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Hugh Neilson

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  1. Like
    Hugh Neilson got a reaction from death tribble in Villains to Use but NOT Written Up   
    As I think back to those early-1980s days (Champions 1e was published in 1981; 2e was in 1982), how did the Island of Dr. Destroyer compare to other adventures of the day?  It was pretty clearly a first outing, and lasercage traps didn't really feel right.  But was Doc D less developed than similar villains in V&V adventures? Island of Dr. Apocalypse had a bit more plot, with its Part 1, Day of the Destroyers, but when I ran it for Champions, I added some underlings on the Island.  [ASIDE:  V&V modules were a useful resource back then, although a bit challenging to translate due to V&V's resource management structure - Champions characters couldn't be whittled down by a series of minor encounters.]
     
    D&D was just starting to add some setting, plot and villain motivation to some of their dungeon crawls, and move towards incorporating some story into the traditional strategic, tactical and sometimes adversarial model of early RPGs.
     
    Doc D was just another derivative powered armor villain in an RPG sea of derivative adversaries with limited character development back then. Growing him to a full backstory and persona today would be great, but if he had all that back in 1981/82, he would have eclipsed the PCs he was designed to be defeated by.
  2. Like
    Hugh Neilson got a reaction from death tribble in Villains to Use but NOT Written Up   
    Stronghold was the start of Hero's "every module should bring something of lasting use, outside the adventure" model.  It was definitely more setting than adventure, with any escape scenario being more plot seed than actual adventure.  Of course, we called them "modules" back in those days (and yes, using that phrase makes me feel old), and either the Island Adventure or the SuperPrison could be slotted into an ongoing campaign.
  3. Like
    Hugh Neilson got a reaction from Ninja-Bear in Attacking at the beginning of a phase   
    I rarely see Haymakers in general, and I'm not sure why anyone would start a Haymaker and then disrupt it themselves by moving away.

    If you attack, then move away, I will likely ignore you in my next phase and focus on whatever I was trying to accomplish before I was so rudely interrupted, combine with a teammate to take down one of your teammates, or move even further away from you, depending on my objectives. Maybe I'll set up a barrier or other impediment to prevent your speedy return, or duck into an alleyway (and flee?  wait in ambush? guess you will have to come back to find out). Note that, if you half moved away, and I half move further away, you will need a full phase to close in again.
     
    Why do you assume that my only goal in life is to close in and attack you?
     
    If anything, I think enhancing dynamic combat with people moving around would be a benefit of changing this rule, not a drawback.
     
  4. Like
    Hugh Neilson reacted to Duke Bushido in Attacking at the beginning of a phase   
    I have been away for a few days- suprise company-
     
    But when this thread got rolling, there were things I wanted to say, but at this point Hugh and Simon have hit on the biggies.
     
    My own experience with it (yes; I have toyed with it) is that affects those od us who run map-heavy games the most; Mind'a Eye Theater types won't see a lot of difference between, as Hugh rightly pointed out- this, or holding and aborting.
     
    Map- heavy gamers (like myself, and I have always- and perhaps incorrectly- assumed Scott Ruggles) will see some interesting changes in tactics with regards to maneuveing and working range modifiers (as I see other folks have mentioned).
     
    Does it break the game?
     
    Guys, the official rules list what? Seven hundred options?  No; it doesn't really break the game.
     
    What it _does_ do, if you aren't careful, is eliminate the penalty for Multipower, Multiform (if you use that) and Duplication.  By that I mean that these power constructs all get deep discounts (some cheaper than others) because of an implied disadvantage:  Bruce Banner can't lift lift a burning support beam off of himself, or bounce rocket fire off his chest.  Oopsie.
     
    There is, if you simply declare "each of your phases has two half actions; use them as you will," to allow Zero-phase actions to occur 'whenever.'  So now you can tofgle your form eight times in a Phase, and allocate your MP points at will.
     
    _this_ is what you nees to avoid.  If you declare that allocations / toggles are Zero-phase actions and must be declare at the start of the Phase, period, then it really,doesn't make much difference in actual play (if you don't do a lot of mapping).  Otherwise, as Simon pointed out, there is no real drawback or sacrifice to the most common build strategies.
     
