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Hero System Books Have Way to many Typos


sevrick

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Re: Hero System Books Have Way to many Typos

 

Doesn't serve any useful purpose if you aren't a mentalist.

OCV frequently serves no useful purpose for mentalists, and they'd get more points for selling off OCV than a regular character gets selling off OMCV. Personally, I don't see this as a big problem.

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Re: Hero System Books Have Way to many Typos

 

As GM, I'd disallow anyone selling their OMCV down to 1 (or 0) based on the fact that "I'm not going to use it." Leave it 3 then.

 

That is certainly the standard used in published materials, as you can see in the HSB (and soon in the CV trilogy). But to each his own in his own campaign. ;)

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Re: Hero System Books Have Way to many Typos

 

Really? A mentalist would never have cause for taking a swing at someone?

You've never seen mentalists with no non-mental attacks, or with all their non-mental attacks using Alternate Combat Value (or its moral equivalent in previous editions)? Besides, if you're doing 3d6 on punch, you don't take a swing just to take one.

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Re: Hero System Books Have Way to many Typos

 

RE: Selling OMCV

 

Selling it down == 6 Pts (assuming all stats have a 1 minimum). For a supers character, that seems the proverbial drop in the bucket. For a heroic character it is a higher percentage but still nothing to worry about. I think as long as there are hard, fast rules for things like Skill roll max, DC max, etc then 6 points just seems like a clever rebalance of points. That's three new background skills, two regular skills, possibly a spell write-up, a CSL or two. I can see where it seems somehow "unfair" but that is not where I see it.

 

Another option that I have considered for many moons is to have all stats start at 1 and increase the base points in the campaign. That way there is no selling off. All of this digresses from the topic of "typos" though. On that subject, I have nothing more to add. Sure there are typos. I'll bet there are even incorrectly figured power constructs. I just don't see a massive amount of them and Hero Games has been pretty good at releasing errata and FAQs. Even if I forget to read them before posting questions to Steve sometimes. :)

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Re: Hero System Books Have Way to many Typos

 

I wonder how many of the other perceived 'math errors' are in fact mis-understanding of the rules.

 

I wonder what other perceived errors there were. Only that one example was given, and with no others provided I'm not sure where the OP's conclusion was derived from. In fairness to the OP's own grammar and spelling, I also expect more from a professional publication than a newsgroup post. However, I feel Hero more than lives up to that expectation.

 

I do think that the Resistant Advantage listed in the HSB (and other products) is a normal Advantage rather than a Naked Advantage' date=' as a Naked Advantage costs Endurance (unless otherwise ruled by the GM).[/quote']

 

That END cost is a good point - I doubt any of us charge END for the use of the Resistant advantage on a character's PD. Let's see...

 

+20/+20 Resistant Protection, Hardened costs 75 points

 

+20 PD and +20 ED costs 40. If Hardened costs 10, then Hardened, 0 END costs 15. Resistant costs 20, so Resistant, 0 END costs 30.

 

That totals 85, so now we have the same problem in the opposite direction. But it appears that is the correct RAW model.

 

I really hate systems where things work in a certain way' date=' except for this one instance.[/quote']

 

So you charge END for the naked advantages, right? Of course, that leaves a second instance, since 0 END as a naked advantage doesn't cost END. Should that exception also be removed, so 0 END on 60 STR costs 30 points, and costs 3 END, so you would need to spend 45 (0 END on 60 STR, 0 END) to use 60 STR with no END cost whatsoever?

 

It's really too bad that the Playtest before release was so limited. We MIGHT have been able to catch little things like this and other things (ie OMCV).

 

As a point of clarification, my understanding is that there was no playtest before release. While I agree that an extensive playtest might have brought up some issues, who would playtest it? Likely the Hero Grognards, right? They're used to building things under prior editions, so it would probably take a while before a lot of issues started to surface (actually, given the limited number of issues which have surfaced to date, either it's closer to perfect than Mary Poppins or the world wide playtest hasn't gotten very far). How long a delay would have been reasonable? The time for a thorough playtest would likely have been uneconomical, given how sales tend to drop off on "this edition" when the market knows "next edition" is coming out soon.

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Re: Hero System Books Have Way to many Typos

 

You've never seen mentalists with no non-mental attacks' date=' or with all their non-mental attacks using Alternate Combat Value (or its moral equivalent in previous editions)? Besides, if you're doing 3d6 on punch, you don't take a swing just to take one.[/quote']

 

Depends on the mentalist. Or the definition of a mentalist. In Kazei 5, I have several telekinetics with martial arts, CSLs with things other than TK, and weapons. Also, Psylocke was a mentalist with ninja powers after a while, and all of the X-Men have HTH combat training. Also, there was a "mentalist" in the Southern Knights who had a "psi-blade" and fencing.

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Re: Hero System Books Have Way to many Typos

 

I would guess Tasha is refering to if you are not a mentalist you can sell it back will out an ill effect

 

Ah. Setting level issue rather than a rules issue. There are a large number of ways of dealing with it. For me at least if there was nothing that OMCV was useful for for a particular character I'd likely rule that they didn't have an OMCV and wouldn't allow them to sell it back. If there is a way in which it can be useful for them and they choose to so restrict themselves, I'll generally not have a problem with it. And for that matter we're talking about a maximum of 6 points, so it isn't really an issue that moves onto the radar for me much. :)

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Re: Hero System Books Have Way to many Typos

 

Doesn't serve any useful purpose if you aren't a mentalist.

