AlHazred

Re: Thoughts on FH Magic Systems: The Gift and Arts Arcane This is a pretty involved question; let's see if we can break it down. Are you talking the classic Greek elements of fire, water, earth and air? Which one is which gender? So, characters can only purchase magic talents in character creation? Another option is to let people "discover" they've been magical all along, and let them spend the points then. And this is another power they learn outside of normal spells, a Transfer END/BODY. Side Effects. Hmm... This will require thought. How powerful do you want 150-point spellcasters to be?

Re: We are known by our enemy

Re: SF Novels for Star Hero? I should mention that the interior artwork (not sure about the cover) of the classic OGRE was done by our own Nyrath. Nyrath, you going to GenCon? I'll bring my OGRE stuff to be signed...

Re: Thanks to Keith Curtis... I got a couple of those $3 - $5 mini-modules for free in the convention bag they gave out at a Con here in Jersey. I wanted my money back.

I was enjoying reading my copy of Fantasy Hero Battlegrounds for inspiration for DexCon this weekend, and I noticed something that escaped my attention before. Only about half of the short bits in the back include the "... in Ambrethel" sidebar that accompanies all the other parts of the book. Did I miss them, or did they get excluded for some reason?

Re: Thanks to Keith Curtis... To add my two cents, I think that to a great extent, the appeal of the D&D modules of the 80s was their inclusion of official source material. At that time, many hobby shops would carry only D&D materials. Adventure modules could be produced at a fast pace, while other types of supplements took some time to put together. Imagine a hobby shop that sold only Hero products (including hard copies of Digital Hero). You could go in there every week, and most of the time the contents wouldn't change appreciably. You might end up picking up a few relatively cheap modules, especially given that there would be some new material in many of them. I don't think we'll see that sort of environment any time soon. A real pity, since that Hero-only hobby shop is a beautiful dream...

Re: Doulocracy: how's it work? IIRC, in RW history, the only doulocracies that have existed (virtually or in reality) were client states, in which the "slaves" which governed were not owned by any subject of said state. That would be the easiest way to implement such a system in a game. Come to think of it, I don't remember any doulocracies in Turakian Age. Will have to find a way to fit one in.

Re: Does the IHA make sense?

Re: Cursed Items http://hiddenway.tripod.com/hero/curse.html An excellent article. It's for 4th edition, but the original article was about ideas, not mechanics, so it's still very worthwhile.

Re: My 'Star Hero' arrived I think that link is damaged. Is this the link you wanted?

Re: SF Novels for Star Hero? I'm surprised no one has mentioned the Bolo series by Keith Laumer. Bolos are the progenitors of Steve Jackson's Ogres and inspired most other cybertanks you've read about. And anyone who thinks the tanks would overshadow the PCs need only read either Night of the Trolls (a short story novelized as The Stars Must Wait) or any of the spinoff stories written by various authors in the Bolos series of shared-world anthologies put out by Baen. (Specifically, look for S.M. Stirling's entries. They're pretty good; his protagonists could be a party of PCs.)

Re: Leto II and Neo There's a modified 4th edition version of Neo on the Stuff Heroes Are Made Of. It's a reasonable jumping-off point.

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... The Trouble Twisters and Ensign Flandry by Poul Anderson. I picked those up after being somewhat disappointed by On Basilisk Station, the first of the Honor Harrington books by David Weber; I remembered reading one of the Flandry stories years ago, and wanted to compare and contrast two very different space navies.

Re: Generic Star Hero Galactic Map I have to say, Nyrath, I've used your Project Rho as a definitive jumping-off point for all sorts of Science-Fictional campaigns over the last several years. Your links go beyond what's simply required for starmaps. It's great stuff! Glad to see you on these boards!

Re: Name for a Future Tech Explosive I believe that Alfred Bester came up with the thought-triggered explosive PyrE, in the novel The Stars My Destination -- a passage in that novel relates PyrE to "the equivalent of the primordial protomatter which exploded into the Universe." PyrE is detonated by thinking about it, thus tripping its subatomic trigger, a material Bester uses to symbolize Mankind's will-to-destruction. How about that, a sci-fi explosive with philosophical and religious overtones...

Re: Actung! Panzer! Hey, Mike, would you like someone to post HD files for these vehicles? Like, say, someone who was making the HD files for them anyway for personal use? *nudge, nudge*

Re: megas XLR Question It's apparent that, like most TV shows, no attempt was made to balance any of the characters against each other. Coop and Kiva have an equal amount of points, with Coop having the highest technical skills (and loads of Luck) and Kiva having a healthy dose of Tactics, Analyze Combat Technique, and a raft of KSs. Maybe Jaimie paid for the mech?

Re: Harry Potter HERO I would add one thing to Keith's idea, and that's the "Magery" talent idea discussed in Fantasy Hero. I think it's perfect, since it's obvious the only thing keeping Muggles from using magic is lack of some intangible gift.

Re: Pulp Hero?? I ran a campaign for about a year that was Pulp Hero/Golden Age Superhero, set in 1938. I had thought for years that a cross-genre game like that could be good, but in hindsight I'd need a group of players that were fans of/knew something about Pulp. Most of my players were ignorant of the Pulp genre, and had no real idea what Golden Age superheroes were all about. As a result, I got a lot of Silver Age concepts. In deference to my players' ignorance, I allowed rather more leeway than I would have liked in character concept, and as a result I had to upgun the NPCs (in some cases dramatically). Nevertheless, the campaign had its moments. You can find more details in the (currently incomplete) campaign log I've posted online. Comments and questions welcome; I'd definitely run it again and it may take on an incarnation as a Con game at some point.

Re: Stargate weapons It seems to me that the body armor on the show is based more on "realistic" body armor values, i.e. for normal kevlar, the value of resistant ED is half or less the value of PD. Since the bad guys use a lot of Energy weapons, this makes their stuff that much more lethal against the hard-working members of the American military. On the other hand, the fancy ceremonial armor of the Jaffa looks cool and has a great ED, but has crappy PD, making the Tauri a real threat. Keeping these factors in mind, the damage values do not have to be too high. And the fact that the main good guys have Combat Luck (which gives both PD and ED) means they survive more often. Just my $0.02.

Re: Ambrethel Map in Free Stuff Just want to chime in on how good the maps are. Great stuff! Incidentally, I'll be making good use of the Aarn map at DexCon; do any of you "in-the-know" people know if there'll be a more detailed Aarn map coming out at some point (say, in Fantasy Hero Battlegrounds)? Or should I just wing it? Come to think of it, there are several sections of the city that don't seem to belong to any district. Is that intentional, to give the GM room to expand, or did I miss a reference?

Re: Codename: Kids Next Door

Re: Spell Storing Ring I'd go with the Trigger idea, which is how I've used it in my game. It works pretty well; I haven't really seen a case where the AP limit really bothered anyone. Maybe the ring has a "spell level limit"?

Re: Weapon Style Creation Dude, just buy UMA. It's been out for a while, so you might be able to find it cheap on eBay or some such. Better to buy it from an FLGS. As has been said, it's easily one of the more useful books in the product line. They just need to make a second edition, to incorporate some of the great ideas they've since put into other products, such as Fantasy Hero and the like.

Re: Dwarf Martial art So, he wants to make his own. More power to him. I see dwarves as being unflappable in combat. Maybe a Root maneuver or some such? KB Resistance?