Vanguard

Careful . . . good way to catch pneumonia . . .

As @Hugh Neilson Explained the RAW (i think) but what we did was rule that if an item was designed to do damage (sword) then, unless it was a super-duper-duper type attack (we're talking x3 or more DCs of the base item) then it should handle the extra damage relatively well. Again, as Hugh states, if it's something not designed to do damage, chair leg etc, then we went with dramatic sense and such. I would also suggest NOT using the rule in a super's game. For the reasons stated. This is true. But, and this is based on what GMs would allow, in our games, that fork wouldn't do more than it's pip of damage. If it was allowed to do more, say the damage values you say, it would be able to do it once and then be destroyed due to the massive amounts of force being applied to something not designed to handle it. Again, each table/gm/group will have it's own way of handling things. I'm just explaining how we'd handle it. Also, like I mentioned above, I wouldn't recommend the "more than double" thing for a supers game.

Since the advent of "smart" TVs a few years ago. Come on Duke . . crawl out of the dark ages. (I'm teasing BTW)

It all depends on the character builds that are being used as well as genre type (at least in my opinion). In our Heroic games, the removal of the Double Damage rule didn't seem to affect the game at all. Sometimes you'd have an attack that did a helluva lot of damage but those were few and far between. Again, depending on character builds. What we did do, to sorta stop a "problem" before it became one, was to state that that type of damage output had an effect on what you were using. There were many a game were Coop, our team lead, literally broke a bat/board/etc over the melon of an opponent because it just couldn't take the stress from a blow like that. Not sure if this helped at all . . .

@Duke Bushido Helps a ton. I would posit, unless I'm misunderstanding your digression, that the split of figured stats was done exactly for the reason you digressed about. To make a Robust character that didn't have an arse load of stun. The interpretation of Int is, I agree, largely to blame. And in the groups I've played it has been interpreted as being your intellectual capacity. Which is what cause my disconnect and irritation. And it is a "me" issue really. Since I did mention before, and you so kindly refrained from pointing out, that the Mr S DID pay points for his Int. just as Mr Perception paid for is increased perception. So both of them are getting what they paid for. . . *I* would be more than happy to do this but I have a feeling there'd be push back. Just like in or Gatecrashers Heroic game, the guy playing the sniper wanted to "be really quick with his rifle". So he pushed his Dex to near superhuman levels, instead of just buying lightning reflexes with Rifles. And with that. I'll stop derailing the thread. /salute

Huh. Learn something new every day. Has that always been there and I just missed it? 'Cause I'm thinking I just missed it.

::nods:: But doesn't the character have to reset it?

Sounds a little Vanya Hargreeves from Umbrella Academy. 'cept she could cheese it far enough to use the sound of her own heartbeat to power her abilities. Triggers, as far as I'm aware (don't use 'em that often) only work once and then need a turn (or more) to reset before working again. They can be purchased as having a Zero phase reset but then the character would still need a phase to reset the trigger. So, by my understanding of the rules, that polearms master would get 1 counter strike and then be done till at least his next phase where he could reset the trigger. . . . Again, I could be wrong as I've very seldom used triggers. If I am, please disregard.

1) I see (no pun intended) you point there and explained that way, makes sense (did it again) 2) Then he's not "seeing" he's reacting and using something, in my opinion, something like spatial awareness to be able to sense/detect the swinging objects and other obstructions that might be in his way. He's not "Seeing" as Robin would be. The canon explanation makes it a bit more palatable for me as he's using other objects and abilities to get the more detailed vision that the previous comment made it seem like he was getting. If he can "see" the dark sewer tunnels but would still need to pull out his flashlight to read what the Riddler had scrawled on the wall, then I'm good. If he could do that just because he's"s "Batman" eh . . . No so much. Well, if we fall back to "its the comics" a lot of things can be forgiven. I don't mind suspending belief due to the comic/cinematic nature of the game but there comes a point where you have to say "Oh come on! there was no way he could be able to do that!!" And both you and redsash above have beautifully explained how a high Int can/should/could give someone a high Per. It just felt a bit cheesy that Mr SuperScientist dumps all his points into Int and is just as observant as a someone that's mildly intelligent but poured a crap ton of points into Per with the explanation that he's trained for years to be observant of his surroundings. Yet MR S is just as perceptive because he's smart. Sorry about that Phil. I think you may have gotten caught up in my mass quoting and then I tried to shoehorn you in. Apologies.

