Killer Shrike

RE: Combat Levels

If it helps, think about it this way:

2 normal people with a 2 Speed and an 8 in all thier Primary Characteristics including DEX both have an OCV and a DCV of 3 each; we will call them A-Man and B-Man.

Since an attack roll is 11 + OCV - opponents DCV, basically whenever 2 opponents are evenly matched they both have an 11 or less (11-) chance to hit each other which isnt really 50% (its 62.5% actually), but in HEROs serves as a proxy for roughly half the time. Because of the 12.5% difference inherent in this, characters have a tendency to succeed when all else is equal in the HERO System, which you must admit is rather heroic.

As a total aside, here is a decent dice method site that a Google search turned up that might help you visualize the probabilities more as you mention some d20 experience:

http://www.darkshire.org/~jhkim/rpg/systemdesign/dice-methods.html

Back to the point, since equivalently skilled opponents are always at an 11- to hit one another with a basic Strike or basic Power attack, you can see why some way to add a little variation to this needs to exist.

If A-Man wants to increase his ability to hit B-Man, he is in luck; the HERO System offers a wide variety of ways to do this. His options include (but are not necessarily limited to) the following:

1) Increase his Dexterity. This has many many beneficial side effects: every 3 character points increases what in other games is called "initiative", allowing him to act before B-Man; every 9 character points raises both his OCV & DCV by 1 each making him both more able to connect and less likely to be connected with in combat; and every 30 character points also increases his SPEED by 1, allowing him to take more actions than B-Man AND staggering his Actions across the Speed chart which enables him to act sooner in a Turn as well.

If A-Man put 15 character points into DEX (+5 DEX), he would have 13 DEX, and a base OCV/DCV of 4, 1 better than previously. Further, his SPEED will figure as 2.3 rather than 1.8, so the 2 points he applied to SPEED to bump it to a 2 make that a 2.5 figured; for 5 more character points he can have a 3 SPEED. Lets go ahead and spend those 5 points. A-Man is a 3 SPEED 13 DEX 4OCV/4DCV character now. Fighting B-Man, he would get an extra action, hit 74% of the time, and get hit 50% of the time. By holding his Segment 4 action he could Dodge B-Man's segment 6 action, getting hit only 16% of the time, attack in 8, and dodge again in 12. He has a significant advantage over B-Man even with just a +1/+1 difference in OCV/DCV and an extra action. Of course, B-Man may have put 20 points into Defenses, canceling out some of the advantage, but you get the idea.

2) Buy Martial Arts Manuevers. This isnt a sure thing, but many Martial Manuevers have positive OCV and/or DCV bonuses. By being discriminating, A-Man could increase both his chance to hit B-Man and the amount of Damage he does, and even widen the range of his abilities for not very many points. The minimum buy-in for Martial Manuevers is 10 character points, but this is easy to acheive. Fast Strike (+2/+0, STR+2d6 damage; from the Ultimate Martial Artist {a highly recommended product by the way}), Martial Dodge, and Martial Block are 3 excellent choices, giving very efficient OCV/DCV bonuses for thier cost; add on a Knowledge Skill: Martial Art of Choice for 3 points and you have a nice compact little Martial Artist who is fairly decent (for a normal). Martial Manuevers are what you can think of as "point efficient", meaning you can often get a little bit more effect for your points by taking a Martial Manuever than you could by building the same effect seperately.

I dont have my book handy, but IIRC Martial Block, Martial Dodge, and Fast Strike are all 4 point Manuevers, so with a 3 point KS: Martial Artist skill thats 15 character points. If A-Man bought that and put 5 points into STR, when fighting B-Man he could Martial Block on Phase 6 with a +2/+2 IIRC, blocking B-Man 83% of the time, and then strike 1st (a feature of Block) in Phase 12 with Fast Strike (+2/+0), again hitting 83% of the time, or 50% if B-Man Dodges, and doing 4.5d6 damage for an average of around 15 or 16 points of normal damage (which will knock B-Man out after 2 average hits or 1 good hit, and will stun him each hit). If B-Man does manages to hit him with his 8 STR, inflicting 5 normal damage on average with 1.5d6, A-Mans increased Strength also translates into +1 PD, +3 Stun, and +1 REC so he is somewhat more able to absorb that damage. Alternately, instead of +5 STR, A-Man could have bought +1 DEX for 3 character points and +2 PD for example, which would probably allow him to sucker punch B-Man in segement 6, stunning him on an average roll, and then drop him in 12.

3) Buy Combat Skill Levels (CSLs). Combat Skill Levels reflect a general competence with fighting and as you know come in many varieties. The more expensive CSLs are efficient in a direct proportion to how overall effective and well rounded a character is. It does little good for a dedicated ranged character with low HtH attacks and low defenses to by All Combat levels for example; its a waste of points usually. Similarly, a dedicated ground pounder who lacks ranged attacks might chuck a car or two occasionally depending on the genre, but generally All Combat Levels are less efficient than buying more 5 point HtH or 3 point tight group levels. Generally speaking and in my opinion, characters for whom 8 point CSLs are the most efficient levels are rare; usually a character that has enough HtH and Ranged abilities to want the flexibility of CSLs also has enough other skills and/or abilities to pay 2 more points (10 total) and get the all-mighty OVERALL levels (listed under Skill Levels not Combat Skill Levels) which are just like All Combat levels except that for 2 points more they apply to all skills AND Find Weakness for those fortunate enough to have it (according to the FAQ). Personally, I'm a big fan of dedicated DCV levels, but your mileage might vary; afterall 10 character points will buy +2 DCV, 9 character points will buy +3 Dex which give +1 OCV +1 DCV 1/3 of another point of SPEED and the ability to act sooner in a segment. Typically, if I have Normal Characteristic Maxima on a character I go for DCV levels; else I go for more DEX. If you dont have a lot of attack powers or Martial Manuevers, 2 point +1 OCV with Strike is usually good enough, mixed with maybe a few 3 point levels here and there.

