joeshmoe554

That is one of the best excuses I have seen in a long time.

I was coming to check on that as well. That is very disappointing to hear, guess I should have tried ordering it last night.

The thing I loved most about the last episode was that the two best looking bridges were also the most structurally sound. Well, that and reading KotZ's behind the scenes info. That's really the highlight of every episode. I was thinking that having tires would increase friction on the track, but encourage the wheel to rotate instead of slide reducing overall friction. From what I remember in pinewood derby races, the two most important things is to have weight (usually in the back of the car) and keep the wheel axises relatively straight and loose. The biggest issue with most of the cars I think was the wheels not being secured well and often too much weight on the wheel axis which would increase friction. But I'm not sure I could do any better so who am I to judge.

I personally like that magical abilities have proficiency checks and I think those proficiency checks would work well for non-magical abilities as well. You may not have the same number of passable levels (perhaps 2+ and 5+ instead of 2+, 4+, 6+, 8+) and it would not utilize magical proficiencies but the mechanics should work just as well. As to the name, you can always have abilities and spells, but having two different categories on a player sheet for magical and non-magical abilities seems unnecessary. Unless you are thinking of passive abilities instead of active abilities, but even in that case the only difference would be not tying it to the "Spirit" stat since you are not actively using the ability. I think I would still tie the ability to a proficiency check since it maintains the flavor of every ability (magical or non-magical) requiring knowledge in the skills required by that ability and you can improve your abilities by improving your character.

B - Hexagons are much better from a tabletop perspective, but when you are calling out coordinates such as B5, a square grid is much easier to use. (Also, letters should denote columns and numbers should be rows since coordinates are written as (x, y) and most people are used to calling out Letter-Number instead of Number-Letter. This is why Battleship and Bingo both have letters across the top.) I am super confused about the range/distance system that most of the people here seem to prefer. It feels very odd to me that 3 spaces to the left is the same distance as 3 spaces to the left + 3 spaces up. D - I would like to see "spells" swapped out for "abilities". It can open up more flexibility with that feature and make non-"magic" characters more interesting than just move and attack. That said, there is no reason that you need a lot of abilities to exist from the get go. The original Heroica had classes added to the game later inside of specific quests or storylines and abilities could be the replacement for that. With new abilities being created as the game grows. As to the functionality of spells, I would like to see a potential to succeed with no matching skills (even if it is low), or at least with a proficiency at 1. The idea that you need a proficiency at 2 to cast a spell seems a bit much.

That is my go to for digital LEGO building. I really like that it's online so I don't have to install anything and I can access it from any computer.

Limited as in range, not in availability. Since melee weapons have the smallest range, they can be more powerful while still remaining balanced. You can definitely specialize, but how is a ranged character being unable to use their weapon at range 1 any different than a melee character that can't use their weapon at range 3?

How is that harder? The range to any cell is the number up/down + the number left/right. If the target is 2 cells left and 1 cell down, then the range is 3. That seems about the same as checking the number up/down and left/right and using the larger of the two numbers. It would limit melee weapons a little bit more, but you shouldn't bring a knife to a gun fight. In all seriousness, guns shouldn't work in melee range so if your opponent gets into melee range you should either need to use a melee weapon or hand to hand combat. A fast opponent could incapacitate someone who only has ranged weapons by getting into melee range. Melee weapons could also be a more limited weapon allowing more powerful versions of those weapons to exist. Melee weapons will always have a smaller range than the other weapons so people should try to consider other advantages to melee in order to make that a valid choice.

I prefer the second method, but I would measure distance using orthogonal movement. So the range for spaces that are not in the same row or column is the distance to reach that space going up/down and left/right. To move 1 square diagonally is a distance of 2. It would result in a grid closer to this.

I wish the show spent more time on the LEGO creations and less time on the people, but I typically hate reality TV so I understand they are not catering to people like me. Overall, it's one of the better contest shows I've seen.

The game could start with a small number of abilities and easily expand on that over time. Starting with the existence of abilities allows for an easier expansion of the game than having to modify the rules later to accommodate something like that. Also, since spells already exist, abilities are no different than the current system, just a different naming convention to allow for more design.

It is true that the more abilities that exist, the more a Mission Master may have to reference during a battle. That could quickly result in a lot more difficulty, though the limit on how many spells/abilities a character can use in battle may keep it manageable.

I think instead of spells, I would like to see something like abilities. That can include spells, but it could also include other abilities like Charge (rushing attack with Athletics/Melee), Quick Draw (ranged counter attack using Short Range/Perception), and other things that may have similar effects to spells but not utilize the magical proficiencies. The existing spells would still work, but it could up the design to more character variation.

That sounds like a solid idea. Either providing a flat boost to the result, or doing a Medicine check and boosting the result by the number of successes. One means of meshing the actions together would be to make a note somewhere off-site of the enemies actions for the round before requesting actions from the Heroes. Then when determining the results of a round, you would reference those actions for the enemies. This wouldn't quite work for round 1 since you should know the heroes positions before choosing actions, but you could place the heroes and then try to determine the enemies actions based on their positions, without character knowledge of those heroes' actions.

I think that proficiency could be used to try and heal people out of combat. NPCs and players alike, after all you could always roll 0 successes and end up injuring your patient worse than they already were. A few battle questions. 1. The battle order is currently split between Hero's and Adversaries. Does this mean Hero's always act first, even if an enemy has a higher skill value? 2. Can more than one character occupy a cell on the battle grid? 3. What do the different colors on the battle grid represent?