, I have been on Giant in the Playground Forums and I assure you, 90% of people there want to murder Cthulhu with a musical halfling from fantasy land.

RE: World of Darkness: Loooooooooooooooooool. “90′s called” so did your mom, she tells you to pick toys from the playground and go home. Are you whining and crying when you see a goth or punk in public too? It’s fucking immature to just dismiss something as old and therefore withotu value. This is literally on level of fucking TikTok’s war on classical literature just because it is old. Cringe mate, cringe to the max.

RE: Mutants and Masterminds/HERO System: Tell me you don’t get how marketing works without saying you don’t get how marketing works. Should we remove Barbarian class from D&D and Pathfinder because “we need only one Conan clone”? Also, this criticism undermines your entry on PbtA because it also applies to MASKS: The Next Generation.

THINGS I AM UNREASONABLY ANNOYED ABOUT BY GAME SYSTEM

D&D: Please put a disclaimer that you are not a universal system. Every time I see someone try to do a political mystery game in D&D, I take 3d10 psychic damage and have to make a death saving throw.

Pathfinder: Look. If i wanted to play a game about fighting Cthulhu there is an extremely famous game specifically designed around doing that. Literally no-one is ever going to say "Wow, I want to play a Cthulhu themed game! Time to stat up a musical halfling from a magical fantasy land!".

Chronicles Of Darkness: Just admit no-one uses any of your rules. You have Social Door Rules and Integrity Conditions and Corruption Levels and I bet at most 50% of COD players could tell me which of those I made up. Just admit people aren't dressing up as Alucard The Bringer Of Shadows because they want to sit down and do calculus.

World Of Darkness: You know that old guy who's still doing his job even though he is way too old to do it any more, but he's now an institution so you can't get rid of him? Like that. The 90s called and they want literally everything about this back.

Call Of Cthulhu: I appreciate the commitment to authenticity, but maybe stop hiring actual disgraced mental asylum directors from the 1920s to design your sanity system?

GURPS: Look. Look. Listen. We both know that you just want to write history textbooks. These are history textbooks with a few stat blocks begrudgingly put in. If you just give me a book on early Chinese history I will read it and go "ah, very interesting!". You don't need to put in a list of character choices. We're all nerds. We'll read them. Live your best life.

Powered By The Apocalypse: I actually can't think of anything wrong with PBTA. That's not a bit, this is literally the perfect system. Take notes everyone else.

Mutants and Masterminds/Heroes System: Your systems have probably the most customizable character creation in the world and you both just make reskins of the Justice League over and over again. Maybe we only need one "thinly veiled copyrighted characters" setting? You can fight over it once you decipher your combat mechanics.

FATE: Ok I won't lie, I have no idea how the fuck FATE works. I have read the rules repeatedly and played three games and I still have no idea what invoking an aspect means. I don't know why. I grasped the rules of fucking Nobilis but this one just psychologically eludes me. This is more a problem with me I guess, but I'm still annoyed.

Warhammer 40k: Have you considered spending less on avocado toast? Then you might be able to afford to charge less for things?

Exalted: Apart from the lore, the setting, the mechanics, the metaplot, the character creation and the dodgy narrative implications, I can't think of anything to improve here.

[niksrpgs]

Brand new #HeroSystemVehicleSourcebook for #HeroSystem #fifthedition (#5e), now available with FREE SHIPPING! #ttrpg #originalprint #outofprint #NiksRPGs

[gorgonarcher]

Game 3 - Hero System

Champions is the first game I actually played a session of and that character was basically a blend of Wolverine and the protagonist to the 1980s TV show werewolf.

To this date Hero System remains probably the most well-thought and designed pure-point-based character creation system. However, this comes with a caveat that it expects you to do that work for every NPC using the same system as PCs use. And, well, it's a lot of burden on the GM.

I've also heard recently that the developers (Steven Long et al) have gone the way of Kevin Siembada in terms of "my way or the highway" to the point of banning people from the Hero forums that even mildly question recent decisions.

So, to start, in the old days a superhero character would get 250 points to build a character, 150 for free, and 100 with a set of disadvantages (now called complications).

As the game started adding things like perks, more skills, talents, and other such things, they realized they needed to expand the point pool to account for all the different ways they gave to fill out characters. Also, it was proving difficult to make all the disadvantages relevant to a game. There were a lot of characters that were bloated with "just for the points" complications that just bogged down games. Eventually the devs made the decision for the proportion matched with disadvantages to also be reduced.

In the most recent edition, 6th, the standard superhero is built with 400 pts, 75 of which were paid for by complications. With a maximum value to each complication of 40. But I think, instead, I'm going to go with a Powerful Heroic character at 225 points. This will put the character on level with pulp and fantasy characters.

I'm also going to use the "Normal Characteristic Maxima" limits for characters, meaning that she will be limited to "human" limits. (You can tell be the quotes that the upper limits of these are still a bit beyond what you can expect from a human being).

I'm going to follow some of the considerations here:

And some of the budgeting suggestions here, though I make break these, especially since these are for Standard Heroic and I'm doing Powerful Heroic and I'm not entirely sure I'll be sticking specifically to one of the three recommendations or not.

So, when doing Hero System, I prioritize the elements I want first and spend on those, then I spiral out to get the other elements to fill in the story of the character. Sometimes I start with Disadvantages, and I think I'll do that here.

Complications

Note, I find it more interesting to have a number of smaller complications usually, because having one or two big ones means that you have fewer story beats to work with. Yes these are treated as disadvantages and they will create legitimate obstacles or problems for in game, but also these are storyline elements. You are allowed to have more complications than the point limit for your power level, but anything over the limit will be for 0 points, so you take those purely for the story.

