Duke Bushido

sorry about that. All fixed

What would it look like? Well, depends. If you're buying like pre-charged scrolls or X uses of a spell, then it's going to look kind of like D&D with magic items that grant magical abilities to anyone for a finite number of uses. If you're buying the teaching of a single magic spell (or even a group of them, really) then magic is going to be extremely common, do-able by anyone in exchange for some coin. There will likely be some philosophical changes that separate your world from others because-- well, magic replaces technology, really, if you have spells that cover it, and if learning that spell is a forever thing: once you know it, you can use it whenever you want assuming you have all required "magic fuel," etc. "The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump" comes immediately to mind, actually.

Thanks, Hugh!

I can't say for certain (seriously; I can't. Yes: I am that one guy out of a thousand who has zero interest in porn. My wife actually thinks it's hilarious. Sue me), but I am pretty certain that this is a crock of crap, and that Visa and Mastercard (Good God! Does Mastercard still exist? Or is it just a division of VISA now?) funnel tons of money from all the other porn sites on the internet.... Hmmm....

I agree, but as someone here just very recently pointed out, there is a serious scaling problem at the low end. HERO shows its superhero roots when you try to really differentiate the "mere mortal" end of the scale. The easiest option is to decimate _everything_, but that leads to depressing things like "this sword can average 1.15 BODY while this arrow can average 1.7 !", etc, etc. (yeah: I tried this once. Mathematically, it works, but it really doesn't _feel_ like anything. Alternatively, multiply everything by ten, but that's really just roll under / roll over, applied to other parts of the game. I don't know if you've read it, but one of the most depressing HERO-compatible things you will ever read is Guns! Guns! Guns! and it's sequel.....

To be fair, we do tend to scale larger depending on the size of the area and the needs of the scene. This map, for example: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iCRaNFAB-Vx3XZ9HFRsFhxmS3SLcOdb0/view?usp=sharing shows 1 hex = 200m. The map of the inset: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rNeUZgLh8n_-yA4xS_qNHuwx39ZCD7Zh/view?usp=sharing shows a scale of 1 hex = 2m. Humorously enough, this is my own mistake. It _should_ read 1 hex = 4 meters, but just out of habit.....

Quick question, Hugh (forgive my lack of quotes, but the heat this weak combined with working to the move the plant have all come together to give me a dehydration headache that makes picking out the instances I want quite the chore right now): In one part of your excellent post, you refer specifically to using Constant as something of a "fire and forget:" make a successful attack roll with your Blast, and as long as you keep pumping endurance into it, you keep hitting. Later you state something to the effect of if his Blast is defined as a sword, you would require Constant and Uncontrolled. Can you explain either this, or the relevant piece of information I missed in your post? Thanks.

That's the thing! That's what I _think_ is at the center of this discussion: What credit is given to the padding? What is the armor that is not padded armor? How well does armor _without_ the padded underlayers offer to the wearer? How could armor be better modeled to reflect these realities? Will we ever get a perfect simulation of real armor? No; of course not. I can't think of a single gaming system that takes a long hard look at physics (except possibly Universe, and then really only with regards to spaceship travel) and drafts rules that follow them. But that doesn't mean that we can't strive to use the existing system to create a model that is more accurate than what we have now. Sure: it won't translate to D&D or a thousand other games, if only because HERO does armor and deals with damage much differently than do most other systems. That still doesn't mean we shouldn't like to see some tweaks to what we're currently doing.

And a Pip Boy from the Fallout video games and I _think_ that arm-blade-slotted thing is marketed at Yugi-oh fans for playing a trading card game. Anyone else would set the cards on a table....

Golden Heroes was surprisingly enjoyable. Had a player from somewhere in England many years ago who owned it. I've never seen it anywhere else, except in vintage adds. The version of SuperWorld packed into Perrin's Worlds of Wonder was surprisingly enjoyable, in spite of the really unfinished feel it had. The same guts ran the other two games in that box as well, though honestly, I thought Magic World was going to be the keeper out of that set. Little did I know....

