Lord Liaden

Re: Best SuperHero Fights ever So many good ones here, many of them my favorites too. I'll just throw in a few more that come to my mind: Old school, Fantastic Four against Dr. Doom just after Doom had stolen the Silver Surfer's power cosmic. Doom took everything the FF could throw at him, and basically laughed it off. In the end Doom let them simply walk away unharmed, because he had proven that they were no longer a threat to him. Daredevil vs. Iron Fist, in a crossover with the Power Man and Iron Fist title. DD and IF threw punches and kicks at each other, bobbing and weaving in return, and neither one could lay a glove on the other. They actually started complimenting each other's styles: IF: "Very nice! What do you call that move?" DD: "Ducking." IF: "Hmm. A little unorthodox, but it works!" More recently, the Avengers and the Thunderbolts in the climax of their crossover against Count Nefaria. Pulling out all the stops against one of their strongest and cleverest foes, while his doomsday device counts down... Speaking of Doomsday: his second confrontation with Superman in the miniseries, Superman/Doomsday: Hunter/Prey was the kind of fight that their first one should have been. Superman fighting both hard and smart against a foe who clearly overmatched him, but refusing to go down until he found a way to win.

Re: Question about the Villain Holocaust--missing VPP control skill I'm not sure I understand your point. The requirement of at least one Turn of time out of combat to change a VPP is the default for that Framework, not a Limitation. There's nothing in Holocaust's writeup that says he only requires a Half Phase to change his "Energy Control" VPP. If he had bought Power Skill for his VPP, he'd be able to use that to change it in combat, as a Full Phase Action. Being able to change it in a Half Phase would be a +1/2 Advantage to the Control Cost of the VPP, which Holocaust also doesn't have. The time Holocaust needs isn't specified, so I just assumed it was minimum one Turn. If I'm missing the point you're trying to make, please clarify.

Re: A Dummy's Guide to the Turakian Age I forgot to mention that Free Stuff also contains a breakdown of all the gods of the Turakian "High Faith," as well as the Westerlands Calendar. They're downloadable from here: http://www.herogames.com/FreeStuff/freedocs.htm

Re: Question about the Villain Holocaust--missing VPP control skill Strictly speaking, Holocaust doesn't need Power Skill or any further Advantage to change his VPP, unless he wants to do so during combat. Any VPP can be changed out of combat with at least one Turn of time. As written Holocaust would have to prepare his VPP before combat to handle whatever type of attacks he expected to face, or else withdraw from the battle to reconfigure it. Not a bad restriction on the character IMHO, considering the level of power he already wields without feeding on the powers of others. Giving him the ability to change that sucker during combat would make him considerably nastier.

Re: Knockback Well, I can only repeat that my experience has been that Bracing with Strength and/or Flight has kept Knockback from being a major combat slowdown in most cases. Bricks, who have often been brought up in examples here, have been the least problematic in battles I've run; as the DC from STR goes up, the resistance to KB due to STR goes up just as much. As long as the DCs among the various characters involved in a fight are comparable, it tends to even out. Flyers get an even better deal, with 1" of Flight subtracting 1" of KB. High DCV types try to avoid getting hit at all, of course. In practice there simply hasn't been that much knocking around going on, unless someone is tagged from an unexpected direction - but that's just good team tactics IMO. In a one-on-one fight between two flying bricks like Superman and Captain Marvel, who can use both STR and Flight where appropriate, neither one is likely to go anywhere unless hit by a truly massive blow. EDIT: I apologise if that came across as criticism of people who have a problem with Knockback as it stands and want to change it. Of course you should modify the game in any way that satisfies what you want it to do.

