The Rules Discarded Along the Way

[Joe Walsh]

Ever consider bringing forward some of the old rules that were dropped along the way?

 

Sometimes old discarded rules are brought back in the official rules, of course. In 6e we regained the Trip maneuver that was last seen in Fantasy Hero 3e, for example.

 

The "Kick" maneuver, however, hasn't made it out of Champions 1e-3e. And although "Hold" was used in every non-Champions game from Espionage to Star Hero in the 2e and 3e eras, it hasn't been seen since. "Killing Blow" and "Flying Tackle" were in Espionage, Justice Inc, Danger International, and Star Hero but disappeared with 4e.

 

Kick: -2/-2, damage x1-1/2, lands at the end of the following segment. So effectively it was another OCV/DCV modifier choice for a Haymaker like effect.

Hold: -2/-2, both stopped. OK, hard to understand why this one stuck around so long, with Grab being better from a modifier perspective AND granting the opportunity to harm the opponent (which Hold does not).

Killing Blow: -2/-2, (STR/15)D6 Killing. Nice to have a killing attack available for hand-to-hand combat in some genres. Meant to simulate bone-breaking attacks and the like.

Flying Tackle: -2/both are prone, x1 STR damage and knock down. This one seems particularly reasonable, given that it's something any untrained combatant could attempt. I believe it's somewhere in Martial Arts now, but I'm not sure it needs to be locked away?

 

Wow, they sure did like their -2/-2 back in those days!

 

Have you tried bringing any of these maneuvers back for non-MA characters in more recent editions?

 

More broadly, have you brought forward any of the other rules that were dropped along the way?

 

How did it go?

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Flying Tackle is standard in my maneuver lists still.  Killing Blow is kind of replaced with the hit locations, since its basically simulating hitting someone in a spot that is particularly lethal, which is vitals or head.

[LoneWolf]

Before 4th edition there martial arts for the most part simply multiplied damage and did not have maneuvers that did unusual things.   So these maneuvers were added to allow them to do things that could not otherwise be done. 

 

Someone wanting to kick for more damage should simply use the haymaker maneuver.  The old kick multiplying the damage can quickly get out of hand especially in a champions game.  As you said you can already do everything the hold does with the grab maneuver.

 

Standard maneuvers are something that everyone is supposed to be able to do.  Not every high school bully knows how to hit so that it causes broken bones or internal injuries. Killing blow is and should be a martial maneuver.

 

The flying tackle also gives more than a standard maneuver should give.  I would treat this as a move through and trip.  Basically, I would waive the rule you cannot combine maneuvers in a combined attack for this specific maneuver.   
 

[unclevlad]

Kick disappeared because martial arts got refined, and it no longer fit in.  Note that Haymaker stopped being a damage multiplier, it just adds a flat 4 DCs.  So, with a low-STR character, x 1.5 doesn't do much and it's not even close to worth the maneuver's disadvantages, whereas on a brick it might give TOO much, particularly with early END costs.  A 50 STR brick gets +5 dice, at no END.  Finally, note that 3E doesn't have HA at all.  HKA, yes...but not HA.  

 

Killing Blow is largely similar, and made more sense, based on the sourcebooks you mention, to simply roll into martial maneuvers.  The penalties were justified because killing damage was SO much more dangerous back then.  Also, I agree with CRT...this isn't about breaking bones, it's about hitting vital spots.  Normal damage is about breaking bones first, when they do BODY.

 

Hold isn't in 3E that I can see;  I see Grab.  

 

The whole basis of Flying Tackle is wrong...your raw STR doesn't come into play that much.  The martial maneuver makes a lot more sense...2d6 + v/10, both fall.  

 

Basically, I wouldn't bring any of them forward.

[Joe Walsh]

2 hours ago, LoneWolf said:

Someone wanting to kick for more damage should simply use the haymaker maneuver.  The old kick multiplying the damage can quickly get out of hand especially in a champions game.  

 

Sure, but don't modifiers matter (-2/-2 vs. +0/-5)? And couldn't its damage have been modified the same way as the modern Haymaker if it'd been brought forward?

 

2 hours ago, LoneWolf said:

The flying tackle also gives more than a standard maneuver should give.  I would treat this as a move through and trip.  Basically, I would waive the rule you cannot combine maneuvers in a combined attack for this specific maneuver.  

 

How so? You do end up prone at the end of that maneuver, which seems a reasonable price to pay for a -2 OCV attack that does normal damage and makes your opponent prone. What am I missing?

 

2 hours ago, unclevlad said:

Kick disappeared because martial arts got refined, and it no longer fit in. 

 

Are you sure? Kick was only in Champions, never any of the other products, including ones without a refined martial arts option. Seems like there was something else keeping it away from the heroic-level games.

 

It's been so long that, honestly, I can't remember what I thought about it at the time. Was I disappointed they didn't carry Kick forward to 4e, or did it make sense because we didn't use it much? Wish I could remember.

 

2 hours ago, unclevlad said:

Note that Haymaker stopped being a damage multiplier, it just adds a flat 4 DCs.  So, with a low-STR character, x 1.5 doesn't do much and it's not even close to worth the maneuver's disadvantages, whereas on a brick it might give TOO much, particularly with early END costs.  A 50 STR brick gets +5 dice, at no END.  Finally, note that 3E doesn't have HA at all.  HKA, yes...but not HA.  

 

Couldn't Kick's damage have been changed similarly to how Haymaker's was, leaving the option for a different set of modifiers for the same effect?

 

2 hours ago, unclevlad said:

Killing Blow is largely similar, and made more sense, based on the sourcebooks you mention, to simply roll into martial maneuvers.  The penalties were justified because killing damage was SO much more dangerous back then.  Also, I agree with CRT...this isn't about breaking bones, it's about hitting vital spots.  Normal damage is about breaking bones first, when they do BODY.

 

Strangely enough the descriptions of Killing Blow in Espionage, Justice Inc, and Danger International all mention "breaking arms" specifically (in addition to knee drop, throat punch, and kidney strike, which are more like what you're referencing).

 

2 hours ago, unclevlad said:

Hold isn't in 3E that I can see;  I see Grab.  

 

3E Champions? No, they kept that pretty simple. Hold was in Espionage, Justice Inc, Danger International, Fantasy Hero (3e), Robot Warriors, and Star Hero. All also had Grab, interestingly. They existed side-by-side in many Hero games for a long time, somehow.

 

2 hours ago, unclevlad said:

The whole basis of Flying Tackle is wrong...your raw STR doesn't come into play that much.  The martial maneuver makes a lot more sense...2d6 + v/10, both fall. 

 

Maybe so. I just remember characters attempting flying tackles in b-movies and the like. Often while wearing a three-piece suit and dress shoes! 😄

 

2 hours ago, unclevlad said:

Basically, I wouldn't bring any of them forward.

 

That's cool.

 

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Flying tackle is basically a full move throw sacrifice, a completely reasonable martial arts move.  But its one of those martial arts moves that anyone can attempt: anyone can run at someone and crash into them, taking them both down.  Its 3 points base as a martial artist, plus whatever CV modifiers you apply (full move 3 pts, Throw 1 pt, Both fall -1 pt.  You could probably stick V/10 on that as well for +1 point).  But it really ought to be available to everyone. 

 

I posted a list of 0 point martial arts a while back in order to show how you could build them so that anyone could try just about every martial arts maneuver, they'd just be lousy at it.

 

Quote

Sure, but don't modifiers matter (-2/-2 vs. +0/-5)? And couldn't its damage have been modified the same way as the modern Haymaker if it'd been brought forward?

