Grail Quest

Re: Fantasy Art Thread Looks like an older link. According to the page, they've moved to Deviant Art, although there are thumbnails on the page.

Heroes of Might and Magic IV gallery is up! They looked like this in Heroes 3: They were mildly changed into this in Heroes 4: These are screenshots from a game taken to introduce you to its art. All images are copyrighted by their respective owners. Link to Flickr is mandatory per Flickr terms of use. Hi Everyone! A gallery of Heroes of Might and Magic IV portraits has been added to Fantasy Art and Portraits. Heroes IV portraits include heroes from Heroes III as well as many new characters. The art is redone and sharpened, and if you had a favourite hero from Heroes III, you will probably find them in Heroes IV as well. Lizardmen are no more. Of some curiosity are orcs that look like warthogs or water buffalo. Also, the use of caps are extensive and (maybe due to portrait size constraints) there's nary a pointy wizard cap to be found. Enjoy!

Wednesday Art Showcase Presents: The Fantasy Art of Titan Quest Click image for full-size image at Flickr. Link to Flickr is mandatory per Flickr terms of use. All images are copyrighted by their respective owners.

WASP #2 - The Fantasy Art of Season Match Weekly Art Showcase Presents: The Fantasy Art of Season Match Click image for full-size image at Flickr. Link to Flickr is mandatory per Flickr terms of use. All images are copyrighted by their respective owners.

The Fantasy Art of Titan Quest Click for full-size image at Flickr. Link to Flickr is mandatory per Flickr terms of use. All images are copyrighted by their respective owners.

What someone else thinks your character looks like Here's a thread that might be interesting to you: Posters write a short description of their character, and someone else posts a picture of what they think that character looks like! http://forums.gleemax.com/leaving.php?destination=http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php%3Ft%3D1092834

On ENWorld - "Images for Use as Tokens" There's an interesting thread on ENWorld: Images for use as Tokens

The Fantasy Art of SpellForce Hi Everyone! Since the last time I posted about Fantasy Art and Portraits, a section on SpellForce has been added! SpellForce has an intriguing look that taps into fantasy stereotypes, yet has novel elements sprinkled throughout, like the use of masks, and interesting support units such as the orc drummer. The galleries have quite a few pictures, but are still essentially under construction, and more pictures will be added now and again. As a reminder: All images are copyrighted by their respective owners (DUH!). This screenshot is for private non-commercial use only (like, don't use it as the book cover of your magnum opus). They are screenshots from a game taken to introduce you to their art. Enjoy!

"Silk Road" portraits from Tradewinds: Caravans Hi Everyone! Since the last time I posted about Fantasy Art and Portraits, a section on Tradewinds: Caravans has been added! Culturally, the art spans China to the Middle East, with the occasional portrait decidedly Caucasian, probably as a nod to European traders who had penetrated the region during the time period encompassed by the game. There is also a "romanticized" lens applied: Even supposed bums will be in clean, colourful clothes. As a reminder: All images are copyrighted by their respective owners (DUH!). This screenshot is for private non-commercial use only (like, don't use it as the book cover of your magnum opus). They are screenshots from a game taken to introduce you to their art. Enjoy!

Re: Fantasy Art Thread This is the fantasy art thread, and the site shows fantasy art. There are tons of sites that have screenshots. So why not?

Puzzle Quest art and portraits Hi Everyone! Since the last time I posted about Fantasy Art and Portraits, a section on Puzzle Quest has been added! Puzzle Quest has a suite of fantasy staples. While it is a small art set, it has a "generic anime" look and can easily be supplemented with art from such series as Record of Lodoss War. As a reminder: All images are copyrighted by their respective owners (DUH!). This screenshot is for private non-commercial use only (like, don't use it as the book cover of your magnum opus). They are screenshots from a game taken to introduce you to their art. Enjoy!

Re: Fantasy Art Thread Hi Everyone! Since the last time I posted about Fantasy Art and Portraits, a section on Dungeon Siege 2 has been added! Dungeon Siege 2 has a "generic fantasy" look. You will, however, either like it or hate it. The art direction seems specific to the game world, and certainly doesn't focus on showing a lot of skin... As a reminder: All images are copyrighted by their respective owners (DUH!). This screenshot is for private non-commercial use only (like, don't use it as the book cover of your magnum opus). They are screenshots from a game taken to introduce you to their art. Enjoy!

