CorpCommander

We have a character with both Danger Sense and Clarisentience. How would you rule on the activation of the Danger Sense in an area where the character is currently remote viewing? Danger Sense is a sense after all and Clarisentience simply allows the senses to be used remotely. Would it cost +5 points to have this unusual sense used remotely? Thanks in advance for you opinions and comments.

It Rocks Well, personally I liked it. No 1st level wimps! It conveys to me that the system works great for high powered adventure which it does. Plus the cover is more in line thematically with the other Hero system covers so I think the consistancy of it helps a lot. I can't wait to get my copy. Pete

Interesting. You seem to have the unusual notion that students will only play when they aren't drinking! While I've never played while drinking (actually I don't drink but I used to) I know it can be quite common to have a beverage or two on hand while playing. In my opinion drinking leads to bad die rolling. Don't drink and die. Or something like that!

Check brain at door Duh! I looked at the index and didn't see it. Teach me to be studying FREd at 2am. I must have been spelling it "Reel Wapon" ... Thanks! And to think I managed to get educated in physics, computer science and business but FREd dumbfounded me.

I see this limitation often in the examples but I haven't been able to find it in FRED. What's the deal? What exactly does it mean "Real Weapon"? How are the other weapons not real? How come the example Bow & Arrow doesn't take it? In what way is it limiting other than being descriptive? Perhaps its' part of some other limitation but I didn't see it. Can anyone help me find it or give a definition of the actual limitation? I am not sure beyond "focus" and "independent" you would really need to define here.

From a real cop Ok I got to speak to an actual veteran of the Massachusetts State Police. YMMV. He says his .40 carries 13 rounds in the clip and he ALWAYS puts a hot round in the chamber. He was issued a Sig-Saur which is rare for police departments as they are expensive. He also says that the SWAT (called STOP in Mass.) teams have gotten rid of the MP-5 and now use .40 cal UMP's and that someone now makes a .40 cal carbine that is compatible with his pistol clip. So soon, with the exception of shotguns, the MSP will have a universal round. Oh, and he says guns he pulls off of people are almost always junk. The bad guys always have cheap, guns. He hasn't seen any high-capacity mags. In fact he's seen it go the other way - very small and concealable weapons. Like 4 shot .45's! Hope this helps.

No jokes? Pah! No jokes means he is going to be some boring @#$%. Anyway, if you want to be serious how about: Lithe?

Round in Chamber Do you think the round in chamber is for the extra shot or to save time in an emergency from having to cycle a round. I have a police officer friend, I'll ask him what he does. I can think of reasons to do this (time savings) and reasons not to do this (safety and what if you forgot to chamber a round - always cycling a round out of habit lets you know the weapon is armed.) Not that this matters but in the movies you hardly ever seen police or bad guys chambering rounds! It might be a factor depending on what genre you are going for. Oh and the Brady Bill is only for civilians. However it should be pointed out that some civilians have grandfathered high capacity clips. I used a .40 Barretta with a very large clip (20-21 rounds IIRC). To be more on topic for the thread, I'd say police clips are around 15 rounds. Hope this helps.

Year and police force needed If you mean modern police then the typical side arm if they are well armed is a .40 cal automatic. If they are not well armed then it is usually a 9mm parabellum. The .40 has good one shot stopping power while the 9 mike mike has questionable one shot stopping power. I would question the practice of keeping a bullet in the chamber simply on safety grounds, but I can imagine that since police can end up in unexpected firefights at 2 meters perhaps it is a standard practice. Anyway, your typical police .40 carries 15 rounds in the clip. It uses a striker fire mechanism meaning the gun is in a semi-cocked state at all times. The only safety is the first trigger pull pressure which is high. Subsequent pulls are much, much easier. A typical .40 is represented by the SIG P229 and the Taurus PT940 (10 round mag). Beretta, Browning, CZ, Glock, H-K, Kahr, Ruger, SIG, S&W, Taurus, Walther all make popular versions of this weapon. The original idea was to make a medium framed gun (a requirement for police holsters) fit with the FBI 10mm Lite round. The round had to fit in the same space as the 9x19. The result is the .40S&W. 9mm mags are similar but performance is not. Here is what one gun site says. Take it with a grain of salt. Also do not believe all the hype you hear on special killer rounds like the hydrashock and the black talons. They have their place but they have drawbacks as well. Using blacktalons in winter in cold places is ineffective: the spreading package of 'claws' the round has gets caught up on parkas! Anyway, on to the quote: "The cartridge was probably helped along by passage of the ill-advised "Brady Bill," which mandated 10 round magazines in the U.S. Now pistols that formerly held 15 rounds of 9mm or 10 rounds of .40 were limited to 10 round magazines in either caliber. The 9x19 lost its advantage in firepower because of the artificial influence of the Brady Bill. A lot of shooters no doubt figure that if they are limited to 10 rounds, they might as well have the biggest 10 rounds that will fit into the gun. In most cases, that is the .40 S&W."

