Vanguard

Anyone out there have a write up for this? I got the Cyclones and Alphas from the Star Hero Fandom site (good work on that by the way!). Only thing is I couldn't find the CVR-3 listed anywhere. Could use the help! Thanks!

Re: Battlestar Galactica Hero I thought so. Was actually glad to get some hard and fast "numbers" on the Battlestar and other ships. The Original was a bit . . . vague . . . about things. Also, I'm rather impressed with the story line of the new show. I didn't think I would like it or would adapt to it but I think they did a very good job of it.

Re: Battlestar Galactica Hero From the New BattleStar Galactica site ( http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/ships/ ): BattleStar: L: 4,460' W: 1,820' H: 580' The above link also gives the stats for just about all the ships in the fleet.

Re: Is Punisher the problem? And you won't because it's based on individual preferances. And, technically, this has been said through-out the thread. If the players don't mind, then it's ok. It's only game breaking when a player begins to have a problem with it.

Re: Is Punisher the problem? Katherine hit the nail on the head. It all boils down to points. If Super Being A has to pay points for everything (because he's a super hero) then he's going to have to skimp in other areas (usually skills) to make sure he has his arsenal of powers ready. If Rambo Mk 3 doesn't have to pay points for his weapons/equipment but is built on the same points as Super Being A then he's just going to plain better at everything. More skills (and at higher levels) more Stats/Perks/Talents/etc. It's all a matter of balance. (Oh and we're talking weapons and/or items that might have a direct impact on fights/combat. In the games I've played in, we're not charged points for cellphones, pagers, etc . . the "normal" mundane gear). Now, if you let SB A be built on 350 points and Rambo guy is only built on 250, but get's his arsenal for free, then that might be balanced, maybe.

Am I correct in assuming that Clairsentience built with the Transmit adder could, effectively, send the images/sounds (if built with those Sense Groups) of the area being viewed by the Clarisentience to a character/vehicle/base without those said things being within the "sensing" range of the clairsentience? For example (because that sounded REALLY confusing): If I built a base with Clairsentience as the "Cameras", with enough area to cover the base, then stuck Transmit on it, could a character X miles away "See" through the bases cameras? (flip through the various camers if it had multiple perception points, etc)?

Re: In Real World Terms... Flamethrowers wouldn't work. rED of 30. Would take a 6D6 RKA flamethrower to even hope of landing body and then you'd need to nearly max out the roll to do that. The other attacks, Mustard Gas, Tear Gas, Vacuum etc have a better chance to do something since they'd more then likely be built as NNDs (some that might even do body). As for other stuff, Kinetic Kills (dropping an asteroid on his head), dropping him into the heart of the sun, have him stand at Ground Zero of a nuclear explosion. With defenses like that you'd need some pretty hefty attacks to even make him blink. (Now, we know he can be stunned and knocked out but to actually break the skin is going to take some real honest to god, solid effort).

So, let me see if I get this straight. If I have my Body Armor build with Hardened and someone three guys shoot me with a Penetrating, AP and an Indirect Attack then my Hardened armor stops all of it. But (there's always one of those) - - If one guy shoots at me with a Penetrating AP attack, I now have to choose which of the attacks my Hardened armor stops? Unless, that is, I have Hardend x2 and then I'm fine again?

Re: Starting points for rookies in established campaign I would start them at about 50 points to 75 points below the lowest point total of your current players. Think about it. If you start them at 350, anything you use to challenge the old timers will more then likely turn the newbies into little costume colored smears on the ground. Also, there would be no way in hades that the 350 players could hope to hold a candle to the old timer characters and that could lead to frustration as they sit there and watch the vets kick arse and take names while they bring them towels and coffee. Even giving them double the xp won't fix the problem. One of my old gamemasters tried that and it didn't go over to well. Your veteran players shouldn't, honestly, have a problem with them starting at nearly the same level as they do since that's a tried and true method of roleplaying games around. Just my 2 cp.

