counterveil

Re: Shadowrun? I've actually run a pretty successful Shadowrun game in HERO 6E; it woks quite well if you play to the strengths of HERO being very customizable. Mages, especially, get a lot out of it because they can make almost any spell they want instead of picking from the fairly static list of spells in typical Shadowrun. Much like others here recommended, I made heavy use of Kazei 5 (such a good buy!) from a technology standpoint with a few of my own tweaks and additions to make cyberware more "compatible" with the SR universe. The hacking rules in Kazei 5 are especially good for quick turnaround similar to what SR4 was trying to do. Magic-wise, I allowed my Mages to use Multipowers because of the ease of acquiring fairly powerful firearms and gear (I used a "gear pool" for those). The Multipower had to be fairly defined in focus though.

Re: Commando Hero moquif, my question would be: Are you running the group as a fairly disparate set of individual mercenaries / freelancers / private security contractor types that are brought in for various jobs by unknown "employers"? If so, that's going to lend to the sort of borderline sociopathic behaviour you're seeing. It's a similar issue with Shadowrun, Cyberpunk, and similar games where players are basically at the fringe of society, more often than not acting as criminals or working for them. If you want more of a team cohesiveness you could try running the party as a pre-set team of personnel working directly for a government and/or firm that actually performs psychological tests on would-be employees. As it is, getting into a special ops or commando unit already requires a battery of psychological tests to ensure that they're not hiring a bunch of people who will go hog wild at the first sign of something they can shoot. In fact, based on people I know in military special ops, I would argue that their battery of tests specifically target for employment the type of person who *would* go charging into a fire to rescue civilians - the heroic type of person you're looking for. I can't speak so much to the private sector as I don't know anyone in that capacity. Given that, you could prevent players from taking certain Complications that pertain to sociopathic behavior, or even *require* them to take Complications that cause them to act in an heroic manner. A sort of Code of Honor or Code of Conduct, so to speak. Penalties for not playing their character would really be up to you and what you feel comfortable applying to your players. On a similar note, I would recommend enforcing some type of conformity to the player skillset. You could set up some kind of "Commando" package that everyone is required to take. Most teams have fairly similar training across the board with room for some specialization; this allows teams to be flexible in whom they can apply to a given job, but also allows for other team members to take up the slack if someone is injured, incapacitated, or killed on a mission. From a meta-gaming standpoint, this helps people feel some degree of unity in background and helps form the basis for the Team rather than the Individual. I'm not sure if there's a HERO rulebook that gives such a package, but you could look at GURPS (yes, I said it) Special Ops for some ideas on skillsets and apply that to your HERO game. At the end of the day, it's likely that your players are looking to you to enforce some type of conformity to your game. You may have to get a little heavy-handed at some points, but I've found in the past that it helps to get the less unruly players under the umbrella, and that draws the rest in. YMMV, and good luck!

Hello folks, long-time lurker, very occasional poster here. Some background: I normally run Heroic-level campaigns with a strong emphasis on hashing out the details on generic NPCs. Starting to move into running a short-to-medium-length modern/near-future campaign centered around criminal organizations. Due to change in points between 4E, 5E, 6E, I'm still wrapping my head around how many points to assign to non-named NPCs, and would love to hear suggestions or opinions on the topic based on the point allocations found in 6E1, pp.438-440. I realize that some individuals may buck trends, but I'm looking for fairly generic people here. To kick off: Generic Cop / Thug / Military Soldier: Average Person or Noteworthy Normal? I'm guessing that an elite cop (SWAT) would probably be one stage up from whatever a generic cop is, ditto elite versions of thugs and soldiers. But what about members of highly-regarded Special Operations units, such as Special Forces, GROM, SAS, etc.? Would those be likely to be in the Competent Normal range? Thanks for any insight!

