Chris Goodwin

It can make a difference in certain vehicular and mecha games. A power plant hit might disable all weapons that are powered off of the vehicle's power plant (0 END) while weapons on Charges might be unaffected. (I postulate a modified form of 0 END called 0 END Connected, in which a weapon uses no Endurance only when it is connected to a vehicle power plant, allowing for things like backup power supplies bought as END Reserves).

The Cat Who Walks Through Walls and Number of the Beast are two of the absolute worst books to start reading Heinlein on. If you're interested in gears and what the future looked like 75 years ago, pick up his collection The Past Through Tomorrow. That one has a lot of his classic short stories, including "The Man Who Sold The Moon" and "Methuselah's Children", where Lazarus Long first appeared. From there pick up Starship Troopers and forget there was ever a movie with the same name. From there you can proceed to Friday and from then on look at reviews of his other stuff to see if anything grabs you. There's an alternate track that begins with Stranger in a Strange Land, leads to Time Enough For Love and I Will Fear No Evil, then To Sail Beyond the Sunset, and goes to some of the others people on this thread have dropped. I only suggest that track if you have a strong stomach or aren't squicked by way out sexual themes (including transgendered, adult incest, and underage sex). If you're politically minded, start with The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, hit Starship Troopers next, and pick up Expanded Universe (mostly non-fiction). From there proceed to The Past Through Tomorrow, Friday, and on to whatever you want after that. Ummm.... have I read that much Heinlein?

Perhaps it is a trademark. Call it a Social Limitation or Distinctive Feature.

Re: Laptops, Handys, Morse Codes And General Equipment Question Pretty much build it like a computer. For programs you can use something like a general operating system, connect to the Internet, word processing, probably whatever other programs the player wants. Just assume that it's portable and that the character can have it with him most of the time. (handy = cell phone, right?) Most people I know just charge a 1-3 point Perk for one. If you really need to stat it out, call it Radio Perception on Normal Hearing, Only With Other Phones, Must Know Number, Requires Coverage (-1/4). Also see below under your last question. You can assume that if you want. If they've already built the characters with that expectation then I would. Otherwise you might make it maybe a 1 point Language. Probably not, unless it's something they want to keep with them all the time and use whenever they want. Usually if it's superheroic equipment or part of the character's main concept, they pay points. If it's something small, readily available "normal" equipment, and the character isn't necessarily going to use it all the time, it's probably free or at most a 1-3 point Perk.

Not only that. 90% of all gamer humor is in-jokes and Monty Python quotes.

I think you're missing it again. I think what he's going for is Running that doesn't cost any Endurance to run at noncombat speeds.

Call Reduced Endurance a Naked Advantage and apply the Limitation to it. Or, if you're not using HeroDesigner, work it out by hand. Reln, if I'm not mistaken, you're intending the Only In Noncombat modifier to apply to Reduced Endurance, right?

Back in the day, when FH was a standalone game in first edition, the suggested point totals were 75+25. Disads were typically half the value they are now, so that was what would now be about 50 points worth of disads. My group quickly moved to 100 base plus whatever you could scrape out in disadvantages, which in my case meant an occasional 100+100 mage. Caveat: As you increase the points available in NCM games, you'll have characters tending to higher DEX and SPD.

Old Man -- obviously Star Hero wasn't what you thought it was going to be, or at least it wasn't what you were looking for. Nothing wrong with that. I think that's a different issue from a single "bad - pretty good - excellent" scale. It wasn't "pretty good but could have been better". It was "doesn't meet Old Man's needs". The stuff you're asking for is what Hero would be putting in setting or campaign books rather than genre books. The reason Star Hero doesn't contain lists of psionics power levels, for example, is because that sort of list would have to appear in a specific campaign book. I had a similar problem with the 4th edition supplement "Champions (in?) 3-D". What I wanted was a sort of Star Hero for interdimensional campaigns. What it ended up being was about 5-6 pages on mostly how to generate dimensions and then a huge collection of sample dimensions. Not what I wanted at all, at least at the time; I could come up with a hundred of those. There was some excellent stuff in there, but I wouldn't ever say "It sucked because it wasn't what I wanted." I think that's why people are coming at you, because you're saying "Star Hero could have been a lot better" or, in other words, it sucks because it didn't meet your needs. Most people seem to be saying "It didn't suck, what are you talking about?" If it doesn't meet your needs, then sorry, them's the breaks. It's not going to meet everyone's needs. But that's no reason to get pissy about it.

