Steve

Well, if his VPP was 0-Phase, I'd agree with you on the Dispel issue. As it is written though, it takes time, likely a turn or more, for him to do anything with his pool, even with his skill roll. If he is hit with some disease-based attack that is fast-acting and deadly, it looks like he's toast. Your point on his CON raises an interesting notion. At what CON point do you get an effective immunity to such things as colds and ordinary illnesses without buying an equivalent level of Life Support? Does a high CON offer such protection as a minor side effect?

I was looking over Teleios today, and I noticed one power that he didn't have that surprised me by its absence: Life Support (Immunity to Disease). As a perfect human, shouldn't he have a perfect immune system? I know he has his VPP built around biochemical powers, but it looks like he could be hit by a disease-based power that was fast-acting and be downed before he could even think of shifting his points. It just struck me as an odd gap in his write-up.

Okay. I think I have this straight now, but I want to be sure. Based on your earlier reply, it looks like I should be able to pay the remaining points to "make up the difference" for an extra point of SPD, rather than pay a full 10 points, if both the extra DEX and SPD are bought through a limitation in common like a Focus or OIHID. That was how I always understood it to work. I now understand the rounding rule for things like CON and ED. What I was trying to do was create an 18DEX/4SPD normal form, and a 26DEX/6SPD super form. If I'm now understanding everything correctly, then I need to pay 36 active points for my normal form and 32 more active points for my superpowered form.

I'm trying to wrap my mind around something that I've been asking about in the Hero Designer forum, so I have a couple of rules questions. 1) If I have a character that has bought a portion of his characteristics usable Only In Hero ID, how are figured characteristics calculated? For example, I buy a 16 CON in my basic form, and then I buy +7 points of CON OIHID, is my OIHID base ED a 4 or a 5? I was under the impression that the OIHID form would pick up the benefit of the round-off at that point, since the OIHID CON is now 23. 2) If I buy 8 points of DEX OIHID, and I also want to buy a point of SPD (and there is no limitation applied of No Figured Characteristics), do I pay 2 points to have that point of SPD, or 10 points?

Well, male characters have passed out from the sight of naked female flesh (as seen in The Samurai and Ranma 1/2 sometimes, although Ryoga Hibiki is the only character I can recall doing that). I was just uncertain if a Susceptibility was the better way to go to replicate this effect, since it can sometimes knock a male character senseless, or if a Physical Limitation of some sort (Physical Limitation: Virgin maybe?) was more appropriate.

How would you best simulate this effect? I was thinking of using either a Susceptibility (to sight of female nudity) or a Physical Limitation. Anyone out there have any thoughts on this matter?

I would agree on the Shadow World setting. It has a rich feel to it, and a long history to mine for campaign ideas. If you like the notion of Urban Fantasy, there is an out of print (I believe) game called Cuttthroat. It was set in a sort of Thieves World type of fantasy city. For a more modern take on fantasy, try Bloodshadows. The notion of film noir mixed with fantasy elements inspired some good games. Picture a 1920s-era private eye going up against vampire-controlled syndicates and accompanied by a gorgeous "moll" type, and you start to get the idea.

Whole Cloth or Evolotionary Creation? I may be in the minority on this, but I tend to go through several iterations of a character as a campaign progresses, not with the goal of ever increasing point efficiency but more that my concept of the character refines as I play him. So I usually start out with a rather generic concept at the outset. As time goes on, the character evolves into a deeper construct and sometimes takes on rather surprising dimensions. I wonder, do most people create from whole cloth at the beginning or refine the concept over time like me? I've never been sure, since I have played with roughly equal numbers of both types of players.

One thing to also consider is the nature of the style itself. Would the style include such attacks as punches and kicks or would it use various types of raking attacks instead? If the latter, you could probably design the style without any concern for weapon elements for natural claws, or even use them as the default weapon, which would give it an interesting visual aspect. Just a thought.

Power levels One of the things that was really nice from Ninja Hero was establishing a spectrum of power level categories that a campaign could fall into, and suggestions for creating characters and even sample campaigns that used these power levels. Fantasy Hero could do the same thing, with cateogries ranging from Low Fantasy (with maybe as low as 50+50 or even 25+25 Heroes set in a low or non-magic setting, like Medieval Europe); Swords & Sorcery (Conan or Ladyhawk); all the way up to Epic (such as LOTR) or even Anime level (such as Slayers or Bastard). Just my two cents.