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Re: Sci-fi the 60's way: Strategic Space Command My pleasure. I already bought two of the ships that one of the guys is making out of resin. They should be here by Tuesday.

I'm not sure how many of you were into model building, but AMT (The guys who made Star Trek models for like decades) tried to come up with a home grown line of ships and a world setting that did not have a movie or TV show behind it. The designer of the ships was the guy who designed the Botany Bay for the Khan episode of Trek. Anyway, they made one ship (picture attached), it wasn't a huge success and the line got dropped... Until now that is... There's a raging storm of creativity over here: http://www.starshipmodeler.net/cgi-bin/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=39 About how to make their dream of a fleet and cohesive setting a reality. The first step was making a ship similar to the one AMT released, the Leif Ericson. I thought some more rubber science types and nostalgists might get a kick out it. Seems like a great start for a different kind of Star Hero cmapaign.

Re: Math is hard... Heh. Yeah, Champions and V&V improved my basic math skills to a terrifying degree. I can't do higher math to save my or anyone else's life, but that simple stuff, that's high speed cake now.

Anyone who plays Hero/Champions knows that the main complaint most people trot out is there is too much math involved in just making a PC. Does anyone else remember making your Villains and Vigilantes characters with a freaking scientific calculator to calculate Hit Points and Lift capacity??? I swear...you youngins and your math. Spoiled I say, spoiled. Anyhoo, that came up as I was looking at my Avatar and remembering what was actually involved in Character creation in V&V. I now return you to your regular programming.

Okay, I'm dense. I'm also a huge LSH fan, so this is unforgivable, but does anyone know if the Ultra slot was coined from Ultra-Boy?

I've been pondering this for oh...most of the time since I heard about the planned release. What will people do with GC? Will you make the Legion of Superheroes? Guardians of the Galaxy? Star Trek with the single meanest away team ever? Star wars and we'll finally show those Jedi what power really is? Now some of this is going to depend on whether or not you're going to wait and see what the supplied campaign material is, but I was just curious what people's initial thoughts might be.

Re: World creation help (Magic system question) Thanks Markdoc, that's exactly what I'm trying to do in my world. Glad to hear I wasn't delusional when I thought it was a good idea.

Re: M&M: this is a Nightmare? Oh, I have no doubt that the color plates and the hardcover are most of the cost, it's just more than I'm willing to pay for that little actual content.

Re: M&M: this is a Nightmare?

So I've seen a few of the ideas here about magic and wanted to bounce this one off of folks to see if it flies or if I should head back to the drawing board. Looking through FH, I liked and adapted the machine at the center of the planet that hands out magic idea. Magic in this world is a quantifible and known science. The right gestures and incantations will always get you the same result. Now that's the fluff. This also only applies to the arcane guys. The divines work differently so we'll skip them for now. The mechanics I was thinking of are as follows. Spells cost full. This limits the number of spells but... Each Arcane is a "specialist" in a given school. This is the Magic skill that has the highest ranking at character creation (Earth Magic, Conjuration, what have you). Since this affinity is the result of /years/ of training, it must remain at least one point higher than all other magic skills baring an extraordinary RP reason. For that one school, the arcane caster is allowed to make a MP. So a conjurer could have a Conjuration MP. This is to make it easier and far cheaper for them to get spells that fall within their affinity. Since spells are all "full cost", you can have spells outside your affinity, but you will obviously gain those of your school faster and easier. This to me solves the problem of spell cost and number of spells compared to "inate abilities", but still limits the arcane spell casters in a quantifible way. The logic to me was that in RL, you can have a guy that is a whiz at Chemistry and Biology, but generally they excel at one of those over the other. Thoughts? Pitfalls I might have missed in my logic?

Re: Things a wise super hero should NEVER say The Ultimate Bonnie & Clyde/Hollywood no-no... "Nothing can stop us now!" At which point you get hit by a train, blown up by a bomb, etc. etc.

Re: Authority supplement cover shot Pretty cover, liked the art in the comic, hated the story with a deep and abiding passion. And I agree, it's not Ellis, as I'm a faithful follower of Planetary. I'll give the supplement a pass.

Re: Team Archetpes For the family teams, there are also Busiek's "First Family", Marvel's The Inhumans and Eternals (Though both of the latter also flit with other archetypes like "Gathering of Champions" as they also tend to be the best of the best in addition to being related.) What about the Appointed protectors? The Green Lantern Corps, The Darkstars (I think that's who replaced the GLC after Hal went crazy) and from CU, the Starguard (4th Ed.)

Re: Recamended Reading Hrmmm...some more options: The Vlad Taltos series by Steven Brust (You can now get the first 7 books in Trade format, The Book of Jhereg, The book of Athyra, The book of Taltos). Mentioned by Steve Long in FH, and a fun, not to mention very different, type of hero. The Hawk and Fisher series by Simon R. Green (Two compelation books, Guards of Haven and Swords of Haven and two novels, Blue moon rising and Beyond the Blue Moon. Not your traditional fare, but Hawk and Fisher are to me, awesome heroes. They are nigh unstoppable but they get run down and ambushed and tired out just like real people. Kinda neat that. I'm currently re-reading Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks for kicks and some creative juices enhancement.

Re: So, Who Else Is Gonna Grab Galactic Champions ASAP?? Yeah, it's on my "must have" short list as well. Asuuming my headhunter comes through, I might not even have to sell more stuff on E-bay to get it.

