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Barwickian

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Posts posted by Barwickian

  1. Hmm... Champion fencer, karateka, botanist, charismatic, handsome, intelligent, supremely physically fit, tactician, helmsman, weapons officer and later President of the UFP.

     

    Sulu may end up using more points than Spock...

  2. All good points. Kirk does use the diving tackle a lot. Weaponsmith's a good call at lower level, and the Military KS at higher level. The archaic WFs aren't going to be much use on the adventure I'd planned, but it will open up the sheet for re-use in different adventures.

  3. THoughts on this build? It's a pregen for a con, so want to keep it relatively simple.

     

    James T. Kirk


    VAL    CHA    Cost    Roll    Notes
    13    STR    3    12-    HTH Damage 2 1/2d6  END [3]
    15    DEX    10    12-
    13    CON    3    12-
    16    INT    6    12-    PER Roll 12-
    18    EGO    8    13-
    20    PRE    10    13-    PRE Attack: 4d6
    6    OCV    15
    6    DCV    15
    0    OMCV    -9
    3    DMCV    0
    3    SPD    10    Phases:  4, 8, 12
    5    PD    3    5 PD (0 rPD)
    5    ED    3    5 ED (0 rED)
    6    REC    2
    25    END    1
    13    BODY    3    
    30    STUN    5

    Movement    Cost    Meters    Notes
    RUNNING    0    12m/24m    END [1]
    SWIMMING    0    4m/8m    END [1]
    LEAPING    0    4m    4m forward, 2m upward





    Characteristics Total: 88

    Cost    Powers
    15    Luck 3d6 - END=0

    Powers Total: 15

    Cost    Martial Arts
    3    Martial Throw:  1/2 Phase, +0 OCV, +1 DCV, 2 1/2d6 +v/10, Target Falls
    4    Martial Strike:  1/2 Phase, +0 OCV, +2 DCV, 4 1/2d6 Strike

    Martial Arts Total: 7

    Cost    Skills
    3    Charm 13-
    11    Tactics 16-
    3    Riding 12-
    8    Survival (Temperate/Subtropical, Tropical, Desert, Mountain) 12-
    3    High Society 13-
    3    Combat Piloting 12-
    4    TF:  Common Motorized Ground Vehicles, Science Fiction & Space Vehicles, Equines
    8    WF:  Beam Weapons, Common Melee Weapons, Energy Weapons, Vehicle Weapons (group)
    3    Conversation 13-
    3    Deduction 12-
    3    Interrogation 13-
    3    Oratory 13-
    3    Systems Operation 12-
    20    +2 with All Attacks
    4    PS 13-
    2    CuK 11-
    2    KS 11-
    2    Paramedics 10-
    2    Science Skill:  Astrogation 11-

    Skills Total: 90

    Cost    Perks
    4    Fringe Benefit:  Captain
    4    Positive Reputation (A large group) 11-, +2/+2d6

    Perks Total: 8


    Value    Complications
    5    Distinctive Features:  Star Fleet Uniform (Easily Concealed; Noticed and Recognizable; Detectable By Commonly-Used Senses)
    20    Social Complication:  Subject to orders (Very Frequently; Major)
    15    Psychological Complication: Sense of Duty:  (Common; Strong)
    10    Hunted:  Star Fleet Command Infrequently (Mo Pow; NCI; Watching)

    Complications Points: 50

    Base Points: 175
    Experience: 33
    Experience Unspent: 0
    Total Character Cost: 208

  4. Damaged covers Hero offer are usually very minor, the kind of thing your book would pick up in a couple of sessions' use. I rodered a couple of damaged 6e core books and, to be honest, I couldn;t tell they were damaged.

     

    And Hero's P&P rates are excellent. I don't know how Jason does it, to be honest - international rates from US-based shops are pretty usually horrible at the moment. Some of the shopkeepers have been complaining about it on Facebook - it's not them, the USPS rates they have to pay have gone through the roof.

     

    I ordered a Chessex megamat a few months ago: $35 for the mat, $90 for the P&P. After one Pathfinder Pawn subscription delivery I unsubscribed - the P&P was more than the cover price of the box. No matter how good Pathfinder Pawns are (superb, in my opinion), I can't addord to keep buying them and havign them shipped. There's other stuff I'd rather have - like the old FASA Trek stuff I have coming from Noble Knight, Wayne's Books and Dragon's Trove, replacing the stuff I regret selling back in the '80s. I'm trying not to think about the postage on those - but it felt worthwhile paying the $40 extra for the Deluxe Trek rules rather than the basic ones... and I finally got round to ordering RQ6 in hardcopy - the P&P for that is much better, as it's coming from Canadaland.

     

    Here in the Arabian desert, we don't have much in the way of FLGSes. A couple of local bookshops carry Pathfinder and D&D4 and plenty of boardgames, and at least one venue carries Games Workshop stuff, but for anything else we have no choice but to order online. Even dice...

     

    Failing that, we tend to buy PDFs and print out as necessary.

  5. Very cool. I had one of these books as a kid, and loved it dearly (and it may still be knocking around somewhere) - hadn't realised there was more than one book until I saw the notes to the video.

     

    Several of my favourites from the book I had made it into the video. I remember the Tarantula as being solid-hulled, rather than open-framed, though.

  6. While I applaud the artistic novelty of #887' date=' especially in light of Mr. Burlew's recovering hand, I am completely failing to understand what he is depicting or how it advances the plot. Dream sequence? Mass hallucination? Final wrap-up for the strip? Anybody have a clue?[/quote']

     

    Look at the Order's eyes in the previous strip. You're now seeing the hallucination they're experiencing, through their eyes.

  7. I appreciate the delinking of primary and figured characteristics because the formulae were off, as Killer Shrike points out on his website.

