Chris Goodwin

There's no reason at all, regardless of what edition you're playing, that a GM can't import a particular rule or power from a different edition. Instant Change for later editions or Change Environment for earlier ones are pretty obvious choices to me, for example.

Additional rules, but yes. Champions III, not the 3rd edition corebook.

Checking in. Anyone going? I've signed up to run a Robot Warriors game. It's going to be quick and dirty, not unlike my Danger International game in 2019. See you there? @Tom Cowan? @lemming? Anyone else?

If you're doing cinematic space dogfights, the dogfighting rules work super well. They're in the Advanced Player's Guide (p. 188) but have existed in pretty much every Hero Games rulebook in which characters might be flying some kind of airplane or space fighter, with only minor changes from first to last. I've played using them, once, in a Robot Warriors game. To me it felt like flying space fighters in a dogfight.

It took me long enough to find this, and I overlooked it more than once. Champions III, p 24. Edit to add: While it might have thrown additional gasoline on the Great Linked Debate fire back in the day, it also assumes that the Powers are designed to go off together. Essentially, what Hero Designer refers to as a "compound Power". X, plus Y, plus Z.

Bruce Harlick, though I can't remember if it was on Facebook or in email, and I can't find it in my email if so.

I'm not Hugh, but I asked one of the original Hero folks directly, and was given the information Hugh references. I may be who he is referring to.

I usually go with a Dispel or Suppress against disease. Another option could be Life Support, against the disease, leaving it up to the GM to decide how long the Life Support has to be there for in order to cure the disease. Note that none of these will heal any damage or revert any other conditions applied by the illness; to do that would be separate Powers, or else up to the character to recover from on their own.

My group back in the 80's got a ridiculous number of campaigns out of DI. Modern military, modern conspiracy, a paranoid "government vs. UFOs" game, hard SF ("Near Earth Orbit", a homebrew campaign), hard SF (based on Chaosium's Ringworld RPG), squishier far future comedy SF (the prison ship "Uncle Louie"), Battletech Hero (at least five, probably more, different campaigns of this), a Twilight 2000 Hero campaign, a couple of ridiculous over-the-top military action campaigns ("Real Men", followed up by the Soviet "Real Men"), an SF game based on Aliens, a western game (with help from JI), a number of low-point PVP games ("Death Wish"). Granted, some of them went one to two sessions, but probably a third of them of them went a year or more. There were a few that never happened: the Bureau 13 Hero game, an Autoduel Hero (using Autoduel Champions, but with DI), "Weekly World News: the RPG". Probably some others that I'm forgetting. (I might point out: in not a single one of those games did anyone have any Powers.) At least a dozen different Fantasy Hero campaigns, again some of which went a few sessions (one of which was my Myth Adventures based campaign), some of which went on for a year or more (the "October Game", the Bushido Hero campaign). At least three different Robot Warriors campaigns, one of which mutated from one of the above mentioned Battletech Hero campaigns, one of which was a sequel to one of them, and at least two of which went on a year or more. I would say there weren't more than half a dozen Champions campaigns throughout that time. I don't think any of them went longer than a year. Oddly, not more than one or two Justice Inc. games while I was part of the group; there may have been more before I joined. (My group back then was prolific. A Friday night session, two Saturday sessions, one to two Sunday sessions, every week. 225+ sessions a year. I was part of that group for about three years. They'd been going for at least a year or two before I came along. I was in high school, a couple of others were as well, at least half of the group were adult men. There wasn't anything weird going on, except the table talk would get pretty foul at times; at least four were former military, and at least a couple of others including me would go on to join the military after.) Sometimes adulthood really sucks. I'm sure I haven't had that many sessions, combined, in the 31 years since my time with that group ended.

Basically, the Pikeman delays. He's considered at normal OCV and DCV; the Dud is at whatever he's at for his maneuvers. If the Pikeman's weapon is longer, resolve his hit first. If their weapons are the same length, it's simultaneous. If the Dud's is longer (doubtful, with name like that) then resolve his first. The Pikeman gets +1 DC per every 3" or 6m the Dud is moving. I'm on my computer with all the PDFs.

