Sean Waters

UAA specifically says that you can buy limited or standard range for the power so that you can use it at greater than reach range. 6E1 358

15 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

Sure, but the examples of very very strong beings that cannot also hit really hard are extremely rare.  The source material being simulated shows that if you're really huge and swole, then you hit like a freight train.  So the system reflecting that means that if you are able to lift heavy things but hit like a flea means you took limitations on your STR.  And that's across all genres, that huge strong cowboy can punch out a horse.  That burly orc can slap your face off.

Miracle Man, who is probably stronger than Superman, has, and I quote his wife, muscles like a ballet dancer.

Not the point though. I agree that being able to lift a lot and being able to hit hard go hand in hand in source material across genres, but, apart from the occasional glass jaw for comedic purposes, all those burly types can also take a lot of damage, yet we don't, at least any longer, feel the need to bundle extra PD and Stun in with high Strength.

I imagine that almost everyone with high Strength would also buy decent punch damage (at higher cost for greater utility) but it would be interesting to have a significant number of high Strength/low speed types relying on grab and rend/crush rather than punches and kicks because that's how their abilities work best.

14 hours ago, Derek Hiemforth said:

 

Most folks seemed to be settling on -¼ anyway.  That's another part of why I suggested just having this be an application of Limited Range: because it's already the right value.  

Agree to disagree, but fairy nuff.  I would drag this out further, and may do that later (  ) but I've just thought of something else.

So, I was walking the dogs and I got to thinking about movement powers.  Well, Tig ran after a squirrel and one thing led to another…

I’m working on something but it is a bit of a chunky one so I thought I’d break it down to a series of discussion points.  Here goes…

Why do Flight and Running cost the same?

Flight starts at 0m rather than 12m, but so what?  Blast starts at zero and Strength starts at 10 but we don’t see that as levelling the playing field.

Flight has a turn mode, but so what?  The last time I bothered using a turn mode in actual combat was in the 1980s, because, by and large, I’m not running combat on maps.  You need a big map for superhero combat.  It sounds like it might limit flight a bit, and I’d probably rule you can’t get up to full velocity in a building full of short corridors, but generally it simply doesn’t come up.

It’s like acceleration and deceleration (which they both have).  If you have a move of 20m but start and stop stationary you can only actually move 17m because part of the movement is acceleration and deceleration, so for the first and last 3 metres you are travelling at less than full velocity.  I’m pretty sure no one bothers calculating that or working out and recording what your current velocity is at the end of your phase.  That being the case, turn mode is largely irrelevant because you always effectively start from zero and usually move in straight lines.

You get extra KB when flying but only because of being in the air (you take an extra 1d6 KB in effect because you only reduce KB by 1d6).  This does not scale with the amount of flight you have, it applies to anyone not on the ground, for instance if they are falling.  Potentially that could be an extra 3d6 KB damage but, unless you are in an enclosed space or hovering at ground height, you are less likely to hit something if you take KB while using Flight anyway.  The other thing is that you can use Flight to brace against KB damage, which you can’t with Running

Not only that you can use Flight to increase the amount you can push or lift, which you can’t do with Running.

Flight is obviously MUCH more useful than Running because you can move in 3D.  Ask anyone who has ever had to fight on top of a tall building whether they would rather have 40m of flight or 52m of running.

The only other thing is that you need to spend at least 1 END with Flight even if you are not moving, whereas you do not with Running.  I think that’s everything.

So, assuming that cost is based on utility, is there any reason why Flight and Running cost the same?

Flight pros: can brace against KB and increase lift/push, negate falling damage and move through 3 dimensions freely

Flight cons: extra KB and less manoeuvrability

Not seeing it myself.  Anyone?

On 2/13/2020 at 9:06 PM, FancyCreb said:

Hi there everyone. Short-time lurker, first time poster.

Welcome and well done!

20 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

Strength having nothing to do with dealing damage violates pretty much everyone's sense of reality and logic, though.  I can, with some effort overcome the EXTREMELY OBVIOUS connection between Dex and CV, but strength is a change too far.

True. But...

What if Strength was the ability to apply force? You can lift stuff. You can bend stuff. You can tear stuff apart.  You can maintain an almost unbreakable grip.

