vagrant winds

Re: When the good cosmic being motiffs are taken Great... now I have to create a "Soundtrack" Change Environment power for my next Mystic character. <_<

Re: fantasy books ASoIaF is (really, really, good) Low Fantasy. TWoT is (vastly over-hyped) High Fantasy. The former is my favorite book series in the entire genre... the second my most hated, filled with hatred towards women and meaningless filler covering entire books. Alas, I'm heavily biased. A Song of Ice and Fire takes my favorite. It's greaty, moving, character driven, has no concept of good or evil, and is not afraid to kill of or maim main characters for the sake of the story. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell takes my second spot. It's been alluded to an adult 'Harry Potter' - but is a completly different entity. I describe it like a good red wine - it starts dry, quenches your thirst in a storm of flavor, and then leaves you wanting more. Then there's The Myth Adventures series by Robert Asprin for pure comedy value. Terry Pratchet also writes some good comedy. Vampires? Look at both Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles and the old George R.R. Martin's book Fevre Dream. High Fantasy? Raymond E. Feist's Riftwar books have not disappointed me. Something different? Piers Anthony had a good 'serious' series called Incarnations of Immortality, told through the eyes of Death, Time, Fate, War, Earth, Evil, and Good.

Re: Song of Ice and Fire There's a Guardians of Order "A Game of Thrones" d20 game based on the setting... which frankly sucks (don't bother picking it up even for a reference). d20 is the last system I'd chose to play an ASoIaF game in. Hero, on the other hand, fits the low power and grittiness of the setting perfectly. Just make sure to use the optional damage and hit location rules so the PCs have the chance to get their own hand of gold. .

Re: Magicians without magic And they won't have the old Spiderman problem of being unable to cash a check under their superhero ID?

Re: Magicians without magic Slightly off-tangent to the OP, but there's always subtle magic vs. overt magic. The subtle "stage" magicians could have a few magical overall skill levels and be a magician without being a "Magician".

Re: Delaying an opponent How much of a Limitation value would "+xd6 only for Stunning/Knockdown/Knockback" or "+xd6 only for Stunning" be? Because I like this idea.

Re: "Life Shield" - Reasonable Power? [+More] Thanks for the input. The HERO campaign isn't starting until our current White Wolf one ends, so i have a couple of weeks. The power idea here was a weak pro-active heal that would take effect when receiving damage. It's not a meta-game move, but a little extra protection that can be activated ahead of time and be placed in a power framework. I'm going to look at other ways to build the effect. I'm trying to work up a few powers that are not used all the time, but in a pinch; having "Aces up the sleeve" if you will. Defensive, non-combat utility, crowd control characters seem so much more complicated than bricks and blasters.

Back story: I've lurked these forums on occasion, and a lot of you seem like helpful people. It's been a couple years since I've played Hero System, but I've convinced my role-play group to take a break from Werewolf: The Apocalypse and Exalted 2nd Ed. to try it out. The first campaign will be a normal-ish Champions game. I'm working on a character that got on the wrong side of forces greater than them and got transformed into something they’re not too happy about. In zealotry to reverse the effect, they’ve taken up magic, mostly of the enhancement, enchantment, and transforming sort. While all attempts to reverse the change have failed or made it worse [major transform; persistent, inherit, independent, multiple levels of difficult to dispel, and a linked damage shield triggered transform in game terms], the character has achieved quite a few useful combat and non-combat abilities placing them at a superhero power-level. The power: Life Shield Healing (Simplified): 1d6; Decreased Re-use Duration (1 Segment, +2), Continuous (+1), Trigger (When Attacked, Trigger Resets Automatically, +1/2), Uncontrolled (+1/2), Half End Cost (+1/4); Self Only (-1/2). 52 Active Points, 35 Real Points, 2 END Cost. Technically this power is illegal, as Decreased Re-use Duration can not be bought at a frequency greater than 1 Turn. Would this power prove unbalancing? I’m looking at a character with low innate physical (and maybe energy) defenses instead relying on active and activated abilities to protect themselves like Healing, Force Wall, and Armor. Another question: I’m looking at the best limitations to use on personal [or maybe usable on others] enchantment effects. Take clothing enchanted to provide Armor for example. Would this best be modeled as an “Unbreakable” OAF stating that the clothing takes no damage at attacked directed at the character itself, but is accessible to being ripped off or removed if targeted itself, temporarily nullifying the effect? Or would this be better represented by Restrainable limitations and/or other modifiers like Uncontrolled and Non-persistent? The enchant can be temporarily nullified by removing or destroying the enchanted item, but the enchant can be placed again on any available personal article in a limited amount of time (zero phase or half-phase action). Any ideas? Thanks in advance.