randian

Re: Why would I want an Accurate AoE?

I think it's more of a SPFX thing. Plus' date=' you can target someone without hitting anyone else nearby, unlike a 1-2m area of effect.[/quote']

Besides grappling (a hostage situation is essentially a grapple) and tiny Shrunk characters, when do characters ever share space with each other for rules purposes? Even characters in HtH combat are not considered to be in the same space in Hero unless you're using house rules (this is a very common house rule).

Re: 6E books question... bit confused on what to buy...

APG brought back at least 1 thing from 4E that was dropped in 5E (Piercing), though it's both better and worse compared to its 4E incarnation.

The wording of 6E1 320 implies I still have to hit DCV 3, just like a regular AoE. Note it says "automatically targets", not "automatically hits", which would actually have been useful. It affects but a single target, but then a 1m or 2m radius AoE is unlikely to have more than 1 target. Characters cannot Dodge or Block an Accurate attack, but you can Dive for Cover to avoid one. To repeat myself, just like a regular AoE. Indeed, it seems to add nothing whatsoever for its intended use (AoE attacks with tiny area). Help me out, why pay for it?

Re: How would you cost this VPP limitation

...I'm lacking an understanding of what you're trying to do here.

You can't take limitations on powers in your VPP. What limitation on the control cost would you give.

One of the great features of VPPs is the ability to take limitations on powers to get the maximum out of the available pool of points. It offers tremendous flexibility. Taking Increased Endurance at the beginning of a combat and dropping it later is a popular tactic, for example. What do you think this limitation on the control cost is worth: you can only take limitations on your powers that are mandated by rule. For example, the 1/4 limitation on Hand Attack. Otherwise, real cost = active cost.

From another post you make it clear that Impenetrable and Hardened apply to each defense power separately. That is, you can Harden your PD (and must make all of it Hardened by rule), but you need not also Harden your Resistant Protection (or vice versa), even though both powers sum together when figuring your total Physical Defense.

If such a character is struck by a Penetrating attack whose minimum effect exceeds their Impenetrable defense, does the character:

1) Take minimum damage in the amount of such excess

2) Ignore the "minimum damage" rule entirely as 6E1 147 & 342 appear to imply

Re: Any 6th edition Spreadsheets?

It does -- it will work on any system that has Java6 (or better).

Ah. I remember when it was Windows-only and hadn't paid attention since. Are there any screenshots of the app? I see there's no trial version of it.

Re: Any 6th edition Spreadsheets?

If you want a character builder' date=' buy the Hero Designer from the online store.[/quote']

I'd buy it if it worked on a Mac.

As the title says.

Re: What do you think of Endurance Reserve in 6E?

I would also rule that you can't have a 10 DCV against everyone but the guy trying to lay a hand on you to boost your STR...

That would be a house rule. Page 167, Using Aid: "If the target’s willing to be affected by the Aid, including when the character uses his Aid on himself, the Attack Roll succeeds automatically"

Re: Combat with all the switches turned on

Who doesn't play a supers game with knockback?

We've always used hit locations in "normals" games (where the PCs are normal humans rather than superheroes). I've played in Champions games with hit locations, it's not a huge change but the variance can really alter the end result of combats. An inopportune hit to a hand or head can really ruin your day, be you villain or hero. With the right character concept we'd let you buy No Hit Locations for double cost (20 points).

I've never used Wounding, Disabling, or Limb Loss. It's annoying to keep track of between games and punitive to players.

Criticals are meaningless when you have hit locations, any hit to 3-5,13 is effectively a critical hit anyway.

Re: Looking for info on OOP products

It turns out The Golden Age of Champions doesn't have an ISBN or Stock #. Champions 3E came out in 1984, GAoC in 1985, that's why I assumed GAoC was 3E material.