It doesn't mean you can do a lot of damage with a punch though, not unless you've already got hold of the thing you are punching.

That would need you to punch fast, not just hard. Same with throwing stuff. That's a function of momentum.

So. Strength costs a point per point and you can lift heavy stuff with it, and apply serious damage to anything you can get a grip on.

Want to do damages in combat though, you need another power. Hand to hand damage.  That costs 4 points per point and allows you to hit hard without previously grabbing the target.

How far you can throw stuff is based on the lower of Strength and HtH Damage.

Sort of doubles the cost of Strength but doesn't really.

More complicated, but this is Hero. When has that every scared us?

Sort of like there's no problem putting your hand in a press so long as it isn't there when it hits the base plate.

1 hour ago, Derek Hiemforth said:

 

It's really a question of how far you think it's worth getting into the weeds.  I guess I don't see the value in it for this application. 

And yet we are arguing over the precise value of the applicable limitation...

We can just make this stuff up and, so long as everyone is happy, it's fine. The fact we're discussing it here makes us very special people.

3 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

You want clear, cut and dried rules when the game's trying to model as much as it can.

 

That's implicitly contradictory.

I do want clear rules. Sometimes that's inherently difficult, sometimes we go looking for difficulty, find it, propagate it and teach it to our children.

On 11/26/2021 at 1:41 AM, Hugh Neilson said:

Wouldn't all of the components also have the Unified Power limitation?  You Drain the DI, not the individual components.

If you get drained of PD and some of that PD comes from DI it doesn't also drain your strength. Sure, if your DI is drained then everything you get from it is reduced, but that's probably not a common drain. 

If you unify your perma density powers then a PD drain would also drain your Strength.

Conversely if you have 'perma density' using the Hero template it might look like a DI drain would work against you but it wouldn't. Sure the GM could fudge it but:

1. That's not fair, and

2. This is a problem entirely created by having unnecessary alternative ways of doing the same thing.

10 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Well as I said: T-port, Leaping, Tunnelling, and even the original Desolid all had allowances for interaction with certain masses.  Flight never did.   It just bugged me.  It has always bugged me.  I know that runming doesn't, either, but at that is the "gimme" that all humans have (to a point), I rolled with it and moved on.

 

The problem, as I understand it, and if I do then I agree, is inconsistency of approach. Either all movement should be affected by increased mass or none of it should.

11 hours ago, Derek Hiemforth said:

...

 

So I dunno... I think I'd just build a Clairsentience with Mobile Perception Point, slap Limited Range on it, and call it good.   

That had the enormous advantage of working, but so would leaving it at -1/2 or not giving a limitation at all.

My view, for what it is worth, is that it is 'no range' at full value, and the Mobile Perception Point description just didn't contemplate this situation and do impressed an unnecessary injunction. The reason I say this is that the power had no range then you are paying extra to add a version of range.

If there is any sort of limitation it should not apply to the Adders for Extra Range and Mobile Perception Point because it doesn't limit those bits i.e. it should be built as a partially limited power.

On 11/26/2021 at 1:14 AM, Grailknight said:

 

It's not No Range, it's No Initial Range. He can move his perception point after he starts it.

Is 'no initial range' an actual thing I've missed or are we're just making stuff up?

Ultimately I'm not sure if makes a lot of difference. You aren't going to be using this in combat at anything other than short range anyway. It's great for scouting an entire enemy base, which could take any hour, or taking a peek round the next corner. It's worth whatever the GM thinks it's worth.

Incidentally, I wonder whether the perception point is obvious, like a floating eye or something? Powers are normally visible through their entire range. If you shoot off a Blast is obvious where it came from and where it hits and all along the path.

EDIT: The Perception Point is not visible as Clairsentience is a Standard Power (for some reason probably to do with Frameworks) and a Sensory Power.  Sensory Powers are not visible.

1 hour ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

however, you do bring up a good point: someone so smart they can think their way out of anything should have more than, say, 25 or 30 INT.  It should take 60 INT to be Mr Fantastic (or MCU movie Tony Stark).  It should take 60 Ego to be Professor X or Phoenix.