It's not an official Advantage. It's usually priced at +1/2.

w00t! Magical Gamma World!

I would say it will definitely be worth it. I've got first and second, and I'll be getting third (that's the new one) when I can. Besides, third will be in print. The others won't. And it'll all be for fifth edition Hero, while the others aren't. Having seen the playtest document, I can say that there's nothing that is just an update. It's all new material.

I'd send the Frog out too, under most circumstances. As a GM, I don't mind characters getting away with stuff, as long as it's set up in such a way as they can't do it all the time. The minimum 1 week extra time (and, in our particular case, the 1 Charge Nonrecoverable) would go a long way in my view toward keeping it from being abused. As always, YMMV.

The GM has the discretion to allow Personal Immunity to provide immunity to similar Powers, according to the description of Personal Immunity.

Not so. It would take 1 week to create the scroll. The scroll is actually not a Power in the pool and is therefore not subject to any of the Limitations on the pool; the only thing that is subject to those Limitations is the Power used to create the scroll (the UBO with Differing Modifiers). That's one of the reasons both Usable On Others and Variable Power Pool have stop signs. As far as the Pool Cost is concerned, it's a 30 point pool; the Control Cost has a +1 Advantage, making it 30 Active Points. I'm not sure why HeroDesigner calls it 60 Active Points, unless it's adding the Pool Cost and the Control Cost together. It otherwise looks like it's done all of the math correctly. The No Skill Roll Required (+1 Advantage on the control cost) is to change the points in the pool. All of the Powers in the pool must take the Requires A Skill Roll Limitation. Thinking back, I could have omitted that Advantage, because the pool can be changed around out of combat (taking between 1 Turn and 1 minute) without a skill roll. I'm going to refigure that and edit my original post.

Ok. Then that makes it a 75 Active Point Power. Methinks the other GM just didn't want to deal with it.

Re: Telepathic Construct Input You've just described a 90 Active Point Power. So yeah, it can't be built on a 75 Active Point limit.

I'm going to guess, but I think he was impressed that with no prior Hero experience you were translating another game into it.

Agreed. There's one skimpy outfit on the cover. I wouldn't call that a T&A fest. Now there are some artists who will draw female characters so you can both see the butt crack and count the bumps on each nipple. And the nipples are usually more detailed than the faces. I don't think we have any of those around here, though.

The BODY of the car is going to be based in large part on its mass. I'd say DEF+BODY will get you close enough.

Call it a Power Stunt.

1. In my example, the Limitations on the control cost did apply to the Power. In fact, I did hit all the required Limitations on the Create Scroll; Extra Time: 1 Week, Focus, and Requires Skill Roll. In the example I gave, there's lots of ways to keep it from being abused (the extra time requirement, for one). But ultimately, the GM is responsible for making sure the rules, even the house rules, aren't abused. The idea is that the GM sets up guidelines for using the pool in this way. And it's not exactly a house rule. It's right there in black and white under the description of Usable On Others on FREd. p. 177. UOO itself has a STOP sign, so any GM intending to use this should know to keep a close eye on it.

