Starwolf

Hi all! I have agreed to review The Dragons Gate, by the gang at Gold Rush Games. The Dragons Gate is a companion to San Angelo: City of Heroes. It is essentially a "China Town" setting for San Angelo. The book was written with a Supers campaign in mind but it easily adapts itself to other genres, such as a martial arts campaign, or a mystic campaign with an oriental flavor. The supplement comes with Hero System stats by default, but also includes GRG's own Action System, and M&M Superlink (D20) stats in indexes at the back of the book. The Dragons Gate is a rich miasma of historical detail, supporting cast characters, mystery, and intrigue all wrapped in an aura of oriental mystique. As I perused it's pages I could almost smell the atng of exotic spices hanging in the air from the street vendors and restaurants that are the main tourist atttractions. I could feel the grittiness of the back streets ruled by rival tongs, and rife with gang controlled "violence". I could picture the street walkers and surrepitous drug deals going on around me. There is enough historical information the a GM can easliy run a western game a la "Kung-Fu" the tv series, a pulp genre game, a martial art game, a street level supers game, or a street level "Cops & Robbers" type game. It also easily tweaked for use in a higher powered 4 color supers game. The artwork is well done and very appropriate for this type of supplement, adding great atmosphere. The detailed street map is also a plus. For Hero gamers looking for a rich backdrop this is IMHO a must buy supplement. Gold rush games has a real hit with this one.

Heh...I was blessed with carrier duty. Bubble heads (sub-mariners) have to endure up to six months submerged, so they don't get the fresh air that even a carrier gets. In addition they practice "Hot Racking". This is where for 12 hours your rack is yours, then you get up, strip your bedding, and the rack belongs to someone else for the next 12 hours. The racks don't always have time to cool off between bodies, thus "Hot Racking".....

OK....only one taker for a live FH game so I have decided to change the venue. I am now looking for players for a Saturday evening online game. It will be in the Hero Central chat room, at 7:00 p.m. MST. Anyone interested contact me for game details and character creation parameters.

Well done! this is a pretty close description to real MREs. I like it a lot.

A scout/Survival expert. My main profession is not so much to explore a new planet but to rather lead a new group of colonists to their new colony. Then as they get started I move on to the next group that needs a guide. Sort of a 25th century Wagon Train master. And no I did "NOT" palagarize this idea from Robert H. Heinleins Tunnel In The Sky novel.... Ok so maybe I did...

This is exaclty why we don't build battleships today. A single fighter (around $14 million with weapons installed) can take out a multi-billion dollar ship single handed. And usually the aircraft can stand off, out of the ships weapon ange to fire said weapons.

Well I couldn't get a better compromise....I live within 3 miles of the largest body of salt water in the world outside of the ocean....

Here are a couple of ideas from Alternity and Wing Commander (the game not the "ACK!" movie). 1) From Alternity Boarding pods... These are missile type pods that attache themselves to ships hulls, There are several variants; one that drains shielding (suppress vs FF/FW), one that drains ships energy (Drain vs END), One that acts as a Grapple (TK), one that Shuts down FTL thus preventing escape, and my favorite, one that holds a boarding party of space marines/Commandoes. 2) From Wing Commander... Most fighters are tougher than in movies taking from 2 missile strikes to many laser hits to destroy. But fighters can be very threatening to ships by carrying torpedoes... For instance imagine a wing of 12 fighters each armed with lasers for fighter to fighter combat and each also carrying a belly slung Anti-Matter Torpedoe (missile). Even a dreadnought would fear a coordinated strike from a dozen Anti-Matter topedoes of 25d6 AP mega scale explosions. The fighters don't need to get that close, only firing range for the torpedoes. There are historical precedence for the fighter tactics....during WWII the most feared attack against Naval vessels was torpedoe fighter/bombers. Also note that IRL the mission of Carrier/Fleet escort vessels includes having the destroyer intercept and take the torpedoe hit itself, if need be, so that the Carrier can survive to launch its fighters and bombers. That is why ships operate in fleets and almost never alone. Your resident retired Navy dude (20 years)

I always liked Kulthea (of Shadow World fame) it is very detailed and with a little work (and some provided Hero conversions) it is a great backdrop for Fantasy Hero. I am also partial to Krynn from Dragonlance.

The Dragonlance Chronicles by Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman ( along with a couple of hundred spin off stories). The Hawk of May by Gillian Bradshaw (a somewhat historical fiction with a splash of sorcery thrown in. King Arthur with a twist). And finally The Book of Lost Swords by Karl Saberhagen (possibly the best magic sword series ever written).

In addition, one hit kills of fighters is very realistic. Most aircraft can be blown out of the air with a single missile strike. It is a very lucky pilot indeed that can take a missile strike and still fly to safety, let alone continue the mission. Note however that I am talking about missile strikes, a strafe by a gatling gun (or in the context of Star Hero maybe a laser bolt) may give a much higher probability of the target craft surviving and maintaining mission operability.

A typical carrier strike group makeup is listed at: http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/ships/carriers/powerhouse/cvbg.html The Navy Currently has 6 Fleets, each fleet has 3 such strike groups, plus numerous ships on independent duty, and organized into other types of task groups. The total number of US Navy combat ships is about 500. The fleets are divided between coasts (3 on each coast), and usually have 1 fleet deployed, 1 in workup getting ready to deploy, and 1 in repair cycle. Of course during times of crisis this ration can change very rapidly. In addition there are close to a thousand ships in mothball including Battleships, old carriers, destroyers, cruiser, frigates, supply ships, etc.

