Kruhl Sentru

A player in a game I'm running noticed the Possession power in the Hero Designer, but none of us can actually find the source material. Is there a way to find where this one came from? I don't see it in any index, can't find it on a forum or internet search... just, nothing so far. So, I guess it's a simple one, but every time I think I've got all the major rules, there's another thing hidden in there. ...like something about taking Computer Programming causing a character to be in direct competition with the writer of the Hero System... *cough* *cough*

I'm trying to figure out what exactly "innate" means, specifically as a rule for "innate attacks" that can be used against entangles. On page 6E1 216, one of the paragraphs under "Escaping from Entangles" describes what seems to be a possible method of using various attack powers to break free from entangles. The part I'm refering to says "Characters with powers that cause BODY damage and are innate or bought through Inaccessible Foci can use those powers to try to break free..." I've also seen the term "innate" referred to on breaking free from entangles on 6E2 124. However, I cannot seem to find the word "innate" either in the index for 6E1 and 6E2, nor can I find this term in the 6E1 Glossary. Going from context clues, I'm thinking it references any attack that is not bought through Accessible Foci (which would probably mean most weapons would be out). However, I'm still not sure of exactly what is going on, and I can't seem to find this term anywhere else. The reason I ask about this is because of a bit of a balancing issue that's come up with my gaming group reguarding entangles, which might shed some light on what I'm trying to find out. We've found that it has been pretty easy to take an area of effect entangle with high PD, and use it to turn a fight with several enemies into a series of battles with 1 enemy each. For example, you could take a simple 4d6 entangle, buy up the PD from 4 to 8, and anyone with roughly 20 or less strength will simply not have enough dice to use strength alone to break out (as I understand, they'd have 4 dice of normal damage at that strength, so even with all 6's they'd get 8 body, still not enough to even scratch that entangle's BODY). This means that we could just use attacks to break out the entangled villains one at a time, taking them down before they can reasonably fight back. Since we tend to play at superheroic power levels (although we usually use medieval fantasy based settings), and one of our players is effectively an ice-based magethief, this has come up fairly often in the past. For the time being the players have agreed to reduce their entangle strength in various ways, but I'm thinking that if enough enemies can simply be allowed to use attacks (especially killing attacks), to break out of entangles, then perhaps we can reduce the overall impact of high-powered entangles (as in 80 active points or more) to something that is somewhat effective, but not the final word in a battle. However, I'm still not sure which attacks should be allowed, owing to being unsure about the "innate" rule. Since seemingly all of our game balance troubles have stemmed from misinterpreting the rules, I just want to make sure I get this one right lol. On a side note, I just wanted to say "thanks" for having this forum here, especially where rules questions can be asked. I actually learned about the existance of the Hero System from looking up the history behind Champions Online, but since the only other Hero System gamers I can find around here play exclusively on the one day I can't play, I've had to pretty much learn the Hero System on my own, and then teach it to the gaming group I started up (which is now 2 years old). Needless to say, starting with 6E1 and 6E2, and with no background on this particular system, this has been a bit of a daunting task. I didn't even know of the importance of a genre book until I bought my first one lol. However, thanks to the community here I found the Basic Rulebook, which helped me get started, as well as a two-page summary of core rules that I now hand out to newcomers to our group. Now our gaming group here loves the Hero System and won't play anything else, though we still are working to get a handle on many of the individual rules, as well as the interactions between rules. =)

