Hrimhari

Re: The Hero System is bland and over complicated

The other thing that helps with SAN in a CoC game featuring repeated encounters with mythos beasts are the optional rules for repeated exposures. I can't remember how these worked precisely, but I seem to remember they were as follows:

Short term: once you've lost SAN equal to the maximum that one creature can inflict in one hour, you're immune to SAN loss from that creature type for the rest of the hour. So once you lost 6 SAN from seeing Deep Ones (1d6 SAN loss), you don't lose any more from the other ones you meet for the short term.

Long term: once you succeed in a number of SAN rolls against a creature type equal to the maximum SAN loss potential, then you are treated as automatically succeednig in SAN rolls against that creature type forever. For example, a Deep One inflicts 1d6 SAN loss on a fail, 0 on a success... so once you succeed in 6 SAN rolls for seeing Deep Ones, you never lose any more SAN from seeing them, ever.

In both caes, you're not helped when seeing Cthulhu. Given that he causes 1d100/1d10 SAN loss, by the time either rule kicks in, you've lost 100 SAN and are now permanently insane... unless the encounters were over time and you have some VERY good counselling.

I think the rules made sense. They were printed as optional because they stood a chance of damaging the feel... but I think they're good and would probably use them.

Re: Supers vs. Military

In any case' date=' having the same heroes smash through battalions of tanks and then be in danger from agents with assault rifles is only going to make sense with some kind of situational defenses - force fields that have inconveniently run out of power, combat luck that sometimes fails, SC2-style "heavy only" shields, whatever. So if that's what you want - model the characters that way.[/quote']

I use Damage Reduction for this. I made it a bit cheaper in my game, to encourage people to take it (though I still keep a careful eye on it for balance purposes). It means that characters can face enemies of points value both higher and lower than theirs and not be either a) instantly swatted or amused. The team brick can take a shot from Dr Destroyer (one. One shot), but will still be threatened by multiple enemies of lower points value than himself.

Re: What's different about YOUR Champions Unvierse?

Seriously folks - fictional country mentioned in an episode of The West Wing

Good one. More than just one ep, though -- it the guy that Barlett had blown away was a Qumari minister (if I remember correctly). I always thought it was a name that sounded like an actual real nation rather than sounding like a fictional one, so stole it.

Re: What's different about YOUR Champions Unvierse?

1. It's voluntary - supers are not required to join. In fact, UNTIL has restrictions on who can join. Basically, Iron-age heroes are no-nos.

 

2. The US has post-Battle of Detroit relations with UNTIL and it maintains them in regards to UNITY - they are allowed on US soil, IOW.

 

3. The latest to happen in the game was Binder inviting the criminals of the world to unite in making UNITY look bad and ineffective so that it is forced to disband. It's an ongoing plot thread right now.

 

Oh, and borrow, steal, whatever you want. In fact, read my blog entry on this for more. Granted I haven't looked at it for a long while, so it may be somewhat inaccurate to its current status.

Hehe, nice use of Binder, too. The quote from Defender in his CKC writeup makes me want to use him more. Additionally, I think the world does need more villains who organise by charisma and inspiration than by 'I am tougher, you all obey me.'

Consider your idea yoinked for future gameplay developments. =D thanks! It especially works in mine -- one of the characters has a (complicated) history with UNTIL. He's actually the fusion of two people into one mind... and one of those people once worked for Project Shiva as a deniable asset inside the US (while the ban was ongoing). He might be kindly disposed to such a development.

Re: What's different about YOUR Champions Unvierse?

My universe if pretty different from the CU. Yes' date=' I have the Champions (renamed one), Doctor Destroyer, Mechanon and others, but my team is separate. The battle of Detroit has not happened yet (but will), the 9/11 destrction occurred and my heroes helped with the aftermath. (Olorin managed to point out where survivors were, as well as the bodies. It allowed others to rescue. Olorin himself was busy maintaining it.) I have several villians of my own. I called the tone of the campaign "Bronze age with wispers of Iron" - but one hero is described as "a Silver age hero in a Bronze age world." Heros have only been around about 20 years, with the earlier ones a bit underpowered compared to the newer ones. A "Super registration" law has just expired, and heroes are coming out of the woodwork. (as are some villians)[/quote']

Interesting -- I suppose that counts as a sort of CU. =) A related dimension, perhaps. My own CU is more or less 'post Iron age'. The 80s started a trend towards villains who kill (beginning with Dr Destroyer), bigger death tolls, and through the 90s, growing public antipathy to governmetns and heroes. But with the Battle of Detroit moved to 2000, and Destroyer dead, the world's shifted radically. It's still really trying to piece together this millennial era. =) There are iron-age remnants, but a lot of heroes are reaching back to the silver. I'm very glad that one PC went for the total CvK.

