Lord Liaden

Re: Scenarios for Alien Wars Arguably the Aliens from the movies do have sentience, but in overall style and "flavor" there is a strong resemblance. However, the Xenovores also have a fairly complex social order, and relatively advanced technology. The priorities of the two species are otherwise pretty close: kill, reproduce and expand. I would say that "kill" is a higher priority for the Xenovores, though, for genetic reasons. Xenovores actually derive great physical pleasure from the consumption of sentient beings.

Re: creating a new world using a new system If I might make an observation, monster: if you've gotten the dwarf package down to 0 points, IMHO you have the best of both worlds. Your dwarfs really are more-than-human if they have more points in starting abilities than humans do, and that's going to emerge during play. OTOH you've given them drawbacks to balance them which humans don't have to deal with, and if you as GM used those Disadvantages that will also come out during play. Dwarfs start out both better and worse than humans at the same time, so not every player will choose to be a dwarf. I think that this is one of the more elegant design concepts in HERO.

Re: House Rule Question: STUN From Impotent KA's Thanks G-A, I'll take a look.

Re: Scenarios for Alien Wars And your consideration has earned you thanks and Rep.

Re: House Rule Question: STUN From Impotent KA's In fact the response has been pretty much the opposite - the players love the four-color feel that this adds to combat. There are a few things to keep in mind about this, though: One, the characters with the lower Defenses are usually the ones who specialize in avoiding getting hit, so they don't really expect to be immune. Two, this only works against real-world weapons, and if you're running a four-color campaign you generally have supervillains and agents with super weapons which can appreciably thump the bricks, while the speedsters and martial artists gleefully mock them. Three, if you saw my first post on the thread you read my addition of Reduced Penetration to the mechanics of this system. This allows some of the more lightly-armored PCs to take a hit from many conventional firearms and still keep going. They'll be a lot more sore than the bricks, but they'll survive. Hmm... based on that description it sounds more like some kind of Linked attack Triggered when the shell penetrates the vehicle's armor, but I'd need more info for an intelligent evaluation.

Re: An AI with a backup... Duplication? While I do agree that SFX for Resurrection is a valid and reasonable way to go about this; since much of HERO is choosing a build for personal esthetic reasons , I'll offer another option: Summon Specific Character (the PC). Where this might more closely fit what DataPacRat is describing, is that the player would have to periodically increase the points in the Summon to reflect his character's increased Experience, which could reflect the PCs' need to update his own backup. The points paid for Summon could be greatly reduced through use of Charges, Focus, maybe even bought through his Base if that's the only place the software can be updated.

Re: Something for all you guests!!!, and members.

Re: House Rule Question: STUN From Impotent KA's As I mentioned I've been using the Real Weapon/ Real Armor distinction in my campaign for a while, and this is almost exactly how I handle these specific issues. I have yet to see any published HERO writeup of a real-world weapon with the Penetrating Advantage; if anyone knows of one I'd like to hear where.

Re: How's the Turakian Age working out for you? I really can't describe The Turakian Age better than these excellent online reviews, to which I shall provide a few of my gabillion links: http://www.enworld.org/reviews.php?do=review&reviewid=2011540 http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/10/10309.phtml http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/10/10354.phtml BTW in case the absence of a detailed index mentioned in one review perturbs you, you can more than compensate for it by downloading the free PDF of the Encyclopedia Turakiana. I will add that TA has a fair number of carryovers into the present-day Champions part of the Hero timeline: Takofanes, Nama, the Crowns of Krim, and a few other characters, artifacts and setting elements. If you wanted a high-fantasy magic origin for a super PC or NPC in the CU, this would be a good place to look for it.

Re: How's the Turakian Age working out for you? Ah, my apologies. I misinterpreted which book you were blankly staring at. Would you like to know more about Turakian Age, then?

Re: Scenarios for Alien Wars Not to mention Digital Hero: THE ENEMY OF MY ENEMY: Can three races that hate each other set aside their differences long enough to defend their planet in this Alien Wars adventure? DH 20, PAGE 33 YOUR HOROSCOPE FOR: CAPRICORN: This Alien Wars adventure lands your Star Hero characters on an icy lake world full of Xenovores. DH 21, PAGE 13 (Thanks to JmOz for his DH adventure listing.)

Re: How's the Turakian Age working out for you? Tuala Morn: Tuala Morn is a pseudo-Celtic fantasy realm of bold warriors, wise wizards, capricious faeries, crafty dragons, and a thousand different types of adventure! Travel the fields, forests, and mountains of the Ten Kingdoms in search of wonder and excitement. In Dunrioga, the seat of the High King has sat empty for ten long years since the death of Davaine the Strong. While his queen Nuala tries to maintain a regency for their son, young Aillin, no one unites the people against the threat of Vulkring raiders from the north, or brings a halt to the longstanding feud between Crogher of Conhaile and Sitric of Seanclough. And without a High King, nothing stems the tide of the ambition of the Cormac of Mar Cormac, who wants a rulership he does not deserve and would sacrifice all the world to obtain it. As if such conflicts were not enough, religious strife besets the land. As the druids who worship the Dronnach Lanva, the Hundred Children, continue to propitiate the spirits of stream and wood, the priests of the Golden Temple cry the ascendancy of their strange faith to the skies, seeking to win converts to their shrines. Some wise men whisper that such disputes on Earth must surely mirror a dispute in the heavens, and if the matter cannot be resolved, then surely only the dark gods of the witches will remain to rule over the Tualans. Even worse, there are those who claim that these dark gods, or something akin to them, has already cast its shadow over the land. Of the source and power of this shadow, they know not, but its intentions are surely evil. Prophecy foretells that unless a true hero finds the Basilisk Orb, fabled talisman of the ancient wizard Coruch Crotha, the High King’s realm will fall to dust and ashes. Are you that hero? Author: Steven S. Long Tentative Release Date: Late 2006

