Thia Halmades

Re: Who's Who on the Champions Online forums? He'd rather have his fingernails ripped out by an angry dog. With rabies. A massive, snarling, rabid mastiff that can't discern between "finger" and "finger nail." Srsly. Don't mention that to g-a. He no likee.

Re: Who's Who on the Champions Online forums?

Re: Who's Who on the Champions Online forums? You're copying Steve! YOU BASTARD!

Re: Who's Who on the Champions Online forums? None of you will EVER guess who I am over there! NEVER! First one that does gets rep. Because I'll never have to give it out, because you'll NEVER GUESS IT.

Re: Play on words magic items/spells IIRC, first level illusions required the material component: A piece of wool (to pull the wool over your eyes). There were a bunch like that in the 1st level spells.

Re: Multitasking, or the hyper-advanced intellect Extra SPD, only to accomplish intellectual tasks. Very straight forward.

Re: Your Dream Projects For Hero Books Ah, actually, Chris isn't the only one you'd need to box with to do a Book of Mecha. Seeing as I've been toying with Giant Robots since I was old enough to like Giant Robots. The Book of Mecha (I suppose this is the new Ultimate line, then) I'd love to see a Book of Ninja 2.0 (by Michael, as I love the idea of NH and (as I've said to him before) wasn't keen on the presentation). Urban Fantasy HERO would be huge. I need that book Cyber HERO Horror HERO

Re: Champions Online Eff that. Release it on PS3 and I'll pay attention. Death to Microsoft.

Re: Creating Spells in Hero Designer ... what he said, basically. It's also how you build things like Swords in HeroDesigner, since a Sword is a Compound Power, the HKA element and (in many builds) the OCV element (Katanas and Longswords are both +1 OCV, FREX). So it's 1d6 1/2 HKA w/Lims plus +1 OCV (5 point CSL, limited as per the weapon).

Re: Astonishing, if true... PS3 MMO CHAMPIONS?! Dies. However, it doesn't start with an "H."

Re: 8pt CSL

Re: 8pt CSL Generally my players use 6 point levels because they don't meet a lot of mentalists. Actually, who am I kidding? They use five point levels and then limit the crap out of them. *sniff* I love my little power gamers. But no, seriously. They're a good deal for the money. The 8 Point CSL (unlike its siblings, the 2 & 3 point CSL) is not dedicated to a single task. It can float, not only among OCV, DCV or DCs, but also among Hand to Hand, Ranged & Mental Combat. That's the big trick with an 8 point level. A 6 point does the same thing, but only for two types of combat.

Re: Off To San Ramon! I wouldn't say "better." I would say "Hey, thanks JmOz!" because we all know Thia loves his rep.

Re: Special Operations Strike Force and enemies "Ah," says the ancient master. "You are having trouble distancing yourself from your idea, and your result." He nodded sagely as he walked me down the ancient paths, upon which many feet before mine had tread well-worn tracks. "What you desire, and what you must do, they are not inseparable." "But Master!" I cried out, "How can I call it a demon if it isn't exactly right?" Again, he nodded that wise, wrinkled brow. "Who calls it a Rose? The name evokes meaning. But if you were to give an ignorant man an Orchid, would he know the difference?" And then realization dawned. "So... it matters less to the unknowing how a thing should be, and far more on perceiving how a thing is; whether a thing of beauty, a bird, or a flower." The ancient master continued his walk along the path, and I? I struggled to keep pace; knowing that to lag behind would be insulting, and that I was not ready to go forward ahead of him.

Re: When the heck does this spell end? Ayup. It would in fact end unless the effect were persistent blah blah blah.

Re: When the heck does this spell end? Generally spells of that nature I defined as either "Continuing Charge" which is in itself rather elegant, or "END Only to Activate, Maximum Duration of X time," or "END Only to Activate, only for current scene." The last one is the most "cinematic," but in some cases makes the most sense. I'm doing some vampire abilities for a project I'm working on the same way; they Cost END to Activate, and the effect "ends" either when they stop concentrating, or the 'scene' changes, largely done that way for dramatic effect. My other favorite is Continuing Charge, Also Costs END, which is how I built things like Call Lightning. Yes, you can Call Lightning. Yes, the spell duration is at least a minute and yes. It costs you END every time you summon a massive bolt of thunder from the freaking SKY.

