Hugh Neilson

Re: My House Rules. Comments Welcome

Re: My House Rules. Comments Welcome Comeliness is probably the worst example. I didn't shave today - is my comeliness down? If I get a new suit and style up, how much is my comeliness up? How much does it drop if I fall in a mud puddle? Good thing comeliness means so little these arguments don't come up in game

Re: My House Rules. Comments Welcome I can't speak for others' comments, but I think the "realism" issue moved well away from GGU a while back. For example, I got the sense "realism" was aimed at most or all stats not being raised, where your house rules indicate it's DEX that should not be raised. And I don't say it's a bad thing, though I have difficulty with the concept that training to enhance agility is less viable than training to enhance, say, resistance to damage, willpower or native intelligence. To me, the bigger issue is just how much can native abilities improve (maybe to the NCM, but not above, without justification) and how fast. But the "how fast" opens another can of worms since gaining a new language, science skill, etc. can also happen very quickly when we spend xp.

Re: My House Rules. Comments Welcome My understanding is that Stan Lee hated Romita's Peter Parker because he envisioned Peter as an eternal nerd boy. Ultimately, however, he just went with the "Well, Peter's grown out of that awkward phase" explanation because Romita was great at everything else, and it was obvious NerdBoy wasn't coming back.

Re: My House Rules. Comments Welcome

Re: My House Rules. Comments Welcome

Re: My House Rules. Comments Welcome Well, true and not true. Hero has generally been noted as supporting heroic action fiction in favour of realism. It's certainly flexible enough to support more realism or less realism, though, and everyone's game can easily be customized to the flavour they want. I do find it kind of odd to discuss "realism" concerns in a genre that accepts a man can fly, bounce bullets off his chest, fire bolts of radiation, turn invisible or run 500+ kph. Compared to these, is training to enhance hand/eye co-ordination, reaction time or "quick thinking" really all that unrealistic, however unrealistic we may believe it to be in the real world? Two asides I always think about in "realism" discussions re RPG's: Reminds me of fantasy game reviewers that assess a magic system as "unrealistic". I'd rather have unrealistic magic, since I can't think of a lot of uses for "pick a card, any card" or "watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat" in battle against the Orc Hordes. Remids me of a guy I overheard in a comic shop some years ago who noted "I only like realistic superheroes...like the Punisher". OK, here we have a man who has suffered the most horrific injuries, most often left to heal with poor or no medical treatment. Has he got a major body part which hasn't been shot? A bone that's never been broken? Yet he's in the peak of health, very agile and basically unscarred. OK, realism is a relative concept, but come on!

Re: 4 Arms and punching alot. What do you like? I would allow the Autofire approach, with the caveat that this is a 75 point attack power, as someone else has already noted. You may want to consider how much "bang for your buck" you'll get, though. To summarize some of the issues, taking 3 shots will cost 18 END (STR 3 times). I'm not certain, but I believe use of the 15 points of Naked Autofire will cost a further 1 END. That's 19 END a shot. Assume you'll also move, and you're spending 20+ END per phase (unless you leap, I suppose). You likely have a lot of END, but that's a hefty END cost for anyone. How many shots will typically land? If you roll just what you needed to hit, you hit once. Roll 2 less and you hit twice, and roll 4 less and all three blows land. How good is your OCV? Typically, Bricks don't have the greatest CV's in the game. Assuming your target DCV matches your OCV, you'll roll 12+ and miss entirely 37.5% of the time, roll 10 or 11 and hit once 30% of the time, roll 8 or 9 and hit twice 21.3% of the time and roll 7- and hit all three times 16.2% of the time. Of course, it's a naked advantage, so you don't have to spend extra END when you think your odds of hitting are poor, and can save it for situations when your chances are exceptional (ie large, slow opponents). The other options discussed are all good. You could use the Sweep maneuver, and invest some of the 15 points you woould have spent on autofire to buy some penalty skill levels, offsetting the to hit penalties. You'll still spend 18 END for three attacks, but with 4 PSL's, you can have full OCV with all of them. You still have the problem that the first miss ends the sequence, plus your DCV's halved, but that's generally no biggie for a Brick. A sweep does take a full phase, so you can't bring all your arms to bear and move in the same phase. It has the advantage that you can attack multiple targets (eg. punch three agents), where autofire requires special skills to do so, and requires they be lined up with no hexes between them. Sweep can also be combined with other maneuvers, such as Grab, more easily. Sweep is an optional maneuver, and one many gamers don't like or use, so this one should for sure be discussed with your GM beforehand (mind you, so should all character abilities...) The Hand Attack option is workable - +2d6 means you only roll to hit once, but add damage. It's an easy one. You could add activation to the HA dice to get a bit of variability defined as not all arms hitting. Extra Speed to Punch is another option. Now you have full CV for all attacks, but can only use the extra punches if someone is in HTH range at your phase. You also have the option of including maneuvers like Sweep or Haymaker in your extra Speed's limitations. I woud expect this to be a -1 limitation (maybe more if maneuver choices are really limited) so +3 Speed would have the same cost as Autofire. It's also less END intensive, since you're adding 6 END oer bonus phase rather than 12+ END on each attack. Finally, there's Hand Attack with Reduced Penetration. To really simulate the effect, you'd need to customize the limitation, since reduced Penetration as written only applies BOD separately against defenses, and you likely want to apply STUN as well. I don't think this approach will work as easily as the others.

