incrdbil

Re: Power Construction Question No, that would be a 150 point character. characters are a sum of their base costs, and disadvantages. if someone doesn't want to take any disadvantages, and play a 75 point character in a game where the character point limit is 150, well thats up to them. They will be, of course, quite weaker, but then that's what they get for not taking disadvantages. If you want to play a 75 point normal game, you give the Pc's an amount from 25 to 50, tell them to pick up the rest in disadvantages. Well, they do, and thats how the hero system works. If you don't take any disadvantages, you get fewer character points. Absolutely. since I took disadvantages, I'll toss your character around in a one on one fight. I also don't have a rival trying to kill me, a DNPC who gets in danger, a weakness, or even vulnerability that makes me weak in combat, or a psychological flaw so strong that an enemy can exploit it, and I can't escape it without an ego roll (or at all, depending on the level of the disad). also, the character aren't exact copies. You are building a 75 point character, I'm building an 150 point character. Pretty obvious who will win. Why would a character in one of your games take a vulnerability if you don't allow points for it? I'm not really understanding where you are coming from--this is Hero games 101 I'm talking.

Re: Power Construction Question Well, by being always on, he can't hide the fact he's using the power to anyone with mental senses-ever. I need to read a bit more on selective, non selective, and the effects on ECV when I get home..I'm overlooking something, I just know it.

Re: Power Construction Question Ok, I'm confused. Please, what are you talking about? Disadvantages aren't deducted from power costs. Having a 50 Strength and being Overconfident isn't abusive in any sense. You mean you don't have bricks that are overconfident? Being overconfident will get you in trouble, regardless of what your strength. An overconfident guy with 20 Strength will pick a fight with Bulldozer, and pay the price. An overconfident hero with 50 Str will pick a fight with Grond, or Gravitar, or Firewing..and really, pay a price. You have a total cost of skills, characteristics and powers. That has to equal base +disads +exp spent. There's no cost reducing connection between a disadvantage and a power. I know someone mentioned offsetting the points of a power by taking a disadvantage based on that power, but with point limits (and disad category limits) it really isn't working that way. and even if you are working under the questionable premise of 'take as many disadvantages as you want), if a disadvantage is appropriate if the power puts the character at a real disadvantage in many situations thats more than just what rolling the dice would acheive. Why I wouldn't reccomend taking the disadvantage in the specific case is that if they player planned to make the power selective, he'd also have to pay off the disadvantage--I'd be inclined to initialy take it as a zero point disadvantage just for roleplay possibility.

Re: Power Construction Question

Re: Hand to Hand Attack Over Priced?

Re: Where else do you roll down? roll low, roll high, whats the difference? There's enough difference between Hero and d20 in every other area that changing that won't make any transition to the system easier. Honestly, the only time I've seen 'confusion' about issues as trivial as this in system coomparisons (of about any two systems) is from people making up excuses when they already decided they don't like a system before they even looked at it, and are just grabbing at straws for justification. On the other hand, instead of focusing on making the game more tolerable to d20 players, just concentrate on ease of use. If that ultimately leads to a roll high, or roll low mechanic for skill and combat resolution, that's fine, and there's no need to keep the philosophy same with damage rolls. I'm currently using the OCV+11-roll=DCV you hit method for a group of newbies, and it works fine for them. If a DCV+10/11 as a target number system keeps odds the same and works as well, I could see that change. f there is a change, it should be for the ease of the Hero system, not to satisfy the complaints of d20 apologists.

Re: Question for the legal eagles re federal arrest warrants 1. Good. 2. Only applies after he turns himself in. 3. Harboring a known fugitive may make you criminals as well. Accessory after the fact, and all that. 4. Good idea. 5. they won't negotiatte, especially on matters of terrorism. Announcing you know where he is and are keeping him from the feds may effectively cost you the use of any open contacts. There's no automatic assumption of gitmo style treament. Anyway--why should you hide him? If he's amnesiac, how do you knwo he isnt one? Unless there's some reason to mistrust the government beyond the standard 'well, he's a PC ' reasons. Anyway, if this is a big GM polothook, I'd go explore finding out his past, the obvious plot hook, rather than role play out a legal battle and media PR scenario. Sometimes, you just go with the current.

I didnt give them an easy first big team fight. Sure, it was only the Ultimates, but a tweaked ultimates. Binder made combat durable, and with nastier entnagles. Blackstar made a tad speedier, and better defenses. Same for Radium. Ultimates had a plan, knowledge of the area. End result, 3 Ultis captures, 3 get away. The best part is, Thunderbolt, escaping with the goal, hasn't noticed that the superspeedsters final missed 'attack' was actually a sleight of hand to steal away the key data module, and basically will make a fool of him. Cool, new hunted for a character The PC's started working or trying to support each other--attempted FB's, coordinated attacks--key entangles or other affects on high DCV enemies. Abandoning attacks to rush and save innocents from collateral (or deliberate) damage. Ultimate who oddly enough was the one that went down last and hurt a lot of PC's--Radium. Surrounded, realizing he was cut off, he tagged quite a few with the mega blast before surrenduring. All nicely caught on camera to give thePc's plenty of golden exposure, and they are dying for the wrap up--firmly hooked group of newbies

Re: Chomp! Hey, let me out! after reading these thoughts.. no range entangle, stops many senses, with some advantage to reflect how its difficult for those outside to attack the entangle (ie,open up the right spot on the monster) --and extra defense only against those outside atatcks, equal to the monsters normal defenses, with several linked continous uncontrolled attacks (digestive juices, constriction, etc) and a side effect that breaking out of the entangle does so much body to the monster. sound good as a start?

