aggrovated over flash/Blindness

[runescience]

Hello, I ran a fantasy hero game last night.

 

I was running one of kestrelarts dnd conversions and one of the npc's had

a flash/blindness attack.

 

One of my players stressed to me that being blinded in hero terms meant that

his attack was at half ocv, but since he made a perception roll his dcv was only

at -1. Had he not made his perception roll he would have been at half dcv.

 

Im thinking to myself: who can make a sight perception roll while blinded?

Isnt that an auto fail? The he explained that its a HEARING roll.

 

Reason kicked in again and returned with: you are an a room, blinded with full fledge combat

how can you distinguish sword slashes from ranged attacks to the giant spider trying to bite you?

 

he was very adamant about it and pointed at the rules repeatedly.

 

I still maintain blind is half ocv/half dcv. Its a very powerful attack but at the same time it was A) very rare, never used before and area effect.

 

Can some one help me out here?

[Hyper-Man]

Re: aggrovated over flash/Blindness

 

I don't have the rulebook handy at the moment but in the situation you describe (sight being 'blinded' by Flash, and a PER roll being made to mitigate the effects) the PER roll must be made with another Ranged Sense besides the one Flashed (like Hearing). HTH vs. Ranged attack also have different effects re: OCV & DCV.

[runescience]

Re: aggrovated over flash/Blindness

 

Straight hearing perception? 9+stat/5? no common sense thrown in?

So you can keep your full DCV vs an attack while blinded in a full combat situation just by making a hearing roll?

 

Thats borderline absurd. Lets try that in person. You cover your eyes in a noisy area, and duck the bow, or duck the spear Ill bring the bandaids and Mercurochrome.

 

Im getting discouraged with the hero system again. Its love hate.

 

I had other problems with the combat: attacking from behind aka running around opponents and stabbing them in the back (face palm), no zone of control for players, no opportunity attacks.

 

It seems to work better as a super hero game.

 

Im anxious to hear house rules for running a heroic fantasy hero game (vs super heroic)

[Binnister]

Re: aggrovated over flash/Blindness

 

From 5e pg 349,

 

Lack Of Senses In Combat

In combat, a character must normally use a Targeting Sense to detect his target. If he can do so, there is no change in his OCV or DCV, and combat proceeds normally. However, characters can’t always perceive their opponents with Targeting Senses. For example, a character may have been blinded by a Flash, or his opponent could be Invisible. When a character cannot perceive his opponent with any Targeting Sense, he suffers modifiers to his OCV and DCV:

 

—In HTH Combat, the character is at ½ OCV and ½ DCV. This applies both to when he makes attacks in HTH Combat, and is attacked in HTH Combat.

—In Ranged Combat, the character is at 0 OCV and ½ DCV. This applies both to when he makes attacks in Ranged Combat, and is attacked in Ranged Combat.

 

If a character can make a PER Roll with a Nontargeting Sense (a Half Phase Action) to perceive a particular target, then against that target only he is at -1 DCV, ½ OCV when attacked or attacking in HTH Combat, and full DCV, ½ OCV when attacked from or attacking at Range. Against all other targets he is affected by the standard “lack of Targeting Sense” modifiers described above.

 

So, the keys here are:

 

1) Has to make the PER roll (with modifiers), and;

2) ONLY verse a single opposing target.

 

So, yeah, if he makes the PER roll, he's only -1 DCV. BUT, *YOU* get to determine the modifiers on the PER Roll.

 

Quiet room, trying to listen for a single person: Normal PER roll.

Noise Combat, lots of people involved: -5 (or more!..GM's decision) to PER roll.

 

If you, as GM, determine that it's too noise to hear anything, you can even tell the player that he needs a critical 'hit' on the PER roll to succeed.

[runescience]

Re: aggrovated over flash/Blindness

 

Thank you both

Binnister and Hyper-Man.

I re read what you both wrote and put it into perspective that helps solve a big problem that I had last night.

[bigbywolfe]

Re: aggrovated over flash/Blindness

 

Straight hearing perception? 9+stat/5? no common sense thrown in?

So you can keep your full DCV vs an attack while blinded in a full combat situation just by making a hearing roll?

 

Thats borderline absurd. Lets try that in person. You cover your eyes in a noisy area, and duck the bow, or duck the spear Ill bring the bandaids and Mercurochrome.

 

Im getting discouraged with the hero system again. Its love hate.

