Resartus

Re: Eliminating Killing Attacks Very good points, thank you. And your right I'm just starting to workout the specifics of this idea and I originally intended it to be part of a system derivation, I didn't envision it working well with the current system. However, I do have a reasonable fix that might balance things a bit more. You can use the pure damage types to recreate and tweak the types of attacks available to your compaign, sort of genre convention if you will. To support the typical champions genre you could do the following: Normal attacks (HAs and EBs) start with a 3-to-1 ratio of Stun damage to Body damage. The body damage can be reduced to nothing allowing a stun only attack. Lethal attacks (RKAs and HKAs) must have a 1-to-1 ratio of Stun damage to Body damage. The Stun damage may be increased to simulate the "knock down" effects of specific weapons and attacks (i.e. large caliber bullets, "man-stopper" specialty ammo). This reflects the current system limitation on the minimum stun multiplier of 1. So with those meta-rules in place you get the following multipower attacks: 60 point multipower, 60 AP 5u - RKA: 5d6 Body Attack - Ranged plus 5d6 Stun Attack - Ranged (7x5=35 AP plus 4x5=20 AP, 55 AP total) 6u - EB: 2d6 Body Attack - Ranged plus 11.5d6 Stun Attack - Ranged (7x2=14 AP plus 4x11 + 2=46 AP, 60 AP total) 6u - Stun Only: 15d6 Stun Attack - Ranged (4x15=60 AP) That's a bit closer to the current system and gives you an RKA that isn't going to out stun an EB and a very basic rolling mechanic. Basically I'd like to see more of the internals of Hero, it's a nice tool kit as is, but I'd like a little more granularity so you can see the genre conventions expressed as templates or meta-rules to make it more obvious what can be tweaked and what will be affected when you do so. Any way, let me know what you think, the feedback has been good so far and I learn a little more about this system every time I post.

Re: Eliminating Killing Attacks As a polish to the current system I agree with you it's too cheap. Some of the other changes I'm making include increasing body by a factor of 2 or more to bring it in line with stun. Inanimate objects would need a boost in defence as well as body to stay in line with the changes but I'm planning on doing that as well. To keep things in line with the current system you'd need to charge 7 points per d6 of body damage. That is the cost by the way if you take the "reduced stun multiplier" limitation 5 times. Currently you can only take that limitation 4 times reducing the cost to 7.5 points per DC but I'm shooting for a pure body attack. I personally think that a stun only EB is worth a -1/4 limitation which would bring a pure stun attack to exactly 4 points per DC. So here is the Ion Blaster compound power example again with the current system costs and then the changes I've just mentioned: Current Rules: Ion Blaster: (Total: 60 Active Cost, 45 Real Cost) Energy Blast 6d6, STUN Only (+0) (Real Cost: 30) plus Killing Attack - Ranged 2d6 (30 Active Points); -4 Decreased Stun Multiplier (-1) (Real Cost: 15) My Changes: Ion Blaster: (Total: 38 Active Cost, 38 Real Cost) Stun Attack - Ranged 6d6 (Real Cost: 24) plus Body Attack - Ranged 2d6 (14 Active Points) (Real Cost: 14) If you wanted the compound attack to closer simulate a current 30 AP Energy Blast you could drop one of the Body Attack (killing) damage classes and it would only cost 31 points. The benefit, you just roll the damage and subtract from the affected stat, no counting BOD, no stun lotto. I'd still drop resistant defenses and just let normal PD or ED handle everything, but that's just me.

