Sean Waters

Funnily enough the original version of the OP included an analysis of something very like that, but I figured we are already far too good at chasing rabbits down rabbit holes to start with more than one.

Best not get me started on this one as this is already page 10, but you can't really build normal sight with the Enhanced Senses rules straight out of the box, you need a custom modifier because, apparently, 'discriminatory'. I, well, I'm confused. Who thought that was a good idea? Interestingly enough there's an argument to be made that the value of blindness should not be the same as the value of sight because you have other senses and you can buy 'targeting' for 10 points for a single sense. Also even if you don't you can still perceive a great deal with a PER roll using another sense. The Complication should be based (arguably) on how often and how much it is a problem rather than a direct cost comparison. We do not, for example, cost Vulnerability (2xStun) to Fire by the cost of buying 1/2 Damage Resistance to Fire.

None of us target hexes anymore, Massey, in the brave new world of 6e... I mean, I do, but I'm doing it wrong Also I'm pretty sure that triggered movement does work against ranged attacks. I think there was a discussion about Flying Dodge which confirmed that it did (or could). I mean you might be right and need to have the TP take you behind cover or out of range, but it could still work. There's usually some cover within a short distance on most battlefields. There's all sorts of other powers it could work with too: Invisibility and Desolid being obvious ones. Much more expensive but if you allow naked advantages and have the power anyway, it doesn't cost that much.

I see the sense, but this is a cheese fest To counter your counter, if you build a pressure mine, it does not have 'sense a certain amount of pressure' as a sense and even if, for some reason, the character who pays character points for it can't sense pressure, it still works. Even if you did require that the attack is somehow sensed by the target, other than surprise attacks it is usually assumed that characters in combat can sense the attack unless they are subject to a power that means they can't, which is not that common. You could always buy danger sense (only for defensive actions). I doubt anyone would have a problem if you bought +1 DCV (only if danger sensed). I mean you can fail the DS roll, but even so, its still ludicrously powerful. Other than that, carry on

Well I'm glad we all came together on that one.

Hmm. I always though that Teleportation 2m, no relative velocity (12 points) with trigger (just before taking damage) was pretty cheesey. Originally I saw it used to just avoid falling and KB damage (and for 15 points that is not too unreasonable), but then it got pointed out that if the trigger automatically reset instantly (another +1/2, for +6 points), it could be used to avoid all attacks, other than (most) AoEs. That's pretty impressive for 21 points. The whiff of ancient Camembert became overwhelming. It was far runnier than I'd have liked, then the cat ate it.

I considered but rejected using Defences other than the Body threshold as I figured that: 1. If you want to have a task that will take anyone a long time, increase the STUN (we need a better name for that for skills). Skilled people will still accomplish it quicker almost always. It also allows for collaborative work: potentially more than one character can contribute to the dice total. 2. If you want the task to be open only to the very skilled, increase the Body threshold. So, for example, you might want to get some information from an NPC. The task is as follows (these tasks have to be completed in order, but where there is an 'a', 'b', etc. you can take one branch). l: 1. 14/0 Cumulative Repeatable - 5 minutes per roll - The NPC knows Claire (anyone chatting to him for long enough will learn the information) 2. 10/1 Cumulative Repeatable - 5 minutes per roll - The NPC knows where Claire lives (you have to have some skill with Persuasion or Conversation to get this information) 3. a. Persuasion 20/4 Cumulative, Repeatable with penalty - 5 minutes per roll - The NPC supplies Claire's address (if you use Persuasion it will take a while to talk the NPC round, it requires some skill and, if you say the wrong thing, you will anger him and he will clam up or give you false information, depending on how badly you blew it.) 3. b. Bribery 12/2 Cumulative, Repeatable with Penalty - 5 minutes per roll - The NPC supplies Claire's address (the NPC is particularly susceptible to bribery. You have to know what you are doing, but the chances of it going wrong are low, and if it does the NPC becomes suspicious that you are a cop (or whatever), he makes his excuses and leaves) 3. c. Intimidation 10/5 All or Nothing - 1 turn - The NPC supplies Claire's address (the NPC is pretty tough and is hard to intimidate, but if you are able to he will crack quickly. If you fail he will not provide information and may, on a very low Body roll, attack you. The Stun roll is irrelevant - if you get 5 Body you are bound to have at least 10 Stun) Obviously you won't have such detailed information for all interactions but for the important ones it recognises both PC skill and player choice. For most unanticipated skill attempts you would probably just have a 'easy/normal/hard/impossible' standard result and wind the outcome depending on the roll. You COULD do something similar with the existing 3d6 skill system, but: 1. you'd be making up new systems anyway and, 2. I think this better recognises skill over luck, without removing luck entirely from the equation.

