Steve Long

Logically and reasonably, I think a GM could favor either interpretation. Given the way a "shield slam" Move By might (might!) work, one could argue that the character would take partial damage as usual, rather than the weapon. OTOH, some GMs might see it as just as logical and reasonable to stick with the rules as written and have the damage apply to the shield rather than the person.

That's up to the GM. In one of my games I'd probably stick with Cosmetic (based on your description), but other GMs may prefer Minor.

That last point is certainly true.

Yes, that's correct.

There are lots of ways to do this, depending on the exact effect you want to achieve. I'm sure other people posting to this thread will suggest more, but here's a list off the top of my head. You can find published examples of many of these in the Warrior-Magery section of The HERO System Grimoire (and can easily adapt them from there to non-spell forms, if preferred). 1. Naked Advantages, bought to cover the entire "Active Point" cost of the maximum damage the character wants to be able to do with the weapon when the Advantage is applied. 2. Aid to increase the HKA/RKA. Remember that Aid cannot add Advantages the power doesn't already have, though. 3. The Weaponmaster Talent, possibly with some Limitations restricting its use to make it more "spell-like."

That's certainly within the GM's purview. 6E1 139 mentions this possibility. I expect you could get some intriguing power constructs that way.

You only get as much defense as you can Absorb.

See APG2 22.

My general answer: 1. The Ultimate Speedster has a whole bunch of great ideas, sample powers, etc. for creating and playing speedster type characters such as you describe. One of them is the "Speed Zone," which essentially allows a character to "compress" more time (and thus Actions) into a given Phase because he's so much faster than everyone else. It's extremely expensive and most GMs will never allow it, but it's there. 1a. The "Speedster Powers" section of Champions Powers has most of the powers discussed in Ultimate Speedster as well, converted to 6E. They're probably your best bet for doing what you want (more or less) in an affordable way. 2. APG2 38-42 has a category of Time Powers -- Time Stop and Replay -- which are optional "stop sign" powers. Time Stop would let you do at least some of what you want to do. It's extremely expensive and most GMs will never allow it, but it's there.

1-3. See APG 56 for the Increased Return Rate Limitation. 4. That’s up to the GM, but apportioning the fade/return rate has always been something the GM can adjust (no pun intended!) if he wants to. Some GMs prefer a smoother rate of return than 5 points at the end of a time period.

For purposes of determining the DCs in an attack with Variable Advantage (and thus the effects of adding damage to it in various ways, and so on), use the value of Variable Advantage itself, not the value of the Advantages it can change among. For example, if an attack has Variable Advantage (+½ Advantages; +1), you use the value of +1 to determine the DCs.

1. Yes, you are correct that the attack does 7d6, regardless of whether the target's solid or Desolid. Since the Advantage was bought on the HA it can't be ignored, even against a solid target. 2. STR bought as a Mulitpower slot works just the same as regular STR for the purposes of the adding damage rules. However, in this case, the character has bought the Multipower STR with an Advantage. Unless he bought the Advantage to cover his entire STR, the only STR he can use against a Desolidified target is the STR in the Multipower slot. So in your example he'd do 3d6 damage against Desolidified targets, and 9d6 against everything else.

There’s really just the one issue here, since otherwise you’ve stated the rules as they stand, so I will rephrase it for clarity: Q: Can a character Dive For Cover to avoid a Mental attack, and if so what effect does Diving For Cover have on his DMCV? A: The answer depends on the type of Mental attack involved. In neither case does Dive For Cover affect the character’s DMCV (any more than an ordinary D4C alters his DCV). 1. A character can Dive For Cover to avoid a Mental attack targeted at him alone — but doing so only has effect if (a) he Aborts to do so, and ( a ) he Dives behind enough cover to block the attacking character’s Line Of Sight. In essence this signifies getting out of LOS before the attacker can make his attack. If the character waits until the attacker makes an Ego Combat Roll, LOS has been established and it’s too late to break it. 2. A character can Dive For Cover to avoid an Area-affecting Mental attack. If he gets out of the Area, the Maneuver has saved him and he’s not affected by the Mental Power. If he doesn’t, then he gets hit like anyone else in the Area.

