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Killer Shrike

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Everything posted by Killer Shrike

  1. You can accomplish the equivalent of a package deal bonus by allowing a custom enhancer, which is what I generally do in 6e. Such a custom enhancer costs 3 points, and reduces the cost of each ability allowed to be taken within it by 1 point. Just be consistent about what you allow them to apply to, and the scope of what you'll allow a given enhancer to cover (in fantasy and sci-fi, race and profession serve as easily applied bounds). For instance...this character has one for race and one for profession; currently they are just breaking even on the Rogue enhancer (but can still get some future net gain there in future if they stick to concept and buy 1 or more abilities within it): A different character leans heavily into their race and class, and gets more squeeze from it (but is putting less points into stats and misc abilities): This character is fairly evenly spread across enhancers for race & class, getting a small net benefit from each:
  2. Very sad to hear this; he will be missed. Thoughts and wishes to his friends and family.
  3. It's a 5th Edition genre supplement option that later got rolled into a more general core option in 6e. Fairly straightforward.
  4. Me-from-the-past included some useful notes on the subject here, back in the day: https://www.killershrike.com/FantasyHERO/HighFantasyHERO/GeneralSpellRestrictions.aspx#LINGERING LINGERING This option is in effect in my campaigns On a related tangent to Physical Manifestation, some attack Spells bring into being an object which may be used to convey an attack repeatedly, such as a Magical Effect that "summons" or "creates" a "weapon" like a Sword. However, most Attack Powers are Instant in nature, and thus don't lend themselves to bringing a reusable "weapon" into effect. While this could theoretically be represented as a Constant Power construct using the FOCI or Restrainable rules to represent the "weapon", it makes for a relatively clumsy Power construct. Fortunately Fantasy HERO provides an ideal solution in the form of a new Advantage called Lingering detailed on page 257 of the Fantasy HERO Genre Book for HERO System 5th Edition. Lingering may only be applied to Instant powers and varies in its value based upon how long the Power sticks around on the Time Chart. Without impinging on the IP of HERO Games, suffice to say that a Lingering Instant Power may be used or not used on successive Phases, targeted anew each time, for the duration of the Lingering Advantage. By default the Lingering attack is perceivable for the duration (a variation of Invisible Power Effects may be applied to avoid this), and the SFX of the attack may be defined creatively as usual for the HERO System. Thus, a "Summon Sword" Spell may be defined as a Lingering Hand Killing Attack, and the SFX of the Spell can be defined as "A sword appears and may be used to strike at opponents". The "sword" can't be taken away from the Character or attacked directly (unless Physical Manifestation is also taken for the Spell), and really doesn't exist in any meaningful fashion, but has the appearance of being a physical sword. USING LINGERING Lingering is a fabulously useful Power Advantage for creating Spells with and I recommend its use, both in and out of conjunction with Physical Manifestation. However, there have been several clarifying points made by Steve Long regarding the Advantage on the HERO System Rules Questions Forum, available in the HERO System Rules FAQ for Fantasy HERO. The most significant ruling made thus far as pertains to the content of this website is the relation of Lingering and Charges; Lingering qualifies to unlock the "Continuing" option for Charges, just as if it were a Constant or Continuous Power. This feature of Lingering is used heavily in the Spells provided on this website and should be noted. Lingering FAQ Entries (as of August 2, 2004) Q: Regarding the Lingering Advantage on FH 257: If the spell is in a Multipower and the Multipower is switched to another slot, does the Lingering power remain in effect for its defined duration? Does a Lingering spell automatically become Persistent? How does Lingering interact with Charges? Can characters apply the Uncontrolled Advantage to powers bought with the Lingering Advantage? A: As a default, no switching to another Power Framework slot cancels the spell. The GM is free to change that rule for a particular spell or magic system if he sees fit. No. If a power has Charges, each use ends after one Phase passes, even if its also a Lingering power. If a character wants to have a Lingering power that has Charges and for which each activation lasts for the specified Lingering duration, he must make them Continuing Charges with a duration equal to the Lingering duration. Since the characters already paying extra for Lingering, (a) he is allowed to apply Continuing Charges to an Instant Power, and (b) you should cap the value of Continuing Charges at -0. The GM can change either of these rules if he prefers otherwise for reasons of campaign balance or the like. No. REF: Lingering, consult Page 257 Fantasy HERO for HERO System 5th Edition
  5. I wrote up my thoughts on Damage Negation back when 6e dropped; you can read them here: https://www.killershrike.com/GeneralHero/GeneralThoughtsOnDamageNegation.aspx There are uses for it; I made particularly successful use of it in an urban fantasy campaign. Some (not all) types of supernaturals included some Damage Negation which made them very resistant to mundane weapons but not so much vs "blessed", "consecrated", "enchanted" items or the claws and fangs of some other supernaturals which included some amount of Reduced Negation. YMMV.