I think some tasks should be so difficult they can only be accomplished by the very skilled. I think that other tasks should be difficult to accomplish quickly unless you are very skilled. We have a GM to set the levels of difficulty, and I think that this (or something like it) allows for a great deal of tweaking. I like the idea of thresholds in skills, and I think it is intuitive and realistic. If Tim, Frank and Sam are using their 12/14/17 skills to decode a really hard (-6) computer programme, it seems odd that they could all roll a 6 and succeed in the same time and with the same result. That does not seem intuitive or realistic. I've got sufficient imagination to explain it (they all attended the same symposium where something similar was discussed), but even so it seems odd they all got the result at the same time and garnered the same amount and type of knowledge. Using the damage dice system you can set multiple targets and thresholds, so the less skilled characters might make some progress before they are stymied and, even if they all succeed, eventually, the most skilled character is likely to get there first. If there is only one dice difference, maybe two, the less skilled character could (with luck) still 'win' the skill contest, but a much wider margin and it seems very unlikely - which is how it should be. Take a game of Pool - you'd expect the 17- player to beat the 14- player pretty much every time. Using standard Hero skill tests you COULD test for every shot, and that would give a consistent win to the significantly more experienced and skilled character - but that seems overly complicated. The damage dice system would emulate that but in the abstract. I take the point about STUN and BODY being (usually) relatively proportional, BUT that does not matter: a low roll (Body and STUN) might have a catastrophic effect if you are, for example, defusing a bomb. It is not just counting two totals (Body is never cumulative, Stun can be) - the results mean different things.

I suspect it means that intelligence without knowledge does not mean that you can derive everything from first principles: you need at least some knowledge, and the more you have the more your intelligence can get to work. It's like a supercomputer with a 20 byte broadband connection. Intelligent ignorance may get there in the end, but probably no quicker than informed norm. There's a reason we didn't come up with Relativity (I say 'we'...) until the 20th Century: it required a lot of geniuses over a long period of time involved in a lot of experimentation and theorisation (is that a word?) before we had the knowledge base for intelligence to take the next step. Equally you could have a ZX80 with a Gigabit internet connection. Lots of information available but it isn't going to get processed very quickly or make the base unit any more powerful. The availability of a lot of knowledge does not mean that we will be able to use it to come to any particular conclusion. Intelligence + Knowledge, however... Or, you know, what Ninja-Bear said. That's probably a better analogy. EDIT: The point is, Intelligence is computing power, Knowledge is data. Both is best.

