steph

Why are you whispering ?

I always found averaging out the PCs CV and Defenses helps to keep a game balanced. If I know a group of six players have heroes with an average CV 6 and Defenses 15, I have a  rough idea to give an opponent a similar CV (or higher if I want to challenge the PCs), and an appropriate damage roll (like a 5d6 vs. Def 15, or higher for a challenging encounter). 

As far as keeping the CV in line with the examples, I find them more like guidelines. I might bump it a bit higher as the PCs gain more Experience, or allow for specific Levels. Things like Martial Arts tend to balance themselves at times. Gaining a +X OCV sometimes has a -Y DCV. So while it might easier to hit a foe, it also leaves the hero open to another attack. 

I think the Tonton Macoute played it in Haiti years ago but other than that....

I can help you do you have a discord ?

It occurs to me that being able to invent new powers for a VPP on the fly in game is a very nice feature, whereas requiring that all VPP powers be predefined, approved and on the character sheet before game is actually a limitation on the VPP. Would you agree that taking (or having it required to be taken) the titular limitation aught be worth a -1/4 limitation on the control costs of a VPP?

1. Depends on the campaign and what I think is suitable for it.
2. In my current campaign I am not "excluding" any, but some maneuvers you need a familiarity with to use. Examples: Hipshot, Unarmed block, Multiple attack all require familiarity (1 point skill, like a weapon familiarity).
3. If I am using hit locations, no. You want to simulate hitting a vulnerable spot when using hit locations, call a shot. If I am not using hit locations, usually yes. Although I tend to favor the Offensive Haymaker rule on 6e2, 69.
4. Generally, no. If the campaign does not have a standard "Spell" limitation, I would consider it. That is where I usually build in things like not using haymaker. I do sometimes allow a player to "push" a spell in extraordinary situations.
 
- E

I personally don't often ask for a roll when a spell is cast. If the conditions are good ... I ask for a roll in a stressful situation (Combat per example) So there is no penalty per se because the consequence of stress situations is a roll.
 
Steph

In my youth I did play in a short but delightful campaign set in my native Montreal. For those unfamiliar with the city, it's a nearly unique blend of Old World charm and New World vibrancy. I tend to think of it as a cross between Paris and Manhattan. It remains very prominent in commerce, science, transportation, education, entertainment and culture, and international affairs. It's internationally famous for modern urban design; yet with many preserved structures and whole neighborhoods from up to 300 years ago, Montreal is also fertile ground for plots mysterious or mystical. One of its more intriguing features is its "world without weather," a system of 20 miles of tunnels and walkways connecting hotels, restaurants, retailers, universities, subway stations, and more, under the heart of the city.

I make the players track END because the GM already has too much to do. 
 
That said, during character creation I make the players figure out how much END they use each Turn on average (typically half move, attack, and possibly an active defense power).  Initially we did that to gauge how many Turns they could last before exhausting themselves so that they would be sure to have enough END to last through the average combat.  But now they often track END by Turn instead of by Phase, adjusting up if they used a high END ability one Phase or down if they just Dodged or something.  I am not sure that is always easier, but some find it simpler to deal with.

Pretty much how I do it.
 
As for English, my wife says I butcher it. And as Duke, it’s my one and only language. 

Most of my,groups have been,playing for years.
 
My,youth group is fairly,new, though.
 
I tracked it for them until they more or less,inderstood it, but they were being so careful and meticulous that it qas dragging the game a bit.
 
I posted this a while back, but cant find it now, but heres the vervlbal:
 
Quite by accident I found some thin metal rulers about 18 inches long.  They had a slit up the center, and one side was graduated into cm and mm.
 
I bought six of those and some brass brads and made little sliders.  Not only did it make teackinf EanD kind of amusinf for them (1 END was 1 mm ), I could tell at a glance roughly where everyone was at on their END.
 
Granted, it only tracked 45 END, but with the characters in play and the scenarios at hand, it worked remarkably well.
 
 
And dont sweat language.  English is my first and only,language, but look what I just did to it.   
 
 

I personally don't often ask for a roll when a spell is cast. If the conditions are good ... I ask for a roll in a stressful situation (Combat per example) So there is no penalty per se because the consequence of stress situations is a roll.
 
Steph

Logically there should be combat penalties, but I never use them for a couple reasons.  First, it just makes combat that much more complicated and slow, and that is the last thing combat needs.
 
Second, most of my players buy up their skill roll to a point they are comfortable with.  If they want to have a 15 or less success chance typically, they buy the skill roll up that high.  If as GM I typically impose a penalty of -2 in combat, they will just buy it up to 17 or less to compensate, so really it just becomes an additional expense spell casters have to take, and one that will probably just irritate them.
 

Long term endurance. 
 