Re: Idea bouncing around in my head.. Does the festival typically draw any politicians, celebrities or members of the economic elite? Good for kidnapping to hold for ransom or pry secrets out of, either while BavariApe is distracting security, or just carted off in his big hairy paw.

Re: Krim in the Turakian Age Hey, when you've been a student and an actor as long as I have, you learn to thoroughly check out anything labelled "Free Stuff."

Re: Krim in the Turakian Age

Re: Krim in the Turakian Age Do you mean, other than the citations in the Encyclopedia Turakiana PDF? Because that gives pages 274 and 280 in TTA for info about Krim.

Re: new to the hero system, so howdy!!!! Looks like Nome is heating up! Although if monster will be running a fantasy campaign there, maybe they should rename it "Gnome."

Re: Talking about doubling equipment I haven't allowed the multiplier at all for regular characters in my campaigns, because of the Focus restriction for using it. It doesn't seem fair to me that someone can take a Limitation meant to restrict the use of a Power, and save points on it, but that Limitation suddenly opens up the possibility of paying a few points to multiply the Power exponentially; while people who don't choose that restriction don't have that option. I have allowed the multiplier for vehicle equipment, including weapons, partly because not doing so would significantly change many published vehicle writeups. However, I do require that vehicle weapons bought with the multiplier have individual gunner characters manning each one if they're to be fired simultaneously.

Re: Practical Costuming (not quite a WWYCD) I did that for a mentalist/precog for my Middle-Eastern NPC hero team, The Right Hand. She's called Sharia (Arabic for "the way" or "the path," and also the name for the code of Islamic law). Mind you, in the climate of Cairo where the team was based, the burka is in fact pretty practical, not to mention culturally appropriate.

Re: Practical Costuming (not quite a WWYCD) Well, I always figured that the ubiquitous suspension of the laws of physics in comic-book universes applied to costumes as well. Anyway, the precedents for the spandex look go back to circus strongman suits designed to show off the performer's physique, which was the basis for Superman's outfit. As for many of the women's costumes, that's reflective of the majority of comics readers having been, and probably remaining, teenage boys... or men with the imaginations of teenage boys. To answer your question more seriously, though, the old pulp heroes did marvelous mood-evoking things with just a trenchcoat and fedora. Plenty of room to store gadgets, too. Throw on a black turtleneck and denim trousers under that, and black athletic shoes, and you're ready to become the terror of the night.

Re: House Rule Question: STUN From Impotent KA's As long as KA "fixes" have been brought up, I might as well mention mine. I've been using (3D6/3)-1 for my Stun Multiplier for a while now. I made a little chart showing all the results, with roundoffs, so that I don't have to divide in the middle of the game. This way the bell curve starts to make an appearance, and extreme results at either end become much rarer. While this still allows for the occasional great or lousy random roll, in practice the KA pretty consistently does more Body but less Stun than a Normal Damage attack of the same DC. Which is supposed to be the difference between them.

Re: The Flood: Not a Simple Transform As a followup to Duke Bushido's comment, let me quote from "Meta-Rules Of The HERO System," 5E p. 348/ 5ER p. 559: "If two Powers (or other game elements) are equally valid ways to create a particular ability, you must use the more expensive of the two." (Emphasis mine.) I would say that a GM has the right, if not the obligation, to decide if some ways are more valid than others. (That probably doesn't help much in this particular case, does it. Sorry.)

Re: Doesn't know his own Strength...? I agree with Oddhat's recommendation of Physical Limitation. From the great Master List of Limitations, the Physical Lim, "Crushing Grip" sounds like the closest precedent for modelling what you want.

Re: new to the hero system, so howdy!!!! Welcome aboard, monster! It's always nice to have enthusiastic new blood injected into our community. You're welcome to start discussions, post writeups, or ask questions on any HERO topic - or just about any other, for that matter. radioKAOS is quite correct about the creativity of this online community. Many of these folks have their own quality websites, or have contributed diverse free goodies to the company website here. I recommend checking out the blue banner at the top of this page, and clicking on "Free Stuff" and "Hero Links." There is much goodness to explore there. May I also humbly suggest clicking on the link in my signature, below? Particularly since every game that you mention having played has been given the HERO conversion treatment by fans to varying degrees, you might be interested to see how familiar things look with that new cast. I hope you enjoy your visits.

Re: Top Five vs The Unknown Menace! Absolutely appropriate for all the wrong reasons.