Kabluey

Re: John Doe

Re: A couple questions for GMs 1. It varies from a paragraph to five or so pages (the longest I've gotten so far). I used to require some background (without any specific length requirements or anything). Now I've started giving 5 xp for providing a background. I've vaguely thought of altering the xp bonus based on length, say, 2 pts for up to a page, 5 pages for 1+ pages, something like that. Haven't done it though. 2. I guess it depends on the sort of disad you're talking about. Psych, Social limitations: I almost never specifically set up situations for those, but they come up from time to time anyway. Hunteds, DNPC's: I never roll dice for those, I just use them when I want to based on what frequency they're bought at. Vulnerability, Susceptibility: I won't use them much, but I will make a point to use them every so often.

Re: Indispensable Books Quite frankly, 5ER is pretty much the only book I find indespensible. When I'm doing the planning for a session or during play, it's pretty much the only one I will always have with me. Others I find frequently useful: Equipment Guide, Fantasy Hero (when doing Fantasy), CKC (for Champs), Combat Handbook.

Re: If You Had To Play a DC Character… Firestorm (original, not the new one). Green Lantern (any of them, though only Guy if I felt the group could tolerate me playing such an obnoxious character). Hawkman (cool character, but also because I'd get to fool around with Hawkgirl - gotta dig a girl with wings). Any of the JSA'ers would be strong contenders for me. As I said in the Marvel thread, mostly based on liking the character, less about their powers. Though in this case (moreso at least than for my Marvel choices), I think they have cool powers too. Firestorm I think was consistently one of the most underrated characters power-wise; the abilitiy to change anything non-organic into anything else is just pretty damn powerful and cool. And Green Lantern's powers is just a wonderful opportunity to creatively play a character. Sure, anyone can hit a villain, but GL can create a giant fly swatter to smack 'em down!

Re: If You Had To Play a Marvel Character… Nova would probably be my first pick. He's been one of my all-time favorites since his original series. Quasar would probably be my second choice. I actually did run a Quasar-esque character in a campaign for a brief period of time (brief because the campaign ended, not because the character died or I grew bored of him). A few other strong contenters: Hawkeye, Cannonball, Ant-Man, Cyclops. As to why, it mostly boils down to characters that I've liked, rather than particulars about their powers. The one exception to that would be Cannonball; I'm not so fond of the character, but I like his powers.

Re: John Doe Why? I can see why some people might not prefer them. They can be complex and potentially abusive in the hands of the wrong player, but it seems a better fit than the general Knowledge Skill idea above. The problem with that is that John Doe didn't just have knowledge, he had practical skills as well. For instance, in the very first episode he knows how to drive a particularly difficult sports car and fly a helicopter, i.e., he has Transport Familiarity. Clearly he exhibits Deducation, Criminology, and Forensic Medicine all throughout the show. He speaks foreign languages, hacks into computers, gambles, and engages in futures trading. None of these are covered by Knowledge Skills. And while you could build the character just by buying all these skills, to buy them at levels seen in the show would be very, very expensive. As I said, I think it could be abused, but depending on the player and the rest of the character build, I'd allow it in my game.

Re: John Doe I watched the show when it originally aired and enjoyed it quite a bit. I wasn't surprised though that it got cancelled. It was very much of a genre show, and those have a hard time getting beyond the first season - especially on Fox. As to his all-knowledge, couldn't this be done fairly effectively and easily with a VPP? With even only a 10 base, this would not cost much. And 10 Active Points in a skill would be a lot - enough, I'd think, to simulate his level of knowledge in a topic. I'd probably get rid of the skill roll (for the VPP, not for the skil in the slot, obviously), but leave it at a full phase action to change slots, kind of like with Doe takes a second or two to think about something in the show. The whole thing would only cost 20 pts. Of course, you'd have to put condition on the VPP to indicate that it could not be used for personal knowledge. And Doe never displayed any exceptional prowess in combat, insofar as I recall. So I'd probably limit blantantly combat-related skills like Autofire, CSL's, PSL's, etc. That's probably how I'd approach, though in fairness VPP's are not for every player.