So, 50 points of Disadvantages

I'm going to go with the assumption that gorgons are rare, potentially unique in most people's experiences. This justifies taking a Distinctive Feature.

An important thing to consider with Hero System and similar games is to buy your disadvantages according to how you want them to impact the game.

If I want just to be a unique individual, for example. Someone easily pointed out and identified. Then I'd take the +0 option for reaction. In this case most NPCs will treat her as just any other person though the snakes for hair are a thing.

Likewise there's the extent of how distinct I want them to be and this is also relative and sort of asking "how much trouble do you want this to be".

For example, let's consider these pictures of Cael:

Some of these are more human looking than others, but any one of them could be considered "easily concealed" dependent on the other entities present in the world.

If there are snake-beings like lamia or naga in the setting then all four might fall under "noticed and recognized" and "easily concealable". If the setting is almost entirely human, then all four might be "Major Reaction/Prejudice" with the first two pictures being "Easily Concealable", the third being "Concealable" and the last being "Not Concealable". At least under normal circumstances.

In this case, I want a human-shaped gorgon, maybe slight scaling and I'm going to say "Concealable" since she'll have to cover most of her skin and conceal her hissy hair with some effort.

I'm also going to say "Major Reaction or Prejudice" but not extreme. Let's say that while gorgons specifically are rare or even unique, that there are other people touched by spirits who have odd physical features like this. So while they might not know exactly what she can do, they recognize her as spirit touched.

The major reaction is not necessarily good or bad and will vary from place to place. The feature is detectable by common senses like sight and hearing so no points are taken off for that. An example of this would be like how mutants in X-Men can be detected with special gear but most can pass for human. I am going to lean into the variation by culture though and say that some cultures just accept spirit-touched people with a shrug.

So the final complication looks like this:

10 - Gorgon, snake-hair and slight-scales: Dist Fea, Concealable, Always Noticed and Major Reaction, Feature is not distinctive in some cultures.

For the next part, I'm going to lean in on the idea that there are spirit-touched people who have expectations of them and I'm going with a Psychological Limitation.

In this case, we're going to say that she has an urge to always prove her worth or match up to the expectation of her. Perfectionism isn't quite the right idea so let's phrase it "Living up to Expectations".

Once again, model this by how often you want to deal with it. The book has some suggestions for what the different frequencies mean.

The intensity of the urge is also something to choose to your taste. I don't want it to be obnoxious and for some psych lims, "Total" is going to be obnoxious if it is all the time. There are psych lims that can be Total and still fun however: A "Code vs Killing" in superhero games is considered "Very Common Total" because it is something some heroes won't do for any reason and if they kill someone accidentally, then they have a breakdown. It's a thing that's always a factor.

Meanwhile, an uncommon phobia might totally shut you down and force you to avoid something but due to being uncommon, it's not common enough to be obnoxious. Plus, you don't shut down completely, as with the Code vs Killing, you just go out of your way to avoid it. For example, a person with a total phobia for wolves would refuse to go into the Wolf Woods.

Also, a reminder, the frequency is not about how common the situation is in the world but rather how common the situation will be in the game. Wolves might be a very common animal in the world but they won't often appear in the game, or rather won't often share a screen with the person who has the phobia due to them requesting the phobia be uncommon. At least if the GM is reading properly.

In this case, I think the urge to perform is going near constant, so I'm taking Very Common for frequency, but I'm going to make it a Moderate urge, so that it is something she can shake off with a pretty easy EGO check. This causes the disadvantage to look like this.

15 - Living up to Expectations: Psych Lim, Very Common Moderate.

That's 25 of our 50 points.

I want to do a vulnerability or other physical limitation just for the differing structure, but I also want to build up to the psych lim with a social limitation. Which works in very much the same way as a Psych Lim.

Secret Identities and Public Identities are a subset of Social Limitations and they used to be their own unique complications before they were folded in under the general umbrella of social limitations.

In this case, she comes from a culture where being spirit-touched is distinctive and the reputation is that they are either heroes or monsters, nothing in between. This is the source of her psych lim, so I could leave at just a psych lim, but there might be cases where she has a higher expectation of herself, or where society might have a higher expectation of her. Also, she can travel away from this society but not travel away from herself. The two are similar and overlap, but are still different.

The people of her society are going to either expect her to do dangerous tasks on demand or else label her as a thing to be actively hunted if she goes against their demands. But again, other cultures might be worse and just instantly peg her as a monster, or better and just consider her a person.

So, I'm going to put this as follows:

15 - Spirit-Touched, Hero or Monster: Soc Lim, Very Frequent, Major, Not Limiting in some Cultures.

This gives us 40 out of 50 points. So, for the last thing, we're going to do something physical, and we're still going off the idea of her being Spirit-Touched.

What if she's more affected by exorcisms and similar type effects? Now, there's two ways to do this: Vulnerability and Susceptibility.

Vulnerability is when something affects you far more than it does a normal person, but it will still affect a normal person. Susceptibility is when the effect doesn't affect most people and is mostly a you problem. In this case, I'm going to take a nod from Nioh 2 where Purity effect still has a negative impact on humans, it just doesn't affect them as severely as it does a yokai.

I'd say the spirit-touched thing is probably influenced by my playing Nioh 2 a bit recently, but also I had the same terms and concepts with a gorgon back three or four years before Nioh 2 came out and I had ever heard of the series. Still, probably a mix of both to be honest, the old idea coming to the top due to recently playing a lot of Nioh 2.

Anyway, I could take that as a vulnerability, but I'm also going to note that some purification stuff does nothing perceptible to humans but will affect her. So Susceptibility is probably much more what I'm looking for. If something is severe enough to affect human, that can just be bought to that level.

