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Re: An Open Request for Scenario Assistance It's been a long time since I've played, or even made a character, but I took a shot at the spy. [ATTACH]27058[/ATTACH]

Re: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks Hero You can also buy the PDF of it from Paizo publishing for $4: http://paizo.com/store/downloads/wizardsOfTheCoast/aDAndD1/greyhawk/v5748btpy7me2&source=search They actually have a lot of the old 1st and 2nd edition stuff in PDF format for very reasonable prices.

Re: I had a descussion with Steve about buying some Hero's books... Am I the only one that finds this offensive? I'm sure this is just in jest, but I think it's also a bit over the top; you've basically just threatened someone, and over the price of a book to boot. I recommend you calm down, change your font and color scheme, and save up for the game if it is something you want to do. The price is the price - nobody is forcing you to buy it. It is expensive, but its a big book - almost 600 pages, and this isn't the '90s anymore. If that's too much, Sidekick is a nice compromise, and you can always graduate to 6E when it comes out.

Re: Doing your own calendar: is it worth it?

Re: Doing your own calendar: is it worth it? Personally, it just doesn't feel very fantasy to me. Now, if the fantasy you're going for is a sci-fi inspired fantasy, maybe the metric system will work for it. When I think of the theme of fantasy, one thing that gives it that authentic flavor, IMO, is the wacky units and strange bases they use for measurements. A league for travel, which can be anywhere from 2-5 miles. Hell, the mile is a strange one itself, what with 5280 feet making it up, but too every day (at least, if you're still stuck in bas-ackwards USA anyways). 16 drams to the ounce, 16 ounces to the pound, 14 pounds to the stone. You get the idea. Where the hell they came up with the numbers is anyones guess, but the important thing, at least to me, is that it doesn't feel all nicely organized like a physics text. Days, weeks, months are no different in my opinion. I have no idea why we have the months we do, with strange numbers of days that don't seem to relate to any other numbers. But that is part of the feel of the whole thing. That being said, YMMV. It's your game, so whatever feel you're going for is what matters. For me, I would not want everything to match up so perfectly.

Re: [Movie] Day Watch I've seen the preview for this in the theater and thought it looked very cool. I had never heard of Night Watch before, so I guess I need to Netflix that before I see this.

Re: Lasso's in Combat Good point. After thinking about it more, I think the 5/1 DEF/Body is probably pretty close -rope is tough and I doubt you could really cut through it in a single phase without a really sharp knife, so the 5/1 is probably pretty close. I like RPMiller's idea of accumulating the body, it makes the most dramatic sense. there an times you just have to hand-wave hero.

Re: Lasso's in Combat Yeah, what he said I'd rep you RP, but I need to spread it around

Re: Lasso's in Combat The -1 OCV sounds good to me, STR min sounds okay. I found a site selling manilla rope (http://www.us-rope-cable.com/HTML/manila-rope.html) - from their site, the 3" diameter rope weighs 241.67 pounds per 100'. That's a volume of 8482.3 cubic inches, and is pretty thick. I figure 1/2" sounds reasonable, so 50' of 1/2" rope should weigh about 3.4 pounds. 5 DEF and 1 BODY seems off to me. The Object Table in 5ER (pg 448) doesn't list rope, but Glass, reinforced is 2/1 (DEF/BODY), and Furniture, Light Wood is (3/3). I'd probably go with 3/2 or 2/2 - rope is pretty tough, and should be tougher than glass. If you want movie style rope, where they can cut it on a whim, I'd go 2/1 or even 1/1. As for escaping from it, I'd use the grab rules (pg 387 5ER). Larger creatures typically have stretching already, you should be able to stack the stretching. If you've built them with Growth there are rules about their reach already, the stretching applies at the end of their reach. I recently picked up the PDF version of 5ER, and I need to send a big kudos out to HERO for this - what a boon! It's great to be able to search for text, and the built in bookmarks are fantastic! :thumbup:

Re: Lasso's in Combat Good point. Another good point. One thing I like about HERO is that it seems to promote that line of thinking. Because the special effects of a power are up to the player and GM to work out, there is an intrinsic need for the GM to use common and dramatic sense when adjudicating how a special effect affects the world. Many other game systems spell out exactly what each power does, leading to rules lawyering on specific effects.

