Phil

Re: A third sense type Sounds right to me. As a minimum, active use of the sense broadcasts the sensors location. However, depending on the sensitivity of the sense (e.g. for normal sight, the number of photons being shot out) they may as a side-effect make sight possible for others. It certainly makes about a million times more 'sense' to build a flashlight like this than as images.

Re: What I learn playing a GM. That is sooooo not true! A beneficial god, whose sole aim should be to test, reward and ultimately entertain his subjects, but god you are! Just don't go getting any silly ideas about sacrificial virgins, ok?

Re: Myths about the Middle Ages

Re: Moving from D&D - rules issues

Re: Moving from D&D - rules issues I bought the Hero System Combat Handbook - as a direct reprint of lots of other rules, I feel rather cheated, but given that it does include rules from various books I don't own it offers some small compensation. One of those rules is a sort of AoO variant for the Hero system, IIRC. Presumably this actually came from Ultimate Martial Artist or possibly Fantasy Hero? Does anyone know? Anyway, as with anything else, if you want it to, HERO can emulate it. Of course, in HERO the real proof against hit-n-run attacks is holding your action and smacking 'em when they get close.

Re: Myths about the Middle Ages Droit de seigneur was not a myth, ius primae noctis was a myth. Droit de seigneur covered all of the rights due to a lord because of his position. In early medieval England, for example, this included the rights of infangantheof - the right of a lord to deal summarily with any thieves caught red-handed - and others that I can't remember right now

Re: What I learn playing a GM. Although in most of the groups I've played in, awarding XP to the player voted 'best roleplayer' increases the likelihood of one player getting consistently more XP than any others. However, when we modified it to 'best contribution'.....

Re: New Power: Intangible IMHO, the single strongest argument against having any absolutes in a generic system. Unless the absolute value is somehow tied to campaign rules somehow. For that very reason, do we need any kind of intangible or desolid at all? Just get yourself some armour, tunnelling (or limited teleport), ridiculous quantities of DCV etc. etc. Or maybe even just some weird form of visible Clairsentience

Re: New Power: Intangible I'd like to see Desolid reformed to something more like DC Heroes (Desolid works directly against DEF of objects). This construction just seems waaaaaay too complicated to me. Unnecessarily so. I'm not sure what extra value sub-dividing desolid does that wouldnt be better achieved by having an overall Desolid subject to power lims. Sorry!

Re: Do you have Active Point Limits? You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Hugh Neilson again. Genius

Re: LotR What if... question Hehe, apologies for the understandable confusion. Mithrandir is what the elves of middle earth called him (Grey Pilgrim). His "true" name, being his name before he was 'incarnated' as Gandalf, was Olorin.

Re: LotR What if... question The five wizards were Curunir (Saruman), Olorin (Gandalf), Radagast and the two 'Blue wizards'. The blue wizards ventured east and south into Sauron's own lands and nothing more is known of them. 2) The appendix also suggests that the wizards were not human but merely came "in the shape of men" out of the West. Does Tokien ever explain what they are or where they come from? They are known as the Istari. Essentially they are Maiar (lesser angelic powers) embodied in mortal form (hence Gandalf's very real death). Suggest you check out the Encyclopedia of Arda: http://www.glyphweb.com/ARDA/

Re: Do you have Active Point Limits? That was my assumption, but a quick Google quickly reveals this to be one of those phrases of unknown origin, possibly related to tailoring, concrete or machine-guns! Know there's a character concept for ya

Re: Do you have Active Point Limits? Hehe, that's a relief, because in those M&M=>HERO conversions I've been looking at, I've got a few powers flying off into the 70-80 APs (including Flight - goddamn, it's been so long since I made a HERO character, I'd forgotten flying fast was that expensive!)

Re: Do you have Active Point Limits? Something I was just thinking about today was having a 'Balance Points' factor, which is mid-way between Active Points and Real Cost. Just strikes me that if a power has 80 Active points but -4 worth of disadvantages it is so much less imbalancing that it perhaps ought to be allowed. Admittedly, GM monitoring can pick most of these things up, but I like to have underpinning rules that allow some objective evaluation in advance.

Re: Transformation I do agree in principle, but perhaps the key words are "humble" and "person who conceals". How do you know what PRE someone has if they don't use it. Just as STR60 man doesnt break every little thing he picks up, PRE 60 man doesn't have to appear as a super-charismatic idol.