 

Does your world have a long history of supers?

Re: What's different about YOUR Champions Unvierse?

My Champs Universe features the Isle of Avalon (http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php/79422-The-City-of).

 

History-wise, I draw from previous campaigns (In KC, MO there was a Super-Hero team called Metroguard that broke-up following Mechanon's attack on an Arms Production that was producing weapons similar to the Nano-mites from the GI Joe Movie (and I had this idea BEFORE the movie came out). A large portion of KC was destroyed when the Nano-Swarm breached containment, ate Mechanon, the factory where the Nano-Swarm was being produced, and then 1/3 of KC. One of Metroguard's members (an electricity-manipulator/speedster named Ionic) jumped into the swarm-matrix and then over-loaded by tapping into the city powergrid and causing a massive EMP. Mechanon is no longer vulnerable to Nano-Swarms, needless to say.

 

As it turns out, The Engineer has her own version of the Nano-Swarm (she saw an episode of Stargate SG-1 and decided to build the Replicators and cross them with the Borg - so she has Replicants and Cyborg-Zombies that she can control).

 

Though it doesn't directly affect Avalon (which is off the coast of New Hampshire), I'm using the BP oilspill as a future event.

 

My players don't realize it, but the world is in great danger.

I hate it when movies steal my plot ideas.

Oh dear, the Replicator-Borg sound nasty. Have they come up in play yet?

Using the spill as standard, or working in super elements? =)

Re: What's different about YOUR Champions Unvierse?

My universe started out in the days of 4th edition, and has incorporated elements of 5th along the way. (For instance, the Champions in my world are the 5th edition team.) Millennium City is per 5th edition, and I did incorporate 9/11 into my world. (All but one member of a NYC hero team, the Guardians, lost their lives trying to save people when the towers fell, and the PCs' interactions with the surviving Guardian were very interesting.)

 

Foxbat actually has a team -- the Foxbat Five ('cuz having five members is way better than the Fantastic Four), though they don't really make him all that much more effective.

 

I have numerous home-grown villain teams (Vermin, the Windy City Sportsmen, the Gamesmen, the Ravagers, Alexandrian Order) and have incorporated hero and villain individuals and teams from other GMs, primarily contributors toDigital Hero, Haymaker!, and posters on these boards. For example, I've included Hermit's character Adonis and his ladies; The Choir from DH; a group I've named Tsunami from DH (Polestar, Kraken, et. al.); Project CADMUS and Steel Gauntlet from Haymaker!; and others.

 

My world history retains parts from 4th and 5th editions as well, in addition to real-world events. Though the current PCs haven't run across CLOWN, they know about the various mega-pranks that team has pulled. Sanctuary is still around, though the players' last few teams have never visited there. And as implied above, the destruction of Detroit took place as depicted in the MC book.

 

The current campaign includes a very public alien invasion, so that's a major deviation both from real life as well as the official CU.

Nice. Official aliens, or homebrew species?

Did PCs take part in the Battle of Detroit? How did that turn out?

Re: What's different about YOUR Champions Unvierse?

I have added an ahistorical city' date=' Trinity City, at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers (real world Cairo, IL), and moved the Battle of Detroit to that location. Thus, instead of Millennium City, I have Trinity Island. I also have [i']ex cathedra[/i] declared Dr. Destroyer to be most really, and sincerely, permanently dead. The Battle of Trinity City was his refusal to go gently into that good night. His "successor" as the Great Worldbeating Master Villain is an origin-revised Teleios (hint: 4th Edition Dark Champions' Gerheardt Spregen)

 

There are other changes, such as using the 4th Edition CU timelines for UNTIL and PRIMUS (with substantial changes in the events surrounding the former, and ignoring the Iron Age-ification of the latter from the eponymous eBook, etc.), and shuffling things around a bit inside of VIPER. (Speaking of which... Krait lied, but he wasn't entirely wrong...).

