keithcurtis

Re: Is the Thrilling Places PDF overpriced? It's a slow week. What else can we find to complain about? Keith "Sorry, just in that kind of mood this morning" Curtis

Re: Ultimate Skill (STR Min 13) FYI, there is no link for it in the Our Product list, which still has its release date as "Tentative". Keith "wanted to see the cover" Curtis

Re: Unified Field Theory I think that's the sort of thing you have to build from. It's like trying to pour the foundation once the skyscraper is already up. What I mean is, it would require fundamental changes in the existing model. Keith "An interesting premise for a new game, however..." Curtis

Re: Morlocks in our Future! They already have. Cavewomen were coyote-ugly. Keith "Cavemen were no prize either" Curtis

Re: Skinning cats I usually just do that by describing the focus as Fragile. Then anybody can destroy it with a half-hearted kick. Keith "But the book says..." Curtis

Re: Fantasy color webcomic I'll have to burn those calories on the extra click then, I guess. Keith "Oh, the inconvenience of it all!" Curtis

Re: Fantasy color webcomic Well that helps, but it's still not direct. I'd like to add it to my list of Wednseday webcomics. I load them all in tabs with one command. It would be nice not to have to click an additional link when I get there. Keith "basically lazy" Curtis

Re: Fantasy color webcomic Storn, is there anyway to directly bookmark "the latest page"? Every time I go to see what's up, I have to start from the beginning of the chapter and futz around until I find the latest page. Keith "Navigationally flummoxed" Curtis

Re: Morlocks in our Future! Well, that's probably so, but I would think that there would be just as great a chance of developing protruding chins, without any pressure towards a survival characteristic. Keith "or purple chins, or hairy chins, or bifurcated chins..." Curtis

Re: JL421 Badonkadonk Betcha it could kick butt on Steve Austin. Keith ":)" Curtis

Re: Skinning cats Drain: Skin. Unless the skin has been bought as Inherent. (Sorry, cross-posting.) PRE Attack. (Scare it out of it's skin) 10d6 EB, only affects skin. PERK: Wealth (Hire a Cat Skinner) Any power built with an Expendable Focus: Cat Skin Keith "Thinking outside the Skinner Box" Curtis

Re: Morlocks in our Future! o/` crackpo-o-ot... o/` This seriously sounds like someone who can't get a date. But the key phrase to identify him as off the beaten evolutionary track was: You don't lose a characteristic just because you don't use it. You gain a characteristic as a result of it having been beneficial to your ability to survive to reproduction age. Keith "Evolutionary theorist Oliver Curry of the London School of Economics???" Curtis

Re: Lack of published material Should that last sentence read "may not"? Secondly, if a spell skill is written as Spell: 14-, (-2 to roll), why not just list it as 12-? Or did I miss that? It seems like it would make the system more streamlined to write down on a character sheet. Keith "?" Curtis

Re: Comic Books VS. Graphic Novels/Collections Seeing as the nearest comic shop is either two and a half hours or another country away (ferry trip either way), I get my comic fix through GN's borrowed from the public library. There are lots, check it out if you never have. Keith "sigh. So remote." Curtis

Re: Inherent, does anyone use it? How? Not in a long time. I have players with problems, and even occasionally a couple of power builders, but it's all relative. I haven't had anyone try to really rape the rules in over 20 years. Keith "People wonder why I whined and cried about leaving my gaming group" Curtis

Re: Inherent, does anyone use it? How?

Re: Inherent, does anyone use it? How? By clunky, I mean it solves a problem that by and large for me does not exist. It adds unnecessary cost if improperly or inconsistently applied. In my experience, this is most uses. Your games undoubtedly differ. Keith "YMMV" Curtis

