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The returning newbie


Altair

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Hi! 

 

So, I've been increasingly interested in a game that plays fast, but has very detailed and granular characters; it's something of a Maltese Falcon/Holy Grail situation for me. 

 

I played in a Hero 5th game back in the mid-aughts, in which I had basically no idea how my character worked, but playing Teenage Gypsy Hulk was more fun than it had any right to be, so I went out and got a copy of Hero 5th. 

 

After a couple years of trying to get into it, I eventually sold it. It just seemed... dense to me. 

 

But I've been looking for something in this range for some time now, and over the holidays I picked up Champions Complete, and after a bit of time, have gotten really excited about it. Over this past week, I picked up Hero Designer, and a .pdf of Fantasy Complete, and have lurked about this forum. 

 

So! Is there a question here? Why yes! There are, in fact, several (even discounting that last one  :winkgrin: )

 

Firstly, while I know the system seems very streamlined to those with a lot of experience, it still tends to look like a series of equations when I get a character sheet.  What are some ways to get players (and a GM) the essential information, while obfuscating the peripheral details?

 

(Disclaimer: I know that it can upset some people, but I'm not super big on doing a lot of calculations in gameplay. It's not that I can't do math - I'm very comfortable with multivariate statistics at the post-graduate level, thank you very much - but doing too many calculations at the gaming table tends to snap me out of the flow of the game. Not everybody works like this, I know! But I seem to. 

 

As such, I tend to favor simple, clean readouts for gameplay - it's just less jarring to me.

 

Sorry if this seems like overkill, but in reading some of the other newbie threads, there seems to be a lot of vitriol aimed at the thought that someone might not enjoy table calculation. I just wanted to get out ahead of all that fire and hatred.)

 

Secondly, is there a recommended way to introduce the system? I know some people have floated the idea of heroic, 150 points or so... is that about right? What are the advantages in doing so?

 

Thirdly, is there a good GM shorthand for modeling NPC's? Admittedly, the time that it takes to build a character is a selling point for me as a player, and kind of frightens me as a GM.

 

Anyway, thanks! And Hi!

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For modeling NPCs, you can just have the stats they need, and not the whole NPC.

 

For example, if I have a throw away supervillain, I can just write down something like OCV 7 DCV 7 10 REC 40 STUN 10d6 EB, 20 PD 20 ED and not have to build the whole character.  This makes them rather generic, but it can be much easier than trying to build a villain right then.  It's also why it can be helpful to have a book (or web page) full of sample characters, assuming they are power level appropriate and are presented cleanly, you can just use them instead.

 

One of the hardest parts of getting a Champions game to work when you aren't familiar with the system is balancing everyones combat values (OCV, DCV, etc), defenses (PD, ED, etc), and attacks so that everyone feels like they are contribution.  I'd recommend This campaign document for those just starting out since it's coverage is pretty comprehensive and should produce reasonable character (and NPC) balance.

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For modeling NPCs, you can just have the stats they need, and not the whole NPC.

 

For example, if I have a throw away supervillain, I can just write down something like OCV 7 DCV 7 10 REC 40 STUN 10d6 EB, 20 PD 20 ED and not have to build the whole character.  This makes them rather generic, but it can be much easier than trying to build a villain right then.  It's also why it can be helpful to have a book (or web page) full of sample characters, assuming they are power level appropriate and are presented cleanly, you can just use them instead.

 

Thanks! When running other detail-intensive games, (Shadowrun and Pathfinder, mostly) I tend to have a google document open with a bunch of quick reference links, and some simple combat stats, so that shouldn't be too difficult.

 

 

  I'd recommend This campaign document for those just starting out since it's coverage is pretty comprehensive and should produce reasonable character (and NPC) balance.

 

Whumf. That's a lot of document. On one hand, you're correct, it looks pretty comprehensive. On the other hand, I'm bumping up into the "textbook" issue - I'm not sure I want to go through 20 chapters of house rules to get something reasonably balanced. Are there any quick and dirty guidelines to keep in mind that don't require as much investment?

