bjbrown

The original (first edition) Dungeon Master's Guide for AD&D had a good herb reference in it, along with a lot of other useful things (for example, supposed magical properties of gems, equipment you might find in a wizards lab). I still use it to get "atmosphere" information.

I think it's a good practice to warn a player before his or her character gets caught up in a hopeless situation. PC: I know how to solve this situation, we'll just kill the princess. GM: Are you absolutely sure you want the king, with all of his vast henchmen and armies, ruthlessly pursuing you to avenge that death. PC: On second thought, maybe we'll think our way out of this situation instead. Especially if you have a game that does involve a lot of combat, your players may have an expectation that they have the option of fighting their way out of every problem. They may not be able to always distinguish between a situation in which you have a difficult but beatable NPC waiting to be vanquished, and the situation that you consider hopeless for the characters.

XP in my game normally goes like this. At the end of the session, players as how much XP they get. Then I try to think of what would be fair (maybe 1-3, with 2 being a good session, 3 for when I am exceptionally amused by the characters, 1 on an ordinary session). While I'm thinking of what value would be fair, one or more players may rush my decision, and I say, "Okay, half a point."

There's a FAQ ruling (under Combat Skill Levels) that deals with using CSLs with a sweep. CSLs can only be applied to the Sweep, but not to any other manuevers used within the sweep. (So you can't use your CSLs with your martial art when doing a sweep of two martial strikes, for example.)

I think that since a 3-pt. skill level applies only to related maneuvers, a character would have to actually be using a maneuver taught in the style to gain the benefit of using the skill level (such as for DCV). Further, the UMA (pp. 113-4) clarifies that the 3-pt. combat skill levels cannot be used outside of the manuevers associated with the martial art, and suggest that martial artists are still better off buying 5-pt. levels than 3-pt. levels if they want to use those levels when not using a maneuver within their pre-defined martial art.

If the shield were positioned correctly by the grabbed character, it might prevent the grabber from closing his hand and doing crushing damage. It isn't necessarily the case that, by the rules, that this particular focus is disabled (the rule says that most are disabled, not all). This sounds like one of those judgment calls, based upon the special effects of the powers. I wouldn't say that it's a cut and try ruling, but it's a reasonable ruling.

A bag of holding could be Extra-Dimensional Movement, Usable Agaisnt Others. (With a limitation that limits it to storing and recalling objects only.) If you don't mind stuffing people into it, the limitation could be that it requires a successful Grab. The glove could be similar- Shrinking, Reduced END: Zero, Persistent, Usable Against Others (again with a limitation to prevent combat use). Returning the object to normal size would simply be a matter of halting use of the power (0 phase). If you went the Transform route, you could use the Trigger advantage to give you the 0-phase snapping it back to normal size.

The rules are pretty clear in the distinction between Concealment and Stealth- concealment applies to remaining stationary without being detected, while Stealth applies to moving without detection. Concealment has a few additional uses, in addition to concealing oneself (and the rulebook does mention using Concealment on oneself)- one can use it to hide others (allowing them to avoid detection while stationary), it can be be used to hide things, and it can also be used to detect concealed people or things. Concealment is an Intellect skill, and Stealth is an Agility skill. If you're wondering which applies, ask yourself the simple question- is the character trying to hide while stationary, or hide while moving? Stationary uses Concealment, moving uses Stealth. Each skill is so highly useful on its own, that each is worth its own 3-pt. expenditure. It also makes sense to have a character who has one and not the other. In the FH game I run, every player character has Stealth (of all skills, Stealth is probably the one mandatory skill- because one character without Stealth prevents the party from sneaking around as a group). Only a couple of the characters have Concealment, since they really only need to assign one character to search a room, or hide their supply cache. So I see no reason to lump the two into one skill.

I use the optional rule for Desolidification that wouldn't require Affects Physical World for Desolification just to avoid damage from a certain physical affect. (So it's a power with a real cost of 40: Desolidifcation (40), Reduced END: Zero (+½), Persistent (+½), Only to Protect Against Limited Type of Attack.) If you use Desol. in that way to simulate complete immunity from a certain form of damage- fire for example- I think Life Support vs. Intense Heat is unnecessary. The Desol. already provides complete immunity to heat damage. I have been creating custom elementals for my Fantasy Hero game, and just like Fire Elementals get Desol. for immunity to fire damage, Air Elementals get Desol. for immunity to air-related damage. Maybe an air blast is less common than a fireball, but if for some reason my air elemental gets hit with an air blast, I don't want it taking damage. So at least in my case, the immunities to their own elements cost about the same.

Or Desolidification, 0 END Persistent, only to protect against heat damage.

Life Support will protect from damage due to a Change Environment kind of effect, but not from an attack (pg. 298 of 5th. Ed.). So basically, Life Support can help a character withstand almost anything that isn't an attack power; attack powers can still damage the character normally.