So if A-Man took +1 DCV for 5 character points, and +5 with (Block, Strike, Disarm) for 15 character points for 20 character points total and went off to fight B-Man, he would hit with a Strike 98% (!) of the time if B-Man does not Dodge, or 83% of the time if he does. By contrast, he will be struck 50 % of the time if he does not Block or Dodge.

4) Get an area of effect attack. Normally not an option in a Heroic campaign (aside from grenades), this allows a person to strike at a hex (a roughly 6.5 foot or 3 meter diameter area essentially) rather than at a person; this is vs DCV 3 at range and vs DCV 0 adjacent. This cancels an opponent's CSLs, and Martial Manuevers outright. To a certain extent it also cancels an opponents DEX, but using the Dive for Cover manuever, an opponent who is able to Abort to Dive for Cover uses thier DEX to resolve whether they get out of the way or not and thus a high DEX will still play a roll vs AoE attacks.

If A-Man bought a +4d6 Hand Attack AoE: 1 hex (+1/2) 0 END (+1/2) HA (-1/2) OIF (Universal): Fighting Staff (-1/2) for 20 Base Cost x ((+1/2) + (+1/2)) = 40 Active Points / ((+1/2) + (+1/2)) = 20 Real Cost {SFX= he swings the staff in wide horizontal swaths, bisecting a hex}, he would hit B-Man (DCV 0 vs an Adjacent Hex) 90% of the time and do enough damage to stagger him on average each hit.

The general idea Im trying to get across is that you shouldnt get too hung up on CSLs in and of themselves; rather understand the basic concept of OCV and DCV modifiers in general, and also understand how OCV and DCV relate to each other.

Basically, if my OCV is 3 more levels than your DCV, Ill hit you 90% of the time; if your DCV is 5 higher than my OCV Ill miss 90% of the time. Thus, the to hit favors the attacker, but to balance that out the Defender has the active options of Abort to a Dodge, Block, Dive for Cover, or a Roll with the Punch to minimize my chance to hit, avoid damage outright by either effectively contesting a roll with me, or by moving out of the way, or by minimizing the damage inflicted by a successful hit, or the passive option of increasing thier Defenses so that attacks do little or no damage.

Because of this a person with a 8 OCV/5 DCV in HtH is slightly better off than a person with a 5 OCV/8 DCV in HtH. They will hit each other the same percentage of times normally, but if the 8/5 dodges to become an 8/8 the 5/8 will connect only 25% of the time, while if the 5/8 dodges to become a 5/11 the 8/5 will connect the same 25% of the time BUT if the 8/5 person aborts to a Block, he will Block the 5/8 persons attacks 90% of the time preventing all damage while the 5/8 person will only block successfully 25% of the time.

In Heroic level games, I find that a decent Dex of around 15-18, with a couple of 2pt +1 OCV levels with my most common attack, an Overall Skill Level if I can squeeze it, about 15-20 points of well-chosen Martial Arts, 2 Range Penalty levels, and a 4 Speed is usually comes in under 75 points and forms a very capable core functionality. If I have points left over, season with Characteristics and background skills; Ill often buy a few 1 point Familiararities for an 8- roll and then pay the 2pts per to buy them out with the first few nights experience points; that way usually by the time I need to use the skill I am actually proficient with it and can then apply my Overall Skill level. If the GM is nit picky and wants a rationale, i can usually play it off as 'all the action we've been going through have emphasized practical application and has catalyzed years of accumulated knowledge into a cohesive whole' or spin it off of some in-game effect. Most GMs are just happy to see a character with off-beat skills and dont make a big fuss over it.

What Im getting at, is that the most effective way to improve a characters overall combat capability vis-a-vis the OCV/DCV scale is to mix and match elements such as Martial Arts, DEX, CSLs and occasionally AoE attacks rather than focus on any one of them overly much.

YMMV. Welcome to HEROs!

Seekers got no use for Solitaire; a Shiela hanging off his arm would only cramp his chick-magnetism. Great White Ninja's pull serious tail, dontchaknow -- women love that "I'm a Martial Artist" mystique.

Originally posted by BobGreenwade

Minimalism totally rocks!

 

Seriously, thanks for the good words. I like approaching most things with the ever-lovin' KISS approach (Keep It Simple Stupid). If you want to add things after that, then by all means do so....

Hey Bob; I still remember your works from Haymaker so it was cool to see you get an official product in print, but I assure you auld lang syne did not predispose me to give a good review. It really is a great product.

Who you calling Poindexter? Besides, humor has no place on these boards, Smacky! :|

Seriously though, the new UMA is a quality product, although the organization of information always baffles me when I flip through it. I have old Ninja HERO, and a lot of the material is still pretty much the same, but it has plenty of cool new stuff as well.

As far as the new Ninja HERO, I bought it, but only because I buy everything HEROs puts out to support the company and encourage the local game store to continue stocking HEROs products. I actually just glanced through it, so I cant comment on it.

Same with Star HERO and Terran Empire, actually, although a cursory pass thru of both was very interesting and they seem like excellent products.

I was dissapointed with Champions on first examination (its very lowest-common denominator) but on further appraisal Ive actually come to like it very much (its very thorough). I hadnt realized how much of the Supers genre I take for granted is foreign to many players. Its proved to be a fabulous resource.

