CourtFool

Re: Combat skill levels I have to agree with Stewart on this one. Talking with the player is the only solution. If you tell the player he can not do it, he will simply move on to the next rule he can exploit. If you try to creatively screw over the player, he will become paranoid and take precautions against each new tactic. You essentially create a GM vs. Players situation. Talk to him, ask him to tone it down and let his character shine every once in a while.

In Before The Lock!

You say 'necromancy' like it's a bad thing. You want I should rather start a new thread for something that has already been covered?

Re: Betterman Energy Balst Is it time to change avatars already? Are you suggesting that Limited Power would allow the power to bypass any armor? Or are you suggesting using Limited Power with Indirect?

Re: Betterman Energy Balst I do not remember, does Indirect allow you to bypass Armor bought as a Focus? Of course, how would I explain the NND against Armor that is just 'tough skin'?

Re: "Understaning limitations and advantages" I really see this as a matter of preference. Go with less book keeping and inform the players of the house rule or be a completist and write it up for every instance. I tend to be a completist as it makes it easy for me to share with others who may not include my house rule. It is also there as a reminder when I find a character sheet for a campaign I ran three years ago. In a previous Fantasy campaign, I gave the magic users a free 'Magic Awareness' sense much like Mental Awareness for free. It was included in every magic user write up.

Re: Betterman Energy Balst Well, for the lazy you could go Transform. If you want to get really wacky, you could go Summon giving the summoned 'creature' Deslodification and Affects Physical World. I would lean to Ego Blast that Does Body and hand wave SFX or some other attack power with No Normal Defense.

Killer Shrike r0xx0r5 my s0xx0r5!!!!!!11!1!11 Thanks for the clarification. I have really been burnt by the last few groups I have run Fantasy for. Hell, I have been burnt by the last few groups I have played Fantasy in. The magic users always seem to dominate and everyone else is their sidekick. I cut my teeth on Fantasy and it is one of my favorite genres, but I am gun shy now. I have been over your site a dozen times and you should know by now that I love all the work you have done. Some of your systems I have not completely grasped and the others, I have not pondered the implications of. Yes, I have read your Magic System Design Advice. I have considered Vancian Prepared Model for 'Wizards', Adeptology for 'Sorcerers' and maybe Magecraft for 'Mages'. You already suggested Luck for 'divine miracles' although that seems rather open ended for me. Not a slight on your suggestion, more of a lack of confidence in my own ability to handle it. I do not want to 'nerf' magic users. I do not want everyone else to play second fiddle to them either. I do not have a point. Just being envious of you out loud. Thanks again.

No, Log, I don't want to play in your game I agree that 40 points worth of Disadvantage should inconvenience the character. It's not an excuse to rape them every scene. I think any Disadvantage worth 20+ points requires discussion between the player and GM about expectations. This is a defining characteristic. I also feel that some GMs will use 'pet' Disadvantages more often than others. I find it hard enough to convince gamists to take meaningful Disadvantages. I do not want to penalize* them for trying. *Make them the laughingstock of the table.

Re: Regrettable Disads I have been using Disadvantages incorrectly all this time. I thought they were to add dimension and humanity to characters. Now I see they are an excuse to screw over players.

Re: spells and multi-power [derail] Killer Shrike, it seems to me that Concentration, Gestures and Incantations are not really much of a Limitation on spells with 1 Continuous Charge lasting 1 Day. Do your players generally cast them first thing in the morning or the first time they are needed? Is the limited number of charges per slot a good deterant for your players casting all their Continuous >= 1 Day spells first thing in the morning? [/derail]

Let the munchkiny begin! I always thought limiting the number of spells that could be Delayed was necessary to keep this from being the path to munchkiny godhood. I think saying it 'mitigates' them is a bit of an understatement. Magic system and situation certainly impact this directly but what is +¼ when I can put Concentration (0 DCV, -½), Increased END (END x3, -1), Extra Time (1 Minute, -1½), Gestures (-¼) and Incantations (-¼) for a total of -2½ and cast it in the relative safety of non-combat? Not to mention you could argue to toss in Activation (just keep rolling until it is successful) and Focus (do you still need the focus once the spell has actually been cast?) in for even more munchkiny. Granted, I may just be jaded because of the players I have gamed with. I know most of my groups had at least one player who would try this. Interestingly enough, the power gamer in every group is always a magic user. You could argue that you could put all of those limitations on non-combat spells too and that isn't munchkiny. However, with Delayed Effect you get to choose to fire them all up when they are not inconvenient. INT/5 seems a reasonable limit to me. +¼ for each doubling seems an easy way to munchkiny +1 would probably allow you about 32 spells to be delayed and still let you get plenty of cost break from -2½ in Limitations. Harder to cast with RSR? Yes, but you could just keep trying until you made your roll. Extra END and Extra Time hurt on the re-casting…but not so much out of combat.

Re: Essential equipment for a starting mage I would just go with Combat Luck and/or a custom Talent like Tough as Nails - Damage Resistance: 2 rPD 2 rED. Hell, a mage should have some kind of shield or protection spell.

Re: Evaluating The Hero System (Or Any Game System) I like to attempt to recreate books and movies in my games. I guess there is some simulationist in me. To me, the most important thing in books and movies are the characters. Therefore, the most important thing to me in RPG's are how they handle characters. Flexible: The game should be flexible enough to handle nearly any type of character concept. I see class based systems as counter to this. If a Rogue is suppose to be the skill monger, why does he need Sneak Attack? Consistent: The game should have some bit of consistency throughout. I am terrible at memorizing but excel at understanding concepts. I do not want to buy supplement after supplement for new abilities that are completely arbitrary and have no consistency with the core rules. I prefer a bell curve to wild randomness, but this is not a deal breaker.

Re: Unofficial Welcome Mat (For New Members) Do these innocent bystanders even know they are being welcomed?

Re: spells and multi-power That really explains a lot. Thank you for clarifying. How do you handle characters what want to start off with Finby's Floating Flotilla of Flying and Harrod's Healing Hand? Also, do you allow Variable Power Pools at all?

Re: Pirates : An amusing question. Two words for you, greed and paranoia. Why wouldn't you build a massive, complex labyrinth of death to protect your precious…er…I mean ill gotten gains? This is the first time the concept of a dungeon crawl actually makes sense to me.

D20 gamers = rpg kobolds Pretty much my thoughts exactly. Probably because I'm a 'Hey, this setting is kind of cool but these mechanics blow' kind of guy.

Huh? I am not sure I follow you, Markdoc. Are you saying that you design the spells and do not let the players design them?

Delayed Effect Doesn't Delayed Effect essentially eliminate any limitations incurred by loading Concentration, Extra Time, Gestures, Incantations, Increased END, ect.?

Re: New RPGNow Staff Review for Echoes of Heaven Oh sorry! On the RPGNow website. Follow the link I provided. You will have to contact RPGNow to fix it.

Echoes of Heaven Campaign Setting And now I have to double post. So I looked through all the Final Redoubt Press stuff on RPGNow and then on the company website. I see all these fantastic adventure seeds and adventures but I am wondering, "Where is the main campaign setting." Am I to understand it is contained within the adventures themselves?

Re: New RPGNow Staff Review for Echoes of Heaven Below the paragraph titled, "The Throne of God" last sentence. Serves all those players of other systems right! They should be playing Hero.

Noticed an error I had to laugh at his criticisms for not having any prestige classes. Really, does every supplement need a handful of more useless prestige classes? I started looking around at some of the other adventures. I thought I should point out that the Hero version of The Throne of God states, "An adventure for 3rd level characters."

Thanks to Killer Shrike...again