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.

Aw geez. I take a day off to play L4D and my thread gets all covered with snark. You have to watch these things like a hawk.

 

 

 

I didn't intend it to be done that way. It's not that 75 point characters do full effect to 250 point characters and half to 350 point characters.

 

It's part of the definition of the campaign. The PCs are superheroic characters because the campaign defines them that way. The cops are normals and the Viper agents are normals carrying super-level guns. Someone mentioned this idea in another thread, Viper agents carry blasters because assault rifles suck against supers.

 

Anyway, moving on...

 

Situation 1 and 3: 3 Body 9 Stun. They have 0 resistant defense to this attack but damage is halved for being a level up the scale. Still a good hit, but not life threatening.

 

Situation 2: (Only in hero ID) That's a good question because I don't know the answer. If we say the damage is halved because he's a scale level up then he's always scaled up and no one can ever be taken by surprise. If I say full then characters change scale based on state.

 

Thinking about it a bit I'm going to say full damage 6 Body, 18 Stun.

 

I'm going to extend the idea a little bit; Scale differences go away with surprise and when not in Heroic ID. That would model a comic booky situation where the hero can get knocked out by a sap to the back of the head by a thug who surprises him but once the hero recovers and is ready for it then it's impossible for that thug and his 10 friends to win.

 

This also lets us handle Hugh's Speedy [1] example:

 

I don't know if you're referring to a specific situation or a generality. I had to look up who Roy Harper is, so I don't know if this is a specific situation from his past. But in this case and my system the punk got him by surprise. The scaling goes away and Roy goes down.

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.

I know' date=' I was being snarky. Sorry...[/quote']

 

I figured, but then I figured hey if snark is on the menu……..LOL. It’s no problem.

 

I am looking forward to his answers though.

Re: Free equipment side discussion.

1) They take 6 BODY 18 STUN

2) They take 6 BODY 18 STUN

3) They take 6 BODY 18 STUN

 

This is arguably how it should be. Anything else is a house rule.

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

The tone of my post was a question' date=' not a statement. I've seen multiple ways of writing up different powers (some with Aid, some with direct characteristic buys) and was wondering if there was something I wasn't understanding.[/quote']

 

You seem to understand it just fine. I guess I just thought, from the way your post was worded, that you were wondering why they included Aid as a power when it seemed a less efficient way of doing things than alternate powers. If I misunderstood, I apologize.

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.

I initially built this idea (unplayed) trying to get a feel of a world where supers were a scale above normals. Different scale people still interact just fine but unless the aren't much of a threat. Lower scale people aren't much of a threat but can be if they work together or simply overwhelm with numbers.

 

Think New Mutants (Teen Hero scale) and X-Men (Hero scale). A single Sentinel (Hero scale) is a significant threat to the NM, but the X-Men take out 2 or 3 each.

 

At the same time I didn't want the higher scale people to be a lot more points. In direct comparisons of power levels the X-Men aren't that much more physically powerful than the NM. They're just a level above.

 

 

 

The only answer I have is comic book feel. In a comic a soldier hitting a villain with a an RPG has less effect than a fire guy hitting that same villain. Yet if they had both hit a wall instead they would blow the same sized hole.

 

Anyway, the main point of bringing this up is free equipment. To me it seems like this idea solves many of the problems of (points) free equipment in a supers game that have been brought up in bunch of threads. If normal equipment can be grabbed freely, but it is only 1/2 effect then there is still incentive to take it where appropriate. It will be useful against other normal people and things but not overpowering in the supers world.

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

To extend your point further' date=' it's a good time (that being before 6th ed is published) to scrutinize the interaction between Find Weakness and the Hero System in general. (my vote is eliminate it entirely)[/quote']

 

I disagree. Find Weakness has legitimate uses in the system. Rather than eliminate it I would say it should be a power that comes with a hefty warning to GMs.

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?

Excellent suggestion, alas my peeps are facing the vampires on Sunday, so they have to work with the vampire-slaying skills they've already got. One of them is an Escrimador who can Use Art with Blades, I think he could make the shot with his Fast Strike if the Vamp is stunned or prone, and he has a Takedown maneuver to help with that. Another is a Wired Knifeslinger who can probably pull it off if she gets the same opportunity. Actually the heart shot being so difficult makes a good rationale for having to spar with vamps for awhile instead of just staking them right away--as long as the vamp is in top form the heart is too small a moving target to waste an attack on--especially since the vamps in the Bestiary don't take any extra damage from wood, staking a vamp in the thigh won't take you very far.

 

I think I'll raise the stake's base damage by 1 DC if it's used 2-handed or with a mallet, that'll improve the odds of getting an impairing shot.

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...

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.

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...

It's not as strong a narrative as Path' date=' [/i']but I appreciated the greater character depth and universe expansion of the expanded piece. There's good things to be said for both books.

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...

I agree completely' date=' but have to confess that I feel the expansions in "In Fury Born" if anything detract from the whole story.[/quote']

 

I have intentionally avoided getting In Fury Born. Path of the Fury was a good book. I refuse to ruin it by reading the version that Weber published after he decided he no longer needed an editor.

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.