If you keep doing something long term your end isn't going to recover as fast. So you march non-stop for 2 days or cast that spell for 12 hours straight.

No. For the simple reason that there is no justification for doing so. Multiple attacks already has specific effects that are fairly complicated and trying to add in "coordinating with myself" just seems like something for nothing or a way to get around campaign maximums for AP. If a player wanted that effect I would just have them buy extra dice of the attack power with an additional RAR to represent the attack or coordination rolls. Then they have at least paid for the power.
 
Yes, I do. I also use LTE, but generally I track it rather than forcing the players to do so.
 
- E

I did this a lot way back when (before 1e Champions, let alone any other Hero system game!)
 
Obviously conventional adventuring doesn't happen, or only does so as a change of pace.
 
If something like that is necessary, delegation is often possible, but naturally your character has to delegate to people they can trust. And sometimes your character has to be there in person... that's when their faces get melted.

I had one campaign which started out that all three players wanted to be a lost princess who was heir to a throne but didn't know it.
 
I told each of them, separately because they didn't know each other's backstory, that I'd allow it but that we were never going to play out the scenario where they discovered their true identity and took the throne.
 
They were each satisfied with that. They just wanted the private satisfaction of knowing they were princesses.
 
I came up with vague plans on eventually running them through a series of kingdoms which each had fables of a lost princesses but we never got that far.
 
I never really had other campaigns where PC's could be considered royalty. Other than maybe some dwarves since most everyone in many of the kingdoms were at least distantly related to the ruling family. But that didn't really have any special privilege. 
 
I guess a character could have said, "You can't execute me! I'm related to the royal family!" and it would have held up under a Truth spell. But I don't recall anything like that coming up.
 
 
As for ideas, if you aren't adventuring at home, you're going to be on the road probably a long distance to someone else's kingdom, duchy, or whatever.
 
1) Escort Mission: You owe them gold or a part of your harvest and have to get the delivery on time. Or delivering a prize stallion or bull to stud.
 
2) Escort Mission: You're delivering a distant relation to their wedding. Or maybe exchanging hostages to ensure a peace.
 
3) Traveling to a tournament. Jousting, sword-fighting, archery, feasting, and lots of beautiful local ladies (or willing peasant boys/girls). Typical road hazards. Getting mugged on the way home if you won a prize.
 
4) If you can't deliver High Justice yourself (death penalty), you'd have to take prisoners in question to the capital. Escape attempts and rescue attempts. Or maybe you're the one both being the escort and needing to arrange the escape unnoticed and unblamed.
 
5) Harvest festivals or high religious holidays where you need to get out of your home and go into the city.
 
6) A sickness or plague forces you to travel to locate a rare medicine or herb. Or to get one particular priest who knows how to heal the malady.
 
7) Hunting season. You could go with individual hunts for meat or organized boar hunts bringing in your rich and fancy peers for feasting.
 
8 ) Showing the flag. If you don't make the rounds regularly to the villages under your care, they'll feel both neglected and frisky. That'll make them unwilling/unready to show up as peasant militia and make them prone to things like poaching and not taking care of the roads/bridges.
 
 
Um, I find political intrigue less than interesting. 
 
Religious people would need to make the rounds to collect local tithes to bring back to the central church. Recruitment of willing volunteers who appear intelligent enough to learn to read/write. Escorting priests to their new assignments. Reassigning priests who appear to have "gone native" and are sympathizing more with the nobles or people under their care than with the church. Assessing aged priests to see if they're still capable or if they've gone senile enough to become an embarrassment. Assessing new religions which sprout up to see if they're becoming a threat and/or whether they can be co-opted. Watching over church businesses (which usually accrue as people have donated properties to the church over the centuries). Watching over new construction projects.

Done it. It worked pretty well, but it takes a player that can plan, take a long term view, and for people that are comfortable with a hands off approach.  It’s not for everyone, but it does work. A good scenario is sending princes on a diplomatic mission to another country.  

Caps are good. They help shape a character's capabilities when they first start, and won't let one character outshine another.
 
However, in my games I remove the initial caps once the game starts and use a new set of caps that characters have to build to.
 
I tend to think in terms of how "powerful" or how much "epic scope" I'd like the game to have.
 
For example, this is how I think of combat competency among characters: a normal NPC will have a CV of 3, on the average, 2 if they are incompetent or just not focused on combat (not everybody is). A trained soldier may have +1 or +2 to their combat value. A veteran who keeps herself in shape might have +3 or +4. Where do your PCs fall into that range? Are they regular people? Are they heroic characters that outshine, outsmart, out-spell, and out-fight a common man?
 
Based on this I see initial PC combat values between 6 to 9. Armor values I keep in the normal range, but add the possibility of extraordinary materials or enchantments, as usual. This often comes to between 3 to 8, sometimes higher. Damage is by weapons + skill + talent, plus enchantment where present, to a regular 5 to 9 DC. 
 
