Solving for Speed

[Sean Waters]

There has been quite a bit of discussion about the Speed chart recently.

 

Now I like the speed chart. It is pretty much unique to Hero (and if it isn't now, it was here first!) and it is one of the best ways I have seen of spacing out the actions of characters who have a different number of actions per turn.

 

That's good.

 

What it does NOT do well is movement: if you have a speed of 8 and a move of 6" you should be travelling much quicker (48" per 12 seconds) than someone with a move of 10" but a speed of 3 (30" per 12 seconds), but in game terms, for velocity based damage manoeuvres, the second chap comes off far better, getting, for example, twice as much added damage on a move-through.

 

How to sort this out?

 

Well, first off, given that I like it, I want to keep the Speed chart.

 

The problem with move rates is that you have two systems running: the per phase and per turn move rates. Solve that, if you will, by simply saying that ALL movement rates are hereby considered to be PER TURN. Velocity for movement based manouvres is taken from the PER TURN move so that you do damage based on the movement you have paid for , and the movement you have paid for directly correlates to how fast you are moving.

 

Now with your single movement allowance per turn you have various options: the one I favour is that you can use some or all of it on any phase: anything you don't use can be used on a subsequent phase in the same turn, but not carried over. Movement not used in a given turn is lost. Combat movement is, in effect, the speed at which you can move and do other stuff.

 

You would be considered to be moving at your last movement rate at the end of a phase or turn UNLESS you do something which can not realistically be done while running or declare you are stopping.

 

This will have some knock-on effects that I've thought of (and doubtless lots I haven't). These include:

 

1. Move through and move by attacks will be harder as you have less overall movement per turn so you can get to fewer targets.

 

2. AE attacks would be more effective if characters are slower overall and have less opportunities to move.

 

3. END use per turn for movement will be a lot lower unless you up the rate you spend END at: I'd advocate 1 END per inch moved could work.

 

4. Changing movement modes is awkward: if you have a run of 13" and 4" of swimming, you run 7" then dive in and swim, how far can you go? Well the only way to do it is work it out pro-rata. This is no more of a problem than it would be in any other game though, or indeed any more of a problem than it would be if you wanted to do the exact same thing in a single phase in HERO.

 

5. Combat speeds expressed in mph start to look a bit sad...

 

6. It increased the bookkeeping, but only by a bit.

 

To address some of these points I would say that in any phase where you do NOTHING BUT MOVE, you can double your velocity as if you had applied x2 NCM, but it is considered a combat multiplier with none of the penalties of NCM (reduced OCV (irrelevant if all you are doing is moving) and DCV). You can't apply more than this x2 CM in combat). If you attack, even an FMove attack like move through, you can only do so at your normal combat velocity, but if the move is a purely defensive one, like DfC then you can apply this multiplier (but the DEX penalty is based on the TOTAL distance you dive).

 

Now this throws out overall movement rates (a human with a max move of 10" is now only moving at about 7.5 mph non-combat, or about 1/3 of the maximum human sprint speed.)

 

Out of combat you can apply the combat multiplier AND any non-combat multiplier when trying to move as fast as possible. This helps to mitigate the loss of the SPEED characteristic in the velocity calculation.

 

Trained human athletes should be allowed to push their running, and if you assume that you have a x2 combat multiple and a x2 non-combat multiple everything works out beautifully: coincidentally then the maximum velocity for a running human would then be 22mph - world record sprint speed, with a push, rather than 29mph without a push at present.

 

The benefits seem worth it though: your velocity is directly related to your movement rate and, as the basic movement unit is the TURN rather than the PHASE, the speed chart seems to work more logically.

 

I'm sure there are a million holes in this, but what do you think?

[Guest taustin]

Re: Solving for Speed

 

I think it would be a lot simpler to leave movement the way it is, but adjust velocity based damage to be based on what your velocity per full turn would be at the movement rate of the current phase. Instead of (movement this phase) / 3, you'd use (movement this phase) * SPEED / (some number larger than 3, but I don't know what). That way, you don't introduce weirdness of someone being able to move 120 hexes in a single phase because they have 10" of running and are SPEED 12.

 

The only thing that really doesn't work well right now is the velocity based damage. Seems more efficient to address that directly than to try to change the entire movement system.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Solving for Speed

 

Velocity based damage and the sprint speed of a normal human being....

 

The problem with basing damage on Velocity Per Turn (VPT) is that throws things way out.