     
    Yes; corner cases can be found.  Corner cases can _always_ be found, and for pretty much any topic.  However, I am willing to bet that _none_ of us have ever participated in any game composed entirely of corner cases, or run into a significant corner case that we couldnt adjudicate in the moment.
     
     
  5. Like
    Hugh Neilson got a reaction from DentArthurDent in Attacking at the beginning of a phase   
    We've played with attacking not ending a phase.  It did not change much.  Take that as one experience only - our group has never focused on eking every last bit of effectiveness and efficiency out of every character point and every phase, so a group more focused on that efficiency could find ways to create more issues. As well, there is already some "analysis paralysis" in many Hero games, especially with newer players, and having more options will only increase that.
     
    As has already been highlighted above, how tightly you stick to existing rules about things you can only do once per phase, like reassign multipower pools and skill levels, could have an impact.
     
    You could also add a rule that some of these zero phase reallocation "actions" cannot be performed after an attack, or perhaps once you have used the points allocated to an attack or to OCV/damage.  That is, once you use a level in an attack (OCV or damage), it's gone until the start of your next phase (unless you abort) and once you use Pool points (Multipower or VPP), they are similarly locked until the start of your next phase.
  6. Like
    Hugh Neilson got a reaction from death tribble in Mindblade   
    Restrainable and Physical Manifestation are also options.
  7. Like
    Hugh Neilson got a reaction from Lord Liaden in Mindblade   
    Restrainable and Physical Manifestation are also options.
  8. Like
    Hugh Neilson got a reaction from Tom Cowan in Mindblade   
    Restrainable and Physical Manifestation are also options.
  9. Like
    Hugh Neilson got a reaction from death tribble in Tunneling Query   
    Agreed, Doc - taken to its ultimate extreme, that rule should eliminate Mental Attack in favour of a Blast with IPE, LoS range, AVAD and ACV.
     
    All the options seem to come in a pretty comparable prices, and clearly the cot should land somewhere between "16m, 6 DEF, no variation" and "16M, 13 DEF all the time".
  10. Like
    Hugh Neilson got a reaction from death tribble in Funny Pics II: The Revenge   
    It's A Small World After All
    It's a Small World After All
    It's a Small World After All
    It's a Small, Small World!
  11. Like
    Hugh Neilson got a reaction from Cancer in Funny Pics II: The Revenge   
    It's A Small World After All
    It's a Small World After All
    It's a Small World After All
    It's a Small, Small World!
  12. Like
    Hugh Neilson reacted to Doc Democracy in Tunneling Query   
    I think that rule is there for someone using stuff beyond its intended use to achieve an effect that is reasonably directly covered by a power that costs more.
  13. Thanks
    Hugh Neilson reacted to Doc Democracy in Tunneling Query   
    Hugh provoked me to go look at numbers. 
     
    If you look at the "full power" here you would have 16m Tunnelling through 13PD.  That is 3+15+24 = 42 points.  Any answer to the cost of the more limited power needs to cost less than this. 
     
    If you look at LoneWolf's plan, then the core cost is 28 points, with an additional 12 points that add PD at the cost of reducing movement.  With a -1 limitation that is +12 points that comes to a total of 40 points.  I think the limitation on this power is probably worth more than two points.
     
    If you used my custom limitation then you would be paying 28 points...it is the same as the extreme at either end so you might think that you have more flexibility than purchasing either extreme, so perhaps a 1/4 limitation is the right one.  that comes to a cost of 34 points.
     
    Doc
     
     
     
     
  14. Like
    Hugh Neilson got a reaction from Black Rose in Tunneling Query   
    I'd start by looking at the cost of 16m through 6 PD and 2m through 13 PD (the two extremes).  Either would cost 28 points.
     
    A Multipower of both would cost 28 + 3 + 3 = 34 points.
     
    If we went to the extreme of a multipower for every increment, there are 8, so 52 points. 
     
    Usable as a second form of movement is +1/4 - I'm not sure anyone has ever assessed how this might be applied to Tunnelling, but it feels like we have multiple modes of Tunnelling here.  We'd have to assess how many different forms.
     
