Duke Bushido

Stumbled across a small cache of slightly smaller ones (phillips only, I'm afraid) at a flea market today. Haven't had time to do more than open a pair and toss them a few times, but they actually seem to roll better-- that is, they require less attention to technique in order to roll them. See, the ones above work best if literally _rolled_ as opposed to simply cast like dice normally are. Casting those resulted in about one in twenty landing pointy side up and having to be rerolled. While it would seem to be _more_ likely with the ones I picked up today, the first minute or two of test rolling has shown otherwise. Odd. Anyway, I am hoping to do these in pips, simply because I just prefer pips to numerals. These are old (the shafts have all patina'd just a bit with a haze or surface rust, but I'll deal with that later.

Agreed. Legolas, with the talents and skill levels he displays, isnt about the character build or the Character Points spent or where. Legolas is about the long-term campaign caps and the _Experience_ Points spent when we come to know him in the books.

That is one of the early player characters: the obe who was trapped in alien armor, but whose name I forget. He is on the back cover of the 1e book, and his fingers are on the front covwr of the colored printings of the 2e book. Possibly the greyscake printing as well, but I dont remember and I am not at home at the moment. Hes the ony my daughter selected to build her first chatacter on many, many years ago.

Thanks! Weirdly fun way to goof off for a few minutes at work.

the fighters are closing- slowly, but they're closing. There is no way you are going to outrun them with the driver shorting in and out like it is. You feel the power surging and dipping, sending ominous reverberations through the steel structure of the ship, as if the ship itself were moaning in pain. "Where's Fermier? Get Fermier down here, now!" "He's manning Cannon Two, Sir." "Get his ass down to the engine room, Kid!" "Sir, there's at least nine bogeys out there, and they're closing fast! We need him on the cannons!" Kid, what's the point in shooting if we can't outrun them?!" "We're short two gunners, Sir." "Son, you get Fermier _out_ of that gun blister and down to Engineering _now_, and get your ass _in_ that blister and start blasting!" "Captain, I can't shoot a ship's gun! I don't have a rating--!" "Congratulations; you've been promoted!" "Oh, thanks! Oh, if only my mother had lived to see this..." "Another twenty-three minutes and you can tell her yourself if you don't get in the blister and relieve our lead engineer! Besides, someone tells me we're short two gunners, so unless you can win a crooked trial or breathe vacuum, i'd suggest giving it a hard try! "Fermier!" "On my way, Skipper!" "How bad is it?" "It's mostly in the power lines, Sir. Lucky shot, looks like- lucky for us, any way. The components are solid, but I'm going to have to rig a lot of wiring...." "How long? The fighters are closing in and that kid's wasting plasma faster than we can cook it." "I dont know, Skip; not too long, since Engineering counts as a lab for this and I've got good tools. Still, it looks like a minus 4, at least." "Well get your best tools out and roll for all your worth, Fermier! We are all dead men if you don't get it, and _fast_." "Don't worry, Sir. I've got the highest mechanical skills on the boat, and I think I have got just the dice for the job....." Anyway, guess what I made today? These are the rare and highly questionable +2 Dice of Mechanical Skills.

Seriously, though: it was such a problem for us way back as far as the early 80s that I added a regular feature to a lot of my fantasy settings. Eventually the rules and such of the entire organization had taken size enough to be a stand-alone work drawn from my notes, so I did that very thing. There's a second section that needs finishing and the whole thing needs formatting, and I doubt I'll ever actually have the time to finish it, but it does exist. The inner workings of the Torchbearers' Guild. My wife cracking a joke a few months ago in reference to those early problems prompted my to get it all into one document. My son had been watching a british guy on youTube-- one of the guys with the "speech impediment" british accent as opposed to the 'classy and sophisticated' british accent (I'm sure they have actual names, but I have no idea what they are). At any rate, she was coming in the house, yelling "get the groceries!" as it had started raining very hard and very suddenly, and as she entered the kitchen, lightning struck and the lights went out briefly. While the room was dark, my son, in a misguided attempt to fake the accent he'd been listening to, asked " Ooze goh a torch?" My wife feigned rage and self-loathing and smacked her hand on the counter, groaning "Every! Damned! _TIME_!" and I just lost it.

I have written an entire sourcebook around this very problem.

Ha! The guy on page 13! Did the same thing some years (decades?!) Back. Edited out the tattoo because of the table argument about whether it was a dragon or a walaby......

What he said is correct in all the old editions.

