Cosmosemeritus

Re: Daily Art Findings Saw this thought you guys might like it. More of an environment than character. http://www.cgnetworks.com/gallerycrits/47928/47928_1109701025.jpg

Re: Missile Weapons for HD 'Cause its not complete and I may not complete it. If someone else runs with it and makes it more complete, they can post it on herodesigner.com and take the credit.

Re: Missile Weapons for HD I wrote this up before I decided to use customized armor and weapon values in my game, but kept this file around for some reason. This is modelled off od Keithcurtis' HTML Weapons Prefab. It includes most of the weapons and armor and even a few items of general equipment as written in the FH5ed. Prices were converted to the base 'copper piece' as defined in the same section of the book. Since I've decided to go with custom weapons and armor, I've stopped working on this project. Anyone is welcome to run with it.

Re: Missing: Fantasy Hero most years fall/autumn starts september 22.

Re: Area of a hexagon just a little correlary... With a scale inch defined as 2 meters, and if you consider a hexagon that is 1" from side to opposite side to have an area defined by a unit called a 'hex' then you can make use of the following. A nifty characteristic of regular hexagons (just like squares actually) is that if your hexagonal area can be measured side to opposite side in an integer of smaller hexagons, the area of the big hexagon is equal to the square of the number of smaller hexagons it takes to measure from side to opposite side. So a hexagon that is 4 smaller hexagons across would have an area equal to that of 16 of the smaller hexagons. If you'd like to test this, get some hex paper and draw a few large hexagons on it using the hex grid as a guide.. Count the number of smaller hexagons in the larger, including the various fractional parts (halfs and thirds) and you'll see that the pattern holds true. So in a game system where we tend to measure things in terms of scale inches and hexes, a hexagon 100 miles across would be (~160km=160000m=80000")^2= about 6,400,000,000 'hexes'. That's a little bigger than 80 active points of basic Change Environment.

Re: Attack Questions No book handy, sorry. I don't remember if its -1 per size difference or -2. But I did just think of a correlary question. For the character wielding two unequal length weapons (say a medium and a short), would the short weapon have a penalty based on weapon length? would it depend on the weapon length of the opponent's weapon?

Re: Sectional Defences I scrolled back to Mayapuppies' original post... Sorry for the hyjack hope your question was answered before this flight was diverted.

Re: Sectional Defences Looks like I opened a can of worms unintentionally. I have no evidence, nor do I believe, that wood was used historically for personal armor in any practical sense. I have read about such armors, but discount the references as lacking credibility. However, we're talking about energy defense in a fantasy game. It is not unimaginable for a variety of fantastic materials be used to defend against a damage type (energy) virtually unknown in realistic history. It can be argued that in a campaign where such attacks are more common, through magic or machination, defenses would be developed from whatever materials worked and were available. Now after reading much of this thread I've changed metal armor in my game to have 1-2rEd as I am now convinced that maille, plate and lamé would provide some protection to heat, electricity, cosmic rays, etc. I also allow a limited layering of armor, so that the low ED metal armor can be augmented by the ED of the liner material. Wood, crystal, and chitin are also available materials.

Re: Sectional Defences I had a source book around somewhere that listed lacquered wood, along with leather and iron, as being a major component of Japanese armor. I couldn't tell you how accurate it is (there's so much bad information out there), but I liked the idea so its in my game. Besides I've tried chopping down an oak with an axe. Dem hardwoods is hard! Electricity is a fickle thing and the metal armor vs electricity debate will continue until Mythbusters stick a pig carcass in metal armor on top of a pole during a thunderstorm. I use low ED values in my game primarily so that I can keep the DC of magic spells down to a manageable level while still allowing the spellcasters to be competitive. So its purely a numbers racket for me.

Re: Sectional Defences The way I do it is give all metal armor (chain and plate mostly) 0rEd, but then allow (and recommend) wearing a lining. The linings, like a padded gambeson or leather jack have a note "can be worn under other armor" and adds to the defense per location. Composite armors, like studded or brigadine, have the rED of the base material, usually leather. I also have non-metal rigid materials, like oriental laminated wood armor or chitin armor, which tends to have pretty good (4-5) rED.

Re: Things I've Learned playing a monstrous hero Watch where you step for there are short people around and they sometimes have pointy things. Speaking of short people, I did make a Halfling Monk once, master of the art of Tae Kwan Leap.

Re: Ships of the Dark Ages and Medieval Period Sorry Dale, but the ol' HP 48 confirms Gojira. 250gal = 33.4201388889...ft^3. That negative space between barrels takes up a lot more volume that you'd think.