 

I had other problems with the combat: attacking from behind aka running around opponents and stabbing them in the back (face palm), no zone of control for players, no opportunity attacks.

 

It seems to work better as a super hero game.

 

Im anxious to hear house rules for running a heroic fantasy hero game (vs super heroic)

How would that be less of an issue with a superhero game? IMO what you describe here isn't a system problem, it's an issue with the GM allowing that sort of goofiness.

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: aggrovated over flash/Blindness

 

Thats borderline absurd. Lets try that in person.

 

If I were a protagonist in a fantasy story, I would. They would probably succeed at that, because they're awesome. I'm not.

 

HERO rules are not supposed to be realistic. They're supposed to model cinematic action.

 

That said, I generally houserule out the 'attacked from behind in combat' modifier, no matter which genre of game I'm running. If someone wants to do that, they can make an Acrobatics check and go for a Surprise Move.

[Ndreare]

Re: aggrovated over flash/Blindness

 

As the GM how would you feel if the player blinded your big bad and revised to play by the rules foreign you to accept him at half and half?

 

The players characters are just as important as the antagonist. The players have played a game with you and determined their actions based on the rules or physics they understand. To change them and ignore them in mid game will lead to the players losing trust in you and enjoyment of the game.

Our group ages to any rule deviation before play if one comes up during pay we age on the spot or favor the players character.

[Pegasus40218]

Re: aggrovated over flash/Blindness

 

That said' date=' I generally houserule out the 'attacked from behind in combat' modifier, no matter which genre of game I'm running. If someone wants to do that, they can make an Acrobatics check and go for a Surprise Move.[/quote']

 

I tend to agree. In one of my attempts to run Fantasy HERO, with the "attacked from behind" modifier in play, the players and their adversaries basically played leap-frog to get that advantage against their opponents for every attack...While HERO wasn't intended to be entirely realistic, it simply got ridiculous.

[Tasha]

Re: aggrovated over flash/Blindness

 

I tend to agree. In one of my attempts to run Fantasy HERO' date=' with the "attacked from behind" modifier in play, the players and their adversaries basically played leap-frog to get that advantage against their opponents for every attack...While HERO wasn't intended to be entirely realistic, it simply got ridiculous.[/quote']

 

which is actually less ridiculous than in d20 when you have people jockeying to get into "Flanking" position so they can get their +2 to hit and so the Folk with sneak attack damage can do that damage.

[Lucius]

Re: aggrovated over flash/Blindness

 

Straight hearing perception? 9+stat/5? no common sense thrown in?

So you can keep your full DCV vs an attack while blinded in a full combat situation just by making a hearing roll?

 

Thats borderline absurd. Lets try that in person. You cover your eyes in a noisy area, and duck the bow, or duck the spear Ill bring the bandaids and Mercurochrome.

 

Im getting discouraged with the hero system again. Its love hate.

 

I had other problems with the combat: attacking from behind aka running around opponents and stabbing them in the back (face palm), no zone of control for players, no opportunity attacks.

 

It seems to work better as a super hero game.

 

Im anxious to hear house rules for running a heroic fantasy hero game (vs super heroic)

 

 

The rules allow for imposing penalties to movement speed or combat value, or forcing a roll to move, due to circumstances; in fact, they're written into the Change Environment Power. You don't have to make anyone buy the Power to define a combatant's "zone of control" as an environment that may require, for example, an Acrobatics roll to move around to behind the combatant, any more than someone needs to buy a Power to force everyone to make DEX rolls if there's a pool of oil on the floor.

 

As for the effects of Flash, if I recall correctly, don't you have to make a Perception roll for every single attack? It's not necessarily an unmodified one either.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

My palindromedary sense is tingling

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: aggrovated over flash/Blindness

 

which is actually less ridiculous than in d20 when you have people jockeying to get into "Flanking" position so they can get their +2 to hit and so the Folk with sneak attack damage can do that damage.

 

No, I think 'I run circles around this guy sticking him in the back every time' is more ridiculous than 'let's double-team this guy'.

[Markdoc]

Re: aggrovated over flash/Blindness

 

No' date=' I think 'I run circles around this guy sticking him in the back every time' is more ridiculous than 'let's double-team this guy'.[/quote']

 

I'd agree. But it's also against hero rules. Hero characters have no "facing", so you can't just walk around them and get a bonus. You can get a bonus attacking from behind by surprise or if they can't move for some reason - but walking around someone is not going to surprise them. I'm away from home, so without my books, but that point is explicitly made.