 

Entirely dependent on the setting. For example in the Dragaeran Hero campaign I'm gearing up OMCV is used for all offensive magic instead of OCV. Including non-sorcerers throwing spells out of magic items.

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Re: Hero System Books Have Way to many Typos

 

I would guess Tasha is refering to if you are not a mentalist you can sell it back will out an ill effect

 

Heh, there's LOTS of uses for non Mentalist OMCV......especially if the APG is in play, and or you decide to use it for other things, like being the go to stat for Non Physical stuff in general (similar to what Archermoo is doing for that Fantasy Hero game of his.....)....In my current 6e game, sell it back at your own risk.

 

~Rex

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Re: Hero System Books Have Way to many Typos

 

Doesn't serve any useful purpose if you aren't a mentalist.

 

BINGO!! With a bit of playtest we could have pointed that an other minor issues out and come up with a solution that doesn't feel Kludgy.

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Re: Hero System Books Have Way to many Typos

 

Entirely dependent on the setting. For example in the Dragaeran Hero campaign I'm gearing up OMCV is used for all offensive magic instead of OCV. Including non-sorcerers throwing spells out of magic items.

 

it is OTopic, but mark me jealous that you are playing in a Dragaeran hero game. The one that I was in only lasted a few sessions :(. Repped you for being in a cool campaign.

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Re: Hero System Books Have Way to many Typos

 

it is OTopic' date=' but mark me jealous that you are playing in a Dragaeran hero game. The one that I was in only lasted a few sessions :(. Repped you for being in a cool campaign.[/quote']

 

Well, I'm actually running a Dragaeran Hero game rather than playing in one. :) I haven't played a Dragaera based game in a long time ('92 or so I believe), and that one didn't use Hero. It was an interesting fairly systemless game run more as collaborative storytelling than anything else. Though it did have the advantage of being run by one of the people in the original gaming group that Brust took his world from...

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Re: Hero System Books Have Way to many Typos

 

BINGO!! With a bit of playtest we could have pointed that an other minor issues out and come up with a solution that doesn't feel Kludgy.

 

Eh, it was discussed prior to publication. I've noted my opinion on the matter earlier in the thread.

 

My personal opinion is that 6e does a great job of getting rid of a lot of the kludgy feel that the system had picked up over the years.

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Re: Hero System Books Have Way to many Typos

 

What's wrong with OMCV?

 

One thing that might be construed as wrong with OMCV is that it costs 3 points per +1 and that the modifier for a non-mental power to use OMCV instead of OCV is 0. Hence, you could have an blaster-type character build all of their attack powers using OMCV and save points by buying up OMCV instead of OCV...

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Re: Hero System Books Have Way to many Typos

 

Eh, it was discussed prior to publication. I've noted my opinion on the matter earlier in the thread.

 

My personal opinion is that 6e does a great job of getting rid of a lot of the kludgy feel that the system had picked up over the years.

 

Overall I agree that 6e has jettisoned most of the kludges the system picked up over the years. I guess I am kind of disappointed that there is a new one being added to something that I thought had been cleaned of such things.

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Re: Hero System Books Have Way to many Typos

 

One thing that might be construed as wrong with OMCV is that it costs 3 points per +1 and that the modifier for a non-mental power to use OMCV instead of OCV is 0. Hence' date=' you could have an blaster-type character build all of their attack powers using OMCV and save points by buying up OMCV instead of OCV...[/quote']

 

That's why we have GM's in the game to say no to such blatant munchkinisms.

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Re: Hero System Books Have Way to many Typos

 

One thing that might be construed as wrong with OMCV is that it costs 3 points per +1 and that the modifier for a non-mental power to use OMCV instead of OCV is 0. Hence' date=' you could have an blaster-type character build all of their attack powers using OMCV and save points by buying up OMCV instead of OCV...[/quote']

 

That's why we have GM's in the game to say no to such blatant munchkinisms.

 

Beat me to it.

 

There are lots of stats that are of minimal to no use to some characters. If my DEX won't be high enough to let me act first anyway, and I have no DEX skills, why not sell it back? If my character is an energy blaster, what use does he have for STR? If I have high defenses, and plan on pretty much always being hit anyway, why not sell back my extra DCV - if that takes me from getting hit on a 15- to a 17-, how much difference does that make anyway? If I lack interaction skills and don't plan on being impressive, sell back PRE and buy "PRE only to defend against PRE attacks" (if my GM is not allowing the higher of PRE and EGO anyway). If I can fly and teleport, why not sell back my running?

 

I can create lots of mechanical abuses if we're not concerned about whether the character makes sense overall. My simple answer to "I'm selling back my mOCV" is twofold:

 

(a) CHARACTER DRIVEN: What about your character makes him deficient in this area as compared to the typical man on the street?

 

(B) MECHANICS DRIVEN: If you're getting 6 points back, then you are telling me you expect this to have an impact marginally greater than a 5 point complication as the game evolves. As GM, it is my job to meet that expectation.

 

Just as selling back any of those other abilities would appear as a drawback, somehow, at some point in the game, and just as I would expect an explanation for why each of those other sellbacks is appropriate to the character, not just a point savings device.

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