Static UK

Re: Superhero Images Using the HeroMachine v2.0 I created a batch of UNTIL agents of the various archetypes. Here are a couple:

Re: What happened to seeker?? I like this idea so much I'm thinking of using it! Poor old crazy Foxbat, he isn't really crazy after all, or maybe not quite so crazy as people think! Maybe, finally, Nighthawk can get to the bottom of all those senseless Aussie jokes aimed at him!? Positive Rep for you (even if I don't really understand what it is all about, or how I appear to have 10 points? But can't figure out where they've come from, or how to access them on my User CP!) That Astro City story was superb wasn't it?

Snakey bad folks! I've just come across this thread and have managed to look through the first 30-ish pages, so I thought I'd add a couple of images for starters. They are created using the HeroMachine v2.0 program. These two are the main villains that the players in my campaign will eventually meet as they journey through a magical 'Aladdin-esque' parallel dimension in search of one of their missing team-mates. The lady with the snakey lower torso is a powerfull mystic, and the 'brick' is her created bodyguard.

Re: Bestiary, Book vs HD The Bestery has some really useful information within its pages. It provides a bunch of templates for altering creatures. Basically they are similar to Package Skills, so you could convert a cat to an Infernal Cat, or an Arctic Cat, an Aquatic Cat, or a Giant Cat, etc,. The book also provides descriptions of the various disadvantages commonly encountered by creatures which is very useful for when you want to design your own beasties. So buy the book, I'd be surprised if you didn't like it.

Re: Seduction an Everyman Skill I cannot remember exactly where I read it, but I'm sure it was Steve Long who said it, (this is not a quote) that Seduction was more than just the ability to win over someone sexually, but also the ability to befriend someone. Since then I've found myself giving the skill to more NPC's as previously I had considered it to be solely for sexual porposes. I have written in pencil in my FREd next to Seduction in the Skill Table and its description "Befriend", and have even started writing it like that on character sheets to remind my not to limit the skill. As such I believe the majority of people know how to make friends, and inadvertantly use this 'skill' every time they enter a new social situation. At heart everyone wants to be liked, and are more inclined to try and make a favourable impression, even if in the process they make a complete prat of themselves! So, yes, make seduction an everyman skill, as only the more socially inept people probably can't make friends, and maybe they should have a (Psychological?) Disadvantage to represent this fact!? I also use two other skills not in FREd: Politics: I use this as a skill to argue effectivly. (perhaps better named as Debating?) Persuasion can occasionally be used as a complimentary skill. Diplomacy: I use this skill for being able to difuse situations and try to be able to deal with a situation without making it worse. The only real problem with the HERO skill system is that some skills cover a multitude of sins all under the same name. However the alternative is then to document every skill and every variation of a skill independantly... how big would FREd have been then? Before the 5th edition came out I had begun to break down some of the skills into specialisations costing 2 points instead of 3. I had a really big smile when I realised that that was what was happening in FREd. The Ultimate Skill book sounds like it is going to try and put more depth to ALL the skills, and maybe, just maybe, Steve will add a few new skills? Only Steve knows! With regard to expanding the Everyman list, you are free to tailor it to your own individual campaigns. You don't have to use it 'as is' in FREd. I also took a leaf from GURPS and allowed 6- rolls for those skills that you may have a certain amount of a clue about if the player can give a reasonable explanation as to why his character should be allowed to try.

Re: AWESOME Cover! Well I can certainly agree with all of the above... GREAT cover. But... who is he? I think it may be the Harbinger of Justice, just because of the subtly placed cresent moon in the night sky.

Re: What happened to seeker?? Seeker? Seeker who? I was actually thinking of returnng him to my CU in one of the following ways:- A member of Champions: West (or South) - an initially liked but soon to fall into obscurity team. Use as an amnesiac hero/ villain from a parallel dimension wondering where the hell did Millennium City appear from, and who those upstart Champions really are, and why does he feel like he ought to belong... Or maybe have him In training to fight the Dragon... He's bound to get the snot stomped out of him before he wins heroically.