 

Basically as a GM, it's important to realise that characters are not frozen in place, just because they are not acting. They can still react, talk, even abort to an action, etc. So you walk around a foe. He turns to face you. Sorry, no leapfrog bonuses for you! It's exactly the same as him keeping his shield bonus to DCV, if you move: he moves his shield so that it's still in the way.

 

Cheers, Mark

[Sepia]

Re: aggrovated over flash/Blindness

 

And it is a game, the characters are supposed to be the hero's in HERO...give it to them.

[bigbywolfe]

Re: aggrovated over flash/Blindness

 

And it is a game' date=' the characters are supposed to be the hero's in HERO...give it to them.[/quote']

Why? being the PCs has never equaled "do anything at all no matter how stupid" and lets face it, hop-frog back attacks are pretty ****ing stupid.

[Ndreare]

Re: aggrovated over flash/Blindness

 

I would disagree the gm uses the power to ignore the rules only works for the gm or in the villains favor?

As a player that is the kind of one sidedness that sends most looking for a new gm.

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: aggrovated over flash/Blindness

 

Hero characters have no "facing"' date=' [/quote']

 

Can I get a quote or cite of some sort on that, please? I went looking through my 5e book for such a rule not long ago, and was unable to find it.

 

(Not trying to be argumentative, I honestly hope you're right ... but if that rule is in the book, I can't freakin' find it!)

[bigbywolfe]

Re: aggrovated over flash/Blindness

 

From the sidebar of 6E2 pg. 26:

FACINGGenerally speaking,

the HERO System

doesn’t have any rules

for facing (i.e., which

direction a character’s

looking toward). The

only specific rules in

the system for changing

facing are for Teleportation

(6E1 300). If

an issue pertaining to

facing comes up in the

game, changing facing

while Running, Leaping,

Swimming, Swinging,

or Tunneling is a Zero

Phase Action in most

circumstances. That

means a character can’t

do it after performing

a Full Phase Action,

but the GM can rule

otherwise based on the

situation, the abilities

involved, common and

dramatic sense, and

other relevant factors.

Changing facing with

Flight or Teleportation

depends on Turn Modes

and/or the the use of the

Position Shift Adder.

See also Surprised And

Facing, 6E2 50.

Pretty sure there was a similar in 5ER, though I don't have a PDF of it at work.

 

Surprised and facing from 6E2 pg 50:

SURPRISED AND FACINGOne of the most common ways for a character

to be Surprised is to be attacked from behind.

However, that’s not to say that all attacks from

behind qualify for the Surprised bonus. As always,

the GM should apply common sense and dramatic

sense — remember, combat is a dynamic situation

where the rules reflect many variables. For

example, if an opponent a character doesn’t know

about attacks him from behind, that usually means

the character is Surprised (though not necessarily,

as discussed above). But if the character knows

about or can see an opponent, that opponent

can’t get a Surprised bonus just by making a Half

Move behind the character before attacking. The

opponent might get the bonus if the character is

distracted (for example, if he’s already fighting one

foe who’s in front of him), but moving behind a

character before attacking does not per se earn an

attacker a Surprised bonus.

[bigbywolfe]

Re: aggrovated over flash/Blindness

 

I would disagree the gm uses the power to ignore the rules only works for the gm or in the villains favor?

As a player that is the kind of one sidedness that sends most looking for a new gm.

Who are you disagreeing with? If it's me, I haven't suggested the GM change any rules.

[Ndreare]

Re: aggrovated over flash/Blindness

 

The op choose to ignore the rules because he did not like the effect. This penalized the player. The nature of the topic is justifying an advisarial call.

I assumed your comment was in line with the previous comment and the rules favor ing the heroes as it is only a game.

[Markdoc]

Re: aggrovated over flash/Blindness

 

Can I get a quote or cite of some sort on that, please? I went looking through my 5e book for such a rule not long ago, and was unable to find it.

 

(Not trying to be argumentative, I honestly hope you're right ... but if that rule is in the book, I can't freakin' find it!)

 

Bigbywolfe got exactly the two quotes I was thinking of, so nothing extra from me. But those two quotes make it explicit that you should not be able to play leapfrog and expect to get a bonus.

As a general rule, if what's being suggested sounds really stupid, it's probably a misunderstanding of the rules: they've been given a pretty solid fine-tuning by many, many, many players through the years.

 

cheers, Mark