2 meters per hex. We tend to do a lot of quick sketch ups for barious scenes, and it takes exactly half as much of the table as one meter per hex does.

That's the thing-- while you make a good point: something has to be on bottom-- the fact is that defense-wise, padded is better than leather in all terms except looking cool. Cost-wise, I can't really say. I feel like padded armor, at least as demonstrated in the linked videos, would cost less than taking some cow peels and getting them tanned, cut, and sewn, but I could be wrong. I have alluded to boiled leather / saddle leather a time or two, but I'm just referring to that particularly thick and sculpted leather that's been treated to be particularly hard. I have always assumed it would offer a bit more protection than just regular leather, but when I think about it, it would be useless against _any_ sort of impact without padded armor underneath. So it's possible that we've been thinking about armor entirely wrong to begin with. First: no one needs to point out that I am no expert; I will do it for you: I'm no expert. But thinking about racing gear, dirtbike armor, and some of the points raised in the video, it seems that padded armor is an important part of _all_ armor. That being said, perhaps instead of thinking about how Wooden Plates are better or worse than padded or plate mail is better than chain mail and all that--- we might need to rework our ideas so as to think of it as "what does each of the other armor types _add_ to padded armor?" In such a case, padded would default to the "cheapest" if only because the others are X plus padded. Leather adds PRE: only to look cool and maybe a point or two of DEF, but without the padded it provides only what it adds. Of course, I'm just thinking out loud. 😕

I challenge you, Sir! Trebuchets at two thousand paces!

Personally, I would build it by not buying the "No Fringe" Adder and defining the Fringe Effect as exactly that: their reflection still shows in appropriately-reflective surfaces.