Re: Defense against Entangle And you could presumably buy this cheaply using the 'Only for Casual Strength' which I have been told is a wopping (-1 1/2) limitation. Hence: +60 Strength, Only Casual (-1.5), Only vs Entangles (-2), 0 End cost (+0.5), Standard effect (+0); Real cost 90; Actual cost 20 pts. Is that valid? Guaranteed 6 BOD each phase to whatever Entangle is holding you. Of course, it doesn't stop the entangle hitting you. For 20 points you might be better off with +12 DCV(5 pt levels), Only vs Entangles (-2), or possibly a limited form of Desolid. NB: I personally think stacking Only Casual and Only vs Entangles is a bit of a minimax fiddle, and wouldn't allow it in my game. After all, by defining it as Only vs Entangles, you already lose the benefit of HtH damage and figured characteristics. The additional limitation of Casual only doesn't really disadvantage the player much at all.

Re: M&M to HERO OK, here's my thoughts so far on M&M to HERO conversion! RULE ONE: Every element of conversion must be tailored to each individual campaign. CHARACTERISTICS There are two levels to converting. Firstly, converting the value. Secondly, equivalence. Few M&M characters would justify a DEX 23, but for many campaigns Dex 23 is very much the norm. This needs to be taken into account for certain characters (see calculated CV, below) In fact, in general terms, the characteristic scales are virtually identical (Strength lifting amounts *are* identical). However, because HERO by convention has slightly higher 'normal' maxima, I decided that it was appropriate to have M&M 18=HERO20. As such the full characteristic scale runs something like this: 1-10 same 11-20 matched CV increases to D20 modifiers. But had to get rid of M&M 11 to do so! Hero(CV).. M&M (Mod) 11 (4) ... 12 (+1) 12 (4) ... 12 (+1) 13 (4) ... 13 (+1) 14 (5) ... 14 (+2) 15 (5) ... 14 (+2) 16 (5) ... 15 (+2) 17 (6) ... 16 (+3) 18 (6) ... 16 (+3) 19 (6) ... 17 (+3) 20 (7) ... 18 (+4) 21 (7) ... 19 (+4) 22 (7) ... 19 (+4) 23 (7) ... 20 (+5) <+1> ... <+1> Went for straight +1 thereafter really just for ease and because to do otherwise extends the M&M characteristic scale much too far (makes a M&M Brick's Con 34 = HERO CON 44, which is excessive) SPD should be by archetype/campaign convention, so Costumed Adventurer (batman-esque) I went for SPD 5/6, Energy Controller I went for SPD 4/5. YMM(and should)V! POWERS Converting powers was fairly easy, by using the assumption that M&M 1 rank = HERO 1d6. Similarly, M&M +1 Defence = HERO 2 DEF. Most individual powers can be fairly easily converted on this basis. CV CV I worked out by looking at the M&M attack score and converting it to CV, on the basis that HERO has slightly less variation than M&M (taking an average HERO CV of 9 to equal M&M Attack +10). Slightly skewed, because HERO works on 62.5% success rate (equal CV vs equal CV, 11-) rather than D20's 50% chance. But such is the variation of different systems! So I've partly looked at the odds, partly compared martial artists (guestimate M&M martial artist +16 attack, HERO martial artist OCV 13) and partly built the scale to allow for some character variation in the mid-range. HERO M&M CV Att/Def HERO* M&M* 4 2 9.3% 10.0% 5 4 16.2% 20.0% 6 6 25.9% 30.0% 7 8 37.5% 40.0% 8 9 50.0% 45.0% 9 10 62.5% 50.0% 10 11 74.1% 55.0% 11 12 83.8% 60.0% 12 14 90.7% 70.0% 13 16 95.4% 80.0% 14 18 98.1% 90.0% *to hit average DCV / Defence IMPORTANT!: You should then use this value to inform the calculation of Dex and/or CSLs. POWER ATTACK and other Combat Feats I was thinking about this just now and realised that actually Power attack is an incredibly powerful ability in M&M for it's cost. Basically, attack, damage, defence and toughness are all capped at the character level (starting =10), but you can trade off damage and attack, and defence and tough (so powerful but inaccurate, or agile but weedy). Power attack seriously undermines this by allowing you to have a +10 Attack, +10 damage attack that can at a whim become a +5/+15 against slow tough opponents or +15/+5 against fast weak opponents. As such, it *should* be expensive in Hero. However, I'm also thinking that it's probably a combat maneuver that doesnt really need to be translated. Hero has pushing, damage increased by CSLs, haymakers or multipower EBs. The unbalanced flexibility of feats like Power Attack simply dont fit. It'll be one of those small differences I think. I think it's best to resist converting absolutely everything. Such differences are the reasons we chose one game system over an other, after all!

