Concept, Hero Action Points, And The Team Action Point Pool

[bigdamnhero]

Flashlights are cheap and easy and it is insane to suggest you can not carry one because you have not paid points for it.

...

Of course the fear that permeates the rules is that if you can have a flashlight, you can have a rocket launcher.

We use what we call the Radio Shack Exception - you don't have to pay points for things that are commonly & easily available, provided they're:

• 15 AP or less.
• 5 RP or less.
• Not a weapon.

[Spence]

@Sean Waters

 

Yep.  Pretty much.

 

I personally don't think the rules are that complicated, though it may be that since I have been playing them since 1st e, it might be coloring my vision....

 

I think the perception of "complicated" is because the rules are presented without in play context.  Oh there are plenty of of explanatory snippets.  But there is no way to do a practice play run through. You have to actually create characters requiring you to make design decisions with no context or understanding of what the decision mean.  Or you can take the included 20th level godlings with all the options and try it. 

 

OK I exaggerate.  But not really if you think of the perspective of a brand new player trying to understand what is happening. 

 

In M&M they recommend starting PCs be PL10 and magically the two primary example PC's used in all the examples are....wait for it.....PL10.  And even better they are SIMPLE to run.  Princess is a no frills simple Brick and Rook is a poverty stricken Batman clone.  Poverty stricken because he only has about six items and three of those are Talons.  I'd describe it as a cheap Multi-power.

 

The point being I was able to very very easily read the one sided character sheet and follow the three page combat example.  The example demonstrated all of their abilities.  Those three examples and the multitude of sidebar examples that explained exactly how things worked IN GAME.  We don't have that in CC.  Some will argue that the big 6th ed tomes did.  But they actually didn't.  They did include uncounted detailed examples aimed at masters understanding esoteric details.  But nothing aimed at the "Bob I bought my first tabletop RPG yesterday" novice.

 

Without context Defenders character sheet is just scary to that novice.  All the Champions may have been built down to 400.  But they are based on PC's that are pretty sophisticated, with over 20 years of refining.  

 

In battle Princess runs over and punches you.  Rook swings over and hits you with a stick. 

 

Defender puts the novice into vapor lock induced by too many choices.

 

 

[Spence]

That's fine. But I would point out this is not the Champions section, and the OP specifically stated they're playing monster hunters. Cinematic Superheroes is not the only genre Hero supports.

 

Oops... my bad.

 

Sorry about the derail....

 

I just tend to blend everything together and a good discussion just drags me right in.  

 

I'll be quiet now..

[Sean Waters]

@Sean Waters

 

Yep.  Pretty much.

 

I personally don't think the rules are that complicated, though it may be that since I have been playing them since 1st e, it might be coloring my vision....

 

 

.....

 

 

 

I agree that the basic rules of Hero are not complicated but I think the rules as written do their best to complicate them.  They are full of exceptions and contradictions that obfuscate rather than clarify a lot of the time.  

 

You should be able to (pretty much) make up a character from scratch without looking at the books, and before 6e I could (now I have to keep checking the characteristic costs as my brain defaults to the old costs!)

[JohnTaber]

 

• Spending Hero Points: You can spend HPs to:
  • You can spend an HP to Push or Hurry your action, to pull your Hit Location, or to Abort to an Attack Of Opportunity – see above House Rules.

 

 

Hi BigDamnHero: This line scares me.      Changing Hit Locations or granting an attack sounds crazy.  That is why I decided to add damage instead of allowing changes to the Hit Locations.  That is also why I specify Success Rolls only now Hit Location rolls.  Could a person move a hand to a head???

 

Great thread gang. 

[JohnTaber]

FYI.  I am starting a Godlike Hero (WWII Lower Powered Superheroes) filler campaign as a break so I can work on the second campaign arc for my Monster Hunters (Heroic) campaign. 

[bigdamnhero]

Hi BigDamnHero: This line scares me.      Changing Hit Locations or granting an attack sounds crazy.  That is why I decided to add damage instead of allowing changes to the Hit Locations.  That is also why I specify Success Rolls only now Hit Location rolls.  Could a person move a hand to a head??? 

Yeah, I can see where the idea might make you nervous, since I didn't post those rules.   In practice, they're both much more narrowly-focused.

 

For Pulling Hit Locations: they can spend a Hero Point to add/subtract 1 to the Hit Location for every 2 above what they needed to hit. So if someone needed to hit DCV 4 and hit DCV 6, they could pull it by 1. So yes if they rolled a 6-Hand, they could pull that to a 5-Head. But I'll still take that over the perennial "I rolled twice what I needed to hit, but I rolled crap for Hit Location!" problem, which drives me nuts. I could see another GM ruling they could only pull it to 7-Arm, but honestly it hasn't been an issue for us.

 

The Attack Of Opportunity rule is a new one we're trying out. It only applies when a character is ignoring another character in melee, such as taking advantage of the artificiality of the Turn sequence to run past an armed & ready opponent with impunity just because it doesn't happen to be their Phase. And it doesn't grant an additional attack - just lets you Abort to your next action early. It hasn't actually come up in game yet - it's really meant more as a disincentive to people gaming the Turn sequence, and I'm fortunate to game with players who don't generally do that - but I've seen players try to abuse that in the past.

 

Hurrying is basically like Pushing, but for Initiative instead of STR/Damage. For that one time when you really need to get your shot off first. It doesn't get used much - I honestly can't think of the last time - but with the wrong players I can see where it might get abused or overused.

