Derek Hiemforth

From BTRC, add Warp World and CORPS Apocalypse. I wouldn't really call Stalking The Night Fantastic apocalyptic... it's more Men-In-Black humor-horrorish. I'd suggest adding the Thundarr The Barbarian cartoon, but I can't remember how the world ended in it. Cosmic accident I think. (Comet passing too close to the earth or something?)

I've seen two major types of "fallen Earth" settings. For lack of better terminology, I'll call them "negative focus" and "positive focus" viewpoints. In the negative focus game, the players' goal seems to be exploring (in a philosophical sense) the effects of civilization's destruction, and the characters' goal is generally just to stay alive. The characters tend to be morally ambiguous, largely because there is little distinction between good and evil. There's little, if anything, the characters can do to change the world. In other words, exploring the wretched squalor of the world is itself the purpose of the game. These games are often set fairly shortly after the Armageddon event, while the scattered remnants of humanity are still crawling in the mud wrestling with mutated rats for scraps. Examples of this type of world come mostly from gaming, as it would be hard to sell this kind of story to a film audience. I'm sure there must be some, however. In the positive focus game, the post-apocalypse world is used more as a backdrop rather than an end in itself. The Armageddon event often happened long ago, so the Earth has had some time to recover. There are usually new civilizations arisen, though of course they are usually smaller than today's civilizations, and different in nature. This game plays more like a fantasy game, with the characters more likely to do things for altruistic reasons than in the negative focus game. Examples include the film Logan's Run (especially once they escape the city) and the cartoon Thundarr The Barbarian. As you can probably tell, I really don't care for the negative focus game. I like to participate in stories where the PCs are heroic, and it's hard to be heroic when you're stuck in the first two levels of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.

You could just buy an Energy Blast, and apply a Limited Power Limitation (of -3/4 or so) that you can only use it immediately following a Teleport, and that the target of the EB must be in a such a position that you could draw a straight line between your original position, the target, and your new position. Alternately, you might use this special effect as justification to try and convince your GM to allow you to use Teleport for a Move Through. Normally, you can't do that, but it might be reasonable for this effect... essentially, you're causing damage to something along a movement path, and that sounds like Move Through.

I probably know the answer to this, but the FAQ items all refer to slots rather than whole Frameworks, so I guess it doesn't hurt to be sure... Can you Link a whole Elemental Control to a power that's a slot in a Multipower? I've got a water-based character who has a Multipower with two slots: Damage Reduction (watery body) and Desolidification (mist). She currently (old character) has also has two Elemental Controls... one with things like Stretching and Swimming that's Linked to the "Watery Body" slot, and one with things like Flight and Invisibility that's linked to the "Mist" slot. Is this a legal construct? (I don't remember why she's not built with Multiform... maybe because only her Powers change between "forms," not her Skills and Disads, and it seemed weird buying them all twice. Or something. )

Re: Beserk vs Psych Lim There is no right answer to this. It all depends on how you imagine vampires to be. Either way is workable, as are several others. It's just a matter of taste.

Your hard work and dedication are much appreciated, Christopher! Thanks!

You could build a Grab that has the other NND element (the one from Nerve Strike, not the one from Choke Hold). They would continue to take the NND damage as long as they were Grabbed, and presumably they would tap out before going unconscious from the pain.

I'd say you're getting old, Steve, except that I'd have to say we're getting old, and I don' wanna say that.

I don't care for the idea of making PRE a Figured CHA based on EGO and COM. I think force of personality is a useful thing to measure, and I don't think it really has that much to do with EGO or COM. For just one example that leaps quickly to mind, consider John Belushi. He was hardly a bastion of self-control, so it's hard to claim he had a great EGO, nor was he particularly handsome, so it's hard to claim he had a high COM. But he obviously had a very high PRE. There are lots of examples like this... enough that I think it's clear that EGO and COM don't determine PRE. The SIM is an interesting idea, but seems overly complicated to me. I think the same result can be obtained by the GM just exercising common and dramatic sense.

I actually think COM shouldn't be a Characteristic. I don't think its effects are granular enough to make it worthwhile differentiating between individual points. I'd make it some kind of Talent or Perk called "Pleasing Appearance" or something. Having said that, I do tend to spend at least a few points on COM, simply because heroic characters are most often supposed to be good-looking, and I like to try to build faithfully to character conception. I have 12 characters who are more-or-less active (meaning, they're in campaigns that haven't officially been shelved). Of those 12 characters, 11 of them have a COM higher than 10. I do still show a gender bias, though, as male characters' COM scores range from 10-18, while female characters' COM scores range from 18-30.