Champions Universe is pretty good, CKC is excellent, and Millenium City is really cool.

Im not terribly fond of the Bestiary; the art particularly is a real turn off. When I get around to doing a Fantasy campaign in 5th ed Im sure it will come in handy, but currently it doesnt see much use.

The Ultimate Vehicle is really really cool. Its saved me a LOT of time already. The Motorcycle and Armored Car entries in particular have seen many permutations. I like the minimalist approach it takes to vehicles; its much easier to use than some other Vehicle books write ups Ive seen in other systems.

Re: Crosshair Collie

Hehe sounds fun, and plus it had an obscure New Universe reference (The White Event), earning the post bonus geek points.

Let us know how it turns out. The good news is Seeker might actually be able to beat Nighthawk, but Im particularly interested in how Ironclad vs Obsidian pans out. Whose going to fight the Jaguar guy thought? Kinetik?

As an aside, since your main thrust seems to be finding a way to handle crafting Magic Items in a Fantasy campaign, I though I might share a method Ive used to good effect.

In the past in a Fantasy setting using the HERO System I ruled that "Ephemeral Magic Items", meaning FOCI with Non Recoverable Charges and the SFX: Magic, could be paid for with money rather than character points because, as you point out, it is retarded for any Mage/Wizard/Whatever to burn Character Points to create Scrolls, Potions, and other such items; there is no percentage in it.

IIRC the monetary cost used was Real Cost x Active Cost in gold to make and the Market Price would be a 150% markup or more, which was very very expensive relative to the game economy, and of course modified by in character (In-C) bartering and applicable skill rolls and/or use of PRE.

Non ephemeral items were paid for in points (for the mechanic) AND money (the in-game materials and labor (P&L will cost you in any timeframe)). The same cost formulae was used for P&L IIRC. As far as points go, a Wizard paid points and money to make items unless the item was commisioned, in which case the commisioning party paid the points and the money. This helped take the burden off a Wizard getting hit up by all of his PC friends to make items for them; they had to pay the points AND whatever monetary cost the Wizard set as his price for P&L (and profit should he see fit).

As an important note, all Magic Items were required to take the Universal FOCI and IND limitation, and acquired magic item were essentially 'found points' but were also unalterable. These items could also be sold for money; most merchants would pay RC x AC or trade at 125-150% markup, modified up or down by bartering In-C, applicable skill rolls and/or use of PRE. Some items always sold at a premium however, and were strictly a sellers market, like Rings of Power, some powerful Staffs, or any beneficial item with 200 or more Active Points (which would be regarded as near-artifacts) and would sell at top dollar in a big enough market, and even more powerful items were effectively priceless and would sell for whatever the market could bear.

Private buyers usually would buy at a higher rate, but were usually harder to find. Some bigger metropolitan cities would have 1 or more Consignment Agents and/or an Auction House which could be used to find potential buyers at a higher rate, but which would of course take a percentage cut or some other renumeration.

I never argued that the controller of the VPP couldnt use Powers on Continuing Charges and have them stick around for him. What Ive argued is your assertion that you could create 'magic items' with Continuing Charges and hand them out to others. Putting powers into an item which is usable from a VPP and can be distributed is using the FOCI rules to allow others to use the powers and that is what I have been illustrating to you as not working quite as you seem to think.

If you make a power like:

Flight X" 1 Continuing Charge (1 Day), then YOU as the controller of the VPP could use it and it would last 1 Day BUT no one else could use it.

IF you wanted to distribute the ability to use this ability to others you cound either buy it Usable By Others for +1/4, likely with Persistent (+1/2) so LOS is waived, OR buy it as a Universal Focus OR, if you want to retain control over the use of the power, Usabel as Attack. Of the 3 options UBO and FOCI are the most likely modifiers, so lets take a look at those.

With the UBO option (which is an advantage youll note), you CAN switch the points of the Flight power out of the VPP and the Continuing Charge will still stay active and the recipient of the power can continue to use it at thier discretion. WIth the FOCI route, (which is a limitation youll note) if the Focus is defined Universal than anyone can use the power but you dont have any control at all over the item once it leaves your possession; further being a Focus you cant loan it out and switch the points out of the VPP in accordance to the VPP/Foci rules.

What you cant do is make a Universal Focus, loan it out of the VPP on a Continuing Charge and then swap the points out of the VPP.

RE: Steep Price: If you dont care about the costs involved, then go ahead and piss points away. I wouldnt put all my eggs into 1 'reasonably common means to deactivate' basket but its your character.

RE: Reasonably Common means of deactivating: If you think throwing something into Mount Doom is 'Reasonably Common' I begin to see where some of the problem might lay in this being abused. Unless there's a Mount Doom on every other street corner in your campaign then, yeah, its going to be hard to shut down a bunch of 20 base point effects bought through long lasting Continuing Charges defined as destroyable by being cast into Mount Doom.

Originally posted by Gary

From the FAQ:

SNIP

Continuing charges can have above +1 advantage. 1 charge lasting 1 century should be 15 steps down the chart, and thus should be a +2 advantage, not +1.

Cool. Thanks for the catch. Thus, it is even more ridiculously expensive to have a 1 century Contin Charge.

Check this ruling for more info:

http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2723

Never mind; found it:

DP7, Displaced Paranormals, from the ill-fated New Universe ala Marvel early 80s. A Jim Shooter enterprise, it suffered an unmerciful lynching after not quite 3 years.