The most current data I can find shows just under 8 billion people on earth today, and I can say that even here in rural america, I am tripping over the danged things! At three per billion, that means that on modern earth, there are not 24 people on the entire globe. Now before I go _any_ further, I want to say up front that there is absolutely _nothing_ wrong with that. It's your setting, after all, and if that's where you want magic to be in your world, go for it. Just remember that your players aren't going to have much fun if that doesn't bind the GM also: adventures that culminate in magic wielding foes are going to get a bit.... hard to accept, I guess is the best way to say that. Now in 1900, there were 2 billion people on earth (and I am sure it was delightful, at least to the curmudgeons like me). I remember a point in the... 70s? Early 80s? Where there were "roughly 4 billion," so let's say a doubling every fifty years. Still, in 1900, there would only be six people on the planet who could do magic. Go back to 1800, and there were only 1 billion people (estimated) on the planet, meaning three whole magic users. Go to 1700 and the estimate is 603 million, or roughly 2 magic users. Go back to 1400, and the estimate changes to 390 million. On the planet. Or, roughly, one magic user. The only problem I can really see is three players wanting to know a little magic. Other than that, it's your party, Sir; decorate the way you like.

Go for what you like. When I do low fantasy, what magic there is all tends to work in the same way. When I do high fantasy, I range from a couple of kinds of magic to every kind of magic works according to unique rules. Its all a matter of the feel I want magic to have in that particular setting.

Twister powers / 80's style = triangles. Triangles overlapping triangles for villains, as a connotation of jarring violence. Colors: your choice; consider a light to medium red over a light blue with grey or silver highlights for a villain.

Not familiar with that one. I'll try to remember to google it up later this week; going to bed shorty.

Extremely well done. Need to redo the foley, though: the discoveries and plot points get totally drown in the mood music, etc. Have to deafen yourself to listen to the "discoveries" throughout the film. Other than that? Awesome!

I cant really offer you any examples, save perhaos Xeonzoic Tales from way back when. I do it in one of my fantasy settings, most of my,sci-to, and pretty much all my post-apocolyptic stuff.

Wait; I'm sorry-- Did I have some small bit of daft in my eyes or did that say "Antiques Road show?"

You're in luck. I've got an old Kennedy 9610 around the garage somewhere.... Don't remember if it reads 1200 bpi or not, though.

And it sucks That you are correct. Things like this benefit all of humanity, and are built upon the work of people all throught history, regardless of where they lived. Everyone was in the running to have their contributions used; they should be in the running to be honored for them. But what do I know; I'm just a human.

Isnt this all the potential problems that saw cities all over the country dumping redlight cameras?

Vivisect. Mostly knives, but slicing up for analysis covers the mind hacks, too. And it plays well with Avi.

Gotta level with you: Just because you were asking about putting them in an EC, I had assumed that this was precisely what you had done to meet the END requirement.

