Markdoc

Re: Worrying unnecessarily (as usual)

Re: What Have You Watched Recently? Yeah, I loved that bit too. One of the nice thing about the series was the way they added so much extra stuff without it seeming too forced. You have this standard Pulp sequence, defending the temple against asiatic hordes and then - without any warning - it's OMG, Yetis! cheers, Mark

Re: What Have You Watched Recently? The mummy trilogy - Mummy, Mummy's return and Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. All in all, surprisingly good and much less cheesy than expected. Interestingly, the "son" character was much more competent and less annoying as a 6 year old than a 20-something year old. I'm inclined to see the Scorpion King now, to round out the set. cheers, Mark

Re: Heroic Vampires

Re: Heroic Vampires Even in places like London, though, things change a lot. OK, the inns of the city haven't altered much, but unless you confine yourself to the City, things have changed a lot. I was reading Britain's Lost Cities by Gavin Stamp recently and the photos make it clear how much Britain's cities have changed just over the last century: vast swathes have been swept away for motorways and postwar development, suburbs have sprawled out over the landscape, and even in the urban cores, old buildings have been demolished, altered and so on. Here's a good example: Sadlers Wells theatre from a bit over a century ago Here's a picture taken from more less the same spot: Much of the building from the 18th century is still there, but if you were looking for it recalling how it looked 100 years ago .... Even landmarks that you might think you could rely on - like the canal - are gone (incidentally, the canal's still there too - it's just underground). cheers, Mark

Re: Heroic Vampires

Re: What Have You Watched Recently? Seen: Alexander (Director's cut). I haven't seen this before. It was .... OK. The fact that all the Macedonian officers were Irish, was amusing though. The Good, the Bad, the Wierd. Korean noodle-western set in 1930's manchuria. Clearly inspired by the original but deeply different. A genial bandit, a bounty hunter, manchurian bandit gangs, the best assassin in Manchuria and the Japanese army all chasing a treasure map, vengeance or both. I really liked it. Red Cliffs. Chinese big war quasi-historical movie. Great sets, cast of thousands, yadda yadda. Pretty good, although they do that weird chinese battle choreography, but one warning: it's actually part one of two. They don't tell you that in advance so they're building up to the big naval battles and ... the End. Apart from that, recommended. Igor - about a hunchback who wants to be an evil scientist. Amusing, but a bit dumbed down. Pity, with a little more work, this could have been awesome. Divine Weapon. Selfless noble Koreans sacrifice all to make advanced gunpowder weapons to thwart the evil invading Ming. OK, I guess. Historical note: I've been reading about the Japanese invasion of Korea under Hideyoshi recently and the multiple rocket launcher in the movie did exist and even played a part in one of the major japanese defeats. The medieval ICBMs however, did not exist Singh Is Kinng. This was a huge hit when I was in India last year. Damned if I know why - it's pretty lame, even by Bollywood standards. The plot (if it matters) is about a gangster's blind brother who just wants some respect and a guy whose girl is getting married to another guy and .. whatever. A bunch of other movies too, but I can't recall offhand what they were ... cheers, Mark