Re: What's the rule? The normal PD (assuming that the character has any resistant PD) would only count towards the STUN not the Body damage. So the 5PD character with 3rPD armor would subtract 3 from the BODY damage and 8 from the STUN damage of a killing attack, while the 3PD character with 5rPD armor would subtract 5 from the BODY and 8 from the STUN

Re: Area of a hexagon If someone had asked for a write-up to an AE power that affected the hex specified, would the thread be just as long?

Re: Area of a hexagon 8660.25 sq. mi. was the correct answer. (100 mi divided by sqrt(3) times 100 mi/2) times 3

Re: Weapon not up to the Armor I'm sure someone has said this already, but especially given the high CV you gave your dacoits, have them use called shots to get around the armor. TANSTAACBC - There Ain't No Such Thing As A Chainmail Body Condom Also if your shortswords are defined as thrusters, there's an optional rule in fantasy hero that allows thrusters to become AP if the attacker makes a dex roll after the to-hit roll succeeds.

Re: Does wearing armor need a skill ? An interesting caveat... Weapon Fam's don't just allow a character basic proficiency in a weapon type but also covers the character's skill in maintaining the same weapon type. In the absence of a "Armor Familiarity" how is the ability of the character to maintain their armor in the same fashion to be modelled? While I definatly believe that for reducing/eliminating the penalties to DCV/Dex due to armor and encumberance PSL's are the way to go, I think there is a disparity in FH as written when it comes to unskilled use of armor. So my idea is as follows: Analogous to the introduction of the Armorsmith skill (FH5 p85) would be the introduction of an "Armor Familiarity" skill. This skill should work much the same as a WF. A 1-point armor familiarity would, by parallel, cover maintenance, donning, appraisal, and wearing of the armor. It should only compensate for "unfamiliarity" penalties the GM decides is appropriate for his/her game (perhaps -3 DCV like the -3 OCV unfamiliar weapon penalty?). An armor familiarity should NOT compensate for encumberence penalties due to wearing armor, just as a WF doesn't compensate for a weapon's inherent OCV or Rmod penalties. Also analogous to WF's, make AF: Light (or however the lightest armor is defined in your game) a free skill, like WF club.

Re: Help with balancing fighters with magic users First long post, bear with me if the formatting is off. So first we have Fred the Fighter with a of Str 18 (8 pts) and WF: Blades (1) and WF: Bows (1). He starts off with the following with a Short Sword (0 OCV, 1d6K, 10 Str min) and a Light Longbow (0 OCV, +1 RMod, 1d6+1k, 10 Str min, Str doesn't add). So for 10 points (and some money) he does 1d6+1K melee and 1d6+1k ranged. If Fred in his infinite wisdom decides he wants a little more damage, he buys a longsword and a heavy longbow. Now for the same points he does 1½d6k and 2d6k respectively. Any further improvement will require point expenditure, either raising strength, or buying levels. With Experience, for 6 points Fred can buy two CL's with Blades and use those to increase his damage with the longsword to 2d6k. Or for the same points buy the CL's with Bows, increasing his damage with the heavy longbow to 2d6+1k. Now we also have Mike the mage with an Int of 13 (3 pts) and the skill Magic (3 pts) at a 12-. If he's only going to spend the same points as Fred, he only has 4 points left. Even with a large amount of limitations (-3) he can only get a 1d6 RKA that only works half the time (skill roll -1 for active points) and probably causes the caster side effects or doesn't work in a number of different situations. Admittedly, using the additional 6 that Fred used on CL's nets Mike a 2½d6 RKA. But now it only works on a roll of an 8 or less because Mike (in his desire to one-up Fred) forgot to buy up his Int or skill roll. Mike goes *poof* when his side effects inevitably go off or whenever that Longsword gets close enough. I suspect that the real problem is that your GM is failing to enforce the limitations that the caster players are layering onto their spells. If it ain't a limitation it ain't worth points.

Re: Point/Power levels in your game My previous game (4th ed) was 75+75 with the disads from racial physical packages not counting towards maxima. That game finally ground to a halt as reality forced us to play less and less often. Recently we've had a surge of interest in jumpstarting the game again, after several of us got the 5ER book. We're currently still discussing how we want to do things, both for compatibility with the changes in the ruleset, and also to augment certain areas of the game that were lacking in the previous incarnation. It will probably be: 1) Heroic. This tends to fit best to the cinemagraphic feel we like to have in our fantasy game. 2) 50+50 or 75+75. I'm leaning towards the former, but several players are convincing me to go with the latter. (I kinda feel that if you start low you can always add, but if you start high it can be very hard to subtract.) 3) I like to think of the game as 'mediocre' fantasy or High-fantasy Lite. This is due to an effort to keep magic items rare and magic casting at a mundane level.