Still out of town (family emergency), but I will double-check when I get back. As far as I recall, you can sort of do that in 3e, _maybe_. Here we go: Unless you are building either a really expensive Enhanced Sense or a very small EC (such as in your example), there's not going to be a lot of value in doing it. Remember that in the pre-4 editions, there are a lot of rules covering the-- for lack of a better term- "sameness" of the costs of the powers in the ECs. While Multipowers-- to take advantage of the discount created by the Control Cost (Pool Cost in older editions) tend to naturally get built with similar Powers costs, ECs don't offer points efficiency in that same way. Well, they _do_, but it's not as obvious, and there is no real "loss" for choosing not to do that; the only thing that happens is that your EC gets smaller. You can still put large powers in small ECs; you simply pay full price for the overflow. In that way, even though the rules focus on your most expensive power, it is your least expensive power in the pool that sets the cost and discount for the EC: you have to spend the same(ish, anyway) on all the powers in the EC. If you spend less on one, then that caps the discount, and you pay full price on any points over that cap. That makes Enhanced Senses sort of kick in the teeth, since you can build a seriously tiny Enhanced Sense --say, Radio Hearing for 3 pts (Oh, please keep in mind that I am pulling prices from 2e, as that's the only rules set I keep in my phone. It may not jibe with 3e, but as examples, they should do fine). If you job that into an EC, your max discount now applies only to 3 pts worth of each power in the EC. Everything after that-- what I term "the overflow" when I am coaching new builders-- you will pay full price on. You can also build some seriously massive Enhanced Senses: say a 60 pt Telescopic Vision. If you've got a lesser-expensive power in your EC-- say Instant Change for 5 pts (general rule of thumb: don't put IC in an EC; it really screws you up. I'm not Goodman, and I'm certainly not Hugh, but some "efficiencies" _are_ self-evident, even to me), the your discount is only going to cover 5 points worth of your Tele-vision (sorry 😧 ) and the other 55 pts are full price. Then there is another issue with Enhanced Senses: Do I have Enhanced (+5) Vision, Telescopic (1/1000) Vision, and X-Ray Vision? That is, do I have EV (15 pts) TV (15 pts) (again: sorry) X-Ray Vision (20 pts) If I have that list of three powers, then no; they cannot be put them into a Framework. Why? Because the first 3 editions have a default Framework for Enhanced Senses. They don't really call it that, so as a GM, you (or your GM, if you are making this for use in someone else's game) may rule differently. The first two most expensive Senses are full price; the next two are half-price; any further Sense are quarter-priced. Every edition has rules against putting one framework inside another. _However_, as I noted, nothing in any of these early books calls this out specifically as a Framework (I don't know about 3e off the top of my head, but I know that 1 and 2e call them "Power Modifiers" instead of Frameworks. Check for that term, too, just in case). Since it's not called out as a Framework (or PM), your GM may rule differently. _Also_, your GM _may_ allow you to "pick-and-choose:" Do you want to use the default framework, or do you want to put these powers at full price into your EC, and use the discount that this provides? For what it's worth, I have found that this option-- while perfectly valid and rules-legal, leads to a lot of Goodman-like number crunching and min-maxing------ which, I want to be clear, is _fine_. There is no rule against maximum points exploitation, and many, many people enjoy it, so knock yourself out: figure it all up twice and then pick the one you like best. Now here's where the problem gets really wierd: Or do I have Enhanced Telescopic N-Ray Vision (+5, 1/1000), a single power totaling 55 pts? It _does_ make a difference, in both gameplay and costing. It seems like a goofy question, but none of the editions up to and including 4e really discuss this _at all_ (having not read either of the other editions since the first go-through, I really don't remember about them), and it _does_ make a difference: If I have Telescoping _and_ X-ray, can I use them together? That is, can I use my X-ray vision to check on the guys in the Space Station without having to actually fly up to the space station? (unrelated side note: I _love_ watching the ISS fly over on a winter morning. ) Or do I have to notice the space station acting erratically with my Tele-vision, then fly up close enough to