secretID

Thanks for the fast answers! BTW, I haven't been on the boards in a long time, IIRC, and it's great to see you still at it, Lucius - "it" being the individualized clever postscripts. I think your dedication and consistency make it the most impressive thing I've ever seen in online interactions.

Am I correct that the pluses and minuses each must fit into the campaign minimums? That is, a 75/75 character only has 75 points in disads and 150 points total, regardless of what's in any package deal? Put another way, am I correct that a package deal is in fact no "deal" for the player - it's just a list of things the player must fit into the character limits? (I ask this without criticism.) Thanks in advance.

Re: computer link pricing Thanks - that's very helpful. I hadn't thought of comparing it to a contact. That way, it would have to be VERY expensive - over 10 points. So as not to overthink it, I'll just go with 6, which looks like the top of the link range.

5e, if that matters. I'm trying to price a link a player is buying. Didn't quite do an exhaustive search, but I can't find a single published character with a link. It's a modern-day standard campaign - 350 points. The link is to all US Telecom companies. He would have full access to all billing information, and an advantage for hacking various things (like call history). Thanks in advance.

Re: Fading Stars...when and why should superheroes retire? Beat you by a hair. I've had these thoughts many times, but they hit me most in a game when I was playing a genius inventor power suit. The GM wanted a long down-time post, and I realized that just about anything my character would be doing in his off time would be far more useful than fighting some bad guy. With some heroes, I could see them worrying that the repercussions of a big good act could be harder to control. The weather control is a good example. With the super-inventor, it's just silly. Why work on making your force field belt a tad better when you could, say invent the greatest imaginable water filter, thereby saving tens of thousands of children every day?

Re: Fading Stars...when and why should superheroes retire? This is outside of genre, but some could just realize how silly and inefficient it is to fight crime as opposed to, say, facilitating the production and delivery of potable water. Similarly, some might decide that it's more important to go after some bad people without powers - say dictators or bankers.

Re: Theurgy side effects in TA Thanks! I didn't know that RSK + SE automatically means that.

The book says that they represent a god's punishment for stealing power. Does that mean that it's a GM call whether it occurs? Does it occur when the skill roll fails? It doesn't appear that they're meant to occur every use. Thanks for any help.

Re: expendable foci vs. charges

Re: expendable foci vs. charges Right - that's what I was referring to, Kraven. With either a charge or an expendable focus, you lose the power in the short term, but with the charge you get it back automatically later, while with the expendable focus you have to go through some trouble and expense to get another.

Re: expendable foci vs. charges I thought of that, but that's why I gave the example of 2x12. I doubt he'd allow me that many, and even so, I might have 8 spells, so hundreds of foci, and the component might be a valuable item. More likely, I'd have about 6 uses for each. In charges, that would be -3/4, and they would automatically recover, and I wouldn't have to spend END. (Yeesh - the more I think about it, the crazier it seems.)

5e - not sure if this changed. Building a FH mage - and therefore dealing with expendable foci - for the first time. The lim seems very undervalued. For that same extra -1/4, I could buy 2 clips of 12 charges, recoverable under limited circumstances. Am I missing something.

I'm making my first FH mage for a 5e TA campaign. I have TA and the Grimoires, but FH is in the mail. I'm trying to get my head around some things, and I don't want to keep bugging the GM, so now I'm bugging you. Thanks in advance. I haven't hashed everything out with the GM yet, but I know that he wants to stick pretty closely to the spells in the books. My questions of the hour involve the use of material components. First, it seems to me that the spells with material components should have charges, b/c there are only so many components one can carry. Is that problem viewed as just part of "expendable?" I know expendable gets you an extra -1/4 (!), but I'd just as soon take an OAF - magic staff or something. Then I won't have to spend all of my down time shopping for imp's blood and carving ivory figurines. On that subject, TA says that elves use foci made of their magic wood. Is that usually in lieu of material components, or in addition to, or is there no "usual?" Thanks.

Re: GM conundrum - CSLs Sorry - I meant that it would be tough - difficult - to find a French/English translator on Hero Central. I don't know about Hero in particular in France - I just thought that there was a lot of RPGers there. (And I did not have very good basis for that belief.) You might want to post in the "HERO Games Product Line" forum.

Re: GM conundrum - CSLs The French part will be tough, but you can try herocentral.com for play-by-post remote games. I was under the impression that there are a lot of French RPGers - maybe there's a French site similar to Hero Central?