Chris Goodwin

Originally posted by sbarron

I'm not so worried about game balance as I am player balance. I would like for lightly armored characters and heavily armored characters to meet on more even footing in combat. I realize this isn't realistic. It is a convention of the fantasy genre that I would like to incorporate into my game, though. The character with light or no armor using spd and quickness to battle the lumbering, heavily armored character. I don't think that this is very well reflected with the armor rules, so I am looking for ways to simulate it.

Okay. Give your lightly armored guys Find Weakness and/or Armor Piercing weapons. Let them stick their light rapiers through holes in the armor that Mr. Tank didn't know were there. Give your lightly armored guys martial art forms that can be used with swords. Give your lightly armored characters gas NND attacks. In short, cheat like a mad dog.

Also, the question should be asked: how are these characters getting 8-9 DEF armor? I mean, you're the GM, right? Are they telling you "I've got 8 DEF armor, nyah nyah!" or are they saying "Since I'm Wealthy, I'm going to spend some of my money and buy myself some decent armor." Remember, in the real world, armored knights had to be wealthy to afford the heavy armor and the horse that could carry it. (And they rode horses because, in some cases, all that armor made them too heavy to move. Want a balancing factor? Make heavy armor reduce their movement.)

Also remember, D&D provided rust monsters to deal with armored tanks.

In most of the games I've ever ran, a restriction like that on armor would turn everyone into mages who knew just one spell -- an Armor spell.

I'm not trying to be snide, rude, or offensive here, honest. But.... why not make people pay points for their armor?

Yeah, it is pretty harsh.

I'd say the real way to get guys out of armor is to quit using killing attacks against them. Start hitting them with gas NND attacks and the like. Or just start hitting them with bigger killing attacks.

It might have been suggested in the days of the first Hero board (pre-Cybergames). Who was the first to suggest it is probably lost in the mists of antiquity, unless the person who did it wants to speak up.

There's quite a bit of background stuff in there, and the web site at http://www.crimsonskies.com has more.

Yes.

But remember the MST3K theme... "If you're wondering how they eat and breathe / and other science facts (la la la) / Just repeat to yourself it's just a show / and I should really just relax"

Basically, it was done that way to make it easy to work with in play. If you want, do it the way that makes more sense; the Hero Police aren't going to come take away your FREd.

Originally posted by Yamo

The character is built for my preferred style of fantasy campaign: A very "fire and forget" D&D/random fantasy computer RPG one where magic is quick, powerful, and predictable. More Limitations would hinder my ability to capture that feel in HERO.

I can't argue with that.

This is not (repeat, not, NOT) intended as a flame, personal attack, offensive message, etc.

But.... it looks like you've built a 75+75 point energy projector.

I would go back and finish up the backstory first, then come up with something on how his system of magic works, without reference to game mechanics. Then go back and build his spells.

I've played characters like this and enjoyed them, for a while. But I didn't really have a sense that what I was doing with them was playing a spellcaster; I was playing a character who had powers X, Y, and Z.

Those criticisms utterly aside, you could reduce the spell costs with more Limitations (perhaps tied in to your system of magic -- no Requires Magic Skill Roll on any of them?)

Maybe what I'm trying to get at is this: what is it about this collection of stats that makes this character a wizard and not a superhero on a diet?

Wow. A lot of discussion here.

Dude, just write up the damn character and play.

FREd p. 17 has a Policeman package deal. FREd p. 227 has Noteworthy Normal, Skilled Normal, and Competent Normal. Choose where you want your cop's rough power level, add the package to the normal, and viola.

Originally posted by Captain Obvious

There was one a couple of years back about converting Robot Warriors to 4th Ed, but I haven't seen it for a while, and I haven't seen anything more recent than that either.

If you do a Google search with "Robot Warriors" in quotes, you'll find it.

Actually, when I first got TUV, I decided to convert a couple of the mecha from Robot Warriors to 5th Ed. The poor systems-light 'bots in RW wouldn't stand a chance against the samples in TUV....

The "problem" I ran into when converting RW mecha was that the weapons were all in the 150-200 active point range. You can easily end up with 1000 point mecha.

Here's what you're looking for: http://home.attbi.com/~archer7/rw2hero.html

I think it depends on your browser. The home page for Hero Games is entitled index.jsp rather than index.htm(l). When I was using Opera it was giving me the java error because it apparently wasn't seeing the index.jsp as the index page.

Next time you get the error, try telling it to go to http://www.herogames.com/index.jsp

Re: What are basing it off though?

Originally posted by Tugun Master

Are we basing it off our display names and profiles only or what?

Names and/or personalities. People should be written up as actual superheroes -- forgot that part.

And they have to be full writeups, too.

I just had what I thought was a cute idea.

Anyone who wants to be written up, post here. Anyone who wants to take a shot at writing us up, do so and post your results. Use standard superheroes; 200 + 150, 50 max disads per category. No writing yourself up.

And remember, this is all in fun!

Who's in?

If you want to use Multiform with Variable Result (+1/2) from first edition Fantasy Hero, that would work, along with a NCC (-1 at least) to say that he can't control what he changes into. Add Accidental Change, When Asleep, and Life Support to only have to sleep about once every few weeks. He can extend his non-sleeping time with speed, but it will eventually catch up to him.

Re: Now THESE sound tough to stat out!

