DangerousDan

Re: Focus = Too Great a Price Break?

Where you gain from Standard effect is when you abuse it savagely with Killing Attacks that cut through normal defenses - again typical of what's wrong with Champions.

Killing attack combined with Standard effect rule? I know on only one GM who might allow it--if only for NPC monstrosities. Rant deleted. To my mind, any GM that permits a Standard Effect Killing Attack deserves a severe mocking, at the very least.

But that being said, I have no problem with the Killing attack's ability to cut through normal defenses. If this game mechanic is broken, it is simply because it reflects the same <broken?> mechanic in real life: if someone shoots you with a .38 special, it doesn't much matter whether you are naked or wearing a suit made of 5eR rulebooks. Similarly, padding that will protect you from a punch or a strike with a wooden stick isn’t going to protect you much from the slash of a broadsword. (Although a suit of 5eR rulebooks probably would, given that they'd stop a bayonet charge)

The "Stun Lottery" effect of killing attacks is a separate subject in my mind.

If you are a GM, you are free to rule that there are no Killing Attacks, but my prediction is, that if the Hero System makes it to a sixth edition, Killing Attacks will remain (nearly) unchanged.

Re: Focus = Too Great a Price Break?

I happen to like the Hero two roll system. I was simply observing that an official single roll variant essentially already exists within the confines of the current rules. And while there are some aspects of the combat system I'm not enamoured of (The Stun Lottery being top of my list)' date=' overall it's a pretty decent system. A streamlined way for new players to calculate BODY and Stun damage would be nice, but I've helped speed up that issue by using a die rolling program on my PDA.[/quote']

 

The best I've seen, for Normal BODY damage is "How many dice? add the number of sixes you rolled. subtract the number of ones. Thats how much body you did." Of course, I'd like to teach some of our younger players to group the dice by sums of ten and then simply count the groups and then tack on the sum of the leftovers.

 

Then there is the Hero three roll system: hit, location, damage.

 

This is still nicer than some of the systems I've seen in the past: "roll Okay, you hit, roll he blocked, but some of it got through, roll. Alright then, where did you hit him? roll that's in the ..., okay now roll for penetration, roll, and damage, roll, and stun, roll, and ..."

Okay, maybe it wasn't that bad, but I've got friends with dice that have noticable wear on the edges, and they've got twenty-sided dice that are nearly spherical.

 

Then there is the other extreme: GM rolls, "Okay, the dragon hit with his breath weapon, you're all dead."

 

I have yet to see a one-roll system that I'd even tolerate, much less like.

Re: Focus = Too Great a Price Break?

My PC was caught out of his Power Armor by European neo nazis, who were armed with automatic weapons. As he couldn't possibly beat them, he was captured and taken to a ship to be incarcerated, whereupon he used his skills based on his Secret ID as a billionaire playbo to negotiate the unusual sections of the ship, put on the scuba gear in the secret diving chamber and swim back to the mansion. When he donned his armor and returned to the fjord where the ship had been, it was gone. There were enough clues to what the mastermind villain was after and the experience ultimately openned up a new campaign arc.

 

At no time did I feel screwed as a player or character, even though Cyberknight never fougt and his alter ego, Dr. Erik Thorssen was captured without a shot being fired.

Then there was that recent adventure, in Paris, where Cyberknight's Armor got turned off by the Villains' megascaled anti-technology spell, and he didn't even make it to the fight scene, ... Of course, that same adventure had several of the PCs depriving unconscious henchmen of all of their foci (thus preventing them from rejoining the fight when they woke up) before proceeding to assist the rest of the team to deprive the Big Bad of his OIF Independant foci, which not only continue to be unavailable, but were deliberately broken in order to turn them off before the supers admitted victory.

I also ran an adventure which Cyberknight and entire our team participated in where the bad guy had cast a magic spell over Manhattan Island which slowly destroyed technology (among other even nastier effects). The more sophisticated the tech' date=' the faster it failed. Guess whose powered armor is "bleeding edge" technology? [/quote']

I, as the GM of the Paris game, was unaware of this bit of history until after the Paris game was over.

 

There is a reason I try to avoid having my PCs rely on focus-based powers, and that reason is that the price break isn't big enough for the trouble it can cause. When you lose a focus, it tends to stay lost for the rest of the fight, and quite possibly longer than that.

Re: Idle Scalability Notion

It was intended as a wry jest.

 

As a long-time hero gm I've evolved my own method of dealing with character advancement (and character design). I don't set how many characters are based on, instead, I ask players to give me a detailed character description, and I build the character (which we tweak together). Its not uncommon for a heroic character I build to weigh in around 200 points. They get a solid character out of the starting gate. Then, as the game progresses, I hand out changes to the character sheet (perks they've earned, contacts they've made, things they've learned, skills they've used in game and improved). Its experience, but its not random spend it on anything experience. If the player wants to develop their character in a specific direction I keep it clearly in mind, and can often use it as the basis for a subplot, or occassionally, a major adventure.