The Character I was thinking of was 'Antibody': http://marvunapp.com/Appendix/rndobi.htm

whos powers consisted of:

[/i]

O'Brien is able to create multiple negative-image versions of himself out of an unknown substance dubbed "psychoplasm". These duplicates can fly, become solid or immaterial at will, and are as strong as their human original. Although they lack vocal apparatus, they can confer their experiences upon living beings by touching them and willing such an information-transfer. The number of Anti-bodies O'Brien can manifest at one time is unknown. Each Anti-Body develops its own personality, apparently based on some facet of O'Brien's personality. Each of them, once created, are capable of independent activity, and respond to O'Brien's verbal or mental commands to varying degrees. The Anti-Bodies apparently need to rest inside O'Brien's body for at least an hour every 24 hours or else their psychoplasm begins to deteriorate (an Anti-Body once spent 78 hours out of O'Brien's body before totally dissipating). The demoses of his Anti-Bodies apparently has no physical effects on O'Brien. O'Brien is able to prevent Anti-Bodies from re-entering his body through hypnosis, as he did when one of his Anti-Bodies went rogue. Initially, O'Brien believed he had only one Anti-Body, but later discovered he could create up to five at a time. Later still, he learnt he could create any number of Anti-Bodies, and enter their bodies, taking on their physical appearance. O'Brien is presently unable to remove the Anti-Body he resides in, due to a blast of "Pitt juice". Within the Anti-Body, he possesses the same powers as any other Anti-Body, except the ability to become intangible. Also, any additional Anti-Bodies he creates are only one foot in height. [/i]

And now we all know

As noted that Lim is in 4th Ed.

However, I prefer the new way to do it using Duplication as that is the most direct way to simulate the 2 (or more) - body aspect of the Astral projection concept.

By the way, as an aside, does anyone remember a comic from a long long time back, Para something IIRC, where one of the characters manifested intangible 'anti-body' duplicates? They were black sillouettes with I think gold flecks in them.

It was a strange series IIRC, but interesting.

Thanx!

Hi Steve; been following this in the HERO Systems Discussion and noticed the rules question you answered earlier (http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2682)

Just to clarify for my own purposes:

In the case of the example concept noted whereby a power is bought through a FOCI and is powered by Continuing Charges.

As I understand it:

1) If the controlling character uses a Charge from the FOCI the effects of the Continuing Charge stick around for the duration of the Charge even if the FOCI is switched out of the VPP.

BUT

2) If the controlling character uses a charge from the FOCI and then lends the FOCI to a friend/teammate to use, the controlling character cannot switch the FOCI out of thier VPP until they get the FOCI back (or if they did not apply FOCI to the Control Cost, until the FOCI is lost/destroyed) as noted under the VPP rules in FREd.

Is this a correct interpretation of the rules?

Thanx!

innominatus wrote:Killer Shrike: The issue is CONTINUING CHARGES. It clearly states under "Charges" (and I quote): "If a Power with Continuing Charges is bought through a Multipower or VPP, and the Framework is switched to another slot or Power after a Continuing Charge is used, the Continuing Charges do not immediately turn off. They continue to affect the target or area until their duration expires." Imagine: A SWAT cop pulls the pin on a smoke grenade and throw it at you. You pick it up and start running around with it, concealed in the smoke. The cop pulls out his pistol (another slot in his "cop gadgets" Multipower) and tries to shoot you. The smoke doesn't instantly dissipate; the grenade keeps spewing out smoke until it runs out of chemicals. THIS is what we're talking about. I craft a ring with a "fuel" charge of Invisibility. The year's worth (or however long I make it for) of "invisibility energy" is INSIDE THE RING, ready to be used or reserved, switched on or off at the wearer's whim. Once the ring is complete and the charge has been triggered, I no longer have to keep my VPP's points dedicated to the Invisibility power, because the "fuel" to maintain the invisibility has already been placed within the ring. I can shoot my mystic energy bolts, or teleport back home, or even start working on enchanting a new item.

 

Yes, I am aware that you were discussing Continuing Charges; that is why the general info regarding FOCI in VPPs came first followed by the specific paragraph that begins As far as Continuous Charges.

The 1st para is relevant to situations where you have a Power in a VPP bought through a Universal Focus (which may or may not have Charges) and then lend that Focus out.

If you do have a Continuing Charge item that is part of an item usable by others via a FOCI and you lend that FOCI out to friends while switching your VPP around IT DOES COUNT AGAINST THE VPP POINTS as noted in the 1st paragraph in my first post.

You seem to be confusing powers bought with Charges and powers bought through FOCI which have Charges. A Charge is not an Item per se, it is a power source (although Recoverable can often blur this line conceptually) and cant be lent out to anyone directly; rather the effects of the power you attach a Continuing Charge will continue.

To take your example: If you have a Ring which grants Invisibility at the will of the wearer, then the ring is a FOCI which contains 1 or more charges and its not a question of whether the Continuing Charge persists when you switch the VPP around, rather it falls under the rules for lending out powers from a VPP bought via a FOCI; you cant switch those points out because they are locked into the FOCI you loaned out.

In other words, its a function of the FOCI which allows others to use powers out of your VPP, not a function of Charges. If you have a FOCI which has Charges, then yes others can use the FOCI if you have defined it as Universal, but you cant switch the Real Cost points in that FOCI out of you VPP while the FOCI is lent out.

By contrast, if you want to endow someone else with Invisibility without using a Focus and apply a Continuing Charge to that you would also have to apply either UBO or UBA to Invisibility (normally Self-Only IIRC), depending on whether the target or you had control over the effects of the power, in addition to the Continuing Charge limitation.

