PhilFleischmann

But the questions asked need not be about the future, nor even about some remote location.

Looks good. For Specialists, I assume you mean that the 2x END cost minimum is for spells outside their specialization. For Diabolism, what does "Easy to learn (PRE/2)" mean?

That could work, but I would want to charge a higher price than usual for contacting a god. A Mind Link with a god is a lot more powerful than a Mind Link with just some guy. Sort of like the x3 cost for "Spirit Contacts" mentioned in FH somewhere. And there's nothing in this build that compels the god to answer your questions, or even to tolerate your interruption of his day. And the god doesn't even necessarily know the answer to all your questions anyway. How will this spell be used? If it's just a GM-handwavy thing to move the plot forward, then such an ability might even be free. Otherwise, as a useful ability, it could possibly be built as a Detect - which would probably require Analyze and a lot of advantages, maybe even a VPP of "Detect Answers to Questions", 3 Charges, Once per week.

Oh yes. Delphileq, the King of the Gods, created the world, and everything that was originally in it. (There are a few details that some dispute.) He created humans and the other PC races, animals, plants, earth and sky, land and sea, stars and planets, and the first five other gods, who in turn created other gods, or had children who were then gods by birth. These other gods took on governorship of various parts of creation, unburdening Delphileq. There are gods of natural phenomena: Sun, Moon, Weather, Rivers, Earth/Soil/Stone, etc. There are gods of human activities: Money/Trade, Building/Architecture, the Arts, Hunting, Games, Storytelling, etc. There are gods of more abstract concepts: Justice, Love, Family, Youth, Courage, Knowledge, Freedom, Purity, etc. And there are evil gods of phenomena: Disease, Pain, etc.; activities: Thieves, Evil Magic, etc.; and concepts: Violence, Despair, Corruption, etc. And I've left room for minor gods and demigods of more specific aspects of the above, in case a player wants one as their patron deity. For example, the goddess of the moon may have a child who is specifically the (much lesser known) god(dess) of the crescent moon. I tell my players, if you don't see a god on the list you like, make one up, and I'll fit it into the family tree somewhere! I suppose I should also mention the methods of "god creation" within the milieu: A god can be (1) created, essentially ex nihilo, by another god, (2) born to parents, at least one of whom is a god, (3) raised from mortal to divine status by a god, out of merit or the god's favor, or (4) raised from mortal to divine status by being married to a god - either before or after they became a god. Of course, no new gods have been created since the mythical past. Oh, and there's one exception: Quinimi, god of luck, is said to have created himself out of nothing, as impossible as that seems. He's popular among gnomes.

I do not use any "divide by X" system for the cost of magic spells. You pay full price. I do allow frameworks, in the following ways: A multipower is for an individual spell that has multiple applications, like an Earth-Shaping spell which can be used to set up a physical Barrier, or can be used to Entangle a foe. You can't just put your Invisibility, Detect Magic, Mind Control, Heal Wounds, Mystic Blast, and Animal Friendship spells into one Multipower just because you're a wizard and you want to save points. VPPs are available to put all your spells in if you want, but there has to be some restrictions on switching the slots around - like to have to spend a few hours studying your spellbook. You can't just change to any spell you want on the fly. And usually all the spells have to be pre-defined. Usually, you can't just make up some new spell you've never cast before. And these things are usually only used by more powerful wizards. A lower-powered wizard might have a half-dozen spells, each with only one possible application. With some experience, they may turn one or more of them into a multipower to be able to do more than one thing with a given spell. Or they may add whole new spells, but put them in a VPP so they can only access a half-dozen of them at any given time. In general, I really dislike the deendee model of wizard as walking artillery platforms. If you want to kill something, go ahead and use a sword or a bow. Magic is for things you can't do with weapons. And yes, mage-type characters have full access to the use of weapons and armor, like any other character. And fighter-types can purchase spells if they want. I use what I sometimes call a "low-wide" magic system. Magic is pretty common, and everyone could potentially buy magic spells or abilities (though not everyone does, of course). But magic is not particularly flashy, but usually more utilitarian. "Fireball"-type spells are pretty rare, and almost always come with serious restrictions on their use - especially if they're significantly more powerful than the weapons you can buy for money. Powerful spells - even directly damaging combat spells - are possible, but since you're paying full price for them, it may leave you with not enough points for other things you might want for a character with a good chance at surviving.