20 years ago! Wow, I'm glad I don't remember them from then! I bought mine in a closing down sale of a gaming shop some 15 years ago. I use Coriolis/ Donnah Hannah regularly in my campaign (I've just written her up in 5th- she's a monster!). Dr. Avery may be dead, but he is still able to impart information to Donnah occasionally via a crystal ball. The players hero team uses their mansion as their base now, except I relocated it to outside London.

Q: Describe the latest 'Pop Idol/ Fame Academy' music band! A: C3PO.

Q: How would you describe your gaming friends? A: Small and furry.

Thanks guys, there are some great ideas for me to jot down there.

Hmm, I like that, thanks Tom. I think weather 'linked' to her emotional state is an especially good idea.

I really liked this adventure, it was a good multi-part adventure with a fairly good back history, and character developement potential. I'm looking forward to recreating Coriolis in the 5th edition, she is much more powerful now than at the begining of the adventure. I thinking of basing her on the Air Elemental from Bestiary, with a few personal touches. The players team have pretty much adopted the Avery Mansion (Coriolis's home) as the team HQ now, although I did relocate the mansion and the adventure to the outskirts of London in England.

Thanks Jayde and Lord L. I don't intend to build a character for her as it would be kinda pointless at the moment. I guess I was getting a little wrapped up in the mechanics there too. I've had bit more of a think about it and decided that the team members will probably get a +2DCV bonus when Coriolis is around (the players won't know about this, it's something I'll factor into the combat calculations). The DCV bonus can account for lots of little things, such as slightly deflecting or blowing projectile weapons, or shifting the aim of energy throwers arms, dust getting in the eyes of an opponent (not blinding him, just distracting him), etc,. What other minor effects do you think I can bring into play? So far I have the DCV bonus minor Flash power use (blinding an opponent) maybe a limited for of Luck ability (causing an opponent to slip, or lose sight of his target, etc,.) Anyone got any other useful ideas? Again thanks!

I'm not sure how to do something, so I'm asking the multitude of Herodom... I am using an NPC called Coriolis (from the adventure book of the same name) as a team member for the Players heroes. In the last adventure before our break to another campaign I apparently killed her. She is more air elemental than human, and she isn't really dead, just dispersed. However, I don't want to just return her to normal after a short break, I want her presence to become known (to the keen eyed) before then. I envisage her hanging around the team (especially her lover, another NPC), and using her, currently, weakened air powers to influence events around the team. How to do this? She currently has no stats (other than maybe a little EGO?), and probably cannot be affected by any powers other then some limited Mental abilities (if she can be detected), and possibly air powers (she is quite dispersed). I was thinking of having a group of effects that happen to the team, such as Luck (she could cause opponents to slip, or be buffeted by winds), and Flash (blinding opponents with air borne dust). Nothing powerful, and nothing obvious (the players shouldn't be able to work things out too quickly), she will gain better control of things eventually, and finally be able to create a body for herself (one of her powers from the book). So should I create her as some sort of character, or should I just devise a pool of effects that the team 'can use', ie, each character has some temporary powers that they don't know about with limitations linked to the fact that Coriolis must be present? Thanks for any help.

I'm designing/ 5th ed'ing some new Talents, and had a couple of strange thoughts: 1) Does Bump of Direction work in three dimensions or just two dimensions? (I know it mentions something like, 'relative height above or below ground' but I was wondering about an aircraft or space pilot using the Talent to move around in 3D) 2a) What effect, if any, would travelling in time have on Absolute Time Sense? 2b) Would you know what time it was when you arrived, or would you just know how much time had passed (literally not distance in time) since your journey began? 2c) How do time-zones effect a character with this Talent? The reason these Q's came up was that I designed some Talents for 4th Ed. One was 3D Spatial Awareness (because I was under the impression BoD was just 2D), and the other was Chronolocation (basically ATS with the ability to know how far you had travelled back or forward in time (either in seconds, or years, the players would then have to use a calculator, he-he), or course this can now be circumvented with analyse and discrinatory!)