Re: Inherent, does anyone use it? How? I might be phenomenally lucky, but the gamers I have gamed with have by and large been easily this responsible. YMMV see below Not at all. I advocate the simplest build which requires the least number of characters to be whacked for extra points. For example. Turrn Undead. I dislike clerics having to buy a clunky Extra PRE only to send away undead. Buy the Undead with a VULN to PRE attacks from holy people or symbols. Don't buy a church with some weird invisible forcefield that only affects undead. Buy your undead with a PHYS LIM: Cannot enter hallowed ground. Both of these require an alteration to defenses or limitations, not an attack power. In short, Keep it Simple. We agree here, if I read you correctly Well from a rules standpoint, everything is an offshoot of the human template to some degree. Even vehicles and robots. They have to buy abilities that humans do not have. There are exceptions, but this is the general philosophy. You are assuming a lot here. I never said that I assume anyone uses Inherent for everything. Merely that I find it generally superfluous and clunky. I'm paraphrasing myself here, for brevity. I never advocated letting SFX replace the rules. I said they should dictate a logical build. I do modify some interactions based on SFX, but not often or by much, depending on the genre. I would als argue that buying all of the Life Supports inherent to a sentient rock with the Inherent Advantage is expensive in the extreme in fifth edition. Don't need to ban it. We just don't use it. It has literally never, ever come up. I can point you to numerous post on this board upon which I have stated my dislike for universal Power Defense. Here we can easily agree. Keith "Setting it straight" Curtis

Re: L.A. Caveman Just for the record, I was not recommending Fire and Ice. Merely noting that it fit the criteria. Keith "Stupid, stupid movie. Who was the guy with the axe???" Curtis

Re: L.A. Caveman You're describing Fire and Ice. Keith "Been there, done that" Curtis

Re: Inherent, does anyone use it? How? Also, you don't have a "Life Support: Oxygen-Nitrogen Atmosphere". That is your default environment. There is no power involved. You buy Life Support to cover environments beyond your default. Keith "It's like buying Drain: Physical Body" Curtis

Re: Inherent, does anyone use it? How? Let's look at this from a game world perspective, since that's where the justification for a power build comes from. If a spell is a Drain: Life Support, with the intention of causing someone who would normally be able to breathe underwater to drown, then I can easily see it working against mutated lungs. It's magic. It makes you drown. The Spell isn't called "close gills", it's called "make you drown". If the SFX is closing gills, and the target is using an aqualung, it shouldn't work. But the character with the aqualung or the mutated lungs shouldn't bear the onus of building to suit whatever wonky power might come along. That would lead to needless point inflation and likely never come into play anyway. The wonky power should bear the onus. In the "Make you drown" spell, it should be a straight out Drain: Life Support. For the "Close Gills" spell, it should be Drain: Life Support, -1/2 only vs. life support that comes from gills. If it's a "Remove Air Supply" Spell, should be Drain: Life Support, -1/2 only vs. life support that comes from carrying around extra air. I dislike "inherent" because it is not broadly applicable. If a spell is "Remove Tail", you should be able to remove a tail, regardless of whether a creature naturally (inherently) has one or not. It should fall upon the builder of the Drain to define the conditions under which their power will work. If one character in a campaign has a "Remove Armor" spell (Drain: Armor), are you going to penalize every character in a campaign who has natural armor to buy the "Inherent" advantage on their armor? What if no one builds that spell, do you still require the Inherent when it will never be used? What if three years into the campaign someone builds the spell; do you force everyone who should have non-artificial armor to scrape up the points for Inherent? I say no. The spell-caster should either build "Remove Armor" (Drain: Armor, -1/2 only versus worn armor) or "Make Vulnerable" (Drain: Armor, no limitations). To require Inherent is to needlessly complicate a campaign with endless what-ifs (I'm an Ogre. Ogres are strong. Should my Strength be Inherent?). To build logically limited powers is to build the resolution of any power usage into the power itself. Far more elegant to my thinking. Keith "Inherently right on this ;)" Curtis

Re: Inherent, does anyone use it? How? I just want to know what would be the logical justification for Drain: Desolidification or Drain: Extra limb? I think the whole inherent question can be eliminated in nearly every case by a gm who enforces reasonable Drains. Keith "common sense-er" Curtis

Re: L.A. Caveman I spent a lot of that movie wondering when Jane became British. Keith "Still, better than Bo" Curtis

Re: Movement in a Jetliner! Silly Putty Science might be more accurate. Keith "But... Science!" Curtis