Corp Commander said: Uh...this is like comparing apples to oranges. The B17 is a bomber hence the B designator, while the F15 is a fighter (there are both single seat and twin seat versions). A more apt comparison would be the B17 and the B1. Or you could compare the F15 to the F14 or YF22. As for ship organization if you go to http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/ships/ you can get the official release information on all of the Navys ships. inculding links to pictures, ship specs, crews, weapons, costs, etc. As mentioned before each ship is broken down into departments and divisions. Operations Dept: Mans and operates the bridge, navigation, CIC, Intel, etc. Deck Dept: Manages ships boats, provides general maintenance, fire fighting, damage control, etc. Engineering Dept: Manages ships engines and power systems. Weapons Dept: Manages ships weapons magazines, maintains & operates ships weapons, oversees ships weapons lockers, conduct weapons training for other dept personnel. Supply Dept: operates galleys, ships laundry, ships stores, barber shops, orders and stores ships supplies and parts, manages payroll and ship finances. Admin Dept: Manages ships personnel files, including transfers, re-enlistments, and discharges. Also includes the ships legal division (including the ships master at arms or security division) Medical Dept: Maintains medical and dental divisions. Ships may also include a Marine Detachment (Mardet): Responsible for ships security versus outside forces (repel boarding parties, guard critical areas of the ship like magazines, CIC, the bridge, etc), Provide guard duties for the CO, and the Brig. a Seal Team: Performs SPECOPS for the ship as required by mission profile (these teams are usually only assigned to amphib ships, carriers, or submarines, though on rare occasions they have deployed from destroyers or cruisers). an Air Wing: Includes Fighters, Bombers, Recon, C&C, Fuelers, Patrol, Rescue, and Logistic aircraft. I hope this helps.....It gets a lot more technical, but this is a genral overview. I learned all of this while becoming a qualifed Enlisted AirWarfare Specialist during my 20 years of active duty in the Navy.

I think being able to export to CC would rock! I hope you do it....

I had worked long and hard on an adventure for Fantasy Hero. The intrepid group was hunting an evil witch in a haunted forest. The witch lived in a huge hollow tree and gainde entrance through a crack in the trunk caused by a lightning strike. The barbarian reported to the rest of the group after scouting out the entrance...."I can't wait to get into the witch's crack"... where upon the game descended into a total chaos of laughter...

How about BIO of a Space Tyrant by Piers Anthony...Good gritty sci-fi with no aliens, just losts of action, pirates, tragedy and triumph. Another good one was the Voyage of the Starwolf Trilogy. The alien protagonists aren't really aliens they are a race created by humanity using genetic engineering, by mixing human DNA with the great cats. They became stronger, faster, smarter, larger, and more aggressive than their human creators. They then left earth and setup their own star empire. Then they came back......to hunt humanity.

Check out http://www.travellerhero.com for some good ship write ups and some racial packages......

Summoning!?! I would really like to see a side bar or index with a summoning table. I.E. a list of 50 point creatures, a list of 100 point creatures, a list of 250 points creatures. This list should not be a master list of creatures but rather a list of creatures appropriate for summoning (.i.e. Demons, spirits, familiars, etc).

There is no real effective way to compute an items cost in credits based on the cost in points, either active or real. IMHO the best method is to pick something in real life that is close and use the approximate cost in dollars to represent the cost in credits. For some items that are extremely costly this may require a little research to find the cost. For example a car engine for most cars runs about $1500.00 dollars, so I would cost the engine on a grav sled at 1500 credits. The Nuclear power plant of an aircraft carrier cost about $500,000,000.00 so a starship engine would cost about 5 hundred million credits ( complete carrier costs about 15 billion dollars). A military rifle (like the M16) costs about 2000 dollars, thus 2000 credits, while a common civilian hunting rfile costs about 500. I hope this helps

In 4E many packages had a few bonus points included. Usually 0 to 3 points depending on how beneficial the package was (i.e the more useful the package was the lower the bonus). This was intended as an incentive to players to use well designed packages to help more clearly define their characters. What does everyone think, is this a good option? It is one of the few things I really miss about 4E, that IMHO should have been carried over to 5E.

I have been playing with the idea of reduced NCM and also higher/lowered Base stats based on race, like the race stats from 4E racial packages. I wonder what everyone else thinks of this?

Sheesh, I almost forgot the most important novel of them all The Voyage of the Starwolf by David Gerrold delves into leadership, crew morale, and lots of space hardware and combat.

The Siege of Earth by John Faucette, a great story combining land, air, and space warfare in the far future, as it applies to a planetary siege operation. Also the Wing Commander novels by Mercedes Lackay, tells of outstanding carrier based space warfare.

I would actually put the damage more in the 1d6 to 1 1/2d6 range. While the shot was larger the powder was not as effective as it is today. If I shoot you with a modern firearm of a fairly large caliber I could probably drop you with one shot, but back in the day almost as many targets died of blood poisoning or infection instead of the actual shot. I do agree with the delay rate on reloading, the str min, and the relative inaccuracy (up until you introduce rifling in the barrel).

In my campaigns I reserve the clone slots for PCs, if a player wants a superman clone I help him to design a low powered version, then help him to understand how he might develop into a more powerful version over time.