Killer Shrike

http://www.killershrike.com/GeneralHero/BellCurve.aspx I encourage you to please consider clicking the links for consistency and distribution and bone up on the subjects a bit, it probably won't kill you and it might even benefit you. -2 is what I'm suggesting, actually. But that's irrelevant to the flaw in your logic here. Allow me to break it down. In your scenario the attacker has a +4 net bonus over the target at full DCV. No amount of penalty to DCV will make much of a difference on a 3D6 curve when the before-penalty difference is 4 steps or more away from mean. That would be classed in the category of "working as intended". So lets instead try an example made of less straw. Captain A normally has a 12 DCV but is currently stunned. As written, Captain A drops to 6 DCV, suffering a -6 DCV penalty. As suggested Captain A drops to 10 DCV, suffering a -2 penalty. Also in the scene is Doctor Stranko who is normally 10 DCV, but is Concentrating to cast a spell. As written, he drops to 5 DCV, suffering a -5 DCV penalty. As suggested, Dr. S instead drops to 8 DCV suffering a flat -2 penalty. Professor Ex is there with his 12 OCV. If he were to target staggered Captain A, as suggested he'd hit ~84% of the time vs 99.5% of the time as written. If he were to target concentrated Dr. S he'd hit 95.4% vs a 99.5% as written. So breaking this down finely: You seem to be under the impression that "consistent" refers to the differences between percentages at each step in the distribution. It does not. An equation system is inconsistent if there is no set of values for the unknowns that satisfies all of the equations; and is consistent if the opposite is true. In this case the wildcard nature of 1/2 DCV resulting in a different value for the same situation (1/2 DCV) is not consistent. p = DCV penalty If p is a fixed value, then the following could be written and would be true where p=2 C1(11 + 12) - (12-p) = 13- C2(11 + 12) - (10-p) = 15- 12-10 = 15-13 This could be reexpressed as the more general function which is consistent for any fixed value of p. C1(11 + x) - (y-p) = r1- C2(11 + x) - (z-p) = r2- where y>=z y-z = r2-r1 You can then test that by plugging in whatever positive values you like and you should find that it is always consistent when p is a specific fixed value and is not consistent when p is indeterminate due to being based on a halving of some other variable and which may be a different value per character. Further statements could be made from there. As an aside, removal of the multiplicative aspect of 1/2 DCV also simplifies the order of operations and would allow the notation to tighten up a bit and also allow them to be applied in any order: C1(11 + x - y - p) = r1- etc But that's not relevant / doesn't change anything for purposes of this discussion per se. The main takeaway is that the value of the penalty itself as a fixed number is consistent (the value of the penalty itself is consistent in the colloquial sense and it is possible to formulate mathematically consistent expressions around it) vs the value of the penalty as a fraction of some other number (the value of the penalty is not consistent colloquially; it may or may not be consistent mathematically speaking...feel free to work it out if you are motivated to do so). You also seem to be under the impression that the way to assess impact on a Gaussian curve is to do so at the edges. It isn't. The greatest impact is by definition closest to the mean. That is in fact the core concept. To assess the impact one looks most closely around the mean. I.e., on a 3D6 / 3-18 / 16 step curve between +/-1 to +/-4, with +/-3 being the point of collapsing probabilities. Ever wonder why 8- and 14- are "special" / show up in various contexts in the HS? That's why. CV's from 4 to 5 (or +1 to +2 over baseline) would not be significantly affected by a change to -2 vs 1/2 DCV. It starts to matter a bit more around CV 6 (+3 over baseline), and then every 2 steps beyond that matter. Similarly, if the attacker's OCV is more than 3 steps (+4 or better) beyond the defender's DCV before penalties, then the DCV penalty itself is so close to being irrelevant as to not matter as the attacker is already out on the edge of the distribution curve and are meant to be there. As we are talking about a 1/2 DCV penalty vs a -2 DCV penalty the difference to be compared is that between the two penalties, and at different values of DCV. So poor Agent #3 is going to be busy attacking three different opponents at different DCV's calculated for 1/2 DCV and -2 DCV. vs DCV 8 Guy example: RAW 1/2 DCV penalty: OCV 6 vs DCV 4: 13- / 83.8% == +46.3% diff flat -2 penalty: OCV 6 vs DCV 6: 11- / 62.5% == +25% diff As we are talking about the idea that two different characters with different DCV's being affected in a more consistent way by taking an action that is currently 1/2 DCV you also have to plug in a second target to compare and contrast. Thus: vs DCV 6 Guy example: RAW 1/2 DCV penalty: OCV 6 vs DCV 3: 14- / 90.7% == +28.8% diff flat -2 penalty: OCV 6 vs DCV 4: 13- / 83.8% == +21.3% diff What we see here is the 1/2 DCV version swinging wildly even at a small difference in base DCV (17.5% jump from DCV 6 to DCV 7), while the flat -2 results does not exhibit that behavior relative to itself or its progression. We can further show that by stepping up. vs DCV 10 Guy example: RAW 1/2 DCV penalty: OCV 6 vs DCV 5: 12- / 74.1% == +57.9% diff flat -2 penalty: OCV 6 vs DCV 8: 9- / 37.5% == +21.3% diff Again, you are misusing the term "consistent" when what you are talking about is probability density / different relative likelihoods along the steps of a normalized distribution curve. To summarize your argument: You seem to think I don't know that the step from say 11- to 12- represents a greater probability density than say the step from 14- to 15-. I assure you I am fully aware of this. You seem to think that the term "consistent" refers to the %-ile values across the steps of the curve. It doesn't. You seem to think that if there is minuscule difference at the edges of the curve between the two methods (which of course there is because that is how normalized distribution curves work) it means the flat penalty offers no benefit over the 1/2 DCV version. This is incorrect; the impact is felt towards the middle of the curve (which of course it would be because that is how normalized distribution curves work).