Re: Eliminating Killing Attacks I'm planning an extensive set of changes to the current system to form a house system. One of the changes removes EBs and KAs from the game as they exist now. Every attack becomes a compound power that usually includes stun damage and body damage. Bascially you just roll the dice listed for each stat or power effected and subtract the numbers rolled from the character's stat pools. No stun lotto, no counting BOD, just plain addition and subtraction like most other games. There are a lot of things I like about Hero but the current damage mechanics aren't one of them. The equivalent of a 30 AP EB might look like: Ion Blaster: 6d6 stun, 2d6 body vs. ED (maser sfx) Has the same average and almost the same range as the current system, but you could modify it up or down to suit your need for leathality based on genre. A hand gun might look like: Berreta model 92 (9mm): 2d6 stun, 4d6 body vs. PD (bullet sfx) HK USP (.45 ACP): 4d6 stun, 5.5d6 body vs. PD (bullet sfx) I'm sure your thinking, that's a lot of body damage, and it is. But I'm going to modify the hit location chart to reduce body damage based on location. Basically most of the body damage would just blow through your arm or leg, but a solid hit to a vital area with have the full effect rolled. I'll also up the average BODY stat to bring it closer to stun. As far as cost goes I'm thinking 3 or 4 points per die. I'm also considering dropping resistant defenses as well. They're only there to support how killing attacks work now. I'm more of the mind that defense is defense, if something stops physical damage then it should work against all physical damage unless the attack has an advantage that improves it's penetration, or the defense is limited to specific sfx (i.e. bullet resistant vests). There are already power advantages that cover defense penetration just fine it shouldn't be an inherent part of the power.

Re: Polishing The HERO System

Re: Guns, guns and more guns Agreed, the only reason I was comparing the 5.7 to 5.56 NATO was velocity. Velocity defeats Kevlar, as long as the bullet doesn't have a really blunt or flat nose. I think the damage for the 5.7 should be 1D6 when fired from a pistol and 1D6+1 when fired from a P90 or similar weapon. I just needs a large number of piercing points for soft (aramid fiber) armors. I'm sure that it would be stopped by a threat level III or IV vest because of the plates. On a side note, the 5.7 tumbles in soft tissue and creates a decent wound channel. One of the articles in my earlier post is from a Houston SWAT member and mentions the performance of the P90 in a fatal shooting. The round tumbled as expected without over-penetrating.

Re: Guns, guns and more guns The funny thing about the SS190 (the AP round for the P90) is that it is poor at penetrating anything but Kevlar. Basically any reasonably pointy round that travels at more than 2000 FPS is going to penetrate Threat level IIIa or less Kevlar armor. Modern aramid (family of fiber materials that includes Kevlar) based armors are really only good at stopping pistol calibers, it's a velocity issue. The only reason that a Threat level III or IV vest will stop a rifle round is the insert plates which are made of composites, ceramics, or steel. I saw a video from FN Herstal recently that demonstrated the P90 in various conditions, it was interesting. One the major points that was made in the video was the lack of penetration that the P90 had against solid materials. The used it on a cinder block wall at point blank range and full-auto and none of the rounds went through. Try the same thing with an M-16 or an M-14 and you'll get penetration very quickly. Guns, guns, guns third edition gave the P90 a maximum penetration of 3.5 mm of armor quality steel vs. 6mm for 5.56mm round (M16). The biggest difference between the two rounds is mass, the NATO 5.56 has at least twice the mass of a SS190. Basically the SS190 is almost exactly like a reversed ogive round (DC pg 206) or as it's better known a THV round. It dumps most of it's mass to achieve high velocity giving it soft armor penetration. Here are a couple of links about the P90 and Five seveN: http://www.trmagonline.com/Spring2003TR/spring2003experienceswiththefnp90.htm http://www.defensereview.com/modules.php?name=Sections&op=viewarticle&artid=2 The first link covers some real world terminal ballistics info from a Houston SWAT member. The second link gives some interesting comparisons on the SS190 round. I was slightly surprised by the armor penetration of the SS190 when fired from the Five seveN (pistol companion to the P90 PDW), I didn't think it would have enough muzzel velocity. Please keep in mind that a PASGT vest like the ones in the second article have only 16 layers of Kevlar and a 1 mm thick titanium backing. Most threat level IIIa vests are over 30 layers thick, so keep this in mind when you read the part about it going through the front, back, and front of a second vest. And while I'll be the first person to say that the P90 is not a wonder weapon, I was disapointed in the write-up it got in DC. Especially the tumbler designation which is completely wrong. The round can't tumble end over end as described and still be decent at penetrating armor which it is. The whole writeup reminds me of Mega Playboy's issue with 10 DEF battleship armor, it's just plain wrong. It's late, and I'm going to call it quits. Sorry if I rambled, but the write up for the P90 bugs me.

