Tasha

12 hours ago, csyphrett said:

What kind of Icons, T?

CES

The essence of being the Iconic Brick, Martial Artist, etc. Kind of similar to the Gestalt Setting, but different :)

Which is a common mistake in Game Jargon. Similar to when people confuse Phase with Segment.

Heck, I had pretty much abandoned the system. It IS the system that I know the best. So when the players wanted to play Supers, it was the game I chose.

We are running a beginning 6e Champions Game.

Dex 18, SPD 5, DC10 (62 active), CV 7 as our averages.
So Skill levels (yet)

The PCs are the newest hosts for Beings that are Iconic for a character type.

Developing

I'm BACK!!
LOL

IIRC all of the early Hero Ebooks were offered on Floppy disk. My copy of UE came from a floppy.

Usually only one, but certain character types do merit multiple foci. ie Batman types, & Weapons Masters

3 hours ago, Chris Goodwin said:

I could dig up at least a dozen character sheets from the 80's where I could disagree with you.  ?  I swear to you, I could add up a column of numbers three times and get four different results!  

Yeah, the math hasn't changed in 30 years and from the playtest doc, this edition will not have appreciably different math. I mean if you were doing something additive like Robot Warriors or Fuzion Champions Powers, you wouldn't need anything ex perhaps a simple spreadsheet that can add columns. But, it looks like Hero Math will be in force for this game

PS the doc didn't really do anything to change my negative opinion about this project.

So is there any news on when those books will be available for POD again?

I would insist the UOO be at least NND to do this.

"However, someone who spends 1 Turn out of combat can take an Inaccessible Focus away from a character (or otherwise deprive him of its use and benefits). An Inaccessible Focus cannot be removed from a character who’s struggling or resisting." 6e1 pg 377

Allowing Teleportation to do this is HIGHLY unbalanced. I could see a huge DIspel that uses that as it's special effect. But not any form of Teleportation.

All you need is t-port usable against others area of effect 2m radius only affects focii.

 

"Everything comes off of you except for you costume."

 

"That's not fair!"

 

"That's the big problem with a focus."

 

"Why wasn't the costume taken off then?"

 

"CCA says costumes are only in hero id.  Listen to your sagely GM next time."

You can't Teleport someone out of their Inaccessable Focus nor can you do that with something bought with Only in Alternate ID. It's why those limitations are smaller than Accessable Foci.

I've always felt that unbreakable should be worth a quarter less disadvantage (it's priced at 0 like durable).  Otherwise it's pure GM fiat if you allow Unbreakable or not.

 

"Ok, Jim... I see you have focus on two different pools and three powers. Are they all the same focus?"

 

"No. Pool 1 is my sword. It's Unbreakable."

"Uh huh. Why?"

 

"Forged by the gods in a time before time, when men where but a mote in the thoughts of a great one - to be bequeathed to a champion when the need arises."

 

"Alright. Fine. Cool sword.... and the others?"

 

"Next is a gauntlet.  Forged by the gods in a time before time...."

 

"Right. Next?"

 

"Next is a pair of boots..."

 

"The gods?"

 

"Yep."

 

"I'm guessing their break condition is 'smashed on the anvil that forged them?"

 

"Right in one."

 

"You know if you didn't want your foci broken you could have used ONly in Hero ID, right?"

 

"Nah. Not worth as many points."

 

I understand that it's priced at zero because in normal play a Durable is about as likely to get destroyed (ie not at all without significant effort) but it still feels a little off.

The Difference is that a Focus can still be taken away eventually. An inaccessable Focus just needs the user to be unconscious for a bit. OIAID (Only in Alternate ID), you can't take the item away. Just that the item must be part of an obvious ID (ie Iron Man's armor and Thor's Hammer. Both OIAID).

Okay, I misread the section. It does say the penalty applies to alll the attack rolls, so it'll be -3 to both Grabs, including the normal Grab -1. Thanks!