 

Basically yes, but there's no real point.  Its just Haymaker with some different dressing, no reason for redundancy.

[Joe Walsh]

32 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

Flying tackle is basically a full move throw sacrifice, a completely reasonable martial arts move.  But its one of those martial arts moves that anyone can attempt: anyone can run at someone and crash into them, taking them both down.  Its 3 points base as a martial artist, plus whatever CV modifiers you apply (full move 3 pts, Throw 1 pt, Both fall -1 pt.  You could probably stick V/10 on that as well for +1 point).  But it really ought to be available to everyone. 

 

I posted a list of 0 point martial arts a while back in order to show how you could build them so that anyone could try just about every martial arts maneuver, they'd just be lousy at it.

 

Neat! i must have missed that. I'll have to take a look.

 

32 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

Basically yes, but there's no real point.  Its just Haymaker with some different dressing, no reason for redundancy.

 

Huh. Seems like -2/-2 vs. -0/-5 would present a significant choice to players, but apparently not. Again, wish I could remember what my group's experience was at the time. 🤷‍♂️

[unclevlad]

Martial maneuvers include Joint Break.  It includes the specific maneuver element Disable.  It's doing KA because non-resistant damage is too easily defended for the maneuver to generally be effective.

 

So it may be that the maneuver in Pulp Hero et al. isn't very precisely named...which is something addressed with the martial maneuvers, with the Disable element.

12 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

Flying tackle is basically a full move throw sacrifice, a completely reasonable martial arts move.  But its one of those martial arts moves that anyone can attempt: anyone can run at someone and crash into them, taking them both down.  Its 3 points base as a martial artist, plus whatever CV modifiers you apply (full move 3 pts, Throw 1 pt, Both fall -1 pt.  You could probably stick V/10 on that as well for +1 point).  But it really ought to be available to everyone. 

 

 

And that's how it's defined in HSMA, with the v/10.  Oh, my bad, it IS including STR, I wasn't thinking.  BTW:  Flying Tackle is also considered an easy maneuver.  HSMA has that very nice sidebar on page 12, giving their assessment of a ranking system, for those who want to do it.  It's worth noting, because some of the maneuvers like Joint Break, generally shouldn't be allowed standalone.  If you define Killing Blow as a martial maneuver, it'd be -4 points as written...but that largely reflects the overpowered nature of killing attacks back then.  

 

To make a 6E standard maneuver for Flying Tackle, look at Move By.  -2 OCV, -2 DCV;  I like STR/2 + V/10.  Rather than attacker takes damage, Both Fall seems a reasonable alternative.

[LoneWolf]

With a flying tackle you are crashing into to someone and knocking them down with your own body.  When you do this you should also be taking damage.  This is closer to a move through than a throw and the character doing it should be taking damage from it.   A character performing an untrained flying tackle should take the same damage as if they performed a move through.   When you purchase it as a martial maneuver part of what you are paying for is to be able to do it without injuring yourself.  

[unclevlad]

On Haymaker's -5 vs. Kick's -2/-2...-5 DCV makes Haymaker pretty easy to disrupt.  Doing a haymaker, you're a sitting duck...if you're doing it in combat.  It's also very expensive to counter it with CSLs;  they have to be 3 point CSLs or higher, and even -3 DCV is still pretty severe.

 

LW:  if you want Flying Tackle to be Move By with Both Fall?  Yeah, I can see that too, but not all the way to Move Through.  Move Through is hitting them dead square on, with full-out intent to CLOBBER them.  Mind:  sure, I can see a separate standard maneuver, if you wanna go that way.  Flying Tackle...Move By + Both Fall.  Trample...Move Through + Both Fall.  (EDIT:  yes, the visual for Trample, for me, is the Jadaveon Clowney hit in the bowl game, when he was at South Carolina.)

[Lord Liaden]

I haven't really made any changes to the 5E/6E martial art system. I quite like it as it is. But I have kept a few older rules, albeit often tweaked. Off the top of my head, I still use Find Weakness/Lack of Weakness, Transfer, and Adjustment Powers not fading below starting levels. I like the Shockwave maneuver from Champions III, and the Self-Inflicted Damage rule from the original (pre-4E) Golden Age of Champions.

[Duke Bushido]

10 hours ago, GM Joe said:

Ever consider bringing forward some of the old rules that were dropped along the way?

 

Oh boy!  A thread made for me!   

 

 

10 hours ago, GM Joe said:

Sometimes old discarded rules are brought back in the official rules, of course. In 6e we regained the Trip maneuver that was last seen in Fantasy Hero 3e, for example.

 

And, if memory serves, _only_ in Fantasy HERO (I will have to go crawling the bookshelf to confirm that), which has led to I-can't-keep-up-with-how-many conversations revolving around it being impossible to knock someone down without martial arts, because only then does something say "target falls. '. Knocked' em down to-30 Stun?  Well, too bad; you don't have martial arts, he wobbles around on his get, unconscious, but still standing.  You'll just have to shoot around him. 

 

 

 

10 hours ago, GM Joe said:

The "Kick" maneuver, however, hasn't made it out of Champions 1e-3e.

 

I don't get that, either.  I can see it changing, the same way Haymaker did, but I don't get why it wasn't forwarded. 

 

Except I kind of do. 

 

I am going to blame it on a combination of Aaron Alston and the absolute mania that tabletop gamers seem to have for martial arts.  Once his truly-inspirational idea for a one-off campaign-- modify skill levels and pretend they are individual maneuvers, rip elements out of the standard maneuvers and tie them to these martial skill levels-was legitimized as _the_ HERO way to do things (not saying it isn't a lovely idea; I am just not pretending it is something that it isn't), suddenly common, everyday brawling maneuvers-things third graders instinctively know how to do-were reserved as "martial.  You have to buy that martial." 

 

It's the same problem HERO has had since it was just Champions:  there are going to be those people who think along the lines that "if it is _possible_ to pay points for it, then you _must_ pay points for it.  It's the flamethrower thing all over again: yes; that is your Ed energy blast, but if you want it to set things on fire, then you have to also buy a transform, otherwise that giant pool of crude oil is perfectly safe. ". (the backdoor, of course, is a side-effect: may set flammable things on fire, which rebates points, so we get right back to the" points don't mean squat, balance-wise" discussion). 

 

Honestly, after Ninja HERO, I am pleasantly surprised we can still punch without having buy it martial. 

 

Seriously!  Think about all the things kids do instinctively when fighting: the tackle, they slap, they grab, they hold, they choke, they bite, they kick-- you know what they don't do? They don't punch!  Most of them don't even learn how to make a fist with their thumbs on the outside until they see it often enough, someone shows them, or they dislocate their thumb. 

 

Wierdly, all of those maneuvers are martial, and punching is not. 

 

 

10 hours ago, GM Joe said:

And although "Hold" was used in every non-Champions game from Espionage to Star Hero in the 2e and 3e eras, it hasn't been seen since.

Hold suffered a "roll into" problem.  These days (since 4e, I think, but again, I would have to crawl the bookshelf) it is just assumed to be a part of grab.  The problem is that in reality, grab is...  Awkward.  It is a quick maneuver to take someone off guard or pull them off balance or even just get their attention. 

 

You have to grab and then hold., realistically, and just because you grabbed them didn't mean you weren't going to take a poke or three to face or one to the groin before you managed to actually get a hold on them. 

 

In a fight, and once upon a time in Hero, you could grab, then hold, or grab, then punch, or grab, then choke, or grab, then throw, but somewhere along the way someone who maybe didn't fight a lot growing up thought 'well, of course you are going to hold them; what else would you do?' 

