Phil

Re: Creating a weapon ? Agree with general points of discussion, dont agree with specific construction above. Firstly, not convinced that 'disappeared if dropped' is a limitation. After all, creating a new dagger would be a zero phase action, unless you put another limitation such as charges on it. Secondly, requires light to use would be a -0 limitation for me, because light is so prevalent. Only in the pitchest of pitch black will there be no shadow at all. This is so rare as to basically never occur outside of the Darkness power. And I'd treat a particular vulnerability to Darkness as a side effect of the SFX, in the same way Flame Guy wont be shooting EBs under water. Thirdly, not sure how the dagger is supposed to function, but if you want to it be largely like a real dagger, 1d6 is more appropriate than 2d6. Although for something like a shadow dagger, it might be nice to add penetrating or AP onto it, just for a fun Phil

Re: Mute?

Re: Terminal Velocity

Re: Ideas for a Hero Games Legendary Product And I will never buy another one of these again. I lost heart in HERO when every 4th edition supplement was just a long list of character write-ups. From the better (Dark Champions, Kingdom of Champions) where write-ups maybe took up 25% of space, to the dreadful bestiaries which never pretended to be anything else, they were a complete rip-off: a few hours work, bit of desk-top publishing, heypresto - a new supplement. I'd rather see more adventure hooks / mini-adventures. Villains should be tailored to individual groups' power levels and set-up, and can be fudged as necessary. Full write-ups are a waste of paper as well as money! If you want these, search the web. I'm sure there's plenty of write-ups out there you could use as villains if you so chose. Dont they have these already? I think they're called 'comics' Phil

Re: Chomp! Hey, let me out! Definitely agree with previous two posts. It's part of the SFX of being large. Of course, now that size isnt governed by persistent Growth or Shrinking, it's possible that you could get a very cost-effective attack for virtually no points. So 'stop sign' I guess, in lieu of mechanical game balance. Of course, the swallowee will pretty much automatically hit the swallower, at least until they're overcome - life support would be very handy! And for most SFX of armour, rPD and Forcefields, there's going to be no protection there. I'm guessing a 12d6 EB could do a lot of damage to someone's insides. Phil

Re: Terminal Velocity Lots of interesting discussion going on, but I think people are hung up with the SFX. I would expect this to be created by something like an entangle, XDM or transform (to cover the warp looping) followed by a linked xd6 attack (possibly linked to an Uncontrolled Aid, to reflect the attack gaining dice the longer the person is in the warp). Anything else and the player is getting an attack way more potent than the points they've paid for it. In my book, they want to do 30d6 damage then (a) they better have a damn good reason why I should run railroad over my campaign limits, and ( they better pay for a 30d6 attack.

Re: On balance...when no one else follows it. Well, if it isnt too late, I'd say let it be, but buy yourself a bit of extra DCV, get some extra PRE and some low cost utility powers like Aid or cumulative Mind Control. That way, you contribute to every fight, even if you're not the directly involved.

Re: Hardened vs. AP

Re: Speedster Name Needed I think PDQ is fabulous. Alternatively how about Shovel. As in as fast as s*** off one. Then there's Zip, Whizz, Zoom, and similar onomatopoeiac words. Cheetah, Impala, Greyhound and similar animal terms. Runner, Dasher, Sprinter, and other verb-related nouns. Or you could go down the route of my favourite ever Champions character: Jack (because, er, that was his name). Phil

Re: Cure for Cancer (Healing) Lots of great stuff here. Kudos to everyone. RPGs arent great at reflecting disease, because disease is generally much more subtle than simply reducing characteristics. Even a simple cold will drain CON, STUN, DEX, STR, SPD, INT, PRE, COM and REC at slightly different levels. Game mechanically, therefore, while I dislike adders general as something of an arbitrary system kludge, unless you're playing Medical Hero (registered trademark of DoJ) it definitely seems the best way. An early post made a suggestion that Regeneration would be a good defence against a Cancer NND. Given that cancer is, very basically, cell regeneration gone wrong, I could well see that having super regeneration could actually make things considerably worse. If you were to define it as an attack, cancer could well be a 1d6 Extra-time Drain linked to 2d6 Extra-time drain (only works on targets with regeneration). A dodgy construction, of course, but it illustrates the point

