6E Rules changes confirmed so far

[nexus]

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far

 

Ahhh' date=' but in.... [b']Assassin Plumber Hero[/b] you will!

 

Super Mario World meets Hitman?

[Tasha]

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far

 

I think the problem arises when you have a PS that cover physical activity and competition. Sure it works well for PS:Plumber. You just roll the skill to see if you can unplug the toilet or fix the leak. But what about PS:Assassin? Do I role my Stealth skill to sneak up on someone or my PS:Assassin skill? How about shooting someone? OCV or PS:Assassin? Obviously you'd use the Stealth Skill and your OCV. But then what good is the Assassin PS? PS: Plumber covers the job' date=' and the skills to do the job. PS: Assassin seems to only cover the Job and not the skills needed to do it, which you have to buy separately. So should PS: Assassin cost less then PS: Plumber since you get less for your points and you have to buy all the other necessary skills separately?[/quote']

 

I have often thought of PS: Profession being about making money at the thing. So when I assassinate someone, I use my Stealth, Tactics, OCV, WF and other skills to complete the task. Getting paid to do so is what my PS is all about. Also I tend to buy up PS skills if the Character is well regarded in said profession and can find jobs in that prof easily.

 

Technically PS Plumbing doesn't fix the plumbing. I would say that a Mechanics roll would be the primary acting skill for that one. I personally find that most Professions have a set of Skills, KS, Sci that are actually used in performing said skill.

 

The mentioned Professional Sports players has Tactics (how to play to win), KS Sport, Skill levels in performing said skill (ie +OCV to shoot the ball, High PD to resist the roughhousing etc).

 

Though most Campaigns that I have been in just use the PS roll as a gauge as to how good a person is what that profession (like how COM is used in many games). Sometimes it is used as a Complementary roll to a task.

[rjcurrie]

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far

 

I have often thought of PS: Profession being about making money at the thing. So when I assassinate someone, I use my Stealth, Tactics, OCV, WF and other skills to complete the task. Getting paid to do so is what my PS is all about. Also I tend to buy up PS skills if the Character is well regarded in said profession and can find jobs in that prof easily.

 

Technically PS Plumbing doesn't fix the plumbing. I would say that a Mechanics roll would be the primary acting skill for that one.

 

Page 68 of 5ER would seem to disagree with this interpretation.

[bigbywolfe]

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far

 

Very much so in fact. Tasha, does your idea of how Professional Skills work have any basis in the game rules or is it purely how you decided to run it in your games? Either way, PSs will work differently in every game. In a super-hero game PS: Lawyer may be all DareDevil needs, while in Law and Order Hero you may need a number of KS and possibly even more than one PS to make a competent lawyer.

[The Main Man]

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far

 

I find that Background Skills usually work fine for what they say on the tin; similarly they can cover certain things that a Skill list should generally not have to account for - they are open ended.

 

They also make great Complementary Skills IMO.

[nexus]

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far

 

They also make great Complementary Skills IMO.

 

IME, that's their primary mechanical use not the exclusive one but the most common in typical play. Its a way of "specializing". Like PS: Assassin could be complimentary to a Stealth roll in certain situations so the character is a little better at certain situational uses of broad skills.

[casualplayer]

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far

 

It's the adreneline in real combat more than anything else. Fine motor control goes to hell for all but a tiny percentage of the population, even with training. If we were being "realistic", OCV with ranged weapons and with things like pressure point strikes and many types of fine holds and locks would be halved or worse.

 

Some people learn to deal with adreneline in certain specific situations (such as sports matches), mainly through experience. To make things worse, there's not always cross over from one situation to another, and an unexpected change can take someone who is used to coping with a given type of confrontation and leave them flailing around and making bizarre decisions.

 

You could simulate this in Hero with something like a Veteran talent that gives +X levels, only to offset stress penalties in a given confrontation type, but that would move us pretty far from the source material in most games. Action Heroes and Super Heroes almost never sit there firing wildly and hitting nothing just because they've never been jumped by ______ before.

 

Or you could use PRE as more than just an opening salvo, rip-off-the-roof kind of thing like in most games. Then you could buy conditional PRE for firefights (Cool Hand Luke,) every shot is a Violent Action and there is an ebb and flow and people can actually freeze up in combat or make crazy decisions rather than becoming the icewater-veined tactical geniuses that most gamers transform into. Could be a fun option, rolling PRE every segment. Hmmm....