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Just some quick thoughts.

 

1. The math's not really as complicated, or as much as you may think. Most of the work is done during character generation. You have HD to help with that. During the game it's to-hit rolls, counting up damage, and subtracting defenses.

 

     Using HD you can try a character export format that doesn't include all the modifier numbers. You need those values to build the characters, but not for normal game play. I don't know of a specific template, but I'm sure someone else will chime in, and you can always look at the ones available in the download section.

 

2. I wouldn't worry about choosing Heroic, Super Heroic, or any other particular power level to start with. Choose something everyone wants to play. Avoid optional rules. And plan to allow updates to (or replacements for) characters after the first 2 or 3 sessions as everyone becomes more familiar with the system.

 

3. Crusher Bob has some good points. I'll also point out that you have HD, which makes things a whole lot easier for you. And, as the GM, points don't matter. Build what you want, how you want it, and don't worry about the points. Playing should be about having fun, so make villains or opponents that will challenge your players and add value to your game.

 

4. I know, you didn't have a question 4. :) Hero System is a framework. Use what works for you and your game. Don't use things that don't work. And, as you've probably already noticed, there's a lot of information on the forums here on variations that people use in their own games.

 

And welcome to Hero system, in whatever genre(s) you decide to try.

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@Scott Baker

 

Thanks!

 

As a GM, I tend to play it by ear; much more jazz musician than orchestral composer. It's encouraging to see that Hero can support that  :rockon:

 

On that note, one of the things I'm curious about is flexibility. Hero seems to have a very rigid implementation of abilities - how does this handle improvisation? I know that there are some options for occasional extraordinary (in a literal sense) effects, but players are encouraged to buy them with CP if they become common? 

 

So, how do you model something like Spider Man's highly versatile webbing? I've seen a lot of (very cool) frameworks for a lot of the core webbing powers, but there's an awful lot of utility that isn't represented there.  I guess the thing that I'm worried about, is that the very specific nature of Hero powers might stifle creativity in players. Is that a problem that people have run into? Is there more versatility to existing powers than I'm grokking? 

 

Have I gotten on anyone's nerves yet?  :bounce:

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What I have is a working knowledge of excel :P.  So when I want to make Champions characters, I just make a quick excel sheet that does the advantage and disadvantage math for me.

 

As for the house rule document:

Probably the most important thing is the balance table that shows up first.  Most GM just declare 'campaign limits' but for most Hero veterans it's actually easy to make your character to max out every limit.  So really, a good set of campaign limits is not just a cap, but a way of forcing you to trade off some of X for some of Y.

 

The rest of it are things like:

No being invisible and beating people up (or mind controling them, or whatever)

No being desolid and beating people up

No indirect targeting sensory powers and indirect attack powers so you could beat people up from your couch, or hiding behind a building, or whatever

No being in another dimension and attacking from there

 

(I.E. if you want to be in combat, you have to be hittable in return)

 

And other things are mostly closing small loopholes, defining what counts as everyman skills for the campaign setting, and so on.

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Another thing a good campaign document can do is place limitations on things that are not in the rules.  For example, what origin stories and sources of power are acceptable in this world?  Are heroes and old or new thing.  How common are they?  What's the general hero power level, and where do the PCs fall on it?  What's the distribution across power levels?

 

Worm is a different super hero setting from the standard comic books or today, (or the standard comic book of 1995, heaven forfend), so your campagin document, or the discussion your have with the players, or whatever, should cover all these things.

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Thank you for joining us. 

 

I started a thread called Experiences teaching people Hero Game System which you might find useful.

 

I want to thank @Greywind for suggesting Hero Combat Manager which I wrote.  It can help you with managing combat.

 

You asked "So, how do you model something like Spider Man's highly versatile webbing?" and then noted that you saw a number of different ways people had done it.