Re: And off we go! As the first Samadrian ship crashes alongside, Endre, Gen and the remaining archers (who have been holding an action) rise from cover and fire down into the massed Samadrian archers – at this range it is nearly impossible to miss and many of them go down. Adriana leaps on a hanging rope from the rigging, soars over the heads of the boarding troops, landing behind them and charges the Samadrian mage and the helmsman. Khatz scrambles into the rigging after her, while the rest of the PCs spring to defend the railings. The leader of the Samadrians also proves to be a mage as he casts a battle spell, shielding his archers from missile fire. The attack is somewhat blunted as a good number of Samadrian marines run after Adriana as she dashes up onto the galleass’ sterncastle and kills the helmsman. Khatz swings over on a rope to join her, and lands just ahead of the charging Samadrians. Adriana glares at him and snarls “Idiot! It was just supposed to be a diversion!” before nimbly leaping onto the rail and running back to the Sea Ghost along one of the grappling lines. Khatz looks at the dozen angry Samadrians charging him, and tries the same trick - but slips and is left dangling from the rope. The second Samadrian ship pulls along side, and men start to pile over the railings. The remaining PCs charge into the fight and the Samadrian leader drops his shield spell and also leaps aboard. As the pirates close in, he activates another spell – a great flash that blinds all those in front of them. He closes in for the kill on his blinded opponents. Glancing around, Gen sees two things from the after deck. On one side, two Samadrian ships have grappled Thana’s ship and are trying to board. Suddenly, the great gilded figurehead that gives his ship the name Goldenprow, comes alive, grasping men in its long wooden arms and either breaking them like sticks of wood or flinging them into the sea. On the other side, she sees a dip suddenly appears in the sea – the maelstrom is waking at last! On the main deck, the battle rages. Bellona who is skilled in blindfighting, engages the shiplord, striking him two solid blows and driving him back, allowing the others time to clear their eyes. Aquila darts in and manages to sever two grappling lines, while Khelsen cuts two more. Caught in the grip of the current, the second Samadrian ship peels away from the Sea Ghost, attached by only a single rope, which one of the pirates soon severs. Endre shoots arrows into the Samadrians on the other ship who are pulling their grappling lines taut, forcing them to drop one line. The Samadrians, however, seeing the maelstrom, and watching it swallow their two unengaged ships, fight desperately to protect the remaining lines – the battle wavers back and for a minute, but in the end, Lamoniak and Bellona strike down the Samadrian shiplord – though he cuts down Lamoniak in the same fight. Khatz, who has been hauled back on board, by one of Adriana’s pirates, charges into the fray and clears a space for Khelsen, who reaches the railing. Unable to sever all the grappling hooks, he takes a mighty swing with a boarding axe at the railing itself, shearing away several supports – with a crash, it tears free and the Samadrian ship pulls away from the Sea Ghost in the grip of a racing current. Then it reaches the extent of the remaining ropes and it slams to a halt, throwing half the combatants off their feet, before ripping away part of the Sea Ghost’s rigging and whirling away toward the maelstrom. However that last impact has had a dire effect – one of the Sea Ghost’s anchors has also torn free of the reef and the Sea Ghost swings wildly about, caught in the current. Everyone on board – pirate and Samadrian – stare at the remaining hawser, which groans – then stretches – and then parts with an explosive snap! The Sea Ghost accelerates away towards the maelstrom which is getting ever larger and ever faster. As everyone on board watches in horror, the first Samadrian ship reaches the centre of the maelstrom and is suddenly whipped from sight below the frothing waters. The second Samadrian ship and the Sea Ghost whirl out of control toward the same fate!

Re: Yet another Fantasy Hero Weapons Thread... What's "Reduced BODY Maxima"? cheers, Mark

Re: Yet another Fantasy Hero Weapons Thread... True, but in real life, that's not unrealistic. I know a single stab with a sword could easily kill a person - but then, that's true for a knife as well. In fact, to an unarmoured target, being stabbed with a sword is realistically probably not a great deal more dangerous than a knife - the advantage of a sword in real life is that it gives you much more reach, letting you get yours in first and also lets you make a longer hole in whatever you stab - and the key is sticking it somewhere where it's really going to hurt. We've been conditioned by games to think "Bigger weapon = more damage" but in real life, it's a bit more complicated. In general, game damage doesn't scale with real life damage. In real life, even a punch from a normal STR 10 human is capable of doing a one-hit kill from time to time. Conversely, in real life, even quite large stabbing weapons typically take several hits to reliably result in fatality - though one good shot can certainly do it. In short, where you hit matters as much if not more than what you hit with. So here's a idea I just formulated. If we wanted more "realistic" damage, we could leave the weapons alone and instead modify the hit location table. Use 2d6 to generate location as we do now, and then roll a d6. On a 1-4, use the table as listed, on a 5 double damage and on a 6 quadruple it. That'd give a damage multiplier for BOD of up to 8x on head or vitals locations, so you could kill someone with a single punch (pretty damned unlikely, but it could happen). A single head hit with a sword would result in fatality pretty regularly. A real rough seat of the pants calculation based on what we know about stabbings (about a 3% fatality rate inside the first hour or so, most of which are with knives, so about 1d6) http://www.springerlink.com/content/yq70634r1t5418x7/ http://archsurg.ama-assn.org/cgi/reprint/141/8/800.pdf shows that this give a fairly realistic chance of killing an unarmoured target. Gamewise, it adds an extra roll, but should add the chance of sudden death without making it too likely. Interestingly, it also makes armour more realistic in its effects, as the multiplier is applied after defences. That makes sneaking a few BOD through potentially very important, since you have a decent chance of really messing someone up - whereas if the armour stops the blow, you're going to be alright (maybe a little bruised/winded - that's what STUN is for - but basically alright). It also differentiates smaller and larger weapons. The difference between 1d6 and 1d6+1 is usually not a great deal, but if the BOD multiplier is bumped up, that extra 1 pip can suddenly make a significant difference. This is also more realistic as far as I can work out - larger weapons typically do a bit more damage but their chance of a one shot kill is significantly enhanced (I'd note that I'm extrapolating here based on what I know of gunshot wounds: I don't have any experience of actual sword wounds). Personally, I don't need more lethality in my FH games, but I like this idea enough that I may try it out in some one-off games. cheers, Mark

