Hugh Neilson

I recall the Traveller system being pretty lethal, but we never got into Traveller (or any Sci Fi games, really).

I'll share

6e added the option for Suffocation to Change Environment, I believe in APG I.

This was an item we had never had in Hero, and one I raised in the SETAC discussions, as it crops up on occasion in the source material.  Personally, I'd also allow it as an adder to a Barrier (englobed targets can't breathe) or Entangle (covering the target's face and suffocating them). For your spell, CE seems like the best base power anyway.

11 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

Call of Cthulhu is kind of a beast of its own; the simple system works really well for that setting because its less about mechanics (let's face it you're hopeless in combat anyway) than atmosphere and role play.

Back in high school and early university, we played a lot of three games - Champions, D&D and Call of Cthulhu.

One observation that came from those days was that character creation was inversely proportional to lethality.  A Champions character was a lot of work to create, but the system made them very tough to kill, rather than KO.  D&D was quicker, and character death was also a more significant possibility.  Cal of Cthulhu? Characters had to be quick to create as you'd be making a lot of them.  As I recall, it was the original Shadows of Yog-Sothoth that opened with the comment that the characters should be fairly experienced - no more than half should be brand-new.

45 minutes ago, sevrick said:

1st It isnt a custom power but I have to make it HD through a custom power since HD hasn't been updated with the power Extrademtional Space added from the APG,which is weird since it has been out forever.

 

2nd Extrademtional Space is the closest to what I am looking for. You wanting to use gate will not work as stated in previous posts but will reiterate it here. Gate is tied to teleport which has a different cost and requires distance to calculate its cost, when it isnt a matter of distance.

While the Gate modifiers appear in the writeup of Teleport in 6e, the EDM writeup (6e V1 p 222. ) notes that Gate is also suitable for EDM.  The same modifiers would be used. 

11 hours ago, unclevlad said:

...I gotta ask...who would make something like this, as something they WANT to use, for storage/quasi-base???  You'd be FAR too vulnerable any time you're inside.  At this point, heck, it's a genie bottle...a potential eternal prison.

Someone who values the storage space and is not deeply analyzing the benefits and drawbacks from the perspective of a paranoid murderhobo?

Why would anyone design a metal contraption powered by flammable substances spewing out noxious fumes so that they can travel at great speeds and potentially end their lives should there be a malfunction, inclement weather or a slight driver error (whether by the person driving this one or someone driving a different one)?  Historians and archaeologists believe that this reflected the devout religion of Ah-Toe, a deity of speed who demanded such sacrifices from his faithful.

3 hours ago, unclevlad said:

No, that's not what OP said.  The bag can be closed to deny the access. 

Perhaps I am misinterpreting the OP's intent, but what I read was that the owner opens the bag and climbs down.  The Gate (i.e. the bag) is open, and remains so, in the starting dimension.  It cannot be closed from within the extradimensonal space, but anyone who comes across the bag in the home dimension can close it up again (Restrainable) stranding anyone in that extradimensional room until and unless the bag is opened again.

2 hours ago, sevrick said:

Looking for Extradimensional Space in HD but it doesn't seem to be there.

I'm not sure the APG powers are in HD - looks like they are not from other posts above.

53 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

Hugh:  It's not Always On.  The limitation for that 2-way passage is simply called Gate. 

 

Does it need the Uncontrolled?  

Nothing in the rules description of Gate suggests that it is permanent once created. The character(s) in that 8' x 8' room have no means of preventing anyone from outside climbing down the ladder, hence Always On. Whether it needs Uncontrolled is a valid question, especially given that it cannot be turned off.

It's ExtraDimensional Movement, not Teleportation. Although Gate is detailed under Teleportation, it's cross referenced in the EDM discussion on 6e V1 p 222.

