Chris Goodwin

I'm not a wizard, so I don't know... In 6th edition, we've divorced CV and MCV from their former parent Characteristics, so we can kind of use special effects to represent them. For instance, we could translate D&D fighter types by giving them bonus OCV, Melee Only (-1), representing using their Strength to power through their target's defenses. Shouldn't a highly skilled and powerful wizard be reliant not on their frail, rickety, low-DEX body, but on their INT, EGO, and great knowledge of and connection to the mystical sphere? That's what Arcane Combat Value represents. So, the answer to your question is "That's up to the player's SFX or the GM's magic system."

Amorcka, are you planning to write a large wall of text, or are you basing that on experience reading Duke's and my postings about the pre-4th edition period?

In one magic system I've renamed MCV to "Mystical Combat Value". It doesn't change anything about the mechanics or which powers use it to target, just the name and special effect. It represents the caster's ability to target spells that aren't based on physical dexterity, but on their mystical abilities. If I were to use it in a pre-6th edition game, I'd probably replace ECV with it, or base it on another stat (maybe OMCV is INT/3 and DMCV is EGO/3). Edit: I typed the above before rereading the previous posts on the thread. Wheel, reinvented. You could also do it as Combat Skill Levels with magic, that represent the caster's mystical offensive abilities, and add to their OCV or OMCV regardless of what the "M" represents. Edit edit: It looks like this thread was bumped by a spammer. It was a pretty worthy thread to have bumped, though.

Cart before the horse, but yes. Multiple move-by, sweep, rapid fire, mecha gangfire, then 4th edition. Edit: Dang it, I keep seeing this thread pop up and thinking it's for me.

The graphic at the bottom of the first post on this thread is the logo. You should be able to save it from here.

Here is a version that another person on the SJ Games boards made (link goes to the BoardGameGeek page for the file). Pretty similar to mine, and it gives you the gist. Here is a pic of a card from my set. My son is on my computer at the moment so I can't get to the full file.

Hi Steve, got a question. If I have a number of Skill Levels (Combat, Overall, or otherwise) that may apply to both OCV and DCV, and... ...for example in Segment 3, during my Phase I attack, with those levels allocated to OCV... ...and then in Segment 4 I am attacked, and decide to Abort to a defensive action (let's say Dodge for the sake of argument)... The question is, may I take those levels that were allocated to OCV during my Phase in Segment 3, and during my Abort to Dodge in Segment 4, allocate them to DCV as part of my defensive action (assuming they're applicable)? (I'm looking at the list of actions on 6e2 p. 23, and it doesn't explicitly say there that levels that were previously allocated to OCV may be reallocated to DCV, which is about the only reason I'm asking.)

There are a few settings you need to make in your DTRPG account that give you access to the community content program, and those might be prerequisites to downloading the logo from there. But if you ask Jason he'll most likely both give you access to the material outside of DTRPG, and tell you what settings to set in your account.

I don't know if I ever shared it publicly. I'll poke around and see if I can find it.

I made up a play aid to make old school Car Wars run a lot faster. In a six player game, with four noobs and two rusty old farts, we got through a complete arena duel in about two and a half hours. It shocked me how well that made it go.

The whole section it's in (Multiple Attack, 6e2 p. 73) has a yellow warning sign by it. So it's at the very least up to the GM whether to allow or not.

:: thinking about rules debates on the Hero boards... ::

Combined Attack is what used to be "partially Limited Power" like the paragraph in Champions III about Flare combining her 10d6 Blast with a 4d6 Blast at 2x END and 4d6 Flash. And it's meant to be used against one target. Multiple Attack is the Sweep (from FH1), Double Shot (from DI) and Gangfire (from RW), all rolled into one, and can be used against multiple targets. (Edit: Champions III p. 25, and it wasn't Flare; I was misremembering something else. But the idea is sound, and that's pretty much the origin. FH1 and DI had those as optional maneuvers a character could buy, and in RW that was part of being a robot pilot.)

Combined Attack is piling a bunch of powers together into one attack. Multiple Attack is when Jackie Chan wades through a horde of mooks and hits each one three or four times.

I'm out of reactions for the day. Someone tag Duke for me!

It seemed to me that you were saying that GM fiat was a bad thing; it's hard to get tone sometimes in written communication. Sure, a GM judgement call is GM fiat, and that's not a bad thing. It seemed to me that you were looking for something other than GM fiat as a resolution to the problem. I want that too! I also don't like insults and edition wars! To be honest, I don't really believe in editions anymore. First edition and sixth edition are compatible enough and similar enough that I see them as one big ruleset with a whole lot of options; one "edition" is a rules snapshot and a set of options in use. I'm also not generally one to recommend an edition change; if people are happy with the edition they're playing, why change? I love 3rd myself, but have been playing 6th a lot lately. I'm further hesitant to recommend a different edition because I don't know what materials people have or are willing and able to get.

Heh, I'm not the only one. The product list is here. The link Jason gave in another thread here is https://www.drivethrurpg.com/cc/28/hall-of-champions but I don't know if that's the general Drivethrurpg page for it or if that's a creator specific page. Anyway, between these two links you should have it.

