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Chris Goodwin hits the nail on the head. I too fiund assumptions play a bigger role than raw stats. I still remember when in this board someone dared mention he was going to play a fantasy game using suoerheroic rules. Iirc a few actually stated that you couldn't do that!

That was extraordinarily common in the 4th edition days. The Fantasy Hero book back then actually stated that Fantasy games should be Heroic level or less and that superheroic levels of play were "inappropriate" to the genre.

 

It also said that except in the case of spells, that powers were "not allowed" in fantasy games and that even in the case of spells, that power frameworks such as Multipower or VPP were inappropriate (there's that word again).

 

Of course this created an atmosphere where those few of us who completely ignored those "suggestions" in the Fantasy Hero book, got piled on and told we were playing wrong when we presented various builds that were "illegal" according to FH4.

 

I think things finally started to turn around once The Ultimate Martial Artist released and people saw exactly what interesting theme-related builds could result when you removed the artificial limiters placed on the system. Also, I presented a solution to Turn Undead on the message boards back then that made perfect sense mechanically and while some posters said they didnt like it, most said that mechanically it fit the system quite well and those who playtested it said it worked well. It is now pretty much the default method for Turn Undead in the game. Things started to turn around after that and then of course the release of the 5th edition when those old barriers got completely blown to oblivion.

I don't like Deadly Blow because it has zero rational sense and no logical basis other than "dude it was in D&D!"

It works well for certain power builds that exist outside the realm of Martial Arts. Its just that its initial build and presentation when it debuted in the 5th edition was poor and needed work. It wasnt well balanced, which is why some people didnt like it from the jump.

 

I have neen using Feat-like Talents since the mid-4th edition days, so I had years of experience in balancing such builds when the concept was introduced in 5th edition. It just requires a bit of thought and tweaking the concept to fit into your own game. Never and I mean NEVER introduce that kind of stuff into your game straight out of the book without extensive playtesting to better fit it to your games power level.

 

For me, its good for simulating such things as a Theif's backstab (requires a stealt roll), a Paladin's Holy Strike (requires a Faith roll, costs endurance) or a "bane" type power where a character does more damage to a specific monster type (only vs Dragons etc). Nothing wrong with the concept, or the build as long as it is kept in check and balanced against other things in the setting.

I just use base Presence, plus situational bonuses just like with PRE attacks. I do support a Talent that provides a bonus to Turn Undead dice, but it maxes out at +3D6.

 

A priest with a PRE of 15 and a Strong Faith talent (+2d6) would look something like this:

 

5d6 to turn undead.

 

Using holy symbol +1d6

 

On holy ground aligned with deity +2d6

 

Holy day +1d6 to +3d6 (depending on the sanctity of the day)

 

Daytime +1d6

 

Unholy ground -2d6

 

Undead under necromantic control -1d6

 

Night time -1d6

4

Unholy day -1d6 to -3d6

 

Thus if the preist were using their holy symbol and on holy ground conecrated to the priests deity, they gain a bonus of +3d6. However the undead are being controlled by an entity -1d6 and the dark moon of Charon is full, making it an unholy day for another -1d6 for a total of +1d6 after bonuses and penalties are calculated. So the priest with 15 PRE and a Talent giving +2d6 bonus under the above circumstances rolls 6d6 to turn the hoard of undead shamblijg toward his party of adventurers...

 

Not too crazy, but holds some flavor.

I'm not sure how much damage it might be. However, I've read many real life situations where people died from being thrown backwards off of a horse. How you land is as important as how fast you're going.

 

I might do it this way:

 

Make a Dex roll. If you make it, you take normal damage. If you fail the Dex roll, you landed badly and the damage is killing attack.

Breakfall skill. If the character doesnt possess the skil or fails the roll, roll a hit location to see what part of the character takes the damage. Falling on your head, neck or back/spine (vitals) in the wrong way probably wont go over very well.

