Vanguard

1 hour ago, Duke Bushido said:

Never!

 

It's cool and shady down here...

 

and damp....  so very damp.....

 

 

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

9 hours ago, Tywyll said:

No, that's cool. Knowing it didn't affect the game is still good data. How did you handle damaging the object? What determined if the item was at risk?

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.

1 hour ago, Grailknight said:

While it won't ruin your fantasy game, I don't recommend it. It cheapens the value of the larger weapons and further heightens the vale of  STR. 

 

Take for example your simple knife(1/2d6  KA) and fork(1 pip KA) ant following characters with 2 levels HTH.

 

Finesse, the 15 STR rogue can do 2d6 KA and  1 1/2 d6  with her tableware.

Throg, the 30 STR barbarian can do 3d6 KA and 2 1/2d6 with his.

 

Bar fights and dinner audiences are really danger fraught affairs now, and armor is something you wear everywhere it's allowed.

 

In Supers games, it'just blatantly unfair to the low STR concepts. 

 

60 STR, 1d6 KA  Man can do 5d6 KA and 12d6 normal damage.

15 STR, 4d6 KA Man can do  5d6 KA and 3d6 normal damage.

 

Both cost the same but one of these  has better options available.

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. 

On 1/5/2020 at 12:48 PM, Duke Bushido said:

(Side question:  since when have you been able to get the internet on televisions?!)

 

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. . . 

1 hour ago, Duke Bushido said:

Perhaps we should more routinely build scientists this way.  Reserve high-INT for that character who thinks faster, or makes more radical logic leaps, yet tends to be spot-on about them.

 

*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

Just now, Hugh Neilson said:

 

You can buy it down to automatically resetting.  Resets automatically immediately after activating adds +1/2.

Huh. Learn something new every day.

Has that always been there and I just missed it?  'Cause I'm thinking I just missed it.

4 minutes ago, Ninja-Bear said:

Vanguard you can make a trigger 0phase to reset (or is that no time?) however it gets expensive. , as it should.

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

On 1/8/2020 at 10:05 PM, Cassandra said:

Dazzler can only use her powers if they is sound for her to convert to light, although she does carry a radio with her

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.

On 1/8/2020 at 10:16 AM, ScottishFox said:

One of the guys at my FH table made a polearm master with a triggered HTH attack that I had to limit to 1x per phase initially (eventually allowed 2x later in the campaign).  It is very strong.

 

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.

9 hours ago, redsash said:

 

I think of intelligence as the product of a particularly well-developed and therefore sensitive nervous system. 

 

Evolutionarily speaking, the brain/CNS developed to process sensory signals. Only later did we develop abstract intelligence using that sensory processing ability.

 

Certainly you can get very smart people who aren't very observant, but at least give them points back from the psych lim 🙂

 

 

 

 

Batman practiced in dark mazes with swinging boobytraps until he could feel every little thing coming. It's in comics and the novels.

 

By canon, he also uses flashlights to read things in the dark. He also uses nightvision in his mask. He also uses misdirection to make people think that he has superhuman powers. . .

 

Also we can hardly penalize him for a "dark night"

 

 

 

 

No problems there 😉

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.

5 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

You're making perfect sense, and I can totally agree with you _except_..... 

 

The problem is that I can justify it.  Not I. Real life, mind you, but in a comic book sort of way:

 

The higher native Per roll for the higher INT suggests someone who is typically more observant and more aware of his surroundings.  His higher INT is suggests someone more capable of analyzing the dim and almost no sensical shapes or blurs he can perceive and associate them with what they really are.  It's not that he can see bette, it's that he has a better understanding if just what it is he is seeing. 

 

Realistically, it's total crap, but then, so is Fire Breath and Telekinesis.  Comic book wise, though--even though I'm not keen on it- it's easy enough to justify. 

 

It's also why in my games the "no PER roll is possible" threshold is - 12.

 

Ultimately, though, any penalty that rolls over into "Roll is forbidden" is just a bad model, because it doesn't affect people more or less the same.  I had suggested (half heartedly) early on an entire new mechanical approach to light / dark, and things like this are the reasons why. 