Re: Another gun that makes even ME go "WHY?" well, if you are into the handgun hunting for bear tuff, I think this might be what you want. and you have to admit, even a 'grazing hit' from this would make someone take a few moments to contemplate life.

ok, we've seen it in countless movies--the big bad monster swallows the hero in one gulp--said hero hacks/shoots his way out, maybe while being digested, and usually kills the creature in doing so. sometimes though, they are helpless, and are rescued/cut out by their friends How would you go about doing this in Hero?

Re: FYI: why more people aren't playing HERO (rpg.net) Same old story; stores only carrry the big sellers; nothing else sells big because stores don't carry it. Only the biggest of game stores can carry big inventories--but hey, in a few years, I think those will be the only ones left, besides a few comic book shops carrying a small sample of game products--besides Games Workshop crackhouses.

Re: The Truly Evil GM well, there was the time the base gadgeteer used parts from a washer dryer to fix the base teleporter. (long story, limited resources) Every trip through was like spin cycle for personalities/bodies/powers. Need I say more?

Re: Supervillain Motivation Made Simple "I do this for the people!" "Mine"

Re: WWYCD: Wonder Drug Hmm Ranger I (Silver age) Would shrug, prepare for the insanity. Ranger II (Iron age) would probably take covert action to sabotage the drug, create false horror stories about side effects, with or without help from his governent contacts, (preferably having the drug stopped as a security risk) knowing the incredible damage to society to result as villainous groups buying up/steal the drug inventory. He'd naturally try to beat them to it, for use on recruits/agents that have passed the groups screening process. He'd pull about any dirty trick he could to put the screws on the wealthy patrons who succeeded in getting government backing, seeing the inevitable damage to society justifying whatever lengths he had to go to to stop the drugs distribution. Hornet (Silver age)would do exhaustive studies, and wonder who mind controlled the FDA to go along with this idiocy, then explode in frustration seeing it was just the usual assortment of bribes. He'd develop a reversal drug/process to be ready to use. He'd attack the drug through a PR campaign since his tesam is pretty well liked. Blaze (Bronze age) would stealthily use his cosmic power pool to sabaotage the drugs production and shipments making the drug relatively inert, then see if other opponents of the drug could get it taken care of. Failing that, the production facility would just..disappear..overnight. Repeat as needed. Blaze would even show up afterwards, trying to investigate the 'mystery', to make sure it wasnt the work of villains. A villainous NPC I used as a GM, Blacksmith, (Bronze Age)would probably help fund this drug, even make a cheap copycat and distribute it widely, freely.--only because he'd be working up a tailored virus to affect those who use it, a form of communicable super-rabies (that is fatal over the long term), watching the inevitable damage to the world and the superhero population occur so as to make his inevitable world conquering plan a surefire success. Shaister (Comedic Silver/Bronze age) would set up a company and sell placebo knock offs offs in a Internet Viagra type scheme.

Re: WWYCD: Sleeping With The Enemy Hmm, Ranger--follow villain, see if he leads him to his allies/teammates, take them down, tell the team how the teammate 'went undercover'--and then chew her out royally afterwards, in private. Hornet trail, follow villain, arrest him at his next time--lockout teammate from base, warn others untiul team mentalist checks her out. Blaze, --hit the bad guy while he's asleep, try to pick up girl on the rebound. Shaister, come back later, shapechanged and imitating the villain..after the fun, then dump her, infuriate her, and leave an obvious trail to her ex-lover's hideout..and then show up 'accidentally' to bring the cad in. (Shaister was not nice, as the name suggests. )

Re: Why the heck not? Yes--if Joe Energy Blaster for soem reason buys a mental power, he has to buy up his EGO as well. Mentalists don't have to buy EB's, after all.

Re: OIF for Powered Armor why?

Re: Why the heck not? I was just thinking that it would seemingly step on the toes of lightning reflexes. If you want to make a normal attack at a initiative higher than your normal DEX, everyone else must buy lightning reflexes. If you let EGO act as the base for OCV and reaction time of all non mental based powers for mentalists, then they definitely are getting a free ride.

Re: Why the heck not? ...and he gets the benefits of a high ego roll, high ECV. Being able to take attacks based on OCV and switch them to his ECV is to that characters advantage if his EGO > his DEX. When he bought EGO, he was not paying for extra CV for non mental based powers. Now, what about reaction times? If we're going to allow the normal attack to be based off ECV, shall he get to act at his EGO on initiative rather than DEX?

Re: OIF for Powered Armor why?

Re: OIF for Powered Armor why? ::see incrdbil run:: ::incrdbil looks at rulebook:: ::incrdbil looks up Armor:: ::incrdbil sees Armor in Power Section:: ::run incrdbil Run!::

Re: OIF for Powered Armor why?

Re: OIF for Powered Armor why? anyone else just laughing in amazement right now?

Re: Crippling VPPs Denying some effects may make game balance sense, but if they clearly clash with capabilities the character would seem to have--example: Character with transformation/creation powers--they can create or change about any substance. They could make a NND vs Life support obviously, but they may be capable of producing an attack that would be NND vs armor as well through creating different toxins/chemicals/substances. If a VPP was based on temperature control, NND's targeted against the appropriate extremes seem on cue as well. This sounds a bit corney, but the ultimate GM tool in keeping a VPP balanced is being a very good jusdge of the player you may be allowing to have it, because otherwise you find yourself to tempted to spell out every approved/forbidden power/advantage/limitaion effect ahead of time, which is pretty intensive. It's not the only restriction, but it is a starting point.