Ninja-Bear

@Christopher R Taylor that’s why Kyptonite was created for Superman. To give him a challenge.

Doing a bit of a dive on Battletech. I’m just realizing the bigger impact that lawsuit on images had on Battletech besides just calling them the Unseen. 

@unclevlad fwiw, talking to my friends who are old time comic book fans (and one was a writer). Speedster like the Flash shouldn’t be hit at all. It’s the conceit of the game that they are able to be hit.

The one conceit of gaming is that concept and dice rolls don’t always mix. 😁

On 11/13/2023 at 10:36 AM, Chris Goodwin said:

 

True.  But...

 

6e2 has a number of pregen characters in the HERO System Genre By Genre section.  6e1 has multiple sets of Characteristics guidelines by power levels on pages 35 and 48.  And then there's us, here at the boards and on the Discord server. 

 

And there's a ton more information available in the other supporting books. Champions, Fantasy Hero, Star Hero for 6th edition alone.  Champions Complete and Fantasy Hero Complete.

 

A person new to 5th edition is going to be in exactly the same place as a person new to 6th edition with respect to expectations of where stats should be.  In this regard, reducing the amount of math by eliminating Figured Characteristics is reducing the mental load.  I can't comprehend how the opposite could be true.

I don’t think though you are looking at this from a newcomer’s eye. Iirc you started out with Champions no? Then picked up other games, Heroic but used Champions as a base, then played and mixed and matched? Correct all before 4th Ed? So Champions we can all agree is simpler Pre-4th due to having less Powers and options. However that face you base on which to add different rules of say Justice Inc. in other words you understood say how to hit and how to calculate OCV and DCV before throwing on the Hit location Chart of say Fantasy. You don’t learn everything at once. And even so Justice Inc. has less options than what is currently available now. And to the fact that now to play a campaign, it’s considered that you have to create a game whole cloth.  There is way more information to sort through now a days than before. And yes we have the good all ‘net. Still how much of agreement do we have on this board?  So as a new player, you need to sort and value what advice is applicable to your situation. FWIW Indo think the rules are getting in the way.

@Rich McGee, yup I agree the newest TRO should have Heat Sinks slotted. I think it’s bad that they didn’t even mention it in the newest TRO that they might have to be accounted for. I’m sure that someone must’ve looked at the Commando and asked why are his Heat Sinks listed on the record sheet but not in the description. Perhaps I missed it earlier in the intro rulebook but I only caught it the Construction Rules and also Fan made Record sheet Programs. Well at least my friends aren’t that much of sticklers that it won’t matter.

@Rich McGee, I don’t know how much of a tax grab it is. I think it is a major oversight that the TRO:3039 didn’t mention of adding in Heat Sinks. I only caught the rule when I went over the Construction Rules in the Introductory box set. Now the sheets that came with the box set has them filled in already. It’s not a big deal but someone dropped the ball. And I wonder because the TRO: 3039 has all the old records before the rule was changed that they didn’t want to change the sheets to save on production? They still should’ve noted it in the TRO.

@Rich McGee Battletech puts the fiction in science fiction. But it’s all good. The thing is we have some of the old Records sheets but technically they’ve incorrect. 

Hey a quick Battletech question. I’ve checked my old Rulebook and you only assign critical space to a Heat Sink if you have more than the 10 free ones. Now with the Introductory rule you have a formula to determine how many are free critical space wise and how many you need to assign. So you could still have 10 free at no cost but have to assign 4 on the sheet. Does anyone happen to know when this rule was changed? I like it btw, just wondering when it got changed or we did it wrong all those years ago.

9 hours ago, Rich McGee said:

If you ever accomplish even one of those goals you're doing better than I am.   

Me too!

Professor DM has a video and Links GM Scotty’s luck dice. When you miss a roll you get a d6 which goes into a your own pool. You choose when you get to cash them in. What you roll on a d6 is added to the roll you need. It’s not a guarantee that you make the roll.

12 hours ago, Rich McGee said:

My ideal MERP game never gets near any of the characters in the books and just uses the setting (much like my ideal Star Wars RPG session), but I could see this working for one-shots that throw canon in a wood chipper.  The question is what they'd actually be doing in those one-shots.  The Fellowship's a weird mix of people outside of the story (and doesn't stick together long even there) and even if you just treated them like a D&D adventuring party where would they be hunting for treasure and fighting monsters?  Moria, the Misty Mountains and the Mirkwood suggest themselves, but the opposition feels like it get pretty same-y pretty fast.

 

I would suggest fighting the machinations of the Witch-King! The Witch-king could be doing some political stuff like assassinations. 

@Rich McGee, I saw on Amazon Battletech Movement Dice. I think Santa might have to bring me some. Btw we were using a D20 to mark the Hexes moved later last night.