Re: A Dummy's Guide to the Turakian Age Well, our board colleague Labrat made a start at organizing this information in an "almanac"- like format, and Attaching the material to a post on a previous thread. He's just covered the Westerlands so far. It's supposedly an .xls file, but for some reason my computer won't read it, so I can't give you any more details. Anyway, here's where you'll find it: http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=32098 Steve Long also summarized a few elements of Ambrethel on this thread: http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=16959 This may or may not help you, but ace Hero cartographer Keith Curtis provided downloadable maps of Ambrethel in different formats on the "Free Stuff" section of the website: http://herogames.com/FreeStuff/wallpapers.htm

Re: No Range + AE This is the way I've always run it. However, according to the description of the Area Of Effect Advantage on 5E p. 159/ 5ER p. 248, AOE Powers with No Range always center at the character using the Power.

Re: How would you build identity disassociation? I'm not that familiar with Exalted either, but I agree with Sean; the mechanics will make a big difference. The number of "Resplendent Destinies" that a character can have at any one time would affect how I'd suggest handling it. If the character can assume any other identity he can imagine at any time, then I'd favor Shape Shift, with the SFX that people just don't recognize him as the same person. I'd add Limitations based on the circumstances through which the identity can be penetrated. Based on the circumstances you describe above, I'd call it -1/4. OTOH if a character can only have a limited number of different Resplendent Destinies to choose from, I would buy each one as the Perk, "Deep Cover." That would in practice give you what you're looking for. It's possible for Deep Covers to be "blown," so I'd just say that the actions you mention would do so.

Re: Magnetism: Abuse And Super Metals I seem to recall reading that a strong enough magnetic field could ionize atmosphere, and that said ions could be magnetically manipulated. Any truth to this, or am I delusional? (I mean, about this issue specifically.)

Re: "Finally a game where you can kill the fodder, just like in the movies." Well, as I mentioned in a previous post to this thread, IMO "casual mook killing" isn't necessary in most cases. As long as said mooks are incapacitated and no longer a threat for the duration of the fight - including being knocked unconscious - the effect on the outcome of an encounter is the same for practical purposes. However, as long as the subject has come up, I might as well reiterate the House Rule I devised for when my groups agree that greater lethality is appropriate to the genre. I think it's germaine to this discussion because I extrapolated it from existing HERO mechanics: If a character takes BODY Damage after Defenses equal to his starting BODY, including modifiers for Hit Location, from a single attack (including Coordinated attacks), then that character has to make a CON Characteristic Roll or die immediately from shock - a not-unrealistic outcome IMHO. In the case of mooks or unimportant bystanders that we want slaughtered I usually just rule that those characters automatically fail their CON Roll. As with Death in HERO, the starting BODY is a determining factor; like Stunning, matching or exceeding a stat total on the damage dice has an additional result; and a Characteristic Roll to avoid negative consequences is an established part of the system. Fudging the CON roll is the only GM "handwaving" needed to turn this into a full mook rule.

Re: The cost of TK FWIW I've been running TK as if it were Indirect at the +1/2 level, i.e. it can reach over and around and behind objects, but not through them. This makes it resemble the "partially Indirect" effects of Stretching or enhanced reach from Growth, which pleases me on an esthetic level. TK becomes Fully Indirect for +1/4, while Fully Direct is a -1/2 Lim. I do want to emphasize that this is primarily for the "feel" of the Power, not necessarily because I think it's more balanced this way.

Re: The cost of TK Do you think that it's fair to compare Telekinesis to Ranged Strength with all the Advantages of TK, and No Figured Characteristics? Ranged STR is obviously much cheaper, as shown in the analysis above, but it's also illegal; is that appropriate? One thought that did strike me is that in campaigns with Normal Characteristic Maxima, large amounts of Strength Modified as above would be considerably more expensive.

