Vengeance is Nigh (Inactive)

Game Master Jubal Breakbottle

BASH websites
BASH official site
Vengeance is Nigh adventure
GM Screen of BASH
Builds of iconic characters
BASH character creator

BASH Basics:

Translate some BASH terms into Pathfinder:
* Issue = Module
* Scene = Encounter
* Page = Turn
* Panel = Round
* Priority = Initiative

Rolling dice: You always roll 2d6 and multiply your levels. For example, a x2 Ride check would be (2d6) x2.

If you have a dice bonus or penalty, e.g. Paired Weapons lets you have two attacks each with a -1 Dice penalty, the roll to Hit is (2d6-1) x3, if the attacks are x3 to Hit.

Doubles If you ever roll doubles on your 2d6, you get to add another 1d6. If that 1d6 matches, you continue adding 1d6, until you roll a different number. This is called exploding dice. The probability expectation of exploding dice is 7.7, instead of 7.0 from just rolling two dice.

Combat: Attacker rolls to hit and damage. The defender rolls defense and soak. If the attack is higher than defense, you hit. If the damage is higher than soak, you do the difference in damage. There's other stuff but that is the basics.

Knockback Whether any damage is done or not makes no difference. Every point of damage rolled on an attack knocks the opponent back 1 foot- reduced by their Brawn x10. If this reduces the number of feet to zero or less the character is not knocked back at all.

Being knocked back does no additional damage- unless you are knocked into something solid. In that case, treat it as falling damage (1DM for every 10 feet). A character who is knocked back is also knocked down. Getting up uses half your movement squares (round down).

Skills: Stealth/Hiding. Stealth is the skill, and Hiding is the specialty. Each skill has many specialties. With Stealth on your character sheet means the hero is trained and usually rolls their Agility as the multiplier vs. difficulty levels. If you roll a specialty like Hiding, you actually roll twice and take the better roll.

Skills are either Agility or Mind related. There are no Brawn skills. If you are untrained in a skill, you roll is your Stat-1 multiplier. For example, with Agility 3 and you want to ride a horse without training, you would roll x2. This is called skill defaulting. There are advantages and disadvantages that change this like Jack of all Trades and Outsider.

Skill difficulties:
10 = Typical for a professional
20 = Challenging for a professional
30 = Typical for superhero
40 = Challenging for a superhero
50 = Nigh-impossible

Called Shots:
In many cases, this will be an attempt to hit an enemy’s gadget to destroy it or disarm him. However, there may be times when you want to specifically aim for an enemy’s head, trip them, need to shoot around cover, etc. Before rolling an attack, declare your called shot. To succeed, you need to hit by 10 or more. If there is no other effect (like disarming, breaking a gadget, tripping, avoiding cover, etc) a called shot does +10 Result Bonus to the damage. The called shot mechanic is rather versatile and can be used to pull off any number of “tricks” during combat. For instance, you could use it to knock a pile of crates down on top of an enemy, throw a tarp over his face so he can’t see, pull a rug from under a bunch of minions, etc.

Wrestling:
Characters may hold, slam, and squeeze in addition to punching and blasting their enemies. This style of fighting is especially good for characters who are stronger than they are agile. There are a variety of maneuvers that a character can attempt to use on an opponent when wrestling:

Grab:
You grab your enemy and hold them fast. Roll Brawn or Agility against the opponent’s Brawn or Agility (each person picks) to initiate the grab. If you succeed, you have the opponent in your iron grip. If you succeed by 10, you can immediately use a wrestling maneuver. From this point forward, it is Brawn against Brawn only. Each page, on his panel, your victim can try to break free. If they succeed by 10, they can take the rest of their actions for the panel (normally trying to break free takes their whole panel). If they succeed by 20, they can reverse the hold, so that now you are in their grip. The victim can choose to take an action other than breaking free but it must be something they can do with limited motion (push a button on their belt, make an unarmed attack against you, etc.). Each page, on your panel you may do one of the following moves to a grabbed opponent:

Carry:
Make a Brawn Contest and you can carry them kicking and screaming wherever you move. Fail by 10 or less and you move at half normal speed. Fail by more than 10 and you have to drop the person to move.