Be glad to. Cost Power END 32 Magic Items: Variable Power Pool, 30 base + 2 control cost (45 Active Points); All Powers Require Extra Time 1 Week (-4 1/2), Limited Class Of Powers Available: UBOs Only Very Limited (-1), All Powers Require A Skill Roll (Magic) (-1/2), All Powers Require Focus (-1/4) 0 1) Create Scroll of Flaming Death: Usable By Others With Differing Modifiers , Costs END Only To Activate (+1/4), Persistent (+1/2), Uncontrolled (+1/2) (22 Active Points); Extra Time 1 Week (-4 1/2), Increased Endurance Cost 10x END (-4), OAF Fragile Expendable (Focus (scroll, blood of a phoenix, special writing tools); Extremely Difficult to obtain new Focus; -2 1/4), Requires A Skill Roll (-1/2), Gestures, Requires Gestures throughout (-1/2), Incantations (-1/4) Real Cost: 2 20 9 Scroll of Flaming Death: Killing Attack - Ranged 2d6 (vs. ED), Megascale (Area) (1" = 100 km; +3/4), Megascale (Range) (1" = 100 km; +3/4), Area Of Effect (8" Radius; +1) (105 Active Points); 1 Charges which Never Recover (-4), Extra Time 1 Hour (-3), OAF Expendable (Extremely Difficult to obtain new Focus; -2), Concentration 0 DCV, Must Concentrate throughout use of Constant Power (-1), Incantations, Requires Incantations throughout (-1/2) Powers Cost: 41 The Scroll of Flaming Death can call down a rain of fire on an 800 km radius area up to 52,500 km away. The ability to actually hit anything with it is a separate ability (i.e. lots of OCV bonuses), but the GM could wing it if he wanted. As built, it is not necessary to read the scroll out loud, though this could be changed by adding the Incantations Limitation to it (which, in all honesty, I forgot). It takes an hour to read through the scroll, and the caster must do nothing but read the scroll -- if he is interrupted, the scroll fades and is unusable; the builder could add in Side Effects if he wished, meaning that if the reading were interrupted the reader would take whatever the Side Effects were (probably a nasty RKA). There are a few other things I forgot to add (one example being a Must Be Able To Read Limitation) but you can see the process that went into the Power. It takes a week for a wizard to write the Scroll of Flaming Death. It costs him 20 END at the end of the week, and requires him to spend the entire week gesturing and writing. The incantation is required only at the end. It requires a blank scroll, the blood of a phoenix for ink, and special writing implements. Once the wizard has gone through this process (and made his Magic Skill Roll), the Scroll is ready for use; it can be used by anyone (though this could be changed by varying the Limitations on the Scroll). I specifically did not build the Scroll as Independent, because if you're not charging points for it (it is a one-use item that never recovers!) Independent does not limit. That would be a GM call, though. Because the UBO is built Persistent and Uncontrolled, the wizard could, if he wished, immediately after the scroll is finished, switch his VPP points to something else, and the Scroll would stay. If he wanted to spend another week, another 20 END, and had the materials, our hypothetical wizard could create another Scroll. Note that the Scroll itself is not a slot in the VPP, though the ability used to create it (the UBO) is. Also note that the ability to create the Scroll is only 22 Active Points, and fits easily in the 30 point VPP. (Edited 7/14 to fix an outright mistake.) (Edited 7/15 to remove No Skill Roll to change pool, to add Incantations to scroll, and to change Concentrate to Concentrate Throughout for Extra Time.)

You can build Powers with Charges that never recover.

The beauty of what I just posted is that it will work just fine in a VPP, and all you need to do is get the Real Points of the final item down to a manageable level. Y'see, those Real Points become the Base Points of your new UBO Power. All you need to do is build the UBO in your VPP, activate it (using whatever skill rolls, Extra Time, Foci, Increased END Cost, etc. are required) and you have your item. Since it's Persistent and Uncontrolled, it'll stick around when you switch the points around in your VPP. Make sure you have enough space in the VPP for those Advantages. (Oh. Aside to no one in particular. You should be able to build Persistent Powers that Cost END To Activate.)