Well... they're not always fighting!

You only divide once. It's on page 318.

Geez. Since I have enough of all of these that I'm selling a batch of 20, and will still have all of them when I'm done (including the greyscale cover), what does that make me??

I'm selling off some extra copies of stuff I've picked up over the years. 20 books for 20 bucks! (Starting bid) http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=2548&item=3124525227&rd=1

How about PEAs? (People of Extraordinary Ability)

Let's assume a Standard Superheroic campaign where most attacks are around 60 Active Points. For 60 Active Points, you can only get a 5d6 Energy Blast or 1.5d6 KA Damage Shield. Those attacks will be utterly worthless against the typical defenses in a Standard Superheroic campaign. (And this doesn't include Reduced END, which you'd almost have to add to any large Damage Shield because of the Active Cost.) In a nutshell, if you buy enough dice to be useful, the Active Points exceed campaign guidelines and are unwieldy to fit in Power Frameworks, etc. If you keep the Active Points within norms, then the dice are too low to be useful. (Unless you rely solely on unusual forms of damage.)

Your wish is my command... I just opined one time that you could buy any power with Uncontrolled, Continuous, and No Range (if applicable), and define the effect as a "Damage Shield." You wouldn't even need a separate Advantage. Another possibility that others have also mentioned is to keep the idea that a Damage Shield also has to be Continuous, but allow the No Range Limitation to have its normal value, and don't count the Continuous part of the Active Cost when determining if the power fits into campaign caps on such things. I think this latter method has a lot going for it. Damage Shields would still be pricey, not but as pricey. And the higher Active Point cost would make sticking a damage shield in every Multipower a bit harder to do effectively. (I've seen that tactic abused in character building.) I understand why it was made more expensive. though. It could be very nasty when it was only +1/2. If I'd been in Steve's place, I probably would have just made Damage Shield a +1 Advantage, and said that it was automatically No Range and behaved like a Constant power.

I know. You think not having an "instant kill" effect is a good thing, and I might agree with you. But it is possible if someone who doesn't think its absence is a good thing chooses to set up their campaign ground rules to facilitate it. So you wouldn't set up your campaign to allow it.

I bought The World of Synibarr years ago because the cover looked interesting. Boy, there was never a truer example of the old saw, "Don't judge a book by its cover." It was God-awful. I pawned it off on some hapless game store or something years ago. Now I'm tempted to find a dirt-cheap copy of it again just for the sake of kitsch... the ultimate idol of how not to do an RPG. I should have a copy on my shelf just so I can remind myself of what a truly bad game book really is. At DunDraCon last month, a nice old lady was demonstrating a customizable board game in the dealer's room. It seemed kind of interesting, and I empathized with this kindly grandmother-type being cooped up with a mob of weirdo gamers, so I bought a start-up package. When I opened it up later, I was panicked to learn that the game was designed by none other than the infamous Raven c.s. McCracken! If only I'd known before I shelled out money...

Again, this doesn't violate or ignore metarule #6 at all. Your criteria are simply defining "valid." What would you do if there were two ways to build an effect, one of which was slightly more expensive than the other, and both seemed equally easy and accurate, neither seemed unbalancing, and both seemed cheese-free? Metarule #6 simply suggests that, in such a case, going with the one that's a little more expensive avoids abuse. I go back to the very first thing I said. People worry too much about metarule #6.

But they were rarely rushing about at warp 9. Later in the series, they were restricted to warp 5 except in extreme emergency. At that speed, it would be about a week from Sol to Alpha Centauri. And of course, they were often going only warp 1 or warp 2. S'Gonna take 'em ferever to git annywhere at that rate!

In my experience, and I realize I might be in a minority here, the thing it already does (tracking DEXes and SPDs) is the most useful thing it can do, and the more stuff you add, the greater the danger of it reaching the point where you spend so much time fiddling with the app that it hinders the game instead of helping it. The only other thing I'd use a PDA for would be tracking STUN and END, and you can do that in a text editor. I'd leave it as just a DEX and SPD tracker.

Then that's definitely Autofire. That's exactly how AF works.

There is a condensed abilities and their costs list like this in the HERO System Resource Kit.

It's not impossible. You just have to set up the ground rules of a specific campaign to make it possible if you wish.