Steve Long

Re: Help with Turakian Age conversion You shouldn't have any trouble at all. Conversions are pretty straightforward, really; a lot of the time you can just eyeball it during play. No worries on the posting. But since only I can respond here, I'm moving this to the Fantasy Hero board in case anyone's already done some of the work or has other advice they can offer you.

Re: MYTHIC HERO Kickstarter What LL just said.

Re: Communicating a "Set Effect" Mind Control Hmmm, another one for the "I wonder why no one's asked this before" file. The default rule is that the command still has to be communicated, regardless of how restricted the Set Effect is. However the GM’s certainly free to dispense with that if doing so comports with his common sense, dramatic sense, or desire to lull the players into a false sense of security.

Re: Fish-Men I definitely plan to cover Hawaiian, Polynesian, and various related mythologies in Mythic Hero, including all relevant and useful shark gods. Mythic Hero Kickstarter

Re: Language Table Question You're not misinterpreting the rules. If you don't think the result is "realistic" for your character, just ignore 'em and keep his Arabic at 2. I don't necessarily agree that it's illogical for his Arabic to be better than a language he already knows, but ultimately you should do what you think fits your character best.

Re: Killing Telekinetik Attack While it's certainly possible for a character to use Telekinetic STR to wield a melee weapon and have the STR add to damage in the usual way, there's no provision in the rules for Telekinetic STR to add to a character's natural HKA power or the like. If the GM wanted to allow something along those lines, it's up to him to devise a way to do it... and cope with the implications and consequences, if any. Personally I'd simply make the character buy an RKA that's tied to the Telekinesis with Unified Power or via a Multipower, but reasonable GM's minds may differ.

Re: Telekinesis and Maneuvers 1. Sure. The rules specifically allow a character to re-use a Constant Power repeatedly on the same target for multiple effects. Ordinarily that’s restricted to one thing, because most powers only do one thing. The fact that Telekinesis can be used to do multiple things doesn’t mean it can’t take advantage of that standard rule. 2. That depends on whether the GM considers the “Ranged (+½)” that “applies” to Telekinesis to be an Advantage that directly affects damage, as discussed on 6E2 98. (It is not, in fact, included in the list of such Advantages on that page, but that list is not exclusive.) If the GM classifies it as such an Advantage, then the rules for adding damage to Advantaged attacks apply; otherwise they don’t apply.

Re: +STR from Martial Arts and Advantaged STR The rules for adding damage, as written, only apply to that: adding damage. That being the case, technically sources that add effectiveness to attacks in ways that don’t involve damage wouldn’t be reduced because of Advantages. However, if the GM wants to maintain consistency, you could read “Adding Damage” as simply the most common way of saying “Increasing The Effect Of An Attack.” In that case the same rules would apply when sources such as STR are used to increase the effectiveness of an attack that doesn’t involve doing damage. That’s certainly what I’d do in my games, and I suspect most GMs would agree.

Re: Dark New England (A Lovecraftian Potterverse Campaign in America) Lovecraftian Potterverse -- that's a pretty clever description. I have some friends who'd swoon over the thought of such a game. Good luck!

Re: MYTHIC HERO Kickstarter Thanx LL! In fact I just sent you a message making sure you'd chosen the right reward. The reward selection system confuses people sometimes and I wanted to ensure you got the reward you actually wanted. Thanx so much for the support! And thanx to MrAgdesh and everyone else who's pledged in the past few days! Heck, thanx to everyone!

Re: Adjustment Powers Aiding themself I do not recall any such rules, but unfortunately I don't have time for an in-depth search right now. If I come across anything later I'll re-post.

Re: Projection and Possession Under a strict technical reading of the rules you’re correct that Affects Physical World (+2) would be required for Possession that’s used while Projecting. However, if you look at published examples — the Bodyjacking power from CP 228 or the Ghost from the HSB, to name two — you’ll see that this is never done. Those powers are already so restricted, and so expensive, that adding APW would just add insult to injury, not to mention contradicting general dramatic sense. So while a GM is certainly free to stick to the strict letter of the Desolidification rules, I don’t think it’ll hurt anything in most campaigns if he doesn’t worry about it.

Re: MYTHIC HERO Kickstarter I posted a response over in the Discussion forum thread. Thanx for the idea, Bigby!

Re: Golden Age Characters by Darren "Golden Age Characters by Darren" -- sounds like a really cool boutique store in a world that is far more awesome than our own.

Re: MYTHIC HERO Kickstarter I might consider that if the project was close to its goal (though there are some logistical difficulties pertaining to the Character Pack for such a large book that make me reluctant). However, at this stage it's moot. Even assuming every single backer was wililng to add ten bucks to his pledge (which of course is not the case at all), that would only be another $1,720. If the pledges were at $30,000 or so I might be willing to try that, but at $15,746 the extra money wouldn't matter.