Travel to a single location in a single dimension (20), 0 END (+1/2), AoE (radius - the bag opening with ladder; +1/4), Usable on Others (one recipient at a time +1/4), Constant (+1/2), Uncontrolled (+1/2) [60 AP] Always On (anyone can follow you down into the room or back out; -1/2), OAF (sack; -1); Restrainable (grabbing the sack prevents access either way; -1/2).  Real cost 20 points.

Season to taste with Extra Time, Gestures, Concentration if desired.

Agree with Tom - it's a zero END EDM gate.

10 hours ago, slikmar said:

I refer too my comment on the biggest problems with DC's "reboots". Not just trying to restart but trying to keep the history of each character too. Seriously, if they would either do the legacy thing OR clean slate reboot, would be so much better.

Just saw Aquaman, I liked it and thought as good as first. Loved the homage to Mos Eisley and Jabba. Not a fan of the casting of Shin, or at least the portrayal.

I enjpyed it, although in hindsight,

10 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Sorry for the abrupt ending, Hugh; not feeling my best at the moment, and my wife won't give my bike key back (she ran to the house for a few minutes and took my keys with her).

 

Joke's on her, though: if she  isn't back before I finish this, I am going to walk home. 

 

At any rate, I wanted to answer the gun-specific question:

 

Interference from these sources- when the interference is strong enough- causes the beam to lose coherence almost immediately, rendering it little more than an expensive light show.

 

Sounds like the user would only know the gun won't work after the first use fails, which is not far off seeing the beam strike a target with the defense, to no effect. That doesn't seem like a major deviation from the usual NND rules,

9 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

Sure, but a proposed build included a blast/heal combo

If combining Blast and Heal, I would likely make the Blast No Range as well, so that both radiate from the caster, but it depends on the intended capabilities of the spell - Range on the Healing as well would allow a 4 meter radius bubble wherever the caster desires (at least within any rational combat range).  I would want the two to hit the same area, either way.

2 hours ago, Ragitsu said:

 A "Concentrate" Skill (or similar mechanic) able to be improved as character levels grew did not exist; exceptions aside, if you got hit while spellcasting, you lost the spell...so you don't get hit.

Of course, we also had no rules for "holding an action" and, although spells had a required casting time, weapons did not have a required "target and strike" time, so outside of 1 round+ casting times, targeting the caster while casting was pretty much house rule territory anyway.

2 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

Does Knockback is based on BODY damage.  Healing is based on BODY damage (so much as I remember; I freely admit that havibg read my way through 6e, I thought "nope" and have never opened it again save to chase down a reference or two from these boards).   There is no reason not to allow this power modifier to be fitted to healing.

I think since 5e, Healing has been similar to Aid and Drain - add up the dice and that is how many CP it Heals ("simplified Healing" rolled like normal damage and healing both STUN and BOD remains an option; 10 points per 1d6).

I don't think there was a conscious decision to say "you can't put Does Knockback on Healing" so much as an assumption that one would not want non-attack powers to do knockback.  6e includes a discussion of "does knockback" on attacks with no effect dice (such as Darkness), so I don't believe the intention was to limit possible applications. That discussion suggests 1d6 per 5 AP to add up BOD for Knockback.  Seems like one could just as easily use 1 BOD per 5 points (a form of Standard Effect).  As discussed above, adding up the BOD healed works fairly well (number on the dice, halved as BOD is "defensive" in 6e).

2 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

If it is wrong to declare that your NND simply does not work if the defense is present, then I have been wrong for years, and I am not going to change because it is too much fun having that extra layer of creativity.

 

I, like anyone else, have built NNDs "the way you would expect" for years.  But I have also built them- using the same mechanics- that just fail to work in the presence of thw defense. Nothing says I can't- at least, nothing pre-Steve says I can't.

 

One of the characters in our science fiction campaign has an experimental energy rifle, the defenses are reflective armor, magnetic defenses, and energy defenses.  She has specified that the reflective armor prevents the weapon from being able to target, and while it won't penetrate a force field at all, a strong enough force field will prevent it from actually working at all.  