Yes, that's legal.

The rules for Tunneling state: “Unless filled in by the character when made, a tunnel remains in existence until filled in, collapsed, or otherwise changed or destroyed. Tunneling works a lasting physical change on the environment, in much the same way that a Blast used against an inanimate object can inflict lasting destruction. Deactivating Tunneling doesn’t cause a character’s tunnels to vanish.” I think that says all that needs to be said regarding the permanency of spaces created with Tunneling; to the extent any other rulings are needed, they’re left for the wise and insightful GM. When a character Fills In the tunnel he creates, he fills it with the same substance he Tunneled through, so it has that substance’s PD/ED and BODY. If the GM wants to reduce any of those Characteristics on the grounds (NPI) that the material’s already been “weakened,” that’s up to him.

1. Yes. Among other things, that's why it has Limitations for "Self Only" and "Others Only." 2. Aid already had No Range. If you specifically want to have to make physical contact to use the power, you can represent that as a Limitation, with a value the GM approves. 3. [Monty Python Voice]There is no number three![/Monty Python Voice] 4a. You can use Aid (with or without DRR) on as many different targets as you like. The rules restrict the maximum effect you can have on any one target, but not the number of targets a character can affect. 4b. The END cost of a power depends on the Active Points in the power. In the case of Adjustment Powers, it has nothing to do with the return rate (though of course, the DRR Advantage, by increasing the Active Points in the power, increases the END cost). 4c. When a character uses an Adjustment Power, he pays the END cost to use the power at that time. He does not have to keep paying END, Phase by Phase, during the time the Adjustment remains in effect.

Yes, it's correct that a lot of Lovecraft's work is now in the public domain. But not necessarily all of it, and many parts of the Mythos created by other/later authors remain copyrighted AFAIK. In theory there are ways around all this, but since it's a subject I don't intend to cover it's a moot point.

No, I'm sticking entirely to actual, real-world mythoi. And even if I didn't feel that way, the Cthulhu Mythos for the HERO System is probably a subject that deserves its own book.

I will do my best to make sure that's not a problem with MH. Currently I see some people asking $110-150 flat rate, but an ongoing auction hovering at about $50.

Yup, that's true. At this point it's all idle speculation. I've never done a book set with a slipcase though, so it's fun to daydream about.

Sorry I missed this question earlier, Zephrosyne. Mea culpa. Honest -- I don't know. I can't know that until I'm finished with the writing and a rough layout is mocked up. At this point I don't know whether I can publish it as one volume, or two or more will be required. I can offer this as a data point though. 6E1 & 2 are combined about 550,000 words. The MH manuscript, which is far from finished, is currently at 425,000 words. So make of that what thou wilst.