Your are right: strength has a big range because each increment continues to be useful. Extra damage is always good (at least until you become One Punch Man), there's not much point in extra intelligence of you are already rolling 17-.  Unless the GM is applying huge penalties just so you can feel like spending the points was worth it, you are never really going to need more than 30 INT.

It may be helpful to think of all characteristics as exponential in nature so 30 INT isn't 50% better than 20, it's 400% better.

10 hours ago, Grailknight said:

 

It's not No Range, it's No Initial Range. He can move his perception point after he starts it.

I think technically not because the perception point can only move out to the maximum range, according to the wording under 'Mobile Perception Point', of the power which would be zero.  I think that is silly and it should be interpreted as 'no initial range' as you suggest which would require a rethink of how far the mobile perception point could travel - presumably as far as it would be able to if the power did not have 'no range'.

6E1 180: A mobile perception point can move up to 12m per Phase, and travels in three dimensions (i.e., it can “fly”), but cannot move beyond the maximum range of the Clairsentience.

This does sort of conflict with the entry for 'no range' as specific rules trump general rules:

6E1 388: If a Constant Power takes this Limitation, the character only has to be at HTH Combat range to activate/use the power. After that, the distance between him and his victim doesn’t matter.

It is a matter of interpretation but I would interpret it generously, as I suspect you would, so that you get No Range at the full -1/2, which means you have to create the perception point where you are, but you can then move it, which you are separately paying to do.

One slight issue is that MPP is an Adder, which means you would be getting a discount on the cost of the adder for 'no range', which does feel like double dipping because the limitation won't affect the MPP so you probably shouldn't be allowed to reduce the cost of the Adder with that limitation.

In passing it seems silly that Adders do not count toward the range calculation given that (per 6E1 313) they increase active cost.  It feels arbitrary.

It might be because some adders are range multipliers and you'd be getting even more range if you included the adder in the range calculation, but so what?  If you are doubling range anyway a bit more isn't going to affect game balance and it would make the rules more internally consistent.

I do sometimes wish that the column inches devoted to repeating the phrase 'common and dramatic sense' were instead devoted to explaining some of the design considerations.

I digress...
 

10 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

@Sean Watersdis you happen to see an article several years back where Entangle could be used for other Characteristics and resolved as if the characteristic was STR? So Slick could have his Entangles work against DEX instead of Strength. I could see the merits of this BTW.

I did not but it sounds interesting.  I will try and find it. 

A problem with more ways you can be attacked though is the necessity of more defences.  Grond doesn't worry about entangles because 90 STR but if he had to worry about DEX entangles he'd either have to accept being helpless a lot of the time or have an awful lot of DEX.  Or teleport.  The problem is that attacks are always cheaper in Hero than defences, especially with power frameworks in the mix, so the greater the variety of attacks the harder it is to build an effective character.  Not so much of a problem with a team but it makes an effective solo opponent awfully difficult to build.

5 hours ago, unclevlad said:

 

But what Sean is saying is, it's nowhere NEAR big ENOUGH.  A 30 STR should basically never lose against a 10 STR;  the only excuse would be the 30 STR wasn't prepared.

 

But that's also easy:  assert it's not a roll.  The 30 STR wins.  Period.  STR is a bad Characteristic for this kind of comparison because it's NOT linear in one aspect.  DEX is linear.  EGO is linear.  PRE is linear.  STR is linear in damage...but not in lift, and that's the angle we think of here.

 

Rather than mutilate the entire skills system, why not try building a system to accommodate the *rare* Skill STR vs STR test?  There are no STR skills..BECAUSE it's a screwy characteristic.  At least in part.  It's also got major uses anyway.  So just build something for the isolated STR vs. Str contest...tug of war, I try to lift, you try to keep it on the ground, etc.  The simplest solution would seem to be, make it an *extended* contest.  Winner is first to 3 net successes.  So A,B,A,B is back to neutral...each needs 3.  A,A,B,A,A is a win for A.  Now even that +1 difference becomes significant, and a 4 point difference...well, there's little chance of the underdog winning.

 

Also, you're NOT making a "STR check" when making a damage roll, so IMO your entire premise is ungrounded.