 

So no; in this case (and others), the NND will not operate at all.

Does that mean that the character automatically knows that the rifle will fail, so no point using an action to fire it? Does the rifle have an indicator that turns red if it won't work due to the target's armor or an ambient energy field?  Or does the energy beam simply fail to hit (or even to manifest) when the character takes careful aim and pulls the trigger? The NND will clearly have no effect if it targets someone with the defense, as that is the nature of an NND.

2 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

At any rate:  unless things have changed under the Long editions, you have _always_ been allowed to create an NND that simply doesn't work in the presence of the defense: just deduct your END and move on.  I suspect that because of the existence of "does not work in presence of X," more people that I have always assumed never actually did it.  Fortunately, we did not have rules telling us we _must_ pick one and we _can't_ pick that one, etc, etc.

Deduct your END suggests that the power can be attempted, and fails - fair enough.

If the Knockback fails to affect targets who are not healed, however, then this construct is 100% useless, as it cannot Heal the Undead. Using your model of a campaign ground rule, are you imposing the requirement that Holy spells of Healing cannot generate their Healing magic at all if the target is not wounded?

1 hour ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

To bring it back to an older comment, this is why you need no range on the blast linked to heal.  Because the heal still goes off if the target is out of range, it just doesn't affect them, but it still goes off -- it still costs END, etc.  Its like swinging a sword trying to hit a bird up in the sky.  You still swung, you still attacked.  It just didn't hit.  And the Blast could hit the distant target unless you buy No Range.

The OP posited an AoE Healing.  As it does not have Range added, it would be a 4 meter radius surrounding the character.

2 hours ago, sevrick said:

Then why is it not in the unavailable modifiers list in HD. The question came up when I was building this in HD. In the list of advantages is does Knockback. So is HD wrong?

I can only assume that this is because the HD programmer decided to retain the option for anyone who wanted to GM-Option Healing that does Knockback into the game.  I recall some past discussions where Steve Long was asked about some Hero Designer issue or another, and his response was often that he did not make Hero Designer and, where it contradicts the rule book, it is "wrong" under RAW.

2 hours ago, Rich McGee said:

No, we don't.  That's the individual GM's job, and it's specific to the campaign he plans to run.  If he wants kaiju to be a terrifying unstoppable menace they probably aren't controllable at all.  If he wants the PCs and villains to be elite psychics who use kaiju as proxies to fight each other, they certainly are.  If he wants to do a Pokemon arc where some cheating psychic is manipulating tournament betting by mind-controlling the actual Pokemon in the arena that's a very different story than one where psychics (including psychic Pokemon) can mind-slave human beings and make them do whatever they desire - which is going be lot more awful than just throwing Pokemon matches unless the censors get involved.

 

I reiterate my previous point:    Generic point costs are never going to cover all the options when your game engine is trying to be universally useful.  You need to adjust for your campaign. 

The "we" to which I refer would be the "we" creating the campaign, which requires buy-in from the players (assuming the GM wishes to run the campaign, not write fan-fiction).  The ability to breathe water may have a range of values as well, depending on whether the game is set in the Sahara Desert, is a globetrotting adventure, is set entirely on the High Seas and in port towns, or is set in undersea Atlantis.  The system still sets a default price assuming a default level of utility.

1 hour ago, Duke Bushido said:

Quick pause for clarification:

 

While I was on.... What?  Page elevnty-something?    I was answering the original "how would you do this" question.  Thus, presented write-ups for other answers to the question, etc, were not considered as I did not want to chance being influenced in a direction that I might not have chosen otherwise.