 

Example:

 

Character 1: SPD 10 running 20"

Character 2: SPD 3 running 30"

 

Working off VPT, character 1 has a velocity of 200 and character 2, despite spending more on running, has a velocity of 90.

 

It makes SPD very much more useful and means that a points expenditure on a movement based power yields different results for different characters. In other words leaving things as is and basing damage on VPT has more far reaching effect than buying your turn velocity straight.

 

That's why I did it that way around.

[Vorsch]

Re: Solving for Speed

 

Velocity based damge should actually be based on the characters velocity

 

ie mph/kmph/ms

 

its after all what velocity means.

 

there is no simple fix, just work out how fast you character travels write it down with damage bonus.

 

or dump the spd chart ( the heresy )

[Beastial]

Re: Solving for Speed

 

1) As an alternative to your proposed solution, how about rating a characters maximum velocity as SPD x move" / 12. Their per-segment max velocity would then be the speed they'd use to do things like inflict damage or determine their DCV bonus with the optional speed->DCV rules. Leave everything else as published. This would probably be the minimum needed to work around what you dislike in the current system while leaving as much as possible intact.

 

2) Make all movement powers considerably cheaper. x4 I'd think. You'd want to tweak starting values as well. Then you'd still buy your 'per turn' movement, but the velocities would come out closer to what they are now. Removing SPD from the velocity equation should probably make it cheaper too (5 - 8 points instead of 10).

 

3) Determine per-turn velocity as it is determined now... leave SPD in the equation, keep doing everything else as you propose.

 

4) Having determined everyone's per-turn velocity (through whatever method you preffer), have everyone move every segment, but only allow them to change what they were doing per phase. Everyone would have to pre-declare what they were going to do until their next phase. If something unexpected turned up (like rounding a corner at a high velocity to find a mother pushing a stroller in their path), oh well. Allowing people to abort their next action to change their movement plan sounds quite reasonable. I'd allow 'relative' plans like "intercept so-n-so".

[Phil]

Re: Solving for Speed

 

I've considered doing this very sort of thing, but have never playtested it. Something you could consider doing is seperating movement from Speed entirely, effectively moving nearer to SAS (which uses fairly standard rounds, but you can buy extra attack and defence actions).

 

I'd then like to try using velocity based movement to really space attacks around the speed chart. So if you take a half move followed by attack, you end up attacking at the midpoint segment between your current phase and your next. However, I could see this causing real problems for HtH combatants and it might need to be balanced with an Attack of Opportunity type rule, which could get very messy.

 

Essentially, I'd like to experiment changing phases so they arent the point at which actions happen, they are the point at which decisions are made. However, I reckon it is a major, *major* re-write. And I dont do re-writes, I just moan about the existing rules, scribble a few words in a notebook and then keep everything as it is

[Dust Raven]

Re: Solving for Speed

 

Velocity based damage and the sprint speed of a normal human being....

 

The problem with basing damage on Velocity Per Turn (VPT) is that throws things way out.

 

Example:

 

Character 1: SPD 10 running 20"

Character 2: SPD 3 running 30"

 

Working off VPT, character 1 has a velocity of 200 and character 2, despite spending more on running, has a velocity of 90.

 

It makes SPD very much more useful and means that a points expenditure on a movement based power yields different results for different characters. In other words leaving things as is and basing damage on VPT has more far reaching effect than buying your turn velocity straight.

 

That's why I did it that way around.

 

Actually, the difference between these two characters is 3d6 in damage when performing a combat maneuver that increases damage through velocity. I'd say having spent a little more on running and less in SPD isn't that much of a problem. Character 2 can increase the damage to be equal for only 10 points (HA +3d6) even though character 1 has spent 70 points more in SPD.

[Force]

Re: Solving for Speed

 

Actually' date=' the difference between these two characters is 3d6 in damage when performing a combat maneuver that increases damage through velocity. I'd say having spent a little more on running and less in SPD isn't that much of a problem. Character 2 can increase the damage to be equal for only 10 points (HA +3d6) even though character 1 has spent 70 points more in SPD.[/quote']

 

It's 3d6 for move through and 2d6 for move by.

 

One factor that everyone is overlooking is DoT.

 

It all comes out in the end...

[TheTemplar]

Re: Solving for Speed

 

Seems to me that the easiest fix is to have your players keep their movement " in line w/ their SPD score. I play the Speedster in our group and last time I checked I have the highest SPD (9,) the highest DEX (40) and the highest movement (30".) My move through does 14d6, and my move-by does 8d6. Now...our team brick's move-through makes mine look like a sneeze, but that's because of the STR difference. Which makes perfect sense. I mean..I'd rather get shot by a 90 mph bullet than get blasted by a 50 mph cinder block. (Note: I have NO idea if that's an accurate bullet-speed. I just know that's my character's In-Combat MPH.)

