bluesguy

I am not trying to start a political argument just provide some historical examples for the campaign.

You can also look at how the USA treated African Americans in the south after the Post Reconstruction period thru mid 60's and how people in the North responded. 

P.S.  It should be noted that people in the North could be just as racist as those in the south but generally were more subtle.  Also people in the North really didn't care until they saw incidents like what happened in Birmingham Ala on their TV sets - especially when the water hoses were turned onto children and teenagers.

Yes I just upped my pledge to get a couple of add-ons.

There is also Hero Combat Manager https://www.herogames.com/viewItem.htm?itemID=314264

I just joined this Kickstarter project.  I love this one.

I am a RAW unless it interferes with the story.  I will hand wave the rules when there is a dramatic moment.  For instance in the Valdorian Age campaign I have been running the party had their final confrontation with their nemesis.  As he died he said  “You think you have killed me. No… no, Darkarus, you can’t get away. From hell’s heart, I stab at thee. For hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee. I will take all of your friends and companions souls with me to hell.” (yeah I like stealing movie lines)  But the bad guy at that point broke his wand.  I made the player playing Darkarus make a magic roll to see if he could convert the energy from the blast into something less damaging that a KA - which he did.  So instead of a 20d6 EB KA AoE - Explosive which would go off in 6 seconds - they dealt with a 20d6 EB AoE Explosive.  Still very dangerous but less likely to just kill everyone that was nearby. 

And that was all done with hand waving to make things dramatic.  Because technically the bad guy was stunned and knocked out by the last blow he took.  And who knows how many active points that explosion would have been.  And how would Darkarus converted a killing attack to a normal attack with just a magic skill roll.   And really who cares ... It was for the drama of it anyway.

Hi,

In Hero Designer there are a number of export templates available.  The ones you need have RTF in the name.  RTF stands for Rich Text Format, which will load into Word.  And if your Hero Designer license is current you can find other export templates that people have created.  You can find that information here http://www.herogames.com/hdExportFormats.htm

In my Champions game most characters have a small % of their character points in skills.  Something like 20% to 25%.  But that is because I run a very episodic Champions campaign and they don't need a bunch of skills to succeed in an adventure.

In my Fantasy Hero game most characters have somewhere between 40 to 60% of their points in skills.  My FH tends to have whole sessions (or a string of sessions) with no combat - lots of role playing and skills play a big part in that role playing.

The Valdorian Age uses a system where anyone using magic (priests or mages) had to pay for it with 'favors' to various otherworldly beings.  At some point those beings call in the favors.  Not paying up could have very dire consequences.

I ended up not using that system in my VA campaign mostly because I didn't want to deal with the book keeping I would have to deal with as a GM and figuring out ways that the players woul d have to pay off their favors.

Super genius/inventor... A'la Tony Stark... And yes I would build an Iron Man suite.  It would also be able to do Telepathy/Mind Control/Mind Scan on computer systems so I could take them over for my own use.

Hero...

The other choice would be a very fast (SPD 6 or 7; DEX 26 or 30), acrobatics, super skills with a sword, lots of presence based of skills and detective skills.  And he would be a hero.

Well I will toot my own horn but I think a GM at a convention would find Hero Combat Manager very helpful because you can remove the 'burden' from the players in tracking the Stun, End, and Body for the PCs by using Hero Combat Manager.  Basically you can teach the players how to do the tracking and then give them the option of tracking it themselves or saying "The software I use to help track the combat allows me to watch the results for your characters in addition to the NPCs.  So if tracking Stun, End and Body is a bit confusing just say so and we will focus on the rest of the system during the game."  

Can you be more specific about the release time frame? Is this suitable for a player tracking his character as well as a GM tracking the combat? 

We are planning to release by the end of Oct.

No the program is not intended for players to track themselves.  That would be a different program that I might create one day.

I am the creator of Hero Combat Manager. I can say with confidence we (myself & Hero) will be announcing the release and sale of Hero Combat Manager in the very near future. You can read about the features here http://davidtannen.com/role-playing-...combat-manager

We are using the 6e rules + hex maps. We just remember that everything in the rules is based on meters and each hex is 2 meters.

KSGuy - funny you should ask because I just sent an email to the beta-testers and play-testers asking them if they think it is ready to be sold. I am waiting on a response from the majority of them.

In my Champions game I posted the following on our Obsidian Portal campaign site http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/north-star-heroes/wikis/character-creation

(Preface - We use 5th ed)One of the things I'm noticing is that it's really hard to balance attack with defense. Players will have a PD/ED of around 4-6' date=' with armor that gives 4-8 rPD/rED, and NPCs much less. But here my PC is with 18 STR, a greatsword, and the Deadly Blow talent. I'm swinging 3d6 HtHKA, and one-shotting every mook I encounter. I'm thinking I overbuilt the character. I'd like to have some good character creation guidelines for my players.[/quote']

 

Good plan. Here is what I did for the campaign I am running now http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/valdorian-age-rising-power-on-the-frontier/wikis/gaming-mechanics-information

 

What I do is look at the max DC for any 'normal weapon' + increases in DC based on added combat skill levels (assuming you have a max number CSL), + increases in DC based on strength and convert that to active points. Then that becomes the maximum active points for any spell in my campaign.

