Diamond Spear

It does in some sense as IF the items already exist and he just puts them into that (ah now I remember: subspace pocket is the typical name for that) then its no summon and thus not restrictd by 100pts summon,... then its an extra dimensional movement).

If the items on the other hand "just" exist its also a "teleportation" and not restricted by the POINTS of the item teleported to him,....

 

 

so in effect its different powers then depending on if he puts items somewhere and then takes them from there or if he "creates" items or if he uses preexisting items where he just happens to know where they are (and teleport them into his hands)

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

Sounds like a great comic shop, but this last line has me chuckling at the totally OT idea of a mash-up between your comic shop and your tattooist.

 

"Can Spidey defeat the Green Goblin? Find out on the next exciting bicep!"

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.

Since APG II we now have a Time Stop Power. It costs 200 Base Points (so around 20 END/Phase)..

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.

I can't spread rep from my phone' date=' but thanks for making me lol.[/quote']

 

Got him for you.

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...

No.

The Conservative Association:

Prominent Members

 

• Michael Janvier, Baron High Ridge, Party Leader ( – 1919 PD), Prime Minister of Manticore (1915 PD – 1919 PD)
  
• Sir Edward Janacek, First Lord of the Admiralty, (c1899 – 1904 PD, 1915 PD – 1919 PD)
  
• Dimitri Young, 10th Earl North Hollow, Party Whip ( – 1905 PD)
  
• Pavel Young, 11th Earl North Hollow
  
• Stefan Young, 12th Earl North Hollow, Minister of Trade (1915 – 1919 PD)
  
• Georgia Young, Countess North Hollow, chair of the party's Policy Coordination Committee (c1915 – 1919 PD)
  
• 
  

 

The Liberal Party:

Prominent Members Edit

 

• Lady Marisa Turner, Countess New Kiev – Party Leader ( – 1919 PD), Chancellor of the Exchequer (post 1915 PD – 1919 PD)
  
• Catherine Montaigne, former Countess of the Tor – Party Leader (1919 PD – )
  
• Reginald Houseman, Second Lord of the Admiralty (1915 – 1919 PD)
  
• Sir Harrison MacIntosh, Home Secretary (c1915 – 1919 PD)
  
• Regina Clausel, journalist
  

It's the Centrist and The Crown Royal Parties that are shown in the best light.

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...

I like the Honorverse books. I think it's more Moderate good vs Extremist bad. The Star Kingdom is very Socially Liberal and the Conservative Party are portrayed as the antagonist.

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...

She was Willow's girlfriend in Buffy before she got the axe.

CES

*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:

Calliope Reaper-Jones so just wanted a normal life: buying designer shoes on sale, dating guys from Craig’s List, web-surfing for organic dim-sum for her boss... But when her father—who happens to be Death himself—is kidnapped, and the Devil’s Protege embarks on a hostile takeover of the family business, Death, Inc., Callie returns home to assume the CEO mantle— only to discover she must complete three nearly impossible tasks in the realm of the afterlife first.

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!!

Have you ever seen the game Dominion? It sounds like it is exactly what you' date=' and many others, are looking for.[/quote']

 

Tell us more!

Re: Destroy Your Geek Cred!!

I've played & owned cards' date=' though not for many years. In a way, it's too bad. I actually like the mechanics and gameplay of a lot of customizable card games... I just don't like the continually-expanding play environment that you have to keep buying cards in order to keep up with. I wish someone would make a CCG -- even if it had a sizable buy-in price -- that sold a decent-sized set of cards to use and choose from in building your decks, but that wasn't "collectible"." (In other words, where everyone had the same collection of cards available, and the strategy lay entirely in how they built and played their decks... not in the imbalance created by having unequal resources available to them.)[/quote']

 

THIS. I would so buy that. In fact almost everyone I know who quit playing CCGs because of the never ending cost would buy that.

Re: Destroy Your Geek Cred!!

He's got a sample chapter up here: http://www.jim-butcher.com/books/alera/furies/furies-of-calderon-chapter-1

 

Just one chapter isn't really enough to make a decision, but it'll at least give you a taste.

Thanks!

Re: Destroy Your Geek Cred!!

Especially given his environment. I still like it' date=' but I see your point. You might like Codex Alera by Butcher a bit better. (Or you may hate it.)[/quote']

 

I'll have to look it up and give it a try. If I don't like it I won't be out much and if I do so much the better.

Re: Destroy Your Geek Cred!!

He makes the main character's life difficult in so many ways it'll make your head spin. He doesn't need the magic and technology thing to do that in the least' date=' as Dresden manages to get himself into multiple life and death fixes in every book due to his own personality quirks, whether stubbornness, pride, contrariness, or nobility. The magic vs technology thing is just setting fluff.[/quote']

 

While it’s true that Harry did get himself into a lot of trouble (I read four or five books before I gave up on the series) that right there bugged the hell out of me as well. I don’t mind flawed characters but Harry was so stupid for a smart guy I really can’t believe he survived childhood.

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...

Storm from the Shadows - David Weber.

 

I absolutely loved this. Besides being the continuing events surrounding a number of characters I really like - Aivars Terekhov, Abigail Hearns, Mike Henke - Weber advances the overall plot significantly, finally brings us in on the Big Bad of this sequence, and gives us some nice space battles - pretty one-sided ones in this case, but they can't all be nail-biters.

 

Weber's also getting better at reducing the info-dumps, or at least slotting them in where they don't interupt the flow of the story too badly. Plenty of politics in this, but not as bad as At All Costs, and at least it's differing politics, not just the Star Kingdom's. I like well-written politics, and this is one, but I know that isn't universal.

 

4 out of 5.

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.