Lucius

The Perennial Topic of Characteristic Maxima First of all - complicated and inflexible? How can anything seem "complicated and inflexible" compared to the Characteristic Max rules? And under the Current Dispensation, it is more inflexible than ever. In spite of what we have been saying about treating species characteristics as "powers" and doing an end run around the rule, that is very much a "house rules" thing and Mr. Long has specifically stated that, officially, "Racial Characteristics" are not powers for the purpose of ignoring the Characteristic Max. And complicated - Gods, this rule gives rise to ENDLESS complications. Anyone who has been around these boards as long as I have knows that. I don't know how many times some aspect of the problem has come up for discussion - it is that very fact that finally convinced me to apply Occam's razor and say we are just plain better off without this needless complication in an already very complicated game. It accomplishes nothing that could not be better and more simply done without it. Uh, I can't see how. Why do you say that? Fafhrd and Conan are barbarians, and large men. Saying "thief" does not begin to sum up their whole characters - nor does it completely sum up any decent character. My point is that a "rogue" (to use the term I actually used) should not have a STR of 25 "just because." If he is a barbarian like Fafhrd (a character I love by the way, pity he is not as popular as Conan) or a giant of a bandit like Little John, that is one thing. But if the STR seems to bear no relevance to the character concept, that is another. Naturally. As opposed to say, the arbitrary "Every point of characteristic over 20 costs double" which has nothing whatsoever to do with any campaign-defining reasons. Yes. Assuming Ents and Entwine are acceptable parts of the campaign, which they often would be if there are Hobbits. Were you thinking for some reason it wouldn't be? It would be a great reason, one giving some depth to the character and his background. Even something I could make use of in the game. "But why does it have to be ME? Can't the Pixies find someone else they trust for this quest?" The Druid looks bemused and says "I don't understand it either. They say they trust you because you smell like a tree." OR "Hrnm, yes, hmm, I remember you. Not long ago. I took you for an orc. " "Uh...that was my father sir, he ...told me about you...but I didn't think you'd be so BIG" "hmm, I remember...your father, you say? But how can that be? It has not been long, at all, at all...." But if a Hobbit's reason for having a STR of 13 is just to get an extra damage class with a weapon, that doesn't add much to the campaign. Great, wonderful, terrific. I sincerely approve. And this is something you can do, and should do, with or without a Normal Characteristic Maxima - so what does the Normal Characteristic Max get you? Excellent advice. A "get around the rules" mentality. Like the end-run we have been describing about defining racial characteristics as "powers." I still maintain, the simplest and best solution is to set certain limits for specific species and say "no going over, without a good justification." That DISCOURAGES excessively high scores without FORBIDDING them. And even if a powergamer's real motive is to squeeze out more CV or another damage class, he is being made to contribute something else to the game besides numbers crunching when he thinks up the justification. Lucius Alexander What do you mean, I have to justify having Palindromedary Riding skill?

Shadowpup - believe it or not, I have had the same idea about putting a cap at 5 pts over starting value. Yes, it does seem odd that an aged mage, even if his lifestyle has suddenly gotten more strenuous, can go from STR 5 to STR 15 in less than a year. Lucius Alexander Palindromedary Enterprises

Nu Haiku, Nu? One must count points, else Pointless the game, but know that Points are not the point. Lucius Alexander The palindromedary points out that anyone can count to seventeen, but that does NOT really make a haiku worthy of the name.

Pedantic and Technical First, in response to the person who said something about "if you want your demon to cajole and persuade..." Technically, "possession" is when an entity fully "inhabits" a body and has total control of its actions, if not necessarily of that person's memories and skills. When an "outside" entity has a more limited control, either of the "persuading and cajoling" type or the exertion of a subtle influence that the semicontrolled person is not aware of, that is technically "obsession." Demonic obsession can be very insidious, of course. The effects of the Ring on its Bearers in Lord of the Rings would be a good example of obsession. How you do either in the game depends on how you want them to work, but I have some questions - first, WHY do you want a powerful ability to be CHEAP? Mind Control is the simplest, and Mental Transform probably the cheapest, way to get what you seem to want. If your vision includes "character confronts demon, demon vanishes into character and possesses him" then the disappearance of the physical body of the possessing entity is a Side Effect of the power (yes, a limitation, NOT a stacked power like Extradimensional Move or Desolid. Think about it. Am I better off controlling a person's actions, skills, etc - or controlling everything that person does or can do, and MYSELF TOO?) Now, I could be totally wrong on that last interpretation; it's just how I see it after a little thought, and I could be talked out of that position. Another possibility - Mr. Long has ruled that if a character's BODy is fully Suppressed, that character is dead - temporarily, until the Supression is lifted. Try BODy Suppression, and then animate the body with STR and Running, Usable Against Others, and Images (to have a voice, and to make the "corpse" "look alive.") all limited, only against a supressed body. Getting rid of your own body is, again, either Side Effects of some kind, or a stacked power, probably Extradimensional Move, depending on whether you think it is an advantage or a disadvantage. Lucius Alexander The palindromedary wonders if I could be obsessed by the Hero System.....

