Diamond Spear

Re: Suggested DCV cap at Heroic level - includes MA/maneuvers? Like Sean said if someone is dodging all the time they are never going to be making an attack so that tends to balance itself out over the long run. Also keep in mind that if you are using Heroic-level points like 75-75 an 18 DEX and Martial Dodge will account for 28 or 34 character points (depending on if you are starting everyone with a base of 8 or a base of 10 points per characteristic) out of 150 total. That’s a large percentage of their total and will hinder them in other areas.

Re: Base Transporter Well, if you, as the GM, are in complete control of the device, just decide what it can do, what the range is, what any limitations are and write them down. That’s all you really need to do. In other words, there’s no reason to stress getting the build mechanicly perfect (or even done at all) since you already know what the device can do. Does that make sense?

Re: Favorite 60-point Power Construction A COM score of 130.

Re: Free equipment side discussion. You know it occurs to me that if the concern is the possibility of having normal-type NPCs take down supers than the GM controlling those normals could just, you know, say they miss or that they hit but the bullet glances off the supers armor/force field/natural defenses. After all if the goal is to make sure that “normals” don’t damage supers with their weapons than just handwave the whole thing and then there’s no need for any new and controversial rules. Just a thought.

Re: Free equipment side discussion. Considering your answers than I have to ask what determines the “scale” since given your answer to situation #2 it doesn’t seem to be based on total character points? What then is the determining factor? If it simple the definition of the characters as “superheroes” than shouldn’t the person in situation #2 take half damage since they are still defined as a “superhero”?

Re: Free equipment side discussion.

Re: Free equipment side discussion. I was, in fact, asking the OP how much damage they would take under his house rule.

Re: Free equipment side discussion. Let me try addressing this through some possible in game situations. Assume that all characters meet the level of points required to be one step up the scale and that all of them have been struck by a 2D6 Killing attack from a gun with the Real Weapon Limitation and that the damage rolled was 6 BODY 18 STUN Situation 1: A character has their resistant defense bought through a force field (which is normally 20 PD/ED) but they are struck with the force field down. How much damage do they take? Situation 2: A character has all of their powers bought Only in Hero ID (in hero ID they have a resistant defense of 20 PD/ED) and is struck while in normal ID. How much damage do they take? Situation 3: A character has purchased no resistant defenses at all. How much damage do they take? Hopefully your answers will make things a bit clearer for me as far as how the rule will effect actual gameplay.

Re: Making Uncontrolled AOE powers not depending on SPD Another point to keep in mind is that if you build a 2D6+1 AOE killing attack and let it do damage every single phase you are going to end up with lots and lots of dead people. Even characters with decent defenses will run out of STUN in short order if they are taking damage every phase. So it becomes a matter of striking the right balacnce between playablity and realism.

Re: Free equipment side discussion. Yes but having a 2D6 killing attack generated by a weapon being applied differently depending on who fires the weapon is a huge departure from the HERO System rules. It goes right into that arbitrary area of “because we say so” that many of us left other systems to get away from. Also, unlike other optional rules that “stack” onto the basic combat system, this is a fundamental change with far reacing consrequences. Add to that the fact that it does not work in reverse, and it becomes even more arbitrary. So while it might work just fine as an unofficial house rule for a particular campaign I don’t see it ever being incorporated as an “official” rule.

Re: Buying the Aid Power

Re: Super Shield Your question seems to be more of a character design question than anything else. Suffice it to say that depending on concept it may make more sense for the character to have extra PD/ED bought through a shield than for the character to have missile deflection, block and so forth bought through a shield. Neither build is incorrect, they are just different.

Re: Buying the Aid Power I think the problem with the discussion is that it is attempting to prove that there are better ways to buy characteristics than using Aid (true) and ignoring the fact that Aid is sometimes the best way to simulate a power. For instance, a drug that can be taken to temporarally increase a statistic is best simulated with Aid, even if it isn’t the most cost efficient way to build the power.

Re: Free equipment side discussion. The GM simply needs to enforce the genre being played and the players need to be cognizant of it as well. Four color superheros don’t go around picking up guns and should be built on enough points that guns won’t bother them. This also begs another question, if you are going to halve the effectiveness of guns what about body armor? If a Kevlar vest gives 5 PD/ED to a cop won’t it give the same to a superhero? Using the HERO system it has to. How would your optional system handle that? To address your example above with the RPG there’s a problem with your assumption that an RPG shouldn’t damage a superhero, an RPG should damage most superheroes; it is, after all, a weapon designed specifically to destroy armored vehicles. Saying that an RPG and a fire power used by a character should have the same effect on a wall but different effects on character, depending on how many points that character is built on (and I know I said this before but it bears repeating) violates the core principles of the HERO system. Implimented, even as an optional rule, would irrecoverably change a core mechanic of the system. Now I’m not saying that your idea can’t work, I’m not even saying that it isn’t a letgitimate design decisison to use when designing a superhero game. I’m just saying that it’s not a good design decision to try and implement in HERO. All that said, I am very glad to see people looking for ways to improve and expand the system and generate discussion about it so please, keep coming up with and posting ideas, even ones some of us don’t like.

