Lord Liaden

Re: Kingpin Maybe these would help: http://www.sysabend.org/champions/gnborh/text/Kingpin1-gr.txt http://www.sysabend.org/champions/gnborh/text/Kingpin2-gr.txt

Re: Replacing the AP Advantage Ah, well. I guess I should mention that Piercing is also described and costed in Steve's "Heroglyphs" column in Digital Hero #13, along with optional variants on Armor Piercing. Not described to the same degree as in DC, but essentially the same.

Re: Tuala Morn Frankly, if I had the choice to call myself a Sisal (how whimpy does that sound?!), a Flax (you make cloth out of that), or a Jute, I'd rather be a macho-sounding Jute.

Re: Tuala Morn That sounds like the book from the now-defunct Bard Games, which also published the original Talislanta. A very fine tome and setting, particularly for the era. You might be interested to know that a newer game publisher, Morrigan Press, acquired the rights to that property and has recently released Atlantis: The Second Age, a spiffy update of the classic world book. It uses the Omni System, based on the game mechanics from Talislanta Fourth Edition. If it sells well Morrigan plans to publish further world expansions.

Re: Replacing the AP Advantage Anyone have the Combat Handbook handy? Did Piercing make it into that book?

Re: Mental combat - when would dice be rolled here? Except that the new Ultimate Mentalist isn't scheduled until "late 2006." Based on past precedent, and considering that there are two other Ultimate books in the queue ahead of it, I'd expect TUM to be at least six months away, even it even makes it under the wire this year. But consider: Steve's responsible for both books, so it's unlikely that he'll change any of the optional mechanical stuff substantially from the 4E version. OTOH he has promised to greatly expand the book with new material. And the 4E PDF is only $10.00. So there's plenty of reason to buy both.

Re: Energy Output of Attacks Our board colleague Bartman created a detailed Damage Class to Real World conversion matrix inspired by the material from "The Flavor of the Game," and included some of the assumptions on which he based his calculations. As he remarks, his figures and those of "Flavor" are pretty close, but his include more specific parallel examples. Maybe that would help clarify things. I saved the matrix as a Document file - I'll attach it below:

Re: Mental combat - when would dice be rolled here? Even though some elements of TUM were integrated into basic Fifth Edition, e.g. the Classes of Minds, TUM still has an additional ton of clarifications, optional rules, Skills, Modifiers and other neat stuff. Almost all of said stuff would function perfectly well under Fifth Edition. I'd say it's pretty much de rigeur for a mentalist-heavy HERO game, and can add spice to playing mentalists in any genre. And at $9.95 US for a 160-page PDF, it's a bargain. As if you needed further incentive , TUM also includes some basic conversion notes for general level-based D20 games, as well as for Shadowrun, GURPS Psionics (Third Edition), and Storyteller System (particularly Mage).

Re: Question about Star Hero Nice going, gamerz123. Just the sort of fleshing out that the Star HERO line needs. Maybe more of us should look into creating products like this to bolster our favorite Hero settings or genres.

Re: Mental combat - when would dice be rolled here? I would say that this narrative could be represented mechanically by the optional Mind To Mind mental combat maneuvers from The Ultimate Mentalist. The particular effects you describe could simply be the SFX of a given Offensive or Defensive Maneuver which the characters employ. To use your narrative: As mentioned previously, probably the character's Mental Awareness alerting him to the use of Mind Scan in the area, perhaps scanning a nearby mind. The Mind Scanner didn't roll well enough to detect the character, but he's likely using the Mind Search Maneuver, which allows the attacker to gain some "vague information" about the target's location even if the Effect Roll normally required isn't achieved. The defender uses an additional Defensive Maneuver to increase his MD or DECV - the maneuver bonuses are cumulative. I'd say Defensive Effort in this case, which requires shutting off all perception of the physical world. The character adds the benefits of a Defensive Push, requiring an Ego Roll to Push his Mental Defense. I would call this the SFX of the limited awareness that someone targetted by a Mental Power will have of his attacker. The defender switches tactics, using an active maneuver, Mind Bar (essentially a mental Block, OECV vs OECV) to completely negate the attacker's Mind Scan. Apparently the Mind Bar was successful. There's more to each MTM Combat Maneuver than I've described here - we are talking Hero Games's IP after all - but you should get the gist of it.

Re: Don't Look Into the Light... Darkness is Better

Re: Got it.

