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Re: Chronicles of Amber abilities I think Trumps should actually be built as Extra Dimensional Movement (One Location, Any Dimension) with the Gate limitation (among others) added to it. A Gate allows travel in both directions, they can be seen through and you can attack through them as if the target was standing right next to you. All of the things shown to be done with Trumps. I would add an Ego vs Ego roll limitation to establish contact by Trump since people can resist making contact, but they can also be forced into opening contact if the other party is more powerful mentally. Also a group of people can focus on a single Trump card and assist in the Ego roll to force contact/open the gateway. Once the gateway is open, other mental attacks, telepathy, etc... can also be used the same as physical attacks through the opening. Other limitations would also be: OAF, Concentration, Extra time (maybe, sometimes it seems to take a bit of time, other times it's quick), and maybe Increased END (sometimes using Trumps seemed to tire out the users so that would imply a high END cost, given that these are already God-like beings).

Re: Chronicles of Amber abilities I agree with the above, plus... The Patten ability is simply Extra Dimensional Movement with a few limitations put on it like Extra Time and a Custom Limitation that You need to walk or ride to where you want to go, plus a few other limitations. It also has some Advantages that might need a bit of rule twisting to allow (for example Corwin (and others) led an army of 10000+ soldiers across shadows (Dimensions) this would be an extremely high cost to do in the rules as written, but maybe balance it out that the more people you bring with you the slower (Extra Time goes up) the journey takes. Also tons of the soldiers died on the journey so maybe have that as a side effect that happens the more people you bring along. Logrus is Conjuration (objects) with Extra Time limitation (the tendrils have to seek out the object), plus TK, Plus Extra Dimensional Movement, plus more as they are used a lot of different way in the books (like Force fields, spell "hangers", remote sensing, and tons more. I'd have players add on new Logrus abilities as new powers as they learned them. All Logrus powers would probably have the Linked/Lockout disadvantage. It would be simpler (and logical) to maybe make the Logrus Power a VPP with a certain and fixed set of premade abilities available that the GM created before the game started. Some abilities would quite possibly be more expensive and powerful then a starting player could use and they would have to be learned as the PC put more points into the VPP over the course of the game. The glory of Hero is that all of the many strange abilities from Amber can be recreated, it would just take sometime for the GM to build them all first, then give the list to the PC's to pick ("buy") their starting powers from with character points. But this would be needed, since all the base powers are the same in the books so all starting version of Logus or Pattern should be the same for all characters, unless they player spends more points to boost it or buy extra powers or tricks for it.

Re: Rules You Didn't Know Until Champions Complete I agree with a lot of what has been said already about using cars, trees, etc... to make it easier to hit a target and have other situational advantages (range, etc...), but the mention of "the Hulk ripping a car in two and using it as boxing gloves to fight the abomination" got me thinking about an optional rule I toyed around with a while back but never got to work and never used, but it might explain the "why?" in this situation. In the real world or a realistic setting if a you punched a brick wall you would break your hand. Heck, people break knuckles and fingers, etc... quiet often in hand to hand combat. Hitting things with your hands can and does also hurt your hands in return. Hulk punching a wooden wall might not hurt his hands, hulk punching the rocky and super hard Thing might hurt himself in the process. There are no rules for this in Hero (as far as I know), and to be honest it would be a crazy thing to simulate in combat (imagine using rules like this in a martial arts campaign?) but that can be a reason for using other objects in combat rather then your fists. If Superman is as hard as steel (or harder), then me punching him full strength would result in me breaking my hand, just as if I had punched the side of a tank full strength. It also always slightly irked me that bare-fisted a "monk" might fights a "Knight" in full steel armour, punching him and not hurting his hands. So how to simulate this? Back in the day I was thinking something like: Character A lands a Punch in hand to hand against Character B. Character A Rolls damage. If the damage rolled is more then Character B's defences play as normal. If the damage rolled is less then Characters B's armour/resistant defences then... Character A applies the damage rolled against his himself. If Character A's own defences are enough to negate the damage then nothing happens and the fight continues. If Character A's defences are not enough to negate the damage, then he takes damage as normal to his character. This means if a normal guy is stupid enough to punch a guy in full, metal armour then he is going to hurt himself. This also means it is smart to use improvised weapons when possible because it is the weapons that break, not your hands. This type of rule also makes using Trips, Throws, Shoves, Choke Holds, etc... more useful if you are fighting someone you cant straight out punch with your fist without hurting yourself in return. In the Hulk vs Thing example above, the Hulk used the car as "boxing gloves" for himself, adding their DEF+BOD to his own, only to avoid taking damage to his own hands when he hit the Thing. Again, maybe getting a little too detailed, but it might have its uses in some realistic genres and settings.