This is why I wish Per was delinked with all the other stats. just because you're supersmart doesn't mean you're super observant/perceptive . . . Mr problem with that harkens back to the Batman with "just really good eyes" v Robin with "Nightvision". If you have to wear vision enhancing gear to be able to see, I don't think someone without enhanced senses (and I don't mean Enhance Perception: Sight) should be able to see. Or at least not see well. Bats may be able to make out objects/shapes but I think that's all I'd give him. I mean, Bats is good, don't get me wrong but he's not superhuman. Robin, on the other hand, would get full use of the "DIscriminatory" adder that Sight gets for free. It also dovetails nicely with my thoughts on Hugh's "SuperScientist". . . Hopefully I'm making sense . . .

The problem with that is that you can only use Combat Skills levels in a Multiple Attack that applies to all the things being used in said attack. For example, if you were using a strike, disarm and throw in a multiple attack and had +2 CSL w/strike but not with the disarm or throw, you can't use the CSLs.

From my understanding, the delinking of figured stats had/has nothing to with getting rid of maths . . . The probably that 6th has is that ALL of the supplemental material is just cut and pasted from previous editions instead of being rewritten. So while there are no more figured stats in 6th and CV has been decoupled from DEX, all the pregened characters still use the old rules because they've just be copied from one book and pasted into the next. It's real hard for a player (new or old) to get used to the changes when everything they look at for ideas are still using the old systems.

Ain't that the truth. It can be worked with but, playing heroic scale sure hammers home Hero's "Superhero" roots . . .

@BoloOfEarth Did you design him that way? Edit: Because being designed to be the support character is different than trying your best to build a well rounded character and being regulated to support character because of it.

I want to play the character that is actually useful and doesn't feel, and has been made to feel, like neither the player nor the character would have been missed if they hadn't shown up to the game session. And those stories you're referring to all seem to be a single player story. Where the underdog, as Gnome Body pointed out, can "rise up". Not a group of characters who are all knocking out villian left and right and you get to play Happy Hogan being all proud of himself after he, barely, took out 1 mook and Black Widow just polished off 6 of them. It's both actually. I don't, really, have a problem meeting campaign expectations. I just feel, like was mentioned, in doing so it limits the growth of the character. Once you've hit the cap, your done. You can't increase anything till the GM raises, or altogether lifts, those caps. And it should be noted here, those caps that are hit, are always, 100% the combat aspect of the campaign limits. The other "issue" I spoke about is that I, usually, find myself with more skills/background skills than I have points to pay for so i have to shave things off and remove things altogether and then find myself playing catch up while the others at the table are actually progressing their characters. Like I said, may just be a me flaw and not something that's actually a problem. So you're perfectly fine playing the Clean up specialist and letting all the other players at the table be the real heroes? And those "better GM scenarios"? I've seen them attempted and they never play out that way. The enemy that was meant to be fought by the Widow instead faces off against Thor and is immediately knocked in the next galaxy. While the enemy that was meant to go up against Thor is pitted against the Widow and while she *may* not get hit, she sure doesn't accomplish much against him until Thor arrives to be tagged in and finally take care of the bad guy. So I guess I'm saying that while you may have fun playing a third string hero, I don't.

I don't believe animals have an NCM. Their stats are capped at whatever the GM feels is reasonable. Do you happen to have the Hero System Bestiary? That would be a good starting point.

