Sean Waters

Re: Healing/Regeneration power build
 
Summon does not work. Sure you can MAKE it work, if you want to ignore some bits, and this was how we did resurrection before we had resurrection, but technically the summoned creature, even if it is DEFINED as the original is still a GM beasty and NOT the original, and, even if the player was allowed to run it, it can not stay around indefinitely - only so long as it has defined 'tasks' to complete.
 
Resurrection DOES get expensive though it is the 'right' way to do it, probably....if it is a GM villain, handwave it for goodness sakes, if it is a player....hmmm....
 
Here's a cheat: + 30 BODY (only to avoid death if hit again after 'dying' -1/2: no figured) and +50 STUN (only active if hit again after 'dying' -1/2) costs 66 points.
 
Basically, say your ghul has 30 stun and 10 BODY norally and gets 'killed' i.e. takes 20 BODY damage, it appears to all intents and purposes to be dead, but in fact has 50 BODY, so is only down to 30: gets hit again and the extra BODY and STUN clicks in and it is up and running at full health. Probably not wxactly what you are after but about the right effect?

For me, Fifth Edition core rules hit the sweet spot of rules completeness and clarity, while still being an interesting and readily digestible read. 5E Revised went a little farther along that first axis than I liked, but remained manageable. Sixth Edition makes me feel like I'm studying to pass the bar. Even over a decade later, I still haven't read through the whole thing.

I wouldn't say that the rules have gotten more complicated, they've just gotten really specific and try to cover every contingency rather than leaving it up to the GM.  I noticed after 6th came out I was looking stuff up in the book all the time instead of just winging it -- and finding I was almost always doing it according to Hoyle just from experience and common sense.

If what you are after is more 'long term effect' from combat I have used a house rule that every 5 full points of Stun through defences causes 1 point of Bruising damage.
 
Bruising damage can be used in a number of ways.  You can use some or all of them.
 
First you can add it to the total damage you have taken to determine if the character is KO'd (you can do something similar with END too - if you are bettered you have less energy).
Second (and this has more immediate effect) you can add it to damage through defences to determine if the character is Stunned.  If this is too nasty, you can add half of it, or whatever ratio you like.
Third (if you want 'more Body but not completely lethal) every 5 full points of Bruise damage does 1 Body.
Lastly, if you want a really rather brutish game you can deduct Bruise damage/5 from defences - once you are injured you are more susceptible to damage.
 
Bruise damage heals at REC/day, but faster if someone makes a Paramedic Roll.  Healing Bruising does not restore lost Body - that has to be healed normally.
 
This is more book keeping but gives a grittier feel as characters can not just run from one encounter to another with impunity after a minute of rest.  It also makes avoiding or reducing damage more important and makes Field Medicine a more important part of the game.
 
Bruising is not a characteristic.
 
You can obviously tweak the 5 points up or down depending on how much Bruise damage you want to inflict, and also mess with the Healing rate.
 
The way I see this is like a Boxing match - a minute's rest between rounds is not going to let you get all your health back, but most of the injuries you receive will be gone in a few days - and this despite the fact you may never have actually taken any Body damage directly from the attack.

I would not build an invisible attack with an obvious focus as that would be foolish but if someone else did I'd just treat it as any other invisible attack with the advantages that implies and, more to the point, they have paid points for.

I don't see the problem. If there's two house bricks on a table, can you pick them both up as a single telekinetic grab? You could as a non telekinetic grab.
 
You could grab two opponents with a normal grab, so why not with a TK grab? There's penalties. If probably require them to be adjacent to each other, or say least close.
 
Then there's the two opponents, one grab. Say both opponents are 30 STR and you've got a 40 STR TK, if they're both in a single grab, why not allow them to combine STR and effectively be STR 35?
 
I mean, you can do what you want, but I don't see how these suggestions are game breaking and they allow for more flexibility in gameplay which has to be a good thing.

As you've defined it, if she had LS: Cold, she takes no damage, despite the vulnerability to heat.
 
Maybe the lack of hot/cold contrast negates much of the attack and the cold part nullifies the heat, at least in her case.