This case we're going to say these are directed exorcisms and purification tools, like salt or holy water. The person saying them has to be willfully aiming these prayers or items at her. So she could stand next to an exorcist affecting a demon and be fine, but if some panicky peasant starts praying at her she'll find herself touched.

Also note that the dice assume basic damage and other types of damage would use different scaling. 3d6 normal damage (which doesn't kill as easily) is roughly the same value as 1d6 killing damage (which targets a different defense). In this case though, we're going to go with a Drain effect. So that instead of targeting either STUN or BODY like normal and killing attacks do, it'll target "Power Defense" which almost nobody has.

We're going to say that these things drain her Recovery, meaning it makes it harder for her to recover spent Endurance or heal from injuries. 1d6 of Drain = 2d6 of Normal Damage, as far as point value is concerned.

We also have to decide whether this is a harm she takes instantly on first contact or whether it continues over time while exposed. In this case, I think the idea of her trying wash off purified salt or get away from someone praying at her is a good idea. I am going to go ahead and go with per phase. Some explanation on time here:

A Turn is 12 seconds. A segment is one second. A phase is a segment on which you act. Characters have a "Speed" attribute ranging from 2 to 12 which is how many actions a character gets on each Turn. So a person with Spd 2 (average human) has two actions in a turn, Segment 6 and 12. So, per Phase would mean the damage happens every time you are exposed in a segment when you have an action.

For frequency, again, this represents with how often you want to deal with it. Not how common the actual phenomenon is, though that can play a factor. In this case, we're going to assume that while the use of prayers and purified substances is well known, most people don't know how to properly perform the prayers or purify things enough to affect spirit-touched (and only have mild impact on actual spirits) plus it's likely that our character is primarily seen as a decent person. That said, enemy mystics would use this against her.

So, with all that in mind, I'm going to mark this as "Uncommon" giving us the following. This comes to a total value of 20. However, because this goes over the 10 points we have left, we only get 10 points out of it. If I wanted I could change the "per Phase" to "Instant" instead, but I think we'll keep it for the pure drama. You're fine to do this. I do like to notate when I went over using parentheses.

10 (20) - Exorcism Sensitivity: directed prayers and purified substances. Uncommon, 1d6 Recovery Drain per Phase.

Complications Total

The complication wrap comes to the following:

10 - Gorgon, snake-hair and slight-scales: Dist Fea, Concealable, Always Noticed and Major Reaction, Feature is not distinctive in some cultures.

15 - Living up to Expectations: Psych Lim, Very Common Moderate.

15 - Spirit-Touched, Hero or Monster: Soc Lim, Very Frequent, Major, Not Limiting in some Cultures.

10 (20) - Exorcism Sensitivity: directed prayers and purified substances. Uncommon, 1d6 Recovery Drain per Phase.

So now we move on to abilities.

Priorities

First, let's set our priorities:

1 - Basic Characteristics 2 - Snake hair 3 - Archery 4 - Consider petrification stare 5 - fill out details.

Characteristics

I do like to start with characteristics to make sure my character's stats are at acceptable levels for me. In prior edition you would have Primary characteristics and Figured characteristics which would be dependent on the Primary characteristics but which could bought above their basic level. In 6th edition, however, everything is bought directly.

The characteristics are as follows:

And some basic comparisons can be found here:

High priority here would be:

OCV/DCV

SPD

DEX

Next would be:

INT

EGO

PRE

DMCV

STUN

Then:

REC

END

PD

ED

Finally:

STR

CON

BODY

OMCV

So I'll go with the following (Cost in parentheses):

STR 13 (3)

DEX 20 (20)

CON 15 (5)

INT 13 (3)

EGO 13 (3)

PRE 15 (5)

OCV 4 (5)

DCV 6 (15)

OMCV 3

DMCV 5 (6)

SPD 4 (20)

PD 7 (5)

ED 7 (5)

REC 8 (4)

END 30 (2)

BODY 12 (2)

STUN 34 (7)

Total Cost: 110

That leaves us with 115 points for the rest of the characteristic.

Snake Hair

Now, I could leave this at just the Distinctive Feature, but let's actually give it some mechanical benefit as well as a social disadvantage. I'm going to start with a sensory advantage.

I'm going to apply an increased arc of perception to vision to 240 degrees. Not quite 360 degrees, but a bit more than the usual range of senses. I could purchase it for just normal vision, but instead, I'm going to purchase it for the entire vision group on the idea of also getting thermal vision, or as the game calls it "Infrared Perception" which is one of the pre-built senses.

10 - Snake Hair, Many Eyes: Increased Arc of perception 240 degrees to the vision group.

10 - Thermal Vision: Detect Heat Patterns/Traces, Passive

And because snakes scent the air with their tongues:

19 - Snake Tongues: All For Normal Scent, Discriminatory (5), Analyze (5), Microscopic: 2x Magnification (6), Rapid x10 speed (3)

That makes for 29 points.

And now we're going to move on to Archery

Archery

All campaigns will have some weapon familiarity or skills be common to all characters, but I'm not going to spend assuming that.

First, Weapon Familiarity.

I am going to give her familiarity with all Common Ranged Weapons for 2 pts

2 -Common Ranged Weapon Familiarity: Thrown Rocks; Bows; Crossbows; Javelins and Thrown Spears; Thrown Knives, Axes, and Darts.

Now on to other things for increased skills, we're going to start with Combat Skill Levels. Combat Skill Levels can be applied to OCV, DCV, or Damage. And we'll add some Penalty Skill Levels to counteract common penalties.