  6. A ) I think 6e is the best version of the game mechanically, but 4e was perhaps the funnest / most bang-for-the-buck version. I don't think it really matters though; if a competent GM is running a Hero System game of any edition, interested players will likely enjoy it. B ) I don't think the Hero System is very well suited to play by post. I ran a superhero based PbP on Hero Central back in the day and even with the very solid software support of HC it was a slog. It took way more time and effort to run that game than any face to face game I've ever run in any system. The precise timing and granular tactical interactions of Hero System combat which make it such a good battle simulator in synchronous f2f play are a major impediment in asynchronous PbP play. One Turn of Hero System combat played out segment by segment in initiative order could take an inordinate amount of days to play out via PbP, and almost all the tension and excitement gets leached right out of it. I would recommend going the other way, using a looser resolution with much less granular simulation bias, for PbP. Having said that, I did split the difference and write up a variant of Hero System for use in play by post, where publicly the game is much more narrative with characters defined by their players solely in terms of numerically rated Traits. However, in the background the GM actually uses the Hero System as the game resolution system. Turn by turn, you open a time window for players to announce their intentions asynchronously as they are able to post; any players who cannot default to the most sensible / typical thing their character tends to do per your discretion...gotta keep things moving along or the entire enterprise grinds to a halt. Afterwards you the GM collate all the info from the players plus the NPC's and just crank out a full Turn of combat in initiative order, interpreting the players' declared intents and using a bit of handwavium and common sense to gap fill as necessary. Synthesize / summarize the outcome of all that Turn of interaction to create the next chunk of narrative to post, stripped of the mechanical details and focusing on the results. Why go to such trouble? Well, it gives you the GM a solid framework to fall back on of Hero System mechanics to prevent being arbitrary, inconsistent, or biased. But it keeps the players out of the sausage factory and keeps the PbP side of it as simple as possible. If it sounds interesting to you, here's the write up: https://www.killershrike.com/GeneralHero/Concepts/TraitDrivenHERO.aspx
  7. The GM can veto anything they don't want in their games. If a couple of options that one doesn't have to allow are enough to prevent one from using an entire edition of a game, I guess I just don't understand that.
  8. webp is not supported apparently, so I png'd it
  9. When I was a teen and young man, it was Picard. As a full grown adult with some life experience, it became Sisko. I never cared for Kirk, at any age.
  10. There was a time in Marvel Comics where Hank Pym ran around in a red jumpsuit acting as a pure gadgeteer, via the shtick of carrying lots of shrunk down gadgets / stuff in his pockets that he could make big at need, which was fun. Older Hank Pym in the Ant-Man movies reinterprets this pretty effectively.
  11. Sure, if you felt the need to. Technically, Characteristics are Persistent already, though obviously STR is odd in that it also costs END to use w/o 0 END applied to it. As far as "invisible", it's really the _items_ in the bag that are not "visible" in the sense that the bag is opaque and blocks line of sight. The item itself is still visible if you can establish line of sight, as is the magical container it is stored within. Do you make a vehicle with a trunk or other storage compartment take "invisible" on its strength because people can't normally see what's in them? What about a normal mundane backpack? For me it's a "meh", especially given I use Equipment Pools for fantasy. For some mundane items I don't even bother w/ a write up...like "Rope" or whatever and just assess some nominal point cost because the discrepancy of all the things they can be used for and the point cost of simulating all of that via detailed modeling using the Powers mechanics is simply out of line with their importance to the narrative and / or their purpose from a purely gamist perspective and it's much easier to simply rely on shared understanding of what they are capable of and a hand waved resource cost based upon relative considerations. But I wouldn't be put out playing in some other GM's campaign that wanted to go the other way. YMMV, of course.