Re: A construction question on special "classes" That's pretty much how I see it too. It's more of an out of game SFX than an in game one. I kind of reasoned that in essence that limitation does not actually limit the Multipower.

Re: Recamended Reading I remember those as a fun romp. Author: David Eddings (I think his wife joins him either later during the Mallorean or slightly after that) You can get the 1st three books of the Belgariad in a compelation, ISBN: 0345456327 (The Belgariad, Volume 1: Pawn of Prophecy, Queen of Sorcery, Magician's Gambit) for only 12 or so bucks, new.

One of the things I like in concept are d20's prestige classes. I want to make something similar to them for Hero, but more along the lines of "Secrets that have to be discovered" sort of things. Ancient ways of doing something, forgotten magics or skills, etc. In doing some initial planning, I hit a small stumbling block. I want some of these to be racial specific. Like the Starbow archers are only Elven of a certain branch or something similar. So if I have say a Multipower that is only usable by Elves...and only by a select group of them, is that actually a disadvantage? My gut tells me it is a SFX and nothing more. However, I could see an argument that if the PC got transformed into a toad or a human or something, they couldn't access this mystical warrior hoo-ha. Likewise if in RP they got kicked out of the group, they could lose access to this power. So is this a conditional disad to their potential MP worth say -1/4 since it is most definitely in the "One forth the time or less" category? Thoughts and ideas appreciated.

Re: Anyone remeber these I cannot believe that I completely forgot about that write-up. I'm going to have dig that out from the archive shelf. Still, would have been nice to see him a la Seeker/Watchers in an Ultimate Armor book.

Re: Aircraft Carrier...*Rant on* *Nod* It's a problem mostly endemic with anything other than a harrier or a Yak-36. To get a true Supersonic interceptor/attack plane, you need a bigger engine with a LOT more thrust. To get more range, you need more fuel and thus a heavier plane. To carry a worthwhile warload, you need a heavier plane. It just spirals up and up until you have these planes that weigh about twice what the Harrier does blowing holes in the asphalt. When the USMC updated the Harrier II, they only upped the engine incrementally. The huge change was to the wings and pilot area. Bigger wings, more lift, rolling takeoffs. Presumably you drop the munitions and come back with less fuel so the Harrier is now light enough to land vertically. It's not uncommon even among conventional aircraft though, a fully loaded Tomcat can't land on a carrier (Unless they fixed that with F-14D, I know it was a huge problem with the A/B)

Re: Anyone remeber these I liked the Seeker from "Watchers of the Dragon". The character had some interesting choices as he grew (Man did he have a lot of contacts!!) but he felt right. What I always wanted to see was Defender at 450 or so.

Re: Aircraft Carrier...*Rant on* Ah, but that starts a whole new area of fun, the blast from the V/TOL ripping up or melting the flight deck. I'm not sure how the Soviets were ever going to get around that problem with the Freestyle as it used to blow chunks of asphalt out of the runway. Though the JSF has some promise with a cooler mixture and diffused force on impact. Once you get to big planes though, it's hole digging time! Lemming: Ah, thanks, I'll go cruise a bit and read. EDIT: Agreed, if it's funny, I'd let clown land a Saturn V on the flightdeck.

Re: Aircraft Carrier...*Rant on* Not much is actually going to fit on that carrier if it's modern and has fixed wings. IIRC, the Majestic class had an airwing of about 40 in WW2, but then we're talking Seafires and Corsairs, not anything remotely modern. When she was upgraded as the Minas Geras, I'm pretty sure they were operating Skyhawks off the decks and ramping up to Etendards. With Skyhawks (Which are relatively teeny tiny little jets) the airwing was something like 20 aircraft, but I think that included the helo contingent as well. (And that was between 6-8 helos) So my question basically, do they want to actually land planes on it? If so, how big? In addition to the catapults, arrestor wires and gear probably needing a HUGE upgrade, I'd bet hard currency that the elevators couldn't handle the weight much less the size of say your typical one off ex-USAF Super recon plane used by most groups as a team plane. A quinjet would work though.

FATAL...Good Lord I'd almost managed to forget about that. Anyway... Peeves from my gaming (most already stated) Consideration: If I tell you the game is at 1, you say I'll see you at 1, and then don't show up until 4 without letting me know about it, don't be surprised if I'm mad. Consideration Part 2: You live three doors down from me, please do not bring dishes over from your house and ask me to wash them for you. You have your own house after all. The annoyance: Yes, I know you like new RPing experiences, but playing a guy who decides that the flesh eating zombie was a hoax and decides to do nothing while everyone else is loading guns deserves what he gets. The Professional Nudge: I'm pretty sure I said the goal of this game was to have a group that did things together, not to have 5 other PC's that have to keep coming up with reasons NOT to kill you... Consideration Part 3: If I call and tell you it's noon and I'm going to eat now so that we can get started promptly at 1, please don't come over, BS for an hour and then order food. Especially not since you live 3 doors down from me and should have been able to take care of all of this on your time. The Rules: You've been playing that character for what, a year now? And you still don't know how to roll a to hit? Or what your spells do? Or your powers? Or your feats? Yes, that is a nice drawing of a horsie. Please take your dishes and go home, the game is over for tonight.

Definitely European Enemies, specifically Mandlebrot. Many hours of fun were had reciting his quote in bewilderment though....