Zeropoint

Re: Paladin Martial Art? Well, if we don't have records of it, we don't have records of it; however, I find it VERY hard to believe that professional fighting men, over a period of hundreds of years, could COMPLETELY fail in noticing what works and what doesn't and telling someone else about it.

Re: Divine vs Arcane spells Being a cleric of Pinkie Pie might be fun, for the right type of person. Oh, and welcome to the board, Davy!

Re: Mega Man Indeed not; it would be perfectly reasonable for a robot to have a power generator with a max output less than the robot's peak power consumption, with a capacitor bank to make up the difference. In other words, END and REC. Alternately, how do the points work out if you buy up the REC to match the maximum END usage per turn, as opposed to buying 0 Endurance for everything? Which of these approaches would be "better" in engineering terms depends greatly on many factors that we don't know, such as the relationship between mass, volume, and output for generators; the relationship between mass, volume, and capacity for capacitors/batteries; and the probability distribution of various degrees of power consumption. You could also represent a battery-powered robot with an Endurance Reserve that had a really large reserve and a REC with the limitation "only while attached to a charger". Or you could say that a robot's need to periodically recharge is equivalent to a human's need to eat, and that running out of END represents high power consumption causing a temporary drop in battery voltage or something. This isn't exactly equivalent because humans don't keel over dead if they miss a meal.

Re: Paladin Martial Art? You want effective but not flashy? You want to do damage without taking it? "Martial Arts" doesn't have to mean posing in the crane stance between roundhouse kicks and flying leap kicks. An armored paladin would be well served, for instance, by taking Martial Strike, Offensive Strike, Defensive Strike, and Martial Block with shield and sword elements, and wouldn't bear any resemblance to Jackie Chan or Bruce Lee in a fight.

Re: Paladin Martial Art? Based on what I've seen at sites like this one, that statement is either wrong or built on an excessively narrow definition of martial arts. Wow, according to Dictionary.com, martial arts are both Oriental and empty-hand by definition. I have to call BS on that. Merriam-Webster defines it as "any of several arts of combat and self defense (as karate and judo) that are widely practiced as sport" which, IMO, is also wrong because by that definition anything not widely practiced as a sport is not a martial art. Wikipedia, on the other hand, defines "martial arts" as "codified systems and traditions of combat practices" which would seem to apply to medieval Europe . . . in fact, the article goes on to observe that "The term martial art has become heavily associated with the fighting arts of eastern Asia, but was originally used in regard to the combat systems of Europe as early as the 1550s. An English fencing manual of 1639 used the term in reference specifically to the "Science and Art" of swordplay." So, I'd say that's a bit more than "zero evidence" for medieval European martial arts.

Re: Mega Man I see a couple of issues: First, you've only got 8 points worth of Martial Maneuvers while I seem to recall that the rules require a minimum of ten points. Second, it seems like you should sell off his Swimming, since he sinks in water and has to walk along the bottom (at least X does, I don't recall if I ever played a game where the original Rock Man was underwater). Hmm, that could also justify some knockback resistance or a physical complication relating to density/weight. I also seem to recall reading that the teleportation is done by an external system akin to a Star Trek transporter, and is not a power belonging to Mega Man himself.

So I was thinking about all the various types of characters who can create more or less disposable minions, and Summon sure seems to be the power for that. However, there's that pesky "task" restriction which is extremely restrictive in combat--if I'm a necromancer making skeletons to guard my lair, I don't want them deciding to clock out after a single turn of combat! I started thinking about Followers, who last more or less forever, and compared the costs, and found it bit surprising that they're the same "1/5 of the minion's points". That seems very high for a creature that's only going to get three or four swings in before disappearing. Am I missing something? Is there a way to make Summoned beings stick around until they get destroyed? How does this work when using Summon to represent launching a missile or something? I guess you could say that after a few phases, the missile runs out of fuel and self-destructs, but something like a Tomahawk sure has more endurance than that. Anyway, your thoughts would be appreciated.

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities I don't think that I've ever been under the impression that there was any humanly understandable process that leads to relationships . . . it has never been anything other than a completely opaque mystery to me. I have become used to being alone and expect to continue in that state for the foreseeable future.