I.e., If you want to be able to 'cast a spell'/grant the benefits of a power to another character and then switch the points out of the VPP and have the effect continue, you need to use either 0 END Contin Uncontrolled or Continuing Charges and if you want the recipient to be able to use the power rather than just benefiting from the effects of the power it must also be bought UBO.

In such a situation, yes, you can switch the slot out of the VPP perhaps even in combat or at will assuming your VPP's control cost is bought to allow you to do so -- and with a Skill roll by default even then, and the Continuing Charge will continue to function for its duration. Continuing Charges are the Charge equivalent of Uncontrolled and behave similarly.

For this privelege the character has paid a steep price on both the VPP & Control Cost itself, and as I indicated in my first post, on the +1 Advantage (for the 1 Century increment you noted) on the power itself which serves to literally cut in half the actual Base Points available to whatever power you are using in this fashion, plus UBO if the recipient actually has control over the power for the duration and can use that power as opposed to just benefiting from the effects of your use of the power for a duration of time, or if the power is normally Self-Only.

Further, because of the way Charges work in a VPP, as noted under the VPP rules, if you switch the VPP back to the Power in question the Charge remains expended; cycling it out and back into the VPP does not reset the counter. Thus there is a finite limit on how many times you can do this. As an additional control, any GM would be within his rights to say that Charges used in such a fashion dont recover while still 'active'; i.e., the GM could rule that until the Continuing Charge expires, it counts as a Charge.

Finally, the primary built-in control to this application of the Continuing Charges and VPP rules, which you seem to be ignoring, is that all Continuing Charges MUST HAVE A REASONABLY COMMON WAY TO TURN THEM OFF, which consumes the charge in the process. Thus your example smoke grenade and Invisibility Ring both must have a way to turn them off that is fairly easily attained or accomplished. If they dont then they are not legal constructs and dont qualify for the Continuing Charges modifier.

YMMV

If you lend out items in a VPP to pals, it still counts against the VPP. Only if they are lost or stolen does it not count against the VPP. Also, this only applies if you did not take FOCUS on the Control Cost as well. If you did apply FOCUS to the Control Cost, then the points always count against the VPP whether you lend an item out or the item is lost/stolen. Pg 210 FREd "Loosing Powers"

As far as Continuous Charges, 1 Century is 15 steps down the time chart and which is a +1 Advantage, and further all Continuous Charges must have a 'reasonably common' pre-defined way to stop them. Also, +1 is half the advantage total of a 0 END Contin Uncontrolled ability which would be usable as many times as was desired, so the opportunity cost on that is fairly high.

So, to do this in a 60 pool VPP, you would have 30 base points to play around with if you dont apply any other advantages (beacause of the +1 from the Century Charge) AND there must be a common way to shut the power down. Whatever you decide on as the reasonably common method of ending the charge, its highly unlikely to survive its full duration unless it is benign for all comers -- including enemies (thus no one would want to shut it down). So, looking at it from that perspective its not that big of a deal IMO. YMMV.....

In the case of a Magic VPP, it would depend on how they bought the control cost. I commonly used skill rolls for each distinct type of magic 'school' and required the applicable skill be used for a laundry list of things, including adding new spells of a type to a spellbook, creating new spells, when analyzing Magic using a Detect Magic ability, etc. A lot of players also opted to take a second small 'Cantrip' VPP which was didnt have a spellbook limitation based on the school skills to do cantrips on the fly.

I think you are missing the point, but if you dont like them then dont use them.

All of the Power Frameworks are integral to the system and designed to be used to assist in the expressing of a character concept. There are many character concepts that are not possible at all without using Frameworks.

The purpose of a point based system is not to limit character design, but instead to allow freeform character design; the idea is that when the character is finished the point total gives an indication of relative power for comparitive use so that theoretically 1 PC is about as good as the next PC at the same point level.

HEROs without Frameworks is like a programming language without arrays, polymorphism, or late binding. You can still do a few small things, but a great deal of the flexibility and power of the system is lost, and you have to do ugly & inefficient hacks to get around some design concepts.

Elemental Control is not 'free points'. Its essentially a polymorphic construct. Its a design incentive to encourage players to tightly restrict thier Special Effect and accept that in certain circumstances they will be seriously affected by an attack that will not seriously disadvantage other characters that lack an EC. In essence an Elemental Control represents 1 big flexible power, which Ill call a meta-power for clarity, which has many different applications. Thus a character with 'Magnetic Control' who is able to do several things like fly, generate a force field, manipulate objects at range, etc all at the same time is a good candidate for an EC because they have 1 meta-power with several 'power stunts' stemming from that meta-power. If a character can be said to do a list of things because of 'X' where 'X' is some central source of powers, then they have a valid EC.

Multipowers are basically arrays of powers which draw from a common pool of points. They are most useful for exclusionary option sets and enable flexibility at the cost of robustness. The benefit of a MPP is matched by the fact the lack of solidity essentially.

The reason why so many characters take these frameworks is because they are an intrinsic part of the system and essential to the design of many character concepts. However, if you personally do not like them then you dont have to use them in your game. Its similar to tying one arm behind your back when designing characters, but you have that right as the GM. Personally, I would not play in a supers game where Frameworks are not allowed anymore than I would write an application in PASCAL. I think that a GM who bans them does not understand the full potential of the HERO System as a design ENABLER rather than a design RESTRICTER.