 

And that was the end of that. 

 

Man, you could even do a Grab By, and if you were running full-tilt across the room, there was no way you were going to put a hold on them.  A grab is really nothing more than a maneuver to get your opponent off-balance (either literally, for a good shove, or figuratively, throwing his game off) and dropping his DCV a bit to give you better odds with your next maneuver (which is now hold, period).

 

 

10 hours ago, GM Joe said:

 

Hold: -2/-2, both stopped. OK, hard to understand why this one stuck around so long, with Grab being better from a modifier perspective AND granting the opportunity to harm the opponent (which Hold does not).

 

Not from this perspective, looking backwards from Grab and Hold rolled into one; not, it does not make sense.  But once upon a time, you could do more than just squeeze them after you put the grab on them.  Grab an arm with one hand and slam them with the other, grab them and shove them into a wall, grab them by the head and jam your things into their eyes (which you can know only do with Martial arts, as it adds a 'flash' element or something; I don't know....) 

 

_or_ grab them and attempt to put a hold on them.  Or-a perrinial favorite: grab them and go into that haymaker. 

 

 

10 hours ago, GM Joe said:

Killing Blow: -2/-2, (STR/15)D6 Killing. Nice to have a killing attack available for hand-to-hand combat in some genres. Meant to simulate bone-breaking attacks and the like.

Flying Tackle: -2/both are prone, x1 STR damage and knock down. This one seems particularly reasonable, given that it's something any untrained combatant could attempt. I believe it's somewhere in Martial Arts now, but I'm not sure it needs to be locked away?

 

Wow, they sure did like their -2/-2 back in those days!

 

Have you tried bringing any of these maneuvers back for non-MA characters in more recent editions?

 

More broadly, have you brought forward any of the other rules that were dropped along the way?

 

How did it go?

 

 

8 hours ago, LoneWolf said:

 

Someone wanting to kick for more damage should simply use the haymaker maneuver.  The old kick multiplying the damage can quickly get out of hand especially in a champions game.  

 

Got out of hand; became awesome.... Tomato, tomahto..... 

 

 

As it was only found in Champions, I always took it to be available as either someone's Schick, or for knocking down doors justicely.  You know: before "Tunneling" became the way to knock down a door (or pick the lock, if you choose 'fills in behind me').  Maybe that facial-tick-inducing build came about because kick had gone away. 

 

 

8 hours ago, LoneWolf said:

As you said you can already do everything the hold does with the grab maneuver

 

You can _now_.  In fact, that is pretty much all you can, if you don't have high STR or superpowers to either zap them or squeeze them. 

 

 

 

8 hours ago, LoneWolf said:

Standard maneuvers are something that everyone is supposed to be able to do.  Not every high school bully knows how to hit so that it causes broken bones or internal injuries. Killing blow is and should be a martial maneuver.

 

Respectful disagreement.  Every high-school boy knows that a punch to the throat is brutal, as is a punch to the side of the neck, or a kick to the side of the knee, and lots of other things just as bad.  Whether or not they choose to do these things in a fight is more a matter of how brutal they can really bring themselves to be.  Seriously: a lifetime of "don't hit people" and "use your words" really does have an effect.  With that in your background, you can probably still get threatened enough or enraged enough to trade a few punches, but there is a psychological line you have to cross before you can willingly cripple someone.  Most people won't do it if they can stay alive without doing it (and that gives me hope, overall). 

 

But it is a bit like being a serial killer: pretty much everyone on earth knows how to kill another human being.  Actually doing it has more to do with who you are and what lines you won't cross than it does any sort of ancient school of training or wizened old men on mountain tops. 

 

 

I was going to give an anecdotal  example of this, but I cannot find a single bit of news coverage on it-not surprising; it involved minors, and there was no internet. 

 

Back in the mid to late 80s, I lived in Liberty County, Georgia.  There was a call-out fight between two high school students.  I remember one of them was a local DJ named Mike (called himself 'Stanto Jay' or some such on the radio and a tiny kid who went by the nickname Tojo, and he was 'known' to be a problem Al over town. 

 

They got in a fight and Tojo scammed Mike out to some teen hangout spot, so he went, and he was a 'use your words' kid, and kept trying to talk the situation down.  According to witnesses, the entire time Mike was talking, trying to reason with him, the little guy pulled an aluminum bat from his car, walked over to Mike, and beat his head in, then left. 

 

I don't know how it came out ultimately, but I know Mike was still a drooling vegetable a couple of years later.  (and these are the things that extinguish that hope).

 

Even kids know what lethal is.  Whether or not they go that far is a matter of who they are. 

 

 

8 hours ago, LoneWolf said:

The flying tackle also gives more than a standard maneuver should give.  I would treat this as a move through and trip.  Basically, I would waive the rule you cannot combine maneuvers in a combined attack for this specific maneuver. 

 

Good thoughts.  I just made it require a full phase and called it good. 

 

 

8 hours ago, unclevlad said:

Kick disappeared because martial arts got refined, and it no longer fit in.  Note that Haymaker stopped being a damage multiplier, it just adds a flat 4 DCs.  So, with a low-STR character, x 1.5 doesn't do much and it's not even close to worth the maneuver's disadvantages, whereas on a brick it might give TOO much, particularly with early END costs.  A 50 STR brick gets +5 dice, at no END.  Finally, note that 3E doesn't have HA at all.  HKA, yes...but not HA.  

 

Killing Blow is largely similar, and made more sense, based on the sourcebooks you mention, to simply roll into martial maneuvers.  The penalties were justified because killing damage was SO much more dangerous back then.  Also, I agree with CRT...this isn't about breaking bones, it's about hitting vital spots.  Normal damage is about breaking bones first, when they do BODY.

 

Hold isn't in 3E that I can see;  I see Grab.  

your raw STR doesn't come into play that much.  The martial maneuver makes a lot more sense...2d6 + v/10, both fall.

 

Agreed on structure: it's a sacrifice move-through or move-by.  Respectfully disagree on makinf it martial, however, unless one of the kids I grew up was a well-disguised Master Sifu teaching us how to play Smear the - -  look, I am going to leave that there; I rather hope it has a new name these days, but I know kids still play it: one kid has the Thing (usually a nerf football, for some reason) and all the other kids tackle him and keep jumping on until there is a dog pile wrestling to get the Thing, and whoever gets it takes off running until everyone figures it out.   At any rate, at least for those of us for whom childhood play didn't involve a screen (I know I ain't the only old fart here, by cracky!), tackling is an everyman ability. 

 

 

7 hours ago, GM Joe said:

 

Sure, but don't modifiers matter (-2/-2 vs. +0/-5)?

 

 

Quite a lot, actually.  Those modifiers are the reason my players would typically line up kicks instead of haymakers.

 

 

7 hours ago, GM Joe said:

And couldn't its damage have been modified the same way as the modern Haymaker if it'd been brought forward?

  

 

I laugh because when the Haymaker change came out, we _sort of_ incorporated it.... 

 

 

By that I mean that we changed kick to be +50 percent _up to 4d6_, and left Haymaker alone.  Still play it that way, actually.  It just seemed more "right," especially if you have actually tried kicking something apart.  Sure, your legs are much stronger than your arms, but outside of actual martial (and possibly gymnastic) training, you just aren't that good at bringing them to bear and keeping your feet, so you don't do a _lot_ of extra damage, just enough to notice. 