    Allocatable resistant protection is a +1/4 advantage (with a caution sign). It seems like moving defenses around is no less useful than shifting Tunneling around.  If we applied a +1/4 advantage to one of the two extremes, we would get 35 points, which is remarkably close to placing the two extremes in a Multipower (although that's skewed a bit by rounding - we could bump to 20 meters/6 defense or 2 meters/15 defense for 32 + 6= 38 vs 40 for a ++1/4 advantage on 32.  Still in the ballpark.
     
    This is a bit more flexible than just choosing one or the other.  I'd also interpret it as "auto-adjusting" - the player moves 4 meters through defense 6 (or less), then hits rock with 10 PD, so "spends" 8 meters to shift up to 10 defenses and has 4 meters remaining, just as if he had allocated 18m/8 PD from the outset.
     
     
    If it were a VPP, it could have a 28 point pool, Cosmic, no skill roll, Tunnelling Only(-1 1/2), so 28 + 17 = 45 - a bit more pricy but with many more variations (including advantages) available.  That also backs up 42 points.
     
    So a bit more flexible and valuable than a +1/4 advantage, which leads me to a +1/2 advantage or 42 points.  More pricy than a "pick one or the other" multipower and less pricy than "pick any combo" as a multipower.  This does not seem unfair, so let's call allocatable a +1/2 advantage.

    I think I'd also call it +1/2 for defenses, and even for Entangle switching between dice and defenses.
  15. Like
    Hugh Neilson got a reaction from death tribble in Funny Pics II: The Revenge   
    They should be subject to one week's incarceration for every day before Remembrance Day (including that date), with their own Christmas muzak played non-stop throughout their incarceration.
  16. Like
    Hugh Neilson got a reaction from death tribble in Does Combat Luck work against Area Effect Attacks?   
    Nothing in the rules prevents combat luck working against an AoE attack.  The description is considered a -3/4 limitation (6e Vol 2 p 447), so there's a lot left to the GM to adjudicate, including the possibility that different special effects carry different restrictions.  Achieving a common understanding with the player(s) is probably more important than the specifics of that common understanding.
  17. Thanks
    Hugh Neilson got a reaction from slikmar in Funny Pics II: The Revenge   
    They should be subject to one week's incarceration for every day before Remembrance Day (including that date), with their own Christmas muzak played non-stop throughout their incarceration.
  18. Haha
    Hugh Neilson got a reaction from Duke Bushido in Funny Pics II: The Revenge   
    They should be subject to one week's incarceration for every day before Remembrance Day (including that date), with their own Christmas muzak played non-stop throughout their incarceration.
  19. Like
    Hugh Neilson got a reaction from rravenwood in Could Rules for Hero Gaming System Be Getting To Complicated?   
    Uphill all the way...BOTH ways!
  20. Like
    Hugh Neilson got a reaction from Chris Goodwin in Could Rules for Hero Gaming System Be Getting To Complicated?   
    Uphill all the way...BOTH ways!
  21. Like
    Hugh Neilson reacted to Doc Democracy in Skills Theorizing   
    In the real world, I am 100% with you.  In a superheroic world, then I think I need to be as open to universal attractiveness as I am to flight, force fields, invisibility and pre-cognition.
     
    I am presuming that you understand I am not in the Bring back COM caucus.  I mean I have publicly declared that i would get rid of all non-game-mechanical characteristics! 🕵️‍♂️
  22. Like
    Hugh Neilson got a reaction from Grailknight in Skills Theorizing   
    You lost whatever benefit +10 COM provided, and the same benefit that buying an additional 10 COM would generate.  But negatives became positives, which was an oddity.
     
     
    Being hideously ugly could be distinctive features - acting to your detriment. It could be Striking Appearance - acting to your benefit.  It could be both, or it could have no in-game effect and be neither.
     
    Being supernaturally beautiful has all the same possibilities.
     
    In these cases, appearance is merely the SFX for a game mechanic.  If there is no mechanic behind it, there are no points spent or gained.  You can be a redhead for free.  You can be a stunning redhead with a drop-dead gorgeous face and figure for free.  If, however, people notice and remember you, or even lust after you and seek to hunt you down and imprison you for their own, it is a complication/disadvantage.  If it allows you to wrap people around your little finger, then it is Striking Appearance, a benefit you pay for.  Maybe it's even Mind Control.
     
