Zeropoint

Re: Orion Drive space battleship Oh, man, my parents had an old radiation-based smoke detector. The radioactive material had decayed so much that the detector was sensitive enough that it would know the toast was burning before you did, even though it was at the other end of the house and you were sitting next to the toaster.

Re: Why doesn't 6e use hexes as a unit of measurement? Well, part of the problem would seem to be related to using 30mm miniatures at that scale, resulting in characters which are a scale 16 feet tall and correspondingly wide. If you get some 12mm figures and put them on 1/4" bases, then it will be quite easy to put 16 of them into a single hex. As far as running a game without a grid, anyone who's ever played Warhammer 40,000 has the solution for you: use a tape measure for movement and ranging, and use transparent AOE templates to determine who/what is covered by an effect. Easy peasy! Having player minis in the same scale as your map is pretty important, I'd think.

Re: Order of the Stick Varsuvius' gender has never been identified one way or the other, actually.

Re: The Batman Option You know, just because Batman isn't bulletproof and can't punch through a reinforced concrete wall, it DOES NOT follow that he's built on fewer points than the rest of the Justice League. I'd be willing to bet that a "proper" writeup of the Dark Night would require MORE points. He's got a HUGE list of skills, most of them at high levels. He's got a base, vehicles, followers, contacts. He's got martial arts skills and a gadget-based Variable Power Pool. He's the World's Greatest Detective. Now, it does take a certain amount of intelligence and creativity to play a character like this effectively; it's much easier to play a brick or a blaster. If the GM creates adventures which are combat heavy, and doesn't allow for much flexibility, then most of the points spent on a Batman-style character would be wasted. I'd say that's a GM/campaign issue rather than a character problem, though.

Re: Why doesn't 6e use hexes as a unit of measurement? I, too, find it head-scratchingly confusing as to why anyone would get upset about this change. It doesn't require a new map scale. It doesn't require a switch to one-meter hexes. The only change that is required by 6e rules compliance is . . . how you record things on the character sheet; instead of "20 inches" of Flight, you now write "40 meters". That makes more sense to me. If the math required to divide meters by two when you're using two-meter hexes is too hard for you, Hero may not be the game for you.

Re: Orion Drive space battleship Lantern mantles!

Re: Science Fiction League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Let's see what I can do with sci-fi anime and manga. Hmm. Leader: Princess Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind Pilot: Max Sterling (Robotech) Warrior: Aisha Clan-Clan (Outlaw Star) Scientist/Engineer: Skuld (Ah! My Goddess), or that doesn't count, Mr. Uribitake (Martian Successor Nadesico) Face: Roger Smith (The Big O) If he can bring the Big O with him, bonus!

Re: Gladiators vs Werewolves Obviously, it goes to the gladiators: everyone knows that size, weight, muscle mass, reach, and strength are crippling disadvantages in a fight. Well, if the smaller character is a woman, anyway.

Re: Make Your Own Motivational Poster Wait, what? There are hot girls who play 40K and do other geek stuff? WHERE?

Re: "Neat" Pictures Oh, that's what it's SUPPOSED to do, all right. I don't know what it was like on your ship, but they stuff they had on the Carl Vinson would get worn down from people walking on it until the tops of the high spots were worn smooth, and with a little water and/or JP5 on it, wow, it was slippery. Looked like it still would have taken your skin off to the bone, though.

Re: "Neat" Pictures Oh, the nonskid is plenty slippery, but you do NOT want to slide on it.

Re: Save the American Space Program?! You should also consider that the stuff you collect in orbit . . . is already in orbit. Add the price per pound of the material to the price per pound to get stuff into orbit, and it looks a lot better.

Re: It's 2010 - finally my jet pack is here! If it got me a girl like that, I'd build me one of those!

Re: one for the browncoats with big wallets I guess it's a matter of taste, but I don't even think the Serenity is an attractive ship.

Re: Military Spacecraft Designations You could go classy and name the classes after weapons: Brass Knuckles Class Bicycle Chain Class Hose With Lead Shot Class Board With A Nail In It Class

Re: Predators vs. Military I can't see you? I can't see you? **** it, NO ONE SEES ANYONE! HOW DO YOU LIKE THAT, MR. SMARTYFANGS?

Re: Predators vs. Military You know, while I was watching the second AvP film, I was struck by the difference between the Predator POV shots and the humans-with-NVGs POV shots. I found it MUCH easier to tell what I was looking at when I was given the human viewpoint. To me, this suggests that Predator vision system technology isn't as advanced as you'd think, or that they have pretty bad vision in general (which seems odd for a predator species, but maybe they're not sight hunters?). I would think that if you left the spaceships out of it (very important) AND the human forces knew what they were up against and could select appropriate equipment, they'd hold their own against Predators.

Re: Order of the Stick Maybe Goblins become sexually mature proportionally earlier in their lifespan?

Re: Military Spacecraft Designations Keep in mind that a missile doesn't have to be very big, making it cheap to give it a large mass ratio.

Re: Military Spacecraft Designations It's also rather impossible if the missile has better acceleration and delta-v than you do. A spaceship would most likely be larger than a house, and would certainly be a lot hotter than a chunk of rock that's had millions of years to achieve thermal equilibrium. As far as detecting ships goes, it's my understanding that with current tech, the Space Shuttle's engines could be detected as far out as Pluto. If you can detect a ship's engines, it doesn't matter if you can't see it when it's coasting; you already know where it's going. Also, ask Nyrath about stealth in space.

Re: Military Spacecraft Designations Is "maneuvering" really a meaningful part of combat in a realistic near-future setting? Detection ranges will be measured in AUs, and weapon ranges in hundreds of thousands of kilometers. There's no terrain, and because of the relative ease of turning a ship as opposed to moving it, effectively no facing. Any ship can hit any other ship on the map at any time.

Re: Star Trek: Pathfinder class Light Cruiser I barely even qualify as a dabbler in the world of 3D modeling, but it looks like you've got a lot of polys in your mesh that don't help to define the shape. Am I missing something?

Re: (Equipment) Axe vs. Sword You know, I'm not really sure I like the idea that you have to be twice as strong as the average human (avg STR = 8, 13 - 8 = 5 = double lifting capacity) to wield a 1 kg sword. Real medieval one-handed swords, even the "full size" versions, rarely exceeded three pounds. Big two-handed swords didn't go much over eight pounds, and usually had things like long grips and leather-wrapped ricassos to provide better leverage. Axes, too, were lighter than you'd expect--the head of a Danish broad axe, for instance, could be as thin as 2mm. Maybe we've been playing too much Final Fantasy and World of Warcraft.

Re: "Neat" Pictures I've got a couple of slide rules, just for the geek value. They certainly require you to pay more attention to what you're doing than a calculator would.

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible? Ah, someone fails to understand the concept of "waste heat" as it relates to heat engines and Carnot efficiency.