Bottom of Page 2 of the thread, where Sevrick posted:

Quote

 

Ok I think I have a final version:

 

Healing Wave: Healing BODY 2d6, Doesn't Heal Undead and Demons (+0), Knockback doesn't effect non Undead/Demons (+0), Area Of Effect (4m Radius; +1/4), Does Knockback (+1/4), Double Knockback (+1/2) (40 Active Points); Requires A Divine Skill Roll (11- roll; -1/2), Gestures (Requires both hands; -1/2), Incantations (-1/4)

 

Real Cost: 18

End Use: 4

 

Thanks for you help I think this will work for me. If you have any last tips, I think this what I am going with

 

1 hour ago, Duke Bushido said:

Honestly, when I asked them, I realized another GM decision is needed:  if there is no viable target, does the magic "go off" as normal?

 

Asked another way, can a target a magic missile as nothing in this world?  In DnD (at least as it was when I quit), such a thing wasn't possible.  Cast all you want; without a target, nothing happened.

 

So how does this world work?  If I go through the motions and cast "Mordenkain's Ephemeral Nurse," does it actually happen without the presence of a target wound?  Does the magic "go off?"

Does an NND fail to go off if the target has the required defenses?  Does a Healing spell not manifest if the target is unwounded (or if it rolls too low to Heal further BOD)?  Or does it go off, to no effect (or, in this case, still doing Knockback despite the target being unaffected by the Healing)?  I would say that the spell still activates, and can still inflict Knockback on targets that are not healed (which, based on the w/u of this spell, includes the Undead and Demons, who cannot be Healed but can be knocked back).

If I cast a Fireball straight up into the sky, with no one there to hurt, won't it still explode into a burst of flame?  If not, what a magnificent Illusion Detector - "since my Fireball refused to fly forth, there cannot really be a viable target there".

1 hour ago, Duke Bushido said:

No.  HD is not wrong.

If "wrong" means "contradicts the RAW", then it is wrong.

I will suggest that including an option which is outside the RAW is not "wrong" - no one is forced to use it, and someone wishing to depart from RAW and allow a "Healing that does Knockback" build is spared the hassle of customizing an advantage to do so.

1 hour ago, Duke Bushido said:

Well, the Knockback rules require determining the amount of BODY rolled on the damage dice, subtracting a die roll, and comparing it to the target's CON (and Knockback Resistance).

 

I don't know the edition you are using- I assume 6e, and I do not know if it still exists as an option, but Increased Knockback was a thing once that reduced the number of dice subtracted from the BODY damage.  If you want to get real wiggy, crank the price up even more and _add_ a die or two. 

I don't ever recall CON influencing Knockback, @Duke Bushido.  Maybe you have a cite? If it's unique to 3e (much like growth and shrinking affecting range modifiers instead of DCV), I may have missed it as we went from 2e to 4e.

Increased Knockback is now "Double Knockback" and multiplies the BOD roll before subtracting those d6s to determine Knolckback.

25 minutes ago, Doc Democracy said:

 

It has been mentioned a few times, some folk wanting to use the dice rolled to count BODY as if a normal attack, some content to use the BODY healed for knock back purposes.

 

I think for simplicity purposes, you roll the dice, find out how much BODY people will be healed or will be used to determine knock back.

 

Personally, I think that if you create a wave of healing energy, then it will heal and knock back regardless of whether there are people to heal or people to knock back in the affected area.

 

The big takeaway is that it is pretty much a GM call on how they want their game to run.

 

Doc

Reading Does Knockback under RAW, you would count the BOD like a normal attack.  But then, RAW would not allow "Does Knockback" on Healing either. Having decided to depart from RAW and allow Does KB on Healing, it is for the GM to assess exactly how that will work.

I like the idea of an average roll meaning 2 BOD for KB per 1d6 of Healing, as Healing costs twice as much as Blast. However, simply using the BOD healed is very close (average 1.75/d6 of Healing) and much more elegant. 

23 minutes ago, sevrick said:

One other thing if you need to know all these questions how does Steve Long make a book like the Grimoire? He must presuppose a lot of things. For instance I dont like the ridiculous material component cost.