Re: W W Y G M D ?? Answering as the GM... Oh, this would be fun. He'd get the Nobel - and so much more. First, I'd figure out who suffered as a result. Solve world hunger - did this have any impact on food prices (sudden abundance of food perhaps driving food prices even lower)? What about third-world dictators who use food as a political weapon? What about the company that was about to release a new genetically engineered seed to increase food supplies - there goes that $1.5 billion in research! Second, I'd figure out who would benefit. People in third-world nations suddenly have plenty of food? Maybe they'd start to worship the hero as a god. This angers religious leaders. Maybe people now start demanding he do other "miracles" - cure disease, that sort of thing. Third, I'd figure out who would just be scared by the act. If he can cure world hunger, what else can he do? Can he overturn governments? Put whole industries out of business overnight? Pretty soon he'd have a list of enemies so long it'd make his head spin. The character would probably become an NPC. It's just too disruptive running a campaign where one player is doing one thing and everyone else is doing something else entirely. Then I'd make the NPC an archvillain of the group. After all, he probably knows them better than anyone else.

Re: How important is presentation... I have to disagree that these two guys are the same characters. From a build standpoint, they would have started out very similar, but after 50 more xp they could easily be very different characters. The second guy presumably would add Flight or Heat Vision or whatever other Superman powers he lacks. But the first guy could just decide to do anything based on the last comic book that he read. "I'm playing a gamma irradiated mutant and Prof X is a mutant, so can I have telepathy?" To me, character concept isn't just about where the character starts, but about where's he's going. And the second description makes me think that the guy has a better idea of where the character is going and I'll have a better idea of what to expect without the constant need to reject ideas ("No, you can't have telepathy. No, you can't nova blast like the Human Torch. No, you can't have vaguely-defined, uber-powerful hexes like the Scarlet Witch.")

Re: Anyone have solutions for the Stun Lottery that a high dice Killing Attack create

Re: C25 deposit I saw the provision, had a brief moment of "hey, that's not right," and then sent in my $10. It's not a question of whether I think the agreement is fair or not, it's a question of my faith in the company. They consistently put out a good product, so they're more than capable of doing what they say. And I realize that if they did fail to publish the book and kept everyone's money, they'd simply anger a lot of customers (all of those who did pay the $10 and probably many that didn't). They're too small of a company to risk that. And I accept that sometimes small companies have to be more careful than large companies do. Microsoft's losing $1 million, no biggie; Hero Games' losing $1000, probably more of an issue. So they CYA more than a large corporation has to. So it's basically a risk vs. rewards thing. I'm willing to take what I perceive as very a small risk on $10 for the more likely reward of a book that I want. And ultimately, let's face it, $10 isn't that much money. Not that I'm so rich I burn $10 bills in my fireplace, but if anyone here would suffer financial ruin because of the loss, well, you really shouldn't be thinking about buying a $100 gaming book anyway. Just my $0.02 (which is non-refundable whether or not my thoughts are worth that much)

Re: Anyone have solutions for the Stun Lottery that a high dice Killing Attack create I had exactly this same complaint when I started my first Champions campaign two years ago or so (as, has been pointed out, have a lot of people). My solution was simply the Hit Location chart. It preserves some of the lethality of the Killing Attack (a Head shot does x5 STUN and x2 BODY), but reduces the chance of this happening such that no one can count on this. And it's provided some amusement as well. In a recent session, we had a player who was hit in the Vitals three times in a row. We're all guys, so you can imagine the sort of humor that degenerated into.