A Taxing Subject There are other ways to "set policy" by encouraging or discouraging things. Instead of taxation, try regulation. "If you want a primary characteristic above 15, you must have a disadvantage appropriate to that characteristic, such as Distinctive Features: Muscular, or Reputation: Very Agile. If you want any characteristic over the normal "Maximum" (however that is set for the campaign, character type, etc.) you must have disadvantages relating to the characteristic totalling the amount of points you spent on the characteristic." If you are enforcing disadvantage maxima, that should be a deterrent, and of course it is "tweakable" (if everyone still has a STR of 20, try requiring twice the points in disads - if even the Elven acrobat has a Dex of 14, try redefining it as based on points of characteristic, not real points spent, so that a Dex of 20 requires a 10 pt disad, not 30 pts of disads. ) It also has the advantage of being entirely reasonable and realistic. Another possibility is to link over-the-top characteristics to "packages" of some sort. A rogue can't have a STR of 25 just because he has the points, but a gladiator or wrestler can. To the person who asked about changing the acceptable range of characteristics, such as saying Hobbits have STR 5 and Max 10 - if you want to use the characteristic max rules at all, I have already pointed out that based on the precedent set by the Age disad, 1 real pt is worth about 7 pts of changed maximums. So for a 1 pt disad, the Hobbit's Str Max can come down by 5. If you can bring another characteristic max up by, say, 2 pts, I would say it's a "wash" and evens out, as a 3 pt difference in maxima is worth less than 1 pt. But of course, the simplest and best solution is to toss out the whole mess and say "No Hobs over STR 10!" or "No Hobs over STR 10 unless you give me a REAL GOOD REASON" Lucius Alexander (-: :-)

Automatically Fearless Actually, taking the character as an Automaton MAY be the cheapest and simplest solution. There is a difference between BEING an Automaton, and having Automaton POWERS. An Automaton does not HAVE to take any of the special powers listed for them. The problem is that an automaton is mindless. Now, the character's intelligence could be defined - IN GAME TERMS, only - as an "AI" although if you tried to get the 1/5 cost break I'm sure several people around here would want to lynch you for munchkinism. This doesn't mean the character is somehow a robot or computer, just that he functions in some ways as one, in the rules system. Just give the character a few levels with EGO rolls for the purpose of acting on his own initiative - at +< 18 I would say he would basically act freely, or you could deliberately leave it lower for this character concept - after all, a "perfect soldier" probably functions best when following orders. Of course, he could also buy "programs" that let him do certain things, well, "automatically." My biggest problem with this approach is that it just feels TOO cheap. Unless I am overlooking something. Lucius Alexander (-: :-)

Tu Nu Haiku Oh the Joy of Dex! Take Comfort in high CV. Dread area attacks! Black Rose Kodachi Set me on the Haiku Way The fish swims freely Lucius Alexander The palindromedary observes that Black Rose is another High Coup Hero, but fails to do so in seventeen syllables.

