PhilFleischmann

No. Actually, I was thinking of the armor tables in FREd. That IS a known erratum in the official errata. And I looked up the error that slaughterj mentions, but I don't see it. The armor weights look the same to me.

I use an additional advantage, which I call "Automatic Selective Target." It's like Selective Target, but doesn't require an additional attack roll for each target. How much should this cost? Well, AE Nonselective is a +3/4 advantage and requires additional attack rolls, AE Selective is a +1 1/4 advantage and requires additional attack rolls, but only hits enemies. The difference between hitting everyone in the area and hitting only the ones you select is +1/2. Therefore, I claim that AE Selective w/No additional attack roll should cost +1 1/2 (+1 for AE w/o add'l attack rolls, +1/2 for only hitting those selected).

I'm aware of that. But does anyone think that a cat has 54 points of skills more than an average human? This isn't a "finished" cat. This is a typical average domesticated cat. And the bestiary says it has 73 points more than a typical human. And as for climbing, why do cats get stuck up in trees? Obviously their Climbing skill is not always sufficient to climb back down. Perhaps they only have an 8- "everycat" roll on climbing.

If you're going to make Desolid a finer-grained power, I'd recommend basing it on passing through BODY rather than DEF. This is the way is seems to be for most genres. I had come up with something a long time ago (pre-4th) similar to schir's Protean Form, above. I called it "Fluidification." At a fairly low level, you could become like jelly or coarse sand. At a higher level, like water or powder. For even more points, you could be smoke or gas. And for 40 points, you were completely desolid. There was a Spiderman villain called Will-o-the-Wisp who seemed to have Desolid Always On, with STR affecting physical world. IIRC, Spidey couldn't lay a hand on him, and just had to keep taking the blows. Here's a nasty trick a GM pulled on me once: ***** SPOILER WARNING ***** *** DIRTY TRICK YOUR GM MIGHT WANT TO PULL ON YOU, SO DON'T READ THIS! *** He had a villain with Invisibility and Images of himself only, combined with Indirect on his STR (STR comes from the Image). This looks like a completely desolid guy who has no problem hurting you, killing innocents, or destroying physical objects. He's a hologram with real strength. My character was a "damage sink." All I could do was interpose myself between him and his target and suck up the damage, while my teammates tried to figure out how to stop him. AE attacks or Detect Invisibility or some other sense that he's not invisible to. Hooray for teamwork! This is definitely a "Stop Sign" combination, but it works as long as there is some way to find and hit the invisible guy. ***** END SPOILER *****

Looks good to me. You might want to add an additional limitation. "Perception Point's movement may be blocked by appropriate substance or energy." This would probably be a -0 lim, but it allows for privacy. There should be a way to shield an area from being viewed remotely.

Never mind comparing cats and dogs, what about cats and people!? Does the Bestiary really say that a cat is 73 points more powerful than a base human? I don't have my HSB yet, but if that's the kind of stuff I'm going to see, I already regret ordering it.

You're right! What the heck am I thinking of? I could have sworn I saw something about conflicting values for armor weights. I can picture it in my mind: There's a table of armor weights, and then under that in the main text there's a desciption of armor weight as a function of DEF, and one of them is twice the other. I could have sworn I saw an erratum somewhere that said that the table was correct and the text was wrong, or vice versa. IDHMBIFOM.

This is a known erratum. It's in the errata list.