Re: Missile Deflection Variant (Pondering) In a purer version of HERO this is indeed how it should appear.

Re: Questions regarding the use Of EGO and Pushing Depends on how 'gritty / realistic' your campaign is, but if you wanted ultra realism you should have a weight-lifting skill which governs the push. An ego-roll might be an inbetween measure.

Re: Stupid Speedster Trick Absolutely. That sounds like a great, creative idea to me.

Re: LotR What if... question If Saruman hadnt been corrupted, the attack on Dol Guldur would have occured sooner. Sauron would have been driven out and peace would reign for many hundreds of years. The ring would not have been awakened by the presence of the Necromancer in Mirkwood, the ring would not have caused itself to fall from Gollum's finger, so when a curious little hobbit stumbled on a snivelling sneak in a cave under the Misty Mountains, he would've been eaten. The Dwarves would not have made it through Mirkwood, the line of Thror would have been extinguished and the Lonely Mountain would have remained the home of Smaug the Magnificent. Dain would have remained in the Iron Hills. Eventually Sauron would regain power, although it would have taken much more time. Perhaps the Istari could continue to keep him in check, but such was not their role. More likely that one by one they would become absorbed by their own distractions, Radagast communing more and more with nature, Saruman becoming more and more interested in either his own ring lore or in mechanical devices. Gandalf would have become increasingly isolated. Sauron would probably regain his strength away to the south or east in the countries which were still nominally vassal lands. He would return to strength, with the ring still safely under the Misty Mountain. The inevitable attack on the forces of Good would come many hundreds of years later, but it would have the addition of Smaug and not have the distraction for forces being drawn off to besiege the Misty Mountain. In the intervening years the line of the kings of men would have died out with Aragorn never fathering children and Arwen sailing to the Lonely Isles in grief. No-one would be there to challenge Sauron to strike rashly and his attack would be measured and ruthless. The West would fall, and darkness would return without hope of redemption. Or alternatively, the ring would contrive another way to get found, fate (or manwe or illuvatar) would contrive another way for Hobbits to receive it, an unknown people "coincidentally" resistant to the ring's power, and destiny would take its natural course.

Re: VPP Question I dont see how either Uncontrolled or Continuing Charges would work in these ways. It's not like a multipower where every element exists in its own right, but requires the multipower pool to 'activate'. Once you switch powers in a VPP the old power no longer exists. If you did want to use an uncontrolled power in a VPP, that's fine, but if you want the uncontrolled to keep going you need to keep points in the power. It may be counter intuitive, counter 'realism' but it's pure game balance and pure effects-based system. Continuing charges couldnt apply in any case could it, unless you already had continuing charges on the overall pool? Phil

Bought Reality Storm yesterday and while generally rather underwhelmed, I did like the section on natural disasters. However, I'm not sure it modelled volcanos particularly well, concentrating largely on the lava. From what I've seen of volcano documentaries (Yellowstone and Krakatoa) as well as reading Robert Harris' excellent novel 'Pompeii', the main issues with big eruptions tend to be related to falling rock and ash and then a deadly pyroclastic flow of superheated mud, ash, etc.. Lava is certainly a pain to anyone treading on it, but molten rock rarely moves fast enough to trouble people (although it makes a right mess of any property in the way). Anyone out there (a) know anything more about volcanos, ( have any suggestions for how we might model them for HERO?! thanks, Phil

Re: M&M to HERO Myself and Doc Democracy are currently planning on putting together a 3-Act multiverse scenario using SAS for Act 1, Hero for Act 2 and MnM for Act 3. Plan is to take two pre-gen PCs from each game system and convert across the other two. We'll be working up 2E converstion system as part of this, though obviously leaning VERY heavily on Mitchells work! One thing I suspect I will change is the figured characteristics. In 2E at least, PD and ED should surely relate to the Damage save, not the raw characteristics. Just dont ask me the details just yet! What I would say is that there are a myriad number of conversion mechanisms that might need to be considered. For supers games, the classic is to compare STR benchmarks and scale from there. However, you also have other fixed-point benchmarks (e.g. tank example below), success rate benchmarks (what do you need to do to give a character the same success % in the new system) or - as Mitchell suggested - starting character benchmarks. I dont think any one approach is right or wrong. Context is key. I'll report back in the next couple of weeks to let you know how we get on!