If you were bucked, I would use the STR of the Horse to do damage, after all they have effectively thrown the character to the ground. Breakfall roll to reduce damage.

 

If this happens at a gallop, I would do move-by damage instead. If unhorsed by a weapon, I would use those rules. (Generally weapon damage with move-by or move-through bonuses)

I thought everyone did that.

I see a lot of people dont like Deadly Blow and Combat Luck. They work ok for certain builds as long as you keep the power levels in check.

 

Deadly blow should just be +1 DC per level up to a max of +3DC (+1d6k) and Combat Luck (or whatever) should be limited to +3 resistant defense. That way if it stacks with armor it will not be overwhelming.

 

Keep bonuses from Talents/Feats low....+1 to +3 in most cases. When they stack with skill levels and situational bonuses, the end result can still be impressive in a Heroic fashion without being overwhelming.

75+75 because I still use 5th edition and I'm old skool.

 

I feel 75pts in disads/complications is a good balance and 150pts is enough to make a budding action hero without going overboard. Equivalent to 3rd to 5th level character in DnD

One of the things I totally miss from my old days playing Role Master is the Critical Hits & Critical Fumbles tables.

I use a random fumble table for spell casting in my fantasy hero games, inspired by the charts in RM. Of course I also use the Shadow World campaign setting as well.

I would play this as a side effect. The side effect being Transform (major) that goes against INT (or whatever characteristic that governs magic in your campaign) and if the cumulative Transform doubles the relevant stat, then the character is burned out and cannot perform magic until this is healed in whatever way suits your campaign.

 

I would have the Transform activate if the skill roll is failed and if it is a critical failure, the max on the Transform dice is automaticaly added to the cumulative amount. The Transform should of course heal at a rate of Recovery per month, so be careful (if your campaig has a seperate mana Recovery stat, use that instead of physical recovery)

It shows prequel era stuff can be cool too...

For inspiration

 

https://youtu.be/Djo_91jN3Pk

I generally play heroic games and in those my players did it all the time. I encouraged it. I wanted the players to use all their options.

 

I also used the alternate method of adding damage of +1 body to killing attacks or +3 to Stun of Normal attacks. Not to exceed the maximum rollable on the dice. Thus, if a character was at their maximum damage class, then they could still add damage if they really wanted to.)

Nicely done.

 

It makes me happy to see you include DNI in the controls section. Though I generally simulate DNI as bonuses to Speed and Dex (both the pilot and the mecha) in addition to bonuses to Combat Piloting/Driving

I always thought of it as C3PO telling the story to baby Ewoks. The basic historical facts are there, but 3PO's memory has been wiped so many times he's a little fuzzy on how they all fit together and he's framing it as a kid's story. But I like the Imperial Propaganda idea better.

 

That's one of the problems I'm having with the Edge of Empire game we're playing; the GM has elected to include all of the prequels in canon as written. Which means the Jedi were a big bunch of dicks, and incredibly stupid to boot. Which kindof undermines the theme of the original trilogy IMO.

I tend to think of them less as stupid and more as arrogant beyond the point of reason.

 

And I tend to credit Palpatines success not to Jedi stupidity, but to the intricacy of the Sith program to infiltrate the Republic. Generations long laid plans coming to fruition in the time of Palpatine. The Sith having developed their skills of obfuscation and misdirection to the fullest, that even the most perceptive of Jedi Masters wouldnt see them coming.

For Jackie Chan battles to analyze, either his battle vs Benny the Jet from Dragons Forever, or the rooftop battle at the climax of Who am I, or my personal pick would be the battle between Jackie and Jet li from the film The Forbidden Kingdom.

 

 

https://youtu.be/cs35MPCiSas

My suggestion would be the fight scene between Hector and Achilles from the movie Troy. One of my favorites.

I will join you soon. I love writing up magic items and there are a lot of swords of myth and legend that beg for a writeup.