I have always believed that DS was just fine at +1/2. I've said it before, and I'll probably say it again. Does anyone truly believe that a 10d6 EB (50 pts.) is equivalent in power to a 4d6 DS (also 50 pts., at the +1 for Continuous and +1/2 for DS)? How about a 5d6 NND (also 50 pts.) compared to the 4d6 DS? Without the "offensive" capability of a DS that slaughterj mentions, he makes a good argument that it should be a +0 advantage. I would keep it at +1/2, but add a -1/2 lim: Defensive Only. Meaning, you can grab someone and use the DS. A long time ago, in 4th Ed., I had a villian like this, SFX: he's made of rock so if you puch him, you hurt your hand, but if you touch him without significant impact, like to shake his hand, you don't take his DS. Likewise, he doesn't do damage just touching you. On the topic of AF and DS, I don't think it should ever work the way some have describe (I realize I may be blatantly disagreeing with something in FREd or in the FAQ, but I'm right anyway). Since the guy with the DS isn't making an attack roll at all, the DS only hits once, like normal. I would allow for an AF DS, but its effect is to do multiple damages to someone who hits you with an AF attack. This is getting a little confusing, so let me give an example: Human Flame has a regular DS. He's hit by Joe Badguy. JB takes the DS once. Human Flame is hit by Mercury's AF punch for multiple hits. Merc takes the DS once. Plasma Man has an AF DS. PM is hit buy Joe Badguy. JB takes the DS once. Plasma Man is hit by Mercury's AF punch for multiple hits. Merc takes the DS multiple times, once for each hit (up to the number of "hits" the PM's DS was bought for). If Mercury has 10x AF, but PM's damage shield is only 5x AF, Merc can only be damaged up to 5 times per use of the AF punch, even if he hits more than 5 times.

I agree that Transform is not necessarily the way to go. Two main reasons: the power isn't supposed to depend on how much body the target has; and there is no convenient way to measure how much damage should be done by the Major Transform: 3d6N/hour? 1d6K/6 hours? More? Less? The method that I would use (which I've mentioned many times before in various contexts) is to use an adjustment power. In this case, Drain. It requires one to accept the idea that removing a power is similar to adding a disad. I would count Vulnerabilities and Susceptibilities as "Defense Disads" which would therefore receive half the effect from Adjustment powers. So how big a disad is this Susceptibility to sunlight? Assuming it's 15 points, you'd need around 9d6 of effect (average roll 31.5, halved for "defenses"). Of course, you could always buy fewer dice and apply the Drain multiple times, it would just take a little longer. Add advantages for slower fade rate, and you're ready to go. Make it less expensive with your favorite limitations (Increased END, Expendable Focus, Concentration, Extra Time, Only works if the sun god is truly offended by the target's sins; are a few that come to mind). If you happen to roll low, and only get 10 pips of effect (after halving), then the Susc is only 10 points - a slightly less severe punishment. The god of luck pleaded with the sun god to show a little mercy. I use this method frequently. Use Drain to bestow a Disad instead of removing a power. In this case, Drain should not be considered automatically cumulative. Likewise, you could use an Aid (or Succor) to remove or ameliorate a disad instead of increasing a power. I've always found this construct to be well balanced, but I guess it's too radical a concept for some people. Oh, well. I'll keep suggesting it, because I believe, from experience, that it works.

I don't like the CE idea. It strikes me as a little too close to the classic munchkin construct: "Only Works in an Intense Magnetic Field, plus a CE: Create an Intense Magnetic Field." I prefer the idea of buying off the Vulnerability to silver. The method that I would use (which I've mentioned many times before in various contexts) is to use an adjustment power. In this case, Aid or Succor. It requires one to accept the idea that buying up a power is similar to buying down a disad. I would could Vulnerabilities and Susceptibilities as "Defense Disads" which would therefore receive half the effect from Adjustment powers. So how big a disad is this vulnerability to silver? Assuming it's 20 points (a nice, round number), you'd need around 12d6 of effect (average roll 42, halved for "defenses"). Of course, you could always buy fewer dice and have the Aid be Cumulative, it would just tak a little longer. Add advantages for slower fade rate, and Area Effect if you like (have all the werewolves gather in a X" radius before applying the power), and you're ready to go. Make it less expensive with your favorite limitations (Increased END, Charges, Side Effects, Expendable Focus, Concentration, Extra Time, Doesn't work while already in the presence of silver; are a few that come to mind). If you happen to roll low, and only get 15 pips of effect (after halving), you reduce the Disad to only 5 points - not perfect, certainly enough to surprise the vampires. "Hey! They're only slightly harmed by silver! What gives! Gasp! Look at the moon! Did we have the date wrong?"

Slightly off-topic, but something else I've been toying with that some of you have mentioned is the idea of a longer speed chart, say 24 segments (24 seconds) or even a full minute (five normal turns). This allows for greater granularity in SPD. With a 60-second chart, SPD would indicate the number of actions per minute. Standard SPD scores would have to be multiplied by 5. Base SPD would be 5+DEX/2, so a base character would have a SPD 10 (10 actions per minute, 2 per 12-segment turn). You'd still have "post-12" recoveries every 12 segments. Someone with an "odd" SPD, say 23, would have 4 actions in two of the turns and 5 actions in the other three. He's only slightly faster than someone with a SPD of 22.