Re: Fantasy Art Thread Hi Everyone! Since the last time I posted about Fantasy Art and Portraits, a section on Heroes of Might and Magic III has been added! Heroes III has art similar to Heroes V, except it has more races and is more fanciful. A less focussed, but wider and more "creative" source of portraits. Has some lizardmen, gnolls, green-skinned "goblins", and blue-skinned "genies". As a reminder: All images are copyrighted by their respective owners (DUH!). This screenshot is for private non-commercial use only (like, don't use it as the book cover of your magnum opus). They are screenshots from a game taken to introduce you to their art. Enjoy!

Pirate and Caribbean portraits Hi Everyone! Since the last time I posted about Fantasy Art and Portraits, a section on Tradewinds 2 has been added! Tradewinds 2 is good for classic pirate pictures and 1700's Caribbean characters. Most of the characters are "non-heroic" looking, so these are probably best used for NPCs you need to describe or when your PC dons a disguise to go incognito. As a reminder: All images are copyrighted by their respective owners (DUH!). This screenshot is for private non-commercial use only (like, don't use it as the book cover of your magnum opus). They are screenshots from a game taken to introduce you to their art. Enjoy!

Re: Fantasy Art Thread Hi Everyone! I've started a gamer/writer resource website that links to portrait galleries. As Players, you can surf it to find a portrait for your character sheet, or find interesting-looking characters as PC inspirations. As Dungeon Masters, you can do the same. Since there are literally hundreds of portraits, you can use the galleries to find a picture for just about every NPC you have to describe. You don't have to always show a picture to your players, but having a picture handy will help you decide what to describe about the NPC when the PCs encounter them. Everything is free to view, you're not charged anything or sold anything. Please have a look! -- http://www.fantasy-art-and-portraits.com (Please remember that the site is new and still under construction. Best to start with the Titan Quest; if you are looking for "mundane" NPC type portraits, try the Tradewinds area.) Update: Since the last time I posted about this, a section on Dungeon Siege: Legends of Aranna has been added!

Re: Fantasy Art Thread Hi everyone! I've just added some Titan Quest hero-selection screenshots to http://www.flickr.com/photos/fantasy-art-and-portraits/sets/72157607246563310/. They are in 1920x1200, so you can crop it down to make a desktop wallpaper if you like. Cheers!

Free galleries of hundreds of fantasy portraits Hi Everyone! I've started a gamer/writer resource website that links to portrait galleries. As Players, you can surf it to find a portrait for your character sheet, or find interesting-looking characters as PC inspirations. As Dungeon Masters, you can do the same. Since there are literally hundreds of portraits, you can use the galleries to find a picture for just about every NPC you have to describe. You don't have to always show a picture to your players, but having a picture handy will help you decide what to describe about the NPC when the PCs encounter them. Everything is free to view, you're not charged anything or sold anything. Please have a look! -- http://www.fantasy-art-and-portraits.com (Please remember that the site is new and still under construction. Best to start with the Heroes of Might and Magic V area; if you are looking for "mundane" NPC type portraits, try the Tradewinds area.)

Re: Weapon Reach as Aborting to an Attack But using that mechanic would... * put the attacker in a passive posture * still require the attacker to have initiative over his opponent * mean the attacker is Covering his opponent, just so he can attack first later. Why not just attack at the time you attempt to Cover? As far as I know, only under certain SFX can you be allowed to maintain a Cover while still attacking. For example: you have a hostage at gun-point with one hand, while shooting at the SWAT team with the machine pistol in your other hand.

To simulate the advantage of having a longer melee weapon, I was thinking of the following: A character with a superior reach has superior Initiative. When attacked by someone with inferior reach, in reaction they may Abort to an attack against that attacker. This attack must be a single attack and targeted at the attacker only. (E.g., It cannot be a Sweep). I suppose it would still work in a Melee vs. Ranged in melee distances as long as the Ranged attack would not, in D&D 3E, trigger an AoO. In HERO, that would probably translate into requiring Concentration, Extra Time, Gestures, or some kind of minimum range.

Enhanced Senes -> "free" Tracking and other benefits Commonly, a character can Track by Sight because sight is good enough to detect a sufficiently gross amount of physical evidence. So... * at what amount of Enhanced Hearing can someone hear into the Ultrasonic range? * at what amount of Enhanced Smell can someone Track by Smell? etc...