Re: Got it. Actually, you can't lower your Speed below 2 without GM permission (FREd p. 233/ 5ER p. 357). It's like this, Schwarzwald: While you're holding your breath, you can't take a Recovery, which is the mechanism by which you regain any Endurance that you've expended through exerting yourself, and any Stun you may have taken through being the recipient of an attack or other means. Also, when holding your breath you expend a minimum of 1 END per Phase, a Phase being the number of times that you can act in a Turn - which is determined by your Speed. Since you're expending END without being able to Recover, you'll eventually run out END. Once you do that, you'll begin to lose Stun at the same rate, until you run out of Stun and pass out. After that happens you begin to lose Body at the same rate, until you die. Bottom line: you drown. Voluntarily reducing your Speed to 2 is comparable to slowing down your physical activity, reducing your rate of exertion and hence the rate you use up oxygen, so that it will take longer for you to drown. Pretty real-world reasonable, actually.

Re: Question about Star Hero "As long as you buy a copy." Didn't want to give the impression that Steve is that snippy.

Re: Adamant's upcoming Mars book I think you're remembering a computer-animated series called War Planets (in the United States). Planet Rock (stone people), Planet Fire (lava people), Planet Ice (crystaline insect people), and Planet Bone (lizard people). No actual humans, though, but one representative of a robotic race from the Planet Tech, which was destroyed by a giant planet-devouring world called the Beast Planet which was the prime menace of the series. I enjoyed that series. It was really a war story, and for the most part a fairly serious one.

Re: Some characters I like Ah! My unfamiliarity with the series is showing. Thanks, Mr. S. Here's the Major: http://surbrook.devermore.net/adaptionsanime/kusanagi.html

Re: Some characters I like Schwarzwald, I couldn't find HERO writeups for any of the characters you mentioned, which rather surprised me. However, I would be flat-out astonished if you found no characters familiar to you on this website: http://surbrook.devermore.net/index/archive.html

Re: trying to model a weapon in HERO, what would I do? Dr. Anomaly has already mentioned how Find Weakness can lower Defenses below 1/2. There's also another optional Power called Piercing, which is stacked onto some other attack like Energy Blast or Killing Attack. Piercing effectively removes a set amount of Defense from the target before damage dice are rolled, e.g. if you have an attack with 10 points of Piercing, the target's Defense is reduced by that amount for purpose of resisting that one attack. So a target with 30 Defense goes to 20, while 10 Defense goes to 0.

Re: trying to model a weapon in HERO, what would I do?

Re: Working on New Constantinople Once again, GM SPOILER TIME!!

Re: Overcomplex things? That's definitely worth repeating. For example, I once saw a published supervillain who used enchanted swords that, every time they struck and wounded a target, would do some damage to the muscles that impaired the victim's ability to move. Every time. This could have been done using Hit Locations, but it would have been difficult to target the location and the result wouldn't have been reliable. So the villain was built with a Drain Dexterity, Linked to the Killing Attack, with wounding being the Special Effect of the attack. As has been mentioned, there are usually several ways to achieve a given effect in HERO, each of which has its own benefits and drawbacks. You can certainly decide which way is best for you, but the system rarely defines one "best" way for all.

Re: How do I update 4E to 5ER Lemurion, I noticed on your list a number of pre-Fourth Edition books. If you follow the link in my signature, below, and scroll down to "Hero System (Pre-Fifth Edition)," you'll find both guidelines for generally updating older HERO books, and specific system updates for some of the books you mentioned.