Well, I certainly didn't say "mature" or "erudite", but I would say intelligent and educated. RPG's and games in general, tend to be fairly intellectual pursuits. Players use their imagination, make plans, and in general must exercise their minds more than many other hobbies. Often they are inspired to learn about topics related to their games, history for instance. It's certainly true in my case, and most of the gamer's I know. As was mentioned previously, games often increase the player's vocabularies. But no, I don't think gamer's are any more mature than non-gamers.

I actually tried this once! ...and it didn't work. This was back in 4th Ed. I created a villain named "Accelerato" (I've gotten better at naming villains since then, too). He had a 24 SPD - that's right, two full-phase actions per segment. He wound up costing about 450 points. He was single-handedly taken down by a ~250-point brick. The problem he had was defense. Sure, he's hard to hit, but one lucky blow and he's on his way out. And think how much END he has to spend! If he uses a force field, he has to spend the END twice every phase! He had to spend so many points on SPD, that he was weak in other areas. Sure, if I had allowed him to be 600 points or so, he'd have been a significant challenge for the 250-point brick. This didn't seem like an adequate solution to me, so I let the villian stay in prison for the rest of the campaign. Remember that he's spending at least 180 points more than average on SPD alone!

In many cases, I wouldn't require the advantage at all, and just say that the CE is Conforming for free, because it makes sense, based on the SFX. If you fill a narrow hallway with vision-obscuring fog, there's no reason to assume that the fog will appear on the other side of the walls, or that it will do any damage to the walls. It won't break them down or seep through. This doesn't seem like an advantage worth more than +0. In some cases, the advantage would be appropriate at +1/2.

So how many of your favorite fantasy race does it take to change a light bulb?

Not only is it more productive, it's also less painful. No, I wasn't joking. It shows how long it's been since I learned to stay away from the Non-Gaming Discussion area. I've always believed that, as a whole, RPGers tend to be of above-average intelligence. The non-gaming discussion area was shaking my faith in that belief. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy non-gaming discussions, I just don't turn to a gaming site to have one. (50 pages!? Boycott?! Man, I'm glad there's a separate are for those people.)

I always wanted to try role-playing in the world of Iron Dragon. It's a fairly standard fantasy world, but with railroads (dragon-powered!). There is some neat detail in the rulebook, but more would be needed to base an actual RPG on. Best of all, there's already a complete map! With major cities, minor cities, exports, racial areas, national boundaries, terrain, etc. One non-standard element they added was the Catmen that live in the jungles of the south. This game was designed by Tom Wham, the same guy who gave us Snit's Revenge and The Awful Green Things from Outer Space and a number of other great games originally published in Dragon magazine. For those of you not familiar with it, Iron Dragon is a railroading board game in Mayfair's Empire Builder Series. The series is mostly about RW railroads: Empire Builder (U.S. and southern Canada, with more recent editions adding Mexico), Eurorails (most of Europe), British Rails, Australian Rails, Nippon Rails, and India Rails. I hear they're going to make Russian Rails eventually, and I've seen playtest versions of Africa Rails and Canada Rails. I also saw someone's home made version of Antarctic Rails, which though silly and improbable, fits with the two non-realistic rail games they've made: Iron Dragon, and the recently released Lunar Rails (set in the future where the moon has been extensively colonized).

Nothing personal, but I never liked the deendee idea that said that each race had to have its own gods. There is no "god of humans" so why should there be a "god of elves"? In my FH world, I created a huge pantheon* whcih should have enough gods to satisfy everyone regardless of race. Sure, some gods are inevitably going to be more popular among some races, but all are available. Ermen, god of mountains, is naturally very popular with dwarves, but mountain dwelling humans and other races also revere him, especially good giants. Likewise Randoni, goddess of forests is most commonly worshipped by elves, but anyone relying on trees, wood, or safe travel through forests will call on her for aid. Irev-Naru is generally considered an orc god, but anyone who's lifestyle values violence, destruction, hatred, and strength over morality, will find his religion appealing. And since all PC races in my world are mortal, they all pay homage to Kronterm, god of death, eventually. *(54 and counting - it's out of control. I never intended it to grow to such a size, but I kept thinking of other things that I wanted a god of. I've pretty much stopped adding gods, except for a few minor obscure demigods occasionally, such as the moon goddesses children, each of which is represents a phase or aspect of the moon: demigod of the crescent moon, demigod of the new moon, demigod of eclipses, demigod of the moon in daylight, etc.)