Re: Fantasy Race Bloat? Its been touched on a couple of times in this thread already, but I think it's worth noting that in most Fantasy settings each race (species) usually has their own God or Gods. Now assuming that these Gods are super powered beings and in most cases interact with the mortal realms (whether directly or indirectly such as granting spells and prayers, etc...) , then a race's survival and growth, no matter how much competition or how close they are to other intelligent races, could easily be in the hands of these higher powers. Orc's and Goblins living in the same mountain ranges haven't wiped each other out over the centuries? Maybe their gods have struck a deal? Maybe their gods are friends and "keep the balance" through direct and indirect means? And maybe in some setting this means that some races are all "evil". The race was created by an evil god and as such they are all inherently evil. Maybe any member of that race that tries to change and "be good" would be smiteed from above or be stricken with a horrible disease and die? The fact of the matter is, in any fantasy setting where you have Gods that directly and indirectly muddle in the affairs of the races and most if not all of those races were created by the gods (so they feel protective of them), then you have to expect that the gods would mess with things to keep their creations alive (in the broad sense). In fact, in these types of setting, the only way any race should ever have the chance of going extinct is if their god/creator is killed so he/she/it can no longer protect them (or grant prayers to the loyal priests). Then the race would be on its own against all the other races that still have their own gods protecting them. Of course, if another God were to "adopt" this now "godless" race, then maybe they could survive for a bit longer. And as another thought, I guess the number of races in a fantasy setting might also depend on what a god is in that setting, and if it is possible to become a God by gaining enough power. If it is possible to become a god through sheer magical/mystical power, then is it also possible to create your own race of followers? So all the "new" races popping up, could be explained by the number of mortals who gather enough power to become gods themselves then create a race of followers to worship them and carry out their commands.

Re: Traveller Hero: Battle Dress (Power Armor) A thought. On Earth (or an Earth sized planet) about the farthest a 2 meter (6'6") tall person could see, on complete flat, open ground, before the curvature of the earth took an object (of the same or lesser height) out of this line of sight is about 5km. Anyone shorter then 2 meter would not even see that far. On planets smaller then Earth that distance would shrink as well. So there is no way that the "Detect a Campfire at 500km" is based on direct sight (unless they character was on a planet 100x the size of Earth (then in which case the gravity would be insane)). So if it is not a visual detection, then it must detect the campfire by heat/energy (thermal), but even then the curvature of the planet would block out 99% of that heat. In which case this power would best work as a "detect" power, a'la "Detect Heat Patterns" built with a high enough range to reach 500km. This would allow the suit user to detect that there is a heat source 500km away, and know what direction it was in, but not be able to visually see it until he got with in 5km of it. Of course this is assuming that the character and the campfire are on the same elevation (or a flat surface), if the campfire was on the top of a mountain then it might be in direct line of sight at 100km away, but then we are adding tons of other variables in to it, so a simple "detect heat signatures" probably works best.