I've had plenty of instances where as a player I've appealed to common sense, and the GM has agreed. Usually half or more of the group agrees. It doesn't have to be a decree handed down from on high. And if players say that a rule is stupid, doesn't reflect reality, and can be massively abused, and the GM agrees and says we're not going to use that rule... is that really GM fiat? Tywyll, I'm not sure what you're looking for here that you're not getting. To me, it's a stupid rule on its face, and doesn't pass the sniff test in game or by reality. You seem to agree. If your issue with the rules is that you don't have a "zone of control" in Hero the way you do in D&D or TFT, you're right. The phased movement system isn't perfect, but it seems to work pretty well for the majority of us. A couple of people have spoken up about ways they work around that in game, specifically under certain circumstances allowing a character to "abort to attack", and it seems like you favor that notion. And if it works for them, and you? I'm not going to tell you you're wrong, and the Game Police aren't going to come to your house and take away your books. I'll note that the phased movement system isn't meant to represent people moving and then being locked in place until their next action. It abstracts away a lot of the stuff that a player sitting at the table can't see or react to but that their character in the game world can. It's worth noting that a number of gamers, even here on the boards, don't use the SPD chart at all. If it helps, you can break up a Turn into two six-second "rounds"; in that case, at SPD 2, a character gets one action per "round", at 3 the character gets 3/2 rounds, at 4 the character gets 2 per round, and so on. That... sort of... matches the "fighter's attacks per round" progression from many D&D editions. I've never seen players doing that in games; have you? Actually I think I may have tried something like that once back in the 1980's, and... I don't remember if it worked or not, but it's not a thing that I see anyone do in any game, regardless of edition, since then. You and I both seem to agree that it's stupid and unrealistic; it also seems to be a thing that existed only in fifth edition (maybe revised? I'm still not sure) and nowhere else.

I don't believe anyone should move from one edition to another over one rule. I'd recommend using the particular rule from 6e. I'll admit that I think that a rule allowing one HTH combatant to make a half-move behind the other and get an "attack from behind" bonus is a stupid rule. On the common sense theory, I'd advocate ignoring that rule. If I were GMing 5th edition, I would ignore that rule. I don't in the least think that just because you're using the very large black hardcover rulebook with the green and grey on it, you can't use a rule from 6th edition, or even common sense, and GMs ignore rules and change them in the face of common sense or any reason at all regardless of what edition, or even what game system, they're using.

And, incidentally, in 4th edition the "attacked from behind" verbiage only appears under the Surprised combat modifier, as a comment rather than as a rule. A brief survey of previous edition books shows that they all include modifiers for surprise, in and out of combat, but none at all for attacking from behind. Danger International (3rd edition) and the BBB (4th edition) both have Defense Maneuver, with almost the same verbiage as in 5e and 6e. It looks like 5th edition was the outlier in making attacking from behind a mechanical option. (I don't have my 5th edition, non-revised, book in front of me to check; can anyone look there to see which it more closely tracks?)

And I'd just like to point out the following text from 5er p. 543 (also 6e2 p. 266), under "Eight Principles For Interpreting and Applying the HERO System Rules": You're allowed to use common sense, and it doesn't have to be GM fiat.

I did check 5er, and 5er does state "Attacked from behind" and separates it into in and out of combat, (edit) and has a separate table entry for "Surprised", also separated into in and out of combat. 6e is as I indicated above. (/edit) In 5er, the penalties and effects of "attacked from behind, in combat" and "surprised, in combat" are identical to one another, as are "attacked from behind, out of combat" and "surprised, out of combat". It looks to me that for 6th edition they were combined, and the bit above I quoted from 6e2 is the result. Having said that, the easiest way to stop the munchkin maneuver of moving behind your opponent in order to get the "attacked from behind" modifier, is common sense. I'd recommend not allowing one combatant moving behind the other, in combat, to get the "from behind" bonus. A third combatant, coming up from their 6 o'clock, might get that bonus. (When I did boffer fighting, many years ago -- and I know this is not real fighting -- we found that in a one on one combat, it was hard if not impossible for one combatant to get behind the other. However, it was extremely easy for one of the combatants' teammates to come up behind their opponent unaware and tag them in the back, but it tended to have to be from directly behind, and you had to catch them completely unaware. If the one you're coming up behind has any awareness at all that you're there (makes his PER Roll), he'll either move out from between the two, or parry the attacks that are coming from behind him. I remember doing it and having had it done to me, both. Like I said, for me this was play fighting; if anyone with real fighting experience has anything to say, listen to them over me.) Incidentally, I'm not a moderator, but I think the thread is starting to get a little edition-warry and a little personal. I'd like to ask that people step back, take a few breaths, and chill. (Crossposted with Doc Democracy above.)

Except you don't currently need those things. 6e2 p. 50: One of the most common ways for a character to be Surprised is to be attacked from behind. However, that’s not to say that all attacks from behind qualify for the Surprised bonus. As always, the GM should apply common sense and dramatic sense — remember, combat is a dynamic situation where the rules reflect many variables. For example, if an opponent a character doesn’t know about attacks him from behind, that usually means the character is Surprised (though not necessarily, as discussed above). But if the character knows about or can see an opponent, that opponent can’t get a Surprised bonus just by making a Half Move behind the character before attacking. The opponent might get the bonus if the character is distracted (for example, if he’s already fighting one foe who’s in front of him), but moving behind a character before attacking does not per se earn an attacker a Surprised bonus.

It looks like the program is live, and the first few releases are starting to show up!

VIPER's Nest...?