Bismark

Re: What is Your Inner Character? Lawful Good Half-Orc Paladin! I must be like OOTS Thog - 'full of interesting complications'...

Last weekend I was GMing (as was Shadowsoul) at the UK Student RPG/Wargaming National Championships. The same scenario (in the case of my game my Valdorian Age 'find and loot the lost city' scenario) was run for 2 different groups, 1 group per day. Happily, both games went very well, although the approach of each group was radically different (the second group actually made friends with the mountain tribesmen who were supposed to be one of the main adversaries). My attempt to make the character sheets less intimidating than normal (by spreading them over 3 sheets and colour-coding the information [red for combat info, blue for magic-related info and black for everything else]) seemed to work very well. The players adapted to the system with no problems at all (including the 10 [out of 12] players who had never played HERO before). 2 had played CHAMPIONS in the past, so they were on board pretty quickly, and one of the 'never played HERO' people plays Star Fleet Battles regularly, so NOTHING will scare that guy . One of the players (who won the top prize in the category, actually) had played in my Sci-Fi game at the last Nationals I was involved in (2006), and bought a copy of FRED back then as a result () Thanks to everyone who suggested extra 'bits' for (or cutting bits from) my original scenario. A big :thumbup: :thumbup: all round!

Re: UK Student National RPG Championship Valdorian Age - request for ideas Thanks for the input guys. After reading your suggestions: 1. I will streamline some of the plot using the old 'Conan-esque' serialisation technique (i.e. long periods of game-time elapse, but since the PCs are not threatened, it can simply be narrated in one or two paragraphs) and also incorporate a few of Markdoc's suggestions . 2. I will make sure that the back story of the characters (which was developed for a campaign so each character actually has a half-decent 'origin') is on the character sheet (or supplementary sheet) so the players have something to 'get their teeth into': For example, the 'Viking Brewmistress'-type has a rather amusing way of recharging her Sorcery END Reserve - 5 days of non-stop getting drunk and passing out, often forgetting to put clothes on (one of the more entertaining suggestions that the {female} player of that character came up with) Now back to that horror called W-O-R-K (then maybe I can do some interesting stuff this evening)

Re: UK Student National RPG Championship Valdorian Age - request for ideas I have an outline of the Nationals adventure below - it needs a fair bit more work, unfortunately Valdorian Nationals Game (Heroic-level game, power level as in first post in this thread, party will be recruited from the characters in that thread as well) Basic Premise Haile, an Abyzinian merchant, wants to go delving into the fabled ruins of an Elothian city deep in the foothills of the World’s Edge Mountains. [He is looking to enlighten his countrymen about Elothia; he has also come into possession of an old scroll written in Old Elothian script, which was translated for him by a Graecorian scholar. The scroll mentions the Elothian city of Purush-Pe, rumoured to be in those very foothills.] 1. Recruitment in Elweir Most of the party will be contacted via an advert placed in the tavern known as The Far Away, located in the Snake’s Den district (p. 50). ‘Nimblefingers’ and ‘Stabby’ are to be found in the River Captains’ Guild Hall (p. 51). 2. Journey to Three Fingers with the Trade Barges (needs filling in…) 3. Back up the Serpentine …to one of its sources (beware the Cynthian Riders, who may take their rules literally rather than obeying the spirit; one of the tributaries may not ‘count’ as the Serpentine itself for the purposes of the truce). 4. Entering the Lands of the Kasogians The Kasogians are worshippers of Long-Winged Death (hence referred to as ‘LWD’). i. Signs—lots of human skulls stuck on stakes, with raven symbols crudely carved onto them. ii. The Kasogians are hostile to almost all strangers—wandering sorcerors being about the only exceptions. iii. The Kasogians believe that the city harbours evil spirits and must not be disturbed—ever (the place is tabu to them). iv. LWD—the divine spirit of the mountains—manifests as a raven-shaped cloud of volcanic ash with glowing red ‘eyes’; a shaman channelling him will have similar ‘SFX’. He is a divine spirit of the ‘old school’, demanding frequent blood sacrifices. v. The Kasogians have among their ranks a ‘champion’ of LWD; he will be the leader in any fight with the party. The standard tactic is a shower of thrown spears followed by a wild charge brandishing their war clubs. If there is time, the tribal shaman will try to summon Ash Spirits (divine servants of LWD) and send them against the party. (need to do some designing of the Ash Spirits) 5. The Rival Party Coming over the mountains from the other side is a group of unsavoury mercenaries, plus downtrodden slave porters and a Urethi sorceror (who is the leader, of course). (more work required here as well) 6. The World’s Edge Mountains (hence referred to as ‘WEM’) The mountain range is relatively quiet at the moment vulcanism-wise; of course, this will not last long once the party get there. Just before the party enter the mountains proper, a (major) eruption will take place, ash and noxious gases spewing out with gay abandon. The area is strewn with highly acidic (strong enough to burn on contact)ponds populated by green and yellow slimy bacteria (or 'gunge' as they would call it) and reeking of H2S and SO2 (aka 'foul vapours'). [if the adventure needs more ‘drama’, a pyroclastic surge (though of course it won't be called by that name) can be added to the ‘fun’ ] Now I need some inspiration as what to include in the lost city.... All sensible suggestions considered

