austenandrews

I'm tinkering with a short-run space opera game, and one component I want to get right is ship-to-ship combat. Since space dogfighting can be run with essentially normal combat rules, I'm going to put together a Martial Arts package for starfighting (think Han Solo running from the Empire in ESB). I'm just wondering if anyone else has done anything similar? If so, I'd be interested to see it. -AA

I was just pondering the idea that, since mass combat behaves more or less like normal combat, perhaps highly-trained troops (Romans, etc.) might have troop-level Martial Arts maneuvers? Sounds plausible to me. -AA

I just saw AnotherSkip's sig. You know, I've published three novels and written hundreds of posts on this board. It figures that's the quote that would be most remembered. -AA

I've met gamers who did bathe daily, but whose laundry regimen left something to be desired. My "worst gaming experiences" pale compared to fistfights and knife-throwing, so I'll refrain. -AA

You're not alone. I have conflicting feelings about the size of the book. On the one hand it's nice to have a lot of generic material as a launching point for game ideas. FH definitely covers an impressive number of details. On the other hand the 5E book is huge by itself, and hauling both books to a game is no small burden. It's not that I mind large books if they're useful, but easily half of FH is background world-building type material, which is not really usable during game play. Then there's the fact that FH has no monster writeups (buy The Bestiary!), no vehicle rules or writeups (buy The Ultimate Vehicle!), only two martial arts packages (buy The Ultimate Martial Artist! ... how many books am I supposed to haul to each game?), but it does have two pages explaining that fantasy worlds have forests, mountains and rivers. I dunno, I guess I feel like the book would have benefited from either (a) some judicious editing to cut down the page count, or ( a better cross-section of Hero gaming material. In the end, and granted that I haven't read the whole thing yet, I feel that FH is an impressive writing feat and seems to be a terrific GM resource, but as a session-to-session gaming reference, the size-v.s.-useful-content ratio is not that great. Maybe splitting it into two books would have been a good idea. -AA

This is an area where I've noticed some injustice over the years. Here's the scenario: - Player A wants to attempt something with which he has no skill. The GM tells him to make an appropriate Characteristic roll. He has a reasonably high roll, say 13-less. He rolls a 9. The GM awards him with a modicum of success. - Player B wants to attempt something with which he has a Familiarity (8-less roll). He rolls a 9. The GM rules it a failure. As someone who likes to buy Familiarities to round out a character's background skills, I've seen this type of imbalance quite a bit. As a GM I've addressed the situation by assuming that any amount of skill (that is, points spent) makes simple tasks trivial (that is, requires no roll). I still allow characters to make unskilled attempts, but I -always- temper my decisions to allow that a character with a Familiarity has a better chance than blind luck. -AA

I'm partial to the previous FH for several reasons, not least because I wrote some of it. I just bought the new one today. Good lord, but that's one large book! Haven't had a chance to do more than skim it yet. My personal preference is to have a mix of some pre-fab game stuff (weapon lists, common vehicles, creatures, martial arts, etc.) and some generic resource material (like Star Hero's chapter on the solar system). In my own games I build most everything myself (for me it's one of the great joys of being a GM) so I don't bother with game settings, premade Champs characters, spell books, "spacer's toolkits" and whatnot. Just not interested. We'll see how the new FH holds up. -AA P.S. I did my stint in furrydom. Mostly it's not as bad as its reputation. In some dark corners, it's worse.

I liked the 4E cover better. To me Storn's action poses often seem out-of-balance, like the characters might trip over their own feet. That's forgivable for superheroes and wild kung fu, but I want fantasy warriors to have good footwork. Just my preference, nothing personal, Storn. -AA

I'm terrible at remembering names, so I keep a list of all NPC names handy. (I tend to have a lot of NPCs.) -AA

And remember that the "ages" have very disputed boundaries. Mine differ greatly from SleepyDrug's, and the next guy's will be different from both of ours. -AA

IMX time is a much more critical limiter to PCs than money. After awhile money can flow like wine. But if it takes a week or two or more of dedicated work to create a single magic item, now you're cutting into adventuring time. They'll do it occasionally, but not regularly. Then again, in my gaming group the PCs tend to have their own "offscreen" agendas to pursue, which are a valuable part of the game. In general my group is pretty restrained. -AA

Normally I loathe the "Transform panacea" approach, but Transform does have rules for adding powers. You can use those mechanics to build a one-shot power, for which the Focus is the scroll or potion. Inherently there's no great mechanical limit to how many scrolls you can create or how powerful the spell can be, except whatever Limitations you place on the Transform and the Focus. (Of course as a GM I would enforce strict limitations for both of those.) -AA

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by a Pimp Slap power, but if your goal is to Drain PRE and use the slap as part of a PRE Attack, as a GM I might have a problem with the mechanics. Specifically, IIRC if you have an attack linked with a defense Drain, the Drain applies -after- the attack. I'd likely make a similar ruling here. -AA

Nice. Thanks much. -AA

Holy guacamole! That's the most twisted bit of munchkinry I've seen since Aaron Allston's "Summon Self From Underworld, Trigger: Death" construct. I don't have the rules in front of me, but my first thought would be to buy Continuous on the Force Wall. I know it's redundant, but as a GM I would rule that it automatically reactivates every Phase. -AA

In a villain game I'm currently playing in, I build my Master Villain character's trap doors something like this. It always leads to a death trap. And no, so far no hero has ever died in one of my death traps. I sure thought those zombie electric eels would do the trick, but that accursed Professor Patriot has a secret ally, I just know it ... -AA

As a GM, I generally rule that a narrowly-defined KS gives great detail, while a broadly-defined KS gives less detail. That category is so broad, you'd know extremely little about everything under the sun. It would serve you well on the Non-Gaming Discussion board, though. -AA

Okay, I figured out what an FLGS is. What's an FNG? -AA

To me the 5E version makes a simple shape change unreasonably complex and expensive. It seems silly to figure out how to affect Radar Sense when I just want to change into a chair. I prefer the default to be a perfect shape shift, maybe with an Adder for "molecular detail" or "spiritual detail," for campaigns that give a hoot about those things. Then toss on a -1/4 Limitation "imperfect" and define what the weakness is (looks and sounds like someone else, but smells different; looks human but casts a demonic reflection; etc.). Maybe a -1/2 for "obvious imperfection" (like Plastic Man always looking like himself). Voila, simple and effective. -AA

I will quite likely use AP Drains & Hardened Power Defense in the higher levels of my FH game, when magical defenses will be more common. -AA

180 rounds at a million rounds per minute looks pretty much the same as firing 180 rifles all at once. How about Autofire + Megascale? -AA

From what I've seen, wyverns are depicted in heraldry as standing upright like a bird. The dragon in Dragonslayer crawled on all fours, like a bat. Anyway this assumes a "monster manual" mentality that applies to no one outside of gamers. Despite MM-type definitions, the distinctions in myth & folklore are not clearly drawn. It was a dragon because it looks like a dragon, they called it a dragon and it was in a movie called Dragonslayer. Though if we were talking about a heraldic device instead of a movie, I'd say it's up for debate. -AA P.S. For me the best fantasy movie are: LOTR movies Conan the Barbarian The Princess Bride CrouchingTiger, Hidden Dragon Legend (maybe Wizards)

I agree. And I also think that there are other special effects that just don't work using TK instead of Flight UAA, like many antigravity effects. Flight UAA is definitely not a point-balanced construct, but it doesn't deserve the taboo status it's received. -AA

I just use the official "perfect" UT ... from previous versions of the game. I think 5E often goes too far in granulating simple effects. -AA

Can't you say the same thing about Suppression Fire? -AA