![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cosmicspearWe're heading back into the Heroes Unlimited mines today, and this time we're getting started on the Magic power category. It's pretty obvious that this is one of Kevin Siembieda's personal favourites, because it has four subcategories that all do things in a unique way. As such, we're gonna be making characters in all of them. First up: the Enchanted Weapon.
It's pretty clear what this option is for: magic weapons that, if the wielder be worthy, grant enormous amounts of power. And thankfully Kevin has resisted the urge to include a random table to determine whether they do indeed be worthy. I'd say that's just common sense, but we have to remember that this is the company that gave us a random puberty table for an adventure where you play as 12-year-old girls and somehow missed why that would be a bad idea.
Anyway, for our new weapon-haver's attributes I rolled IQ 14, ME 23 (even getting the second exploding d6 for rolling a 6 on the first one!), MA 12, PS 8, PP 9, PE 8, PB 9, and Spd 4. For HP I rolled a 2 for a total of 10. SDC is a bit unusual for Enchanted Weapon characters because they roll dice for it, which is also how it works in Palladium Fantasy and Rifts (not that SDC matters at all in Rifts, but you still gotta roll it). In this case we roll 4d6, and I rolled a perfectly average 14.
Before determining skills we need to figure out what kind of weapon our hero is actually going to be using, since otherwise we'd probably end up with a weapon type they're not proficient in. There's a random table to roll on, and a roll of 30 means our hero is going to be using a short sword. And to think, we could've ended up with someone who carries a magical ball and chain, or maybe an enchanted Bohemian earspoon!
Our character's educational level ends up being trade school on a 34, and I go with the Electrical skill program in addition to the obligatory physical program. There's nothing else important about the skill choices, they're all things you'd expect by this point. It's at this point that I remember that the GM's guide has a quick reference for skill percentages that I can use to cut down on the random flipping through the book I've been doing. That's especially nice because I'm using the PDF version, which instead of proper bookmarks like you see in their books released since they started actually supporting PDF releases has one bookmark for each individual page.
With skills sorted out we need to figure out what our magic sword does for us. First we get a set of basic abilities all Enchanted Weapon characters get: the weapon's indestructible, it grants a +1 to strike and parry with it, it's made of one of a few different specific types of metal and inscribed with magic runes, it does plenty of damage (with a random table where the lowest possible result is 3d6—I rolled a 90 on this table so our sword does 6d6 before any bonuses), it can damage creatures of magic and anyone with Invulnerable, and it's linked to its chosen wielder and can't grant its power to anyone else until they die. There's also a note that these count as Greatest Rune Weapons if you take the character into a game where that matters (read: Rifts or PFRPG) and do Mega-Damage equal to their base damage if you're in a Mega-Damage environment. I'm glad that if nothing else our character is one of the few types of magic users who is not completely turbofucked should they ever end up on Rifts Earth.
We also get a separate set of basic abilities based on whether our weapon is a Weapon of Order that's aligned with good or a Weapon of Chaos that's aligned with evil. Interestingly while Weapons of Order will only ever work for good characters, Weapons of Chaos explicitly have the option of choosing anyone as long as their champion uses them in the service of evil, which could create some interesting character drama. As it stands, though, I'm giving our character a boring good-aligned sword. These grant 1d6x10 SDC, resistance against fire and cold, a bonus to save against magic, the ability to see the invisible, a transformation that increases PB by 1d4+3, and they can also grant either super abilities or magic depending on a percentile roll. The SDC and PB rolls were both a wash for me, since I rolled a whopping 10 extra SDC and 6 PB (when our hero could've only gotten a bonus for it on a roll of 7). The roll for super or magic abilities, on the other hand, got a result of 25 for 2 minor powers, which is ironically probably the best option since it grants two powers and misses the underwhelming option of being a partial spellcaster (as though being a full spellcaster in Palladium wasn't bad enough).
