eepjr24

Hot potatoes... Okay, after further thought and reading all the posts again, I am thinking that I have another idea, and that the two spells are getting slightly different from each other. Will think more about the armor one, here is my currecnt thoughts on the weapon heating spell: (No book here so lims, etc are approximate) 4d6 EB vs ED (heat), One Hex Accurate (+1/2), Only versus targets holding metal handled weapons (-1), Delayed Effect: 1 Turn?, Not versus Magic Weapons with flame effects or other magical heat defenses (-0), Other lims as required by campaign. Would it be fair to say that the spell always hits the hands? This seems to have advantages and disadvantages that are about equal. The Delayed Effect gives the weapon wielder a while to drop the weapon, even at a speed of 2 or 3. I would probably even allow an abort to drop it. SFX is a fire sprite entering the weapon handle, heating up the handle and then flitting off when they get bored. After one turn the weapon handle would be warm to the touch, but not enough to do damage to someone picking it up. - Ernie

Hot Gas? I wasn't talking about the temp of the gas, just the lack of oxygen in it. And the prevalence of particulate matter. For instance, I would not let LS: Intense Heat stop you from smothering in dust during a dust storm. Smoky environments are a very big killer in most fires, many times moreso than the flames. - E

Not sure I understand what you mean here. I am not after having to grab them, so damage shield is not really needed. And the idea was also not really to do body, just make it hot and uncomfortable to be in armor or holding the weapon. For clarification: This would be an instant effect, but slightly delayed. I realise that does not fit real world physics, but this is more of "An Imp of Fire has taken residence in your armor and/or weapon. You feel it heating up. What do you do?" This gives the weilder/wearer some warning and time to do something if they want and are smart enough. - Ernie

Skip: I know that previous editions had some wonky things in the rules, but I am trying to stick to 5th. And I completely understand the reason that Steve put in the "No lack of something" defense in NND, it was pretty open for munchkiny tricks before. The transform is still an open idea, but I am liking Hugh's forcefild/LS idea best so far. - E

Forest Fire Hmmmm. For a hot enough forest fire, wouldn't some type of breathing life support be needed, or can humans subsist on what oxygen remains when the fire is that hot? Smoke and other particulate matter might also be problematic. - Ernie

Lunarcell Oddbat: I am playing with this plugin and I like the options so far. Can you give a bit more info about what settings you found worked best? PM is fine if you think we are too OT for this thread. - Ernie

I am looking at creating some spells and wanted to get some ideas on how others would do it. These are flame based spells that are intended to do damage, but only in certain situations. Both would have the SFX of heating up metal. The first spell would damage those who are wearing metal armor or have large amounts of metal on their person or in their clothes. So far, this seems to be an NND, except that NND cannot use lack of something as a defense. Next would be a heat metal spell on metal handled weapons. The desire would be to either a) have the user of the weapon drop it or take damage for continuing to hold it. NND was again my idea adding the limitation "Extra Phase" to simulate the gradual heating and give the holder time to drop it, with the defense being to drop the weapon. This seems to be in the same spirit as above, not allowing the lack of something to be a defense. I am not stuck on NND if a better (even if it is more expensive) way is found. I thought about transform, but defining the damage for not dropping the weapon or shedding the armor becomes problematic. Any ideas? - Ernie

Point savings? The points savings seem high with this method, as they would be in an MP, but without the restrictions of the pool limiting what powers could be maintained simultaneously. That could be somewhat unbalancing without some other restrictions (eliminating reduced end, or limiting active powers at a time, etc). In general, I am finding that the problem with giving frameworks to mages is that they gain power in a more exponetial fashion, whereas other characters tend to move more linear. The restriction of the EC for SFX is not that limiting to someone who is creative, I (and I am sure most other regular readers here) can think of many defensive, offensive and utility spells for even EC's based on unusual realms such as mirror magic, cloth magic, paper magic, etc. Mages in my campaigns have never had the problem of not being powerful enough. More the opposite. I am leaning more towards letting mages buy their spells as per powers with whatever restrictions they need to get the RP down to a reasonable number, but I am going to put more thought into the idea. - Ernie

Earlier today, you answered this one: With: 2 End. I was a bit confused, so I looked at the FAQ, and found this entry: Question: At what point do you round up to the next highest number for purposes of calculating END cost? For example, does a power costing 35 Active Points use 4 END? Answer: You’d round up at 6 and above. So, 35 costs 3 END; 36 costs 4 END. And then on pg 173 under Reduced End it says that "...the Power then consumes 1 END per 20 Active Points of Power..." It seems like the cut off would be 12 for Reduced End? By that logic, it seems like powers with Reduced End would cost 1 END from 1 AP to 31 AP, 2 END until 51 AP, and 3 END at 52 points? I probably have some math wrong, but couldn't figure out what it was. - Ernie

