brokefang

Re: Looking for playability criticisms Not actually a criticism, but a query toward the whole regen/resurrection thing. Would a Suppress (a chemical agent for plot purposes, being as he is plant life, source of powers and so forth) against his regen not work to counter that? Sulfuria, tired of igniting him and then having him slither out of a swamp, uses her espionage skills to steal a super strong plant suppressant and spray him with it, noting as she does that now he is vulnerable to death? Or is that a little too cliche? I play (or did play, at this point) in a supers game with a regenerating character with fire issues. How much would it compromise the character here to have reduced regen vs. Fire? Don't know how you could model it in 6th (don't have the books right now) but that makes Sulfuria a lot more threatening. And if I read your objections right Balabanto, would solve most of your problems with a non-threatening nemesis and an invincible character. Merely my own thoughts on the matter. I know my character got a lot more careful after spending a few weeks slowly healing his burns, despite being able to romp through a wall of tiny demons who struggled to make a lasting mark.

Re: What's in a name http://www.seventhsanctum.com has a bunch of different name generators, although not all of those will necessarily be spellchecker friendly. You could also adopt the strategy for your elves/dwarves of having a 'use name', one they find comfortable for talking with humans. Don't know if that interferes with your race backgrounds, but it was a thought to get around that red underlining.

Re: Giant robots! Another meme too cool for its own good. As its one of my personal favorite series, the Ghost in the Shell Tank (not the little blue ones, the large MBT scale one from the episode "Runaway Evidence") uses a bunch of anti-Precision Guided Weapons systems: Fouling laser painting (works rather well on a laser guided warhead, such as...many in man portable launchers and ground guided air to surface weapons. Fouling computer guided weapons with active attack hacking software (may be a little harder to manage) but still, this is future tech, and it works on a lot of fire control systems in this case, especially weapons guided through some kind of link software. Just as an example of where careful thought can force technology to evolve. A mecha could be made to work, if attention is paid to details. Kind of goes without saying, but I have done anyway.

Re: A list of basic starship designs, 5th Revised? Spotted a copy of that in my local gaming shop, but lacked the money on hand >.< Fully intending to buy it next time I am there though. Total lack of Sci Fi games at my usual gaming group, and I think that needs to change.

Re: Nanotechnology I did a small amount of research into nanoscale (-100nm diameter) materials as part of my BEng at university. They really are a new area of work, different even to sub-micron (100nm+) scale interactions. If the research in other areas supports the things I looked at, nanoscale developments could make some really interesting things happen. Transparent metals due to nanoscopic arrangement of crystalline boundaries to change the refractions and make it basically a fibre optic sheet. At sufficiently small scales (totally pulling this out of the air based on some interesting surface interactions) conductivity bands may be sufficiently different to allow for far superior efficiency in power transmission - helping those pesky little power hungry micro-machines do their thing. Again, a guess, theory and possibly total bull. I didn't look into all the possibilities of it, and my research was quite narrowly focused.

Re: A list of basic starship designs, 5th Revised? Thanks some more. Hadn't thought of looking at Traveller Hero. I suppose I should have really.

Re: A list of basic starship designs, 5th Revised? Thanks for these, I'll take a quick look if I can find a copy of the book, and I'll hunt out the Fandom Site as well.

Re: STAR HERO Reading List I'll second the Mars series, amongst others. Very political, if I remember it at all well. Interplanetary turf wars and such. I would also like to put forward (don't know how well it will quote) the Seafort Saga, David Feintuch. Its a pretty bleak series, kind of dystopic, but I found myself quite caught up.

Okay I may be a little lazy, but several times I have taken a run at building up some kind of generic ship list for a Star Hero game, with basic numbers thrown at them. Occasionally I manage to write out a ship, but more often I get myself lost in amongst the vehicle/base building rules. I may have overlooked such a list somewhere in one of the HERO books, or even on these forums. If thats the case, could someone make me look a bit more stupid and post it? Regardless, does anyone have or know any sites I should check out?

Re: X-COM: UFO Defense as an RPG setting I don't think I can offer anything constructive beyond encouragement. This thread caught my eye as one of those "holy cow, thats such a great idea!" moments. Good luck with the conversion, I hope it comes together.