The book says I get to choose what super abilities my weapon provides, but honestly rolling is more fun because of the chance that we get something completely ridiculous. The first minor power I rolled is Healing Factor on a roll of 53, which solves all the durability problems I was worried about with some impressive random bonuses to PE and HP, a cool 25 extra SDC, a bunch of save bonuses, and the ability to heal both HP and SDC super-quickly, It also provides an instant healing ability, fatigue immunity, even more fire and cold resistance, resistance to drugs and poisons that makes them only a third as effective (so does that mean characters who roll this as a constantly available power can't use antidepressants without getting serotonin syndrome, since they don't last as long but are still in your system?), and stops scarring from happening when you heal while making broken bones heal faster. Those last two aren't particularly important to our character since they don't have this active all the time, but the rest of it is helpful enough.
My second power roll is a 15, which provides Heightened Sense of Taste. This is, uh, significantly less exciting than Healing Factor, doing nothing except make our character better at tasting things. They can recognize common ingredients (which for some reason includes gasoline...) at a base chance of 70% at first level, and they can also recognize more unusual tastes like poisons at a whole 30% base chance. So the one thing you'd ever want this power for is something you absolutely suck at. Classic Siembieda.
Oh, but we're not done yet! See, enchanted weapons also get six (count 'em!) choices from a list of options for each alignment. For a Weapon of Order the best option is probably the one to get the Superhuman Strength minor power, which can be taken twice to get Supernatural Strength instead. Naturally everyone using a Weapon of Order will want to spend two picks on that because why the hell wouldn't you? I also grab a +6 damage bonus since clearly we need to do even more damage, the ability to fly, a healing touch that can be used 10 times a day, and night vision. Amusingly enough, there's both a flight option and a levitation option that's just plain worse in every way.
Incidentally, Supernatural Strength lets you do really strong punches that use special damage tables, and in Mega-Damage envorinments they can use their strength to do Mega-Damage. So getting it is especially nice if you're making a character to use in Rifts. Naturally, though, the table given in Rifts doesn't let you do more damage with supernatural punches than a Boom Gun. Kevin flipped his shit when someone included a gun that does more than a Boom Gun half as often as one while needing twice as many characters to fire, so do you really think he's gonna let you break that damage limit with regular punches?
Anyway, our magic weapon's missing a name and I can't think of anything, which means it's time to resort to random name generating. Much like Kris did with MegaDumbCast when he was mocking the example story in the description for Enchanted Weapons, I'm using the elf name generator at Seventh Sanctum and setting it to "Wild Elves" to get the right sort of name. A few rolls with that gave me Cometblade, which sounds about right for this sword so I'm keeping it.
For money Enchanted Weapon characters carry 4d4x100 dollars (I got $1,000), and they have an 80% chance of owning a "conventional" car that's 1d6 years old (I got the car, and rolled 4 for its age).
Our character (who I've decided by this point will be female) is first born, of average height and weight, she is nice and friendly, she has $6,000 in life savings, she is Australian, and she comes from a middle class family living in a medium-sized city. I'm naming her Lauren Carter, and she fights crime as the Silver Comet.
Honestly, she's pretty damn good at what she does. Hitting for 6d6+43 (an average of 64 damage) per hit is impressive enough, especially since she's attacking with a weapon proficiency and thus gets a strike bonus at first level. She also has absolutely ridiculous save bonuses against magic and psionics (AKA the only categories that matter) and while her SDC could be higher she has Healing Factor and thus doesn't need to care much about that.
Incidentally, it occurs to me that despite it being Kevin's absolute favourite thing to give to Greatest Rune Weapons, there is no option whatsoever to have your enchanted weapon be a Soul Drinker! Seriously, it's a stupid ability but it's just so iconically Palladium that I can't believe he wouldn't include it.
That's Enchanted Weapons dealt with. Next time we'll make a character with an Enchanted Object, which believe it or not is an extremely different experience.