 

One thing to remember is that Spider Man was written and drawn by many different artists over time.  Because of that he might use his webbing with one writer/artist and never use it again.  So if you are going to model Spider Man's webbing you need to model the things he does all the time - swinging, stretching (he uses his webbing to grab things out of his normal reach), webs to entangle, and his web bags.  I have seen Spider Man do those things in virtually every comic, movie or TV show he has ever been in.  Any framework the webbing is in has to take into account that he can swing and shot at the same time.

 

You used the jazz musician analogy to your GMing style.  As a guitar player myself, blues is my thing, there are core things you have to know and be able to do without thinking.  Most guitarists I know have a 'tool box' of chords, melodies and solos they go to when they improvise.

 

As a GM my toolbox has a common set of opponents that I have created using Hero Designer ahead of time and then I can use them in Hero Combat Manager.  Common opponents might be (no specific genre here): agents, bandits, minor supervillains, orcs, goblins, police, city watch, street gang member, more substantial supervillain, etc.

 

For non-combat situations I would rarely have a character generated because I can wing those situations.

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Whumf. That's a lot of document. On one hand, you're correct, it looks pretty comprehensive. On the other hand, I'm bumping up into the "textbook" issue - I'm not sure I want to go through 20 chapters of house rules to get something reasonably balanced. Are there any quick and dirty guidelines to keep in mind that don't require as much investment?

 

By way of contrast, my last campaign guidelines ran ~2 pages, and half of that was background. :) Here are my q-n-d recommendations:

  1. Establish an average Combat Value, and keep all CVs within 2 of that. If you want an average CV of 6, the range should be from 4-8. (In practice, few PCs will take below-average CVs, but they're useful to keep in mind for agents and other low-level threats.)
  2. Ask the question, "How many hits can this character take before going down?" Most characters should be able to take 2-3 hits from an average attack, and should be able to take at least one hit from the big bad without being knocked deeply unconscious.
  3. There needs to be a system of keeping the PCs from hitting all of the campaign power caps simultaneously. There are a number of methods, including limiting the number of points the PCs build their character with, setting soft/hard caps, schtick protection, etc.
  4. Remember that most things in Hero (attacks/defenses, CVs, etc) are relative. As long as everything stays fairly close, the game is balanced.
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I think the biggest thing when you decide to run HERO is to get it into your head that you are in control of how the game runs, the system is there to support you regardless of how you decide to go about it and while the default, out of the box, experience is number heavy, there is no need for the at the table experience to be that way.

 

There was a cool thread about character sheets, probably more than one, where a few people shared sheets that they had created themselves to provide to players.  I am an evangelist on this as I consider the character sheet to be the GUI through which players access the game.

 

As for preparation - I regularly have a light touch with all but the most important NPCs.  I will have them listed as 1-hit, 2-hit or 3-hit opponents and will riff on those values if a PC is exceptionally strong or weak.  My players claim not to notice whether I am using a light or detailed villain.

 

Doc

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Oh wow. Thanks, all. Lemme go down the line here.

 

@ Crusher Bob: Y'know, after talking about how daunting that sheet is, I went into it and immediately found some really useful ideas. It's presented very well, and that really helps communicate the info. And for sure, I wouldn't dream of trying an RPG of this complexity without my beloved spreadsheets  :bounce:

 

And yeah, I'm really big on trust and social contracts as a gamer; often times my campaign documents are much more informal, but they definitely exist.

 

@ Bluesguy: Yeah, I'd gone through that thread, some good things to think about, for sure. Context is so huge, so starting with known quantities is really useful. Like, ok, I wanna make a swordsman, pretty strong and precise. He's got a strength of 18, so... is that a lot? Is that comparable to an 18 in D20? (I use this example, because as near as I can tell, it is pretty comparable - that was an "a ha" moment for me.)

 

As to the HCM, I'm a little leery of spending another $25 on some software for an RPG when I just did that. Kudos to you for making a cool thing, but I'm honestly not thrilled with the price point. Maybe if I run Hero games regularly for years, that'd b a reasonable investment for me, but as it stands, I already feel like I spent too much on software.