Anyone watching this new Sci-Fi tv series? First episode was just so-so, but I will give it another chance. Unfortunately in this day and age of television so-so sci-fi is almost the best we can hope for. Funny thing about this show is, it is almost exactly the same as a Phoenix Command/Living Steel campaign I ran for a friend way back in the early '90's. His character was a soldier in the far future who was injured on a mission and after being healed (with some cyber and genetic upgrades) was placed on garrison duty, guarding a scientific research station until he was approved for active duty again. He had no idea what the scientists were working on since he wasn't allowed into the building, but when a terrorist group attacked he was one of the only soldiers to survive the initial assault. He followed the terrorists into the building and discovered that the scientists had developed a time machine. The terrorists had already initiated a time jump into the far past and if they weren't stopped the future would be changed for ever. So the player was the only one close enough and with the necessary skills to try and stop them/hunt them down in the past and kill them, so he jumped in, knowing that it was a one way ticket and he could never return. Back in time (to our present (well, near future)) he only had the gear he had on him to use to slowly track down the terrorists and stop them from rewriting the future. Once he ran out of his limited ammo for this gun, it would be gone for good. He would have to rely on modern weapons, not his super advanced gear. No resupplies here. If his armour ever got to badly damaged it would be unrepairable, etc... It was a good, fun campaign. We both still think it was one of the best ones we've ever played/run, and we've been roleplaying for 25+ years now. But if I had know I could have adapted it for a tv series and made some money off of it, I would have done that 20 years ago...

Re: Great russian SF novel... Yeah, great book read it a while back and always wanted to own a copy, but could never find one for sale. This new edition looks good.

Re: STORMLords Nice! I'll definitely be kicking in for the Kickstarter for this! or just buying a copy if no kickstarter is required. I've been working on/using a "level" based power system for some of my hero games for the last 3-4 years and would love to see how Steve designed it for his setting.

Re: What third party Hero products would you like to see? There is some development under way on a large Campaign/Adventure set in the Turakian Age setting (but easily portable to any other fantasy setting/world) it will have maps, bad guys, treasure, and a cool story.

Re: New Hero System Players And Game Masters I'm a book guy, but I have an Ipad and a couple of the other players in my group do as well. As they become more common, and the prices drop, eventually almost everyone will have one, just like most people now have smart phones. So, if you want to know what will help bring people into table top gaming? APPs and Programs! This may sound cheesy, but they are the way of the future. What someone needs to do is make an app/program that combines Hero Designer, plus Hero Roller, combined with a combat program that tracks BODY, STUN, END. That is wi-fi linked among the players and GM. That would be the ultimate RPG tool. Imagine everyone playing the game buys the app/program for, say, $30. A moderate initial investment, but then everyone has their character right in front of them when they play. The Gm start the combat, adds in the players info straight from thier PAD's wirelessly, brings up the pre-made NPCs and boomb. Your are ready to go. The players screen flashes when it is your turn to act, you pick you actions and attack, hit roll, and it tracks damage, END, etc... for you and the NPC's. Between combat, the GM can send images, maps, etc... to the players so everyone is all on the same page, etc... It is already possible to play fast, action, video games by wi-fi with people near you, and if it can be real time interactive like that with all the graphics and actions then it should be easily (ie, cheaper) to do the same thing with mainly static sheets and images for a RPG. Basically it automates all the book keeping, which turns so many people off table top RPGs, making it nice and simple, while still having everyone in a room, playing and interacting to the GM's adventure. That type of system would/will win over at least some computer rpg gamers, who normally would want to deal with "learning" the rules, and tracking data on a sheet of paper.

Re: Hard Back Rule Book I've had mine since they first came out and I've used them a far amount, plus lent them out to new players to read through, and they are still in really good shape. No spine or cover issues. In fact we (my group) we're just talking about how well they have held up given other hard cover books we have had about the same amount of time and use that have started falling apart. I really think it is an issue at the printers that some batches of books are slightly defective, in terms of the binding, coming off the presses. Things like not enough glue, or stacked wrong, or boxed to soon, etc... I worked for a small magazine for a while and every once and a while we would have that issue with the magazines. Half the shipment (5-6000) were perfect, the other half would have issues with the binding. We would have to sort them all out and ship them back to get reprinted, but it's a lot easier (and a lot more obvious) to check softcover magazines for these type of issues. In almost all cases it was because they were boxed/stacked to soon after printing so the glue was still loose and began to separate the pages from the cover.

