Kristopher

Poor us, we can't be affected by telekinesis.

So let's say I have a character that's a demon (long story) but can assume a form that outwardly appears to be his former human shape. The only things he loses in his "human" form are his claws (Armor Piercing for STR) and wings (Flight). His stats, other powers (armor, full life support, regen, senses, etc), and so on, stay the same. His real form is now his demonic form, all dracononian and scarey looking.

Is the best power to use for this Shapeshift (one form)?

I'm going to have to leave work early and stop by the liquor store after the Paladium flashback you just induced.

Originally posted by Monolith

I think this just has to do with the fact that people do not like change. The odd thing is that the HERO System has changed a great deal over the last 22 years and 99.9% of those changes (both positive and negative to powers) have been good for the game. I do not think people should get too hung-up on changes. They are just part of the evolution of the game. People forget things, and change their minds, even when a manuscript has been sitting around for 2 years waiting to be published.

With me, it's not that I don't like change.

I specifically don't like rule changes in supplements. It's a gaming pet-peeve. If I buy the basic book, that should be enough to run the game. Rules additions, extra powers, extra abilities, I can deal with, and sometimes I even like them. But actual *changes* to the rules, no way.

Specific to this case, I don't like the fact that rules changes requiring the expenditure of more points for the same effect are being tacked on in supplements. If they also end up in the FAQ or another freely and readily available form, I can deal with them.

Personally, I consider the FAQ a -- maybe THE -- valid place for those kinds of changes.

Demi-Brick? That works.

(The GM from the campaign that character was in refered to the range of characters that fall in the grey area between Bricks and Martial Artists as "Hand to Hand" characters.)

PS: I forgot to mention the 5 SPD.

It seems that most of the people who have commented in this thread have agreed that expansions on the rules and powers are good, but that rules changes that restrict and/or increase the cost of a power that are printed in supplements are detrimental to the HERO system.

Would a character with the following physical stats be considered a brick?

40 STR

25 DEX

30 CON

12 BODY

60 END

50 STUN

15 REC

25 (15r) PD

25 (15r) ED

Armor Piercing x1 for STR

15" Flight

2 Levels of Regeneration

Full Life Support (50 points worth)

This really sounds a lot more like Telepathy with lots of modifers, than a skill. I don't think the cost or nature of a skill really reflects what the ability does.

Originally posted by Warp9

Oh, and for a sense of comparison

 

a 9mm pistol does 2d6 in GURPS

 

a 15mm BMG does 16d6 in GURPS

But that's GURPS, which, to be frank, stinks.

Originally posted by Arthur

 

Dude (or dudette), you are usually quite sharp and good at the discussion game here, but this one was a swing and a miss.

 

We are talking about a RULES SYSTEM. EVERYTHING about it is contained in one book written by humans. There is no such thing as independent verifiable evidence on this subject. The author of this work is, by definition, the ultimate authority.

 

If George MacDonald were to tell us "Yes, I intended that each +1 DC represent a doubling of energy in Real World terms", then that would be IT. Fini. End of argument. The Author is always right as long as you agree to play his game (in novels or movies, this is a symbolic statement, here it is quite literal). [/b]

Um, not to burst your bubble, but your whole post is pretty much a giant appeal to authority.

Originally posted by Monolith

And you know what? Nothing horrible will happen. You now just happen to be playing by a house rule rather than an "official" rule. Once again though, this rule was implied by the character design of Stormfront. Either way though, when I am discussing rules on the message boards I prefer to use the actual rules over house rules. We all have so many house rules that none of us would make sense if we tried to answer each question with our own house rule variant.

"I'm sorry, but that character isn't written up correctly. You obviously didn't read the sidebar in Obscure Supplement #1092, in which..."

Unless they're published in the FAQ, I don't consider _changes_ to the rules are printed in FRED to be official. Additions to the rules, fine. More rules, fine. But _changes_ to the base rules? No way.

As for Stormfront...so what? I've never heard of Stormfront, I have no idea where Stormfront is in print, and IMO it's rather silly to go back and claim that a rule was implied by some character's write-up.

Originally posted by Warp9

The only problem is that, in both quotes, you were referring to "in-game mechanics."

 

Quote #1: "The idea that there is a simple, direct, and strict power to damage relationship of any kind in HERO is laughable. "

 

Your saying this quote is NOT about "in-game mechanics?" How can relationships between power and damage in HERO _not_ be about game mechanics?

 

Or are you saying that your other quote is not about "in-game mechanics?"

Now you're just confused.

Originally posted by Warp9

You're saying that Quote #2 is not a statement of a 'power to damage' relationship?

As I've already said, that was meant in a strictly in-game, mechanical sense.

