Trencher

A panel form one of my favorite comics from when I was young.

In all reality, all the weapons are built from the powers, so I could have each character build his or her own weapon(s) through the powers, and then give them the "real weapon" disadvantage. On a weapon-by-weapon basis, this would be the best possible solution. That way you could define your own weapon's damage type and the ways in which it could be used. This could be a lot of fun!
 
However, I love charts! My own personal preference. When I look at a weapons chart such as in FH6e, I look at the variation and wonder if there is a way to give them even more variation. This is again a personal preference. HERO System is designed to accommodate personal preference, and maybe it's important to re-emphasize that each GM will build his own game differently. There is no one "official" way to do Fantasy Hero. I'm simply exploring some more ways to look at it.
 
As far as realism goes in the game, I'm exploring some more ways to analyze the interaction between weapons and armor. I would point out, as far as realism goes, a weapon familiarity with all melee weapons is fairly ludicrous in terms of "realism." One can't, in the real world, be an expert of all weapons available. I'm more inclined to limit martial arts styles to single weapons to represent this. If you want to use a second weapon with a martial arts style, then you would have to pay for it. As far as the "you get what you pay for" concept goes, it seems fairly abusive to pay a few points that then encompass all possible weapons in a group. Again, this is just my own preference, and my ground rules would reflect this in my own campaign.
 
That being said, LoneWolf, I agree with your observation about a sword being versatile and a sword master having many options at hand. I'm not trying to limit that, and I don't want to take away the versatility of the weapon. This is of course discussed in FH6e, but I want to go beyond that discussion. In those terms, stabbing with a sword is not the same as piercing. It is still considered slashing, and so isn't limited to any sort of maneuver. Regardless, Fantasy Hero isn't so granular that it isolates each maneuver, paired with a weapon type, versus armor. I'm not trying to isolate individual maneuvers, which seems pretty tedious. A haymaker with a sword could be many different things. 
 
A battle axe is given as an example in the book. It's primary use is to chop (slash, in their definition). Perhaps the axe has a spike on the opposite side of the blade. The spike may be considered piercing damage, but it isn't the primary mode of damage. Perhaps it gets a penalty for being more awkward because it's the backside of the weapon. There are other ways to account for this, and I'm curious about how it could be done. Someone trained in the use of a battle axe would understand its basic principles. But if used in a non-standard way, with different kinds of damage, I'm inclined to consider it a different kind of weapon familiarity. I would consider adding a 1 point familiarity to that single weapon type to make its application more versatile, much like Doc suggests. If there is a martial art style with the weapon, I'd require another maneuver in the style to account for a non-standard way of using it.
 
Now, what does this do to things like a bash with the butt-end of a sword? Or prodding with the tip of the sword? How about slapping with the flat of the blade? I don't know. I haven't figured that out yet, hence this post. More ideas would be welcome. 

You know, when I read this my thoughts very quickly went to the fact that players are very result oriented.  I think that the way to get variety in the weapons that players choose is not to give different weapons different abilities (such as armour piercing) but instead to give armour different limited abilities.
 
So, padding provides defence against smashing weapons but only half that against slashing and a quarter against piercing ones, plate provides 50% BODY damage reduction versus slashing weapons and 75% against piercing ones.
 
If you get all detailed about the armour layered on people then PCs will spread their weapon abilities or will match up with opponents based on how they think the armour weapon match-ups will play out.
 
Doc

Just me....my girlfriend does my clea:P I have a pic of myself with her..but its got lotsa people in the background and ads and such..wasn't sure if I could post it here.
 
 

That would be two strange.
 
Lucius Alexander
 
The palindromedary thinks the photo was doctored.

Reminder to post a detailed update once I get a good nap.

Yes that is the one. But it was called something else over here.
A fantastic comic. So much imagination and raw energy.

2000AD Flesh strip?
 
