Fenixcrest

Re: Building robots Is there money in your game? If so, then it should probably be a matter of a skill roll and money expendiature. If you're going to bring points into it, then the machines should be Independent, anyway, since they're going to belong to his superiors, not him, and he should only have to pay for the Prototype. If you want to think of it this way: the character getting to build these things for his leaders is essentially the reward for all the crap he went through to get the blueprints- I'd just let him do it, assuming he has the right facilities and stuff.

Re: Skills If you look into the Skills chapter of FREd/5ER, you'll see that this is basically covered. A person doing a routine job might have an 8- or 11- in that skill. However, he also has the proper tools for the job, associated knowledge and professional skills, and can take extra time to ensure that the job gets done, sort of like "taking 20" in d20. The advantage of having super-high skills is that you can pull off a McGuyver effect. Frederick of the Flowing Shadows, master thief with Lockpicking 22-, could probably pick a complex lock in one minute, using nothing but is wits and a fingernail clipping. However, Lando the Locksmith's Apprentice has Lockpicking 8-. He can pick that same lock in 2-4 hours with his master's full lockpicking toolkit, his lucky socks, and "Ye Tome of Lockesmything Knowledge and Tymes, 1472 professional standard edition."

Re: Flaming Arrows, And Swords Of opportunity How? In a similar vein, if the damage added is the same type (physical or energy) as the weapon you're wielding normally is, and your GM allows it, then you could treat the power as a "partially limited power" for any weapon of that damage type. This borders on abusable, though.

Re: Your "2005" Pet Gaming Projects Ghostbusters HERO, and Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger HERO. I spend waaaay too much time on fanwork.

Re: Magic Items Thread From my campaign based on the Legend of Zelda/Hyrule: The Corrupted Glove One thousand years ago lived Bonavin the True, who, it is said, was so pure that no lies could be told in his presence. He precided over the Sancturary of Truth, a vast, pristine temple to Nayru, goddess of Wisdom. One day, the tale is told, Bonavin was approached after his service one day by a man in a crimson robe. "Your temple is beautiful," said the man, "But it is missing something. Let me help you to make it perfect." Bonavin, knowing that no lie could be told to him, agreed, and thus began his relationship with the man in crimson. First, they say, the changes started small. At first nobody noticed it. One by one, the holy man replaced every white candle in his sanctuary with a black one. Next, he moved to the great statue of Nayru, her arms outstretched, her face smiling warmly. At his new companion's instruction, he took the chisel to it, and her smile become a cold frown. The fountain at its base became a great granite slab. Soon, his sermons became different; no longer did he preach the virtues of truth and wisdom, but rather he began to beseige his followers with long, angry rants about the dangers and punishments for their mistakes and failings. He covered the mighty entry arch of the temple with a massive iron door, and the ranks of his flock began to dwindle. Fewer and fewer people came to his services, and the changes he made to the temple continued. Around the time he carved great circles around the triforces in the walls and floor of the sanctuary and had the great statue of Nayru pulled down (as it turned out, the man in crimson had noticed that it really didn't look like her, anyway), people stopped coming to his services entirlely. One day, he came into his sanctuary from his morning washings, and was shocked. The man in crimson knelt upon the granite slab, a twisting steel knife clutched in his hands. Great X's had been violently torn into the stone through the each holy Triforce symbol in the room, and a great flaming circle, accented about its edges by strange signs and patterns which glew with an unearthly light, flickered over desecrated Triforce in the center of the sanctuary floor. Bonavin's hand tightened around the longsword hanging at his waist. "What... what is this? You've broken the sacred sign of the Goddesses!" The man in crimson drove the knife into the stone upon which he sat. It cleanly entered the slab, as though the great table of granite was not even there. "So," he chuckled, "It seems that even the holiest of the holy may be corrupted by our power. I will tell you this, friend Bonavin: Not a word I have said to you since 'Your temple is beautiful' has been the truth." "How?" replied the priest, drawing his blade, "How can the power of the Goddesses be defied so?" "I told you that I could show you how to make your temple perfect. So determined were you to create the ultimate shrine to your precious Nayru..." grinned the man, as Bonavin turned pale, "That you forgot that 'perfect' is a word that only a god can truly use. Your holy way has been cast completely aside by the very force you had purged yourself of!" The man in crimson, pulled a hood up over his head, and stepped forward. "The Dark God of Lies has already scribed the contract for you, brother Bonavin," he said, motioning toward the burning circle. "Won't you please sign it, and complete this lovely renovation of ours?" It is said that on that night, for just a few moments, the full moon took the appearance of a great, bulging eye, which darted its gaze around from its perch in the sky, and fixed straight down on the sanctuary, as the very world itself bucked and roared, and swallowed the structure in a great, rolling sea of broken earth. Deep in that buried shrine, a single steel longsword lies embedded in the stone. Gripping its hilt is a single black glove, a cracked crystal triangle adorning its back. The Corrupt Glove is able to add a DRAIN BODY 10d6 to any attack with a weapon, ranged or hand to hand, which is considered to be a part of that weapon during that attack. It has the following disadvantages: x2 END, Activation Roll 11-, Side Effects (if roll fails): 2d6 energy KA to the user, Drain CON 2d6 to the user, recovers once per day. The Corrupt Glove's power manifests as a freezing cold, crackling field of negative energy, which lashes out from the glove's crystal and surrounds the weapon being used. If the activation roll fails, then this energy surrounds the user, instead, and then explodes in a burst of black and red.

Re: And in his wake ... desolation (Power Design Help) Yeah, this is what Megascale is for. There's a monster like this in the Bestiary. It has a planetary destruction beam, a fairly large RKA with Megascale. Basically, it's a matter of making sure that the attack hitting the planet is at least as wide as the moon, or whatever logic you decide is appropriate. Not that it would really matter for a Transform that targets the whole planet- then it would have to be megascaled to "Planet," no matter what.