 

Sometimes the brilliance of this system sneaks up on me.

[Sean Waters]

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far

 

Post removed

[The Main Man]

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far

 

IME' date=' that's their primary mechanical use not the exclusive one but the most common in typical play. Its a way of "specializing". Like PS: Assassin could be complimentary to a Stealth roll in certain situations so the character is a little better at certain situational uses of broad skills.[/quote']

 

That's why I don't write off a lot of Background Skills that sound useless at first: they might turn out to be rather interesting Complementary Skills, especially when the PC's come up with creative uses for them.

 

That being said, I do, however, also use Everyman Skills so that they do not have to spend points on a couple of them in the first place.

 

Lastly, I find Background Skills to say more about a character than other Skills, and thusly they help me gauge a character about as well as Disadvantages (character Background, Personality, etc notwithstanding of course).

[megaplayboy]

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far

 

Technically, you could probably even go one level deeper on detail for professional athletes. For example, along with PS: Basketball Player, you might also have PS: Point Guard or PS: Power Forward or PS: Center, levels with free throws or shot blocking or rebounds etc.

A pitcher and a catcher may both have PS: baseball player, but obviously the skills involved are substantially different, so a PS: Pitcher or PS: Catcher may make a lot of sense in some settings.

[nexus]

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far

 

After much consideration I have come to a decision: decoupling Combat Value fixes more things that it breaks and is thus overall a positive most genres and not too difficult to toggle back on for those genres were it works. So I'll slid that into the positives for 6th edition, IMO. I'm still debating switching dropping figured Characteristics.

[OddHat]

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far

 

I'm still debating switching dropping figured Characteristics.

 

I'm going to allow characters to define things like "Strong as a Bull" or "Tough as Nails" as grouped powers, and thus re-couple characteristics where appropriate. The -1/4 discount is enough imo.

[JmOz]

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far

 

I'm going to allow characters to define things like "Strong as a Bull" or "Tough as Nails" as grouped powers' date=' and thus re-couple characteristics where appropriate. The -1/4 discount is enough imo.[/quote']

 

Agreed on both points, and I think it is more appropriate in some ways, now the Brick will get the discount while the blaster does not (if that makes sense)

[GamePhil]

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far

 

Hero is being much too kind as far as allowing people to shoot straight, if we're talking "realistic".

 

Not arguing, just thinking out loud.

 

I wonder how many of those shots are the officer taking careful aim against rapid firing. Unloading your six-shooter is a pretty bad penalty.

 

Or maybe the real world officers are allowed to take ranged levels that they can apply to their DCV in ranged combat. Then they get to choose: hit my target, or not get hit. Oh, wait, that real world thing, nevermind.

 

Combat is its own character, and all it can do is apply a Presence Attack on its phases. This reduces the OCV rather than the DCV of everyone involved. The stress of combat makes aiming difficult, meaning the hard-bitten cop will have an easier time than the rookie. It may also cause some rash decisions, such as unloading your clip, at the GM's option.

 

Hmm, may actually use that last one.

[GamePhil]

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far

 

I'm going to allow characters to define things like "Strong as a Bull" or "Tough as Nails" as grouped powers' date=' and thus re-couple characteristics where appropriate. The -1/4 discount is enough imo.[/quote']

 

Depending on how it goes, I plan to develop alien races with EB instead of STR, with a Force Field connected to it. Or maybe TK instead of EB.

 

But I'm weird that way.

[OddHat]

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far

 

Not arguing, just thinking out loud.

 

I wonder how many of those shots are the officer taking careful aim against rapid firing. Unloading your six-shooter is a pretty bad penalty.

 

Carefully aiming and firing in a close quarters firefight is possible, but vanishingly rare as compared to Gamer Think. Mostly you point-shoot, ignoring your sights completely and just trying to focus your attention on a target area, point and shoot. Even that's not always possible; when you're in a panic or being charged, or you've just been shot or stabbed, sometimes training takes over, sometimes it doesn't. Remember also that police officers have far more training in this type of shooting than the vast majority of civilians (which is why they do so much better than most criminals).

 

Target Shooting is completely different. Comparatively little stress, no adreniline dump, you can really take your time and aim. Real violence is nothing like that if you're attacked, except very occasionally for veterans so jaded that nothing can get a reaction out of them.

 

OTOH, in Hero terms, people often do try to empty the gun in a panic, and that should carry standard rapid-fire penalties.