Character Sheet:
Name: Lauren Carter
Hero Name: The Silver Comet
Age: 23
Gender: Female
Alignment: Scrupulous
Level: 1
XP: 0
IQ: 14
ME: 23 (+4/+6)
MA: 12
PS: 18 (+3)
-Transformed: 52 (+37)
PP: 11
PE: 13
-Transformed: 18 (+6%/+2)
PB: 9
-Transformed: 15
Spd: 22
HP: 15
Transformed: 32
SDC: 63
-Transformed: 98
Attacks per Melee: 5
Melee Damage: +3 (+37 transformed)
Parry: +3
Dodge: +3
Roll with Punch: +10
Pull Punch: +3 (+5 transformed)
Initiative: +2
Knockout Punch: 20
Pin/Incapacitate: 18-20
Save vs Magic: +0 (+8 transformed)
Save vs Poison: +0 (+5 transformed)
Save vs Psionics: +4 (+7 transformed)
Save vs Insanity: +6
Save vs Coma: +0% (+26% transformed)
Power Category: Magic
Subcategory: Enchanted Weapon
Type of Weapon: Short Sword
Weapon Properties:
Name: Cometblade
Alignment: Weapon of Order (Good)
Basic Abilities:
-Totally indestructible
-+1 to strike and parry
-Base damage: 6d6
-Affects creatures of magic and Invulnerable characters
-Linked to wielder
Alignment Base Abilities:
-Adds 1d6x10 SDC (10)
-half damage from fire and cold
-+3 to save vs magic
-User can see the invisible
-Creates a costume out of thin air
-Character becomes more attractive while transformed, gaining 1d4+3 PB (6)
-Grants super or magic abilities (2 minor abilities)
--Healing Factor (+5 PE, +12 HP)
--Heightened Sense of Taste
Additional Powers:
-Damage Bonus (+6)
-Supernatural Strength (+34)
-Fly
-Healing Touch
-Nightvision
Education: Trade School
Skill Programs: Physical (+15%), Electrical (+15%)
Secondary Skills: 8
Skills:
Acrobatics (75%/75%/85%/65%/55%/45%)
Athletics
Basic Mathematics (45%)
Basic Mechanics (45%)
Body Building & Weight Lifting
Boxing
Computer Operation (55%)
Computer Repair (40%)
Electrical Engineer (45%)
Gymnastics (65%/75%/75%/85%/40%/45%)
Hand to Hand: Martial Arts (counts as 3 secondary skill picks)
Language: English (98%)
Literacy: English (98%)
Pilot Automobile (60%)
Running
Swimming (50%)
WP Sword
Wrestling
Money: $830
Items:
Car (conventional, 4 years old)
Basic phone with answering machine
Background Info:
Birth Order: First Born
Weight: Average
Height: Average
Disposition: Nice, friendly, courteous and hospitable
Life Savings: $6,000
Land of Origin: Australia
Childhood Environment: City - Medium Size
Social/Economic Background: Laborer/Middle Class
It's pretty clear what this option is for: magic weapons that, if the wielder be worthy, grant enormous amounts of power. And thankfully Kevin has resisted the urge to include a random table to determine whether they do indeed be worthy. I'd say that's just common sense, but we have to remember that this is the company that gave us a random puberty table for an adventure where you play as 12-year-old girls and somehow missed why that would be a bad idea.
Anyway, for our new weapon-haver's attributes I rolled IQ 14, ME 23 (even getting the second exploding d6 for rolling a 6 on the first one!), MA 12, PS 8, PP 9, PE 8, PB 9, and Spd 4. For HP I rolled a 2 for a total of 10. SDC is a bit unusual for Enchanted Weapon characters because they roll dice for it, which is also how it works in Palladium Fantasy and Rifts (not that SDC matters at all in Rifts, but you still gotta roll it). In this case we roll 4d6, and I rolled a perfectly average 14.
Before determining skills we need to figure out what kind of weapon our hero is actually going to be using, since otherwise we'd probably end up with a weapon type they're not proficient in. There's a random table to roll on, and a roll of 30 means our hero is going to be using a short sword. And to think, we could've ended up with someone who carries a magical ball and chain, or maybe an enchanted Bohemian earspoon!
Our character's educational level ends up being trade school on a 34, and I go with the Electrical skill program in addition to the obligatory physical program. There's nothing else important about the skill choices, they're all things you'd expect by this point. It's at this point that I remember that the GM's guide has a quick reference for skill percentages that I can use to cut down on the random flipping through the book I've been doing. That's especially nice because I'm using the PDF version, which instead of proper bookmarks like you see in their books released since they started actually supporting PDF releases has one bookmark for each individual page.