Re: (Equipment) Axe vs. Sword Some really cool ideas here, thanks for the awesome read! Like Escafarc, I tend towards the simplifying spectrum - I used WFRP's concept of a generic "Hand Weapon", "Great Weapon", etc. and then let people tell me what kind of weapon they want it to be, whether that be sword, axe, or mace. There are "special" weapons like spears and lances, but otherwise fairly generic. I also have weapon "options" that characters can add to their weapons if they find a skilled smith, things like "balanced" (+1 OCV), "sharp" (AP), etc. Generally though, I don't let people just willy-nilly add those things to their weapons. I have similar options for ranged weapons as well.

Re: A is for Absorption I've only bought the PDFs for now but so far, as a HERO GM and player who mostly skipped 5E because my gaming group is lame and wanted to play D&D, I'm very impressed with the changes. There are a lot of things in 4E that I wanted to change back in the day to make the game simpler and it looks like so many of those are now in. Gearing up to be a player in a 6E fantasy game, and I'm very excited!

Re: 6th Edition Character Sheet I don't post much in this forum, but I can't let bunneh's character sheets go without comment. Those are simply the most amazing character sheets I've ever seen for any game.

Re: S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Oak Ridge (PA Hero) mudpyr8...oddly enough while Gen Con is going on my friends and I are going to be throwing a mini-con (http://www.choppacon.com/choppa) here in the SF Bay Area up north in Fairfax. I was planning on GM'ing a HERO game and thought to myself..."now what short campaign should I run?" Well that was a silly question. There's a damn good one right here Would you mind terribly if I liberally used a lot of your materials? I'll probably rewrite some of the equipment as I'm using the "equal damage" rules for weapons from FH (pg. 177 or sommat) to simplify things, but the map is just rawrsome as is much of the other gear in your PDF. Just wanted to run the idea by you; naturally all credit will go where it is due. If you feel the need to discuss further feel free to PM me or just shoot a mail over to counterveil-at-gmail-dot-com. Cheers, -0xC

Re: S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Oak Ridge (PA Hero) Sadly won't be at GenCon as work is keeping me too busy these days. The only conventions I have time for are ones the company is paying for >.< I'd love to give your setting a try, but just started a 4-shot historical dark fantasy game (yay Vikings!) and scheduled to be playing a High Fantasy game. At least both are in HERO and not in D20 . I definitely foresee PA - and specifically S.T.A.L.K.E.R. in my near [gaming] future though Totally understand why you moved the setting to the U.S., the cultural familiarity makes the game hit that much closer to home and helps players become engaged quicker - very valuable for a convention setting. Good luck and best wishes for fun at GenCon - and thanks once again for your awesome work. -0xC

Re: S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Oak Ridge (PA Hero) Wow, completely amazing! I was actually thinking of doing the same thing, but more of a literal translation of the original S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game since I love the "exotic-ness" of all the Russian equipment. The Google My Maps was genius, very very nice work. Definitely bookmarking this thread

Re: Yet Another Alternate SPD Rules Thread Hierax, how do you handle non-combat multipliers? I think I am going to use a modification of your rules above as they're fairly simple and solve the issues I currently have. Basically: Max Move / Turn = (x 2) x 2 *I multiply by 2 first for non-combat movement, and then by 2 for average 2 SPD Thus an average person can perform ground movement of 24" / Turn maximum regardless of SPD [(6"x2) x2]. This is around 4m per second (14.4km/h or 9mph). The most one can move in a given phase is still governed by their ( x ). For the sake of simplicity I will probably *not* stage movement over several segments. High-SPD characters will not be penalized by these rulings (other than removing the movement multiplier normally given by SPD). SPD will then reflect their ability to *act* faster. In fact, a high SPD character can move the same distance as a lower SPD character in a turn but perform more actions along the way. Because they have such a high SPD they can opt *not* to use non-combat movement to move the maximum allowable distance in a Turn. Example: Bob the Postman (Run 6", SPD 2) wants to run from one end of the block to the other (48"). He is limited by his maximum movement per turn of 24" so he'll only get halfway at the end of phase 12. There are a bunch of zombies in the way though. He breaks into a dead run on phase 6 and gets 1/4 of the way there (12"). At the end of phase 12 he'll be halfway there (24"). During this entire time he is at OCV0 and at lowered DCV, subject to attacks from the zombies. Dan the Apprentice Ninja (Run 6", SPD 4) wants to run that same distance (48"). He is also limited by his max movement per turn of 24" so only will get halfway there at the end of phase 12. However, unlike Bob he can split his movement into 4 phases (6" per phase) so can utilize Combat Movement and perform Move-Throughs on the Zombies as necessary. His higher SPD allows him more flexibility and choice in action, while still allowing him to cover the same total distance as Bob the Postman. I think I like it so far...will have to actually playtest this to see if it works for my group. Thanks again to all for the awesome suggestions.

