Hugh Neilson

I believe you have to have some de minimis number of posts before getting out of "moderator", but moderation is pretty quick. It's largely a spam protector, I believe. At the bottom right of your post, I see a heart. If I hover over it, it goes colour and provides reaction options. If you can't see it, I suspect reactions are unavailable until that minimum post count is achieved.

Actually, what the OP said was (emphasis added): This could indicate that Gestures and Incantations are required in the game in question. However, it can just as easily be read to say that the OP assumes every spell requires Gestures and Incantations. The first step is clarifying whether this is the OP's assumption or a hard-coded requirement of the specific game in question. But that is not how interrupting a spell looks in Fantasy Hero. It is how interrupting a spell might look if a specific Fantasy Hero game requires those specific limitations. The point that not every Fantasy Hero game may require those specific limitations is an important one. This may, or may not, be the way to interrupt a spell in any given Fantasy Hero Game, but it is not guaranteed to be effective under every game constructed using the Fantasy Hero System. In a game where spellcasting is a mental process that always requires Concentration, holding an action to be triggered by unusual gestures or incantations is utterly useless when the spellcaster need only concentrate, not speak or gesture, to cast his spell. In the Harry Potterverse, for example, Disarming wands would be a much more effective tactic, despite the requirement a wand be pointed (arguably Gestures, but including that in OAF would be equally valid) and the typical, but not universal, requirement of a single spoken word or two. In that game (based on the source material), the far more effective approach was to disarm the wand before its holder had an action to cast a spell, not wait for him to cast.

At the core, EC can simply be replaced by purchasing the powers normally with "Unified Power" added as a -1/4 limitation. If you are inclined to invest more effort, I'd consider whether they all need to be the same AP (not required for unified power) and whether some powers not worth adding to the 5e EC might appropriately also be Unified.

The real problems are deeply rooted and hard to solve. We want something that can be done quickly and make us feel better, so we can get back to day to day life. Lasting value would be OK too, but it's an optional extra, pretty far down the priority list. Sadly, that can describe a lot of issues today.

Too true. The lack of recognition that this is not binary - "you are dead" or "you are back to normal" - makes for bad risk assessment. And that ignores that a full recovery still likely follows several weeks of no income and maybe a huge medical bill.

If, as a store owner, you REALLY want to stimulate mask wearing, try this: "5%* discount for any shopper or shopping group) wearing a mask throughout their shopping trip in our store" * Pick your percentage. More cynically (or realistically - businesses are already suffering)? Raise your prices the same amount so those without masks are paying a premium.

If the entire healthcare cost structure is exorbitant, why is it only the researcher who develops the drug called upon to lower its prices? If everyone is overcharging, they should all be held to account. Not having seen the books, I'm not qualified to comment on who, if anyone, is overcharging. How many blind alleys have to be paid for (with zero sales) in order to develop a successful product? Their first quarter results indicate $50 million in clinical trials and ramping up to manufacture the drug. And I don't recall Gilead justifying the price compared to reduced costs elsewhere (feel free to cite - I did not look that hard). I recall ScottishFox pointing it out. If a product reduced my vehicle operating costs by $1,000 a year, I would be pretty happy to invest $200 a year in that product. I get 80% of the benefit. To the question of government funding, governments could certainly incorporate conditions on government grants - private sector money would expect a return. Governments could also choose to invest in publicly-owned research ventures rather than issuing grants and partnering with private sector researchers at all. Where is their monopoly if the generic manufacturers can produce the same thing with no royalty payments? That's a pretty significant giveaway by Gilead - the generic producers get to sell the product without contributing a dime to cover its development and testing costs. But it's easier to point at The Evil Corporation* than to evaluate the facts objectively. * because we know all corporations are evil, right?

So, not in the U.S. since Trump said the pandemic is over? If the drug company would not take a significant hit by lowering their price to generate no profit, then the cost to the system generated by their profit must be equally insignificant. And again, I do not see why it would be only the drug company's shareholders who should take the hit. I keep remembering that really early post-Crisis Flash comic when Wally West could hit the speed of sound. He carried a donor heart across the country. And he required payment. Everyone else in the chain was getting paid. He needed extra calories for his heightened metabolism, and his expensive high-durability boots wear out fast and need to be replaced pretty frequently. Why should he be the only guy involved who does not get paid for his contributions? That's a seriously interesting point and an angle I had not even considered. Now, since it is the hospital or the insurance company saving all that money, maybe THEY should subsidize the extra cost to the patient and make it a win-win. Again, my simple question is why it would be appropriate to single out the drug company as the "bad guy" when no one else in the chain is sacrificing their bottom line either.