Re: Counters to problems? (Such as AoE spam and magic overuse) Wow, I never really expected quite this many responses. I think most of my problems were stemming from 2 areas: lack of experience with the HERO System in particular, and a lack of the Fantasy HERO book (which I now have, have read relatively thoroughly, and now I've applied several suggestions from it). To be honest, I'd highly recommend the appropriate genre books to anyone who plans to run a HERO game, as it makes a world of difference. Speaking of which, I've ordered in the HERO System Martial Arts book, which should also be able to help with the non-magic user side of things. That, and the use of various talents from the Fantasy Hero book should help as well. I'd probably get the advanced player's guide next, but I'm thinking I'd better wait before applying ideas from it so I don't overwhelm my players with new rules (especially since they are being applied mid-game in order to save the plot-line). I'm actually not really all that new of a GM (though I only have about 8 years experience so far), it's just that I've never run in a system like this. To me, the HERO system feels more like a set of optional rules with a few core mechanics, rather than the hard-set set of rules that other systems usually have. Still, this is my favorite system so far, despite it requiring a bit of extra work on the side of the GM to make it work. My campaign, for instance, will involve mostly fantasy fiction, but it also has some elements of modern technology and future technology thrown in at strategic locations. Then, there's the fun of making up stuff as you go, like a clockwork crossbow turret of gnomish design, or the similarly made clockwork golem that sought to avenge its master's fallen friend. Other systems can make it hard to have the flexibility necessary for such outlandish creations. Well anyways, thanks for all the information and responses! It has helped generate quite a few ideas for balancing things out as they come up.

I have a player in my Fantasy Hero game that wants to craft some equipment, especially magical equipment, primarily by using profession skills. However, I can't seem to find any rules about crafting at all, aside from how to build items as powers in a Superheroic setting (and this in a Heroic setting). So, my question is, are there any official rules for crafting items, including in books other than 6E1 and 6E2? And if so, where would I find them? Thanks in advance for your help.

Re: Counters to problems? (Such as AoE spam and magic overuse) Hmm... well, I mis-read Dive For Cover, and missed the part about being allowed to use it multiple times despite it being an Abort action, so that handles AoE's pretty well actually. Seems like the encumberance rules handle platemail pretty well, so now I'm just left with trying to figure out how to handle magic overuse. The main problem here is that most of the players already have decently large multi-powers, and not nearly enough xp to make up for that. I really want to keep my campaign going, as it's got a loooooong over-arching plot that's barely been touched, but at the same time it looks like it's going to be pretty hard to convince the magic users to just give up their excess spells, and it's been pretty hard already to convince the non-magic user to try out multi-powers to begin with. Either way, I may have to allow the players to at the very least to be able to remake their characters in order to make up for the change in point costs. On the bright side, it looks like I've got alot more ideas to toss around, which will help things dramatically, so thanks for the help!

I've been running a campaign for some time now, and together myself and the players, who are all new to the HERO system, have been slowly learning how to use the rules. Occasionally we come across some problems, but we've been able to work them out so far. Today I've been thinking about another couple of problems in my campaign that have been creeping up, and while I have some ideas as to how to counter them, I thought I'd take this opportunity to see what more experienced players and GMs might think. The first problem is the big one, and that's simply that by allowing the players/npc's to use DCV 3 instead of the target's DCV to hit with AoE (Area of Effect) attacks, players and npc's alike with a high DCV seem to be taking quite a hit in defensive capability. For example, a villain could have some DCV that's way too high for the campaign, and yet will be hit reliably by the players due to the use of AoE attacks. Vice versa, a player who invested in being able to dodge well (high DCV and dex) will also be hit reliably by any opponent with an AoE attack. Sure, you can apply the optional manuever of diving for cover, but that manuever will both use up your next action, and leave you vulnerable to the next 2 or 3 AoE's coming your way. Overall, the ability to make your attacks undodgeable for a mere +1/4 advantage seems like a bit much. At least with something like armor piercing, there's a direct counter to it (hardened in this case). So far I have 2 possible solutions that might aleviate some of the power of AoE's: the first is to apply hit location charts, which we haven't been using yet due to the added complexity despite being in a Heroic campaign. The idea in this case is that since an AoE attack would logically hit everything in the area, you can't really target just one area on a person, and so would only be able to use the standard multipliers and the like on attacks to determine stun and body damage. Thus, you would never have a chance at a blow to the head or to the vitals, for example, and would never be able to target a specific area on a person with any AoE attack. The second solution is similar in concept, and that is to apply the critical hit rules, but again only to attacks that can reasonably target a weak spot on an enemy, and not AoE's. However, if any of you have any other ideas, or know of some rule I've missed that would bring AoE's into balance, please let me know. The next problem I think I've got relatively handled, and that is overuse of heavy armor. I'm running a Fantasy Hero campaign, but hadn't yet been using the encumberance rules, and so as far as I could see there were no drawbacks to heavy armor. Thus, even those who wished to play lightly armored characters quickly ended up donning full plate as soon as they could get their hands on it due to the increased effectiveness and lack of a drawback. However, I'm hoping to convince everyone of the importance of implementing the encumberance rules, which hopefully will alleviate the problem. Still, if anyone knows a better, alternate, or additional solution, I'd be happy to hear it. Finally, and this one I'm still a bit undecided on whether it is a problem or not, is the overuse of magic in a Fantasy Hero game. I did not yet have the Fantasy Hero book when I started the game, and I doubt I would have had time to read through it enough to have implemented the variety of magic rules inside, but in any case, the end result is the the only person to not use magic heavily in my campaign has been rather limited in combat options, and thus spends their hard earned xp on just raising stats and skills instead of making a power framework for a variety of spells/abilities. For the most part, it doesn't seem to have caused too much trouble, but I don't want people to feel compellled to invest heavily into magic just to keep up with everyone else. So, I'm still up in the air about this one, but if it becomes an acknowledged problem I'm thinking of implementing a mandatory magic roll at the usual -1 per 10 active points rule. Not sure if that's enough by itself, but it would be a start at least. Anyways, that's it for now (though I know that's quite a bit of a wall of text). If anyone has any suggestions that can be thrown around at my game group, please feel free to voice them: I'm sure my players would be happy to hear them.