I don't have any problem with medieval-style cultures and feudalistic monarchies as the most common form of government within fantasy worlds. After all, not all feudalistic monarchies are the same. And that's how a lot (perhaps the majority) of the fantasy source material is. One of the central concepts of my fantasy campaign world is that the central area where most of the PCs are from is fairly "normal" and familiar - and the farther away they travel, the weirder things get, not just in terms of monsters encountered, but natural phenomena, cultures, and governments. And even so, most nations are still feudal monarchies: Virbenland is a feudal monarchy ruled by a wise and just and well-loved king. However, there is a problem looming: The king's only son and heir to the throne recently died on adventure, so while the king should likely have many years left to his life, this is a problem that will have to be dealt with eventually. Neron is a feudal monarchy with almost the opposite problem: The old king died, leaving a spoiled brat of a teenager on the throne. It's pretty obvious that the new king has neither the wisdom nor maturity to handle this position (but I wouldn't say that too loudly within the borders of Neron, if I were you). There are various advisors and courtiers who manipulate the king's decrees and policies for their own personal benefit. The nation is still reasonably stable for now, but corruption may increase faster than the young king's powers of discernment. Jasser is a feudal monarchy in which many of the nobles are nearly as powerful as the king himself. As long as the nation remains prosperous, the government remains stable. But one significant famine, plague, monster attack, or enemy invasion could easily trigger a civil war. Modro-tonla has a king, but it's really more of a tribal society. Any powerful warlord could decide to depose the king and become a new king, and that's the generally accepted practice. The Modro-tonlans pretty much universally accept the idea of might makes right. Any king that is overthrown didn't deserve to remain king. The elves have a king, but it's mostly ceremonial. The phrase "elvish politics" is almost an oxymoron. All the gnomes in the world acknowledge a single king - and it's an utterly thankless job. Every king of the gnomes, of every age, has befallen some misfortune - usually a very weird one, and perhaps magical. Usually, this does not result in the immediate death of the king, but all gnomes collectively keep an eye out for possible solutions to the king's problem. The main dwarven nation has a titular king, but it is not hereditary. He is chosen by the elders of all the various families. And this council of elders rules the nation, with the king merely presiding over the council, sort of like a prime minister. Temna is an ancient-Roman-style republic (more or less), with a senate, and citizens (who live in the cities and have the right to vote for their representatives), freemen (who live outside the cities, and generally are not represented), and slaves. It turns out that hereditary feudal monarchies are quite natural,and tend to be a fairly stable form of government. A modern-style democratic republic like the US seems IMO to be out of place in a fantasy world. Even when hereditary monarchies are overthrown, they're often replaced with another hereditary monarchy (like North Korea).

In my fantasy campaign world, the gods are real, and their reality is more-or-less undisputed. But they don't make personal appearances in the mortal world, at least not since some mythical age many centuries or millennia ago. And mortals' understanding of the gods may not always be 100% accurate. I have a rather large pantheon (50+), but less than half of those are well-known. Some are known only in certain areas (The god of the sea is not well-known in a landlocked nation, for example). Some are minor gods with small followings. Some are secret, like some of the evil gods. There are not separate gods for each nation or culture, but different nations may have different names for the same god. Likewise, there is no "god of elves" or "god of orcs" - any more than there is a "god of humans". Yes, some gods are going to naturally be more popular among certain races than others. The god of forests is very popular among elves, and the god of mountains is very popular among dwarves, and not the other way around. And also unlike the deendee model, each god is not a separate religion. Everyone worships any or all the gods according to their need at the time. For example, when a loved one dies, people will pay homage to the god of death (who is not an evil god - just the god of that particular natural life phenomenon). Individuals may have one particular patron deity, and priests/clerics are usually devoted to one specific god, but all the gods, all the priesthoods - at least the "good-aligned" ones, get along with each other. And many cities and nations will have a specific patron deity, but probably not most small villages. And most people live their day-to-day lives without thinking all that much about the gods. If a travelling priest happens to visit the little village of peasant farmers, they'll listen to him teach and preach, and maybe they'll get some wisdom or inspiration out of it, but then they go back to work. And yes, there are magical, mystical places in the world that may have derived their mysterious and unnatural properties from the gods in some bygone eon.

