Rene

I'm not sure if this already was discussed... I just bought the "Until Superpowers Database." Wonderful book, congrats to Steve Long. Still, paging through it, I've found two little details that kinda bothered me. The first is the discussed-to-death new Damage Shield rules. To see the powers built using them just cinched it for me. Those powers are now terribly overpriced for what they do. I'll keep ignoring the new Damage Shield rules in my games. The second and not-so-discussed issue is the "Limited Phenomena" Limitation worthy -1/2. 40 points for 75% Damage Reduction that only work vs. fire or cold or sonics?!? Am I the only one that thinks this makes no sense? You're sinking 40 pts (maybe more if you also buy some Limited Armor to make you really resistant to a certain type of attack) in something very infrequently used. According to the Limited Powers Guidelines in FRED pg 194, -1/2 Lim is "Power loses a third of its effectiveness". So, does this mean that 2/3 of all energy attacks in a campaign are fire-based? Don't think so. Only vs. Fire (or Cold or Sonics) sounds more like a -2 Limitation in superhero campaigns to me. -1 1/2 for lasers, maybe. And what is worse, you can't put this kind of power in Frameworks, because it don't cost END. Some other overpriced powers infrequently used aren't so bad, because they usually go in Frameworks (for instance, Drain vs. Fire Powers is usually part of a suite of fire, water, air or cold powers). OTOH, I could see Only vs Fire as -1/2 in a Fantasy Hero game full of fire magic or Only vs Lasers as -1/2 in some Star Hero games. But the UNTIL book seems primarily intended for Champions...

No, I've never had a problem with this kind of power construction myself. I'm more a spirit person than a letter person, but... If we insist in having meaninful words, we should change the names to fit the effects, not restrict the effects to fit the names. "Telepathy" is a horrible name for instance. "Know What You Think" is better, because it encompasses those kinds of Telepathy simulating deductive abilities too. "Force Wall" would make more sense as "Protective Barrier". The problem is "Know What You Think 10d6" sounds kinda of cheesy. What would be an acurate-free-of-preconceptions name for Teleport or Flight? Tough question.

Thanks!

Hello, folks. I'd like to post some characters I've made, but I'm having problems to format them right in the board. The size/font/color stuff is easy, my problem is with including bigger space between the words (no matter what I do, the text appears with only one character of space between words, making it problematic to post characteristics), and also how to format paragraphs so the individual powers will appear elegantly and not run into the left margin. Could anyone copy-and-paste a character they posted with all the tabs, etc? Thanks!

Re: Wonder Woman More or less. Wonder Woman mostly avoids Ranged Killing Damage. When she fights bricks she is hit a lot, she rarely pulls a Spider-Man to dance around a foe. And the blows appear to affect her, she don't just ignore them. But she can still take a lot. Also, I remember several stories (specially in the George Perez time, my favorite WW phase), when she fights foes capable of HTH Killing Attacks, such as mythological monsters or low technology warriors, she is scratched and nicked a lot. She is rarely downed by a sword strike, but she still takes the wounds. Both of these effects suggest Damage Reduction to me, with medium-level PD and ED, and no Resistant Defenses (except for her bracelets of course). I personally think giving her something like 20 PD (non-resistant) and Damage Reduction 25-50% resistant, with no Armor or Resistant PD whatsoever (so she'll not be able to ignore small arms fire or knives) better simulates the character. But we clearly have very different design styles. I'm not sure how I would design Wonder Woman in a more powerful campaign world, like the one you seem to favour.

IMO, Wonder Woman is just like Thor, Hercules and lots of other mythological superheroes. She is not invulnerable (her skin can be pierced by bullets, arrows, swords, etc) but she can take a lot of damage. That is easy: Damage Reduction!

It's mostly a concept thing, really. Yes, I know END is dirty cheap, so is END Reserve. No problem at all to buy up END, lots of it.