Throw Them:
Roll Brawn with a +2 Multiplier Bonus. Your held target takes the result, reduced by 10x their Brawn, as knock-back and is released from your grasp. “Note: If you are ten stories high with you throw your target then they’ll take much more damage than if you were standing on the ground! This could also be the case if you throw them at someone else. (See Wield Them below. If the attack misses, the “weapon” still takes the knock-back but the target is unaffected.)

Crush Them/Joint Lock:
Make a Brawn Contest. Your target takes the difference as damage, ignoring Soak bonuses from Armor.

Hit Them:
You get a +2 Dice bonus to a hand-to-hand attack against someone you’ve grabbed. The bonus applies to damage as well.

Wield Them:
Like they were a weapon! Roll a regular attack against a target. If it hits, roll Brawn+1 as damage multiplier against the target. The “weapon” takes the same damage. Both soak normally.

Disarm Them:
If the foe has an easily taken gadget or weapon, make a Brawn Contest to take it from them. If it is a breakable gadget, you may roll Brawn as damage against it.

Restrain Them:
Make a Brawn contest with the foe. If you win you can prohibit them from taking a certain action on their panel other than trying to break free, or something that cannot be restrained physically, such as using Ghost Form or Telekinesis, etc. You may choose to even prevent them from speaking.

Block with Them:
You can use your victim as a human shield (a favorite tactic of Villains) for the page by winning a Brawn contest against the struggling victim. This gives you cover. If you successfully defend and roll doubles, the “shield” was hit by the attack! The opponent has to hit by 10 to hit you and not your cover.

Body Slam:
With a running, jumping, or even flying start, you use your entire body as a weapon. It isn’t as precise as a punch, but it’s a lot harder to dodge! When you make a Body Slam attack against an opponent, then will decide to either hold their ground or to dodge.

If they hold their ground, you automatically hit and roll Brawn (plus Momentum, if applicable) for damage. They can roll their Soak as normal. A character who holds their ground can choose to use Deflect as if it were Armor for this purpose (this is instead of using Armor). If you lose, you take the difference in damage (or your roll, whichever is less), excluding your momentum bonus (it hurts more when you run into a brick wall than when you walk into one). The damage is not soaked.

If they try to get out of the way, they roll their Agility-based defense (excluding Deflect) or Athletics/Acrobatics vs. your Brawn (+Momentum if any). If they win, they move out of the way and take no damage. You keep moving in a straight line for a distance equal to what you moved to get to them, or until you run into something else (possibly another target). If they lose, they take the difference in damage, which bypasses their normal soak.

Hero Dice and Points:

Hero Dice Hero Dice can really turn the tide in a desperate situation. All characters begin with one Hero Die each issue. Alternatively, a character can spend 5 Hero Points to use as a Hero Die.

* “I do my best work under pressure.” Automatically succeed on any skill check, or automatically get a 20 on an untrained skill. In the case of an extended check, you automatically get a result as if you had rolled a “20” on 2d6!

* “Never say die!” Have an unconscious, dazed, immobilized, mind controlled, (or any other status effect) character “snap out of it” and be instantly restored back to 20 Hits (if they were below 20).

* “Whew! That was close!” Reactively use a power (turn on a force field, deflect an attack aimed at someone else, use Ghost Form as bullets approach you, etc.) even when it is not your panel or have already gone. You can counter the use of a power either with a similar power or an opposing power, i.e. you can block an enemy’s heat vision with your own heat vision or with ice beams.

* “You weren’t gonna start his party without me were you?” Use a Hero Die to enter a scene you were previously not in. This might mean burst through the wall, or were there all along in a cunning disguise or by chance. You can use this to bring in your Sidekick or Super Vehicle as well (this is when the sidekick shows up in the nick of time to save his guardian from the slow death trap, etc.)

* “Never underestimate me!” Roll another die and add it to your regular 2d6 roll. If this die matches either of the other two, it counts as doubles, and you may roll another die and add it, continuing until the last die rolled doesn’t match.