To me, that is a challenge of any Hero System sourcebook.  A lot of assumptions have to be made, including how the magic system works, the campaign norms for DC, Defenses and skill rolls, and so on.

On 12/25/2023 at 11:32 PM, assault said:

Nobody would want to play a game where everyone were human fighters, would they?

 

But that would be the ideal way to play Swords and Sorcery in 5e D&D.

 

I might need to read more Clark Ashton Smith.

 

The pain, the pain.

Rogues should also be very common, even before delving into the arcane knowledge suggested above.

1 hour ago, sevrick said:

Something I find funny, is in all these comments I don't think anyone addressed my original question in how Knockback is supposed to work RAW with healing. Is it meant to be like we are doing it? That is using the body healed to Knockback someone.

By RAW, Does Knockback "enables an Attack Power that normally doesn’t do Knockback to do Knockback" and Healing is an Adjustment Power, not an Attack Power, so by RAW, this combination does not exist.  Note that Drain is both an Adjustment and an Attack power - Healing is not.

If it were, then by RAW, "The attacker should count the Normal Damage BODY on the effect dice (even if the attack doesn’t do BODY damage), then roll normally to determine the Knockback (if any)."  So if the 2d6 Healing roll is a pair of 4s, Healing 4 BOD, the Knockback is 2 - 1 normal BOD for each '4'. 

I think I would prefer to double that amount, as Does Knockback generally presumes a 1 DC = 5 points ability.  The actual BOD healed works pretty well for this purpose. But that deviates from RAW, if we assume we are folowing all RAW except for allowing Does Knockback on a non-Attack power.

22 hours ago, Rich McGee said:

I sure can.  Every single paleolithic game ever, as well as even less historical stuff where cavemen and dinosaurs co-exist.  Pokemon-inspired settings, or similar monster-catching campaigns like that flop of a sequel series Rowling wrote.  Settings where kaiju and similar megafauna are a key element and aren't explicitly immune to mental control.  More exotically, some kind of "after man" setting where the human species has been reduced to a few psychically-powered survivors who can stay alive in a world full of hostile evolved cockroaches or squirrels or rats, etc. - or just an alien world where some shipwrecked colonists have lost a lot of their tech but gained (or had) psionics that let them influence the native fauna.

 

Generic point costs are never going to cover all the options when your game engine is trying to be universally useful.  You need to adjust for your campaign.  

Now we have to assess what type of mind these entities have.  Paleolithic animals and dinosaurs, no issue that they are animals.  Are Pokemon "animals"?  Some Pokemon probably are, but there are also plants, rocks and non-human sentient beings.  What class of mind is a tree? A rock?

Are kaiju animals, or something else entirely? Are evolved animals still animals, or are they now sentient so affected like humans, or even some Alien mind form?

And, for all of these settings, are these [animals? aliens? whatever class of mind?] the sole, or even most common, encounter?  If I can control Pokemon trainers, do I need to control the Pokemon they command?

21 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

It doesn't really have to do with what's more effective or not, but rather that powers are blank templates, basic use of an ability, which we use modifiers to specify.  In this case telepathy/mind control/what have you is the ability to use your mind to connect to or manipulate other minds.  Which other minds you define with modifiers; if you cannot contact all minds, then that's a limitation.  Classes of minds is not just a needless complication added in the most recent addition, but it violates the broad simplicity of powers that Hero has always been defined around.  Powers are designed based on their effect, not their target.

Yes and no.  Do mental powers then allow control of a computer or cell phone by default? I'm not sure any earlier edition was ever specific that mental powers worked on cats and dogs, much less bugs and plankton. What about plants?  To assess what mental powers work on, one must first define a "mind". It was, however, generally assumed that all sentient beings, human or alien; biological or electronic (Mechanon) were affected by default, and those who would be harder to target due to their unusual minds took mental defense - they were different, this granted an advantage, so they paid for that advantage.

