assault

Oeneus is the God of Intoxicants. At first he was the God of Wine, but the Big Oops ensured that his gifts can be delivered by multiple means.

Sniped!

If you keep making decisions like that, you will be....

Not books I've finished or even started, but I bought an entire shopping trolley of Fantasy/Sci-Fi books today. There are duplicates of books I already own, and I think some duplicates even within the trolley, but I got a deal, and, oh my, the rarities! I have my reading for the next year planned. Two years, counting my existing pile. That's assuming I focus on reading, and don't start trying to write. Or do other stuff, like GMing a game or two or even playing. Or getting a life, but that's not terribly likely given that I haven't yet.

The guy in that video clearly has no idea what he is talking about. Dave Arneson inventing campaign games... as if!

Anytime. I might even complete my picks this time...

Comparing Debs to Trump... Hand me a sickbag.

Nice toys!

I won't check your maths, but the values you gave (39 points out of 150, and 47 out of 175 (the standard suggested value in 6e)) are pretty much what I was suggesting. They're a big proportion of the character's budget. And you are aiming at "only" 3d6 attacks, not the wild 5e attacks that are possible. (You might be able to scrape some more damage out of the Martial Arts, depending on what maneuvers you choose.)

Often enough. Stab them in the pub and the face.

Custom limitations have been around since day one. Hero is a permissive system. If the GM is happy, you're good. If not, it isn't going to happen.

It would be worth looking at the point cost for such a big attack. The character will probably be stacking Talents, Martial Arts, Skill Levels and Strength. It all adds up in a modest point total game.

These titles are too modern, but the treasury function is likely.

I'm referring to the pre-6e rule restricting damage to twice that of the basic weapon. It's an optional rule in 6e. Edit: also what LoneWolf said, but those Talents aren't in the edition I play (proving it sucks!).

2d6 is pretty easy even on fairly low point totals. Plain old sword: 1d6+1. 18 Str takes it to 1 1/2. Skill levels take it to 2. That's without Martial Arts. Of course a plain old sword will max out at 2 1/2d6, unless you allow otherwise.

Personally, if I was in the US, I'd be in there on Dr.Device's side with both hands, and to heck with fake civility (tone policing), "both sides"-ism and pearl clutching in general. The perfect being the enemy of the good argument is usually used to justify settling for something less than you can get. Whenever you hear it, demand more. Not meaningless "perfection", but more. And there I go getting excited about things I can't do anything about... Can't resist it sometimes.

Oh, I remember I wrote this... I suppose I had better follow it up. 2e and 3e's guidelines were the same, although 2e suggested 225 point characters and 3e suggested 250. There was a bunch of extra things you could spend points on in 250, notably the skills from Champions II. In fact, if you did go for a bunch of those, it could be quite hard to tell a 3e and 4e character apart at first glance. Anyway... the guidelines presented allowed you to buy a basic set of characteristics and powers for 200 points, and then you were supposed to pad the character out from there. The characteristic suggestions were: Dex: 18-30, centering on 20-23. Con: 18-33, centering on 18-23. PD: 8-28, centering on 12-18. ED: 8-28, centering on 12-18. SPD: 4-6, centering on 5. Spending about 100 points here would make you pretty nice. For powers: Attack powers: 40-60 points. Defenses: 20-40 points. Movement: 10-40 points. Again, 100 points here would work pretty well. That's not factoring in Limitations, which would allow you to get close to the maximum values across a range of things, and exceed them in some. You can see that, not counting skill levels, characters would have between 6-10 CV (very few would have 6!), attacks of 8-12 DC, and appropriate, or higher(!) defenses. Frankly, the results were pretty close to 4-6e standards, although you wouldn't usually have a big menu of attacks. Characters tended to be simpler at first, but could grow in complexity fairly quickly. Of course, since everyone was new at this, overcomplex and unbalanced builds were all over the place. 1e didn't have this stuff, but had the sample characters, and a suggestion that 40-50 points in a power was pretty good, and 100 was generally wonderful. (I think this was repeated in 2e and 3e, but I can't see it immediately.) If you used 100 as a hard cap, a lot of abusive builds were manageable. (From Facebook discussions involving early Hero Games alumni, I get the impression that George MacDonald's games did this, at least effectively.) EDIT: oh, and in the survey alluded to upthread games along these parameters were the most common, although there were plenty of others. IIRC, attacks averaged out at about 11d6, which is within the range suggested, although at the higher end. The survey was actually fairly early on in the Adventurer's Club run, which limped along sporadically for years.

