GregF

I don't think that accurately models the relativity of size either. When you have two different sizes (Say the human and the pixie), it would seem to make sense that they'd have the same bonuses to hit each other than a different pair of sizes but the same factor (Like the titan and the human).

Very cool. The link posted to download the map doesn't work for me, though.

This is an interesting point that doesn't seem to have been remarked on much. If non-humans don't think like humans do, (And they should be pretty different, in my opinion- one thing I disliked about the D&D I've played is that the major concern about the non-human races is how the stat bonuses affected things) then you have to establish a norm for behavior, morals, etc. for the race. To get variety amongst characters that could allow for roleplaying, you have to figure out how to deviate behavior within the standard to make a different persona that makes sense. Perhaps certain non-human aspects of animal behavior/personality could be stolen, especially in the cases of partially animal races. Maybe having a intelligent species that's territorial, or has no commitment to a mate might be interesting to deal with.

A -4 limitation would only divide the cost of a spell by 5 if there weren't any other limitations on it, right? Otherwise, it'd have to be a -4 plus an -all other lims * 4.

Yes, but I've tried setting up an adventure with little idea of what was going on in the world, and it seemed like having little idea of what was going on in the world made it nearly impossible to write things up. For instance, if I wanted to make a character who used to be a member of some town guard somewhere, I'd have to decide exactly what skills/traits members of the guard have, why they have those traits, enough details about the somewhere to know that those skills and even the existence of a guard make sense, etc.

Wow, thanks a lot. I have to admit that I don't really see how to make major changes to a setting and retain its coherence, but that'd be a different thread. I guess I'll just see if I can borrow any setting stuff from my D&D friends and work from there until I feel comfortable.

I'm nowhere near done with my own campaign-building, but maybe sharing what I've done so far will help out the original poster or perhaps someone'll give me some guidance. I started with coming up with an odd element-based calendar system. To be a bit different, I didn't use a standard set of elements- I came up with five whose meanings are a bit more metaphorical than a standard set. That sort of inspired me with some cool ideas about history, magic, religion, non-human races and such through an emphasis on the elements and their number. Continuation of some of those things gave me ideas for adventures. I suppose that's as far as I can help- ideas build off each other and are connected, perhaps in ways that aren't obvious. My problem is getting about that far and hitting a brick wall. Those cool ideas were too much to graft into an existing setting, but not enough to be a full world. (I don't really know very much about politics, organizations, recent history, technology, daily life, geography, etc.) And without all the nitty-gritty, I don't have enough to actually do stuff, contrary to my previous beliefs. (I was having problems spending points and coming up with disads earlier, but seeing how much of many characters is world-specific, knowing more about the world would be useful) Anyone have any advice?

That sounds good. I don't plan on getting FRED until I actually know I can run something, especially since the BBB was almost no investment at all (I found a used copy at a thrift shop for a few dollars).

(Quick disclaimer: I don't have 5th, so if it has an easy answer to this question, I don't know it.) I'm trying to figure out a healing spell/ability (Through the simplified healing thing under Aid) that occasionally harms the target instead of healing it. At the moment, I'm going to go with an activation role and regular Side Effect rules and just say that it hits the target, not the user. Does this sound like an acceptable bending of the rules? Is there a better way?

The thing is that I'm working with the sheets that come out of a random generator (The one here ) that pretty much comes up with more than enough spending of points and leaves most everything else up to the user- its backstories are just a series of bullet points that seem pretty generic, and in its current incarnation, all it gives for most disadvantages is "Psychological Limitation- Common Strong- 20 points". From there, I have problems coming up with a backstory that fits and gives me enough stuff to come up with disadvantages. A lot of what I'd seen so far would be more helpful if I were working from my own ideas, so I wouldn't be constrained by what's prebuilt. My problem there seems to be spending points. The one time I tried that and got anything close to completion, I still had 29 points left unspent and 5-10 points short in disads.

Let me clarify. The interestingly different thing was mostly because of the way all three of the characters I mostly created managed to wind up with similar sets of disadvantages (25 points worth of psylims I didn't particularly like, a DF, a reputation, a hunted) to even get up to 50 points. I'll have to take a closer look at some of the resources that are out there and see if I can find a party and scenario that can fit together.

On power levels: Since one of my problems is writing stuff up, 75+75 is 75 more points worth of things I have to write up, including 25 more points of Disadvantages, which are harder to get quick assistance with. The first link provided has scenarios but no PCs, the second has useful information, which I have plenty of, but not much that can help me actually run something in a short period of time. Is that character supposed to solve my problems, or was it more of a reply to Monolith's thing about power levels?

After realizing that I can't make three interesting/different 50+50 characters even with a random character generator doing half the work for me, I might as well see if there's an easier way to at least get people acquainted with the system so I can get an idea of how to continue or someone else to GM. Are there completely pre-built, ready to run FH (Preferably 4th edition) scenarios anywhere?

What exactly do you mean by template? Is this sort of thing something I could find online? That still might not be the best solution because I'd rather use the halfconceptions I've already come up with. (Especially as I'm trying to, at least with the characters, not be too cliched)

Okay, I actually came up with enough character ideas for a small party in the prologue, I just can't get myself to write stuff up. Even the one character I've had pretty good ideas of where he's been, etc. still has a quarter of his points unspent, but I can't come up with that much more he would have. I've got even less specifics on the enemies/terrain/whatnot. Does anyone have any ideas for dealing with writeup block?