A lot of questions. Canada ditched estate tax almost 50 years back, but taxes all gains on assets in the year of death - essentially, the property is "sold" to the estate at fair value, and taxes become due at that point. Some nuances and exceptions, of course, and a lot of estate/tax planning. Some provinces have "probate fees" which are a % of the estate, so really an estate tax (and the Courts told one province it was a tax, and had to follow the legislative procedures for a tax, some years back). Similar issues arise. What if the assets are illiquid (well, at least you can opt in to 10 years to pay - with interest)? What about assets that are hard to value? More work for appraisers and business valuators. What if you are deemed to dispose of a house for its value of $750,000, then your heirs sell it for $750k and pay $50k of realty commissions and legal bills? Well, there's a gain on your final tax return and they have a loss. That's without the underlying value changing. Really, tax is pretty simple. We just want a system that is fair and simple. Sadly, each one pulls in the opposite direction. Fair is seldom easy, and simple tends to be unfair.

Well, if we handle it based on his approach, it will eventually disappear from humanity, anyway. Probably not the way humanity would prefer, though.

The fact that you said nothing about anyone else who is making their living/earning a profit in the treatment of the illness is my point. Why should the drug company work for free, while everyone else gets paid? What is special about the drug company that it should be singled out as the sole link in the development, production and distribution chain which should not be paid for its efforts. We can debate what a fair return on its investment is, but of course we can debate whether anyone along the chain is being fairly compensated for their skills, efforts, time, etc. It is a fallacy to talk about "the drug company" getting paid. The company does not need money. It does not buy a house, raise its kids, put food on the table, save for retirement or take exotic vacations. It is a legal fiction. The people who earn that money are the shareholders of the drug company. Typically, for a public company at least, this would include a lot of pension funds, retirement savings plans and fixed-income seniors living their retirement years on their savings. The profits earned by the drug company go to those shareholders, in the form of dividends and/or increased share prices, not to some black box "corporation" entity. Salaried employees who get paid whether the drug is a huge success (big profit for the drug company and, by extension, its owners), delivers a modest return (for the company and its owners) or tanks and results in significant losses (again, for the company and its owners). Risk also has to be compensated. If those employees took on some risk by taking less salary and more stock options or profit-sharing incentives (which I think are pretty common in the biotech/pharmacare sector), then asking the drug company to take a discount is asking them to take a discount. Without digging through the economics behind Canadian versus US sales, I can't speak to whether the costs in Canada are lower, higher or identical. However, the differences between Canadian and US health care seem most driven by the private versus public health care models. Those are less a question of whether everyone along the chain gets paid and more a question of who pays them. Taken at a very high level, whether medical costs are appropriately allocated based on who had the misfortune to become ill (which, if you chose not to socially distance, wear masks, etc. may be quite appropriate in that you chose to place yourself at higher risk) or are more appropriately borne by society as a whole through government-funded health care financed by taxes (which, given the nature of a pandemic means everyone is at risk, may be quite appropriate as well). Now, if we want the drug companies to do their work (whether for specific illnesses or in general), perhaps the question should be whether the pharmacare industry is appropriately in the private sector, or should be taken over by government, but given the worldwide nature of pharamcare, that would be a huge undertaking to get international consensus. I guess drugs developed in Country X could be sold to other nations at a profit and delivered within one's own borders at cost, but then the costs would depend on where the treatment was developed, and whether we have reciprocal medical pricing treaties with that nation (if they also have public, rather than private, pharmacare). That's not a Coronavirus-specific issue, but the costs of medical treatment aren't unique to coronavirus either. "Lucky you, you have caught the Pandemic of the Month and qualify for 15% off on treatment" versus "sorry, your illness is less common and we still charge full rates - you should have come down with COVID-19 instead of colon cancer"? I think we are straying to the "politics" thread, if not a thread specific to appropriate funding of health care.