 

Personally, I wouldn't see how a SPD 4 or 5 character could justify a move of more than 15-20", unless they had mondo levels of Growth and were just striding 30" at a time. But, that's just me, and I'd probably need to see the entire character concept as a whole before making a decision on that if I were GM.

[prestidigitator]

Re: Solving for Speed

 

I don't have much of a problem with the issues you presented. It's not like Speed is very cheap. You just have to think about things from a slightly different perspective. Movement Powers represent how fast you can move compared to the frequency at which you can do other things. If you are really worried about being able to increase absolute velocity alone, buy extra Speed that is limited to only providing Full Moves.

 

I also don't like having to juggle your amount of movement between different Phases. Right now the decision about what to do each Phase can be completely independent of what you did in previous Phases or what you plan to do in future Phases (except, of course, for situational differences, but that is what we should be spending our time and attention on anyway, right?). Changing this would be complicating in the extreme. Could you imagine the bookkeeping necessary to play a speedster?

[Chromatic]

Re: Solving for Speed

 

Example:

 

Character 1: SPD 10 running 20"

Character 2: SPD 3 running 30"

 

Working off VPT, character 1 has a velocity of 200 and character 2, despite spending more on running, has a velocity of 90.

 

That's only because you are calculating damage and movement based on inches per turn, but still charging based on inches per phase.

 

In the above example, Char 1 should either have paid for 200" per turn, or he is actually only moving 2" a phase. Char 2 should have paid for 30" per turn to get his 10" a phase.

 

Years ago we played around with inches per turn movement as the base cost, and calculation for speed/velocity. It worked something like this:

 

Joe Normal has speed 2, 6"/phase or a total of 12"/turn. If he buys up his speed to 3, he now has 4"/phase movement. Since everyone is on the same chart, standard Hero costs for movement powers are fine--its an even baseline.

 

Superagent Man has a speed of 6, he wants to move more than 2" a phase, so he buys up his base running to 42/turn giving him 7" a phase for a cost of 10 character points. (6 speed remember? so 6x7 == 42).

 

To really "flesh" this out, everyone moves on every segment (based on move/turn) so Superagent Man would move 3 1/2" every segment, and get to make turns or velocity changes on his phases.

 

. . . .

 

Of course the counter argument to all this is to say leave the speed chart as it is, figure that everyone moves simultaneously over the course of 12 seconds, and faster characters (higher speed) get to have more panels on page of the comic than slower characers. The "staggered" movement hasn't really been an issue for role playing and story effects in my 22+ years of experience with Hero.

[Dust Raven]

Re: Solving for Speed

 

It's 3d6 for move through and 2d6 for move by.

 

One factor that everyone is overlooking is DoT.

 

It all comes out in the end...

 

DoT? I'm not familiar with that acronym.

 

It is 3d6 for both a Move By and a Move Through in my example, as the velocity adds the exact damage for both maneuvers. The only difference is the amount that STR adds, which would be the same for both characters on the same maneuvers.

[Dust Raven]

Re: Solving for Speed

 

I mean..I'd rather get shot by a 90 mph bullet than get blasted by a 50 mph cinder block. (Note: I have NO idea if that's an accurate bullet-speed. I just know that's my character's In-Combat MPH.)

Not that it matters, but bullets move between 400-800 mph, depending on their calibre and other factors.

 

Personally, I wouldn't see how a SPD 4 or 5 character could justify a move of more than 15-20", unless they had mondo levels of Growth and were just striding 30" at a time. But, that's just me, and I'd probably need to see the entire character concept as a whole before making a decision on that if I were GM.

 

Well, what muddle things up a lot is that you aren't paying for MPH or any out of game velocity. You are paying for combat effectiveness. SPD equals the number of Phase you get in a Turn, and movement equals the number of hexes you can move across during your Phase. It's only when you start to step back and realize that the SPD 6 with 15" is moving faster (in actual velocity, assuming such a concept applies to combat in the Hero System) than the SPD 3 with 25".

 

My personal fixall is to use the standard rules for movement and damage, and if a high velocity character want to make sure he can do a reasonable amount of damage on his movement related attacks, he can buy an HA. Everybody is still paying for what they can do in combat, and those costs are automatically balanced consistantly with the rest of the rules.