I can see that *ahem*, but I would also argue that I know full well what my car keys look like. I've had them for years, I have absolutely no problem recognising them when I see them and I do not have a bunch of similar keys about the place AND YET I can put them down to answer the phone and then have to take 10 minutes finding them again. My perception is fine, I am just not great about sorting keys from background, despite my detailed and intimate knowledge and years of practice looking for them. Or maybe, just maybe, I'm excellent at hiding keys. If we had separate rolls we could emulate that better: my eyesight is fine but I'm an idiot. That is not the same thing, to my way of thinking, as just having a low PER roll,even if mathematically it yields a similar result. Having two rolls tells you more about the process. it is more interesting. It really does not take long. To take a comparison with Strength in Hero, we don't roll for how much you can lift (barring Pushing), there's just a number for that. Similarly, you are always going to be able to perceive (in the sense of actually see) the same thing in the same circumstances. If you could see it yesterday, you can see it today. The issue here is whether you perceive (in the sense of comprehend) the significance of that, and that is what Perception seems to emulate. However, there's also the problem that, when there is background noise, even though you are certainly capable of perceiving (in either sense) a certain thing, you may well not do. My view is that the 'How Much Can My Eyesight Lift' bit is down to your physiology and the conditions: are you CAPABLE of seeing the thing in question, which is really a question for the GM, based on the rules (which is why having Light Levels could be a useful tool). Next there is the question of whether you notice the thing in question. To my way of thinking, that is what the PER roll is, whether you actually pick that information out of the background noise. Finally there is the question of what significance to attribute to that information, which is why I think there ought to be another step and we should decouple PER and INT. Sure you can say a single roll does all that, but where's the fun in that? If you have not seen this, watch and see if you can get it right:

That's precisely what she says. Moreover she denies that it is making a funny noise even when I point it out to her. She is doing it on purpose, because she can hear me opening a bottle of beer from the other side of the house. I like the two roll idea just because it makes more sense to me: the odds might be similar overall inserting a penalty (having to roll 11- twice is about the same as having to roll 9- once (About 39% compared to 37.5%) but the bell curve means that a -2 penalty does not always have the same effect: having to roll 14- twice is about the same odds as having to roll 13- once, not having to roll 12-. That would mean that the penalty is a bigger effective penalty for more skilled protagonists, which does not feel right. Again, that is the bell curve for you. Another thing though is that it makes just more sense to me. Say you have a REALLY good archaeology skill, you'll definitely recognise those rocks are in fact finger bones BUT you would be no more likely (or should be no more likely) to spot the 'rocks' in the first place unless, possibly you are specifically looking for them (which would be a bonus to PER, possibly due to extra time, but no bonus to KS: Archaeology). In fact if you ARE specifically looking for them you can describe them to others with no archaeology skill. They can then make a perception check to see if they spot something LIKE that. "What about these?", "No.", "What about these?", "No.", "What about these?", "No.", "What about these?", "N-wait a minute...", Finally it just feels easier to apply appropriate modifiers. It is dark, you take a PER penalty, because all you are doing is seeing if you notice something, not to see if you recognise it. Just because you would know what it is if you did spot it makes it no more likely that you would spot it in the first place. Hero has a relatively complicated combat system and we think nothing of that. Combat REALLY slows down most game sessions, but it sort of tells a story, rather than just saying, "Right you've got Fighting Skill at 12- and he's got Fighting Skill at 13-. Do an opposed check. OK, You win." I feel we could do more to make Skills tell a story and not just rely on the GM, who has enough to do, to interpret the results. Chaining skills is one way to do that and perhaps justifies having quite high skill totals. I appreciate this might seem to be getting a little off topic but, you know, discussion.

I agree and have previously argued that Perception should be a 2 stage test: 1. Roll to see if you can actually sense something. 2. Roll to see how you interpret or understand that. I absolutely agree that the second one would benefit from high intelligence, or skills appropriate to the situation, such as AK: The Wilderness. I don't think it works anywhere near as well rolling them into one. For example, Smart but Deaf could ask Stupid but Acute Hearing: can you hear a slightly high pitched hissing? Smart but Deaf can't, Stupid but Acute Hearing can but had not appreciated the significance of it, assuming it was just part of the background noise. A better example is my wife. She's vacuuming downstairs and I can hear the vacuum straining. She carries on vacuuming. I run down and unblock the vacuum hose. She's smarter than me and at least as perceptive, but never seems to pick up on that sort of thing. We've both got (say) Perception 11-, but I've got the skill: There's Something Wrong with the Vacuum 12- and she does not even have it as a Familiarity. Conversely, I can see washing up, I just don't process it as something important, at least until she gives me the Smart Pigeon. I associate that immediately with danger. To stretch a point, the Pirate Trick (most pirates were not blind in one eye) is part of the PS: Pirate thing. They know to do it because they have been taught to do it not because they were all smart. Allowing separate Perception and understanding checks (appropriate skill or default INT check) models that better.