First, to paraphrase my original post about this game a few days ago: < I have created ten characters, of which I expect six to be used. Characters of this level can be a bit 'hot to handle' in Elweir, so I will be taking the adventure into the trackless wilderness. The cast of characters is: Haile - an Abyzinian merchant with mucho bureaucracy skills and a very big Dembus (a 2-handed maul which acts as his 'walking stick); Mbembe - a massive Savannah tribe warrior with big shield and spear, plus one of those spiffy multi-bladed throwing knives - he has mucho MA with his spear; Bayan - a north Pelosan Steppe nomad with the classic Bow Tricks and Riding Skills; Freya - a Khorian Brewmistress with an impressive frame (and COM 20 to go with it - a 1.85m tall blue-eyed redhead [yes, she is a wish-fulfilment character on my part ]); Tarja - a Pelosan forest-steppe boundary tribeswoman with a very stout spear, lariat and a savage reputation (think savage pagan Finnish tribe like the Burta or the Moksha); 'Synthia' (name not yet finalised) - a Cynthian Rider (female, good-looking [COM 14]) with the usual gear, plus a shield faced in human bone and a human skin undershirt and a drinking cup made from a human skull; Tessa - a barbarian from the Crumble (female, COM 20) with a big 2-H axe, a long 'flat bow' (which can stand extreme cold without breaking) and Beast Speech; 'Nimblefingers' (name not yet finalised) - an Elweirnian sophisticate with an amazing array of skills appropriate to his profession (a river captain who is basically a rogue and smuggler); 'Stabby' (name not yet finalised, but he often masquerades as 'Lord Stabwold') - another Elweirnian sophisticate who specialises in the darker side of roguery [he knows Brew Poison and has the 'Backstab' variant of Deadly Blow - go figure] and uses a matched pair of Cinquedeas (one long, one short) Brannus - a Cold Peaks hillman who is a typical 'Conan the Cimmerian' type (broadsword, dagger, javelin, medium shield) Now the question is: where do I send them for a one-off scenario liable to be 4-5 hours in length?>> Secondly, the details so far: I will be sending them to the World's Edge Mountains, where they will end up exploring the ruins of an old Elothian city. I expect them to encounter Cynthian riders along the way (stay within sight of the Serpentine, folks…) and run into equally unpleasant people in the foothills of the mountains, who revere 'Long-Winged Death'. I am working on a champion of this tribe at the moment. This is now an official request for scenario ideas; I am supposedly doing a run-through of my scenario this coming Saturday, but ideas are welcome from now all the way up until the week before the game proper (weekend 29-30 March) - the more detail I can add, the better. Areas where I could do with assistance (all you S&S fans, unite!) include: 1. The nature and manifestation of Long-Winged Death (before the proper tournament starts, I can then design a shaman/priest of same); 2. What is lurking in the lost city (I may use the 0one maps 'The Lost City' for the floorplans - this includes a ziggurat with tombs underneath it) - I am thinking of adapting Susano's version of the Hyborian Age beastie/god known as 'Thog', for starters (and maybe a flooded area where an Orobon-like beastie [see MMM for details] is lurking); 3. 'Random' (not really, but you get the message ) encounters for the party both on the way to and in the city itself . Many thanks in advance…

