DangerousDan

I've read the UMA section on Power Advantages for Martial Arts. I'm sure that I understand how to combine the character's STR, martial DC and the maneuver itself to calculate a Naked Advantage. All is well until the character tries to use an Advantaged Martial Maneuver with a weapon in hand. It appears to me that in order to use a naked advantage on a martial maneuver using a weapon, I should account for the DC of the weapon in the base for the naked advantage. Am I right, or do I get to use a weapon for free? Or is there some non-obvious third option.

Re: Feints The gods (Steve Long, et al) agree with you: P116 of the Ultimate Martial Artist describes how the GM can let Sleight of Hand be used to perform feints: +1 OCV for every 2 points the roll exceeds up to +3, with a -2 penalty for each time you've tried this against that opponent. Failure gets you -2 OCV. Also on p127 of the UMA, descriptions of how to build a feint as limited Drain DEX or Images are also listed. The UMA has lots of other nifty stuff too.

Re: Alternatives to 3d6 on 3D6, you roll a three 0.463% of the time. On 6D6/2, a 3 comes up only 0.002% of the time, and even a 5 or less (5, 4.5, 4, 3.5 or 3) comes up only 0.45% of the time. Near the middle of the rolls, things are not quite so wonky. 3D6 3d6/2 Roll prob cumulative cumulative 3 0.463 0.463 0.002 4 1.389 1.852 0.06 5 2.778 4.63 0.45 6 4.63 9.259 1.968 7 6.944 16.204 6.076 8 9.722 25.926 14.463 9 11.574 37.5 27.939 10 12.5 50 45.358 11 12.5 62.5 63.69 12 11.574 74.074 79.415 13 9.722 83.796 90.353 14 6.944 90.741 96.412 15 4.63 95.37 99.01 16 2.778 98.148 99.82 17 1.389 99.537 99.985 18 0.463 100 100 As for 3d8, 3d10 and even 3d100, the attached charts may shed further darkness on the topic. One chart simply shows the frequency of die rolls for various sets of dice. The second shows the same graphs with their scales all set to have the same width and height.

Re: Alternatives to 3d6 You woke up a few brain cells that have been asleep for a few years. I thought that I'd check this out. I took the standard 3d6 distribution and a 6d6/2, with adjacent 'bins' added together (p(3) + p(3.5)) and graphed that. You are right, and I'm wrong. 6d6/2 does narrow the graph. See attached graph (if I actually manage to attach the graph)

Re: HERO system observations and beefs I must be in that same minority. I find books like Fantasy Hero, The Bestiary and The UNTIL Superpowers Database interesting because there are little bits that I can yank out and place in the game of the day. Back in the day before there was an 'A' in front of D&D, I considered Modules to be a nearly complete waste of paper and ink. The best ones I ever borrowed could supply me with a 3x5 card's worth of useful ideas. A pack of blank 3x5 cards is a much better buy, for me. A book that is going to set out a full environment or setting is next to useless to me: it is not my universe, and never will be. For those who are looking for a fully populated prefabricated scene to GM with, I wish all the luck in the world, and hope that they find something they really like. No, you're a gamer. That makes you weird.

Re: Is Hero Fantasy for me? Like any good RPG, it depends on the circumstances of the GM, the Players and what they choose to throw at each other. In general, however, combat characters will tend to do more damage and take less damage in combat than characters built for things other than combat. It is difficult to build a character that is better in combat than a combat based character. It is typically much easier if the GM is your boyfriend/girlfriend. If the GM is doing his/her job, there will be things that the spell slinger has a better chance of handling than the combat characters, and vice-versa.

Re: How do I build Fear? If you build it as a Change Environment or an Area Effect mental power, you roll your attack against the area not who's in it. Of course, if it is a zero range attack, the roll is an attack against a 0 CV, so you won't be missing often.

Re: Biggest whine about HERO You are not the only one. I've got a character with between 8 and 16 PD, only 3 of which is resistant, plus 50% RDR. It isn't very hard to make him bleed, but it is kind of hard to stun him. And, since he's a Lycanthrope with 3 regeneration per turn, the bleeding isn't much of a problem. The only reason he has any resistant PD/ED at all is to allow his PD and ED to work against the stun of Killing Attacks. Bleeding is not something to be avoided at all costs--it is merely part of the job.