That's pretty dismissive, especially given that the build you then suggest is very similar. Still it got me thinking. Maybe the problem is not that we need a power to do this – or at least not JUST that we need a power to do this, it is that the system rules for what darkness is are fundamentally inadequate. Perhaps we need to define levels of darkness or, more usefully, levels of light (or other form of energy). Light Level 0 means there is no visible light at all. Anyone relying on visible light can not see at all and in combat all opponents are effectively invisible. Light Level 1 means there is some ambient illumination. You can sense objects but no detail. You can not see in colour. You can sense quick movement and you can move through an area slowly without too much hazard but you may not be able to see some hazards unless there is sufficient contrast. Perception rolls are at -4. You can counter this penalty by traking extra time. All combat is at a penalty of -3 OCV/DCV or the same as for invisible opponents – whichever is better. Light Level 2 means there is dim illumination. You can see rough detail but it takes longer then usual. You can see colours dimly. Perception rolls are at -2. You can counter this penalty by taking extra time. All combat is at -2 OCV/DCV or the same as for invisible opponents – whichever is better. Light Level 3 means deep shadow or low level indoor lighting. You can see normally but all perceptions checks are at -1. You can counter this penalty by taking extra time. All combat is at -1OCV/DCV. Light Level 4 means bright daylight. Higher levels of illumination cause negative affects and should be built as attacks. You can acclimatise your vision to an extent. If you spend a minute at Light Level 2 then you can see as if it were Light Level 3, and a minute in Light Level 3 you can see as if it were light level 4. Any bright light (for example the flash of an energy blast) means you lose your night sight. You can not acclimatise more than one level of illumination. Visible SFX that generate light act as a brief flash of Level 4 illumination. This is normally too quick to detect detail (unless you have Rapid Sense). Light in a given area will illuminate adjacent areas: 4m at one level lower, then a further 8m at one level lower then 16 m at one level lower than that. You can use Change Environment to increase or decrease Light Levels, in the same way you can change temperature levels. You can also change the level of other energy in a similar manner. TALKING POINT: You can also make energy levels negative. This does not have any increased effect on perception or combat, but means that some light sources will not work or not work at full efficacy. This trespasses into the Darkness Power a bit. I do not care, but you might. So that is a bit rough and ready, but might make a decent basis for discussion. EDIT: you could then build Night Vision as 2 points to increase your personal light perception level by 1, starting at Light Level 1 (you still can not see in total darkness) and an additional 3 points to start at Light Level 0. So for 4 points you could see at Light Level +2, but still not see in Light Level 0 (Total Darkness), or for 5 points you could see at Light Level +1 starting from Total Darkness. And so on.

Smart people can not see any better at night than I can either.

Oh yes

I've not read the whole thread but, for what it is worth... 1. I do not like 'Darkness, normal' to be written up as -4 to PER rolls. Makes no sense. Doesn't matter how smart you are, you can not see in the dark. 2. I don't think there is a really satisfactory way of writing up the generation of light or, for that matter, the generation of non-damaging energy of any kind. 3. The whole 'senses' thing might make more, well, sense, if it was done differently. I do like the active sense thing though. Clever. 4. You specifically can not use Change Environment to create light, although you can use it to create heat, which is a sort of light, or will do in a pinch (and with vision in the right bit of the spectrum). Bah. I've got a torch that can illuminate stuff a hundred metres or more away. It is less use than being able to see in the dark, because it has a narrower filed of vision than I do and, you know, it is a torch. The further away I shine it, the dimmer it illuminates but the wider the area it illuminates. Hmm. Just thinking. Right, a beam of light , used as an attack, would cost 5 points for 1d6 damage. It would have a range of 50m. It is visible. I do not think it unreasonable that the sfx could be defined to briefly illuminate everything along its path. and probably for a couple of metres either side. To be useful as a torch it would have to be constant, which is +1/2. A 128m thin cone is +1. No range is -1/2. A 1 hour continuing fuel charge is +0. Obvious Accessible Focus is -1. 'SFX only' is, perhaps -1 again, maybe -2. Either way that works out at 3 points. Leaving out OAF it is 5 or 3 points depending on the SFX only limitation. Sod it. Energy Creation: For 5 points you can create non damaging energy as up to an 8m explosion. The energy has all the normal properties of the created energy* but is not intense enough to (normally**) cause damage. This can include 'negative energy' like cold. It is ranged (10m x active points). Costs END. Constant. That'll do. *Light illuminates and can be seen even outside the area of immediate illumination. Heat will convect or radiate and, in an enclosed space, eventually heat up the entire area unless cooling is applied. Magnetism affects magnets and may magnetise iron. Electricity can power household appliances. Etc., etc. **It may well trigger appropriate susceptibilities, however.