I don't have FHG yet. I consider it a lower priority purchase because I usually create all my own spells. I don't know if you've covered this already, but I would like to see spells that are less flashy and less combat-oriented. I run a campaign that might be described as low fantasy, even though magic is very common. Most really useful spells come with some drawback. Healing spells may require the caster to first take on the wounds of the patient, or cause the patient to go into a temporary coma while healing, for example. Have you covered "Dream Magic"? One of my favorite spells that I created (even though I don't get to use it very often) for a dream mage is a Mind Control with Gradual Effect. Over the course of weeks, the target has dreams which gradually influence his thinking, and thus his behavior and personality. Another favorite spell of mine is for a desert-wandering holy man with "survival magic." He has a create food spell that requires him to cut off pieces of his own flesh which then turn into food. This does no damage to him and causes him to gradually get thinner each time he uses the spell. He keeps himself fat when he can, and subsists on his own excess weight when he can't.

Other vocabulary words I learned from D&D (and will be eternally grateful): mileu melee charisma (previously mentioned) continuum constitution (the definition meaning "health") dweomer cantrip There were probably lots of others that I can't remember now. Amen! If the use of the word "he" as a generic pronoun offends you, that's your problem. (Oh. Was there already a thread covering this? I must have missed it.) As for arrogance in RPG books, I don't have a problem with the attitude "This is the best RPG system around." I expect that. I don't begrudge them their opinion. The thing I have a problem with is when they say, "This is the best system, but you can't do X, Y, or Z with it, therefore those things are forbidden." HERO says, "This is the best system, and you can impliment any concept you can think of. You are allowed to do what you want." Even if there's something "missing" from the system, or some concept that you can't figure out how to impliment, they have the correct attitude toward satisfying the customer. It's like a restaurant that will happily make substitutions vs. one that won't.

(also a big RoboRally fan, but I'll try to stay on topic) I see good or bad points about RPGs that don't even directly deal with the rules. In any RPG system's books there is almost always a detectable "attitude" towards the players. 1st Ed. AD&D was very condescending and seemed almost actively hostile to the players. The original players handbook didn't even tell you what your saving throws and attack rolls were! That was privileged information for the DM only. The books were peppered with words that most of my young friends and I had never heard of, and just assumed that we all knew them. It was like Gygax was more interested in impressing us with his vocabulary than explaining how to play his game. And make no mistake about it - it was HIS game, not yours. Sure it was easy to make house rules, but EGG made it clear that he did not approve. I remember a quote in those books somewhere like, "Only official D&D products should be used. Material from other sources will unbalance the game at best and completely ruin it at worst." I appreciate the opportunity to learn new words (how many of you had ever used the word "charisma" in a sentence prior to playing deendee?), but I definitely felt "talked down to." The rules were full of "can't"s. The 3rd ed. is a lot better, but there is still this attitude of generosity whenever they release a new book from on high: "Here are some new spells, feats, and prestige classes that you are now allowed to use. Aren't we magnanimous?" The books were written in ways that make players paranoid as mentioned in previous posts. If you do X then bad things can happen, but if you do Y to prevent those bad things, then other bad things can happen. The message was "Hey, DM's! Here's some more evil things to do to your players!" IMHO, the underlying attitude of a system shapes the whole game.