Yes. And additionally, as it requires reducing the target to negative their BODY or it does nothing, the DC's of the effect are not as impactful as one might expect; every 6 DC's killing averages to 7 BODY damage...to take a 10 BODY character from 10 to -10 with no resistant def requires 18 DC on average; add in rDEF and it ratchets up from there. If "normal" people are defaulted to 8's instead of 10's you still want at least 14 DC to get the job done on average. Also, successful hits that fail to kill still burn END or Charges unless also bought 0 END. Successful hits that fail to kill still each burn an action, leading to leaky action economy. There is also a more existential consideration. At any given moment, every potential target in the setting can be reduced to those who will be killed by the effect even on minimum roll, those who could be killed by the effect given their current BODY + negative BODY past defenses and what can potentially be rolled for damage, and those who cannot be killed by the effect at all as their current BODY + negative BODY past defenses is higher than what can be generated by the effect. Lacking any special detection of such, a character with the effect does not know whether a given target falls within the first, second, or third group. If a target is in the second group (could be affected) but the damage generated from an attack using it is insufficient to get the job done, the character with the effect doesn't know if the target is in the second group and thus worth attacking again, or if they are in the third group and further application will have no further effect. The ambiguity of it puts the character with the effect in a difficult decision making situation. It is by definition a high risk high reward ability in the happy path. In other cases where obliterating a target is not the optimal outcome, it is a high risk low to no reward ability. These all speak to the overall utility of the ability, quantification of which is a more nuanced consideration than merely its effectiveness against a single target in a single resolution, or its availability / applicability expressed reductively as a % of time alone account for.

Probably. Half utility and 50% unavailability are not the same thing, of course.

DCV the characteristic would floor to 0. Calculated DCV, using the DCV calculation rules, currently also floors to 0 after penalties. Removing the floor from the calculated DCV and allowing the calculated DCV to go below 0 in exactly the same was as characteristic OCV / calculated OCV currently works, is what is being discussed here. The main takeaway being characteristic vs calculated.

Anything can be made an issue by a GM contriving to force that issue. In actual practice however, is a typical OAF literally negated 50% of the time? And if so, is it prorated? Could a character, say, space bank their foci's unavailability ala a timeshare? If an OAF is unavailable for 4 Phases during a fight with a bunch of disposable mooks, is that equivalent to it being unavailable for 4 Phases during a fight against the character's archnemisis or 4 Phases during a fight against the big bad at the end of a story arc? If a session ends up being 50% roleplaying and 50% combat, does the 50% of the time an OAF gun toting character was "on screen" during the roleplaying section of the session count towards the 50% of the time the OAF gun will be unavailable? Or does that count as 0% since the OAF wasn't being used and thus to make up this "50% unavailable" quota it ends up being unavailable for the remainder of the session? Or does only combat time count, such that it's available for 50% of the combat time and thus is really 25% unavailable when considered against the total session time? Seems pretty silly to me. Also it is an interpretation not directly supported by the rules. The RAW does not say "OAF will be unavailable half the time". The RAW in 6e mentions in passing "For example, if you take Focus for a power, you’re telling the GM, “I occasionally want to lose the use of this power because it’s been taken away from me or been broken.” and "Some Limitations (especially Focus) are very effective for the character unless the GM brings the Limitation into play once in a while, so it’s the GM’s responsibility to make sure the Limitation affects the game, at least occasionally". I don't recall earlier editions indicating an OAF should be unavailable 50% of the time either.