Re: Creating Armor Ditto: also, encumbrance is not directly related to DEF if you use 'realistic' armour. Example: Chinese scale armour, Han period. When made of iron, the scales are 1mm thick; when made of leather, the scales are 7mm thick. 1mm iron is lighter (quite a bit lighter) than 7mm thick leather, while being rather better protection (probably about 4 [possibly 5] DEF rather than 2 DEF [3 at most]). (Now, if only I could remember the arms and armour forum I got this info from - it had a detailed calculation and figures for density of various armour materials; just the sort of stuff I normally download or at least bookmark - doh! )

Re: D&D Magic Items 3.5 to HERO As mentioned (threatened ???) earlier, here is my take on the Bohemian Ear-Spoon (also known as 'lugged spear', among many other names). Just Google "Bohemian Ear-Spoon" in case you have never seen one (and enjoy the imprecise nature of polearm names ) The weapon is adapted from the Spear HD data in the 'Weapons' Prefab posted in the HD Vault, if anyone asks. I have kludged the Combat Levels because of the rules about applying Limitations to CSLs and this method felt 'better' than just applying smaller CSLs without Limitations. Feel free to modify for your own use Edit: On reflection I think that a better Skill Level split for this class of weapon is to have the standard +1 OCV that spears of this length get and +1 for the Block/Bond/Disarm rather than the +2 for the latter. The version that has extra effect against Goblinoids was done that way because the original (which worked against Kobolds) has less general utility to FH GM's than one that works vs. Goblinoids in general (and yes, I know that Kobolds are not Goblinoids - before anyone says anything ) Bohemian Ear-Spoon (mundane - no enchantment): (Total: 59 Active Cost, 20 Real Cost) Killing Attack - Hand-To-Hand 2d6-1 (+1 pt of Piercing, fully resistant), Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2) (42 Active Points); OAF (-1), Required Hands Two-Handed (-1/2), Real Weapon (-1/4), STR Minimum 8 (-1/4) (Real Cost: 14) plus Stretching 1", Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2) (7 Active Points); OAF (-1), Only To Cause Damage (-1/2), Always Direct (-1/4), No Noncombat Stretching (-1/4), No Velocity Damage (-1/4) (Real Cost: 2) plus +2 with HTH Combat (10 Active Points); OAF (-1), Limited to defensive Combat Maneuvers [especially Bind, Block, Disarm] (-1/2) (Real Cost: 4)Notes: 1 1/2H, Long 0 Bohemian Ear-Spoon, Bane of Goblinoids: (Total: 74 Active Cost, 27 Real Cost) Killing Attack - Hand-To-Hand 2d6-1 (+1 pt of Piercing, fully resistant), Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2) (42 Active Points); OAF (-1), Required Hands Two-Handed (-1/2), Real Weapon (-1/4), STR Minimum 8 (-1/4) (Real Cost: 14) plus Stretching 1", Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2) (7 Active Points); OAF (-1), Only To Cause Damage (-1/2), Always Direct (-1/4), No Noncombat Stretching (-1/4), No Velocity Damage (-1/4) (Real Cost: 2) plus +2 with HTH Combat (10 Active Points); OAF (-1), Limited to defensive Combat Maneuvers [especially Bind, Block, Disarm] (-1/2) (Real Cost: 4) plus +1 with HTH Combat (5 Active Points); OAF (-1), Only works against Goblinoids (-1/2) (Real Cost: 2) plus Killing Attack - Hand-To-Hand 1d6-1 (1d6+1 w/STR) (10 Active Points); Only works against Goblinoids (-1/2), Linked (Killing Attack - Hand-To-Hand; -1/2) (Real Cost: 5)Notes: 1 1/2H, Long 1