I don't see why you would need Trigger, for two reasons. The power with the Linked limitation does not have to be used when the power to which it is linked is used. So if you put the Linked limitation on the Holy Blast, you couldn't use the Holy Blast without the HKA, but you could use the HKA without the Holy Blast. Also, I don't think you can get away with 2-pt. skill levels for OCV for the sword anyway. Any skill levels you use with a linked attack must apply to both attacks. A 2-pt. skill level, by definition, can only apply to one single attack. At a minimum, a skill level with "magic sword powers" would be a 3-pt. level. And since I assume that the accuracy from the skill levels comes from the sword (and would thus apply if another character used the sword), you may as well make them 5-pt. levels with OAF. What is the purpose of the AOE on the Holy Blast? Is that to be accurate with the Holy Blast, or is that to damage more than one demon if you catch more than one in the same hex?

There's no real inherent limitation to it. The FAQ (under the general section on Advantages) suggests the GM not allow it except for very good reason. If you haven't read the FAQ yet, it's probably worthwhile to take a look at it. The first post by ghost angel has a few good examples of when a Naked Advantage might be proper, because all of the examples are situations in which it would be difficult or impossible to simulate the desired effect any other way. The one inherent limitation is that you can only use it on one power at a time. So you couldn't, for example, use a Naked Reduced END: 0 advantage on both a Force Field and an Energy Blast in the same phase- you have to choose one or the other.

There is a paragraph on Linked in the rulebook deals with this kind of situation. Linked attacks must have the same target and the same attack roll. Since you didn't buy AOE for the HKA, I'd have to think that you use the HKA attack roll for both (thus, one roll against the target character's DCV).

A 50-point IPE (all sense groups) Naked Advantage could be used with any one power of up to 50 active points. A 50-pt. Reduced END: Zero Naked Advantage could be used on any one power up to 100 active points. It's based on how many points the advantage would cost if actually bought with the power. Naked Advantage Cost = (Max. Power Active Points x Advantage Multiplier) So if you wanted IPE (all senses) (+1) to be used with any power of up to 50 active points: 50 = (50 x 1) If you wanted Reduced END: Zero (+½) to be used with any power of up to 50 active points: 25 = (50 x ½)

That's what I meant, the Climbing Skill Levels wouldn't have the Charge limitation at all. Whether the rope requires Usuable By Others at all depends largely on the GM. A universal focus allows any person holding that focus to use the power. If the character paying the points for the rope is, in most cases, going to use the rope himself, and only occasionally lend it out, then it doesn't need the Usable By Others Advantage. If it will be frequently lended, it may need Usable By Others. There is a question in the FAQ, under Focus, that discusses this issue. Whether it would require Usable By Others, or Usable by Others Simultaneous, depends on the expected usage of the rope too. If the usual use will be one person climbing it, then I don't think it needs Simultaneous. A fifty foot rope could potetially support five or more people climing it at once, but I think it would be going too far to buy up to Simultaneous and four others. I think if the rope would usually just support one person in normal use, then I wouldn't require Simultaneous, but still allow two people to climb at once on rare occasions when it was absolutely necessary. I assume there's a reason that the point values matter (e.g., a FH game using Super-Heroic rules, or point limits on the amount of equipment that can be carried).

I don't think it's appropriate to use a CON roll as the only defense to an NND attack. The idea is that the target should have some way of protecting himself from the attack. A CON roll doesn't do that, and leaves it up to chance. However, if the defense is Life Support or a CON roll, that would be fine. The Life Support fulfills the requirement that NND have a defense; the CON roll is just an extra chance at reprieve for the target.

I was talking generally about how skill levels would affect a character with skill-based magic like your Magecraft, using wizard as a generic term for a character using magic. But apparently "wizard" is a term of art in your campaign, and you took me to mean something else. I've been following the thread because I think the system you're working up as Magecraft would be a good system to use as the magic system for a FH game, if I would ever start a new one. I'm using a modified version of spell schools in my current game, and I've come to the conclusion after using it a while that it makes spells too expensive and a little too rigid. On the other hand, I feel like power frameworks would make spells a little too cheap. Magecraft has a good way of working out the power and costs of spells that strikes a balance in the middle. So I've been taking notes for future use.

The smallest skill level on which you can place a limitation would be a 3-pt. skill level, so I think you'd have to pay 15 pts. for +5 to climbing. I don't think you need Usable by Others Simultaneously unless you have more than one rope. The lowest level of Usable by Other (+¼) is probably enough. I wouldn't put 1 recoverable charge on the climbing aspect of the rope- since most of your climbing will be out of combat and you can immediately take the rope and use it again (without any real recovery time), I don't think it's an appropriate limitation. Turn it into a multi-power if you want to add other powers. If you added an entangle to it, then the 1 recoverable charge might be appropriate (since you can only tie up one person at a time). If you can use it to pull an item or person to you, it could have a Stretching (to grab only) slot as well.

