Phil

Re: Skills System - Out of Synch? To a great extent this can be adequately dealt with by combining some recognition of the value of Skill Levels with flexible GMing (although specific guidance and examples from Ultimate Skills would assist). I think you can say that in matters of piloting, Zl'f is substantially better and rightly so with that super-superhuman dex! It's just when complications come up ("Oh dear. The starboard wing appears to have fallen off") that experience becomes more valuable than ability, and GMs should try and take this into account.

Re: Real world vs. Game world I assume that in a world where superscience can do the most amazing things, pretty much the first thing that the Mr Fabulous and his gadgeteering chum the Brown Beetle will make are a series of robot drones that can be employed by the city and short notice to make safe any property damage and automatically undertake repairs. It's that or face twice-daily IRS inspections. I think they'd go along with it

Re: Handling interpersonal skills I like to use interpersonal skills against characters. This then removes the element of "GM paranoia" that many players exhibit, making their PCs uncharmable, persuadable and general immune to social interactions no matter what. It is also inline with a lot of heroic fiction, where you blatantly see the protagonist being led astray and dont understand why they cant see it! Particularly appropriate for the pulp genre and for modern conspiracy campaigns. I dont have a specific mechanic but one possibility might be to use a mechanic along the lines of Persuade skill, if successful then roll PRE-attack with bonuses as per skill description and use that as the guideline for how taken the player is or isnt. After all, they arent immune to PRE-attacks and isnt persuasion and the like just a very passive PRE attack? Of course, it goes without saying that if you've got good roleplayers, there is no need to enforce this approach. Which is infinitely easier.

Re: Draining FF too expensive? Why drain anything when you can have that 1 charge (difficult to recover), OAF, continuous cumulative transform for those tricky-to-put down opponents?

Re: Skills System - Out of Synch?

Re: Draining FF too expensive?

Re: Skills System - Out of Synch? I concur! To build on this, an alternative alternative presentation might be to use verbal descriptors. So might you consider something along the lines of Familiar, Skilled, Trained, Advanced, Expert, Specialist, Master. That specific example is probably a little hard to remember, but illustrates the concept.

Re: Draining FF too expensive? FF is sometimes a defence against NND or AVLD attacks? The SFX of a glowy forcefield will allow you to be seen at night by a rescue helicopter when your jetpack fails its burnout roll? FF sometimes allows you to clutch at straws?

Re: Hyper Intelligence Indirect EB "Well, of course I anticipated that this is where you would be found, and that your likely maneuverings would see us cornered at this precise point. Which is why I suspended an anvil above your precise location rigged to a sandtimer that runs out just about.... *clang*... Hmm, I appear to have underestimate the sand by 16 grains or so. How disappointing. Anyone for tea?"

Re: Draining FF too expensive? There's nothing wrong with my Combat driving skill! As to whether that's the appropriate style of driving for country roads, that's another matter altogether

Re: Draining FF too expensive?

Re: How would you build a digital camera? Add in concentration, while you're taking photos. A linked Images for the flash. And a linked Flash for that matter. Limitation (Cant be used under water). Requires Skill Roll. etc. etc. Can no-one else seriously see how pointless this is?! Says the man who writes argumentative threads proposing that the moon is made of cheese...

Re: Need another 10 points in Disads--help! hehe, I had it down as 'first' and then edited it to 'fifth'. Dagnamit!

Re: Need another 10 points in Disads--help!

Re: Look out for the wall! Erm, because without both (or time) you have an incomplete equation. Or you stick with the current system, which allows an average superstrong PC to easily propel someone at speeds of 24m/s, just over 500mph. I think it'd be nice to extend KB to multiple segments, and it wouldnt *have* to be hugely complicated. It could be something as simple (non-worked out and very off-the-cuff) calculate KB as normal, speed of dice/3, recorded on the charactersheet for easy reference (minimum 4" per segment) , time is KB/speed. I agree. Quick and simple, a fundamental requirement. Consistency would be nice though. I dont propose a tight newtonian model (hehe, I dont propose any model!) but something that treats knockback, move through and falling the same would be nice. So when I'm bumping the fridge, I'm using my 2d6 HA not my STR 10? That's just silly. I do hope the fridge has DEF 4+, or one time in 36 I'm going to be buying a new one Phil