That sounds like the cost if you can produce it without contributing to the costs of creating the drug itself. If those costs will never be recoverable, why would any business incur them? So how much more than that $70 million was spent by Gilead in development and testing this "promising" drug (still not certain it is effective, I note), costs not shared by generic producers who pay no royalties. Do you think the doctors and nurses treating COVID-19 patients now should all be working for free as well? It is a pandemic, after all! It's all too easy to suggest that other people should donate their time, efforts and money. As has been noted on these Boards, we in North America are quite affluent compared to the rest of the world. What if we each donated the cost of our computers and one years' Internet access to help cover these medical costs?

So would we also tax, say, the accumulating value of auto workers' pension plans, and of personal residences? The US does have a wealth tax - the estate tax - but it's a once in a (end of) lifetime tax.

It's easy to toss out comments like that. I wonder what the cost would be if the drug company removed its profit margin. Would the researchers who developed the drug (and all of those working to develop other treatments) be expected to work for free? How about the doctors, nurses and support staff at the medical facilities where the treatment will be administered? Should the components with which the drug is manufactured be donated by their manufacturers (or at least reduced to no profit margin)? Do you expect the transport companies that ship the drug to do so at no profit, and the employees who transport the drug to donate their time? Every organization along the chain has premises and overhead costs - should those be donated by landlords, office supply companies, utility companies, etc.? The reality is that nothing is free, and every cost along the chain adds to the cost of the treatment.

Actually, he said Not "my GM requires gestures or incantations be taken even on all spells" or even "I assume gestures and incantations are required", but "if I just hold an action using gestures or incantations as the trigger, am I good to go?" So the first question is "what are the terms of the magic system in use in your game?" I guess he does not "lose the spell", since, unlike D&D, he does not have limited uses of each spell. Unless, of course, the magic system in use requires him to have limited charges. "I'll attack anyone who makes gestures or starts incanting"? What stops my Warrior from muttering "Iggitty Aggitty Ook - AK AK" in an attempt to draw fire away from the spellcaster?

Meanwhile...some airlines are moving back to full bookings. The candour of one airline - “Because [of] the economics of our industry, most airlines have a break-even load factor of 75 to 80 percent, so clearly capping flights at 55 to 60 percent, which is what we’re doing right now … is not sustainable.” – gives us an idea what the next few months will hold. Comparing 55% to 75%, and 60% to 80%, raising the ticket price by 35% or so would raise the revenues for 55 - 60% load to 75% to 80% load. So, are we willing to pay that much more for air travel in order to enable the airlines to operate under a model which permits social distancing?

To the question of downvotes, I agree they are unhelpful. All we really see is that one poster prefers to "award" negative, rather than positive, feedback. Much like the social contract can differ between gaming groups, it also differs between Internet groups. I don't think the social norm on these Boards is frequent use of downvotes. In fact, I cannot think of any other poster who uses them at all, much less routinely. I don't care much, as a downvote doesn't really mean anything, especially in the context of these Boards where their lack of usage makes them meaningless even as "feedback". At one time, the Boards had negative and positive REP, and negative REP caused enough issues to be switched off by the Boards' admin. It would not bother me at all to see downvotes similarly deleted, if that is an option in the SW.

To me, the question was "Will holding an action to target anyone who gestures or incants allow the character to reliably interrupt spellcasting?" The answer is "maybe". It depends on the spellcaster, which depends in part on the magic system. If gestures and incantations are not required limitations, then the answer is "no, it will only interrupt spells which have taken one of those limitations voluntarily". Waiting for someone to mumble "Unga Bunga" will be useless if magic in the game is entirely cast by sheer force of will, with no visible or audible cues, or if Magic requires lengthy preparations to slot in a few spells which can then be cast instantly at a later point in time. GB(I), your RAW is only relevant IF the power requires Gestures or Incantations. Perhaps, in our game, the character requires a magical wand to cast spells, but need neither Gesture nor Incant. So you Hold an action, the opponent brandishes his Wand, you win the opposing DEX roll (no guarantee of that), hit him (again, not guaranteed) and get 12 STUN and 3 BOD past his defenses, and hurl him violently to the floor. And he points his Want at you, and suddenly...you are a toad. He had a 15 CON, so he was not Stunned, and nothing you did prevented use of his Focus. Maybe you should have used a Disarm instead of a Takedown...

I am more envisioning the Extra Limbs as an added investment to the Clinging Damage Shield to avoid the need to maintain a "grab" with one or more of his hands.