Re: Re: Species Traits Nothing wrong with it. Pay 26 pts for a DEX of 23, or 30 pts for a STR of 40, and you have your Elf or Giant. It's the same for all characters, and fair and balanced. Not really. What it does is create yet another artificial breakpoint in a game that already has too many of them, and results in every warrior taking a STR of 20. It does not, in and of itself, prevent anyone from taking an unreasonable or unrealistic characteristic. Say I am creating a pair of flower-selling monks in a heroic game with 75 base points and up to 75 disadvantages. Brother Rose has a Dex of 20 (costs 30) and spends 50 pts on SPD (10 pts ups it to 4, the "Max," and another 40 ups it to 6.) That costs 80 pts, and if he sells off 3" Running for -6 pts he still has a ground speed half again a normal Human's, and has all his points from Disads to pay for botany, flower arranging, and what the heck, he'll study some canon law too. His sidekick Brother Orchid has a STR of 40 costing 50 pts, and uses some disad points to buy his flowery skills, and still comes in as a "weaker than character" DNPC. Now, is any sane G.O.D. going to permit this pair? No, they will probably change their names to Brother Ragweed and Brother Crabgrass and tell the player to toss them on the compost pile. But that is exactly what they would have had to do if there WERE no "Normal Characteristic Maxima," except that the outrageous characteristics would have been an 8 SPD and a 60 STR. The message to G.O.D.'s is - You, and only you, can prevent florist friars. The Characteristic Maxima rule can't do it for you. And if it doesn't, what good is it? How about this method - abolish Characteristic Maxima? It does not make a giant more cost effective (unless you think STR is incorrectly costed in the game to begin with, and many people do, but that is a seperate issue.) Then even a Pixie can have Giant's STR. Except of course that if you want a STR 40 you probably don't want a Pixie, and if you DO want a Pixie with super strength you better have a darn good reason if I'm the one running the game. I believe I've already made the point that "the double cost for stats above NCM" doesn't do a darn thing for him except needlessly complicate the game. Hm. you see nothing wrong with this, and consider it a "penalty" if I want to play an aged mage with INT, EGO, and PRE at superhuman levels, heavy on EGO dependent mental powers (ECV 10 VS normal ECV 3) and without any STR dependent weapons or other combat options) and STR, CON, etc at about 10 - normal for a healthy 20 yr old? Isn't this making my mage "more cost effective?" Yet you do see something wrong with creating yet another different cost schedule for characters of a different species or nature than the "norm?" It's okay in one case, but not in the other? For any one who cares, by the way, based on the Age disadvantage, reducing Characteristic Maxima is worth about 1 pt for 7 pts reduced. So with Age as a precedent, you can pay 1 pt to increase the Maxima by 7 pts, or -1 pt to decrease them by that amount. Now, what age SHOULD be is a Physical Limitation ("Waddaya mean, I have to make a CON roll to take a RECovery?" "You're not as young as you used to be, geezer, it's harder to catch your breath!") like "Lame," perhaps a Limitation you only permit to people with lower STR and CON than normal for the campaign. Just as you wouldn't give "Lame" to someone who bought up SPD and Running, or "Distinctive Features: Ugly" to someone with a COM of 18. Similarly, there should be a Physical Limit "Merely Mortal" in superheroic campaigns, for martial artists or gadgeteers who can hurt their fists if they hit brick walls, sometimes catch colds, and otherwise can't or don't take advantage of the assumption that playercharacters are all "superhuman." Finally, I will suggest that if NCM were really such a great idea, it would have been adopted through the rest of the system. It is a complete anomaly in Hero. The New Dispensation emphasizes (Probably as the result of the collective experience of numerous players) setting "campaign limits" for things like Active Points, Damage Classes, Defense, etc. These are all only "suggested guidelines" - only Characteristic Maxima is a "rule" and only Characteristic Maxima is arbitrarily set at a certain point for all campaigns it applies to, rather than being flexible depending on style of campaign and subject to change at G.O.D. discretion. Further, nowhere else is it said "you can exceed the campaign limits if you pay double cost." It is always either a hard limit, or a limit that can be exceeded under some circumstances or with the right justification, not one you can break just by paying double. If the campaign rule is "No Mental Powers" you can't take an Ego Attack by paying 20 pts per die, or 40 pts even. Hero is inherently a very complex system - in fact, I would judge it at just about the upper limit of practical complexity for a roleplaying game. NCM is a needless complication that adds nothing of value to the game. Putting characteristics among the things there should be "campaign limits" for would simplify the game and cost nothing. Lucius Alexander Palindromedary Enterprises

Mana, not Manna Lord Liaden - that sounds like a unique and interesting system. Several other people had good ideas too. I have proposed, especially for "clerics," the use of an END Reserve with a RECover that is "No Conscious Control." Whether it recovers, and how much, and when, is totally in the Game Operations Director's hands, and it could be used to reward whatever behaviors one wants to encourage - prayer, sacrifice, "right" moral action ("You drop HALF your coins in the beggar's bowl? You get a warm feeling of having done the right thing, and get your full Mana RECovery for the next three phases,") making a skill roll: Meditation, poring over arcane tomes, etc. I suspect in practice this would work like Lord Liaden's system, but a little less so. Oh, and one quibble - the word is spelled "mana," from the Polynesian. "Manna" is from Hebrew and means a miraculously provided sustenance. In Hero terms, Manna might be Life Support (don't starve) with an Area Effect. Lucius Alexander Pompous pretentious pedantic person on a palindromedary, and he uses too much alliteration too.