Re: Costs END to Maintain and Continuing Charges If an Instant Power has the Limitation Costs Endurance (to maintain; -½), a character may buy Continuing Charges for it as if it were a Constant Power, but in this case the value of Costs Endurance is reduced to -0.

Re: MYTHIC HERO Kickstarter Thanx!

Re: MYTHIC HERO Kickstarter I haven't, for a couple reasons. First and foremost, I'm not familiar with or a member of either. Second, I wouldn't want my first participation in an online community to be a plea for money... unless there's a thread or forum set up specifically for that. Most gamers don't take well to such things. I was happy to go to RPG.Net and ENWorld (for the first time in ages) and RPGGeek (for the first time ever) to mention MH in threads that had been specifically set up to promote Kickstarters. But just showing up and "advertising" generally doesn't go over well in my experience. However, if there are any Hero fans active in those communities who want to post about MH, I'd be happy to see 'em do it.

Re: MYTHIC HERO Kickstarter No worries bigby -- hope you are out of the woods and feeling better soon! That's the important thing. Mickael -- thanx for the help!

Re: MYTHIC HERO Kickstarter I have a variety of ideas along these lines, but they're all more or less moot if the basic project itself doesn't succeed. There are lots of things I could offer as encouragement rewards to reach a secondary goal, or to make the book useful to gamers who prefer other rules systems. But I can't do that in advance; the book's going to involve enough work as it is.

Re: MYTHIC HERO Kickstarter Sure, in the "using gods in your game" section I'm likely to mention it in a genre-by-genre sort of discussion.

Re: MYTHIC HERO Kickstarter I'd be less inclined to blame the size of the HERO System community (though that's certainly a factor). Instead I think it's the nature of the HERO community. Almost by definition the HERO System tends to appeal to gamers who like to do a lot of their own work, who are comfortable with nuts-and-bolts "tinkering," and thus who aren't necessarily interested in buying supplements (particularly settings and scenarios). They're iconoclastic and sometimes quirky customers, but such is part of their enduring charm. As I've often said, in some respects the HERO System, as a commercial thing, contains within itself the seeds of its own destruction. Its devoted followers tend to be the sort of gamers who are veeerrry picky about what they buy. Indeed, a significant percentage of them are attracted to HERO precisely because it requires no purchases beyond the rulebook. There are something like 1,000 "active" users of these message boards (or there generally used to be -- the number may go up and down periodically, I haven't tracked it recently). In theory if each of those "actives" were willing to pledge let's say $25, virtually any HERO System Kickstarter would succeed on that alone, and many would succeed by a significant margin. But the fact is that getting that sort of 100% participation is impossible. Some of them never learn about the Kickstarter (even in the Internet age, getting the word out is tough, even to a dedicated community), some of them don't like or trust the Kickstarter process, some of them only want Champions-related material, some of them don't care of the subject of any given supplement regardless of its other merits, some of them don't have $25 to spare at that particular time, and some don't want the book for another reason. That's just the way it goes, same for any other product in our society. Edit/follow-up: according to the front page there are currently 1,688 active users. Obviously some of those may be bots or what have you; I have no idea how that number's determined. That means the MH Kickstarter currently has backers equal to almost exactly 10% of the current active users. I can't say what percentage of those two groups overlap, though. The Hero Games website is only directly responsible for 40% of the MH backers (and 38% of the dollars), but I have no doubt that many of the remaining 60% are among the 1,688 and just got to the KS through some other portal.

Re: MYTHIC HERO Kickstarter Agreed. I made sure to mention early on the KS page that "The information in it is useful for any roleplaying game[,]" but unfortunately by and large that doesn't matter. While some gamers will buy just about anything useful and convert it to other systems as needed, most seem to want only books specifically set up for the game they prefer. Such is human nature, I s'pose.

Re: MYTHIC HERO Kickstarter If nothing else, hopefully explaining the costs will prove educational... or perhaps I should say, "foster some debate on the subject," knowing the way the Internet works. Exactly so. I thought about that approach briefly, but I discarded it because I want to write this Big Book of All Mythologies. I don't want to end up writing a Short Book of Just a Few Mythologies simply because an early goal was reached and later goals weren't.

Re: MYTHIC HERO Kickstarter Agreed -- and in fact I'm not sure how much print-quality public domain art is available for most of these mythologies. Greek and Norse I have covered in that respect; and I have clip art of Egyptian gods taken from tombs and Aztec gods taken from the codices. But Hawaiian? Yoruban? Finnish? Maori? All of that stuff, and more, not so much. And even if I did that, stylistically it'd be all over the map (literally! ), which wouldn't make for a very attractive book. Furthermore, even if I eliminate the art costs entirely, that only reduces the amount needed for the book to about $25,000... and the project's still a far cry even from that number. Seconded. Making 50% this week would be a big step.