PhilFleischmann

I usually don't allow PSLs vs Called Shots to reduce the penalty by more than half. IOW, if a particular location has a -8 penalty, no more than 4 PSLs can be applied to it, No matter how good a shot you are, it's always harder to hit a head than to hit anywhere on the body.

How does a "cement tosser" not impede movement? I guess you just mean a small glob of cement to the eyes.

Yeah, that's what I was wondering, too. They've never seen firearms before, they have no idea what's going on in the outside world, they've never seen a pocket watch or a printing press, let alone a tank or an airplane, but they can speak Chinese and presumably every other contemporary language on the planet.

Or illiterate as the case may be. The idea of a paladin being a "knight who can heal you with divine holy powers and is always 'Lawful Good'" is a pure fabrication of Gygax & co. The word "paladin" originally meant "a servant of the palace" in other words, someone directly serving the king. That could be a fighter-type or a wizard-type, or a non-combatant butler, or anything else - but it does imply true-blue-loyalty and trustworthiness to the king - which doesn't mean they're automatically either "Lawful" or "Good", because the king himself might be neither. Likewise, the idea that a druid is a "'True Neutral' cleric with nature-related spells" was also entirely new with D&D. No one should hope to find consistency or historical accuracy within D&D.

It was actually quite simple: because I didn't know anything about mystic kung fu. "Master of Winter/Spring/Summer/Autumn" "Master of the North/South/East/West Wind" didn't suggest anything Chinese to me. The seasons and the winds exist in Europe, too. There was not a single Chinese word or any hint of a connection to any Asian culture anywhere in the description of the class. On a separate page was a table of weapons available to various classes, which mentioned "bo sticks" and "jo sticks", but no one - No. One. - had any inkling what those were, and there was not even a shadow of a hint of a half-hearted thought about maybe making an attempt to define them in the book. And in the weapons table, they didn't seem to be particularly good weapons anyway, so no one ever used them. Kids today have no idea how poorly-written the 1st edition of D&D was. And they need to get off my lawn, too.

Not at all weird! I thought the same thing when I first saw the monk class in the 1st edition Player's Handbook. The OP is correct that oriental mystic martial artists don't really fit in western-style fantasy. There are monks in western culture, but they're not martial artists - they're guys in robes who live in a monastery with the top of their head shaved and spend their lives making copies of holy books by hand. And there are martial artists in western culture, but they're not monks - they're masters of various forms of combat, armed and unarmed - but mostly armed. But so what? Monks were "popular' in D&D because they were there. There were SCADS of things in D&D that didn't fit in western-style fantasy. D&D has *never* made much sense at all, which is why I don't play it anymore. Let's see, off the top of my head: Psionics Dinosaurs and other pre-historic creatures Science-fiction-y "fungus" monsters with weird names like "ascomoid" and "phytomid" Feeble attempts at "hard physics" rules - like the zero-gravity on the Astral Plane Dozens of spells based in modern technology and science - Duo-dimension, Time Stop, Clone, etc. Spell-equivalents of flashlights, telephones, anti-gravity carts,etc. Infravision & Ultravision - as if historical fantasy ever concerned itself with the physics of light frequencies Monsters that were essentially just math tricks you could do with the dice, like the Tween "Magic" items that are more at home in the steampunk genre. The redefinition of words like "paladin", "necromancy", etc. Formalized spelling that make real distinctions - e.g. demon vs daemon. EDIT: I remembered the other sci-fi monster I was trying to think of before: the "Cifal", which was an acronym for "Colonial Insect-Formed Artificial Life". Yeah, sure, a perfect monster for a FANTASY game. Conan and Bilbo and Fafhrd and Merlin and Perseus fought cifals all the time!