 

 

 

 

7 hours ago, GM Joe said:

.Seems like there was something else keeping it away from the heroic-level games.

 

Just a total swag on my part, but possibly because you were only going to gain a die or a die and a half?  It didn't really help you break down doors (Killing Strike did, though!), so it is possible the authors saw no need for Killing Strike, Kick, and Haymaker.  Remember that for all of its universality, at the lower levels, HERO isn't really granular enough to justify a lot of identical-damage maneuvers.   Probably why most guns in our games were listed on the character sheet as 'gun.' without any particular regard for what sort of gun it was.  Even the seller Guns! Guns! Guns! Supplement did little but demonstrate how depressingly pointless it was to stress variations. 

 

7 hours ago, GM Joe said:

Was I disappointed they didn't carry Kick forward to 4e, or did it make sense because we didn't use it much? Wish I could remember.

 

We were disappointed.  We did take some inspiration from the Haymaker, and kept kick anyway. 

 

 

 

7 hours ago, GM Joe said:

 

They existed side-by-side in many Hero games for a long time, somehow

😄

 

 

Went over somehow above, but I am having editing issues with the new keyboard, so.... 

7 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

Flying tackle is basically a full move throw sacrifice, a completely reasonable martial arts move.  But its one of those martial arts moves that anyone can attempt

 

Which makes it a normal or standard maneuver: anyone willing to jump face-first at another human can do it. 

 

7 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

I posted a list of 0 point martial arts a while back in order to show how you could build them so that anyone could try just about every martial arts maneuver, they'd just be lousy at it.

 

And they were AWESOME! 

 

Thank you again for that! 

 

 

7 hours ago, unclevlad said:

Martial maneuvers include Joint Break.  

 

They do now; yes.  When Killing Strike was still around, there was no Ninja HERO, and most certainly no HERO System Martial Arts.  There was just martial arts: here is some extra damage, and you have unlocked the maneuvers that say "martial" on them. 

 

That was it.  Since anyone could kick a knee or punch a throat (the one maneuver that I never saw and always wanted to was dropkick.    ), it wasn't considered Martial. 

 

 

7 hours ago, unclevlad said:

 

So it may be that the maneuver in Pulp Hero et al. isn't very precisely named...

  

 

Ooh!  This sounds interesting!  If you haven't by the time I have finished this, go on a bit more about this idea.  I am very curious to know your thoughts on this. 

 

 

7 hours ago, unclevlad said:

 

To make a 6E standard maneuver for Flying Tackle, look at Move By.  -2 OCV, -2 DCV;  I like STR/2 + V/10.  Rather than attacker takes damage, Both Fall seems a reasonable alternative.

 

This is pretty spot-on.  Though we might consider two options: a move-by that ends with both prone as well as a move-through.  Sometimes the object is to catch them without roughing them up more than necessary. 

 

Ultimately, though, a tackle ends in a hold.  Both are knocked down; yes, but the entire point of a tackle is to stop them by restraining them. 

 

7 hours ago, LoneWolf said:

With a flying tackle you are crashing into to someone and knocking them down with your own body.  When you do this you should also be taking damage.  This is closer to a move through than a throw and the character doing it should be taking damage from it.   A character performing an untrained flying tackle should take the same damage as if they performed a move through.   When you purchase it as a martial maneuver part of what you are paying for is to be able to do it without injuring yourself.  

 

 

Eh.  You only get hurt the first time you try it, barring getting kicked in the face.  After that, you realize you should land on top of the guy, and not throw yourself at the ground next to him.  And, as mentioned above, it really isn't a stand-alone maneuver: the thing that makes it a tackle _instead of a move-by or - through is that it ends in a hold.  Both prone, yes, but with one of them holding the other. 

 

Those folks who find validity to the HERO Martial Arts seem to be focusing on the falls and the damage but not the "hold" part.  A tackle is itself a flying grab-by more than it is anything else. 

6 hours ago, unclevlad said:

On Haymaker's -5 vs. Kick's -2/-2...-5 DCV makes Haymaker pretty easy to disrupt.  Doing a haymaker, you're a sitting duck...if you're doing it in combat.  It's also very expensive to counter it with CSLs;  they have to be 3 point CSLs or higher, and even -3 DCV is still pretty severe.

 

LW:  if you want Flying Tackle to be Move By with Both Fall?  Yeah, I can see that too, but not all the way to Move Through.  Move Through is hitting them dead square on, with full-out intent to CLOBBER them. 

 

Agreed.  A move-through in a tackle is called "clipping," and will cost your team some yards.  ;). Seriously, though: I agree that move-by is a better model, as in particular, the goal is to restrain someone and not actually kill them. There is more "damage" from the fall than from the impact (unless you are clipping, which is why it is illegal). 

 

6 hours ago, unclevlad said:

Mind:  sure, I can see a separate standard maneuver, if you wanna go that way.  Flying Tackle...Move By + Both Fall.  Trample...Move Through + Both Fall. 

 

Now _this_ I can really get behind!  With the Tackle ending in a hold and the Trample ending in a....  Well, I can't say Grab anymore for you later-edition guys, as they are now one and the same, but still, I do like the distinction that one is intended to capture and restrain and one is intended to deliver injury. 

 

6 hours ago, unclevlad said:

 

 

 

 

Sorry about that; somehow, I have an extra quote box. 

 

6 hours ago, unclevlad said:

(EDIT:  yes, the visual for Trample, for me, is the Jadaveon Clowney hit in the bowl game, when he was at South Carolina.

 

Dude, that was...  Brutal.  Ugh. 

 

 

[Duke Bushido]

3 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

and the Self-Inflicted Damage rule from the original (pre-4E) Golden Age of Champions.

 

 

I _love_ that one, but honestly, I don't use it often.  I play mostly Heroic level, and it gets pretty nasty pretty fast that way. 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

With the Tackle ending in a hold and the Trample ending in a....  Well, I can't say Grab anymore for you later-edition guys

 

Its still called grab, and that's the key: its not just a move through because you're tackling them.  Its a move through that grabs the target rather than primarily doing damage.  I think it would look something like this:

 

Martial Arts version (no damage taken):

Full Move, Target Falls, Grab 3 limbs, Attacker falls, V/10 damage, half move required; 5 points cost.

 

Free version:

as above but take half damage -2 OCV and -2 DCV; costs no points.

 

[Lord Liaden]

5 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

 

I _love_ that one, but honestly, I don't use it often.  I play mostly Heroic level, and it gets pretty nasty pretty fast that way. 

 

Really? I've never found that. Any heroic character who tries to punch a heavily armoured foe or a stone wall with their bare fist, deserves what they get IMO. Of course, as I say I do modify it slightly.

[Hugh Neilson]

22 hours ago, GM Joe said:

Ever consider bringing forward some of the old rules that were dropped along the way?

 

Sometimes old discarded rules are brought back in the official rules, of course. In 6e we regained the Trip maneuver that was last seen in Fantasy Hero 3e, for example.

 

I advocated for Trip in the SETAC days because a non-MA should be able to Trip someone.  I didn't recall it being in FH.  On a broader basis, most MA maneuvers were things anyone should be able to do, so make non-Martial versions and MA versions are just better at it.

22 hours ago, GM Joe said:

Kick: -2/-2, damage x1-1/2, lands at the end of the following segment. So effectively it was another OCV/DCV modifier choice for a Haymaker like effect.

 

To me, Kick went away because it was SFX-specific. You can do a Haymaker with your fists or with your feet, so why is a special maneuver needed? Based on where MA ended up, this would just be -2OCV, -2 DCV, +2 DCs now, extra time now.