* “Power Stunt!” Temporarily gain a new power by using an existing power creatively. This is seen all the time in comics when the super-fast character vibrates his molecules so fast he can phase through shackles or runs in circles so fast he makes a tornado. To do a power stunt, choose a power you want to gain and explain to the Narrator how you are doing it. Spend a Hero Die, and you can use this power for the rest of the scene.

Hero Points Hero Points represent a pool of luck, skill, and pure determination that heroes can draw upon to enable them to succeed when others would expect them to fail. Any number of Hero Points can be spent from the pool in an issue to add an equal Result Bonus to any roll. So if a character fails a dice roll by 3, she can spend three of her Hero Points to turn the failure into a success! The player can declare to use Hero Points after seeing the dice roll. Five Hero Points can be spent to gain a Hero Die. Each issue, these Personal Hero Points (gained at Character Creation) are refreshed. Characters can also earn Hero Points for a variety of reasons.

Pushing Yourself:

Superheroes often prevail against all odds because they reach down deep inside themselves and tap into power they did not know they had. When you push yourself, you take damage in increments of ten, varying by what you are trying to do. Nothing can soak this damage. You can spend many Hits this way, even to the point of unconsciousness. You can only push yourself while you are conscious, but can take damage from it putting you below 0 Hits. Some ways you can push yourself are:

*Push a Power: Increase one of your powers by 1 level for a single page for every 10 Hits of damage you take. Alternatively, you can push a power to ignore a Limitation or add an Enhancement on the power for a single page. You cannot push a power that is part of a gadget, only one that comes from within you. Also, some Limitations (like Single Use) cannot be ignored, though the final say is up to the Narrator.

*Push a Skill or Stat: Gain 1 Hero point for every 10 Hits of damage, which must be immediately spent. This only applies to situations where you are placing yourself under great strain- i.e. you cannot take damage to find clues, but you could to break free of some ropes.

*Go for Broke: Gain a Hero Die, which you must immediately spend by taking 50 Hits of damage. This only applies to situations in which you are under great strain- i.e. you could do it to fuel a power stunt, but not to automatically succeed on a Humanities skill roll.

Megapolis is effectively an North East Coast city in the USA. I personally like replacing Baltimore with Megapolis.

Differences between the Super World and Ours:

1. The Prevalence of Technology- Because of so many super gadgets that are constantly being invented, the world of BASH has superior technology to our own. Because BASH is a world of men who can walk through walls and lift busses, it is also a world of power-armored security guards, electro-shock force fields, and unobtainium bank vaults. Contact with actual alien civilizations has given us advanced laser technology, though they have not gone onto the public market, and slug rounds are still far more cost efficient. The same contact has made miniature cold-fusion reactors a (expensive) reality for those who can afford them, though they are not replacing combustion engines in the private sector anytime soon.

2. The Prevalence of Mystical Forces - While BASH is a world of advanced technology beyond our own, it is also a world where our superstitions, myths, and legends are actual facts. Magic is real, though very few people indeed believe this to be so, and even fewer have figured how to harness its power. The world is strewn with hidden magical artifacts of immense power left behind by ancient civilizations we never knew existed. Atlantis is real, El Dorado is real, Shangri-La is real— they just exist outside the public eye. The Ancient Greek gods are real, the magic of the Egyptian priests was real, the powers of the Zoroastrian Magi were real, and all abandoned by mankind save for a few who carry on their traditions. Ghosts, Werewolves, Vampires, Mummies, and many other creatures all exist, but avoid the attention of humans whenever possible. Many magical creatures have retreated into lost realms like Arcadia in order to avoid human contact.

3. The Prevalence of "Comic Book Science" - In the world of BASH, radiation or harmful chemical exposure does not always result in cancer, but sometimes, super powers. A child of a person who got super powers by accident, will often be born with similar powers of their own (such children are called mutants). Another contribution of comic book science is the confirmed existence of alien life. Characters like the Blue Beacon and Locust are clearly aliens, while Uberman is an alien who looks like a human.