And then one day it suddenly occurred to me to add some sort of "scientific" taxonomy to the fantasy races, and perhaps to the monsters as well, to my fantasy wolrd. Have any of you don't anything like this? I'm not looking for anything actually scientific - I'm looking for a classification that the people (specifically human sages) would come up with within the game world. So it may have various internal inconsistencies and biases. For example, if humans are homo sapiens, then halflings might me called homo minimus. Of course, if the halflings had come up with this system, they might have called themselves homo sapiens and humans homo gigantes. But of course, halflings probably would never waste their time on such foolishness. A taxonomic system like this is something only a human would come up with. So, what would be the "scientific" names of the various fantasy races? Elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes, orcs, lizardfolk, catfolk, etc. And speaking of gigantes, ogres, trolls, and giants, too. Which of these fall under the same genus of "homo" and which are some other genus? And what would that genus be called? And yes, I suppose such a system could be extended to the non-humanoid creatures in the fantasy world as well: dragons, gryphons, centaurs, demons, etc., but my main focus for now is the humanoid-types, particularly the PC races, and others that are intelligent enough to form societies and cultures - that wear clothes and use organized language. It would not surprise me if someone has already worked out something like this. Multiple people even. So...have you?

Yes, defenses cost less than attacks. But a cure is not a defense. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The defense that would have stopped you from getting the disease in the first place would have been cheaper. Once you have the disease, the cure will be more expensive. Just like with Healing.

What's so "amusing" about that? It's no more implausible than saying you can get spells by studying some books for a few hours. If a character is defined as being devoutly religious, a reward he can get for performing the proper prayers and rituals is extra experience points for good role-playing.

I like this, but I wouldn't call it No Conscious Control, I'd give it "Only Once Per Turn" (-2 - or more).

How about Flight, maybe at a slower speed, with a turn mode, just the standard non-combat multiple, and costing 2x END, because it doesn't have the ground to "push off of" when in flies above the ground. And the limitations are there to keep it on the ground most of the time, but you can fly for shorter periods of time when you really need to gain altitude (or to reduce altitude). An obvious addition would be a mounted weapon, maybe with multiple settings - regular, area effect, etc. A TK "tractor beam" primarily intended for hauling cargo. Maybe a small force field to keep the rain off your head, and the bugs out of your mouth. And as long as you've got an enclosed space with a force field, might has well put some climate control for comfort - regular AC and heating is free SFX "color", but you could even give it Life Support, of pretty much any kind at all. Or Change Environment. Communication system, ala police or other emergency responders? And speaking of emergencies, maybe you could have some kind of mini-fire-fighting ability. To truly be "pimped out", it needs extra PRE, of course. You'll want to look good cruising around on this thing. A PA system. "Remain calm! All is well!" A stealth mode is easily achieved with Invisibility. Damage Shield? "Don't touch my hoverbike. It *will* defend itself."

It sounds to me like the Limitation you're looking for is something akin to Physical Manifestation. In this case, the physical manifestation is the character's own body. So anything that would stop the character's body, stops the power. And then you can add something like Feedback on top of that - anything that damages (or otherwise affects) the Physical Manifestation, damaged the character himself. I think these are the closest Limitations to what you're describing.

This is the way I would do it. And I would probably allow for another +3d6 with Extra Time (2 Extra Phases; -1) since there's no -1 level.

My rule of thumb (or is it rule of limb?) has always been, if you can operate a TV remote with it, it's an Extra Limb. If you can hold onto something or pick something up with it, it's an Extra Limb with Limited Manipulation. If all you can do is whack something or someone with it, it's not an extra limb. And I would NEVER allow a limitation on STR for "only for the extra limbs". ALTILIWAPS! And I would NEVER allow a power with both Inherent and Focus.

Assuming you don't want to go the obvious Accidental Change route (which you certainly don't have to), try it like this: Buy the power with No Conscious Control. (Let's say the total cost of the power without NCC is 120, and with NCC, it's 40.) Then, as a separate "power" buy off the NCC, for however much it would cost, and put a Limitation on that "Not During a Full Moon". (So it would cost 80 to buy off the NCC completely. Then you put on the Limitation at -1/4 or -1/2 or whatever you decide it's worth, let's say it's -1/4, then this "Buy off NNC power" costs 80/1.25 = 64 points.)