Re: Passing Strike (martial maneuver) Unbalanced? Many of the GMs and players that I know consider Passing anything to be unbalanced, and relegate them all to where they originated: the Martial Arts campaign, where hardly anyone had either 50 STR or 30" of movement, much less both. And, since no one I know actually runs a Martial arts-based campaign, we don't have a lot of problems with Passing attacks unbalancing the game. You did the right thing when you decided not to play the character with that over-powerful attack. Just because something is legal and can be done, doesn't mean that it should be done.

Re: Reality check time: so what about the players' feelings? In the circles I play in, almost all of the house rules are those that have been agreed on by players in the past. In other words, the GMs know that the players have agreed to the house rules in advance. This prevents a lot of problems. Almost all of them, in fact. There are a lot more ill feelings about things that are actually legal (or nearly legal), but just plain wrong.

Re: Biggest whine about HERO Ayup! OTOH, some players see the Killing Attack with a big stun multiplier as a way of having a chance at having an impact on a GM's creation that is otherwise impervious (0 BODY, 0 STUN) to the character's biggest attack. The One-Hex-Accurate advantage is similarly a method for a character to have a chance at hurting the GM's "Invulnerable due to much higher CV" monster. Some GMs (and I do not mean Trebuchet or Mentor) deserve players with One-Hex-Accurate (Large) Killing Attacks.

Re: Alternatives to 3d6 I once ran a game (not Hero, and only very distantly related to D&D) where the typical die rolls were 3D20. The curve was smoother, but totaling the dice took longer. If I'd realized it would make that much difference, I'd have limited myself to 3D10 or 4D10. And then, there is the sage comment by the Von D-Man: No, It would be much worse than that, because with one single change, you've made increasing the roll on skills more expensive relative to everything else, and now you have to recost Perks, Talents, Powers. How much is a 14- activation roll worth now? Or Requires a Skill Roll? You've just changed the active point penalty on RSR: 10 Active points makes a smaller difference in the RSR die roll. Becha hadn't expected that. This is why I must agree with Von D-Man's comment. Actually, I'm fairly sure that you get a bell curve if you have at least three dice, and they don't even have to be the same size: 1D4 +1D6 + 1D8 + 1D10 + 1D12 + 1D20 gives you a decent curve, and possibly headaches too. 6D6 also gives you a bell curve. One billion D6 still gives you a bell curve, but it takes months to count up the total, and a really big dump-truck to roll the dice. What you could do (but I'd bet that you won't) is make skill rolls (6d6)/2 (without rounding which makes the bell curve finer grained, without changing its shape) and figuring out a way to charge for half-points of skill.

Re: Best way to Build Cap's Shield? Could you perhaps be thinking of a Constant power? An instant power is just that, instant. It is on, then it is off. Nothing wrong with that scenario. Focus-Maker uses his knowledge of the mystic arts to activate the foci through spells, which he then passes out to his team-mates. Later, he is knocked unconscious, and no longer able to keep the spells active. The foci turn off. Now if the devices that GunSmith hands out do the same thing--that is an error in construction, and GunSmith's player needs a tune-up.

Re: Best way to Build Cap's Shield?

Re: Focus = Too Great a Price Break? The "identical character" suggestion was said with tongue planted so firmly in cheek that I'm lucky I didn't poke a hole. My view is that having differing abilities from the beginning supports differentiation through personality, and thus role-play as well. On a slightly different tangent, I sometimes miss the randomly generated element of (A)D&D. Sometimes you played a character you hadn't planned on having, and that had some role-playing aspects. You discovered who the character was from what it could do. With the Hero System, that doesn't happen so much. You hardly ever get surprised by the abilities your character has. You can only be surprised that you could afford all that you had planned.

