Trebuchet

Re: In your Universe ...

 

The only real person we've given powers to in our campaign is the magician and skeptic James Randi, who spends his time IRL exposing supposedly supernatural or psychic frauds. In our campaign, he's a metahuman whose power is to (unknowingly) completely suppress all metahuman powers within 100 meters. So no wonder none of those poor psychics' powers ever work when Randi challenges them to demonstrate their abilities.

Re: How to encourage RP?

 

Try throwing a villain at them that takes Coordinated Attacks to bring down. If they don't communicate, they won't win. Repeat as necessary. It can be a real eye-opener when Dinosaur Man, who stomped them into the ground on their first encounter, gets his butt kicked because the characters work together as a team. Ideally, a team should become greater than the sum of its parts.

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

 

Hero requires only one stat. Groovy. It measures how Groovy your character is. Skills, powers, talents, perks, and equipment are replced with Cool Stuff. Disadvantages are replaced with Funky, a stat measuring your character's relative Funkiness.

 

"My character picks the lock."

 

"How?"

 

"He's totally Groovy, and he knows Cool Stuff."

 

"Fair enough. Chug your beer."

 

(GM and player chug. Player finishes first)

 

"Braaap. OK, your character was Groovy enough to pick the lock."

 

Reminds me of how a buddy and I played Squad Leader way back when I was in the Army. We'd always play Russian front scenarios, and at the end of each turn the German and Russian player had to drink a shot of schnapps or vodka respectively. Since most of the Squad Leader scenarios ran for 8 - 15 turns, we were usually pretty blasted by the time we finished a game.

 

We called it "the fog of war."

Re: Would you allow the white knight defense?

 

I remember running a Heroes Unlimited game with a guy who rolled Invulnerability and Winged Flight as his powers. He wasn't particularly good on offense' date=' so he figured he could simply go around smashing into stuff. Until he got stuck in a piece of abstract metal sculpture. [/quote']I had more in mind immobilizing our white knight with a Martial Grab or Entangle, but there's no reason an abstract sculpture couldn't finally find purpose.

Re: Would you allow the white knight defense?

 

I'd allow it in all probability. A PC who spends that much on defenses probably won't be much good on offense, and he'd be easy to restrain or defeat with unconventional attacks that the listed defenses won't stop. Functionally invulnerable does not equate to unbeatable.

 

It's a nice thought experiment but I doubt it'd be all that effective in actual play except perhaps for a megavillain.

Re: Naming the baby

 

I have a name for it:

 

VISTA!

 

 

Seriously, I think we'll see a 6th Edition Revised announced within 6 months of the release of 6th Edition! So much is being changed, it's inevitable!

 

See post #23 upthread.

 

http://www.herogames.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1849496&postcount=23

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far

 

I think you have a totally weird idea about what a warhammer is.

 

You think this is gonna ring your bell?

 

 

No people would get their skulls crushed not "their bell rung" when smacked by a warhammer.

One weapon having both types is certainly plausible. Why not simply assume the blunt end is a Normal attack and the pointy end is a Killing Attack? The choice of end for the wielder might well depend on the target.

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far

 

I guess this is where the GM description of the campaign needs to come in strongly. Energy blast and killing attack can be used for either baseball bat or warhammer' date=' both of them or neither. It should be for the GM to decide what he wants the mecahnics to be used for and what he does not.[/quote']I've always viewed Killing Attack as being "things that poke holes in you" and Normal Attacks to be more along the lines of "blunt force trauma".

Re: CROSS: Agents Of The Vatican Project

 

Pete, if you're interested I have a PC named Justicar who is an agent of the Vatican. He's a Roman Catholic priest and Jesuit. You'd be more than welcome to use him if you're putting a Vatican team together. I'll attach his pic below.

 

(Love your avatar: The coat of arms of the Vatican. )

 

 

 

Re: "UP" pulpy bits in it

 

I have seen the animated movie UP, it was great. I liked the story and main characters were interesting (annoying but in a very charming kind of way).

I will not put in any spoilers, but it has some pulpy elements in it, it is not pulp but captures the explorer element which some pulp stories have, and has some very pulp like items/scenes/locations in it.

I recommend the movie as light, fun, entertainment, and of course kid friendly.

I liked it too; although I think some of the scenes might have been a bit intense for young children.

 

It's not a work of sheer genius like The Incredibles or Finding Nemo, but it was still fun. Even Pixar's second-tier films are considerably better than average.

Re: Starting Point Totals

 

None of which negates my point. does it?

Nope. I wasn't trying to negate your point; I was just offering my own thoughts on the subject and your post seemed like a good starting point.

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far

 

I'm willing but I've learned to love indexes after dealing with White Wolf.... yeesh

Me too. Steve's indexes in 5th Edition were lightyears better than those in all previous editions. I don't imagine 6E's index will be anything but better still.

Re: Starting Point Totals

 

Besides everything ghost-angel said you also need to look at the reason the suggested starting points are changing. It seems the primary reason the point levels are changing is to accommodate the fact that Characteristics will cost more since Secondary Characteristics are going to be decoupled. Secondly some powers are changing and who knows what other things are affecting the price change.

 

Now, if you want to convert a character from 5th to 6th and are concerned about points there is a bit of work since the same character will inevitably cost a different amount of points. If you want to convert an active campaign from 5th to 6th, regardless of how many points you are currently using, you will need more. So to play what would otherwise be the exact same game you will have to adjust points even if you are not using the suggested starting points .

 

People are always complaining about point inflation between editions. They don’t complain about it because they have to use the suggested points, but because regardless of how many points you are using you now need more to do the same or similar as you were before.