I'm Afraid I Forgot Something Oh, yeah. If END is important in the campaign, the fearless character may want to buy reduced END on things like STR and Running. The body loses no energy to, and suffers no stress from, fear reactions. Lucius Alexander I'm afraid I don't have a palindromedary tagline handy right now...

Fearlessness. Not the Same as Courage. I'm starting to really, really wish my copy of the game wasn't put away in storage. I hadn't thought of using the Automaton rules - but it might be worth looking into. If they took Mental Invulnerability (i.e. Desolidification) out I hadn't noticed. But I would suggest using total Desolidification, perhaps with a custom advantage "Immune to ALL Fear" (taking in PRE attacks and other things that one could not ordinarily be immune to) and a disadvantage "ONLY Immune to Fear." Such a character would be immune to panic or startlement, to intimidation, etc. They also might seem seldom (not never) to get angry, because if you think about it anger is often related to fear. A character with "traditional" Desolidification might possible ignore marbles on the floor or a slippery floor, even if everyone else has to make a DEX roll at penalties. Similarly, this character would take greatly reduced, or NO, penalties for using skills in combat, or against any other penalties related to being in a scary situation. Picking a lock in combat for example would be -1 (-2 if someone is actively swinging or shooting at the character) rather than -5, because part of the penalty comes from divided attention or having to duck sometimes, and the rest from fear reactions. Even penalties for "unfamiliarity" might be reduced by 1 pt, because the character has no fear of failure (but ONLY by 1 pt, because the character still may not have a clue what they're doing.) The "traditional" Desolid character would probably be a difficult subject for the Interrogation skill (how would you torture a ghost?) and so would this character. They can be HURT, yes, but what breaks a subject is not just the pain endured, but the fear that the pain will continue or get worse. In a "low level" campaign, the character should have a high DEX and a SPD of at least 3 or 4, because they never lose even a split second to panic or doubt. In a superheroic game or a really heroic one, this won't make a difference because EVERYONE is at superior DEX and SPD, at least among the player characters. On the other hand, if pushing is allowed, this character probably can't. No adrenaline rush = no sudden self-transcending efforts. There may be other "special effects" penalties I'm not thinking off, but on the whole this is a very useful ability, and SHOULD be expensive. Especially as it should come with a Disadvantage: Fearless, with points to be determined based on just how disadvantageous it is for the character. The character may be accident-prone (less likely to avoid high risk behavior, etc) and may be remarkably uninhibited in general (not the same as poor impulse control - the character would never fear the consequence of any action, but may rationally choose not to evoke certain consequences.) Forgive me for running on so. Lucius Alexander The palindromedary observes that it has two mouths and doesn't run off at them as much as I do with one.

Another High Coup Hero I had to laugh. Although it's not a haiku, I also had to share this. On a certain BBS where each member has a one line description associated with their name, that they can change at will, my most recent description reads - These descriptions are too sho Lucius Alexander Only seventeen Syllables are very hard To fit a palin

Species Traits Yes, under the New Regime, if Characteristic Maximum is used at all, it is the same for everyone. The Giant and the Pixie both have Max STR of 20. Oddly enough, this is in spite of the fact that a 40 yr old man has a STR Max of 15. Age makes a difference, but not species. Makes as much sense as global warming in CIV II (for those who don't know, in the computer game Civilization II, if your planet suffers global warming, it never changes the Glacier or Tundra terrains. No matter how much your globe warms, ice caps never melt and permafrost never thaws.) Now, there is one easy way around this. Characteristics as Powers don't count against the maximum. What makes a characteristic a power? Good question, but it makes sense to me to say that a characteristic bought as part of a racial package deal is a "Power" and does not count against the Max - effectively raising the Max by the same amount. A characteristic bought DOWN is a "Negative Power" just like selling back some Running, and would effectively reduce the Max in the same way (since if the package is -5 pts for STR for example and you have a STR 15, you are actually at STR 20, minus 5 for the "power," and are already at Max.) I have seen the whole concept of Normal Characteristic Maxima generate so much controversy however, that I am of the opinion that it is an idea the game can do without. It simply does not do what it was designed to do, and merely adds needless complication to the game. It should be a guideline only, and up to each Game Operations Director to set limits on the characteristics of characters. Not "it costs double past this point," a mechanic used nowhere else in the game to restrict skills, powers, or anything else, but a hard limit - "no, you cannot play a 'normal Human' with a STR of 24!" Lucius Alexander The palindromedary observes that we have opened this brand of canned worms before....

