System quirks (your favorite or least favorite)

[Chris Goodwin]

Chris, I guess my view is that it has to be the default from how the original rules worked. The acceleration/deceleration thing I'm pretty sure came in with 4e. Before that it was just inches of combat movement.

 

But I agree that if it comes up as mattering, to check on it. But I've never had anyone using combat movement carry over velocity, or ask that they do so.

 

The key point, which I mentioned before, is if you assume everyone retains their last move's velocity for Combat Movement by default, there will be a lot more characters having to burn a half move on the phase they want to stop. There's no real advantage to that, so it's easier to assume they don't retain velocity between phases.

 

Normal 1: Phase 6 - Moves 12m and stops. Phase 12 decides to brace and set.

Normal 2: Phase 6 - moves 12m (or 6") and retains velocity. Phase 12 would LIKE to brace and set, but has to spend 3m of movement (or 2") coming to a stop and only has a half move left.

 

Another way to look at it is that to keep your full CV you have to move within your ability to stop on a dime (movement power limitations permitting... a "can't hover" flyer clearly DOES usually retain some velocity between phases... unless they're doing a stall turn or something).

 

Once you go to noncombat, keeping track of current velocity does become a requirement.

 

Edit: The fact we're even DISCUSSING all this counts as a niggle Damn acceleration rule! 

 

I checked 3e, and found the following interesting bit:  

 

 

 

When you’ve finished moving at the end of your Phase, it’s good idea to state whether or not you’re still moving with your full velocity, or whether you stopped. If you stopped, then next Phase you have no movement restrictions. If you’re still moving, then you’ll have to decelerate next phase if you-want to stop. The advantage of being moving is that an attack from directly in front of you will remove any Knockback from your movement first, before actually knocking you back. in other words, if you’re flying at 15" and get hit head-on by an attack that would knock you back 10”, you're still in the same spot, just slowed down to 5” of velocity. Also, if you’re still moving at the end of your Phase, it means you can make noncombat move next Phase if you want to. If you stopped, you’ll have to make another combat move before you can go noncombat.

 

I have no idea if this made it any further through the editions, but it happens to hit what we're talking about.  

 

And...

 

 

 

Running heroes may accelerate by 10" of velocity for every 1” they move, until they reach their top speed. Characters may decelerate at the same rate. The turn mode of Running hero is 1" per 10” of velocity (see Flight for an explanation of Turn Mode).

 

I'd have sworn it was 5 per 1 in 3e, but there you go.  Incidentally, in Champions II, vehicles had their own ACC and DCC stats, and all vehicle movement was per segment.

[mrinku]

Good find, Chris

[Chris Goodwin]

Good find, Chris

 

My copy of 3e lives in sheet protectors in a binder, after having been scanned and OCR'd.    

[C-Note]

On your phase, using 1/2 move to get behind your opponent to attack from the rear, and on your opponent's phase, they use 1/2 move to get behind you to attack from the rear. Ad infinitum.

[Shoug]

That all you know about a character's ability to lift is like 98% of his max deadlift. And form factor isn't taken into consideration at all. As far as the game is concerned, the same 10 strength that lets you pick up a 100kg barbell and stammer two paces lets you pick up a 100kg sleeping man and stammer two paces.  

[mrinku]

On your phase, using 1/2 move to get behind your opponent to attack from the rear, and on your opponent's phase, they use 1/2 move to get behind you to attack from the rear. Ad infinitum.

 

...until someone thinks to hold a phase.

 

Given that HERO is otherwise so tactical wargame-like It's a little surprising that it doesn't use some kind of zone of control/melee lock mechanic, or penalty for leaving combat under normal circumstances. Many superpowers would sidestep it, of course, but those may not be in play, even in a Superheroic game - and facing is often ignored for that style of campaign anyway (though Surprise Move might kick in with creative use of Teleport or Desolid).

[Mister E]

Presence Attacks taking no time.

[Brian Stanfield]

On your phase, using 1/2 move to get behind your opponent to attack from the rear, and on your opponent's phase, they use 1/2 move to get behind you to attack from the rear. Ad infinitum.

There are some suggestions on how to deal with this on 6e2, p.50 in the "Surprised and Facing" section:

 

But if the character knows about or can see an opponent, that opponent can’t get a Surprised bonus just by making a Half Move behind the character before attacking. The opponent might get the bonus if the character is distracted (for example, if he’s already fighting one foe who’s in front of him), but moving behind a character before attacking does not per se earn an attacker a Surprised bonus.

[C-Note]

There are some suggestions on how to deal with this on 6e2, p.50 in the "Surprised and Facing" section:

 

Thanks. Looks like the 6e RAW deals with this situation. I never noticed this in 5e and just assumed.

[IndianaJoe3]

That all you know about a character's ability to lift is like 98% of his max deadlift. And form factor isn't taken into consideration at all. As far as the game is concerned, the same 10 strength that lets you pick up a 100kg barbell and stammer two paces lets you pick up a 100kg sleeping man and stammer two paces.  

 

This is addressed in APG1.

[Brian Stanfield]

Thanks. Looks like the 6e RAW deals with this situation. I never noticed this in 5e and just assumed.

Page 26 has a sidebar on facing as well. There is no official facing rule, but they suggest it is a 0 phase action that cannot be taken at the end of a phase. I would simply rule otherwise in the situation you describe. If someone is already engaged in combat and their opponent moves around, I just assume they track the movement for "free" as part of the flow of combat. This of course introduces other problems, but I hunk if it's done with some constraint in situations which make sense, there's no problem with it.