I would not build an invisible attack with an obvious focus as that would be foolish but if someone else did I'd just treat it as any other invisible attack with the advantages that implies and, more to the point, they have paid points for.

You can't be too carful. CAreful. Careful.
 
Hello Doc

As you've defined it, if she had LS: Cold, she takes no damage, despite the vulnerability to heat.
 
Maybe the lack of hot/cold contrast negates much of the attack and the cold part nullifies the heat, at least in her case.

The problem here is that falling damage is silly.  30d6?  Falling off a tall building is really going to do more damage than Grond pushing his strength with a haymaker?  I think not.  Hero lacks a consistent approach to damage, meaning that we have to come up with either cheap but tricksy solutions or really expensive ones to what is (or generally should be) a niche problem.  Superheroes (and non-superheroes, for that matter) often survive long falls in the subject matter, even if real people don't - but then a normal taking 15d6 damage or 30d6 damage is going to be just as dead.
 
The reason falling is very dangerous is not because of the impact of you on the ground but because of the impact of your internal organs on the inside of you when you hit the ground.  A light creature should take far less damage. so a character with shrinking should be able to reduce their effective falling velocity for damage purposes by the amount their KB is increased by (also the increased KB thing is silly because that isn't how momentum works, at least in atmosphere.  If you hit a fly it doesn't shoot 20m across the room.  Another time.  Creatures with no hit locations (i.e. no differentiated internal organs) should probably take less damage from falling.  There's an argument that Stretching should also protect you.
 
Then there's the question of HOW you are surviving a long fall.  If it is because you are really tough, then you shouldn't be taking a 'falling damage only' limitation: if someone throws a building at you you're going to be just as resistant.  Trouble is that if you can survive even one 30d6 punch we have a terrible case of power inflation.  If you are a teleporter, the 'no relative velocity' trick works well.  I'm not sure about using flight because it is not instantaneous: turning flight on or off does not instantaneously stop your current movement and buying enough increased acceleration/deceleration to get you to instantly stop is going to get expensive and silly.  Technically 'no turn mode' will allow you to change vertical movement to horizontal movement instantly, thus preventing contact with the ground, but it is not going to stop you moving.  Anyway, if you can fly, why fall at all?
 
Probably the most appropriate superpower is Leaping, but again the rules are silly.  You wouldn't actually accelerate after you have left the ground, but you would decelerate to your apex point and why do you need DOUBLE the vertical leaping to arrest your fall (you're already halving your Leap for going up): being able to leap 60m straight up should arrest a terminal velocity fall.  If you have 'no gravity effects', does that mean you only (only ! ha!) need 60m of leaping?
 
You don't need to be completely immune to falling damage to look good (it's unlikely you'll be taking falling damage every phase), you just need enough protection that you aren't going to pass out or be stunned or at least not go SPLAT!  So, let's not worry about total immunity, let's look at what we already have in the toolkit. 75% damage reduction changes 105 Stun and 30 Body into 26 Stun and 7 Body.  Probably a bit less as you will have other defences, presumably, so, for a superhero, maybe 20 Stun and 2 Body after all defences.  I'm not a fan of Damage Reduction though.  I don't think it is a power we would have in Hero as it is not really a defence but rather a situational stat multiplier.  We can talk about that elsewhere.
 
Personally I think falling damage should be more like velocity/3 DCs, possibly Armour Piercing (which would mean that hardened defences are particularly effective against falling damage - something a super is more likely to have).  A terminal velocity fall would be velocity fall will do 20DCs damage: more than enough to kill all but the most outrageously lucky normal instantly, and enough to seriously shake most supers but not put them out of the fight. Using Breakfall, the roll shouldn't be distance dependent but should be (something like) reduce the damage by 1d6 if you make the roll and another 1d6 for each point you make it by.
 
 

You can't be too carful. CAreful. Careful.
 
Hello Doc

Re: How To: Suspended Animation
 
Solution? (well...A solution....)
 
In DnDWorldHero, ANY target is affected by transform as if it had 12 BODY, regardless of ACTUAL body.
 
Go with transform.
 
Bing
 
banga
 
boom.

