Mentor

Re: Killing Attack idea OK, gotcha. You make a good point. Seems like poor character design on the part of the writers to me.

Re: Killing Attack idea How is a character whose schtick is built around being so fast as to not get shot, or not being seen, or being so tough that they heal quickly right after being shot, or using TK to make the projectile miss silly?

Re: Killing Attack idea Two points: 1. I like the general approach of making KA an advantage to a normal attack but I also am OK with BODY that penetrates generating lots of nasty STUN. KA should be dangerous and rare enough in some genres as to give second thoughts about using them for mere STUN lotto. Kill a normal or even a super without good reason and the legal, moral and psychological implications should be huge. 2. As Sean and others pointed out, too often resistant defenses are bought for a character based solely on the defensive efficiency and contrary to any reasonable character concept. The need for GMs to convince players that they will reward good character concept builds and good role playing is always important rather than only safe or efficient builds. Some heroes are just really tough without being made of rock or metal.

Re: 80 years we've waited for this Pretty much, yep. But when Roger Flashman gets enough XP, Uncle Bindley or someone is going to croak and get him 5 pts worth of wealth.

Re: Musings on Random Musings That would make a great beef commercial. "Every day is steak and blowjob day."

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Foo Fighters; "Times like These..." (acoustic)

Re: cslage's Brilliant Idea! Ooooh, I love the SFX ideas you guys are inspiring. The hero team probably won't though.

Re: Works Well in the Source Material, not so Well in the Game Love affairs between team members:Another staple of the genre that usually results in either bad roleplaying as neither player behaves in character or disruption of actual gaming while the players are trying to get lucky vicariously through their charcters. The results almost never have a positive game effect.

Re: Taming Absolutes Well, that clinches it, then. Automatons are too unbalanced and thus broken. But seriously, folks, the automaton rules do create a sort of interesting challenge for fisticuffs and force beam heavy genres if the defenses are not somehow balanced to allow the PCs some possibility of winning.

Re: Pulparize It! Repped for using the Dead End Kids. Absolutely excellent in period.

Re: Mechanics vs. SFX... Where is the line?

Re: The cranky thread In Civilization IV, you lose culture points for dicovering "My Humps".

Re: All Standard Effect HERO? I agree with Gary in that I do believe that an all standard effect system will skew PC design in the direction of the OCV caps and/or PD and ED caps. I like a little randomness and color of doubt. That being said, the concerns about potential abuse by players must always be dealt with the same way. GM control over character balance occasionaly requires tough decisions. The system should not be required to regulate the abuse potential because those limits often stifle creativity. OTOH, if a player insists on playing in a grossly unbalanced manner, ruining everyone else's fun, someone else probably needs his chair.

Re: 1905: The New Century Campaign Tarzan is probably my favorite fictional character of the early 20th century and my friends know it. So when there are mysterious doings on the West coast of Africa, the players in our campaign can be counted on to decide and take on the Yellow Claw in Macao or the Anaconda People in the deep Amazon rather than mess with the mysterious "jungle devil" and his hairy minions.

Re: Life Support: How much is "Intense"? While I could build a character which would survive Steve Long's (facetious, IMO) version of the sun, I don't think Galactus would be built on points at all. Galactus has typically been a plot device which forces Reed Richards to make the maximum effort with his INT to stymie or trick, rather than physically defeat. Maybe he does have 1.5 million points.

Re: Has HERO achieved maximum desirable complexity? Heh he. Historically accurate, but the fact remains that an experienced warrior type, say 7th to 10th level, getting killed by an arrow is nearly impossible.

Re: First time Hero buyer Welcome to Hero and these boards. Another take on the STR arguement is that most players want to play Hercules or Chewbacca or Spiderman, rather than Joe Average with realisticly consistent average strenghts based on the latest actuarial and sports records. Even relatively normal appearing fictional characters, such as James Bond, Indiana Jones, Robin Hood or Luke Skywalker perform feats which can only be described as legendary if not superhuman. Now I won't speak for everyone else, but I don't want to play a PC who is "average" or "nondescript". Let STR be cheap enough to be common for the heroic types and concentrate on the other abilities to decide what to spend the big bucks on. YMMV.

Re: What is HERO about? It would seem to me that to many if not most gamers, especially Hero gamers, that the purpose is to be part of the story rather than just tell the story. In an RPG setting, there is no controlled guarantee that the heroes will win or even come out OK. Some genres weigh the campaingn in that favor, but telling a story is still too distant a description for my view. Taking the beating as Spiderman or ndiana Jones is something that players try to prevent their players from doing rather than just accepting it as part of the tale.

Re: 1905: The New Century Campaign Correction. Tarzan was born in 1888 and is 17 years and ruling his part of West Africa. Don't do anything to make that lad get his fingers around your throat or teeth in your jugular.

Re: What is HERO about? Free will and the rewarding of the decisions and action of the players because of those decisions and vicariously through their characters. By eliminating some of the previous game conventions of alignment and character class, Hero allows most player characters to choose whether to be physical, mental and/or spiritual in their approaches to conflict. There are equally powerful and valid capabilities to convince, punch, blast or escape ones way out of a situation which are only paid lip servive in other systems.

Re: Life Support: How much is "Intense"? I suspect that the write up was a bit tongue in cheek. Ultimately it occured, because surviving in the the heart of the sun in most games should require massively appropriate SFX and concept backup and not buying a 45 ED Hardened Force Field and 15 Points of Flash Defense, which are the kinds of values strict exponential doubling could result in.

Re: Has HERO achieved maximum desirable complexity?

Re: 1905: The New Century Campaign Young Tarzan, Young Indiana Jones, Sherlock Holmes, Dracula, Jules Verne and H.G. Wells adventures and more get strangely crossed over from the Wold Newton universe in our campaign as well, although more as background than actual encounters...usually. Not quite Victorian and not quite Pulp while a bit of both. http://www.pjfarmer.com/secret/chron/chron/chron5-revised.htm

Re: Horror/Fantasy Sick Concept I gotta jump on the "Necromancy transcends mere mortal science" bandwagon and agree that it works if you want it to work.

Re: Life Support: How much is "Intense"? Bloody well right and repped. Who wants James Bond to die of exposure when Q supplied him with nuclear long johns. Save the danger for the bullets, explosions and esoteric bladed thingies rather than the weather, please.