Oh, and a couple more things I forgot: I don't know whether Shape Shift is priced fairly or not, but it should be based on shapes, not on senses. After all, it's not a sense-affecting power. As it is, it's clumsy to do the most cannonical comic-book shape shifting, a la Plastic Man, where you are molded into the shape of an elephant, but people can still see the red suit and white goggles. And Damage Shield is correctly priced at +1/2. Not +1 1/2, not even +1. I've used it a lot (at the 4th ed. price) and have never had a balance problem with it. Yes, if you start stacking lots of advantages on it, it can become too powerful, but that's true of any power, even without DS. Remember, you are giving up Range, and you have to pay END every phase whether the guy touches you or not. If your opponent has a ranged attack, he never has to touch you. If you have to do a grab to affect someone with your DS, why would you even bother buying it, at any price? Just buy the regular attack, as long as you're going to be using half-phase attack actions.

4th didn't allow Special Powers in an EC. Special Powers are generally the ones that don't cost END. There's not much difference there in the 5th. Any they both say, "...not withoug GM approval." I don't see any problem with EC's in either 5th or 4th. In an earlier edition (1st, I think), you paid for the most expensive power and all the rest in the EC were half price. This IMHO, was far too big a discount. Now, you pay full price for the cheapest power and the rest get half of that cheapest cost off. This is more reasonable because it make players think about what goes into the EC and what stays out. The issues I have with FREd are these: STR cost: I never had a problem with it, but lately I'm starting to think that some change is needed. Increased STUN Multiple: 1/4 is the correct value. At +1/2, the same AP does *LESS* STUN! Under 4th Ed: 45 points = 3d6 RKA. Avg BODY = 10.5, Avg STUN = 28. 45 points = 2d6 RKA +1 STUNx. Avg BODY = 7, Avg STUN = 25.7 I was resistent to the Regeneration under Healing at first, but now I find it's OK. It winds up being cheaper than it was in 4th, which is a good thing IMHO. If you want to get around the cap, try adding Cumulative to the Healing. That's what I do. Also, in FH there is an advantage to shorten the "reset time," +1/4 per step down the time chart, IIRC. Transform has been improved a good deal, but is still bad. I avoid using it as much as possible. I've described in other threads what I do instead. My main problem with it, in a nutshell is: Turning someone to stone and permanently blinding someone are both Major Transforms, but the first completely incapacitates the target while the second only handicaps him, and if he has another targeting sense, not even that. Yet they both cost the same points. It was dumb to fold in instant change, but not that big a deal. I understand why CE shouldn't give positive modifiers, but like someone said earlier, it seems perfectly fine to allow them to remove negative modifiers. You can blow away fog, but you can't make clear air any clearer. You can melt slippery ice, but you can make dry, solid, firm ground any easier to walk on. "No Temperature Level Zero exists." - This to me is the single most idiotic sentence in all of FREd. And the FAQ only compounds the idiocy. FREd says that if you're ar Level 2 and you reduce the temperature 3 levels, you'll be at level -1. What if you only reduced it 2 levels? Did Steve think that the concept of the number 0 was too advanced for HERO System users? HERO (and every other RPG) is complicated enough without having to invent a whole new system of arithmetic. What's wrong with the values of numbers as they are ITRW?

Some small one-person vehicles: Jet Ski Snowmobile Segway (I don't know who'd use it, but why not?) Asteroid Hopper/Miner Wonkavator Perhaps a few writeups of the form: X Military Aircraft: ...full stats... For Y Military Aircraft, use X as above, but change Flight to A, STR to B and other stat to C. For Z Military Aircraft, use X as above, but change Flight to D, STR to E and weapon system to F. This would save some space and allow similar vehicles to be listed together, highlighting their specific game-effect differences, rather than having to list multiple vehicles that are 95% the same as full separate write-ups. A good sampling of fantasy/Supers vehicles like: Supers: Super Car w/oodles-o-gadgets Flying Motorcycle Spider/Insect-shaped Mecha Fantasy: Flying ship pulled by a dragon Fully furnished back of a ship-size turtle City-sized castle of a demon lord in hell, mounted on giant wheels and pulled across the arid plain by a million souls of the damned. (Did I think of this myself, or did I steal the idea from D&D somewhere? I don't remember. Oh well. They say memory is the second thing to go.) And most importantly: Correct the weird rule in TUV for towed vehicles that says that the animal/engine that tows the trailer must be able to *lift* it. This of course makes no sense. Horses couldn't lift most of the carts and carriages they pull. It's funny how the game system takes into account space flight, FTL, teleportation, and even time travel, but fails to understand the wheel and the inclined plane.