 

22 hours ago, GM Joe said:

Killing Blow: -2/-2, (STR/15)D6 Killing. Nice to have a killing attack available for hand-to-hand combat in some genres. Meant to simulate bone-breaking attacks and the like

 

With the removal of damage adder limits in 6e, it seems a natural fit, doesn't it?  But it also would mean everyone knows how to strike a blow that bypasses all normal (i.e. non-resistant)  defenses.

 

22 hours ago, GM Joe said:

Flying Tackle: -2/both are prone, x1 STR damage and knock down. This one seems particularly reasonable, given that it's something any untrained combatant could attempt. I believe it's somewhere in Martial Arts now, but I'm not sure it needs to be locked away?

 

We have Grab-By that combines Grab and Move By.  Why not Grab Through?

 

 

[Duke Bushido]

9 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

I advocated for Trip in the SETAC days because a non-MA should be able to Trip someone.

 

Bless you, Sir.  I submit that the kid in a school chair who casually sticks a foot out when his nemesis walks by is probably not a martial artist.  I further submit that it is possible to slap, kick, punch, poke, bite, choke, grab, hold, throw, tackle and even gouge someone with _zero_ martial training. 

 

 

9 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 most MA maneuvers were things anyone should be able to do, so make non-Martial versions and MA versions are just better at it.

 

Yep.  Almost as if martial artists can use skill levels to simulate their extensive training. 

 

 

 

9 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

To me, Kick went away because it was SFX-specific. You can do a Haymaker with your fists or with your feet, so why is a special maneuver needed?

 

As the topic was older editions, you have chosen a bad example, Sir.  First, second, and third editions all list Haymker the in-game maneuver as being a Haymker the real-world version, with specific verbiage stating 'a Haymker is a special kind of punch.'. That is every bit as tied to SFX as is kick. 

 

I suspect that kick went away because by 4e, Ninja HERO had become an official HERO book, and the sentiment was similar to what it is today:  "ooh!  There are special martial arts rules.  If it isn't a punch"- pardon; let's not confuse things-"if it isn't an offensive strike, then it is a martial arts maneuver, because...".    Honestly, I really don't know why.  Because martial arts are cool?  Because the movies show big-jawed heroes throwing punches and looking totally amazed when the lithe and totally without body fat martial artist kicks some guy then wipes the sweat from his brow with his toes?  Because only martial artists know how to kick, to the chagrin of soccer players all over the world? 

 

I don't know.  In the early editions it meant you were HTH trained, and could deliver a more effective hit, more successfully, and avoid getting hit more successfully, all of which I am totally cool with.  If you have trained at something, you are bound to be much better at it than someone who is just "self taught," for lack of a better word. 

 

But after Ninja HERO, martial arts more and more became a paywall behind which was locked some of the most common things in unschooled combat. 

 

The worst of it-to me-was the wired "add X dice" element.  Sure, it works _great_ for a campaign of completely normal people:

 

I have trained for fifteen years to maximize the application of my STR 15, and using the devastating Leaf Blower Moon strike, I can almost double the power of my blows! 

 

Really?  I must be doing it wrong.  I, too, have been training in the Shenanigans School since my radiation accident fifteen years ago.  I, too, have mastered the Leaf Blower Moon technique, but no matter how flawlessly I apply my STR45, to the Leaf Blower Moon strike, I can only add 2 dice.  It is as if I fell on them while striking. 

 

 

It is as if it was a nifty idea for a single campaign that caught on with fans of the genre, and suddenly it had to be everywhere.  It just falls completely on its face in supers, but we keep insisting this is how it is done. 

 

Sure-supers on the table means building a power or some skill levels and declaring that it is the Body Odor Like Charcoal attack and rolling with it, but the fact that you can do that with normal people- build then a power like +2d6 HTH and allocate a few skill levels into it to up your chances-or possibly ly your damage, if you have a couple of ten-pointers lying around-really kind of points to HERO System Martial Arts as being both neat and totally unnecessary: it is outclassed by everything else possible within the system.  Don't get me wrong: I have _always_ thought it was a cool idea with which to frame a particular 'this is how we do Ninjas' campaign-- which it actually _was_; I have never thought it had any place in the official rules.  The only thing that gives it any validity has been the locking up of essentially common maneuvers within it.   Wanna French Slap a guy?  Sorry; that is not an NND.  That, Sir is a _martial_ NND.  Rabbit punch?  No, Sir.  That is a nerve strike; you will need to buy martial arts. 

 

9 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

Based on where MA ended up, this would just be -2OCV, -2 DCV, +2 DCs now, extra time now.

 

 

This is totally workable.  Well-done. 

 

 

9 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

With the removal of damage adder limits in 6e, it seems a natural fit, doesn't it?  But it also would mean everyone knows how to strike a blow that bypasses all normal (i.e. non-resistant)  defenses.

 

Once I know martial arts, what do I pay for an NND? Or some kind of "Killing" something-or-other.  I know: I paid a point, but while philosophically, the difference between one and zero is infinite, what is the difference in character building?  I will not lie to you, Hugh:

 

I _own_ HSM; it is one of the books I could afford t the time of release, in fact.  I bought it because I wanted to support the company, feed the coffers to fund the next thing, etc.  I own it.  I am _never_ going to read it (it's not like I don't have four or five copies of 3e's Ninja HERO.  I mean, if you leave a Harriet Carter book unattended for too long, it will just turn into Ninja HERO eventually). 

 

But I am willing to bet there is an NND element or maneuver and a killing element or maneuver that costs next to nothing in the grand scheme of Killing Attack pricing. 

 

And even 'I am a Ninja' doesn't justify having an attack that bypasses all defenses.  I am sure I am completely wrong here, and I am open to correction, but before I learned much of anything about comics, I assumed the guy fighting Spiderman on the cover of one of Jim's comic was the guy that, having learned the name recently, was Iron Man.  Turns out it was Dr Doom (Dr Death?  Nope-a quick Google tells me that Doom is correct).  At any rate, the guy appears to be covered in cast iron armor (hence my confusion back then).  "My Fingerpoke of Doom easily bypasses his cast iron armor because I am a Ninja" makes every bit as much sense as Joey Pocketwrench grabs oppenent's his head and twists. 

 

 

9 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

We have Grab-By that combines Grab and Move By.  Why not Grab Through?

 

I like it, at least for the editions where grab and hold are the same thing.  As the odd man out here, I would still need to concoct some kind of Hold-By.    

 

 

 

Okay. 

 

This is really tedious on a phone.... 

 

 

[Hugh Neilson]

1 hour ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

Bless you, Sir.  I submit that the kid in a school chair who casually sticks a foot out when his nemesis walks by is probably not a martial artist.  I further submit that it is possible to slap, kick, punch, poke, bite, choke, grab, hold, throw, tackle and even gouge someone with _zero_ martial training.

 

I think the ones added to 6e were Shove, Trip and Choke.

 

1 hour ago, Duke Bushido said:

As the topic was older editions, you have chosen a bad example, Sir.  First, second, and third editions all list Haymker the in-game maneuver as being a Haymker the real-world version, with specific verbiage stating 'a Haymker is a special kind of punch.'. That is every bit as tied to SFX as is kick.

 

Yup - so removing Kick when we removed the SFX aspect of Haymaker was the logical approach.  It was, IIRC, in 1e and 2e (not much changed between 1e and 2e).  I'm not sure I ever really read 3e.  I recall Growth and Shrinking changing range modifiers instead of DCV.