The trick is making the game flow. I particularly like the Hero damage roll system because you get multiple results from a single roll and that means you can possibly use the results to accomplish different things. For example, in Social Interaction you might be able to 'trade' skill levels, so, for example, you trade in 1d6 or 'normal' damage for 2d6 'Stun only': that means you are likely to get what you are after quicker but at the risk of accumulating long term penalties. Thinking about it, you could even differentiate between, say Persuasion and Intimidation in this sort of way: Persuasion may be a bit slower but leaves everyone reasonably happy. Intimidation could be quicker there and then but leaves brooding resentment.

The idea of non-cumulative is that your past efforts do not really help your future endeavours. The extra time in Lockpicking comes from not knowing how many attempts you are going to need to succeed. If the base time to pick a lock is 1 minute then a high Body roll could shorten that or we could reduce the body requirement and allow you to reduce the attempt time (see above) or gain a bonus on future rolls (assuming that a failed attempt at least teaches you SOMETHING about how the lock works). Repeatable with penalty - I get the feeling that this (or something along these lines perhaps) could be used to create quite a lot of nuance in results. I like the idea of the Body having a separate effect.

This definitely needs work, but extra time does not seem terribly granular: you go up and down the time chart. Using research as an example, you do not know when you start, how long it is going to take. A few good rolls and you could have your answer in a couple of hours, a few bad ones and it will take more than twice as long. I prefer that to being able to say, "Right I'll blow a day on this and nail it'". I thought of adding in 'defences' but decided it was not necessary as the 'Body' was not ever going to be cumulative but worked as a threshold value, and you could just up the Stun bit to whatever you wanted for the task. It does not work precisely like combat, although now you bring it up, that might not be a bad model to think about. The way it is written though a 10d6 Penalty pool would be a nightmare (or any large Penalty pool) because a 'good' Penalty Roll makes a catastrophic result more likely. I'm not sure extra time should be a penalty as such, although I will ponder that one (i.e. give it some extra time :))

I'll do this a bit at a time Also, hi, Hugh! Been a while. We probably ought to make it CHAR/3. Gives more granularity and that way a 1- characteristic gets you 3 dice., which is how we should probably start OR buying the skill gets you 1d6+CHAR/5. Good catch. Penalties work a little differently to increased difficulty, although I take your point. With increased difficulty you can fail and only fumble if you roll all '1's, which is unlikely if you are skilled. With penalties you can fail and fumble even if you are skilled, but the task is tricky even for you. Penalties are also more volatile than a higher Difficulty, which might be appropriate in some situations. Increased difficulty also works well with Cumulative Tasks (although it would be easy enough to ONLY use it with Cumulative Tasks. The bonuses do need to be fleshed out - it all does - this is a newborn staring in wonder at the world