Currently, rules as written, OCV can be negative while DCV floors at 0 DCV, which is an odd case of non-mirrored rules and the discrepancy is not really explained in the rules text. Negative OCV basically converts over to a DCV bonus for the target. It seems logical that negative DCV could be allowed and work the same way, acting as an OCV bonus for an attacker. If DCV were defaulted to 0 it would be worth considering.

Why do you say "of course it does"? It's a GM's prerogative to set Lim values to whatever they want, but I'm curious where are you getting the idea that a -1 limitation should literally be unavailable 50% of the time from? That's your prerogative, of course. I wonder though whether your interpretation of certain things is based upon something concrete in the RAW / RAI or perhaps stems from a more personal perspective. If I were to show up for a HS game and the GM told me that they interpreted limitation values to a direct and literal % of not being effective, such that a -1/4 limitation would literally negate a power 20% of the time, a -1/2 33% of the time, a -3/4 43% of the time, -1 50% of the time, and so on and that they would somehow keep track of this and contrive the emerging story to enforce it, I would have both questions and concerns. For instance I would worry that they did not understand that some limitations have a quantified impact intrinsically and automatically such as Concentration or Increased END or Charges, vs looser limitations which are circumstantially binary and thus have no impact most of the time but massive impact when they do apply such as "does not work in a vacuum" on a fire based superhero, usually pegged at -1/4 for a typical atmosphere based campaign setting...surely a character taking that limitation would not somehow find themselves in space or a vacuum chamber literally 20% or 1/5th of their screen time? I would worry that this GM did not realize that severity of impact should be considered, not merely frequency of occurrence. I would also worry that this GM would turn out to be strongly gamist rather than simulationist or narrativist, asserting unnecessarily rigid interpretations of rules over cinematic and genre simulation and over allowing what makes sense in the context of the emerging story as players interact with the setting and the plot.

August 12, 2003, Mechazone (Camp Pendleton), California...01:25 AM PST. Pete had sent Turbofist to run around the outside of the compound and reconnoiter what was on the two sides not visible from where they stood. The young mutant had vibrated his molecules in a visibly blurry display of power and shot off with an audible loud buzzing whine similar to the noise made by high end racing bikes to do a broad lap, returning nine seconds later to report that there was a loading dock on the side of the building beyond the palettes of stacked storage lockers that were partially visible from this side, with a large garage-style roller door that was closed, and that the far side compound wall and the back of the building itself were just blank concrete. "So...should we wait for back up or should we go down there and check it out ourselves?", Turbofist asked. "Good question. Let me think about it.", Pete replied. And give it a good think he did, in his usual thorough way. On the one hand, his armor suit was impaired and he might be more of a liability than an asset if hostiles were encountered. He could send Turbofist in alone, but as likeable as the youthful hero may be, his maturity and decision making might not be up to the task. He could use comms to call Hype back and send him in, but there was no telling how that would turn out given Hype's volatility and incredible destructive tendencies. He could call Fade over from his lurking over yonder, and send him to teleport into the building, but again Pete was unsure if the ninja-like borderline vigilante would just start assassinating people. Pete's assessments might not be fair to his fellow heroes, but their temperaments and reliability were known unknowns. Finally, if Sybyl really was present, she may or may not recognize Hype, Fade, or Turbofist, and hostilities might ensue. On the other hand, if Sybyl really was present she would definitely recognize him as Makeshift as they'd both fought one another and worked together previously, and thus maybe they could have a conversation without things getting ugly. If he did go down there himself in his busted armor and the situation went to shit, Turbofist was pretty handy in a fight and should be able to buy time, allowing Pete to fall back and take cover behind the shipping containers. Fade would presumably be on top of them in a second or two. Hype could be called back and at his top end speed would also be present posthaste. Also, the longer they waited around the more likely they were to be overrun by killer robots that they had to assume would eventually converge on their location once it was noticed that the bots destroyed earlier were no longer checking in...that might already be happening now. Therefore the least worst option with fewest unknowns seemed to be for him to go down into the compound with Turbofist. Pete rolled that around a couple of times looking for flaws in his logic, but it seemed viable. Turbofist was starting to get visibly antsy by the time Pete spoke again. "Ok, I think me and you should proceed down and hop the vehicle gate, and make our way to the loading dock you told me about around the side. My armor wont fit properly through the barricades around the front door, but we should be able to get the rolling door for the loading dock up. If we encounter resistance, we'll fall back to the big shipping containers, take cover and wait for Hype and Fade to rally on our position...you'll run interference in the meantime. Legit?" "Yeah! Sounds great! Let's do it!", Turbofist exclaimed without contemplation, instantly enthusiastic and reminding Pete of just how young the young speedster really was. Makeshift indicated they should proceed, Turbofist powered up, and the two headed down the gently inclined path to the slatted metal barrier of the vehicle gate below them. Turbofist simply vibrated his molecules to phase through it, passing harmlessly to the other side with only a high pitched vibratory whine to mark his passage. Makeshift hopped over it with a quick rocket assisted jump, landing on the packed gravel of the compound's yard with a stony crunch. They paused for a moment, trying to notice if they'd been noticed, but nothing seemed to be changed so they proceeded past the parked military vehicles on the one side and the massive shipping containers on the other, then around to the side past the stacked storage boxes...to find the rolling garage door on the loading dock open and a figure familiar to Pete standing just inside of it waiting for them.