 

Oh, yeah. Luther Black never came back. No DEMON.

 

Eurostar is the official superteam of the EU. (No, I didn't say superhero team.)

 

More on UNTIL - in the aftermath of the V'Hanian Invasion, UNTIL reorganized, transferring Arctic operations to the Wilderness Division and space operations to the previous Oceanic/Arctic Division, the latter of which was separated out into the Oceanic and Aerospace Corps (OAC), which is moving full-speed ahead into becoming Earth's Starfleet.

Yeah, I think a dead Doctor Destroyer does remove certain plots, but introduces a whole lot more. It's a minor change, really, but results in a very different world. I'm eager to see how this ends up in play. How did it work out for you?

Hm... how did PRIMUS change in the ebook? that's really the only source for them I have. What information was around before that?

The idea of Earth's Starfleet is good, too. With all the alien tech around, it makes sense that someone would start that. ^_-

Re: What's different about YOUR Champions Unvierse?

These days I actually don't use the CU as much as I had. But, when I ran the CU, it had some of the following:

The Champions were the premiere superhero team that was formed in the '90s and had members from the 4th and 5th ed group. They had a few different bases and honorary members such as Starburst and Icicle, but the latter eventually betrayed them as part of a ploy to destroy the team (PCs came in and rescued them).

Deathstroke was a major player in the game with all of the members getting some upgrades in ability and gear. While they weren't the PC Team's nemesis, they were a thorn in their side.

Doctor Destroyer had been through a few revisions, much like Doom had seen in FF. During the last encounter, he was more machine than anything else, causing he and Mechanon to join forces.

Viper was the 4th ed version, as was Demon and Primus. I just like them better There was a brief Primus/UNTIL War that ran through the game and was initiated by VOICE. The aftermath of the war left VOICE disassembled, with some members joining Eurostar.

 

This is just stuff off the top of my head ... don't know if I still have my notes handy, but I may try and post more lately.

Yeah, I have a few 4th ed Champions slotted in, too. Sounds like you had a very long-running game. The idea of a Destroyer/Mechanon teamup sounds frightening.

I didn't have a lot of 4e supplement material. What was different about the 4e VIPER and DEMON? (As for PRIMUS, I have the pdf available online, which looks like it was made for 4e... there seems to be little or no 5e material available. XD Am I missing something there?)

Re: What's different about YOUR Champions Unvierse?

On a basic level I assume the 5e Champions Universe, but not much from NotW due to the campaign predating it. After a catastrophic encounter with a world-eating being, UNTIL expanded UNITY and now a lot of the world's superhumans now work under UNITY with China being a glaring exception what with the Tiger Squad.

 

It's basically like Justice League Unlimited.

Sounds pretty cool. I might steal some element of that for mine, if you don't mind. =) Put up tensions between various world governments and UNTIL again.

So how did the US respond to that initiative in your game? And are there rebel supers who refuse to join?

Re: What's different about YOUR Champions Unvierse?

Harold & Qumar Go to White Castle?

Haw. Nice idea, but not my source. ^_- Kumar's Indian, anyway!

Re: The Hero System is bland and over complicated

Well, obviously I disagree and remind you how little stock you normally place in anecdotal evidence normally.

 

But if we going to go there. Admittedly I've introduced relatively fewer people to HERO by the sounds of it but the roll low has never been an issue more than a an "OK I get" after explaining it. My daughters entire D&D group switched to HERO rather than go 4th edition D$D for example. Out of her 7 person group no one had any problem.

Anecdotal evidence has its place. If a particular problem is claimed to exist, anecdotal evidence can show that it DOES exist, though not how widespread it is. Your counter-evidence shows that it's not universal. So the problem is somewhere between 0.000001% and 99.999999%.

I'm just sayin' that in my opinion, the extent to which it IS a problem, and to which there are various barriers to entry/understanding by new players, is underestimated by long-time Hero players. If you find something very easy, it's difficult to see how someone else can find it hard without being stupid. Those D&D players being made fun of in this thread? D&D is a big game not just because of the brand name recognition, but because it's exceedingly good at being the RPG gateway drug. If we want to increase the Hero playerbase, those are precisely the kind of people who are going to be the prime targets.

The former is really the only point I've been trying to make, which is why this little tangent has been going on. ^_- It IS a problem. How widespread it is, that I can't prove and simply don't know. But it DOES exist.