Originally posted by Yamo

1. Chaos Nation could absorb living people, using them to amplify his own powers; with enough "citizens" he could fly, was superhumanly strong, and could fire some kind of energy bolts. When injured, he could assign that damage to one of the citizens of his "nation" -- he's blasted by FireGuy, so he assigns the damage to to a guy that he abosorbed earlier, and John Smith re-materializes and collapses to the ground, burned to death.

XDM, UAA, to the "absorbed" dimension. Aid to his own Powers based on the number of people absorbed, or perhaps just +X points to his Powers based on the number of people. Missile Deflection, Linked to XDM on one of the absorbed people back to this dimension. SFX is that poor bastard takes the damage.

2. Doro, from Octavia Butler's "Pattern" books. He's a mutant, and he has the ability to "jump" his consciousness into whatever body is closest to him.

 

When he does this, his old body dies, instantly. And he can use his power quickly enough to take out a group of people in a matter of seconds, leaping from mind to mind and letting the corpses fall behind him.

A very large Transform, Target's Mind (perhaps Mind+Soul) to Doro's Mind (etc.), Side Effects: Current Body Dies.

13d6+1 Killing Attack

NND, Does Body (defense is CON roll)

Standard Effect

Hit target with this. If he has 20 BODY or less, and misses his CON roll, he dies.

Or "Lifesaving"

Originally posted by Stephen_H-G

Thank you for the answer!

No problem!

I see what you are saying; really maybe what I was trying to do was rationalize getting an old Champions so I can run it past my wife!

Not a bad thing. Now that I think about it, S. John Ross wrote in a posting on RPG.net that he had picked up FREd and was sort of overwhelmed by the sheer size of it, until he picked up his old copy of Danger International. Understanding that there were differences between editions, he was able to relearn the basics of the Hero System through the smaller book, which gave him a good basis for going back to 5th Edition.

So, if you can find a copy of 3rd edition, that actually might not be a bad way to go about it, keeping in mind that there are many differences between the editions. I'd again advise that if you're going to do that, stick with 5th Edition costs for Powers, Skills, and such; you might pick up the GM Resource Kit because it has all of that stuff in a much smaller package.

The basics of martial arts were that you paid points equal to your STR for a single skill called Martial Arts. You got five maneuvers with it: Martial Punch, M. Kick, M. Grab, M. Throw, and M. Dodge. Grab, Throw, and Dodge worked like the current versions of those maneuvers. Punch did 1.5 times your STR damage and Kick did 2 times (I don't recall off the top of my head what the OCV and DCV modifiers were). You could pay half again your STR in points for an additional .5 times your STR damage, so that your Punch would do 2 times and kick 2.5 times your STR. As your STR got higher, Martial Arts in general became less efficient; I think 20-30 STR was about the most efficient it got.

I think I understand what you're saying. You're looking for a previous version of the Hero System that is optimized for superheroes.

3rd edition Champions was simpler than 4th and 5th, and probably about the furthest back you'd want to go.

But... for the complete list of Powers and Disadvantages you'd want Champions II and Champions III, which were supplements. And there you've got three books, which about eats up any savings you've made by streamlining stuff. Not to mention that you're still missing stuff; those two books didn't add all of the Powers, Disads, extra rules, etc. that made it down this far. There were no fundamental changes between editions; at its heart it's the same system it was in first edition.

And then the costs for Skills, Powers, and Disadvantages aren't the same. Especially Skills; those changed a lot between Champions and Justice, Inc.

Top that all off by saying that 3rd edition Champions is really only more streamlined because it includes fewer rules. The "default" for Champions of no complex bleeding rules, no Hit Locations, no Impairing or Disabling wounds came about because those rules didn't exist in 3rd edition Champions; they came from the standalone Hero System games that came after.

So, if you're looking for a book you can hand someone and get a streamlined Hero System, for teaching purposes or similar, 3rd edition Champions is it. Use the Skills, Powers, Modifiers, Frameworks, and Disadvantages from 5th edition.

If you're looking for streamlined in play, just hacking out rules from 5th will do it.

(Actually, if you wanted to port the 3rd edition Martial Arts rules over to 5th edition, that would streamline stuff by quite a bit. E-mail me privately if you decide to go that route.)

Bottom line: The Hero System is really optimized for superheroes as is. That it ended up being useful for so much more, and that the core system has changed so little through five editions, is a testament to the foresight and design skills of the original Hero partners. If you want fewer options, just use fewer options in play, because using a previous edition of Champions is Hero 5th with fewer options, modulo the changes in Skills, Powers, Modifiers, Frameworks, and Disadvantages.

Whew! Sorry, didn't mean for this to be an essay!

Half or less of the number you needed to hit is maximum damage. This used to be a standard rule for non-superheroic games; I don't think it has been "official" since 4th edition came out.

Re: SPEED Freaks

Originally posted by DrSavant

I've been in situations like this before and I feel that this MUST be said.

If the GM sets a house rule about SPD or any other game aspect,then whom but the most SELFISH, EGOMANIAC of PC's would want to go beyond that????

Wow, dude. Why the insults?

Who wants to have a higher Speed? The World's Fastest Man, that's who. Why shouldn't a character have a higher SPD if his concept calls for it?

The original poster was talking about having the same SPD as everyone else, and about how it felt to be one SPD behind everyone else in the combat, and about how the SPD cap might be changing and, pretty much, a general dissatisfaction with the idea of SPD caps and a "SPD arms race" mentality.