DigitalGolem

Willis; I'd reiterate what's been said above, but several others already did. Three things; 1) DON'T PANIC !!! 2) The best way to learn Hero is to find a group of Hero players. Being face to face with someone who can explain Hero will put you on the accelerated learning curve. 3) When in doubt, half move, then hold your action. Okay, four things: 4) Have fun! DGv3.0

Have you considered another approach? An indirect autofire EB, w/accurate & skipover sprayfire might also work for this, and you wouldn't necessarily need an area of effect. This would also simulate the "exhausting" aspect of the spell, as every shot racks up more endurance. Another option I've personally used is just to buy a bigger EB, and take a "must spread for area" limitation. Or just skip the limitation so you can use it all on one target when you need to. I looked at several other possibilities, but none of them were "legal" constructs. Except for the mega-scale one-hex (+3/4) version. You might get the results you want that way, but I'd recommend the "personal immunity" advantage and some well-insulated allies! Mmmm, extra-crispy goblins.... DGv3.0

One major problem with the d20 mechanic is (as noted above) that it's far more "random" than the 3d6 bell-curve. I've found the most common in-game effect is wildly unpredictable results in combat. A given group of adventurers may encounter a weak foe, and proceed to rock all over it, only to meet a near-identical foe an hour later and get their proverbial butts kicked, for no better reason than poor dice rolls. This problem is also extended to skill rolls, of course, which may be more important than combat, in some campaigns. While Hero doesn't completely eliminate this problem, it reduces the odds of "killjoy" dice rolls, making outcomes more predictable. The worst-case roll in d20 (natural 'one') always has a 5% probability, but in Hero, the worst case '18' is only ~0.5% probable. In other words, the d20 character is 10 times more likely to roll an automatic failure, (or success!) regardless of the characters' skill levels. Is that a good thing? Not for me, but this is really a matter of personal taste, IMHO. Many gamers like d20 for the same reason I dislike it. (That's not a bug, it's a feature!) My new gaming group hasn't tried Hero yet, but I hope to acquaint them with it soon. Perhaps they'll convert.... thanx, DGv3.0

I'd consider just using movement skill levels, assuming you allow a PC to use them for vehicle movement. DG

"Missed! How in the...DOH!!! That's ^(1/2), Captain!" "Uh, right. Spock? New firing solution!" Could. Not. Resist. DGv3.0

'tard; Maybe this would help: space-filling polyhedrons ...although I'm not sure if your criteria can be met. Good luck! Interestingly, according to this page, the tetrahedron actually doesn't fill space, which is a surprise to me. The strange things you learn from gaming.... DGv3.0

I did it as a joke once; except for speed, the character had 23's across the board. (no 23 speed!) No reason, other than annoying the GM. All in fun, of course. He disallowed the character, but mercifully stopped short of killing me on the spot. DGv3.0

I don't know, but I've seen some look at their 351pt character, with a 16 or higher Comeliness, going crazy looking for something else to get rid of. Usually it's Endurance, the only other stat worth 1/2pt. Ever split a point between those two? I could see it happening in games with Com-based rolls, with players going for the "perfect 13". (or 23!) DGv3.0

The Com stat serves the vital purpose of stroking the players' vanity. As such, I leave it at the horrendously expensive cost of 1/2 pt. DGv3.0:D

That's right, 2300AD had absolutely no aliens... ...except for the Ebers, Pentapods, Sung, Klaxun, Kafers, Ylii, and a couple of others I've forgotten. (Xiang, maybe?) But otherwise, no aliens at all. Really. Okay, sarcasm aside, 2300AD could actually be run quite well without the aliens, and I know some of the game's fans preferred it that way, for various reasons. DGv3.0

Blue Planet v2.0 has a good spacer pic somewhere. I don't have my BP stuff w/me (I'm travelling this month) but I think it's in the Players' Guide, or maybe Fluid Mechanics. Check it out at your FLGS, it's an interesting setting. DGv3.0

My motives are entirely selfish! I'd travel into an idyllic age with advanced medicine in the distant future and steal the cure for these *&^%$#@! migraines. Without migraines, I would be truly invincible. (or at least a lot less grouchy....) DG

Short answer: It depends. Long answer: androids will vary depending on how they're designed. They're often stronger, faster, tougher, etc, so their characteristics might be much higher than humans'. And they probably don't have any "characteristic maxima". They tend to have lots of talents, like Absolute Time Sense, Ambidexterity, Eidetic Memory, Lightning Calculator, Speed Reading and others. There also several powers common to androids; Armor, Endurance Reserves, Enhanced Senses, Life Support, and various movement and defense powers. All this gets expensive in terms of points, which cuts into the android's points used on skills, perks, etc. So the character might be quite powerful, but short on know-how or training. See Star Hero pp15-16, 23, 165-68. DG

Ask a silly question... The way the powers above are defined, I don't know. I might just obviate the whole thing by declaring that air, being invisible, is opaque to "detect: invisibility", which renders it useless, except in a vacuum. Unless vacuum would also be considered invisible, in which case the power would be truly, completely, useless. But when I finally get around to running Hero, I'll most likely just insist on having both Detect and Invisibility more defined, in terms of special effects.

