bigdamnhero

Not necessarily stronger-smarter-better, but more technologically-advanced. The challenge from a writing standpoint is most traditional SF (esp. space opera) is set within a few hundred years of today in order to keep humans recognizable and relatable. But that means we're almost certainly going to be among the newer kids on the block. Sure. But even assuming we "only" have Kesedrith's plus or minus a million years to play with, it strains credibility when too many species all just happen to be at the same tech level we are. Honestly, think how much our tech has changed just in the last 100 years?

Speak for yourself. For me, that was one of the (many) things that led me to run screaming from D&D. I'm all for making the rules invisible. (Or at least more translucent.) But unless you want to do away Adjustment Powers altogether, it seems to me you have two choices: Give detailed guidance for each separate spell built using Adjustment Powers, stating clearly exactly how effective it is against these things, those items, and that other stuff, or Just list an AP cost for each item and say "beat that." You're actually making things more complicated, not less.

Only if you want the sort of all-or-nothing effects that D&D is (in)famous for. If you want the effect to have a chance of succeeding, you need to have some sort of point total to measure it against. And that's fine. It doesn't add significant complexity to give an AP value for stuff; you just don't have to Show Your Work behind how you got there. If you really wanted to simplify, I guess you could jigger Adjustment Powers so they work against Real Cost rather than AP, and then you would only have to list one number. But the problems with doing that could fill up a whole `nother thread.

Interesting. I am not a lawyer astronomer, so I just want to make sure I understand what you're saying. The universe is 13+ billion years old, and my understanding is that the earliest stars started forming within the first billion years, which means there were stars around for 7+ billion years before our sun formed. But what you're saying is those stars wouldn't have had enough heavy elements to form planets, and therefore life, until (relatively) recently? Even if you're right that complex life didn't start developing until "plus or minus a million years," it occurs to me that unless we think the typical lifespan of advanced civilizations is hundreds of thousands of years, I'm not sure it changes the Drake Equation much? [way above my expertise]

Fair point. Tho even then I would say the effect is 90% tank and at best 10% driver. But close enough for gaming.

Cygnia: wow, that's seriously vile even by geek misogyny standards! Stories like that aren't the main reason I avoid MMOs or other online games, but they damn sure don't help. In tabletop games, I play both genders pretty evenly depending on what character concept strikes me. (When I play...I GM more often than I play.) At convention games with pre-gens, I got in the habit years ago of grabbing one of the female PCs just because I know there are a lot of guys who aren't comfortable cross-playing. It's never been a big deal for me, maybe because I GM so much so I've always played female NPCs.

I'd suggest sending Steve a Message. He's kindof moving around at the moment, so it's possible he just missed it, or meant to get back to it once he'd had time to look something up and forgot or something. Edit: Sorry, I didn't catch this wasn't from the OP. In Parallaxus' case, I don't think his question ever posted to the Ask Steve section, as I don't see any post from him there.