 

Or maybe the real world officers are allowed to take ranged levels that they can apply to their DCV in ranged combat. Then they get to choose: hit my target, or not get hit. Oh, wait, that real world thing, nevermind.

 

Don't really like this idea. If you don't want to be hit, create distance. No one outside of fiction steps out of the way of a bullet (which doesn't stop self promoting self defense gurus from telling people it's possible).

 

The "Everyone in combat keeps being hit by PRE attacks" idea might have some real merit to it, especially as actually shouting orders at the person you're attacking does sometimes have an effect.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far

 

Carefully aiming and firing in a close quarters firefight is possible' date=' but vanishingly rare as compared to Gamer Think. Mostly you point-shoot, ignoring your sights completely and just trying to focus your attention on a target area, point and shoot. Even that's not always possible; when you're in a panic or being charged, or you've just been shot or stabbed, sometimes training takes over, sometimes it doesn't. Remember also that police officers have far more training in this type of shooting than the vast majority of civilians (which is why they do so much better than most criminals).[/quote']

 

I agree with all of the above. If we want to add some reality, let's remember that typical Hero Games PC or significant NPC firing his handgun has a SPD of 3 or 4, so he is making his shot, looking around, bobbing and weaving, and covering some distance in a period of 3-4 seconds. I don't see that as conducive to taking careful aim before firing.

[GamePhil]

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far

 

Don't really like this idea. If you don't want to be hit, create distance. No one outside of fiction steps out of the way of a bullet (which doesn't stop self promoting self defense gurus from telling people it's possible).

 

That one was halfway between brainstorming and facetious, yeah

 

A more straightforward way to inject, I guess I'll call it "statistical realism" into the game is probably to simply abstract it out to using up more charges for each hit, to simulate that you fire several times before you have a real chance to get a solid hit. Smacks of old-school D&D one minute rounds, though.

[Guest steamteck]

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far

 

I'm going to allow characters to define things like "Strong as a Bull" or "Tough as Nails" as grouped powers' date=' and thus re-couple characteristics where appropriate. The -1/4 discount is enough imo.[/quote']

 

 

If I switch to 6thed, I'll just work up my "human template" recoupling to my liking. For example I always felt EGO should contribute to stun. that'll be the campaign guidelines if by some miracle we ever do switch.

 

Because, for all my criticisms, I'm like a gushing fanboy compared to my group's opinions.

[The Main Man]

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far

 

If I switch to 6thed, I'll just work up my "human template" recoupling to my liking. For example I always felt EGO should contribute to stun. that'll be the campaign guidelines if by some miracle we ever do switch.

 

Because, for all my criticisms, I'm like a gushing fanboy compared to my group's opinions.

 

You too huh? I'm thinking that an additional benefit of Unifed Power being useful for recoupling is that players can recouple them the way that they want to...

[Hierax]

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far

 

Any new juicy tidbits on 6e from Origins?

[nexus]

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far

 

You too huh? I'm thinking that an additional benefit of Unifed Power being useful for recoupling is that players can recouple them the way that they want to...

 

All right. I'm stupid.

 

But could someone explain how Unified Power "recouples" Characteristics?

[OddHat]

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far

 

All right. I'm stupid.

 

But could someone explain how Unified Power "recouples" Characteristics?

 

You can define anything you want to as part of a Unified Power.

 

So, Superiorman has "Xenonian Strength". He takes +X STR, PD, REC, and STUN as a Unified Power, with a -1/4 limit on all of them. This saves him a boatload of points; on the other hand, Drains are now much more dangerous for The Man of Next Tuesday, as a Drain against one of his Xenonian STR derived stats is a drain against all.

[nexus]

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far

 

You can define anything you want to as part of a Unified Power.

 

So, Superiorman has "Xenonian Strength". He takes +X STR, PD, REC, and STUN as a Unified Power, with a -1/4 limit on all of them. This saves him a boatload of points; on the other hand, Drains are now much more dangerous for The Man of Next Tuesday, as a Drain against one of his Xenonian STR derived stats is a drain against all.

 

All right I thought there was more. That doesn't really seem to make them "Derivied". They're still paid for independently of each other from a base. You just save some point and gain the risk of losing more from negative Adjustment points. It's not really figured characteristics. I see where that works for replacing ECs in a fashion though.

 

Edit: Thanks!

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far

 

All right I thought there was more.

 

There might be - unless Oddhat has a prelease copy of 6e.