Are tanks really that tough?

[Greywind]

That can easily be ignored. IMO, the book shouldnt be telling us what is legal and not legal. Especially because of its nature as a tool kit. The legality of various builds should be left up to each individual GMs for each individual campaign.

 

I disagree. The RAW gives a baseline for everyone to relate to. Outside of that, legality of builds for an individual campaign falls to that GM under "house rules".

[Ninja-Bear]

That can easily be ignored. IMO, the book shouldnt be telling us what is legal and not legal. Especially because of its nature as a tool kit. The legality of various builds should be left up to each individual GMs for each individual campaign.

 

This is the secret. You adjust it to work best in your campaign for your groups play style. Thats the best part of Hero is that you can do this.

 

I personally prefer equipment to be universal across genres. But thats just my personal preferrence. I will adjust the starting points, the active point limits etc as necessary to get the proper scale, rather than adhereing to the limits as dictated by the book, limits to which the published characters never adhere to anyway.

 

This way there is little question as to the benchmarks one must meet to acomplish one feat or another with your character. It also makes it easier for me to impose limits on characters based on thee needs of my campaign if everything is consistent and I only have to fammiliarize myself with one set of statistics.

If you have to adjust stats and builds then it isn't universal. That is all I'm saying.

[NuSoardGraphite]

If you have to adjust stats and builds then it isn't universal. That is all I'm saying.

It is Universal. Across all my games, heroic, superheroic, fantasy, scifi and modern. All of the equipment has the same stats no matter the power. Levele or genre.

 

What I have adjusted are the books suggested power levels and active point limits etc, which I only adjust once and leave them as is. They only apply if I wish to start a game at a higher power level with characters on par with the Avengers or Justice League.

[Chris Goodwin]

It is Universal. Across all my games, heroic, superheroic, fantasy, scifi and modern. All of the equipment has the same stats no matter the power. Levele or genre.

 

What I have adjusted are the books suggested power levels and active point limits etc, which I only adjust once and leave them as is. They only apply if I wish to start a game at a higher power level with characters on par with the Avengers or Justice League.

 

What kinds of campaigns do you run?

[NuSoardGraphite]

What kinds of campaigns do you run?

Fantasy (Shadow World campaign setting) Japanese Fantasy. (Sengoku era) Space Opera (homebrew setting) superpowered science-fantasy mecha action (based on the manga Five Star Stories) occasionally supers (based on Images STORMWATCH) eventually hoping to run a wuxia campaign set around the Ming dynasty and maybe a steampunk game or urban fantasy (or a fusion steampunk, urban fantasy game)

 

All over the place.

[zslane]

Lets say we take a .50 Desert Eagle and shoot an unarmored man in the chest locstion. The man has 10 body and takes 7 body damage and 28 stun damage (modified by his PD of 4 down to 24 stun).

This poor guy is unarmored, yes? Well, unless his natural PD (his skin and bone) has been hardened into some sort of Space Marine-like carapace, his unresistant PD won't apply to any of the STUN damage. It is killing damage too, and not stopped by normal (non-resistant) defenses.

[Scott Baker]

This poor guy is unarmored, yes? Well, unless his natural PD (his skin and bone) has been hardened into some sort of Space Marine-like carapace, his unresistant PD won't apply to any of the STUN damage. It is killing damage too, and not stopped by normal (non-resistant) defenses.

6E/CC - Full PD/ED applies to STUN from Killing Attacks. (6E2 103 /CC 157)

[zslane]

Just another example of how I just don't recognize this game anymore.

[Altair]

Just another example of how I just don't recognize this game anymore.

 

Out of curiosity, which edition do you use?

[Old Man]

But killing damage versus living beings has a lot more to do with intangibles such as penetration and what the round does once it is in you.

 

I totally agree, but I also don't think Hero is granular enough for that to really be a factor.  The difference between 9mm and .44 magnum is only one or two DC anyway so it scarcely matters if your 9mm is a hollowpoint.  If you wanted to get fancy you could throw on a couple points of Penetrating or STUNx.  NSG is scaling his example up to 19 DC as well, so we're also talking about the difference between heroic and superheroic.

