Christopher R Taylor

Yeah, you'd need something with a lot of mass to brace against or some manner of recoil compensation. Depending on whether you're in direct sunlight or not would affect cooling issues though.

Well any gun past 1880 or so will work in space. Bullets will fire in a vacuum, and even travel a little bit faster.

Watched Grand Tour with the guys from Top Gear, its silly and fun. Basically its them having fun with cars and other stuff, being themselves. They have a new track and driver (a NASCAR driver) but mostly its just them being them. I enjoyed the 2 episodes I saw. The new live action Tick show was fun, the first episode was at least. its a bit more grown up but the Tick is still The Tick although his costume is a bit odd looking.

In theory this would be good to duplicate in other forums for gamers, to interest people in how hero works and what you can do. I was lying in bed last night thinking about the Unforgiven fight and how easy it was to simulate in Hero with presence attacks and so on. Its a really gritty battle but has a very clean progression of events and Hero duplicates it very well. Other possibilities: -The clifftop sword fight between The Dread Pirate Roberts and Inigo Montoya in Princess Bride -The Lava/slag field fight between Anakin and Obi Wan (as craptastic as the films were, some good fight scenes in the prequels) in Revenge of the Sith -The restaurant fight scene between Yu Shu Lien (Michelle Yeoh) and Jen Yu (Zhang Ziyi) in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon -Flying wing fight scene between the hulking sergeant and Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark -The fight in the factory between T-800 and T-1000 in Terminator 2 -Fight on top of the poles in Iron Monkey -Final fight in Rapid Fire between Brandon Lee and Al Leong (sniff, Brandon Lee, such a loss ) -Any one of 50 Jackie Chan battles -Staircase battle in The Protector with Tony Jaa and 900 thugs -Ip Man vs 10 Karate masters in the movie with the same name -The Alley fight between Roddy Piper and Keith David in They Live -Final battle in the mirrors, Enter the Dragon

EXCALIBUR This blade is not described exactly but we have a lot of information about it. It is heavily decorated with gold and jewels, is a longsword with a double edge, and has an inscription on the blade on either side: TAKE ME UP and CAST ME DOWN. Given the Christian origins of the myth under this name, it was almost certainly cruciform. The blade comes with an enchanted scabbard which I will also include. This is not the sword in the stone, which Arthur breaks eventually, but its replacement given him by the Lady of the Lake. Where and how it was forged depends on your source material; some say it was Guinevere's father, most say its faerie-made or from another world. Based on the stats and powers, I gotta go with "not made by some ordinary dude." The base sword is a longsword, which is modified into these stats: +2 OCV; 2d6 HKA; Strength Minimum: 10; Body --; PD: --; ED --; Weight 1.15kg; Size: Medium; Concealment Mod: -3 POWERS 13 pts "so breyght in his enemyes eyen that it gaf light lyke thirty torchys" Images vs sight +4 Perception; 0 END Cost (+½), Persistent (+¼) (Active Cost 38) No Range (-½), For Light Only (-½), OAF Unbreakable (-¾), Always On - can be covered and concealed with scabbard (-¼) 3 pts "Awesome world-famous sword of Arthur" Positive Reputation 14-, world renown 10 pts "Commanding presence" Presence +15; (Active Cost 15), OAF Unbreakable (-¾) 13 pts "knocks down enemies" Damage up to 5d6KA does knockback (+¼) (Active Cost 19); Only for knockdown (-½), OAF Unbreakable (-¾) 15 pts "Ignores armor" HKA damage is AVAD (magical armor defends, can be blocked or parried); Does Body (+1) (Active Cost 45), OAF Unbreakable (-¾) 11 pts "Divides between truth and lies" Detect (Lies); Ranged, Sense, A Large Class of Things; (Active Cost 20), OAF Unbreakable (-¾) 53 pts "Divides between truth and lies" Dispel (Illusion) 20d6; 0 END Cost (+½), Variable Effect (any illusory power +½) (Active Cost 120); No Range (½), OAF Unbreakable (-¾) 32 pts "Rally Army" Aid (Presence +10, OCV +2, and DCV +2) 3d6 (standard effect 10 pts); Area effect 32m Radius Accurate Selective (+1¾), Expanded Effect 3 powers at once (+1), Fades 5 points per 5 hours (+2) (Active Cost 103), No Range (½), OAF Unbreakable (-¾), Incantation (-¼), Gestures (-¼), Extra Time full phase (-½) 3 pts "Accurate and sharp" OCV +1; (Active Cost 5) OAF Unbreakable (-¾) 7 pts "Magical Weapon" HKA +1d6 (AVAD cost above) (Active Cost 15) OAF Unbreakable (-¾), Strength Minimum 10 (-¼) Total Cost: 170 (including base longsword); Active Cost total 403 COMPLICATIONS 15 pts Distinctive Looks (World famous king's sword of power) Concealable, Strong Reaction 20 pts Watched by Lady of the Lake and Merlin (more powerful, NCI, famous figure, very common, mildly punish) The damage seems low here, I agree, but with AVAD, Arthur's strength, and skill levels plus maneuvers such as a horse charge, it can easily top 4d6 which can cut a normal person in half. Most opponents, Arthur killed with one blow, and almost anything he fought, he killed until his last battle (and except for the fight against Lancelot, but that was probably with the Sword in the Stone). Excalibur was unbreakable, even with magic, so I've made it an indestructable focus. Excalibur's AVAD is terrifying, since it shears through pretty much anything, but it can be blocked and parried safely, and that's how Arthur was defeated. Arthur never managed to hit his enemy and since Morgan had stolen his scabbard, he was vulnerable to attack. Arthur never fought the Green Knight so we don't know what Excalibur would have done against his impenetrable armor, but I'm speculating it would not cleave through it magically. Between Arthur's natural presence, the bonus from the sword, the positive reputation, and the "rally" ability, Excalibur is a huge bonus to any army held by its leader. But it was not infallible; an army could lose with Excalibur present, but was very unlikely to. I presumed Arthur had to speak and hold Excalibur high to rally the troops, so I gave it a few limitations to represent that. Remember; the rally affects Arthur, too. Excalibur's powers are kind of subtle but they make a pretty terrifying combination. Excalibur's Scabbard has a lot of descriptions, but I've decided to go simple with it, and critical in a medieval field of battle: 7 pts Does Not Bleed (15 pts); OAF Scabbard (-1)