Re: Yet Another Alternate SPD Rules Thread Yes, my math was bad I thought that anything that had a STRMin required END usage - don't guns have a STRMin? But yes, I do see your point - anything bought with a 0 END advantage would suddenly become extremely powerful. Ah well. I like some of the other ideas posted here, with regard to maximum movement per turn regardless of SPD, or having continuous actions that can span multiple consecutive segments - I'll have to look into those. Once more, thanks to all for the replies - this is certainly a very lively board, and I very much appreciate everyone's participation!

Re: Yet Another Alternate SPD Rules Thread Thanks much Spoon (or Ockham's?). It's comments and ideas like that that I'm definitely looking for. Believe me, I love the choppiness of the original SPD rules. I *love* that some people are faster action-wise than others without some added [broken] method for treating multiple actions (see: Shadowrun). The "built-in" methodology works very, very well for many of the things I want to see in my games. It's just a hang up of mine that super-fast-chop-socky martial artist can actually run faster than olympic-superstar-ronnie-the-runner. I know there are ways around that where you can build the olympic superstar to have conditional SPD levels, etc. However, I see that as more of a band-aid than anything else - which is why I even considered doing these alternate rules in the first place. I very well see your points with regard to tweaking around these rules: 1) I don't think that the END is going to police this system well enough to keep people from going every segment. Agreed to some degree; it will probably depend on how many points people are built on and how much they can "waste" on END batteries or increased END. It's going to be an heroic campaign, so points are going to be no more than 150 - still a lot of points to build up END. It's a Normals campaign, so that might add another restriction. 2) People will tend to pack their actions into the front of the turn and then use their last action to Dodge so their DCV is high until the end of the turn Very good point, and something I hadn't thought of. I might have to ditch these rules simply based on that. The real feel I was going for was that people would *not* act out of turn unless absolutely necessary but you just brought up something I hadn't even considered. I really like your idea of simply altering the way movement is handled in the first place. I had considered the following possibilities: - Maximum movement (once you have moved this many hexes, you can't move anymore. Maximum movement could be based off your best sprint multiplied by a SPD of 2) The problem here is that you end up with another hit-point-like stat that has to be kept track of. More bookkeeping is generally a bad thing, but if this ends up being the only way to handle it I would consider it. - Staged movement (similar to what you suggested with making movement analagous to falling) I can see with this type of ruling that half-move-to-attack might need some reworking. I haven't fully explored this yet, but I'll definitely take a look at it this evening and repost here with my findings. Once again, thanks for the thoughtful and very informative reply. I <3 these boards

