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I am not sure how to word the questions without it becoming confusing, so I will provide an example to illustrate it. In a Hero campaign where magic is restricted to INT/5 spells active at any given time we have a wizard with 20 INT (who can have 4 spells ready at any give time by the campaign rules). The wizard decides to make all his spells delayed effect to take advantage of the ability rack the spells. He buys a firebolt spell (1d6 RKA, 3 charges per day, extra time 1 minute, delayed effect). If the wizard wants to prepare the fireball spell three times does it mean: A. He uses three of his spell slots and each of those slots holds 3 firebolts. B. He uses three of his spell slots, each one holding 1 firebolt? As a followup, if the power wasn't delayed effect, does the 1 minute extra time only go to "activate" the whole power (He spends the 1 minute and can cast the 3 firebolts right away) or does each of those charges take a 1 minute? I thought I knew the answers, but I have a player who is interpreting it differently than I do and he makes a compelling arguement. Thanks for the great product and stellar support.

A character wants to be very good at restraining the villians. He purchases a power to reduce the contortionist roll of a person he ties up. Basically, he buys a 0 END, uncontrolled attack (Negative Skill Levels: -5 with Contortionist). The question is, will the negative skill levels stay in affect when he leaves the range of the power? I know you can set a trigger and walk away regardless of range, but can not find if the same is true in the above situtation.

I have looked and looked (and have had my players looking), but I can't find the modifier for running while blinded. I checked pages 122 and 363-370 as well as the entry for the running power. I seem to recall it is 1/2 movement, but I can't locate the page. Am I thinking of another game system or can you point me in the right direction for finding that information? Thank you.

Re: Stat Inflation I tried control stats somewhat by having a large minium number of non-combat related skills. This helped round out the characters a bit, but I still saw an awful lot of 20 STR mages and clerics. For the last campaign I went a step further and reduced the starting points to 25 base + 50 disadvs. Now each character pretty much has 1 or 2 decent stats and nobody is buying a stat just to use points. I give decently generous XP but I dont let them randomly buy up stats without some sort of in story explaination.

Re: PS: Component Design I have had issues with mages taking a spell to create the focus required for a different spell via transform. To combat it, I use the following house rule: Focus Expendability is as follows: A Focus is considered Easy to obtain if it is generally simple to find, can be made by unskilled labor, is very inexpensive (2cp in value) or if it takes the character at least 30 minutes to craft the focus. This is worth an additional -0 limitation. A Focus is considered Difficult to obtain if it is slightly rare, can be manufactured by skilled labor, involves some danger in acquiring or possessing it, is reasonably valuable (10sp in value) or if it takes the the character at least 5 hours to craft the focus. This is worth an additional -1/4 limitation. A Focus is considered Very Difficult to obtain if it is rare, can be manufactured by very skilled labor (base roll + 4), involves danger in acquiring or possessing it, is valuable (100sp in value) or if it takes the character at least 1 day to craft the focus. This is worth an additional -1/2 limitation. A Focus is considered Extremely Difficult to obtain if it is very rare, can be manufactured by master level labor (base roll +8), involves great danger in acquiring or possessing it, is very valuable (1000sp in value) or if takes the character in at least 1 week to craft the focus. This is worth an additional -1 limitation. NOTE: If a character possesses the ability to create the item required for a focus, use cost of the material needed and/or the time needed to craft the focus to determine the Focus Expendability. Players may not buy low cost skills, talents or powers to in order to take advantage of a cost savings for all other spells. A character buying the ability to create his/her own foci, simply makes it easier to replenish any supply needed and should not result in a large cost savings for the player. For example, a character with a spell requiring an expendable master work carved wand would not be able to take the Extremely Difficult level of expendability if the character possessed a skill roll for carving of 19 + (Master level). In this example, the GM would compare the material cost to the time required to carve the wand and the player would base the limitation on the greater of the two.