Re: Legendary thread haha, now you're talking my language. COM - yup, I get rid of this. Attractiveness is more a roleplaying hook than anything else - if everyone wants to be gorgeous, let em. INT - keep this purely because of its skill impact. Skills, in a sense, are a type of figured characteristic after all. DEX - Can be easily split. My favourites are Agility (relating to SPD, DCV and gross motor coordination skills), Dexterity (relating to fine-work Dex skills) and Accuracy (relating to OCV). I think PRE and EGO should be kept separate, representing charisma and willpower. But, as with so many elements of the Hero System, such tweaks are eminently feasible. Re: CHAR/5, I go the opposite way. I like everything to be based off CHAR/3, as this increases the granularity of the system. Assuming all CHARs follow the STR 5 points = x2 progression, CHAR/5 skill rolls dont seem to reflect that degree of difference. And if you're worried about number of characteristics, remember there are also Power Defence, Mental Defence and Flash Defence: might start with a base value of 0, but they are effectively CHAR too!

Re: Hardened vs. AP True. Certainly based on the arguments here, I'm satisfied that AP and Hardened are appropriately costed initially, but do think that AP should scale down to 1/4 for each subsequent AP. After all, the second AP is effectively "AP only against opponents with hardened defences", which must surely be a -1 limitation on a -1/2 limitation (0.5 / (1+1) = 0.25) This point raises an interesting side question, however, about the utility of attacks and defences. Attack multipowers are common, whatever the source of the attack. Defence multipowers are generally harder to justify though: perhaps with forcefield, but very rarely with armour. So while defences generally cost less, when multipower enters the equation, attacks are far cheaper.

Re: Another CoH thread Steel Maiden, 25th level tanker on Freedom

Re: Question on character "value" (point totals) Not true. Balance is perfectly definable solely by mathematical formulae, whether in terms of statistical means, or specific efficiency scenarios. However, what IS clear is that character points in Hero do not accurately determine balance. It's a pretty close approximation - closer, certainly, than any other rpg system I know of - but it simply isnt there yet, and nor is it ever likely to be. There are lots of misbalances (a 10d6, 10" AoE vs. 1d6 1" AoE: 10x the cost, 100x the power), lots of fairly arbitrary values (e.g. all of the 'absolute powers', including senses and invisibility) and lots of fudges. Most of them probably benefit game play. Bring in disadvantages and you're introducing even more numbers into an already unbalanced system. My view is that disadvantages are not mathematically worth the points you get. But it's also something of a trade-off: you get extra points, in return for which you provide the GM some extra plot hooks for when he's lacking in inspiration. Watched by the FBI is, to the average hero, worth nowhere near the benefit of 10 STR. (on the other hand, Hunted by Dr Destroyer 14- ought to be worth 100 points at least!). And the point is, it works. Of course, it goes without saying, that personally I'd like to butcher the existing disads system, remove all psych lims, halve the costs of most other disads and get rid of the disadvantage-piling that most HERO characters have. But that's no reflection of it's current utility, more just my goddarned tinkerness

Re: Legendary thread I have actually been thinking about this recently, as I re-read FREd cover-to-cover. And my conclusions are: (1) to turn HERO into a 'pure' effects based system, Invisibility and Desolid are among the powers in need of reform, similarly to how you suggest (and for Desolid at least, that's how DC Heroes handled it). (2) the cost-benefit for the amount of effort this would take is probably not worth it! Phil

