OddHat

Re: Musings on Random Musings There's a technique for women, too, if you're interested. Just sayin. Edit: Found a brief article: http://www.humpjones.com/rear/entry/tu_jin_sheng_undisputed_master_of_penis_qigong_and_iron_crotch/

Re: Musings on Random Musings And when do you work your way up to this?

Re: Musings on Random Musings So what are the stats of that weapon in Hero terms?

Re: Musings on Random Musings You can upload it to any server, or email it on over to me and I'll put it on mine.

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat The Fat Uncle's Diet Book NT: Comic Book Titles that Should Never Be

Re: Musings on Random Musings

Re: Reconciling Manga & Batman I'm in agreement with Mark (above), but I'd also add that most of the problem comes from genre mashing in a campaign. Person A has conceptualized his campaign as being about "realistic" street level vigilantes, some of whom happen to be "realistic" master martial artists. His inspirations include movies like Batman Begins, maybe the Jackie Chan Police Story films, maybe the 2006 version of Casino Royal. Characters written for Person A's campaign may easily be 350 points or more, but won't be putting out more than 8 DCs with their best martial arts attacks, their total PD will cap at 15, and guns will still be a serious threat. Person B has conceptualized his campaign as being about classic American Comic Book Superheroes, and he's throwing Chinese wuxia films into the mix. Men in this world can fly, bounce bullets, smash tanks with their fists, and otherwise tell reality to go boink itself. Damage classes with bare hands can be in the 12 DC to 15 DC range, and defenses in the 30+ PD range are common. A character designed for Campaign A is going to be woefully underpowered, as a martial artist, in Campaign B. If you cap "normal" martial artists at Campaign B levels, that's the choice you've made as GM. They'll need to sink those leftover points into superskills, gadgets and luck to keep up with their higher DC and DEF limit foes. That said, if they do sink those extra points into gadgets and superskills, and they're built on the same points, they should end up roughly as powerful as their Wuxia counterparts.

Re: Stats And Hero Purity

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat Pub Trivia night at the Caledonia.

Re: Stats And Hero Purity Being in great shape makes you much tougher and able to last considerably longer, which in turn makes you a much better fighter. Watch how any serious competitive martial artist trains. No, it isn't. Lee had great skill and natural talent, and was also in great shape (and was fanatical about keeping up his conditioning). Skill without conditioning or strength is not enough. The linebacker is pretty dangerous himself, and would be even more so if he actually were trained in a HtH fighting style. See the History Channel's "Human Weapon" and note how well the ex-football player does in his matches. If you're really fit and strong, you'll hit a lot harder than someone who isn't, and be able to continue fighting longer, which is why martial artists spend so much of their training becoming fit and strong.

Re: A Thread for Random Musings Homicidal thoughts are a sign that you should stop posting for a while.

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat Late at night, what he does to the tights.

Re: Black Scorpion Wouldn't it make more sense to have the PCs invite her, or not, rather than rolling for it? If she declines on 17-, will the PCs actually adventure with her in the course of the campaign? Just an observation, but if you don't want the PCs taking her along that often, it would probably just be better for you as GM to keep her reluctant to assist or unavailable save when you actually want to include her.

Re: Defenders of Ireland I'd like to second the idea of drawing on myths and history without necessarily accepting mythological gods as part of the cosmology of your campaign. The super-heroine Saint Joan may believe she's drawing on the power of G_d, she may think He gives her superhuman strength, skill, and tactical ability, but whether He really does or doesn't never has to be an issue in the campaign, unless you as the GM think it would make for a good plot point. In the real world, Joseph Greenstein used to believe his kosher diet, prayer and meditation gave him the strength to bend steel, snap chains, and drive railroad ties through heavy wood frames using his fists. Personally, I think he was just freakishly strong, with a body honed by a lifetime of good nutrition, hard labor, and superb training. I could be right or wrong, but that's no reason that the Joe Greenstein homage character shouldn't think his strength comes from G_d.

Re: Stats And Hero Purity And as a side note, ballet dancers are in fantastic shape. Great endurance, flexible, good explosive strength. Be nice to them; unless you have some training or are in similarly fantastic shape, pound for pound they can kick the blank out of you.

Re: Stats And Hero Purity The above is a inaccurate in modern sports training. Many Olympic jumpers and sprinters spend some of their time training with weights, usually variations on the Snatch and Clean. See any basic text on strength training for sports performance.