 

(NOTE: this is not a criticism of you! As a fellow musician & creator of RPG supplements, I know first-hand that pricing is weird, and often has nothing to do with creative. Certainly no animosity  :) )

 

@Indiana Joe: Yeah, it's looking like relativity is the thing here. Thanks!

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@ Doc Democracy - so basically, use a Savage Worlds-type system for tracking opposition? That's honestly how I do most combat GM'ing - as said before, I tend to play it by feel. It's good to know that dong so does't negatively impact verisimilitude - that's honestly my big fear with all this. With Fate, Savage Worlds or the like, you make up some stuff on the fly, and it feels normal - because that's pretty much what everybody is doing. 

 

Suppose I'm running a supers game, and Doctor Dastardly is going to rock our heroes with a shiny new heat ray. The characters, and indeed, the players, had no idea this was coming: it's a momentum shift moment. In Fate, he rolls and adds a single-digit number to the total. Barring invocations, or created advantages, that's pretty much it. Players might assume that he's adding his shoot skill, or maybe he's got a special death rays skill or some such. If he uses it to weld a door shut, let's say, it's the same skill, he's just using the create an advantage action instead of attack

 

Cool. It's simple and quick; which are selling points of the game.

 

In Hero, I'm not as sure how to do that. The first one, I think, you know, it's some dice. Energy - it's basically a blast, or some kind of RKA. I get more familiar with those, and we're probably ok, yeah? Hits DCV 8 or whatever, does 14d6 or some such. If it's not too out of line with what people have seen or built themselves, maybe that doesn't stretch suspension of disbelief. 

 

It's in the utility powers that I worry a bit more that they'll see the wires and harness, so to speak. Does that make sense? More to the point, is it rational?

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For the combat math, we write on the top of all of our character sheets the following easy formula: 11 + OCV - 3d6 = DCV hit. That way, if wasn't already ingrained in our heads, we can easily refer.

 

As far as group/campaign style, I'd ask your group: what genre do we want to play? That will help a lot. Once a consensus is reached, then I'd try to find out what character archetype each person wants to play. I'd also make sure that you limit the number of one particular type, that way not everyone is playing the same flying/flaming/fire-slinging/torch-like guy (or what-have-you). Like it most MMOs & RPGs, a party balance is nice plus you have the added benefit of not having one player constantly stealing the limelight from another player. Lastly I always have my players (and myself when I play) come up with (most of) my Disadvantages/Complications first. Sometimes we all brainstorm for each other's characters. That way we can see what makes the character think, drives them, and know really how many points we can build with. Players might want to team up and take matching Rivalries, for example. Or maybe your group is playing a super-patriotic themed team, subject to orders from the President. There's nothing worse than building a character, then having your group have to sit and wait for a straggler (or more) to finish their Complications. It's unfair to those who put the full effort into it. 

 

One thing about building a power. Generally speaking, if you describe a power to ten different people, you'll most likely get ten valid different ways to write it up. Hero is very versatile, allowing for GMs and players to work together to build a power, special effect, or whatever. To me, that is the system's strength. Some systems make it nicer for you, by giving you every conceivable power from a certain special effect (how I love playing Magnetic or Gravity-based characters, mwa-ha-ha). In Hero, you have to buy it (or use Power skill to one-off a feat). And that is totally cool. Helmeted magnetic mutate leader-guy really shouldn't have to pay for the Power to alter the entire Earth's magnetic field... how many times is he really going to use that, really? If it tells a good story, then let's roll the dice and do it!

 

The character creation process might seem daunting, but once you've determined your particular campaign's "Rule of X" it becomes simpler. Once you know your maximum Damage Class threshold (and how many points you can afford to spend), you can reverse engineer back to the base Power's dice value.