This would be Set Versus Charge. FHC p. 180, or Fantasy Hero genre book for 6th edition p. 185, or Fantasy Hero genre book for 5th edition, p. 156. (Just for completeness' sake: Fantasy Hero genre book for 4th edition, p. 88. The Fantasy Hero corebook for 1st edition doesn't specificially include it, but see the Unhorse maneuver on p. 75 and the solo adventure, page 139, paragraph 4.)

The Power Skill does both, with additional functions determined by the GM (often responding to players asking if they can perform a power trick). Though in 6e you can fine tune your RSR to use different Skills (a different 3-point Skill, a PS or KS, even a Characteristic Roll). If you're the GM, you can decide. If you're not the GM, then ask your GM. I would guess most GMs would use the Power Skill for this; if it were me, that's how I'd do it.

Power stunts. I've played characters with Power Skill and no RSR powers, just to be able to do power stunts. Cantrips could very well be considered power stunts off of a character's other magic. Power Skill could be used when two characters want to compare their general level of skill without necessarily getting into a fight, and not necessarily testing combat skill. It could cover versatility, general knowledge, techniques, experience. Someone who wants to learn a new technique or spell could make a roll to determine how well they learn it. Do you have The Ultimate Skill/HERO System Skills? There's some discussion in there on what all you can do with Power Skill. I'd also check the Ultimate Mystic, and probably a number of the other Ultimate books talk about it as well. The Fantasy Hero full genre book (for 5th and 6th editions) talks about it in some depth, specifically relating to fantasy.

That's fair. I usually say "Does it pay for itself?" Meaning, does whatever the proposal is, provide more fun value than it costs in whatever fiddliness is involved in switching to it from the original rule. Combat Value is pretty modular. We already know how it generally works. If we're adding a new one, or changing the definitions of one of the current ones, all we really have to do is make sure players have the information up front so they can design their characters accordingly. Using MCV as a Mystical Combat Value, and suggesting or requiring that wizard characters buy all of their attacks based on it, to me is a minimal change. Adding a separate Combat Value (Arcane) with its own cost and separate defensive value is only slightly less minimal, and again as long as the GM is up front with the players about it I don't see it as being that costly in terms of paying for itself. Probably even less costly in 1st-5th editions, as it's easy enough to set Offensive ACV at INT/3 and Defensive ACV at EGO/3, or just use Defensive ECV. I wouldn't balk at requiring a separate Advantage for casters to let their spells use OACV vs. DACV or DECV, or to use OMCV vs. DMCV. 6th edition gives us guidance in Alternate Combat Value ("ACV," heh) for doing just that. OCV vs. DMCV, OMCV vs. DCV, OMCV vs. DMCV, any of those can be done.

There are quite a number of options that allow you to UAA against someone at range, for instance. That's part of what I was getting at in the Discord. By the overall definition of Sticky, yes. This threw me also, except that there's a small bit buried in the description of Sticky, 6e1 p. 345: "A character who has a Constant area-affecting attack (see 6E1 127) can apply Sticky at the +½ level so that when a character leaves the affected area, he continues to take damage as if affected by a non-area Constant attack." I suggest renaming the general "Sticky" Advantage to Viral, and pulling out this smaller part that I quoted as "Sticky". I suggested this to @cptpatriot as well. Change Environment further allows 1 point of Telekinetic STR for 5 points, and per Star Hero, +/- 1 G of gravity is equivalent to +/- 5 STR. UAA might not be needed at all. Something like this: Gravity Field: Change Environment (10 Telekinetic STR) (Base cost: 50 points) Area of Effect (4m radius; +1/4), Sticky (continues to affect targets who leave area; +1/2). 87.5 Active Points, 9 END/Phase, add additional Advantages and Limitations to taste. Archie, I'd say this does exactly what you're looking for. Change Environment is already Constant.

Uhhh...