Hand me my can opener, I need me some worms.  Strength is only pseudo-exponential.  The lift capacity certainly is, but the damage doesn't mirror the force that you can apply, it follows a linear path, because of reasons, apparently.

Or is it?

There's two ways of looking at it: either Strength is not a typical feature of Hero or it is, and if it is then 30 DEX is 16x as Dexy as 10 DEX.  Come on Eileen.

Looked at another way, maybe 3d6 damage is twice as much damage as 2d6 damage.  Hero uses threshold values for defences to complicate, or possibly simplify, things.  That means that if you fire off a 2d6 Blast it is unlikely to get any damage through 10 defence but 3d6 is likely to get some through and 4d6 is likely to get disproportionately more through.

There's actually pretty good evidence of this in the damage tables if you look up the muzzle energy of weapons and compare it to the damage values, but then there's the falling table, which is linear and winds up with 30d6 damage for a terminal fall, which is silly.  That should be the sort of damage really impressive high END conventional weapons are delivering.  If someone falls out of an aeroplane they do not leave a crater.  The maximum falling damage on Earth should be 16 to 18 dice normal, or around 5d6+1 to 6d6 killing, based on the kinetic energy of a 100kg object at around 50-55 m/s.

The problem, I think, is that Hero is not consistent and that is unhelpful.  Look in the Equipment Guide and you'll find a 1MT nuke doing, amongst other things, 20d6RKA and 20d6Body drain.  Why?  That's an average of 70 Body Damage/Drain.  It is unnecessary overkill.  Don't get me wrong, it is going to be a lot of damage, but that's too much.  A 1MT blast should be doing damage around 52DCs, a small nuclear blast in the kiloton range around the low 40s.

That would make damage consistent with the exponential nature of Strength and, possibly, imply that 5 more points of anything is about a doubling of ability.  That kind of works with both the 9+Char/5 and the Body dice thing in that they both take a big dip in your chance of winning if your opponent is even a bit better than you, but I still maintain 3d6 tails off too slowly and gives too high an initial chance of success.  Bear in mind, in most cases, the heroes will be the best there is at what they do.  We probably don't want a minion Viper Agent with a lucky roll successfully grappling Taurus even for a phase or two.

For a character with +4 (a characteristic equivalent to 20) against a character with +5 (a characteristic equivalent of 25) the 'normal' skill roll means you need a 10 or less to draw and a 9 or less to win i.e. the chance goes from 50% to 37.5%.  For the Body dice thing, well, truth be told I have not worked out the formula, but I have created a big spreadsheet with 100 rows of Xd6 and you'd draw about 35% of the time and win about 10% of the time.  If I'm arm wrestling someone twice as strong as me I would not expect to win over 1/3 of the time and if I'm playing darts with someone twice as dextrous as me ditto.

Obviously there's no easy measure of Dexterity in the same way there is of Strength or damage, but if we assume that hero is, or should be, consistent then +5 = x2, so STR checks would not be an outlier, they would work the same way as everything else.  Funnily enough the way we measure intelligence in the real world, with IQ (flawed as that is) is not a straight line, so INT in the game probably does (roughly) equate to intelligence in the real world if you just multiply the score by 10.

The other big advantage of this approach is that you don't need to have silly point totals*: the1MT nuke in the equipment guide costs over 5500 real points.  You COULD build a character that could  survive a nuke of this size but the costs would be prohibitive. 20d6 killing is 300 points.  For 375 you could be strong enough to punch so hard that the entire planet would take knockback.  The source material is littered with characters who can not just survive a nuclear bomb but remain conscious in the blast.  The only realistic way you could build that in Hero is with some sort of cheat, like instant resurrection.

I appreciate that Hero is not a simulation but that is no reason that it can't be based on (comic book) realistic principles and be internally consistent. 

A substantial degree of predictability is a necessary part of almost everything people actually do, and so should also be a feature of any game seeking to be intuitive.  I mean chess is entirely predictable and it's not boring because of that, is it?  It's boring because the pieces don't have force fields and energy blasts.

*Well, not quite so silly.

Look. It comes down to this: does Clairsentience with no range just mean you can sense what your can sense anyway from where you are anyway?

That would be silly so it can't be right, right?