August 12, 2003, Bakersfield, California...01:29 AM PST. The Mechanic had resumed his post on the laptop, Dr. Silverback had excused himself to use the little gorillas' room, and N3 was laying down on the couch deeply cogitating. Or napping...it was hard to tell. He'd been operating on nearly no sleep for the last three days formulating the nascent chronal energy theory and helping with the invention of the detection devices adorning the roof and Makeshift's armor...so no one could begrudge him a few minutes of shut eye. The radio chatter had died off, and Showdown was shoulder surfing the Mechanic, cradling the tac-ops walkie-talkie. Thus they both noticed simultaneously when the map visualization of the stronger chronal energy source, the one in Simi Valley, blipped off. "What just happened?", Showdown asked. "...um...don't know.", the Mechanic responded, already typing commands into the diagnostics console. After a little over a minute of this he looked up at Showdown, shrugged, and said, "Everything seems to be working correctly. Looks like the source got shut off...". A new message appeared in the queue, from War-Man. The Mechanic clicked on it and brought up the full message. The message read: "Sybyl incapacitated and in custody. No enemy contact. Two stage exfil; stage 1 commencing in approximately 90 seconds. Expect follow up message in approximately 3.5 minutes." "Nice. Gotta love that guy.", Showdown said admiringly. "If only all team leaders ran as tight a ship as him. It. Whatever." The Mechanic blinked, nonplussed, as he himself was leader of the Liberty League, but then decided to interpret it as implying that he too ran a "tight ship"...whatever that meant in this context...or else Showdown would not have said it in his presence (presumably). "Yeah. I like working with War-Man also. Some of his crew, on the other hand...well...".

Well, OBVIOUSLY in a campaign where say 10 DC of killing would get the job done, you would build the effect at that level. This is why the word "SCALE" is included in the phrase "power scale". The idea being shown there was not "you need 30 DC to achieve this affect", but rather was "All or Nothing is typically pegged as a -2 Lim, and here's an example of such an effect that I happen to have lying around and easily accessible.". If you are making a power to do something like that in a less high powered setting the # of DC is a VARIABLE. xD6. Adjust the variables to suit your needs. While generally speaking modifiers can be tweaked for certain settings, for the most part you should only do that when you have a really good reason...such as a greater than or less than commonality of certain things in a given setting. You're being too literal re reducing impact of a lim to a flat fraction. If you want to play that game with a -2 Lim, then lets follow its logical permutations to -1 limits and try that on for size. To wit: does OAF affect a character 1/2 aka 50% percent of the time? In other words, are they deprived of their OAF based abilities half the time? Probably not.