If a UBO power is granted to a character who wants to accept the power, is the power automatically activated on the character? For example, a mage has growth, UBO simultaneously x4 targets. He activates the power on himself and 3 party members. I understand the mage would grow since he activated the power on his action, but do the other members grow automatically or do they need to wait until their actions to activate “their†growth? The reason I ask is the wording seems to indicate that the recipient has full control over whether to use the power or not, so it seems to me that is simply gives them the ability to use the power, and as such they would need to activate the power on their action. But the section on normally persistent UBO powers indicates if the power would be beneficial you could “force†it on a character that was unconscious or otherwise unable to accept the power and the power would be active. Also, if the UBO power has continuing charges (ie: Growth UBO simultaneously x4 targets, 4 charges lasting 1 hour each), does each of the recipients of the UBO power get 4 charges as long as they meet the criteria to maintain the UBO power (line of sight, range from granter, etc) Thank you for your time.

In our FH game we have a mage with several UBO Simultaneously powers. He wants to be able to grant them on the other party members without the recipients needing the Magic Skill Roll, Focus, etc. Turning to my shiny new copy of 5ER I found the Differing Modifiers section of 5ER page 276. The example there is clear, but it uses basic UBO..... This leads to my question (I am keeping in mind (1) the Differing Modifiers section indicates using that method should not be a cheap way for him to get the power himself, (2)the mage is always effecting himself when he use the powers, (3) NONE of the other characters who would be receiving the power(s) have a Magic Skill Roll so would normally be unable to use the power without using the Differing Modifiers method of computation.) Since the mage is ALWAYS one of the characters who uses the power(s) when he grants it to the other party members and sometimes uses them without any other party members having them simultaneously, what is the correct method to compute cost for his spells?

Can you use Trasmit on a Detect to give a false power level or to mask a target of the detect within a transmit. Basically, can you transmit such a strong "signal" that a casual look would miss the real target of the detect. For example, I have a Fantasy Hero mage (who would normally detect as a 4 on a scale of 1 to 10) with Detect Magic with the transmit option. I come across an mage I don't want to fight/can't win against. I transmit via my Detect Magic a very, very stong magical signature (a 9 on a scale of 1 to 10) hoping the enemy will try to discern my power level before engaging. Is that an appropriate use of transmit and if so, what effect would it have on the enemy mage's PER roll against me.

The rules indicated that a character is a 0 OCV and half DCV during a noncombat move, but I could not find if targeting the destination hex for a noncombat teleport was acutally considered part of the move. If a character is going to move noncombat with a teleport, is his OCV to target the hex dropped to 0 before the actual teleport, or do the penalties apply during and after the noncombat move (until his next phase)? Thank you for your time.

Re: New Limitation: Does not Stack. Gm's please look In my game, I do several things to try to combat this problem. First, I do allow defenses to stack, since logic dictates in many instances it should. Second, I use the Does Not Stack limitation you describe on many of the magical defensive items the party may find. This allows me to tailor the defenses provided by magic items the character did not spend point for. Third, I put a campaign rule in place to discourge mages from wearing armor. If a mage decides to wear armor, each Defense over 3 increases the difficulty of all his magic skill roll by 1. I also prohibit spellcaster from buying combat luck. Fourth, I put a limitation on combat luck on how much of it will stack with armour, for example if your in heavy armour DEF > 5 then only 1 level of combat luck will work. I reduce it down until a completly unarmored non-spell caster can have 4 levels. Fifth, I also keep a close eye on what spells the magic users are allowed to buy, since that is the Since I impose these campagin rules, many of my spell casters voluntarily take the Does Not Stack limitation since they don't the penalty to their skill rolls. Overall, this method seems to balance the armor between the different archtypes, while allowing the occassional uber-badguy to wear platemail and have defensive spells up while taking the skill roll penalty.

Yes, basicly it is a D&D conversion, where they find the nearest "available" body, but I am using all the player races from FH only so I didn't limit it any more. I have toyed with the idea of giving it a bigger limitation, but with the two uses so far, one character, the fighter, came back as a troll, which was much better than his human body in his mind, and the other came back as a goblin, worse than his human body.

Anyone figure out how to do a reincarnation spell? Right now I am just using ressurection with a -0 reincarnation limitation (because it is possible for a player to gain a "better" body but also a chance it could be worse). I make them try to pay for the basic stats from the creature writeup in the book while trying to keep the mental stats as close as possible to the original body. Thanks.