Hmmm...I've always thought of Teleportation as being inherently Indirect, but thinking about it some more that may not be technically accurate. But for most practical purposes they function the same. The opening text on Indirect from 6e1 p335 says Indirect does 3 things: Alter source and/or path of an attack Bypass obstacles Change direction of KB. #3 is obviously not relevant to Teleportation. #2 obviously does apply: Teleportation lets you "move from one point to another without physically traveling through the space in between." [6e2 p300] Ignoring obstacles is kindof the whole point, unless you've taken the Must Cross Intervening Space Limitation. And yes there are ways to block Teleportation, just like there are ways to block Indirect. Mechanically Counteracts Indirect and Cannot Be Escaped With Teleportation are different Advantages (each worth +1/4), but would I allow a Barrier with Cannot Be Escaped With Teleportation to also block Indirect, or vice-versa? Depends on sfx, but yeah I think I probably would most times. (We could have the same debate about Affects Desolid, and I suspect I'd come to the same conclusion.) #1 is a little trickier. Setting aside the fact that Indirect seems intended for Attacks and Teleport isn't one, Teleport clearly has a source and a target/destination. But does it have a path per se? RAW doesn't explicitly say either way. But the two examples given in that opening paragraph [6e2 p300 again] are Transforming one's body into energy, and "Short-cutting" through another dimension The former clearly follows some sort of path from source to destination. The latter technically does, but since the path is in another dimension it's not relevant for this discussion. So we're back to "depends on sfx." But even with the turning-into-energy-and-reforming example, keep in mind that while other forms of movement clearly have paths, those paths don't have to be direct in the sense of a straight line. So using your example of a 2m by 2m Barrier with Cannot Be Escaped With Teleportation right in the Teleporter's path, what's stopping them from simply going around it, just like someone with Running can move around a normal Barrier? Sure, if the Barrier is wide enough that going around it exceeds the character's Teleport distance, it might take them more than 1 move, just like running around a conventional Barrier. But particularly at Megascale distances, the number of times where that's likely to come up are going to be pretty rare. I'll also point out the language of the Limitation is Cannot Be Escaped With Teleportation, rather than something like Cannot Be Penetrated With Teleportation. That strongly implies to me that it's usually only relevant when applied to an Entangle or englobing Barrier or something similar that completely surrounds and traps the character, rather than simply being in the way. If I built the walls of your prison cell with Cannot Be Escaped, but forgot to do the floor or ceiling, it's not going to impede your escape in any meaningful way. So while I concede it's probably not technically correct to say that Teleportation has the Indirect Advantage, it acts the same in most ways that are relevant. And going back to the relevant question: ignoring physical barriers between here and there is kindof the whole point of Teleportation. So yeah, all that Earth between here are there is not an issue.

I hate to be the one harping on the Reason From Effect card, but you still haven't described what is the effect you're trying to model. I can't tell you how being Thrown affects Pyramid Dude without knowing why Pyramid Dude can't be knocked down. What are you trying to model? If he's some amoeba-like form that doesn't have a prone, then he would take damage from hitting the ground but it wouldn't affect his ability to move & act. If he has some sort of internal gyroscope so that he always lands on his feet, then maybe he's actually immune to being Thrown altogether, which is something completely different.

Not per RAW, no. But for rare situations like the spike-covered floor, as a GM I'd probably be willing to handwave it under the heading of sfx. Throws are another matter, especially since they're much more common. So let me ask: what's the effect we're trying to build from? Judo John goes to throw Pyramid Sam and fails because...why?

I like this a lot. I generally tend to avoid putting RSR on defenses because it can slow things down, but that's a neat mechanism for making Combat Luck be a variable amount rather than a fixed quantity.

Mechanically it's very simple: roll your Luck dice and if you roll at least one* 6 the spell goes off. How does it work narratively with fantasy spells? [shrug] Any way you want it to. Lots of fantasy characters have luck, whether as some kind of blessing or divine favor, or just plain being lucky - no reason that can't be a factor in spellcasting as well. I've also seen Luck dice used to represent other things like the random flow of mana in the universe, or "is my god paying attention at the moment" and the like. * Edit: or however many are required based on the value of the Limitation, ie if two 6s are required, the Limitation is worth more.

I know penguins aren't mammals, but the Small Mammals writeups in the Bestiary might be a good place to start.

How about Breakfall with Triggered by being knocked down? Mechanically every time he's knocked down he immediately gets back up again, but the sfx is that he doesn't get knocked down in the first place. That or a lot of KBR, Only to prevent getting knocked down. (ie - he can still get knocked back). I'd have to run the numbers but I suspect Lucius' Teleportation-based power might actually be cheaper.

If Loving You Is Wong...

"Potential" being the key word of course, but I agree. Did anyone else get the impression that the Amazons had never seen guns before the first fight with the Huns? Maybe I'm reading too much into it (trailers lie...) but that's the impression I got. If so I anticipate a thousand fanboys crying out in rage. But honestly it never made sense to me that the Amazons would have guns, just so they can play bullets & bracelets. So I'm fine with that being something Diana learns to do, rather than something all Amazons are trained in. Also, is anyone else picturing a post-credits scene where they show the whole movie has been Diana telling her story to Bruce Wayne, ala Stark & Banner at the end of IM3?