Re: The cost of TK Well, even though the description of TK in the rulebook does imply what you're saying, when you look at what it can actually do it certainly sounds like Fully Indirect: "In other words, while it always originates with the character, it can "touch" or pick up objects or characters from any direction (not just on the side facing the Telekinetic character), can move objects in any direction, and so forth. It can work through a window or a Force Wall without having to break the intervening obstacle, at no reduction in STR." (5E p. 147) From that breakdown it's hard to see what part of Indirect it doesn't cover. In fact when I posed that question to Steve Long a while back, he couldn't come up with one either: http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4843

Re: Magnetism: Abuse And Super Metals Regarding CU supermetals and references to them in Champions Universe, Kendrium is explicitly described as "high-grade titanium steel with certain chemicals and other substances" (CU p. 57), so that certainly qualifies as "ferrous." Questionite's description makes it sound like a unique naturally-occurring metal, probably its own element, so I would say that magnetism need not affect it. Neutronium may or may not be "dead star material," but either way because of its high density it's probably not ferrous. Destreum is "a super-strong alloy that he [Dr. Destroyer] invented" (Conquerors, Killers And Crooks p. 8), but what it's an alloy of isn't specified, so that would be a judgement call. OTOH when Destreum was first mentioned, in the Fourth Edition adventure Day of the Destroyer, it was specifically referred to as "destreum steel."

Re: "Finally a game where you can kill the fodder, just like in the movies." That seems fair. Mind you, there are also a couple of "mook rules" in the "Nine Ways To Speed Up Combat" sidebar in the core rulebook.

Re: "Finally a game where you can kill the fodder, just like in the movies." I can see your point. OTOH I did notice what happened to Aragorn and the rest of the Fellowship when those 20 BODY trolls showed up.

Re: The cost of TK When you examine the rules for TK it is to all intents and purposes Fully Indirect (attack from any angle and through intervening barriers), so the Strength construct you describe would really need Indirect at +3/4 to get the same benefits. Let's try to break this down mathematically: STR 40 (40 BP), Ranged (+1/2), Indirect (+3/4) = 90 AP, 9 END; No Figured Characteristics (-1/2) = 60 RP. Let's remove those first 10 pts. of Strength that you get for free, as you suggested, and make it 50 RP. Now, STR 40 TK (60 BP), Fine Manipulation to match a person's normal STR (+1/4) = 75 AP and RP, END 7. STR comes out significantly cheaper, but more costly in END. If you were to buy both Power constructs to 0 END, TK would cost 105 points. STR would come to 110 AP, 73 RP - 10 free STR = 63 points. Of course Ranged STR is technically illegal, but let's ignore that for now. OTOH, IMO we also have to compare TK to EB to get a rounded perspective. Consider an 8d6 EB (40 BP) vs. STR 40 TK (60 BP), doing equal damage. You'd have to buy Indirect at +3/4 on EB to give it the same capacity as TK (70 AP). Just to balance out the points, let's buy them both to 0 END, bringing them both to 90 AP. So, we have two Power constructs of the same Active Points and END cost, doing the same base damage; except that the TK is a Constant Power, and can Strike, Grab and crush or throw an opponent, lift and manipulate objects at range, etc. Is there a point to all this? Well, I guess the point is that the various Powers, Characteristics, Damages etc. in HERO don't square with each other perfectly; you don't have to Modify them too far before one becomes superior to another in particular circumstances. Does this mean that TK is too expensive when compared to Ranged STR? Or too cheap when compared to EB, which TK quickly outstrips when Modified? Maybe. Maybe there are fundamental structural issues to the system that should be addressed. Or maybe they're close enough in a lot of situations that it's not worth the effort to make them square more precisely. To tell you the truth, at this point I'm not really sure.

Re: "Finally a game where you can kill the fodder, just like in the movies." Hmm... that last statement may be valid, but I did see one of my fighter-type PCs kill or fatally wound five orc-analogies with one Sweep of his sword.

Re: "Finally a game where you can kill the fodder, just like in the movies." GestaltBennie and Susano have given examples of optional "mook rules" in published HERO books. Others are mentioned in "Nine Ways To Speed Up Combat" in the core rulebook. To my mind, once an optional rule appears in an official published book, it becomes an official part of the system and not a house rule. Therefore, I must conclude that HERO System can "mow down mooks" as Chris Goodwin puts it, without house rules. However, I do have to qualify that. The various "mook rules" in HERO work best at taking mooks out of a fight without necessarily killing them outright, i.e. they're unconscious, maybe bleeding to death. However, in scenarios where the heroes wade through hordes of faceless opponents, the distinction isn't practically important. What really matters is that the foes go down with little effort on the part of the heroes, and if they get back up at all it's not until after the scenario is finished. Dead, or incapacitated, is more a matter of flavor than a mechanical priority. Still, if that's the flavor you want, then either you have to use all the "lethality" optional rules to their fullest, adjust the power level of the opposition accordingly, or indeed institute house rules. I admit to sometimes using one or two of those last myself, although I consider them extrapolations from the existing system.