 

Out the gate, generally stick to easier characters. "Snikt-bub", for instance, without the bushido/long-history baggage. A gun-based vigilante. Star-Spangled discus chucker. Start off simple, then experiment with Power Frameworks (Winged rodent person's utility belt; Arachnid girl's spinnerette tricks; Speed-zone enhanced hyper movement; The Thang's clobbering feats of strength; etc.). Definitely give your group room for a slight rebuild if they find certain write-ups just aren't working. There's a ton of radioactive lobsters just waiting pinch your depressed Hero and give them their accident (or substitute vats of chemicals or alien dissection or mystic imbuements).

 

Just my 2 XP.

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@ Doc Democracy - so basically, use a Savage Worlds-type system for tracking opposition? That's honestly how I do most combat GM'ing - as said before, I tend to play it by feel. It's good to know that dong so does't negatively impact verisimilitude - that's honestly my big fear with all this. With Fate, Savage Worlds or the like, you make up some stuff on the fly, and it feels normal - because that's pretty much what everybody is doing.

I don't recommend this for your main antagonists. Do a complete build for them. After all, the villain often comes back, or does things out of game. 

 

 

 

Suppose I'm running a supers game, and Doctor Dastardly is going to rock our heroes with a shiny new heat ray. The characters, and indeed, the players, had no idea this was coming: it's a momentum shift moment. In Fate, he rolls and adds a single-digit number to the total. Barring invocations, or created advantages, that's pretty much it. Players might assume that he's adding his shoot skill, or maybe he's got a special death rays skill or some such. If he uses it to weld a door shut, let's say, it's the same skill, he's just using the create an advantage action instead of attack.

 

 

Use some common sense, and dramatic sense. If you have a heat ray and want to start a fire without destroying the wood, I'd let you. You want to melt the lock so it can't be opened--that's just the special effect of "destroying" the lock with your blast. You should also check out the Power Skill which seems somewhat analogous to what you are talking about, letting someone use a power in an unexpected way (even if it crosses over into another power's realm). That's the case where you would probably look at having someone buy the actual power if they intended to do that action regularly.

 

 

Cool. It's simple and quick; which are selling points of the game.

 

In Hero, I'm not as sure how to do that. The first one, I think, you know, it's some dice. Energy - it's basically a blast, or some kind of RKA. I get more familiar with those, and we're probably ok, yeah? Hits DCV 8 or whatever, does 14d6 or some such. If it's not too out of line with what people have seen or built themselves, maybe that doesn't stretch suspension of disbelief. 

 

It's in the utility powers that I worry a bit more that they'll see the wires and harness, so to speak. Does that make sense? More to the point, is it rational?

See above.

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@ Bluesguy: Yeah, I'd gone through that thread, some good things to think about, for sure. Context is so huge, so starting with known quantities is really useful.

Glad you are getting something from that thread.

 

Like, ok, I wanna make a swordsman, pretty strong and precise. He's got a strength of 18, so... is that a lot? Is that comparable to an 18 in D20? (I use this example, because as near as I can tell, it is pretty comparable - that was an "a ha" moment for me.)

As you noted above Context is everything. One way to look at strength is to look at the table on page 17 of FHC. An 18 STR lets someone lift 300 kg.

 

Also look at the tables on page 22 in the FHC.

 

 

(NOTE: this is not a criticism of you! As a fellow musician & creator of RPG supplements, I know first-hand that pricing is weird, and often has nothing to do with creative. Certainly no animosity :) )

 

None taken. Pricing was easy - I matched the pricing of Hero Designer.

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I don't recommend this for your main antagonists. Do a complete build for them. After all, the villain often comes back, or does things out of game. 

 

Makes sense. I also suppose that, especially with a supers game, that recurring villains would absolutely be feasible. I've found that PC's make it challenging to use the same antagonist in repeated encounters - it's a skill I've definitely put work into, but still needs some finesse. But in a D&D-type game, it's tricky to do without resorting to extra-mechanical shenanigans.'