A bell curve has nothing to do with mathematical consistency one way or the other. You are confusing consistency with distribution. Each step up or down (or left to right, depending on your visualization) along the standard normal distribution has a potentially differing probability density / i.e. is of different relative likelihood and are thus not of a constant value but that is not what consistency refers to in the context of mathematics. If Character A and Character B attempt the same action and suffer the same bonus or penalty value, it is consistent and also the guassian curve / standard normal distribution applies. But if Character A and Character B attempt the same action and suffer a different bonus or penalty to each other, then that is inconsistent, and the bell curve doesn't PREVENT that inconsistency...though it does MEASURE the inconsistency relative to the normal distribution. In other words, if Character A and Character B both take the same 1/2 DCV action, and Character A suffers a -3 penalty for doing so while Character B suffers a -1 penalty for doing so, a bell curve does not prevent that and nor does it somehow make that "consistent". Lets have some fun with numbers... 3d6 Bell Curve 3d6 Pct Odds 3 0.5% 215 : 1 4 1.9% 53 : 1 5 4.6% 20.6 : 1 6 9.3% 9.8 : 1 7 16.2% 5.2 : 1 8 25.9% 2.9 : 1 9 37.5% 1.7 : 1 10 50.0% 1 : 1 11 62.5% 1 : 1.7 12 74.1% 1 : 2.9 13 83.8% 1 : 5.2 14 90.7% 1 : 9.8 15 95.4% 1 : 20.6 16 98.1% 1 : 53 17 99.5% 1 : 215 18 100% 1 : inf Characters A & B. Character A has 6 DCV, Character B has 3 DCV. Character A takes a 1/2 DCV action and drops to 3 DCV. Character B takes a 1/2 DCV action and drops to 2 DCV. Assuming a neutral 11- 62.5% to hit, Character A suffers 21.3% of probability protection vs getting hit while Character B only suffers 11.6%...in other words, on neutral odds Character B is basically half as impacted as the character who paid for twice as much DCV. This is inconsistent between the two characters (they are affected in a disproportionate way, in real numbers), and further is also inconsistent to the system's meta concept of "pay more points to get more benefit" in that the character that paid more to be good at not getting hit suffers a bigger penalty when using the 1/2 DCV action. Thus there is an entire category of abilities and situations (those resulting in 1/2 DCV) that are biased against the character that spent points to raise their DCV and are biased towards the character that did not. If the action imposed a flat -2 DCV rather than 1/2 DCV, then Character A drops to DCV 4 and Character B drops to DCV 1. That works out to a 11.6% loss for Character A and a 12.5% loss for Character B. The character who paid less is affected slightly more, which better befits "get what you pay for", and the difference between the two outcomes is much closer. The range is smaller, the variance is less, the impact is linear, the penalty value is the same (-2 vs -?), and thus it produces results that are both more consistent and more normative. It doesn't matter which values you plug in, as long as you avoid break points. Every 2 steps of DCV results in a deepening of the impact. Put a different way. A 1/2 DCV maneuver is a -1 DCV penalty maneuver for DCV 3 Guy and a -3 DCV penalty maneuver for DCV 6 Guy...for no viable reason. This is particularly odd in that penalties in the Hero System are generally used as consistent negative modifiers for the purposes of reducing % chance of success to represent the relative difficulty of whatever is being attempted by a character. They are not relative to the character attempting the task, they are fixed per the task being attempted. For example, modifiers based upon relative ease of a given task are: Thus, a character with 12 DCV taking a 1/2 DCV action is the equivalent of a "Sheer Folly" difficulty (-6), while for the character with 3 DCV to take the same action its the equivalent of a "Difficult" difficulty (-1). This doesn't make logical sense to me, as the two characters are attempting the same action. But I hear you say "well, those are task modifiers, dummy. DCV penalties are different" (somehow , even though a 3D6 roll under attack and a 3D6 roll under skill are actually on the same curve, but whatever). Uh huh. Ok, how about this then? Poor footing is a -1 DCV. If it is also on a tight rope that's another -2 DCV. So, a character fighting on an oil slicked tightrope takes a flat -3 DCV, while a 8 DCV character taking a 1/2 DCV action such as Bracing suffers a -4 DCV. That may make sense to you, but it does not make sense to me. IMO, if a find & replace were done across the rulebooks to change all references to 1/2 DCV to instead be a flat -2 DCV it would remove that sort of nonsense (similarly, though much less commonly a thing, 1/2 OCV to -2 OCV). There's some logical follow through permutations to that, but I'll punt on exploring them right now as I have other things to get to tonight.

1/2 DCV itself is a problem, mathematically. It does not scale well at all. Just at the most obvious level of consideration, for a high DCV character it is much more impactful than it is for a low DCV character. Imagine if things that put you at 1/2 DCV instead gave a flat penalty ranging from -1 to -whatever. It would be mathematically consistent and completely scalable. That just leads to stat inflation; characters with absurd levels of DEX primarily to boost CV is so common in pre-6e that it is far more likely for it to be considered problematic when a character doesn't have inflated DEX. Separating CV from primaries was sensible. Separating O and D was sensible. But the opportunity to go further and re-baseline the CV numbers across the board was not taken. Half measures often result in unintended side effects. Thus you end up with characters that have OMCV by default and no mental attacks, which is problematic (or at least silly). And secondarily, EGO is now almost useless...compare and contrast +10 EGO vs 10 Mental Defense for instance...with only a few situations where it provides greater utility than Mental Defense.

