Chris Goodwin

Re: Recamended Reading I read the Belgariad in high school (~20 years ago). I tried to read the Malloreon shortly afterward, but never made it through. Some other bits of recommended reading: * The Misplaced Legion and series by Harry Turtledove. A Roman legion and the Celtic army it is sent to battle are transported to another universe (built along Byzantine lines) with magic. * The Ethshar novels by Lawrence Watt-Evans. Middle-High Fantasy, light in parts, somewhat gritty in parts. The Misenchanted Sword and With A Single Spell are both marvelous. * Operation Chaos by Poul Anderson. Alternate Earth with magic. Begins around the time of World War II and ends in the mid-60's, approximately. The sequel, Operation Luna, is worth reading if you're a completist, but it's not an absolute necessity.

Re: Priority Character Creation Meta-System Ok then. Bottom line is, if the players are having fun, and you're having fun, then don't change anything.

Re: Priority Character Creation Meta-System (Emphasis above mine.) Players don't like to lose, and they have to fight to the end. Retreating is an admission of defeat, and most players won't do it. And if you build villains on more points, they're going to optimize and optimize some more to keep up. Question: Do the PCs ever win? In other words, do they ever, after a hard fight, drag the unconscious villains tied up to the police station? Or do the villains always teleport away, with or without achieving their objective? I'm going to guess no to the former and yes to the latter. I'm also going to guess that, while the players enjoy the roleplaying, they don't really get a chance to win or achieve objectives while doing it. It doesn't really settle any issues, but is just talk-talk until the combat happens, sort of a side track so to speak. If you want the PCs to concentrate on roleplaying, reward it by making the combats less important, and the roleplaying more important. Let them win in combat, small frequently, or big occasionally. Let them beat the villains unconscious and throw 'em to the cops. You can always have 'em released on a technicality, or have them escape either with or without outside help. I'll bet also that your players would throw a fit if you had one PC knocked unconscious and kidnapped, or if you took away one PC's powers but kept putting him up against the villains anyway. How many times in the comics was Batman knocked out and hung over an acid trap or whatever, and how many times had Superman lost his powers, but kept fighting the villains anyway because he's the hero and that's what heroes do? These are great roleplaying opportunities, perfectly in genre, but players throw fits over them because that means losing. This is completely a side issue, though.

Re: Do all Gm's use the Skill roll for magic? To me it gives the feel of something that you can learn how to do, but like KS said it's by no means mandatory.

Re: Mobility II: Entangle & Flash I would say that, assuming you were going to treat mobility as if it were a sense, there would be no need to use it in anything other than an Entangle. The effect you're looking for would be better done with an Entangle, Suppress All Movement, or Drain All Movement with a Limitation to the effect that it wears off instantly when any movement comes back.

Re: Buying off Disadvantages with Limitations It's not specifically permitted anywhere in the rules, but it's not specifically prohibited either. I say go for it.

Re: Priority Character Creation Meta-System It seems to me that this is where the issue is. If all you give the players is combat, they're going to optimize their characters for combat. If what they want is lots of combat, and you're giving it to them, then you're not doing anything wrong... but if what they want is lots of combat, and you're forcing them to build their characters in a more balanced fashion, then you are doing something wrong. The other reason they could be optimizing their characters for combat is if your villains are so completely optimized for it that in order to stay competitive they have to do the same. In that case, even though you're giving them lots of opportunities for roleplaying, they're missing out because they feel like they need to be point-optimized combat machines to have a hope of competing with your villains. The thing to do in that case is to tone down the combat worthiness of the villains. (You do build them to the same restrictions you're applying to the PCs, right?)

Re: Autofire as Accuracy Booster This is what I was apparently implying in my posting above. I'll make it more obvious.

Re: Priority Character Creation Meta-System I don't believe many, if any at all, players make characters by just "putting piles of points together semi-randomly". You can't really create a character in HERO without some kind of concept in mind before you start, whether you start with a fully fleshed out persona, a fantasy or superheroic archetype, a name, a costume, or even a gimmick ("I want a guy who is an eagle eye and a dead shot with a sniper rifle!" or "I want to drive the cool van!"). I don't think such a thing is necessary.

Re: Autofire as Accuracy Booster Why not do something like this: buy CSLs, +4 OCV with Autofire Attack, Each +1 Is Treated As One Shot (-1/2). The Limitation means that (a) each +1 uses up one shot from the burst, so you could do 4 shots at +1, 3 at +2, down to 1 at +4, and ( each +1 used uses one Charge. So you could also do 1 shot at +1 OCV costing two Charges (effectively firing 2 shots). Feel free to alter the Limitation value I used; that was just an example. You could also change the number of shots or alter it however you want; you could do 10 shot Autofire with +4, each +1 is two shots, or whatever other way you wanted.