 

About 70% of the time, I completely build out my main antagonists. The other 10% of the time, I'm either running something very simple that I've internalized thoroughly (Fate), or I regret my life decisions pretty quickly.  :stupid:

 

Also! Context, context, context seems to be the name of the game. Which is good! Went out to dinner with my primary gaming group tonight, and we chatted about how you might stat up different characters we know in CC. It was lots of fun, if nothing else.

 

Also, the Power Skill. How did I miss this until now? It's exactly what I wanted. Thanks!

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@ Doc Democracy - Suppose I'm running a supers game, and Doctor Dastardly is going to rock our heroes with a shiny new heat ray. The characters, and indeed, the players, had no idea this was coming: it's a momentum shift moment. In Fate, he rolls and adds a single-digit number to the total. Barring invocations, or created advantages, that's pretty much it. Players might assume that he's adding his shoot skill, or maybe he's got a special death rays skill or some such. If he uses it to weld a door shut, let's say, it's the same skill, he's just using the create an advantage action instead of attack

 

Cool. It's simple and quick; which are selling points of the game.

 

In Hero, I'm not as sure how to do that. The first one, I think, you know, it's some dice. Energy - it's basically a blast, or some kind of RKA. I get more familiar with those, and we're probably ok, yeah? Hits DCV 8 or whatever, does 14d6 or some such. If it's not too out of line with what people have seen or built themselves, maybe that doesn't stretch suspension of disbelief. 

 

OK.  I think HERO scares new GMs much more than it scares players simply because there is the ability to focus on a huge amount of detail.  A lot of guys on here love to have that in front of them and to utilise it to generate the coolest stuff and have been doing it so long that they can do it on the fly.

 

As a newbie HERO GM (way back in 1982 or somesuch) I bought the game and quailed before it.  It sat there for almost a year before I was forced to run it by some nagging friends...  :-)

 

I built a few characters and fought them.  I made LOADS of mistakes in that and in subsequent gaming sessions because I had no idea how best to build things (and it was a long time before I had any access to resources like this site!!).  The big thing is to accept you are learning, that you (and the players) will make build mistakes, that the details of your builds will contradict what you wanted to do in game because of those games.  All of that is OK if you all cut each other some slack and allow the game narrative to take care of itself for a while and resolve to go back (after the game) and re-examine, tweak and re-write those bits that did not work.

 

HERO has some detailed ways to build a suite of powers but that is all detail that I would keep firmly behind the scenes to begin with.  Focus on the superhero coolness, try to have some idea of the powers and power levels you think things should be and tell a cool story (that is why most folk come back).  

 

People love rolling dice - I like to make the dice count for something and so adjust stuff on the fly so that a roll that feels like a good one does something cool and effective (unless the point is to show that this fantastic attack had no effect at all - a good sign for the heroes to plan to run away and come up with a better plan).

 

You can see that in your reply you went from talking about cool effects to jargon and detail?  That can turn folk off.

 

In your HERO game it is just as cool to describe the Doc Dastardly scene like:

 

"Doc Dastardly strides out into the middle of the street and raises a weapon you have never seen before - he levels it at HeroGuy (roll 3d6 for a to hit - on your combat notes for Doc Dastardly have a to hit number for each PC - saves on the fly calculations) and a stream of blue energy rushes from it to engulf HeroGuy. (roll damage - or have a list of pre-rolled damage on the combat note - saves rolling the dice and counting them)  That does 46 STUN and 18 BODY (an unlikely combination off the top of my head).  Knock off your Energy Defence and mark up the damage that gets through and roll for knockback!"

 

"You note Doc Dastardly note the effect as he notches up a dial on the weapon, ready for his next attack!"

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Just noticed that the Sixth Edition Character Sheet thread lost all of its attachments - the examples of character sheets that made the thread so interesting.  I will see if I can find the sheets that I put up there - they are basic but I think a decent example of what you might want to try for with new players.