CC2 Campaign Cartographer 2 http://www.profantasy.com/products/cc2.asp

Is there some reason that "Detect: Invisibility to Detect Invisibility" would not work? If so, then a simple thing like "Detect Living Being" or "Detect Minds" or the like bought as a targetting sense should do the trick. Unless you are playing by the "Absolute" rules from FH, or the character has spent ALOT of points on it, should not be that hard. OTOH, someone who has spent 75+ points on Invisibility should not have it routinely overcome by a 15 point detect. I think as mentioned above SFX will win the day. - Ernie

Dragon Inn Val Char Cost 3 BODY 1 5 DEF 9 7 Size 12 8" x 8", 2 story structure Char Total: 22 Cost Power 5 Location: Suburb 2 Grounds: Large Fenced grazing area (500 hexes) 6 Kitchens: PS: Cooking 13- Power Total: 13 Total Cost: 35 Description: The Dragon Inn is a small drinking establishment based at the rural outskirts of a large city. It is frequented by traders and tinkers, merchants and the odd mariner. The inn serves both food and drink at reasonable prices. It offers no rooms, with the loft upstairs comprising of rooms for the family and the lower common room sleeping any servants or the odd guest. The Dragon Inn was inspired by and based on the Hirst Arts Model of the same name. For more information, pictures, etc. check out their website: http://www.hirstarts.com My only association to them is that I have built and enjoy some of their structures.

A couple questions about this weapon from FH, which I love, btw. 1. Since the MP is only 18 points and the two non-ultra slots could not sensibly be split up, why aren't all the slots bought as ultra's for a total cost of 10 instead of 16? 2. If a character has WF: Offhand, and wields one of these in each hand, what would their OCV modifer to block be: a. +5 (+2 for each MG, +1 for Offhand weapon block) b. +3 (+2 for one MG and +1 for Offhand weapon block) c. Some other bonus that I didn't figure out. - Ernie

AA AA - I don't know what your history is with the Hero system, and I am sorry that the way they are producing books bothers you. All I can say in reply is this: In the 10+ years between 4th and 5th edition, many of us would have bought ANY book we could have with new material in it for Hero. I am not going to complain at this point with whatever strategy Steve uses to get books on the shelves. As a matter of fact, I think the manner with which he is releasing them shows incredible business smarts, not that he needs my approval in any way. In short, sorry you don't want to buy more books, but you have options available since the core books lets YOU build anything you want. Personally, I would rather have more books rather than less. - Ernie

Genre examples? Can anyone point me to some Fantasy Genre examples of a LW going toe to toe with a HW? Not even taking armor into account, necessarily. I think there is still a perception out there that they should be able to. For me, the opposite kind of image comes to mind: In Princess Bride, the classic Man In Black versus Fezzik. The Man in Black dodges almost the entire fight. In Labyrinth, Sir Didymus versus Ludo when they meet in the Swamp. Same deal, dodges the entire fight and is essentially unable to hurt Ludo. Those are the two that come to mind for me, but maybe I am just watching the wrong movies... - Ernie

MA training points? I can't say if most GM's award the points, but I don't. Usually this will be a major goal of the character, and I have them save up at least 5-7 points of XP to get the training started. They will also most likely be dedicating the next 3-5 points on MA if they are serious about it, picking up extra training and skills both on and between adventures. This assumes that they are trying to learn it once the game has begun, not during character creation. - Ernie

Asian campaigns I would start by recommending two web pages: Mark Doc's Sengoku Page: http://www.geocities.com/markdoc.geo/Gaming_stuff/Sengoku/sengoku_introduction.html Mike Surbrook's character archives: http://www.devermore.net/surbrook/index/archive.html Other than that, I would start with the bibliography of the UMA, and expand from there. Know the culture and the conversion will come naturally. - Ernie

Only usable by me... This sounds like a personal focus (FREd, pg 150). The points are really a wash, since the player cannot loan the item to another it balances with his opponent not being able to use it if they take it away. On the king issue, I would say it would depend on how the focus was created. Was it a personal focus of Harland, who happened to be the High King? Or was it the personal focus of the living persona of the High King? As GM, you will have to decide that one. - Ernie

