rravenwood

I fall in between Gauntlet and GD Shore. Magical healing -- assuming it's available to the masses, and not just to the wealthy/privileged -- could certainly lower the child death rate. However, pre-industrial and early industrial societies also had a high birth rate, in part to counter the losses of children to disease and mishap. Historical experience shows that when child mortality declines, the birth rate also tends to decline, so that would not be the defining factor. GD Shore is correct, the ultimate determinant for how large a population can grow in an area is the available food and water. Most civilizations collapse at the point when their population exceeds those resources. For cities to grow, they have to build sufficient infrastructure to bring those resources to the masses and distribute them effectively. It's why the earliest urban civilizations arose in river valleys, with fertile land and convenient transportation. And it's why pre-industrial cities with the highest populations were those in locations with abundant supplies of those things, or with the means to bring them in as needed, incentivized by the economic and political advantages to building a large city in certain places.
 
The demand for laborers in the Industrial Age led to unprecedented concentrations of people in cities, which had to build more elaborate and efficient infrastructure, aided by new technologies. If magical healing could significantly impact the death rate, it would be reasonable to assume that magical environmental control could also parallel the tech innovations improving access to and delivery of food and water.
 
And since the Flanaess of Greyhawk has all those kinds of magic, they tend to support my contention that its population should be higher in at least some cases.

No, "Magical healing" will not be the determinate for increased city size. As in the real world two factors determine city size Food and Water. Lose either one or the other, and your city collapses. A major trope in dystopic fiction right now is solar EMP's . Major cities around the world have on average 72 hours of food on hand, coincidentally that is the time that people start dying of thirst. Without electricity there are no pumps, no pumps no water flows thru the cities arteries. examples --- Chaco canyon drought killed it and its civilization, drought probably caused  the collapse of the Mayan civilization. Most big ancient cities are built on rivers, thus water, some build aqueducts to transport water as they grow (Rome) with water food becomes important without it people move away. 
     If you have both transportation becomes the next big factor. That transport system cannot be longer than 3 days from field to market or most foodstuffs start to spoil. (exception - grain Rome imported grain from the empires grain basket,, Egypt) Ox carts/wagons can do a max of 10 to 12 km. horses 12 to 15 km. thus a maximum radius for your farms would be 45 km. Unless you have magic. With magic you can lighten carts and wagons, or cool their interiors (see refrigeration). In the "real" world from the mid 19th century on cities began to grow and grow and grow because foodstuffs could be carried hundreds of kilometers in a day. Railroads.  In a magic society the possibility exists to transport foodstuffs from long distances away from your city. 

you remind me of a story I have told before, about a new player who was not comfortable with the role-play aspects of the game, so he would detail his actions and, as GM, I would do a flashy, glamorized re-telling of the action.
 
at one point, he was preparing a mighty blow against a villain-  a blow that would deal a considerabke amount of BODY.  One of the other players recommended a "subdual" type attack, to which Kevin replied "yeah;that's right.  I'm gonna poke him in the STUN, but really hard!"
 
 

I think the game runs much more smoothly in general when players build characters with an eye toward what the world looks like. If the rules say it's perfectly find to use your Megascaled mental powers to mind control the universe while never leaving your house that's one thing, but are we playing in a game where mentalists regularly do so? If people are mature enough to admit that no, and it sounds like a bit of a silly game, then we can move on while keeping the stop sign options like Megascale open for when a character concept does justify them.

Something my group always has in their minds.  When we were teenagers and they wanted poison on all their weapons all the time.  I said that if that was good, then all their opponents would do so.
 
If they didn't, only the most evil ones would and they could assume that anyone who did was an enemy.
 
That truce has lasted almost four decades.

CCR's Willy and the Poor Boys studio album, on CD spinning in my laptop.

Over time, the "power adds to other powers" mechanics have been removed.  At one time, you added extra mental defense from Ego, if you paid for some mental defense. Many powers had an "add HTH damage" mechanic bolted on.
 
In genre, creatures that live in molton magma or the heart of a star are not injured by heat and fire. In Hero, you pay for what you get and you get what you pay for.  For Fantasy games, I would modify the build for those "buy with cash" weapons to include an STR add.   But maybe it would not double for every weapon.  Perhaps some would have higher maximum adds and others would be lower. Perhaps some would be enhanced by DEX instead of STR and others would go the other way.  That would be more familiar to current d20 players.  Maybe some would be better targeted intelligently, so INT could add, and mental attacks could be enhanced by EGO.
 
As well, with the advent of combined attacks, a high STR character can hit harder with no KA adder.  If I have a 30 STR and a 2d6 HKA, cite the rule that precludes me from doing 4d6 HKA damage + 6d6 STR strike.  There is none.  Remove the adder and it becomes even more clear that I can combine an STR Strike with a no range KA.  Just like a character with a 6d6 Blast and a 2d6 RKA can use both at once as a combined attack, but can't add to the RKA using that Blast.  Now, they can build for the same effect - they can have a Blast and an RKA in a Multipower and trade off.  They could buy some RKA that is Unified with their Blast (we need a one-way Unified Power for this).  And that clawed character could put KA in a Multipower with STR, or with Hand Attack, or with Drain PD (bruising punch). Hearing Flash (ThunderClap) or Explosion Double Knockback Shockwave.
 