 

1 hour ago, Duke Bushido said:

The worst of it-to me-was the wired "add X dice" element.  Sure, it works _great_ for a campaign of completely normal people:

 

I have trained for fifteen years to maximize the application of my STR 15, and using the devastating Leaf Blower Moon strike, I can almost double the power of my blows! 

 

Really?  I must be doing it wrong.  I, too, have been training in the Shenanigans School since my radiation accident fifteen years ago.  I, too, have mastered the Leaf Blower Moon technique, but no matter how flawlessly I apply my STR45, to the Leaf Blower Moon strike, I can only add 2 dice.  It is as if I fell on them while striking.

 

If we accept that +5 STR = 2x as strong = +1d6, then the power of both blows is quadrupled.

 

More to the point, the 1e/2e MA cost your STR, with every additional x1/2 to damage costing half your STR again.

 

1 hour ago, Duke Bushido said:

Once I know martial arts, what do I pay for an NND? Or some kind of "Killing" something-or-other.  I know: I paid a point, but while philosophically, the difference between one and zero is infinite, what is the difference in character building?

 

There's very little difference.  With 6e returning to 1e - no "can't more than double the HKA with STR", converting STR to a KA is pretty cheap anyway.  A 2d6 NND for 4 points isn't all that cheap, especially...

 

1 hour ago, Duke Bushido said:

 I assumed the guy fighting Spiderman on the cover of one of Jim's comic was the guy that, having learned the name recently, was Iron Man.  Turns out it was Dr Doom (Dr Death?  Nope-a quick Google tells me that Doom is correct).  At any rate, the guy appears to be covered in cast iron armor (hence my confusion back then).  "My Fingerpoke of Doom easily bypasses his cast iron armor because I am a Ninja" makes every bit as much sense as Joey Pocketwrench grabs oppenent's his head and twists.

 

considering how common the defenses against a Choke or a Nerve Strike are.  I think Doom "has rigid armor protecting his vulnerable spots or PD Resistant
Protection" and "rigid armor on the neck, Resistant Protection PD on the neck, or Life Support: Self-Contained Breathing", making him immune to Nerve Strikes and Chokes (martial or not).

[unclevlad]

A point on the NND in 6E Martial Arts...you *don't* get to add STR.  So to get something that'll be effective, you have to be heavy into MA DCs, or *maybe* a speedster.  The rules allow, but STRONGLY discourage, v/6 or v/10.

 

Besides, if you want an NND...buy an AVAD or NND HA, if you can sell it. The STR still adds to this....6E1 231.  As Hugh said, there's no limit to how much damage you can add, in 6E, to an HA or HKA.  That way, you can get away with...let's go with 1/2d6 for 3 points.  +1 for the AVAD --> 6.  If you want, 0 END adds 1 more point.    EDIT:  oh, and that cost is active.  Real cost gets to apply HA (-1/4).   

[Duke Bushido]

17 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

Bless you, Sir. 

 

Still standing by that.  Thanks for trying, Hugh. 

 

 

17 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

  First, second, and third editions all list Haymker the in-game maneuver as being a Haymker the real-world version, with specific verbiage stating 'a Haymker is a special kind of punch.'. 

 

Here we go;  from 1e, p32:

 

Haymaker: This is basically an all-out punch, and takes an extra segment for its execution.  If a character states on segment 6 that he wishes to do a Haymaker, the blow will not land until the end of Segment 7, after all characters in segment 7 have taken their action. 

 

 

I would like to note that for a bunch of guys without a lot of role playing experience- or rather, without a lot of experience in the typos and oversights that marked the rules of the Era, the use of Segment instead of phase or half phase had us wondering about the visualizations of combat and comparing it to the ideas that a character's action took his entire turn, but he could take 2 brief actions instead. 

 

The way that reads, a SPD:2 character, with his action in Phase 6, declared a roundhouse swing and then it was over, and he stood around with folded arms until Phase 1 came back around.     

 

2e made it better by including a maneuvers chart on p 51 that gave time requirements for the various maneuvers, and it noted Haymaker as taking 1/2 a phase.  (for those still wondering about Kick, it, too, was a half-phase action.). There was a footnote for Haymaker (and kick) that still claimed "action takes place at the end of the next segment.". Obviously this was all very do-able on maps and with the speed chart, but it kept wrecking the visualization (still kind of does, really) because of the implication that all actions are resolved in a single segment, except these two that take up two seconds (or one entire Phase if you were SPD:12), which again gave the visual of completing everything else in the very segment in which you declared it, and then you stood around sulking while the fast guys played some more.   In fact, the only way that Haymaker (or any other maneuver that took a single segemt to resolve) could be a half-phase action was if you were SPD:6!  More than that and it a single segment was more than half of your phase.  Less than that, and a single segment was _less_than half of your phase. 

 

It was the questions raised by this chart, more than the answers the chart provided, that helped us kind steer into our understanding of "what it meant.". No internet back then, so we had only the text of the combat section to go by, and simply determined 'well, an Alabama Windup is a big, slow, highly-telegraphed maneuver, so I reckon it means declare in the first half-phase, and then resolve Haymakers on the last segment of your phase,' which meant resolve them last.   This is problematic at speeds 4 and above, where a Haymaker declared in the second half of your Phase will not connect until a segment (or more,up to 1-1/2 segments for SPD:12 characters) _after your phase has ended_.  Remember that it is listed as a half-phase action, so you can declare it in the second half of your phase, so long as you have not already attacked. 

 

The delayed affect (especially at higher SOD) left it largely untouched by my players for more than smashing immobile objects (make of that what you will) or coordinating to hit "right here" as the speedster knocked a bad guy at you).  So it got used for spectacular brick-things like knocking down walls and Presence attacks and occasionally on a stunned powerhouse villain (or an entangled one.  We ain't all saints)., but by and large, in combat, not terribly often. 

 

But that is neither here nor there. 

 

Also in 2e, on p54, is a text description (mercifully typed with a sand serif font for this edition) is the description, and the only real difference between the two editions is the placement of words in a sentence or two, which does nothing to alter the original meaning (because English is goofy like that) :

 

This is basically an all out punch, and takes an extra segment to execute.  If a character states on segment 6 that he wishes to do a Haymaker, the blow will not land until the end of Segment 7, after all characters in segment 7 have taken their action. 

 

I mean, the verbiage this time implies that the extra time is on the front end, causing the blow to be delayed (which is accurate) where the 1e verbiage implied "this is a long maneuver), but game-wise, there is no practical difference.  Only the implications have been changed (to protect the innocent, maybe.  Who knows?). 

 

As for 3e, in the perfect bound all-in-one book, on p72, (all you lucky rascals fortunate enough to have gotten the 3e Teo books, dice, and a map boxed set will be pleased to know that it is on p72 of the main rules book as well.  And give a shout out if you have an empty box you're willing to either part with or at least photograph in detail) there is a newer, more nicely-formatted version of the 2e chart (though this time it is a bit chooser about what it calls a combat maneuver, eliminating enteies like Find Weakness and the various movements-it looks like the brusquely-typed 1e chart-that-you-don't-recognize-as-a-chart until you are halfway through it and think "this paragraph makes absolutely no sense.... OOOoooOOOoohhh!") 

 

Again, Haymaker is listed (along with Kick) as "this maneuver takes an extra segment." 

 

So the pressure from the first three editions of the rules (all of which declare Haymaker to be a half-phase action _and it takes an extra segment (so again: SPD:7 or higher, and it is more than a half-phase, no matter what you do) suggests that if I have an SPD:3 or lower, I can half-move, declare _and complete_ a Haymaker entirely within my phase. 