Dauntless Comments Dauntless Said: There is one trick an HW can use to even the odds....Grab. If the HW fighter can grab the LW, LW's mobility advantage is gone, and he has no armor to protect him now. When I used to spar against small fast guys...for some strange reason, they loved to go toe to toe with me (I'm about 6', 205lbs, and though not a slow lumbering ox, I'm not an agile fox either). Sometimes just to show them how stupid it was to do that, I'd grab ahold of their attacking arm or leg, and take them down, or sometimes just immobilize them so that they couldn't consistently lunge and duck. If you want to see a fight like this played out....watch the movie Rob Roy. Now since the HW fighter has a shield, this makes it impossible. But if he uses the Bastard Sword two handed, he could do this. However, he then sacrifices his DCV bonus. But since LW's damage is fairly insignificant, he should go ahead and probably risk this to attempt the grab. Another option is to buy a martial art that has a Block move followed by a grab or including a grab. Another option is a "bum rush", rushing into the opponent and knocking him to his feet (a takedown with a moveby or movethrough element). Against an agile opponent this is more difficult, though not impossible. Once an agile opponent is on his back though...his agility isn't really going to save him (-1/2 DCV unless he's trained in some kind of ground fighting art) Not only does HW sacrafice his DCV, he also loses his 2 OCV from blades, giving him a base OCV of 5 and a 4.6 percent chance to grab LW, IF LW's block fails (Grabs can be blocked, and I think it would be painful to have a grab blocked with a Main Gauche). Now there's a strategy the LW can use versus the HW. Aim for the head. If he uses the optional Head Shot (1d6+3 hit location) he has a 33% chance of hitting the head. Now me personally, if a player is in full plate, he's going to take a further OCV and DCV penalty for having his face plate down due to sensory restrictions. But even if you don't account for that, the LW will do maximum STUN...so on average he'll do a BODY of 11 (the average roll of 1 1/2d6 = 5.5) and a STUN of 27.5, and a max BODY of 18 (which is about a 5.5% chance of doing) and a STUN of 45. In the average damage scenario, the HW will take 16.5 STUN, more than enough to stun him, and he'll also take 4 BODY. A valid point on the called Head-Shoulder shot. LW would hit 25.9 percent of the time, and have a 50 percent chance of doing body if he did hit (4+1 x 2 = 10 body). It would still be alot riskier for LW, since a similar lucky shot by HW would put him down for the count. On your stun commentary: Try using the optional rule on FH 159 (left column, 5th paragraph) for doubling the multipliers for body for KA attacks on the hit location chart. That should put stun more in line with what you are looking for. - Ernie

OldMan OldMan Said: Really? Because I see one character who has to block and dodge for four turns until the other guy runs out of END, and even then will do no BODY to the other character, ever, even if he has a 'biting' rapier and hit locations and critical hits. He can't even stun the HW without a max damage hit to the head or vitals. I get your point, and even agree to some extent. The LW will always have to use strategy in the scenario I set up. I just don't think it is an unsurmountable difference or that it is far enough out of genre to require a change to the cost of STR. If the LW really wants to fight the HW head on, the package deals for LW and HW in the book go much farther toward making the LW more than able to take the HW in a straight fight, but the package is about 30 points more. By the way, I love your sig quote. - Ernie

LW vs HW Thanks. I was beginning to think the post was so long that everyone who tried to read it fell asleep half way through. heh. I also have a correction to make. When I was looking at armors, I looked at the Barding table, making the armors for both much more expensive. It won't change the outcomes, since I did not use Fine gear. Correct armor costs would be: Soft Leather Ring Mail: 75 SP Plate and Chain: 275 SP This makes the equipment cost for LW = 108 and the cost for HW = 328. This lowers the ratio to about 3:1 instead of 3.4:1. I did some math on the Fine Weapons. The ones I would go for (were I playing the LW) would be: Fine Rapier: (x4 cost, 80 SP) Marvelously Light II (9 Str Min) Biting (+1 DC) Fine Soft Leather ring Mail: (x2 cost, 150 SP) More Protective (+1 DEF) It would not even things out totally, but it would certainly give LW much more of a change in a straight brawl. - E

MMM I will second Epic monsters, at least a few. Always fun to throw one of those in a lull. I would also like to have aquatic versions of the humanoids (sea elves, mergoblins, etc). Not necessarily entirely separate, just the stats that change and abilities added / lost. Perhaps a few other environment spcific creatures? Things that live in lava, tunnel through the dirt or never leave the upper atmosphere? Maybe the odd abandoned castle / dungeon specific monster like the carrion crawler, gelatinous cube, mimic? You are probably doing this already, but I would also love to see the weapons commonly used with each entry. - Ernie