Re: Killing Damage in 6e

Hmm. I've never really seen this one proposed before. What if you could NEVER do damage with straight Strength? What if you HAD to add it to a Hand Attack (now upgraded to include squeezing and other traditionally un-HA forms of combat damage!) or Hand Killing Attack? We'd have to upgrade the Everyman abilities to include 1d6 HA' date=' obviously. How would a max-doubling change things then? Hmm. Intriguing. I might even be happy with Str costing 1 per point in that context....[/quote']

Or you could roll Strength in with Body; if strength isn't providing damage, maybe body can provide lifting?

Re: Supers vs. Military

Personally, I tend to scale down the stats provided for real weapons... but load them up with advantages. Generally they end up 25-40% lower in damage, but with multiple levels of AP, Penetrating, or whatever. This allows tanks to have lower levels of defences too (again, with multiple levels of hardness, at least on the front armour), so heroes (or villains) with sufficient brute force can do damage or even crush the tanks. It works very well for the supers genre. Keeps military heavy weapons dangerous, but not overwhelming; and tanks tough, but not invulnerable.

Re: Killing Damage in 6e

I should have realized that someone would take it as a challenge.

You're welcome. =D

To celebrate my 10th post, and that I should now be released from the newbie pool, here's a thread!

How does your CU differ from the norm? Were these differences in place before the game began, or did they come about through play? Tell us what makes your game setting unique.

In my case, I have a few differences. I'm starting a new game, set in 2010, with an updated chronology to keep the old 5E story arc (so Destroyer Day was in 2000 -- Millennium City was named later that year). This required some mucking about with the timeline, but it wasn't too difficult.

One of the most significant changes is that Dr Destroyer is actually dead. Vanguard was not killed by the asteroid, just badly injured. He returned to earth at the last moment and prevented Destroyer from activating his teleporter. Both were vaporised by the satellite laser. All his planning undone -- he never had a contingency plan for his death -- his organisation is falling apart. There's looted Destroyer-tech all over the CU, in criminal and governmental hands. Some of his agents stay loyal to the organisation, either because they're true believers (Gigaton), are afraid he's not actually dead (Rakshasa) or sense an opportunity to take control.

(Yeah, Gigaton's around already. He was too cool to let go, so I relocated his origin to the 50s atomic tests -- he was asleep for a while.)

Another difference is that I don't like referencing real people or current events in game. For one, the world is so different to the one 'outside our window' that things have gone quite differently. There are new Presidents, and no war in Iraq. Instead, I like to have analogues appropriate to the world in question. So in my CU, there's a middle-eastern nation (Qumar -- points for anyone who gets the reference) that was conquered by Gigaton, back before anyone knew he was linked to Destroyer. This eventually came out and, after Destroyer Day, the armies of the world went to war to oust him. This was a pretty hard fight but eventually they were successful. Since then, Qumar has been a bit of a mess -- various warlords keep setting up shop in parts of the country, or undermining the transitional government. VIPER effectively took it over at one point, before being chased out. The Warlord had his shot, too.

There are a few other changes too, those are just the ones that spring to mind.

So... what does YOUR Champions Universe look like?

Re: Killing Damage in 6e

I thought the new kill attack stun multiplier was1/2D6+1 or 2 to 4

6E1 242 indicates that it's a straight 1/2d6.

Re: Too Big

If one had this limitation being big' date=' you could easily justify PSLs to hit small things within your arm reach[/quote']

Perhaps instead, a disadvantage on Growth? It would help keep Growth affordable; if you ahve to buy PSLs at every level, you'd effectively be increasing its cost 25% or so. So perhaps a -1/4 or -1/2 limitation would make it cost about right.

Re: The Hero System is bland and over complicated

Just do it from the get go.... substitute it right on their sheet before giving it to them

Which just really over-complicates things since I'm trying to teach them the system as well, by making their characters with them.

Oh, but I agree with you...

 

but then, there is a part of the gaming population that don't understand why HERO doesn't use a 20 sided die... "as most of them do"

I had a response to Steamteck's post last night, but it apparently got caught in some sort of 'too many posts too fast' moderator filter and hasn't been moderated in yet. I said that among my players, the one who has the most problem with it is the smartest person I know. In play, he's simply too distracted by the drama of the scene to want to think about the system. It's a personality thing, not a smart/stupid thing.