After the collapse of my proposed STAR HERO game at the UK Student National Roleplaying Championships (mentioned in the STAR HERO forum) - basically, there were no people interested in anything other than Cyberpunk and Star Wars-style games , I will be running a game in the 'Open Fantasy' category, namely, a Valdorian Age game, using much the same party I used for my campaign of 2006-2007. This is quite high-powered for a VA game: 150 point characters (built as 100 + 50 disads, starting all characteristics at 10). I am not enforcing Normal Skill Maxima (except for Sorcery - and none of the characters is a sorceror apart from the Brewmaster, who only needs default level skill plus a few Knowledges and a PS: Brewer), but I am using the 'No Skill Levels apart from Combat/Penalty Skill Levels' option. I have created ten characters, of which I expect six to be used. Characters of this level can be a bit 'hot to handle' in Elweir, so I will be taking the adventure into the trackless wilderness. The cast of characters is: Haile - an Abyzinian merchant with mucho bureaucracy skills and a very big Dembus (a 2-handed maul which acts as his 'walking stick); Mbembe - a massive Savannah tribe warrior with big shield and spear, plus one of those spiffy multi-bladed throwing knives - he has mucho MA with his spear; Bayan - a north Pelosan Steppe nomad with the classic Bow Tricks and Riding Skills; Freya - a Khorian Brewmistress with an impressive frame (and COM 20 to go with it - a 1.85m tall blue-eyed redhead [yes, she is a wish-fulfilment character on my part ]); Tarja - a Pelosan forest-steppe boundary tribeswoman with a very stout spear, lariat and a savage reputation (think savage pagan Finnish tribe like the Burta or the Moksha); 'Synthia' (name not yet finalised) - a Cynthian Rider (female, good-looking [COM 14]) with the usual gear, plus a shield faced in human bone and a human skin undershirt and a drinking cup made from a human skull; Tessa - a barbarian from the Crumble (female, COM 20) with a big 2-H axe, a long 'flat bow' (which can stand extreme cold without breaking) and Beast Speech; 'Nimblefingers' (name not yet finalised) - an Elweirnian sophisticate with an amazing array of skills appropriate to his profession (a river captain who is basically a rogue and smuggler); 'Stabby' (name not yet finalised, but he often masquerades as 'Lord Stabwold') - another Elweirnian sophisticate who specialises in the darker side of roguery [he knows Brew Poison - go figure] and uses a matched pair of Cinquedeas (one long, one short) Brannus - a Cold Peaks hillman who is a typical 'Conan the Cimmerian' type (broadsword, dagger, javelin, medium shield) Now the question is: where do I send them for a one-off scenario liable to be 4-5 hours in length? If I send them to the Nightlurk Mountains, I can use the People of the Night as antagonists, and Susano's barbarian princess character as a patron, but if I use the Desert's Teeth or World's End Mountains, I can give the all manner of trouble as they try to skirt round the Cynthian Plains, plus there is the possibility of giving them a lost Elothian city to explore. I need to decide soon, as there is supposed to be a scenario playtest on Saturday the 8th of March and I need to have at least most of this sorted out by then. All constructive suggestions would be most welcome

Re: How to make an ice planet plausible You could have the dreaded example of a primitive ecosystem which evolves photosynthetic organisms, but with not enough components in the decomposer chain yet (or not numerically enough decomposer organisms) there is consequently such a draw-down of CO2 that the climate goes haywire. There are many (confusing, in some cases) explanations of how a 'normal' ice age can get completely out of hand - for some ramblings on the subject (with academic references), visit http://www.palaeos.com/Proterozoic/Neoproterozoic/Cryogenian/Cryogenian.html and proceed to melt (or should that be freeze) your brain.

Re: D&D Magic Items 3.5 to HERO This is useful stuff; makes me want to do a write-up for everyone's favourite item (yeah, right...) - Bohemian Ear-Spoon (often found in the "+2 vs. Kobolds" variety ). Of course, this is HERO and a spear with side flanges for disarming purposes (and, like with boar spears, for preventing opponents sliding up the shaft) is rather more useful than in D&D

Just saw the people who organize this year's tournament - it appears that my STAR HERO game will not be going ahead because there has been zero interest (and hence zero players) this year in SF games that are not Cyberpunk-type or Star Wars... Oh well, all is not lost - STAR HERO's loss will be FANTASY HERO's gain; I will be running a game in the 'Open Fantasy' category (either Turakian Age or Valdorian Age - not decided yet). A couple of my current fantasy players (including Shadowsoul - here's looking at YOU) have thrown down a gauntlet though. They reckon that part of the SF problem is perception - SF is seen as a very hard genre to run, demanding loads of GM preparation, and they have challenged me to run STAR HERO (rather than FH) as next year's campaign game. I am seriously considering it - I like a challenge...

