Steve Long

If a character who’s used a continuing-effect Mental Power (the “mentalist”) on another character (the “target”) maintains mental contact with the target (for example, to keep “talking” to him using Telepathy, or to pay END so the power doesn’t deteriorate), then the mentalist automatically knows if the target has succeeded with a Breakout Roll. If the mentalist hasn’t maintained mental contact, then he does not automatically know that — it’s going to depend on the circumstances, how the target acts, and other factors. Invisible Power Effects does not change or affect this rule. Characters who are not the mentalist or target do not automatically know if the target has succeeded with a Breakout Roll (or even necessarily that he’s been attacked with a Mental Power, for that matter). Again, it all depends on circumstances and conduct. In some games, the GM might rule that Mental Awareness would allow a character to perceive this, based on how Mental Powers work in the campaign.

Oh yeah, absolutely -- 61 sample spells, to be precise. They're written up as one short descriptive paragraph and then one game info paragraph (rather than getting a "spell template" header like in HSG, for space reasons), but they're in there. Currently I have completed sections on Australian Aborigine Magic, Finnish Magic, and Slavic (Russian) Magic (each with plenty of sample spells, of course!), and partially completed sections on Egyptian and Norse Magic. Several other mythoi, such as Ainu and Etruscan, have a paragraph or sidebar explaining briefly how magic works and giving vernacular terms for spellcasters and such, but no fully fleshed-out system or spells. And I expect to add to both counts going forward, since there are plenty of mythoi left (I have some books on Hawaiian magic that might yield a system, for example). Once MH is published (with magic systems included), I am considering pulling out all the magic systems and creating a separate book of them, for those who are only interested in that sort of thing. Not sure I'd have enough material to fill a whole hardcopy book, but at the very least I could do it as a PDF. We'll see -- it's hard to make predictions when there's so much work left to do! P.S.: I left out the Chinese and Voodoo mythoi in this discussion, since both get effective coverage in HSG, so I just cross-reference that.

Done and done! At long last the Hindu Mythology chapter is finished! Clocking in at just over 70,000 words, it's more than 50% longer than the next largest chapter. It includes an 8,000 word section on Hindu magic. Time to move on to Hawaiian Mythology! "Oh we're goin' to a hukilau...."

Hmmm... hadn't thought about that. I'll look into it. I'm not set up with any PoD services so there'd probably be hoops to navigate.

If HHA sells well enough, I'll definitely consider it. I've got a few other leftover Deadlands bits and pieces I could easily convert into short PDFs. I also have almost an entire book, tentatively titled Days o' Terror, that contains about 3,500 Western plot seeds based on actual historical events. It comes from my "This Day in Wild West" history posts that I used to do on the Deadlands listserv. Fans (three or four in particular) would then suggest plot seeds for the events. With their permission I've gathered up all that I could find and organized them in book format. I'd just have to round out the year; there are gaps where I was out of town or what have you. The other problem is that many of the plot seeds are so Deadlands-specific I'd either have to put in a lot of work to change them, or get a license from Shane to print them (and even then I suppose I might have to change them to suit current continuity). But plot seeds are plot seeds; they're not system-specific; many would work well for a WH campaign.

While I don't necessarily agree with all of your reasoning, it's funny you should post this now. I've been fiddling with something along these lines myself, but with a different goal in mind: simulating the long-term suffering Hindu spellcasters engage in to acquire the spiritual energy needed to cast spells in the magic system I'm tinkering with for the Hindu Mythology chapter of Mythic Hero. Great minds think alike, soft minds run together.

No. If you've bought CSLs specifically with a Martial Art, you can't use them with Standard or Optional Combat Maneuvers -- only with the Martial Maneuvers you've bought as part of that Art. To use the CSL with other types of Maneuvers, you would have to buy it as applying to All HTH Combat (which of course costs more).