With skills sorted out we need to figure out what our magic sword does for us. First we get a set of basic abilities all Enchanted Weapon characters get: the weapon's indestructible, it grants a +1 to strike and parry with it, it's made of one of a few different specific types of metal and inscribed with magic runes, it does plenty of damage (with a random table where the lowest possible result is 3d6—I rolled a 90 on this table so our sword does 6d6 before any bonuses), it can damage creatures of magic and anyone with Invulnerable, and it's linked to its chosen wielder and can't grant its power to anyone else until they die. There's also a note that these count as Greatest Rune Weapons if you take the character into a game where that matters (read: Rifts or PFRPG) and do Mega-Damage equal to their base damage if you're in a Mega-Damage environment. I'm glad that if nothing else our character is one of the few types of magic users who is not completely turbofucked should they ever end up on Rifts Earth.
We also get a separate set of basic abilities based on whether our weapon is a Weapon of Order that's aligned with good or a Weapon of Chaos that's aligned with evil. Interestingly while Weapons of Order will only ever work for good characters, Weapons of Chaos explicitly have the option of choosing anyone as long as their champion uses them in the service of evil, which could create some interesting character drama. As it stands, though, I'm giving our character a boring good-aligned sword. These grant 1d6x10 SDC, resistance against fire and cold, a bonus to save against magic, the ability to see the invisible, a transformation that increases PB by 1d4+3, and they can also grant either super abilities or magic depending on a percentile roll. The SDC and PB rolls were both a wash for me, since I rolled a whopping 10 extra SDC and 6 PB (when our hero could've only gotten a bonus for it on a roll of 7). The roll for super or magic abilities, on the other hand, got a result of 25 for 2 minor powers, which is ironically probably the best option since it grants two powers and misses the underwhelming option of being a partial spellcaster (as though being a full spellcaster in Palladium wasn't bad enough).
The book says I get to choose what super abilities my weapon provides, but honestly rolling is more fun because of the chance that we get something completely ridiculous. The first minor power I rolled is Healing Factor on a roll of 53, which solves all the durability problems I was worried about with some impressive random bonuses to PE and HP, a cool 25 extra SDC, a bunch of save bonuses, and the ability to heal both HP and SDC super-quickly, It also provides an instant healing ability, fatigue immunity, even more fire and cold resistance, resistance to drugs and poisons that makes them only a third as effective (so does that mean characters who roll this as a constantly available power can't use antidepressants without getting serotonin syndrome, since they don't last as long but are still in your system?), and stops scarring from happening when you heal while making broken bones heal faster. Those last two aren't particularly important to our character since they don't have this active all the time, but the rest of it is helpful enough.
My second power roll is a 15, which provides Heightened Sense of Taste. This is, uh, significantly less exciting than Healing Factor, doing nothing except make our character better at tasting things. They can recognize common ingredients (which for some reason includes gasoline...) at a base chance of 70% at first level, and they can also recognize more unusual tastes like poisons at a whole 30% base chance. So the one thing you'd ever want this power for is something you absolutely suck at. Classic Siembieda.
Oh, but we're not done yet! See, enchanted weapons also get six (count 'em!) choices from a list of options for each alignment. For a Weapon of Order the best option is probably the one to get the Superhuman Strength minor power, which can be taken twice to get Supernatural Strength instead. Naturally everyone using a Weapon of Order will want to spend two picks on that because why the hell wouldn't you? I also grab a +6 damage bonus since clearly we need to do even more damage, the ability to fly, a healing touch that can be used 10 times a day, and night vision. Amusingly enough, there's both a flight option and a levitation option that's just plain worse in every way.
Incidentally, Supernatural Strength lets you do really strong punches that use special damage tables, and in Mega-Damage envorinments they can use their strength to do Mega-Damage. So getting it is especially nice if you're making a character to use in Rifts. Naturally, though, the table given in Rifts doesn't let you do more damage with supernatural punches than a Boom Gun. Kevin flipped his shit when someone included a gun that does more than a Boom Gun half as often as one while needing twice as many characters to fire, so do you really think he's gonna let you break that damage limit with regular punches?
Anyway, our magic weapon's missing a name and I can't think of anything, which means it's time to resort to random name generating. Much like Kris did with MegaDumbCast when he was mocking the example story in the description for Enchanted Weapons, I'm using the elf name generator at Seventh Sanctum and setting it to "Wild Elves" to get the right sort of name. A few rolls with that gave me Cometblade, which sounds about right for this sword so I'm keeping it.