 

Anyway, going to the verbiage:

 

The second column of the same page (p72) has-again-_essentially_ the same description from all the way back in 1e, as did 2e-- _essentially_ the same, minor verbiage changes.  However, the minor change in 3e is hilariously glorious! 

 

"This is basically an all out punch, and takes an extra segment to execute.  If a hero states on segment 6 that he wants to do a Haymaker, the blow won't land until the end of Segment 7, after all heroes have taken their action. 

 

 

 

 

Okay, have all the heroes acted? Great!  Haymaker time!  Okay, villians; it's your turn now-- well, not you, Clyde.  You just lay there and drool until you wake up.  Those Haymaker are nasty.... 

 

And evidently, 3e kicks are also resolved between hero and villain actions, as the description there is "This is a full power kick, which is why it is somewhat awkward.  This maneuver takes one extra segment to execute, like Haymaker. 

 

17 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

 

 

Yeah.  Still having that weird thing where I can't delete quote boxes... 

 

 

15 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

I think the ones added to 6e were Shove, Trip and Choke.

 

Excellent choices!  Now I can knock someone down without having to buy martial arts or beat them stupid.!

 

I mean, I always could, but then 'rhat' discussion comes around again, and suddenly I have to buy three maneuvers to make someone fall.     

 

Wiersly, the verbiage for martial kick still says that it can be any high-power attack, including a backfist strike.  Kick, however, is still just a kick.  Feels wrong. 

 

15 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

Yup - so removing Kick when we removed the SFX aspect of Haymaker was the logical approach.

 

Almost, my friend.  _Almost_.  If you wanted to make a logical decision, you would have stopped calling it Haymaker when you (well, not you specifically; the you who actually did it, namelessly, so that I cannot express my scorn.  The "I Haymaker my energy blast!" 

 

Really?  Your going to punch him with your laser? 

 

I Haymaker my Presence attack! 

 

Errrr..... 

 

Call it something else:  "free basic pushing" or "Hakyo Kosaken School Desperation Attack!" or _anything_ but I "special kind of all-out punch him with my hypno spray!" 

 

Yeeesh.... 

 

It just _rankles_.... 

 

 

15 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

It was, IIRC, in 1e and 2e (not much changed between 1e and 2e).  I'm not sure I ever really read 3e. 

 

Same.  Heck, I didn't even acquire it until we were well into this century.  I have managed to snag everything but the actual box for the box set.  If I can get some nice clean photos, I am willing to make one at this point. 

 

 

I have read the campaign book, and it is actually great!  So much more comic adventure than the dungeon crawl of Viper's Nest, though I really wish Microfilm Madness had made the final cut.  If I ever find time to do a custom, I intend to add it back in. 

 

As far as the core rules, I have skimmed it a few times, and read blocks here and there-enough to see that this is not just the primary foundation of 4e, but also where most of the really great 4e supers art comes from. 

 

 

15 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

I recall Growth and Shrinking changing range modifiers instead of DCV.

 

You are correct.  It seems _sort of_ logical (it is your opponent's modifiers to attack you), and it came with some nifty new formulae, but ultimately, the changes to CV given in all other editions gave "close enough" results without having to whip out the calculator every time you cajned size or position relative to you attacker.  Now to be fair, I accept that there are a lot of players still alive with enough wafgaming in their blood that they cannot settle for 'close enough,' so if you want that extra little bit of recreational algebra, pick up 3e in the HERzo store.  Not only are you helping HERO, you're getting more math!  It's like a win-win scenario, but with out the second win! 

 

 

15 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

If we accept that +5 STR = 2x as strong = +1d6, then the power of both blows is quadrupled.

 

There have been enough discussions on the problems of this geometric v linear progression that I believe that you already know that I don't.  However, there _have_ been enough discussion about it, so I trust you will understand when I say "I have _never_ accepted that.". Mostly, I think it was a deliberate fudge that made it plausible to put Batman and (who is in the super friends that isn't superman but is crazy strong?) Anyway, it lets archers and bricks be on the same team without archers feeling useless in combat. 

 

Period. 

 

In the movies, the Hulk has an archer-Clint?  Samuel Jackson called him the Hawk in one of the early movies.  So the whole thing with dou le STR but only a single die?  I expect it is there so that the Hulk and the hawk can fight side by side and not look absolutely stupid. 

 

So that a 50 STR brick is only tossing around 10 dice in the days when 8 to 12 dice were considered "a good attack." 

 

I will accept that it is _necessary_, even though it is meta.   It is one of the things I liked about old Haymakrr- not just the x1.5 damage, but the 'it is a _punch_.  The Hawk can do his 8 to 12 d6 to an opponent 90 feet away, but in a pinch, and with a little luck, I can do 15 to this guy standing in front of me. 

 

 

15 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

More to the point, the 1e/2e MA cost your STR, with every additional x1/2 to damage costing half your STR again.

 

OH, I am not denying that it was a _crap_ value, at least without Kick, it would have been.  But you got considerably more than +2d6 for your Brick MA.  Your STR: 10 Ninja paid 10 pts to get a "kick (any powerful Strike) that delivered twice his STR dice.  10 pts for 2 dice.  A couple of drawbacks, but access to the martial maneuvers helped. 

 

A STR:50 ninja paid 50 pts and got 10 dice, access to the maneuvers, etc.  So he also got damage dice at 5pts a die and the maneuvers. 

 

Now the "fake" martial artist spent those 50 pts on 5 ten-pt skill levels, opted for whatever he wanted: five damage dice, or two dice and +3 OCV- his choice every phase.  Technically, he did not get access to the martial maneuvers,  but he could fake the Hell out of them!

 

Going a bit further, he spent 30 of those points on 10 dice of +50 STR, no figureds; no lifting (or, bluntly, "damage only") to get the same ten extra dice _and_two 10-pt levels, meaning that if he felt lucky, he could add up to 12 dice to his punch, or just the 10 with a +2 OCV.  Or allocate them somewhere else and use that +2 for an INT roll if he wanted; whatever. 

 

And frankly, even after the big hit that HSM is, the 10 dice and two levels is _still_ a better deal:

 

Take your STR:15 MA and buy him 15 STR, damage only for 9 points, then buy him even 5-pt skill levels ("martial arts") and for twenty-four points, you can still "martial Haymaker" (well, since it's not a "true" martial art as defined by HSM, you can just call it a martial Haymaker) for 4 dice on top of everything else. 

 

Martial arts in any forum of HERO has never been the best way to build a martial artist.  It just hasn't.  However, since you can pick and build maneuvers and design schools and all that good stuff, if such is your bag, there is a definite attraction there. 

 

If you want to build Batman, buy tten dice and five or six skill levels, and drop any HSM martial artist like a sack of socks. 

 

15 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

.A 2d6 NND for 4 points isn't all that cheap, especially...

 

Well, the cheapest way I know to get 2 dice of damage is the STR: only for damage route above, and it is going to run you six points without the NND.  So ten points plus whatever NND runs in 6e then do your limitation and-on a guess- you're going to end up at around 7 or 8 points.  Makes 4 pts seem like quite the bargain, especially if I am building a heroic character at lower points totals. 

 

 

15 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

 

considering how common the defenses against a Choke or a Nerve Strike are.  I think Doom "has rigid armor protecting his vulnerable spots or PD Resistant
Protection" and "rigid armor on the neck, Resistant Protection PD on the neck, or Life Support: Self-Contained Breathing", making him immune to Nerve Strikes and Chokes (martial or not).