I don't view the new Fantasy Hero as a big set of rules, but as a big set of suggestions, many of which I ignore. I haven't gone through it meticulously, but I think it was designed to be that way- more of a toolbook than a rulebook. I think too that 4th Ed. FH seemed geared more toward low-powered fantasy, whereas 5th Ed. FH aspires to have something for every power level. You should feel free to ignore what you don't like. For me, Chapter 3 has the only stuff I want to incorporate into my existing game (except that for the weapons charts, for which I continue to use 4th Ed.); everything else is just nice ideas that I might use if I ever run a new game. If the new package deals are a hassle for you, ignore them. That's the easiest way. If you like the way that 4th Ed. did package deals, use that. Even though I don't use package deals, I like that the 5th Ed. package deals don't alter NCM. If you want different races to have different NCM, it's probably best to create your own chart, and balance the character point bonuses with penalties (for example, balancing a STR 23 against an INT 17). I don't like some of the new Talents and Powers (such as Deadly Blow.) If one of my players asked me for something like that (say a Deadly Blow limited to undead only), I would consider it on a case-by-case basis. Don't fall into that trap of thinking that just because it's published, you must use it.

As I understand it, you can apply a Naked Advantage to any Power, as long as you paid enough points for the Naked Advantage. So, if you buy 30 points of Armor Piercing as a Naked Advantage, you can apply it to any power of up to 60 active points (but only one power at a time). I suppose you could do the same thing with Concentration as its own power. The cost would be based on the most expensive (in terms of active points) power with which you could use it. You wouldn't need to buy it more than once, unless you would need to have it for two powers at once.

In your standard Heroic game, an Overall level is still a big deal. Anything that costs 10 pts., if you only have 100-150 to work with, is a big deal. I don't think that any of the player in my game even considered getting Overall levels until they had built up some XP after playing (and I still think only one or two of the player characters actually have an Overall level). Now, if you have a spell skill system, Overall levels may become more attractive to wizards. If a wizard is going to start with eight spells, for example, a 10-point Overall level (or 8-pt. All-Skill level) to help all of their spells is less expensive than buying up the skill roll for each individual spell. That may be an issue to examine when refining that system- how wizard characters might use skill levels to save potentially lots of points. Depending on your game, you may or may not care if spells are cheap, but you may care that upgrading those All-Skill Levels to Overall Levels only costs 2 pts.

The first time that Dive for Cover came on my radar screen was a game in which I was GM, and I was giggling as I announced my NPCs big fireball that I was sure would blow away the target PC. And then he announced the Dodge for Cover, and I read the rule and hated it because it defeated my NPCs grand scary attack. I allowed the Dive for Cover but vowed to examine the rule closely (thinking I would alter it with a house rule for being too powerful). However, my close examination of the rule yielded the insight that Grimwyrd just posted. I have now developed several ways to not only deal with Dive for Cover, but to royally screw PCs who use it. I won't reveal all of my plans for Dive for Cover, but the most obvious drawbacks are that (a) it eats the character's next action and ( the character is prone. So two villains acting in combination can set up a skittish hero as such: E-Blasting Villain aims Scary Fireball, Hero dives for cover, then Sniper Villain nails Hero while he's at half DCV. If E-Blasting Villain doesn't have backup, he could choose to Rapid Fire the attack. First shot at the character's current hex, the second shot to go at the new hex. Villain fires the first shot, Hero dives for cover, and Villain then lands the second shot with Hero unable to do anything about it. Old Man makes the other point that I hadn't considered, which is that the target can only Dive for Cover if he knows what's coming. Depending on the special effect of the attack, the target may not know that it's an area effect attack until he's hit with it. (Variable and/or Invisible Power Effects could prevent a target from knowing when to Dive for Cover, too.) In most cases, I'm not sure that a target would perceive the subtle distinction between being personally targeted or the hex being targeted, if he's in the middle of the hex being targeted. And anyway, even though game-mechanically it's the hex and not the character being tarageted, often it's the character in the hex who is the real focus of the attack.

It sounds like you want to encourage wizards to select spells around a theme, without limiting them to a particular kind of magic. One thing you could do is use Killer Shrike's Magecraft with spell skills, but add your broad categories as separate skills that could be used as a complementary skill when casting a spell of the category. This will save a wizard points when he buys four or more spells from the same category (with three spells from the same category, he would be better off with a 3-pt. skill level; with more than three spells, the broad category skill compares favorably with a 5-pt. skill level). I like the 'Magecraft' idea too.

If one has to pay double for characteristics beyond human maxima, why not pay double for skill levels beyond normal human maxima? I wonder how this system deals with skill levels. So I can't buy my Seduction skill up to 21-, but why not 15- and six skill levels (combinations of 3, 5, and/or 10-pt. skill levels, depending on what other skills I have and want to bump up).