All I care about is whether 3d6 RKA sufficiently translates the real-world lethality of a .50BMG into game-mechanics lethality.

What we don't know is if the PCs had a chance to diffuse the ambush situation before their loved-ones got killed.

Which isn't a contradiction at all. Mechanically, that's entirely true.

Originally posted by Warp9

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

 

That's a good attempt at a save! I guess I can't get a simple answer to a simple question.

 

But I'll explain to you why you can't answer my question. . . .

 

If you say

 

"Yes, a .50 Cal HMG _is_ 3 X as powerful as a 1d6 RKA pistol"

 

you'll risk sounding crazy.

 

And if you say

 

"No, a .50 Cal HMG is NOT 3 X as powerful as a 1d6 RKA pistol"

 

then you'll be accepting that the Hero weapon stats, as written, do not support a linear power to damage ratio.

 

Hey, please tell me if I'm wrong (and, of course, why I'm wrong).

The answer is, "neither."

The idea that a .50BMG is only 3 times as powerful as a 9mm is laughable.

The idea that there is a simple, direct, and strict power to damage relationship of any kind in HERO is laughable.

Originally posted by Wyrm Ouroboros

Yes, but you still only accellerate downwards at that same speed. Jumbo 747s accellerate downwards at 9.8m/s^2. Pinballs accellerate downwards at 9.8m/s^2. BBs accellerate downwards at 9.8m/s^2. Whether you're 1.25kg or 1,250 kg, you still accellerate downwards at 9.8m/s^2. Neither growth nor DI is going to change that.

 

Besides, the point is moot; presuming that the Shrinking/Growth/DI is instantaneous, i.e. it takes no time to increase density or size, the Fastball simply triggers the power at the time of the punch, thus getting all that wonderful growth momentum (or additional strength) into the picture.

 

It's legal. It's actually GOOD legal. It may be uglified legal, but this isn't the sort of thing you use on thugs; this is the sort of thing you use on Dr. Destroyer.

The kinetic energy DOES NOT CHANGE. Increase the mass the instant of impact, and you decrease the velocity at the instant of impact.

Yes, the downward acceleration is the same. That's WHY the character travels a shorter distance if his velocity is reduced. If it takes the character 3 seconds to hit the ground regardless of how far he travels forward, then cutting his velocity in half reduces the distance he travels before he hits the ground by half. Velocity = distance/time. Less velocity means less distance over the same time. Same energy, more mass, less velocity, less distance. Simple physics.

Originally posted by Warp9

We're not talking about the way an attack has effect on a specific target--which might get complicated--depending on the target.

 

We're not talking about a target of any sort here, just the attack itself. We're talking about the general rating of an attack. Specifically we are looking at rating the attack's raw ability to do damage in a general way to all sorts of objects (people, cars, rocks, etc. . . ).

 

Please state your reasons against using KE as an indicator of raw ability to do damage. Please show some example cases where kinetic energy just wouldn't be good enough (even for a game) to estimate general potential ability to do damage.

 

And now I have a specific question for you.

 

Do you really think that a .50 Cal HMG is 3 X as powerful as a 1d6 RKA pistol? (yes or no)

Irrelevent.

So they are in FRED. Excellent. A GM of mine used to have them as a house rule, but I missed them reading through the new book.

Thanks.

Originally posted by Warp9

You're missing something there--all those other factors you mentioned relate to (and change with) each specific target. They have nothing to do with the actual attack rating itself. So please list some factors that aren't relative to a specific target.

You're missing the point. Real life damage and lethality are far more complicated than damage, def, and BODY. So much more complicated, in fact, that you're not going to get the kind of clean and simple corelation between KE and dice of damage.

Originally posted by Trebuchet

I'll take that as a compliment.

 

One thing I should have made clear: The wide range of DEF, attacks, etc., in our campaign did not come about by accident. It was a deliberate attempt by the two (now 3) GMs to steer the game in that direction. We explained to our players that we wanted some lightly defended characters, and if they played them they would not be penalized in play for those low defenses. This required a certain level of trust by both sides; from the players that the GMs would not attempt to screw them over, and from the GMs that the players would not try to build cheesy character designs. Batman can work with Superman if your campaign is properly tailored. (While my martial artist is tremendously fast (43 DEX, 9 SPD) and would be an absolute terror if her fighting style included blades, I have so far resisted the impulse to make her The Amazing Buzzsaw.)