Assuming nothing has an ISBN (including Mystic Menaces with its placeholder ISBN), the only info I'm now missing is:

Stock/Item #:

Haunted Heroes

The Super Mage Bestiary

MSRPs:

Bright Future

Haunted Heroes

The Super Mage Bestiary

Unknown Eagles

Re: Looking for info on OOP products

There's a tag (from Noble Knight--where I bought it several years ago)' date=' and I paid $17.95 (new) for it, though I don't know if that was the original price.[/quote']

If I have correct info, sounds like you got a small discount: list was $19.95 for Broken Kingdoms.

Re: Looking for info on OOP products

Fair enough. Do you have a stock/item # for Super Mage Bestiary or Haunted Heroes? Mystic Menaces has an ISBN, but the last three numbers in the PDF are ??-?, like some sort of placeholder. Plus it's 5E, and the rest of the 5E stuff have real ISBNs.

The numbering is weird too. Your ad has Unknown Eagles as HPA1011 and PRIMUS as HPA1010. Another source I looked up (a link from here no less) has Unknown Eagles as HP012, PRIMUS as HP011, Broken Kingdoms as HP010, and reserves the HPA prefix for Pulp Hero adventures. Btw, what list price is shown for Unknown Eagles and Bright Future?

Again, thanks for looking this stuff up.

Re: Looking for info on OOP products

After making copies to numerous desktops, laptops, and backup drives, including successors thereto, and not having had a floppy drive for years, keeping the original package seemed superfluous at the time. I appreciate your efforts.

In a fit of Bookpedia induced OCD, I'm looking for ISBNs, MSRPs, and Stock Numbers for some of the old Hero stuff I own, mostly Hero Plus PDFs. I've lost the original info and the PDFs aren't telling. None of them seem to have ISBNs, for example. I don't know if Hero Plus ever used ISBNs.

I've attached a PDF list. What's missing should be reasonably obvious. I'd appreciate any help you can give.

That "The Golden Age of Champions" on the list is the first, third edition one from Firebird, not the fourth edition redo from Hero. Getting at least an ISBN goes a long way towards finding one.

Re: No more Figured Characteristics?!

Then again ... I DID make this character back in the day:

 

http://members.dslextreme.com/users/rogermw/champions/OECV_woman.html

Is this the whole character? With no powers that OECV isn't so impressive.

27 OECV seems wasteful. 15 OECV would probably have been sufficient to hit on a 17-.

Re: No more Figured Characteristics?!

Games with strict limits tend to regulate CV pretty heavily as well. The whole game has to be considered in setting limits. If you set a cap on defenses, and anyone from a 3 to a 13 DCV can have the same defenses, everyone will buy the maximum defenses and a 13 DCV.

You'd be surprised at the number of GMs I've seen make that mistake.

As to Move Throughs, the prior editions' low DCV classic Brick was the Growth character. That max velocity move through doesn't seem as shrewd a maneuver when the high STR target has Braced to reduce knockback, and the move through results in both attacker and defender taking full damage, with the defender also being Stunned due to his lower CON and defenses. Also, if low DCV is that ounitive, the -3 suffered from the move through will also not be welcome.

I usually didn't see the speedsters do full-velocity move-throughs, since as you say they couldn't take it. It was the bricks, who didn't have enough OCV to hit at full velocity (superleap usually) against a normal target. A 30" leap is -6 OCV and +10d6. Enough to brake the brace but not enough to reliably hit a 6 or 7 DCV target. Even a 4 DCV target is ~50/50 (assuming 9 or 10 OCV). Make them 2 or even 0 DCV because they've started at 3 changes the game. Still, the game is not static and the defender will adjust to the change in conditions just as much as the attacker.

Because putting it on damage may let you stun the target, especially if he has superior defenses as justified by his low DCV. Classic martial artists and speedsters are hard to hit and easy to hurt. Why can't we simulate the classic Brick who is easy to hit but hard to hurt.

Ok. Works for me.

Re: No more Figured Characteristics?!

I had hoped to see this kind of re-thinking in the initial sample characters, and play through the 6e published character builds, but no such luck so far.

