Giant2005 wrote:I'm trying to find the scariest entity in the Megaverse, judged purely on Horror Factor.
The highest HF I can find is on Nxla which has a HF of 19.
Can anyone think of anything scarier?
Please, no Mulka.
A very high level mage casting Armor Bizarre. Some of the NPCs out there are as high as level 30. The HF increases per level in that spell and I saw no cap for it.
If I'm remembering right, that's a potential HF
in the 30s or maybe 40s. Will double check.
This could be amplified further if a group of mages cast it using the sorcerous advantage (TTGD) that allows them to add their levels in calculating spell effects. That ability allows 1 mage in group per level (based on highest mage I think).
So with a group of 15 level 15 mages, that's
a HF of over 15^2 (not including the base of the spell) or over 225.========================================
Edit correction update: I misremembered a couple things last night so the above calculations are mistaken, so I'll correct that:
Armor Bizarre's HF accrues at a lower rate, I thought it was 1/lvl but it is 1/2 levels with a 9 base. So a level 30 spellcaster (highest level I've seen in any Palladium Books, though I heard a rumour the Old Ones were level 40) would have a HF of 24, and a lvl 20 caster would get HF 19. Something tells me that in all probability while compiling FoM they were only thinking of lvl 20 bros like Splynncryth (isn't he around there? meh) and not annoying ubercasters like Thoth.
I also misremembered how Group Casting (from Nightbane: Through the Glass Darkly) works. It only multiplies range/duration/damage by the number of people in the group, not adding experience levels or multiplying any other spell components like HF or # of minions summoned, etc. So all Armor Bizarre would get out of that would be that it'd last a really long time. Interpreting it strictly it wouldn't even get added damage capacity. I imagine some GMs will allow MDC given by spells to be increased in situations where damage given by spells is increased (don't ley lines work that way?)
That said, the fact that the only experience level that matters in group casting is the leader is utterly frightening. A level 15 mage could get 14 level 1 mages, teach them the spell he wants to boost (let's say annihilate) and multiply his (already level 15) spell by that factor again.
This is a little easier to think of in a factor of 10, actually. A level 10 caster leading 9 guys could cast a 1D6x100 lightning bolt, for example, at an incredibly decent range. This also allows damage that normally doesn't increase (like annihilate) to do so, in this case, a 2d4x1000 ball which can be thrown a long long way.
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I think the reason I misremembered Group Casting is that I got how it works jumbled up with another "GC" from Nightbane, in this case, the master psionic power "Gestalt Circle" from "Between the Shadows". It DOES add the experience levels of people in the circle, and it has a similar '1 member per level of the leader' stipulation.
Remembering Gestalt Circle got me remembering the super psionic power 'Radiate Horror Factor' from Psyscape. Normally it's not all that impressive. A level 15 diabolic insane psychic could still only get a max of HF 18 from it. But using a circle, the possibilities increase.
In this example, let's assume that all the psychics are anarchist, and that none are insane/enraged/evil (which adds bonuses). The psychics can't be good/unprincipled because that only adds a set base and not a per-level increase. It's too confusing to figure out exactly how good psychics mixing with anarchist mixing with evil psychics would work.
First off: there are actually some gods/lords of hades/hell in D+G (and Pantheons) who can do this through merit of having 'all master psionics' or greater demon/deevil species with access to super psionics who could potentially do this through being able to select them (what I remember is the Raksasha Greater Demon and the Wraith Greater Devil). We know that many demons are above level 15 and I think I recall the experience tables for demons/devils in the new Hades/Dyval sourcebooks going up to level 30 much like they do for (ancient/adult?) dragons in Atlantis/D+G. Just going to use the example of 15 since that's usually the cap for humans and the vast majority of player characters.
So we have 15 characters who all have the super psionic of 'Radiate Horror Factor', somehow. They're all level 15, and one of them (the leader) also has 'Gestalt Circle'.
This allows them to create 'Radiate Horror Factor' with a combined level of 225.
The level-based HF of this power is one per three levels, or lvl/3. This equals 75. Adding the base 10 from the power, and we get a horror factor of 85.
Supposing we could somehow get together 30 level 30 psychics with radiate HF (I doubt that many exist, TBH), the level 900 version of the power would give a HF of 310.
Using actual characters from the books though, we can whip up a realistic scenario:
The average level of a Deevil Wraith is 5.5 , we can round that up to 6 considering there are a lot of them and the more experienced ones could be chosen. Each adds 2 HF to the pool due to this. Since Wraiths aren't monopolized by any of the lords, Mephisto has access to smoe. This guy has ALL psychic abilities, at 16th level. That means that in addition to himself, he can link 15 wraiths w/ RadHF via GC. That means a pool of +30 to HF added to his own. That means 12 (they're all evil) +5+30, or a HF of 47 which Mephisto could casually generate when trying to torture his prisoners.
But forget Wraiths, they suck. Let's look at Pandemoniums. According to Dyval book, they're level 9 on average, no rounding required (in D+G their average level used to be 4.5). That means we get 3 HF per each one in a circle. They answer only to Sahtalus. We don't know of any high level 'has all psionics' character to lead the circle, so let's just say they find a level 10 Pandemonium (slightly above average) to lead it.
12 base + 30 (3x10) = a HF of 42 which ol' Satan can have his minions collectively unleash if they wish.
Hades isn't to be left out though. The Demon Lord Abdul-Ra is a 20th level mind mage with all super. He commands the Raksasha who can select 4 super psi and their average level's 7.5. I don't have the Hades sourcebook yet so I don't know how many of these has has to command, but I imagine rounding up 20 who are level 9+ and who selected Radiate HF (seems like it'd be a popular power for Raksasha) wouldn't be that hard.
Even being conservative though, let's say Abdul is only able to find a bunch of lvl 6 Raksasha with RadHF. 2HF per participant is 40, plus 6 coming in from Abdul's lvl 18, plus the 10 base (they're evil, but I counted 20 Raksasha when it should be 19) gives us a HF of 56 from our cat-in-love-with-an-ice-princess.
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Sadly I just realized there's a blurb in Gestalt Circle (for some reason under the 'attacks per melee' note) saying that the maximum is 8 members. I'm not clear if that refers to all aspects of the circle, or simply the max amount of attacks (2 per member, so 16) though... how to interpret that?
Assuming it does cap the members to 8 (leader + 7), this would reduce the calculations for the above evil guys a good lot. Abdul-ra and his 7 lvl6 Raksasha could only produce a HF of 12 + 6 + (7*2) or only 32 max, or 39 if you let the Raksasha be lvl 9. Mephisto and his 7 lvl 6 wraiths could only produce a HF of 12+5+7*2 or 31 max. Sahtalus' gang of 8 experienced lvl9 pandemoniums could produce a HF of 12 + 8*3 or a HF of 36.
I got wondering though, is there anything forbidding characters from forming more than one gestalt circle simultaneously? It doesn't seem to say that anywhere...
For example: let's say we have 7 level 8 master psis with the Gestalt circle power, and they each form and lead a circle with 7 underlings. Could another level 8 master psi come along and link those 7 leaders in a new circle?
If that happened, I'm wondering how that'd work. If it would pool the boosted XP levels, or only the base levels.