Pteryx

Actually, people went on as though #19 were accounted for, so you may want to use that instead... Convention #25: Even when it's crowded, the hero can duck into any convenient hiding spot (alley, opaque telephone booth, etc.), change costume, and emerge without anyone putting two and two together. -- Pteryx

Dear spirits, was that ninja out of his mind? I've no idea what he would have hoped to accomplish by collapsing the building, aside from a mass slaughter... Additionally, I've no indication that the temperature controller tried to extinguish the fire. Have the superheroes of this world forgotten what they're fighting for? Of this group, I've actually the most hope for the blazing Brit. At the very least, it would appear that he did his best to try to remove Grond from the scene despite not being able to stand up to him. Perhaps he would be a better guiding figure for the team than a telekinetic with too little sense to attack such a strong combatant from afar. I also pray that they learn true teamwork... and that the black-hearted ninja learns some compassion. -- Chris Wilder

The baby griffins in particular are very cute. -- Pteryx

Nope. Make 'em as big or as small as you like. For an answer to that one, you'd need a lawyer... HEY STEVE! Anyway... Stone, since you've answered the latest challenge, what's yours? -- Pteryx

Make sure there's more than one way to solve any major problems, and always a way to do it without violence. Whenever it makes sense, though, there should be a violent solution too. Make obvious things that an experienced gamer would take for granted -- for example, the fact that there's a town guard that's stronger than them. Give the prefab characters non-attack abilities with obvious uses and a relatively high rate of success (like a good illusion spell for a wizard). I second the idea of providing at least two characters per archetype, as well as finding out what your audience likes for literature. Someone weaned on Harry Potter, Oz, and/or A Wrinkle in Time isn't going to be expecting a dungeon crawl. -- Pteryx

That'd be a big improvement, but the charge-up would still "hiccup" if for some reason the character decided to charge for at least a full turn. Of course, realistically, charging for too long would probably be tactically unsound... -- Pteryx

It's not really a fade rate adjustment... Basically, what I'm making here is a "charge meter". The theoretical character (yes, I'm making power builds just for their own sake) would have an END Reserve with no REC which would by default be empty. The only way the character can fill it is by using up turns on a small Aid END (Self Only, END Reserve Only) which has its maximum effect bought up to the size of the Reserve. If he's not charging, any accumulated charge would fade at the standard rate. The trouble comes in charging through a change in turns. If he didn't charge in Segment 12, he should lose the 5 CPs/10 Reserve END of effect -- but if he did, the fading shouldn't happen yet. If it did happen, that would force the player to time things in ways I really wouldn't want to force them to. Hence two extra dice, standard effect handwaved one point lower, Only During Segment 12. -- Pteryx

Here's a complicated one for you... how much is "Only During Segment 12" worth as a Limitation? I'm thinking of giving two "additional" dice of Aid this Limitation in order to cancel out the Post-Segment 12 fading (I want it to fade quickly, just not while it's still building up). -- Pteryx

The reasoning behind and limitations on class changing (aside from not being able to do it in mid-fight) vary from game to game, but the reasoning tends to involve the elemental crystals if they exist and usually you don't get all the classes at once (they have to be earned or sought out or granted). I left this version deliberately vague. If you like being corrected, than I'm sure we'll get along. -- Pteryx

Did someone say character sheet? http://herogame.dans.cust.servlets.net/FreeStuff/csheets.htm If you're good at deciphering a game from its character sheet, here's several, including the one from FREd itself. As for the abbreviations: Primary Characteristics: STR: Strength DEX: Dexterity CON: Constitution BODY: Body INT: Intelligence EGO: Ego PRE: Presence COM: Comeliness Figured Characteristics: PD: Physical Defense (nonresistant by default) ED: Energy Defense (also nonresistant by default) SPD: Speed REC: Recovery END: Endurance STUN: Stun Hope that helps. -- Pteryx

Re: Gimme some Opinions Someone's probably going to beat me to posting to this degree, but... Depends on whether you're looking for something more realistic or more cinematic. I've heard it said that GURPS is a good system if you want a reasonable idea of what'd really happen if you picked up the bokken you don't really know how to use and whacked your neighbor with it. HERO, on the other hand, is more geared towards what'd be most likely to happen if that scenario were to occur in some visual storytelling medium. Magic: Basically, however you want. You build spells (and most everything else) with Powers, Advantages, and Limitations. With these and Power Frameworks, you can pretty much make any kind of magic system you want. Fantasy HERO offers many sample magic systems and guidelines for making your own. If you want magic to be wild and uncontrolled without a wand, you can do it. If you want to make gestures and incantations an optional powerup for a spell, you can do that too. Want a choice as to whether or not spells fail and how? No problem! Psionics: The same, though it's worth mentioning that there's complex rules for the interaction of Mental Powers (the directly mind-affecting stuff). The GM assigns Experience Points. An Experience Point equals a Character Point. Couldn't be simpler. That depends on your experience with the system, but longer than average for any type of character with extensive Power use and pretty average otherwise. It can be maddeningly complicated if you want it to be, but generally it's best to only use the options that actually make sense for the genre you're running. The core bits are STUN and BODY (damage that can knock you out vs. actual injuries that could kill you), the Speed Chart (every character has a SPD which determines when in the course of a 12-second turn they get to act), Normal and Killing Damage (Killing Damage ignores defense that isn't Resistant and is slightly better at dealing BODY), and OCV and DCV (how good you are at delivering and avoiding blows, both determined by DEX). One really needs to get used to the system before one can pull it off. The learning curve looks square root-like -- steep at first, but then it quickly levels off. The system is very internally consistent. And now to step back and let the experienced players talk... -- Pteryx