Re: Immortal Questions Why complicate things? Just do as was previously suggested with Regeneration. As was stated, normal there has to be a "common" way to kill the character but if you are A) the GM or the Player who can convince the GM to allow a special circumstance then that's the way to go. No reason to get exotic or try using multiple type powers, etc. (Unless your doing it just for fun or just because. Then that's cool, as well as entertaining).

Re: Youth as a disadvantage I, personally, have never been in a Hero game where a character has bought off a Disadvantage. Instead, like Rapier has said, they swap 'em out for new ones that make more sense. My current GM doesn't like Disads being bought off, he'd much prefer them being swapped out.

Re: Ramifications of "Powers NOW" I'm not much of a political person but I would say the odds are VERY high that someone would do something like that. Not only would you have to worry about the political point but also the average joe point. I mean, if you suddenly had the power to trounce that bully that was picking on you in the 5th grade, wouldn't you? I think there would be, while maybe not massive loss, but significant loss of life as peoples powers manifested. People would be reacting instinctively for a long time before they got things under control. In a nutshell, I'd say world wide turmoil would be about right.

Re: DEX is used too much One way you could go is with Lightning Reflexes. Gives your characters "effective" dex's for going first in a phase but other then that they have to buy everything else through skill levels. (I personally like this idea since, especially in a Heroic/Fantasy game, your characters should be SKILLED not just have raw physical abilitiy).

When you use the above manuever, do you get to use the extra strength provided by your Martial Grab (if you have it) to mantain the hold?