On 11/30/2023 at 6:27 PM, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

Yeah part of what makes D*D magic feel special is the fire and forget and chaotic spell listing.  However, I think you can simulate that with Hero by hiding most of the guts, the build behind a wall where the players only see the effects and how to make it work, and not the sausage-making part.

What if you gave out small bonuses to the Spell based on how well your Magic Roll made it? Just like a good Acrobatics Roll can increase DCV? (I think that’s the rule). 

I just got together with an old friend and played a short game of Battletech. Man, I know my wife jokes that I’m old, but my attention span was short. I was remembering rules 30 years ago but could remember how far I moved in the Turn and kept constantly looking up modifiers on movement. Even though I moved roughly the same each time. We both were counting on fingers to hit numbers.  I was a blast for sure and can’t wait to play again. I did happen to pull the luck shot of the night. My Stinger fell because it lost a leg so from Prone I rolled a Head shot on his Commando. Now it was only a MG but still. We both had some wild rolls.

16 hours ago, Ragitsu said:

Goodberry is broken in the Baldur's Gate CRPG, because you can generate massive amounts and store them for later; in actual tabletop (A)D&D, the healing effect is a nice bonus, but these divinely-infused morsels of natural goodness are handy because they obviate the need for bulky rations...as long berries can be procured.

Then what am I thinking of that grants Nightvision to mere mortals that wasn’t a spell?

Speaking of name recognition, I’ve been asked by people who never played an RPG ask me when I mention that I do, you D&D? Even without their advertisement department, D&D is so ubiquitous, non-gamers associate D&D with RPGs.

My brother was given 5th Ed D&D and yeah it’s more complicated than the older editions. That might be why that there a subset that love the even rules lighter game such as Maze Rats and Cairn. I think that you can go the opposite direction and be too rules lite.

11 minutes ago, Scott Ruggels said:

“Should”, or “Should not” it’s generally too late,now since Espionage had the same assumption. Strength is the key stat for heroes. 

Oh yeah, I’m not saying that boat hasn’t long sailed. 😂 I guess my point more than anything is certain games get picked apart due to their assumptions yet Hero has the same issue too.  And like I said, just be aware of Heroes bias. What would happen if you got rid of STR Min and extra damage for STR? I think in theory you would see less higher STR. I don’t know for sure. For clarity I’m not saying that Fighters having higher STR is bad. I’m just saying that what you think your game world should be like?

I’m not really worried about real life strength of people. My point is that the mechanics are dictating a certain build. If that is what you want the. That’s great but for a game that bills itself as design the game you want you need to be at least be aware of the bias that’s in the game. If you make the game design that the only way to gain experience is to kill monsters then you expect first level characters to kill monsters.

52 minutes ago, Scott Ruggels said:

George McDonald was of the opinion that heroic games need strong heroes, so strength was always the first go to stat for Champions.

That’s interesting however for a system that prides itself on building the game you want should that be a default assumption?

And speaking of Strong Warriors have any looked on how Hero System rewards have a high Strength? I’m looking at both STR Min and free extra damage for high STR. Depending on the weapon you want to use, you need to meet that STR Min just so as to not get penalized. And if you have extra STR you can boost damage of said weapon. I’m not saying Fighters shouldn’t strong but how many 18 STR fighters are there?

Speaking of assumptions, I have some idea why S&D wizards are considered squishy but are they as squishy as we think they are? First of all what are we saying by using the term squishy? Is it Strength because there is no rule that a wizard cannot have an 18 STR, just that he rolled for it and in the case of Basic D&D he has a minimum of 9 Intelligence to qualify for Magic User. (In some editions where you can either move points around or assign Rolls to abilities probably helped with the notion of a weakling wizard.  Is it Hit Points? Yes the warrior has potential to have more hit points than a Magic user but if you go by dice rolls well I’ve rolled a 1 for HP on a warrior with a high STR to boot!  (And yeah it’s weird because a wizard is said to have a low HD because they don’t work out like a fighter but dice rolls being what they are).  And when I thought about it, Magic Users aren’t any easier than a Fighter to hit. It’s the gear which makes the Fighter have a better AC which makes him harder to be hit. 
 

@LoneWolf, I realized after I posted about Darien and Belakar I should’ve compared Darien’s Bow to Belakar’s Magic Bolt both are Ranged attacks. 

1 hour ago, Rich McGee said:

Shows how much I know about the details of 5e, the first edition I balked on during playtest.  To me Goodberry is a low-level druid spell from the early TSR days that provided some minor but very useful healing, bit like cut-rate healing potions that you could pass around between players.  The idea of them being de facto night vision goggles is certainly different.  Please tell me you have to squash a pair of them into your eyes to make them work, leaving you with a stained raccoon mask of goodberry juice.

 

I'd totally make that setting lore if I were running...   

honestly I don’t know. It’s what I picked up on the ‘net.

I understand that with 5e introduction of the Good berry which allows humans to see in the dark, there is a complaint that it takes away from Demi humans.