 
To me, this says STR increasing HKA falls outside the normal rules.  It's not that HKA doesn't add to STR.  It's that no other attack power can be enhanced by another ability - only HKA can be enhanced and only STR can enhance it.  The doubling rule just caps the free HKA you can have if you have purchased STR.  You don't get the extra HKA unless you also pay for STR, and you only get this benefit from your STR if you buy enough HKA.  Most of these synergies have been removed. HKA/STR has not. Is it balanced?  How often do you see a 15 STR character with a 3d6 HKA or a 60 STR character with a 1d6 HKA?  I saw a lot of the latter in 2e - because in 1e the Bricks normally bought a 1d6 HKA to benefit from the STR adder "for free" with the minimum HKA at that time, and that 1d6 KA was not modified when the first Enemies book was updated to 2e.  This was most obvious for the Monster, who supposedly relied on that KA - but it became a 2d6 KA in second edition.
 
 
Years ago, I questioned those vilifying the Stun Lotto.  It had never been an issue in my games.  Lucius, IIRC, pushed me to look at the math.  I did.  The math was clear - the KA was more effective at passing STUN past defenses. Our groups had a four colour approach and didn't use KAs against living targets, just as a matter of course, so it never became visible. Meanwhile, I realized that I was gravitating to KAs for agents precisely because it stood a better chance of passing some STUN through to the Supers.  But we had cruised on just fine with the Stun Lotto since 1e, right?
 
Virtually every change has had its critics and detractors.  STR adding to KAs is no different from DEX adding to SPD and/or CV, Growth or Stretching momentum boosting HTH (but not HKAs) or CON providing more stamina in the form of REC or END.
 
 
Bingo.  In some games, especially old, rules-lawyer/character advocacy games, maximizing the value of abilities by creative use and interpretation was part of the game.  "Where does it say my Magic Missiles can't target eyebals?"  "I Create Water in his lungs." Hero's "pay for the mechanics" model was very different. If it is logical that your other abilities and SFX should allow you do this other thing, and it has a significant in-game effect, then that logic justifies paying points for that other ability, not getting that other ability for free.  Except for HKAs.

Is that not just an argument never to change anything?  I mean, obviously, Duke is there.  he is content to work with the system as it was way back in 2E and I reckon most of us here, if we wanted to would be quite content to do the same and have pretty much identical games.  But that would not keep the system alive - where it needs to sell stuff.  We are the people most likely to buy stuff (even if we only play the original edition) and we wont buy the same ruleset more than onece or twice every coupe of decades.  A company needs to produce new editions just to generate the money it needs to survive. 
 
Most of us want changes, we just dont all want the same changes! 🙂
 
Hugh wants the system to be more coherent.  Hand attack is, to all extents and purposes, limited STR.  It adds to STR because it is the same thing doing a limited version of the same thing.  If STR was not in a black box, you would be able to modulate the damage, lifting and other things associated with STR on a character by character basis.  Killing attack is not doing anything that STR does.  The idea that STR adds to the damage is because it is mixing up SFX with mechanics.  It seems obvious to you that a sword should do more damage if someone stronger is using it.  It also makes more sense to me that Mental Blast do more damage because their EGO is high but it doesn't.
 
There is inconsistency in the system, when SFX make a difference to the mechanics and when they do not.  You either agree that you owuld like a bt more consistency or not and what that would look like but saying that it has been this way since [whenever] doesn't engage that argument.

New Vaccine Can Completely Reverse Autoimmune Diseases Like Multiple Sclerosis, Type 1 Diabetes, and Crohn’s Disease

PURPLE!!!  Imagine increasing the hours in the day by almost 50%!!!

Not a news story, but it made my daughter feel a bit better.
 
Wednesday after work, she stopped to gas up her car, and when she drove off she forgot that she had set her wallet on the back of her car.  Of course, it fell off somewhere along the way.  She was understandably upset.

The next day, a man in a nearby town contacted her via Facebook (having tracked her down from her license) saying that he had found her wallet.  Since he was going to be in her city that day for a vet appointment, he dropped it off in her mailbox - all credit cards and cash intact (only $2, but still).  Didn't ask for a reward (though she's going to try and get him something just to say thank you).  She had been having a very crappy last couple of months, and said that this helped restore some of her faith in humanity.
 
- - - - - - - - -
 
Here is an article that also helps restore faith in humanity.
 
I found $5,000 in a thrift store after it fell out of a shirt I picked up - a note I found meant I had to give it back | The US Sun (the-sun.com)

In the tribalistic contest for power, there is no such thing as irony, paradox, or even basic logical coherence.
 
Dean Shomshak

May he finally find that lost shaker of salt.

My Mom was a Parrothead through and through. I grew up listening to a lot of Jimmy Buffett growing up. I rediscovered his music in my mid-20s when I was working a mundane summer job and his song "It's My Job" came into my mind. I started collecting his albums for myself. His last album of original material, 2020's "Life On the Flip Side" is as good as anything he ever recorded. Not a lot of artists can say that.
 
I'm pretty sure my Mom was one of the first in line to welcome him to the other side. 
 
Rest in peace, Jimmy. 
 
 

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/jimmy-buffett-margaritaville-singer-dies-072354351.html

This was once of my favorite TV shows.
 
 

If only I were still teaching English.