Captain Obvious

Well, I've got this thing as done as it's going to get for the foreseeable future, and it's good enough to set loose in the wild, I suppose. Now to see if the forum software will let me fit this monster in here. .... Apparently not. If anyone is interested, PM me your email address and I'll send you a copy. I'm pretty sure a Hotmail account will accept an attachment this big, assuming you don't have your box full of other stuff.

Re: Looking for a good name for a Martial Art Do you have a cite for that?

Re: Genre-crossover nightmares "Elmo wants to know what a T. rex eats. Let's ask a baby! Baby, what does a T. re...AAAAGGGHHH GOD NO NOOOOOOO!"

Re: Mammoth Genome Decoded -- Clones on the Way? Replace "lasers" with "death rays" and pulp still wins. Oh, and I want one, whether or not it comes with lasers and death rays.

Re: Order of the Stick That's an interesting thought...

Re: A DC Animated-style HeroMachine Does he use his powers for good or for awesome?

Re: 'Cause he flips out and kills people Fact: Belkar is a mammal. Fact: Belkar fights ALL the time. Fact: The purpose of Belkar is to flip out and kill people.

Re: Order of the Stick Sexy, shoeless god of war, indeed.

Re: Heroes from All Fifty States

Re: Money in Fantasy Setting The rust factor depends on how often the coin is handled. Iron and steel tend to develop an oxidized layer that protects the rest of the metal, if it's handled often. Look at an old mechanic's tools...they're generally browned with oxidation, but not rusty per se. If someone in this fantasy world has the equivalent of a penny jar, though, and it's allowed any kind of moisture (maybe even a humid climate), you'll have nothing but rust a few decades later when the adventurers find his abandoned cottage.

Re: Public Domain/Free Pictures Military uniforms of the 1660s to the 1700s Mistaken scientific theories of the past. Not all the pics here are public domain, but there are still a lot of woodcuts, engravings, etc. Pictures from past editions of Last of the Mohicans. Pictures of the American Revolution, from the National Archives. Some artists worth Googling, IMO: Howard Pyle, N.C. Wyeth, Edmund Dulac, Arthur Rackham, Albrecht Durer, John William Waterhouse.

Re: Public Domain/Free Pictures I had a pretty good site with a bunch of woodcuts from the Victorian Era and earlier, but I can't find it now... One thing I do when I'm looking for public domain pics is do a Google search using "site:gutenberg.org" as one of the search terms. I'll see if I can find that first site. It had some pretty good stuff. EDIT: YES! Here it is...I overlooked it the first time through my bookmarks because the name seemed too commercial, and I remembered it was a .edu site. http://etc.usf.edu/clipart/sitemap/sitemap.htm

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Bad logic on her part. Militaries throughout history have had all too many boobs. Often in positions of authority as well.

Re: Solar HERO: R.I.P. Phoenix It's a longshot, but there's the possibility that it will, once it warms up and the solar panels get a little light.

Re: THE BOOK OF DRAGONS -- What Do *You* Want To See? AHA! I decided to google up "heraldry dragon" and came with a page with a whole listing of them, including a four-legged hydra (I knew I had seen them somewhere) and a four-legged, wingless drake...so there's the blank filled in. http://www.blackdrago.com/heraldic.htm#drake

Re: THE BOOK OF DRAGONS -- What Do *You* Want To See? Not all dragons had wings in European depictions. I'm not sure if there was a specific name for them or not, though.

Re: Order of the Stick This is why I don't get bent out of shape about Belkar's actions, or why the rest of the OotS keep him around...he's some gamer's power fantasy, and he has the PC light shining on him. If he does reform, it will (or should) be along the lines of the power-gamer who is forced into having a backstory: (other member of the Order): "Belkar, you can't kill him...he looks and acts just like your foster father, who took you in as a child and raised you as his own." Belkar (in a flat, stilted voice): "Ah yes, my poor, sainted foster dad. I could never harm anyone who so reminds me of him. I'll get you later, you rat ba*d..."

Re: THE BOOK OF DRAGONS -- What Do *You* Want To See? A dragon with wings and no legs is an amphitere. I'm not sure about the four legs/no wings kind. I've seen hydras represented with no legs, with two legs, and (IIRC) with four legs. That last might just have been a generic multi-headed dragon. As for portmanteau names, yeah, they can be silly, but IMO a lot of completely made up names are silly as well. It was the made-up name and appearance of the monster that trashed Wishsong of Shannara for me.

Re: 10kT nuclear bomb I'm not a nuclear physicist, but I would expect the damage at ground zero to drop at about the same rate. Nuclear reactions occur at a controlled rate in nuclear reactors (Whoa! Who'da thunk, huh?) but the temperature doesn't get high enough to vaporize metal. It stands to reason that an uncontrolled reaction of a smaller amount of material, releasing less overall energy, would release less energy at ground zero. Although, if you have the radius for the 1Mton bomb where metal is vaporized, it probably drops at the same rate as the second and third degree burns for the 10Kton bomb. You might end up with less than a hex of metal vaporization, and it might be worth adding in some extra damage without the Explosion Advantage.

Re: Order of the Stick #605 is up. "He said 'rogue cleric', not 'rogue/cleric'."

Re: Whoo-Hoo! Atlantean Age Is Mine!

Re: fantasy hero archtypes It often gets overdone. Plus, there do seem to be people around who picture a D&D monk as a Franciscan friar or something.

Re: Whoo-Hoo! Atlantean Age Is Mine! What nonhuman races have been mentioned supporting Gorak? I'm not sure what you're referring to (and that may very well be a duh moment for me, once you answer). As for tie-ins to the rest of the metaverse, Elweir and Abyzinia from the Valdorian Age are mentioned, and Hidden Lands is referenced quite a bit (unsurprisingly).

Re: 4th Edition Package Deals By both 4th and 5th edition rulebooks, is the correct answer. Games I've played in have often used a house rule that the Disadvantages of a Package Deal don't count toward the 75 points of Disadvantages in character creation, though, so in this case a) would work since the Disads equal the Skills and Talents. If the Disads were only 10 points, though, the other 10 points of Skills/Talents would come out of the 150 points you get from the base points and other Disadvantages. If that makes sense...I feel like I'm kinda rambling.

Re: THE BOOK OF DRAGONS -- What Do *You* Want To See? Krakens are in the Bestiary. As for what I would like to see in the Book of Dragons, I've always felt that dragons as a general rule don't have enough breadth in games. Recent versions of D&D seem to have fixed that to a degree, but still, it seems that there should be dragons with and without wings; with armored scales, with hard shells, with leathery skin, or with thin amphibian skin; with no legs or with a dozen; intelligent or bestial; with the power to terrorize worlds or only enough power to work up a village to a tizzy; dragons that fit (both in terms of points and in terms of genre feel) into the Turakian Age, the Valdorian Age, the Atlantean Age, Tuala Morn, Pulp Hero, or Champions. But it sounds like, with umpty-billion character sheets, that should be taken care of.