 

Of course, once you take away the surprise bonus as the rule suggests, the point pretty much becomes moot.

[mrinku]

This is addressed in APG1.

 

There's a major annoyance in itself. 4e didn't feel any need to continually produce volumes of new general rules. 

 

I don't mind a few new ideas in a genre book that are specific to that genre, but how can you make the core rules 700 pages and expect people to be happy about "Oh, and here's some stuff we left out"?

 

And "Oh, here's some more".

 

It was annoying in 1985 with Champions II and III, but at least the core books back then were tiny.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I think of it more as "yay new content" and not "those bastards ripping me off!"

 

The APGs are optional concepts and interesting ideas, not official rules or part of the game.  Just suggestions: here's some stuff to try out!

[mrinku]

I realise that, but it still annoys.

[jdounis]

I think of it more as "yay new content" and not "those bastards ripping me off!"

 

The APGs are optional concepts and interesting ideas, not official rules or part of the game.  Just suggestions: here's some stuff to try out!

 

I would say not core rules, but official and part of the game yes, more like optional stuff that could exist in the 6e1/6e2.

 

  The main problem with the majority of pen and paper RPGs of many editions are the legacy rules and subsystems that 

continue to grow independently reaching a point that all these moving parts don't move in unison anymore.

  To make an example of the most famous RPG, take the armor system of D&D, 40+ years in existence

and D&D still has not get rid of the Armor Class concept that creates a myriad of problems/inconsistencies.

 The same can be said ***IMHO*** about the Speed Chart in HERO, it's more a magnet for problems than

a feature of the system, i would prefer an AD&D's like initiative modifier for actions than this "phase" system

if for example you want to attack two times in a turn? your base DEX is 10 the initiative modifier of your attack is

8 you attack at DEX 10 and DEX 2, if it is negative, tough luck you must wait for the next turn, you are too slow.

A streamlined Initiative/Action system could solve most problems/quirks of HERO.

[mrinku]

A streamlined Initiative/Action system could solve most problems/quirks of HERO.

 

I agree. I think the Speed characteristic still has a place in all this, though.  Running it all through DEX (and maybe dropping Speed) is going to cause problems with backwards compatibility. Better to work out a mechanic that uses the existing Speed rating IMHO. I started a thread some time ago which thrashed some ideas out, but I'm sure there's plenty of other good ones.

 

A simple one would be a Speed countdown with everyone with Speed equal to or less of the count getting an action, though that might over-advantage the fast guys. But if the Speed range is narrow (as it usually is for Heroic), it gives much the same result.

[L. Marcus]

The Falling Table irks me -- specifically the distance fallen part. It's conflated with velocity achieved.

[mrinku]

The Falling Table irks me -- specifically the distance fallen part. It's conflated with velocity achieved.

 

Not sure why this is a problem for you. I find the "Distance Fallen" column quite handy at times for summarising the number of segments it's going to take for a given character to hit the pavement. i.e. Lois falls off a 50 storey building (say 150m). That gives Superman five segments/seconds to do something about it.

[L. Marcus]

Look at the first entry on the distance table -- it says that in one segment, i.e. one second, one falls ten meters. This should be five meters. The formula for distance fallen under constant acceleration, without any initial velocity, is s(t) = (a t^2)/2. Set the acceleration to 10 m/s^2 (close enough for gov'ment business), the first five entries should be 5, 20, 45, 80, and 125 meters.

[Grailknight]

Umm, acceleration of gravity is 9.81m/sec^2 in the atmosphere so 10 meters is based on reality.

[mrinku]

Oh, fair point. I thought you had some issue with having the column at all.

 

Hmm. Should have noticed that one myself. Very surprised it's been like that without correction for decades.

 

@Grailnight: It takes a second for the falling body to accelerate to a speed of roughly 10m per second, but during that second it's moving at a slower velocity (from an initial 0 m/s to 10 m/s) and only travels 5m. The formula is correct.

[L. Marcus]

I asked Steve about it once, but he didn't feel that it's a big enough thing to correct.

[mrinku]

Possibly the wrong Steve was asked (i.e. Peterson), a lot later than he should have been (i.e. prior to 1990)  

 

In any case, I'm grateful for you pointing it out and have pencilled the correction to my copy of CC. Probably needs more tweaking in regards to terminal velocity drag, but I'm more than happy to let THAT one go through to the keeper.

[Chris Goodwin]

In stuff I've written, I've noted more than once that, despite its appearance, the HERO System is a game system, not a physics textbook.    Accelerate then move works well enough for most purposes, but if you want to use real world constant acceleration values it shouldn't hurt anything.  The operative value for damage is the velocity more than the distance.  High school physics was a loooong time ago for me so I'd have to print out a table to keep it handy and refer to it every time; it's easier and more intuitive for me to do accelerate then move.  

[mrinku]

Yes, the velocity after each segment of falling was never the issue, and (simplified falling for shorter distances aside) distance fallen itself won't determine damage done, just velocity reached before impact. Very long falls can just be done with distance divided by terminal velocity... the initial few seconds taken to reach 60m per second or so don't matter much in a 2000m dive.

 

But jotting in the correct numbers is a quick and easy fix.