Re: Hardened vs. AP

Why is Hardened worth +1/4 but AP worth +1/2? For the purposes of game balance, surely both should cost exactly the same? After all, defences are already cheaper than attacks, this just accentuates those differences. Given the limited value of additional APs and Hardeneds, I was thinking that a value of +1/2 for the first and +1/4 for any subsequent seems reasonable for both. Hence for +1 you could have triple-AP attack. Phil

Re: Legendary thread This is something I've given a lot of thought to myself, although never actually completed. Among these powers you might have: Adjust - includes all adjustment powers, as well as attacks, defences, growth and shrinking. All of these powers either add to or detract from characteristics. Some are constant, others are instant, but all use a variant of the same basic mechanic. Movement Create - covers Entangle, Force Wall and some Transforms Mental - covers mental powers with Ego+X mechanic Those few 'absolute' powers, such as Invisibility and Desolidifcation struggle to fit into any 'pure' effect-based model. Phil

Hero is a strongly power-driven system at the moment, and one key example of this is in movement rates. In most games, to run faster, you increase a running skill or similar trait. In Hero, you buy a power. I was wondering whether anyone had developed a system for a heroic-level game that used movement skills to boost the base movement rates, rather than buying up movement? Or possibly some combination of the two - because those 100m runners achieve 10m/s, and I don't think they're built on enough points for Running 10", SPD5 Phil

Re: Re-inventing after experience Wow. I clearly have spent too much time reading the posts of number crunching, min-max fearing hero fans. That is the most beautiful and elegant 'solution', and of course, quite correct. The character is not (or at least, should not be) the numbers; they're just an estimate, a best-guess of what the character is. Cheers Derek, Phil

Wondering how people treat players 'reinventing' characters having received some experience. My general approach is not, but I was thinking of a specific example today relating to power stunts. One of the easiest ways to do power stunts is simply to add multipower slots. This way, for a low price, that telekine can add telekinetic shield, telekinetic flight, telekinetically closing eyelids (flash), etc. etc. But what if that character bought telekinesis straight? Would you allow them to convert it to a multipower? E.g. would you let a player convert 40pt telekinesis to a 40 pt multipower with a telekinesis slot for 8xp? Or would you force them to live with the choices made during character creation?

Re: Fun with luck points - Refine my powers Yes, it is a stretch. Yes, it makes EDM the ultimate do-anything power. No, I'd never allow it in my game. BUT.... "Other such uses [of EDM] include stopping time (the character 'travels to the dimension' where he is the only thing not frozen in time); granting wishes (the character travels to a dimension where he has received whatever he has wished for)...and the like" FREd, p111, emphasis my own. Offical rule. Official load of cack. IMHO of course! Phil

Re: Julie? FRRED? Fifth Re-Revised EDition JULIE? Just Until Long Isnt Exasperated

Re: Analyze Enhancer? Get rid of Analyze and just use Skill Levels with activation linked to successful Knowledge Skill rolls. Easy peasy.Then you just vary the level of advantage. For 20 points you can comfortably have +3 or +4 with limited 10pt Skill Levels. And while on the subject, Breakfall is PD linked to Acrobatics skill roll, Defence Maneuvers are limited Skill Levels, Find Weakness is either extra dice of attack or defence drain linked to a KS roll and Fast Draw is limited SPD. Presto Chango!

Re: When do you Abort? My first thought was that your GM was being an arse. Having thought, actually I think he's right IF it's a first time foe and IF you said Dodge because you wanted to Dodge, not because you said Dodge when you actually meant Dive for Cover all along. It's fine, it's in genre and you'll know for next time. However, it does raise a question. A dive for cover involves throwing yourself out of the way of an attack. Surely that's a Dodge as well. But a Dodge is not also a Dive for Cover. So, it naturally follows that if a Dive for Cover encompasses a Dodge and a Dive, it ought to have some penalty to stop you doing it all the time. E.g. you're now prone and must spend 1/2 phase getting up. Do other GMs enforce this?