Re: The Towers of Fortune But why? Who is doing this? Why are they doing this? How are they powerful enough to do this? Etc... What's the background to all of this?

So I was flipping through some old source books the other night trying to decide what genre of Hero Game I am going to run next and my eyes feel upon the DEMON book. I loved this book and had great fun adapting it to a game I GM'd a few years back. After flipping though it I noticed that the big "End of the world" plan of Luther Black (Opening the gateway to the Edomites) is suppose to take place on Feb.29th 2012 . Wow, that's pretty soon. So a couple of questions. First, has the DEMON storyline ever been developed more since that source book came out? I'm not up-to-date on Champions books since none of my friends are fans of Super Hero gaming. Second, if not, do you think we'll ever hear the official version of how Luther Black and DEMON were stopped? And finally, any GM's out there planning any big sessions for their campaigns dealing with the final endgame in DEMON's centuries long plan?

Re: BOOK OF THE EMPRESS Kickstarter Nice!! This is great news!! I am really, really happy to hear this! As a backer any other freebies or extra benefits would be cool, but as a fan and long time supporter of all things Hero, I personally, would be just as happy (if not happier) if any extra money raised went into the Hero coffers to be used to fund future projects (thus lowering the amount needed to be raised to fund them, or to go towards getting the core book reprinted and out to the public) rather then spent on bonus gifts, which while nice and cool, are not essential, but getting books out to gamers and making Hero more available to new fans (and thus bring in more money for the company) would make me even happier. Congrats again!! I can't wait for this book and many more to come.

Re: BOOK OF THE EMPRESS Kickstarter Excited for this and I will pledge, just not sure if it will be for a PDF or physical copy. I much prefer a hardcopy of the book, but a quick question/comment. $30 shipping to Canada? Is that correct? I've ordered a lot of stuff from the USA over the years (including numerous orders from Hero) and I've never seen a $30 shipping charge for a single book before. Oh, and a second question. If I do pledge for a physical copy of the book, do I pledge $50 now and pay another $30 later for shipping, or do I pledge $80 right off the bat and the $30 for shipping comes out of that amount? Thanks!

Re: Interesting discussio on the future of Hero System on rpg.net I feel, and I've said this for a long time now, that the HERO Core books should be treated like the Tool Kit they say they are. They are the tools for making rules and a game, they are not the rules for any specific game. Now that the Core books are out, HERO should focus on building actual GAMEs with the tool kit. For example they should be making a Turakian Age game, not just a setting book, but a full game with SPECIFIC rules, powers, power levels, experience point system, money system, etc... taken or built from the tool kit and published as part of that specific game. Player and GM's should have the option of just buying the Turakian Age game and having all the rules they need to make character and play right they in that one book (and any supplements they make for it). And then, if the GM wanted to (and would be encouraged to, they could by the CORE Tool Kit and expand, develop and change whatever they wanted in the Turakian Age rules because it is all from the same source.) Player and GMs are drawn to specific setting WoD, Shadowrun, etc... It is the setting that draws them in, not the rules. Shadowrun rules have always sucked, yet all my friends and (obviously) thousands of other people around the world love it, because the setting is so good. That is what HERO needs to focus on. Specific kick-ass settings, with rules adapted from the Tool Kit specifically for each one. Then when player and GMs get hooked they can buy the CORE books and build up/modify the game as they desire. In video game examples, look at Skyrim. it is a specific game, made using a set of general tools. People love the game and are hooked on it and soon the game company is going to release the general tools to the public so they can build and expand and modify Sykrim as they desire. This should be the HERO model, but in reverse. They have released the CORE TOOL KIT, now it's time to build and show us actual games made with the TOOL KIT.

Re: Possible HERO System Supplement Kickstarters From Steve -- What Interests You? I'd pay $50 for Cyberhero (just a hardcopy is fine for me, I don't really use PDF's) And I'd happily pay the same for more Turakian Age books!!! Love that setting.

Re: Two questions (DCV Penalty Skill Levels and ½ DCV // Killing Strike and high STR) Martial Arts has always been overly effective.