[with absolute terror, from the Player, OOC]: Do NOT put me in the comfy chair! So, after months of hiatus, thanks to vaccines and our tendency to play outdoors at the picnic table-- well, several tables, what with social distancing, etc-- and good mask etiquette, the youth group has finally met again. In an absolute _marathon_ session Sunday (from eleven AM to nearly eight PM), the concluded the current adventure (the GM helped a bit by opting to not play a few red herrings and completely dropping an additional subplot-- Lord, these kids have waited a long, _long_ time for this, you know? Just didn't seem right to _not_ let them finish when they declared "Mr. Duke, I have permission to stay until ten o'clock if I have to! We are going to finish this!" Yes: it's calling a senior by their first name, but with a 'Mr." in front of it. For those you who are not from this south, this is _extreme_ courtesy, as it shows both respect and appreciative familiarity. "Mr. Oliver" would be that teacher they absolutely hate. ) I don't usually like to fill this particular thread with this, but a very brief recap, given how many months have passed (and welcome to Year 2 of "14 days to flatten the curve," folks): over the nineteen (counting Sunday as only 2, because there was a lot of excited side-banter going on) sessions of this story arc, the Characters have learned Salamander of Strike 2 (formerly "the Redeemed, until some official publication took that name) has been being targeted by kidnappers and assassins. Tree has been attacked by spider bots that have been boring into him for core samples. Eventually the heroes figure out the bots are after samples of the fluids that course through the gigantic (as in a hundred feet tall and several city blocks of canopy) tree that is all that remains of the once might superhero). Following the trail of siperbots leads to the storm drains and to the depths of Lake Campaign itself. Feral, with the help of Fish Guy, aquatic "hero" from two cities down the coast (see, Hermit? I told you we had a Fish Guy. He was originally one of Jim's (my first GM) throw-away experimental NPCs, but Players seem to enjoy him and his absent-minded schtick. Just for you: Pictures: In "normal" form: With Fish Guy powers activated: That's right: he becomes somehow _more_ boring with his powers activated. Anyway, the find a self-destructed underwater base in the depths of Lake Campaign, along with a self-destructed submarine that looks very familiar. With the help of Red Cloak, they raise and beach the sub. Combing the sub for clues (and snacks. Fish guy is all about the canned goods! ), the realize this is an identical ship to the flying sub commanded 20 years ago by Master Mind, the villain who waged the war commemorated annually as Seven Day to remember the nearly 100 supers-- heroes and villains-- who gave their lives to save the city. Master Mind was never captured, and is presumed to have died when the sub exploded. After a few days gathering evidence, it appears that not only did he survive, but he was in fact the CEO of a major tech corporation back during his criminal career. Hmm.... Now to find him and see what he wants with Tree, and if it's related to the attacks against Salamander.... By session 4, they are all holed up in a bunker under Daniels Industries, trying to figure out how to keep Salamander and his wife safe from a pair of invisible assailants when Kinetica sees herself hiding behind some crates. When she goes to chase the impostor, she is forced to phase through a wall that blocked out a disused corridor, leading to a lab. With help from Feral and Magnus, the wall is destroyed and the lab contains a machine that is projecting a portal with the impostor on the other side. "Get her!" The entire team leaps through the portal, only to discover that it is in fact a portal through time. The earth is in ruins, and Kinetica 2 explains that she was only going through the portal to destroy the darkon generator (one of the invisible assassins in visible in darkon fields) before it's runaway accident). The team leaps back through the portal (after a fight with the mechanical servants of the Dark Lord (you know: the one with the cardboard helmet ) and destroy the generator (that they had suggested in the first place) even as Box announced "there is an anomaly in the power core," saving the future, but leaving themselves vulnerable. They can't figure out why anyone would want to kidnap or kill a third-rate villain who had fully reformed into a second-rate hero until Salamander's wife says "I might have some idea." She then proceeds to walk behind her husband as he studies an announcement on the wall-mounted monitor and shoots him in the head, killing him instantly. Everyone is shocked, sickened, and diving for her to get the gun out of her hand. She begs and pleads for them to burn him, but of course, they do not. However, his