Responses in Haiku All hail Beowulf! I imitate to flatter He scores a high coup Micheal Nonenon Gone? Alas! We disagreed Often, yet I grieve. Lucius Alexander So whaddaya expect from a palindromedary, haiku?

I'll Try The Quote Function This Time. He annoys almost everyone. He seems to enjoy it. When he says the complexity of Hero is a probable factor in how Shadow Raptor's scenario turned out, he has a point. When he says Mr. Raptor's own inexperience is a probable factor, he has a point. When he says robots are misleadingly dangerous opponents he has a BIG point. So do you in your essay about how to introduce people to Hero - and your advice looked to me doubly sound for someone who is almost as new to the game as his players. When he pretends that obviously relevant factors such as what games the players have experience with are as irrelevent as what they had for lunch, he has no point other than to be annoying. When he accuses Shadow Raptor of "presenting a conclusion with no support for the conclusion" or however he phrased it, he again has no point but to be annoying. If he knows Shadow Raptor's conclusion he had to have read the post, and if he read the post, he saw the support for that conclusion. Perhaps inadequate support given the circumstances, but hardly "no support." When he is gratuitously insulting and deliberately exasperating, any points he has to make become moot in any case - who wants to put up with this sh1t? Nothing he has to say is worth the annoyance of reading his posts. Lucius Alexander It's enough to give a palindromedary a headache. Both heads.

Old lover returns Jealousy wrecked her marriage Some things never change Lucius Alexander It's hard to fit a Palindromedary in A little haiku

More Cut and Paste tesuji "Why this happened, is to me up for grabs. He has certainly given his own conclusion.,.. its the players fault and its the system they used to plays fault. Thats his conclusion. Thats not mine. Thats my point." First off, he was there - neither your nor I were. Therefore, I think he is a better position to judge what happenned than either of us. Second of all, for YOU it may be "up for grabs." For ME, I think it is more reasonable to draw a conclusion based on A) what he tells me about what happened, and my own experience. quote: "Originally posted by Yamo "Frankly, I must say I think you're being a little obtuse and even rude here." Thanks." Okay, now we know both the obtuseness and the rudeness are deliberate. It would probably be pointless to ask why. Lucius Alexander The palindromedary asks "Since when has pointlessness ever stopped YOU, Lucius? Pointless is practically your middle name."

I played in a game that was 25 + Disads, when there was no hard limit on Disads but when each one after the first in a given category netted fewer points - i.e. the first Hunted gave 100% of its value, the second was 50%, the third 25%, etc. We probably had about 75 pts total. It worked, and it was fun. Lucius Alexander That was before I met the palindromedary....