Re: No Chart SPD? Looking over the procedure I posted, I believe you are right! Hadn't intended it that way, but back-loading could work out better. I think it was in the Street Fighter RPG that I first realized that it can make a lot of sense for low-initiative characters to declare first, and high-initiative characters to react first. Having characters with a different number of actions over one Turn makes this sort of thing complicated, but by back-loading SPD, we can kind-of do this without too much additional complication. In the early part of the Turn, high-DEX characters can Hold Actions or just take their Phase normally. High SPD characters can defend or whatever, and take their "intended" actions at the very end, which means DEX still determines overall initiative, rather than SPD. The bottom of the next Segment could be the start of the next iteration. In the above sequence of actions, if any of the 4 characters began their Turn with a Haymaker, it finally lands where the caret is. If multiple characters initiated, they are resolved in the order they are initiated. 7543^754375437547577 As for vehicles, I believe the complication is that vehicles can move even when your character does not. My thoughts about vehicles is that they are incorrectly handled in the current system. Isn't a horse a vehicle as soon as you get on it? The only difference seems to be that it has a brain. What we can do with "dumb" vehicles is to say that on your actions, you can spend a half-phase to issue a movement order, which is carried out on the vehicle's next phase. Meanwhile, the vehicle obeys that order. You may attack with the vehicle's weapons if they are bought to allow you to use them (Usable By Others), and you use them on your phases. If the vehicle cannot use its weapons on its own, they take a limitation on that.

Re: No Chart SPD? The main idea was to allow SPD > 12 without extrapolating the SPD chart. I was thinking of using layers of time in a turn when someone has SPD 13+, but that got messy. The action-clumping only happens when there is a gross SPD difference. If SPD is within 1-2 points, it'll usually spread out not too badly. For example, if A, B, and C have DEX 30, 20, 10 and SPD 4, 3, and 2 respectively, they act in this order: AABABCABC Under the present rules, they go in this order: ABACBAABC For per-segment effects, I might assign the effect a SPD of 12. But I'm really still looking at that as I really want to break out of the 12-SPD framework. I want to allow characters to have a SPD of over 12 if it works with the character concept.

How about this for handling SPD and combat: (1) Sort characters by SPD. Highest SPD acts first. Compare DEX if SPD is the same. (2) After the character with the highest SPD has acted, he deducts 1 from his SPD count for this turn. Any per-Phase effects that depend on the character's SPD (e.g., drowning) advance by 1 Phase. If there are still any characters with SPD 1 or more, go back to Step 1. Otherwise, all characters now have SPD 0: Continue to Step 3. (3) If any characters Held an Action, they may use it now. No more than 1 Full Phase may have been Held. (4) All characters have now acted this Turn. The Turn therefore ends. Reset their SPD and do the usual post-12 recovery/upkeep. It is assumed that, regardless of the SPD involved, all action that happened occured over 1 Turn, or 12 seconds.

Re: Resizing Weapons & Armor For melee weapons used in hand-to-hand attacks, a scaled up weapon has the same stats, except the focus (i.e., the item) is bigger. For example, if a Club does 3d6N for a human, it means the weapon gives a +3 DC advantage. A giant's Club would still give a +3 DC advantage for a giant, because DC is not a linear measurement (and we haven't even gotten into even crude physics of weapon swings yet). You really only need to stat things out when, for example, a human tries to use a giant-sized Short Sword. Consider: A Club for a halfling is virtually worthless to a giant, for example, because it is so small that, for example, it cannot be used in a typical club-like fashion to swing, and its contribution by mass is too small relative to the giant's STR. OTOH, a human's Club used by a halfling would give slightly more than a +3 DC advantage for the halfling, BUT whether the halfling can properly wield it or not is another matter (and not meant to be a game-balancing issue, just a reality issue). I have a fuller discussion in my House Rules: http://www.freewebs.com/d20elements/herosystem.htm

Re: The SFX Grab imposes and limits the character to a certain SFX and mechanic that is not necessarily what the character is doing. Although, it is perhaps a generalized SPD decrease is a bit broader than I thought, as the character shouldn't be stopping teleport movement or mental powers... Maybe I'll look into a limited Entangle. Hmm...