  12. Actually, here are a couple of Fantasy Hero characters who are loose conversions from Pathfinder who have variant Handy Haversacks, defined as extra STR to carry stuff: Ilusia (FH6e) Ilusia (PF1e) Reyals (FH6e) Reyals (PF1e)
  13. There's various ways, all w/ pros and cons. Most people would naturally go for an obvious and literal translation, fixating on the idea of "how do you make or interact with an extradim space in the Hero System" and thus go down the path of using EDM. This can be made to work, and I have also done it that way, but I think it is a somewhat naïve approach and focuses on using mechanics to model the SFX rather than reasoning from effects which is the more correct way to do things. For me, the "bag of holding / handy haversack / portable hole / extradimensional object of holding more than you think it could" idea is mostly about carrying stuff. Bluntly, the BoH type of magic item in D&D is about allowing D&D characters to opt out of the encumbrance rules while carrying around the ridiculous amounts of loot they have acquired. In campaigns where the GM doesn't bother to enforce encumbrance, you rarely see such items because the problem they overcome isn't affecting the players and thus they are not needed. Fantasy Hero also has its version of encumbrance rules, but not all GM's enforce them at all or enforce them only partially. In a campaign w/ encumbrance being tracked, how much stuff you can carry without taking encumbrance penalties is a function of STR, and thus a bag of holding type item can be handled as nothing more than SFX for extra STR (0 END, IIF, Only to Offset Encumbrance Penalty For Things Carried Within It). YMMV. There are also other variant notions such as Newt Scamander's suitcase, which could be treated as a cool SFX for a Summon. Another approach for these sorts of things is as a fantasy SFX for a gadgeteer VPP (ala Batman's Utility Belt but with the justification of "magic xdim storage" instead of "Cuz I'm Batman"). And so on. At the end of the day, focus on what the desired outcome is, ask what mechanic most directly delivers that outcome, and the chrome / cosmetics is just SFX.
  14. They truly don't make 'em like the used to.
  15. Yeo means young, thus Yeoman originally literally meant "young man" before it started taking on other meanings. If I was going with the idea of gentry as landed estate holders who lack peerage, and wanted a some-status social class below that but above serfs / peasants / no-status people, I would go with the classic term commoners, which is also a gender neutral term. For a step in between gentry and commoners, people who have some land but are poorly integrated into the dominant feudal hierarchy I would go with the term freeholder. I would expect to find such freeholders at the fringes of the nation, in land that was acquired, annexed, or engulfed by an expanding feudal society but not outright conquered and thus was never fully integrated into the vassal / peerage model of the original nation and conquered lands where land was taken and reallocated.
  16. In this context, outside of the expected use with the Dominine magic system, I think it is warranted to reduce the cost of the domain unlock talents from 10 to 3 points, and have them function as enhancers (reducing the cost of a choice selection of relevant abilities taken within them. The unlock tax of 10 points per makes sense with Dominine in that it effectively buys an extra charge per spell level per day within that model. But with this lighter weight / much more restricted use case that isn't true and 10 points per domain unlock seems too taxing.
  17. Here's a character I threw together with a take on this idea... Sylu, an exemplar of Calistria, the goddess of vengeance: https://www.killershrike.com/MiscCharacters/Fantasy/Rochemotul/Starting/Sylu.HTML Her MP is setup so that there are no charges / slots per day, but every time she switches the MP slots around she suffers 10/AP LTE (so, 4 per activation in her case). This allows flexibility but at a cost. Switching slots willy-nilly is very fatiguing.
