WistfulD

That's what I see. Computers exist, but they don't replace people doing things. Nothing is solved by reconfiguring the deflector dish, and damage isn't sending a repair crew to get the shields back from 62% to 100, it's having the head engineer and the party strong guy head down to a damaged bulkhead in vacc suits with really big wrenches, epoxy, soldering irons, and temporary sheeting.

Overall, I wouldn't tie "how often" to the value of the limitation, because that value also conveys "how much." Also remember that how often something effects the player has to take into account lacks-of-action. If the player has "doesn't work in vacuum" on their power, they might not even leave the spaceship to confront the enemy. The biggest thing that limitations require is that 1) the GM is aware of them (not just has been shown, actually remembers that the player has the limitation), and 2) would limit the player because of it ("doesn't work in vaccuum isn't a limitation unless the characters are going into space, even if it is a sci-fi game).

Again, probably not the best place to discuss, but here's what I have-- Hard science: not in the technical sense, since they have ftl, artificial gravity, and reactionless thrusters, but in that you don't run into "space storms" "cosmic strands" and negative atomic space wedgies all over the place. Skill-driven adventures: sure the guy in powered combat armor with a plasma weapon is going to jack up the guy with balistic cloth and a knife, but what your character knows and knows how to do is more important than the cybernetics you bought or the psionic powers that you have (even though the game has both). Background-driven traits: The actual Traveller game system has always had (despite an optional point buy method as well for some versions) a character creation method which gives past life experiences (and resultant learned skills and received permanent wounds) based on random die rolls. Specifically, you decide what career to (try to) enter, and whether to keep going after each 4-year stint, but the rest is all dice rolls. This gives traveller character backstories and personalities a shifty, shabby, survived-by-their-skills, fly-by-the-seat-of-the-pants, people-who-believe-in-moral-absolutes-don't-last-long, everyone-has-had-one-amazing-success-story-and-a-hundred-"I shouldn't be alive"-stories, kind of feel. There's a reason so many gamers saw Firefly and said, "that looks familiar." So, no tricorders, no prime-directive, no starship damage is auto-repaired at the start of the next episode, you're not Kirk or Picard, and you aren't Luke or Han either, since you aren't doing something so noble as conquering the evil empire.

Actually, I'm not sure that anything does need to be addessed, since we've kind of decided by consensus that shapeshifting is a better solution than multi-forming. Even if not, I was more pointing out the oddness more than anything. As to this, why is it important that a completely controlled, egoless character not be able to be knocked out?

One of the downsides of the conversion of inches into 2 meter sections is that it creates the false impression that any of this has been rigorously tested vs. the real world. measuring everything in hexes and inches makes very clear that it is strictly relative to each other. This does not work very well in sports, where instantaneous acceleration, rapid change in vector of velocity, and reaction time are immensely important. It is even less accurate in space, where acceleration is a better rating of ship perfromance, reaction time shouldn't matter (i.e. speed and acceleration shouldn't be tied to the SPD score), and the acceleration rules simply fall appart, especially when you tack on the megascale modifiers. In space, however, you are almost always discussing vehicles, which while relatively consistant, are not particularly balanced pointwise. In sports, you might end up paying more for your movement based on the velocity factors and accelleration than you do in actual meters per turn of movement.

<?> From this thread (http://www.herogames.com/forums/topic/90307-logic-of-takes-no-stun/), in which you participated. As Stated by Scott Baker, "I think the problem here is one of GM option. Both 6E1 and CC state that these powers can normally only be purchased by Automatons, which are controlled by another character. As a GM, I can't think of a situation over the last 3+ decades where I would have let a PC run such a character (i.e., being controlled by another character as the automaton rules--including the additional information in 6E2--indicate)." Now, he could have been wrong about it (I haven't gone back and checked that language), and sentience might be the wrong term. Either way, if a giant robot has a computer brain, it can be considered a character and be built using those points, needing to take the Takes No Stun Power. However, if they are considered a computer character controlling a separate vehicle body, they have no stun score without taking that power, but having to pay for their arms and normal senses, and that is the juxtaposition I was trying to highlight.

Penetration--the only thing that blocks penetrating (other than the myriad ways of not being hit in the first place) is and equal amount (number of iterations taken) of impenetrable on a valid defense (say PD for blast or rPD for a KA), but remember that that is for the minimum rollable damage.