 

So far it has worked beautifully, and has given us characters with tremendous variations in skills, defenses and attacks. Nobody feels useless, and as long as everyone plays to concept it just keeps getting better. I don't rate combat effectiveness as being solely based on DCs and hit probabilities, but on the ability of the character to change the course of the battle. As an example, in a recent fight we had to fight against an incipient demi-god whom my character was essentially unable to harm with her max 10d6 attack due to his high defenses (30 PD, 50% Damage Reduction, 150 Stun). Since he had no minions to fight, she didn't have anything to do, right? Wrong! He was very quick and had a high CV, but my character was faster still and spent virtually the entire fight Leg Sweeping or Shoving him across the room to keep him off balance. He spent almost the entire fight at half DCV due to being prone, which allowed our lower OCV/higher DC characters to pound on him. We brought him down with teamwork.

Absolutely. You'll get no disagreement from me on the basic concept there. I've been in those fights playing the character who couldn't do much direct damage, and still did more to control the fight than any other PC.

But...smaller groups, different atmosphere, etc, change the equation.

Originally posted by DocMan

Yeah, I've always viewed the Fastball Special as a convenient way for two characters with limited movement to get one of their number into striking range of a distant foe. Damage wise, its a more difficult than normal Move-By/through. I think we've only done it once or twice. Irony is that one of the times it was my brick, Moleculon, who was thrown. He has growth and shrinking powers. So he shrinks down to his smallest size, gets a teammate to throw him, and then grows to maximum height. Memory says that the number of dice to roll at once was horrific.

 

Another similar tactic I used to use was in my first Champions campaign. I had a teleporting MA with clinging and a force sword. One of my teammates was a flying brick in an armor suit. My character would cling to his back, and he would fly among the enemies. He would do Move By's on the enemies on one side while I would do MA attacks (+ velocity bonus) on the opposite side. The GM at that time ruled that since my character wasn't spending effort moving, he could focus his full strength on the strikes.

 

Doc

Ugh. Not good.

Anyway, as I pointed out earlier, each doubling of the mass decreases the velocity significantly. If you Grow or DI much, you fall to the ground before you ever get to the target, because even a projectile accelerates downward at 9.8m/s^2 at least around here.

Originally posted by Warp9

I'm not sure that D-man's post supports the views you've been arguing for.

 

What D-man said supports the idea of abstract exponential damage, and contradicts the idea of a linear relationship between power and DCs.

 

He makes the point very clearly that a .50 BMG (at 3d6 RKA) is NOT 3 times as powerful as a 1d6 RKA. Yet he has no difficulty with using 3d6K as an abstraction to represent the 15700 Joules of an HMG.

 

You, on the other hand, have been saying that 3d6 IS 3 times as powerful as 1d6--that is the point I'm arguing about.

 

Based on your statement (that 3d6 IS 3 times as powerful as 1d6) you have two choices: you can argue that an HMG is actually 3 times as powerful as a pistol, or you can re-write the rules so that a HMG no longer does 3d6 (maybe you could re-write it so that the HMG does 60d6 K damage).

 

IMO you would be better off accepting the idea that 3d6 K is an exponential abstraction that represents weapons of a massive power level (like an HMG). Rather than continuing to hold to the idea of a one-to-one correlation between the Body rolled on the dice and the actual power of the attack.

Actually, I'm not going to do either one. I'm not concerned with any kind of between real-world kinetic energy and HERO Damage Classes. There may be a coincidental relationship, but I honestly don't care and don't think it's at all important.

The only thing that's important is approximating the real-world lethality of an attack or weapon, and the real-world lethality isn't a simple matter of kinetic energy. KE is a **factor**, but it's not the only factor by any stretch. KE is only part of what determines the degree of damage done to, well, a chunk of rock. Angle matters, material composition matters, shape and structure matter, etc, etc, etc.

Originally posted by Trebuchet

I like randomness, it adds a, well, random element to the games which I find adds a dash of interest. YMMV.

 

In my campaign my martial artist Zl'f would be Con-Stunned by an average 9d6 attack that wouldn't even leak Stun through her chum Silhouette's defenses. (Zl'f: 12 PD, 18 CON; Silhouette: 33 PD, 33 CON) Do I feel my character suffers in combat compared to her comrade? Nope. Zl'f acts more than twice as often per turn (9 SPD vs 4 SPD), is more mobile (30" Running), and in many ways is the "heart" of our team just as Captain America is the core of the Avengers. (She's the only character who has been continually played since our campaign started in 1992.) Zl'f may spend more time unconscious than Silhouette (There's an understatement!), but she's still tremendous fun to play, and I think to play with as well. Both characters are very effective, just in different ways. We base our effectiveness on our abilities as a team. Who would win in a fight between the two? Who knows? We don't do "arena" battles.

Wow, much greater SPD range as well, which does help offset the other ranges being greater (more chances to do damage, more chances to take RECs).

Thank you, again, D-Man. Sincerely. That's a better answer than I was going to provide.