Steve Long

However, I did forget to post, in response to the question's mention of Cyclops, that the power I put in the book that's a version of Cyclops's eyebeams is listed under "Force Powers" for lack of a better place to put it.

Yes. As noted in the rules, BOECV powers do STUN damage only unless you pay for Does BODY.

No. The character has to wait until a later Phase and make another ECV Attack Roll. He can’t use a multiple-Power attack to do it all in one Phase, either, because the second attack presupposed the establishment of the lock-on.

1. Technically, no. However, the GM can certainly let common sense trump legalistic rules interpretations if that seems appropriate.

2. Just apply Ranged (+1/2) to the power. I don’t see any problem with that; there’s nothing hinky about applying Ranged to a power that allows you to attack someone with a power that sends them a MegaRange away.

now go out and top it

We're workin' on it.

At the very least, we'll gild the lily a bit with The Spacer's Toolkit.

Just apply a Limitation, Only Works Against Desolidified Characters. The value of the Limitation depends on how common Desolidified characters tend to be in the game; a -1/2 or -1 is probably about right for most campaigns.

There are specific rules for appying Advantages to Martial Maneuvers in UMA that specifically note you can't accomplish the same thing by Advantaging (is that a verb?) your STR. I'd apply the same logic to other Combat Maneuvers, in the interest of game balance. In short, I'd just let you Autofire your punch (Strike) and leave it at that.

The sheer nebulousness of the concept is probably a good indication that this isn't a good idea for a power.

Yes.

Thanx, AE! It's much easier for me to keep track of via e-mail.

It's not necessarily either. It's generic comic book "force," as in the sort of thing generic force fields is made out of.

1. The Limitation indicates you have to aim for the Head and take the appropriate OCV penalty. If you hit, you get the damage bonus.

2. Just apply a Grab to Hit Location 5 and then invoke the drowning rules. That takes time, but then again, so does strangulatin' someone.

And just wait until they release Campaign Cartographer: Space. That will also be a big help for SH mapping. We came along a bit too late for ProFantasy to do what Richard Frey did -- build in a random sector generator using the SH rules -- but the CC: Space should complement SH nicely.

It ought to have a computer; I just didn't remember to include one. I probably meant to go back and do it and just never got around to it.

I'd suggest just using one of the ones from Champions and making a few appropriate changes. That ought to tide you over.

There's a question in the Rules FAQ about what the phrase means. If that doesn't clarify things for you, please post a follow-up.

The text of the Skill contains your answer.

I'm currently working on painting the cover to "Spacer's Toolkit." so don't fret, you'll see a lot of these guys in full living color soon enough.

And it is, I must say, a way cool cover. It shows a bunch of explorers of various species using gadgetry to explore a mysterious alien ruin -- while Xenovores lurk in the shadows! Even if TE itself doesn't make you want to run a game using the setting, this cover illo will.

Add the "Experience Points" or other bonus points to the Base Points when determining the cost of the Follower. IOW, think of them as "Base Points," too.

::sigh:: I'm more convinced than ever that the Follower rules need reworking. They're far more complicated than they need to be.

1. No. See 5E 207, last sentence.

2. The individual Charges on the slots are taken on the slots. Regardless of what they add up to, you don't place a Charges Limitation on the reserve. Charges on reserves are a separate thing, discussed on 5E 207 (and also in a couple of Rules FAQ questions, IIRC).

It's not a silly question at all. I've been giving the issue some more thought, and I now think ultimately it should probably come down to GM's judgment. There are enough situations where a character should be able to easily remove his own Entangle that the rules might as well not place any unnecessary roadblocks in the way of common sense.

Too bad this didn't come up prior to my recent HEROglyphs article on Entangles. I could've addressed the topic in more detail then, and not felt as if I were avoiding the "real work" of writing books.

I've got the GURPS western book. It's pretty good, but I plan to do even better.

We just got an updated version of the software that I forwarded to Ben, which should be available soon.

It definitely makes sense, but I'm afraid it's not going to happen. We're not going to have room for anything like that, and we've already got the ones in the HSB anyways.

That's just a typo. It should be an extra Phase.

It doesn't say that. It says that to make a power Invisible to all but one group requires the full +1 Advantage and a voluntary declaration that the other Sense Group can still perceive the power. Saying otherwise could end up granting a character an unfair benefit. But, as always, if you prefer to do things some other way in you're game, go for it!

I definitely want to do another Western Hero. I already have bunches of researched Western game writing that didn't make it into any Deadlands supplements, and I can easily build from that into a way cool WH book. But, as Darren so correctly notes, WH is way down the priority list.

Nevertheless I'm always on the lookout for useful reference sources. Just got a great one on Sunday, about trains.