People understand percentages differently: you know if you have a 45% chance then 1-45 is good, anything over that is bad. The problem with Hero 3d6 rolls is not, to my mind, that it is a low roll system per se - people rarely fuss about getting less that 14 if they know they have to roll that, the problem is that in combat you have to add 11 to your OCV then SUBTRACT the 3d6 roll. I know, I know, 11+OCV-DCV as a target number to roll under, but that is not how it is written in the rules. It is all about presentation though. "Roll." "I got an 18!" "Oh bad luck..." Is much worse perceptually than: "Roll under 14." "I got an 18." "Oh bad luck..." The problem with the shortcut is it tells the player information they (maybe) shouldn't have. Roll high, it is easy. OCV+3d6-10 gives you the DCV you can hit and you can shout that out and the GM can say whether you hit. Roll low, the calculation is OCV+11-3d6. Same result - you shout out the DCV you can hit but it just does not look or feel as good or as straightforward. You are adding eleven rather than taking 10 and subtracting 3d6 rather than adding it. For most people addition is less daunting than subtraction unless, you know, 10. In fact you can shortcut it further. If you record your DCV as DCV+10 then the calculation is just OCV+3d6. Sure you can 'just' record OCV as OCV+11 but then subtraction again.

Chaps. I've tried roll high and it works fine. Rather than have a target number, I just (in combat) add 10 to DCV and record that on the character sheet. Then it is just OCV+3d6 to equal or beat the DCV 'difficulty' and you have hit. Similarly with skills, record them just as CHAR/5 (plus skill levels), and 3d6+skill to beat the assigned difficulty (10 for a 'standard' difficulty task). I do not use criticals but the easy way to do it would be to just rule that if you exceed the total needed by X then you critical, as mentioned above. This works well enough with the bell curve - if you have a high chance to hit you also have a high chance to critical. You can set the level where you want it. I'd suggest +5. Again, as mentioned above. If you want to mirror the existing system, you have to exceed your chance to hit by 16-(OCV-DCV)/2, rounded as we usually do in Hero - down. CritiCalc.xlsx