4. Lack of government control of experiments. - The FDA is often ignored by mad scientists and big corporations, and as a result, many people end up somehow super. Likewise, radiation, chemicals, and various other catalysts for super-powers seem to be left out for people to get into far too often compared to our own world. For some reason, however, something that might make one person super will kill or sicken anyone else. (Those who support the mystical explanation for the rise of superheroes cite “destiny” as the reason). The obsession of some scientists with how some people develop powers while others perish is the reason why HUSH has grown so powerful so quickly.

URGENT:

URGENT or the Urban General Taskforce was formed by the US government almost forty years ago, as Super Heroes (and villains) became exponentially more common. Congress was tired of criminals being let off the hook because the super hero who caught him did not read him his rights, or did not have a search warrant when he smashed through the wall of the crook’s hideout. As helpful as they were, Super Heroes’ vigilantism simply did not fit within the parameters of due process under the law… until the bill was signed. Congress passed a law called the Super Hero Registry act. The law required that all super Heroes register with the federal government, which issued them special PIN numbers, rather than using social security numbers to prevent secret identities from being discovered. Essentially, this gave the supers “hero licenses”, and allowed them to legally enforce the law (they don’t have police powers, but can make citizen’s arrests, etc) and also ensured that they worked within it. The hero license also allows a hero to use their super identification as ordinary identification without compromising their secret identities. Heroes who fight crime without a license can be prosecuted and sued for any collateral damage they cause. As a rider to the bill, the Congress also called for the creation of a professional Super-Police force in every major US city. This organization was to be called the Urban General Taskforce, and has been nicknamed URGENT The organization acts as a professional police force made up of Super-powered agents recruited from all over the country, each cell assigned to a certain major US city. When a super villain needs to be put behind bars, it is URGENT who comes and makes the official arrest and brings the villain to Super Lock. URGENT has an ulterior mission, however. While they have one eye fixed on the villainous activities within their city, they also have another firmly fixed on the Heroes. They must make sure that superheroes follow proper procedure, do not cause any undue property damage, and do not violate any villains’ rights and jeopardize the collar. Essentially, URGENT serves as a superheroes’ office of Internal Affairs. They can revoke or suspend a hero’s license, compel a hero to pay for excessive damages, and lastly, arrest heroes who cross the line. Most heroes accept URGENT as a necessary inconvenience as in the past, too many criminals got away after the trial showed they did not receive due process. Also, having government support is far more helpful than not having it! But many heroes also resent the presence of URGENT agents breathing down their necks, always looking over their shoulders. Some heroes even go rogue just so they don’t have to deal with the bureaucracy, lack of privacy, and procedure that comes with URGENT Of course, these heroes are breaking the law, making themselves targets of URGENT investigations!

HUSH:

Imagine an organization totally devoted to the acquisition of knowledge, committed to science, and the betterment of mankind. Now strip away all impediments to meeting those goals- ethical guidelines, government regulations, and limited funding. You would have secret organization known only as HUSH They do experiments of all kinds, without regard to ethics, in attempts to create super humans of their very own. They deal with super technology, alien artifacts, and dabble in sorcery—no source of power is beneath their desire to understand or outside their ethical boundaries. They also try to capture supers in order to “reverse engineer” their powers. Although about 99% of their test subjects die horrible deaths, about 1% actually acquires super powers. HUSH uses these as members of its strike teams to capture more supers and test subjects for experimentation. HUSH agents have been through a brutal reeducation program before being sent into the field, and are consequently fanatically loyal to the organization. Who the organization works for is completely unknown, even to its membership. Whether it is a secret government project, an extraterrestrial conspiracy, or the pet project of a sadistic billionaire does not matter to HUSH agents. Indeed, HUSH seems to have no known head of the organization. Most members only know the person they report to, and the person who reports to themselves, and possibly a few other members at the same level in the chain. These small groups are called “cells”. HUSH cells have spread out across the entire US. If one is found and stamped out, there are dozens more to take its place!