OK I want to start doing a series of Hero builds of classic weapons through history, specifically swords at first at least. Keep in mind that some of these have a tremendous amount of variation in source material through the ages, sometimes contradictory. I'm going to dig through the info and try to present a functional version of each weapon based on what I prefer from the various versions. For example, the first one -- Excalibur -- is pretty recent, but legends go back to the late Roman period and the name isn't settled until just a few hundred years ago. Modern re-tellings of the story have quite a bit of variation as well with Bernard Cornwell stripping the magic out entirely, for example. This is a pretty long topic, and if people want to throw their ideas out there, feel free. There are some weapons i'll be building even if someone else does; just consider them alternates not my insistence that your version is wrong, somehow.

I have an idea I want to pursue in the coming months as I have time (and others should contribute as they think of battles as well) in which I break down a classic TV or movie fight scene in Hero terms. The first one I want to do is the final confrontation in Unforgiven where Sheriff "Little" Bill Daggett dies. Some of them are so long or complicated they're really tough to pull off in a description for a game, but there are a lot of great ones. Like the lobby scene in The Matrix or final battle between Bolo Yeung and Jean Claude Van Damme in Bloodsport. What are some other film scenes that would be fun or interesting to do?

You can also build odd duplicates in the same body. I build a hydra that way: many duplicates, all tied together, so you can hack head after head off, and each head can attack separately, none of which is hugely tough but the monster as a whole is quite a battle to put down.

Right, and that's how I envision my trade language, mostly elven (local language Perelen) with some other languages thrown in. Since elves controlled the main gaming country for thousands of years until humans revolted and freed themselves, its still a pretty dominant culture and influence.

I think that is a fun idea, and they should get bonus points for roleplaying.

That's actually how Lingua Franca came about; it was a polyglot of several languages mushed together and used for trade and interaction between different cultures around the Mediterranean. As for elves, I agree you can come up with an argument about why they might all speak the same language, but that presupposes there's only one kind of homogeneous, identical elf out there, rather than groups of different elves from different parts of the world. As for immortality equaling linguistic stagnation, again you could make some kind of argument for cultural reasons but even in one human's lifetime their language changes significantly, adding new words, abandoning old ones, changing the way people talk and interact. Going back to the Great Britain example, there are still parts of the country that can barely understand each other, even though they are technically all speaking English. And those parts can be just a few miles apart in some cases.