 

Ah-  totally valid, and I failed to consider that. 

 

Thank you. 

 

 

[Tech]

On 2/27/2023 at 11:52 AM, Christopher R Taylor said:

I posted a list of 0 point martial arts a while back in order to show how you could build them so that anyone could try just about every martial arts maneuver, they'd just be lousy at it.

 

Could you point me to where to find those? I'd like to see them.

[Joe Walsh]

On 2/28/2023 at 8:30 AM, Hugh Neilson said:

I advocated for Trip in the SETAC days because a non-MA should be able to Trip someone.  I didn't recall it being in FH.  On a broader basis, most MA maneuvers were things anyone should be able to do, so make non-Martial versions and MA versions are just better at it.

 

Thank you!

 

On 2/28/2023 at 8:30 AM, Hugh Neilson said:

To me, Kick went away because it was SFX-specific. You can do a Haymaker with your fists or with your feet, so why is a special maneuver needed? Based on where MA ended up, this would just be -2OCV, -2 DCV, +2 DCs now, extra time now.

 

That makes total sense. I never did move on from the punch-specific haymaker, but given that the game did, it makes sense to get rid of Kick.

 

The thing is, to me 4e was pretty clear Haymaker was a punch-specific thing. I understand different people interpret it differently, but the 4e entry itself seems pretty plain to me:

Quote

HAYMAKER
This Is basically an all-out punch, and takes an extra
Segment to execute. If a character states on Segment 6 that
he wants to do a Haymaker, the blow won't land until the very
end of Segment 7, after all characters in Segment 7 have
taken their action. This extra Segment can even allow the
target to move out of the way if he has an action. In this case,
the Haymaker misses altogether.

 

But, like I say, different strokes for different folks. It's just curious to me that Kick was dropped with the publication of 4e yet they went with the "all-out punch" explanation for Haymaker.

 

13 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

I think the ones added to 6e were Shove, Trip and Choke.

 

One of the 6e changes I liked best was the updated Combat Maneuvers. It was nice to see more hand-to-hand attacks added outside of Martial Arts. Heck, I didn't own a copy of Ninja Hero until well into the 4e era, when a local game store had it marked down. It was a little too in the weeds for me. My earlier Classic Traveller experience taught me to be careful about buying expanded subsystems that are used at the table before it's been proven our group needs them.

[Hugh Neilson]

10 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

This is basically an all out punch, and takes an extra segment to execute.  If a character states on segment 6 that he wishes to do a Haymaker, the blow will not land until the end of Segment 7, after all characters in segment 7 have taken their action. 

 

I can't recall whether it was 4e or 5e that extended combat maneuvers beyond HTH attacks. From GMJoe's comments, I seem to recall that it was 4e that got rid of damage multipliers and 5e that extended maneuvers beyond HTH attacks.

 

10 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Almost, my friend.  _Almost_.  If you wanted to make a logical decision, you would have stopped calling it Haymaker when you (well, not you specifically; the you who actually did it, namelessly, so that I cannot express my scorn.  The "I Haymaker my energy blast!"

 

I think we've always had some "mechanics nomenclature" issues. Over the years, many have been addressed (Blast replacing Energy Blast; renaming the Seduction skill) but we still have some.  Haymaker is one of them. Probably due to the lack of great alternate names your suggestions highlight...

 

10 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

There have been enough discussions on the problems of this geometric v linear progression that I believe that you already know that I don't.  However, there _have_ been enough discussion about it, so I trust you will understand when I say "I have _never_ accepted that.". Mostly, I think it was a deliberate fudge that made it plausible to put Batman and (who is in the super friends that isn't superman but is crazy strong?) Anyway, it lets archers and bricks be on the same team without archers feeling useless in combat. 

 

Period. 

 

In the movies, the Hulk has an archer-Clint?  Samuel Jackson called him the Hawk in one of the early movies.  So the whole thing with dou le STR but only a single die?  I expect it is there so that the Hulk and the hawk can fight side by side and not look absolutely stupid. 

 

So that a 50 STR brick is only tossing around 5 dice in the days when 8 to 12 dice were considered "a good attack." 

 

I will accept that it is _necessary_, even though it is meta.   It is one of the things I liked about old Haymakrr- not just the x1.5 damage, but the 'it is a _punch_.  The Hawk can do his 8 to 12 d6 to an opponent 90 feet away, but in a pinch, and with a little luck, I can do 15 to this guy standing in front of me.

 

Unquestionably the reason for geometric lift capacity.  The Mayfair Games DC Heroes system also used that logarithmic scale, but they got rid of intermediate values.  Normals had 2's.  Highly Trained Normals might get 4's.  I recall a comment that they argued themselves into some 5's for Batman.  But they had much wider-ranging power levels that made Superman and Batman really unequal teammates.  That requires pretty skillful GMing to have everyone feel useful.

 

10 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

OH, I am not denying that it was a _crap_ value, at least without Kick, it would have been.  But you got considerably more than +2d6 for your Brick MA.  Your STR: 10 Ninja paid 10 pts to get a "kick (any powerful Strike) that delivered twice his STR dice.  10 pts for 2 dice.  A couple of drawbacks, but access to the martial maneuvers helped. 

 

A STR:50 ninja paid 50 pts and got 10 dice, access to the maneuvers, etc.  So he also got damage dice at 5pts a die and the maneuvers.

 

Some of the benefits I saw to the change:

 

 - No one could play a 50 STR character with Martial Arts as GMs were not fond of 20d6 attacks.

 - Adding more maneuver choices meant a flat cost was not going to stay reasonable.

 - It allowed moving MA into attacks other than pure HTH, like fencing.

 - It allowed more selection of maneuvers to customize Martial Arts.

 

However, as we fix the basic maneuvers to include the things normal people can do, the Skill Level model becomes more and more appealing.

 

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

Could you point me to where to find those? I'd like to see them.

 

It took a bit of digging but here is the post of zero cost martial arts maneuvers

[rravenwood]

Regarding the flexibility of combat maneuvers in past editions:

While acknowledging that it wasn't placed in the most helpful place in the 2nd edition rulebook, I do have to point out that even back then the Combat Maneuvers were intended to be more encompassing than their names might otherwise suggest: see "Special Effects" on page 47, the last 4 paragraphs.  I won't present the full 4 paragraphs here, but sizeable excerpts which seem most relevant to the current discussion:

Quote

"Combat in CHAMPIONS has also been fully explained in game terms. But no system, however complex, can include every possible combination of punch, kick, and ray blast. The combat maneuvers have names simply to represent the general form of an attack. The fictitious execution of an attack should not be constrained by the names of the maneuvers."

Quote

"Many different maneuvers fit under the styles of attack maneuvers listed. Snap kicks and elbow smashes are maneuvers that are not listed because they fit the same general game modifiers as a punch"

Quote

"Other maneuvers can have flexible effects also. A haymaker can be a double handed smash, a kick, or a full uppercut."

Quote

"Martial Throws can be as simple as a foot, thrust in the way of a running character."

(The last quoted example could be interpreted such that referees might allow use of the Martial Throw maneuver even to those who didn't purchase MA, but I'll just leave that as-is without further comment or speculation...)

 

As a side note, 1E didn't include the "Special Effects" section, but the description of Energy Blast contains a reference to that missing section ("see section on Special Effects"), so it seems that it was at least intended to be included there.  (And yes, intention and execution are two different things )

 

3E relocated this material into the Combat chapter, in a subsection titled "Combat Special Effects" (p.74), and the equivalent in 4E Champions can be found on page 157.