Don't forget the 1/2 DCV

So Tasha, you want to actually have a full game built upon the foundation of Hero, sans the part of Hero that is supposedly the big draw to the system? That is both bold and, coincidentally, sort of like the project I am working on. I admit that I never envisioned keeping the Power building rules out completely. I always figured a sort of mini-rules presentation, methods of pre-generating characters with a very D&D-esque Race/Class system (mechanically done for my project), and the support material to tweak interest in the system. After that, I thought about tutorials on how to do it yourself by starting simple and increasing complexity. The idea of expanding that idea to an entire product line and omitting the "here's how YOU do it" aspect did not occur to me. Interesting.

 

I really need to get some more information of Savage World's Plot Points. What book(s) would be a good place to start looking? 

Yes, I would like to see that. Because new gamers need something that gets them into the action now and simplifies character generation. They can always include the nitty gritty under the hood stuff for the people who DO want to customize further.

Plot Point Campaigns. I really love Necessary Evil. It's well put together and is pretty easy to convert to Hero. The Deadlands PP books are supposed to be good too.

PS sorry if I replied to this one before. I don't remember if I have and my original post keeps getting likes so...

That is the conventional wisdom. But most of the current big rpgs are doing very well with them. The pathfinder line has 20+ and include figure stand ups and mao packs.

I think that the actual AP books are break even or loss leader. They are designed to drive sales of stuff like the supplement books that detail stuff in the AP(ie Core rulebooks, Regional and racial splatbooks) also accessories like the Pawns and Pathfinder Battles miniatures. So they are subsidized by the sales of the accessories.

I want Hero to make a fully realized fully built out Fantasy World. Including Spells, Fighting styles, History, Full color maps, Hero System rules. Everything but power building rules. Everything that a GM needs to run games in that fantasy world. It could be a Rulebook and a Gazetteer style book (ie Pathfinder Core and Inner Sea World Guide). I would also like to see the same thing done to Superheroes. the idea would be for the writeup to be minimal nothing extra and to keep things very simple. Self contained would be the watchword. GM's wanting more customization would be pointed at Champions Complete and Fantasy Hero Complete. Writeups of all equipment, spells etc with all of the costs in them would be available using Bits & Mortar service.

Also something that crosses Savage Worlds Plot point campaigns with Paizo's Adventure path. ie Something that has a strong plotline, but also has some side adventures/quests for variety. Because adventures actually drives sales of other books. GM's need adventures and campaigns. Making it easy for the GM to run will generate sales of the books because they will want to run the game.

I would also love to see more Champions Miniatures. Perhaps WizKids can do some HeroClix of the Champions Universe characters.

 

This is why I have been advocating the Adventure Path/ Plot Point campaign concept as a way to move forward. I lean toward Plot Point campaigns because of their flexability and ease of customization.

Setting is Champions Universe. With Millenium City, Vibora Bay, and others being specific places within the setting. Calling Golarion a "Campaign Setting" is saying that it's a Setting that you can use to place your Campaign within.

A Campaign is a series of interlocked Adventures. A Paizo Adventure Path is a Campaign, Pinnacle's Plot Point Campaigns are a Campaign. I would argue that there were a ton of Mini Campaigns written for 4e Champions. When DOJ took over, Steve decided that Adventures weren't worth the time they took to write as they didn't sell well. Though it appears that Paizo and Pinnacle turned that assumption on their heads with innovative versions of a campaign. 

I'm not familiar with that book so I don't know if it deals with the areas I am referring to. I am thinking more in terms of how to predict the results of particular groups of choices on the old 'campaign ground rules' worksheets that used to be included with previous HERO editions.  More specifically, how to determine the maximum allowable levels of certain powers and advantages.  One example would be no more than 1 level of Penetrating for non-special things - exceptions being things like adamantium.  Get enough example of variations of limits like that defined for all powers and advantages and a HeroDesigner-like application would be useful.

 

HM

I think that it would be more useful and would be a bigger draw to new GMs to have settings that defined those things up front. Then all of the supplements can use those Power levels, and other things like that as a baseline.