Just to get terminology settled: Combined Attack is what in 5th edition was called Multiple Power Attack, where you can "stack" multiple Powers into a single attack, based on the idea that you can activate any number of Powers at once, even if those are attack powers, and throw them with one attack roll. Multiple Attack is now the umbrella term for what in previous editions was Multiple Move-By, Sweep, Rapid Fire, and so on, plus Combined Attack. In 6th edition, they're both under the Multiple Attack umbrella. Notable features about this are: It has a yellow warning symbol The GM can feel free to limit it to 2-3 attacks "The GM can forbid any use of Multiple Attack if he feels the proposed attack defies common or dramatic sense, would cause game balance problems, involves incompatible Power Modifiers or special effects, or the like." (6e2 p. 73) "The GM may rule that characters cannot use Multiple Attack with some powers or weapons — such as slings, crossbows, and some spells." (6e2 p. 75) Combined Attack stacks multiple Powers into a single attack against a single target with single Attack Roll. It specifies that a Multiple Attack can be made with a Combined Attack at the usual penalties for doing so. It's 6e2 pages 73-78, for the full section.

In that case, why do we bother with Mental Combat Value at all? We could just have everyone buy OCV and DCV, with "only vs." or "not vs." Mental Powers, as appropriate. OCV and DCV represent nothing more than a character's ability to fight in the physical realm: weapons, fists, non-Mental Powers. MCV represents a character's ability to fight with and against Mental Powers. Arcane Combat Value should therefore represent a character's ability to fight with and against magic. We don't tie OCV and DCV to DEX in 6th edition, and we don't tie MCV to EGO. We can now apply whatever special effects to those that we want, and the GM will accept. My fighter type can have high DEX and high OCV, or high STR, moderate to low DEX, and high OCV. We can likewise have characters with high EGO and unmodified or reduced OMCV and DMCV, or low EGO and high MCV. What does ACV represent? A character's ability to fight with and against magic, nothing more and nothing less.

You don't need to take RSR for Power Skill to be useful. Even though it's innate, training probably helps elves learn new things they can do with it. So I'd use Power Skill there as well.

To whom do I need to justify it? My players? If I'm the GM and tell them that for this fantasy game I'm running, all spells use Mystical Combat Value, while all weapons, hand-to-hand, and special abilities use Combat Value... they'll say "Okay," and write their characters accordingly. I mean, all the justification I need is "I'm the GM and this is the game I want to run."

All right. What if, instead of physically aiming a fireball, I use the Law of Contagion, using a hair from the victim's head to target it?

The very one! It's written up as if it were a GM and two players at the table, in the format that we all know and love. "GM: There are bank robbers here and here, and Ogre is right here. Where are you guys at? Player 1: I'm over here, while..." et cetera. 3e doesn't include that bit; the programmed bank robbery scenario has Pulsar and VIPER as the antagonists rather than Ogre. Ah! The 3e perfect bound non-boxed book also didn't include the Rose's map. In fact, I've seen physical paper copies of it but have no idea where it first appeared.

I'd probably assume the rider stayed on the mount unless the mount chose that time to actively try to remove the rider, or unless the attack that hit the rider did Knockback or was part of an attack specifically to "unhorse" them.

There were a few minor rules changes, which I think were even called out in 3e. Growth, Shrinking, and Density Increase were tweaked some. Elemental Controls changed as well, and I had to double check that one. Nothing really substantive though, and I don't think anyone in my circles used ECs enough that that difference was particularly bothersome. And Duke, you're not going to believe this, but I actually did double check for this one as well. 2e shows the sample bank robbery scenario in a "let's play" format, while 3e includes a similar but not identical bank robbery scenario in a "programmed adventure" format. The 3e corebook I have includes the Viper's Nest scenario as part of it, but I'm given to understand that the 3e boxed set included them as separate books? That's a slight gap in my otherwise encyclopedic "differences between editions" knowledge.

I believe it was Abraham Lincoln who said, "Please accept my apologies for writing such a long letter; I did not have time to write a short one."