Here's a completely tangential thought: STR minimum is probably not a well balanced Limitation or arguably a limitation at all: most people start with 10 STR, hardly anyone buys it down, so you are getting a cost break for doing nothing and, if you do, you are getting points back but you are less effective in both melee and now ranged combat, in that a weapon will cost you more. It might actually discourage people from buying STR down to fit character concept, which can't be good.
 
More to the point if you buy Strength up to, say, 15 you are getting the advantage of those 5 points and also buying a bigger discount on a beefier weapon, an extra -1/4, which changes the effective cost of Strength because it is buying more for the points.  By all means we can have a STR minimum based on active points, perhaps, but we shouldn't be discounting weapon cost based on the Strength of the wielder: that's double dipping.

So, right, I was walking the dogs and thought, “why do we do characteristic rolls for Strength differently to all the other characteristic rolls?"
 
Do go check, but instead of 9+CHAR/5 it is roll STR/5 as damage and count Body.  I like that.  Very Hero.
 
So, that got me thinking, why don’t we do that for everything?  Stealth check?  DEX/5 + skill levels rolled as damage dice and count Body against a difficulty determined by the GM or the characteristics of an opponent
 
Example: Dexterity 15 character with +1 in Stealth rolls 4d6 and counts Body to sneak past the 10 Intelligence guard.  Use INT/5 (2) as the difficulty – should be easy in normal circumstances.
 
Then I went mad and thought, “Why not combat too?”
 
OCV 3 attack against DCV 4?  Roll 3d6 and count Body aiming for a result of 4 or more (so you’ll need at least one ‘6’).
 
This has the advantage of having a single ‘Hero’ mechanic that is unique (as far as I know) for everything.  There's more (good and bad), but I thought we'd go one step at a time...
 
Thoughts?

I do have a passing familiarity with the concept, but the point I was flailing to make is that Strength is a measure of force not momentum.  Indestructecon is a powerful robot that can lift over 50 tons and can tear tanks apart but it does not do so quickly.  It does not punch through the armour, it grabs it and applies force.  Slowly.  The armour tears, such is the power of Indestructecon.
 
Shalamar, on the other hand is not strong.  If Shalamar were to grasp both ends of a thin steel bar, Shalamar would struggle to bend it.  Shalamar can lift a full beer keg, but probably not two of them, at least not for long.  Shalamar is quick though and can punch so fast the blow lands like a 76.2mm tank shell and can burst through tank armour.  Hopefully Shalamar is wearing something that prevents Shalamar's hands turning to jelly when Shalamar does that.
 
Krondite is both strong and fast and can tear armour apart or tear through it.
 
In combat, Shalamar is more effective that Indestructecon because Shalamar does not need to grab a target or wedge it into a corner where it cant move.
 
In a situation where a building has collapsed, Indescructecon can hold the roof up and bend steel I-Beams to rescue people.  Shalamar, if Shalamar was not immobile under a pile of rubble, could punch through those I-Beams but that would probably bring the whole unstable structure crashing down and kill everyone.
 
Krondite is great in combat and great in dangerous rescue situations, but paid more points to be more versatile.
 
You see where I'm going with this?
 

Absolutely: Perception is a complicated thing, but it can be simplified.  In reality it is two things:
 
1. the ability to actually perceive something.  No matter how smart I am I can not actually see if there's no light.
2. the ability to attach significance to something you have perceived.  I might be able to hear the slowly rising background hum, but I have no idea that means the reactor is going critical.  Perhaps red lights and a klaxon next time?
 
The first is dealt with by way of the normal and enhanced senses you get or can buy in game, the second is where intelligence seems to matter, but it probably doesn't.  Intelligence is not the same as knowledge.  If you study something then your native Intelligence helps you study better, retain more and apply that knowledge to situations but if you don't have the requisite knowledge then being generally smart probably won't help: that disturbing slithering sound is actually the harmless wide snake, not the terrifyingly aggressive and deadly narrow snake, but you don't know that because your degrees are in astrophysics and set theory.  
 