Sorry if i missed this in the book or FAQ, but I am unable to find anything that states how unusual senses affect someone or something that is concealed. For example I have a Fantasy Hero thief with a concealment of 21-. He hides from the nasty wraith who is moving towards him, making his roll by 10. The wraith has an Enhanced Sense: Detect Living bought as a mental sense (he just knows when something living is around). Is the thiefs concealment solely based on sight perception? Can the thief only conceal himself vs. senses he possesses? Does the wraith automatically sense the thief or does his concealment affect the wraith's perception roll? If the thief was just out of normal sight and not specifically concealing himself, would that make a difference? Along these lines is there any real difference between a detect door and a detect hidden door. I would assume the second one would find doors that are specifically hidden, while the first would only detect those doors the character did not percieve but were not specifically hidden. Thank you in advance.

I am running a new FH campaign, and I am trying to pretty much use all the 5th Ed and FH rules. I am looking for some input from other GMs out there. The magic system we are employing is as follows: - Magic is broken down into specific arcana, and a skill is required to use spells from a specific arcana. - Spells are bought as standard powers with a real cost divided by 3 (as per Grimoire). - Players are allowed to create their own spells with a few campaign specific requirements which are important to my question. The problem I am having is players creating spells with persistant powers on charges. The old FH specific said that no spells were persistant, but unless I just missed that, I didn't see it in the new FH. Since I was trying to allows the players to use the books to create spells, I didn't issue a blanket disapproval of that type of power construct. Now I find that mages are buying their spells persistant with very few charges lasting all day. Has anyone else had this problem, and if so, how have you dealt with it besides issuing a blanket no persistant powers? That would be the easiest but there are some instances where persistant spells make sense, but they seem to always end up on the defenses of the mages. Now I am finding this to be giving the mages a huge advantage over the fighters. Thanks All.

Steve, I have several questions regarding the following from the FAQ in relation to the campaign we are currently playing: Q: If a character has a power with Trigger in a Power Framework, and he sets the Trigger, can he then shift the points in the Framework to another power/slot and have the Triggered Power remain in effect, waiting to be Triggered? A: Yes, subject to the GM’s discretion to prevent abuse. However, the Multipower won’t “automatically switch,†nor will it “cut off†the slot currently in use to activate the Trigger-based slot. The Triggered power just activates. Obviously, though, this is a situation where the GM needs to exercise some of the discretion mentioned above. For example, the situation described makes the most sense with regard to Instant Powers — a character certainly should not be allowed to Trigger a Constant Power (such as a Force Field) and keep using two slots for a long period of time (at the very least, after the Segment in which the Triggered power activates, the character should be required to choose between maintaining it, or maintaining the slot he had active at the time). Q: Is there any limit to the number of Triggers or Triggered Powers a character may place on the same object/person/place at once? A: No. SITUATION: We are playing a FH game that uses a VPP for magic. Each "spell" is bought as a knowledge skill. This works well and balances most magic, but a character wishes to play an Alchemist. QUESTIONS ABOUT THE FIRST FAQ: 1. Does the first FAQ apply to VPPs as well? Can that character "brew" a potion as any power with a trigger, then change his VPP and brew a different potion with a trigger? 2. Am I understanding correctly from the FAQ that answer to question 1 is yes, but generally shouldn't be used for continuing powers? 3. If question 2 is yes, what effect would a potion such as waterbreathing (or any other power that traditionally lasts a "long" period of time) have on the use of other potions also crafted using the VPP and trigger? QUESTIONS ABOUT THE SECOND FAQ: 1. If the character makes his potions with triggers and charges, can he brew one potion for each charge, and then switch his VPP to brew another set of potions? 2. On a similar note, just for clarification, can a character with a power bought with charges and triggers (for example 16 charges - trigger (walking over area) ) set all 16 triggers in a single area and have the effect of all 16 occur at once, or would the effect occur 16 times, once each time the area is walked over? Thank you for your time.