 

I've found this creates organic advancement that keeps the characters recognizable, forces the players to actually consider development in a serious way, slows linear advancement that would otherwise blow game balance out of the water (most players wouldn't think to pick up a point in a language or an area knowledge when there are more and more and more combat skill levels to be had), and avoids "weird buys" (i.e., those things that make no sense outside the context of player whim: "Bob, why does Conan the mundane loving barbarian have a magic skill roll of 13- and a shortlist of spells? He didn't the last time I saw him." "Well, Dave, you see, I had some XPs saved up and I really felt a fireball would come in handy...").

 

My players have never complained.

In one of the gaming groups I play in, there is a quote in a similar vein: "Can anyone explain why does Leopard-Girl have wings?" Since everyone is aware of the weird buy problem, it rarely happens. Almost all of the weird buying occurs when a character is first created. It may be simply that I've been lucky, but In the groups I play in, acquisition of language skills, background skills, professional skills and the like is quite common, for characters in 150 cp fantasy, 150 cp science-fiction, 250 cp superhero and even 350 cp superhero campaigns. And in any of these groups, if the GM said, "I'll make your characters for you..."

Well, we've got plenty of other GMs, so that just isn't going to happen. Assigned experience is fine and well, and no one objects to it, but if it were the sole method of character development, I and most of the other players I know would consider it insulting. They might complain, and if the GM disregarded their complaints, he could very easily find himself watching someone else GMing a game when he was scheduled to.

A GM has the power to control what happens in the game, but the players have the power to control whether the GM gets to run a game at all. It is a nicely self-balancing system if everyone understands this.

Re: Why can't Teleport do the Move attacks?

I think people are only considering the +1/2 modifier for Autofire on Teleport. That is incorrect. Remember' date=' there is an additional +1 modifier for applying Teleport to a non-standard attack power (EB, HA, RKA, HKA) with the only exception being Change Environment....[/quote']

 

Did you by any chance, mean "there is an additional +1 modifier for applying Autofire to a non-standard attack power..."

Re: Space & Time or Hexs & Segments

Time/Segment I just can not get behind the idea of a Segment being one second with all the things the game allows us to do in a single Segment "example- Load and fire a crossbow" ' date=' it's just that even with normal human limits the things we can do in one round seems insane. I think 1 Segment should = at least 5 seconds. Has anyone tried different time rules in their games and if so how did it work out.[/quote']

 

It appears to me that you may be bothered by the ability to load and fire a crossbow in a single phase.

In real life, the best crossbowman could easily need more than twenty seconds to unwind his windlass, attach it to the crossbow, crank it up to cock the bow, disconnect the windlass, put a bolt on the crossbow, point it at the target and pull the trigger.

In the same amount of time, even the worst archer could get off several shots with a bow and arrows. However, the archer might have spent years of practice learning to aim his bow as accurately as the crossbowman could on the day he first held a crossbow.

 

In the game, a given number of character points will give you the same accuracy with either weapon, and according to the Ranged Muscle-Powered Weapons table in the Hero System 5th Ed rulebook (often called "the FRED" by people I know), the crossbow requires 1 extra phase to load and fire, so even if you are a speed 12, it takes you a full two seconds to fire a crossbow, or about 8 if you are only speed 3.

 

This isn't an accurate simulation of reality, but it is close enough to play games with. I've seen much worse. I've played in game systems that could simulate a minute-long fight between two individuals in as little as four or five hours and other systems that could take as much as a few seconds and a couple of die rolls. Neither of those extremes was much fun.

 

If the rules were accurate enough to simulate reality, they'd be so complicated that no one could live long enough to read them all, much less understand them. So be thankful that the rules aren't accurate, or your 350+ page rule-book would be closer to 350 million pages.

Re: Languages

And I would also bow down to any person who can teleport 1" more easily than he can learn Japanese. Ease or difficulty isn't the issue. Utility is the issue.

I thank god I wasn't drinking anything when I read this...

Re: Fiddling With 6th - Skills (first of ??)

I don't like the quick jump from 8- to 11- (or 12- if you know what you're doing with your points); a jump from 25.9% to 62.5% (or 74.1%). There's no granularity' date=' just a quick jump from a one in four shot to a two in three (or three in four). And with no skill levels adding to Familiarities, there's really no way to make a mild lift on your own.[/quote']

I've got to agree with you here. It is even worse for a skill that belongs to a skill enhancer, where 1 cp can jump the character from 0% to 62.5% chance of success. I see only two ways around this, neither of which I particularly like:

1) spend the extra point, but add a -0 limitation: limited to 9- or 10- (this at least works within the existing system) In a series I am currently running, a PC has recently acquired a SS:Alien biology at an 8-. Every few sessions, as she continues to study the alien life forms, it will go up by one. Only after it gets to 11- (1 cp with Scientist) will I allow the player to add XP to that particular skill.