I allow OMCV to be sold back down to 0 (not 1). It's a useless stat for most characters, and there is no reason for them to have any value in it at all unless I as the GM employ some contrivance. I sell it back on NPC's as well. "Cheesy" or "not cheesy" is irrelevant within the same campaign setting where it is a ubiquitous practice. I could just as easily craft a custom Hero Designer (HD) template and reduce it to 0 by default, but its not worth the extra step unto itself; if I were doing something else like adding MD as a default characteristic (which I think it should have been), or making DEX cost 1 (which I think it should) and add a new figured for "Initiative" to split out the go-first function of DEX, then I would bother with the custom HD template as there would be enough reasons to do so. There was a thread on this subject years ago. One of the things I suggested at the time was adding some default mental combat maneuvers, which would include a Mental Block which any character could attempt, thus engaging in a OMCV vs OMCV roll off to "block" a mental attack and thus allowing a non-mentalist character to get some utility out of their OMCV stat. In a psi / mentalist heavy campaign setting I would likely go that route. But for typical campaigns OMCV is a vestigial element for the large majority of characters, and I see no harm in allowing the equivalent of an appendectomy. In campaigns without Mental powers, I'd obviously just drop both O and D MCV entirely.

I basically agree with this, except I go literally "1" further...OCV / DCV / OMCV / and DMCV should all have defaulted to 0 in 6e. The 11- attack roll is balanced unto itself. If the O and D values are the same value by default, there is no mathematical difference between ((11 + x) -x)- and just 11-. There was no intrinsic reason for the values to be pegged at 3 other than past practice.

August 12, 2003, Simi Valley, California...01:27 AM PST. The Millennial Men strike team cleared the distance to the Wagon Wheel smoothly without altercation or accident. They stacked up on the rear corner per War-Man's tactical orders, Alliage crouching at the corner while keeping the orb holding her anti-scrying effect high above their heads to clear the roof. Wrath skirted to the left with one of his pistols drawn to peek in windows, while the MOD hugged the wall around to the right doing the same. Rook positioned himself carefully to the side of the establishment's service loading door, which was closed, still keeping War-Man hovering off the ground telekinetically. After creeping along and peeking in a few windows which looked into the dining area of the diner, Wrath crouched down and sneakily took a device from one of the pouches on his load bearing vest. A laser cutter attached to a suction cup with an extensible swing arm, which he adjusted and then carefully mounted on the bottom corner window pane above his head. A perfect circle of glass was silently cut out of the window pane, stuck to the suction device. Wrath put the disc and cutter down without making a sound, then took a slow careful peek with his cybernetic eye through the hole he had just made. He worked a thumb selector on his pistol, and then confidently positioned it to shoot through the hole in the window. He pulled the trigger three times in quick succession and a silenced PFFT PFFT PFFT accompanied three projectiles being launched into the room. The other MillMen were not yet aware that Wrath had already gone off mission, but at more or less the same moment, the chronal energy signal that War-Man was continuing to monitor dissipated and then was gone. Wrath remained relaxed and very still in his awkward position, cybereye scanning the room. After nearly a minute of this, he broke radio silence to say over the team's communicators, "All clear. One perp inside, incapacitated". Wrath then stood up and proceeded briskly but openly the rest of the way around the wall to the front doors of the diner, which were locked. He snapped the deadbolts with brute force and pushed the door open. Wrath did a quick tactical clear of the bathrooms, the kitchen area, a deep freezer and a storage closet before returning to the main dining area along with Rook, War-Man, and Alliage as they came in through the back door Rook had forced open telekinetically upon getting Wrath's comms. Meanwhile, the MOD had taken up a sentry position near the front door, scanning the horizon for threats as best he could. In short order Alliage, still hovering on her metal disc, settled herself more or less dead center in the building and kept the orb spinning outside in a big circle overhead, while War-Man, Wrath, and Rook went to stand in front of the two-person table closest to the passthrough into the kitchen. War-Man charged up its chest arc to serve as an ersatz lantern of energetically glowing luminescence, casting strange sharp-edge shadows. Slumped awkwardly over at the table with three darts bristling from the side of her neck in a very tight shot grouping, deeply and uncomfortably unconscious, was a woman of indeterminate years wearing bluish grey robes and a white bandage wrapped around her eyes. A featureless bluish grey mask rested on the table next to a cheap diner teapot and the remains of some crackers and jam. "That looks like the high value target from her pic in the dossier. Costume is a bit different, but matches close enough.", MOD said over his shoulder from the door. "Affirmative. This is Sybyl.", War-Man agreed. "What the actual #$%@, Wrath. We were supposed to figure out if whatever was here is a threat or a friend.", Rook said in his usual "WTF Wrath?" tone of voice...disgust dripping off every syllable. "She looks pretty friendly to me now. Nice and relaxed.", Wrath responded unapologetically. "She looks COMATOSE, asshole.", Rook responded. Simultaneously, the MOD shook his head and muttered, "Not cool, dude.", referring to Wrath's non-politically-correct and typically sexist comment. "We can figure out the complicated parts of this bullshit after we get her back to base. Trust me kid, I got no reason to lie to you. This is not my first rendition; things are simpler this way.", Wrath growled dismissively. "Like I never grabbed a mook off a street corner back in the day to tune 'em up or shake 'em down. It's been a minute, but I knows a thing or two about puttin' a collar on somebody too. And I also knows that a good way to make an enemy out of somebody is to treat them like an enemy right out the gate. Tends to put people's backs up.", Rook pushed back. Wrath rolled his non-cybernetic eye. "Aw, quit yer bitchin kid. What's a few tranquilizer darts between friends?" "How long is she gonna be under?", the MOD asked over his shoulder again. "Well, I put three darts into her...and she ain't exactly got a lot of mass. She might come around in about twelve hours. Or so.", Wrath mused. "Great. So we's gotta wait half a day to find out what's going on with her. Good job, Wrath. Why don't youse just dump a full clip into her next time? Why stop at just three?", Rook emoted. War-Man took charge, as usual. "There is nothing to be gained by this argument at this time. Rook, secure the...person of interest. Wrath, field strip anything in the building that might belong to the POI or that might be of intelligence value. We're stepping off this location to return to Matilda in 90 seconds, starting...now.". War-Man's hybrid technoorganic brain was nothing if not adaptable.

