Chris Goodwin

A mage can also use that sword...

The Discord does have links to here as well as the various subreddits for Hero discussion. The Discord is: https://discord.gg/HcUJvJH

Here's the Discord: https://discord.gg/HcUJvJH

You're right in that there's nothing but word of mouth out there, but that word of "mouth" is now spread electronically. I feel comfortable saying that there is no person getting into the HERO System who doesn't have access to either an experienced player -- otherwise whose mouth is the "word of" coming from? -- or the Internet in some way. I'm happy to be proven wrong. And any person creating a character intended for actual play in a game is going to have a GM who is going to look their characters over, check their stats for viability and whether they meet the campaign guidelines, and advise them where they don't. And if they do? If they happen to create a character that somehow slips through? The world dies in nuclear fire -- No, it does not. Nor does the patient die on the table. Nor do the Gaming Police show up and haul everyone away to Gaming Prison. We admit that we made a mistake, and we fix it. My first two Champions characters were made using just the rulebook, without reference to a GM or an existing game. I'm fairly certain they weren't viable in play, mainly because I didn't have a clue where the stats, including the Figured Characteristics, came in relative to any particular set of campaign guidelines. In my defense, they weren't intended to be; they were me playing with the character creation mechanics in order to learn them. (I'm pretty sure Feline came to about 180 total points -- this was third edition). I showed them to my friend, who by then had been playing Champions for a couple of years, and he told me -- nicely, in case anyone was wondering -- why they wouldn't be viable. My third character was as viable as a character could be that was created using only the third edition corebook and none of the supplements, which everyone else in the group had... Figured Characteristics aren't an automatic protection from non viable characters, nor do they allow you to disclaim decision making for each one. (Unless you've gone full Goodman School of Character Efficiency, and have built your characters with way-out-of-any-coherent-concept levels of STR, DEX, and CON, but if you're that person then nothing in any part of this discussion applies to you.) You're still looking at them to decide whether the 8 base ED from your 38 CON is enough or whether you need more. I'll tell you what eliminating Figured Characteristics did do: it made it so that we don't need 28 DEX or 38 CON to hit the minmax breakpoints on CV's or Figured Characteristics, which means we build to concept rather than arms race, with housewives or grad students gaining energy powers and 25 STR and 23 DEX. SPD 4 and DEX 15 are viable in play in a 375 point Champions game.

True. But... 6e2 has a number of pregen characters in the HERO System Genre By Genre section. 6e1 has multiple sets of Characteristics guidelines by power levels on pages 35 and 48. And then there's us, here at the boards and on the Discord server. And there's a ton more information available in the other supporting books. Champions, Fantasy Hero, Star Hero for 6th edition alone. Champions Complete and Fantasy Hero Complete. A person new to 5th edition is going to be in exactly the same place as a person new to 6th edition with respect to expectations of where stats should be. In this regard, reducing the amount of math by eliminating Figured Characteristics is reducing the mental load. I can't comprehend how the opposite could be true.

There's even more simplicity in just buying the DEX, CON, and SPD you want, and then just buying the OCV, DCV, ED, REC, and END (edit: and STUN) you want. For the life of me I can't figure out how this could possibly be an increased mental load.

Most people bought SPD up rather than let the "wasted" decimal value languish. You were leaving money on the table if you didn't. That aside, I would posit that, for instance, the mental load involved in minmaxing your CON alone to the point that the effort needed to figure out the return on saved points in ED, REC, END, and STUN, having been completely eliminated, results in a net reduction in mental load. In what possible way does the elimination of Figured Characteristics result in an increased mental load, especially in light of the above? I'm listening.

In what way? It reduces at least a dozen arithmetical operations.

Weirdly, the things we consistently have to look up are Grabs and Multiple Attack/Combined Attack. Those are pretty much the only reasons we crack the books open at the table.

I think that if anything it's gotten less complicated since, say, third edition. Mainly from capping Disadplications, changing the way END costs were figured and modified, having more powers (so you wouldn't have to go down rabbit holes to create certain effects) and in 6e, eliminating Figured Characteristics. YMMV on whether anyone in particular agrees with or likes the changes, but they're less complicated than they used to be. (And I'll note that back in the 80's we didn't have software for building characters with; we had to scrawl them out on cave walls by lamplight from a lamp made out of a rock and animal fat.)

This is good, I think is exactly what I was looking for. I would postulate that this is an effect of the Real Armor Limitation. But I'm not sure exactly how you'd represent that. Most likely a combination of things: a critical hit by the attacker, a Physical Complication: bum ticker on the part of the target, and perhaps some Unluck coming into play. And enough damage for the Penetrating being enough to kill the target would have already overwhelmed the armor.

All of these things, though... if a character had enough defenses to bounce all of the damage from those things, then should any of the damage still get through? LL, you've given me a lot of good SFX for "damage" but nothing that is specifically "damage that should leak through defenses that are otherwise high enough to bounce all of it". Or alternatively, some of those could be SFX for Drains, particularly being doused in acid or sandblasted. All of the things you mention are certainly SFX for attacks that should get damage through to characters without enough DEF to fully resist them -- perhaps that's one of those obvious things that need not be mentioned? You've also given me at least one thing to think about, namely that I should have been more specific in my original ask, about characters with high defenses.

I'm beginning to wonder if this isn't best. For pretty much every other advantage there's an easy SFX description. But I can't think of one for Penetrating. Can we point at comic book characters with Penetrating attacks? Fantasy monsters or spells? Science fiction weapons? The mechanical usage for it is spelled out in the advantage description. "The player wants an attack that always gets some damage through..." What's the SFX justification for that? (I'm not asking for a description of an attack that has Penetrating; I'm asking, what it is about that attack that "always gets some damage through"?)