It's 85 pages long. Measured another way, it's about 68,500 words. By comparison, the HSBR is about 81,000 words. But HSBR also has lots of illustrations, whereas HHA only has about a dozen.

Per 6E1 147, all of a defense must be Hardened; you can't Harden part of it. However, a character can have some defenses that are Hardened, and some not. So a character could have 10 PD (not Hardened) and then buy Resistant Protection (10 PD), Hardened. That's perfectly legit. But you can't have 10 PD with 5 of it Hardened and 5 of it not Hardened.

I think after Hawaiian I'll do something fairly short and simple -- maybe Georgian, or Incan, or Malay. After that I'll tackle the last "really big" mythos: the four chapters' worth of Celtic Mythology. And after that we'll see what I feel like. Probably something non-European, like Oceanic or Canaanite. But that's many months down the road.

"Big Kahuna Burger? I hear they have some tasty burgers!"

Time for another PDF product from li'l ol' me. This time, it's a setting for Western Hero that's also suitable as a time travel destination for Champions or Star Hero campaigns, a historical Urban Fantasy Hero campaign, and other uses. Hell’s Half Acre describes a fictionalized version of the town of Perry, Oklahoma — home to a thousand people and over a hundred saloons, gambling halls, and cathouses! There’s never a dull moment in the Acre no matter what sort of trouble you prefer to get into. Hell’s Half Acre includes: —a complete description of the town, with information about hundreds of NPCs —the low-down on the “Saloon Wars” — an increasingly deadly fight between several of the wealthiest townsfolk to control all the saloons in the Acre —plenty of secrets, conspiracies, strange goings-on, and even mystical occurrences for campaigns that want a touch of the weird and mysterious —details about drinking, eating, gambling, and other forms of entertainment in the Wild West —an extensive dictionary of Western lingo and slang —a “GM’s Vault” revealing many of the Acre’s secrets to the GM only So strap on your shootin’ iron, saddle up your best horse, and get ready for action and excitement in Hell’s Half Acre! Available now in the Hero Games Online Store for a mere $14.95! Hell's Half Acre

Here's how I do it in Hero Games books, using an example from Mechanon's character sheet: 15 Robotic Form: Hardened (+¼) for 30 PD/30 ED 15 Robotic Form: Impenetrable (+¼) for 30 PD/30 ED 45 Robotic Form: Resistant (+½) for 30 PD/30 ED Hardened (+¼), Impenetrable (+¼) I do it this way to make it clear exactly what's being bought and paid for; it's easier to read. It also clearly demonstrates the rule that the underlying defense has to be Hardened or Impenetrable before a character can make his Resistant (+1/2) defenses Hardened or Impenetrable. In essence, you should think of Resistant (+1/2) as a naked Advantage since it has to have the other Advantages applied to it separately. Thus, your method ( B ) above isn't legal, because it applies all the Advantages in one lump and doesn't account for the need to make the defense Hardened first, then apply Resistant (+1/2) which must also be Hardened.

That’s correct — Adjustment Powers bought to affect END have no effect on LTE — unless, of course, the GM rules otherwise.

Yes, in theory you could take Teleportation 1m, add MegaScale (1m = 10 km), and then use it to Teleport a distance of, say, 20m. However, that exposes you to the drawbacks of using MegaMovement, such as "MegaMovement is considered Noncombat Movement even though the MegaScale effect applies only to the character’s meters of Combat Movement[]" (thus halving your DCV) and "any use of a MegaMovement power scaled above 1m = 1m (even 1m = 1.1m) constitutes a Full Phase Action, no matter how far the character goes." These restrictions don't affect a character who restricts himself to personal-scale movement, but in your example that's just 1m, which is effectively useless. Thus, it makes more sense to buy your Movement Power at a level where it's useful on a personal scale before applying MegaScale.