Re: Yet another Fantasy Hero Weapons Thread... Actually, I don't have much problem with the STR min. As the rules state My own experiences with reproduction weapons and using steel weapons in mock combat is that actually, it takes a fair bit of experience to use the weapons effectively - part of which is simply building up forearm STR. Otherwise, your arm gets tired remarkably quickly and your aim is poor. It's not enough to hit someone or even hit someone precisely: you have to hit precisely and you have to hit very hard. It's one of those things that looks easy, but in practice is harder than it looks. Thus a normal (STR 8) person using a longsword would be at -1 OCV/DC. They'd still be way more dangerous with it than with their fists, and it would take relatively little experience (XP) to remove that penalty. Combat re-enactors do tend to have unusually strong hands/arms. It would be more realistic to buy limited STR (only to wield weapons) perhaps, but that's more detail than I could be bothered with. cheers, Mark

Re: Spell of gods comunication I'd suggest a fourth option. If there really are Gods and they actively participate by talking to their worshippers, then allow priests to buy a contact (extremely useful, access to major institutions, contacts of his own). That way they can ask their contact questions and how likely they are to get a response depends on what they are asking for and how they've been doing in the religion business. It also lets you know how easily they can actually get an answer. cheers, Mark

Re: Yet another Fantasy Hero Weapons Thread... That might work - or you could just fold maces and hammers together into a single category: in real life, which you used tended to be a matter of preference - they functioned similarly. If you want more differentiation, I'd tend to make hammers and spiked/flanged maces penetrating and clubs or maces without projections +1 Stun. Real life maces tend to be be heavier than warhammers, but also tended to have a larger head - most warhammers I've seen (and I've seen lots) tend to have heads designed to deliver impact to a limited area. Of the two, the hammer is more likely to make a hole. cheers, Mark

Re: Yet another Fantasy Hero Weapons Thread...

Re: Yet another Fantasy Hero Weapons Thread... Just a point - hammers are really good at penetrating/crushing armour: historically, it's what they were primarily used for. cheers, Mark