  18. For such a very constrained use case, it would probably be better to use a Multipower vs a VPP. Maybe something like... Domainu: Multipower, 45-point reserve, (45 Active Points); Formula Based Total Spell Usages per Day (Usages = (MP Reserve / 15) + ((CON + EGO + PRE) /10), rounded down; -1/2), Domain Spells Only (-1/4), Only While In Good Standing With Patron Deity (-1/4); all slots Side Effects, Always Occurs (AP/10 LTE; -1/2)
  19. So...the Domain's you link to are meant to be used with the Dominine magic system, which is a relatively close conversion of D&D 3e style Clerics. http://www.killershrike.com/FantasyHERO/HighFantasyHero/MagicSystems/dominine.aspx Having said that, it could be adapted to some other model of course.
  20. In the USA, all military retirees (honorable service, 20 or more years or equivalent medical discharge) have some perks such as exchange / commissary base access, VA benefits, a pension, some burial privileges possibly including burial rights in Arlington (recipients of certain medals), a pension based upon highest rank attained, preference for hiring for federal jobs, and so forth. In particular, General and Flag officers generally continue to enjoy additional deference or consideration beyond what is strictly defined (particularly "famous" ones who played a prominent role in a conflict). There are also less significant unofficial benefits, like some places will extend military discounts to retirees. Prior service (retired or not) might help get you out of a speeding ticket (allegedly, cough cough), or get you some deference in some situations...but again not something you can count on or insist on...sometimes it provides a bit of social greasing and sometimes it doesn't. This is probably worth a Perk in HERO terms for a gritty or realistic modern setting depending upon context. For instance, if your campaign is set specifically in Oceanside or San Clemente California access to Pendleton might be a narratively useful Perk, and so on for some other campaign explicitly near a military base you as the GM intend to make relevant to your campaign... In addition to the obvious and legally protected benefits, and the less quantified but non-zero influence of social credit and "in-ness" from being prior military (whether you did 20+ and retired, or not) in an official context, a similar and in many cases more relevant benny is the social ties of useful contacts whom you once served with (some of whom may still be in service and others may have moved on to some other useful position in life), as well as civilian counterparts (who may still be in some position of authority within the government or a defense contracting firm). This will vary from individual to individual, but is certainly fodder for one or more Contacts in HERO terms. This is particularly true of General / Flag officers, many of whom continue to have some influence with former subordinates who are still in service; some also sit on policy or advisory boards, speak at various political action groups, act as a sort of Greek chorus on current military matters in the form of "expert opinion" provided to various new outlets, and so on. And, of course, some go on to a second act in politics, such as a political appointee to one of the intelligence agencies or the state department, or as an elected official...where their military background may or may not be relevant but at a minimum is a factor in selection or part of their election campaign narrative. Hopefully some of that is helpful...
  21. Generally speaking, including a weak assertion which is easily picked apart or shown to be spurious, irrelevant, or poorly reasoned as part of a larger argument only serves to weaken the larger argument and undermine your general position.
  22. Indeed; I was coming on to post about exactly this. Beam isn't just "no spreading", in fact it obviously wouldn't make sense for a standard limitation to have no purpose other than to negate an optional rule. Here is Beam, rules as written: The inability to "pull" a Beam attack to do less damage and the reduction in effect vs objects are the more significant considerations. Citing the existence of the Beam limitation (which is good at modelling exactly what it indicates it is for, puncturing projectiles and focused emissions) as an argument that the spreading rules are somehow mechanically harmful seems like a rather anemic argument to me. The main thing however is, if a GM doesn't like spreading they don't have to provide a reason. Just toggle that option to off in your campaigns and it's all good.
  23. Spreading an attack is a useful capability of the system, IMO. It is an optional rule, so if you are the GM and don't like it, you are well within GM discretion to not allow it. I never had any problem with it, personally. Other people's mileage may vary, obviously.
  24. You can put someone to 1/2 DCV or even 0 DCV with a PRE Attack. You can Flash targeting senses which impacts DCV in various ways. You can attack people from behind at 1/2 DCV (though some groups ignore that rule). Entangling, Grabbing, Stunning all affect DCV to 1/2 or 0. And so on. There's a DCV modifier chart somewhere in the rulebooks and supporting rules text that go thru all of this.
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