Hello chaps, I was walking the dogs the other day and I had this idea. That happens a lot. Here it is. Too long, probably, but this is more about getting it off my chest than anything else 😊 I’ve never been entirely satisfied with the skill system in Hero. Story of my life. The basic idea: So one of the real stand out mechanics of Hero is the damage roll, specifically how a single roll yields a Stun and a Body total. We can use that as an alternative skill resolution method. When you buy a skill you get CHAR/5 d6 in that skill. Skill levels add 1d6 per skill level. Roll the total as if you are rolling damage and compare to a Difficulty. A standard difficulty take would be Difficulty 10. 3d6 will get you to 10 or more 62.5% of the time, same as 11- on 3d6. More difficult tasks have a higher difficulty. They should probably go up in increments of 3 or 4, but any number can be used. Bonuses are added to your dice pool. Penalties form their own dice pool and are rolled separately then subtracted. Complications: So the ‘damage’ roll also yields a Body result. This can be used in two ways. First the task may require a Body total as well as a Stun total. I would suggest that everyman skills are ‘Stun only’, meaning there are some things you can not do with knowledge that you have not paid points for. Second, Body points can be used to give you bonuses. For example, if the task you are trying to accomplish normally takes a minute and is Difficulty 15/1 (meaning more difficult than usual and can only be accomplished with trained skills) and you have 5d6 to roll, and get (say) 17/5, you accomplish the task (exceed the difficulty of both the ‘Stun’ and ‘Body’) – the excess Stun is wasted, but the excess Body (5-1=4) can be used as a bonus. The typical bonus would be reduced time. Each point reduces the time taken by 1 unit of the next point in the time chart. So, if the task normally took a minute, the next time point is a turn. You have 4 Body excess so can reduce the time the task takes by 4 turns, or 48 seconds, meaning it only takes you 1 turn. If you had managed to roll 7 Body (6 excess), 4 Body reduce total time to 1 Turn then the extra 2 reduce the time taken by 1 segment each, so instead of a minute, it takes you 10 seconds. You can use the excess Body for other bonuses too. Off the top of my head, if you are rolling Persuasion and get extra Body, you get the target as a single use favour or contact, each excess point translating to 1d6 of effect to see how affected they are. You can also use Body for penalties. Tasks are either Repeatable or All Or Nothing, either Cumulatively or not and may attract Penalties. So, a Repeatable task example might be Research: you have to comb through a lot of material to find out what you want to. This is not an enormously difficult task and you will find what you need eventually but there is a lot of stuff to go through. The task difficulty might be 40/3 (1 hour). Basically you can keep rolling and adding Stun until you get to 50: the number of times x the time the task takes for one iteration tells you how long it takes. Body is NOT cumulative. Say you have a Research skill of 4d6 (or just Research/4). You roll 14/4 and you have 14 points to your total and it took 55 minutes (as you had one extra Body). Next you roll 19/5, your total is now 31 and that took an additional 50 minutes. Next you do badly and roll 10/2. The Stun should take you to 41, so you should complete the task, but because you did not roll 3 Body, that hour is wasted and the Stun does not add. Finally, you roll 12/3 and get to 43 points. That took another hour, but now you have your answer. That took 3 hours 45 minutes in total. A repeatable task that is not cumulative might be lockpicking. That might have a difficulty of 12/3. You can keep going until you succeed in rolling at least 12/3 in a single go. An example of a repeatable roll with a penalty might be Persuasion. That might have a difficulty of 16/5. You have Persuasion/6 so you are confident. If you roll 16/5 or more, you succeed but if you fail then you can have another go, but with a penalty. The penalty is whatever you failed the Body roll by, so if you rolled (1, 5, 2, 3, 1, 5) 17/4, for example, then you do not succeed and any subsequent attempts are made at a penalty of (5-4)=1. Penalties are rolled separately and subtracted from your total. Next time you roll (4,3,5,2,5,3). That is a total of 22/6, which is great and would easily pass, but you have a penalty of 1d6. If it comes up 6 you fail as your total is now (22-6)=16/(6-2)=4. Next time you have 2 penalty dice if you try again. Penalties also apply to others trying the same thing on the same target, usually, and they usually reset after a time, in the discretion of the GM. Someone you have failed to persuade might always see you as a pest, however. Some tasks might START with a penalty, if they are particularly tricky. Some tasks, for example bomb disposal, might not be repeatable: they are all or nothing. Fail and BOOM! Skill vs skill just compares totals. The ‘attacker’ has to equal or beat the ‘Stun’ and ‘Body’ of the ‘defender’s total. If the attacker fails at both they fail. If they fail at one the GM might declare a draw and allow another attempt. Alternatively, Characteristics can be used as difficulties. If you are trying to use Stealth to get past a character with 14 INT, the difficulty is 14/3 (to get the Body total, divide by 5 and round). Finally, you could rule that if you roll all '1's (or if you have a zero or less Body total after penalties) that is a fumble and something horrible happens. It is less likely as you become more skilled, unless you are doing something really tricky, which seems realistic. If you roll all '6's then you get lots of Body which will give you some sort of bonus anyway, so a 'critical' rule is not needed. Thoughts?

I say this as someone who has played Hero with figured characteristics and without: I prefer figured characteristics, on a purely instinctive level, but not having them makes much more sense. I think it makes characters a little harder to build, and is a slightly higher barrier to entry for new players who do not know where to pitch things. I think the cost of some of the characteristics is wrong and I think we could probably lose quite a few of the 'primary' ones in favour of skill bonuses - that might take some tinkering - but, overall, it is a step in the right direction.

I'm still not clear whether the Mind Hop is still subject to the problems that normal Possession is subject to - specifically the link to the original body and what happens if that is damaged. In any event, even is that is a problem, you can imagine the scenario: She walked in to the room and was startled to see me handcuffed to a chair. Her confusion only lasted a moment though before it doubled and doubled again as her perspective shifted dizzily and she saw herself standing in front of her and she was handcuffed to the chair, only she was not herself any more. Also, I'm not sure if Mind Hopping gives you access to the subjects memories. Hmm. It does not say that it does not so maybe it does, but does that mean that the person you are possessing gets your memories? That would be an issue You could always buy it with the 'No memories' limitation and rule that neither party gets memories. Fascinating...