If we go with the argument that "Increased Maximum Range" Advantage should automatically make a power cost more END, because the character is putting more into it to make the power go further, then it would logically follow that the "No Range" Limitation should reduce the power's END cost. Life Support don't cost END normally, because it's assumed that it's a unconsciously activated power by default. You have to take Limitations to make it Constant. That was the logic I followed in suggesting that only "switchable" Advantages should cost END. If your Area Effect is an unconscious part of the power, and you can't ever turn it off, then it shouldn't cost END. You have no control over it. Of course it was just a suggestion to make things simpler than having to compile a list of which Advantages should cost END and which shouldn't The problem with "just buy Reduced END for the power" suggestion is that it either reduces the power to 0 END Cost (and that may be too much), or it don't reduces it enough (1/2 END). On the other hand, I'd like the "Only Base Power Costs END" Advantage that Hugh suggested.

Well, for what it's worth, I kinda of agree with you that it seems excessive that the Invisible Woman has to pay 20 END per shot to use her Indirect Invisible EB. And some spells have an obscene END Cost for what they do. It would be cool if HERO had a rule like that: Any Advantage that is "always on" never costs END. Any Advantage that can be switched on and off at will (and doing so constitutes a benefit for the character) costs END. For instance, if you had Area of Effect and you couldn't ever switch it off, it don't cost END, it's just a part of the Base Power. Now, if you can "concentrate" enough to turn off the Area Effect and affect only one target, then you must pay END to use the Area Effect, because it's an effort to manipulate it.

It doesn't. All normal weapons are bought with the 0 END Cost Advantage. You only pay END for the STR used with them. There aren't many real-life examples of power construction that cost END. In the end, I think I'll have to agree with Hugh. If you want to talk superpowers making sense, the only "sense" is that of the fictional works where they're depicted.

This problem don't surface only with spells. When you try to write-up some supercharacters, like Susan Richards, you get monstrous END costs (Invisible Power Effects, Indirect, etc.). Tesuji's suggestion is completely legal, and maybe the right way to go about it, but still seems a bit clumsy to write in the character sheet all the Advantages that themselves have Advantages...

Wow, you're Brazilian! Me too. I hadn't really noticed the "Brazil" in your location. A pity I live in São Paulo, I'd love to meet other HERO System players.

I agree with you in that I'd like to see more suggestions about how Skills work. But really, "how many skills would a doctor have" is the kind of question you won't see in FRED, because it's answer depends a lot on the individual genre and style of the game. You can have a Silver Age superheroes game where a doctor get by with SS: Medicine and Paramedics, for instance. It's just his profession in his civilian ID. Then you can have a highly detailed and realistic modern-day game where a doctor needs some specialization and maybe one or two related skills. I dunno. How to use skills in the game exactly also is one of those kinds that depends a lot on a individual GM's style. The more four-color the game, the more a character could do with a roll, for instance. And he can use his skill in a wider range of situations too. Still, I think they'll publish someday the "Ultimate Skils Book" with lots of suggestions about how to deal with Skills.

Yes, I guess you're right. It's really just a matter of convincing newbies the game is simpler without changing it in any substancial way. You just move Figured Characteristics into later Chapters. It's basically what GURPS and D&D do. I guess it helps to smooth the learning curve, because it gives less stuff for newbies to know right away.

That was funny But I didn't meant to say HERO was "broken" or something, if that is what you're reacting against (or maybe you're just making a joke for the sheer pleasure of making a joke, if that is the case, forgive me). It was just a intelectual exercise: "If I absolutely had to get rid of some Stats to make the game simpler, without sacrificing much definition, what would I do"? And to say I disagreed with the original poster about how I'd go about it. But I'm mostly pretty happy with HERO the way it is.