There is no (RAW) SPD related nerfing in any edition. Assuming we are talking about Green Dragon, 9d6 is correct for the kick. Under editions 1-3, the base cost of Martial Arts for a character with 15 Str was 15 points. That gave a +1 modifier to Martial Kick, so 6d6. For half the value of the character's Str (7.5 in this case, rounding to 7), the modifier would increase by +0.5. So if the character spends 22 points, the kick would do 3 (from Str), multiplied by 2.5. So, 7.5d6 (rounded or otherwise - that's a separate question). Another such increase, bringing to total MA spend to 30 points, would add another +0.5 to the kick, meaning it would do 3x Str damage, bringing it up to 9d6. These calculations may seem clumsy (they are!), but a character who spends 35 points on Str (from a base of 10, giving 45 Str), will also do 9d6. A character who spends 45 points on Energy Blast will also do 9d6. These costs are balanced against each other, each with different advantages and disadvantages.

On a bus now, but I will break it down for 1-3e when I get home. Short version: 2e and 3e gave explicit guidelines. 1e included suggestions. If you followed them, a lot of 1e's bugs would be less of an issue.

If you are already playing the character, any modifications need to be passed through the GM.

Republic and Oligarchy were nearly synonymous. Plutocracy is mostly a redundant category. Oligarchs could be land owners, merchants or both. Venice was notionally a republic, but closer to an elective monarchy in some ways as GDShore pointed out. And that's a reminder that non-hereditary monarchies existed. Oligarchies were often city-states, but could extend beyond that. The Roman Republic is the most obvious example. More democratic forms existed. In ancient Greece, cities that depended on the oarsmen of their fleets would often have to enfranchise them. Athens is the classic example. Such democracies were unstable, and usually short-lived, interspersed with periods of oligarchy and so on. A better medieval example were the various peasant communes/cantons/republics that mainly existed in marginal lands - swamps, mountains etc. If you are bothered by how such setups (any of these) could exist in a world with wizards and monsters, just add in a couple of high powered characters that don't exercise ruling power. Paladin types, hermit wizards, monastic clerics... --- Off topic now, but even monarchies can be weird. Apart from the elective monarchies (like, for example, the Holy Roman Empire!), there were weird ones like the ones on Sardinia, where the kings were originally know as Judges. That's where you would find the Judicates of Cagliari and Arborea. Then there are states that are self-governing but without the status of kingdoms. There were plenty of fancy titles to go around there. (Wildgraves, Raugraves...). There were places ruled by appointed governors too. If you want a term other than governor, you could use Captain or Admiral (typical of an overseas colony, naturally). Or a notionally Church-ruled state might be ruled in practice by a secular Advocate (or similar title). Regencies can be individual or collective. In the latter case, it's rule by committee, although power is rarely equally shared. It doesn't always end in violence. Areas where the official government has little power can fall into a kind of fractal state, where power is exercised by local leaders (often warlords), who wield monarchical style power on a local basis. Or if they can't, power falls into the hands of even more localised leaders... These situations can often happen in border areas, with raiding happening both across the notional borders and between groups on the same side. (The Anglo-Scottish Borders were an example at various times.) Speaking of which, if an area has poor farmland, and is economically reliant on grazing, raiding is likely. Livestock is easy to steal. If it happens enough, you have an equivalent of the Wild West. The opposite case, where the government is actually able to govern, can see power being exercised by royal appointees (Sheriffs, etc), at the expense of local lords. Of course the Sherrifs are usually local lords too, complete with rivals and feuds. The Sheriff of Snottingham and the Earl of Snottingham may not be on friendly terms, even if they are cousins. This is natural, since the Sheriff wields powers that "should" belong to the Earl. (The upstart!). ... and so on... If you have access to them, L Sprague de Camp's Novarian series is relevant.

Despite the clickbait headline, this is a good Australia! story. Tree-climbing 'drop bears' and crocodiles inhabited eastern Australia millions of years ago

Just for fun: the name Elric means "Elf King" in old English.

I don't have my 1e Monster Manual handy. I think it might be in Holmes Basic as well.

I was thinking that the Establishment would retain power through new forms. In fact that was kind of the joke. My idea was that the Dragon Monarchy, having existed for centuries, would be seen as the traditional way of doing things, complete with a conservative elite that was doing very well out of it. It wasn't their children who were being eaten, after all.