Trebuchet

Re: New option: Absolute Abilties, help please

A much better formula and presentation than your original idea, although I still think it's a solution to a non-existent problem. But I'm glad we didn't scare you off.

Re: DEX vs. CSLs

As for genre element' date=' well I don't think the stunts Batman, daredevil, nightwing,. etc...do is within a human guideline, put simply, in the big two universes it really seems you can train beyond human limits because it is a comic and we want to see Nightwing do a triple summersault off the sides of a building and land on a moving train while dodging bullet fire.[/quote']Repped.

Re: DEX vs. CSLs

All that the imposition of a "character concept tax" accomplishes is the discouragement of the concept that is excessively taxed in favour of one that is subject to less' date=' or no, tax. Make my Normal Human too expensive to be competitive, and my answer is to put that character sheet in the binder and play something that is allowed to be point-competitive in your game (which means a superhuman, apparently). I'll dust off the normal human when someone else, who will let him be as efficient as the other characters, is running the game.[/quote']QFT.

 

The means we use to get there (DEX vs CSL) shouldn't be any more relevant mechanically than Limited vs inate abilities. Both have their own pluses and minuses which should become apparent during actual game play (as opposed to during the character design stage).

Re: Order of the Stick

New OotS up.

Re: New option: Absolute Abilties, help please

IIRC your Invulnerability was unkillability - I think that what most invulnerability seeksers seek is unhurtability - taking neither Body nor Stun.

Re: New option: Absolute Abilties, help please

Okay. What I'd like is for there to be a Power: Invulnerability. You spend X points and you are Invulnerable. I'm not trying to design it here and now, so I'm not postulating how many points, what it allows you to be Invulnerable to, all of the other mechanical details needed. I'm also not yet postulating how this is GM permission only and how it should have a built-in weakness.

 

There. I'm asking for mechanics.

Re: My first character (Speedster)

PS don't rely on the Desolid to save you. Abuse the power and next thing you know Explosive Affect Desolid attacks. Just has to tag you once real bad and back to making a new PC

Re: My first character (Speedster)

I'd second buying enough defences to survive a hit or two....Ego attacks and Area effects are not that rare....

The extra BODY was a good idea.

Welcome to Hero.

Re: New option: Absolute Abilties, help please

2E Monsters didn't level. Permanent, un-reversible Hit Dice loss.

 

Aside from a Wish Spell application. So, I suppose that'd be where two absolutes meet. . .

 

Which is why I skipped the part about it removing a Level from Characters where appropriate because it does mention they can earn the level back.

Re: Excel Spreadsheet for tracking Combat Order

I must be doing something wrong. I get a zip file with lots of other files in - 29 of them - none of which seem to be excel files as such and which, if I do open with excel, it tells me the data is 'delimited' and gives me gibberish.

 

I don't suppose you could include some instructions for the thinking impaired, could you?

 

Other than that it looks great

Just post it as a .xls file; it can't be all that large.

Re: New option: Absolute Abilties, help please

AD&D2E - Energy Drain Wizard Spell (9th) Level; target creature hit loses 2 Hit Dice, permanently, no saving throw.

It took me less than 5 minutes to find that, I am sure that if you really started looking through the myriad of gaming systems out there you will find other such Absolutes.

The only absolutes I can think of in Hero now are that a natural 3 roll of 3d6 is always a hit and a natural 18 is always a miss. That might be an adequate precedent for some.

Re: Possession

I wouldn't use this for a PC except in a very Iron Age game (and our MidGuard campaign is Silver Age) either. But it works fine as something for supervillains or supernatural evil critters.

Re: New option: Absolute Abilties, help please

Please may I keep using the "it's not me' date=' it's you" fallacy to reflect that? It's quicker to type, Maybe we can rename it the INMIY fallacy for ease of reference?[/quote']By all means.

Re: New option: Absolute Abilties, help please

As far as I can see' date=' this is another form of the "People should only want to game like me" fallacy[/quote']And as far as I can see, this is another form of the "People should agree with my brilliant idea or they're stupid" fallacy. In other words, that came across as one big "WAAAAAAAAA..."

 

EDIT: I'm done here.

Re: Possession

The second way was done where I used a summon to acquire the acquiescence of the host bodies' date=' then used mind control, with the villain just riding along with and occupying the same space.[/quote']That sounds more along the lines of what I'm looking for. Could you elaborate on that a bit or maybe post the build?

 

PS: Welcome to Hero!