Re: Stats And Hero Purity From a philosophy point of view, I agree. From a playability point of view for Hero, I think it's a bad idea, for the reasons stated above.

Re: Stats And Hero Purity Stronger people do jump further and hit harder, all else being equal. See any basic book on weight training for sports. Mel Siff, Tudor Bompa, the ACSM manuals, etc, etc. That said, a 274 pound Olympic style weight lifter isn't going to jump further than a 174 pound Olympic long jumper. The legs, lower back, core, and probably mid-back of the track athlete aren't that much weaker than those of the weight lifter, and the 274 pound weight lifter is moving much more weight through the air. Bodybuilders and Powerlifters muddy the water further, as neither work as much as the jumper on explosive strength. The elite track athlete, OTOH, is doing many of the same Olympic style lifts as the Olympic Lifter. Bruce Lee could hit very hard and very accurately; had he added 50 pounds of muscle and bone, with the right training routine, he'd have hit even harder. Physics doesn't give a fart about fandom. Of course he would have out-punched a weight lifter of equal weight and similar body composition without martial training; skill is part of strength, and learning how to optimally perform one movement (say a Clean) does not mean knowing how to optimally perform another (say a punch). This is an area HERO models fairly well, with MA and DCs adding to Strength damage, in much the same way that practicing optimal movement with a given attack in the real world adds to the impact a fighter can generate. Strength itself is tricky to define or tie down; Strength-Endurance, Limit Strength, Support Strength, Explosive Strength, strength divided by bodypart, the jargon gets thicker the more you look into the issue. These all vary by diet, the health and rest state of the athlete, type of training performed by the athlete, training phase, etc. In the end, Hero is a game system. Characteristics are an abstraction that lump together a bunch of traits that fictional characters display, in a way that's useful for players and GMs when designing characters. Not many players are going to design a "Strong" character who can't throw a punch; there's little reason to overcomplicate the game by separating STR from Damage, let alone trying to accurately simulate real world Strength. And as a side note, I don't see many gamers who've been playing Champions / Hero System for 25+ years being all that happy about giving up characteristics. For a lot of them, it's part of what makes Hero "Hero"; turn it into a purely generic game with only "Attack", "Defend", "Sense" and "Move" plus modifiers, no skills, and no characteristics, and while it may be a playable new game, it won't be Hero system anymore.

Re: Extraordinary Characteristic Rolls CON covers general endurance and resistance to pain; BOD resists death, dismemberment, and resistance to transformations. Maybe an Extraordinary Body roll would get you back the use of a disabled limb, instant recovery from illness, or similar remarkable feats of healing. There's no such thing in standard HERO as a characteristic roll based on figured CHA, so you get whatever the GM says you get if he chooses to add them.

Re: The Fortress of Solitude

Re: Order of the Stick Based on the principle of conservation of characters, she may be One-Eye's Daughter / Red-Cloak's Niece. There was a mention of her being sent away to be raised by Humans in order to save her from Xyklon, and having Red Cloak find out that his only living relative is lusting after a Human PC has great comedy potential.

Re: The Fortress of Solitude The best Superman period, by far. You can do a reasonable homage to the fortress for less than 1,000 points, but it's no where near as buff as the original. The Superman Robots price out around 600+ points each in HERO, but can be smashed by Supes or his buffer foes (and often are). Supes effectively has unlimited followers in the 60s; that's the era where he can build and populate planets.

Re: Defenders of Ireland

Re: Defenders of Ireland I use a Selkie Superheroine as my tribute to Aquaman in the New Circle group. Anyway, I usually like to go the mythic route for mystic supers; tech supers I tend to theme more after pop culture or literature. The UK section of International Hero might be a good place to start grabbing some ideas. http://www.internationalhero.co.uk/u/uk.htm If I were going to theme Irish heroes after Irish EFL teachers I've worked with, it might be: Functional Alcoholic Man! Blames the US for Everything Lad! The Conspiracy Theorist! Thinks She's An Anarchist Lass! Jealous of Better Looking Women Woman! Won't Stop Complaining Boy! I really hate EFL teachers.

Re: Extraordinary Characteristic Rolls I was in Philadelphia. Here, doomsday passes for a marginal improvement.