Impairing and disabling rules are fine, but I thought the whole point of this exercise was to simplify the system. If someone wants KA to be more likely to kill, not impair, not disable. Actually, it was BNakagawa that asked about that. All I was talking about was altering the BODY count on dice for KAs. Depending on ones preferences and the type of game, you could use any of these schedules: 0, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2 = Normal Attack 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2 = simple KA that was proposed** 0, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2 = My usual preference and recommendation* 0, 0, 1, 1, 2, 3 = a more radical possibility I mentioned.*** 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2 = an idea Duke Bushido mentioned, which does slightly higher average BODY or you could use any other scheme you like, such as 0, 0, 1, 2, 2, 2 = more likely to get high or low results 0, 0, 0, 2, 2, 2 = less average BODY, but swingier 0, 0, 0, 2, 2, 3 = same average BODY, but very swingy. or even 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 7 = the "Hail Mary" KA. * This is the only one I'm actually recommending. ** I find this one reasonably acceptable, too. Mostly because of its simplicity, but I prefer a little more variability. *** This is probably as extreme as I'd ever even consider actually using, and only in very specific types of games, like maybe a low fantasy (or VERY low fantasy) game where the main theme is large army-vs-army fighting. Or perhaps a non-fantasy "skilled normals" game of soldiers in a large-scale war. Maybe.

Yes, that's a question that I already asked. I'll ask it again for the third time: What type of game? IMO, regardless of the type of game, a 12 DC KA should be more likely to kill than a 12 DC NA. I'm assuming they have the same cost. In some games, the KA should be only slightly more likely to kill, and in other games,it should be a lot more likely to kill. In games where killing is specifically not desired, KAs might not be appropriate to have at all, at least for most PCs. In games where enemies are to be killed, most PCs wouldn't bother with normal attacks. ----- Another possibility that just now occurred to me: Perhaps a new Power Advantage should be added for the one use for KAs in games where you don't want to kill: Breaking Things. So maybe a +1/2 Advantage, "Does 2x BODY to Inanimate Objects", or something like that. Or maybe, fully within the rules, a partially limited power: Xd6 Blast, +YD6 Only vs. Inanimate Objects. The limitation value would then be based on how often it is likely to be useful in the game, which again depends on the type of game.

No, it only suggests that there is *some* level of variability of normal attacks. What percentage of people who fall from airplanes (without parachutes) live? What percentage of people who slip and fall die? As opposed to the percentage of people who take a chainsaw to the neck and live, or who get stabbed by a small knife and die? That was exactly my point. We agree. As to the question of balance, we still need more information, the same information I asked for the first time: Balanced at what cost? In what type of game?

Exactly. That's my point. A RAW 1d6 KA does 1 BODY on a bad roll, and 6 BODY on a good roll. With the 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2 scheme, a 3d6 KA (with this new method) does 3 BODY on a bad roll and 6 body on a good roll. And that good roll is 1 in 216, as opposed to 1 in 6. It depends on the style of game you're running, but realistically, killing attacks are dangerous and unpredictable. You don't have much control over exactly how much damage they will do. When I was a young boy, my mama told me, "Son, Always be a good boy and don't ever play with guns." Well I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him take about 6-7 BODY, which wouldn't be enough to kill him.

It may be desired by someone who wants greater realism, or a "grittier," more dangerous game. I think that realistic variability is part of the reason why KA were the way they were in the first place. IRL, you could be stabbed by a small knife and die instantly, or have a minor wound that heals in a day or two. As to the coin flip minimum/maximum damage power, balanced at what cost? For what kind of game? In a typical superheroes game where heroes outright killing villains is frowned upon, then it's probably not the power you want. But in say a fantasy game, where you'll have to kill monsters with high defenses, such an all-or-nothing power would be quite useful. A lot of it comes down to defense levels. Against an opponent with high defenses, a lower than average roll may be entirely bounced - so it may as well have been the minimum roll for all the effect it had. While an average roll does maybe just a little damage. A very high roll is what you hope for, but is unlikely to happen. So this coin-flip-min-max power would be very effective in that context. In a game with lower defenses, it wouldn't be that good, since the effect of a low-to-average roll is still significant enough to be useful, whereas an absolute minimum roll 50% of the time would be dangerously risky. As to the "complexity" of the extra math that may be involved for any of the ideas we've discussed, that can easily be addressed by customizing your dice. I've done this before with regular RAW rules. Get some dice with white pips and a red permanent marker. Color in one of the pips on the 2, 3, 4, and 5 sides, and color in two of the pips on the 6 side. Then STUN = total of the dice, and BODY = total red pips. And if you want to use one of these new systems for KAs, you can have some separate "killing damage dice" with the 1 side colored in, or two pips on the 5 side colored in, or whatever. You could then even reduce the STUN damage to just the white pips on the Killing damage dice. STUN = white pips, BODY = red pips. And you'll want to get different color dice for normal and killing damage, obviously. Say, blue for normal, and black for killing. Or you could just use one set of dice for both, with an extra color (say orange), so for Normal attacks, STUN = total pips, BODY = red pips; and for Killing, STUN = white pips (or total - # of dice), and BODY = red + orange pips. Flavor to taste.

