Diamond Spear

Unless there is a limit on what items he can pull out with that power, and by " limit' I mean a predefined list of specific items, than it really makes absolutely no difference in the game how you choose to describe the special effect. As an example if I have a character with an energy blast defined as a blast of cold it makes no difference to the game if I say that my cold blast comes from me summoning icy air from the South Pole or from the Ice Dimension; mechanically the effect is the same. Getting too hung up on the details just makes for headaches and extends the time before you can tell great stories and blast Dr. Destruction with your cold-based energy blast.

Tom, I think you are getting hung up on two things here. The first is an overly narrow interpretation of the terms characteristics and powers. Just don't worry so much about them. They are just labels for different game mechanics that make up the character. The second thing your too hung up on is the whole "coming from a normal background" thing. It's true that in the real world Basic's character would not have a high OCV/DCV but his character isn't in the real world he's in the fictional world of Champions and in THAT world when people gain powers they also gain increased physical characteristics and fighting skills. It's a genre convention. If you look at a lot of origin stories for comic characters they are much better fighters than thier backgrounds say they should be. Again it's a genre convention. If you're playing a game where a character can manipulate space and dimensions with nothing more than a thought is it so difficult to believe that the same event that gave him those powers also made him faster, more durable and so forth? If nothing else forcing Basic's character to have "normal" stats will pretty much ensure that the player doesn't have much fun sinc he'll spend most combats missing with his attacks before being rapidly knocked out. When blancing "realism" with "fun and playable" ALWAYS err on the side of "fun and playable". I hope the above helps and good luck.

As far as the Blink Teleport to negate damage, I personally would not allow such a power. Also I'd point out that the trigger for the power is taking the damage in the first place so simply teleporting away won't make it not have happened.

"Death's Daughter" by Amber Benson (who played Tara on Buffy incidentaly). Light urban fantasy about a daughter of the grim reaper who, despite being determined to live a normal life far from the world of magic, finds herself drawn rack in when her father goes missing. A nice take on the urban fantasy genre that's an easy, entertaining read. There are sequels that I want to read but havnt gotten to yet.

Re: Future Guns: Projectile Obsolete? Lots of David Drake books have projectile weapons. The Lt. Leary setting comes to mind as does the book: Redliners which has some really neat weapons all around as well as being a really good book in general.

Re: HERO: Combat Evolved [Equipment Posts & Comments] Now if we could just get you to run a HALO game......

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities I think I'll skip that tattoo. Steve on the other hand might like the idea.

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities Luckily I shop at the best comic store in the universe (http://www.thirdeyecomics.com/) and they LOVE female customers. The shop is run by a guy named Steve who looks like a biker dude complete with shaved head and tons of tattoos and his fiancée Trish, who is quite possibly the sweetest girl on the planet other than my wife. His employees are great and no one, male, female, n00b or twenty-year-collector is ever treated as anything other than a valued customer. Articles like the one posted here make me realize just how lucky I am to have this store so close to me. Not to mention the new location is in the same strip mall as the place I get my tattoos done!

Re: Consuming a defeated Foe to gain his Power; It's the Demon Way. But does it function exactly like Piper's from Charmed does?

Re: Consuming a defeated Foe to gain his Power; It's the Demon Way.

Re: Consuming a defeated Foe to gain his Power; It's the Demon Way. Since this power seems to be more of a plot device than something that will be frequently used you could always just write up what the power does, without bothering with the exact “HERO terminology” and without working out the points. You exist in the campaign; you gain power in this way. Everyone clear? I went through a similar process when trying to duplicate the “Time Stop” power of Piper from Charmed. After a very long conversation with a friend (Thia Halmades from these very boards) what I ended up doing was realizing that since everyone that was going to be playing in the game and myself were already aware of how the power worked all that was needed was for me and the player to write up a detailed description of the power, what it could do, what it’s limitations were and then assign it a point value based on its usefulness. In this case with the Charmed Ones written up as 200 point characters we decided on 100 points. You seem to be facing the same problem I was; you know what you want the power to do but it doesn’t fit easily within the HERO framework. There are bits of it that insist on sticking out no matter how you try to design it. So don’t kill yourself trying. Just figure out what it does and how much you think it should cost and move on. I think that we HERO players sometimes fall into the trap of thinking that just because the system will LET you build almost anything with the toolkit everything HAS to be built with it. Does that make sense?

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... Ummm....First sorry, you are indeed correct. Second, I blame my fuzzy memory on Webber's increasing need for an editor. I really hate it when authors get so big they can demand to do without one. I don't mind lengthy books but his last couple of books in the Honor Harrington series could have lost 15-20 per cent of their word count and not lost anything important.

Re: Building times There’s also the fact that many times in the ancient world slaves were defeated enemies. And if the choice was wholesale slaughter or enslavement……

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... Um, are we reading the same series? In Manticore it's the Liberal Party that is portrayed as being short-sighted/Obstructionist/Appeasers. Maybe you are confusing them with the Conservatives on Grayson?

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... *wack*

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... Death's Daughter by Amber Benson (rep to the first person to post what supernatural TV series she was in. Not a hard question I know but I'm in a giving mood today) Not too bad. A sem-different spin on urban fantasy that read quickly and didn't devolve into a supernatural romance. I'd give a more complete description but I suck at writing them. There's this from Amazon's description: I give it an 8 out of 10 and I'll certainly read the next one.

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER I really have nothing to contribute, just doing my part to keep this thread going. As you were then.

Re: Destroy Your Geek Cred!!

Re: Destroy Your Geek Cred!!

Re: Destroy Your Geek Cred!! Thanks!

Re: Destroy Your Geek Cred!!

Re: Destroy Your Geek Cred!!

Re: Destroy Your Geek Cred!! I found The Dresden Files horrible. I particularly took exception to the fact that the author made magic not get along with technology. I found that to be an exceedingly lazy way of making the main character’s life difficult.

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? GnRs version of "Sympathy for the Devil"

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... Does he show any sign of bringing this thing to a conclusion any time soon? I like the series as well as the next person but he needs to wrap it soon.