[Ki-rin]

Re: Solving for Speed

 

Not that it matters, but bullets move between 400-800 mph, depending on their calibre and other factors.

You must be thinking of only pistols.

 

Rifles are often faster, and some are MUCH faster. Fastest I know of are in the 4900-5000 fps = 3341-3409 mph = ~Mach 4.5 (!!) range.

 

Those are rare (at least for now...), but >= 2000fps = 1364 mph = ~Mach 2 non pistol weapons are reasonably common.

[Dust Raven]

Re: Solving for Speed

 

You must be thinking of only pistols.

 

Rifles are often faster, and some are MUCH faster. Fastest I know of are in the 4900-5000 fps = 3341-3409 mph = ~Mach 4.5 (!!) range.

 

Those are rare (at least for now...), but >= 2000fps = 1364 mph = ~Mach 2 non pistol weapons are reasonably common.

 

Mainly thinking pistols and common hunting rifles. Wasn't considering anything military, just those things you are likely to be shot with as opposed to being punched.

 

But yeah, some of them bullets are damn fast!

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Solving for Speed

 

I just scanned this thread and I may have missed it but doesn't 5E and 5ER address this very issue with the optional rules for movement with something called Velocity Factor or VF?

 

HM

[Dust Raven]

Re: Solving for Speed

 

I just scanned this thread and I may have missed it but doesn't 5E and 5ER address this very issue with the optional rules for movement with something called Velocity Factor or VF?

 

HM

 

Yup. That was mentioned about half way through the thread (at this point anyway). I think the general problem is that when using VF, a character no longer gets what he pays for, or other characters get a better bargin for what they pay for.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Solving for Speed

 

Indeedy: if you use velocity per turn/velocity factor then high speed characters are paying less for movement powers than low speed characters. If you use velocity per phase then you have the silly situation that someone running at 30mph can do more velocity damage than someone running at 40mph if the latter has a higher velocity becasue he has a higher speed but a lower movement.

 

The proposed solution is to buy your movement PER TURN rather than PER PHASE.

 

Obviously that will make movement powers more expensive, but at least they will be the same cost AND benefit for everyone.

 

You can mitigate the cost issue by reducing the cost: making them half or even quarter price (it should be arranged so that a normal human, at characteristic maxima running, and with a push, can manage 30" per phase, or about 22mph, which seems like a reasonable starting point: say half price running (1" per 1cp) and double the Normal Characteristic Maxima for movement)

 

You can then use velocity factor, although I think it could be clearer how you work it out for any given velocity.

 

The problem with buying velocity per turn is then how you divide it up over the turn: per phase? Per segment? Just, basically whenever you want in teh turn?

 

I know this isn't a major problem for most - hell it isn't a MAJOR problem for any, in all likelihood BUT it is a bump in the road I'd like to see smoothed out.

 

Comments more than welcome.

[Ki-rin]

Re: Solving for Speed

 

I just scanned this thread and I may have missed it but doesn't 5E and 5ER address this very issue with the optional rules for movement with something called Velocity Factor or VF?

My understanding is that this thread is not just about problems relating to velocity modifiers to movement.

 

It's about the movement system in general for HERO.

 

The Pulse Chart and the thing characters do with it are ridiculous. HERO's broken movement system is the root cause of many systems abuses and a multitude of problems that are currently dealt with by having artificial limits on movement powers and a grossly high price for SPD.

 

Steve Jackson and Reiner Knizia have both mentioned in print that the worst design mistake one can make in a combat simulation is to screw up the movement system. The ripple effects are far reaching and can be subtle as well as obvious.

 

HERO's Pulse Chart combined with "you get 100% of your move on your Active Segment" combined with there being no Turn Mode on the most common form of movement leads to a host of problems that have Plagued HERO since Day One. Making SPD and Dex expensive as a fix is a Band-aid, not a solution.

 

prestidigitator and others have rightfully noted some of the silliness that the HERO movement system lends itself to, and Presti even started a thread on giving ALL movement in HERO a realistic Turn Mode: http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=30826

Unfortunately, the thread was complex enough to not get the attention IMHO it deserved, and it only deals with part of the problem. The problem is the HERO movement system as a whole, not just Turn Modes, or Velocity Modifiers, or ...