Last time I was in Manitoba (oct 98) I saw a RCMP driving a camaro interceptor! The horses are still there--but now they're all under the hood. Mostly, though, they were driving modified Ford (what else?!) Crown Victorias. I thought they were on highway patrol, but was I mistaken? I didn't realize how many other duties they had. DGv3.0

My thinking exactly; at base level, this is just like buying extra points of Recovery. (same cost, same effect) It would also be possible to apply the +1/2 per time increment to a character's base Recovery as a naked advantage. But my "munchkin sense" power goes crazy whenever I think about that, so there might be a problem. Maybe this should cost more, like the options mentioned above? thanks for the feedback, everyone. DGv3.0

Didn't want to "hijack" the Heal thread, so I'm starting a new one. Those already tired of the Regeneration discussion can skip this. Rather than base Regeneration on Healing, I use extra Recovery, with a +1/2 advantage for each step up the time chart. Like normal Rec, it costs 2 pts to regain 1 Body per month. Shorter intervals cost more: 2pts Rec 1 Body per month 3pts Rec 1 Body per week 4pts Rec 1 Body per day 5pts Rec 1 Body per 6 hours 6pts Rec 1 Body per 1 hour 7pts Rec 1 Body per 20 minutes 8pts Rec 1 Body per 5 minutes 9pts Rec 1 Body per minute 10pts Rec 1 Body per turn This probably looks familiar; IIRC, when Regen first appeared, it had a cost of 10pts to Recover 1 Body per turn. As constructed above, this would also apply the Recovery to Stun. A limitation "no Stun" could be used, but I doubt I'd give it the -3/4 value from FREd, as the benefit of recovering stun over such long intervals isn't much, anyway. Feedback? Good, bad, or just ugly? thanx heaps, DGv3.0

It also expands the habitable zone with respect to the age of the universe--pushing it back several billion years! Thanks for posting that. It remains to be seen to be seen if this will effect GHZ, however. Globular clusters like the one in this article develop very differently from the galactic disk. If I recall correctly, clusters form with a high proportion of giant stars, which would crank out the heavy elements needed for planetary formation very early in the cluster's life-span. Gonzalez's work (again, IIRC) mainly concerned stars in the galaxy's disk population, with a lower distribution of giant stars. But if Gonzalez ever believed that a globular cluster like this was "stable":confused:, then that's another strike against him, I think. DGv3.0

The cheap way to do this... ...may not be legal. Buy t-port for the character with the power, and take the t-port for the other character as a side-effect limitation with active points equal to the base power. Twice the power, at half the price. I'm evil. DGv3.0

All your force wall are belong to us! I am probably gonna pay, big time, for posting this, but here it is; Buy force wall twice, with deactivation of each one acting as the "trigger" for the other. Or if it's for a vehicle, just pay the 5pts and you've got back-up systems for all your force walls. DGv3.0 Dives for cover...!!!