That works, too. I happen to prefer 0, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2. Either way, the average BOD is 17% more than a Normal attack. If you want to preserve more of the original swinginess of KAs, you could even do something more extreme, like 0, 0, 1, 2, 2, 2. Or even 0, 0, 1, 1, 2, 3!

This was the method I had suggested many years ago. -1 STUN per die, and BODY is 0, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2. Thus, a KA does 17% more BODY and 29% less STUN than a Normal attack.

You could just build it as a Summon, and give it a limitation "Summoned creature disappears if the target "disbelieves" it." And then define what disbelieving entails,

Wouldn't just straight Fuel Charges work? Instant powers use just one phase of "fuel". And Continuous powers use more.

Why would anyone pay extra to link Simulate Death to Healing when you could just buy the Healing by itself, and the subject would be able to walk and talk and engage in all his normal activities? You don't pay more points for something that's a limitation. Buy Healing with whatever Gradual Effect/Extra Time you want, and then add a Lockout limitation at, say, -2: Subject is completely immobile and unconscious for the entire duration. Link some Defenses if the subject is in some protective encasement (steel autodoc box, ice, carbonite, etc.).

Various Enhanced Senses - especially Detects - can be useful for tracking, determining if there are particular types of monsters in the area, if an area has been tampered with by something "unnatural", etc. Create Food spells can be very useful. Or water, or purifying water (or food) if you happen to come across a stagnant pond. Various kinds of Healing and Aid - especially to counter the effects of natural poisons and venoms. Animal Friendship - which could be bought as simply as extra PRE - only for dealing with animals (or only certain kinds of animals). Speak with animals (Telepathy), Summon Animals. Plant/Wood shaping Desolid - only to pass through dense vegetation.

White Lines, by Grand Master Flash & Melle Mel

But there's more to the "cost" of a weapon than its manufacturing. There's also the training and skill needed to use it. When firearms were first invented, they weren't very good - they often misfired, and they were slow to reload, and they were certainly expensive to make. Nonetheless, they still caught on very quickly. Even though swords and bows and arrows were "better" in many ways, guns were so much easier to use. Just point and shoot. Very little strength required, relative to a sword or bow. And when you want to raise an army, sufficiently skilled personnel is a lot more expensive than weapons. Anyone with two functioning hands and reasonably good eyesight can fire a rifle with a decent level of effectiveness. Why are there swords in science fiction? Because many science fiction writers are really writing fantasy. Just cross out the word "monster" and put in "alien". Replace "distant kingdom" with "distant planet". Instead of "evil magic curse on the world", say "planet-destroying weapon" or "doomsday device". And keep the swords, even if you have to rename them.