Sounds like Extra Limbs - only for sticky grabs. Note that later editions removed buying each limb separately - unlimited "limbs" is not overly expensive.

It can't be politics!

I prefer to say "more volatile". If that is the desired result, then it is not "bad" per se. If you want no volatility, pick Standard Effect for 3/die. No one does, because the average both before and after defenses is lower, but that is another tradeoff for lower volatility. One suggestion I once made for the "stun multiple" was to allow for both: - lower volatility KAs where 5 points = 1d6; STUN is the roll on the dice less 1/2 of the dice (so -6 for a 12 DC KA) and BOD was 1 on a 1-5 and 2 on a 6; 12d6 averages 30 STUN and 14 BOD vs the normal average of 14 BOD x 2.67 = 33 STUN; and - higher volatility normal attacks where 15 points = 1d6; BOD is roll -1 (minimum 1/die, so 2.67 average BOD per d6) and STUN is BOD x 1d6, so 12 DC would average 11 BOD and 37.33 STUN (but that average BOD could work out to 66 STUN on a high multiple).

As he said, he saw it from the inability to move to "d6-1" instead of 1/2d6 when adding DCs from STR, velocity, etc., and not from pricing. I've considered a 3 point scale like +1/2D6-1 average BODY 0.5 cost 3 points +1 BOD (or +1/2d6-1) average BODY 1 cost 6 points +1/2d6 average BODY 2 cost 9 points 1D6-1 average BODY 2.5 cost 12 points 1D6 average BODY 3.5 cost 15 points Two increments of +1 BOD and 3 of 0.5 - still not perfect, but it removes the "may as well go d6-1" element. As to the "it may add nothing", I think we have to price to objective math. Pre-6e KAs may roll a low stun multiple and do no damage, but the potential of a huge hit past defenses made them mathematically better at passing STUN through to targets with higher defenses.

Last week, we had an MP in Parliament call a second MP a racist. When he refused to apologize when requested by the Speaker of the House, he was removed. Now, let's restate. One MP referred to a second MP using a derogatory and offensive term, and as a consequence was removed from the House. We talk a lot about discrimination based on sexuality, gender, race, religion - a wide variety of distinctions. Then we refer to "everyone with Characteric X" being more or less the same, generally bad. Isn't that, in itself, discrimination? But it's OK if we simply say that "All law enforcement officers are generically bad, whether they are straight WASP males or lesbian black muslims." Discrimination only ends when we judge individuals on their own merits, not by any other supposedly "defining" characteristic. Of course, that would be difficult and take a long time. Can't we just do something quick so we can feel better, even if it is largely meaningless and solves nothing? It's always worked in the past * so why not now? * Assuming we accept "allowed us to go back to our routine, ignoring the deeper issues, until the bottled-up issues explode again later".

Once you've taken your action, you cannot abort until the next segment. Whether he has used his full move or not moved at all is irrelevant. Or use a little strategy band don't automatically act as soon as your DEX permits you to act. This depends on how your game plays Held Actions. 6eV2p20 says "With the GM’s permission, a character can Hold his Action “generically,” without declaring any sort of precondition for acting, and then may perform whatever Action he wants to whenever he wants to.". That is the manner in which I see most games allow Held actions. DEX order also only impacts an Abort if both characters act on the same phase. Pricing is always relative. DEX provides initiative and DEX skill bonuses, and I'd say 5 points for +1 to all DEX rolls and 5 points for +5 to action order is OK. I'd say that INT and PRE are underpriced by comparison, though. They also grant bonuses to a significant characteristic roll linked to many skills, and a second benefit (PRE attacks or PER rolls). I'd set the pricing of +1 to all rolls with that characteristic at a base cost of 5 points, and the secondary benefit (+1 PER rolls; +5 INIT; +1d6 PRE attacks) at 5 points, which would price PRE and INT at 2 points, the same as DEX. I'd also leave PRE defense exclusive to EGO and consider either "only EGO rolls" or "only defense (PRE and mental powers) -1 limitations on EGO. All that said, though, I find initiative not all that valuable, at least to my playstyle with most characters. Where multiple attacks depend on a single roll, DFC avoids all of the attacks,so DFC only needs to be done once to avoid the full Multi-attack sequence. P 86, at least to me, addresses the possibility that Roller is attacked again while still prone from DFC.