Re: Playing with characters provided by the GM I sort of seem to have fallen into this unintentionally recently. I'm currently running a Star Hero campaign, but will be shifting to a Fantasy Hero campaign in a few months. So I've been working hard to setup everything for my fantasy campaign, with part of the difficulty being that I'm using Harn as my world, and I'm trying to capture the feel of the HarnMaster rules, so I actually have less freedom from a rules standpoint than if I were doing my own world. Two sessions ago, when several players weren't going to show up, I decided to go ahead and play a "test" session using characters I had created. But the players (who are experienced Hero players and are fairly particular when it comes to characters) actually liked them so much they wanted to stick with them. And then last session, we again played the Harn Hero campaign, but this time with one of the other regular players there. So I created a character for him. Similarly, he's indicated he likes the character and will stick with him. My 4th player, the only one who doesn't have a character yet, is the least Hero knowledgeable and the most likely to accept a pre-gen character. So I assume that I will be creating his. This is my first experience, albeit unintentional, with doing pre-generated characters and thus far it's turned out quite well. The characters all have reasonably detailed histories that are much more closely tied to the world than they would have been had the players generated them (after all, I know the world better than they do). And I think that's a large part of what's really made them fun to play. So for me at least it's been quite successful. I wouldn't generally do it, and even in this case I've made it clear that they can choose to play their own characters. But I'm really hoping they don't. I like the characters - and I like knowing them as well as the players.

Re: Limitation or Disadvantage? I think Hugh's correct. I specifically disallow things that I think will separate a party on a regular basis. The closest I came to something like this was in my Champions campaign I had a character with a distrust of technology. I didn't think too much about it at the time, but then they needed to fly around a lot in their jet. After the first session where that was a problem, the player and I agreed that he could fly in the jet - he just couldn't ever pilot it. In your case, there are only two ways I'd allow the character. First, if I expected the campaign to be primarily/only at night. Then I'd do it as a disadvantage, basing points on if there'd ever be anything done during the day. Or, second, I'd insist that he have some alternate form or something that he could use during the day. Or I'd let him take it, then set the whole campaign during the day.

One of my least favorite things about Hero is the caps on adjustment powers. It's just too much recordkeeping for my tastes. I understand why they're there. Adjustment powers would be way too unbalancing otherwise. But I'm still not happy with them. So I'm curious if others have come up with any house rule to handle them differently. I've been giving it a fair amount of thought, but haven't come up with anything I've liked so far. But I figured some of you clever people must have come up with something.

Re: Tell me of your Hero Point/Dramatic Editing mechanics Just tonight I used a new system for the first time called Luck Chips. I stole the basic idea from someone on this board (though for the life of me I can't remember who) but I modified it heavily. Basically, there are four different colored chips (I'm using poker chips), with each successive color more useful than the prior. For instance, a white chip - the least useful - can either allow you to re-roll until you get a lower roll, or you can change one die to a 1, or a few other things. A red chip (the next highest) allows you to actually remove a die from a 3d6 roll, or you can increase your damage, etc. The green and black are likewise more useful than these. For each level of Luck (and all players get one level for free), you roll 1d6 and get to pull that many chips out of a bag, randomly getting any of the above colors. I even populate the bag with chips based on their usefulness, with the least usefulness having the most chips. But I have two limiting factors. First, you can save chips from session to session, but you can never have more than your max Luck roll (e.g., 6 for 1 level of Luck). Second, when you use a chip, it comes to me the GM and I can then use it at some future point against the players. We used it tonight for the first time and it worked very well. When the players needed to make their rolls, they could use a chip. And then later I got to use the chips to make things harder for them when things were going a bit too easy. Worked very well for us.

Re: Ruling on this situation... I would assume that, unless the Flight is defined as restrainable, he can use it - just like you can use any non-restrainable power when grabbed. Then it just becomes an issue of whether his STR is sufficient to lift the one grabbing him. And, of course, if he's ramming into the ground, then he takes the same damage as the villain.

Re: The Ultimate Character Sheet I like the layout. It seems like you pretty much put all combat-related stuff on a single page, which can reduce flipping between pages. A recommendation along those lines, though: Since you seem to have some room, add SPD, REC, and Movement to the second page, since these are very commonly used in combat as well. Thanks.