Last night a woman Came into my life again Old face, new haiku LA p

Cut and Paste Cutting and pasting to respond to several people. Mister Death "I was talking to my wife about this last night (she's the 3E GM). She thinks that it might be fundamental to D&D. I'll try to reproduce her logic. D&D is derived from a wargame, through many permutations, and based on the Attacks of Opportunity rules, it still seems to hold quite a bit of wargame feel. D&D was designed to be simpler, and to appeal to a broader market. This market was mainly supposed to come from computer gamers." Yes, D&D is very much derived from wargames. And the original audience was wargamers. But as far as a "market mainly supposed to come from computer gamers" I have to interject that D&D actually PREDATES and was an influence on the kind of computer gaming you are talking about. When D&D first came out, video gaming meant "Pong." Of course, I’m sure that since then there has been a lot of influence in both directions. Tesuji "You ran two different games to try and show your players different alternatives and managed in two out of two to convince them it was a bad idea. Why wouldn't it be a better thing for a game for it to be so intuitive and straightforward that even in a one-off a novice player could have fun, "get it", and be at least competitive if against a veteran although unlikely to win?" This is assuming D&D is somehow more "intuitive and straightforward" than Hero, which it’s not. (try explaining the Attack of Opportunity rules to me…better yet, DON’T) But the problem here is not that he was introducing a group of novices to Hero - the problem is that he had a bunch of people who were accustomed to D&D. He would have been BETTER OFF with players who had no RPG experience whatsoever, or maybe even with people who had experienced something else, like White Wolf maybe. If I understood him correctly, Shadow Raptor had only had the game about a month himself - so saying the problem was about "veterans vs novices" doesn’t seem to make sense. The problem, if I may quote Shadow Raptor himself, was "they just ran at them and hacked away like it was Diablo/D&D. I told them for the two weeks before this that this is not D&D, use tactics, use common sense. Pretend this is not D&D. They didn't listen to me. " Granted, Hero has a "steep learning curve" and you are even right that it is a challenge to get a new player up to speed - although I have had little trouble in the past introducing inexperienced players. The complexity of Hero does not get in the way of new players having fun, provided the players are reasonably intelligent, provided they get plenty of help at first - maybe even having characters created for them based on concepts or outlines they submit - and provided the players don’t have a concept of "fun" that is too heavily influenced by D&D, Diablo, or some other game where they learned to expect to fight all the time, and to expect to win fights without having to think. Hell, they could even have fun then, if you design your scenarios that way and cater to that style of play. Jhamin "My second foray was an old superspy game called Top Secret/SI by TSR. This game simulated James Bond style gaming over Tom Clancy, but it was still a level of lethality we had never before seen in combat. Everyone made charcters and it was agreed that we would play a sample combat that would not "count". The players found themselves in a gunfight with thugs in a hotel bar. One player, who was still very much in D&D mode ran out of ammo and decided he didn't want to take a round to reload. His character was sort of a good guy mix of Odd Job and Rambo and so he pulled his knife and charged. He promptly took a shotgun to the torso and dropped. He would live, but it would take months of time to recover (no healing potions or clerics ya know). It was truely a beautyful moment as the other players looked at their sheets and contemplated the fact that that would have killed any of them. After that everyone focused on finding cover and bought up their stealth over their Karate. It was alot of fun." I think it’s instructive to contrast Jhamin’s group’s experience with Shadow Raptor’s. When one of them almost got killed, instead of crying "This is too hard! This is no fun! Go back to D&D" they said "Hmm, this is NOT like D&D, this is DIFFERENT, we better do some things differently" and they were willing to learn. Lucius Alexander The palindromedary wonders why I bother.....

Beltane I have not been writing much haiku lately I guess. I was celebrating Beltane in the woods of south central Indiana with most of my own Circle and a few closely affiliated Circles. We were assembled around the fire and Dagonet, called Clan Chief because he is the closest thing this group has to an authority figure, was relating that at this time of year - the reflection in Spring of what Samhain is in the Autumn - those who go alone into the woods are said to risk a confrontation with Cernunos, perhaps becoming quarry in the Wild Hunt. "If He catches you, it was because of something you did, good or bad; and if you come back from that, you will be either crazy, or a poet - if there is any difference." At which point, strangely inspired, I said Worse than that my friend Cernunos gets done with you You might speak haiku. Lucius Alexander There are some places The palindromedary Cannot go with me.

Comparing a 1st level anything to a 20th level anything was not "core to my points." I was comparing a 1st level fighter to a 1st level magic user, or conversely, a 20th level fighter to a 20th level magic user. But in any case, this discussion is degenerating past the point where it has any point. Gratuitously insulting me does little towards advancing your argument, but is a good way to convince me of the futility of further discussion. Lucius Alexander And a palindromedary with indigestion.

