Phil

Re: Bell curve spread?

Do we actually need characteristics, I mean...

Not unless they directly describe an effect, no we don't. Effects-based extremism is still alive and well, albeit in hiding :-)

Re: A Modern League of Extroardinary Gentlemen

Not everyone knows who Quartermain is and I've had to explain who Mina was to several people that haven't read Dracula. I think the issue may be with your frame of reference more than the sources being suggested. You might think "of course not many characters from modern media will have the same familiarity as those from classics" but in reality' date=' the opposite i becoming true. Considering the education of our country I believe more TV names would be recongnized than classic literary characters.[/quote']

 

Oh I don't doubt it! But even so, I watch a reasonable amount of TV without being a slavish follower of the big budget US serials (I'm a Brit). My gut instinct is that many of these shows are a bit niche even now, whereas even if people haven't heard of the specific characters there isn't anyone about who hasn't heard of Dracula, and even "King Solomon's Mines" may have some residual resonance. I guess it's less about what's recognised now, but who do you think will still be recognised in X years time. Of those mentioned, House MD might indeed be one, but I'm not sure about the long-term interest of that particular comic book

Re: A Modern League of Extroardinary Gentlemen

Mine are all from TV series

 

Patrick Jane - The Mentalist

Michael Westen - Burn Notice

Dr Helen Magnus (& daughter) - Sanctuary

and of course someone from Torchwood - is from Torchwood

None of which strikes me as yet worth of the sort of "classic" tag you'd need to qualify in such a league. I think the thought experiment needs to be "would someone know this character in 20 years' time?". After six seasons of a fairly iconic and revolutionary TV series, Jack Bauer maybe qualifies. Michael Knight and the A-Team probably also. Possibly Buffy and Mulder & Scully, though I have my doubts there. These guys... probably too soon to say!

Actually, the transient nature of moden entertainment probably means that NO new fictional characters will ever qualify! The idea of a single character becoming so entrenched in public consciousness is so much more unlikely in the digital media age. (Discuss, showing your reasoning and evidence throughout... )

Re: A Modern League of Extroardinary Gentlemen

Most of the characters in the original either were not well known or were thought to be already dead. Their fame was in our world' date=' not the one that their adventures took place in.[/quote']

Yes, that's my point! I've heard of Mina Harker, Allan Quartermain, etc.. Whereas I've not heard of over 50% of the characters people have suggested in the last couple of pages.

Re: A Modern League of Extroardinary Gentlemen

Isn't it surely a precursor of qualification for such a prestigious league that a character is not only a strong archetype, but that they are extremely well known. Reputation surely counts for as much as ability. With all due respect, and perhaps I don't read as much genre fiction as I should, but I've heard of but a fraction of the names proposed!

Re: Common 6E House Rules

Well, yes, it's entirely possible that I'm getting hung up on the mechanic.

 

Then again, if the mechanic is what I want to model in the first place, I'd say I'm just a little bit entitled.

Touche I'm sure in 5th Ed that one of the options on Luck was that it could be used to model a 1x day roll-again ability, in which case limited luck would do it exactly.

Re: Common 6E House Rules

There is a practical difference between having to guess in advance when you might need your expendable resources and being able to delay that decision until you have more solid information.

I think you're getting hung up with the Mechanic (roll again after you've seen your roll) and the Effect (you hit more often). As I said, if you want to hit more often we already have a mechanic in Torg to allow that, and the recoverable charge simply means you can only use it once per day.

As an alternative, you could allow a miscellaneous advantage that allowed the CSL to be used after the roll (I'd reckon that's probably a +1/2 or +1 advantage).

Re: Pondering Grab house rule; comments welcome

I definitely agree letting a character have a half phase after escaping a Grab. However, I do think it would be nice if you could have a tiered set of results. However, I'm not a fan of "Exceed by x2, get a full phase". I think you should only get a full phase if you've used Casual STR, anything else is an action of some sort of therefore should take *some* time. This shouldn't be limiting, because if you exceed by x2 using full STR, you probably *could* exceed using Casual STR and the casual STR attempt doesn't cost any actions to try (tho it does cost END).

Perhaps something like beat by 1, no action, beat by any more than that and you get a half phase non-movement action, beat by x2 and you can have a movement action if you wish.

Re: Common 6E House Rules

(Which incidentally struck me only yesterday while idly musing how one would model D&D4's 'reroll' powers like Elven Accuracy via Hero

You wouldn't. All this does is affect the probability of hitting/missing. CSLs do that for Hero. Something like +2CSLs, 1 Recoverable charge (charge recovers if attack hits without needing these CSLs)

Re: Blue Stuff Battery

This. The other builds are way too complex and give really strange results: why are we even considering Aid' date=' simply to refill an END reserve?[/quote']

Amen brother! I was reading the history of this thread with a degree of incredulity, to be honest, before we got the common sense solution!