[procyon]

procyon: I am not sure you read my post correctly. Or perhaps I am not reading yours correctly.

 

 

Ok.  Very possible.

Your post says that damage is more heavily influenced by intangibles.  In RL that is true.

I drop cattle to butcher with a .22LR, and have tracked deer with a 12 ga slug wound for miles.

 

But for the game, I need some rhyme or reason to what damage I assign to a weapon.

And for me, equating the energy the round generates is an easy way to assign damage to weapons that can vary from a .22 zip gun to the 16" guns on a battleship without resorting to simple fiat.

And in a general way, energy is associated with increasing lethality.  Is a 9mm more lethal than a .22?  Maybe.

But no one is going to argue (ok, maybe they would) that the .50 BMG round isn't any more dangerous than a .22, or no more capable of penetrating defenses.

Or that the 120mm gun on an M1 would be no worse to get hit with than the .50 BMG and it can't penetrate any heavier defenses.

And that although the 120mm gun will probably ruin a couple rooms in a building, that the 16" shell from a battleship will likely level a house.

 

Each step moves up in energy, and in its lethality.

I just use a more granular approach to energy = DC's of damage, as it is easy for me to adjudicate.

So when a character jumps in an A10 and uses the 30mm cannon in it - I don't have to take a guess at what damage the cannon does.

[gewing]

You have some very good points there. However I think you are approaching the problem from the wrong direction.

 

The KE damage model is based on the energy of the round causing damage. That is as straight forward as you can be. The rest of the equation is how the flesh is reacting to that energy. You are trying to put that on the damaage delivery medium and not the object being damaged.

 

I place that onus on the object being damaged, and thus I always use Hit Locations and often employ Impairing/Disabling and Bleeding rules.

 

Lets say we take a .50 Desert Eagle and shoot an unarmored man in the chest locstion. The man has 10 body and takes 7 body damage and 28 stun damage (modified by his PD of 4 down to 24 stun).

 

This is an Impairing wound. As the GM I will determine:

The round penetrated the right lung, causing it to collapse. The character is at -3 to all actions due to pain and difficulty breathing. They have lost thier Post Segment 12 Recovery till the wound is healed. (They must use a phase to recover). They are bleeding externally and internally taking 2d6 per Turn. They are stunned due to the effects of hydrostatic shock and the shock of having a lung punctured. They are barely conscious.

 

This is how I account for the effects of a round hitting the target. I only ever need to account for the KE because that dictates hownthe round interacts when it impacts materials. All the other specifics are handled by hit location and wound effects or equipment breakdown effects. (Body damage vs a Focus or Vehicle)

 

You only need to determine the body damage, then translate the game mechanics into dramatic effects to give the players a visual image of what happened when they shot the enemy. (Or when their characters are wounded)

I thought no rPD, no stun reduction,    been a long time since I have actually been able to play...

[Grailknight]

I thought no rPD, no stun reduction,    been a long time since I have actually been able to play...

 

That was changed in Sixth.

[Ninja-Bear]

Nusoardgraphite how do you run heroic level games? Because depending how you set up your games, armor by the book can be a game breaker. For example Im running a DC:TAS game. The goons have 2pd/2ed armor. There is no activation roll nor hit location are used. The problem is my nephew has a taser attack bought by the book a 6D6 NND-defense is resistant defense. So by the book this attack will always fail. Can I correct the problem? Of course and not a big deal however thus is one of many examples where one should not simplly drag and drop weapons, abilities, skills, etc. Hence they are not unversal. What is universal is that a NND is defined and works the same whether in a fantasy game, Sci-fi game, Pulp or Supers.

[NuSoardGraphite]

Nusoardgraphite how do you run heroic level games? Because depending how you set up your games, armor by the book can be a game breaker. For example Im running a DC:TAS game. The goons have 2pd/2ed armor. There is no activation roll nor hit location are used. The problem is my nephew has a taser attack bought by the book a 6D6 NND-defense is resistant defense. So by the book this attack will always fail. Can I correct the problem? Of course and not a big deal however thus is one of many examples where one should not simplly drag and drop weapons, abilities, skills, etc. Hence they are not unversal. What is universal is that a NND is defined and works the same whether in a fantasy game, Sci-fi game, Pulp or Supers.