use my X-ray? Can I see the wave of X-ray energy traveling from Venus, or do I have to wait until I could see with without benefit of either Telescopic or Enhanced? If I am using the X-ray vision to scope out the interior of the secret government moon base, do I still get my +5 to Perception Checks, or does that bonus apply only to things in my "normal" vision? Seriously: this has bugged me for _decades_!! It didn't bother me at all for the longest time. Then I sat down to play with a group that did it "the other way." Suddenly I was nine kinds of confused about which was correct. Crap! Scott was _there_! Crap! crap, crap, crap, crappity-crippity crap on a crutch! All this time, and it never occurred to me to ask Scott! Scott: if you're following along, you will have a PM coming shortly. Over the years, I have seen both variants from multiple groups: if you buy multiple variants of a sense, then they work together or not at your whim. If you want them to work separately, you buy them separately. If you want them to work together, you buy them together as a sense. If you want both, then you buy twice. Now because- at least in the 4-and-back sets, both of these _are_ "book-legal," simply because the book doesn't address it _at all_. It's sort of like asking if mandating a snack break every thirty minutes is book-legal: it just ain't there. Even the examples in the book demonstrate buying Microwave buying Telescopic Vision, UV Vision, and IR Vision, there is nothing in the text-- example or otherwise-- clarifying if one works with the other, or if they are exclusive. And please notice that I am going to great lengths to avoid declaring one to be "obviously more correct" or any other thing like that, because my own experience with multiple groups has demonstrated that there isn't even a real consensus of what is "common-sense and logical." If you are using the "buy it all as one sense to use it as one sense," and that's the only "Enhanced Sense" you are buying, then it _cannot_ be put into the existing "Enhanced Senses Framework," so you're good to go with jobbing it into your Elemental Control. Actually, if you're only buying _one_ Enhanced Sense, even if it's just a five-point +1 to your Vision PER Check, you're good to go. So the shortest answer I can give you: You can legally put ONE Enhanced Sense into a Framework with absolutely no question about the rules legality. I understand the temptation to put up to TWO enhanced Senses into a Framework, as the discount for the "Enhanced Senses Framework," and honestly, I have allowed it in the past, even though it will discount at least one of them sooner than the built-in Enhanced Senses discount should kick in. I have allowed it because in all cases I judged it to not be problematic to the game at hand, etc. Keep in mind that this is going to be a GM call either way, as the rules don't really cover "sneaking around and picking and choosing your best cost-effectiveness option." However, we all know that the culture around this game very much supports it, so I doubt you will get any blowback from doing it. You can't put three or more into a Famework because the rules automatically drop them into their own unique Framework at that point. UNLESS-- and this is big-- your GM has ruled that this discount is _not_ a Framework (or Power Modifier) simply because it isn't called one by name. Before putting them into any framework, however, you have to determine what is the correct way to build for compound use: Do you buy them separately and use them together? If you, you're going to cripple the upper limits of your EC with three-to-ten point Enhanced Senses, making it an unattractive prospect to the savvy builder. Do you buy it as one big compound power if you want to use them all as a single compound power? If so, then as your Duke if EC is right for you. And obviously, it would be: it would be one very expensive power (Super Hearing, Super Vision (sorry), etc) with little danger of dropping your discount level in your EC. In fact, you'd likely have to pay quite a bit of full-price points over the EC cap if the Character isn't one of those "three really strong powers and done" type Characters. Now for those who are wondering-- with the caveat that I am _not_ saying that this is more correct or less correct than any other possible interpretation: _Personally_, if a Character has Enhanced, Telescopic, N-Ray vision, then yes: I will let him stand on the ground and look inside the ISS as it goes by. Assuming he has enough telescopic to get a reasonable view and enough Enhanced to nail the PER roll after the penalties, of course. But again: I am not saying it's the "rightest" way to do things.