On 11/10/2021 at 2:13 AM, Hugh Neilson said:

It seems like a better build might be Clairsentience with Extra Time.  That would also allow each range increase to have steadily increasing Extra Time increments.  The extra time simply reflects how long it takes the perception point to get where it's going.  The pricing seems like it would be much more in line with the value of the ability.

That's probably an accurate way to do it but it would be a messy build because there would have to be different limitations on different adders and would sacrifice granularity.  

It may not be an entirely legal build but I'd definitely allow -1/2 no range and the mobile perception point to travel out to what the range would have been.  It makes sense and is only not technically possible because the power was not written with that in mind rather than because it is unbalancing.

I mean it is a constant power so there's no reason, if you bought it with no range, why you could not switch it on then walk away from it and still perceive from the same point and range be hanged: range relates to where you create the effect, not where you are in relation to it at some later point in time.  The injunction to not have a mobile perception point travel beyond maximum range is probably unnecessary even from a balance point of view.  It would be weird if you could buy clairsentience with no range and walk away, but if you added mobile perception it would have to follow you and if you walked too fast it would stop working.

39 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

 

Flight helps quite a bit, but

a)  you're still paying for the Flight, and it's expensive;  you're buying it from 0.

b)  YMMV but DI and Flight tend to be a contradiction, particularly with higher levels of DI.  

c)  if the DI is Always On, this doesn't help.  Want to sit in a chair?  Can the chair handle 800 pounds?  RARELY.  And that's only 2 levels.  An extra heavy duty ladder is rated at 375 pounds;  that's right around 1 level.  Your foot is pressing into the ground under the force of your body weight...and let's not talk about the force exerted running when you include a few levels of DI.  

 

You don't sink in water;  you sink just standing on soft ground.  And it doesn't take that long before you start cracking the surface of concrete with your steps.  The physical drawbacks are far more significant and frequent than you're suggesting.

 

Also:  DI is a Body Affecting Power, which by 6E1 126, makes it Obvious.  So you can't hide it when you *aren't* tossing trucks around.

 

The reason why permanently heavy characters are encouraged to buy the powers individually and take a Phys Lim is, it's better integrated at that point.  And for me?  Disadvantages are HARD to come by, so I rather like them.  And when you look at it...it's *cheaper* in most cases.  Mass Templates, 6E1 446.  2 levels of DI equivalent...18 points, but you get a 10 point Disad.  So...8 points.  Or......4 points per "level of DI."  BUT you're not paying END to have it.

 

That model holds through 5 levels...+9 points of powers, -5 points of Disad per "level."  When you get beyond that point, if you're not doing something major to mitigate it like Shrinking...5 levels of DI == x32 mass.  So something like *3 tons*.   Homes are not built for that kind of load.  No furniture.  Nothing around you.  You're going to have to keep that load off the ground except in special situations built to handle it.  That's a major limitation. 

 

So...nope.  If anything, actually, DI is *underpowered* as a power, not overpowered.  As long as the implicit Disadvantage is being treated properly, you're getting less.  If the GM ignores the mass issues?  Then it's potentially slightly overpowered, but with Costs END and Obvious?  Not very much.

 

The build I suggested, with zero End and persistent can be turned off. I probably wouldn't even bother with the persistent unless I also went for inherent. If you can turn it off your can sit down whenever you want.

Flight deals with all the problems of having a huge mass and it's easy to SFX, for example gravity manipulation. Almost every character spend points on movement so you might as well spend then on flight and it isn't all that expensive, especially as you would be spending those points on something similar anyway.

I really don't care about obvious. Enough character have unusual looks that it really doesn't matter whether it's clear when they are using powers. If you have extra limbs that technically isn't obvious because it doesn't use END but, obviously, it is.

If you don't look like a baseline human power visibility and obviousness doesn't matter at all. Most superheroes and villains have enough PRE everyone is already looking at them.

Complications, as we are apparently calling them now, don't give your more points, you are still stuck with the budget cap and I don't find them hard to come by generally. YMMV.

You can't count a - alright - disadvantage in the cost of a power. That's like saying that my Teleport is cheaper because I'm ugly. They are different things.