And if these PC stats are the heroic level, what is the epic level? What is the demi-god level? And at what level should an antagonist be at to present a challenge to the PCs? (Especially if you are considering a solo opponent.)
 
In my perspective, these fantasy characters, at 175 points (6th Ed.) are strong PCs, roughly the equivalent of 7th to 9th level characters in D&D.
 
Of course, these are my preferences. You may not be running the same type of game I am. Your mileage may vary. I am merely presenting a different point of view to bounce your ideas off.

This is actually quite interesting. At first I agreed with IndianaJoe, Then my opinion changed to agree with Lonewolf, but now thinking about it, and re-reading the Stealth listing in the Ultimate Skill, I think something a little different from both. 
 
First, though, and in general, I would go with Lonewolf's suggestion of just applying the bonus to the player and move along, keep it simple and quick. 
 
But... if realism and/or more detail is required, then I think it would actually be like this...
 
The Stealthy character gets no bonus from the darkness. Why? Because darkness doesn't actually effect "his personal ability with the skill" being dark or light out doesn't change how silently he is moving or where he is moving from and to. In fact, darkness might make being stealthy even harder. he might step on a dry branch or trip or startle a cat or somethin else he can't see in the darkness. Darkness only effects the NPC's chance to notice the Player, not the Player's skill at being stealthy. 
 
So, I would give no bonus to the player for the darkness, he/she would just make a normal skill roll (or if I was being extra nitpicky, maybe even one with a negative modifier because the darkness effects them as well) and the npc guards would have -2 to their Perception rolls because the darkness makes it harder for them to see the character. 
 
Things that would effect a players stealth roll would be how fast or slow they are moving, how large or small they are, how much they are carrying, if they are wearing metal armor and swords, or in robes and barefoot, etc... those things directly effect the Player's skill and ability. 
 
As for the second issue brought up of Infrared vison vs Stealth (at night) I agree with Archer on this (sorry Lonewolf), and although the rules do say Stealth works against all senses in goes on to say to use common sense, etc... and even goes so far as to say that a person can't use stealth to hide their scent from a watchdog unless they take time and make preparations to do so (by covering themselves in something that would block their scent). I think this would apply to Infrared vison as well. A person can't just hide their body temperature by being stealthy. They would have to do something ahead of time to do that. Like in Predator where the Predator always can see the heat signatures of the heroes, until Arnold covers himself in wet mud and disguises his heat signature, so then he can use this stealth to sneak around. This would be the same for a Fantasy Hero game vs Infrared or Thermal vision that some species have. Does that make things a lot harder for players? Yes. But it also makes it easier for the players who have infrared or thermal vision when they stand guard, so it balances out a bit.  
 
So if an NPC has Infrared vision and is standing guard looking out across an empty field at night, then any living character who hasn't found a way to hide his/her body temperature is going to stand out and be almost impossible to miss (unless the guard is distracted somehow). But counter to that, if that same guard was guarding a temple in a hot, tropical jungle during the day, I might give him negative modifiers to spot the player(s) because there are so many powerful heat sources around that the players might not even show up or at very least completely blend in. 
 
Edited because more thoughts came to me...
 
Technically, if we actually look at the physics and reality of being stealthy in the situation described in the original post and apply all the rules (from the ultimate skill book) we would probably want the player and guards to make two rolls each. One for SIGHT and one for SOUND. And we would get: 
 
Player has Stealth of 13-, he is sneaking across a port so the ground would be hard (+0) and normal shoes (+0) and we assume walking slowly (+2 vs SOUND & SIGHT) and there being some boxes and crates for cover (+1 vs SIGHT), but then because of the darkness I might give them -1 (to SOUND, because they have to be extra careful not to knock over somethin or trip over a loose rope or a missing plank, or such); giving them a stealth roll of 15- (or if going  detailed, a Stealth roll vs SIGHT of 16- and vs SOUND of 14-)
 
The Guards on Duty, experienced and Strong Knights so lets say they have a PER of 13-, with +1 PER for Sight. They get -2 for the darkness (vs SIGHT) and I would give a environmental modifier of -1 (vs SOUND) for the lapping of the water at the port, so they would have a PERCEPTION Roll of 11- (or getting very detailed, 12- vs SIGHT and 12- vs SOUND).
 
So in "normal" level of play there would be a 4 point difference between the Player and the Guards, Stealth 15- vs PER 11-, but in a detailed game the odds swing a bit to 16- vs 12- (still a 4 point spread) and 14- vs 12- (only a 2 point spread).
 
But I don't know if I'd ever want or need to get that detailed and time consuming for a stealth roll and would most of the time stick to Player's 15- vs Guards 11- (especially since there are 5 guards, giving the bad guys 5 times to try and succeed.)
 