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. 

4 hours ago, PhilFleischmann said:

Fine, but I don't see what that has to do with the quote of mine that you quoted.  I was talking about when you *can* see - when, even after all negative circumstantial modifiers, your PER roll is still 11- (or better), just like normal.  And again, under otherwise normal circumstances, where you aren't being distracted, and the thing you're trying to see isn't hidden, etc.

 

Even if the light is just slightly dim, reducing your roll from 11- to only 10-, then yes, you need to make the roll.

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.

On 1/5/2020 at 5:39 PM, Hugh Neilson said:

This bonus is very easy to achieve - a SuperScientist will often have a 15- PER roll from INT alone. 

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 . . . 

On 1/5/2020 at 8:03 PM, PhilFleischmann said:

If your PER roll is 11- or better after all circumstantial modifiers are applied, and there's no other circumstance that would cause you to fail to see something*, then don't bother rolling - you can automatically see what you're looking at.

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 . . . 

On 12/27/2019 at 12:27 PM, dsatow said:

OK, according to the RaW on 6e2p77 (thanks for the reference!), then you just put a limitation on the 2 point level, only for multiattack on one of the attacks in the multiattack.  This would probably be a -1 limitation making it 1 point per +1 OCV.

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.  

On 12/31/2019 at 12:16 PM, Solitude said:

Hmm..

 

Well I just spent several hours on the main champions forums.

My perception is that rather than opening the game up by getting rid of unnecessary math ditching figured characteristics brought about more sameness of character designs.  Everyone may as well buy a high presence because they don't get much out of constitution since it no longer affects your recovery, endurance, stun, and energy defense.

 

Things people agonized over regarding characteristics did add time to the character generation process but it brought about some design choices that the game evidently (admittedly this is only from reading for a few hours) no longer sees.

 

Is Champions Now going to return to figured characteristics?

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.

On 10/30/2019 at 10:31 AM, Duke Bushido said:

Unfortunately, these books served primarily to illustrate the HERO is a superhero system when everything is said and done.  It really breaks down at the low or "heroic" scale in that the granularity isn't there.

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.

11 hours ago, BNakagawa said:

 

Face the downside and overcome it. How many compelling stories are told about a character who starts out as the strongest and just remains stagnant? The best stories all feature a character who we first meet as an underdog, a novice, an aspirant who is not strong yet - but is driven to become so. Which character do you want to play?

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.

9 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Good points, 

 

but I am not certain that was the problem Vanguard was having-- meeting campaign expectations-- as much as he was having difficulty making the character to personal expectations.

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.

2 hours ago, BNakagawa said:

Strongly Disagree. In order to be less powerful than the max only requires 1-2 DC downgrade at most. The net result is more than noticeable over the long haul. The game system is strongly calibrated to highlight small shifts of one or two dice, one or two combat levels, one point of SPD and so on. I would much rather play a PC that was a notch below the maximum than one that was defining the maximum. Not every Pc needs to be optimized for taking on the big bad. There is plenty of value in a PC that is better suited to mopping up the henchmen, saving the innocent bystanders, freeing the hostages, sabotaging the nefarious machinery or keeping the macguffin away from the bad guys.

 

A better GM than you apparently encounter on the regular would create scenarios where every type of PC from Thor and Hulk to Black Widow and Hawkeye have a role to play and a share of the spotlight.

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.

On 10/21/2019 at 6:29 PM, Duke Bushido said:

Second thing I would like to suggest-- once you have a feel for the right "level" you should start at-- is to envision this as your starting point.    Even if you have to, for whatever reason, start out "less" than you planned to be, keep an eye on what you visualized originally.  Build _toward_ that goal: grow your character toward that original concept.

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.

On 10/17/2019 at 8:42 PM, BNakagawa said:

If you build your character exactly to the maximum parameters allowed by the campaign, then you may become dissatisfied with your inability to grow until the rest of the campaign catches up. Scale back a bit and leave your character some room to grow.