Re: Hero In Two Pages - Complete Just thought I'd pop in and say thanks to those who made the 2-page summary! I just printed out a few copies myself to help teach some players that are new to the HERO System, and overall I think this is a great resource to help get people into the game. =)

Re: Making Characters For Fun and Practice I have a first write up for a Star HERO character, but I'm not very sure of how these types of characters work. I want him to be primarily a scientist/technician, but it seems that the normal range of skills only goes up to 13-, which seems awfully low to me. As a result, I gave my character 2 levels of skill levels with all intellect skills, but that does raise it to 15-, so I'm not sure if that's even allowed. Of course, this could be something that varies from GM to GM. I didn't give him any equipment, since I don't know how to balance that out for a campaign that I'm not familiar with anyways, but my guess is he would have a laser pistol, some various scientific equipment for gathering information, and maybe some other basic supplies.

Re: Making Characters For Fun and Practice For those that don't know, the exansion for City of Heroes/Villains, Going Rogue, came out a couple weeks ago. Well, I happen to play that game extensively, so that's what I've been up to. Anyways, I've made the changes over the last couple of weeks a little here and there to my Roboticist character. I've attached a .zip file with him in it. The bots and the Dr. himself are in .pdf, but that doesn't work for all of them, so the factory is in .txt format and the factory AI is in .html format. I have been working on an idea for a Star HERO character, but I'm very unfamiliar with that kind of setting, so I'm probably going to have to spend some time learning more before I can create and post it. In any case though, I haven't just dissappeared, so much as I've been playing entirely too much on City of Heroes: Going Rogue. As usual, feel free to post critiques, especially to let me know if I've messed up on the rules or done something that no sane GM would allow.

I know you can't get the cost reduction for linking 2 powers in a multipower, but is there a way to make it so that you can use 2 attacks in a multi-power simultaneously? For example, I'd like to make a photon grenade as an option for my pulse rifle, but conceptually the photon grenade is supposed to do minor damage with a flash effect too. Is there a way to put that into a multipower? Thanks in advance for any information in that reguard.