I think the intent of the Standard point increase from 4th to 5th was to increase character granularity, not to make the characters more powerful (even though I'm sure there were plenty of players who used that extra 100 CP to make their Champions PCs more powerful). I'm sure that's what Steve has in mind for the 5ER - 6E transition as well. Since as yet we don't know what the new base number will be nor what the costs on revised and/or new Powers and Characteristics will be, it's a bit premature to guess at this point. If I had to guess, I'd say the baseline Champions character in 6E will probably be around 400 points.

 

I must say that in our group the extra 100 CP between 4th and 5th Editions was mostly used to flesh out the characters rather than to buy up combat power. My PC (known as Flash Dancer at the time; now known as Zl'f) at the time went from being an almost pure combat machine to a better rounded character with multiple professional skills for her Secret ID, hobbies, and interests. In fact, her combat power decreased slightly because I reduced her CON by 5, her PD and ED each by 1, and her max DC's by 1. And she became a better character for it. Other players followed similar paths to character improvement.

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far

 

I stand corrected.

Re: Fog

 

RJ is right; fog definitely affects more than just sight. I'd say the classic London pea-souper (which was really smog more than fog; it was a mixture of man-made smoke and natural fog) would be a pretty significant penalty to Hearing and Smell as well as Sight. It could actually get nasty enough to kill people with breathing problems.

 

I'd do it with a Change Environment rather than Darkness.

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far

 

Did Steve say it was cluttering up the character sheet? I don't remember seeing him state it anywhere.

I don't think Steve ever said that. It was certainly implied, if perhaps not explicitly stated, by some of the anti-COM advocates in the 6E Characteristics thread.

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far

 

So our Char lineup will be Str' date=' Dex, Con, Body, Int, Ego, Pre. Then Secondaries as OCV, DCV, OECV, DECV, PD, ED, SPD, REC, END, STUN. [/quote']I'm not sure that there's any distinction (real or imagined) in 6E between Primary and Secondaries if they're all starting with a base number even if those base numbers are different. Seems to me the system just increased to 17 Characteristics - more if any of the old Characteristics (such as DEX) have been split.

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far

 

Personally I have decided against buying 6E since most of the announced changes are very much disliked by me.

I don't dislike all of them by any means. That having been said, I also see few thus revealed changes I like better than 5ER. Nobody in my gaming group is enthused by the changes announced and several actively dislike some announced changes, so I've got no real reason to switch to 6E. As I said during the 6E discussions, Steve Long was his own worst competition.

 

I'll almost certainly buy 6E eventually (at least in PDF), but I'm in no hurry and see almost no chance our group will ever adopt it.

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far

 

You'll all feel quite silly when Striking Appearance is Pre with Does Knockback.

Va-va-va-Voom! :bounce:

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far

 

The upside to using Powers for Talents is now we have a non-arbitrary model to utilize when we decide we want some new Talents for our game.

 

And sometimes we call those Talents 'Superskills' or 'Heroic Skills' or 'Cinematic Abilities' or 'Talents' or 'Feats'

 

It's a useful guideline I think. Especially to new players who don't have an intrinsic understanding of balancing the System that comes from a decade or more of use.

 

So there's that angle to consider.

Good point, although I suppose I could be stubborn and declare that those builds should be for illustrative purposes only to calculate pricing. Seems to me Talents get used fairly often as "superpowers" in games or genres that don't allow Powers.

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far

 

It won't be because Talents are built with powers and Skills. So there will be a built in mechanic in the talent that wasn't in the Stat. As I said earlier I imagine that it will be purchased as +1 with all Pre Skills (5) (+1 limit) only vs targets that that are attracted sexually to the PC which should come out to 3 pts or 5pts for +2 to the Roll.

Most people don't look at the "build" for Talents at all; they simply buy the Talent - especially if they use Hero Designer which doesn't show the build.

 

I've never liked the fact Talents are "built" with Powers and/or Skills anyway; I've always felt they should be entirely self-contained as unique abilities in their own right. I'd hoped that would be one of the changes in 6E although we don't know if that's the case or not yet.

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far

 

My prediction is that most people will be saying that they bought 4 levels with Striking Appearance - Beauty. Most folk won't even know that there was ever a Com score or even care.

I didn't say it would be a majority. Most players I know don't remember how many Levels they have in something; they remember what the number is. IOW, most players IME know they have 6 rPD, 6 rED from Combat Luck and not that they bought 2 levels in it. Same with Skills: They remember their PC has Climbing 16-, not what their base number was and how many Levels up they bought it from that base.

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far

 

Well' date=' if you never used COM in the game, then of course you wouldn't. For those of us who actually [i']did [/i]use it, it will be missed...

 

Or grandfathered back in.

Here's my prediction: Ten years from now, when Comeliness hasn't been an official part of the Hero system for a decade, Hero players are still going to be using numbers to describe their characters' attractiveness.

 

GM: "How much Striking Appearance did you buy for Miss Justice?"

 

Player: "I paid 4 Points, so she has an 18 COM."

 

The numbers may mutate to Olympic-style 1.0 - 10 as guys do rating women ("Man, Angelina Jolie's an 11!"), but relative numerical ratings aren't going to go away. It's a shorthand people understand naturally.

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far

 

By the way' date=' there's a rumor going around that buying 6thEd is a legal contract that allows Steve to come to your house and steal all your dice. I thought people should know.[/quote']Fooled Steve! Nowadays I only use the built-n die roller in Hero Designer 3.

Re: Captain America Build 350 pts

 

You can't properly do Cap for less than 1000 points! Less than 10,000! Less than a bazillion!

 

Just thought I'd get this out of the way early.