The 3-DCV brick can't work in games with strict limits. You will be the inevitable target of maximum-velocity move-throughs (the OCV penalty doesn't matter much when the target has 3 DCV) and every level your opponent has will be on damage. It's even worse now that any kind of damage can be boosted with levels, not just regular physical and energy. You have to have well above average defenses to survive.

Generally, they had lower OCV because maneuvers enhanced DCV, but the requisite high DEX required a high base OCV anyway. I see a lot use their levels to avoid being hit, rather than to enhance their own chances of hitting - and why not when you have more phases and lower defenses.

If you're going to hit anyway, why not put everything on DCV?

I don't understand your concern about CV "compression". A 3 OCV hits a 4 DCV just as often as a 13 OCV hits a 14 DCV - 50%.

The cost of having a large CV gap went up. I see it likely players will accept smaller gaps and greater homogenization of CV rather than pay up.

I rarely see levels used for damage either, but if the 3 DCV Brick has a high enough OCV to hit reliably, why not use those levels to hit harder, rather than to move from a 15- to hit to a 21- to hit? Putting them in DCV won't help him much if he gets hit on 7- instead of 1-.

Brick vs Brick combats are going to be brutal.

I think levels are priced a bit high (10 points for +1 OCV or +1 DCV when you can have +1 OCV and +1 DCV for the same cost is out there), but a Multipower of +4 OCV and +4 DCV, all Flex slots, would cost 28 points (7 per level) without factoring in the ability to add damage or mental CV's.

That's a great idea, especially for a HtH character. Add a STR or HA slot to simulate "levels on damage" and you're good to go. A DMCV slot would be nice too. I'm not sure how many abilities you can add before the cost of the Flex slots starts killing you, but it makes for great combat flexibility.

Re: No more Figured Characteristics?!

This will probably lead to a lot of characters with huge amounts of one but hardly any of the other.

With CVs lower generally, what in your mind constitutes a huge disparity between OCV and DCV in 6e?

Nobody built low-Dex bricks with lots of cheap 3-point levels for OCV in your 4/5e games? Or even 2-point levels for the punching brick? That seemed like a natural build concept to me. Low is relative, of course: 18-20 Dex. In 6e, I expect to see a lot of 8-Dex, 3-DCV bricks with nothing but OCV or 3-point CSLs.

I don't think I've ever seen a low OCV martial artist, though their DCV was naturally significantly higher than their OCV.

(I'm guessing it'll also increase the use of Combat Skill Levels.)

I doubt it. If you thought combat levels were overpriced in 4/5e, that goes double for 6e. With the compression of CV generally in 6e, combined with the extra cost of paying for formerly figured characteristics, spending 10 points on an all-combat level vs 5 points for 1 CV makes for an easy decision in favor of straight CV. The damage feature of CSLs is rarely used in my experience, and lower overall CV makes each point of it more precious and not to be wasted on damage.

Re: HERO System Martial Arts

Every other PDF is colorful while HSMA is just black and white. I imagine the cover was not put on to make it smaller' date=' but for me I rather have the extra size and a nice colorful cover.[/quote']

I second this motion.

Re: HERO System Martial Arts

The new' date=' smaller version of the PDF is up. From 47.9 MB to 16.6 MB. Great Job to both bunneh and Jason for fixing it so quickly.[/quote']

Any chance of getting the bigger version? PDF compression always comes at a price (visibly downgraded image quality, especially when viewed at higher magnification) and hard disk space is obscenely cheap these days.

Re: Hero Dice ...collector's item, but still in demand.

How was the quality on these dice? I hate the cheaper dice: their density is too low (no heft) and they have sharp rather than rounded edges, so they don't roll right. Plus, their "pips" wear off in no time.

Print versions of otherwise B&W titles have them, the preview images in the Hero Store are all in color, and color covers are, well, cool.

Re: 6th Edition Mega-Scale and Movement

So, was that section I noted about teleport and fixed locations in error?