Re: Creating a Shield To add to what has been said above: KS's comment about a Missile Deflection slot is particularly appropriate for metal-faced shields like the archetypal Classical Greek hoplon or the mediaeval knight's 'heater'. Some shields are optimised for stopping missiles and will not appreciate being hit by heavier stuff with serious momentum behind it (the large Achaemenid-period Persian wicker shields come to mind, as do the traditional cane-and-silk kalkan shields beloved of Turco-Mongol types). If you want to take quality of construction into account as well as just materials used, I found out recently that plywood-construction shields are much more durable than those constructed from planks of equivalent thickness (source: "Roman Infantry Equipment: The Later Empire" by I.P. Stephenson, Tempus Publishing Ltd, 2001). It has long been a gripe of mine that most RPGs undervalue shields (or treat them too simplistically) [they also undervalue plate armour as well, but that's a different point entirely]

Re: Cool Guns for your Games The 'gun bunny' in me is almost having a 'gun-gasm'... (of course, living in the UK I could never actually own one - not legally, anyway:thumbdown) Odd that I had already thought of something almost exactly like this thing years ago (complete with specialist ammo) for my SF games...it was called the "Death Cloud" Some questions arise from this video: 1. Do those fins make the round spin? (I know it is possible to use canted fins to make projectiles fired from a smoothbore weapon spin; just wondering whether or not they do in this case) 2. I wonder what the AP round is like (is it kinetic or HEAP? - obviously, if the round does spin, then HEAP is less efficient because the spinning has bad effects on the molten metal/gas jet) 3. If the round could be made to spin at a reasonable rate using canted fins, I wonder whether a workable HESH round could be made for it? Of course, some of you guys with more practical gun experience (I have not touched one since 1987:thumbdown) could probably enlighten me.

Re: GMing STAR HERO at UK Student Nationals Tournament - yay! There is indeed a website, although the main page is distinctly out of date at the moment (the forums, as usual, is 'where it's at'). This is the link I have so far: I will be checking with the organisers soon to see which categories are still 'go' and which ones will have to be shelved (believe it or not, last year, out of the first group of 6 players I got only ONE had chosen sci-fi as their preferred category ; the second group was easier to run for as 5 out of 6 players had put that category first on their list).

Re: Why horses? Back in the days (15 years ago) when I used to paint figures for a living (very low wages but still better than welfare), I did one of those multi-part Marauder Miniatures Dark Elf Chiefs on Cold One; of course, the Cold One was powder pink () with yellow-green eyes and the rider had metallic purple armour (he was part of a Chaos army - guess which patron…). I still have the figure - unfortunately, the varnish I used has yellowed horribly and wrecked the colour scheme (like it has on most of my stuff - WAAHH!!). This is very irritating as that particular army was originally painted rather well (I have a trophy from the 1992 UK Golden Demon Awards to underline this point). Luckily, my winning [well, 2nd place in the Command Group category] models were finished with a different and non-yellowing varnish, so they still look fine despite 15 years of atmospheric exposure). I can categorically state that lizards are easier to paint than horses (which are very awkward to paint well) - but making lizard colour schemes not look artificial is a real challenge (since real lizards often look artificial at times ).

Re: Why horses? Playing the 'realism' card (yes, I know, it's Fantasy we are dealing with here): Horses are herbivores and therefore it is much easier to maintain large herds/groups of them in a given area than things like wolves (which, being higher up the food chain [i.e. carnivores], there are less of per unit area of habitable land). By the same reasoning, the use of boars as mounts by Warhammer Orcs is actually more sensible than the use of giant wolves as boars are omnivores, so can grub for roots and tubers etc. when times are lean. [As an aside, razorbacks would make better 'shock cavalry' mounts than giant wolves since they are ornery critters who cannot see very well, so are unlikely to register all those nasty pointy metal things sticking out from the troops they are charging, plus they are notoriously impervious to pain.] BTW, if the mounts are 'cold-blooded' (ectothermic), such as lizards, they do not require feeding very often, so the use of carnivores as mounts would be more practical.

