Chris Goodwin

Stat inflation is literally caused by PCs losing. All the villains are DEX 18? Don't expect to see PCs with less than 19. Villains are SPD 3? Everyone builds characters with SPD 4. And so on. If you don't want your players building characters with inflated stats, give most of their villains lower stats. And make sure that when they do face someone who is higher, that the stakes are higher and that they know that this is an extra special fight. (Reminds me of the guy who posted once saying "All of my players build characters with resistant defenses whether it's in concept or not." If all of the villains, even the thugs, have killing attacks, then yeah all of the characters are going to have rDEF.)

If the story required Buffy to win, she would win. It's more likely that they would do the stereotypical "fight until they realize they're on the same side" thing.

Following up my own posting. Something I can't believe I forgot to mention is that Buffy is in a different medium from Batman. Buffy is pretty clearly a television superhero (Champions 5th edition pp. 15-16) with everything that implies, including an effects budget. Scale the Dark Knight's character sheet down in accordance with those guidelines, and tell me when TV Batman reaches season 7. (No, not fair to compare Batman after umpty-hundred issues with Buffy and seven seasons.) Of course, if we really wanted to be fair, we could compare Buffy to Adam West.... stop choking and gagging, folks. Anyway, to follow up one of the things I mentioned in my previous posting, when Buffy meets Batman, who wins depends on exactly the factor I mentioned, namely what does the story require? Note that in the interminable discussions involving Batman's power level, it comes out that in one issue with one writer he is challenged by three thugs, while in another issue with another writer he mops up on guys who are clearly superior power-wise. (Buffy has been in the same boat once or twice as I recall.)

Buffy is superhuman. I'm not certain why you (Chuckg) are claiming she's so low powered. I'm not going to claim that therefore she must have DEX higher than 20, but she's certainly not limited to 20. And I'm definitely not certain why you are saying she's unskilled. It's not like we don't ever see scenes of her training, and she's got a hell of a lot of combat experience under her belt. Unskilled, my foot. I think that where this all breaks down is this: How tough is Buffy? How fast is she? The answer is exactly as tough or as fast as is needed by the story. The writers don't sit around with Buffy's character sheet going "Okay, her STR is 30, so she can do this much damage, so she knocks out that vampire there, but she's only DEX 20 and SPD 4 so this other vampire gets to whack on her..." You also seem to be postulating a level of consistency in fight choreography that might not be there. If they could consistently show differences in power level, it might be a little different, but their abilities to choreograph the fight scenes are pretty subjective, and differ greatly based on who is directing and even writing the episode, who the stunt people are, how much of the fight the actor is doing herself, who exactly is directing the choreography, and so on. The best that you can really do here is pull numbers out of your ass, just like everyone else is doing. So, for the game, you figure out where you want to put Buffy and give her numbers to match. Your benchmark should change depending on whether you're statting her out for the Buffyverse or for the Champions Universe or for some hypothetical crossover with Batman. And no, I won't ever, not in a million years, buy that Foxbat is physically equal to or tougher than Buffy. Not ever.

This is permitted in 5th edition. I don't have a page number for you, but it is in there. However, Hero Designer does not support it, and Dan Simon has stated that it will not.

I totally agree with you here, and in fact think this should be extended to Side Effects as well. If your Side Effects only happen on 17 or 18, you shouldn't get -1 for them no matter how hard they hit you.

I would improve Hero by trying to figure out what is the heart of the Hero System, and paring everything else away.

I don't know if I'd make the Proton Pack with Affects Desolid. Instead, I'd make it a campaign requirement that all ghosts have Proton Beams as their Desolidification Vulnerability. I'm not sure how you'd do a ghost trap. I'd say Transform before I'd do the funky Entangle/Shrinking combo, but EDM would work as well.

Discussion of the software aside, there's never a reason not to buy full SPD to even multiples of 10, with additional SPD bought No Figured Characteristics. The points come out exactly the same as if you'd bought down fractional SPD.

No, we don't "have" to do anything. Dan, the whole point of roleplaying is that there are no Game Police telling us what we "have" to do. And Dan, I have to ask you this. How much time have you wasted defending your decisions on the boards here that you wouldn't have wasted had you not programmed blind obedience to your interpretation of the rules into the system? Include in that time the amount of time you've wasted explaining the software to people who find that a certain feature doesn't work as they expect, again because of that blind obedience to the rules. (And I can recall a few times when your interpretation was incorrect, and there is at least one rule that is not even implemented.) Would all of that time been worth doing it differently from the beginning?