Sure, if you are massing tons that's going to be an issue, but, again, flight. You don't even have to really explain it as it's not real. People can't actually fly, but having reactionless flight, which it all is, solves all your in combat mass problems and out of combat just turn off the extra mass. In addition it's not like your are just buying flight to cover the problems with DI: flight is useful on it's own anyway.

The perma-heavy thing actually really grinds my gears. It's just unnecessary because there's already a well established mechanic that works fine. It's part of the reason the books are so long and impenetrable. Having two separate ways to do functionally the same thing is not good design.

The simple fact is it's cheaper to buy DI then the component parts and any issues are easily mitigated.  In fact, arguably, if you buy at least one point of persistent flight so you can keep it on while you sleep, your probably should even be getting points for the Physically Limitation because there isn't one.

I once built a villain who had Desolid Grenades that put everything in their radius out of phase for 5 minutes.  Great for getting through vault doors and dealing with pesky heroes.  They actually had to have a plan other than 'Charge!' for that one.

To be absolutely clear I would not allow a PC anywhere near something like that.

27 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

Body is not merely physical presence, its life force.  You can "kill" a machine by breaking its physical form, but you can also kill a person by doing zero physical harm to it, and attacking its will to live and soul in their Body.

 

Remember, Hero is special effects-driven.  The mechanics are how it happens in game terms (meta), and the special effect is how it looks and behaves in the game.  Blast is blast, whether electricity, fire, or sonic.  The mechanics do x, but that doesn't define the why or how.  You define that.

 

"Kill" a ghost?  Do body to it until it doesn't have Body any longer.  How does this work?  That's where special effects come in.

 

Now, if you want to create a different sort of mechanic, an option is to build a physical limitation, defining how and when they "die" outside of body damage.  Something like "dies if EGO drained to 0" or similar.

True, but to (shockingly) play Devil's Advocate for a moment, Spirit could easily be something separate to Body such that they could be at different values and damage to one would not necessarily damage the other.  You could accomplish that with a mess of modifiers but if it is a major component of that particular game it would be best to create a separate system for it rather than have everyone created using a complicated build.

If it is something that only applies to a few characters and a few NPCs then a build it approach would be better.

On 10/21/2021 at 1:54 AM, Derek Hiemforth said:

I don't think it's overpowered.  Yes, the component pieces would cost you 9 CP.  But when they're bundled as Density Increase, they also have a bunch of downsides:

• They cost END every Phase the power is active, even if they're not used (for example, having the +5 STR costs END even if you aren't using the STR, then costs more END if you actually do use the STR).
• The increased mass is more of a problem than a help.
• They have visible power effects.
• They're not Persistent.
• etc.

If you figure the package of 9 CP worth of stuff also comes with Costs Endurance (-½) and another -½ Limitation for the combined value of extra perceptibility, extra mass, etc., then the 9 CP is knocked down to 4 CP, just like the power has.

It does cost END to use, true, but if you make it 0 END then it would be 6 points, and you could make it 0 END and persistent for 7 points.  The visual power effects are probably not a real issue as, if you are lifting and throwing a MAC Truck people are going to guess that you have powers anyway.

All you really have to contend with then is the increased mass and that is very much down to how the GM plays it.  Sure you might not be able to take the lift and you sink instantly in water but it probably isn't going to be that much of an issue unless you buy it to insane levels.  Even then if you are buying Flight as a movement power, problem solved.

It does seem that you are getting more for your points than you would if you bought it 'straight'.

While we are on the topic I don't really understand the need for the bit about permanently dense characters having to be built differently.  That is what 'Inherent' is for.

Also DI was probably underpowered in previous editions because, IIRC, the Strength boost didn't provide figured characteristics, so you were actually better off not using DI.

If Spirit is a ubiquitous thing in your game and all of characters and most NPCs have a spirit score, it would be worth just duplicating the physical stats with new names and treating that as the 'Spirit' of the character.

For example Body would become Spirit, Constitution could be used as is or could become Resilience, Defence (PD/ED) could be Spiritual Defence, Stun could be used as is or could become Energy.

Basically you just have a new set of stats in addition to the existing ones and use those for Spiritual attacks and such.  The cost would be the same as the equivalent physical stats and you can buy powers to affect Spirit in the usual way and at the usual cost.