Silver Age Sentinels, Aberrant, the old Marvel RPG, and (to a extent) Mutants & Masterminds do it this way. It's terribly irrealistic, but not inadequate for some four-color campaigns. Heroes really can do almost anything. Superman may not be a trained scientist, but he can roll to discern what that strange machine is about and have a pretty good chance to suceed (even though Batman would have a bigger roll). Many times, the unspoken assumption is that heroes can get by untrained depending solely on their character conception. SAS make this explicit. So, if your character had ANY prior contact with airplanes, no matter if he was really "trained" or not, he can pilot airplanes with his basic roll. I think only child heroes or savage landers can't pilot airplanes. You only pay points if you want to raise above you CHAR Roll in piloting. Thinking about it, many Hollywood action movies are like that too. You need only pay points for some Perk called "I'm a hero", and then you can pretty much do anything. Only supporting characters have to worry about lacking training.

Too many stats in HERO? Maybe. But folding STR and CON, and INT and EGO, into single stats wouldn't be the way to go, if I had any say. To say that the amount of weight you can lift is correlate to your health may or may not be "realistic", but that is not the point, since we're talking simulation of a wide variety of genres, not all of them realistic. That is even worse for INT and EGO, IMO. Actually I heartly dislike GURPS's system of rules, and that is one of the reasons. I'm not terribly unhappy with Characteristics as they're now, but if I had to make HERO simpler, I'd get rid of Figured Characteristics, BODY and COM. Most of the changes would be cosmetic, of course. The Stats would still exist in the form of powers or other elements that could easily be used by experienced players, but ignored by newbies. For instance: SPD would go. I don't think the SPD Chart stuff is really complicated, it's just that it's very different from how almost other system handles Initiative. So getting rid of SPD would make the system simpler for newcomers. To represent Speedsters and other quick characters, we could have cleaner rules about Levels to offset Sweep and Rapid Fire penalties. That would have the added bonus to make it easier to build Mentalists and Magicians who can use their powers quickly, but aren't physically quick. Just buy the Levels with Limitations in what kinds of actions they apply to. PD and ED removed as Stats would mean human-level characters would be hurt and knocked-out way more easily in fistfights. That can be a good or a bad thing, depending on how you look at it. The Armor power would be reconfigured to make it simpler to buy non-resistant Armor to represent Pulpier Heroes who can soak some damage from punches, for instance. That would get rid of the Damage Resistance power too. Actually, "Armor" would be now called "Damage Resistance", and could be built resistant or non-resistant. BODY and STUN totals would be derived directly from CON and not considered "Stats". That could be a good excuse to make CON cost 3 pts per Level, I don't know. Of course you could always buy extra CON with Limitations to represent that rare character that has lots of "hit points", but not overall health. END would just disappear and make the game way simpler. In it's instead, for those worried about characters using their powers all day long, we'd have some entirely optional rules about how to represent fatigue. Those would also be used when the characters push their powers. REC would be derived from CON and not treated as a Stat. But you could augment your recovery time using a modified and cleaner version of Regeneration Healing. Speaking about Stats, two things I'd love to see would be getting rid of the "breakpoints", and making all Stats cost the same. That would go a long way to make HERO more elegant. Not an easy thing to do, I guess.

You could get rid of the Standard Effect and change it to 3d6 Healing Body. That would allow a PC to heal anything from 1 to 9 BODY, with about 5-6 average. That would cut it down to 33 pts. You could also remove the Invisible Advantage and cut it to 18 points. The rationale being that everyone can see that the character "shrughed off" what "seemed" to be a rather nasty wound, but wasn't so nasty after all. So it isn't so invisible. Or you can technically keep it, but the advantage don't give the character any benefit that I can think of, so it shouldn't cost points, the same way a Limitation that don't limit the character don't give back any points. Or you can just wave the points, like you said.