STR and Armor, a brief analysis I went through this exercise largly after seeing the number of people who felt that STR was underpriced, especially in FH games. It is meant to inspire debate, but I am not interested in starting wars. If you find math errors, please point them out and I will try to correct them. I started with two warriors. One is named Light Warrior (LW), the other Heavy Warrior (HW). The premise was to see how much having better STR (and by extension, heavy armor) benefited HW over his weaker and lighter armored opponent. I have to make a lot of assumptions here, but I hope to give enough info for the reader to make their own judgments. First, the base characters are built on 58 points each, with 50 points in characteristics and 8 points in basic skills. I pulled those from the air, it seemed like the minimum an average fighter would have to me. Here are the breakdowns: LW: 14 STR 20 DEX 12 CON 11 BODY 10 INT 10 EGO 10 PRE 10 COM 3 PD 2 ED 4 SPD 5 REC 24 END 24 STUN WF: Blades WF: Offhand +2 w/ Blades Equipment: Main Gauche, +1 DCV, 1d6 K w/ str (+2 OCV Block Bind Disarm) 1 kg Rapier, +1 OCV, 1d6 K w/ str .8 kg Soft Leather Ring Mail, 3 DEF 7 kg General Equipment (clothes, money, etc) 5kg Total Weight: 13.8kg -0 DCV / Dex Rolls ---------------------------- HW: 20 STR 14 DEX 14 CON 12 BODY 10 INT 10 EGO 10 PRE 10 COM 4 PD 3 ED 4 SPD 7 REC 28 END 29 STUN WF: Blades WF: Shield +2 w/ Blades Equipment: Large Wooden Shield, +3 DCV 7kg Bastard Sword, 2d6 w/str 1.7kg Plate and Chain, 7 DEF 28kg General Equipment (clothes, money, etc) 5kg Total Weight: 41.7kg -1 DCV / Dex Rolls ---------------------------- I am not using any special rules other then the base Fantasy encumbrance rules. I did use my judgement that the basic things most people carry (coin purse, clothes, etc) would weigh about 5kg. All equipment is straight from FH for 5th Ed. LW is wearing 258 SP in gear, HW is wearing 878 SP in gear. If using the Fine weapons and armor rules, LW would have a good bit of cash to spend on higher quality gear. All hits are figured for 1 body and 3 stun per dc killing. I used this chart to figure percentage chances of events for 3d6 die rolls: 18 100 17 99.5 16 98.2 15 95.4 14 90.7 13 83.8 12 74.1 11 62.5 10 50.0 9 37.5 8 25.9 7 16.2 6 9.3 5 4.6 4 1.9 3 0.5 I had LW block, wearing down HW over time. Results: LW - Levels to OCV. Blocking. DCV: 8 OCV: 11 (+2 OCV from Levels, +1 DCV and +2 OCV from Main Gauche) HW - Levels to OCV. Attacking. DCV: 7 OCV: 7 (+2 OCV from Levels, +3 DCV from Shield, -1 DCV from Encumbrance) LW will Block 95.4 percent of the time. HW will hit 50 percent of the time if the block fails. LW uses 2 End per phase (-3 / turn). HW uses 4 End per phase (-9 / turn). LW will run out of END at the end of the 8th Turn. HW will run out of END at the beginning of the 4th Turn. In the end, HW would drop from exhaustion with LW still quite fresh. If you add in LTE, HW drops in the 3rd Turn. It is unlikely that HW would get a hit in before he drops. Then, I tried having both of them attack. LW - Levels to DCV. Attacking. DCV: 10 OCV: 8 (+2 DCV from Levels, +1 DCV from Main Gauche, +1 OCV from Rapier) HW - Levels to OCV. Attacking. DCV: 7 OCV: 7 (+2 OCV from Levels, +3 DCV from Shield, -1 DCV from Encumbrance) LW will Block 74.1 percent of the time. HW will hit 25.9 percent of the time if the block fails. LW uses 2 End per phase (-3 / turn). HW uses 4 End per phase (-9 / turn). LW will lose about 3 Body and 12 stun the first time he is hit. He will be con stunned and will probably die shortly thereafter. HW would take no damage on an average hit from LW. LW will run out of END at the end of the 8th Turn. HW will run out of END at the beginning of the 4th Turn. Basically, it depends on the strategy of LW. Given my limited ability to run test cases, I leave it to the reader to speculate what would happen if each had more points to spend on skills, or if you even out the equipment cost between the two. For me it was merely an exercise to see if a much lighter fighter could live through the fight at all. I will probably not modify the cost of strength based on this exercise, as it does not seem drastically under priced. There are advantages to be certain, but not enough to warrant a change for me. - Ernie

FH EQ Make class packages. Make race packages as well. This one will obviously be high fantasy. Magic readily available to all, skills as powers or martial manuevers for those who don't directly have magic (monk, fighter, rogue). Ex: Rogue Hide / Sneak is invisbility with a fringe. Monks have an odd MA with plenty of DCV levels. Fighters get Reposite (DS, HTH only, requires Atk roll) etc. Could be fun with the right group, but the set up could get pretty intensive. Alot of players who know the system would rather be playing it than a pen and paper RPG. - Ernie

Is there a by the rules way to negatively affect another characters CV as a whole, or to affect their OCV, DCV, ECV separately? I checked the FAQ under drains, transfers and general but didn't see anything. - Ernie