Well, if it's a villian, yeah, just do that. I think the conversation got bigger than that, though. :-)

Well, first of all, I'd like ot point out that I mean that I dislike it as it is written now. After much fan anger over the edition (which was pushed out before it was really ready) there is a massive re-write going on. So this could very much be like a video game that is unplayble when released but then patched to greatness. There are lots of things to complain about, such as it being a ~700 page book with no index, but for me, the biggest thing is that the game simply isn't verhy playable. Classic Traveller, despite pseudo-realistic space velocity vectors and such, was predominantly a simple game. Mongoose Traveller even more so. This version, there is a builder for everything (in the Hero System rules you can emulate every kitchen appliance with a power framework of abilities, in T5, you kinda have to). The combat rules are wonky. Right now, I think of it as an interesting way to build a universe (and like all Travellers, a great way to make randomized character careers), but then to play the game using a different system.

Naked Advantage

Having been markedly disappointed with T5 thus far (as a RPG. It is a very lovely gaming universe builder), and liking the traditional Traveller feel, I'd very much like to have something like this come out, since I missed the original TH era.

You see, we haven't found that to be a problem, and I think it highlights what I don't understand about Heroes--In heroes there are SO Many Defense powers one has to have to be free from harm: DCV, PD, ED, rPD, rED, Mental Defense, Power Defense, Flash Defenses (that might be required defenses vs. someone elses attacks other than blinding you, because of AVAD), entangles and englobing barriers which don't even have a set defense so much as need you to be able to defeat them in battle before moving on, etc. etc. yet the rules and rulebooks seem to be still be absolutely terrified of people being too hard to hurt. Many of the defensive powers have "!" warnings in the book, many can't be put into power frameworks. Attack powers, on ther other hand, have very few limitations and seem to be encouraged in power frameworks. Lots of very gooey pluses exist on different attacks (AoE makes hitting the enemy very likely, auto-fire and armor piercing are amazingly useful abilities that start at a mere +1/4 advantage), yet it's defensive abilities that seem to be feared. I wonder if our campaign is so different that we haven't run into the need for this.

Well, One of the Vehicle Books (I think TUV) actually has a multi-form mecha/vehicle (more of a Robotech/Macross thing than a Transformer, since neither form is sentient. It uses Multi-form. I think the real question to ask (other than, "is this more complexity than my campaign really needs to care about?") is, "are transformers' vehicle mode significantly different from their robot modes, or is it more of a special effect? That changes from series to series and medium to medium. I think you can probably look at it this way--if the robots that turn into jet fighters can also fly in robot form (as they can in the original cartoon), then you probably can get away with shapeshift (and have "only in certain forms" limitation for the exceptions, like dinobots being nearly invincible in dino form, but not having lasers). I find it amusing that the rules for playing a robotic alien from Cybertron, playing a sentient robot, or playing a sentient computer controlling a non-sentient robot have not only different point costs, but actual different rules (Sentience gives robots stun scores, wtf?). Something tells me I'd love to see that addressed if 7th Edition ever comes out.

After inumerable discussions about how archeology has a purely theoretical side (a SS), the applied act of setting up a gid site (a PS), and knowledge of important theories, movers and shakers, and basically historical events within the science (a KS), and god forbid you dig up an ancient city and also might roll vs. CS (or it be something like sociology instead where CuK would be appropriate) we decided that all of those skills are now ES -- Expert Skills.

Is this being asked through a translation device?

Implying what, exactly? That sounds like something that could happen in either Superman or in Lensman

I don't think anyone implied that Hero Games was responsible. I was just warning and/or sharing my experiences with the module.

Sure, References to Hexes and inches: P. 180 (under "getting started"), 193 (Omnicorp Holographic Projector), 199 (Holovid Phone), 201 (Coleman Bubble Tent), 227 (the paragraph starting, "The distance scale"), 228 (Movement), Heck, the whole space distance system pp. 228-230 is set up in hexes and inches, as are the space ship designs. Clone Warrior (p. 147), clearly not designed with 6th ED point costs (cost is less than 106 points before complications are even added). Drugs (p. 206) are built as Aids that fade at 5 points per hour and not per turn. That bonus is listed as +3/4 instead of +1 3/4. I assumed that that was a 5th Ed convention. Robots, starting P. 210, ocv and dcv appear to be figured. Ego has ecv listed. Robots also apparently don't need life support:immune to diseases and poisons There are a few others, but maybe these aren't (as I assumed) 5th edition conventions that need to be updated (other than hexes and inches, which I totally understand), but rule changes the designers made.

I know AVAD, what is AVLD?

It is an important part of the overall feel of the game as opposed to others. Games like D&D (especially 2E and before), you simply had protagonists and antagonists taking turns hitting each other. Heroes/Champions has different characters attacking different number of times per "round" (in this case turn), and their ability to do so hampered by stuns and having to take aborts. That said, if you remove it for both the heroes and their opponents, it likely won't unbalance the game, nor effect builds too much other than disincentivizing high Cons (which is used for pretty much nothing else unless a power has "requires a con roll" attached) and Teamwork skill. Removing END as Ghost Angel puts forth is probably more disruptive and as mentioned, is done all the time.

