Old Man

If you look closely at the blueprint, they are labeled as 'VTOL ramjet engines'. It really bothered me when they had the plane land on a dirt strip and the forward engines and wheels were blowing all kinds of dirt and rocks into those rear engines...

Do LMDs bleed? I ask since he got worked over a bit in the last episode. I know just slightly too much about airplanes, so the design of the plane bothers me. It does look nice though:

Gotta go with Thor here. I can imagine him taking out Plas eventually using some kind of brick trick. I don't see Plas even bruising Thor in any way.

You people are sick. Funny as hell, but sick.

"Hey Dad, can you buy me a truck?" "What? You mean like a real truck?" "Yeah." "What for?" "So I can fill up the back with water and use it as a pool." "I see. Well, that makes sense, but usually the water leaks out the back." "Oh, okay. I'll just fill it with sand, then. Or Skittles!"

How long did it take Derek to write CC?

Tasha's character building process is much nicer than mine. Mine goes something like: 1. Think of really cool character concept/name/costume/power combo 2. Invent a great origin story and background 3. Develop character personality and... character... from background and concept 4. Try to build character within point limitations 5. Fail miserably 6. Cripple concept to fit in points 7. Throw out origin story and background 8. Fill out the disads with enough psych lims to make character a basket case who belongs in an institution 9. Crumple up character sheet and make another brick instead ...only slightly exaggerated.

...Isn't this just a RMod? No, he's a Real Scientist™. It must be true!

This is the same mistake we've been making with Fantasy Hero for twenty years. This treatment instantly relegates FH to a second-tier status where fantasy players who aren't interested in supers have to buy a supers game they don't want. Many will refuse. I would rather lower the barrier to entry for new players, rather than try to save grognards like ourselves a few bucks. If that means I have to pony up $80 instead of $60, then so be it. Printing a separate FH book would also help alleviate the perception that Hero is a supers ruleset being shoehorned, badly, into another genre. And it gives us an opportunity to rewrite the base Hero rules in the book. Obviously we don't want to change the rules themselves, but in an FH book you might want to spell out more fantasy-appropriate examples for Healing, Foci, and Side Effect. That would improve the book overall and help get rid of the "it feels like supers" complaints that we sometimes hear about FH.

Dreams? Or nightmares?

That does sound like an enjoyable Saturday afternoon.

But how do you aim them?

At planetary ranges lightspeed becomes an issue. If the distance is 1 AU, then your image of the target is eight minutes old, and it will have another eight minutes in which to maneuver before your photons would reach it. IOW at that scale I don't think the LOS advantage is necessarily justified. Even Earth-orbit distances can require a half second for light to traverse.

Jennifer Lawrence might be my new favorite American actress.

Looks like SpaceX is really starting to push the envelope.

Yeah, it occurs to me that that finding kind of invalidates the terraforming paper I wrote twenty years ago.

But which build is the correct one?!

You could also consider just ignoring the 10-point minimum buy for martial arts altogether. I've seen this several times with people just starting to pick up a martial art, where they learn one maneuver, like a side kick, and for the duration of a sparring session all they do is throw side kicks because it's all they got. You'd still have to do something for balance purposes, like limit this to 3-point maneuvers or else impose a predictability penalty after the first couple of side kicks.

Turns out Mars is soaking wet (sort of).

I don't make SAN rolls at work. I make Berserk rolls.

But then he'd be a superhero, not a supervillain. Batman's server infrastructure could probably be kept secure from just about anyone simply by airgapping or using a cross domain security infrastructure with a secure guard between his 'public' and 'private' domains. That would be very very hard to hack into. Of course, the Minstrel's introductory attack is one that is actually contemplated in the cybersecurity industry. An attack that began introducing 'noise' into the financial system--not stock prices, but account balances--could be difficult to detect (at first) and, left unchecked, could actually bring down a country's currency and economy. Other batvillains could use some updating as well. The Riddler will have to up his game if we can just Google for the answers to all his questions. As a gadgeteer, the Penguin would benefit from advances in personal tech over the past decades; his monocle could easily be a Google Glass interface, and he can get all kinds of sinister bumbershoots off the rack from the KGB FSB.

At best I'd give a shield stats for a club of the same STR min. But I have problems with the use of most shields offensively at all. Outside of a buckler I just don't see how you could actually hit someone with a shield and do any actual damage, especially if that shield is strapped to the arm. I know the Viking shield, which was handgrip-only, could be used to 'jam' an opponent and prevent them from swinging a weapon--kind of a glorified block. I know the Greeks and Romans used shields to shove opponents. I know some Asian shields even had spikes on the outside of the boss. But I'm not aware of any commonplace, deliberate use of shields to hurt opponents. Aside from Captain America shield-jitsu, of course. Shields just seem too unwieldy to use that way and expect to have any success, especially if you're giving up the defensive capabilities of the shield to do it.

Man, that is seriously twisted. Are you off your meds?

Actually, I would allow Bucklers to be used to "block" (missile deflect) projectiles like spears and arrows. I mention that Buckers provide no passive defense but provide a +1 OCV to block. This should apply to those who allow shields to be used to block missiles. What I do suggest disallowing is using a buckler as Cover, which is a kind of passive defense. I didn't create the Shield Wall maneuver. That already existed since at least the 5th edition, if no earlier. I believe it appears in the Fantasy Hero books. I believe the justification for the additional bonus to DCV is that with a shield helping to protect one's flank, it is easier to utilize the shield to prevent attacks from getting in. I like it, thus I use it. It becomes one of the little details that characters who want to use tactics and teamwork can use to their advantage and I believe that's something that should be encouraged whenever possible. It also gives the Teamwork skill one more thing to do besides pulling off Coordinated attacks. As for penalties for fighting so close together. I might provide a penalty to Dex to implement movement-based maneuvers. For example, 5 characters form a shield wall to try to advance on a horde of orcs coming across a drawbridge. They successfully stop the Orcs, but an orc shaman tosses a fire-ball spell their way. The characters need to Dive-for-Cover but are in each others way, so I may provide a penalty (-1 to -3?) for them to DFC! Finally looked it up--Shield Wall wasn't in 1st ed FH, it turned up in 4th.

Five minutes to impact. The sirens wailed in the background, an oppressive blare that heralded the end of the world. I strode into the living room, stuffing the last of my emergency supplies into a backpack. Not that it would matter, but it gave me something to do with the last few minutes of my life. A few people wandered around outside the front window, strangely unhurried, though undoubtedly they, like me, had nowhere to go anyway. Time was up. I crouched between the sofa and the heavy wooden coffee table--the best I could do in this wooden house--and waited. I held a map in my hand that plotted the impacts. There was one, far away from where I was at. A moment of hope--maybe all the warheads would miss me, somehow. Another one on the map, closer. A pause, then a low rumbling outside as the shock from that one reached us. A concerned murmur from the people outside. My whole chest pounded; full adrenaline deployment. I wanted to run, or scream, or something, but all I could do was curl here fetally by the sofa and wait. A long pause. The cat walked up to me; stupid animal, I thought, aren't you supposed to know where the good hiding places are? I grabbed her and pulled her under myself, thinking that maybe she might survive this, if no one else. A bright light outside the window--white flaring into an incomprehensible intensity. I felt the heat on my neck as I curled over the cat and yelled in terror. The damn siren was suddenly, eerily silent, replaced by the faint screaming of the people outside. The heat. The heat--