New powers that you think would simplify Hero

[TheDarkness]

As the thread title states, anything you think would solve issues.

 

Emit Signal: The character with this power is able to emit an ordinary signal, type determined at purchase. 2 pts. This power is always bought with AOE. Examples would be a flashlight(light, with a line or cone AOE), or a walkie talkie(with the limitation signal only receivable by something reading the same frequency), or pheromone(scent, with a radius)

[Lucius]

That already exists. See Transmit under Enhanced Senses.

 

Trying to "simplify" by ADDING to an already complex system strikes me as self-defeating.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Let's simplify a palindromedary by giving it another head

[TheDarkness]

That already exists. See Transmit under Enhanced Senses.

 

Trying to "simplify" by ADDING to an already complex system strikes me as self-defeating.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Let's simplify a palindromedary by giving it another head

Then why is it so notoriously hard to build a headlight? Honest question.

 

I suppose the better topic would be, what are things that are ridiculously difficult to build that should be simple, and how would you simplify the process.

[Surrealone]

​

 

Then why is it so notoriously hard to build a headlight? Honest question.

 

I suppose the better topic would be, what are things that are ridiculously difficult to build that should be simple, and how would you simplify the process.

Overhaul all things sense-related -- which include all powers centered around affecting senses directly (e.g. Darkness, Enhanced Senses, Flash, Images, Invisibility, etc.).  Key to this is that powers that directly affect senses are pretty much centered around Enhanced Senses (and the groupings associated therewith), which seem unnecessarily complicated and costly to me.

 

Not only is it hard to build a headlight, but it's retardedly complicated and unnecessarily expensive to build something that merely detects a specific amount of light (i.e. a day/night switch -- like the one that turns on your headlights) -- since it's a sensor that can't be tied to an existing sense ... and thus this Detect has to have modifiers such as Sense, Range, and Discriminatory (in order to detect the 'proper' amount of light' or lack thereof) -- making it ~15pts before any Limitations have been applied.

 

I used the day/night sensor for headlights as an example to pile onto the previously given example (a headlight) and to also underscore that a ubiquitous part in an everyday vehicle of today's manufacture ... will probably cost more than 1CP to build ... but probably shouldn't cost more than 1CP to have.  It's a bottom-of-the-barrel day/night sensor we're talking about, here.

 

And if we can agree that Enhanced Senses need work, then I think we can also agree that powers built around affecting senses also need an overhaul.  This is where the headlight comes in.  Try building one, complete with its long, conical area of effect using Images.  I think you'll agree it is ridiculous.

 

And then there's Flash ... which lasts mere Segments, today, instead of Phases like it once did.  It's pretty useless in, say, a Heroic game ... where no one can reasonably afford enough of it to matter (given the low speeds such games often have).

 

Anyway, that's my take -- Enhanced Senses and any power that directly affects senses or that is built/based on Enhanced Senses (like Danger Sense) ... seem borked and in need of help -- in the form of a complete overhaul.

[DreadDomain]

I suspect that ADDING Instant Change as a power would make the game simpler. Consider Instant Change in 6E.

 

Instant Change: cosmetic transform 1d6 (one set of clothing into one costume and vice-versa; method of healing back varies based on character), trigger (changing clothing is a zero phase action, trigger immediately automatically resets; +¾) (5 active points); limited target (the clothes currently worn by character; -½). total cost: 3 points. (to transform a costume into any clothing, add improved results group (+¼), for 6 active points, total cost 4 points.)

[Doc Democracy]

But the game has instant change, it costs three points, what more do you need?

 

The whole senses stuff is a place where building costs more points than you might expect and there are complexities in building it. However, the system is built to provide a framework to build characters, not kit. The stuff you simplify might be subverted by diligent folk with power game tendencies. That makes it more complex. :-)

 

The way to make HERO less complex for players is for GMs to put the work in upfront and create a GUI for their game. All the bits and kit with costs for players that they can pick up and use. HERO has done a lot of this groundwork in quite a few publications and, because this is HERO, you can pick that up and use as is or you can decide it doesn't fit your game, get in behind the builds and tweak to your heart's delight.