For something like that Taser, you need to be running with hit locations or activation for it to be effective. And at times allow the character to aim at an unarmored location at a penalty (at least -3)

 

Me personally, I always use hit locations. I have always used them to determine the stun multiplier, even in supers games (thus i have had little problem with the stun lotto). In my heroic games i observe sectional armor and impairing rules as well. I like battles to be gritty with the possibility of injury and dismemberment (in my samurai game, limbs were flying all over the place like in a Chanbara film!)

 

Also, is there ever a situation in game where the character encounter the enemy when no one is wearing their armor? A taser would be highly effective in that circumstance.

[NuSoardGraphite]

I have noticed that what a lot of Hero players do is create their supers characters, then try to stat up the world around them to perform as they would in the comics. I find that has weird effeccts at the low end.

 

I create the world to simulate dramatic reality (relatively speaking) then scale my superhheroes to that benchmark. Intead of working top down, I start from the bottom and build up.

[gewing]

That was changed in Sixth.

 

 

 

 

Given the changes I have read about, and the lack of chances to play, I Can't envision myself buying 6th.  

 

Sadly. 

[Ndreare]

Given the changes I have read about, and the lack of chances to play, I Can't envision myself buying 6th.  

 

Sadly.

 

I cannot endorse www.roll20.net enough. I went from a game a month, normally a mediocre one because it would lose the flavor to a game a week.

[Zephrosyne]

6E/CC - Full PD/ED applies to STUN from Killing Attacks. (6E2 103 /CC 157)

I always wondered why that rule got changed.  I don't really have a problem with it.  I'm fairly neutral on it but I have always been curious as to the reasoning.

[Ninja-Bear]

For something like that Taser, you need to be running with hit locations or activation for it to be effective. And at times allow the character to aim at an unarmored location at a penalty (at least -3)

 

Me personally, I always use hit locations. I have always used them to determine the stun multiplier, even in supers games (thus i have had little problem with the stun lotto). In my heroic games i observe sectional armor and impairing rules as well. I like battles to be gritty with the possibility of injury and dismemberment (in my samurai game, limbs were flying all over the place like in a Chanbara film!)

 

Also, is there ever a situation in game where the character encounter the enemy when no one is wearing their armor? A taser would be highly effective in that circumstance.

Yeah i'm going to give the goons sectional defenses.

 

And you proved my point. The hero weapon lists are universal as long as you build characters along the conceit of the weapon builds. Such as hit locations. They're listed as "optional" but are dang near standard for heroic games.

[NuSoardGraphite]

Yeah i'm going to give the goons sectional defenses.

 

And you proved my point. The hero weapon lists are universal as long as you build characters along the conceit of the weapon builds. Such as hit locations. They're listed as "optional" but are dang near standard for heroic games.

Hit Locations are a long time pet peeve of mine. A prejudice I devloped when I felt that D&D combat just wasnt detailed enough and In wrote up Stun, wound and hit-location rules for use with my D&D games. There are few games that I like to play that dont have hit locations in some form, and the ones that dont, I am always contemplating ways to add them in..

[Ninja-Bear]

Nusoardgraphite btw I hope you undererstand that i'm not saying one method is better than another. Each I found has its strengths and weaknesses and the nice part is tha Hero system can support a wide range of styles.

[NuSoardGraphite]

I always wondered why that rule got changed. I don't really have a problem with it. I'm fairly neutral on it but I have always been curious as to the reasoning.

Its one of the few changes I agree with and have always done it this way.

[NuSoardGraphite]

Nusoardgraphite btw I hope you undererstand that i'm not saying one method is better than another. Each I found has its strengths and weaknesses and the nice part is tha Hero system can support a wide range of styles.

Oh of course, with Hero, its not about what is better, but about what meshes best with your own playstyle.

[Ninja-Bear]

Nusoardgraphite where do you stat basic level thugs at?