Re: GMing STAR HERO at UK Student Nationals Tournament - yay! I did visit the (now defunct) website for last year's championships; I should know more about all this stuff when meetings restart next Wednesday (23rd). There will be an active website soon. I now have the task of streamlining the characters and doing the stats for the 'adversary' race for the upcoming game. The 'bad guys' will be vaguely insectoid, looking like the Seltorians (check out Star Fleet Battles Module C3 for an idea of what they look like). I am planning to have several castes of these aliens, varying according to strength, fighting ability and intelligence; the High Warrior Caste are the most dangerous as they are fairly intelligent, big and scary and carry the best equipment. They are actually an 'Uplifted' (see the novels by David Brin) slave race; different lineage groups (hives, basically) serve different groups of masters. They are mainly used as 'grunts'; most of their starships are troop carriers and their 'masters' (whoever they happen to be) provide the other ship types in their fleets.

The University I play at (Sheffield) won the UK Student RPG Championship last year (that will make 3 years out of the last 5) so we are hosting the tournament this year. As a result, I am dusting off my STAR HERO scenarios again, like I did the other years we hosted. There is always a shortage of SF GMs at this tournament, particularly 'SF' (even 'hard rubber' SF like mine is [a cross between Babylon 5, Starship Troopers {the book, of course } and cyberpunk]) rather than 'Space Fantasy' (Star Wars, WH40K, fading Suns etc.) The characters were 'grandfathered in' from FUZION and are about 300 points each... (loadsa Skills, mainly). I will probably 'clean them up' a bit for this year's game (the humongous Skill lists can scare the players, many of whom have never played HERO before). If I have problems coming up with ideas, I will submit the universe background and the characters to these here forums and solicit sage advice. I have just bought both Traveller HERO PDFs so that will keep me interested for a while. Time to 'fly the STAR HERO flag' again :thumbup:

Re: Useful weapon/armour resource

I bought a really handy book 18 months ago (to help me with the Valdorian Age campaign I was running back then) and forgot to let you folks know about it until now - doh! It' s called Companion to Medieval Arms and Armour (ed. David Nicolle; published by Boydell Press) and is a very handy little resource, especially for Low Fantasy/'gritty' S&S-type games. The title is somewhat misleading - it's more a collection of assorted academic papers (with lots and lots of footnotes and bibliographical references …), covering, among other things: 1. The metallurgy of European arms and armour (including hardness measurements for various types of plate armour - I'll have the Italian stuff, thank you very much ) (metallurgy geeks will like this chapter); 2. Byzantine soldiers' gear from the 900s onwards; 3. Loads of info about Avar, Magyar and Khazar war-gear (including specialist arrowheads, various types of sabre and pallash, etc.) 4. Close combat weapons of the early period of the Arab Caliphate (and to some extent the preceding Sassanian Persians); 5. and finally a great chapter on the evolution of the coat-of-plates, including the North African hardened leather armour industry. I originally bought it for the chapter on the Persian and Arab stuff (Persian saddle-axes are lovely things - unless you get hit by one [they were seriously heavy and, being prestige weapons used by rich soldiers were made of sword steel ]). I am on the lookout for more books of this type, as they are a pretty good read and (unlike the Osprey stuff) the 'info-to -unit price' ratio is very good.

Re: Turakian Age Q: Gunpowder? Well spotted, Basil: I strongly suspect that the original containers fired from the catapults would have been ceramic and that they were glass on the TV prog to make the impact, etc. clearer visually (that'll teach me to write stuff when I am half asleep - I was going to add a sentence like that and forgot in the midst of mucho yawning). The TV program (one of those 'how the hell did these ancient types build [whatever it is]) that was doing all the reconstruction was surprisingly good for its type. Like you, I am usually surprised when a TV program does not go completely off-beam when doing this type of thing (my pet hates include programs about medieval jousting when the 'knights' doing the demonstrations cannot even hold the lance the right way or have their shields facing in the right direction). This particular program (damned if I can remember the name of it - it was on Channel 4 here in the UK last year) had the requisite number of Professor-types/experimental archaeologists, carpenters, metalworkers etc. mixing up the dreaded mayonnaise-like mixture, getting catapults of as authentic a type as they could make, etc. etc.). The siphon that was built took a few iterations to get working decently (the instructions the builders were working from were - unsurprisingly - a little unclear, and the first few times there was a worrying amount of leakage around the joints, something you do not want with that kind of device), but it was quite scary and extremely unpleasant for the target (a scaled-down copy of a dromon-type vessel). As for the term 'dragon ship' - I cannot remember exactly which context it was mentioned in during the program, but there were a few contemporary pictures shown, and some interesting iconography.

