Trebuchet

Re: Sixth Edition Showcase #1: ACV And AVAD

 

So' date=' sure the PC who sells their mOCV down to a 1 saves X points over the normal character who has 3 mOCV but I'll do my best to make sure that PC gets X points worth of mOCV trouble for it. There's your balancing factor.[/quote']Do we even know if 6E permits selling back Characteristics? Without Figured Characteristics, there's going to be a lot less probability of having "excess" Characteristics in the first place; much less needing a mechanism to sell them back. Why would any hero want Characteristics below the baseline of a Normal in any genre?

Re: Absolute Range Sense... ever use it?

 

I figure ARS would be useful when making Matrix-like leaps between skyscrapers or the like. I'd hate to find out it's 25" away when I'm halfway across and only have 23" of Leaping.

Re: Sixth Edition Showcase #1: ACV And AVAD

 

Not quite related to the new advantage' date=' but if you have to buy up your CVs from scratch, what's to prevent most people from having OMCV of 3 (or even 1 by selling back) and DMCV of 8? Or for that matter, a mentalist with no physical attacks from having an OCV of 1 and DCV of 10?[/quote']I expect well see a lot of experimental builds along those lines as players and GMs shake out the new rules. As has been noted before, no set of rules can prevent unbalancing builds - it's up to the GM. That was the case in 5ER; it'll be just as true in 6E or 60th.

 

Why not a pure-offense mentalist with a high OMCV and low DMCV? If he's not concerned with fighting other mentalists, it sounds like a perfectly valid build concept.

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far

 

The vast majority of games that I have played in and run are heroic rather than superheroic. As a result it is less common that people mess much with the figured characteristics. Usually SPD is bought up to the next level and if a character is supposed to be tough we might buy up PD and ED a little. STUN' date=' REC, END are almost never touched and remain at their base (figured) levels.[/quote']Even in my superheroic games REC, END and STUN tend to be left at their default Figured values unless the character concept is supposed to be higher, such as a brick.

Re: Sixth Edition Showcase #1: ACV And AVAD

 

I agree. This is the sort of "wow" I've not been finding in any announced changes until now.

It hardly matters since our group is sticking with 5ER, but perhaps we can poach a few ideas from 6E when it comes out and house rule them in.

 

Half of me is excited about this development and half of me was sorta hoping "There probably won't be anything in 6E worthwhile anyway." Obviously, that's no longer the case.

Re: Sixth Edition Showcase #1: ACV And AVAD

 

This is the first change in 6E that I think is brilliant, and long overdue. Well done, Steve!

Re: 6e Characteristics

 

One thing I see, characteristics are now much more expensive (effectively).

They were not really as efficient as a power based character in 5th edition, but under 6th they look impractical. Just buy powers and skills, the character will be much more powerful (for the points) than a characteristic based character. I think point balance will be seriously messed up in 6th edition.

We don't have any idea what the new costs for Characteristics will be, For all we know, DEX will cost only 1 and SPD 2 or 3 points each.

 

Do I expect that it will all be just right? Not really. As near as we can tell, there was little or no playtesting to check for balance or other issues.

Re: The Emergence Of Superhumans

 

To my knowledge' date=' it never completely stopped and still continues (at substantially lower volumes) to this day.[/quote']That's my understanding as well.

Re: The Emergence Of Superhumans

 

Maybe I'm historically-challenged' date=' but I thought a lot of the slaves that came out of Africa were due to inter-tribal warfare. The chieftains found it profitable to sell the defeated to outsiders.[/quote']Quite true. OTOH, taking defeated enemies as slaves was pretty much universal throughout human history and was often regarded as more merciful than simply killing them. Not that that fact excuses slavery, of course, but I think it illustrates that the moral framework was different. Slavery wasn't seen as a wholly unique thing; given that there was forced bondage, serfs, imprisonment for debt, and legally unbreakable apprenticeships (Benjamin Franklin ran away from his.). It was part of a continuity of servitude.

 

Slavery based on race largely began in the 15th and 16th centuries; as the Spanish and Portuguese began to exploit the New World. Slaveowners found the native Americans generally made poor slaves (as did Muslims imported from norther Africa) as they were too rebellious and began to import more docile people from Africa. Most early slaves were sold by rival tribes who'd captured them in war, but that soon developed into wars waged in and of themselves to capture slaves and more than one tribal chief selling his own tribesmen. Actual slave raids by whites into the interior were relatively rare, but they did occur. Most buyers preferred to just pull into a slave trading station (often a island off the African coast) and buy their "wares" from a wholesaler.

 

I'm not as up on the Arab slave trade, but it's estimated approximately 20 million African slaves were taken north and eastward into Muslim lands compared to the 19 million who were taken across the Atlantic. Given the total population of sub-Saharan Africa during those centuries, that must have been a staggering percentage of the population (probably, IMO, rivaling the Holocaust).