So lets just say the best weapon in your campaign can do 2d6HKA, you have decided that the maximum number of CSL is +4, and the weapon has a strength minimum of 13. The max strength for most fighters is also maxed at 20. So that means that 2d6HKA could get +3 DC, 3d6HKA (if I did my math right). And that translates to 45 active points and I would just decide that the max active points for any magic would be 45 active points.

By RAW recoverable charges should not be recoverable more then once a Day,

 

Can you tell me exactly where you're reading this? Because I'm not finding it.

 

edit: Okay I think I see what you're seeing.

Generally a character

shouldn’t be allowed to use Recoverable Charges

to simulate Charges that return to him on a

quicker than once-per-day basis

That means don't use this for Charges that recover every hour, or at noon and midnight, or on some other cycle shorter than one day (although that does rather leave open the question of how one WOULD simulate such - we have Increased Recovery Time for Charges that take, say, a week to recover, but no Decreased Recovery Time.) It's not saying that the thrown knife, for example, can somehow only be thrown twice in a day (once using the Charge, once using the Recovered Charge, which is what I understand you to be saying is the case.)

 

but many still use it for throwable special weapons (the 1 Recoverable Charges+Lockout combination) like Hawkgirls Mace or Capain. America's Shield.

 

"Throwing knife" is a specific example given in the 6th edition rulebook of Recoverable Charges on page 344, and bow and arrows is used on p 370.

 

However, I do agree that Recoverable Charges is wrong for what the original poster is trying to do.

 

 

Here's my take on it

 

Arcane Retribution: (Total: 96 Active Cost, 25 Real Cost)

Blast 4d6, Personal Immunity (+1/4), Variable Special Effects (Any SFX; +1/2), Variable Advantage (+1 Advantages; +2) (75 Active Points); Increased Endurance Cost (x8 END; -3 1/2), Gestures (-1/4), Incantations (-1/4), Variable Limitations (requires -1/2 worth of Limitations; -1/4) (Real Cost: 14) END cost 56

plus

Endurance Reserve (1 END, 0 REC) Reserve: Restricted Use: Arcane Retribution draws only from this END, this END is only for Arcane Retribution (-1/4) (Real Cost: 1)

plus

Absorption 8 BODY (Magical, END Reserve), Delayed Return Rate (points return at the rate of 5 per 20 Minutes; +1 1/2) (20 Active Points); Limited Power Ignores first 4 BOD (-1) (Real Cost: 10)

 

 

Note, the END reserve with no REC: The only way it gets points is via Absorption. I'm assuming it's acceptable to use "magic" in place of either Physical or Energy, since otherwise it's necessary to buy both and then Limit both.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Absorb Palindromedary

I think we need some clarification: does he has a powerful attack he can only use after being hit often enough?

This is the approach I am taking.

For 2 I too would go the way of a limited attack too. Not certain about recoverable charges:

Well I was thinking that the spell has a 'charge' and the only way it recharges is if the caster is hit by a magical attack equal to the active points to be used as an attack.

if there is any way to safely charge it (being repeatedly hit by 1D6 magical attacks from an ally)

I want to figure out a way to avoid this...

Super Chargeup Blast: 12D6 Energy Blast, Variable Special Effect (+1/4, all magical effects) 75 AP; Can only use 1 DC for each DC he was hit with since Activation/Casting(-X), Other Limitations as fitting for the Magic System (-X).

This is pretty close (most AP than I was planning on having).

Be warned: Absorbing powers even in Superheroic settings can be a thing that works well in Fiction' date=' but not in RPG. And this is for a heroic setting so chances are high that this is a case where it works a lot better in Fiction (including your imagination) then an actual game session. See Rule/Idea 1.

I have a player whose Champions character has Absorption. The character is based on electricity so I made him limit the absorption so it only worked against electrical attacks. The character hasn't been attacked by anyone with an electrical attack - although one time the character did grab to downed electrical lines to build up on heck of a charge :-)

The first Superhero games was ironically Task Force Games Supervillains. The makers of Star Fleet Battles created a role playing game that allowed the players to set up a criminal empire in New York City. There was a list of powers that many comic book fan would recognize, but martial artist and characters with super strength could only inflict one point a damage a turn rather then the other powers 1-4, 1-6, 1-8, 1-12, or even 1-20 die rolls.

 

Champions was my next RPG, and was a quantum leap above anything else I found in character creation. The supplements were of less use because the characters in them were so far above the then 200 Points Character Standard. The key to the Hero System is it's flexibility, which allows the GM and the PCs to create the campaign they want. I haven't found another game system that comes close, and I've tried Villains & Vigilantes (Even got the comic), Superworld, Marvel, and DC.