But no culture is going to survive for long if it values tradition over survival. Attacking at range always has been and always will be an advantage. Range beats no-range. Longer range beats shorter range. It's been true throughout the history of warfare. This is a useful point. A stealth operation is a different task than an open combat. Different tools for different tasks. How much does it cost to die and lose the battle as opposed to living and winning the battle? No nation, no police force, no individual facing combat is going to be cheap when it comes to a matter of life and death. Possibly, depending on how effectively those laws are enforced. Like a tyrannical space empire where the imperial troops have ranged weapons, but no one else is allowed to. Of course, they have to be able to shoot better than Star Wars Storm Troopers. See #4. A sword as a backup weapon is reasonable for when you run out of ammo, but you'd do whatever you could to reload. If I can shoot you from 100 meters away, I'm not going to be the least little bit intimidated by your sword. Also possible. The personal shields in Dune, and other possible technical factors. Maybe there's an "intense magnetic field" that renders the energy-zap weapons ineffective. However, people would do everything they could to develop military technology to get around these problems - a gun that *can* penetrate the shield, a lasgun that doesn't cause a dangerous explosion on contact with the energy shield, a zapgun that still works even in an intense magnetic field. While some of these are good reasons, a whole lot of swords-in-sci-fi is just bad writing. In particular, the Klingon bat'leth makes no sense at all. And neither does a lightsaber with a mini-lightsaber crossguard.

In a world where superheroes exist, normal people are just naturally tougher. That's why Mr. Incredible can knock his boss through several walls and he still lives.

Of all the ones on that list that I've seen: Brain Candy (44%) was hilarious, but I recognize that the style of humor is different from what most people are used to (but that's a good thing, IMO). Waterworld (43%) Meh. Tommy Boy (44%) Yeah, 44% seems about right. To Fong Woo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar (42%) A pretty good movie, IMO. Patrick Swayze actually *acts* in this one. The Hudsucker Proxy (58&) What?!? This was a GREAT movie! I call it the urban version of Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? (And without the musical numbers.) Cabin Boy (46%) Funny enough. I guess most people don't relate to "weirder" comedies. Hocus Pocus (30%) Overrated at 30%! Truly awful. RobinHood: Men in Tights (48%) Yuck. Generally speaking, the less Mel Brooks appears in one of his own movies, the better. So I Married an Axe Murderer (50%) Very funny! Not even that weird. What's not to like? Death Becomes Her (48%) Bad. An attempt at dark comedy, but they left out the comedy.

Right! Forgot about that. But mostly, I'm thinking about comic book readers.

Spiderman had super strength from Amazing Fantasy 15. He climbs up the side of a building and crushes a metal ventilation pipe as if it was a toilet paper roll. If "Old Cap" was at Peggy's funeral, why didn't anyone know about it? Who ever heard of a funeral where the dead person's spouse hides in the back somewhere and tries not to be seen, and no one wonders why? Even if he called himself Roger Stevens, and no one recognized him (wearing Clark Kent's glasses), at least some people would have come up to him to give condolences, etc. The only way around this is for Roger Stevens to have been pretty much a shut-in the whole time, so that no neighbors ever met him and he had no social life and no friends other than Peggy. Or else they would have had to keep it a total secret that Peggy had a husband at all. And how do you do that? Steve isn't the kind of guy to shack up with a woman he's not married to, especially living in the 40's-50's. In the released Phase IV list of movies, where the hell is Spidey? Why bring him back from the cornflake field if he's not going to make an appearance (at least not in his own movie) in Phase IV? Are we going to have to wait for Phase V to see a movie with - let's face it - the biggest and most important start of Marvel? Especially if they've set up Peter to be the new Tony. Who gives a damn about Shang Chi or the Eternals, when the all-time favorite is Spiderman? Shang Chi and the Eternals (and what other new characters were mentioned? I've already forgotten.) are not even second-stringers. More like eighth-stringers. The biggest stars of Marvel are Spiderman, the X-Men (Wolverine), the FF. Avengers (Cap, Hulk) are close seconds. To resolve the Fox/Sony issues regarding integrating X-Men, FF, etc., into the MCU, they simply need to lock all their lawyers in a room, and them make the following movies, and this is the order I'd recommend them: 1. Spiderman meets FF (***These are not the titles, just the methods of introductions.) 2. X-Men meet Avengers 3-5. Anyone else that needs to be brought in. Such as Ghost Rider from Agents of SHIELD in a movie with, say, Spidey. Either one can be the guest star in the other's movie. Daredevil maybe teams up with Spidey vs Kingpin. Who else? Deadpool? 6+. Any new characters they want to bring in. Sure, go ahead with the Eternals and Shang Chi. Check off all the demographic boxes. Oh, and incorporate "The Gifted", and the Inhumans, and add in the New Mutants. And Powerman & Iron Fist. By the time they're done making all these movies, all the lawyers will have starved to death, and everyone will be happy.