To me this looks like an END reserve with 5 REC - said REC having the limitation 1 charge, recoverable, IAF, Expendable focus, very difficult to obtain: "Blue Stuff".

 

Personally I think the charge thing is misleading. For me, it's a simple 5 REC "must be injected with blue stuff". In strict terms this means the blue stuff doesn't give END, it's just the catalyst for kick-starting the Battery's inherent REC, but that's just SFX to me. I'd always rather go with the simpler build, and when you're talking about 5 REC on an Endurance Battery, the cost factor is negligible.

I'm slowly working my way through 6E, and my original thought was I'd read it once and then go back through it with a notebook to write down all those quirky things that occured to me as I went along. Four weeks in, and I can see that's unrealistic! So, having just read the 6E2 on Grabs, thought I'd drop my thoughts in straightaway.

1. Implications of Grabbing one-handed

Grabbing with one-hand works at STR-5 (the log. equivalent of half strength, using the lifting scale). Does this imply that attacking with one hand (e.g. a punch) should also be STR-5. What about attacking with the other hand while the opponent is grabbed?

2. Limbs and Headbutts

We all have 5 limbs. I can accept that a good kick will deal out at least as much pain as a hefty punch. But a headbutt? Can Batman really headbutt his way through an interior house wall? And at no harm to himself?

3. Grabs and Utility of Damage

As it stands, Squeezes and Slams are of equally utility. This doesn't seem quite right to me. It occurs to me that the advantage of a squeeze is that you're reinforcing the grab while damaging your opponent; the downside being that you're needing to remain relatively immobile and are exerting a longer-term effect. It would be well modelled as a Continuous, cumulative effect of some kind imho, with a hefty DCV penalty. A slam, on the other hand, should increase the risk of losing grip on your opponent, but implies a higher level of mobility and should almost certainly inflict more immediate damage.

4. Grabbing large targets

This section, and indeed the section on stopping moving objects, suggests that characters can exert all of their strength on all objects. It strikes me that the key factor is actually the mass of the grabber - strength will help determine whether you can hold on and also help you dig your feet into the asphalt tug-of-war style, but if you want to slow something down, Density Increase, Growth or Clinging ought to do you more good than simply being Captain Buff.

5. No HA on Grab damage

This is one of many, many, many annoyances I've found in the rules. The "Cannots". To me, Hero is a toolkit that tells me how to create the effect I want, and we all love that flexibility. To read, over and over again, of the things you "cannot" do doesn't half get my goat! Anyway, after that rant it's a relatively minor point: it would be good to reference how you'd make a HA that did add to Grab damage, i.e. limited Strength.

6. Grabs, Multiple Limbs and Foci

A grab typically targets 2 limbs. An extra-limbed character may well be able to still use OAF while grabbed. As such, are multiple limbs too cheap!? Or should OAF cost them more?

That'll do for now

Re: More Complications, Please

I'm slightly surprised this has even come up. I imagined that people would see this as liberating, meaning they don't have to overload characters with unnecessary complications that don't reflect the genre just to squeeze a few more points out of the game. It's one of the changes in 6th that I whole-heartedly support.

The other aspect of complications that I love is the slight change in terminology. You now have 400 points, but lose 50 points if you don't have complications, rather than a 350 character who gains 50 from complications. It's a subtle difference, but it reflects the fact that complications are rewarding you for essential roleplaying hooks, not a way of gaining extra points by layering difficulties to an increasingly absurd level.

Re: Regeneration Costs

It strikes me this thread has got very heated and I'm not really sure why. The issue, going back to the top, is apurely mechanical one based on an arithmetical BOD progression and a non-linear time progression. to resolve the difficulty, simply remove one of these two mechanisms. And I'm definitely not a fan of linking regeneration to REC purely and simply because it goes against 6th edition's separation of figured characteristics - I'd like to be able to build low Regen, high REC; high Regen, low REC and any variant inbetween.

My suggestion: build Regen as +1 REC (Limited: Purely for purposes of Recovering BOD). Build REC up enough and it becomes +1 per day, then +1 per hour.

Neat. Consistent. Tidy. Does it make Regen a lot more expensive? Probably, but on the basis of the current heal rate it probably should be. An alternative, of course, as mentioned previously is to compare it to use of Heal. Or indeed Aid. Though I fear that this will just highlight more odd cost behaviours in some of the powers.