Re: COH/COV conversions There has been a little discussion of converting it here on the boards, but I wasn't able to find a lot in the way of details. Still, you may find this material useful: http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=16952 http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=32537 BTW Maelstrom's posted text writeup for the Sky Raiders got scrambled by changes to the forum software (his attached HDC file for them should be unaffected though). However, I was able to clean it up enough to be legible - I'll post it below: --------------------------------------- Sky Raider Player: Maelstrom Val Char Cost 20 STR 10 23 DEX 39 18 CON 16 11 BODY 2 13 INT 3 11 EGO 2 15 PRE 5 10 COM 0 10/30 PD 6 9/27 ED 5 4 SPD 7 8 REC 0 40 END 2 30 STUN 0 7" RUN 2 2" SWIM 0 4" LEAP 0 Characteristics Cost: 99 Cost Power END 13 Flight Suit: Armor (20 PD/18 ED) (57 Active Points); Independent (-2), OIF Expendable (Difficult to obtain new Focus; -3/4), Activation Roll 14- (-1/2), Real Armor (-1/4) 0 25 Submachine Gun: RKA 3d6+1, Armor Piercing (+1/2), 16 clips of 32 Charges (+3/4), Autofire (10 shots; +1) (162 Active Points); Independent (-2), OAF Fragile Expendable (Very Difficult to obtain new Focus; -1 3/4), STR Minimum 18 and higher (STR Min. Cannot Add/Subtract Damage; -1 1/2), Beam (-1/4) [32] 18 Flight 17", Position Shift, x4 Noncombat, Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2) (66 Active Points); Independent (-2), OIF (Flight Pack; -1/2), Activation Roll 14-, Burnout (-1/4) 0 Powers Cost: 56 Cost Martial Arts Maneuver 4 Basic Shot: 1/2 Phase, +0 OCV, +0 DCV, Range +2, Strike, +2 DC 5 Far Shot: 1/2 Phase, +1 OCV, -1 DCV, Range +4, Strike 4 Quick Shot: 1/2 Phase, +1 OCV, +0 DCV, Range +0, Strike, +2 DC 3 Weapon Element: Assault Rifles/LMGs, Flamethrowers, Submachine Guns 3 Basic Strike: 1/2 Phase, +1 OCV, +0 DCV, Weapon +2 DC Strike 4 Martial Block: 1/2 Phase, +2 OCV, +2 DCV, Block, Abort 1 Weapon Element: Blades Martial Arts Cost: 24 Cost Skill 3 Acrobatics 14- 5 Accurate Sprayfire 5 Concentrated Sprayfire 5 Rapid Autofire 3 Breakfall 14- 15 +3 with DCV 10 +2 with Ranged Combat 10 +2 with HTH Combat 3 Lockpicking 14- 3 Mechanics 12- 5 Rapid Attack (Ranged) 3 Tactics 12- 3 Teamwork 14- 3 KS: Military Science 12- 3 KS: Scrounging 12- 3 KS: Small Unit Tactics 12- 3 PS: Mercenary 12- Skills Cost: 85 Cost Perk 3 Anonymity Perks Cost: 3 Cost Talent 3 Absolute Time Sense Talents Cost: 3 Total Character Cost: 270 Val Disadvantages 20 Social Limitation: Subject to Orders Very Frequently (14-), Major 15 Psychological Limitation: Malicious (Common, Strong) 15 Social Limitation: Mercenaries Code of Conduct (Frequently, Severe, Not Limiting In Some Cultures) 20 Social Limitation: Mercenary (Very Frequently, Major) Disadvantage Points: 70 Base Points: 200 Experience Required: 0 Total Experience Available: 0 Experience Unspent: 0 __________________

Re: NOBLES, KNIGHTS, AND NECROMANCERS -- What Do *You* Want To See? I'm sure you'll have most things covered, but there is one concept you may possibly have overlooked that I'd like to see - a tax collector. Seriously. To the average peasant farmer or tradesman living under an oppressive regime, there could be no more feared or despised individual. This would be the first person that any group of PCs striking back against such a regime would target, particularly if their motivations are in the vein of Robin Hood. OTOH the tax collector might be hiding his own corruption from higher authorities, so that exposing him could be the motivation for a story arc. If the collector has other spheres of authority, such as commanding the local guard, he could actually be a serious opponent for PCs.

Re: trying to model a weapon in HERO, what would I do? Schwarzwald, I understand if you're annoyed, and I apologize if this offends you; it's just that you've been posting a number of specific "how to" questions without having the rules involved to reference. In some cases the how-to is pretty clearly explained in the rulebook, while in others our answers really won't come through clearly until you have some familiarity with the system. When you arrived here you had a lot of questions about whether HERO could do various things; the answers you got can be summarized as "Yes, it can." Now it's just a question of the mechanical particulars. However, I think you'll get more useful input from these boards once you can look up those particulars yourself. Since you seem to be committed to getting the rulebook, it's just a matter of when you can look them up, not whether you will. Believe me, once you have the book, if you need things clarified you'll find no shortage of people here ready to help you out. I'd just like to add that the HERO System Sidekick PDF would probably be a good investment even if you're set on getting the full ruleset. SK was designed to introduce HERO to the novice much more clearly and succinctly than the massive 5E tome, let alone the even more pumped-up 5ER. It's an inexpensive way to sample the game and get yourself up to speed, and whether you subsequently decide to get the full rules, or decide that HERO isn't for you after all, you're not out much.