Kin...not that good.

August 12, 2003, Mechazone (Camp Pendleton), California...01:24 AM PST. "Huh. What in the hell is that place?", Turbofist said. Makeshift and Turbofist had just rounded a slight hump in the road. Inside his helmet the chronal sensor was steady as a nightlight, indicating extreme proximity, but Pete saw nothing out of the ordinary. He stopped and looked around trying to figure out what Turbofist was talking about. Finally he said, "What are you talking about? It's just more road.". "What? THAT.", Turbofist said, pointing at a rolling hollow off the road to the northeast. Pete looked in that direction and saw nothing but low scrub. "Um...there's nothing there.". "...so...you're saying you don't see the wall and the building and all that stuff around it?", Turbofist asked in a voice indicating that he wasn't sure if he were being pranked or not. "Yeah. That's what I'm saying." "Can you take your helmet off maybe?", Turbofist inquired. Pete paused for thought. The "eyes" of his helmet were actually little armored plates, he normally saw the world entirely through a multi-spectrum digital video feed. He activated a secondary function of his armor, rarely used, to turn off the feed and cause the armored plates to slide up into the helmet, exposing his eyes. Sure enough, he found himself overlooking a fenced and cinder block walled compound off to the right in a rolling hollow. A driveway connected the road they were on with a industrial vehicle gate in the compound's containing wall a few hundred feet to the northeast. More or less in the center of the compound was a building with no windows, at least forty feet tall but with an indeterminate number of floors. There was some kind of complex entry way on the lee side, with a narrow maze-like passageway blocked in by industrial pipe barriers, like a prison or a cattle yard, connecting eventually to a revolving security "door" of interlaced pipes in the outer wall. The available space between the containing wall and the windowless building was cordoned off into a very organized staging area. A small motor pool with several HMMWV's and a couple of 5-ton trucks on one side of the gate and an area of stacked shipping containers...the big ones that go on ocean liners but all painted military green...on the other. Over to the back side could be seen part of several pallets stacked twenty feet high with coffin-like rectangular cargo boxes...also a drab green...but partially covered in black tarps and camo netting. There were no people around, but oddly there were no visual indications that anything was amiss. No signs of battle damage. No signs of orderly or disorderly retreat. Pete also noticed that, unlike virtually every other large building or clutch of buildings he had seen on his stroll through the base thus far, there was no big red and gold sign proclaiming the purpose of the structure or what unit might be based out of it. "Huh. What in the hell is that place?", Pete said. "You see it now?", Turbofist asked, relieved. "Yeah, with my naked eyes I see it. But according to my suit sensors it isn't there.", Pete said. "Weird. Is this where the time stuff is coming from?", Turbofist replied. "Uh huh. The chronal energy detector was lit up like Christmas before I turned off the feed. Pretty sure this is the place." "Where's Fade and Hype? They still nearby?", Turbofist asked. "I turned off my HUD, but Fade was over there before I did, on the other side of that rise. I don't know where Hype is." "Yeah...Hype kinda just does his own thing....but don't worry though, he can take care of himself!"; Turbofist seemed honestly concerned that Pete would be worried. "I am so not worried about that guy.", Pete muttered under his breath.

I'm writing it now. It's using elements from about a half dozen past campaigns plus some bits I'm just making up as I go.

