Toxxus

At our Saturday game a couple of weeks ago the party's Witcher got mind controlled and then landed a vitals crit that dropped my wife's sorceress directly to -6 BOD with a disabling wound (no Recoveries). Crits are scary, but they do make for some really dramatic encounters. Making sure the party wins can be a little tricky at times.

We're past 22 trillion in debt and it certainly doesn't seem like any of the money is going to workforce and infrastructure improvements. Every time the government wants to siphon off a massive load of cash for infrastructure projects the money just seems to evaporate. Also, basic economics would show that if I make $30,000 a year, but am currently $220,000 in debt I'm in bad !@#$ing shape. That's basically where we are now.

Both parties are addicted to spending. Raising taxes won't help because that money (and more) will immediately be spent. I can tell because I've been paying into social security for over 3 decades and all of that money is already gone. Not a cent of what I was promised has been saved. It's entirely dependent on current year tax revenue. I honestly feel like we could raise IRS revenues to 5 trillion a year and we would still run a deficit after a year or two. It's quite easy to spend money that you haven't earned and our government has been proving that for decades on end. It's always the same old drum beat. Sorry we did such a crappy job with this program. What we need to do it right is MORE of your money and MORE control over your life. Then we'll do it right...

I've given some stats indirectly - not the actual values - but in a way that the players knew they had to come up with alternate approaches to "whack with sword until dead". One I used recently as a players usual moderate-to-high damage was ineffective due to high defenses. Rather than just pointing out it did no damage I described it as, "You feel like you've slapped a tree wrapped in iron. He doesn't even react to the blow.". Sometimes comparing to players on the team will give them a good enough of an idea. Ex: The paladin is stronger than anyone you've ever met by twice over and yet the creature bats him aside like a child's plaything. They know they can't out-muscle something like that. blah, blah, short version - No, I never give them creature write-ups. I have given some stats if a player on the team has the right knowledge skill or faces the creature in combat long enough to get an idea of what it's strength, speed, dex, pd, etc. might be.

Now run the same chart based on the party that has the majority in congress... The best mix so far seems to be Democrat president + Republican congress.

It's been a minute since I've crunched the the numbers on this, but it leads to modest increase in average stun and body damage compared to 3d6. It certainly does feel more right than punching someone in the ankle, though.

Really depends on your group and what the players like. They're going to need help getting through it the first few times. I did find replacing OCV and DCV with Offense and Defense made a BIG difference in how easily they remembered it.

Especially for heroic level games I think hit locations are great. I've found my players like a visceral, cinematic description of what their attack to a specific body part does in game. In last night's game a guy landed a critical normal damage attack (gauntleted fist, growth spell active) to a hobgoblin's arm which was enough to stun it and injure the arm severely. Whole table laughed at the idea of the hobgoblin succumbing to a big-brother punch to the shoulder.

American politicians mostly. Americans in general are appalled and disgusted by the prison system and complete lack rehabilitation that occurs therein. Trump, nutty as he is, is the first president in a long time to start making real efforts to get people OUT of prisons. His First Step and Second Step programs are going to result in a large number of people who got crushing / overkill sentences based on stupid drug war era mandatory sentencing guidelines back into the work force. God forbid someone who has done their time could actually get a job and have to resort to crime and return to prison.

You might also just chalk that up to special effects. Bullets and lasers are harder to block, but arrows can pin the target to a wall and boomerangs can easily be bounced into secondary targets.

Speed is strong, but the perceived value of speed is even stronger. I had one of my teams encounter a big bad and his team of mercenaries. The enemy bard did an AoE Aid Speed 1pt and the entire party focus fired him down as though the big bad and the healer were no threat at all.

Just read the whole thing. It's great. It could benefit from a little artwork, but content wise it is excellent. I will share with my groups immediately.

You can run out of likes??

I use them in my Fantasy Hero campaigns and they are reasonably deadly. They also make plain that highly offensive maneuvers that reduce DCV (haymaker, multiple attack, bracing for archers/mages) make you vulnerable in ways that can be dire. I also like that a standard issue goon with a 2d6k can stay dangerous even in higher level campaigns. My Wednesday night table is in the section of the book designed for 14th level D&D characters. They are handling it pretty well, but they had less trouble with the Behir (lightning dragon basically) than they did with the 20 hobgoblins in plate and chain. The sheer number of arrows flying at them resulted in a couple crits and one guy took an arrow to the helmet that moderately wounded him and KO'd him on the spot.

