Ulryk

Re: 80's Champions Name: New Wave Knockout Female, 19 High DEX, COM, INT Low EGO, PRE Martial Artist Dresses in Day-glo, thin silver studded black leather belts, wrist bangles, and pastel sneakers with leg warmers. Has big hair, always has a can of Aquanet handy (may even give her a fire based cone EB using the can and a bic) Knows all the new wave dances and can gator, spaz and backflop like a pro (like a foward flip but you intentionally fall flat on your back, the peanut does it in the Mr. peanut Saturday Night commercial that is currently running if you dont' know) Favorite movie: American Ninja Favorite Song: Turning Japanese Second Favorite song: Kung Fu Fighting Favorite video game: Karate Champ Favorite TV show: Original Kung Fu reruns Car owned (or wanted): DeLorian (what else??)

Re: Growing love for Star Hero and Sci-Fi games. Well I think the best way would be to tailor a one-shot adventure to the likes of the group, while showcasing the strengths of HERO. If they are combat monsters, have SpecOps type adventure with plenty of high tech gadgets like thermal imaging to see through walls, and hover belts to scale the side of the building quickly, laser microphones to read the vibrations off the glass to gain info on what they are saying... all the way up to nano devices that allow you to 'phase alter' walls so they can pass right through, and mind scanners to see who is really the bad guy in the group of enemies. I'd also make sure to add in ambush combat where the PCs ambush the bad guys with sniper type head shots (something that is not so easy to do in D&D modern) anything SpecOps usually goes over big with combat types and gives you a chance to roll them into another type of play like investigation. As far as investigative types, give them plenty of the hacking/data mining stuff. Play up the constructs that are built using the exact same system as the character generation. Even give them gadget pools and let them 'have at it' the freedom may intimidate them at first but any good investigator worth his salt would drool for a gadget pool in an RPG. For roleplayers get involved in the stellar nobility that is so common in many sci-fi rpg's. the 'court intrigue' possible in space games is as detailed if not more than most D&D games. If you don't have nobility in your setting let them rub elbows with the corporate elite or leaders of powerful political entities. For character developers, Hero is a pretty easy sell, you just have to pave the way for them a bit and build things for them. As they get used to it they will be detailing ther own characters in no time.

Nightvision is defined as allowing the user to see in total darkness as if it were normal daylight (not including the power Darkness) Ultraviolet Perception is defined as perceiving the ultraviolet range of light allowing the user to see in near total darkness as long as there is a source of ultraviolet light. All the way from full daylight to near total darkness the two enhanced senses work comparably. But in total darkness only one of the two works, yet they both cost 5 points each. My question is, what is the balancing factor I am missing here? Specifically in a Fantasy setting where there may not be an active UV projector that would enable seeing in total darkness without detection.

Re: Champions fans on COH, read up! Why aren't any of the CoH fans of champions playing on the... CHAMPION server?

A number of sprirts for shamans. (not undead, but totem spirits and summonable spirits.) A lot of demons with a heirarchy and power structure for demonologists.

Nice one Mike, elegant and simple. maybe a penalty equal to any surplus success points on the magic roll...