[Sean Waters]

FYI.  I am starting a Godlike Hero (WWII Lower Powered Superheroes) filler campaign as a break so I can work on the second campaign arc for my Monster Hunters (Heroic) campaign. 

 

Love Godlike.  Some of the Godlike characters are really very powerful indeed though they tend to be not very rounded, you might have a character who can kill you with a glance but you can shoot dead with a normal revolver.

 

A Godlike mechanic which is interesting is that powers work really well against normals and objects but are less reliable against other supers.  I like that and have tried to have a go at simulating it, with limited success - tends to require either some very specific builds of a whole slew of house rules.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Hi BigDamnHero: This line scares me.  Changing Hit Locations or granting an attack sounds crazy.

 

Its only a problem if you give several points to everyone in the group to start with and have very few fights.  If there is quite a bit of combat and characters start with zero points and have to earn them through play, then it works out much better.  I used to allow people to do max damage or choose their location with crits but our group got tired of critical hits and dropped the concept.

[bigdamnhero]

Yeah, how many HAPs the players have available is crucial. If you only have a handful of them, then players hoard them carefully: "If I spend it now to get a better Hit Location, then I won't be able to re-roll next time I miss completely..." That sort of thing. Hand out too many and it quickly becomes the driving force behind combat. (Not to bash on Savage Worlds, which is a decent system overall, but I really feel like Bennies are the primary combat mechanism, overshadowing things like characteristics, skills, etc, which among other things tends to make every combat - and to some extent every character - feel the same.)

 

Oh, regarding pulling Hit Location: to date, my players have mostly used this to change a x1/2 location (arms, legs) to a x1 location (chest), rather than to change a x1 location to a head/vitals shots. If I had different players, I can see maybe instituting a rule about only being able to pull towards chest or another x1 location, but not towards head/vitals?

[Christopher R Taylor]

Not to bash on Savage Worlds, which is a decent system overall, but I really feel like Bennies are the primary combat mechanism, overshadowing things like characteristics, skills, etc,

 

I agree, you got so many so easily and started with so many combat is just a matter of using them up.

 

I did really like their dark/light side concept though.  If someone did stuff to get dark side "Points" then one of their bennies is a dark side token... which the GM gets when its used.  I like that idea and will be folding it into my Jolrhos GM guide in some way.

[JohnTaber]

In Heroic style play with HTH weapons my group usually has a Critical roll that works vaguely like this...don't have my notes with me right now...

 

If you roll half of what you need to hit rounded down then you Critical.  On a Critical you do the max damage for your weapon.  So if I need an 11- then if I roll a 5 or less I critical.    It actually works fine because I like to encourage HTH attacks but the Hit Location has always "kept it honest" if you understand the meaning. 

 

More great replies...thanks gang! 

[bigbywolfe]

I agree, you got so many so easily and started with so many combat is just a matter of using them up..

Getting "so many" Bennies "so easily" in Savage Worlds is very much a GM issue, more so than a system issue. Some GMs virtually never hand them out, you have 3 for the entire adventure, spend them wisely.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Even 3 is a lot, how many fights do you get into?  How often do you really need that re-roll?  If you get one each session, they're candy.  I think you have to be cautious not to give too few, but I personally like them better as rewards for player action and behavior than just a handful of goodies at the beginning.

[bigdamnhero]

Getting "so many" Bennies "so easily" in Savage Worlds is very much a GM issue, more so than a system issue. Some GMs virtually never hand them out, you have 3 for the entire adventure, spend them wisely.

Wow. I literally can't imagine Savage Worlds played that way - every Savage GM I've ever played with has thrown them around like dollar bills at a strip club. In most SW games I've played 4-6 per player each session is pretty typical, and I've seen it go even higher than that. I'm not saying that's a good thing mind you.

 

Even 3 is a lot, how many fights do you get into?  How often do you really need that re-roll?  If you get one each session, they're candy.  I think you have to be cautious not to give too few, but I personally like them better as rewards for player action and behavior than just a handful of goodies at the beginning.

For Hero I would agree. For our home games we tend to go through 1-2 per session; Convention games maybe 2-3. (We did have one PC in my last campaign who bought a crap-ton of Luck and could go through 4-6 Hero Points per session; but that was his whole shtick.)

 

For SW tho, it's more deeply baked into the system - there are traits you can only use if you spend a Bennie; you can't soak damage without spending one, etc - so it's not just about re-rolls. Again, I'm not saying that's a good thing.

[bigbywolfe]

Even 3 is a lot, how many fights do you get into? How often do you really need that re-roll? If you get one each session, they're candy. I think you have to be cautious not to give too few, but I personally like them better as rewards for player action and behavior than just a handful of goodies at the beginning.

Three is nothing if you have two or more combats a night. Remember, spending a Bennie is the ONLY way to soak Wounds and even them you need to make a roll and might still take full damage.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I haven't played that much Savage Worlds but the year or so Star Wars campaign I ended almost every session with bennies, ones I didn't need.  That may have been my play style, but everyone else in the campaign had them lying around most of the time too.  Its probably just my preference in terms of game concept to want fewer than more.

[bigbywolfe]

I prefer fewer also.  My point is if everyone at the table had extra bennies every game that isn't a SW problem, that is your GM handing out way too many bennies, or not presenting balanced combats that require you to spend them.