 

The desire for simplicity is a desire for someone else to be making decisions for you, close to anathema for many HERO GMs. :-)

[TheDarkness]

But the game has instant change, it costs three points, what more do you need?

 

The whole senses stuff is a place where building costs more points than you might expect and there are complexities in building it. However, the system is built to provide a framework to build characters, not kit. The stuff you simplify might be subverted by diligent folk with power game tendencies. That makes it more complex. :-)

 

The way to make HERO less complex for players is for GMs to put the work in upfront and create a GUI for their game. All the bits and kit with costs for players that they can pick up and use. HERO has done a lot of this groundwork in quite a few publications and, because this is HERO, you can pick that up and use as is or you can decide it doesn't fit your game, get in behind the builds and tweak to your heart's delight.

 

The desire for simplicity is a desire for someone else to be making decisions for you, close to anathema for many HERO GMs. :-)

I can understand this, there is a point where simplifying would sacrifice flexibility, definitely.

 

However, a build's cost should reflect it's value. A flashlight does not. So there's an issue.

 

But, I really don't think it impossible to make a case for making simple light, not controllable except for what area of effect it can occupy for the points you spend at wavelengths that have no damaging properties except for to characters who take some sort of vulnerability, at an appropriate point expenditure, without opening a can of worms.

 

[bracing self for followup build showing how horribly such a power could be turned to munchkin purposes]

[Doc Democracy]

I can understand this, there is a point where simplifying would sacrifice flexibility, definitely.

 

However, a build's cost should reflect it's value. A flashlight does not. So there's an issue.

 

But, I really don't think it impossible to make a case for making simple light, not controllable except for what area of effect it can occupy for the points you spend at wavelengths that have no damaging properties except for to characters who take some sort of vulnerability, at an appropriate point expenditure, without opening a can of worms.

 

[bracing self for followup build showing how horribly such a power could be turned to munchkin purposes]

 

Ha!  I am not one of the inveterate build posters, though I value the people who do it - most useful.  

 

I think the problem is that effects in HERO are based on a set of broad fundamental powers.  The power that you are talking about here (in the current rules) is probably either Images or change environment (depending on what you are actually trying to do).  

 

If you do the HERO thing then, by switching on a light, you are instigating a power that changes the environment such that everyone with normal sensory abilities can see properly.  As is usual in HERO there are several ways to do this.  One is to try to model the imposition of a light beam in the environment, one is to modify the environment and one is to provide everyone there with the ability to see as if there was actually light to see by.

 

We are working in C++ rather than BASIC.

 

The easiest thing to do is to ignore the powers system completely, acknowledge there are things out there that allow the game world to change such as lights to help folk see and vehicles to help them move more quickly or access places that would not otherwise be accessible.  You then manage that through in-game transactions (favours, cash etc) and ignore that there is the potential to model that through the Powers system.

 

The HERO-geek way to do it is to choose the power you think is most appropriate - come up with a complex power structure that has a point basis and that players can plug straight into their character sheets.

 

There is a good game reason to do the second bit - but possibly not to show all the working.  The difference between a complex build that describes in game terms a flashlight that casts a light in a 30 foot cone and a listing that says Flashlight (30 foot cone) 3 pts is exactly zero for a player.  However, presenting the contortions you went through to get there shows just how complicated the system is.  So making it simple is simply not making look complex!!

 

:-)

 

If I wanted to make things simple, I would decide, in my game, what things were worth (whether by sticking a finger in the air or doing the math) and listing them for players to decide if they wanted to spend points on them.  If a player wanted to cast light from their eyes, like a flashlight, I would probably need to do the math, though I could make a simple decision such as (that OAF is now not focus based and so I am doubling the cost - voila).

 

If you want a new power, then you are going to have to think about how that power extrapolates to all the possibilities that players might want to use it for.  So you have the power to transmit light - is that always full spectrum.  Is being able to choose a particular wavelength an advantage or a limitation?  Can you vary the transmission from bright to dim?  Can you intensify the light by concentrating it into a smaller area?  