All of the non-point based games basically restrict character design: they say this is what you can play, this is what you can do, and this is what you can develop into with experience. Your option set is predefined. Full blown point systems like HEROs say: heres a bunch of raw materials, mould them into what you want and your only restriction is the general power level that the GM wants to run the game at. Everything in the game says, do what you want and the GM can veto anything he doesnt want in his game rather than the game designers doing that arbitrarily in the rules of the game itself. Every restriction says 'dont do this, unless your GM says you can'. It is a very permissive system, focusing on making cool characters with neat abilities. By blanket banning Frameworks, rather than just spot checking/vetoing abuses of such, a GM severely goes against this mindset.

IMO, YMMV etc

OK, with the release of Millenium City we finally had a 5th Ed Silver Avenger to look at. So, we made some tweaks to John Wrath. His VPP has also been switched out since the last post. The R&D boys have been busy.....

John Wrath, Agent of PRIMUS

Player: Jon Bristow

Total Character Cost: 384

Disadvantage Points: 125

Base Points: 250

Experience Required: 9

Total Experience Available: 9

Experience Unspent: 0

After play, we made a few 'makes more sense' revisions of Gravitic; here is the revised version, with a session of play under his belt:

Gravitic

Player:

Total Character Cost: 357

Disadvantage Points: 100

Base Points: 250

Experience Required: 7

Total Experience Available: 7

Experience Unspent: 0

Chitin

Player: Jake Ellena

Total Character Cost: 360

Disadvantage Points: 101

Base Points: 250

Experience Required: 9

Total Experience Available: 9

Experience Unspent: 0

Might as well play SAGA Marvel Superheroes instead.

Not only are there no points, theres not even any rolling involved.

I havent actually used them in play yet, but I recently did an eyeball comparison of the team to my current PC group, with an eye toward straight up conflict and they measured up as a mixed bag.

The current PC group includes:

John Wrath, Agent of PRIMUS : the Silver Avenger of MC (in my campaign), a Martial Artist/Light Brick with some gadgets. He has a cyber-eye that gives him Find Weakness 14- and about 50 points in Martial Arts. Has a ton of perks including Federal Police Powers and the requisite Liscence to Kill, and skills as well and of course a PRIMUS Hovercar. Basically a Nick Fury send-up.

Rook aka Fortress aka Fort (dont ask): A force-field based character that has some TK-like effects and basically serves as a Speedster/Brick (52" Combat movement bought as Forward-movement only must be in contact with surface Leaping, with Combat Acceleration, and Accurate in a slide-like effect, 55 STR via fully invisible Extra Limbs with 6" of Stretching, a decent FF, 50% Resistant Damage Reduc PD/EE, some Power Def and Mental Def, limited Life Support, and a for-Emergency-Use-Only Force Wall Dome No Range 0 DCV Total Concentration througout). Basically a street-level character, but very powerful. He's generally contemptuous of 'capes' and would rather protect the common people than go after villains. He's much more of a protector than a prosecuter type of character. He's more than happy to just chase a villain off and isnt above live and let live type deals, but also has a dangerous veangeful streak. Kind of has a Daredevil-type personality essentially.

The Green Knight: A low level mutant with advanced mental and physical abilities (some low-level mental powers, and some low level phys abilities like Regeneration w/ Lost Limbs, and 6/6 Damage Resistance) who augments his powers with a power armor suit, shield, and a technological mace with a nuero blaster (EGO Attack) built into it, and an advanced Jet Cycle with a on-board computer. His SFX is that the Armor is driven by his advanced mutant nuerological system; basically a normal human would not be able to use most of the abilities to thier fullest capability. He also has a lot of inventor/gadgeteer abilities to back up his power armor schtick. He is big into the valiant knight schtick and plays like a modern day Sir Gawain. Very concerned with the 'honorable' course of action.

DEFUNCT (The player of the Green Knight turned out to not be a good fit for the group and was let go. A shame, really, the Green Knight was a well-rounded and excellent addition to the group.)

Chitin : a OIHID super brick. A 15 year old science geek, bitten by a chemically altered mutant stag beetle! A few moments of concentration and he grows massively into a hulking man-beetle complete with Exo-skeleton and exponential strength! He can even pop out insectoid wings and take flight (erratically)! He has IIRC 60 STR, but his main power is near-indestructibility to physical damage. He has 30 resistant PD +20 r PD vs Blunt attacks. Sadly, his ED isnt anywhere near as good. He also has clinging and some other small abilities beyond his impressive brickness. In his HERO ID he has trouble speaking intelligibly, so doesnt say much, and hides his real age from the other Heros. He has a very high intelligence, being a major science fair geek in his secret id, and sometimes catches people by suprise with his unbricklike planning.

Gravitic : a gravity manipulator, has a lot of movement effecting powers and BODY damage oriented attacks. He has decent but unreliable defences vs physical, but has trouble with energy attacks. He also has several forms of airborn movement himself, including an anti-grav leap, an air-walking ability, and a anti-grav glide. In real life he is a TV and B movie actor in Superhero shows. What he didnt know is that he is the younger half-brother of.....GRAVITAR!!!!!!, his suprise Hunter btw. They have the same father, a globetrotting playboy in his day. Shes obviously much more powerful but once she finds out about her long lost little brother, she will of course want him to join with her and will make a few attempts to turn him before finally giving up and (trying to) killing him. Gravitic isnt too bright and has gotten through life on his good looks and family background. He is a really bad cheesy actor, and his hero persona is very Silver-Age retro-kitch. "Thats right, heroes! I intend to stop the villain with my Gravitic Grounding Ray!". He also thinks his powers stem from an ability to manipulate Graviolis (pronounced like Ravioli with a g in the front).

Hype: Speedster/ Light Brick; lots of speed tricks, DEX, SPD, and classic speedster bits. Endorses NAR-COLA ("It lives up to its HYPE, just like me!". He is my PC while Im taking a turn as a player. He effectively replaces ROOK on the active line up as the current GM is ROOKs player. Later, ROOK will return right about the time Hype departs for awhile, or perhaps another GM will run an arc.

