Storn

I think if you have "gestures", "restrainable" is redundent. Gestures means if your hands are bound, grasped, caught in a door...you cannot use that power.

Castle of Cagliostro was the catalyst that decided a career of art for me. I have never looked back.

I use organizations alot. I'm using Raven, UNTIL and my own creation, Black Clouds (a korean based, originally, mercenary organization which combined traditional ninja training and techniques with cutting edge technology) right now. However, I understand that "blandness" charge that has been leveled. One thing I'm doing is creating a very viable, understandable and known to the PC Raven leader named Reinlock aka Scallion. And his lethal lover, Marie, cybernetic bodyguard. This gives some personallity to Raven. We know that Reinlock used to be a street punk hacker, knocking over ATMs in Vienna. Now he is running a sizeable portion of Raven... how did he get there so quickly (like 5-7years in time from his Vienna teenage record)? The other bit, is that Raven is re-building. And is desperate. This gives a whole different tone to the organization. They are making outrageous moves, getting exposed, in order to grab power in a European theater which is in a power vaccuum due ot the campaign. They are making mistakes and exposing themselves. But they are also audacious, understandable and colorful. They are not the ever present Hydra... they do not keep growing back like nothing happen the last time the Heroes knocked the stuffin' outta them. What I would like to see for a Viper or UNTIL sourcebook is a global sense of spheres of influence. If anyone ever watched the first ep of Alias, there is this scene where the CIA reveal what they know of evil SD-6. And there is this huge map of hundreds of cells and their purpose. That was cool. I would like to see Viper have cells/spheres of influence with a cell leader name (maybe one sentence of flavor) that would be plug and play. Need a cell doing extortion in the red light district?, how about Yancy Kuroz, ex-Spetznatz, one arm is cybernetic. 8 agents under him Boom, that's it. On top of which, spell out most of who is at the top. And why they are making the decisions. Cobra from G.I. Joe, you know of Destro, Cobra Commander, those two twins, Zartan, Baroness... you had an idea of who was calling the shots. In Viper source book, you have a couple of Nest Leaders, and no real sense of how the interact with each other. We are told that there is lot of infighting...but it is kept vague. Getting that web of death and deceit down is a lot of work. But having it down, then gives a real sense of what needs to be unraveled... and that is the job for the PCs. And what is the extent of the sphere of influence? maybe a rating system like Light, medium, invasive and total. Invasive means many cops and judges are in the cells pocket. Total means it is a mini-country, held by military force. I don't know, just riffing off the top of my head. But i think the secret to making an organization interesting is to have good lieutenants. Generally, these might be a slightly lower level than the Heroes, with an occasional one being even better than the Heroes. But lts. come with a lot of back-up. However, I felt (sorry Bennie) that the 4th ed's paranormal lt.s were way too typical of a supervillain group. I was just looking at Viper yesterday. Serpent Syndicate and Snake Pack come across just like standard champions supervillain groups.... brick,mentalist, martial artist, maybe a t-porter.... They don't feel like the comic book organizations. The solos feel just like Classic Enemies characters, not VIPER villains. I think Viper, Raven, Kobra, Cobra...what have you, their paranormal strike forces should really reflect the environment they come from...and having everyone being scaly is the easy way out . Btw, Viper is a great book.... I'm making suggestions to make it even better.

Re: Lemme tell you a story... I've posted this info before, but the game I'm running is Mutants and Masterminds. However, it is sent in a Champions/ slowly moving to Hero 5, campaign that has been going for 16 years. We play Champions under RDU Neil, and then my MM game. But both are set in the same campaign. RDU Neil wrote a synopis of that campaign at this thread on the Green Ronin boards http://www.greenronin.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1570 Its a large thread, but if you are interested, the first ep that I did is there as well as Neil's campaign. Oh yeah, there is some art and some MM characters as well.