Yes, I think from this point forward I'll take anything I hear from Gonzalez with a grain of salt. I give him the benefit of the doubt, concerning his work on galactic habitable zones, because: 1) I haven't yet heard of any evidence against the idea, and 2) it seems plausible that heavy elements would be more common in some parts of the galaxy than others. When/if evidence to the contrary is found, and published, I look forward to reading about it. What I find incredible is that he thinks his GHZ work supports the idea of a unique earth, when actually, all it does is reduce an astronomical number of potential earth-like worlds to a smaller, but still astronomical number. Even if his work is flawless, his conclusion is delusional. Where I beg to differ with you is about the "spectrum" with the Unique Earth hypothesis at one end, and (I assume) a "common earth" hypothesis at the other. I simply don't believe this is an issue, for the following reason: the number of earth-like worlds in the universe isn't the only difference, nor even the most important one, between these ideas. The real difference is in how and why earth-like world(s) exist. In the unique earth model, there can only be one Earth, period. Because creationists believe it was created/fine tuned/intelligently designed, etc. Therefore, any hypothesis that allows any statistical possibility for more than one earth-like world fundamentally disagrees with their position. And even if, somehow, valid scientific evidence made it seem likely that Earth is unique, mainstream science would still disagree with the creationist view of how and why our planet came to be. Ward and Brownlee's Rare Earth Hypothesis easily passes this test for "creationist claptrap", because it doesn't imply that Earth is necessarily unique. Nor does it advance the idea that Earth was created by anything other than natural forces, but then, we already agree on that. I agree that the section on Mars is wild speculation, but I haven't found any argument in Rare Earth that this is proof of "divine providence". Can you cite a page number for this? I believe there are some creationists and ID proponents who think this book supports their view, but, as we both agree, Ward and Brownlee didn't intend to do so. And in reality, they haven't. Creationists have always misquoted legitimate sources, our quoted them out of context, and in this respect, Ward and Brownlee are in very good company. Gould, Dawkins, even Darwin, and many others have also been quoted out of context by creationists. And in light of that, I think it's rather unfair to criticize the authors of Rare Earth just because a few crackpots choose to mis-interpret their work. Thanks for posting those reviews. Interestingly, the first review seems to have missed the point I was trying to make, above; there is a world of difference between "rare" and "unique". The second one, however, did notice this, and criticized the authors because Rare Earth "fails to treat perhaps the most important factor regarding life: its zero probability of origin." So apparently, not all creationists even agree this book supports their view. And at least one creationist who thinks it does support their view has failed to understand it on a very basic level. While I have to agree with you that some of the science in Rare Earth is highly speculative and untested, I think that any support it gives creationism can only be described as incidental, tangential, or the result of poor reasoning by confused creationists. thanx heaps, DG

Re: I've read the book, and checked the references Glad to hear we're not debating in a total vacuum here! Interesting interview. However, nothing in it invalidates the position of Rare Earth. Gonzalez wasn't the only contributor for this book, just one of many. (Were any other creationists involved?) And in the interview you cited, he makes it clear that he disagrees with Ward and Brownlee's conclusions. There's a big difference between the book's titular "rare earth" hypothesis and Gonzalez's "unique, privileged, -had-to-be-designed-by-god-, earth" position. Ward and Brownlee used scientific work provided by a creationist, true, but they came to a completely different conclusion. It appears that Ward and Brownlee accepted Gonzalez's science, while simply rejecting his very un-scientific conclusions. I don't see how that makes them, or their work, "creationist claptrap". Nor does it fit the "trojan horse" analogy. I also read Gonzalez's article on Galactic Habitable Zones in Scientific American when it came out. (and made the connection when I read the preface to Rare Earth, thank you very much:D) Apparently, S.A. reached the same conclusion as Ward and Brownlee. They published the article, without any of Gonzalez's creationist conclusions. Do you think Scientific American should have refused to publish it, based on his religious ideas? Should all of his work, and everything he to which he contributes be considered illegitimate creationist nonsense? Some creationists have falsely accused the scientific community of doing this, and I think Ward and Brownlee have helped disprove these allegations by including Gonzalez. Aside from Gonzalez's contribution, are there any other creationists cited in Rare Earth? (I looked. Didn't see any, but then, I missed Gonzalez....) And even if there are, did Ward and Brownlee support creationism, or reach any creationistic conclusions? I don't think so, but correct me if I'm wrong. thanx heaps, DGv3.0

I'd recommend reading the book before flaming it.... I think you may have been mis-informed, McCoy. I'm not a creationist, and I don't read "creationist claptrap". The authors of Rare Earth don't support creationism, either. Their book states that the earth is well over 4 billion years old, life arose from non-life over a billion years ago, and that evolution of other life forms occurred by random mutation and natural selection. They don't make any attempts to "plot a curve from a single point". On the contrary, they very carefully point out throughout the text that data on earth-like worlds is currently limited to just one example--ours. There's nothing in this book about creationism; it's about natural processes that influence the evolution of life, from the simple to the complex. It has no references to any of the usual creationist ideas; no young earth, no "special creation", no nonsense about animal "kinds", no micro- vs. macro-evolution, nor anything about "intelligent design". I can't imagine why Dembski thinks this book supports any views held by creationists, but he's very mistaken. Dembski (and other creationists) have been known to mis-interpret legitimate science to serve their own purposes, and I suspect that's what he did in his "review". If you'd care to post a link to it, I'll check it out. But why would you assume a book review by Dembski would be any more truthful than anything else he's written? Perhaps you ought to read this book, so we could have an informed discussion about it. Likewise, I'll read that Dembski review as soon as you post a link to it. thanx heaps, DGv3.0

I'd recommend the following... Ward and Brownlee's Rare Earth has lots of geology/planetology info for Earth-like worlds. For other types of planets, check out Worlds Without End by John S. Lewis. Fairly dry reading, but I've found both of these to be highly useful references for world-building. DG

That's probably the best option. Here's another, thrown in just to be thorough: use an End Reserve, with enough End for one use, and delayed Rec to match the "cool down" period.