Re: Changing the System: Action Points I’m not a fan of END either but the system you outlined would be impractical to implement in HERO. My suggestion would be to simply house rule that powers don’t normally use END. Make sure you also make clear to your players that they can then not buy down their starting END to gain back points and that the limitations for increased END are worth half of the normal limitation (this reflects the fact that they generally have more END to spend because most powers don’t require it). For pushing powers have them spend STUN rather than END to do it. And there you go HERO without END. It’s worked for me for years so you might want to give it a try.

Re: Free equipment side discussion. I don’t think this is a great idea as it seems to be trying to “fix” a problem that doesn’t really exist. Supers take less damage from, for instance, a cop’s gun because they have higher defenses. Making the weapon do half damage against them just because their character costs more than x amount of points doesn’t seem to make any sense. In addition HERO is set up so that the points value of a gun determines how much damage it does. For instance if we say that a .44 magnum is a 2d6 killing attack than the cost is 30 points of killing damage. Why should that 30 points only have 15 points of effect just because the target has been labled “superhero”? If you want bigger effects you pay more points. If you want someone to take less effect from something then they need to buy more defenses. Doing anything else seems to violate the basic HERO mechanic.

Re: Lose Weakness

Re: Lose Weakness Another was to handle this might be a Triggered Suppress vs. Find Weakness. If you used Standard Effect Rules you could buy enough dice to work on pretty much whatever level you need to. If the cost is too high just add a few limitations like extra END.

Re: Lose Weakness New Power: Adaptive Defense 20 points (Yield Sign) This power forces an attacker to re-roll any successful Find Weakness roll after the attacker makes a successful attack on the defender. The player and GM should decide between them exactly what special effect casues this to occur and decide on at least one special circumstance that will circumvent the adaptive defense. While not strictly a “visable” power the attacker will notice that his next successful attack did not gain the bennifit of the Find Weakness ability. That’s my quick and dirty write up of a new power to simulate this ability. If the cost seems too low you could modify the power to require it be bought separately versus Physical and Energy attacks. That would bring it into line with the cost structure of Damage Reduction so that might make sense. Thoughts?

Re: Rifts HERO? Don’t forget to give your vamps the Vulnerability: x2 BODY from stakes. That will help too.

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... To expand on point in the last post: Here’s my list of recycled plot points in Off Armageddon Reef. These are only the main ones and the ones that most distracted me while reading the book. It’s hard to stay focused on what you’re reading when you keep interrupting yourself by saying: “Hey didn’t he already do this in…” A small Kingdom that is disroportionaly wealthy due to its large navy and merchant marine. Check Said Kingdom is run by an unusually open-minded leader. Check Genocidal aliens trying to wipe out humanity. Check A planet dominated by an invented religion designed to keep humanity from attracting the attention of said aliens. Check. A lone hero that is chosen, without their consent, to save humanity. Check Said hero is augmented far beyond human norms to help them in their goal of saving humanity. Check Said hero takes on the role of one of the invented religions’ angelic beings in order to save humanity. Check Said hero provides advanced technology to the small kingdom to allow them to defeat their human enemies. Check Grasping, short-sighted nobles willing to bring down the kingdom in order to enrich themselves. Check And that’s just off the top of my head. It’s like he took the main plot from The Apocalypse Troll, most of the plot points from the Heirs of Empire series, liberally sprinkled in parts of the Honor Harrington series and baked it for 250,000 words on the “no editor” setting.

Re: Limited SPD A couple of questions: How would powers bought to 0 END be treated? Could they be used with the extra SPD one they were bought to 0 END? What is the special effect that allows the extra SPD?

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... That’s what additional novels set in the same universe are for. Going back to do a “revision” of a book that amounts to a total rewrite is a bad decision. Keep in mind that I like Weber, or at least I have. But he’s starting to drag out the Honor Harrington series way past when he should have ended it and while I found Off Armagedon’s Reef to be a decent book and will read the next book in the series, Weber’s recycling of plot points is beginning to become wearisome to the point of actual distraction while reading.

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it...

Re: Time Stop (its harder than it sounds) Yeah. When I was stating out the girls from Charmed I did them as 200 point characters so I felt that the 120 points for the time stop was about right since it ate up sixty percent of her available points. And like I said it had lots of limitations on it which were easy to come up with since the writers of the show had to carefully limit the power's use to keep it from taking over.