Re: Best way to Build Cap's Shield? The points aren't gone, they just belong to whoever holds the focus. If the StupidHero GunBoy builds a normal OAF multi-function gun and looses it in a fight, and SmartBadGuy picks it up and uses it against him in that fight, he (SmartBadGuy) doesn't have to spend XP at that time. If he wants to continue using GunBoy's weapon, he then has to pay the XP for it. I think we're all agreed at this point. But if GunBoy builds the OAF multi-function gun as an Independent, and SmartBadGuy picks it up, SmartBadGuy gets to keep using it session after session, until somehow he looses control of it. Whoever it ends up with then gets to use it over and over again. Nobody ever again needs to pay XP to use that gun, because StupidHero GunBoy did it for them. They only need to retain possession. The points have already been paid by GunBoy. Even GunBoy can use the gun if it ever falls back into his hands. At that point he is right back where he started, except that he's gone without gun for as long as it took to get it back. (and he's probably had the gun used against him or his team-mates more than once) OTOH, if while SmartBadGuy still has the gun, GunBoy's ally, ReallyAccurateEnergyBeamer shoots the gun out of SmartBadGuy's hand with a 5d6K RKA and turns the gun to slag, the points really are gone, and GunBoy should consider changing his name to GunLess.

Re: Best way to Build Cap's Shield? A 'normal' can take a sword and use it, and if the sword is Independant, they shouldn't <IMHO> be penalized for failing to have the appropriate Weapon Familiarity. But even so, someone with a few HTH or sword-specific combat skill levels would be better at using the sword than a 'normal' without them. I think that this was Ki-rin's point. Independant grants anyone the ability to use an item, but it doesn't grant them the CV of the original owner of the Independant item.

Re: Best way to Build Cap's Shield? Agreed. By definition, your arms are restrainable. You don't get to apply "Restrainable" to a power just because it is hand-held.

Re: Best way to Build Cap's Shield? The rulebook even states, as part of an example of independant: "The wizard can't use the Power again unless he finds the wand or makes a new one" (5thEd, p193, first column, bottom half of third paragraph) In the version of English that I'm familiar with, that indicates that recovery of a lost, or even stolen Independant focus is possible. Now if the shield is destroyed, broken, dispelled, (bent, folded, spindled, or mutilated) or otherwise rendered inoperative, the Character points spent on it are lost forever. If the shield, however, is merely lost or stolen, it continues to exist. However, whoever happens to have it in their possession gets the use of the shield's benefits. "...any (emphasis is mine, but the word is in the book) other character can use an Independent Power..." (same book, page, column, but 1st paragraph) If the GM always chooses to interpret "lost" as "lost without any possiblity of ever finding it again" and "stolen" as "stolen in a way that there is no possibility that the item can ever be recovered," and the players don't find this odd... there is a possibility that they (the players) are spineless doormats, and the GM goes out of its way to torment them whenever possible. "Excuse me, Captain Caped Crusader?" "Yes Generic Superhero Sidekick?" "I forgot where I parked the Crusader Van." "Aw fooey, Now we have to get another one. Again. We'll be back to chasing down all the SuperVillains on foot for another six months." If the lost or stolen Independent Power ever returns (undestroyed) to the original owner's hands, that original owner may resume using the power. Neither having the Independent Power lost or stolen, nor having it found or recovered causes the Independent Power to cease to exist. Interpreting Lost=Destroyed denies other characters the ability to use an Independent Power, which the Independent rule explicitly permits.

Re: Best way to Build Cap's Shield?

Re: Focus = Too Great a Price Break?

Re: Best way to Build Cap's Shield?

Re: Quick Enraged Questions

Re: Focus = Too Great a Price Break? You did your job too quickly for the second power of Bloody Brassy's devices to have a significant effect. All nuclear power-plants were to have their energies converted to strengthen the overall magical field. If you'd taken long enough for that field to hit its first running nuke, Le Mage, Dorian, Prodigy, as well as all conscious members of the other team would have all gotten a boost. Le Mage and Dorian had discovered this part of the plan when you had all the crystals together. Brassy at least had no interest in empowering anyone who was not yet a student of the art--the sheep and the cattle were to remain as such. -- this, you'd get from Prodigy. That does not surprise me a bit. I see it as a focus, and therefore describe it as such, even though it involves one of my least favorite limitations. Sigh

Re: Focus = Too Great a Price Break? Well, that is still quite a step up from 2e D&D, where, say, two thieves of equal Level and DEX were virtually interchangeable. Back then, the only good D&D games were those which ran more on house rules than book rules. Long before 2e came out, when I GMd, it was with 100% house rules. Some of my players called it "Dragon Poker," but I had another name for it.