 
 

Personally I would not give the players a bonus and the guards a penalty for the same thing.   The penalty to perception for darkness is only for sight.  Perception includes all the senses not just sight.  Did you also include modifiers for other senses besides sight?  If the area is quite the guard’s get a +3 bonus to hear the character, if they are downwind they get a +1 bonus to smell the character.  Make the area noisy and the guards now have another penalty, if they are upwind that is still another penalty.
 
What I would probably is to give the bonus to the character instead of imposing a penalty on the guards.  With an opposed roll how much the character makes the roll by is the penalty to the other person roll.  You could also say that if the guards miss by 2 they are aware there is something out there, but don’t actually see him.  Maybe they heard something moving around, but because of the darkness they did not see him.  
 
I disagree with Archer about the infrared vision.  Stealth covers all senses, but I would not give them the bonus for darkness since if they are have something to counter it.  

Personally, I have never granted Weapon Master in my sessions. I have always found talent a clone of DND. To simulate people skilled at weapons I stick to more, OCV, CSL or martial arts. 
 
 
 

Blocking is quite common in the group I game with.  I suspect the reason your players are not blocking is they are not familiar enough with the system.  Hero system is a very complex combat system with a lot of options Players from games like the D&D often don’t take advantage of the tactics it allows.  I guarantee if your players went up against the players from my group they would get slaughtered.  
 
Proper use of blocking often depends on using the SPD chart to your advantage.  This works very well if your SPD is different than the opponents.  It works if you are faster or slower than your opponent.
 
If you are faster than your opponent blocking is a good way to recover from an all-out offensive maneuver.  If you are going in a phase when your opponent does not you put everything into taking them down Use maneuvers that give you a bonus to attack and damage, but penalize your DCV.  This type of attack has a high chance of taking down the target, but leaves you exposed. After the attack is over and you are about to be attacked you abort your next phase to block.  This also allows you to adjust your skill levels as needed.  Most of the time your will put them into OCV to increase your chance of blocking, but sometimes putting them to DCV is better.  Since you can continue to block at a -2 penalty per attack you can keep going over multiple phases.  Eventually you will reach a phase where you are going and no one is attacking you.  At this point you simply repeat the process over again.  With this tactic you can safely take down a lot of opponents with minimal to no damage to yourself.
 
You can also reverse the strategy for someone who is faster than you.  Use block to avoid his attacks until you have an opening and then take advantage of the opening.  If you are still being attacked after your big attack, go back to blocking until your next opening comes up.
 
Dodge can also be used the same way.  The idea is to create an opening that allows you to attack your enemy without endangering yourself.  
 

Hey Steph, sorry, didn't see your question.
 
I am the fighter of the group, the tank (subclass 'brute'), with one level in forge cleric so he can run a bless and identify stuff. He's a mountain dwarf that kicks some serious ass. He is second son to a highly respected dwarven master smith, wealthy enough to be considered minor nobility. Sadly his older brother shall inherit their manor/forge, so Wode started adventuring so as to work up the capital to pay for his own forge. Then we started putting pieces together about shit going down with chaos cults, the undead, demons, etc., and he diverted his cash hoarding into magic item stacking. We've been very successful coming up with valuable loot and have used that to kit ourselves out fairly well, usually by selling it and commissioning custom magic items. Our druid caster recently acquired a wand of fireballs which is making short work of trash, while Wode confronts bosses.
 
Other than Wode, we have a trickster rogue crossbow expert played by a player with an active mind. He's a gnome who tries to masquerade as a halfling. We have a Circle of the Land druid that is the least appropriate, least combat capable character that likely could exist in a city bound campaign, but she just got that wand of fireballs, so... Finally we have a Life Cleric, another mountain dwarf, who has followed my lead with regards to kit, and has almost the same AC. He can stand the line with Wode, and combining Spirit Guardians, Spiritual Weapon, and his morning star, is often enough the star of the show.
 
I created the Fantasy Hero version of Wode for giggles, and is the first character I posted in a series of characters in this thread. The background was changed so he could fit more generically into other people's games, as either a PC or an NPC.
 
Our game has been running a good two years so far. We are level seven now, and deeply involved in figuring out what is going on with the various factions, and interfering in their nefarious plans. We have made friends, as well as earned the enmity of some powerful enemies. Wode's family manor which is a small stone fortress carved into a mountain side in Old Town, has become both our stronghold and the scene of many encounters. 

In my opinion the big presence of a troll is for make presence attack only .... A troll has nothing charming or nothing very tempting to want to converse with. So Charm or conversation or High Society does not work with his presence on the contrary.
 
Troll presence +15 (Only to make presence attack -1) real cost 8
 
Steph