9 - CSL: All Bows 3 levels

4 - Ranged Skill Levels: 2 levels with Bows to counter ranged penalties.

4 - Targeting Skill Levels: 2 Levels with Bows to counter act penalties to target specific parts of the body

Total so far: 19

One path would be to take the Martial Arts rules and determine specific attack styles, but instead, since this is leaning toward Fantasy, I'm going to build her archery style with powers. And sense this is a Heroic level game, I'm going to go with a Multipower.

A multipower is a pool of points that can be assigned to the powers under it. So you can't use all the powers simultaneously but if you have the points to power two powers, then you can use them together. And yes, this includes using two attacks in one combination.

We're also going to apply a limitation to this in the form of a Focus because she needs a bow to use it. A lot of heroic games wouldn't require characters to pay points for their weapons, but we're going to do so for a signature weapon. Foci modify costs dependent on how obvious they are and how easy they are to take away from the character. A bow is Obvious and Accessible so this is an OAF which is a -1 modifier... which I'll get to in a moment. As a note, being able to permanently lose the focus would reduce the cost further. We're basically buying the option where the focus would be lost temporarily for one story.

We have the further option to apply the limit of "Charges" to this, but I don't think I'll go with this, have a cinematic idea of infinite ammo.

So since all powers in the pool will need the bow, this limit applies to the base pool of points. I'm going with a 30 point pool which is then modified. So what we do is take 1 and add the total value of all limitations and divide the cost by that number. In this case 1+1=2, 30/2=15.

I have called this the game that taught me algebra for a reason. Thankfully most of the math is in character creation, not gameplay (but there is a substantial amount there as well.)

15 - Bow of the Exorcist: Multipower: 30pt pool, OAF: Blessed Bow

Now, each slot in the multipower, and there can be as many slots as you have points for, will have their cost divided by 5, if we're allowed to adjust how many points go into them, or by 10 if it is a fixed cost.

First we'll have a basic attack for up to 2d6 killing attack, each d6 of KA is 15 points so this comes to 30 pts. To look deeper, the Ranged Killing Attack typically has Ranged advantage and the limitation that it doesn't add Strength, but we typically assume that when we say RKA. Since the focus limitation applies to the whole power, we reduce it to 15 as above, and then we're going to make this variable so we're going to divide that by 5.

Killing attacks target resistant defenses and go straight to BODY and get multiplied for STUN damage where as Normal attacks do STUN damage and do a portion of that as BODY based on dice rolled. (a 1 on the die is 0 BODY, a 6 is is 2 BODY, all other results are 1 BODY)

3v - Arrows: up to 2d6 RKA, Focus: Blessed Bow

The versatile allows the damage to be any of the following:

1 point, 5 points allocated

1/2d6 or 1d6-1, 10 points llocated

1d6, 15 points allocated

1d6+1, 20 points allocated

1.5d6 or 2d6-1, 25 points allocated

2d6, 30 points allocated

This allows us to represent different degrees of focus on just dealing damage. Note that the focus only reduces the cost of the power in terms of character creation, not how many points it uses in the reserve. 2d6 RKA with an OAF has a "real cost" of 15 but it has "active points" of 30 and that is what matters to the Multipower reserve.

Then we'll have a Blessed Arrow for striking spirits. This will have the Advantage that it "Affects Desolidified" we're only going to affect a single special effect/version of Desolidification: spirits, not all of them (like say someone able to turn into gas or a living hologram or a swarm of nanobots). So this is a +1/4 Advantage. I'm still going to make this as a killing attack but it won't be as strong as the prior one because the Active Points can't go over 30.

So, applying an Advantage is just like applying a limitation except you multiply instead of divide. So, we can do up to 20 pts of RKA, which when modified by the 1/4 advantage becomes: 20x1.25= 25. We also want this to be variable, so we now apply the OAF mod of -1...and I'm going to look at the chart rather than look at rounding rules and it comes to 12... and because this is a variable slot... we now divide by 5 and I have to check the rounding anyway... it's mathematical rounding so 12 rounds down (13 would round up) meaning a cost of 2.

2v - Blessed Arrows: up to 1d6+1 RKA, Affects Desolidification: Spirits.

1 point, 6 points allocated

1/2d6 or 1d6-1, 12 points llocated

1d6, 19 points allocated

1d6+1, 25 points allocated

Now, at this point the gorgon COULD fire an arrow that does 1d6 RKA and 1d6-1 RKA Affects desolidified. But there's no reason to do that here. You'd just use a 1d6+1 RKA Affects Desolidified or 2d6 RKA normal. So lets add some other options. How about a skill for nailing limbs to surfaces. That sounds like an Entangle.

So that it can pair with both our other abilities, it will have Affects Desolidified: Spirits, and I'm also going to mark it with "Cannot be Escaped with Teleportation" for +1/4.

Every 10 points of Entangle give 1d6 of BODY and 1 PD/1 ED (Physical and Energy Defense).

Affects Desolidified (+1/4) and Cannot be Escaped with Teleportation (+1/4) come to a total Advantage modifier of +1/2. So 20 points becomes 30 points. Then comes the OAF bringing the cost to 15 and divide by 5 for a variable slot and you get this:

3v - Spiritual Pinning: Entangle, up to 2d6 BODY 2 PD/2 ED, Cannot be escaped with teleportation, affects desolidified.

1d6 1 PD/1 ED - 15 points allocated, very fragile but forces the target to waste time breaking it.

2d6 2 PD/2 ED - 30 points allocated, not much stronger but might hold longer.