I absolutely agree that it's not too hard to understand. It is, however, rather off-putting to some players and, given all the sacred cows being slaughtered in 6e, I'm a bit surprised that 'always roll high' didn't make the cut. I'm not saying it's a bad system because of it, just that in some cases, it does represent a barrier.

Re: Killing Damage in 6e

Cost STR at 2 points per and get rid of the silly non-limiting lim on hand attacks(which is only there because STR is too cheap) and bingo! Problem solved. 60 STR will still add 12 DCs to a 1-pip HKA, since the rules state that each 5 points of STR equal a DC instead of each 5 character points, but the cost will be prohibitive enough that it's not abusive, and you'll no longer have to special case the END cost for STR in Heroic games.

 

PS. Although some people on this board have made the argument that INT & PRE are somehow worth half as much as DEX, I doubt anyone will make such an argument for STR.

I'd make the argument. =) I'd never play a brick if STR costs were doubled. The arguments were compelling in 5th, but 6e, no, I'd play speedsters instead.

Re: Too Big

Seeing as small characters don't get OCV bonuses, it's not exactly the same when the return shots come. Realistically, an OCV penalty makes sense (just like an OCV bonus and strength penalty for shrinking would make sense), but mechanics-wise, it's a bit harsh. If you have a character who finds it hard to hit anything at great height, then you can just buy their combat skill levels with a disadvantage (value varying depending on how often they're big).

Re: The Hero System is bland and over complicated

The value of an index increases with pagecount; Hero's index is pure' date=' unalloyed gold![/quote']

This I must agree with 100%. It's absolutely invaluable, especially having the index to both books in each. I can't stand badly-indexed reference books of any sort, and with Hero, it's absolutely necessary.

Re: The Hero System is bland and over complicated

Don't get me started. I have very little patience for this frankly. If you can't get you roll under your stat roll number ( in which a higher one is better BTW) I sure wouldn't hire you. I freely admit dealing with various groups of the public for years however has made me the general IQ to lower than I would tolerate in people I associate with socially.

IQ doesn't necessarily have anything to do with it. The player who seems to have the greatest problem with this is one of the smartest people I know... he just doesn't really cope well with switching rapidly from high to low when distracted by the drama of the scene. It's a personality thing, not a smart/stupid thing.

Re: The Hero System is bland and over complicated

I fail to see why the "high or low" is an issue. It's very simply' date=' to hit and skill rolls is low, damage is high. What's so hard about that?[/quote']

What's easy for someone with an intuitive and trained grasp of the system is not what's simple for everyone... especially when you're in a fifteen-person fight and things are exploding.

Re: The Hero System is bland and over complicated

That's the path I have taken with my group... I asked them what they wanted and built them characters, which I revised with them afterward. as it's our first "official" Hero game (we've tried once before but it was only a tranfer of another campain into HERO... too many relics of the old ) they want to see what they can do with what they have right now...

 

I'm fortunate that I have another player who read the books (it's the other one pushing the group for HERO) who can help me, as you've had yourself.

 

Maybe the players cannot come up with their character fully formed, but at least, they can play what they want (and not being limited to a race/class/clan/house/template mix). when this happens and they see that what they have is really what they asked for, or the basics of what they ask that will just need a few XP to become it, they'll want to play it.

Now, imagine the same group, without any players at all having had experience.

D&D can be picked up easily by any group new to gaming. Hero gamers are like the Catholic priesthood -- they must be trained and anointed by one already inducted into the creed.

I've seen enough threads on the boards to see that it's mostly irritating on those comming form an Always Roll High game... and many that just used the equivalent Roll-High for Hero (it does exists, it's a simple mathematical manipulation.

 

This can be done after creating the character in HD... all you need is to replace the xx- for yy+ using the formula, or better, a small chart that gives it all to you... would be nicer if HD would let you swap from Roll-High to Roll-Low, but unless you can convice Simon to implement such an option...

Hehe. If I could get them to do the simple maths required to do that, then it wouldn't matter whether it was roll high or low. When in the middle of an intense fight, having to do coordinate substitution in your head (while strapped to a centrifuge) can take you out of the moment and back into reality. My players function better when they're in the gamespace and can simply roll what the sheet tells them instead of having to think about it.