 

I have some ideas, but this post is long enough.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Solving for Speed

 

prestidigitator and others have rightfully noted some of the silliness that the HERO movement system lends itself to, and Presti even started a thread on giving ALL movement in HERO a realistic Turn Mode: http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=30826

Unfortunately, the thread was complex enough to not get the attention IMHO it deserved, and it only deals with part of the problem. The problem is the HERO movement system as a whole, not just Turn Modes, or Velocity Modifiers, or ...

 

I have some ideas, but this post is long enough.

 

 

Thanks for bringing this one to my attantion - interesting ideas.

[Dust Raven]

Re: Solving for Speed

 

The proposed solution is to buy your movement PER TURN rather than PER PHASE.

 

Actually, the proposed solution is to just buy the extra damage with a HA, as that won't change any rules and will be accepted by any campaign not using a funky house rule. That and it doesn't require any additional work.

[Dust Raven]

Re: Solving for Speed

 

My understanding is that this thread is not just about problems relating to velocity modifiers to movement.

 

It's about the movement system in general for HERO.

 

The Pulse Chart and the thing characters do with it are ridiculous. HERO's broken movement system is the root cause of many systems abuses and a multitude of problems that are currently dealt with by having artificial limits on movement powers and a grossly high price for SPD.

 

Steve Jackson and Reiner Knizia have both mentioned in print that the worst design mistake one can make in a combat simulation is to screw up the movement system. The ripple effects are far reaching and can be subtle as well as obvious.

 

HERO's Pulse Chart combined with "you get 100% of your move on your Active Segment" combined with there being no Turn Mode on the most common form of movement leads to a host of problems that have Plagued HERO since Day One. Making SPD and Dex expensive as a fix is a Band-aid, not a solution.

 

prestidigitator and others have rightfully noted some of the silliness that the HERO movement system lends itself to, and Presti even started a thread on giving ALL movement in HERO a realistic Turn Mode: http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=30826

Unfortunately, the thread was complex enough to not get the attention IMHO it deserved, and it only deals with part of the problem. The problem is the HERO movement system as a whole, not just Turn Modes, or Velocity Modifiers, or ...

 

I have some ideas, but this post is long enough.

 

Funny, for such a broken system it seems not to be causing any problems for the majority of players. It's one of the few things that hasn't changed since day one, while nearly everything else has, and most of what has changed at this point is at the players request. That suggests to me that there is nothing "broken" with the rules for movement.

[Ki-rin]

Re: Solving for Speed

 

IMHO there are two main reasons the avg HERO gamer doesn't complain about the movement system

 

1- It's munchkin enough to appeal to them when they have the upper hand since it magnifies any Dex or SPD advantage they have.

 

2- They just don't appreciate the price they are paying for 1- above in bad ripple effects throughout the system.

 

..and a 3rd minor reason.

 

3- The avg gamer doesn't know enough about game system design to seriously consider how it could or should be fixed. After all, this board is HEAVILY weighted with 20+ year gaming veterans with extensive experience in multiple systems as well as RW proficiencies in pertinent fields and WE are having a hard time solving some of the system issues talked about around here.

[prestidigitator]

Re: Solving for Speed

 

I wouldn't exactly call the movement system, "broken." I would say, instead, that there are a few modifications (probably optional) that would be nice. That was the idea behind my thread (mentioned above); I am personally annoyed that Running has no Turn Mode, and that this can lead to some abuses and some results that just make no intuitive sense without GM intervention. That doesn't mean that I think the whole set of standard movement rules should be overhauled completely.

[Ki-rin]

Re: Solving for Speed

 

I wouldn't exactly call the movement system' date=' "broken." I would say, instead, that there are a few modifications (probably optional) that would be [i']nice[/i]. That was the idea behind my thread (mentioned above); I am personally annoyed that Running has no Turn Mode, and that this can lead to some abuses and some results that just make no intuitive sense without GM intervention. That doesn't mean that I think the whole set of standard movement rules should be overhauled completely.

...and I quote:

"With (movement) standard rules, someone on a horse can charge right up to you when you are in a corner, attack with all he is worth utilizing his full velocity, then turn 180 degrees and charge right back the way he came without missing a beat (provided he doesn't decelerate of course ). ) Weeeee!"

...said by some physics guy named *koff* prestidigitator *koff* within the last few days...

 

More realistic Turn Modes will not solve that problem or any of a number of others brought up on these boards related to the movement system... ...and all of us with backgrounds in the "hard" sciences have said as much one way or the other in the history of HERO.

 

Pulsed movement can work, it just doesn't work very well as it is implemented in HERO presently. Hence thread after thread about issues that at their heart are movement system issues.