Re: Turakian Age Q: Gunpowder?

Re: What kind of fantasy campaigns do you love? The idea of magicians being superfluous in combat is just so bizarre I had to read that post twice… I have never played in any group where the characters had to buy any 'mundane' (i.e. non-magical) equipment with points - points were only ever paid for magic items that the player wanted his character to have at the beginning of the campaign (and where there was an agreement with the GM that if the item got lost or destroyed the player could replace it with an equivalent cost item or simply find a duplicate of the original) Back in the days of 1st ed FH (2 years after I first started playing CHAMPIONS/HERO), magic was rather steep cost-wise, to the point where our gaming group (a group of 'min-maxers', I might add ) dumped the whole concept of the 'traditional' magician on the grounds that a lot of common attack spell concepts were simply not cost-effective. We went for magic-enhanced fighters instead; these proved to be more than a match for any of the 'pure' fighters, even the ones that our pet 'munchkin' dreamed up. It also led to the use of Flash Attacks, Drains, EGO attacks, and NNDs (very few 'pure' fighters in low-ish level campaigns have any Power Defence or Flash Defence, for example). Because magic was expensive back then (we had not considered spells in Multipowers etc. - it took us a while to get the concept of HERO system fully 'meshed' with fantasy, and we were using the examples in the rulebook where each spell was bought as an individual Power) we did not impose an Active Point cap, which led to an interesting example of a warrior mage that was virtually un-hurtable by anything short of a giant (or a siege engine) owing to his stacking a hefty Force Field with the plate armour he regularly wandered around in (we were quite happy to let magical defence stack with armour) - and yes, he was quite competent with weapons and usually dealt with his opponents by slicing and dicing them while their attacks bounced ineffectually off his defences. In these days of 5th ed, the balance seems to depend very much on the points base of the campaign, whether magical defences stack with armour and whether the fighters get 'Super-skills' and wuxia-type feats (or, in really epic-style games, Damage Reduction, Power Defence and Regeneration, etc.) I would not even bother doing a magician with an Active Point cap of 25 points - but then again, I don't run campaigns at less than the 175 character point level (unless it's Sword and Sorcery, when I use 150 pts as the base), and I dislike low-level campaigns as a rule (I like slaughtering mooks, not running away from common woodland animals). [Can't tell I started roleplaying with OD&D, can you? :D:D] I'm sure that my habit of running magicians with DEX 18 (and STR 20 - it's under-costed, so load up on that extra carrying capacity, ability to use big honking weapons, PD and STUN) will also raise a few eyebrows (if I want to play 'pointy-hat-with-robes-and-dagger' mages I will play OD&D, AD&D or C&S; if the game system allows mages to use serious weapons then I will use serious weapons). In high point-level campaigns I invariably end up playing an armoured, beweaponed seriously badass magic-enhanced combat monster - it's like crack, I just can't give it up

Re: Military SF Character Stereotypes ? The grizzled veteran NCO (the one the Newly-commissioned Lieutenant would be well advised to listen to if he wants to survive his first mission) [an archetype first encountered by me in Starship Troopers - the book , that is, not the film ]

Re: New to Fantasy Hero The 'scimitar thing' for Druids always struck me as a classic gaffe - if they are working from the ritual sickle angle, then why not use weapons which are believed to derive from this, e.g. the Greek kopis/machaira, the Iberian falcata, the eastern Mediterranean drepanon, the Nepalese kukri (or for real badasses) the Dacian falx/sica). It appears to be a confusion of backward-curving weapons (e.g. scimitars, tulwars etc.) with forward-curving ones - shoddy research if you ask me... For the record, the druid character in my Turakian Age campaign was a scary eco-warrior with some herbal abilities, some healing spells, the obligatory childbirth-easing spell, a large nasty mace and a 10D6 EB attack spell (the "Wrath of the Green")derived from the description of the Forestal's spell (channelled through the statue known as the Colossus) in Stephen Donaldson's novel The Illearth War.