Agent X: is a mysterious escapee of some kind of super-soldier experiment. The only thing more mysterious than his past is his real identity. A super-skill agent; Scrapper/Infiltrator.

The PC group is pretty mobile and has a preponderence of toe-to-toe fighters and no real blaster, and the group is currently 375-400 points so I have to make allowances for the Champions, but even giving them a handicap they measure up poorly.

Of them all, Ironclad and Defender were the most comparable to the PC group; Ironclad mostly because of his Find Weakness, which is a nasty piece of work for just about anybody to deal with, and Defender because of his overall flexibility. Witchcraft is too diluted IMO; she cant fend off a group, and none of her powers work fast enough to be a real serious threat; unless the PCs were already locked down, one of them would drop her quick before she became a real threat. Sapphire should be nasty due to the fact that several of the PCs are more vulnerable to energy than physical, and there are no rival dedicated blasters, but she just cant hit often enough and if she gets close enough to hit she'll get knocked out of the sky by any of the PCs, particularly Gravitic. Nighthawk is just a joke; he's too scattered. With 25 points in the right place he would gel into a real threat, but until then he just cant mount an offense. Granted, he would be one of the most fun to play as a PC because he's got the bases covered, but in a toe to toe he's in trouble.

By the way, thanx for the write up Marchwarden!

Not to nitpick, but FYI it URL, Universal Resource Locator, not EARL.

Some of the reviews of the earlier releases no doubt got lost when the new boards were put up a few months ago.....

Personally, I hated the old Champions Universe (it was indeed a mish-mash IMO as Monolith said) and NEVER used it. Not only was it a complete mess, it was also boring and overly goofy -- again in my opinion. Too many of the characters were just silly, and the ones that werent were mostly generic and uninteresting. I mean, did the world really need Gweenies for example?

I'm really loving the new CU however, overall. Its got a good feel to it, and captures a lot of the things I liked about comics when I was growing up. I mean, I havent collected in 10 years give or take, but the new CU material motivated me to go dig up some of my comics and read through them again. Sadly, most of the comics that I really enjoyed in the day seem pretty weak to me a decade later (for example, I used to really like Chris Clairmonte when I was a kid, now his dialogue seems almost painfully bad, his plot lines overly dramatic (and on occasion melodramatic) and his characterizations really heavyhanded -- IMO, YMMV of course).

Who cares if it is heavily influenced by someones campaign, so long as the campaign was solid? So much the better then, than some random collection of as-they-thought-of-it material duct taped together, and with a few serial numbers filed off of derivative characters to protect the plaigerist.

I like the fact that CU, while nodding its head to some classic staples of the genre, isnt bound by slavish aping of existing characters. Do we need Arachnidman or Mr. Incredibly Bendy in CU? Noooooooooo!

Ultimately, if you prefer the old 4th edition era 'Universe', there is absolutely nothing stopping you from using that as is with 5th Edition. If you like elements of new CU, then just incorporate them into your retro-Universe. The differences between 4th and 5th are so niggling mechanically that you can pretty much run the charcaters side by side from both versions, making corrections on the fly if necessary. Very little was changed; some things were reclassified, and quite a bit was added but that doesnt really matter much in the bigger picture to old characters.

In the past, Ive had a variety of 'super metals' in play. I dont remember them all, but some follow:

Flexionite: this was actually a class of metals (A,B,C) derived from a real material that is used in real life for avionics and expensive eyeglass frames. Its main advantage was that once manufactured the material effectively has 1 true shape which it will return to. A secondary attribute was a molecular bonding capability; if you put to pieced of Flexionite alongside one another exposure to a different band of radiation would cause the 2 pieces to bond together seamlessly.

Type A does not require exposure to a particular band of radiation to return to its natural state, but only forms in cylindrical shapes.

Type B requires exposure to a particular band of radiation if it is deformed to return to its original state. Its advantage is that once its shape is frozen it is rigid like other metals, and easier to work with in the production of complex machinery than Type A because it can be made in any shape.

Type C is made up of many micro-cylinders of Type A material arrayed together in sheets and bonded. It makes flexi-sheets of metal basically which will allow some moulding (enough to style a car for example, but nothing too minute in detail), and is useful in the creation of deforming-reforming panels and the manufacturing of vehicles. A car made with a Type B frame and a Type C body for example is exceptionally resilient and structural damage is easily repaired by a trained mechanic with Flexionite-moulding equipment.

A trained armor smith or manufacturer working with highly specialized (and high-tech) tools can construct and repair items made from Flexionite very quickly, allowing damaged equipment to be returned to the field in like-new condition. Flexionite revolutionized the personal armor industries, the automotive and avionics industry, and a wide assortment of odd products (more as a novelty than anything else, like Flexionite-B Baseball bats & tennis rackets and Flexionite-C Chainlink fences).

Rebarium: A titanium/Flexionite-A alloy intended for construction use. Rebarium has a very high tensile strength, but also has a flexion point. Basically, when its tensile strength is exceeded, rather than breaking or permanently bending it will deform to a high degree before permanantly breaking/bending, and after the stress is removed it will return to its original shape. Primarily used for support struts and seismic adjustors, it found a suprisingly lucrative application in the construction of oil platforms and cranes.

Ularium: this material served as a common-source rationale for a campaign that I was planning but which never got off the ground back in 1996.

A strange material discovered in a single meteorite found embeded on the moon in 1969 by the US government. The material was brought to earth by the astronauts that discovered it and a team of scientists were assembled to analyze it for possible use in the US nuclear program.