Thank you all. ❤️ It both was and wasn't sudden. She was diabetic, and we'd been caring for her on as close to a clockwork schedule as we could manage. Insulin at 7am and 7pm, always with food. She had a vet visit on Friday to update her shots and get her blood sugar checked, and it was as good as they'd ever seen it. On Saturday she was like her old self, happy and all over the house with us, where for most of the past couple of years she acted much like a little old lady shut-in. Then... behind a spoiler for whoever doesn't want to read the details. We were all with her right at the end, loving on her and petting her and talking to her and crying. We knew it was coming, but you're never really ready for it, you know?

Thank you.

We had to say goodbye to our cat tonight. We're all pretty wrecked. 2008 - October 22, 2023. ❤️

As the guy who wrote the update I encourage you to pick up both of these. 🙂

I'm sort of the Robot Warriors expert. 🙂 Robot Warriors used two concepts: Size Class, which wasn't quite the same as a vehicle's Size stat, and Ground Scale. Ground Scale was used for setting the size of one hex on the map, and the Ground Scale of a map was suggested to be set to be equal to the Size Class of the majority of the combatants. For reference, a standard human is considered to be Size Class 1, and Ground Scale 1 uses 2 meter hexes. Every three doublings of mass (or three levels of vehicle Size) is +1 Size Class, while every +1 Ground Scale doubles the size of one hex. To use it in play, set the initial Range Modifier increment in meters based on the target's Size Class, and convert it to hexes at the Ground Scale you're using. If you're in the same hex (regardless of Ground Scale) as your target, you're at -0 to RMod regardless of size difference. As an example, if you're using "standard" Robot Warriors mecha (25 to 199.9 ton), Size Class would be 4, with a first range increment of 64 meters. At Ground Scale 4 hexes (16 meters), the initial range increment becomes 4 hexes. If the mecha is shooting at a human (Size Class 1, initial range increment 8m) on the Ground Scale 4 battlefield, the mecha has to be in the same 16m hex in order to not be at a range penalty at all. If the human is shooting back at the mecha (Size Class 4, initial range increment 64m), they're shooting with a -0 RMod out to four Ground Scale 4 16m hexes. I hope my explanation makes sense. Here is a document I've written setting out all of the above with nicely formatted tables. I hope it's helpful!

Without using any Movement Skill Levels, the standard acceleration for Movement Powers is +5 meters per Phase for every meter the character has available to move through (6e2 p. 25). Applying Movement Skill Levels increases the amount of acceleration per meter. One skill level would increase acceleration to +6 meters per meter moved through, two skill levels would increase it to +7 meters per meter, and so on.

There was an additional Adjustment Power introduced in the Champions III supplement (not third edition Champions!) for first-gen, namely Power Destruction. It was essentially Power Drain with a longer recovery, specifically that points were recovered at the same rate as BODY, and explicitly specifying that Regeneration helped recover Destroyed (Destructed?) points. (Champions III also included the rule that Adjustment Powers used against defensive abilities had their effectiveness halved. It didn't call them Adjustment Powers, but it specified all of them, so.) Edit to add: I forgot to mention that Healing existed in Champions III as well, though neither it nor Power Destruction specified that Healing worked on it. And also, Fantasy Hero 1e had the Restore spell effect, which was almost-but-not-quite the Can Heal Impaired/Disabling/Limbs adder, and it specified that it also worked against Destroyed Characteristics. Same deal as with Healing, in that it was non-cumulative, so you'd need a bigger Restore for subsequent uses. It didn't specify per wound, though I'd have used it like that, and the per-day reset time for Healing wasn't a thing then either, but I'd have included it with Restore if it were. And! Interesting bit of trivia that I think went unnoticed, by me at least, for almost 40 years. Restore mentions the Time Chart! I'm not sure where it was included in FH 1E, I'd guess probably in the section under Impairing and Disabling Wounds given that Restore mentions it. (A quick look confirms this; FH 1E p. 83 has a d6 time chart for how long an Impairment lasts.)

You would have to specify which Blast you're targeting. See 6e1 p. 135 for more information.

I think I came up with the Blazing Away plus 1 Billion Charges on an AoE attack, so you get to take advantage of the scatter.

I think Delayed Effect would probably suit your needs better than Trigger.

Fortunately for you, there are thousands upon thousands of games, settings for games, and stories that cater to your tastes in them.

I haven't called myself a Christian in almost 40 years, and I'm certainly no expert on the Bible, but it's my understanding that the idea of free will and choice to perform evil acts or not is pretty central to Christianity? I have a vague memory of a garden and a fruit that popular culture seems to think is an apple... I don't subscribe to "I know it when I see it," but there are certain acts that as far as I'm aware, every known culture on Earth throughout history has universally decided are evil, and I mentioned those in my early post on the thread. Coincidentally or not, the Bible seems to agree with the ones I mentioned (though as I said I'm no expert). If a... person, entity, whatever we're talking about, doesn't have a choice, then how can it be evil? A virus is not evil, despite how much death and destruction it causes. It's a thing that needs to be stopped, but it has no motivation, no morality. That doesn't mean we leave it alone to do its thing! It just means it's not part of a crusade against evil to stop it. If an entity is constructed to be destructive or harmful, and itself has no capacity to choose otherwise, how can it be evil? It can be an extension of an evil creator, and it might need to be stopped -- and can certainly be an acceptable "wholesale slaughter" target -- but evil, in and of itself? And I don't really care for "crusade against evil" stories. Don't have a history of it in the fantasy works I started with and enjoy. I invariably fail to finish them when I attempt to read them.