You could look up some of the Mage Knight: Dungeons, Pyramid expansion for some Egyptian figures, however, only the unique 'mage spawn' figures are really suitable, and being that they are unique ranked kinda puts their price up!

Arthur, I would NOT want to go there, no matter how many points my character was built on! Talk about nightmares!!!!

The old Hero system adventure book, Zodiac, had a colour insert showing all the characters in colour. Their character sheets contained the same pictures, but in black and white (NOT greyscale!). The book looked good, but it was the only one that I know of that did a colour section. I would like some colour inserts, but with the general largeness of Hero books I think the price of books w/ colour would be quite high! If the art is going to be B/W I prefer it not to be in greyscale. I usually photocopy all the character sheets out of a book and store them alphabetically (by solo character or by team) in a series of ring-binders, that way I can just pop out the characters I need, rather then thumbing backwards and forwards through a book (or books) during a combat. Also if the art is not greyscale it makes it easier to colour in the illustration, and thus give the other players a better mental picture of who they are facing/ teaming up with.

Back On Topic... I second the use of Night City it was what I used for my Cyber Hero campaign many years ago... It has a big map IIRC, and some great descriptions of corporations and people.

Jeez, what a load of cr@p! Where's the pogo-stick and the broom-stick. And as for the the flying carpet... oh, wait a mo', that's there! I have almost read this book cover to cover, it'll be the first time I've done so with a Hero book, normally I read what interests me at that moment, then flick through it over a lenghth of time. But no, not this baby, it's kinda a fun book, I really like it. Previously I was using GURPS Vehicles for inspiration (it goes into way too much detail occasionally), and the two books should compliment each other wonderfully. Thanks DoJ!

Typical Scotsman! LOL. Trust a Scotsman to get all excited by the word 'pole'. Luckily I wasn't asking about caber-tossing or kilt-twirling!

What modifyer do you think the centre (10 point area?) of an Archery target should have? I think -12 or even a greater penalty. To determine the area of the target hit would depend upon you OCV roll. There would be bonuses for taking time to aim. Would there be bonuses for a stationary target, or would that negate the negative modifyer? Possibly penalties for range. Basically you need to roll a succesful hit to hit the bullseye (10 point area), for each point the roll failed by you are -1 point off the bullseye. So if you miss the bullseye by four, you only hit the (10-4=) 6 point area of the target. Does this seem like a fair system? Obviously experienced/ competitive archers would buy Skill levels in reducing the negative penalty. Darts: What modifyers should the various areas of a dartboard have? How about: Bulseye (50 pts) -10 Outer Bull (25 pts) -8 Any treble -7 pts Any Double -5 Any lower single area -3 pts (This is the area between the treble and the centre) Any upper single area -2 pt (This is the area between the double and the treble) Anywhere on a specific numbered section -1 I am open to suggestions.

How do you determine 'competitive' jumping using Hero rules? An athlete is not neccessarily going to jump the exact inchage as determined be his STR char. I'm thinking of having a houserule that says something along the lines of 'for each + or - 1 to the CHAR-roll (STR or DEX?) you modify the distance jumped by + or - 1/4". ' Does anyone have any other ideas?

Okay, I'm designing an athete based character and I have a few sporting rules related questions. First off, how to do Pole Vaulting? I think it should be extra inches of leaping with an OAF, perhaps also 'only with a suitable surface'. He is probably going to carry a telescopic pole (also usable as a staff for combat purposes). But what I was wondering, is how do you determine the amount of inches? How do you determine how big a pole needs to be to clear a specific height (I'm interested in this because he may have to use objects of oppertunity when he can't use his 'pole')?