will stipulates that he is to be cremated, and low and behold, when the kiln is opened, there lays a completely unhurt (and very naked) Salamander! It takes him a few days to get all of his memories back, but he is as good as new! Across a few more sessions, they piece together that the gymnasium responsible for the creation of Boneyard (previous adventure) is somehow tied to all the clones that are running around. Eventually, the learn that these are clones of Lucas Quinn, founder and CEO of Quintech, and the man that they believe to have been MasterMind! Why all the clones? And why do they randomly melt? A couple more sessions, and it's starting to look like rich old Mr. Johnson, out on the peninsula-- the one who has the nasty habit of returning orphans-- might actually _be_ Lucas Quinn! How to be sure? All of his staff and his niece and nephew all say he has been in that wheelchair since a tragic skiing accident twenty-five years ago! Finally, they are able to interview his former valet, who says he quit because he just couldn't stand Johnson and his obsession with finding the perfect heir (and because he was a jerk), and he tells them "He was in that chair long before I met him. I just always figured he was in some kind of a horrible accident, given the severity of the burn scars. Heck, his feet are burned completely off!" Just before we ended the last session, Johnson's butler had called the police, frantic: a supervillain had killed Mr. Johnson! Sunday, the heroes are quick to investigate: Johnson has been found frozen in a block of ice! Magnus uses some of his unusual Detects and confirms that Johnson is dead: no heartbeat; no neural activity. Later, the coroner confirms that the freezing and formation of ice crystals have ruptured almost every cell in his body. The man is dead. Immediately, the police liaison (I mentioned I had one player who wasn't comfortable being a superhero, right?) is helping to guide the heroes through a forensic investigation of the house and ends up in the study. The study (where he was found, in his wheelchair, next to his desk, reading a book) contains the desk, two straight-back chairs in front of the desk, some antique audio equipment (reel-to-reel tapes and four-pound headphones) and a comfy chair. Perhaps it was the way I said it; perhaps it was Players doing that thing they do, but everyone was instantly suspicious of the Comfy Chair. Too big? Too overstuffed? Too incongruous to the rest of the decor? Or just so suspiciously comfy....? Right away, Magnus is pressed into using his Detects to examine the chair without touching it. Why, there are electronic components and electrical gizmos present in that chair! "Yes, Sir. It's a massage chair. Mr. Johnson would sit here for hours, listening to his music and his books. He collected old open-reel audio. He shared this passion with his adopted son, and would often request that I mail him one of the reels as soon as he finished. His son is at boarding school. He adopted a young child some years ago. He will be sixteen in a few days. Is there any other question I can answer? I must call his son and his attorney..." More investigation (painfully slow and _hilarious_ at times-- always with sinister eyes toward the Comfy Chair..... "I very-- _very_ carefully touch the chair? What happens?" Nothing. "I touch it here! Okay, here! How about here? Magnus! You're nigh invulnerable! _You_ touch it! Red Cloak! Examine it magically!" Nothing. "Okay, fine. Who's the biggest tank? You sit in it! Okay, what happens...?" There is a low and ominous hum... Suddenly, the chair begins to vibrate! The nervous knots in between your shoulders begin to _melt_ away, and the stress of the day is slowly draining out through your fingertips..... "I jump up! There's a trap here; I know it!" "Okay; we'll come back to the chair. I want to listen to one of those tapes." You call for the butler, who doesn't really know how these antiques work, but he calls for the current valet, how cues up a tape and hands you the headphones. "Okay, I put them on and ask him to play the tape." Make a CON check. "What?!" Make a CON check. "I'm not in the chair!" I know that. Make a CON check. "I never even _touched_ the chair!" I know that, too. Make a CON check. [Dice roll-- badly....] "Seventeen." You become instantly dizzy-- nauseously dizzy. The room spins until the floor is at such an angle that you can stand on it! You slide off it to the side and roll onto the floor, grasping at the carpet to keep from sliding any further.... "Wow. He looks _bad_. What happened?" "It doesn't matter! Feral, help me get him off the floor-- "Do _NOT_ put me in the Comfy Chair!" For anyone wondering what sinister secret the comfy chair held: It was solar powered by panels above the bay window, and activated when the seat detected more than sixty pounds of pressure. I love Players so very, _very_ much....