Re: Skills System - Out of Synch? Sorry to sound blunt, but do I seriously have to spell it out?! Are they? What if adjustment powers cost x3 but drain d6x3? Then they are 3x more expensive, but 3x more effective *and* retain the same bell curve as standard pricing. As it happens this is largely irrelevant to my game as there is no PC magic, and NPCs cost whatever NPCs need to cost. In addition, this is precisely the sort of tinkering HERO is designed to handle - it is a toolkit after all. I didnt even mention the splitting of dex and int; the loss of ego, rec, ed; replacing SPD with SAS-style extra attacks and extra defences; the introduction of a two-tier skills system; changing the damage system to 0.5d6 per 3 points of STR... etc. etc. And you think I'm worried about a simply x3 multiplication?

Re: Skills System - Out of Synch?

Re: Skills System - Out of Synch? Well, there are multiple 'problems' identified here. Firstly is the inherent clumsiness of a catch-all characteristic like Dexterity. Second is the difficulty of translating real life competence into in-game competence or incompetence - is he high dex, low skill? or low dex, high skill with limited DEX (only for purposes of agility) etc. In general I do think HERO favours characteristics too much over skills. But then it doesnt take into account at all the fact the high Characteristic may not only indicate greater ability but greater pace of learning. Or maybe it does, but abstracts it. There are simply too many variables!!!!

Re: Look out for the wall! I think there are a few simple changes that can bring things back into line. 1) Get rid of velocity factor in throws. The main benefit of throws is to make an opponent prone. Stick on half-STR damage or something similar and leave it like that. 2) Rework knockback. Instead of calculating distance, calculate distance and velocity. After all, the current rules have the idiotic situation where theoretically a character can knockback an object they couldnt throw. Some reworking of this type would also allow for some fabulous multi-action knockbacks - such as when characters are shown to be hurled back for more than 1 panel of a comic book. Unfortunately, i dont have the time to propose a recalculation right now! Anyone else? Phil the Buck-passer

Re: How would you build a digital camera? True enough. Maybe we should propose a universal rule for HERO6 which says that commonly available equipment is free, and miniaturised super-versions of commonly available equipment is 2 points per item, sort of like SAS's Gadget power. But what am I saying? Suggesting that handwaving like this should be written into the Tome of Heroic Detail?! I must go and pray to the Omnipotent FRED until my faith is restored...

Re: Skills System - Out of Synch? While I'm not sure I agree with the solutions, I do agree with the issue. Skills seem like an afterthought in the HERO system and do seem to be both over-priced in comparison with powers (particularly damaging powers) and balanced in favour of high characteristics rather than high skill levels. This is why in the fantasy hero setting I'm just designing I'm doing all sorts of tweaking such as change CHAR roll to Char/2, increasing char costs by 3x, increasing the range of skills, introducing a minimum -3 unskilled penalty and making most skills costs are going to be around 1 point per +1.

Re: How would you build a digital camera? Hate to play devil's advocate*, but surely the question is not HOW but WHY? After all, something that is freely available in every major supermarket in the western world should not be something you want to be forcing players to pay for. I do want to over-react, but isnt it threads like this - how to build X household object - that bring the HERO system and HERO GMs/players into disrepute? Phil *this is a lie

Re: Megaphone I think I'd give it out for 0 points as a piece of standard equipment. Unless someone is trying to use it to boost a sonic-related power, in which case once it's a gimmick, twice it's a power stunt, third time it's an Aid.

Re: Penalty of Death I like the idea. Of course it must be a no-hope suicide mission, or else they'd use trained agents. So the real challenge is *not* defeating the terrorists, but (1) surviving, (2) figuring out how to disarm the self-destruct. Make it so that they need to defeat the terrorists to do so, and they should go along with things (turns out, unbeknownst to the government, that the terrorists happen to be holding captive a top cyberneticist, yada yada?)

Re: Need another 10 points in Disads--help! Here's my view. Stop scrabbling around for a non-character inspired disadvantage just to gain 10 extra points. Reduce a characteristic. Put on some END penalties. Get rid of a power altogether (there's always XPs, so get it later). It's this sort of points-searching approach that HERO encourages and that has led me to prefer SAS's alternative of offering marginal benefit for disadvantages.