Now, we can pair 1d6 RKA with 1d6 Entangle OR 1d6-1 affects Desolidified with 1d6 Entangle, or a 2d6 RKA, or a 1d6+1 RKA affects Desolidified, or a 2d6 Entangle

Now I'm going to add four variations of a Purification arrow similar to the susceptibility our character has, but intense enough to affect humans. We're going to do a STUN only attack and an END drain (on the assumption that most spirits will have similar REC drain susceptibilities that she has).

First the STUN only, this will be a normal attack where 5 points = 1d6 of effect. STUN only is a -0 limitation because the game believes the benefits and drawbacks even out. But then I will also add "Affects Desolidified: Spirits)" for a +1/4. Which means it will be up to 4d6 and having a similar cost to the Blessed Arrows

2v - Spirit-Stunning Arrow - STUN only up to 4d6, Affects Desolidified: Spirits.

1d6 - 6 points allocated

2d6 - 12 points allocated

3d6 - 19 points allocated

4d6 - 25 points allocated

Note that the basic arrow we started with will have better max possible stun than these, so the second version will be a version that does not affect spirits. In Nioh 2 terms. Same basic situation but up to 6d6.

3v - Soul-Stunning Arrow: STUN only up to 6d6

1d6 - 5 points allocated

2d6 - 10 points allocated

3d6 - 15 points allocated

4d6 - 20 points allocated

5d6 - 25 points allocated

6d6 - 30 points allocated.

Now the Drains. Drains, as stated earlier are 10 points per 1d6 and we're going to do that will work against insubstantial enemies and one that won't. The first one is going to be up to 2d6 and on up to 3d6. Note that this attack does not target normal defenses. And the final products will look like this.

Also note that this is END drain, so each point of drain rolled will drain 5 points of END. Because it drains character points and END is 5 points per 1 character point.

2v - Spirit Drought Arrow: up to 2d6 END Drain, Affects Desolidified.

1/2d6 or 1d6-1, 6 points allocated

1d6, 12 points allocated

1d6+1, 19 points allocated

1.5d6 or 2d6-1, 25 points allocated

3v - Soul Drought Arrow: up to 3d6 END Drain.

1/2d6 or 1d6-1, 5 points allocated

1d6, 10 points points allocated

1.5d6 or 2d6-1, 15 points allocated

2d6, 20 points allocated

2.5d6 or 3d6-1, 25 points allocated

3d6, 30 points allocated.

This brings the final set of archery abilities to look like this:

Archery

2 -Common Ranged Weapon Familiarity: Thrown Rocks; Bows; Crossbows; Javelins and Thrown Spears; Thrown Knives, Axes, and Darts.

9 - CSL: All Bows 3 levels

4 - Ranged Skill Levels: 2 levels with Bows to counter ranged penalties.

4 - Targeting Skill Levels: 2 Levels with Bows to counter act penalties to target specific parts of the body

15 - Bow of the Exorcist: 30 pt reserve, OAF: Blessed Bow (-1)

3v - Arrow: up to 3d6 RKA, OAF: Blessed Bow

2v - Blessed Arrow: up to 1d6+1, Affects Desolidified: Spirits (+1/4), OAF: Blessed Bow (-1)

3v - Spiritual Pinning: Entangle, up to 2d6 BODY 2 PD/2 ED, Cannot be escaped with teleportation (+1/4), affects desolidified (+1/4). OAF: Blessed Bow (-1)

2v - Spirit-Stunning Arrow - STUN only up to 4d6, Affects Desolidified: Spirits (+1/4). OAF: Blessed Bow (-1)

3v - Soul-Stunning Arrow: STUN only up to 6d6 OAF: Blessed Bow: (-1)

2v - Spirit Drought Arrow: up to 2d6 END Drain, Affects Desolidified (-1/4). OAF: Blessed Bow (-1)

3v - Soul Drought Arrow: up to 3d6 END Drain. OAF: Blessed Bow

Total: 52 points

Consider Petrifying Gaze

With 27 points left, considered and put aside for now.

Fill Out Details

So now we're going to fill out details.

First, let's increase her movement.

4 - Running +4 meters, total 16m

2 - Leaping +4 meters, total 8m

And we're going to give her familiarity with some common melee weapons. Weirdly, this doesn't include Staves, but oh well.

2 - Common Melee Weapon Familiarity: Unarmed Combat; Axes, Maces, Hammers, and Picks; Blades; Clubs; Fist-Loads; Polearms and Spears; Two-Handed Weapons

I'm also going to give her some resistant defenses related to her scales.

9 - Resistant Protection: 3 rPD/3 rED

Then I'm going to give her some skills:

3 - Knowledge: Exorcism, INT-based

3 - Stealth, DEX-based

3 - Deduction, INT-based

This leaves one point remaining, which I am going to do as a Perk for being a trained spiritual warrior.

1 - Fringe Benefit: Official Exorcist

The Final Character looks like this:

Altogether Now

Characteristics

STR 13 (3)

DEX 20 (20)

CON 15 (5)

INT 13 (3)

EGO 13 (3)

PRE 15 (5)

OCV 4 (5)

DCV 6 (15)

OMCV 3

DMCV 5 (6)

SPD 4 (20)

PD 10/3 (5 - plus Scales)

ED 10/3 (5 - plus Scales)

REC 8 (4)

END 30 (2)

BODY 12 (2)

STUN 34 (7)

Characteristics Total: 110

Skills

3 - Knowledge: Exorcism, INT-based

3 - Stealth, DEX-based

3 - Deduction, INT-based

9 - Combat Skill Levels: All Bows 3 levels

4 - Ranged Skill Levels: 2 levels with Bows to counter ranged penalties.

4 - Targeting Skill Levels: 2 Levels with Bows to counter act penalties to target specific parts of the body

2 -Common Ranged Weapon Familiarity: Thrown Rocks; Bows; Crossbows; Javelins and Thrown Spears; Thrown Knives, Axes, and Darts.