Re: More space news! That video explains WHAT they're doing, but doesn't go into any detail about WHY, and certainly doesn't mention any competing ideas that were passed over in preference of this one.

Re: More space news! I understand THAT part; it's the crazy "hover on rockets while lowering the rover on a rope, then fly away and crash" bit that confuses me. This thing is already rocketbraking to a stop at the surface . . . and then burning MORE fuel to sit around in the air, and then yet MORE to fly away (and of course, it had to spend fuel to slow down that fuel). I try to assume that the professionals know what they're doing, but this design is making that kind of difficult for me. I'd love to read about the various options they considered and why they went with this one.

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities Wow, I never noticed that. Now I'll be looking for it.

Re: More space news! Okay, given that surface area scales with the square of max dimension, and weight scales with the cube, I can see that covering a craft in airbags might not work for larger craft. My question about a sealed cargo bay stands, though.

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities [ATTACH=CONFIG]43934[/ATTACH] I wish I could be sexy just by choosing to be so.

Re: The Robots QAAre Coming What always strikes me about the BigDog videos is the way it looks so bad at walking normally, taking those mincing little steps, and yet when it slips or someone shoves it, it looks ALIVE as it catches its balance. The other thing that occurs to me is, how is this thing better than a much cheaper and much quieter mule?

Re: More space news! That is a relevant question to which I do not know the answer.

Re: More space news! I have a hard time understanding why, if they're afraid of dust getting on the rover, why they don't just give the lander a sealed cargo bay, land it, wait for the dust to settle, and then drive the rover out. The airbag landing system of Spirit and Opportunity seemed to work okay; why not use it again, or refine it?

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities Well, if women expect men to wait while they try on a hundred pairs of shoes, it's only fair.

Re: Cool Guns for your Games It looks too heavy for use by a normal human, and although it's clearly meant to be held like a rifle, it lacks a buttstock. Also it appears that the carbine and grenade launcher systems share a magazine; inconvenient when you're only out of ammo on one of them. On the other hand, the artist remembered to include not just one, but TWO aiming systems, while lots of fantasy guns don't even have iron sights, and the overall gun appears to be at least usable.

Re: 3,000-year-old ‘Frankenstein’ mummies discovered in Scotland See, it's not enough to simply choose a necromancer who offers an impressive showroom model--you also need a quality service plan that isn't going to stick you with cheap third-party replacement parts.

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities Et tu?

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities Frankly, if that's my option, I'd prefer not talking to them at all. . . . I'm not a monster, I'm just kind of awkward and asocial and bad at reading the unspoken. It's also possible that I have a weaker-than-average "theory of mind" and a correspondingly poorer ability to work out what other people might be feeling or thinking. I'd like to think that my behavior here on the board has shown that I don't do the things you're accusing me of, but if I could accurately judge the effects of my interactions with others, I wouldn't be having this conversation, would I?

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities So if a geeky guy recognizes that he's part of the problem--say, for instance, he knows that he wasn't really adequately socialized, and doesn't have much experience with women (in his 30s and never had any kind of romantic relationship)--what should someone like that DO? It's not as though he can say "well, for the sake of being fair to women, starting today I will have different brain wiring and social history."

Re: Hero-D&D system merge? I don't have any real combat experience, but it always did seem a little odd that someone engaged in a desperate fight for their lives could have the spare time to take a casual swing at whoever happened to wander past the fight.

Re: Alternate Form: Tree That works, too. There's often more than one right way to build something in Hero.

Re: Hero-D&D system merge? So you don't want to bring out the main Hero books because they're too big. And you don't want to bring out the Basic Rulebook because it's too small. And you want to make Hero as much like D&D as possible. At this point, as much as I like Hero, I have to wonder if you might be better off trying Pathfinder instead. If you're worried about looking stuff up all the time, you can reduce that by sticking to the core book; Pathfinder powered up the core classes to make them competitive with all the aftermarket super-classes and feats available for D&D. I hope I don't sound snarky here; it's just that it's starting to sound like Hero is not the appropriate solution to your current needs.