Re: GateCrasher Hero Well, I'm just a Humble Player but here goes -- After the run in with the Slatha at the Uti village (and the much arse kicking that happened there). The Balkadori (as we are called by The Natives ) managed to rescue several slave wagons too and released the slaves back to their proper villages. During this, we managed to find one of the captures people that had an idea of what we were looking for (that would be the central crystal to the DHD for all you Stargate fans out there. Hey, when we plagarize, we don't discriminate. ) happened to be, yup, you guessed it, in the underground Slatha city. We also were guessing and under the assumption that the Queen of the Slatha used mental powers of some sort because the women described being taking in there and then it feeling like her brains had been scrambled (Good description of a mentalist if you ask me). Now, we weren't sure if this was true or what, after all, we're dealing with a "primitive intellect" but we decided that we couldn't take the chance. We had to head back to home base in case they had uncovered from the Doreal team where they had come from at the were abouts of the Gate Room. So we packed up our wayward little band (with the addition of about 12 Uti Warriors, oh and Ghost's new bride makes an even Baker's Dozen) and headed back. During the trek back we talked with the Uti warriors and several of the other tribes that were journing with us till they needed to split off and got the general gist of the layout of the Slatha city. As to be expected we were pretty much going to have to go in blind without any type of solid recon but such is life. Anyway, we arrived back at Base Camp to find everything serene and business as usually, not counting the Velociraptors being cooked on the open grill (Whadda ya know, they DO taste like chicken). Nothing had happened there at all. Not a peep. So, thinking that expedience would be the best and hitting them again relatively quickly after we had thoroughly trounced them would be wise, we set out again. Reshuffling the expiditionary force we set out with: Coop (PC), Ghost (PC), Weasel (PC), Dr. Chris Mallory (PC), Takeshi (PC), Bunny (PC), A-tar (NPC, Uti Warrior), Shara (NPC, Uti Warrioress and Ghost's blushing bride), Uti Warrior A (NPC) and Uti Warrior B (NPC), Charlie (NPC Comm Officer), JoAnne (NPC, Demo) (I think that's it). After about a day or two in the jungle, dodging patrols, and with that many people, it wasn't easy lemme tell ya, we came to a bridge. Of course, this bridge was guarded by two Slatha war parties (Quick Recap, a Slatha War Party consists of 15 Slatha, 14 warriros and one War Leader). We had to get across the bridge so the Slatha had to go, and before they could blow their little horn and summon some of the other war parties to their aid. Coop gave the orders and the group spread out. JoAnne, Chris, Charles and Coop stayed near the back. Weasel climbed a tree and covered the bridge with the orders to "make anything that tried to cross it, REALLY DAMN unhappy". Ghost split with Uti Warrior's A and B, Bunny, Shara and Atar. Takeshi swung around and crept close to where the vegetation was starting to thin so he could lay down cover fire on the other side of the gorge with his grenade launcher. You know how Muphy says no plan ever survives the first engagement? Well, we TRIED to take out a group of them quickly so that we only had a single group of about 8 to deal with on our side and a hand full on the other. Well, that didn't happen. the two grenades Ghost tossed might as well have been party poopers for all the good they did. And that embroiled his group in a melee dust-up. Oh, wait, before that happened Charles, who was told to sneak up to the edge of the gorge and drop some grenades on the other side, stepped on a twig. That cause the group of 6 slatha in the middle to go "Aroo?" and look his direction and then spot JoAnne. Now see Ghost's Party Poppers. Anyway, it as a hard fought battle all around. Ghost's Group: Since the grenades did jack nothing, the Slatha turned around and proceeded to bury and spear in Ghost's chest. Shara, taking exception to this brutal treatment of her man, charged. If I recall correctly, she damn near killed him in the first engagement. A-tar took a hesitant couple steps forward along with Uti's A and B. bunny, opened up on 2 of them with an M60. They hated life after that. Takeshi, dropped two grenades on the other side of the gorge which DID get their attention and knocked on of them over the side (Is now a good time to mention they can't fly?). The Slatha managed to get a couple of good hits in on Uti A and B but missed A-tar. They weren't so lucky. A-tar put his spear through the shoulder of the one his was fighting and A/B respectively speared theirs through the shoulders. Ghost staggered backward streaming blood just as the war leader missed Shara with a spear strike. Bleeding like a stuck pig and pissed to high heaven, he cut loose with a full burst from XM8. It just wasn't his night though, minor hits all across the board to all the Slatha he hit. Shara, finished her wounded warrior off and then started to distracted the War Leader from Ghost. Bunny, used her 60 (this is a standard theme with Bunny, just FYI). She didn't do near as much damage this time around but finished the one that A and B were on. Takeshi, dropped to more grenades on the Slatha on the other side. I can't really say more then the fact that they were REALLY hating life over there. The majority of the Slatha on Ghost's party are down, the War Leader takes another swipe at Shara and Ghost and Bunny both light him up with full bursts from their respective weapons. Needless to say, they shred him. Weasel, up in his perch, is making sure that any Slatha that steps on the bridge, doesn't step off. He's greased about 5 so far. They step on the bridge, and he gives them a halo, harp and set of wings. It's rather beautiful. Charles has made it to the edge and has started lobbing grenades at the Slatha while the Slatha lob arrrows at him. Neither are doing much. Now to Chris, JoAnne and Coop. They have Slatha charging them. JoAnne takes a pot shot and the lead Slathe, nails it in the foot and then for the next several phases decides that the foliage is threatening and begins shooting it up. Chris, is doing her darndest to take the Slatha down but she's a flipping doctor. Still, she's doing remarkably well. Oh, I guess I should mention that by this time the Horn has been sounded. Sucks to be us huh? Coop, not wanting to the doctor or the demolitions expert to get cremed, steps up to take one for the team, literally. He steps forward, dusts the one JoAnne and Chris were fighting, just to get stabbed in the chest (make that THROUGH) the chest by one of the closing slatha. Staggering back, he switches to defense and begins to deflect the incomming spears. Then, the second Slatha War Leader steps forward. Back to Charles, and yes, he and the Slatha are still ineffectually flailing at each other. Would now be the time to say that he was the one that was suppose to have taken out the horn and horn blow? Thanks Charlie. Once the War Leader steps up, Coop gets serious. He spends a little more time deflecting and then goes for broke. Ignoring the peons, he attacks the War Leader, and Rocks her World!! One hit and he nails the throat, takes her head off. That seems to bring JoAnne back to the idea that it's the Slatha that are the danger, not the palm fronds. She hits one of the slatha, wounding it severely, Chris aims and fires and mortal wounds another. Coop, in a sweeping strike with his sword, is able to finish of the two wonded one and the still fresh one. Weasel, is now taking out the slatha that are running BACK across the bridge. Takeshi has moved a bit closer and has switched to, I believe it was his SOCOM pistols. Ghost and Shara have moved up with Ghost taking pot shots as he's able with his XM8. Charles has decided to move up and actually start shooting things. Oh and hitting them. He was able to down the two Slatha in one or two bursts. The firepower that closed in on the bridge was more then enough to mop up the remained Slatha. As we all gained the bridge, Weasel ran up and said that we needed to vacate and do it NOW. There were three more war parties converging on our location. Needless to say, we bailed and got lost in the forest/Jungle. I'm drawing from a sleep memory here so I might have missed some things or have things a tiny bit out of order. But that's the gist. There's another session (two if I'm thinking right) that happened after this one but I have to get some sleep before I go to work so I'll let WC post that (in addition to whatever he wants to ammend to mine). If he doesn't I'll try and post tomorrow morning