We had a swap out, this guy instead of JB: http://www.killershrike.com/HereThereBeMonsters/Campaigns/Tierrasola/DrewAltman/Drew Altman.HTML Game went well. Many Revenants were slain, and civilian casualties were...manageable...

Yeah. I've read and own the MHI books, along with other urban fantasy and urban fantasy rpgs in a similar vein. The Here There Be Monsters setting is my own thing, developed collaboratively, starting back in the late 90's for Hero System 4e. When a long time player of mine got into MHI and wanted to play something like that, I resuscitated the setting and worked with a bunch of people on these forums to develop it for Hero System 6e; this was well before the MHI licenced products for the Hero System was a thing. Unfortunately, the original very long thread on these boards where the collaborative work was done has recently been eaten by the archive purge, but the finished material is all preserved on my site. Here's the main link for the setting; there is a ton of material, adventures, and characters linked to from it: http://www.killershrike.com/HereThereBeMonsters/Concept.aspx Here's a summary of the history of the setting: History Here There Be Monsters is an offshoot of Demon Hunter: FBI, whose original form appeared in print as a Haymaker! APAzine submission many years ago (Issue 21), and later cleaned up a bit and re-printed in EZ HERO (Issue 10). Inspired by diverse sources ranging from Beyond the Supernatural, movies like The First Power, and the X-Files, Demon Hunter: FBI was focused on super gritty street level crime and violence with a supernatural twist. The original content was developed over a weekend by Killer Shrike and T-Rossi and then fleshed out over the course of a campaign run by T-Rossi. The two original characters were Special Agent in Charge Jeff Chen played by Killer Shrike, and the Suppressor Special Agent Jared Kole played by Shad aka Shazoey. The campaign and setting flourished and was further detailed over a couple of long adventure arcs, but then stopped as we turned our attention to other games. Some others used the material for their own spin off games, most notably a version Dave Mattingly published as an EZ HERO article, re-interpreting Demon Hunter: FBI into the form of a TV show pilot with characters as portrayed by real actors. A more comic turn, this approach still captured the essense of the material and was at the very least a creative and amusing riff. Fast forward a number of years, Urban Fantasy is quite popular in media. After reading the Monster Hunter books WilyQ expressed interest in playing a campaign either based on or inspired by the books. Killer Shrike decided to take a broader approach and revive the Demon Hunter: FBI material but with a focus on the larger setting and on freelance Hunters rather than on FBI Agents. Rather than do all the work himself, Killer Shrike instead turned to the HERO System Forums and invited interested parties to collaborate on the project. Many participated in the ongoing discussion and gave feedback, but a few stepped up with significant contributions that shaped the growth and improved the quality of the Here There Be Monsters content. Both Manic Typist and The Rose contributed iconics, as well as insights into cool concepts and the early growth of the setting. 5lippers contributed the core of The Trouble With Banshees vignette. Panpiper contributed a large fraction of the available iconics, somewhere around 1/3, the entirety of the Zombie Apocalypse vignette, and a tremendous amount of design feedback, error checking, errata, and critique across all the Here There Be Monsters content.

And, the revenants. Nothing special as bad guys go. The goal is to tee the heroes up with some slow pitch to let them get familiar / refamiliarize with 6e and learn their characters. http://www.killershrike.com/HereThereBeMonsters/Characters/GMsVault/Joe Revenant.HTML The plot is dead simple...for no obvious reason, people just start rising from their graves in the local cemetery. There's no apparent initiating incident or master villain for the first session. After the PC's get done dealing with random attacks and make their way to the cemetery, they'll find evidence of a ritual near the center of it in a necromantic circle. Disturbing / breaking the circle will end the effect. If the players want to play again, the second session will be about figuring out who did it / what's going on, so I'm not bothering to fill in those blanks yet.

Second PC: J.B. Rochefort, former Navy Corpsman, former EMT driver, Extreme Sport aficionado, and Licensed Monster Hunter. http://www.killershrike.com/HereThereBeMonsters/Campaigns/Tierrasola/JBRochefort/JB Rochefort.HTML

First PC: Joey Manegarm...high school student and apparently entirely normal. However the stress of encountering the supernatural will reveal his own heritage as a Demimonde descended from the get of Fenrir. http://www.killershrike.com/HereThereBeMonsters/Campaigns/Tierrasola/JoeyManegarm/Joey Manegarm.HTML

Developed a new vignette for Here There Be Monsters, The Tears of Tierrasola Set in the scenic suburb Tierrasola, the initial kick off is a sudden infestation of Revenants. The player characters will be an experienced Hunter, and a high school kid who is more than he appears swept up in the action.