Re: Always On or Physical Limitation? (on inherent DI) This was a pretty major 5e change. Basically, the rules now prohibit Growth, denisty Increase or Shrinking being purchased as "always on". They are supposed to be used only for characters whose size and/or mass is variable.

Re: Variable Power Levels for Heroes

Re: Variable Power Levels for Heroes I think it will be very important to reward creative use of minor powers by the lower-power characters. Give them a bit of leeway so they can see they are at least accomplishing something.

Re: Sleep spell - one GM's take

Re: My House Rules. Comments Welcome CON 13? No, I'm not that brave! Nopthing's inconceivable - I just said I haven't done it. Plus I generally associate high DEF with high CON - tough all around. Maybe low CON and a big force field/wall would feel better.

Re: Variable Power Levels for Heroes

Re: Some suggestions for FRED revised.

Re: Some suggestions for FRED revised. If you make "STR Adds" a +1 advantage with Hand Attack, it now costs 20 points for +3d6 Hand Attack (3d6 x 5 points = 15 x 2 for "STR adds"/1.5 for Hand Attack). I could buy +20 STR for the same price, get 1 more d6 damage, figured, and ancillary STR benefits. So I believe +1 is overpriced. Actually, even +1/2 can be viewed as overpriced. For the same price, I could still get 5 points of STR. But, from the KA logic, I should be paying the same price for 1d6 of attack at no range for which STR adds, and for 1d6 at range with no STR addition. Of course, to be fully comparable, that +1/2 should limit the STR add to double the attack's DC, as is the case with a KA. Part of the problem with Hand Attack is that it's a bit of a kludge. An EB - no range would cost the same amount but not add STR, but you should then be allowed to Spread the EB to boost your OCV. STR with No Figured would give the same damage capacity at the same cost, plus enhance lift, leap (assuming you don't call that "figured"), throwing distance, etc. Taking out all the other benefits of STR is reasonably a -1/4 limitation. Maybe HA should be based on STR, with a -3/4 limitation instead of the present -1/2. That's clearly a rules change, and I don't see it happening in 5ER.

Re: Sleep spell - one GM's take

Re: Were Forms Most commonly, the Human would purchase a Multiform (making it the base form) for 40 points (200/5, assuming no advantages or limitations). The Werewolf form is then 200 points. The character ends up with a 160 point human (plus the Multiform) and a 200 point Wolf, so he still has the ability to buold a very combat-effective wolf form and a very skills-intensive human form (for example). Another means of doing this would be to deny Multiform entirely. The character would pay normal costs for any ability common to both forms. The abilities usable in only one form could be purchased: (a) As a multipower with one Ultra slot for human form and one for wolf form, or ( With the limitations "Only in human form" and "Only in wolf form" I've seen both approaches used before we had Multiform. The limits would depend on how often each form would be in play (commonly -1 each on the basis they would share equally).

Re: Some suggestions for FRED revised.

Re: My House Rules. Comments Welcome

Re: My House Rules. Comments Welcome

Re: Sleep spell - one GM's take I've always pictured Sleep as more of an Ego attack effect myself. hmmm...what about 1 command Mind Control to "go to sleep"? Transform from "awake" to "asleep"? I'm sure someone out there will have a better take. I play D & D and Hero, so I generally avoid trying to duplicate D & D in Hero. I'd rather do something I couldn't do in D&D, or do it some way D&D doesn't facilitate.

Re: My House Rules. Comments Welcome

Re: My House Rules. Comments Welcome Apparantly I have pricked your delicate ego. That wasn't my intent, but life goes on. Let me show you the difference between what I consider a "comment" versus what I would consider "insulting". A comment would be: "I find the fact that you are prepared to allow Lightning Reflexes with a technology focus inconsistent. To me, that's just a lesser form of heightened reflexes/enhanced reaction time offered by DEX and SPD." That, I would consider a valid post to this thread. It could be phrased harsher ("Come on, Lightning Reflexes is just another enhancement to reaction time."), but its a criticism of your argument. An insult might add: "Why don't you pull your head out of your @$$, you moron." That, I do not consider a valid post to this thread (outside of its capacity to illustrate a "comment" vs an "insult"). That's just getting personal. Really, your own comment "ou'll excuse me for thinking that disagreeing with a rule is a totally different thing from attacking the creator of that rule because you disagree with that rule." seems aimed atthe same point. And for what it's worth, your post doesn't offend me, although I do belioeve we will have to agree to disagree as to whose attitude is arrogant and condescending. The bottom line is that I perceive this particular restriction as arbitrary. "There's no technology to do that at present" is simply a rationalization for the arbitrary restriction. Now maybe there's something in the long-term campaign plan that prohibits such technology existing, and that's fine - often an "arbitrary" restriction (eg. "no aliens") exists due to long-term campaign plans. Obviously, you wouldn't want to post something in that area where it becomes public knowledge to the players in your campaign. As a further clarification (apologies if this has already been answered), what if the character in question comes from a far distant future (or far distant star system) where such technology has, in fact, been developed and is in use. Is the campaign structure intended to say "it cannot work" or "we can't currently make it work"? And feel free to be as offended as you like. I don't mean to offend, but who am I to tell you how to interpret my comments?

Re: How many points?