Re: Judice: A world with Nitric Acid instead of Water Maybe the planet didn't always have an acidic atmosphere? Maybe it was once hospitable with advanced life, but something, either "man-made (alien made)" caused the change in the environment, killing off 99.9% of the life forms, or maybe it was a natural disaster that had the same effect? A comet made up of frozen nitric acid crashed into the planet centuries ago. If it was a "man-made" disaster, maybe it was a super weapon used by a powerful alien race a long time ago. The question then become, why did they want to destroy this planets ecosystem? Were they trying to hide something or stop something? If so, what remains hidden under the surface of the planet? And what about this super weapon? Could it be re-discovered? Replicated? If so, a lot of interested parties would be intent on getting a weapon so powerful.

Re: Storn Sci-Fi Character Art Thread How much does it cost to have a custom picture done by Storn?

Re: Augmented Reality Start-Up Ready to Disrupt Business This type of tech is great in theory and in books, games and movies (things that are controlled by the creators) but will be such a hassle in real life that it will never work without tons of control and oversight, the very thing most technophiles on the internet fight against. Just look at the example in the article about real space vs. virtual space. Of course real space will end up owning their own virtual space. Do you think the Whitehouse is going to let anyone super impose a porn site or porn images over it in virtual space? That Apple will let another company offer ads in one of their stores? No, way. The same goes for people. It is only a matter of time (if not already available) for a person to have a virtual reality "space" around them. Do you think anyone should be able to add "tags" to you if you don't want them to? ie, someone looking at you in AR see's a pop-up add for erectile dysfunction pills? So, if companies and people and own and control their own "virtual space" (I like the term "virtual presence" better) then all this tech will ever amount too is just another way of selling stuff (ads, ads and more ads) or as a dating/sex tool (ie, walk into a club and see who is single, what they are looking for, etc...) and never amount to anything too exciting. On the other hand, if by some miracle, no laws/rules are passed and virtual space becomes totally free, then there will be so much spam, crap, childish comments, ads and junks floating around everywhere, that the whole thing will be useless.

Re: Star Hero 6th Edition: my first take See, I'm the opposite. Less detail. Less detail. The vehicle write ups in 5th edition were horrible, in my opinion. In fact they went against the whole "Cinematic realism" (that the HERO rules generally try and maintain) by getting way too detailed. I full page write up, in small print, with no picture, to describe a spaceship? Hell no. Just give me a simple sheet, like something for a robot or AI and that's fine. The game is about the characters (PC's and NPC's). Characters should be detailed. The stuff they use and ride around in should be simple and there only to help move the story forward. I have player look at starship sheets for HERO and not want to play Starhero. They figure that anything that puts that much detail and effort into designing won't be fun to play. And they are right. HERO is an RPG game. A game about characters. If people want a military vehicle simulation those rules should be an optional extra, or they should play a different game, because unless you are running some super detailed simulation you do not need that level of detail for a ship or car or boat. It just slows down the time spent on what the game is really about, the characters.

Re: STAR HERO Cover Sneak Peek! I like. When will this be in stores?

Re: ADVANCED PLAYER'S GUIDE II -- What Do *You* Want To See? Maybe there should be a "Wealth roll", and in certain situations players can make a wealth check as a complimentary skill roll with another check. For example, player making a Charm roll to seduce an NPC, can make a wealth roll as a complementary roll first, because some ladies/men are turned on by money. Or maybe if they are making a mechanics check (and taking extra time) they can make a complementary Wealth check first, because they are able to afford the best tools and gizmos to help them in what they are doing. You get the idea.

Re: ADVANCED PLAYER'S GUIDE II -- What Do *You* Want To See? I know this might be considered blasphemy, but how about a leveling system for Hero? Gain enough "xp" (perhaps based on a percentage of the total character point value of the enemies defeated?) and then the characters get x amount of character points to spend. At the same time game limits on stats, active points, etc... also raise a certain amount each level. That way the upper limits always keeps slowly rising along with the characters experience, but the players will never have enough character points to ever be max in everything.