20 hours ago, Gauntlet said:

Plus, any character can decide what their mind type if based on their character. A character who is a Werebear may state that even though they may act like a human their mind type is animal. I have a character like that, when in human form he has a human brain and when in Bear form, he has an animal brain. Plus, the type of brain has nothing to do with how smart you are or how well you think, it just is a listing of your type of mind.

So I can just define that my Mutant character has an alien mind?  Are autistic people the same as other "humans" from a mental powers perspective?  Sounds like fertile ground for all the players who painstaking defined their Powered Armor and other foci being constructed of sophisticated plastics, ceramics, etc. - we know there must be a Magneto clone out there somewhere.  At least Magneto got a limitation on his powers!

13 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Absolutely no one else in the campaign world is affected this way; only the undead.  They aren't affected this way by anything else; only healing magic (and possibly only Holy healing magic; I don't recall right now).  Everything about this screams Unique Custom Disadplication specifically for the undead.

 

Someone above posted that this should cost a player a large amount of points because of how useful it is, but I found nothing from the OP that suggested it was a particularly high-utility spell:  how common are the undead as opposed to other threats?  Can the spell be used specifically to take advantage of its effects on the undead?  Does it have this effect if absolutely no healing takes place?  That is to say: can I cast it on a healthy, full-strength character and the undead still fall?  If I am doing healing by individual wound, and I have succeeded my casting roll but have not rolled high enough to do additional healing, does it affect the undead?  Can it affect the undead more than once per encounter?

 

There is _nothing_ in this thread _from the original poster_ that gives any hint at how much utility there is to this interesting side-effect has, though there is a _lot_ of interesting conjecture from other folks that _does_ make for interesting reading.

The first is an option if we want all Divine Healing to have this added benefit, but not if this spell is unique in the setting - and it sounds like it is intended to be.

If it only works on Undead and Demons, I submit that it is less effective than if it also worked on animals, plants, monsters and bandits.  Therefore, it should cost less.  "Works on everyone" is the baseline.

As written, I see no reason that casting the spell in an area containing only Undead would cause the spell to fail, so I would answer "YES" to all of your "would it work?" questions.

11 hours ago, LoneWolf said:

Not all healing is the result of divine power/positive energy.   That is the problem with using it as a disadvantage.  Why are zombies knocked back by someone who is using micro TK to reknit the targets flesh together, or an alchemical concoction?   What about a necromancer   that heals by necromantic granting the target powers similar to undead?  

They aren't because the disadplication is only triggered by Holy Magic Healing.  Just like a character with magnetic TK would set off a susceptibility to Intense Magnetic Fields when TK that's a glowing green energy construct would not.

10 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

I am going to go with "undead are affected by healing magic '  is enough, and it happens at all because that is how the GM has declared that this is how this world works.  Not everything that flies is a bird; not everything with wings can fly.  That is how our world works.  "Undead physically repelled by healing magic" is at least more consistent than that.

Once the GM declares that this is how the world works, well and good, and the GM defines exactly how it works (maybe even on the fly).

Now, what if a player wants a Healing spell that knocks the Undead back more effectively?

I have seen court cases where paper and ink are age-tested to determine whether the document was really signed of when claimed.  Testing the wine itself would require opening the bottle, so that's not where one would logically start.

I believe the original comment was aimed at procedures of that nature, not speculative processes derived from having a knowledge of time-travel science.

23 hours ago, unclevlad said:

 

That depends on the rules set.  Fantasy Hero, maybe not.  6E?  Classes of mind DO exist...at least for mind control and telepathy.  You get 1 free.  "Universal" here means, you can use it against anyone/anything within that class.

This is the state of the current game rules (at least in Hero 6e - IIRC, a conscious decision was made to drop CoM in Champions Complete).  There needs to be a rule, however. I don't think mental powers that work on humans, animals and Google Home by default would be consistent with the source materials. The rule does not, however, have to be the specific 4 classes of mind set out in 6e.  Those classes also leave gaps, such as automaton undead (they lack Ego, but I don't believe that they are Machines).