Damit, not again!

The altitude/sensor things are really an issue with ESA.

 

There are two explanations for the holes in the Paper:

a) they are really bad at doing the testing

they keep it vague to intentionally keep the process a secret

 

This could be either due to pre-existing Military Applications (for all we know X-37 is already using that technology to keep up there so long)

Or it could be to have a "edge" on the other space agencies. NASA budget is not exactly high (considering how hard it is to get into space). And having income from providing sattellite operations in the future might be worth a pretty penny.

It would not at all surprise me to discover that the military has been using this technology for the past 20 years or more. As much as people love to claim that our government is terrible at keeping secrets, they tend to forget that our military and intelligence apparatus are exceedingly good at doing so.

What does heated air have to do with anything? And it's not at all clear that they measured thrust, when what signal they did get is so noisy and doesn't match what would ordinarily be expected, and when so little effort was made to rule out thermal effects. All they had to do was put the thing on a balance and turn it on and measure the CG shift.

 

There's nothing wrong with further testing, but only if that testing is going to be way less sloppy than it has been so far. Otherwise it's just going to waste more time and money and not answer anything. Measuring a force in ten-thousandths of a gram is not going to be easier remotely, in hard vacuum, with limited telemetry, after a violent rocket launch. The logical next step is a finely made apparatus in an abandoned salt mine in Nevada, not the hard radiation and vacuum of orbit.

One of the criticism was that for the initial test in-air, the thrust may have come from thermal expansion as the microwaves heated the air or heated the resonant chamber itself, which in turn would heat the air.

The way Feige is talking about Captain Marvel's power level, they are looking at Binary level power rather than Ms Marvel level. I'm eager to see how this is going to shake out.

I hate to be the wet blanket but these people, and all of NASA, should be ashamed for allowing this paper to be published. The data literally doesn't show any thrust signal, and then they say that the thrust signal is being obscured by thermal expansion. IOW their experiment is so sloppy it proves nothing. They even admit to rerunning the experiment until they manage to get a signal by attaching some plastic components to the side of the frustum, and don't even try to explain why that would matter.

 

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and this isn't even ordinary proof, or proof of anything, other than that the experimenters have preconceived notions about how their experiment should turn out. And this paper follows the preceding experiment where the measured thrust direction was exactly opposite to the thrust from the original experiment.

 

More on the sloppiness here.

Their last tests were done in a vacuum, so no heated air to expand, and they still measured thrust. Thus, why they went ahead with the paper. The peer review process in this case is merely a formality because they are already building a functional prototype to test in space most probably sometime in 2017, so I think these engineers are pretty confident in its potential.

 

It might not work. But there isnt a damned thing wrong with testing to see if it does.

Yeah, training/programming (but not force powers) would make more sense. To do Force sensitivity right, it should be either you got it, or you don't. If a blood transfusion can give you Force powers, then like I said, everyone who wants to have Force-sensitivity will go to the nearest galactic blood bank. (well more complicated than that, you still have to find the Force-sensitive donor, but it still leaves a door open in the storyline that should be padlocked.

I would assume here, if the midichlorians were a cellular/physical manifestation of the energetic/metaphysical Force Consciousness, then The Force, THROUGH the midichlorians choose the individual consciousness to bond with and grant Force sensitivity. The Force, being an omnipotent intelligence, would know the transfusion had taken place and the bond between midichlorians and host would be invalid.

 

In fact what I would do is have those specific Midi still be in telepathic contact with the original host and thus the original Force Sensitive person could now use The Force through the new host (the recipient of the transfusion) and would be in constant mental contact (mind link) with that individual, but the recipient of the transfusion would have no control over The Force emmanations of those foreign midichlorians.

The EM drive officially passed peer review. Now to test it in space.

 

 

https://www.google.com/amp/amp.space.com/34797-impossible-space-engine-emdrive-study-published.html

Is that a whole galaxy?