Even in the present, the scientists that have studied the material are not sure if it is a naturally occuring element not previously discovered or not native to earth or an advanced compound created either artificially or by an alien intelligence. What they do know is that Ularium emits a wide range of energy wavelengths, and is far more radioactive than Uranium or Plutonium. Prolonged exposure to the material results in serious radiation poisoning and a rapid cellular failure for the wide majority of humans and other terrestrial organisms.

In 1970 the scientists began testing the properties of the material, and as part of a larger effort they assemled 300+ monkeys of various varieties which were exposed to the material in short bursts over the course of a month. By the end of the month, over 275 monkeys either died or were in the process of dying from the radiation poisoning. However, 19 of the monkeys showed no sign of radiation poisoning and of those 19, 4 of them were begining to demonstrate elevated intelligence and altered behavior. Intrigued by this phenomenom, the scientists got funding for another batch of 300 monkeys, and left the original 19 survivors in with them.

After another month the results were similar, with 22 survivors from the new batch, and all 19 from the 1st batch still showing no signs of poisoning or other ill effects. Of the 22 new survivors, 6 were showing signs of elevated intelligence like the original 4 'brainy' monkeys. This elevated intelligence was not drastic, but it was noticible. The surviving 41 monkeys were put in a holding status while the scientists attempted to make sence of thier data. Primatologists were brought in. Many arguments ensued, and further the team working on this aspect of the project encountered difficulties getting funding over the more 'practical application' teams.

While this was happening, several of the monkeys formed mating pairs and after half a year had passed several new little monkeys had been born. The primatoligists noticed a few things almost immediately: the new baby monkeys were not like thier parents in all respects. They had less hair, larger cranial capacity, smaller teeth, straighter spines, and more human-like attributes. They seemed to have evolved in 1 generation!

The potential of this new discovery was obvious, but problematic. Human trials were desired, but with the death ratio suggested by the monkey trials not viable in the current iteration. However, one scientist, Dr. Tyler Sean Greene, recommended a diffusion/dispersion approach. His recommendation was to expose more people to minute quantities of the material. By expanding the test base, the decrease in the amount of the material to which the subjects are exposed would balance out.

This drew some attention, and soon the entire project was bundled up, reclassified, and moved to a new location and formed into a group called Directorate for the Advancement of Radioactive Waste Identification and Neutralization (DARWIN), with a cover mission of environmental correction. The group was restructed into the EPA in 1983, but in reality the true purpose of the branch has always been under the control and cognizance of the NSA.

Greene's plan was put into action in 1972 by piggy backing on an ongoing program run by the CIA for a variety of purposes at the time, using college student 'volunteers' who would agree to just about anything for some much needed money. The subjects were told they were helping to develop a cure for the common cold, and a suitably convincing charade was maintained.The project was codenamed Protocol Pygore-5 and was conducted nationwide for a period of 6 years, exposing over 12000 subjects for the alloted 6 months each. 87 subjects died from effects believed to be caused by the material, and a handful of others died in more mundane fashions such as car accidents. Of the survivors many were mated pairs that started the treatments together, and others met during their time in the program and formed subsequent relationships; 347 pairs of subjects had relationships that resulted in the birth of at least one child between 1972 and 1982.

DARWIN maintained casual surveillance of all its test subjects, paying close attention to any children resulting from a subject. This children typically displayed abnormal precociousness and were well above average in intelligence and often athletic capability as well. Meanwhile they continued thier monkey experiments, and explored other uses for Ularium. The monkey experiments saw the occurance of a small population of advanced primates. Continued exposure to the material in succeeding generations revealed that the mutated children were significantly more resilient to the harmful effects but also the mutagenic effects. Another interesting fact came to light; some of the monkey-men exhibited psychic capabilities, including psychokinesis, pyrokinesis, and psychic blasts. In 1996 one of the 4th generation monkeys with human level intelligence, the ability to speak English and a limited precognitive ability, Maku, managed to break himself and 4 cage-mates out of the holding facility in western Pennsylvania where they were held. He managed to lead his little band into Canada, where eventually they came to the awareness of the Canadian government and sought asylum. The Canadian government started investigating the situation covertly.

Meanwhile, several of the children of the earlier human test subjects were now in their teens and in some cases were starting to show signs of psychic capabilities themselves. DARWIN was directed to collect these children for closer examination.....[cue campaign]...

Plaststeel: basic plastic thats as hard as steel material but lightweight and mass produced; vulnerable to heat/lasers but very resilient to cold and impact.

Blasteel: a more advanced version of Plaststeel, it is almost indestructible but also very difficult to work with; it must be poured into moulds and shaped prior to a catalyzation process.

There were others, but this is what I remember off hand....

Re: Great!

Originally posted by coach

Wow! That is sweet! I think it may overestimate a 1st level character a little, but other than that, that is a fantastic evaluation. I especially like the ability to kind of tell how many points a given level would be.

 

But, I think I may have mis-stated my question. Actually, looking back at it, I really did mis-state it. What I'm looking for is some website where I can just go and pick out conversions of D&D monsters to Hero. See what I've got is a Fantasy Hero campaign that kind of has a D&D-ish flavor to it. So, I might want to through in a Neo-Otyug or two.

 

But, wow, keep posting on what you're working on, that is so cool.

 

Thanks!

np

EDIT Here is a link to the new Conversion docs:

http://www.killershrike.com/FantasyHERO/Conversion3e/conversion3e.shtml

Should still be usable for most purposes, although thier power level will vary based on the point scale you went with.