Heroic Campaign Guidelines & Equipment

[JadeAvenger]

Hi Steve, I'm new to the system, and have been very impressed so far! I'm in the middle of planning a Star Hero game, and this question came up:

 

Heroic campaign guidelines suggest a range of 3-8 on Damage Class, and 10/5 of DEF/rDEF.

 

Are these guidelines primarily designed for characters who are buying Powers or does it include the range of equipment in the setting as well?

 

I.E,: a certain Blaster rifle (10d6 normal), exceeds the DC guidelines --any character wanting to buy an EB with Psionics or Cybernetics (ie, 'Powers') wouldn't get as much for his CP than if he just buys a good blaster.

 

Similarly, a suit of powered armor may be rated at 12 PD/ED or so, which exceeds the recommended range in the guidelines.

 

Is equipment bought with Money exempt from these guidelines then?

 

Thanks!

-JA-

[Steve Long]

Re: Heroic Campaign Guidelines & Equipment

 

I'd say that most people apply those guidelines primarily to personal abilities -- as you note, equipment, esp. in high-tech campaigns (or games with detailed weapons rules), can blow the curve pretty quickly. I've known some GMs who established separate guidelines for gear. OTOH, some apply the same guidelines to everything.

 

I've copied this question over to the "Discussion" board so that others can offer their input. Herodom Assembled, what's your experience? Any ideas?

[Ben Seeman]

Re: Heroic Campaign Guidelines & Equipment

 

I have found that it is all too easy for people to get wiped out in one shot if you use weapons that are too powerful. In the short-lived Terran Empire campaign I ran, I limited the weapons that the characters could easily buy to a selection of 3 or 4 found in the sourcebook as well as Spacer's Toolkit, most of those falling in the 3-8 DC range. Anything more powerful than that had to be found on the body of an enemy, given to them for a special purpose or bought for a ton of credits on the black market.

 

I found it better to keep the DC levels of weapons low instead of letting them get too high and having to compensate by giving everyone high livels of Armor and the like because it didn't fall into the type of game I wanted to run. However, if I wanted to run a space marine-esque game I could then allow for the more powerful weapons since they'd all be outfitted with heavy battle armor and such.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Heroic Campaign Guidelines & Equipment

 

I think it depends on the kind of game you want. Low DEF and high DC equipment combines to make a pretty lethal game. If that's what you're after (and many sci fi games would reasonably have this structure), go for it.

 

You can reduce the lethality for PC's by allowing a variant Combat Luck that's based off Damage Reduction and only affects BOD. They still fall, stunned or KO'd, with high power hits, but they won't die as easily. It's a pretty costly ability, though. You'd want to work the cost (and necessity) into your campaign ground rules.

[JmOz]

Re: Heroic Campaign Guidelines & Equipment

 

Also, some of us old fogey's feel that the new guidelines (Note they are not rules) are too low on defence. In 4th edition the rule of thumb was you wanted the maximum defences to run 2.5 times the DC of the maximum attack (Active Points/5)

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Heroic Campaign Guidelines & Equipment

 

Count me as an old fogey. I read this as a deliverate attempt to lower defenses relative to attacks and make combat shorter, however. Mind you, if I reinvest those defense points in STUN and REC, will it work?

[JmOz]

Re: Heroic Campaign Guidelines & Equipment

 

Count me as an old fogey. I read this as a deliverate attempt to lower defenses relative to attacks and make combat shorter' date=' however. Mind you, if I reinvest those defense points in STUN and REC, will it work?[/quote']

 

According to steve this is (what is in the books) what most games were being run at...I think it is a good guideline for Heroic game, however I think that in Supers and other heavily pulp inspired settings the 2.5 is a better guideline.

[Agent X]

Re: Heroic Campaign Guidelines & Equipment

 

According to steve this is (what is in the books) what most games were being run at...

Not in my neck of the woods.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Heroic Campaign Guidelines & Equipment

 

As stated previously,

 

I think it depends on the kind of game you want. Low DEF and high DC equipment combines to make a pretty lethal game.

 

This may be appropriate for many science fiction settings. "Classic Star Trek", for example, combines no personal defensive items with hand weapons that are set to "disintigrate". Mind you, you need a mechanic tha ensures the redshirts always get killed first

 

A lot of sci fi combines no personal defenses and high powered weaponry with chatracters who never seem to get hit. DCV levels, rather than defenses, appear to be the norm. Lots of defensive maneuvers and use of cover as well. Of course, one can just as easily argue combat luck. "He didn't connect, but I still took some STUN rolling out of the way."

