Old Man

I'd feel better if I saw a negative comment or two. I haven't seen a perfect gaming book yet, and all this unqualified adulation just makes me suspicious. How do I know you're not all Steve Long? How do I know I'm not Steve Long?

I too am curious as to what Steve's WPM is and how he manages to put in that much keyboard time without developing carpal tunnel or secretary's spread.

I thought Les Miserables was a musical, not a novel. *shrug*

Tell him sure. Aski him if he wasn't to do the book version or the play version. The play version would require singing skill.

I knew that Dispel shut off a power, just wasn't sure if it burned up a charge as well.

Thanks for the answers

What are you on? Can I have some? It sounds good.

Some from Shadowbane

"Brand the Wicked"

"Beast Lord's Boon"

"Kiss of the Martyr"

"Needs of the One"

I have a player that wishes to have a Power that Dispels venom. I like the idea but was wondering about application of said power.

According to FREd, it would prevent the venom user from using the venom until they activated it again - possibly using up a charge(?)

What I was wondering was what about damage over time types of venom commonly found in the Beastiary. Would applying the Dispel to a character hit with the venom prevent further damage from that hit?

According to FREd it would seem that Darkness holds precedence. You could do it on a case by case basis but the wording in the book seems pretty clear.

If you're in a Darkness Field that affects sight, you cannot see so are not affected by Flash (vs sight) regardless of the Flash special effect. Last paragraph p96 FREd.

Sounds right to me.

Useable on others, Area Effect 1 hex.

It's quite common in fantasy literature that has teleport, that the group stands close to the caster.

Re: Re: Side Effects

Originally posted by Monolith

The key words there are: Whichever is greater. That does not state that you can put a -1 Extreme Side Effect on a 10 Active Point power.

Right, the whichever is greater part means if the Power is 60 points or less, then you suffer 60 AP worth of Side Effect. If the Power is more than 60 AP, then you suffer Side Effect equal to the Power's AP.

So for a 1d6 Healing you can suffer a 12d6 EB.

Well yeah, I was looking for something that would need many many hits to actually kill someone but still inflict imparing/disabling wounds. The -1/2 only to disable sounds right but -1/2 seems light considering that no BODY or STUN is actually done. Maybe -1 would be more reasonable?

Looks pretty close but I guess it also depends on what point in his career you're talking about. While I agree that he is impressive, he might be better off with a slightly lower PRE and have PRE Defense instead.

That's cooler than Starlords new avatar.

And Starlord, that new avatar is really distracting, you bastard

After re-reading the Side Effect rules, it says you can take Extreme Side Effect which is (-1) for any Power regardless of AP. FREd 201.

Originally posted by Susano

One Gun = Super-Man

Two Guns = God

I think the line from Hard Boiled went like "You think you're god just because you have a gun?!"

I was wondering how to create a small blade (dagger sized or smaller) that didn't do much Killing Damage but because of it's special materials and/or sharpness, always caused an imparing or disabling wound. It doesn't chop off arms, just slices through the tendons making the arm useless.

So....how?

That would be the Mallet of Blessing from wayyyyyyyyyy back in the day. It required a full strength hit but the target received the benefits of a Blessing Spell. Fairly certain it came from Oriental Adventures.

Or you can just hand wave it without any solid definition from the rulebook. Just say that within Elven borders, X happens, against magic Y, magic Z gets a bonus. A suggestion from of course, the rulebook. As long as you put it down in your camapaign rules, you should be ok without having to require certain advantages or limitations.

I don't recall the exact pages, but it had to do with things like Sonics underwater can get a bonus for free, and stuff like that.

I haven't read ....any of the new Champions stuff so examples of special effect names is pretty limited for me.

However, my players have some nice ones:

"May Maggots Pour Forth From Your Eyes"

and "Cleansing Flame" (healing w/ side effect rka explosion)

Re: Just give guidelines

Originally posted by Tasha

I sometimes really hate this "you have to justify everything your character has with story" mentality that some people have. Hell, if I want to run a 20 str Hobbit Barbarian. If it's fun, why not? Sure it can be fun to come up with excuses for excessive stats, but it shouldn't be required. Not everyone likes that style of play.

To each his own, but what you describe sounds a lot more like a Champions game with a thin fantasy veneer than a FH campaign. The heroism of the usual fantasy hero stems more from wits and bravery than from some freak accident that makes them Like Unto Gods when compared with their peers.

To put it another way, the 'feel' of a fantasy campaign includes only a few heroic 'origins'--the ability to work spells, being a member of a neat demihuman race, divine providence, or just being really skilled at a few things. When you start combining these you start breaking out of the milieu--Frodo is believable as a hardheaded halfling, but if he were a hardheaded halfling with the strength of four Men because he happened to drink an ent potion once, you are fraying the rope from which you are suspending my disbelief.

To say nothing of the opportunities afforded to the munchkin. Hmm, if I run a halfling I get an extra 3 DCV, and I can still make him 20 STR such that my damage is as high as it can be before I run into the NCM penalties...

Originally posted by Shadowpup

The object before you is a rod approximately 10 inches long and 1 inch thick. There is a small hole on one end of the rod. It is generally cylindrical and covered with many soft bumps. Overall the rod is a deep green color with the bumps being tinged with yellow.

 

Breaking one of the bumps causes a foul smelling, pus like liquid to ooze forth which is caustic to the touch. At the same time a similar colored ball of ooze shoots out of the hole. When there are no more bumps to break the rod ceases to function.

I had that disease once, but a month of amoxycillin made it go away. Always use a condom!

Originally posted by Shadowpup

But when the day comes that he wants to be STR 15 instead of 5 I'll tell him "OK, here's what you have to do...first, take this cup and find a dragon..." Well, not really, but you get the idea.

I just have to point out that the way figured stats work, you'll almost never see anyone buy their STR down below 10. You just don't get enough points back for the damage it does to your character.

To go back on topic, I have known FH campaigns to set limits on points spent on stats vs. skills--the usual restriction is that no more than 50% of points may be spent on stats during character creation. I imagine you'd have to do something like this to make your stat increase guideline have less of an effect on new character creation.

I'm inclined to say that part of the problem is that certain stats are just too cheap. If you had three XP to spend, would you increase your STR by 3, or buy Seduction skill? The other half of the problem is that Hero has no system for spending XP. It's all just generic points, with all the pros and cons that implies.

Well if it were an official known policy I would expect most characters to start with 13+ accross the board - isn't that ironic (the 13 thing).

But it's not. The thing is, I don't want the rules to artificially alter conception. If a player wants to play a meak and weak character fine. But when the day comes that he wants to be STR 15 instead of 5 I'll tell him "OK, here's what you have to do...first, take this cup and find a dragon..." Well, not really, but you get the idea.

Originally posted by Shadowpup

Anybody ever limit the max according to starting values?

 

...

I've been tossing around the idea that I should limit my players to a full increase of 25-50% of starting value. This seems pretty reasonable, but I'm not sure how they'll take it.

It's perfectly reasonable, but any new characters will have most of their points spent on stats as a hedge. That's what I'd do if I were playing in your campaign.

Anybody ever limit the max according to starting values?

Assuming that your character creation rules are working, what happens when your PCs gain a dozen exp? Is it ok for the STR 8 wizard to spend it all in STR?

I've been tossing around the idea that I should limit my players to a full increase of 25-50% of starting value. This seems pretty reasonable, but I'm not sure how they'll take it. I'm sure some would feel betrayed in that I didn't tell them from the start, but if I had, I think a lot of characters would have 13s "just in case". Either that or a blanket 5 stat points over starting value cap.