My proposed armor house rules for my campaign starting in September: (Help, Suggestions, and “ARE YOU NUTS!?!†greatly appreciated, not to mention deperately needed ) I used the mixed piece optional armor rules. Penalties for mixed sets are usually resolved by some mutually agreeable common sense averaging with Breastplates and Leggings counting as two pieces of armor each. All armor requires a WF: Armor (Type) If you wear armor without the requisite training you double all applicable penalties. There are 6 types of armor, and two groups. Each WF: Armor (Type) is 1 point, or the a group can be had for 2 points WF: Flexible Armor Flexible Light, Flexible Medium, and Flexible Heavy WF: Rigid Armor Rigid Light, Rigid Medium, and Rigid Heavy Heavy Armor is a –2 DCV Medium Armor is a –1 DCV Rigid Armor is –DEF to Dex rolls Flexible Armor is – ½ DEF to Dex rolls (round down) Any metal armor also contributes a –DEF penalty to magic rolls Metal Reinforced non-metal armor contributes a penalty to magic rolls equal to the difference of the reinforced version from it’s base, with a minimum of 1. Rigid armor covering the arms gives a penalty to Ranged OCV equal to its penalty to DCV. (i.e. a full suit of rigid heavy armor gives a –2 OCV to ranged combat, an archer wearing rigid medium leather pauldrons or vambraces will have a –1 OCV to ranged combat.) This is NOT cumulative, but any one piece of armor that gives these penalties will suffice to earn the penalty. Flexible armor cannot be built with the ‘hardened’ advantage. (This is more of a disadvantage than it seems. There are plenty of mundane armor piercing weapons in my campaign and most can be had at reasonable cost.) Tailored armor halves any applicable penalties. (round down) But is 10 times as expensive. (as long as you are of typical humanoid build) There are a number of materials that will alter the armor’s penalties. (i.e. Bone, Mithril, Adamantine, Wood, Eog, Ithloss, Laen, etc.) and there are a few magical treatments that will alter their penalties. (Ask your Friendly Local Armor Enchanter [FLAE]. But be prepared to pay…) [partially detailed but definitely not tested] This system does not take weight into account. I usually just play encumbrance by ear as it can be a lot of game slowing book keeping that usually has little effect on play. If the player starts carrying everything he can find I just start applying invisible penalties and warn him that he feels overburdened. If they ignore these warnings, then they begin to drop things as they lose control of their inventory. (items they had before they became the party ox are best ) This is how the armors listed in FH break down… Flexible Light Armor Heavy Cloth Padded Cloth Woven Cord Soft Leather Flexible Medium Armor Heavy Leather Heavy Animal Hides Flexible Heavy Armor Chainmail Double Mail/Bar mail Reinforced Mail Rigid Light Armor Cuir-Bouilli Brigandine Rigid Medium Armor Lamellar Banded Plate and Chain Rigid Heavy Armor Plate Armor Field Plate Armor Full Plate Armor There are other base armor types but they are rare, expensive and the GM’s secret.

From a recent Gamespy Gencon coverage article... "arithmetic-intensive"... "doing the math personally"... I hope this guy comes to SoCal GenCon... I REALLY want to show him how easy grammar school math is... Come on buddy, it's fractions, not differential equations!!

I think the most important consideration is how well setting books sell. If they are movers, invest. Sitters? Conserve.

The only D&D books I like are the FR books. Part of it is the page detail and formatting. The parchement look gives you the feel of some ancient tome. It's a nice touch that if you have the means is a good addition. If you don't then it's the first to omit. The more important issue is setting detail. You can have pages and pages of people, places, and things, but if that's the sum of it all then it's just a more focused genre book. The setting needs intriguing combinations of detail, bits that for the most part can be ignored but add a ton of character to the setting just by being known. For example, the cosmology section of the forgotten realms main book has a detailed section on what happens to your spirit/soul when you die. It goes into the life you led, who you followed, how you died, and then what happens to you(r soul). For the most part this will never be seen by a player. In MMO RPG's this is a big no-no because you don't spend dev cycles on content that 1% of your customers see in 1% of their gaming experience. Now the FR player will see the afterlife if he does planar travel or gets gated or something else that is equally remote, but it's always there for everyone else just to provide campaign flavor/feel/character This is the part of the detail and character of the campaign that cannot be omitted, or it's simply not as good a setting as can be had elsewhere.

I thought it was a bad movie with John Travolta and Christian Slater in it. Well, except for that Mediterranean thing in the 60's... now THAT was bad. Any other meaning and I seriously doubt a Hero forum would be where you learned about it. If you ever learned about it.

Actually FH had an extremely detailed setting... Shadow World by TK Amthor. It was originally made for Rolemaster, but some of the material had extremely well detailed Hero stats. some of the other books only added those stats as an after thought, but it sure didn't take much to convert from RM. That being said, I really look forward to an official FH setting.

Ben, The first (upper left) quarter entry on the spell form has a typo in it. "E fect___f________" The race form does as well in the title bar... "F antasy Race Portfolio"

Pirates of the Caribbean age of reason, pirates, cannons, and higher tech than typical medieval fantasy. With the undead and the curse though it actually makes for a good low fantasy swashbuckling setting. And it's a really fun movie if you can get past Depp's eye shadow. Dungeons and Dragons...... ... BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! ok, I couldn't keep a straight face. This movie shows you how to have all the right elements and still do it completely wrong. Come on, with everything else wrong with it I think they could have left out the intimidating captain of the wizard's guard wearing blue metallic lipstick... I wonder how many times his torture victims die from laughter as opposed to the torture? Ulryk

Incredible sales in San Diego. First day it arrived I called my usual FLGS in the morning, by the time I left for lunch they were sold out already. I was fairly bummed, but took a chance on a small comic book store on Mira Mesa that stocks a smaller variety and quantity than my main store. I found three copies there and quickly snagged all three for myself and two friends that I work/game with. I don't beleive there is now a single copy for sale in SD. Everyone I asked is ordering more. Great job Steve (Again!) Ulryk