[Old Man]

Re: Heroic Campaign Guidelines & Equipment

 

Damage Reduction sfx: Evasion would also work well.

[JohnTaber]

Re: Heroic Campaign Guidelines & Equipment

 

Hi Folks: I've worked on this issue a lot. I've come up with what I think is an interesting approach for my Star Hero campaign. Here were my goals when I set out my campaign.

 

+ Create an environment where standard equiped PC can take 1 or 2 blaster shots but after that they better be going for cover.

 

+ Still make HTH combat useful. One problem I discovered is that no PC wanted to be a strong guy or get martial arts. The wimpiest blasters did WAY more damage.

 

These are tough issues!

 

To get it to work I created a new gadget called the kinetic shield. Essentially these are shields that prevent fast moving objects from entering but allow slower moving objects to pass through. In game terms this is a limitation that the defense does not apply to HTH attacks. These shield also lose defense every time they are hit based on the strength of the attack. I got the idea from an AC article and changed it a bit to act like I wanted. Both are written up in the doc that is used to support my campaign. Here is a link to the site and the doc if you want more info. Let me know what you think. So far it is working peachy!

[Kevin Rose]

Re: Heroic Campaign Guidelines & Equipment

 

chopped up quotes

 

+ Still make HTH combat useful. One problem I discovered is that no PC wanted to be a strong guy or get martial arts. The wimpiest blasters did WAY more damage.

 

To get it to work I created a new gadget called the kinetic shield. Essentially these are shields that prevent fast moving objects from entering but allow slower moving objects to pass through.

 

 

Remember Indiana Jones, the swordsman vs the gunman? That's my idea of a martial artist against a gun. All personal taste however. I've found that most characters who are combat oriented do tend to have some HtH skills as you can end up in situations where you don't have superblaster handy or have learned that questioning the smear on the wall doesn't work well.

 

One minor thought: As a photons move at the speed of light all the time is it really dark in there when you turn it on? If not, will a laser ignore it just like the room lights do?

[JohnTaber]

Re: Heroic Campaign Guidelines & Equipment

 

chopped up quotes

 

 

 

Remember Indiana Jones, the swordsman vs the gunman? That's my idea of a martial artist against a gun. All personal taste however. I've found that most characters who are combat oriented do tend to have some HtH skills as you can end up in situations where you don't have superblaster handy or have learned that questioning the smear on the wall doesn't work well.

 

One minor thought: As a photons move at the speed of light all the time is it really dark in there when you turn it on? If not, will a laser ignore it just like the room lights do?

 

Hi Kevin: Couple things.

 

Re: MA vs Gun. I wanted to make it so there was at least a remote reason why someone would get anything except a laser.

 

Re: Speed of Light. Yes, the shields have a side effect of distorting sound and light which causes perception penalties when it is activated.

 

John T>

PS You are not the Kevin Rose on Screen Savers right? Just curious...it would be VERY cool if you were the same Kevin Rose.

[zornwil]

Re: Heroic Campaign Guidelines & Equipment

 

Not in my neck of the woods.

I gotta echo you, AgentX.

[Vorsch]

Re: Heroic Campaign Guidelines & Equipment

 

That shield is from DUNE. It was the reason HTH fighting was valued, you couldnt be killed with normal weapons, did extra blunt damage , and expolded in the megaton range if hit by a laser. people liked knives in that universe......

[Jhamin]

Re: Heroic Campaign Guidelines & Equipment

 

Pretty much any sci-fi game world that features melee weapons also features a tech reason why blasters/lasers/phasers did not rule the battle field. If you want your world to work that way you need to implament one of your own.

 

Dune has Shields

Star Wars has Saber-Deflecting Jedi (note they are the only ones with martial skills)

 

Another approach is to make your energy weapons less useful than modern firearms while eliminating modern fire-arms completely.

When Star Trek decided Klingon blade weapons were cool, suddenly Next Gen/DS9/Voyager phasers lost the ability to fire continuous & AofE attacks like the Kirk phasers & early Next Gen phasers could. They could also no longer disintegrate cover.

This was needed so that if you got jumped by two enemies you only had time to take out one before the other disarmed you & forced a fist fight.

 

In TOS & 1st season ST:TNG when someone fired a phaser, one or more people disintegrated right there & then. No wounds, no hit locations, just instant obliteration. In later series everyone ran behind cover and shot little bolts at each other that left wounds a doctor might treat if you got lucky & lived. The former makes more sense in terms of what infantry weapons will do in the future, the latter makes for better RPG combat.