Re: Lasso's in Combat No problem - happy to be of help. I was looking at the Stretching power in 5ER, and I noticed that the "Cannot Do Damage" modifier states that you can still do grabs, but not squeeze or throw - so would that not already cover the "Only for performing grabs"? Also, the 1 recoverable charge looks good, but it got me to thinking - is there any way in the hero system to reflect extra time after a power before using it again? Sort of a cooldown, really. Realistically, you should be able to use it again if you miss - it just might take an extra phase to coil the rope again. I don't know how to reflect this in Hero. Good writeup though, I think.

Re: Lasso's in Combat Wow, 15" is 98.4 feet - that seems like a very long distance to me. Of course, I've never used a lariat, or even been to a rodeo, so maybe I'm off base. ... I decided to google it and found this page: http://www.answers.com/topic/lasso According to the Columbia Encyclopedia So, I would think more like 5".

Re: What If? Empire Wins Well done and rep'd. I didn't guess the hermit as Mace until I read below, but I think your ideas are the most like the original source material.

Re: Creating my own fantasy World Interesting site - worth of bookmarking and looking at again in the future. Rep'd.

Re: Daily Art Findings I love Belkar - Inkthinkers rendition is pretty cool - the face is very good. But boy, he sure gave the boy some meaty legs.

Re: dungeon That's cool - I like it. I would make most sections uninhabited, but have the occasional odd noise and rumors about it. "We don't go to the undercroft below the abbey anymore... there are strange goings on there." You now have some mystery, populate it with some unsavory people, or a monster type, and you're good to go.

Re: dungeon Damn, that is cool.

Re: dungeon The History Channel has a regular show on called "Cities of the Underworld": http://www.history.com/minisites/citiesoftheunderworld This show is specifically about the things that are underneath some of our modern cities. I've only seen one episode so far, but it looks like their site has some content available - if nothing else, the visuals alone are worth a look, and just thinking about how a realistic labyrinth of tunnels and passageways could be under another city. Great stuff for the fantasy genre.

Re: dungeon You could also use non-dungeons as dungeons. I saw a program on the history channel that showed what's underneath Istanbul - once known as Constantinople. Fascinating stuff - the main square of the city is built above a gigantic cistern (I may have the term wrong, but it's a butt-load of water - millions of gallons) and supported by ornately carved columns. This goes on for multiple rooms - it's huge. The idea of a new city built on top of an old is not a stretch at all; far more believable than an elaborate dungeon.

Re: Indusharan destinations (Turakian Age) The idea sounds intriguing. I always liked quests that involved travel, especially ship-borne travel, for some reason. Of course, you want to limit the fast and instant travel (ala flight and teleport) to get the maximum effect. I don't have any suggestions, however, as I don't have TA with me and I'm not certain what you're looking for.

Re: Daily Art Findings I like it - the subtle tones and the line styles remind me of Chinese art.

Re: Daily Art Findings Very cool picture; rep'd. I'd rep Susano for finding it, but I can't at the moment

Re: Storn Art From Idea to Full Picture Year 4 Can't we all (well, you all, really) just get along?

Re: Star Fantasy, some ideas please? Check out Paizo publishing - they have most, if not all, of the 2nd edition D&D stuff available as PDF downloads for fairly cheap - here's a link to their Spelljammer content: http://paizo.com/store/byCompany/w/wizardsOfTheCoast/byProductType/roleplayingGames/dungeonsDragons/aDAndD2/spelljammer $4.00 for the Spelljammer boxed set as a PDF.

Re: Fantasy Travel Question I agree with you that 8 mph is very fast, but I thought I'd point out you have a math problem you calculation above: 6.2 miles in 42 minutes would equal 8.9 miles in an hour. That being said, I completely agree with the sentiment that this is the speed for a world class athlete, completely unencumbered, on good terrain with good equipment (modern walking shoes must be better than medieval leather boots), and not representative of what an average character should be able to do.