The key to the Hero System is it's flexibility' date=' which allows the GM and the PCs to create the campaign they want. I haven't found another game system that comes close[/quote']

 

100% agree. And the fact that as a GM and player I can learn one system and play in any genre my mind can imagine is very exciting.

When I bring in new players who have never played Hero I tell them a couple weeks in advance about how the game system works. I tell them about the campaign world. I then tell them to think about a character that will work in that world. Think of the concept/abilities/powers. Think about the character's family, their history, how they became who they are. And then we spend an afternoon building a character (thank you Hero Designer). After that we sit down and go over the character sheet.

Last but not least we practice how to roll for skills and some combat. Then when they first start playing I put them between two players who know the system well - especially the combat part - to help them along. So far I have taught five people who are either totally new to RPG or new to Hero how to play. We have been having fun.

Here is the way I want this spell to work. I am open to suggestions on how to construct this power.

A mage with this spell will cast it before a battle. As the mage is attacked by magic, the spell 'absorbs' the magic and builds up very large amount of arcane energy. When the mage wants she can release the arcane energy as blast of energy. The mage can cause the arcane energy to take the form of many energy forms (fire, lightning, air, etc - variable SFX) and can adjust the effects so that it can impact a single individual, an area, go past objects (i.e. variable advantage), etc.

One approach I was thinking about was basically a set of linked effects. Starting with a 4d6EB, 1 charge only recharges under special circumstances (mage hit by so much body of damage), trigger. And then allow the mage to buy more d6EB with the same approach.

Any other ideas?

I want to stress how useful the HeroDesigner software is. Nothing can kill enthusiasm for a character faster than having to juggle point costs, which is something the software calculates for you automatically. One of my very first Champions characters (back before they called it the Hero System) used a fire Elemental control and, when I was 15 and trying to build it, the cost juggling almost made me want to throw the idea away. Thankfully the 3rd edition we were using had an early DOS version of the software that made it 100 times easier. Now the software makes character sheets that are compact, readable, and have all the pertinent information for your character (background, combat modifiers, what phases they act in, and even a picture to add flavor). Plus you can easily make changes to the sheet without having to re-pencil in the entire power or erase things to make them fit.

 

Also, as an added thing to post 2, if you're looking for awesome miniatures to represent your characters in the game, I suggest stuff from the Heroclix minis game. I had a ton of them from way back and they really help make the game board easier to keep track of and look 10 times more badass. Likewise, I came up with the notion to use a white board and dry erase markers to use for a changeable battle map. It's a clean, unobtrusive way to sketch out the fight arenas and add obstacles that you can change at will. Finally, most smart phones have some kind of dice roller app (i found one for the Hero system that calculates body and stun damage on the iPhone) that can be helpful if you're GMing and you don't want to calculate a bunch of attacks on the fly.

 

Have Fun!

Let me see... In the adventures I have run for my Champions group there have been:

• One low level supervillain working with a street gang doing a smash and rob. Very easy for the players. They took out the super pretty quickly and then the street gang pretty much gave up.
  
• The Wrecking Crew (a'la Marvel) who had broken into a local nuclear power plant to steal some radioactive material. These guys were very annoying for the players until they realized the trick was to keep them far away since they didn't have many ranged attacks.
  
• Two supervillain brothers who were trying to corner the local gasoline market. Gentlemen villains/robber barons.
  
• Mercenary supervillain and his merry band of men who tried to steal pirate treasure from a local museum. The supervillain was French and he had to steal a kiss from each of the female superheroes... . In fact he would have gotten away if he hadn't done that but it was in his personality. Later some of his personal mercs broke him out the prison van on the way to Stronghold.
  
• Mercenary band of female supervillains - smash and grab types. Steal lots of loot - especially armored cars. Then travel someplace and go shopping. They happened to be shopping in Mall of America here in the Twin Cities and the players were there that day.
  
• A bloodthirsty 'godling' who wants to return to full power. He had killing attacks and used them all over the place. His minions also had plenty of nasty attacks as well.
  

Christopher: All other groups have already established ways of tracking combat - otherwise they would have had to give up using Combat or playing Hero altogether. And people are reluctant to leave an established way for a unknown program

 

You do make a fair point. People who have developed other techniques for tracking combat may not find this program useful at all. I would guess the same could be said of Hero Designer. People had spreadsheets or just did it by hand. I know when I first started playing Champions - when the game first came out - we just used the character sheets and calculators to build our characters. I also used mini-sheets with 10 NPC fodder characters per sheet in page protectors when there was some kind of combat that needed lots of numbers.

 

When I restarted RPG two years ago, I also started out using a spreadsheet to track combat. After a while I got frustrated and started down the path, where we are at today.

 

Finally a quote from one of my beta-testers. He has been using the program since Jan. This is something he sent me in May when I was about to say 'screw this': Anyway, on the whole, I think the program is a useful tool that speeds up my games. Yes, it could be flashier or more user-friendly, but even as it stands I would not prefer to play without it! With the help of the beta-testers I have already recruited I know that the UI is more useful.