[Old Man]

Re: Heroic Campaign Guidelines & Equipment

 

I don't mean to derail but one of the coolest things in TOS was when they set the SHIPS phasers to Stun and took out a city block of guys.

[Old Man]

Re: Heroic Campaign Guidelines & Equipment

 

 

In TOS & 1st season ST:TNG when someone fired a phaser, one or more people disintegrated right there & then. No wounds, no hit locations, just instant obliteration. In later series everyone ran behind cover and shot little bolts at each other that left wounds a doctor might treat if you got lucky & lived. The former makes more sense in terms of what infantry weapons will do in the future, the latter makes for better RPG combat.

 

There was a game that has simulated phasers in it with the explation being the disintegration setting only allowed for 2-3 shots. The little bitty shots are better for extended firefights (40 shots). Sounds like boostable charges.

 

Another way to increase HtH combat would be to add better HtH weapons. If your universe has blasters then there is the technology available to create energized melee weapons as well. Sonic Lance, Energy Mace, Vibro Axe/Blade, Injection Blades (from Blade II), Impact Gloves, The ever-famous Mono-Whip, Frost Dagger, Fusion Rod, Spider Pike, etc etc... all useable with the right training and/or martial arts.

[Jhamin]

Re: Heroic Campaign Guidelines & Equipment

 

There was a game that has simulated phasers in it with the explation being the disintegration setting only allowed for 2-3 shots. The little bitty shots are better for extended firefights (40 shots). Sounds like boostable charges.

 

That is a decent explination, but the problem is that in a RPG (and the show for that matter) if your character has a choice of 2-3 obliteration shots or 40 2d6 RKA shots, you will usually choose the big one.

If you are anywhere near resupply, it is generally be more efficient to use one shot to disentegrate the rock, a second to evaporate the opponent behind the rock rather than expose your fragile character to return fire.

 

I always sort of viewed the change in tactics to the the GM quietly saying that the power level was out of hand and everyone did less damage now.

[Old Man]

Re: Heroic Campaign Guidelines & Equipment

 

Hmmm...Of course the old phasers also had a lower rate of fire If we try to logic it out, the evaporation attack might be full phase or takes an extra phase, possibly 1/2 DCV Concentration (they didn't do the same type of accobatics in fire fights like they did in NG).

 

*shrug*

[Teflon Billy]

Re: Heroic Campaign Guidelines & Equipment

 

As stated previously,

 

 

 

This may be appropriate for many science fiction settings. "Classic Star Trek", for example, combines no personal defensive items with hand weapons that are set to "disintigrate". Mind you, you need a mechanic tha ensures the redshirts always get killed first

I think this is called PD/ED Ablative OAF(Wandering Red Shirt of Opportunity)

 

TB

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Heroic Campaign Guidelines & Equipment

 

Hmmm...Of course the old phasers also had a lower rate of fire If we try to logic it out' date=' the evaporation attack might be full phase or takes an extra phase, possibly 1/2 DCV Concentration (they didn't do the same type of accobatics in fire fights like they did in NG).[/quote']

 

Kirk commonly seemed to tuck & roll (behind cover), then fire.

 

Given the weaponry deterioration rate, the Enterprise crew in another 100 years should be back to throwing ricks.

 

That is a decent explination, but the problem is that in a RPG (and the show for that matter) if your character has a choice of 2-3 obliteration shots or 40 2d6 RKA shots, you will usually choose the big one.

If you are anywhere near resupply, it is generally be more efficient to use one shot to disentegrate the rock, a second to evaporate the opponent behind the rock rather than expose your fragile character to return fire.

 

The typical RPGer will have his character carry more than one sidearm as backup. They're light. Run 10 around your belt, and that's 20 or 30 obliteraton shots.

[Tom Carman]

Re: Heroic Campaign Guidelines & Equipment

 

That is a decent explination, but the problem is that in a RPG (and the show for that matter) if your character has a choice of 2-3 obliteration shots or 40 2d6 RKA shots, you will usually choose the big one.

If you are anywhere near resupply, it is generally be more efficient to use one shot to disentegrate the rock, a second to evaporate the opponent behind the rock rather than expose your fragile character to return fire.

 

I always sort of viewed the change in tactics to the the GM quietly saying that the power level was out of hand and everyone did less damage now.

In one TOS episode, "The Omega Glory" I think (the Yangs vs the Comms), it was mentioned that several expended phaser powerpacks were found at a battle site among several hundred Yang bodies. Obviously Captain Tracy was trading damage for duration there.