Re: help my friend is overpowered!!!!! Obviously the best idea is for the GM to handle it. Perhaps by hinting less and just being straightforward about it. At the very least, he should stop giving the guy xp if he hasn't already. After all, the adventures can't really be all that challenging for him, can they? As for what you can do, I guess it just depends on why the guy is still playing the character. If he just gets off on having a 1,000-pt character, there doesn't seem to be much you can do. The GM will just have to convince him to retire the character or risk losing the rest of you due to lack of interest. If he just likes the character a lot, perhaps he could introduce a 350-point version - the Son of Captain Thousand. At the very least, I'd be upfront with him. If he really is a friend, then he should understand - or at least not be so annoyed that he quits the group.

Re: Speedster Tactics I justed started playing a speedster myself and thus far (after four sessions) am having a blast. My build is almost exactly the same as yours except for a slightly higher DEX (38) and slightly higher PD/ED (20/20). And I don't have any of the typical speedster tricks (because of my concept - I move fast because of skates, not because of inherent superspeed like the Flash, and my top speed is far slower than most speedsters, though still way above normal chars - thus I can't do things like vibrate my body fast to walk through walls or stuff like that). What people have said above is all good advice. One of the great things about having a high DEX and SPD is being able to act when you want to, i.e., acting in many phases and holding your action until the right moment. Even though I'm usually top in the combat order, I almost always hold my action. I find this usually gives me the most flexibility. I can abort if necessary (I'll likely stay conscious if hit, but I'm guaranteed to be CON stunned), and I don't hesitate to abort because I'm probably acting in the next phase anyway. But I can also usually interrupt other people's actions if needed with my high DEX roll. And what someone said above about not ending a phase next to an opponent or in a situation where you can be trapped is critical. I use Passing Strike/Throw regularly, specifically planning my move so I'm between 10" and 20" away from an opponent giving my opponents range penalties to hit me or requiring that they take a full move to reach me. Finally, I've found Luck to be quite valuable. (We use the alternate rule given in 5ER about rerolling dice, not the standard rule.) I purchased 1d6 of Luck and am ready to buy a second d6 once I get xp from the next session. My effectiveness is beginning to make me something of a target for the GM, I'm afraid, but Luck (the sort when you can control when to use it, not the GM) has really made the difference. I don't think all characters need Luck, but for my speedster at least it's been one of the best investments of points.

Re: Resurrection My thoughts on how much of a point break to give the limitation limiting the time a corpse can be resurrected depends on how limiting this is vis-a-vis the rest of the campaign. Meaning, if you decide that a corpse can only be raised after 1 day, but others can raise it after one week, then I might reduce the cost of the Resurrection adder. But if everyone suffers the same limitation, then I'd probably just say it's a campaign rule and give no point break for it.

Re: Tactical Principals

Re: Historical Maps Resource I got it to load up under Firefox 1.5 using the Insight Browser link. I did have to turn off popup blocking though. I haven't tried with any other browsers like IE or Safari. It's a pretty cool site, definitely worth a look.

Re: Calling All Evil GMs Here's an idea: At the time that the healing took place, a serial murderer in the city is being executed. The healing prevents him from dying, however, and then his lawyer trots out some stupid, century-old local law that forces the government to set him free. Of course, he reverts to old habits... You could even do something like say that the interaction of the healing power and the execution method gives him super-powers (e.g., electrical powers if he was to be executed, poison powers if being executed by lethal injection), so it could turn him into a real foe for the heroes. Depending on how evil you wanted to be, you could even have this guy publicly thank the heroes for their assistance - that would go over well with the public. He could even start killing their enemies - not the super-powered ones, of course, but the reporter who wrote a negative article about them, for instance, or the public figure who had spoken out against vigilantes, or whatever.

Re: Can't Draw must find help!