Re: Character: Robocop I don't know if his eyes are still organic or not. When he and Louise (sp) are watching the arcade she says "Good eyes Murph" and he responds "The best money can buy". So, you can go either way. It could be the eyes are artificial or just augmented in some way. I believe his skin is living tissue as well. His wife didn't say it was artifical, she said it was "cold". I take this to mean that he had just enough "blood" flowing to it to keep it alive but that was it. You could argue that it isn't real if you have watched RoboCop 3 and saw him set on fire. It didn't burn the skin at all just scorched it a bit. Since I discount RC 3, I'm going to go with the fact that it's part of the remaining organics from his body. And Nexus, HD will not allow you do to anything that is illegal by Hero Systems standards. If it's illegal from the system stand point, you can't do it. HD is warning you because while it's frowned on to add powers to an EC that do not cost end, you can still do it if the GM allows.

Re: Character: Robocop 1) The Restrainable was put on there because of the cybernetics and there are ways that could possibly be used to shut him down. (And more then likely would be if he was used against the PC's). As for the armor, that was a mistake on my part and should not have been included in the EC. There are also a couple of other things in the EC that I would remove or, more then likely, just take the "restrainable" off the EC and place it on some of the powers within. 2)The EC is not illegal. It may not be "main stream" but it is far from illegal. If it was illegal then HD would not have allowed me to construct it. 3)I didn't think about the lighter fluid bit. Nor, for some reason, did I remember the whole "Let's grap hold of the High-Voltage power transformer to wipe my Directives" bit. That would've lit this version of him up like a roman candle. So yes, if I did write him up again I'd add in some rED. EDIT: Looking it over again, it would probably be best to just remove the Restrainable all together.

Re: GateCrasher Hero See --- Just goes to show you that there's a difference between someone that has a gune and someone that has a gun and knows how to use it. The Slatha first encounter the Doreal team and while they had guns, the only one that really know how to use them was Billinger. Whom they took out rather quickly even from the might pile of spent shell casings around the body. So, when they heard from Nukor (little back stabbing coward that he his) that there were more people in the village with "the mighty fire magics". They really didn't take that threat seriously but DID take to the idea of getting a bunch of "tribute" from the Uti early. So, like WC said, they marched on the villiage. (Hukor is about as under handed as his son and was TRYING to get the old chief killed because it was his job to go down and try to negotiate. At which point, the Slatha would've ate him). The Slatha started having second thoughts when 4 fragmentation grenades blew several of them off their feet and shredded their armor. The third thoughts started when their war leader got his throat slasehed open by said Balkadoror and another one of thier buddies had his head popped like an over-ripe melon (courtsey of Weasel and .50 sniper rifle). The REALLY final thought (and the last straw) was when said war leader had not only his hand removed but his head as well, one guys chest just 30 feet behind them exploded in a red mist and the one guy that managed to escape one of the explosions landed at Ghost's feet and was on the recieving end of a 3 round burst that tore him up good. About that time they wet themselves and ran screaming for their mommy. All in all it was a damn fine battle. Saturday should be interesting to say the least.