 

In other words, the logical extensions of what a PC might be able to do with your emit signal power might go well beyond what you intended it to.  That is why senses are so complicated - they are looking to cover all the bases that were raised.

 

Doc  

[TheDarkness]

Ha!  I am not one of the inveterate build posters, though I value the people who do it - most useful.  

 

I think the problem is that effects in HERO are based on a set of broad fundamental powers.  The power that you are talking about here (in the current rules) is probably either Images or change environment (depending on what you are actually trying to do).  

 

If you do the HERO thing then, by switching on a light, you are instigating a power that changes the environment such that everyone with normal sensory abilities can see properly.  As is usual in HERO there are several ways to do this.  One is to try to model the imposition of a light beam in the environment, one is to modify the environment and one is to provide everyone there with the ability to see as if there was actually light to see by.

 

We are working in C++ rather than BASIC.

 

The easiest thing to do is to ignore the powers system completely, acknowledge there are things out there that allow the game world to change such as lights to help folk see and vehicles to help them move more quickly or access places that would not otherwise be accessible.  You then manage that through in-game transactions (favours, cash etc) and ignore that there is the potential to model that through the Powers system.

 

The HERO-geek way to do it is to choose the power you think is most appropriate - come up with a complex power structure that has a point basis and that players can plug straight into their character sheets.

 

There is a good game reason to do the second bit - but possibly not to show all the working.  The difference between a complex build that describes in game terms a flashlight that casts a light in a 30 foot cone and a listing that says Flashlight (30 foot cone) 3 pts is exactly zero for a player.  However, presenting the contortions you went through to get there shows just how complicated the system is.  So making it simple is simply not making look complex!!

 

:-)

 

If I wanted to make things simple, I would decide, in my game, what things were worth (whether by sticking a finger in the air or doing the math) and listing them for players to decide if they wanted to spend points on them.  If a player wanted to cast light from their eyes, like a flashlight, I would probably need to do the math, though I could make a simple decision such as (that OAF is now not focus based and so I am doubling the cost - voila).

 

If you want a new power, then you are going to have to think about how that power extrapolates to all the possibilities that players might want to use it for.  So you have the power to transmit light - is that always full spectrum.  Is being able to choose a particular wavelength an advantage or a limitation?  Can you vary the transmission from bright to dim?  Can you intensify the light by concentrating it into a smaller area?  

 

In other words, the logical extensions of what a PC might be able to do with your emit signal power might go well beyond what you intended it to.  That is why senses are so complicated - they are looking to cover all the bases that were raised.

 

Doc  

My thought was that the basic power implied choosing either UV, IR, or visible spectrum(but no blinding, that's flash, and no spectrums capable of causing damage to any but those with vulnerabilities), plus choosing the shape(to avoid everyone having to buy a limitation in order to make it some particular shape), but within that range, you may vary its wavelength(so, to make it specifically one quality would be a limitation). I hadn't thought about what would be required to allow choosing AOE, so, now a cone, now a beam, now a sphere, but it would be an advantage. And no, you cannot intensify it by 'compacting' it, but you could effectively make it  do so by brightening it as you shrunk the AOE. Aside from what spectrum it is and what shape it fills, the player has absolutely no control over the light itself, so, it behaves as light behaves, if it lights up the area of a football field, from a distance, it looks like that sort of area lit up.

 

I really think this would be hard to munchkin.

[TheDarkness]

My thought was that the basic power implied choosing either UV, IR, or visible spectrum(but no blinding, that's flash, and no spectrums capable of causing damage to any but those with vulnerabilities), plus choosing the shape(to avoid everyone having to buy a limitation in order to make it some particular shape), but within that range, you may vary it(so, to make it specifically one quality would be a limitation). I hadn't thought about what would be required to allow choosing, so, now a cone, now a beam, now a sphere, but it would be an advantage. And no, you cannot intensify it by 'compacting' it, but you could effectively make it  do so by brightening it as you changed the AOE.

 

I really think this would be hard to munchkin.