     

    However, I did find they provide players (and myself) with a useful handle on what typical values could be - it makes some sense that endurance and constitution are related in some fashion, for example.

     

    Here's how I handle it: http://www.penultimateharn.com/hero/6echaracteristics.html

  8. Goredale Scar is a real location that is (perhaps) fantasy. Some say it's Tolkien's inspiration for Rivendell - to get this, you have to think of the description of the dwarves' route in The Hobbit.

     

    [ATTACH=CONFIG]n44545[/ATTACH]

     

    [ATTACH=CONFIG]n44546[/ATTACH]

     

    Gordale Scar is just a few kilometres from Malham Cove, a natural limestone ampitheatre with a limestone pavement above it. Imagine it stretched out over hundreds of miles, and I think you have Kal Turak's Wall from The Turakian Age.

     

    [ATTACH=CONFIG]n44547[/ATTACH]

     

    [ATTACH=CONFIG]n44548[/ATTACH]

     

    [ATTACH=CONFIG]n44549[/ATTACH]

     

    (Edit: There is some oddness in the way this post appears to me, which I attribute to the ongoing forum issues. If the photos don;t appear, click the links and they'll appear. Simon is doing an awesome job, but no one can work miracles, however close he comes to it.)

     

  9. Either. But I like heavy amounts of detail that makes sense in context.

     

    My favourite fantasy world is Harn, because it has its head in the clouds but its feet planted firmly in the soil (and can tell you what the quality of the soil is and what'll grow there).

     

    My favourite published historical fantasy world is Grahame Staplehurst's Robin Hood (written for Fantasy Hero 3rd, MERP and RM classic), because although it plays pretty loosely with history, it does use authentic medieval fantasy elements.

     

    Should I ever finish the research (and I'm at 15 years or more on it), my own published fantasy setting will be the Anarchy of England in the 12th century. It's one of two settings in Staplehurst's work, but my history will be more solid. For example, werewolves will exist, because they do in the legends of the time - but did you know that it's no sin to kill a werewolf if God has made it so - but it is a sin to kill one created by a magician? Yup, medieval thologians debated the topic. The reasoning is that a man turned into a wolf by God is truly a wolf; a man, on the other hand, cannot change the true essence of something, so a man changed to a wolf by a magician is still a man, though he looks like a wolf.

     

    Also, 12th-century 'fairies' (I put the word in inverted quotes, because the word fairy dates only from the 14th century; there was no word for them in the 12th century) do not seem to fear church bells, and have no problems with consecrated ground - one was even baptised with no harm done. I theorise that the allergy to Christianity developed only later, after the great population explosion of the late-12th/13th century, when churches became more common. Most of what people think of as 'authentic' historical fairy lore developed in the Elizabethan period (Ars Magica's fairies fall into this trap, for example).

  10. Worth watching. She makes some valid points.

     

    There's another nice issue as well. In 9 months, Sarkeesian's YouTube video promoting her Kickstarter had 315,000 views. In 5 days, the first of her Tropes vs Women in Video Gaming has had 880,000 views.

     

    Yes, I'm aware not everyone who supported her Kickstarter, blogged about it or hated on her (particularly the latter), will have gone to her YouTube channel. But I think the figures show she's making an impact.

     

    I sincerely hope video game designers sit up and take notice. The rest of us should as well.

     

    Damsel in distress? Let me hark back to a cheesy 80s flick: "She rescues him right back."

     

    I think I have to do a series of images undermining this whole theme, when I get the chance to get back to some digital art. I did a she resuces her some time ago, but it does need reworking, I think a she rescues him and a he rescues him are necessary - ff anyone has to rescue anyone of course.

     

    (My all-time favourite rescue: The 'Almeida moment' from 24. Jack Bauer's in crud up to his eyeballs, surrounded and pinned down, when Tony Almeida, the shell of his former self, just walks in and blows the bad guys away. Casually. That, my friends, is how the rescue scenario is done: Jack is awesome; Tony is awesomer.)

  11. Re: Genre-crossover nightmares

     

    Wait! That could be good!

     

    This, however...could be considered religiously offensive. And yes, that really is Christoph Waltz as Jesus.

     

     

    Not nearly as offensive as the fat white guy on the Fox News diatribe that follows it on YouTube.

     

    Some people really don't have a clue how much privilege they have.

  12. Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

     

    The PA guys (at least the comic persona) are rude and obnoxious: it's their shtick. They're also pretty funny (at least to me) most of the time.

    I have to admit I never got the outrage over the dickwolves comment, though: most of it seemed to be the usual internet ragestorm over .... something. None of the posters I saw on the topic were very clear on precisely what - just that it was terrible.

     

    From memory, they'd made some kind of a rape gag. Somone called them out on it in the comments. Their response was dismissive at best, if not downright rude (the kind of thing you see on almost every geek site where someone calls someone else out on an -ism) - and the ragestorm broke. They made the dickwolves strip at the height of the ragestorm.

     

    All of this was before the question of women and minority representation in geek culture became a major issue last year. There were some people standing up and making points, but you'd pretty much to go looking for the issue (Bankuei's Deeper into the Game blog was my starter; he had many links to follow and read, and I did - I found it quite an eyeopener).

     

    The main issue for me was their response to the criticism - they became more entrenched and belligerent, and used their hefty voice and army of fans to mock their critics. I just didn't like the vibe there any more. I didn't like that they were encouraging people to shout down those who wanted to try and be more inclusive. Not a matter of forgiving or protesting or anything; I simply stopped enjoying my visits to their site. That it coincided with a particularly busy period in my life didn't help either. :D

     

    If the atmosphere has changed since then, I'll take another dip into the PA waters - though I scarcely have time to follow daily webcomics these days (I'm way behind on PvP and Evil Inc, which would be my first ports of call when time permits).

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