I'm trying not to get my hopes up too high here, but I agree that looks like a hell of a movie. The move to WWI only makes sense from a couple of angles, one practical and one cynical: WWII has been overdone and risks looking like a Captain America rip-off. WWII had (at least in the eyes of history) a certain moral clarity that is apparently not permitted in the Snydervierse, so they wanted something more depressing and pointless. Neither makes sense organically in terms of the story, but I can see either or both making sense in Hollywood Logic. [shrug] if the movie just doesn't suck, I'll be willing to overlook a change in venue. And conversely if it's just another DC/WB train wreck, the change in venue will likely be the least of my complaints.

I managed to find this on YouTube. The video quality isn't great, but you're right that the series is well done. I also managed to find the companion book at my library. Both do mention the trade routes to Constantinople. But yet again, neither says anything about how long the trip typically took. One note from the book that I hadn't heard before and found amusing: the Rus-Byzantine Treaty that was signed in 907 after Oleg of Novgorod's attack on Constantinople, which gave Russian merchants favorable trading status, also included the provision that the Russians should be given as many free baths as they wanted.

[shrug] I guess that could be a problem if I ever ran a published scenario as written rather than customizing it (and the villains) to my individual PCs.

Yeah, almost all of these are clearly set-ups for later movies, even ones like the Leader where the movies obviously didn't get made. Similarly, I'm not sure what's even remotely surprising about any of this. Don't mean to diss you for posting them; just underwhelmed with the actual articles.

That's a reasonable way of looking at it. But remember that unlike in movies & TV with historical bows archers rarely draw back and hold before firing, because you have to continue to exert STR the entire time and after awhile your hand is going to start to shake and throw your aim off. You don't actually draw until you're ready to release and then you release as soon as possible, which means whether the END is paid on the draw or the release is kindof moot. Modern compound bows are different and do allow you to hold the bow drawn with minimal (but not zero) effort, so there the distinction makes sense. But from a game mechanics standpoint, I'm not sure the distinction would come up often enough to be worth worrying about. One way to look at it is that while mechanically we abstract 1 Phase's worth of combat to a single Attack Roll, it doesn't necessarily mean only one punch/blow/blast/whatever is made. In melee combat, it doesn't make sense that a 3-SPD fighter only swings his sword once every 4 seconds, let alone that a 4-DEX martial artist can only throw one punch every 3 seconds. So we bundle together X-seconds worth of fighting, call it one Attack Roll and pay END accordingly. Charging more END for things like Multiple Attack represents the fact that the attacker is pushing themselves harder than normal. While that reasoning can translate well to ranged energy blasts that use END (ie you're paying END for a Phase's worth of blasts that we abstract into a single roll), the abstraction starts to break down a bit when Charges are thrown into the mix. The idea that a trained gunman can only fire one bullet accurately every 3-4 seconds is nonsense, and even doubling or tripling that with Multiple Attack or Naked Autofire, etc still doesn't approach reality. This problem isn't unique to Hero of course; I don't know of any RPG that handles this well. I have long thought one solution would be to break the assumption that 1 bullet = 1 Charge and instead abstract ammunition a bit so that a Charge represents the number of bullets typically fired in a Phase, all of which are abstracted into single Attack & Damage Rolls. So a pistol with a 12-round magazine might only have 3 or 4 Charges in game terms. But of course agreeing on exactly how many bullets equal a Charge could get tricky.

Hmmm...actually Drain Running & Leaping would be fairly cheap in a Heroic game.

A fun exchange from teh bunneh's Lucha Libra game over the weekend. "Don't you find this a little suspicious? "How so?" "Every monster we've ever faced all showing up out of nowhere, and then vanishing all at once right when these aliens show up?" "[scoff] That just means it's Tuesday." "Yes, but today is Wednesday." "...My god you're right! Something strange and suspicious is going on! We should investigate!"

I guess technically modern adjustable compound bows could be built with STR Adds Damage at least up to a point, and with the provision that the draw weight has to be pre-set. (Doesn't take more than a few seconds IIRC, but not something you'd want to do in combat.)

Not having watched Young Justice, my money's on the former, but the latter is possible too.