Barghest

Steve, you are always mute on these forums. Unless I missed something and didn't get the voice chat package when I registered...':D

*bounce* *bounce* *bounce* Bad Starlord.

Desolid was used on the luck-based character in this month's Digital Hero. Take a look at her, she's nicely done.

Just a small quibble. Bastard swords are NOT two-handed only, they are both two- and one-handed weapons. What you have there, assuming you want to keep the two-handed weapon limitation, is a greatsword, claymore, or something of that ilk.

... This is exactly the sort of book that we've needed ever since 5E came out and probably for many years before. A great job and a great price, Steve. Thank you.

Actually, I am in the midst of working on this very thing. I'm at the office though and will have to share ideas later (none of my information is here).

... Aren't ads wonderful?

Nice munchkin reply *grin*.

GDW's problem at the time was that they had sunk a ton of money into Dangerous Journeys and were subsequently smacked down by TSR's assinine lawsuit. They lost a great deal of money in that and it just looked like they weren't going to be able to recover from it. There isn't much money in producing RPGs. It's often a labor of love and I think that episode tarnished the labor a fair bit.

In the 20+ years I have been running Hero games, I have found the vehicle rules to be a problem when applied to powered armor suits. Mecha are not powered armor suits, they are giant walking robots with a driver instead of a brain and they definitely fit better as vehicles.

Powered armor is generally not built using vehicle rules but rather a combination of powers, characteristics, limitations, and advantages run through a focus (the suit of armor). There are many examples out there in published books, most of them will be found in Champions supplements.

The Spacer's Toolkit, slated for May of this year, will have examples of all sorts of gear, including starships.

In this case, it is a fail-safe flight power. It was laid out pretty clearly in the previous message. Regardless of consciousness or otherwise being able to activate the power, flight for hovering purposes needs to come on after the character falls 10" or more and it can't be something that has to be set up ahead of time.

Hi folks, I want a power to come on when a condition is fulfilled. Trigger doesn't work because it requires the power to be set up. I want the power to come on regardless of whether or not the character is conscious or otherwise able to activate it, regardless of how many times it is needed. As an example, let's look at a flight power. 10" Flight, at 0 end, persistent, only to hover, trigger (whenever falling more than 10") doesn't quite do what I want it to. It has to be set each time it is used and that isn't what I want. I considered the following: 10" Flight, at 0 end, persistent, only to hover, always on, only active if falling more than 10" The issue here, as has been brought up over in the always on forcefield discussion is that always on isn't a limitation at this point (I have no problem with taking it as a -0) and some people seem to think it is an advantage (not certain I agree or disagree with this). Another issue in this case is what the power actually does. If the power fires because the character falls more than 10" what happens when the flight has arrested his fall? Now he is no longer falling and thus the power turns off. I suppose what it really means is that the character would never take more than 10" of falling damage but that's not quite what I want either. So what do you all think? Does my second example work (with the exception of the weird interaction between the flight and falling states)? Or is there better way? Thanks much, Barghest

If I run something Star Hero related rather than my Pulp Hero campaign, it will be a pulp SF thing along the lines of Burroughs' Venus series, perhaps Beyond the Farthest Star

JmOz-- Renard the fox is from a French fairytale. His primary antagonist is Ysangrin, a wolf. Not a bad choice of names but I'm not certain he quite fits as a superpatriot type character for France.

Scott Card's "How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy" might help with story issues but really wouldn't be of much use in the nuts and bolts of creating worlds and SF universes. The MICE quotient has its place in writing but I don't think it would work as well for RPGs. Nonetheless, there is overlap between what we do as SF authors and what we do as GMs and the resources that are offered for writing definitely should be checked out by GMs wanting to build a consistent and compelling SF milieu.

source materials for alien construction Michael-- An excellent source material is Stanley Schmidt's "Aliens and Alien Societies" which is edited by Ben Bova and is part of Writer's Digest Books Science Fiction Writing Series. I highly recommend it whether you are an aspiring SF author or are running Star Hero. The other books in that series are well worth the cost as well. For a general SF setting manual, I recommend "The Writer's Guide to Creating a Science Fiction Universe" by George Ochoa and Jeffrey Osier, also from Writer's Digest Books. This book also has a chapter on designing aliens. Once the concept is down, I think the points follow. The rules are easy enough to simulate with once you know what you want. Best of luck.