Re: "Mobility" as an Adder <---- I think I see what you're saying. You could use Entangle to by default either prevent mobility or stop a sense. I don't see that it's necessary to alter Entangle in this way, but if you want to run it that way, go for it.

Re: "Mobility" as an Adder I take part of that back; Steve does allow for SFX. Unless you want the mechanical effect provided by Entangle that is bought Stops A Given Sense. To me, the original description fits the Entangle that Stops A Given Sense more closely than it does Flash. I can think of at least one other Power in which a Limitation is used to negate one of the fundamental aspects of the Power to create a particular effect, which is official and listed in FREd. Limiting the "entangleness" of Entangle is perfectly valid for simulating other kinds of Entangle effects. In particular, the example in FREd of Handcuffs limits the Entangle to "Hands Only", which would not limit the character's mobility. There are other SFX of Entangle that don't require embedding a target in a substance. Overall, I don't believe anything about Entangle or the system in general prohibits using it in this manner. YMMV, and if you're the GM, run it your own way.

Re: Autofire as Accuracy Booster Are you asking about adding a rule, or are you talking about buying extra OCV with limitations?

Re: "Mobility" as an Adder

Re: "Mobility" as an Adder Considering that Entangle has been a valid construction for something like this for at least 20 years (3rd edition came out in 1984) I think that, based on the description of the effect and the descriptions of Flash vs. Entangle, Entangle would be a better choice.

Re: "Mobility" as an Adder Or it is an Entangle with Blocks Sight, which has existed as far back as third edition.

To be a Hero fan on RPG.net, you have to either have or grow a thick skin. Either live with that fact or save yourself an ulcer and don't read RPG.net.

Try a couple of additional rules: 1. If you're behind cover, take -2 OCV. 2. Make an EGO roll to come out from behind cover. 3. Make an EGO roll to shoot someone, unless you have actually taken Psych Lim: Casual Killer on your character sheet. 4. Every segment you're not behind cover, there's a 5- chance you'll be hit; roll 3d6 for location and use the enemy's standard battle weapon for damage. Increase this by +1 if they outnumber you, +1 additional for every 2x; their platoon sergeant's Tactics roll is complimentary, while your PSG's Tactics roll reduces it in an anti-complimentary fashion. This is not something you see coming, so you don't get a Dodge. Or adapt the mass combat rules to modern day weapons. Note: These are all for infantry soldiers on the front lines. Elite troops are treated as normal.

I usually use Clairsentience for stuff like this.

The basic effect of holding your breath is that you don't get to take recoveries, plus you expend a minimum of one END per Phase. So do up a Suppress REC (perhaps make it NND, the defense being Self Contained Breathing), along with perhaps an END Drain (also NND, same defense), Standard Effect, Continuous, worked enough to get to the point where it reduces the target's END by 1 on each of the target's Phases. Per normal rules, the target could reduce his SPD to reduce the effects of the END Drain. Add a Limitation to the Drain that it comes back at the rate of the target's REC (because there really isn't any way to reduce the target's END as if he were using it, no END Damage rule), and another to the effect that it doesn't take effect if the target expends END. On the other hand, this is just replicating the Holding Breath rules; it has nothing to do with making the target unable to breathe (in other words, Holding Breath assumes he has a lungful of oxygen, while a no-breath Power might be an NND). Use your judgement. For an NND attack, unless it was bought Continuous I'd likely rule that it only does its damage on the first Phase it is applied, and that on subsequent Phases it acts as a choking attack rather than doing its NND effect. YMMV.

It all depends on whether you're about strict adherence to the rules or whether you're about having fun and making the game work for you.

If you are playing teh d02, you just rite "teh lassers yuo shoots to send teh messages!!!!1" on ur cahracter sheet.

Modern fighter pilots are all officers. Apparently, though, in the modern US Army, NCOs can command and drive tanks. This resulted in some assumption shock when I (an AF veteran) was playing Battletech Hero with a guy who was an Army veteran. I built a character who was a lieutenant, expecting to be at the bottom of the pecking order, and ended up getting put in command (which I didn't want). Unfortunately I don't have any of the notes we used, or I'd post them. I'll dig out and post some of my (3rd edition Hero) characters if anyone would like to see what they looked like. Edit: This article might help you some, though it is based on GURPS rather than Hero.

For the time stop power, buy Extradimensional Movement, to the "time stop" dimension (where time in the real world is stopped in relation to it). Buy your Strength, your senses, and all of your attacks Transdimensional to the real world. (Note: by "real world" I mean the real world of the game.)

Just buy your Physical Limitation: Blindness as All The Time, Slightly Limiting, or Greatly if you don't feel like that's too much. Blindness that does not provide combat penalties is by definition not Fully Limiting.