I forgot to mention, that one of the reasons this came up for me is that I'm slowly messing around with putting together a pick-up scenario set in the Harry Potter universe, and the light spell Lumos made me think of it.

[Sean Waters]

Then why is it so notoriously hard to build a headlight? Honest question.

 

I suppose the better topic would be, what are things that are ridiculously difficult to build that should be simple, and how would you simplify the process.

 

Forks, apparently.

[TheDarkness]

Forks, apparently.

Clinging, food products only, OAF?

[Sean Waters]

I'm not sure that the correct approach would be to add more stuff; I'd like to see a bit of a rationalisation and less overlap.  Mind you, that would probably involve quite a lot of work.

 

Change Environment is now a catch-all power that is a bit too broad in scope, I think.  It is used almost like a power pool, and seems to be able to do almost anything.

 

You also have the problem that Hero is not really designed to build a head torch, it is designed to build more powerful stuff; in most of my games I'd let you have a torch, gratis.  If you wanted a power that produced light, well, up to a point, you probably get that for free if you have a relevant power that the SFX make sense for: if you have a 12d6 fire blast, I'm going to let you produce a small flame which sheds light without fussing.

 

My solution, despite what I said about Change Environment and not needing more stuff, would be to have a power called 'Minor Effects', which costs 5 points and allows you to do stuff that has little or no game impact most of the time and makes sense in relation to your other powers.

 

An ice blaster character with Minor Effects can chill drinks, maybe even cool someone with a fever, reduce the local air temperature enough to be noticed but not enough to make any combat difference, most of the time.  He can't make an ice slick that would make someone fall over, or chill a gun handle to the point where his aim is shaky.

[Sean Waters]

Clinging, food products only, OAF?

 

Really, don't go there.  It took three fire engines to put out the flames last time.

[TheDarkness]

Really, don't go there.  It took three fire engines to put out the flames last time.

Oh, I forgot the 'does not affect peas' limitation.

[Joe Walsh]

To me, there may be some fiddling that can be done to make the system a bit smoother around the edges, but I think you'd have to move to something else entirely to get it to be dramatically simpler.

 

You could remake it as a system that deals with gross effects only, for example. All the little stuff would just be free SFX.

 

Alternatively, a pure narrative system could be much simpler. Start asking what the story effect is, rather than worrying about having enough mechanical bits to affect in just the right way to simulate something.

 

But at that point I think we're back to talking about killing Hero to save it.

[TheDarkness]

To me, there may be some fiddling that can be done to make the system a bit smoother around the edges, but I think you'd have to move to something else entirely to get it to be dramatically simpler.

 

You could remake it as a system that deals with gross effects only, for example. All the little stuff would just be free SFX.

 

Alternatively, a pure narrative system could be much simpler. Start asking what the story effect is, rather than worrying about having enough mechanical bits to affect in just the right way to simulate something.

 

But at that point I think we're back to talking about killing Hero to save it.

I'm not really looking for "how to make the system simple". Merely "How to get rid of glitches that make weirdly complex messes of simple things for no good effect". So more the smoothing around the edges than simplifying the whole thing.

[InfiniteKarma]

A power dedicated to creating inanimate objects would be useful. We have powers to create walls, but there's no power to create a tree, or at cosmic power levels, a mountain.

 

Transform is both too expensive and powerful for this effect, and not granular enough in its effects. Being able to turn your opponent into a statue is mechanically the same as turning the air (or "nothing" for pure creation) into a statue. And the stats (size, defense, body, weight, special abilities, etc) of things made by transform aren't determined by the transform power.

 

A power based on the final stats of the object (i.e. the volume/mass, defense/body, and any special abilities) makes a lot more sense as a unique power, with the major difference being that it doesn't have to interact with an initial target, because it's built more like Summon than like Transform.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I do think streamlining all the sense powers to work in a similar way would be good, so we don't have images working one way, and darkness another.  

 

Also, turning mind control into more of a transform-based build than a presence attack-based one would probably work better.  Right now mind control is either overpowered or worthless.  Theres no in between, and I really don't like the attempt to balance by requiring you to get an exact, specific intentional target effect or nothing.  You should be able to attempt an attack and get varied levels of success, not all or nothing.