If I remember rightly the spiders were attracted to sound and someone managed to lure them into a trap with a radio playing "Yellow Rose of Texas."
A week later in a school singing lesson that very song came up and I whispered to my pal "Careful the spiders don't get you!" - he exclaimed "What spiders?" at the top of his voice and the teacher made me explain.
 
Ah, memories.

Hey all, still here...
 
Thought I would share what I have been doing...check out my web site, and the blog on it....

Website blog
Website
Youtube

A panel form one of my favorite comics from when I was young.

The biggest problem is that Wesley Crusher is a very thinly veiled Mary Sue character created by Eugene Wesley Roddenberry.

"Are we too hard" on him.  I can't speak for "us".  Frankly, I hated Wesley Crusher and wanted to hate Wheaton himself, but he's fine.  I'm not someone who follows his twitter account or anything, so maybe there are aspects I haven't seen.

So Cassandra what about Angela Lansbury ?

He's just smug.  If you want to know about hate ask me about Angela Lansbury.

No

Something else I wanted to mention that I keep forgetting. I cannot begin to imagine how anyone could get through something like this without help from family and friends. My mom has been my rock. I don't  know what I would do without her.

Thanks for all the well wishes everyone.
 
I am already back home with mom. The pressure from the blood clot seemed to be the cause of right hand & arm issues. They have me on perkoset, Keppra for seizures and steroids for swelling. They are also going to setup home health care (PT & OT) to help with using arm. They gave me a  brace to wear at night to keep it from curling up and already have noticed a small improvement. I was able to hold a spoon in right hand to eat cereal, a first in weeks. Anyway, sorry for the flood of details but those who know me understand that's how my brain usually works.
 
Dave

This movie sucked. It sucked in a lot of ways. I'm still processing how bad it was.

There were a lot of unnecessary plot threads in this one.  Asian chick. Codebreaker guy. 3 scenes of Luke standing over Kylo Ren, all slightly different. These things extended the movie with things that weren't going to be relevant after the film ended. They didn't move the story forward -- they distracted from the story. The stupid crap on the planet of rich people was dumb too.  None of it mattered, all of it could have been eliminated with no loss to the greater story.

They also didn't know how to handle pacing or to build tension. There are a lot of false climactic moments in the movie. We know Carrie Fisher is dead, so you have a scene where Kylo Ren hesitates about firing and killing her, and then some random stormtrooper does, and she's dead. Okay, I can handle that. Except, oh wait, she's not dead, she Superman flies back to the ship. That was completely stupid. But we the audience know that she's going to have do die now, either in the next movie or offscreen. Should have done it here when you had the chance, and done it the first time.

The stuff between Rei and Kylo Ren was decent. Not amazing, just decent. Luke had a great ending scene. There were some pretty good parts sprinkled in there, but the bulk of it was complete drudgery.

The never-ending "fly slowly away from the other guys" was boring. No attempt to maintain dramatic tension there. I laughed at some of the comedy parts (the scene at the beginning where he was talking to the general was funny), but that's not Star Wars. It totally destroys the audience's ability to take things seriously when even the characters in the film don't take it seriously. Too much of the "I have to throw in funny lines and show how witty and self-aware these characters are". You can't be genre savvy in the movie that relies on those genre tropes, not and also have the audience accept it.

It was better than the prequels, but that's not saying anything. By far the worst non-prequel of the series.

-  Duration can still be a weakpoint, when you 'feel' that length.  For example, I knew the LOTR movies were going to be long but I just wanted more when they ended.  Aliens was almost the exact same length and it flew by.  Also, like B vs S, it had a double ending IMO (Snoke dead, lightsaber broken, Phasma dies, dreadnaught destroyed...wait, then another 40 mins on Salt Planet X!), which also gives the feeling that the movie is going on too long.
 
General thoughts....
 