Perception is the ability to, well, should be the ability to realise that something is amiss.  You can be smart and not pick up on the obvious (a common trope) or have animal level intelligence but still know when it is time to get out of Dodge.  Perception should therefore be a General Skill IMO, starting at 11- for which you can substitute appropriate knowledge or professional skills that apply.  That makes KS and PS more useful in a game to game setting.  Danger Sense could also usefully sub in if the situation called for it.  If you are specifically looking for the thing that is amiss, you are not distracted and can (actually) perceive it then you probably won't need a roll at all. A simple 'no Intelligence' computer programme can tell if there's something on the camera that shouldn't be, so is always going to succeed in a 'perception check' unless you can find somewhat to misdirect or distract it.
 
The ability to do the Sherlock thing, draw valid conclusions from apparently limited data is something else again.  I am not sure how to handle that because it is a bit of an 'editor power': it is there mainly as a plot device and would be tiresome to have to GM if a PC had it.  You could, I suppose, have an INT based Observation skill, or a limited form of Pre/Postcognition that allows you to make connections that other's can not see.
 
Don't like that though because when I write a deep and involved plot I want the players to gather clues and put them together, not just roll low.

That is my mind having a break.
 
Probably a psychotic break...

See?
 
You see what happens?
 
You need a dog walking service for at least one day a week so you can give your mind a break. 
 
 

 
 

That could get ugly though! 😁😂

What it actually says at 6E2117 is that:
 
A character can use his STR or Flight (if he has it) to resist Knockback.
 
This implies by a strict reading that you have to choose which one you are using and the entry does not contain an injunction against using Strength to brace when, for instance, falling.  I certainly would not allow that.
 
As to whether you could use both Flight and Strength to brace at the same time, on the one hand you can use both Strength and Flight to lift more (which does not really make any sense at all)  but on the other it would not make any sense at all.  I'd probably only allow the use of Flight to brace when in the air.  I can only assume this was slipped in because someone saw Superman do something like that once and thought it was a good idea.
 
I'm not sure the bracing rules make much sense anyway: it is one thing if you can grab on to a building to stop yourself being knocked back, but if you are standing on a beach or in a field, for example, surrounded by sand or soil there's nothing to brace against, especially as KB can be directed slightly up, for example.
 
It is a pretty pointless thing to do anyway unless an opponent is a long way away and attacking with some sort of Blast power because you have to can only brace against damage from one direction (or other similar Boy Bands) which again does not make sense if you are 'digging in' or grabbing something solid. Most opponents can easily shift to another position before attacking, or two could attack from different angles.
 
Probably one to be dissected in another thread...the rules are really quite unnecessarily nuanced.
 

You mentioned Skill Rolls and Damage/Effect rolls.
Obviously INT and CON have Skill Rolls. Seems like you were suggesting they also had an Effect Roll in you games. Was curious as to what that was.
 
As far as the Perception Roll my opinion is that roll exists outside of INT. You can have  a perception roll without INT. I think there are actually examples of that with Automatons and Computers that have no INT but still have a Perception Roll depending on what they designed to do.
 
Anyway, it seems that these two Characteristics do not have an effect roll.
 
I thought you might be excluding the figured characteristics but how you worded your statement (all the other attributes) it was unclear.

What Chris said: 
 
Teleport already has a "range" of sorts, being how far you can hop at a time.  The "Ranged" Advantage in this case would be how far away a target can be before you can't use the power on him / it.
 
I agree that "safe blind teleport" isn't required, for two reasons:  1) there is no blind teleport being made.  You know precisely where you're sending the target, and as you say: if the target can't fit there, the apportation fails.  You have to have line of sight to target the target (I really tried to find a better way to say that; I really did) and right next to you, so-- no blind teleport.
 
2) I don't use that modifier, as it's backwards to me.  I prefer to assume that blind T-port is safe blind T-port, and allow a Limitation for constructs where this is not the case.
 
So, if it were me, I'd have T-port, UAA (I would use that even if it was targeting inanimate objects, as you aren't giving the target the power; you are forcing the power onto the target).  Ignore the blind teleport thing-- perhaps a custom limitation for "will not work unless there is a clean landing pad" or words to that effect, and, as Tom suggests, a single fixed location: "ri'chyeah."
 
 
 

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.

And the peanut gallery watches, eating popcorn, with bated breath. (8^D)