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Hello! "Adamant" or "adamaunt" were simply old terms for diamond, deriving from Greek "adamas" or "adamantos". Their usage was not always consistent, since diamond was more or less defined as the hardest gemstone, and, without modern chemistry, that inevitably got corrupted into "the hardest...

Hello! Mystara fans in the house! :D Yes, Alfheim, the main elven land of the Known World area, was conquered in the events of Wrath of the Immortals. A last Gazetteer, detailing the northern elven kingdom of Wendar (where four of Alfheim's seven major clans regrouped), was hinted at in...

Hello! I always kind of wondered whether you were named for the famous Irish bard, Turlough O'Carolan. I've heard a little of his work on Chieftains albums. Here is a page with some info on him. Perhaps it'll inspire you to have more fun with the Bard class... :) Boo-TAY! TAY, TAY...

Hello again! There is indeed a core mechanic for wound recovery - it involves Health rolls, the campaign-setting Tech Level, and preferably lots of bed rest and medical care. The First Aid skill handles hasty battlefield medicine, and magic, psionics, super-powered Regeneration, or wonder...

Hi again! There are rules in place, right in the Basic Set, to take care of this sort of thing. They are optional, since realistic lethality is the default mode of GURPS, but they are there. The "Flesh Wounds" rule is the main one, allowing characters to expend an unspent experience point...

Hello! Hmm, interesting question. I'd probably go with GURPS, Runequest, or Fantasy Hero, in that order. I actually like 2nd (Chaosium) and 3rd (Avalon Hill) Edition RQ about equally - 2nd has more Glorantha stuff, but 3rd has the Sorcery magic system, which I also like. Interesting pick...

Hello! It's not exactly an easy-to-read spreadsheet - the full list takes up 4 Web pages, with links to pages for each figure - but the the Marvel Heroclix Figure Gallery at the WizKids site lists the figures and their abilities, and has a search function. On the page for each figure is a...

Hello! It also included a fair bit of stuff from the Gazetteers, including some nice map sections and the basics of the standard BD&D campaign world (the Known World, aka Mystara), and the General Skills system, the BD&D version of non-weapon proficiencies. Yes, the only Immortals stuff in...

Hello! Didn't Col. Pladoh admit, perhaps on these very boards (or an earlier incarnation), that the level titles existed largely for the purpose of getting the actual words under copyright, so that competitors who used them in their games could potentially be tied up in litigation? I seem to...

Hello again! Actually, this wasn't the original "red box" Basic set (with Erol Otus cover art, and Morgan Ironwolf as its sample "iconic" character), but the later "red box" version with the same logo as the Companion and Masters sets. Karameikos was Bargle's stomping grounds for most of his...

Hello! First off, thanks for the lists, folks! Secondly - whoo-hoo, Arcanodaem- er, Arcanaloths are back! I always thought of them as the real powers among the daemons/yugoloths, and seeing the weak stats for the ultroloths in the 3e Manual of the Planes has only reinforced this perception...

Hello again! Yes, that was pretty much my point. Double the velocity of a bullet, and you'll quadruple the air resistance. Halve the cross-sectional area, and you'll only halve the air resistance. You can see how this would bode ill for energy retention of small, high-velocity bullets...

Hi again! At the risk of displaying my decrepitude... ;) That would be Asberdies. And yes, no explanation of his presence is given in the module. On the other hand, to paraphrase the old joke: Q: Where does a 20th-level lich hang out? A: Anywhere he wants... I doubt any of the...

Hello! Ah, Bargle. Classic mustachio-twirling arcane villainy. Gotta love him. And his decision during the halfling invasion of his master's realm was priceless... :) Now, now, lads, buck up. It's not as bad as all that. Aleena's doing fine - nothing like cleverly arranging to be born...

Hello again! Pretty much. There are 2 factors at work here: 1) the smaller projectile is facing more air resistance, because it is moving faster (the way the resistance scales with speed will overcome the advantages of smaller cross-section past a certain velocity), and 2) it loses more...

Hi again! Hmm, so they were. Muzzle velocity is given as 3400 fps, comparable to a very hot .223 load. So that one is "about the same" as a .223. I'd take a good close look at such a round before stuffing it into a lever-action's tubular magazine, though. The after-market handloader's...

Hello! 1) Most criminals aren't exactly Professor Moriarty, and 2) Sabot small-arms ammo is rare and exotic enough that purchases of it can be traced fairly easily compared to purchases of more common sorts of ammunition. Are they really? The only commercially-available sabot ammo I ever...

Hello! In that case, you may want to take a peek at Katherine Kurtz's "Deryni" books. The Deryni understand their powers as "magic", but even among them there is a distinction between their mental powers and more "standard" magics like illusions and summonings. They were the inspiration for...

Hello! What Black Omega and Psion said. The main reason Hero combats tend to last longer is because the major characters are tougher. Any Hero GM with a modicum of experience can run a ten-character combat where five 350-point superheroes mop the floor with five Viper agents in a lot less...

Hello! Well, I do buy a fair bit of non-WotC stuff. What I do not buy is non-WotC d20 stuff. I put up with classes, levels, spell slots, and the hit point system largely for the sake of using my favorite classic campaign worlds, which are not supported under 3e by either WotC OR the non-WotC...