Re: GateCrasher Hero I don't know if we where "evenly matched" as WC says but I will have to admit that it was an interesting battle. It played just like a hand to hand fight on the tv's or in a tournament. Spend most of your time blocking as you wait for an opening or the other fighter to make a mistake. I, personaly, think if I hadn't gotten the lucky blow in that Nukor would've eventually out speeded me into submission (but isn't that what luck is all about?). In any case, we get to tangle with the Slatha next go around and well, I don't think it's going to be pretty. We've got the advantage of having guns and are VERY good with them. They have the advantage of numbers and while I think they might be slower then we are -- I think we're going to get over run in the end. Still, it should be interesting and time will tell. Us PC's have a tendancy of pulling something unique out of our Arses and turning the storyline on it's tail.

Re: Immortal Packiage Deal Paige: The "big deal" is either you really like the movie/idea/concept or you don't. It's one of those "cult classic" type movies. Although, if you feel up to it, you can probably rent Highlander: The Series at your local video store. It's the series that really fleshs things out, and if you can overlook some of the inconsistancies between movie and TV show, it gives you a good look into the world of the Immortals. Mark: Oh, well, if the PC's aren't going to be Immortal then it's no big deal.

Re: Explosive Power Armor - Battle Trick question. You could also use the inches in your TP as the "STR" of the rear panels that smack the person or you could just design an EB or RKA that is triggered when the EMO (Emergency Out Button) is smacked. Would suggest giving it a 1 charge recoverable though in case the suit is salvaged and then can be repaired. Just my 2 cents.

Re: Cinematic Gun Combat: "Give me that." I'd have to rummage in my books but I think what you're looking for is the Martial Manuever Takeway. A Disarm makes them drop the weapon where as the Takeaway seems to be what you're looking for.

Re: Immortal Packiage Deal That sounds like something the Shadow would do but I don't know if the Vorlons would. I mean, look at some of the stuff they did to begin with. In any case, it is a nifty idea. Yup, nothing says the Hunters couldn't be reformed. Joe DID kill the frothing lunatic that was their founder but that doesn't mean they couldn't have either found another one or another one didn't surface on their own. Again, the Buffy/Angel idea with the Powers That Be is cool but I have one question. Why are you trying to make it so that the Prize is jack nothing? It seems like you're giving your players/storyline a real good start and then kicking the chair out from under them as their sitting down. Having Wolfram and Hart create or corrupt some of the Immortals to fight on their side is good but basically doing a bait and switch sounds like cheese to me and would really annoy me if I were playing. PS: No PC should ever think they are getting The Prize since A) It's almost impossible to do and I don't think a campaign would go that long (although I've been proven wrong before). In any case, it would make sense that there's something phenomenal at the end of The Game not just a "HA HA!!! Fooled you!!!"

Re: Immortal Packiage Deal Mark . . 1st off, the Hunters tried to expose the Immortals in the series (some where around the 4th season I think). Duncan and the bunch stopped them, if I recall. (Note: I can't really remember off hand since I seem to have to warring memories right now. One is that they were able to stop them the other is that they didn't manage to stop them but that that storyline was either forgotten or just plain dropped by the writers). Secondly, the "Prize" isn't really as cut and dry as you're making it out. No one *knows* what the prize is and in your world it may be becoming "mortal and having children" but even in the Original Highlander movie, that wasn't all that Conner got. The "Prize" changed in the TV series to a "We just don't know WHAT will happen but the One will have all the power of all the immortals that have ever lived." So -- that could be just about anything. I, personally, kinda like the idea of an "ambiguous" prize. Sorta why I liked it WAY better when they were keeping Wolverines origan a mystery. I feel it adds something to the whole "Immortal" thing . . can't really put a finger on what right now but I think it's a certain ambiance.

Re: XM8 Assualt Rifle. Sorry it took so long to get back. Was working. Anyway, the bipod was a typo. Should just be vs Range Mods and not hit locations. Thought I had adjusted the drop down. As for the multipower issue, I didn't like it since there seemed to be either something missing or a clunky power construct. I've since gone with the write up I posted a bit back there. Even if I was going with the MP version of it, the character I'm playing would probably still carry all the barrels since he does have the knowledge and the skill to reconfigure (just maybe not the time. ). In any case, thanks for the help guys. It's appreciated.