I find OCV/DCV/MOCV/MDCV to be the most confusing terms for my new players. If they eliminated CV completely and just used Offense / Defense / etc. there would probably be less confusion. With the current games I ask the players to give me their adjusted OCV (base +/- maneuver and situational mods) and then tell them what number they're trying to beat.

Depending on the range and volume of arrows it was probably some of both.

We use it here in Texas a lot and my heating bills in the winter run about $30-40/month. It is amazing. If I could run my air conditioner on natural gas I'd save a fortune. Gets a bit hot here (like 3rd level of Hell hot) in the summer.

It was, in fact, glorious. How often does a sitting congressman use star wars (Hoth), aquaman and velociraptors being ridden by Reagan to make counter-points against a piece of legislation? It was premium grade trolling.

The gaps between the blades also make it likely that the fire would wash through the shield and scorch him.

I've been using Deadly Blow to simulate the backstab feature for my current crop of D&D converts. Just to keep the change to Fantasy Hero as familiar as possible I've kept the same contraints as 5th Edition D&D (ally in melee range with target or advantage [anything that would normally result in 1/2 DCV on target in HERO]).

My current group of roughly equivalent to D&D level 13 characters are an even mix of speed 3 and speed 4. I introduced the idea of a schtick (I believe I got that off of Scott Ruggels) and am now contemplating whether nor not to allow the party rogue to hit speed 5. It's 20 character points though so I'll probably allow it if he has the points to pay for it. So far the majority of encounters between enemies has been with speed 3 opponents and only some of the faster and more powerful creatures hit speed 4. Speed 5+ is rare indeed in the bestiary. Probably will save that for vampire lords, demons and creatures of unparalleled physical prowess. I consider speed 5 to be on the cusp of superhuman. Speed 6+ is not possible for humans - full stop.

Based on what I've seen in the news the last few years I'd swear their job is to pretend to be happy with a poorly paying government job while finding ways to steal millions of dollars from their campaign funds and pay-to-play deals. Congressional approval ratings of late are on par with root canals and malaria.

I absolutely agree that the "any item you can personally carry and use" interpretation would be foolhardy. Recoilless Rifles? Grenade Launchers? Some Mortars? No good. I am intrigued by how open you are to "repeal and replace" for the 2nd. What wording would you be open to. I would have to put some serious though into that. Off the cuff - I think I'd like it to be in range of each person in "The People" to be on par with an infantry soldier. So, melee weapons, pistols, select fire rifles - all good. I'm much less good with heavy artillery and anti-vehicle grade weapons. I'd also be OK with some mandatory training and education on safe use. I'm in Texas and our concealed carry permits require fingerprinting, background check, training and passing a certain score at a gun range. All of it seems reasonable to me. We agree completely on mortars. One of the big problems I have with aggressive gun control is that it puts the disabled, elder and women at severe disadvantage when dealing with criminals. Even the CDC clocks in the number of defensive gun uses at more than 10x the rate of homicides. I can't see taking away weapons from some would be killers at the cost of many, many more women and children becoming victims.

This is a very commonly used and incredibly weak argument for gun control. It doesn't change the nature of the 2nd amendment and it represents an incredibly tiny, tiny percentage of gun deaths. More people die from being punched to death in America than shot with automatic weapons. More than all rifles, in fact. If gun control were actually important it would be aimed at pistols and would have to include all of them. If gun control were actually about saving lives it would be forgotten entirely until we dealt with the things that massively, massively kills us in comparison (heart disease, smoking, obesity, cancer, medical mistakes, motor vehicle accidents, etc.). Gun control is about 1 thing and 1 thing only - disarming the public. When it comes to disarming the citizens Gandhi says no and Hitler says yes. Pick a team.

I found the murder of Kulak farmers and the subsequent starvation of millions to be a great example of why socialism and communism should be avoided like the plague.