    The appearance itself is just a special effect for what you want that appearance to do, in-game.
  23. Like
    Hugh Neilson reacted to Doc Democracy in Skills Theorizing   
    Are you saying you will believe a man can fly and shoot lightning from his fingers but not be universally attractive?
  24. Thanks
    Hugh Neilson got a reaction from fdw3773 in "Simplified" Sixth Edition...feedback requested   
    That was my initial thought as well - that it looked like END may simply not be in use, so it's not being tracked.  But it was on the sheet, so I assumed that it was in use.
     
    I'm a bit confused that END was not a big factor, just something tracked for no real purpose unless an END drain was used.  If one is used, or a  character is KOd and recovers also adds an END element. A sudden need to introduce a brand-new mechanic in mid-combat seems like an issue.  Not having END costs readily available at that point seems even more problematic.
     
    Also, it looks like it would be a factor if it were not assumed away.
     
    As well, both of Wasp's blasts are annotated "Autofire (Up to 3 shots). I questioned earlier whether it was intended that both the 10d6 attack and the 8d6 Stun Only attack be Autofire, as there seemed to be little reason to use the slightly smaller attack.
     
    With a 6 SPD and 42 END, I'm not sure how autofire attacks that cost 12 or 15 END per use was "not a big deal", even before factoring in shrinking and flight.  With a 7 SPD, Supergirl would run through END pretty quickly too, although having 100 END gives her a bit of staying power. 
     
    Maybe the builds behind the scenes build in some reduced/0 END to offset this, though.
     
    More broadly, END is really an "old school RPG" resource management element.  It does balance out some elements, like lower-cost exhausting powers, and some costs (like autofire) might need reconsideration if it were eliminated, but when many builds are designed around enough reduced END to remove its impact, the possibility of replacing it with something less fiddly seems to merit consideration, at least.
     
     
     
     
    To some extent, I think this can be a question of the game constructed using the Hero system.  All of that stuff can be included as character sheet detail, but be left off for a one-off where it will not come into play - maybe we have a bunch of minutia skills and perks offset by a few complications.  Maybe the game style is more streamlined, so a lot of background issues (skill/perks, etc. and complications) are not used in the game, or are simply non-costed background elements with minimal or no in-game effect.  This is a dial setting that really merits more discussion in the rulebooks.
  25. Like
    Hugh Neilson got a reaction from Chris Goodwin in Impenetrable   
    It's poorly phrased, but can be read in context. To me, it means that you can apply Penetrating to an attack's damage where you add the points on the dice and apply that to a defense. You cannot apply it to an attack 's damage computed with the "normal damage BOD" system where you get 0 for a 1, 1 for a 2-5 and 2 for a 6.  So you can't apply Penetrating to the BOD of a normal attack.  Since Flash has no effect that sums the rolls on the dice, you can't apply Penetrating to a Flash.
     
    The 6e issue with Impenetrable is pretty simple.  Way back in 1e, we had Armor Piercing.  Hardened defended against it. 
     
    Around Champions III/2e, we added Penetrating.  It needed a defense.  Well, we already had Hardened, so the simple approach was to allow Hardened to also defend against Penetrating.  Given 2 Hardened DEF did little against AP, we just tack on that Hardened blocks Penetrating entirely.
     
    Fast forward to 6e, and the decision to carve "Impenetrable" off from Hardened.  I see the issue there as "cut & paste" without assessing that this means any Impenetrable voids Penetrating entirely.  The best response, to me, would have been 1 Impenetrable defense reduces 1 point of Penetrating damage. An 8d6 Penetrating Blast rolls average 28 STUN, 8 Penetrating.  You have 30 defenses, 5 of which are Impenetrable?  Then you take 28-30 = 0; or 8 - 5 = 3 Penetrating STUN.  3 STUN gets through.
     
    For some reason, Penetrating got various weird rulings.  The "average roll" rule is a close second to "1 pip KA, Penetrating is always 1 Penetrating BOD" ruling.
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