Re: Possession

Do they have access to the memories of the possessed?

Re: What costing for noncombat movement without penalty?

How do you add megascale to noncombat movement?

 

For example, if I have megascale flight, and want to have the same speed when I am in combat, how do I price that out?

 

I am getting a sneaking suspicion it is one of those things we are Not Meant to Do, and as such would have a ridiculous point cost.

 

PS. Did 4th Edition have this combat and noncombat movement?

Megascale is new in 5th Edition.

Re: Possession

If the non-corporeal body cannot be damaged in any way, then I don't think it can be built. It's more like sfx for a plot device.

 

Is this intended to be a PC?

The plot device approach might be the simplest to put it together. All I need to figure is how to stop or counter it; knowing full well my players will figure out another way I didn't anticipate.

Re: New option: Absolute Abilties, help please

I don't want my response to a player to be "well' date=' this game didn't come with that tool to build that, so I guess you can't" fallacy.[/quote']Do you really anticipate that your players will ask you for an Absolute ability? Does the idea of saying "No" to a player cause you so much terror that you have to anticipate accommodating anything they might even remotely ask for? (Although I strongly suspect your real intent here is to create abilities which can always defeat your opponents; be they player or GM. You want a trump to anything.) There are already plenty of system-legal combinations in Hero that should seldom if ever be permitted because they are unbalancing. Congratulations; you've now created one that by definition will be unbalancing.

 

Have at it, man. All I can say is thank God I'm not in a campaign with you as a player or as GM.

Re: Possession

Can the non-corporeal being be damaged in any way? (in or out of a body)

Can the non-corporeal being be driven out of a body?

What happens to the non-corporeal being when a body it occupies dies?

Is it possible for a body to resist being occupied? How?

The build will determine the answers to most of these questions.

Re: New option: Absolute Abilties, help please

Player A wants a power where he can Teleport through anything.

Player B wants a Force Wall nothing can get through.

 

Which player do you plan on disappointing?

Re: New option: Absolute Abilties, help please

The idea that the character is the best at X because the GM (either by volition or by mechanic) doesn’t allow anyone better at X in the universe, is a valid idea, and a quite useful one in some games, but it fails to accomplish two of my core goals.

 

First, a character can be the best Teleporter in the Universe, and yet still not have enough oomph to get from one end of the universe to the other. Or a character might be the most invulnerable Brink in the universe, and yet take tons of damage when the antimatter device explodes.

 

The only way to fix this with your idea is to not only make sure the character in question is the best at X, but that you never put him in a situation that in which his power to do X is not enough to handle it. It feels like a kludge, “Let’s see, Hero System can’t handle absolutes, but I my character wants to feel as if there’s nothing his power can’t handle, I better make sure that no circumstances arise where he wants to use his power at level higher than he has purchased.

There's no precedent I'm aware of for this kind of absolute in the source material and it creates a host of problems in a role playing game; the largest of which is it creates tremendous problems for the GM to create a suitable challenge to characters possessing such Absolute abilities as you've proposed. You've left it no Achilles heel; no flaws for those characters who lack some sort of Absolute to exploit. (Even Superman had kryptonite.) That's inevitably going to mean that the only realistic way to challenge such a character is going to be another character with an Absolute; meaning these kinds of conflicts are probably going to be a lot more common that you seem to think they will be. It's not a problem for the GM who has infinite points to design bad guys; but it's going to be a major one for players. If you actually playtest this in a campaign I think you'll find it far more problematical than you expect.

If you're bound and determined to use this in your game, then I think the idea upthread of having it be a percentage of total character points rather than a fixed cost has a lot of merit. 33% or 50% of total character points seems about right.

In the meantime, keep the ideas coming. Just because we didn't like this one doesn't mean you won't have the next Great Idea.

Re: Things Foxbat should try to steal

Could he perhaps steal some piece of tech from Dr Destroyer and then find a group of heroes and demand protection once he realised just how stupid that scheme was?

How do you build a non-corporeal being which occupies human bodies; and then can jump from that body to another one nearby?

Re: Combining Genres

Remember that the amazing thing about a dancing bear isn't how well he dances but rather that he dances at all. IOW, if a super can do something none of the non-supers can do (such as fly, see through walls, or use telepathy) then he doesn't need to be overwhelmingly powerful. He's important because he can do things others cannot.

The TV show Heroes is a pretty good illustration of this. Most of the characters have a very limited range of superpowers; often only a single power.