 

Bringing back transfer would make a lot of builds simpler, you could still use the heal/aid - drain construct to make really complicated ones.

 

Animating objects is still a bit clumsy in Hero, that could be dealt with.

[Nolgroth]

The desire for simplicity is a desire for someone else to be making decisions for you, close to anathema for many HERO GMs. :-)

 

Hmm. I don't want this to be a value judgment, but this is where Hero both excels and fails. It is the reason that, after weeks of working on putting together some sort of adventure product, I feel that the whole concept is futile. I've put it up and, for the first time in nearly two decades, have decided to completely abandon Hero to its fate. Hero can never be more than the toolkit that it is, because most people who play it want it for that toolkit feature. There are plenty of other systems where the setting, adventures, and other products are ready made. I just don't ever see the Hero community as being interested enough to support that kind of effort. They are too busy using the rules to interpret their own settings and ideas.

 

I'll keep the books on the shelves though, just in case I ever need to visit the Hero system again. 

[Doc Democracy]

Nolgroth, you leaving us too? That would be a great shame... :-(

[TheDarkness]

Hmm. I don't want this to be a value judgment, but this is where Hero both excels and fails. It is the reason that, after weeks of working on putting together some sort of adventure product, I feel that the whole concept is futile. I've put it up and, for the first time in nearly two decades, have decided to completely abandon Hero to its fate. Hero can never be more than the toolkit that it is, because most people who play it want it for that toolkit feature. There are plenty of other systems where the setting, adventures, and other products are ready made. I just don't ever see the Hero community as being interested enough to support that kind of effort. They are too busy using the rules to interpret their own settings and ideas.

 

I'll keep the books on the shelves though, just in case I ever need to visit the Hero system again. 

Other games have such people. The issue is that Hero is down to just those people. I think there are solutions, but they all are predicated on finding ways to draw new people, and that is going to take new products aimed towards those people, which means less daunting products that set them up to play the game quickly.

 

[Plus, your posts are always interesting, but I understand wanting to take a break or stop.]

[E Nymton]

I am currently thinking of switching from Mutants and Masterminds to hero. Mainly because when I'm doing stuff in M+M I find myself thinking hero could do this better. And have realised that it will be a lot easer to import some of what I like about M+M into hero rather than the other way round. Im having my first full read of the 6th edition rules, which is a slow process for me as im dyslexic and they are big books.

 

Anyway to bring this back on topic, one Idea i might 'borrow' from M+M is the feature power. This cost 1 point in M+M, I'd probably price it it 3 (maybe 5) in hero.

 

This just gives a feature that provides some minor benefit. So a character might have 'feature - thick fur'. Which would give a bonus to resist cokd environments, but fall short of full life support.

 

If I wanted to price it at all A car could have 'feature - headlights, feature - dark/light sensor'. 6 points job done. But I,d probably just assume a car had lights as standard.

[Cantriped]

I've always hated that Change Environment is this grand catch-all power, yet it cannot reproduce half of the environmental effects described in CC/FHC.

 

For example: Change Environment cannot manipulate Gravity, and there just isn't a power which can accurately produce those effects.

 

Change Environment cannot produce light... instead we have to use Images (which is a power to tricking enemies with illusions). Even though Change Environment and Images price their modifiers to PER rolls at the same rate; we are told we have to use Images, pay a surcharge for its ability to "trick" people, and then place a -1 limitation on the power to eliminate the benefits of the surcharge... its all just so complicated and pointless. Its exactly the same kind of BS we put up with in 5th and before having to create walls as Area of Effect Entangles.

 

I think the builds for Flashlights would be a lot simpler if we could just write them as Change Environment with Area of Effect, Charges, and Focus.

[Christopher R Taylor]

For a lot of builds, particularly for magic, I have to build something fairly complicated just to knock people over, maybe something that can more simply represent that would be useful.  Change Environment is the usual dumping grounds for miscellaneous powers like that.