2) use fractional XP: 1cp = 8-, 1½ = 9-, 2 = 11- (this invents a new mechanic, and is totally useless for skills that fall under an enhancer)

 

I wish that you could add Skill Levels to Cramming. I'd be willing to buy Skill Levels that only added to Cramming' date=' if I could do it. And I know I [i']can[/i] do it, in my own games at least; I mean it makes no sense to me that you can't in general. Wait, I take that back; I do see the desire to prevent the PC from studying for several hours and becoming a Nobel prize-winning whatever, but let's be honest, any number of things left lying around in FREd could blow your campaign to flinders if you're not careful.

With some of the groups I game with, we use a house rule that allows you to use Overall levels (but nothing less) with Cramming. This was strictly illegal at least as far back as 4th ed and remains illegal in reFRED, but hey, its not like the rules police are going to come to your game and arrest you, is it?

 

So. I have thrown down the gauntlet. Does anyone have anything to add?

It really bothers me that a game system that seems to work so hard to permit almost any character concept works so hard to make it illegal under any circumstances whatsoever to build a character that is merely competent at every known skill. The third character I ever created is a 3500 year old werewolf who's been there, done that. On the first draft, skills alone cost over 600 cp, and that was with skill enhancers shaving a few hundred points off the cost. If you added up all of the experience ever awarded and applied it only to buying skills at 3cp each, I'm sure that at least one of the players you took those points from could say, "He doesn't know how to ____" But under the 5th ed rules, I can build (and have built) a character for far fewer points that can not only kill almost everyone in a moderately large cluster of galaxies, but leave an empty hole in the sky where the galaxies used to be. Of course, the character would only use this power if is was absolutely necessary.

 

I know that I'm , but a game system in which one can build an character that has the power to eliminate a large portion of the observable universe really ought to have a mechanism to permit cramming to at least a 9-. Of course, any mechanism to exceed the 8- limit on cramming is subject to abuse. But really, how much worse can it be than killling you and obliterating your entire galaxy?

Re: Do Lower Powered Player Characters Lead To More Roleplaying?

I have to disagree with you here' date=' at least based on my experience. Maybe I have just had bad gamers (or should I say different style?) but their response to unstoppable killing machines was to become unstoppable killing machines and if they could not, they whined that I was a killer GM.[/quote']

 

I have to agree with this. The GM does set the tone of the game. If the GM fills the stage with unstoppable killing machines, the probability that the characters will turn gentle and contemplative is sub-atomically small.

 

Personally, I like to see the PCs mop the floor with the opposition. Not always, granted, but they always seem to get a big smile when they do get to flex thier muscles.

 

I prefer to make them work for it: flex their brains as well as their muscles. Some months ago, in an adventure set in Paris, the team of superheros faced an array of villains bent on turning off technology for the entire world. The team had to separate in order to foil the henchmen and deprive them of their foci before taking on the mastermind. Due to the prophecies written by someone far less cryptic than that hack Nostradamas, the PCs had some idea what they were up against. I let the players decide who would would face what villain and looked forward to seeing what happened. Some match-ups would be much harder on PCs than others. More than once, I heard a player say "there's no way we can handle this." But they did find ways, and they did prevent a dark age from being forced upon the world. When the last villain had escaped, every single technology draining crystal remained in the heros' control. When they'd done enough damage to turn off the powers, and the lights slowly started coming back on in Paris, they knew that they had earned every bit of the experience I awarded them. Everyone is looking forward to the next thing that I throw at them.

Re: Idle Scalability Notion

I'm still shocked people give out experience.

Not all GMs do. But its part of their Job. If they don't do it, the players just might.

Some of the GMs I game with had their earliest experiences as players with GMs who were quite fond of killing off characters. Those GMs didn't give a whole lot of experience. What would be the point? Why bother allowing the player to improve a character who's only purpose is to die in an interesting manner?

The GMs I know who learned gaming under such twisted GMs are usually quite good about making the game interesting, and fortunately not so obsessed with killing off PCs, but they tend to forget to think about XP, although they are typically willing to think about (and give out) XP if the players nudge them.

I and some of the other GMs in the groups that I play in came from origins where the GM's focus was on having a fun, interactive fantasy, and having the characters develop over time was a fundamental part of that process. A rare, but not unknown phenomena is for a character to become less fun to play after experience.

I've only been playing with the Hero System for a few years now, and all of the experience accumulated by all of my characters combined would barely serve to fill the gap between the 250 cp starting point and the points needed to implement the starting concept of my third Hero character.

Why the third and not the first or second?

#1 didn't survive to his DEX rank in phase 12, which was something of a shock to everyone. Strangely enough, I never did play in that campaign again, but I do play in a (different) campaign with that GM. We both learned from the experience.

#2 survived and developed, but the campaign was a casualty of real-world events.

#3 started as a backup character in case the GM did a #1 on #2