I think this is the key point. I'm a roll-my-own kind of GM myself, so Hero is perfect for my needs. And we've clearly been Hero's target audience for the last decade+. The question is are there enough GMs like us to support a game system these days? It also means Hero has a higher bar for entry than other games, because you have to understand the system well enough to build your own campaign before you can start playing.

 

But the two aren't mutually exclusive: you could put out some ready-to-play campaign material, just like most other systems do. Us do-it-yourselfers can still tinker and monkey around until we get it just the way we want it, or just mine it for ideas like I do with most campaign/setting books from other systems. GMs who don't have the time to do all that can just run it as written. And new players can look at it and understand how to build a Champions/Hero campaign. Win-win-win (assuming it's well-done).

I am finding that I am not alone as a Hero GM, that the time and work required to build a campaign is a bit daunting. It leads to playing other systems that don't need that amount of preparation.

Champions Universe is anything but generic. It's as detailed as The Inner Sea World Book (Paizo's Golarion master Gazetteer book). It has everything you could want out of a world book. I am REALLY not sure what you are envisioning that isn't in CU. IIRC even the Premade Champions characters (The team that is built at the level that PCs are). It MAY even have a sample campaign.

If you are looking for a RPG product that is selfcontained and is pick up off the shelf easy to play. Champions Universe and any superhero game just isn't the right vehicle. The Supers Genre needs the full toolkit or nearly all of the full toolkit to actually work. Supers is the hardest genre to use to teach people how to build characters and how to play. That's because of the Powers. Also Supers doesn't really lend itself to choose these off the shelf abilities and play. Perhaps that will be different once the Character Generation Deck is released.

Oh and CU IS being supported we will be getting a new Villains books full of Organizations by the end of the year. Also there are 2 or 3 other Champions supplements.

http://www.herogames.com/forums/topic/94419-news-from-high-rock-press/

Depends on how he ran games. Some GM's don't keep notes some do.

I hear that his artwork grew by leaps and bounds as he matured. That he drew much better than he did on those old Hero Games products. It's sad that he died

I understand that a Guardians Sourcebook would be difficult. One thing would be talking George MacDonald to write the thing. Also getting the IP rights to all of the PCs could be difficult as well as the original artwork (IIRC Mark Williams has passed away).

   Agreed. I also recall Derek stating that the only change in the rules from 6e to CC was removal of "categories of minds". Slimming the book down meant removing a lot of rulings, interactions and explanations. I would classify "0 BOD means any breach collapses it" was one of these "corner case casualties".

 

Gamers are a funny bunch. We want the rules slimmed down to be more accessible. But we want every possible occurrence, combination and interaction of rules spelled out in detail. You can't have both - more detail equals more word count.

The problem with CC is that there seems to be an assumption that players KNOW the older rulesets. Most of us who have played older rulesets would have just assumed those rules things work like previous editions. Which IMHO lead to mechanics that don't include basic rules like "When a Zero Body Barrier takes damage it's completely destroyed". That's a BASIC foundational rule for the power and it's never spelled out. I find that in CC time and time again, where basic mechanics seem to be implied, but never put down in plain english. Which IMHO makes CC one of the weakest Editions. (FHC's rules were copy pasted from CC and not changed in any substantial way). I am wondering if perhaps 5e might have been a better starting place for CC, Just adding in the changed 6e mechanics.

I have a little experience running this setting back in the day.

I'm happy to answer any questions you might have.

BTW Welcome back! Can't wait to see what you come up with for SACoH

A "real" Champions Universe comic would have been cool. I had hopes that Cryptic could pull it off like they did with the licensed City of Heroes comic. Unfortunately, Champions Online never caught on so no comic or other licensed things outside of what DOJ published for the RPG.

Just so you all know, the heroic publishing website has alot of these available for free online...(they have changed some of the names (Freddy is now called "The Fox")

Yeah, because they lost the Licence to all of the characters ex the ones that belonged to Dennis. I am not really sure that I liked how he changed the color and the name of the characters to get around the IP problems.