Re: Musing on Movement: Is Velocity "Persistent" Unless we're talking about calculations for damage you'll DEAL with movement powers, or damage dealt TO YOU, does it matter? If someone meets you at the end of your 9" move, I would rule they could "redirect you" and deal an extra 2 DCs. For the most part, I would submit it ain't all that relevant. However, if you were to move 9", and on your NEXT Phase do a Move-Through, then the previous 9" wouldn't count; we're only talking about current speed, yeah? So AFAIC, you'll "stop" and "start" as necessary.

Re: What is it called? You can call me Al....

Re: What is it called? Er... I don't know that such a thing exists in HERO, I'd need to see the rules. AFAIK, "Extra Time" means just that. But I may be mistaken. 592 pages. Easy to miss small details.

Re: Special Operations Strike Force and enemies OH. I see. You want specifics. It's HERO. Find something comparable, spice according to taste, and change the name. FOOMP. Done.

Re: Balance outside of a Super setting Judicious use of the Hit Location Table minimizes combat being over "too quickly." You'll find that unless someone gets tagged with an Entangle (0 DCV FTW!) then you're in pretty good shape. I run only Heroic styled games, and I discovered, oddly, that 150 (75+75) was too low to do what I wanted. I'm more comfortable with my players having closer to 200 points at start. For their Fantasy characters, given that these were characters who had already grown from 1st level in d20 to about 10th, the final count was 125+125+20 XP. I'm also a huge proponent of the Dark Champions Resource Pools. This means: Armor is generally purchased and goes in the pool, and sits for my party anywhere from 3 to 8rPD. I use a Non-Stacking rule for armor, otherwise folks tend to be "too tough." The party Caster/Rogue did get tagged with a nasty leg shot that nearly crippled him, but evidently the player had purchased extra running "only to return to starting values" or something, which meant he was still completely mobile. Never seen anything like it. ANYWAY. Using incorrectly run Barghests, the fight went very well. I didn't really have any balance issues. Aside from the absurd 2nd Level spell Scorching Ray (2d6+1 RKA, Fire SFX, Autofire 2). One of the Barghests two both shots to the chest, one for max damage (13 BODY) and one for close to that (9 BODY). He went down in a crumpled heap. Enemy combatants stop at 0 BODY. Period. I don't even really worry about STUN for the most part, other than to determine if they'd been CON STUNed. Lower point starting characters are likely to point their points towards an attack, or attack-based skills. Higher point values mean that the characters have come off much more well rounded.

Re: Special Operations Strike Force and enemies Have you checked out Surbrook's Stuff? That should have enough characters & monster write ups to satisfy just about anyone for a one-shot adventure.

Re: Pulp Hero playable with Pulp Hero book alone? What Derek said. I'm not even going to bother reading it. If Derek said something that sounds like: "Fifth edition contains the rules, and Pulp HERO is a genre book," then you've been given the correct information.

Re: Skill Trees (A New Framework?) DAMMIT MARK! He took mine. Anyway. What I was GOING to say before freaking MARK TOOK MINE was simply that we already have a "framework" in effect in the system; Skill Enhancers. Buy enough of "these skills" and you get "this cost break." There's no reason that couldn't be expanded, and in fact I believe that The Ultimate Skill does exactly that, early on in the text. So by all means, go ahead modify them to your needs. The other things that were mentioned, are as much Final Fantasy as they are Digital Devil Saga and so on; Blizzard -> Blizzara -> Blizzaga -> Ice 9. It's a simple matter of defining "Must know all prior versions of this spell, -0" as the limitation isn't really limiting. It doesn't prohibit you from casting it in any way, unless someone were to make you "forget" a lower version, but even then, as GM I'd rule "Now that you know it, meh." You know it. The points were spent. So however you want to handle it is fine, really, but deep down? I agree with Chris Goodwin. I came from d20, where "In Communist RPG, points spend YOU." In HERO, the power solely rests with the player, which is as it should be. However, YCMV, and YMMV.

Re: Off To San Ramon! I don't understand why everyone is so hung up on this. We've already got photographic evidence that both chihuahuas and horses can talk; clearly, we need to Transform Snap into a chihuahua, with the Heal Back Condition: "Tell us the big secret." I guarantee you no Border Collie worth its leash will suffer that indignity for terribly long.