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Damage Negation and Damage Reduction are two Powers to watch out for if you want to avoid doing math in game. Generally the math in Hero is "front loaded" that is, all in character creation, but sometimes calculations are called for in play, and Damage Reduction in particular can lead to rolling a bunch of dice (fun) adding up the total for STUN (child's play) and BODy(pretty easy) and then asking "Okay, now what's three quarters of those totals?"

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Multiplying a palindromedary

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Heh. 

 

Yeah, when delving into Hero with my mates last night, we pretty much came to an understanding: no powers/abilities that require doing character creation-type calculations at the table. So on first glance, that was anything with percentages, and VPPs. Honestly, the physicist* & I had a rough time with Damage Class at first - and frankly, further clarification would be nice - because it looked like its function in play was tied to those "character creation at the table" mechanics we so dearly wish to avoid :)

 

*the main group that discusses mechanics for fun is myself, a physicist and a computer scientist. People joke that once you get a masters degree, you start building characters for fun

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One way to deal with Variable Power Pools is to not allow them to change in combat but only in between adventures.

 

 

 

The main function of the Damage Class concept is to regulate "adding damage" situations, when more than one factor goes into determining how much damage is done. Examples include:

 

- Hand to Hand Normal and Hand to Hand Killing Attacks. Damage is based on the attack Power itself plus STR.

 

- Move By and Move Through attacks, adding velocity damage to an attack. Charge!

 

- Haymaker, allowing DNPC and random bystanders to use 10 STR to do 6d6 damage since 1st edition.

 

- Pushing, spending extra END to increase a Power. Or to increase the STR that is added to an attack, see Hand to Hand attacks above.

 

- Martial Arts, defined by the game as special maneuvers you can only do if you spend points for them. Also allows you to buy "Extra Damage Classes" for a low, low price.

 

- Skill Levels can be used to add damage, as if the system didn't already have enough ways to enhance damage.

 

- There are Talents to increase damage, and probably more stuff I haven't thought of.

 

 

Of course, some of these can be dealt with by not letting players know they are options or flatly denying them as options. But what fun is that?

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Pushing a palindromedary

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One way to deal with Variable Power Pools is to not allow them to change in combat but only in between adventures.

 

Yeah, we looked at a lot of those kinds of tweaks. Assigning skill levels in a given phase was one of the early things we looked at - the thought was that might bog down gameplay if it was happening during combat. Assignable outside of combat as an assumed limitation might make those more palatable to start. 

 

I imagine that once some degree of system master has been acquired, this gets easier, and we might want to start adding options back in.

 

 

The main function of the Damage Class concept is to regulate "adding damage" situations, when more than one factor goes into determining how much damage is done. Examples include:

 

- Hand to Hand Normal and Hand to Hand Killing Attacks. Damage is based on the attack Power itself plus STR.

 

- Move By and Move Through attacks, adding velocity damage to an attack. Charge!

 

- Haymaker, allowing DNPC and random bystanders to use 10 STR to do 6d6 damage since 1st edition.

 

- Pushing, spending extra END to increase a Power. Or to increase the STR that is added to an attack, see Hand to Hand attacks above.

 

- Martial Arts, defined by the game as special maneuvers you can only do if you spend points for them. Also allows you to buy "Extra Damage Classes" for a low, low price.

 

- Skill Levels can be used to add damage, as if the system didn't already have enough ways to enhance damage.

 

- There are Talents to increase damage, and probably more stuff I haven't thought of.

 

 

Of course, some of these can be dealt with by not letting players know they are options or flatly denying them as options. But what fun is that?

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Pushing a palindromedary

 

Pretty much! It's a bunch of cool options, and those are things I definitely want - but - calculating DC on the fly sounds like a pain. Our thought was to just pre-calculate the DC for a given attack, so you can just look at what you're adding, instead of trying to remember how many CPs worth of strength go into the formula. 

 

Is that kind of thing just common practice? How do other tables deal with Damage Class? Is it just not that big a deal?

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