First off, PhilF, let me say Thanx! for taking so much time to write out what you'd like to see in Mythic Hero. It's always great to hear from fans who have strong opinions about a book and are willing to express them in a polite and constructive manner. So take 2 XP out of petty cash and treat yourself to something nice -- maybe an CSL with your favorite attack. On to answers and observations about the points you made. 1. When I started writing MH back in 2011, it was still a Hero Games project rather than a personal project, and the guys around the office jokingly called it "Steve's Deities & Demigods." So I'm afraid I have to disappoint you a bit by explaining that the main thrust of MH, by and large, is to provide character sheets for the gods and heroes of world mythology (including game stats for weapons and other objects of myth). However, the operative phrase here is Steve's DDG. I have the deepest respect for the authors of the DDG, a book I love and treasure, but to compare the DDG to MH is like comparing The Pokey Little Puppy to War And Peace. When I write about gods and mythoi, I include far, far more information than the DDG does. I cover the cosmology, the setting, the magic system (if one exists that's worth writing up in game terms), the major myths pertaining to each god and hero (and often the minor ones), relevant monsters and villains, and all sorts of other great stuff. By way of example, look at the Hindu Mythology chapter in the DDG. If memory serves, it's 7 or 8 pages long, and more than half of those pages are basically whitespace. The Hindu Mythology chapter in MH is over 70,000 words long -- and most of that's not game stats, believe me. When I set out to cover a mythos, I cover it. In fact, there's so much info in MH that I am considering a separate publication where I strip out the gaming-related information and put out a book with just the researched, scholarly material. (Another fun data point: the bibliography for MH, which is far from complete at this time, is already over 6,000 words long. So if you want to follow up on my work, you'll know where to start. ) 1a. Are you going to be fighting the gods? Quite possibly! World mythology is replete with stories of conflicts between gods and mortals -- be those conflicts physical, mental, social, magical, or just plain weird. And for that I think a character sheet can be helpful. Plus, as you observe, someone may want to play God vs. God, or pit two Greek heroes against some dudes from Aztec myth, or what have you. 1b. But here's the great thing: you can completely ignore the character sheets if you want to. Just flip on past 'em and read the text (and look at what I plan to be awesome artwork!). The fact that they're there for gamers who want them doesn't mean the book is pointless for gamers who don't want them. 1c. Plus, even if you don't want the character sheets as a whole, you might find bits of them -- like the HERO System stats for Mjolnir, or Zeus's thunderbolts, or Maui's magic fishhook -- useful or fun to have. If nothing else they're good argument fodder. 1d. In the final analysis, though, it comes down to this: I want to do character sheets for gods. And this project is all about me doing what I find fun, fascinating, and hopefully of use to a lot of gamers. I've been at it for years, and have years to go. I'm not going to make any money off of it -- in fact, I expect to spend tens of thousands of dollars out of my own pocket bringing the book to print. So I'm going to do it exactly how I want to do it, and that means character sheets for gods. 2. Pretty much everything in your Section II is covered in the character sheets for the individual deities, or when they don't have a sheet just in the text describing them. (Though of course many gods aren't important enough to merit more than a line or two explaining who they are.) Naturally, not every god gets the same coverage; sometimes certain data are available for God X but not for Gods Y and Z. But I am doing (literally) years' worth of research about all this stuff so you don't have to! 3. Virtually nothing that you describe in your Section III will be in MH. That's not the purpose of the book; that's an entirely separate subject. If and when I happen to come across a useful detail about priests or temples or what not, I often throw it into the text, but most gods don't have any info about that sort of thing. After all, in many cases, those details are simply unknown to modern scholars. However, all that being said, I have an idea for a stretch goal for the Kickstarter I'll hold for the book. It's to write a second book, in PDF, which would provide a one-page description (no more) of the priesthood, temple, etc. of any god important enough to get a character sheet in MH. But these would be entirely fictional -- where I know real world details I will use them, but for the most part I am just going to make things up to create religions that are appropriate for gaming. There will be some information and guidelines for creating your own pantheons and gods for your games, but I don't plan for it to be extensive (at least, not right now). Again, that's not really the main focus of the book. 4. Virtually nothing that you describe in your Section IV will be in MH. However, where the material justifies it, I have written up complete magic systems for the magics specific to a mythology and/or its culture. To name just a few, I've already written up Finnish, Egyptian, Hawaiian, East Slavic (Russian), and Australian Aborigine magic systems. In fact, I have enough new magic systems that after MH comes out, I may extract them and publish them separately for gamers who don't want all the mythology stuff. It occurs to me that it might help people see what I'm talking about if I provided a sample chapter. I'll ponder on that, and if I like the idea I will mock up a crude layout and provide a link. Anyhow -- I hope that helps to explain where I'm comin' from. If you have further suggestions or questions, by all means fire away!

Hmmm, that’s an intriguing question. The official take on it is Yes, a character can do that — with the GM’s permission. Some GMs might find it entirely logical (as you do), while others might not.

Since a Disable-based Martial Maneuver relies in part on the Impairing/Disabling rules, which require that the attack do BODY damage, it must be able to do BODY damage (i.e., it could be Killing or Normal DMG, but not NND DMG).

Simon is, I assume, referring to what can and can't be changed in the software -- he himself will acknowledge that he's not the authority on the rules. If you want to change things, change them.