So...I love HERO. I love the SPD characteristic, and I also hate it for various reasons which I've seen posters here enumerate. The main crux of my issues with SPD is that it affects your running speed, which is a completely separate stat. Additionally, I like the granularity of second-by-second combat such as G*RPS uses, but I find G*RPS cumbersome. I'm putting forth the following alternate SPD rules for critique, so feel free to blast it. Really, I want to see if you guys 'n gals can find any gigantic holes in the concept that might affect the meta-rules. The main aims of my alternate rules are to: 1) Preserve meta-rules such as phase-12, END usage and recovery, and so on. 2) Allow Run to really govern how fast you can move, as opposed to having SPD act as a multiplier for it. 3) Introduce more granularity into combat and engender a second-by-second feel to combat. So on to the rules (making them as simple as possible): Actions Per Phase The first thing is, *you can act on any phase*. Acting on an off-phase to your SPD creates a penalty (I'm thinking -4 or more) to any non-defensive action that requires a roll of the dice - therefore, attacking off-phase can be done, but is generally bad since you're trying to act too quickly and are prone to make mistakes. Additionally, actions which require END usage *still* require END usage. Acting on every phase is going to burn your END quickly. Movement Per Phase Based on the above, *you can move on any phase*. Therefore, people who invest in Running, Swimming, Climbing, etc. aren't trumped by people who invested in SPD. Moving, of course, still takes END, and trying to move throughout an entire 12-second Turn is going to hurt you. Vehicles Vehicles still have a SPD, and attempting to control them out of phase also imposes a penalty to your controlling skill. I've identified a few things that would have to be changed or would possibly have to be modified due to taking advantage of them in the rules: Base Movement To account for the new ability to move every phase, normal human running speed would be reduced to 4" base, with a 7" or 8" maximum. Sprinting / Running The ability to Sprint / Run would be removed. Full Move (i.e. moving your full Run rate) would the the most that you could move in a Phase. The nice thing here is that you don't get people taking off with a Run action and completely leaving combat. Additionally, people's ability to act off-phase will allow for interrupts of disengagement, etc. Taking Recovery Obviously it would become very easy to fully recover END just by spending an off-phase resting. I'll have to figure out some way to solve this since I like the option of doing this, but don't want it to become something cheesy, rules-wise. Anyone else have any ideas around this, or can see potential issues that may arise? I think that END usage is going to police abuse of this rule for the most part (I'm running an Heroic-level campaign), so while the option exists to act in every phase, people will act off-phase when absolutely necessary.

Re: Greatest Post-Apoc Film of All Time Oh my god yes. That movie gets my vote for worst PA movie of all time. Michael Dudikoff (of American Ninja fame) prancing about in Film Noir-style clothing in a Post-Apocalyptic musical. I don't think anyone could think of a better (or worse) concept for a movie. And Road Warrior gets my vote for best.

Thanks for the correction. 'No Espers' it is Also, on the topic of Hero 5th, it's pretty darned close and any tweaking necessary doesn't seem to be too big of a deal. I'm trying to create some new vehicles for the rigger of my team...wish me luck

Thanks Susano, I appreciate it very much! Right now I'm busy building all of your stuff into Hero Designer so that I can build PCs and NPCs quicker. I may have some questions on exactly what ads / lims were built into weapons, but right now it looks pretty clear cut. Congrats again on a great sourcebook! I've got 5 players lined up right now for a Cyberpunk game set in a modified Kazei 5 universe (no psychics), and we'll be playing a very fun 50-pt low-powered campaign. If you know of anyone in the SF Bay Area that's looking for a game, do let me know

Kazei 5 is great! I bought it online, started reading...hooked. Tons of great campaign ideas, how-to-builds, and more. What a great deal *feverishly begins working on campaign material....*

Steve, many thanks for replying! I do appreciate the attention you give to these boards. I must admit, I was a little disappointed to hear that CH wouldn't be released until 2006/2007; I suppose I can use my 4th Ed. version until then, so I will wait very patiently for the next version. I'm headed over to the Policies section to check stuff out there. Keep up the great work! It's so good to see HERO stuff being released again, and being here in SF it's good to see my FLGS (Gamescape) get product first (did that answer your question, Nightshade?) Oh man, I better post more! I just realized I'm an Incompetent Normal!!!

Hey all, anyone hear anything about Cyber Hero being released? This was one of my favorite genre books ever put out...yeah, it wasn't that complete and was the only one released, but it was still cool. I saw that this was 'tentative' on their list of products...but I'm really looking forward to a release of this for 5th Ed. On a related topic, I'd love to have a website to post Cyber Hero characters, gear, cyberware, etc. that I have created myself. Additionally, there may be some related house rules associated with them. Is this going to break any kind of copyright rule? I'd like to make sure that I'm not violating this kind of thing if I start posting stats, rules, etc. Finally, on a similar note, I've done a quick search of the forums and can't find much related to Cyber Hero (although the Shadowrun thread was really nice). Anyone have any good links or info for those of you that _are_ running Cyber Hero campaigns? Thanks in advance, - counterveil