Re: The character should fit on one side of one sheet of paper in 12 point type

in order to evaluate the reasonableness of this proposal' date=' please also tell me the maximum single-sided 8x11 pages in 12 point type which the GM's house rules and campaign guidelines for character construction must fit on.[/quote'] With minimum of single line spacing; fixed 2cm margins; defined font (to be specified) with zero point font compression. Just to be absolutely sure there's no funny business...

Re: The character should fit on one side of one sheet of paper in 12 point type

Well, I completely agree with the OP statement. Hero has lots of nuts and bolts in the mechanics, and those of us who are used to them almost feel naked when they're taken away. But Doc Democracy has run a few Hero games which has condensed all of the key information onto a single, well spaced, page. In particular, a memorable League of Extraordinary Gentlemen pastiche that you wouldn't know from the character sheet was even a Hero System game. The trick is to remember that the Hero System is the software engine, it's not the GUI.

Re: Limitation For Growth (5thr)

Personally, I'd call it a -1/8th limitation, because I've never been that bothered about anything <1/4 being equal to +0. But going fully rules legal, it's nearer +0, since it's limiting in such a rare set of circumstances. Unless you're playing a campaign set entirely in low-ceilinged buildings.

Re: New players, gm, UMA Charge and 34d6 damage

then why are they playing a superhero game? The re-appearance of a supposedly dead villain is an element of the genre.

I don't necessarily agree. It's a feature of some superhero sub-genres, but not all. And there are differences between a villain escaping from gaol, or a villain coming back after his body was never recovered from that blazing chemical fire. But a baddie defeated fair and square to just pop back up again? That runs the risk of creating an air of futility about the game, that nothing the players do will ever make any difference to the campaign world.

Re: New players, gm, UMA Charge and 34d6 damage

I think there's a number of quick and easy steps you can take to sort things out to your, and your players', satisfaction:

1. The first fundamental, which has been pointed out before, is the character sheets. I wouldn't allow any character into the game without reviewing the sheet in full. I don't consider that GM Tyranny, it's simple common sense - you want to create adventures that thrill, excite and test the players. This requires you to understand their characters, so that you can create appropriate challenges. Yes, it also allows you to identify and remove errors and abuses, but in many respects the former point is more important.

2. You do need to learn the rules. I think you're slightly bonkers going into a game without knowing the rules fully! This is essential not only to running the game, but also to being able to check the character sheets (Point 1, above). I do know that in some groups it can work without the GM knowing all the rules backwards - in my own group, for example, we all cooperate and help out if one of the players knows the rules better than the GM. But it doesn't sound like you have this sort of group, given the secrecy and the in-game character sheet adjustments that have been taking place.

3. Ignore all the comments from people above about hitting your players where it hurts, showing them a taste of their own medicine, etc. etc.. If a player wants to be able to access a massive, devastating dive attack, let him. The game is about maximising fun for all the participants after all. Design some villains who are immune to it, by all means (Desolidification with invisible power effect on it could be quite messy!) but also design some villains who can only be taken down in this way, so that he feels justified and can use his favourite toy. This goes back to needing to see the character sheets, so that you can design challenges where every PC / Player can shine, but also challenges where each PC might find themselves having to take a back seat every now and then.

4. Go back and make SURE you know the rules. It's so important I'll say it twice! You don't want the group to go off the game because one or two players are lording it over the campaign. You also don't want the powergamers to get bored because you make it too easy for them!

5. Never retcon the game. Always keep the story moving forward. If that was your favourite master villain, tough. Don't bring him back and say it was a clone, or a robot or whatever. Players HATE that sort of thing! (well, unless they're really into the Silver Age style of play). However, if you want to, bring in a vengeful relative. Or have another villain resurrect him (Zombie Villains?!). Or whatever. However, don't be afraid to retcon the character if it really, really needs it. However, I suspect it's more a case of understanding the rules and how they should be used.

6. 34d6 attack? I'm really struggling to understand how any attack could reach this scale in a 350 point game! In any case, my personal view is that the damage bell curve works much better around 8-12d6, so personally I'd play with a cap down the lower end of the scale. With 15d6 upwards, you're rolling on or near the mean so often, it's barely worth rolling most of the time. However, I do agree with the poster who said that if you have a Cap, it applies to the sum total damage, not just one Power. I wouldn't enforce it exactly - with a 12d6 Cap, if a player could achieve 16d6 by putting all Combat Skill Levels into damage, pushing their Strength and carrying out a Move Through, I'd let them (unless they were optimised with anti-move through defences, for example). Again, it reinforces needing to know the rules, so you can spot the potential breakpoints before they happen.