Sparky the Wonder Dog This one is easy. This goes back to Champions III days... The champions were on a flight to investigate a clue on mystery island. A 'mystery beam' shot down the plane and the non-flyers in the group (i.e. most of us) ended up in the drink. We all crawled up on a piece of floating wreckage and had to deal with waves attempting to dump us in the ocean again. At one point a really large wave came in. 6 heroes and one DNPC, my side kick Sparky the Wonder Dog (incompetent NPC) all made skill/dex checks to make sure we stayed on the wreckage. When the wave past the only one left on the make shift raft was of course Sparky the Wonder Dog!

In The Ultimate Vehicle, on page 50, there is a description of the M2 Bradley IFV. The TOW missile launcher is listed as costing 52 points. A second launcher is listed but it only costs 5 points. Why is this? Shouldn't it be 48pts with the smaller number of charges than the first one?

He was lucky Actually I will disagree with this. He had an edge when it came to negotiation and had several leaders running scared. But when it comes to decisions of any military significance (not just field strategy but also the direction military technology was to progress and what strategic objectives were best for his empire. If you subtract out his hate he's just a third rate dictator who happened to come into control of a designed from the ground up effecient military machine. Under his increasingly more total control that machine degraded. Look at the Soviets. They were defeated before Hitler divided up the army invading into two armies. One was set to take Stalingrad and the other to take the oilfields of the middle east. However dividing up the German Army, while almost effective actually saved the the world from Hitlerism. The battle at Stalingrad was not a sure thing. There was still an opportunity for the Soviets to be rolled over. It's opportunities like that that can make for an interesting roleplaying session. Superheros battling among the ruins of the great city with the backdrop of a greater conflict sounds interesting to me. As for the myth of numerical superiority or even the miracle of supply - none of that applies either. The Germans had the battle of the Atlantic won until one two month period when the right technology combining air power, radar technology and special weapons wiped out the U-Boat threat. It was preventable. Hitler and his minions didn't look for naval uses of aircraft and thus gave the Allies a dimention in which the U-Boats could be fought. Imagine if the Germans had a flying superhero to keep allied aircraft off their wolfpacks. That hero would have to be fought, no? The book I mentioned before is an easy read and it is totally eye opening.

Get a copy of this book "Why The Allies Won" by Richard Overy. ISBN: 0-393-31619-X Its a great overview of the history of the war, gives fantastic insight into what decided each theater and is chock full of ideas for alternative history! If you want to come up with a What If? and be able to defend it you gotta check this book out! One thing you realize is that the Nazi's, under Hitler's guidence, were pushing for the super weapons. Meanwhile his generals were giving counsel towards more reasonable weapons. One could easily see when and where it went wrong - when Hitler decided that his early gains were because he was imbued with some innate knowledge of military affairs and when he might push for true Ubermench, Uberweapons, Uber Arryans. And if you see the way the Western World and Russia reacted - with more reasonable weapons, a push for higher technology in some cases, you can see how characters in such a campaign would evolve. Great idea! Wish I had thought of it!

Oh yeah, the US government would never empower someone who shows an undeniable streak of deceit and misuse of the trust of colleagues and the American public. People like Oliver North, Manuel Noriega, and Saddam Hussein never can expect to get power, money and super weapons from the government. Ok, well sometimes the government does F-UP and give these jerks everything they need to run illegal arms sales, become dictators and engage in senseless violence. Further a few of the Law and Military friends I know do quote the dispicable adage: "If you ain't cheatin' you ain't tryin'!" So I can easily see Stalwart getting such power. That level of stupidity really exists. Just my $0.02.

That could be the original intent. However, since Hero is a very highly controled gaming system with great interdependency and interlocking systems and D&D is basically a food processor of ideas, unconnected but on the same plate - the original intent is often ignored. For example, my D20 Samurai gets an obscene amount of FREE opportunity attacks when people do specific things 1" away. i think it is something like 5 attacks but it could be 9 (GM has my sheet - he keeps them so that when players don't show up someone else can run the character.) Anyway the point is, the entire combat system in 3E is totally broken as far as I am concerned. On page 235 of Fred there is a good mechanism for an Opportunity attack of sorts. Even in historical wargames, opportunity attacks require the unit to be in a defensive ready mode and position. The rule on holding action in Fred does something similar. I think it's pretty close to what you need, no? Or do you want free attacks? If so, well then, burn heretic!!! your Stoning will be at dawn!