Independent. The limitation you are looking for is Independent, not Expendable focus. you don't want to have to reforge the sword for each strike, you want someone to be able to take it away permanently. LA p

Cold and Balance Tesuji has written: Now, there would be the argument that what constitutes "cold" weather for some might not be considered "cold" weather for others, However i doubt anyone would classify Maine as anything but cold in the wintertime. I know what I mean by "cold." I acknowledge I can feel cold in the same room someone else finds warm, but I think most people would agree that Maine, especially Loring AFB Maine, is cold in the winter. I also know what I mean by "balanced" and "unbalanced." And I doubt many people would classify a 1st level mage and a 1st level fighter in the AD&D I knew as "balanced" and the same goes even more so for a 20th level magic user and a 20th level fighter (or anything else.) Tesuji has written: Until you can recognize even the slightest difference between the two things you are trying to compare, we probably have little hope in meaningful communication. If you can tell me with a straight face that you think a 20th level magic user and a 20th level fighter in AD&D are balanced, then you may be right that we "have little hope of meaningful communication" at least until I know what you mean when you use the word "balance." But that is not a question of "bias" it is a matter of you using the same word I am using and, apparently, meaning something completely different by it. You might as well accuse me of "bias" if I refer to someone who snubbed me giving me the "cold shoulder" or say I’m backing out of an enterprise because of "cold feet" without reference to the actual temperature of the body parts in question. Tesuji has written: Ok, then I may be confused. Did you say balance in DND "is" a joke or "was" a joke? I think I said "is" a joke. Perhaps it should have been "was." About whatever is currently marketed under the name "D&D" I can only plead ignorance. I have heard that it has improved by incorporating ideas from better systems. This may make it a better game than it was in several respects, including balance, but probably not as good as the systems it is deriving its better ideas from. In any case, if the game has changed so much that my criticism is no longer valid, then it has changed its fundamental nature and is not really a "3rd edition" of the same game, any more than Fuzion was an "edition" of Hero. Like Fuzion, it is a different game being called by the same name. Tesuji has written: If someone wrote a post complaining about balance issues and rules conflicts in HERO system or Champions and left out that they were talking about 3rd edition would you consider it a reasonable complaint or criticism? That depends. Much has changed in HERO, but it is FUNDEMENTALLY the same. For example if one were to say that it suffers from being too complicated, I could counter that to SOME degree that complexity is necessary if a game is to, for example, permit as much freedom and latitude as HERO does, but I would have to concede that the system is still more complex than it absolutely has to be. And the fundamental objection would still be as valid in HERO5 as it was in the original Champions - perhaps more so. So the question is - has D&D in fact become more balanced and I am not aware of the fact? Has the game changed enough that the statements I have made about it are no longer true? I don’t know. Tesuji has written: If two players sit down in DND to generate "10th level fighters" then even when one is far more skilled than the other and more knowledgable about using the system, they will end up with trade offs that compensate to some degree at least. Which may be true, but even so, that does not contradict anything I have said. I’m not TALKING about two 10th level fighters or any two fighters at any given level. I am talking specifically about comparing a fighter and a magic user of equal level. If you want to talk about two fighters that’s fine, but it’s not the conversation I thought I was having. And if the only "objective imbalance" you acknowledge is two characters who are absolutely identical, except that one is better, then a 1st level thief was not "unbalanced" against a 20th level fighter, because the latter can’t pick locks. And just to get back on topic….. Lord Liaden has written: Old Man, you and I may be in the minority in approving of the old FH spell colleges. … And I for one thought that the sfx of the individual Colleges added a lot of unique flavor to them. I could never understand the protests of some people that all colleges were the same because they all had a damage spell, a Detect, a Dispel and a Force Field. There's a real difference between a FF defined as a flock of birds that surround you to block attacks, and a FF defined as turning your skin into reptile scales. I kind of liked them too, and I fully agree with what you say here. I DID think in some cases they really "stretched" the FX to get a certain kind of spell, but as I pointed out elsewhere, if you’re running the game right, ideally two wizard players might never realize that their separate spells are "mechanically" identical. But yes, a lot could have been done to further differentiate the colleges, and I an see the point that not EVERY school of magick should have had certain spells (Maybe Detect and Dispel - differentiated by SFX - but not "everybody gets an EB, an RKA, a Force Field, etc." Lucius Alexander And the verdict is - innocent! Feed them to the palindromedary!

Focus Magic items require a Focus of course, and this Focus should be considered to be Difficult To Acquire if the Active Points in all the item's Powers total 1-40, Very Difficult To Acquire if the Active Points in all the item's Powers total 41-80, and Extremely Difficult To Acquire if if the Active Points in all the item's Powers total 81 or more" Difficulty of acquisition only applies to expendable foci. Otherwise you are just making the item cheaper in terms of points, without really limiting its use. Unless you are trying to quantify the difficulty the crafter has in acquiring the materials to MAKE the focus, but not meaning to apply that as a limitation to the actual points spent. Lucius Alexander (-: :-)