Re: And off we go! As promised, another update. These will be more regular for a while, as I got the notes organised while I was on vacation. The rest of the PCs open their door, on the pretext of asking for some water and sandbag their unfortunate guards. The unequal fight lasts but seconds and there is little noise. They swiftly rush to Endre’s room, where she is waiting with her personal belongings and then retreat through their own rooms, out the portrait secret door and down the stairs. They exit the castle via the sally port. There they wait until it begins to get light and a light sea mist begins to rise. They hear people approaching through the weeds and soon join up with Adriana and her pirates. The whole crew creeps toward Griffin Gate and wait for Aquila to open it Meanwhile, in the ward, Aquila realizes he cannot get out of sight in time, so he pulls his dark cloak over himself and lies still. The guard looks about and shines a lantern down into the ward, but he fails to spot Aquila lying on the grass under his cloak and seeing noting else moving, the guard eventually returns to his rounds. Once he has moved on, Aquila crawls to the wall and supporting himself against the wall, hobbles to Griffin Gate and opens it. The pirates and PCs enter, go to the prison and Aquila very quietly unlocks the door. The pirates swarm in – and find the place deserted! There are no guards, although there are 4 bunks. Adriana and her pirates go below, where they find holes bored down into the stone floor. Above some of these hang heavy iron cages, just big enough to take a person and just big enough to fit into the hole: they are suspended from chains that run to a windlass. The chains for four cages run down into dark holes. They swiftly wind the cages up – the first two are empty, but the next two contain Thomas, in pretty bad condition and an older man who is in an even worse state. Neither of them can stand, having been forced to crouch in the cage. The party carry them away as quickly and quietly as they can and retreat through the Griffin gate to the shore. There they board the ship’s boats that await and row out to the Sea Ghost. Once on board, Dalarna raises a magical wind and a fog, and the Sea Ghost sails rapidly past the Thorn and its harbor. They have succeeded in rescuing Thomas! In less than two hours they are reunited with Thana and the two ships sail away from the coastline under as much sail as they dare. They then turn to interrogating Thomas and the other guy they rescued. The PCs are elated at their escape but Thana is uneasy when they tell him their tale. It seems almost too easy – why were there no guards at the prison? The old man turns out to be the former priest of the temple at the Thorn. He has revived slightly with fresh air, food and drink and tells them that the woman they thought was the Lord’s Leman is in fact the priestess of a deviant cult of the Woman of Tides. They worship an avatar or a demon they call the Lady of Horses (though he doesn’t know what a horse is, merely that it is a “marvelous mount”. It still excites Lamoniak, who thinks that perhaps they know something of Remoulade, his home country). She had the old priest thrown in prison when she took over the temple – and she can read minds and send evil dreams. They try to get more information from him, but talking about her sends him into a fit, rolling on the deck and screaming “She’s in my temple and she’s in my head!” He has to be locked in the rope locker until he calms down. They do manage to piece out of his ravings the facts that she used her mindreading spell on him to try to discover his cult secrets but that he would not reveal them. He also says something about burying the temple treasures under the floor so she couldn’t find them. Thana is worried at first by the thought that she read the location of Pirate Cove from Thomas’ mind, but realizes that if it was that simple, it would have been done long ago. Thomas confirms that she was there when he was interrogated, but that his jailors didn’t actually ask many questions: they just threw him in the cage, after asking him what he was doing in the castle and where he had come from. Then he suggests that maybe the Lord of the Thorn will track them via his magic map – he’s had a chance to see the Sea Ghost, after all. Or can she track the old priest? Dalarna is persuaded to use his wind magic to carry one of the PCs aloft and though no ships can be seen from the masthead, from a height of several hundred metres, Khelsen can see 6 war galleys in the far distance. It seems that the squadron that was holding station off the coast is chasing them and everyone is persuaded that Thana is right: that they are being tracked somehow. That means they cannot return to Pirate Cove – and they may have to ditch their ships. After a brief council of war they come up with a cunning plan. They will sail through the Teeth and try to lure the enemy ships into a giant maelstrom called The Mouth. Thana has been there in his youth and his magic brass ball (the item he was worried might have been stolen when his home was ransacked) can guide them precisely there. If the players will assist in this plan, then Thana and Adriana will sail south to the coordinates where they saw the strange ship far out to sea. The PCs agree and the ships set sail westwards, towards The Mouth. On the way the players question the pirates about The Mouth. It is in an isolated region of the Teeth, full of reefs and tricky shallow water. Pirates occasionally venture there and they have fished odd things up out of the water, like statues or corroded mechanisms. It also seems there is something not quite natural about the maelstrom – it appears suddenly about noon, lasts less than half an hour, and then ends – with big bubbles floating to the surface. Nothing that goes into it is ever seen again. The ships sail on for two more days, deeper into the Teeth and making a wide circling course designed to deliver them to The Mouth before noon on the third day. The enemy ships draw slowly closer and closer until they can be