23 hours ago, unclevlad said:

"Mind" can be treated the same, and sometimes is:

 

"Why can't I read their thoughts?"
"Their minds work on a higher frequency than human minds, so you have to adjust your power to pick them up." 

That can just as easily be Mental Defenses, requiring the character who has a special resistance to mental powers to pay for that extra resistance, rather than providing it to them by default. 

23 hours ago, unclevlad said:

Which can be taken to be a separate class of mind, or some other mechanism, depending on what you think it should cost/how hard it should be.

I see a better case for mental powers being effective, by default, on sentient minds.  That will cover off player characters and NPCs.  Then we are left with other types of minds.  Three that come to mind are animals, machines/computers and the aforementioned Undead.

I cannot think of a game where mental powers that affect animals would be as useful as mental powers that affect sentient beings (or where Alien or Animal are as useful as Human), yet we price them the same. Should they be priced differently? Should they be completely separate powers so you don't just tack on a 5 point Adder to get two classes of minds (although an Adder is a nice shortcut to avoid a Mutipower of the various Classes of Minds).  Should the adder be the same for each Class of Minds?

Should it even be an Adder? It seems pretty cheap when one already has 60 AP mental attacks to buy those Adders.  In source material, it seems like affecting multiple classes of mind is rare, which suggests this is not an inexpensive tack-on. Every Necromancer would logically tack on "and sentient minds" if it's that cheap. Why limit yourself to computers and electronics?

The Machine class is also challenged to deal with sentient AIs, and sentient Undead would create a similar issue.  Do those entities get to choose? Do they have both Classes of Mind by default?  What about a super-evolved animal, or one which has received sentience by some other means?

Somehow, we managed for many editions without Classes of Minds. I suspect Mechanon and Firewing lobbied heavily for this rule to get free immunity to most mental powers.

For someone who has the time and inclination to design a game from scratch, great.

Many gamers lack one or both, but might well play a game driven by the Hero engine.

Even more might value the transparency to revise or build the occasional construct.

Classes of mind aren't really constructed in the system, as they have no point cost (however common or rare, useful or tangential, the ability to affect those specific types of minds may be, compared to other choices).

19 hours ago, unclevlad said:

 

Yeah, but that depends on how the age testing takes place.  That's also why I went with the chrono-psychometric as the authenticator...the assumption being that just because you jump it forward 100 years, after that?  It'll STILL test out as coming from 1860-1870....or 1810 for the Napoleon cognac. 

In the Nerd Tradition of applying logic to fantastical constructs, if jumping forward ages the wine 100 years, won't you also age 100 years (and does the reverse hold true, in which case you would not be able to go back far enough to obtain these items)?

16 minutes ago, Sketchpad said:

 

There is one small hitch in grabbing stuff from a past time and bringing it directly to the present: age. Things like wine would need some age testing done, otherwise someone may make a modern duplicate that doesn't have the proper aging. Especially if you make a claim that it dates back to a certain time. Bottles, labels, and the wine itself can be tested for age. If doesn't pass the test, it would more than likely be considered a forgery. The same could apply to certain jewelry. It'd be better to jump to place where you can store it and let it age a bit. Like a safety deposit box from a bank that stayed in business through the years.

Assuming the ability to accurately time travel, you place it in a safety deposit box and move it every 5 - 10 years.

1 hour ago, Doc Democracy said:

The big draw for me for this over your standard game would be that the spells would be underpinned by the system.  If the builds were available online, I could start there and tweak to my heart's content, while less geeky folk could simply choose from the standard menu.

That's how I would envision a game "Powered by HERO" being structured.  Publish the game and put the builds online for those who want to tinker, discuss any nuances or handwaves, etc.  But present a game, first and foremost.

With a GM familiar with Hero, a player like Lonewolf can make modifications, within the constraints of the game (as set by the GM and players).