Effectively it would be a sort of new character that is 'linked' to the physical one.  You might want to have a separate pool of character creation points for Spirit.

If it is a thing that only a few characters in the game have then it would be best to use existing mechanics as suggested above.

12 hours ago, Derek Hiemforth said:

 

If "count the BODY" became a core mechanic, I think it might drop Hero below a reasonable amount of variability in the dice.  For example, some folks already struggle with the fact that, in practical terms, you're likely to see fewer results with a 3d6 roll (most results will be between 6 and 15) than with, say, a d20 (where all results from 1-20 are equally likely).  Obviously, this is a bit of apples and oranges because one is a curve and the other is flat, but still... About 85% of the time, a 3d6 roll is only going to give you one of 10 results (with the middle of even that range coming up much more than the ends).

 

With "count the BODY," we'd see even fewer distinct results. Instead of only 6 possible outcomes on each d6 (all equally likely), we'd have only 3 possible outcomes, and 2 of them would only come up 1 time in 6.

 

Part of what I like about Hero is that characters seem pretty competent, and that I as the player can gauge my chances of success pretty well (i.e., it's fairly predictable).  But I wonder if this approach would make characters seem too competent, and make results too predictable...

That's a reasonable point, although I'm less enamoured of greater randomness.  The problem with a big spread of chance is that it discourages intelligent tactical play.  If I know I could get lucky then why bother spending a phase or two setting up an attack to improve the chance to hit: I might as well keep plugging away and hope the dice land right for me.

I think that a competent character should know whether they can do something, or not, or have a chance of success, the important bit there being 'or not'.  I think outcomes should be reasonably predictable.  Not too predictable, but also not too random.  I want to play in a world where Defender knows that he can't beat Grond in an arm wrestle so doesn't try or cheats.

There is a valid argument that there is a world of difference between simple tasks, like running or applying strength and complex tasks, like fighting or playing team sports and that the former are and should be more predictable because there are fewer interfering factors and complications.  Hero is not a simulation of reality though and whatever way we slice the salami, it is never going to be.  I'd rather most characters who are competent in combat buy skill levels and martial arts to make them less predictable in combat and perhaps have to trade off damage against a realistic chance of hitting rather than just swinging until the big guns inevitably roll a 7 (16% of the time).

There are also real advantages to having a single core mechanic in a gaming system.  It makes the game distinctive and easier to learn and play.

46 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

I always thought the opposite, why isn't a roll vs roll check for STR?

 

But it works that way too.  The big difference really is that there's a much larger range of strength than other stats in the game.  You can have 60 STR but rarely does anyone have more than maybe 30 or 40 in another stat and usually in the 20s.  Probably +1 would better translate as +1 body to the roll though?

3d6 gives room for a lot of variability.  The difference between 30 STR and 10 STR is 20 points (or 16x stronger) or a difference of only 4 on the rolls so someone with 10 STR could beat someone with 30 STR in an armwrestle an uncomfortably large number of times.  They would generally lose but, realistically, they should have no chance.  Rolling Body gives a narrower range of results and it would take a near miracle of dice rolling to succeed, whereas with 3d6 it is over 9%.

Someone with a 20 STR can beat a 30 STR very occasionally (about 10% of the rolls) using BODY totals whereas on a 3d6 roll it is over 25% of the time.  

This is a pro or con, depending on your view, of extending the mechanic to the system generally.  The fact that most stats will be in a smaller range actually mitigates this as a problem as the numbers will generally be closer, but I'd rather my Daredevil Clone never fall to his death because he messed up on a straightforward  Acrobatics roll, despite having 16-.

The idea of +1 to the skill being +1d6 would work slightly better if skill categories were still 5 points per point rather than 4 (INT and PRE) or 6 (DEX).  +1d6 averages +1 point, it just leaves slightly more room for excellent or awful rolls and we know people like rolling lots of dice.  Still, to speed gameplay +1 skill = +1 Body works fine.

17 minutes ago, Duke Bushido said:

You should hire a dog walker.... 

 

These sorts od things seem,to occurr to you regularly when the dog is leading you about the neighborhood.

 

They are good company and often make excellent points that get me thinking