I don't know if this has been addressed already, but what about the illustrations? I rarely ever see illustrations of RPG gods that look "good" - and by that I mean that actually look like gods. Most of them either look like ordinary characters or monsters, and some look like superheroes. I know it's a serious challenge to artists to really make their illustrations look "Mythic", but it seems that in most other RPG sources, they don't even try for a mythic look. If the gods are "special" - something beyond even the mortal heroes that are the PCs and beyond the mastermind villains and powerful monsters - then they ought to *look* like it! I know it's a tall order for an artist who is used to drawing superheroes or ordinary mortal characters and fantasy landscapes and cityscapes and monsters. Let the illustrations of the gods look worthy of ancient tapestries and temple walls, huge statues and sacred altars. It shouldn't necessarily be that difficult - pictures of gods generally don't need intricate detail. After all, mere mortals never actually met these gods face-to-face, except in the myths themselves. And the myths do not describe every detail of their clothing and facial features. The pictures should be iconic and symbolic, even abstract to an extent - to give them an other-worldly feel. If they look too concrete and realistic, it makes them seem more ordinary.

I think INT is fairly priced now. I could see house ruling that PER is 10+(INT/10)- and it would still be close enough. I think DEX is likely overpriced. Most of this game is combat - attack rolls and effect rolls and defenses, et al. Skill rolls and CHA rolls are less common/less useful, IME. But because of DEX's use in combat occasionally (DFC, etc.), I can try to live with DEX at 2. And if my cyborg detective with artificial eye and ear implants buys +3 Sight and +3 Hearing, that costs 12 points. Or for the same 12 points, I could get +4 with Sight, Hearing, Smell/Taste, Touch, and anything else! Turns out enhancing vision and hearing together causes your other senses to improve as well.

A large OCV Drain might work to cause powers to fire in random directions, but not to go off unexpectedly, and it wouldn't work for non-attack powers. How about a naked UAA Advantage, applied to a random power on the target? That is to say, a "naked" UAA for up to X Active Points of power, with UAA on *that*, so the Prof can use it as an attack. This would be a pretty high AP power, but you could then limit it with "Affects Random Power" -1, and "Affected Power Behaves Randomly" -1. These are legitimate limitations, because if Professor Chaos is facing down BlastyMan, he might want BlastyMan's BlastyBeam to "randomly" fire at his sidekick, BlastyBoy - that would be the best possible outcome for Professor Chaos, but instead, he gets something random - like BlastyMan flying fifty feet up into the air and flipping upside-down.

I remember some characters back in the early early days of Champions that "tried" to have lower DEX, like say 17, but then they'd have maybe 5 Overall Skill Levels. And in those days, Overall Skill Levels that you were only going to use for combat cost 10 points. It didn't take long to realize that these characters would be better off buying fewer levels and more DEX. So DEX crept up higher and higher, to reflect a character who was "good at combat", rather than one who was "very dexterous". Re: INT and PER: Maybe something should be done here, similar to how CV was divorced from DEX. I tend to think there's at least some connection between INT and PER, so instead of PER being 9+(INT/5), maybe it should be 10+(INT/10). Or it could be separated entirely from INT, and be just a flat 11-.

OK, then buy the INT with a Limitation: Does Not Apply to PER Rolls. Buy him the INT with a Limitation: Only Applies to PER and his "Mighty Hunter" Skills.

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I agree that Dispel is the way to go. It's expensive? Compared to what? Letting the disease kill you? Health care is expensive and difficult in the real world, why shouldn't it be in Hero? It really all depends on how the disease is built. So how would you build the Common Cold?

You buy the INT normally, up to whatever level it should be, and then you give him the Psychological Complication: Absent-Minded Professor. (This usually has nothing to do with a reduced ability to perceive things, only a reduced attention span. If he's in his lab looking at something through his microscope, concentrating on that, he shouldn't have any penalty to see what he needs to see there. But he may fail to notice that someone just walked in and wants to talk to him or something.)

Yes, but that promise only applies if you build the character correctly (efficiently). There is some responsibility on the part of the player. A doctor can promise to cure your disease, but that promise is based on the premise that you actually take the medicine he prescribes. To use your own example, do you think that a 30d6 Blast and 1 SPD and 1 OCV has "more or less equivalent mechanical utility" as anything else you could build with those 150 - 10 - 3 = 137 points? Likewise, you could always build a high-DEX brick, spending 20-40 points on DEX, but not buying any Agility Skills, and having high enough defenses, that you're probably not going to be doing much Diving for Cover. Such a character probably would be better off (have better overall mechanical utility) buying Lightning Reflexes, or something completely unrelated to DEX. And you probably wouldn't spend a lot of points on INT and not have any Intellect Skills.

Remember that the purchased Swinging distance is the distance traversed per phase, not necessarily per swing.