2 - Common Melee Weapon Familiarity: Unarmed Combat; Axes, Maces, Hammers, and Picks; Blades; Clubs; Fist-Loads; Polearms and Spears; Two-Handed Weapons

Skills Total: 27

Perks

1 - Fringe Benefit: Official Exorcist

Perks Total: 1

Powers

9 - Scales: Resistant Defense, 3 rPD/3 rED

4 - Running +4 meters, total 16m

2 - Leaping +4 meters, total 8m

Total: 15

Senses

10 - Snake Hair, Many Eyes: Increased Arc of perception 240 degrees to the vision group.

10 - Thermal Vision: Detect Heat Patterns/Traces, Passive

19 - Snake Tongues: All For Normal Scent, Discriminatory (5), Analyze (5), Microscopic: 2x Magnification (6), Rapid x10 speed (3)

Total: 39

Bow of the Exorcist Martial Art

15 - Bow of the Exorcist: 30 pt reserve, OAF: Blessed Bow (-1)

3v - Arrow: up to 2d6 RKA, OAF: Blessed Bow

2v - Blessed Arrow: up to 1d6+1, Affects Desolidified: Spirits (+1/4), OAF: Blessed Bow (-1)

3v - Spiritual Pinning: Entangle, up to 2d6 BODY 2 PD/2 ED, Cannot be escaped with teleportation (+1/4), affects desolidified (+1/4). OAF: Blessed Bow (-1)

2v - Spirit-Stunning Arrow - STUN only up to 4d6, Affects Desolidified: Spirits (+1/4). OAF: Blessed Bow (-1)

3v - Soul-Stunning Arrow: STUN only up to 6d6 OAF: Blessed Bow: (-1)

2v - Spirit Drought Arrow: up to 2d6 END Drain, Affects Desolidified (-1/4). OAF: Blessed Bow (-1)

3v - Soul Drought Arrow: up to 3d6 END Drain. OAF: Blessed Bow

Total: 33

Powers Total: 87

Grand Total: 225

Complications

10 - Gorgon, snake-hair and slight-scales: Dist Fea, Concealable, Always Noticed and Major Reaction, Feature is not distinctive in some cultures.

15 - Living up to Expectations: Psych Lim, Very Common Moderate.

15 - Spirit-Touched, Hero or Monster: Soc Lim, Very Frequent, Major, Not Limiting in some Cultures.

10 (20) - Exorcism Sensitivity: directed prayers and purified substances. Uncommon, 1d6 Recovery Drain per Phase.

I'd probably use the first few points of XP to fill out skills with RP stuff and to give her more character. One advantage of doing a multipower like this is it is really cheap to add new powers. There is something to be said for adding some of the martial maneuvers in as well, but the Combat Skill Levels and Penalty Skill Levels cover a lot of what those would do.

This presents a fairly more fluid way to approach martial arts than using the martial arts mechanics. It works well with weapon-based and power-based martial arts, but still the martial maneuvers provide a lot of efficient and low cost prebuilt combinations.

Also note that if she has a normal bow instead of a blessed bow, hers or someone else's, she can't use her multipower at all and she would only use the bow's basic capabilities plus her combat skill levels. If I wanted to further heighten her skill with spirit arrows, I could also give her Combat Skill Levels specifically with that multipower, which would stack with those on bows in general.

[inbabylontheywept]

Soviet Birds.

The secret facility that I work in has holes in the ceiling. We don't know how to get them fixed.

We tried asking the government to fix it, once. We told them that the holes in the older parts of the facility had gotten large enough to fit birds through, and that birds were getting through, and that, perhaps, a Soviet Spy could fit through as well.

After all, it is well known that Soviet Spies and pigeons are approximately the same diameter.

Our hope was that that this vague and nonsensical threat would put a little fire under Uncle Sam's feet. If the fed couldn't be bothered to give a shit about the giant gaping holes in the roof of our facility, perhaps they could be persuaded to give a shit about... Soviet Spies.

This attempt at manipulation 100% blew up in our faces.

See, the government does not need to be persuaded to give a shit about Soviet Spies. It still wakes up most nights, drenched in cold sweat, terrified and confident that a Soviet Spy is hiding in their nightstand. If it sees a rock on the ground, it flips it over, pistol drawn, ready to shoot the Soviet Spy it fully expects to slither out from underneath. Which is to say: The government is crazy. So when we dropped those two words - inflitration risk - in the repair request, they came in guns-a-blazin'.

Does that mean that they fixed the roof? Of course not. Don't be stupid. No, instead of performing basic maintenance, they installed a state of the art alarm system throughout the facility - lasers, sonar, the works - and told us to always be on the guard. Because of the roof holes.

Then they left.

So now we had an extremely good alarm system... and birds. Which have combined in incredibly obvious and predictable ways to produce an unending fountain of problems.

For Example: About once a month, someone gets called in by the local airforce dispatch because AAAAAAAAAAA a Spy is in the Rad Lab! We're all gonna die! Except every time, it's a bird. And I get why we have to check, but every time, the dispatcher is panicked and the person going out has to be like listen, listen: It's a bird. It's always a bird. It's been a bird every month for the last fifteen years. It will be a bird next month. All this stress? Bad for your heart.

Second Example: Sometimes, birds get in while we're actually working. And when it's in the morning, you know, it's a nuisance, and it stops testing (we are not going to risk irradiating a bird) but it's not an all-hands-on-deck situation because it doesn't take ten hours to get a bird out. But surprisingly often, the bird gets in riiiiight at closing time, and in that situation, everyone goes feral because nobody can leave until the alarm is set, and we cannot set the alarm while the bird is there, because the bird would immediately trigger it and then we'd have to stay another 4 hours to confirm that it was not a Soviet Bird.