Re: The Emergence Of Superhumans

 

You forget one of the *BIG* factors on that last one: assuming that metahumanity is evenly distributed? The majority of the metahumans in the South will be among the black slave population.

Since black-specific slavery* didn't develop until the 1600's, I think it's safe to presume that the Peculiar Institution that formed in the American colonies and later the United States would never have happened in the first place. It would have totally altered the history of the Western hemisphere.

 

 

*Arab slavers were still raiding the coasts of northwest Europe for white slaves into the early 1600's; and probably took more African slaves into the Muslim world than crossed the Atlantic to the new world.

Re: Talking hitS

 

So, if I'm right so far (and there is room on this pin head) that has some interesting implications for relative position.

 

It should mean that turning side on to an attack is worth about +1 DCV, as is kneeling down.

 

Rolling into a ball is worth +2 DCV and lying flat on the ground is worth about +3 DCV (You become, in effect, head height but the same width, and ahead is about 1/8 of your body size, so you have 1/8 of your area as width does not change, and that is worth +3 DCV (1/4 area x 1/2 area).

 

However, that only applies if the attacker is ahead of you and far enough away that all they can see is your head and shoulders.

Makes absolute sense to me. There's a good reason soldiers "hit the dirt" when somebody is shooting at them from a distance. The only time being prone should be a DCV penalty is when the attacker is standing in an adjacent hex (and thus shooting down) or at an altitude that makes being prone give the same area visually as standing if they were on the ground. Except in HtH combat, being Prone should never involve a DCV penalty. Being prone and quartering your surface area is a good thing. I think the fact it has a penalty is a relic of hand to hand MA/brick combat from the system's superhero roots.

 

Anyway, if all things being equal, in combat, you can hit a stationary human sized target (or 1m square target) on 11- then it should have a DCV of 0.

 

That means that a hex (which has a cross sectional area of about 3.5 square metres) SHOULD be DCV -2 and not DCV 3.

I agree, but I think these are both game balance issues. If hexes were -2 DCV base, AoE attacks would become even more effective.

 

It will be interesting to see if Steve addresses any of these issue in 6E but we've heard no signs if he will or not. (For example, I never could understand why being Stunned halves your DCV but sleeping or actually being unconscious has a -0 effect.)

Re: Just to prove I'm not a complete Comeliness Grognard

 

Resistance to change is human nature. Everyone has things they love about Hero and things they dislike. Any one person's preferences is never going to align perfectly with everyone else's. Why do you think pretty much every role playing game out there is house ruled by someone?

We don't use any house rules in our Champions campaign. That's more due to the fact we have multiple GMs than an objection to house rules per se, but I doubt we're unique.

Re: The Emergence Of Superhumans

 

Are you sure it was a calculator? I read one once where it described a similar situation with a nuclear cruise missile landing at White Sands in the 1940s. They'd be able to figure out the jet engine. They'd be able to grok the nuclear payload. But the computer--it's simply too far beyond their tech to begin to analyze it in any meaningful way. Simply connecting a standard voltmeter to it to measure resistance would destroy it.

Same idea. Either way, they couldn't figure out microprocessors. As you pointed out, simply applying an ohmmeter of the period would likely destroy the microprocessor since ohmmeters use applied voltages to calculate resistance. The voltages used to test vacuum tubes typical of the 40's and 50's were substantially higher than those of the transistor era; never mind microprocessors.

Re: The Emergence Of Superhumans

 

I read an article once which pointed out that if you dropped a 1980's era calculator back into the 1950's, nobody - not even the greatest minds on Earth - would be able to figure out how the microprocessor worked. They might be able to figure out what it does but they simply lacked the basic technology to analyze it. To them, a microprocessor would be nothing more than a bit of silicon with some strange impurities. Even with a knowledge of transistors (bleeding edge in the early 50's) they'd never figure out how the chip worked. Sometimes (often, actually) science has to wait until technology catches up with it.

 

Seems to me a lot of "supergenius-class" or alien tech might be in the same boat.

Re: 6E, 1st non backwards compatible Hero?

 

I think a direct conversion will amount to parsing some things out and a few minor tweaks. In most respects' date=' however, the characters should still be playable with only minor adjustments. The part that won't be backwards compatible is how much stuff costs and how many points the characters are built on. But that's easy to fix. You just parse everything out, recalculate, and move on from there. There is no reason the GM can't just "grandfather" character point totals.[/quote']That was in fact the suggested method for conversion from 4th to 5th editions. I can't see any reason the same basic method wouldn't be applicable for 1st thru 5ER -> 6E conversions.

Re: Pulp Holmes

 

I'm just rereading the Holmes story after 25 years. I have to admit the trailer makes me somewhat nervous as it lacks a Holmesian feel, but I'll probably see it anyway. I'm a big enough Holmes and pulp fan I'll generally watch anything with either.

Re: 6e Characteristics

 

Personally I've never really felt there was any need for a separate Ego Attack in Hero anyway. I always felt it should just be an Energy Blast with appropriate Advantages and/or Limitations.