The story of my life right here . . . For some reason, all the characters I've created/played have required me to play catch up with things "they should have had" but I just couldn't afford at character creation. No sure if it's I build too detailed of a character, set my sights too high or just plain don't know how to build a character. Anyway, you give good advice Duke.

There is a downside to this though. In the games I've played in, most of the players will build to the max cap limit, forgoing whatever they have to in order to reach in. So while pulling your character in a bit does leave you room to grow, you might wind up feeling a bit underpowered as your "max level" friends tear through the enemy.

Thanks Scott.

And you've never, ever changed anything that was RAW? We've used Combat Luck to represent everything from "Nah-nah you missed me!!" to "the bullet hit a particularly thick portion of your armor". For someone who seems to have no problem with house rules and/or making changes to his game for the better, you seem particular stuck on the wording of this . . But as you say, you're done talking about this and now so am I.

Combat luck doesn't mean that. Combat luck is just that, Luck. It *could* mean the attack missed, it could mean the attack bounced off your armor, it could also mean a myriad of other things, at least that's the way we've always played it. Also, part of the text quoted from 6th Ed (I know you don't play that edition but I honestly think it's just a cut and paste from Dark Champions) "Because Combat Luck depends on a character’s ability to dodge, block, or otherwise avoid damage, it doesn’t work if the character is asleep, unconscious, or deliberately throws himself in the way of an attack (for example, to save a comrade from injury). Nor does it protect him from damage in most situations where he deliberately does something he knows will hurt him (such as performing a Move By/Through, both of which cause him to take some of the damage he does to the target). In some cases Combat Luck won’t apply if the character is Surprised (see 6E1 50); the GM may require a PER Roll or other roll to determine if the character perceived the attack in time to use his Combat Luck." So Combat Luck isn't some kind of super "i can't be hurt power". It's a power that was mainly designed to give Heroic characters some kind of resistant defense when/if they were ever caught without their body armor. But it also states that there are circumstances where it won't apply. If that's how a GM deals with things like that then it's time to find a new GM. And if you have a player that things and/or does this, then that's metagaming and the player needs a talking to. We've had a few players like this and yes, we've talked to them about it. However, it's been a long time since we've player a Super Heroic campaign so it's become less of an issue due to the the limited powers/abilities of the players. Which leads me to this. Since we've mainly played Heroic games for the last little while, Covered comes up a bit in them. Whether it's us Covering the bad guy or the Bad Guy covering one of us or a hostage. We've always played that there must be some kind of distraction to break the cover. If no one can think of anything, then the Coverer has us dead to rights and pretty much gets their way. But we get them back on the rematch. Wait . . . the comics code is gone? Or did it get replaced by the Governments Code?

Hero Designer will do all that. The one thing that might take a bit of doing is finding an export template that suits you. If you know HTML coding, you can make your own. If you don't, you can find a lot of them in the download section plus there are members of the community that, if you asked nicely, could probably make you one.

Voltron uses/creates a temporal field that suspends time for all those inside it, except him, for the duration of the transformation/combination sequence. Thereby allowing all the spiffy effects to be showcased without the villain getting bored and just obliterating him befores he's completely formed.

Right. That's what the GM is for. It's his job to go "yeah, that's not going to fly" and either outright nix it or, if he's nice, try and work with you till it's something that's acceptable to both him and the player.

@PhilFleischmann I'd have to pull up the character but, yeah, I do believe they're different from each other. One or two might overlap a tiny bit but that's about it. I do see what your talking about with the minor variation thing. And we've run into that during thought experiments based on having multiple style which would require you to purchase the same maneuver, just named something different. We decided you didn't need to do that. If you purchased all the non-combat related stuff (IE: KSes, etc) then you just needed to buy the maneuver once and call it good. I will say that, at first blush, buying martial arts as just a collection of Skill levels, str and damage could work and might, in the long run, even be cheaper. But I look at it like I look at the rule talking about not building a power to take the place of an already existing power. (I know I'm messing that up but it's what I can recall at the moment). To me, that's what's being done. Anyway, sorry to derail the thread . . .