So in order to go home, everyone's top priority is Get That Bird. And we have a system for it.

Step 1: The test stands tend to be located in rooms with 30+ foot ceilings. We can't catch birds in places like that - so we have to lure the bird into the relatively low ceilinged (8 feet only) upper offices.

We do this by turning all the lights off in the test rooms, then putting floodlights by the exits. I don't know why this works - some kind of evolutionary brain fragment shared by both Bugs and Birds - but work it does. The birds almost always follow after the lights. From there, it’s just two guys moving the floodlight and a third guy to turn off the lights.

Step 2: Everyone else has been waiting for this step. There is this long stairway up from the basement level into the offices, and in the final stage, the floodlights are brought to the base of the stairwell to bring the bird up. At the top of the steps there will be a group of tennish people, waiting for the signal. The light guys will set up the final transfer, everyone will tense, and then, swish...a bird will flit up the stairs and into the offices.

It's like watching werewolves on a full moon. Before the bird cometh, we are engineers. Nerds. Pale and skinny things, trembling under the fluorescent lights. After the bird, we are beasts. Feral, gnawing things, glowing under the orange sunrise of the 70's halogen floodlights.

And like all beasts, we cannot help but give chase.

Step 3: The were-engineers begin the hunt. The goal at the start is not really to catch the bird - just exhaust it. So the pack simply does not relent. Because the stakes are going home on time, the group is basically given free reign to go anywhere in the building. If someone's door is open, and the bird goes inside, they're going to have to deal with ten sweaty panting maniacs leaping around their office. They don't get to say that they're busy, or remark on how all this movement is a terrible distraction. They are allowed to sit in silence during the chaos, and perhaps thank the war party for chasing the bird while they sat comfortably on their ass. This has been explained several times, and it will continue to be explained until cooperation is achieved.

Anyway.

The chase can go on for quite some time. Sometimes, the bird will get tired and find a crevice to hide in, where it can then be reached through standard cornered-bird catching techniques.

Other times, it will slow down enough that someone can actually yoink it out of the air. But this will go on until someone catches the bird and triggers Step 4.

Step 4: The Finale. This is the get-the-bird-out-of-the-building stage, and it requires someone to adopt a specific role: To Become the Sacrificial Vessel of Bird Removal.

This job is both coveted and feared. It's coveted, because holding a wild bird in one's hands is a precious thing. To feel how small, and fragile, and scared it is, only to free it from the building? That is what it's like to be a benevolent God. But the cost! Oh, the cost. The entire time the Vessel is in motion, the bird will be biting the hell out of their fingers. And I cannot emphasize enough just how painful bird bites are. Their entire face is a set of needle posed pliers, and they know tricks the even the cartels haven't figured out yet. So there's always a little hubbub about who shall be The Vessel while onlookers, stranded outside The Office of Bird Capture, can only look on. Quiet arguments and pleas are heard, little fragments of fear and pride and glory trickling out of room like the silver dust left behind in a bag of well shook quarters. The sound of concensus is silence, and the argument will go on until that's all that's left. And then, from the darkness of the final office, the chosen sacrifice will step forward: Hands gently cupped, tears streaming down their face, fingers trembling from the pain of the ongoing bird chomps.

And this scene is what organizes people. Not leadership, not truly. No one can think and coordinate a crowd while their fingers are being attacked with a combination nutcracker/ear piercer. But the crowd sees the suffering of their annointed, and it is driven to do everything poossible to make the process flow. People instinctively flair out, finding the fastest path outside. Doors are held open. Paths are cleared. Someone, somehow, always knows the way forward and can describe it to the sufferer. Left, left, forward. Corner closet. Yep, there's a hall in there. Forward. Two-hundred more feet man, you're doing great. Just hold it together a little longer. You're killing it.

Then the final door swings open, and the bird flees out into what remains of daylight. And yet, even here, the deed is not yet done. I cannot explain it in words, but the crowd that helped is never content until they can see and speak on the Bird Vessel's wounds. They all have to pull the fingers back and see what was given. Estimate the price: One day to get better - No, three - No, a week! Are you blind? Do you see that blood blister? -Yeah, that's not going away anytime soon - Damn, can you believe how feisty those things are? Like wolves without teeth.

(They cannot help but touch as they go. It has always been this way. Even Thomas was not content until he felt the wounds in Christ's hands.)

Only when the last of the helpers has seen, and commented, and commended, will the engineers scatter. It is their return from the underworld that announces to the sun living surface dwellers that they too can go home. (@somerunner tolja it needed to be a post.)

[karmakaze]

The thing that finally crystallized why the "D&D is simple" claim always annoyed me was part of the D&D 4e introduction, but it applies to 5e, and also backward to 3.x and AD&D2. The passage reads: SIMPLE RULES, MANY EXCEPTIONS Every class, race, feat, power, and monster in the D&D game lets you break the rules in some way. These can be very minor ways: Most characters don’t know how to use longbows, but every elf does. These exceptions can also appear in very significant ways: A swing with a sword normally does a few points of damage, but a high-level fighter can use a power that can fell multiple monsters in a single blow. All these game elements are little ways of breaking the rules—and most of the books published for the D&D game are full of these game elements.

What this means is that before you even hit level 1, you're modifying these "simple" rules by adding exceptions for class and race. Then every piece of equipment, feat, and class ability gained by level adds more exceptions. And then every sourcebook that comes out includes more classes/subclasses, playable races, feats, and other little rules adjustments to pick from. That's not simple. That's the tax code!!