This came up before (cleave topic, couple pages back) and I think the general consensus was "target drops" works fine rather than "target killed" so unconscious or dead for the exact reason you list.

The idea that all elves speak the same language all around the world is silly to me. Or humans, for that matter. In places like Great Britain there are several languages spoken in an area the size of my home state of Oregon. But in cultures and countries that interact regularly there will be a manner of trade language used for basic things (the original meaning and use of Lingua Franca).

Free play weekend coming up for Elder Scrolls Online, if you want to give it a try. If all you know is Skyrim, you're going to be disappointed, I think

Stun, Body, and Endurance are core concepts of Hero as well. Roll back the clock to 1980 and Hit Points are it for game systems: take this much and die, until that point, you're 100% and unaffected. Champions has Stun to represent being knocked out, Endurance to represent tiring out, and body to represent dying. Its not just cutting edge, it changes gaming. Its a big reason I signed on to Hero.

One way of doing so would be to use modifiers to all skills and abilities; -1 to rolls for every x damage suffered, for example. So you just get worse and worse. Players despise this kind of thing mind you, for good reason. Basically after a certain point, you're doomed to die no matter what you do.

Before building a complicated new system, I encourage you to try out the system as is a while and toy with optional rules and see how you like it or not. The present system is exceptional for simulating cinematic or comic book fights. With the right optional rules dialed in, it can be very good at simulating a more gritty combat.

Again, that's part of why I'm working on a fantasy campaign setting, so there's all that stuff available in one place. But there are already a couple of FH campaign settings out there to play with all the front end stuff created.

That's not actually true. Being an elf gives you what the GM designs his world to have elves give you. Fantasy Hero and Fantasy Hero Complete both give elf racial package suggestions with various built-in abilities. Don't think of Hero as Linux. Think of it as the programming behind Windows. The GM builds your OS and you play the game in that setting.

I can draw and am reasonably good at it, but if I was going to be doing a lot of writing, I just don't have time, particularly since I'd be donating it all. However, some young artist desperate to get into comics and wanting attention, this would be a good way to get some, even if there's no pay.

And we've seen a bunch of Hero books get funded on kickstarter: Fantasy Hero Complete, Larger than Life, Strike Force, Golden Age Champions, and more on the way. Its foolish to use the old publishing system for gaming books. We live in a niche interest world, and that's where Hero should shine.

The thing is, we're in a different publishing era that Hero needs to be taking advantage of. Its not feasible to print non-winning big sellers for a game company any longer in the old model, where you print 50000 copies and send them to game stores hoping they sell. You can't spend all that money and have the books lying around in a warehouse hoping for orders. Print is expensive, so that "Western Hero" you published is not going to have enough demand to justify the cost of writing and publishing. But we don't live in that era any longer. The model we now live in allows very niche, quirky, interesting, and specific things to be printed. Its free to list stuff as a pdf, and the profit margins are much higher. With print on demand, you don't need to have a warehouse full of books, you can print them and get them to people without needing to carry stacks of books hoping they sell. And that's big, big news for gaming companies, particularly one as flexible and interesting as Hero. All that's needed is people to write these supplements and get them out.

I don't see a problem with it, if they're evil because they're evil, not just because they look different. Evil as in "they do evil things and are innately demonically twisted" not "they are strange and we fear them." I don't like the moral soup you get into by having orcs be sometimes evil and sometimes good, Now when you go into the dungeon you have to do some kind of moral survey to find out if its okay to delve and loot. I think most people are like me, and play these games to get away from the confusion and gut wrenching difficulties of life. They want black hats to shoot at, and not worry if that was just a kid with a squirt gun.

Any campaign setting I write will necessarily have clear good and evil in it, and prefer the good. That is the kind of game I prefer to play, think is far more healthy for young people to roleplay in, and I suspect most people prefer. Others might like a more muddy and ambiguous or villain-centered game. They can write their own supplements for Hero

If they had not done this scene, and killed him, the X-men would have really suffered