Re: Dark Champions Campaigns I'm converting Gurps Black Ops to Hero and Dark Champions will be a big help. I really like what I've seen in the playtest, I can't wait to get my hands on a hardcopy. Black Ops is sort of "Weird" Spec Ops setting in the same way that Deadlands is "Wierd" wild west. The setting is a little bit MIB, a lot of special operations, a little supernatural, and definitely over the top cinematic fun. The starting characters will probably be 500 pts in a heroic style campaign (long skill lists). I'll be adding my own stuff to it as well. I've got an old campaign that I ran years ago that had a very similar background so I'm merging them together and converting them to Hero/Dark Champions. I'm very happy with it so far, the supernatural abilities are much easier to model in Hero than they were in Gurps. I'll post some more details after the game starts, I don't want any of my players to see what their in for before things get rolling.

Re: Lack of Power coverage Time manipulation, someone else mentioned it earlier but I didn't see it in your recap.

Re: Are partially limited VPPs valid constructs? It's not just you, GM permission seems to be getting more and more frequent the longer I spend time on these boards. On a different note, I want to say thank you to everyone for helping me with this construct. It works much better than Aid in my setting. I'm hoping to eventually post the whole thing to the Other Genre form. Thanks again to everyone that helped, I'm much happier about this now.

Re: Lack of Power coverage Real speedsters. I love the speed chart, but the granularity is way to course. Characters like the Flash and Quicksilver are capable of doing several different tasks in a single second. You can't model this in Hero, you can model the relative speeds of different characters but not the absolute speed that you see in comics and movies. I'd like to see the speed chart changed to represent fractions of a second and then put a baseline human at speed 1 and/or have a each step on the chart increase buy a half phase equilvalent action instead of a whole action and have the chart go to 20 or 24 half-phase segments. Obviously this would be a big change, so I doubt anything like it will every happen in Hero but I'd like to see it.

Re: Are partially limited VPPs valid constructs? Sorry, my earlier reply missed the point. What I meant to say was CSLs won't increase the strength of telekinesis or the range of telepathy or the inches of movement in teleportation (a psionic ability in this setting). I'm looking for raw power increase and I'm very happy with Lord Liaden and Dust Raven's suggestions. I like the applications for CSLs that you've mentioned and I'll probably use them for some of the "training" equipment. In the setting it's possible to record the experience and memories of a person and play them back as the situation demands. These memory devices are called skeins and look like braided strands of plant material worn around your head. The game effect is increased experience with your abilities which is a perfect fit for CSLs. I'm planning on letting the players buy off the Focus limitation over time to reflect their characters integrating the experiences they've been exposed to over and over again. Thanks again.

Re: Are partially limited VPPs valid constructs? That was very clear. Thank you. But I still have a quick question. I thought there was a general rule that powers in one framework coulndn't be added to powers in another framework. Or does that restriction only apply when the frameworks are of different types like a multipower and an elemental control?

Re: Whats your favorite Attack? Indirect attacks of all kinds. My personal favorite is fire called down from an orbital defense platform. There's nothing like walking up to a group of heavy armed bad guys, pointing up at the sky and smiling.

Re: Are partially limited VPPs valid constructs?

Re: Are partially limited VPPs valid constructs? While most of the characters won't have stats above 20 it is definitely a superpowered campagin. Point totals so far are hitting 750, one of the NPCs is 1200 points already and I'm not done with him. The equipment is definitely going to cost points I don't like the balance issues that charging money brings into a game. It's actually one of the reasons that I quit playing Gurps and switched to Hero. I can cost everything out to insure balance.