I say this as someone who cut their teeth on HERO system, which famously had a rulebook that could stop a bullet and requires an extensive use of multiplying and dividing with fractions during character creation. I started with that and the original Ars Magica, which had a magic system that involved working out subject-verb combinations from a list of a dozen subjects and half a dozen verbs for each spell (actually very cool - it won awards, but nobody pretended it was simple.) Neither of those gave me a fraction of the headaches that running D&D has. D&D just happens to be the game most people encounter first and the learning curve of the game gets absorbed into the learning curve of learning to play a TTRPG at all, so the complexity isn't as apparent. This is not to say that D&D5e is a bad system, but it is firmly in the camp of old-school rules-heavy combat simulation with a side of roleplaying.

people are often surprised when i say that dnd 5e is not by any measure 'rules-light' and to illustrate what i mean, here's the spell 'sleep' in dnd 5th edition:

and the spell 'sleep' in trophy gold

dnd 5th edition, across the three core sourcebooks (not including the many supplements that are hundreds of pages long!) is 960 pages long. trophy gold was originally released as 23 pages of a 46-page zine. it recently got a full release as its own book which is still only 250 pages long, of which 200 are devoted to prebuilt incursions (trophy's analogue to dnd campaign modules)

and trophy gold isn't even the simplest rpg out there -- i just picked it because it's playing in a similar genre space to 5e and so the point of comparisons are very direct and obvious. single-page rpgs are basically their own genre! there are tabletop rpgs you can learn in ten minutes or less! never let anyone tell you that dnd 5th edition is 'streamlined' or 'simple!' it's not even the simplest dungeons and dragons!

[oldschoolfrp]

A ride in the snow (Larry Elmore cover for Fantasy Hero 4th ed, Hero Games, 1990)

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 113

“I seem to have been taken hostage.” Batman’s words almost had Superman panic if not for the wry tone, a tone which the others didn’t know if their freaking out was to go by. Clark sighed through the comms, tired after battle and honestly wanting to go to bed now.

“I’ll be right over, what child has latched onto you now?” He asked while switching to a more private channel. 

“I can already hear you making fun of me…” Wha- Oh. Clark bit his lip to keep himself from laughing as he took to the air. “They appear to be a pair of twins with…” 

“You gotta’ say it Bruce, you gotta’,” Clark couldn’t stop the chuckle when he saw his friend on the top of a building, cape curled around his form in a way usually reserved for the robins. 

“... with dark hair… and blue eyes…” That was it. Clark absolutely lost it in laughter. 

[rrogueamendiares]

what do you mean it didn't go like this

[rokiyuu]

Great in-universe explanation.

Excuse me but am I the only one who didn’t know that the day after Kamino the media started calling All Might the “Symbol of the Dead”?!!!

[swiggity-swexual-i-am-asexual]

As per usual, it’s DP crossover with (probably) DC, although you could probably adjust it for other fandoms

ANYWAYS

A little kid and his mother are trick or treating in another city, perhaps at some kind of event rather than knocking on doors, and the kid is dressed as Phantom. It’s very adorable, with his little ghost-shaped bucket and clearly homemade and already stained costume—listen, white only works if you can just fly over street grime or phase it out of your clothes—and his slightly I’ll fitting wig. The kid is SO happy to be out and about dressed as his favorite, and maybe even showed it off to Phantom back in Amity Park before his family left.

The hero, insert whoever you wish here, is probably in civvies and just enjoying the event. The kid, meanwhile, is so glad when people ask who he is so he can explain, and so- the hero gets to hear ALL ABOUT the local town hero who is probably pretty small time despite the kid’s clearly exaggerated stories. The hero certainly never heard of him, but the kid’s mom confirms that Phantom really was the town hero, despite some mixed reviews of the poor guy.

“Did you manage to show him your costume?” the hero asks.

“Yeah! We went down to the cemetery to leave flowers and I got to show him my costume.”

Wait. Cemetery? Maybe it was part of theme, because Phantom had to be named that for a reason, but… it sounded like…

The kid ignores the suddenly VERY still hero and instead turns to his mom. “Momma, do you think we should bring him candy? He doesn’t get to trick or treat like we do, and I can work super hard to get him a bunch!”

The kid’s mom just smiles. “We could, but maybe we should bring him something homemade. I bet he’d like something more filling, teen boys like him have a hollow leg.”

The kid wrinkles his nose. “Like Vernie with the pizza bagels?”

“Like your cousin, yes. We can make some cinnamon rolls and take them to his memorial, maybe bring some of the apples from your grandpa’s garden…”

The hero is pretty much forgotten as the two-part family wanders off, not quite intentionally forgetting the hero is there so much as the hero somewhat accidentally ended the conversation when they just froze and didn’t ask anything further.

Not that the hero didn’t want to. But they’d learn something very serious.

One—there was a small town hero they’d never heard of. Two—that hero was apparently a teen. Third—most pressingly, the teen hero was both beloved enough to have kids dressing up as him and dead enough to have a grave.

This… might require some phone calls.

[tanglepelt]

Dc x dp idea 133

Danny is really confused. Like sure he made a fake account in order “use” his parents completely valid and not in biased research on ghosts.

Cause obviously. Their completely legit research disproves multiple peer reviewed and factual papers.

Tucker made the fake account. No real names or numbers. So. They couldn’t know it was him right?!??

He just wanted people to see how wack the papers were and bring to light the very not accurate papers. He figured using botched research to counter claim others would do something.

But??? Why was the flash in his living room arguing with his parents about scientific articles. And proper research??

[eiochevart]

A link through the ages…

(This is not LU Legend)