I am sticking with my "I have no intention of creating any sort of backhanded insult toward any edition or any author" stance of earlier, and my "I am not calling out any change as a good / bad idea" position as well. Now that we know that, I want to say that I love your choice of Tunneling as an example, because this one has been _the_ glaring example of muddying the distinction between SFX and mechanics since the very first edition. 4e _kind_ of solved it, but in what will most likely be seen by new players as a nonsensical way. I don't know if you have any early rules editions or not, but take _any_ edition and look at Tunneling: It's a Movement Power that allows movement on a ratio of distance to density. That is, you can move X inches through Y DEF of material (DEF may have been changed to BODY later on; I can't recall, and I'm out of town and working from a phone, so I can't run to the book shelf right now). IF you can move 10" through 5 DEF, then you can move 5" through 10 DEF, or 50" through 1 DEF; you see how that goes. That's fine. That's a perfectly workable mechanic. Then you have the "leaves no tunnel" option. That's Desolidification. You walked through solid matter, and popped out with no hole. The rules don't state that it's obvious where you popped out of the cliff face, or that you have disturbed the matter through which you walked in any way, so you have passed through solid matter with your Movement Power and left it completely unchanged in the process. In the early editions, swap out "DEF" for "BODY," and boom-- that's Desolidification. To the Players over the years that give me "but-but-but-but--- he has to dig the tunnel and fill it back in behind him..." I say "No; he does not _have_ to do that. The mechanic is movement through solid matter. To assume he is digging is to assume a special effect for that movement. He may stretch into an infinite noodle and thread his way between the molecules for all we know. That would be a possible SFX, and totally up to the Player to decide." But once you determine that he leaves no hole, you are in Desolidification country....... The mechanical difference is DEF versus BODY (for what it's worth, if you allow both Desolid and Tunneling: no tunnel, that really is the only difference), period. Easier to say "Tunneling leaves a hole, period" and allow Players to determine if their Desolid works versus DEF or BODY, or to pick one as Mandatory. Or.... Decide they _both_ work versus the same one, and the difference is the Tunnel, period. Then you don't really need a separate mechanic, though, do you? You make the hole optional..... Eventually, you arrive at the 4e decision, where Desolid stops being a movement power and becomes "invincible with exceptions" to grandfather in the need for "affects desolid" and "affects solid." You have to provide your own movement, though. As you say, though: the name _implies_ certain things to new players, meaning that I may be the only person on earth who uses Tunneling for "desolidification with difficulty passing through dense matter." I say that based on the number of times "porous" or "gelatinous" power builds have been posted to this very board with the goal of "solving" the problem of "how do I create a Power that allows me to slip through a chainlink fence but not walk through solid walls?" Tunneling. Tunneling is how you do that. The finer the hole, the more mass exists around and between the holes, right? Buy Tunneling with a relatively low amount of DEF (or BODY, depending on what's been changed or hasn't been changed via official or house rules) through which you can "Tunnel." You can easily pass through a chainlink fence, but it's going to be a lot harder to pass through a shadowbox fence or a drainpipe. (remember the infinite noodle SFX? It's viable if you don't start thinking in terms of shovels or scoop-like clawed hands because the name is "tunneling.") No; I'm not going anywhere with that. I just wanted to be reasonably balanced with my comments, being as how I was quite sincere that it was not my intent to bash the Long Editions in any way whatsoever: While he rearranged the problem, and may or may not have exacerbated it in places, he most emphatically did _not_ create the problem all by himself, and I thank you for the opportunity to address that in a fair and objective way. Totally get it: the name implies things; there is zero argument from me there. Considering what I have seen of the Flash in the scant handful of comics my son has read over the years (I bought them comics when they were kids because hey: _I_ am not a comic guy (and am most _certainly_ not a "let's watch a bunch of grown men chase a ball!" guy, either), it was important to me not to make up their minds for them: let them try this stuff, and if it sticks, great. If it doesn't, also great), were I to attempt to build the Flash, I would go straight to "Teleport." I mean, the one thing that sticks out to me from the few I've read is an issue where (and comic book guys, feel free to correct me if I am wrong here) the Flash raced-- on foot, mind you-- raced ACROSS THE FREAKIN' UNIVERSE against an honest-to-God teleporter and _won_! Caveat: Comic book guys, correct me if I am wrong. Do not bother correcting me with random nitpicks about how or why this did or didn't work because of this or that, because I absolutely do not care. Correct me if I misunderstood "raced across the universe on foot and beat a teleporter." That is the core statement here. The only way I can think of to do that is to have teleport, period. Which comes to another problem, mechanically: Why is instant teleportation slower than any other form of movement? Running: Extra speed with your feet. Flight: all-new ability for the human body; grants truly 3-dimensional movement with no barriers present. Teleport: wink out of existence in one place and reappear in another. 50" running: run 25" in half phase. 50" Flight run 25" in half phase. 50" teleport: pop 25" in half phase All of these do 50" in a full phase, too. T-port is, without adding limitations, instant. But if the above want to make full-moves, the T-port isn't quite as instant as it was. if the T-port guy only has 25", it's going to take him (assuming the same SPD) _twice as long_ as the other two guys move 25." Now perhaps I am just assuming an SFX: just assuming that "instant" is a requirement for Teleport. I'm not immune to shaping my interpretations based on previous experience; I never claimed to be immune to it. I do, because of my love of this game, try to be very cognizant of what I think and why when creating things for this game (neat, hunh? I developed better science skills from a recreational activity than I ever learned in school! ), but I am not immune to the sort of missteps that lead to things like "Growth means Growth Momentum" any more than is anyone else. To address that, let me add this: the rules don't specifically state (at least not up to 3e) that T-port is instant. They also mention "preparing a half-phase for longer transits" or words to that effect (again: not at home; not near the bookshelf, and really, _really_ tired of proofing this for typos-- what can I say? I don't usually have this kind of time when I'm working from a phone ) So it seems that I may well be reading something into that, doesn't it? (full disclosure: I realized this _decades_ ago, but like Tunneling/ Desolid, it's a beautiful example to work with). Still, I had a certain expectation, and Players had a certain expectation, so this particular one, I _did_ address: I have a house rule that says Teleporters "land" first. It happens without regard for DEX or SPD (though their next actions, etc, are still subject to them). Briefly: T-porter says "I teleport to the top of that piece of equipment over there!" and poof-- he moves to that location. If it's a half-move, he still has a half-phase, but he can't use it until all other movement is resolved. if it's a full move, he still moves there, instantly, before all non-t-port movement is resolved, and while he has no other action until his next Phase, he is still sitting there for second half-phase, during which he can be shot at, or what-have you. Effectively, it has zero affect on the game (save once in a while making a teleporter easier or harder to target owing to distance modifiers, of course), but it solves a problem of _feel_ that we have. An erroneous problem, to be sure, as nothing in the rules says T-port is instant (unless it does now), but one of, as you note, reading too much into the power because of the name. See? I am not going to pretend to be the perfect rules lawyer for the old stuff, either! I have advocated for either of these options over the years: 1) TK should, by default, move things at a distance, period. Everything else has an existing mechanic: Grab at distance: Entangle Punch: Energy Blast Throw: any sort of increased KB ability (caveat: I also argue for more than one doubling of increased KB) Squeeze: Well, that's really another sort of blast, or some sort of lethal entangle You can keep running down the list, and except for move things at a distance, there is nothing unique to TK. 2) TK should be priced by default as STR: Ranged. Using TK against more than 2 targets should require "extra limbs." Anything you can do with STR you can do with TK: it _is_ STR. Either of these options would make me much happier with TK.