If you're not a really big hurry, I'll see if I can get the wife interested in sketching up an idea. (If you can't draw, it's good to have a brother who can and a wife who can paint. )

Also from personal experience: I took a 121 mph header with just my leathers on (give me a break: it was 109degrees; I was standing and racing on black asphalt and the padding was _miserable_, so I snuck off to shuck it before my heat came up). Leather offers protection against abrasion, period. There is _zero_ impact resistance to leather, no matter how cool it looks. I had more purple and green skin than I did any of my natural skin tones. I think the only reason I didn't break anything is because it was a low-side slide; that is, there wasn't much of a fall, just a lot of rolling and bumping.

If I remember correctly, there is (or was) Toyota's RAV 4 as a hybrid. That might fight the bill. I have hopes for a hybrid truck myself-- something I can still use as a one-ton truck but burn way less fuel. No one seems interested in creating anything like that though, and I can't for the life of me figure out why. I mean, just copy / paste the design of the locomotives we've been stamping out for just how many years now?

Ooh! Something I can answer based on real-world experience! Yes. Padded armor is, in every system I have ever played, insanely underrated. I say that because my racing gear was, essentially, padded armor. For those who do not know this already: From the time I was twelve until I was twenty-nine, I raced dirt bikes. (I preferred enduro and cross-country to track racing, but I entered pretty much anything within a 36-hour driving range from home, so long as I could pony up entry fees.) From the time I was nineteen until I was forty-two, I dragged raced bikes. (Yes; there was significant period of overlap. What can I say? To this day, I _love_ motorcycles, and still ride them-- body's too stove up to race them these days, but I still ride them.) I will spare you all the great stories because-- well, because most people aren't as interested in the same things the way we might hope they are. A case can be made (a bad case, mind you) that dirt bike armor is more akin to plate armor, but the fact it that it is not: it's plastic, and can easily be wrecked with pretty much anything with an edge and a little bit of mass-- such as a sword or a hatchet. When the discussion comes up, I tend to feel it might be akin to boiled leather over heavy padding, but even boiled leather is more "sword resistant" than is plastic. Drag racing armor, though: that is straight-up padded armor under -- well, traditionally leather, but since the mid nineties more and more synthetics have slipped in, and today the vast majority of racers are competing in padded suits under a synthetic shell. Before drawing the leather armor comparison, I want to point out that the leather or synthetic shells-- even the plastic plating on dirt bike armor, for the most part-- offer _nothing_ in the way of impact protection or sword protection or whatever (dirt bike armor _does_ get props against the gravel and dirt clods being flung from the wheels of other bikes, though) and are intended to protect the padding from the abrasion of the road, period. Now it's pretty obvious that as I've never been to big regional or national events or been featured on television or even at big "name brand" races, I was one of those guys who spent a lot of time either not being in a race (for various work or finance-related reasons) or being _in_ the race, but _off_ the bike. Being off the bike though, does not always mean being off the _track_ . There is no feeling quite as confusing or disorienting as running somewhere over a hundred mph, feeling the tail whip (which usually isn't what happened: usually the front end folds, but your perspective makes you interpret it incorrectly), the horizon does a barrel roll and you completely lose track of it for a minute, then you hear your helmet grinding away as you skip and flop until you can figure out where your limbs are and then bring them in as tight and still as you can (yes; that causes you to conserve momentum you want to shed, but you don't want to do it at the expense of broken limbs, so you do what you can). You slide-- sort of-- down the track, usually bumping, thumping, tumbling, and generally not sliding (unless you can afford one of the fifteen-hundred-dollar top end synthetic sets of armor, of course). At the end of this beating, even after being thrown at the ground at hundred plus, unless you broke a bone, you're fine. I mean _fine_! Ready to break out the spare bike if you didn't disqualify and run again! Sure: if the fasteners fail and you expose your natural hide, you're going to have serious road rash here and there, and that'll drop your mood a lot, and in thirty minutes or so, you're going to feel a _lot_ of bruises if it was an off-road event and something got under your plates while you were bumping and thumping (usually because you fastened them incorrectly), but you're likely going to be "unhurt" in a "can I continue fighting? Did I take any BODY damage? Did I take _serious_ STUN? It may be a poor analogy; I don't know, but based on my own experience, I have felt that padded armor is always _horribly_ short-shafted in games, at least again non-pointy weapons. (note that I say "non-pointy" as opposed to non-edged: I think that it should do better against large edged-weapons as well (save maybe the Japanese katanas or "lop off a limb because it's just that sharp" kind of swords-- wait! Didn't samurai go into battle against exactly those weapons wearing essentially padded armor?)

People, I give you this: The raw chicken slushie. Enjoy.

I fully admit that I may have misread something vital in the description of what it is that you are trying to achieve. Accordingly, at some point when I am home this weekend, I will give a less sleep-deprived re-read. If I gain a better understanding of your goal, I will be happy to try again.