Tom, I'm playing a character who is a decent, if not smarter and more skilled, martial artist than his "Drake" persona. Kevin doesn't always want to be Drake. No disad, I just role-play it out. Kevin has Find Weakness with martial arts, Drake doesn't. Drake is a helluva lot tougher and stronger though. Both forms have advantages. So the Supreme paradigm is not at work here. I am in my "true form" a lot. And I'm a player, as Neil can tell you, who gets very angry being "run over roughshod". Suggestions are fine. And sometimes I don't have a place to spend xp and I'll ask Neil's opinion. but I work closely with a GM on xp spending and the character is MINE, not yours. A GM has the whole REST of the world to play with/in. I only have this one insignificant representative in that world (Ok.. caught me, in RDU, I have about 25 PCs, but you get the point). Hey, I'm a GM too. I don[t want to shanghai a campaign, I want a good story. Cooperation is the best way to achieve that. And as a GM, I might give out an EXTRA xp for Favor: Kris Kringle. But I would never make the players buy the favor. But we are lucky. We have players who are not mini-maxers. We also have multiple characters, so if someone wants to play a combat machine/monster, he can do so. but the next character will explore a whole different avenue. Your mileage varies. As long as your players are happy, I guess that is cool.

I'm the player with the character in question. I originally built the character, Drake, with some powers Only In Hero ID. Then, in an order to get to know 5th somewhat, I decided I would try the character as a multiform, the concept can certainly accept it. OIHD is looking more and more like the "easier" way to do it. I don't really care if I get more points one way or the other. It was just in OIHD, my powers were getting a bit complex in that I had powers and abilities in my "normal" form. I'm playing a martial artist who is 1/2 dragon. In a campaign of "other" dragon "avatars". With multiform, there is a real reason to improve the Drake form. The campaign has us tapping into primal powers But, the 1/5 ratio (or 6exp to tru form, 1 =5 for multi form) is a real deal. I only have one multiform. I have no plans on getting another. As for Neil's frustration, yeah, Neil, ya might have overstated it . But the passage on Multiform is badly worded and/or crafted. From the write up, I'm not sure if I increase my true form's, Kevin, multiform cost, then I get 1 pt or 5 pts. If it is 1 pt, then that is a rip-off and makes no sense, because I'm paying 2 pts for every pt. Other characters will quickly exceed me. If it is 5 pts, that is too much. Then I will quickly exceed everyone else. And if I do get 5 pts (per 1 true form pt), then do I have to buy a Disad to balance the cost? I think the simplest fix is that you CAN put XP on the multiform. It is 1 pt after character creation. So I get 3 xp during an adventure. I can put all or none of it on any form, but I only get a total of 3. This isn't overpowering or underpowering and its fair... AND IT IS SIMPLE!!!

the problem with teh multipower which I've come up against many, many time is this: A mage wants a spell that is a lot of active points, exceeding his multipower. Not hard to do. Any "dimension door", long range teleport or scrying spell will do that. Now, these are NOT overbalanced spells for the campaign. 1) Either you pay full cost (after disads, of course) and it will be somewhat expensive, but not horribly so. However, moore so, when you consider how many +'s the mage is going to hav eto buy to offeset the -1/10 active pts or worse, -1/5. Or what I really dislike, is that Magic Skill is too cheap and gets bought up into 25-, making many of the small and mid-range spells too easy to cast. or 2) Worse, the player makes his multipower big enough (80 active pts and above folks?) to fit the spell in. Then what is preventing the player from building an offensive spell of 16d6 EB...or some NND area effect or RKA of 4d6 with area effect. Here is where a mage can totally overtake the balance of the campaign and the other PCs aoround them. Yikes.

I played Swordbearer for several years. Not bad for $10.00, what I paid for it originally. I stole some stuff from Runequest (mostly spells) since both systems were so similar. but yes, a great game, although magic as it was presented confused me somewhat and we always ran very low magic campaigns and kinda avoided the whole issue. Unknown Armies, with its "new" take on percentile die-rolling, has given me some food for thought on how to revive and modernize Swordbearer. I love UA's damage resolution, its ability to flip-flop dice. Makes a percentile system much more interesting and alive than the flat probability it used to be.

Re: To add on here... And Neil is a very good tennis player. I've only beaten him once (outta hundreds of matches) and he was sick. So he understands the tennis analogy. AS do I. And agree. I think there should be a power set per page. Earth, Wind, Fire, Density, Gravity, Magnetics, Telekinetics, Ice, Water, Gravity, Electricity, Solar, Speedster, Vibrational, Kinetic, Telepathic, Empathetic, Invisibility, Ghost powers, Domination (mind control), Phermones...etc, etc. and unlike my quicky list, put into alphabetical order.