Re: Making Characters For Fun and Practice Just thought I'd respond to this, now that I've gotten a chance to both think on this and had a chance to have this character battle it out against himself. OMCV, along with the other characteristics, goes down as far as zero in the HERO Designer, so I just didn't know there was a minimum of 1 on that one. INT I think I'd rather keep unless a GM explicitly said no. The way I figure it is this: first, the range the book says for standard superheroic stats is 10-40, and since often people have very high strength, I'd love the see the reasoning behind anyone disallowing it to be that high. Second, it does actually give both high skill levels and high perception. That means that I can take penalties to my rolls and still succeed, or even have a decent chance in a skill vs. skill contest. The big reason, though, is just that this guy, roleplay wise, should be a supergenius to have weapons this far in advance of the rest of the world (pulse guns, laser guns, energy cannons, photon grenades, healing beams, and even remote forcefield generators). He didn't just find these, he made them all himself. SPD 4 I agree would normally be low, but considering that he has as many as 7 bots out running at SPD 3 to 4, that stacks up really, really fast. The 150 END would basically be there to make it so that he can go through a few turns of combat w/o running out of endurance. It was something that some of the people in another thread suggested, so that's why that's there. The bots would definately add to the length of combat, simply because there are now more characters to roll for. Summoning anything, or even just using duplication, would have the same basic effect. My hope is that it wouldn't be so much that it caused problems for whatever roleplay group this character is with. Also, I'm going to point out that with the way his summoning works, if he expects a fight, he can simply summon his bots in advance, and he can have them around for up to 20 tasks due to the way he was built. I kinda like it that he would have to take time to summon them though, since that gives him a weakness in combat if he gets suprised. 12d6 with AP is definately higher than I'd like. So is the 10d6 autofire w/ 3 shots and AP. Combat with himself came down to who hit the other guy first, and that's before bots. If the pulse-rifle shots didn't outright knock the other guy out, they'd almost guaranteed stun the other guy, so it's just way too much. Add that in with all those bots, and the fire support this guy provides is just way, way too much. I think a relatively simple solution, though, might be to lower the damage in exchange for extra levels of AP. That means that he can still damage more powerful opponents that might have a level of hardened defenses, but he wouldn't need such amazingly high damage output. Anyways, thanks for the advice, I always appreciate another viewpoint on these characters, especially since it's so easy for them to get out of hand.

Re: Making Characters For Fun and Practice Okay, I'm not sure if this worked right, but I tried to export the files to .html format (that way they still have the roleplaying elements attached as well as the build), and put them all in a .zip file. If this doesn't work, let me know. I can't put the robot factory in either .pdf or .html format though, but I did have it posted in .txt format in a previous post, so hopefully that should work.

Re: Making Characters For Fun and Practice The .pdf files or the .hdc files? I'm asking because the only "HD" I can think of at the moment would be the HERO Designer, and the .pdf files should be able to be opened with adobe acrobat reader (or whatever it's called, I forget the exact name). In either case, I'd be happy to oblige, so long as I can figure out how to do that (I haven't actually zipped any files before lol, I guess I just never needed to).

Re: Making Characters For Fun and Practice Here is the second upload for Dr. Von Kruschekt, but it only contains the AI for his factory/superbase.

Re: Making Characters For Fun and Practice Okay, attached are the .hdc files for The Roboticist, a.k.a. Dr. Hahn Von Kruschekt. This guy is basically a port over from City of Heroes/Villains (or CoX for short), as that is a game I play quite frequently. In CoX, he was a mastermind with robotic minions and forcefields. Here I have customized the appearances, powers, and background of him and his minions, but overall it's very similar in concept. Overall I really enjoyed making this character, although I'll admit that many GMs probably wouldn't allow him in as-is. The main problem I see is that I used a couple of the "stop sign" powers, and of course different GM's will have different opinions as to whether these are allowed or not. Still, the important parts were that I had fun, and I learned a ton in the process (especially reguarding bases and AI's). This was a 6-part character, including sheets for the Dr. himself, 3 types of robots he can summon, the factory/superbase that makes the robots, and the AI that runs that factory. All in all, I'm pretty sure there are plenty of plot hooks on this character, and it would be alot of fun to play, but depending on the campaign the robotic weapons may need to be toned down to make up for their sheer numbers. I can only post the first 5 parts at once, so there should be a second post very soon.