What Hugh said: I _think_ get what you want, but it doesn't come off as an advantage as much as it comes off as a very minor Limitation-- a conditional limitation of sorts: I cannot do Thing 1 unless I have met Condition 1. Kind of like those "only works underwater" or "only in the dark." Only in the dark is worth considerably less when you yourself control the light switch. However, I have run into several instances of wanting that exact same effect, though almost exclusively in Heroic-level games, and particularly in Fantasy games where a spell must be cast ahead of time for whatever reason. I don't think I have _ever_ allowed more than a -1/4 for this, and most commonly a -1/8 (I know: -1/8 is cooked, perhaps even well-done, but I use it regardless) _if_ I allow anything for it. Mostly it's just a narrative tool or a special effect. I mean, the idea that you must turn on your power to have it ready, even if you don't use it, is no more complex than the Hulk petting a cat: he still has his STR: 1,000,000 available, but he isn't using it _right this moment_ (I hope). Or perhaps a better example would be a simple gun: you might take "charges" for a gun, but you're not going to take "must be loaded." That's assumed. In fact, I have never seen a gun build at a table or in print with "must be drawn" listed on the sheet. For what it's worth, on those occasions when I do allow it, I treat it as an END (and in my games, most likely a "mana")-based thing: I have to either: 1) pay the END for the power to turn it on, but stays available until I use or dismiss or 2) it I have to pay 1 END (or some agreed-upon percentage of the total END cost) each Phase to until I have pre-paid the END to use it. This one is more common amongst my Players for spiritual abilities or science gadgets, and is used a bit differently in as much as the Character may use the Power at any time, once he has set-aside enough END to use it. If it's a 6d6 Energy Blast that uses 2 END per die, then as soon as he has "charged" 2 END, he may use 1 die of it; once he banks 8 END, he may use 4dice, etc. Using it at any level means he must re-charge it back from zero, to include the "start charging" action. The Start Charging Action: There is an Action used to turn begin the Charging process. Precasting the spell or building the Chi or whatever the definition of pre-charging the attack means that Activating the Power not exactly the same as an Instant Power (I can't turn it on and attack with it as a single action, such as with my Heat Vision or Lightning Blasts or whatever, where activation/attack/deactivate is in fact one single action), nor is it a Zero Phase action like activating Flight or a Force Field, but instead takes a half-Phase (as the GM, if the Player really wants to get a genuine limitation from this, I prefer to see that the pre-activation takes an Attack Action for attack powers; I am less concerned about non-attack Powers, which can simply take a Half-Phase Action). I haven't found anything else to be convincingly "Limitation-worthy," to be honest, and as I said: you pre-pay the END to have the power available, but that's not in itself limiting: you pay the END to use the power anyway. You can't use the power until the END is pre-paid, but you are in charge of making that arrangement. It takes an action, but in experience most Players use their Phase 12 at the start of combat to start the charging process for attack powers or simply narrate beginning the charging process for non-attack powers prior to combat whenever possible, and thus far, I have yet to find a Player who didn't have an alternate ability or set of abilities to get him by until the Super-Sayin maneuver finishes charging. If you want a genuine limitation on it, consider an "All Power to the Engines!" build, using any of the above, but the Character is unable to do _anything_ else (save perhaps Dodge) while he is charging his power. _That_ is significantly limiting. Pricing? Well, that's between Player and GM, as there are a lot of variables, but consider it to be a lesser version or possibly an amalgam of lesser versions of the following book entries for guidance: Extra Time (it does "waste" a single Phase, but you still get to "hold onto" the Power and use it Instantly when you find the perfect opportunity. Material Components (it's the same sort of "I need to already have met a condition," though you are in charge of when and how that condition is met) Costs END to Activate (though it does not cost additional END to use; you are simply pre-paying it) And of course, a few others. I have read some of your stuff, Sir, and I have no doubt that you can come up with something that has the flavor that works for you, and that has the exact in-game mechanic and story effect that you are looking for, which brings me to why I posted my own solution: I don't expect you or anyone else to agree with my solution; it's just a "food for thought" sort of thing. My example _proudly_ uses a -1/8 value for a Limitation. This is not book legal, and there will be folks who dislike solely for that reason (though, to be fair, there will be folks who dislike it for other reasons, too, and that's cool ). My solution works _perfectly_ for me; it works perfectly for my Players; it has worked perfectly for our games for a couple of decades thus far. It does not matter to me if anyone else likes it, or even if they absolutely hate it to a man; I am going to continue to be very happy with it and I am going to continue to use it. Keep all that in mind: you will find something that works, and you will find something that you are very happy with. Do _not_ pin any of your perceptions of its value on the opinions of people who it will never affect anyway. There are going to be people who don't like it for whatever reason. So what? They don't play at your table; why should it matter if they agree? The only valid criticism, if you and your players are happy with it, is related to making sure the math checks out. Find what you like and run with it.

Amd the chart doesnt go high enough for women in the South Sudan area....