My favorite Psych Lim... ...is any pairing thereof that'll often come into conflict. Especially if the conflict is RPed out rather than just rolled. -- Pteryx

My character can't have kids in the usual fashion, being a robot -- and, oddly enough, is technically inept to the point of having a small Disadvantage. Not to mention his world's spirit realm is so weak from negliect that a golem would also be unlikely. Under the current conditions of his life (worldwide Robot Wars and his being seen as a criminal), he couldn't even adopt a kid, as much as he likes them -- sure, he has a "human" alias, but his duties are far too demanding for him to be able to take care of a kid, and his father might order him to do terrible things to him or her... -- Pteryx

You mean after his weeks of prayers of praise were over? Probably try to help his family of robotic now-former supervillains to adjust. If he had time, he'd also try to help the formerly genocidal robot faction adjust, which would likely be less work as their control programming was more essentially evil. Once he finally has enough time to himself to do more than honor the spirits, he'd reopen Crystal Eye Lapidary, pointing out this time that all the jewels are the product of technology (but still real in the sense that they're actual rubies, diamonds, etc.), and go back to what he was made for -- selling his own jewelry. -- Pteryx

My character... ...would be saying prayers of gratitude for weeks. -- Pteryx

All several dozen of my character's "brothers", reprogrammed out of their appearently unbreakable programming?! That'd be way too much for him to swallow right away. First he'd do what he could to check and make sure he's not the one who's been reprogrammed and his perceptions and memories messed with... and if that were the case, he'd be pissed at the "good guys" who did it and turn on them -- he wants free will, not to be turned against his own family! No matter what those suspicious of him think. If that checked out to the best of his ability, then just what he'd do would depend on just who captured and reprogrammed them, as well as just what happened to their creator and "father". The options are rather broad here, though, so I'll have to think about this and go through the possibilities one by one. Watch this space... -- Pteryx

I don't know about that... he doesn't answer questions in the wee hours of the morning. He must get in a whopping hour a day! Just go with "only needs to sleep once per week." Oh, and don't forget his Duplication. -- Pteryx

My character's world is filled with grey, so in many cases you'd have to define "turning good". There are, however, two options where there's really nowhere to go but up. One is the genocidal robot faction whose members are reprogrammed to never switch sides again; to see one of them actually do so would raise strong yet tentative hope on his part, both for that faction and for himself and his own family. After all, if that one robot could break her programming, maybe that means others can do the same! The other possibility is the reformation of Dr. DeVry... which would make my character very suspicious. Is this some kind of social experiement? Has he actually learned how to turn humans into robots? If so, he may be trying to build up trust to convince people to go through with the procedure? For that matter, he may simply be trying to gather people from civilized nations for an experiment for some reason... Regardless, the sudden donning of a white hat by the one person who's ever earned his hatred (and my character otherwise loves broadly) would certainly not be taken at face value.

Actually, the aim here was to reproduce the class-changing ability seen in some of the Final Fantasy games. It came to mind since one RP crowd at the FLGS gets bored with their "characters" (closer to powers of the week, really) very quickly... -- Pteryx (On a side note, schizophrenia and MPD/DID are very different from one another. Schizos hallucinate severely, multiples are, well, multiple. They've been known to coincide, though.)

I'm trying to price this Limitation for Simplified Healing (it'd probably also fit BODY Healing), but am drawing a blank. Suggestions? -- Pteryx

Multiform (assume 150-point fighter form, 150-point monk form, 150-point thief form, 150-point chemist form, 150-point white mage form, 150-point black mage form, 150-point red mage form, or 150-point spacetime mage form; true form is 100-point classless form) (45 Active Points); Concentration (0 DCV and unaware of nearby events, -3/4), Extra Time (1 Turn, -1 1/4) (15 real points) Questions? Comments? Other submissions? -- Pteryx

Blue Jogger proposed GOOP as the answer to it, but... well, it's been over two weeks and he still hasn't produced a writeup like he said he would. -- Pteryx

Er... that's not what Farkling and I were trying to suggest. The idea was to build it straight with the activation roll, then build a Charged way to get around said roll. Once you're out of Charges, you must resort to rolls instead in order to use it. -- Pteryx

I do believe Farkling's got the right idea. Though I'd do it a little differently, having the control module be something akin to a Naked Power Advantage -- Naked Disadvantage Buyoff, if you will. Give the base engine an activation roll, figure out what the difference in cost between it having and not having said roll is, then apply however many Charges you want on that difference. -- Pteryx

I don't have FH or the Grimoire, so forgive me if I'm repeating things already covered... * Time Magic -- In addition to the possibility of time travel and manipulation of fate, there's also the typical flashy battle uses (toying with people's relative timeflow, mainly), curses of age, and so on. * Terrain Magic -- The other type of geomancy -- drawing on aspects of the terrain around you for effects, either physical (force your foes to suffocate in methane in a swamp), abstract (heal your friends by drawing on a city's nature as a monoculture), or some of both. ...and that's all that I can think of off the top of my head, I'm afraid. -- Pteryx