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.

On 9/7/2019 at 8:09 AM, Scott Ruggels said:

 

There was an issue of Spider-Man, dealing with a character's drug abuse. The comics code prohibited the depiction of the use of drugs. Stan Lee thought the story was important so he appealed. The appeal was denied, so he took the seal off the cover, and printed it anyway. The public didnt notice. The seal stayed up for a time but concurrently other publishers arose, like Pacific Comics (With titles like Groo The Wanderer, and John Sable Freelance), Eclipse Comics, and others that never bothered with the comics code. The code was an artifact of Newsstand distribution. With the shift of comics to comic shops, there was no longer a need for the code. 

 

Thanks Scott.  

On 9/7/2019 at 5:41 AM, Duke Bushido said:

The write up specifically says its a build to represent being missed using a mechanic (armor ) that does nothing until after you've been hit _and_ the damage has been rolled.

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.

On 9/4/2019 at 6:34 PM, Duke Bushido said:

"Combat Luck means it missed me!"

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.

On 9/5/2019 at 6:35 AM, Hugh Neilson said:

ecause the GM rubs the players' faces in the return of defeated foes because a tricky lawyer got a "not guilty" or Stronghold was nowhere near strong enough to hold them.  Because the Hero fires off a low-power Blast that plinks off the unknown villain's defenses, and that villain then fires a massive counterattack that Stuns the Super.  "HA HA - the press runs humiliating stories of your crushing defeat.  All your PRE attacks are -3d6 for the next month due to this negative press."  Because EVERY KO'd villain gets a recovery, gets back up and blasts the heroes in the back, so "screw honour and hit him one more time when he's down, just to be sure".

If that's how a GM deals with things like that then it's time to find a new GM.

On 9/5/2019 at 6:35 AM, Hugh Neilson said:

 

Looking at the source material, how often has MightyMan heard "Back off, buddy, or I'll shoot Nellie, here, in the head" [Nellie is Covered by Gunman] and thought "Hey, I'm virtually certain to win the DEX roll-off anyway, and even if I don't, a handgun can't do enough BOD to kill Nellie in one shot anyway, so my teammate with Healing powers can save her."?

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.

On 9/5/2019 at 6:35 AM, Hugh Neilson said:

Now, I would classify the hero doing something with no visible cues, that the attacker could in no way expect, as being a potential "distraction" that provides the potential for breaking cover.  Maybe that should require a Stealth roll, or an Acting roll, against the attacker's PER roll (with bonuses if the power he wants to use has Invisible Power Effects).  The attacker already took a penalty to OCV, hit anyway and delayed his damage.  It seems reasonable that this should not mean "no problem - the target can easily avoid the attack".

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.

On 9/5/2019 at 10:35 AM, Scott Ruggels said:

 

Bad GMing, or Genre Tropes, it's hard to tell, but I got so sick of this, especially the revolving door, that I just walked away from "Four Color Adventures" eventually, sticking with Spies and Mercenaries, and sliding comfortably into gritty, low magic, high politics, fantasy. Hero is just that flexible.  Most of those Genre tropes were artifacts of the Comics Code enforcing a moral certitude upon the publishers, before the government did. I had a philosophical opposition to the existence of the comics code, but it was there before I was born, and I only got interested in comics again after it was gone.

Wait . . . the comics code is gone? Or did it get replaced by the Governments Code? 

8 hours ago, Asperion said:

Is there a version that will allow one to create AIs, vehicles, or anything other than characters?

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.

On 7/17/2019 at 3:24 AM, Duke Bushido said:

They have to:

 

The shock and awe of such an astounding feat of mechanical engineering in action, preparing to kick the butts, is an overwhelming Presence Attack of unimaginable proportions.  It's easily--   _easily_! - - PRE + 100.

 

What else makes sense? 

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.

9 minutes ago, ScottishFox said:

You can't cover every edge case that every munchkin is going to try to use to break your mechanics.  Especially in a build-your-own-powers type of system.

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 . . .