seen by the lookout. On the third day, the pirates approach the area of The Mouth. Dalarna uses his spells to guide them through the treacherous water and the PCs work out that this must be a sunken city – the reefs are too regular to be anything else, though the buildings are now no more than lumps - and they are sailing down sunken boulevards and streets. Eventually they enter what must have been a great plaza. In its centre Dalarna’s magic detects a raised, square mound, not too far below the surface. This is the place of The Mouth. The plan is to draw the enemy ships into the maelstrom while the two pirate ships are well anchored. The pirates immediately go to work, sinking anchors as well as they can in rubble piles, but they are barely finished when the Samadrian ships can be seen approaching: though they cannot sense the reefs as Dalarna does, they are galleasses and their oars let them maneuver through the reefs faster than anticipated. They are only about 20 minutes away and it still lacks an hour to noon. To try and slow them, Dalarna calls up a heavy sea mist, plunging everything into darkness, but in only a few minutes, it suddenly vanishes and the sun shines from a clear blue cloudless sky again: his fog magic has been dispelled. Clearly the Samadrians have at least one capable sorcerer with them. Aquila climbs into the crows nest and spots the sorceror with is telescope – he is on the foredeck of the leading ship, guarded by the men with shields. The players get the old priest from The Thorn out on deck, explain the situation and ask if he can help. He gestures, makes arcane symbols in the air and then turns to water which runs away across the deck, draining into the sea, leaving the PCs gaping. When they reach the plaza, the Samadrian ships form a line, clearly planning a pincer movement to overwhelm the pirate ships with their superior numbers, then start to slowly advance. When they come into extreme longbow range, archers on both sides start exchanging shots. Few of the shots hit the mark, but it is clear the Samadrians have many more archers and things are looking grim. Endre however, takes aim at the mage Aquila identified and at extreme range plants an arrow in his shoulder despite the two shieldmen. As he staggers back, stunned, she hits him with a second arrow in the chest and he collapses to the deck. His bodyguards drag him to cover and Dalarna immediately casts his fog spell again. In a minute, the fog again blots out the sun and the pirates wait in the clammy darkness, clutching their weapons. The Samadrian ships are close enough that the sound of slow oars can be heard. Suddenly a Samadrian ship looms out of the fog on the port side and the air is filled with a hail of arrows and grappling hooks. Most miss but several snag in the rigging and along the rails, despite the efforts of the pirates to cut them free. In moments, the galleass draws alongside the Sea Ghost and the Samadrian marines start clambering aboard, led by several armigers. They are met by a wave of pirates and for a minute the Samadrians are held at the rail. Then their heavier armor starts to tell: a Samadrian armiger cuts his way onto the deck followed by another. In the background the sounds of screams and crossing blades indicate that the Samadrians have also boarded Thana’s ship. It starts to look bad for the pirates, but the PCs counter attack. Lamoniak challenges the leading Samadrian armiger, who waves his men back and engages Lamoniak in single combat. The Samadrian leader manages to stun Lamoniak, and then knocks him unconscious and bleeding to the deck but is himself met by Khatz, who manages to fell him in turn. The other armiger is charged by Bellona, and the two fight furiously, each wounding the other. With his way clear, Khatz jumps onto the deck of the Samadrian ship striking all about him and wounding three marines. From the after deck, Endre rains arrows onto the Samadrians and Dalarna uses magic winds to pick several armoured soldiers up and throw them into the sea. Khelsen seizes the remaining armiger, hoists him over his head and throws him into a group of Samadrian marines, knocking several of them down. The Samadrians recoil and Kelsen uses this opportunity to tear the remaining grappling hooks free. Khatz whirls around, and tries to jump back onto the Sea Ghost, but slips and almost falls into the sea. Adriana grabs his arm and hauls him onboard as the Samadrians back away, disappearing into the fog – they have had enough! The pirates cheer and shake their weapons, but a quick look around is not encouraging: the deck is littered with badly wounded and dead and half the pirate crew is down. Endre is wounded by an arrow, Lamoniak, Khatz and Bellona are all badly slashed and most of the pirate archers on the after deck are wounded amid a thicket of arrows stuck in the wood. As the players catch their breath and administer what healing they can, they can hear the Samadrians shouting to each other. The fog soon disperses – Dalarna had to stop maintaining it when he used his whirlwind spell, and the pirates and PCs watch as the Samadrians their ships together and transfer their men from 6 ships to 4. They group the ships together two by two and advance side by side towards the pirate ships – they clearly plan to attack again and use their advantage in manpower to fullest advantage. Adriana points out they were only repelled last time because the fog prevented them from coordinating and only one ship found them in the fog. If they had attacked from both sides they would have overwhelmed the defenders – and now there are even fewer defenders ….. Everyone looks at Dalarna who explains that the spell takes a minute to cast – and the Samadrians will be on them by then. Then, the Samadrians come closer and everyone takes cover as their archers rake the pirate ships with arrows. In a minute, the Samadrian ships are alongside and they hurl their grappling hooks. There are too many to deflect and soon one ship is alongside. The Samadrians roar their battlecries and charge the greatly outnumbered defenders!