Re: Manipulating opponent position in combat - how? Encourage gaining higher ground by granting a +1 to hit, or something. Also, if a character with the Tactics skill explains a plan of attack, and makes a successful skill check, I generally have enemy npc's cooperate with the plan.

Re: And in his wake ... desolation (Power Design Help) Maybe you could give it the Uncontrolled and Sticky, No END, and Persistent advantages, so it just spreads around to stuff that's adjacent to it forever.

Re: Experience points question One thing I've learned about the HERO System: When constructing monsters and NPCs, it's best to essentially ignore character points, and focus on overall effectiveness of the character.

Re: magic cost I usually build alchemy with Triggered, and include a provision for additional doses from one batch based on the success of the skill roll. That way, with Triggered, he can have as many potions lying around as he can make, instead of like... 4 due to INT/5 from Delayed Effect. So, instead of making it independent, I usually make it Triggered and OAF(usable by anybody). That way, all your character expends is money, time, and long-term END when he brews a potion.

Re: Culture Shock: Slightly less 'cuddly' STAR HERO equipment That gets rep. I might use bleeding in my next campaign just for that reason, now. Anyway, I like the idea of less 'cuddly' weaponry, especially in the hands of evil. Like, you'd expect ruthless conquerors to have some really, really, inhumane weapons if they're after genocide.

Re: Prone Problems My thing about Prone is that, in HERO, for at least the first phase you're prone in, it's usually right after you've been sent flying by a mighty blow. I'd say that, at best, you don't get to have anybonuses from being prone unless: you choose to be prone, or you take at least half a phase become "combat prone" after being blown off your feet.

Re: First Time Mastering HERO (and new player) It sounds like your players don't really understand who's in charge here. If they don't want to play the HERO System, then more power to them. I get the impression that, despite all their criticisms and complaints, though, none of them wants to GM, either. Just make sure you ease them into it, and remind them that you're the one spending your free time on providing adventures for their characters.

Re: Prone Problems I always thought the rules for prone make sense, as far as involuntary prone is concerned, which is the kind of prone that people end up with unless they dive behind something in most games I've played. I mean, after all, if you're "prone," then your maneuverability is reduced, and your movements become much more predictable. Let's compromise: you get 1/2 HTH and range when involuntarily prone if your enemies are at relatively close range, like within 8-10". You have full ranged DCV if the enemy is farther away than that, unless they have a telescopic sense or are above you in angle by at least 45 degrees.

Re: [Newbie] My first character As a GM, I would reccomend throwing at least a few disadvantages on there. Psych lims, Hunteds, and the like. Disads give the character more points, but they also give the GM material to work with in game. Does the character have any Psychological Limitations? Give him a moral dilemma, or play on his fears/desires. Does the character have a Hunted? It doesn't even need to be the specific hunted, it could be somebody he sent, or just an appearance by that individual to see what happens. If it's an organization, even better. Now you have agents. What about Dependent NPCs? I loooove DNPCs. I find it really adds to the game when your heroes are whalloping some villain, and suddenly a scream is heard, as a piece of rubble breaks off of a damaged building and falls toward a character's girlfriend. You'd be amazed by how creative people can get with their powers when a DNPC is on the line.

Re: Strength Damage: Pathetic or what? I would venture to say that, although the 13 STR martial artist can deal as much damage with his staff as the 43 STR superhuman, chances are that the superhuman has a HA along the lines of Really Whallop Them!: HA +6d6. Something like that. And a lot of Brick Tricks: Explosion for STR, Area Effect for STR, Entangle up to DEF of material used, x2 Knockback for STR... I'd venture to say that once you reach STR 43, you've become bricky enough to have at least one of these, even as a Powered Armor type. I mean, there's some exceptions, like Ironclad, but 60 STR can usually speak for itself. So, although our quick, accurate MA can do as much damage with a strike, he's still a bit of a one-trick pony. He certainly can't uproot a streetlight and start hitting things with it if somebody takes his staff.

Re: Foriegn Captain America's Hebrew National, the Zavior of Zion! or, for something slightly less off-color, we can go the route of Baron von Romania.

Re: Points or $

Re: Points or $ Well, how many spells does a caster honestly need? I usually handle that sort of thing with a multipower. If they want something with a bizarrely huge number of Active Points, they can just hard-buy it and throw on a Extra Time and Charges and stuff. I find that if your caster just has lots of Background skills and a few spells, they don't lose out on points too much. It just means they have more money for other things than weapons. Or they can have weapons, too. It's not as though WF is expensive.

Re: 3 Questions - Force Wall and Area of Effect How durable is the disk? It could just be Physical Manifestation.

Re: Healing.... In the setting I'm working on, most clerics just use the same magic as wizards, if any magic at all. The thing that makes them clerical is their devotion to the Goddesses and their power to repel the undead. That, and a whole lot of background skills in cleric-ish things, like healing, oration, and the like.

Re: Linked or Multiple Power Attack? If it's an HA, I think the physical damage is implied, but converted into Energy because it's on fire, since it's vs. ED. Personally, I would make this a normal HA vs. PD, given the precident in USPD in the electricity powers section. If you wanted to, you could have an EB no range linked to it, though. That's how I would build it, anyway.

Re: "Ya better talk Oculon, or you'll get the spike!" (A Super law question)

Re: "Ya better talk Oculon, or you'll get the spike!" (A Super law question) Send him to the Phantom Zone. That's kinda like death.

Re: Clairsentience and Teleport I probably wouldn't allow a straight teleport, but I would allow a player to buy a floating teleport location, and memorize a place into it using clairsentience.