 

I agree with Ego Blast preferably not conferring Mental Awareness. Just because the wizard is using a Multipower wand with Ego Blast doesn't mean he should know someone nearby is using Telepathy.

Re: 6e Characteristics

 

“If you assume that walls stop AVLDs and NNDs' date=' for consistency they would stop ego attacks as well.” Um, isn’t that why “Indirect” is listed as one of the unbalancing Advantages in the “build” to make Ego Attack? So other AVLDs and NNDs would not, in fact, be assumed to have the same default ability to “go through walls”.[/quote']I totally concur. Since NND and AVLD attacks do no BODY damage by default, I would say that by default they would not penetrate a wall. If the attack has the "Does BODY" adder, then it probably can poke a physical hole in the wall and any opacity becomes moot.

Re: 6e Characteristics

 

So - I buy Ego Attack' date=' I have no Enhanced Senses - I must keep my Target within range of my Normal Sight. They go around a corner, I must follow. They hide behind cover, I must find a way around it.[/quote']I get too close, they pound me into the ground like a tent stake.

 

 

I've never found Ego Attack to be unbalanced as long as I don't permit those cheesy builds.

Re: A new basis for PRE atatcks

 

I couldn't agree more about #1. OTOH, I don't allow PRE attacks to affect more than mooks or normals anyway. Heroes and named villains might hesitate or possibly even retreat, but I'm more inclined to base that decision on an INT roll based on the tactical situation and PsychLims like Overconfident or Never Retreats.

 

If Galactus can't get the Fantastic Four to simply give up despite being 200 feet tall and wielding literally god-like powers, I'm not going to accept that Presence Man can do it just because he bought a 50 PRE. That just means any Interaction Skills he bought are at incredible (19- or better) levels.

Re: this weapon

 

True, but, I think, being able to resist the sleep drug also helps.

 

Of course, Kitten, being a cat burglar, will first use either her chloroform-soaked rag, or a sleep gas capsule. If that doesn't work, she'll either hit her victim with her baton or shoot him with a sleep dart.

 

Oh, I just noticed that the weapon was for a Justice, Inc. campaign.

Yes, but how do you "resist the sleep drug" within a game context?

 

Me, I think I'd go with a CON roll. And of course for Champions it needs a few more dice unless all Kitten wants to knock out are ordinary museum guards.

Re: this weapon

 

I was looking through a box of clippings from various sources' date=' and I found a .45 version of the gun!!! It's in the "Gadgets & Treasures" column of [i']Adventurer' Club[/i] Issue 7, Summer '86.

 

It's a multipower with two ultra slots. The first is the regular ammo. The second is the sleep dart. It's 1 point RKA + 2D6 Stun NND (defense is having antidote in your blood system.

I sure wouldn't allow that as the defense against the NND in my campaign. In essence that assumes that the only persons immune to the tranquilizer have previous experience with it. That might have been legal or valid in 1986; I sure don't think it would be under 5E or 5ER rules.

 

Since it's supposed to be a dart, IMO Resistant defenses or rigid Armor would be more reasonable defenses.

Re: How to encourage RP?

 

Thanks for the responses. The players seem resistant to discussing tactics between the players. I have offered numerous suggestions on how best to coordinate their attacks but they show no tactics.

 

Here is where our game left off from last session. They learned that Terror Inc is trying to steal a satellite processor that Primus tried to keep hidden in a warehouse. The heroes and their Primus contact will go to the warehouse (that I have elaborately created with Dunjinni). How do you suggest I begin this scene/encounter? I thought someone like Bulldozer (working with Muerte) might confront them in the parking lot to further the story but then what? Without my prodding, they will probably walk through the front door. Then I will defeat one hero, lose a villain, defeat a hero, lose a villain, etc. Is the problem more my setup than hero reaction? Thanks.

Well, a little demonstration of coordination between the villains can be a real eye-opener. Don't have the heroes equal in number; have more of them. Have Villainous Martial Artist throw Hero #1 to the ground with a Martial Throw and then have Villainous Brick pound the 1/2 DCV Hero #1 (because he's prone) into the ground and Villainous Energy Projector blast him to knock him unconscious. Repeat as necessary. Let the villains be clearly less powerful individually but their teamwork lets them stomp the heroes. To be really annoying, use a horde of mere agents with fairly small attacks but excellent teamwork. Work their tactics up in advance. Have them use codewords and/or radios to coordinate.

 

It may take a few beatings, but sooner or later the players will get the idea.

Re: In Character: A Critical and Unauthorized Look at Disadvantages ...

 

He's got some valid points, but he takes the argument way too far. The Defenders are lame, but IMO that's so player characters can outshine them. Why put a lot of work into non-player characters that will never be used except as mechanical examples of how to build a character?

Re: In Character: A Critical and Unauthorized Look at Disadvantages ...

 

That page crashes my browser (Firefox 3) every time I try to load it. Does anyone have an alternate location?

 

Never mind; I got it through Internet Explorer.