I didn't write CC, and the author can't answer here, but I'll give the answers that seem correct to me and let Derek Hiemforth contact you directly if I've misunderstood something. 1. Yes, the Noncombat Movement multiplier should've been a part of that calculation; I suspect it's just an error. 2. The cost of extra NCM multiplies is the same for Vehicles as for characters: 5 Character Points per additional x2 multiplier. Good luck with your new campaign! If you come up with any more questions you know where to reach us.

They both are, though I certainly confess to not editing that sentence from 6E2 89 so that it makes more sense. I'm glad you came across this so I could clear it up; take +1 XP out of petty cash. What I should have said is something like, “Using Autofire Skills with Suppression Fire doesn’t change any of the rules pertaining to Suppression Fire.” So even if a character uses Accurate Sprayfire, he still suffers the base -2 OCV penalty for using Suppression Fire, for example. Since a character can’t attack more than one target per zone with Suppression Fire, that means he can’t use Concentrated Sprayfire with the Maneuver. Since he has to fill the entire zone, he can’t use Skipover Sprayfire either.

And here I was thinking the Bluegrass Beast has a magic mandolin he uses to pummel his foes into submission.

This is a question best left to the judgment of the GM, I think (though common sense certainly tells us that getting "inside" armor or other defense means that defense doesn't apply, any more than a castle's outer walls protect against besiegers who've made it through the gate into the courtyard). I would also suggest the GM solicit the players' input thusly: "If I let ShrinkMan get inside a villain's powered armor and attack him so that he doesn't get the benefit of the defenses he bought through that armor, are you prepared to have me do the same thing to powered armor-wearing heroes when I have a villain with shrinking powers?" Sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander, and all that. Sometimes the benefit of using a clever tactic isn't worth the possibility of having it used against you.

Typically you'd buy them separately, since they're likely to have differing Power Modifiers from the main weapon (as shown in the text). Unless the GM permits otherwise, you shouldn't alter the cost of the special weapon abilities; they're already set up to account for any applicable Power Modifiers. The problem here is that Heroic Strike isn't properly written to take the OAF (-1) Advantage into account. It should be written as costing 20 Active Points/10 Real Points with OAF, or 6 Active Points/3 Real Points, for the sake of clarity. So for your Fearsome Fork, deadliest eating utensil in the Universe!, you'd buy HKA 1/2d6, Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2) (15 Active Points); OAF (-1) (total cost 7 points) plus Heroic Strike (20 Active Points, 10 Real Points) for a total of 17 points. Thanks for giving me the chance to clarify that!

I think that's a pretty darn cool character concept! But now I also think we need to design a villain called the Bluegrass Beast.

Great minds think alike, soft minds run together.

To the extent you're looking for a conversation re: game balance or design issues, I don't answer questions like that -- I'd suggest posting on the Discussion board (if you haven't already) where anyone who'd like to can respond. Re: the one rules question I see here -- yes, if the character keeps the Multipower slot assigned to that power, he could use it repeatedly. (Caveat -- at least on multiple targets. Speaking only for myself, as a GM, I wouldn't let you Multiple Attack with this against a single target, because once a target's suffocating he can't "suffocate more." In a campaign where Multiple Attacks were frequent, I'd let you take a Limitation on the power to reflect that. Other GMs, of course, may have other opinions on the matter. )

That Skill is described on 6E1 74. (At the risk of sounding snarky, which I assure you isn't my intent, you could also look it up in the index at the back of either volume of 6E. That's usually the best place to start when you can't find something -- we realize it's a big book so I tried to make the index pretty darn comprehensive.)

Yes. To quote a previous answer that I'm not sure has been posted in the FAQ yet: "n the case of Healing applied to STUN, BODY, and other “defensive Characteristics” (see 6E1 141), the effect of the Healing is halved. The character using Healing can still Heal up to the maximum shown on the dice, but the halving effect still limits how much total STUN and BODY the target regains. However, the GM may choose to ignore this rule in the case of Healing STUN and/or BODY in the interest of streamlining game play."