Aether Specialization Tell me more about this Aether Specialization thing. I don't know what you mean. What are the types? Why bother - how do you work it into the world in a meaningful way? I agree with your methods for requiring limitation. On the one hand spells can't be all that powerful without them, on the other hand you as GM have a harder time making life hard for the players if they don't have them. It's better for the role playing to have the limitations. Good job. I may have to try this. I am using Privateer Press' Witchfire trilogy and want to make a fantasy hero campaign out of it. Magic was the one thing i was dreading but it looks like magic systems aren't as hard to create as I thought. CC

back in the late 80's and early 90's I read so much cyberpunk that I think I am starting to confuse the stories. I think I was wrong about Gibson and that the character I am thinking of is this one from Snow Crash. If your humor is tongue in cheek read this book. Read Cryptonomicon as well if you know what is good for you. Both books excel. And be sure to order Pizza from La Cosa Nostra Pizza Delivery! --CC

Virtual Light Actually there is a similar character concept in William Gibson's book "Virtual Light" in which a lead character requires the computers and lifesupport of his vehicle. I can't remember the name of the character or give more details because my ex-roommate's ex-girlfriend stole the book. Grrr &*^%$#. Anyway. I wouldn't make it a bed. Bed just doesn't sound right. Why not make it a form of encounter suit? --CC

To Quote the Tick To quote the Tick:

Here is a different view Instead of trying to use powers to work the special effect, why not use powers to create the primary effect. What I mean by this is the imaginary ninja isn't doing anything. Just like the blue in superman's spandex doesn't do anything - it's just the special effect. If the point of the effect is to distract so that you are harder to hit (more choices) buy more defense and activate it with this special effect. If the point is for the enemy to target something else other than you so you can do your Ninja mamba-jamba sneaking around then perhaps buy it as a form of flash. My usual method for creating a character is to come up with the character concept like you have but to then look at the concept through the rules instead of from the concept to the rules. I always assume that whatever I have in my concept is simply a special effect unless proven otherwise. Good luck, sounds like a fun character!

I now own a copy of every edtion of Hero core rules I've ever heard of. My goodness. I was happy with 4th edition, why did I have to go an spend the big bucks tonight when I'm low on cash? The book basically said "buy me." I need to put more points into mental defenses. I think the thing I like about 5th edition after having sat with it for an hour tonight is the level of detail that is put into each entry. It is much more clear what the intent of the entry is. 4th edition was a no brainer for one simple reason: the index. That was the number one reason everyone of us bought 4th edtion back in 1990 or there abouts (was it 1989? darn, can't remember now!) The index in the new book blows the old one away. The examples are great! All in all well done. Hope to get to play a game when i show up at Origins next week! Woot!

That is a great system, I love it! It makes planning any type of Hero game a bit easier. I'm thinking of running a fantasy game by converting some adventures I really like from D20 to Hero but I don't want to mis-convert the beasts the party will have to fight into paper tigers/steam rollers. This is a great way of looking at it. Thanks everyone.

FYI: CoC Sanity System in D20 FYI: the sanity system in D20 is the same as the one in the Chaosium system. The took it lock stock and barrel. You have to add new characteristics to your character sheet but there it is. The D20 CoC books is actually well laid out and inspite of how much I have come to dislike D20 it does a reasonable job of it. I haven't playd CoC seriously since around 1988. Them was the days.

Well, since you have such a passion for it and HERO is there for you to design your own world - what is preventing you from writing it up? I could write up a 20 page article just on "Heiro's Journey" alone. One could write an entire sourcebook based on "The Empire of the East" by Fred Saberhagen (though there would be licensing issues even if you did it as a free give away. I know, I tried. ) Is it a question of work? You could definitely get results faster by just working on it a little each week than waiting for someone else to come out with something. Also, I don't care what anyone comes out with, at least with me, I always end up doing work to retailor it. Mind you, I LOVE PA genre. As a kid I LOVED the original Gamma World. I ran D&D and my brother ran Gamma World. I've heard many tales from people who've played both Aftermath and Morrow Project. I think it's a great idea. But if you are being held back by a simple 20 pages... my best advice is write them up yourself. Do you Want David Brin's "The Postman" or Brian Aldiss' "The Long Afternoon of Earth"? Both are on really different scales of imagination. One is practically a soap opera and the other is a mind trip that would make Hendrix raise an eye brow. Maybe you want some guidelines where people can pick an choose the level or realism. What do you think? Am I off base?

Ok, lets say you are a GM. You have five 75pt Heroes. Total value of the party is 375pts. How many bad guys can you throw at them for a 'fair' fight? 10 x 40pts? 2x 200pts? Points seem to be geometric in effect. Are there any good guidelines? Thanks!