Not to be a contrarian, Steve, I think showing frameworks is NOT a waste of space, and very important. The reason, I think this should be the book to give to beginning Hero players who are playing superheroes. A Framework(s) showing a Fire projecting character, that they can take, slap down on their character sheet and be ready to play in 10 minutes is PRECISELY what this book should aim for. So a beginning player can flip thru the book and see Fire, Ice, Brick tricks, Magneto-wannabes, Flash-clones, Wolverine-ripoffs etc. etc. And as for a waste of space, c'mon, its a book about Powers (which you don't have to write out like FRED), not even gadgets (which I think you might want to rethink, it won't prevent an Ultimate Gadget book, these gadgets like Cap's Shield, spidey's webs stuff is all superheroes, Ultimate Gadget is cross-genre),... you should have tons of pages to work something like this out. If you don't, then you are being too long-winded. And this, of all the books we've put out, should NOT be over-explained. That is what FRED is for. You do not have to go into every advantage, disadvantage computation. Taht is what FRED is for. This is a book of one giant checklist. Value? If we can do as much of the WORK for a new player (or harried-by-life veteran Hero player) AS POSSIBLE, then it will have Value. To present 500 powers and then say to a new player: "Well, to make this cost efficient, you should use a multipower and a Elemental Control.. go to it, you are on your own. Go consult FRED. " is mean . Nor is it good marketing. Right now, Hero needs a "gateway" product. FRED ain't it. Champions ain't it. This really could be. Make it so and it will be a "must have" for every Champions group... veteran or beginner.

Geoff, just wanted to say... that was a great post. With a lot of thought and organization of thought put into it. Thank you.

I second the call for an Ars Magica-like system. And VPPs don't cut it in my experience. many spells, that are not even combat, will exceed the active pt limit. Making it really hard for a mage to feel like a mage to me. Most Hero mages feel like walking artillery. And 8d6, in my experience, EB is emormous and capable of Con stunning almost any foe. And with END costs, the Fantasy Hero mage has no reason not to cast it 4x a combat. HOwever, most 150 pt Mages have 3 - 6 spells. That is too few, IMO. FH magic has always felt very limiting to me because of the point costs. I also second the call for travel times thru various terrain. Caravan speeds, how far a horse can go. Also, trading vessels, how far can a ship at sea go, or in coastland waters, in a day. I've had to fudge that more than once in my games. (I tend to have a lot of travel in my fantasy). Swordbearer had an over extensive, but highly useful, chart for overland travel in various terrain for foot and for horse. And in sections of Overland, Path, Road. I am very concerned about martial arts in Fantasy Hero. Not that they shouldn't be there. But if they are, you are looking at more of an Exalted like fantasy situation. Martial arts BLOW past armor in the 3rd and 4th ed of FH. Especially if combined with weapons. A broadsword of 1d6+1 with martial arts Weapon Element, is suddenly doing 1 1/2d6, with a STR of 17 or Offensive Strike, it is doing 2d6. MAXIMUM armor so far is a 8 (full plate). Worse, take a 2h sword, ding 2d6, now all of a sudden doing 3d6 with an Offensive strike. It is not so much the Body that is the problem, it is the Stun. My 20 str martial artist was Con stunning foes with his barehands and they were in full armor most of the time. And in my experience, Con Stunning in FH is MUCH more of problem, advantage (to the non-con stun side) than in Superheroes.

Acro, Nth Man is one of the nicest pics I've seen from you. good job.

I'm ok at drawing. however, I do not do it for free. Sorry. I have my own games to take up plenty of my free time for doing free art. But what I can offer you is to point you to this thread where some of my artwork for my game is posted. And my website in my sig. Look in "Doodles", "Interior art" and "Character Commissions". You never know, you might find something that will fit. here is the thread over at Green Ronin with some superhero art of mine, swipe away. http://www.greenronin.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1570&highlight=art and I think I'll be starting one here next week.

I like the new boards and the default font. Also like that I can attach images. I think I'll start a character and art thread sometime next week like I do on Green Ronin's boards. I don't have time right now (Millennium City interiors, Warlord cards all due this week).