Mr. Negative, there is a host of alternatives to Magic Healing right in the HERO System rules if you want to make PC survival a surer thing, without appealing to magic proper. With the right Limitations, Damage Reduction, Luck and it's variants, Combat Luck, even Regeneration Healing could all be used to build non-powered "Powers" helpful to simulate heroes's tendency to never be seriously taken down for long. I'd not recommend it for a realistic game, but it would be adequate for guys like Fafhrid and the Grey Mouser, I guess. They're not superpowered, but they're kinda larger-than-life fellows that wade through lots of danger unharmed. The right Limitations can help to avoid them becoming too invincible. A nice example would be Regeneration Healing with Charges to simulate a hero that can turn a deep wound to "it was just a scratch", but he can do it only once or twice per adventure. I'm sure there is an infinite number of similar abilities that could be built.

I send them.

Character write-ups Those are cool, thanks for posting them. If you're interested, I have written up some Marvel/DC characters myself. I could send them to you to do as you wish. Only thing is, I tend to favor a much more low-powered design than yours. So far I have: DC HEROES (adapted from the old DC Heroes RPG) Superman (1200 pts) Wonder Woman (800 pts) Green Lantern/Hal Jordan (800 pts) Martian Manhunter (750 pts) Batman (700 pts) Flash/Wally West (before Mark Waid made him God) (700 pts) Classic Aquaman (600 pts) Captain Marvel/Shazam (600 pts) Lobo (600 pts) Guy Gardner (500 pts) Nightwing (500 pts) Starfire (500 pts) Robin (400 pts) Hawkman (Hawkworld's version) (380 pts) Green Arrow (350 pts) X-MEN Storm (800 pts) Rogue (800 pts) Jean Grey (not the Phoenix, just Jean) (675 pts) Wolverine (580 pts) Gambit (470 pts) Cyclops (380 pts) Beast (360 pts) MARVELS Human Torch (730 pts) Captain America (700 pts) Invisible Woman (675 pts) Mr. Fantastic (600 pts) Thing (400 pts)

Depending on how the GM and the players portray the non-humans, such a campaign wouldn't be so much different from a standard fantasy game. I will not comment about Tolkien himself (though I dislike his writings, I'm not knowledgeable enough in them to comment about the issue), but in most "Tolkien-clone" fantasy literature/gaming the non-humans either are: a) Humans in funny suits. Variations of humankind different enough to be considered non-humans, but so alike Tolkien stuff that there is no "mistery" in them anymore. c) Both of the above. Of course, if we go to the other extreme (fantasy races really different, alien, and mysterious), then we have a big problem too. It's mighty hard to roleplay them, specially without human PCs around to serve as foil. A careful balance between familiarity and "alienness" should be attained to make the most of such a campaign. Not an easy feat.

Mind Control is the way to go, IMO, ordering the target to forget something that happened or remember something that didn't. You can attach a special "Costs END" Limitation to make it cost END to "mantain" (in addition to the END you may want to spend to stop the Mental Power from "deteriorating"). But isn't there a contradiction in what you're proposing? You want a short term memory change, but don't want the target noticing the effect? By it's how nature, a memory change WILL be noticed by the target after the change has ended. If not, then that is a long term memory change. Or I'm missing something? Of course, the target may not deduce that his tricky memory change was due to external manipulation. That would be covered by the +20 effect, I guess.

Re: Libido and lobotomies Has anyone read Philip José Farmer's "A Feast Unknown"? It features "Lord Gandrith" (Tarzan) and "Doc Caliban" (Doc Savage) and it offers some insights into those pulp heroes strange psyches. I've not read the other books in the series, though. That would be pretty cool.

That is truer of pre-1960s fantasy literature, I guess. Many later novels from guys like Roger Zelazny or Steven Brust can spark good ideas for this kind of game, though they focus a bit more on guys insanely versatile (the immortal mystically enhanced warrior/rogue type) than specialized powerhouses. Another fine series depicting lots of fantasy superhumans would be "The Malazan Book of the Fallen", from Steven Erikson. I'd definitely recommend it to anyone interested in high-power fantasy. I don't like Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" series, but it has some pretty powerful characters too.