Re: Pathfinder Campaign book I haven't read it in detail, but I have skimmed through it more thoroughly than you can do in a bookstore: our GM has it and I've gone through it in our downtime. It seems like a pretty good buy if you were running any of the Paizo stuff and wanted to branch out into your own campaign: there's enough detail to get you started and some decent ideas for that. However there's nothing much in terms of detail. It *is* pretty generic D&D - we're not talking Eberron or Iron Kingdoms here, but that's obviously deliberate. There was nothing that made me go "wow!" but also nothing that made me wince. And as always, production values are top notch, which goes along way to towards to promoting atmosphere. I can only dream of what a book produced at this level would be like for Valdorian Age or Tuala Morn. I'd say as a setting book, it's pretty good - definately ahead of the general pack. cheers, Mark

Re: Normal Human Not worth as much points as being unable to ever acquire or use the powers, but again, the character would be at a disadvantage in any sort of ongoing game, so again this seems reasonable. I wouldn't call it that but this one we've actually seen in game - a character in a Fantasy game took a psych lim (a Geas) that he would not use armour. That certainly disadvantaged him. So yep, that's definately worth a disadvantage. The long and the short of it is that in most games that run more than a few sessions, characteristic inflation is an issue. That's only reasonable given how efficient characteristics are. A character who chooses the NCM disadvantage is choosing a suboptimal (or at least more limited) development path over the longer term and it's fair enough that he gets some points for it. cheers, Mark

Re: And off we go! Got some more for ya - but have been on vacation in Australia and New Zealand the last month, so nearly no time to surf the boards. Will be back next week, so will post some updates then. cheers, Mark

Re: Cristmas & Cthulhu Our D20 GM has the card with that inside and the crucified santa on the outside: she props it up with the other christmas cards to ambush the unwary She also has the CDs "A very scary solstice" and "An even scarier solstice" with yuletide classics like "Mi-Go We Have Heard on High", "Oh Come All Ye Olde Ones" and "It's Beginning to Look a Lot like Fishmen" cheers, Mark

Re: BODY into STUN And as an aside, I should point out that "realistic" bulletproof armor not only stops BOD, but also pretty much all STUN - you can ask Vondy if you want more details, I seem to recall he worked at a place that made and tested body amour for a while. My real life observations have been that if the body armour works (ie: stops the slug or blade completely) then it does no notable damage to the target at all. If it fails (ie: the bullet partially or fully penetrates) then the wearer can end up anywhere from mildly inconvenienced (bruising, flesh wound) to dead as a doornail. Flexible body armour will let STUN through of course - but if it deforms enough to seriously bruise you, then it also deforms enough to break bones - in other words, it potentially lets BOD through. I can't, however, think of a case that matches "No penetration, but target was incapacitated anyway". If you want "more realistic" body armour then I'd suggest a house rule that only rDEF stops killing BOD and STUN, but that only the BOD that goes through the rDEF does STUN - and maybe shift the multiplier up to a full D6 instead of a d6-1, to compensate. cheers, Mark

Re: And the old shall swallow the new...

Re: Making Dancing weapons? My response as a GM is no. Automatons have special powers that PCs do not have access to, but they get that by giving up free will - that's what "automaton" means. cheers, Mark

Re: Why do the Champions waste so much time being "good citizens?" Well, that was the whole point behind The Authority: what would it be like if the "Heroes" started getting involved in issues like that. It was actually pretty good, too, for the first two trades, before the original authors quit and the series went to ****. cheers, Mark

Re: Money in Fantasy Setting It is a good idea - though I suspect that "Heroes of Commerce" would not sell very well There's been an element of this in many of my FH games. Several groups have set out to "make their fortunes" via commerce and the current group has a merchant PC (tho' to be honest, he's doing more fighting and looting than commerce right now, it has been a major part of his shtick over the last 3 years of gaming). One long-running campaign in the past, had the PCs working as troubleshooters for a merchant house: dealing with spies, protecting lucrative goods, acting as bodyguards for family notables negotiating treaties, blazing new trail routes across bandit-infested mountains, spying on other familes, cleaning out nests of pirates, etc. My players are resigned to the fact that in my fantasy worlds, they'll have to pay tax on stuff they import (or bribe their way around it), that foreign coins are usually worth less and that they'll have to pay a fee to get them changed and all the mundane ordinariness of economics. They don't mind, I think because it all makes sense: it's not something uniquely dumped on PCs to strip away their wealth. cheers, Mark