I have bought it, but I find it of limited use. It requires baroque constructions for things like what you mentioned, and with the sheer number of workarounds required for things like that I find that there is a point of diminishing returns. Once the amount of work I have to do by hand reaches a certain level, it's no longer worth it to me to use the software, because it takes even more work to get the software to accept it.

It is sufficiently baroque that I have house-ruled in my games that you can buy down fractional points of SPD. Also, whether you buy DEX as NFC or whether you buy down fractional SPD, you pay exactly the same amount of points.

On the Pyramid boards they call it Hurting Wrong Fun. "How can anyone be having fun with such an inferior system? I mean, honestly!"

What are the conditions for regaining reliability? Do these conditions restore one step or to full? How often do you anticipate the players using them? (Answer: If they're simple, after every jump.) Probably not more than -0 unless to restore reliability is very complicated, takes a long time, and only restores one step.

Back in the day, I was the master of abusing the no-limit VPP. I'm not saying don't do it; there is rules precedent (3rd edition VPPs worked this way). It's just that you'll have guys who will manage to totally screw over your plots no matter how carefully you try to stop it with rules (10d6 Aid to Magic Skill? Sure, I can get that down to 5 Real Points. After that my skill will be high enough to throw that 150d6 RKA....). You'll be using the word "No" a lot, and at some point the players are going to get tired of hearing it, no matter how unreasonable their requests are.

Okay, so this isn't a big thorny Great Debate, but..... No Temperature Level 0. The Temperature Level system would work great if there were a temperature level 0. Otherwise, a guy resting in about 72 degree weather (making his net Temperature Level -1) will freeze to death in about 14 hours. And don't point me toward the FAQ, please. That "fix" just breaks it further; if 1 and -1 are "comfortable", then a character who is a little warm (Temperature Level 2) who is resting will die of heat stroke, and a character who is a little cool (Temp -2) will, even if engaging in moderate physical activity, freeze to death.

Well..... I'm not a hundred percent certain that that's necessary to heal a Disabling/Impairing wound. I'd say that one of the following conditions apply (pick one): * After the BODY is healed, you can use any number of dice of Healing (including zero) with Can Heal Limbs to heal the Impairing/Disabling part * After the BODY is healed, you can't ever heal the Impairing/Disabling part (matches up with some source material) * The Impairing/Disabling wound causes the character's actual BODY score to be reduced (think of an old war injury); the Healing with Can Heal Limbs actually restores this loss (matches up with some other source material)

You would treat it exactly as if it were a Power. Example: 10 PD. Base cost 10 points. Requires Breakfall Skill Roll (-1/2) Only Vs. Falling Damage (-1) Real Cost: 4 points You'd write it under the Powers column, or if you were using HeroDesigner, you'd choose "Characteristics" under Powers.

Give the critters Vulnerability or Susceptibility.

This might help. FREd p. 274: "The body of an unconscious character puts its entire energy reserve into waking up. Because of this, when the character wakes up, his END equals his current STUN total."

Sorry, Bob, didn't mean to come across sounding pissy. I was thinking of a line in a fantasy novel wherein a bunch of characters are standing around talking about how they're going to scrounge for firewood, when the thief pipes up with "Or you could just use the firewood in the wagon back there that I bought when we were in town."

In my game, the frequency of the Disadvantage would be roughly equal to the frequency with which you were out of the suit.

Use Healing with Can Heal Limbs. This is explicitly listed in the description of Healing, and it also specifies that it happens when the wound is fully healed. See FREd p. 120, second column, paragraph after the example at the top. I suppose you could use 0d6 Healing, Can Heal Limbs, and the limb would be fixed when the BODY heals naturally, or perhaps when someone else uses their Healing Power on it.

That is all correct.

If by "temporarily" you mean " a few seconds" then yeah, use Flash. (12d6 Flash wears off in, on average, 12 seconds.) If, by "temporarily" you mean within, say, 5 minutes (which is at least what you'd get from a real skunk) use my Entangle solution above, and add "Stops Sight" to it as well. Oh. Forgot to add to above: Entangle does not restrict movement or use of Foci.