Re: Enemies of San Angelo Well, I've used the villain team Anarchy and the solo villains Senora del Oro and Mastermind from Enemies of San Angelo in past campaigns. Anarchy is a colorful, distinctive team with a strongly focussed motivation, rather like Eurostar with a broader agenda. Senora del Oro is probably my favorite character from the collection, with a wonderful name, rich history, unique "gimmick" and a nice character illustration. Mastermind became a name that made other superheroes in my campaign very uneasy; the only thing more disturbing than a fallen hero is one with the power to make you the same way. As I've posted to the boards before, I used Photon and a few other elements from SA, as well as bits from the 4E CU, in a major plotline for a past campaign. To avoid redundancy I'll just link to that post for anyone who's curious: http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?p=502065 (BTW Dominique, I did leave a few suggestions on the GRG message boards. Thanks for the prompting.)

Re: Who would you recreate? The Swordsman is a humanoid alien from a heavy-gravity world who came to Earth through a freak accident. Already a highly trained armed and unarmed combatant, on our world he possesses fantastic strength, agility and athletic prowess. His world's technology is in some ways superior to our own, manifested in the several personal weapons and devices that he carries; but the strong warrior's code of honor of his culture has also fostered a tradition of duels with less sophisticated weaponry. The Swordsman's principle weapon is a blade resembling an Earthly rapier, made of advanced alloy with an extraordinary edge capable of cutting nearly any other material. It also has a built-in power pack which can electrify the blade with a stunning charge, and as he prefers not to injure a foe he'll use that against normal humans. His training and physical advantage make the Swordsman the greatest blademaster in the world. The Swordsman in many ways evokes an idealized image of our own past: he's courtly and chivalrous, always acts "honorably," and considers it his duty to protect the weak and the innocent. (Yes, this was inspired by "John Carter of Mars"... kind of in reverse.)

Re: Kong: the movie

Re: Knockback I'm inclined to agree with Dust Raven. The ability to Resist Knockback with Strength or Flight, and the option of Aborting to Resist Knockback, significantly reduce the incidence of KB IME. It's not a perfect defense since it has drawbacks, but I don't think it should be; OTOH it's a viable tactical option in certain situations, and I like players to think tactically. As per the rules I also allow Aborting to other defensive actions simultaneously with Resisting KB, including Block and similar Combat Maneuvers. Several times in my campaigns I've seen opposing bricks in my campaigns "dig in" to Resist Knockback and slug it out toe-to-toe, a common scenario in comics.

Re: Dogfight rules -- do they work? It's not quite as difficult as it seems. A few factors to keep in mind: Most air vehicles have fairly substantial DCV penalties due to size (-2 to -4 in most cases); While you do use the base OCV of the vehicle for weapons that it mounts rather than your own, you can still use any of your Combat Skill Levels applicable to the craft's weapons; A very good Combat Piloting Skill roll will put you in an advantageous position relative to your target, so in general the better pilot you are, the better you'll do in a dogfight (which is fairly close to real life); Aircraft are relatively fragile compared to other types of vehicles (low DEF), so almost any hit is probably going to be fairly damaging (The Ultimate Vehicle features optional aircraft Hit Locations which may make the detrimental effects of a hit even more immediate and urgent); It's quite acceptable to build modern aircraft weapons with innate CSLs to represent computer targetting and other advanced systems.

Re: constant spell Agreed. You would not need to make another Attack Roll after the first successful one, but you would have to pay END for the Power on each of your Phases (not every Segment).