Earen

Re: Suggested Point Caps I guess here is where I mention that when I first started with the HERO system, it was when supers were built with 100+100 ... and we liked it! My recent FH campaign was heroic with 75+75 and no active cap ... though we threw out the first traditional fantasy characters (warrior, priest, archer) and restarted with circus performers ... to encourage a less combat-oriented style of play. The traditional characters wandered through an entire cave complex and came out in decent shape. The circus performers were seriously challenged by a couple goblins and a hobgoblin ... but I think the players felt more satisfied with the win. So I guess it depends on the players ... do they want to be facing down Balrogs their first adventure out? Or do they want to work their way up from relatively normal to something special?

Re: Did anyone else... Little necromancer girls like to play dress-up with their Ken dolls too

Re: Alternate encumbrance rules (house rules) I was just looking over it ... it looks good, personally. I'll be digging up my encumbrance rules and comparing tomorrow to see how it might work in my campaign.

Re: The great armour race...

Re: Smart Missiles I like the Summon construct better actually ... here's why ... In both "real life" and fiction: Missiles have a rate of movement. They can be outrun (though rarely). Missiles have a turn rate. They can be outmaneuvered (more common). Missiles are a physical object. They can be blown up. With the Seeking advantage you have an attack that: Instantly reaches the target. It can't be outrun or outmaneuvered. Isn't a physical attack. It can't be blown up. Both of the above can be fixed with Missile Deflection ... but that seems a very non-genre way of solving the problem. If you outrun or outmaneuver a missile, you could be halfway across the solar system by the time you do ... and out of the fight though you live to fight another day. With Missile Deflection, you're in exactly the same spot as you were before. And that doesn't even get into the idea of how to simulate countermeasures or heavily-armored missiles ... all of which are much easier to deal with if a missile is a Summon.

Re: Help me build a power

Re: Suddenly Alone on the Stations To add to the "literature as a source of ideas" portion ... the book Fallen Angels by Niven, Pournelle and Flynn.

Re: Using COMliness

Re: New Limitation: Does not Stack. Gm's please look

Re: What Would Your Character Do? #63

Re: Preliminary Skilled Magic System I did something very similar to the Ambience Magic System that Killer Shrike just posted ... though without the requirement for study. All spells were bought through a multipower. All spells required END. All spells were powered from an END Reserve (though mine have REC). Thin or thick spots existed ... as well as Mana Slaves (because all living things collect mana ... whether they can use it or not is a different story). I even have a city where they have a "mana tax" ... the tax collector comes around to package up the mana from each citizen into a little bauble that can be used by the ruling body to power spells (thereby keeping them even more firmly under their boot). I handled the REC in such a way that there was a maximum "flow" in a particular area ... you could use your REC or the area's REC, whichever is lower. I kind of like Shrike's system better for the REC thing though ...

Re: Authority supplement cover shot I had SuperWorld a long time ago ... and if you mean "very similar" as in "having virtually the same constructs and power list (albeit with different names) and pretty much identical overall design" then yes, I would concur.

Re: GEM Fighters Kind of a cool idea ... maybe if the campaign were resurrected, give the players a motivation to "bond" their gems together and share power. A collective boost or what have you ... but keeps everyone more even.

Re: What Books do I need for Fantasy hero

Re: DEX vs. CSLs Ok ... to summarize, what I'm seeing here is that Level Lad is going to be better than Dextrous Dan in Level Lad's area of expertise ... as constructed, that happens to be HtH combat. But, conversely Level Lad is going to be worse than Dextrous Dan outside that area of expertise, i.e. ranged combat. This would seem to me to be balanced ... for the same amount of points, I can decide if I want to be decent at all combat (Dextrous Dan) or very good at a particular type of combat (hoping that I can keep it to that type of combat the majority of the time). The examples above showed me where I remember CSL's flexibility coming from though. In the straight-up fight between DD and LL, LL had the flexibility to choose how to approach things ... and the skill to make it work. DD just had to "makes his rolls and takes his (albeit good) chances ..." Thanks everyone for the scads of input ... I'm feeling much better about my knowledge in this area now

Re: Preliminary Skilled Magic System

Re: What Books do I need for Fantasy hero I would say that the Fantasy Hero Grimoire has been more useful than Monsters, Minions and Marauders in my campaign ... so I would recommend the Grimoire first before MMM. On the other hand, I also have to say that MMM has been very nice for pre-made creatures that most people haven't seen before. If you have players that are guessing what awaits them before you get halfway through the flavor text ... then tossing something at them from MMM is a good way to catch them off guard. Though I would say the thing that I have used more than everything besides Hero 5th Ed and the Fantasy Hero genre book itself is Hero Designer. You will not believe how much easier it makes things until you get it. (Especially if you have players that sometimes have better things to do than keep track of character sheets ... hehe.)

Re: Star System Generators

Re: Alternative to Aid? Yeah ... unless someone comes up with a decent use, I think adding an entry into my House Rules document ruling out the use of Characteristics UAA would be prudent

Re: Star System Generators Done ... and attached.

Re: THE ULTIMATE BRICK -- What Do *You* Want To See? One thing I'd like to see that I don't think has been captured yet are potential drawbacks of brick-ness, sources of disadvantages, or just general flavor. I remember in the new Superman origin story done by John Byrne (it had Krypton in the title ... other than that, I'm drawing a blank) done in the late eighties there was a scene where Clark Kent had to go into the bathroom and turn on a razor and use his heat vision and a special mirror to shave because earthly razors wouldn't be able to cut his hair. Rising Stars #1 (by JM Straczynski) had a person who was invulnerable but that meant that his sense of touch was nigh nonexistent. Maybe a small section ...

Re: Star System Generators I needed something to do, so I tossed together a 3D distance calculator. So long as you're using a 3D Cartesian coordinate system ... it'll calculate the distances for you in whatever units you're using for the coordinate system. It's not pretty, but it works ...

Re: My FTL drive: comments?

Re: DEX vs. CSLs Thanks everyone for the responses ... I'm glad to see that there wasn't much that I missed

I've recently been bringing some long-time roleplayers, but first-time Hero players into the fold. And I was brought up with the idea (from one of the old Adventurer's Club articles) that Combat Skill Levels are generally better overall than raw DEX because they offer more flexibility. Now, personally, I don't need any convincing ... but I've got a rules-lawyer-type player (who insists that he's just "learning the system" not being a rules lawyer ... uh-huh) for whom it boils down to this: 3 points of DEX = +1 OCV and +1 DCV 3 points of DEX costs 9 Character Points 1 Overall CSL = +1 OCV or +1 DCV 1 Overall CSL costs 8 Character Points I've pointed out that CSLs can be combined to increase the DC of weapons and that one is typically concerned with OCV or DCV, but not both. I've also pointed out that DEX is subject to Drains, Supresses and Transfers whereas CSLs are, though theoretically possible, a much rarer target. But he's just not buying it. In his opinion ... DEX is what it's all about, character concept be damned. So ... what am I missing here? Obviously, I've been around Hero for a long time ... but it's been a long while since I've had anybody to play Hero System games with. Can anybody help with some examples of where CSLs are more flexible than raw DEX and worth the "extra" cost?