7. 18 DCV character. Well, obviously, he doesn't want to get hit that often, else he wouldn't have designed this character in this way. So that's the first thing, don't spoil his fun by hitting him all the time. If you always perfectly match challenges to PC weaknesses, there's little point playing IMHO. However, there are plenty of ways you can hurt him if and when you need to, the main one being Area Effect attacks, either to damage him directly or to reduce his DCV (tar pits, spiders webs and similar uses of Change Environment). You might even be able to use a Presence attack to keep him standing still for a round. Another option will be to play to his strengths - set up a scene where a whole bunch of villains must be kept occupied while the rest of the group have to rescue the innocents / stop a disaster / etc. etc.. Mr DCV might well be the perfect person to do this, buying time to stop the building falling down, while taking a few small hits, phase after phase... then, just as he's about to hit zero Stun, the cavalry arrives. Great story telling plays to the PC's strengths, it doesn't counter them.

Hope that helps. Good luck. And read the rules!! (and if you find the whole book a bit daunting, 5E Hero Sidekick has just the main rules to get yourself started with, or 6E Hero System Basic Rulebook).

Re: When sfx lie

BLOCK 1: Prevents damage by preventing (Traditional Hero block - can be aborted to)

BLOCK 3: NEW! Interposing block: easier to do than BLOCK 1 (perhaps an OCV bonus) but what it does is allow you to interpose a limb, so that is hit rather than more sensitive bits. Can be used with sectional defences (and for this purpose a shield may be considered a sectional defence) - can be aborted to.

One thought - 'Go first next time' is a feature of the Block maneouvre. Perhaps we get rid of that and make the maneouvre +1 OCV but you can decide on (ANY) block to block basis if you want to use the 'Position of next attack' element: if you do your block takes -1 OCV.

Another option might be that each successful block adds X to Dexterity for the purposes of determining initiative. So you might need 2 or 3 consecutive blocks before your Dex is sufficiently enhanced to allow you to go first?

Totally off-thread now, of course

Re: When sfx lie

Sounds like now that we have the concept of Damage Negation that Block may better be constructed using that as a foundation' date=' maybe with RAR.[/quote']

 

That sounds like a perfect solution. There were always quirky issues with Block vs. high strength attacks, this would be a neat solution. Well, this, or simply increased PD.

Re: Adjustments

I like it. Make it so.

(I need to get rep-spreading too...)

Re: When sfx lie

This comes down to what' date=' exactly, we're trying to model and how expensive we think it should be. [/quote']Well, exactly - in defining the SFX as "invulnerable" we're failing to define the SFX. Once we've done so, we can look at different builds. But that's kinda not the point

Re: When sfx lie

Leaving the thread bewildered and saddened.

Er, without wanting to fan any flames, what do you mean?

Re: When sfx lie

Is it OK to describe increased DCV with the sfx "invulnerability"? Of course. DCV maps very well to invulnerability.

To be honest, we must all just be looking for something to argue about at the moment, because I'm sure we're mostly in the same place! However, I think this quote sums up the issue nicely. I'm doubtful on two things: firstly, whether "invulnerable" really is a good SFX, and secondly, whether it is therefore a good fit.

On the first, "invulnerable to XXXX" might be an OK SFX, but even then it's describing the result not the cause. "Roll with blow", "Hardened skin", "Alien metabolism". They're SFX. But using "invulnerable" is like having the SFX of "doesn't take damage". It doesn't give us the WHY that should be inherent in a good SFX. Without the WHY element it's not possible to reason from effect and therefore makes it impossible to evaluate any specific case of invulnerability with DCV.

On the second, even if we assume that Invulnerable is a good SFX, we come up against Sean's original quandry - does the SFX lie. I think it's a simple Yes, because everyone can clearly see instances where the Effect doesn't match up to the SFX. However, this assumes that DCV hasn't been bought as part of a suite of powers using the Invulernable descriptor.

So, to conclude, and end this argument forever (yeah, whatever!):

1. There are too many instances where DCV alone does not lead to Invulnerability, so "Invulnerable" is a poor match to DCV.

2. DCV can make a character invulnerable to some effects, so a limited "Invulnerable to.... " descriptor could be a good match to DCV.

3. In any case, Invulnerable is a very poor SFX descriptor, because it doesn't describe the special effect of a power, it describes the intended outcome.

Now I'm activating my Flame Forcefield with the SFX "All Replying posts are converted into cold hard cash". Hope it works....

Re: Heroes TV show regeneration

Does Unluck operate differently in 6E? I've always been a bit uncomfortable with it, because of its non-effect based mechanic that doesn't do anything specific. It's fine for a roleplaying schtick, but doesn't fit comfortably into a power construction to me (unless it's unluck linked to a specific side effect?)