Am I the only one to notice a decided number of clearly 5th edition conventions, not 6th edition, in this book? In fact, I don't see anything 6th Edition in it at all.

My rule for such situations is this: The PCs are sneaking behind enemy lines (whatever that means), and find out about a big going-down (Infinity stone is going to destroy the galaxy, death star id going to blow up the rebels). The PCs are powerful, but don't really have any way of going toe-to-toe with the problem, so they hijack an enemy spaceship. If the first thing they do is find out what the ship's stats and capabilites are, it's Star Hero. If the first thing they decide whether to go for help or to do some reckless gambit, then it is Champion. Star hero cares what type of spaceship it is. Chapion cares that it is a spaceship and can get the heroes to where the action is.

I recently purchased a third party product listed as a Heroed 6th Edition product. However, the product clearly was using in it some, if not all, of the 5th edition rules (hexes of movement, aids and drains that dwindle slower than 5pt/turn costing less than +1, explosive seemingly separate from AoE). This isn't particularly detrimental to me, as I bought it for campaign ideas, not pre-built powers and vehicles, but it seems like a pretty glaring inaccuracy (giving the benefit of the doubt). Are the material in the website store vetted by anyone associated with Hero games? Thanks!

I think that would be true if combat were made up of basic blasts, HAs, HKAs and RKAs, and I suppose I agree with it's use for PD, rPD, ED, rED, but not everything else. As it stands, it's not horribly hard to be "nearly immune" (as Chris Taylor points out, the difference between nearly immune and completely immune is never having to worry about the exception, and thus valuable) to ONE given type of attack, be it RKAs, transforms, drains, etc. The already existing flaw in Heroes is the ridiculous number of defenses you need to have and keep track of (and most of which cannot go into a power framework, unlike the attacks against which they defend). If you can't stun a Robot, there's Drains and flashes, and AVAD flashes against resistant flash defense for the mental sight group (where the flash has the does body modifier).

Hi all, relatively new lurker, I think first-time poster, and new Heroes 6E GM (6E is the first edition I've played, we've played 3 campaigns in it, 1 for over a year). If there's a better section for this kind of thing, let me know (I have more questions about the why of certain rules). Anyways, I have a question about Takes No STUN. As is often said, complete immunity is not something that HERO is set up for, and so things like Life Support and Takes no STUN are nice big wrenches in the system. Still, I want to understand why Takes No STUN triples the cost of Defensive Powers. This isn't a sour grapes "this makes my idea super expensive" kind of complaint, it is a "this makes zombies and golems significantly more expensive than they weight they hit at, and none of my players ever take it, even if they make Robots (there is a precident that some Androids are so complex that they can be stunned precident, and they all take it if offered)" complaint. I understand that taking Stun out of consideration is a significant disruption in combat, particularly if the opponent up against it has invested heavily in blasts or HAs or increased stun modifiers on Killing attacks, but I do not see the solution given really fixing the problem, but instead causing a whole horde of others. For starters: For the 60 points that the (more useful of the two) Takes No STUN power costs, you can get The Cannot be Stunned power for 15 points, +20 to REC, with the Limitation (only for the recovery of STUN points, which I think would reasonably be -1) for 10 points, +10 pts each of PD and ED for 20 points, and +30 points of STUN for 15 points. All of which without invoking the defense trippling. If you have even a few reasonable amount of defenses (say DCV of 5 and rPD/rED of 3/3, normally 19 points, but instead 57), you can purchase the PD/ED to +20 apeice and the STUN up to +62 for the difference in price or start putting in 25% or 50% Damage Reduction for Stun Only (-1/2). In campaign power levels in which we play, that's effective immunity to Stun, without additional defenses being tripled. Therefore, my players see no incentive to take the power. There's a precidence for automitons not taking it (vampires and Champions villian robots), and simply saying no to them just disincentivizes robot and undead characters. As for me as the GM, it means that, while skeletons and zombies are fine, since they pretty much have no defense except not taking stun, golems and such are wildly overpriced for their hitting power against the PCs. Beyond the fact that it makes golems more expensive than I feel they should be and my players not take the power, there's simply the logical aspect of the trippling. Trippling is a geometric effect for a benefit that I'm not convinced is geometric. Trippling means Power Advantages and Limitations are trippled, is that better or worse than giving defensive abilities a +2 power advantage cost? It just seems like a really clunky and clumsy mechanic. If anyone has had a different experience, or horror stories of an earlier edition where the trippling wasn't there, I'd love to hear it.