-  Yeah, Snoke was just starting to impress me as that dangerous villain these movies need, then...ZAP!  So who was he and where did he come from?
-  I can't get a handle on how I feel about Kylo Ren...he is complicated and more than just a straight bad guy...but he still comes off like an angry child.  However, he might be starting to grow on me.  I did like his light side tease.
-  I still don't feel like I know Rey's character.  Also, she did seem to believe Kylo's revelation about her origins and her reaction makes it seem like she always knew.
-  Wait, so Luke dies from a little over-exertion???  He's in his 50's right?
-  Wow, Dreadnaught's are really easy to destroy.
-  So it's confirmed, General Hux is just comic relief.
-  A little anti-Capitalism, anti-wealth message?  From Disney?  Now?  Ok.
-  Whether Parsec was originally just a mistake, they definitely seem to pushing it as unit of distance in this universe.
-  Why couldn't anyone just tell Poe the plan?  Was that so hard?
-  I liked the comedy in this movie.
-  Wow, Mark Hamill is a really good actor...his performance was Oscar-worthy.
-  The way Kylo kills Snoke...coolest thing he has done.
-  Now, what are they gonna do with Leia?
-  They're had better be ALOT more resistance fighters in the Outer Rim.
-  Blasters bounce off Phasma's armor?  Wow, I bet the other Stormtroopers are really jealous....A.  because their armor protects them from nothing  B.  because they have to wear armor that protects them from nothing.
-  I still like all the main characters though, especially Rose and Finn.
 
More later probably....
 

Me working the grill this Easter dinner.  Not bad for a pyrophobic, eh?
 

Look at the rules for Boostable Charges.  Burn through your charges faster to increase your damage.  You can also Rapid Fire an attack.
 
So let's take Joe Average Cop.
 
Dex 12, Spd 3.  Weapon Familiarity pistols, +1 OCV w/ pistol.
 
He's got a 9mm pistol with 17 rounds in it (technically a +1/4 advantage, because 16 rounds is the max for a +0, but we'll give him a freebie).  Let's also slap on the Boostable Charges advantage (+1/4).  Now he can burn through 4 extra charges to give himself 4 extra damage classes.  So his D6+1 RKA 9mm pistol will go up to a 3D6-1 RKA if he uses 5 charges.  He'll get a 15- Activation Roll on the gun after that (so it might jam up), but he can really put the hurt on somebody.  Now let's say that he decides to Rapid Fire as well.  It's a full round action, but he can shoot as many times as he wants at -2 OCV per attack.  The 5th edition book suggests limiting it to maybe 3 shots to prevent abuse.  So he's a 5 OCV normally, so now he's down to a 1 OCV.  With a full round action, he's shooting 3 times at Bob the Criminal, DCV 3.  Each shot uses 5 charges, he needs a 9- to hit, but if he hits it'll be 3D6-1 RKA each time.
 
There you go.  A completely average cop can virtually empty his magazine in one phase.  That's probably a little faster than he should realistically be able to do it.  If he begins the combat with a held action (which he probably should have), then he's already got his gun out and ready.  Cops also use the "cover" maneuver (i.e., point your gun at the guy and keep your finger on the trigger).  So if Baseball Bat Guy starts to move towards cop, that activates cop's held action and he gets to fire before Baseball Bat Guy takes two steps.
 
The only thing this required was putting Boostable Charges on semi-auto firearms, which I already do for my characters.

To please Star War fans:
 
Rian Johnson frozen in carbonite.

It was a Kiss. That does not make sex or a relationship. What are you, 5?
 
According to wierd Al "he was 9 and she was 13". That is 4 years difference. And they never saw each other again until both were of legal age.
 
The French President Macron has a decade more difference to his wive.
 
Considering the dad was a child murderer as far back as slaughtering Sandpeople Children?
Yeah, not a bad idea.

Hey SW Fans, Han and Luke are quitters who died crappy deaths after sad and lonely lives.  Get over it.  - my wife 

I like glass cannons for villains - dangerous but relatively easy to stop.  Not so much for players who get narked if they spend half of all combats unconscious.