For money Enchanted Weapon characters carry 4d4x100 dollars (I got $1,000), and they have an 80% chance of owning a "conventional" car that's 1d6 years old (I got the car, and rolled 4 for its age).
Our character (who I've decided by this point will be female) is first born, of average height and weight, she is nice and friendly, she has $6,000 in life savings, she is Australian, and she comes from a middle class family living in a medium-sized city. I'm naming her Lauren Carter, and she fights crime as the Silver Comet.
Honestly, she's pretty damn good at what she does. Hitting for 6d6+43 (an average of 64 damage) per hit is impressive enough, especially since she's attacking with a weapon proficiency and thus gets a strike bonus at first level. She also has absolutely ridiculous save bonuses against magic and psionics (AKA the only categories that matter) and while her SDC could be higher she has Healing Factor and thus doesn't need to care much about that.
Incidentally, it occurs to me that despite it being Kevin's absolute favourite thing to give to Greatest Rune Weapons, there is no option whatsoever to have your enchanted weapon be a Soul Drinker! Seriously, it's a stupid ability but it's just so iconically Palladium that I can't believe he wouldn't include it.
That's Enchanted Weapons dealt with. Next time we'll make a character with an Enchanted Object, which believe it or not is an extremely different experience.
Character Sheet:
Name: Lauren Carter
Hero Name: The Silver Comet
Age: 23
Gender: Female
Alignment: Scrupulous
Level: 1
XP: 0
IQ: 14
ME: 23 (+4/+6)
MA: 12
PS: 18 (+3)
-Transformed: 52 (+37)
PP: 11
PE: 13
-Transformed: 18 (+6%/+2)
PB: 9
-Transformed: 15
Spd: 22
HP: 15
Transformed: 32
SDC: 63
-Transformed: 98
Attacks per Melee: 5
Melee Damage: +3 (+37 transformed)
Parry: +3
Dodge: +3
Roll with Punch: +10
Pull Punch: +3 (+5 transformed)
Initiative: +2
Knockout Punch: 20
Pin/Incapacitate: 18-20
Save vs Magic: +0 (+8 transformed)
Save vs Poison: +0 (+5 transformed)
Save vs Psionics: +4 (+7 transformed)
Save vs Insanity: +6
Save vs Coma: +0% (+26% transformed)
Power Category: Magic
Subcategory: Enchanted Weapon
Type of Weapon: Short Sword
Weapon Properties:
Name: Cometblade
Alignment: Weapon of Order (Good)
Basic Abilities:
-Totally indestructible
-+1 to strike and parry
-Base damage: 6d6
-Affects creatures of magic and Invulnerable characters
-Linked to wielder
Alignment Base Abilities:
-Adds 1d6x10 SDC (10)
-half damage from fire and cold
-+3 to save vs magic
-User can see the invisible
-Creates a costume out of thin air
-Character becomes more attractive while transformed, gaining 1d4+3 PB (6)
-Grants super or magic abilities (2 minor abilities)
--Healing Factor (+5 PE, +12 HP)
--Heightened Sense of Taste
Additional Powers:
-Damage Bonus (+6)
-Supernatural Strength (+34)
-Fly
-Healing Touch
-Nightvision
Education: Trade School
Skill Programs: Physical (+15%), Electrical (+15%)
Secondary Skills: 8
Skills:
Acrobatics (75%/75%/85%/65%/55%/45%)
Athletics
Basic Mathematics (45%)
Basic Mechanics (45%)
Body Building & Weight Lifting
Boxing
Computer Operation (55%)
Computer Repair (40%)
Electrical Engineer (45%)
Gymnastics (65%/75%/75%/85%/40%/45%)
Hand to Hand: Martial Arts (counts as 3 secondary skill picks)
Language: English (98%)
Literacy: English (98%)
Pilot Automobile (60%)
Running
Swimming (50%)
WP Sword
Wrestling
Money: $830
Items:
Car (conventional, 4 years old)
Basic phone with answering machine
Background Info:
Birth Order: First Born
Weight: Average
Height: Average
Disposition: Nice, friendly, courteous and hospitable
Life Savings: $6,000
Land of Origin: Australia
Childhood Environment: City - Medium Size
Social/Economic Background: Laborer/Middle Class
