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DreadDomain

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Everything posted by DreadDomain

  1. Re: Strength as a Figured Characteristic I believe there are a small proportion of players that are completely put off by whatever math there is in a game but in my opinion, the biggest challenge newcomers face when the come to HERO, is the huge about of work to be done up front before you can start a campaign. You and I, playing the game for years may not think this is such a challenge but I can imagine new players and GM being totally overwhelmed by the flexibility provided. "Here are nuts and bolts for you. Build whatever you want." This a much greater offender then trying to figure out that PD=STR/5. I'd even say that for people coming from other games, it must be comforting to have ready made packages, characteristics in that case, that make sense for them. That being said, and I am now dangerously threadjacking so I will try to make ity brief, I would like the HERO Rulebook (6th maybe) to be a real stripped down toolkit which decoupled figured characteristics, the powers and disadvantages systems pretty much as is (at least in philosophy) and the Skills system with standard skill rolls (x+CHA/Y) depending on game style (in other words, I would make page 11 to 15 of Ultimate Skill part of the basic toolkitting rules). It would then provide suggestions and tips on 1) how to build "packages characteristics" (like the way they are now), 2) how to build Talents, Super-Skills, Magic and Super-Powers with the Power system and 3) how to choose your base skill rolls for different campaign (so, 9+CHA/5 or 7+CHA/3?). Note that 2) is already very well covered in the actual rule book with a section on Talents and many exemples in the sidebars and 3) is already very well explained in Ultimate Skill p.11 to 15. Second, I books like Turakian Age for exemple would be a little more complete. The Character Creation section on the book would not just give tips and suggestions about how you can use the rulebook to create TA characters but would spell out how the author envisionned character creation within the setting. So here are the characteristics used, how much they cost and how they influence (or not) secondary characteristics and skills, here are the TA skills and talents lists and here are the racial, cultural and professional packages available. Part of this is already well done but most of the time, they feel like incomplete suggestions about how to run the (Turakian Age) game. By making them more developped, a group could jump right in the game while another could decide to use the toolkit to tweak it to taste ("the TA book says that STR cost 2 per +1 and gives such and such but in my game (flipping throught the rulebook)... it will cost 3 per +1 and gives such and such and else. Third, and by now I owe an apology to the OP for threadjacking, HeroDesigner would support that king of toolkiting. "Ok, in my game the skills will be based on 7+CHA/3 (click a checkbox), I will use this characteristic set (upload a prefab or use the characteristic builder), this skill set (prefab again), this talent set (ditto), these packages, this magic system and these spells (ditto, ditto and ditto).
  2. Re: Strength as a Figured Characteristic That is another popular option. At any given time, there is always a "Decoupling Figured Characteristics" thread floating around. On principle, I have no problem with this avenue either but I think deconstructing the system further might make it even harder to get for newcomers. It would have the advantage to better balance characteristics with the whole system though.
  3. Re: Strength as a Figured Characteristic Funny but a while age while thinking how I would reworked the characteristics (see this post http://www.herogames.com/forums/showpost.php?p=840778&postcount=33), I did the exact opposite; BODY was derived from STR. In short, I came up with (copied straight from said post): ------------------------ Primary Characteristics All would start at 10 (average human at 8), have a NCM at 20 and an absolute "realistic" maxima at 30 (no more Int up to 50). The cost for all primary characteristics is 2 points per level*. Strength Dexterity Constitution Presence Intelligence (although the name could be changed to better represent what it really means) Ego As you can see, Body and Comliness have disappeared from the primary. These were the two odd characteristics anyway and have moved to the secondary characteristics. Secondary (or Figured) Characteristics Physical Defense (1 point) : Str/5 Energy Defense (1 point) : Con/5 Mental Defense (1 point) : Ego/5 Speed (10 points) : 1+ (Dex+Int)/20 Recovery (2 points) : (Con+Ego)/5 Endurance (1 point because I hate half points) : Con+Ego Stun (1 point) : (Str+Con+Pre+Ego)/2 Body (2 points) : 8+(Str/5) Com (1 point because I hate half points) : 8+(Pre/5) All have average, NCM and absolute maxima as per Hero 5. I also used formulas like (Con+Ego)/5 instead of ((Con/5)+(Ego/5)) because then having Con 12 means something when you have Ego 11. I also considered merging PD and ED to create Physical Defense at Con/5. ---------------------------------------------- I am a big fan of Speed = 1+ (Dex+Int)/20 because then it makes so much more sense to base any actions (mental and physical) on Speed. *Actually, in the same post I go on figuring out that such an arrangement would probably cost closer to 3 points per CHAR but some people might like the point break coming with them. As for Bricks, sure it might be a problem except that I don't buy the famous "STR +5 costs 5 points because it gives +1d6 of damage and +1d6 of damage costs 5 points". STR gives so much more than just damage in my opinion.
  4. Re: Gestalt is Online I guess beauty must be in the eye of the beholder. I don't know him, never spoke or communicate with him in any way and it never crossed my mind to interpret what he said as "disparaging the material". It may be what you understood but not necessarily what he intended to convey. Nope. I hate pdfs. I may at some point get used to tehm but all in all I never really succeeded in reading a PDF product I purchased so I don't buy them anymore. So I just hate them
  5. Re: Song of Ice and Fire This is what I heard also. There is even an entry on http://www.imdb.con for "A song of ice and fire"...
  6. Re: Granularity And under this system, it is easy to create maneuvers for other stuff than physical and mental combat. For Persuasion or Interrogation for instance.
  7. Re: Granularity Eventually I would like to see this for a sixth edition (I am not holding my breath). Sure we can house rule it as of now more more things must be considered.
  8. Re: CHAMPIONS UNIVERSE: NotW -- Updating Villains
  9. Re: The Last Dominion Campaign Setting Speaking of downloads, am I the only one to get some funny linkages? Western Roen gets me to the Echoes of Glory Preview and Northrun to the calendar.
  10. Re: The Last Dominion Campaign Setting Oooohhhhh! This looks very nice....!
  11. Re: The Last Dominion Campaign Setting Sure did (the same that are in the PDF I would guess). I just thought these cultural sketches were very nice and very useful. But hey, getting them in PDF instead is a nice solution anyway...
  12. Re: The Last Dominion Campaign Setting I am sad to hear this but... ... but very happy about this. I guess it was just too much effort to get these concepts cleaned up of every issues and put in the layout.
  13. Re: The Last Dominion Campaign Setting This is obviously not what you were fishing for but I would have loved to see these http://pencil-pushers.net/?page_id=44 in the book. In a setting so vast and rich, drawings of the different cultures is a must to help both players and GM to visualize the world. To be even more demanding, I'd like to see such drawing for every cultures . Although I admit you already have quite a few setting evocative drawings in the book. Personally, I love the human centric, politically moving tone of the setting. To get things really moving now I would like to see regions described in much more details. You know, geography, society, people, economics, political organisations and titles. But that is what future supplements are for. I have TLD PDF but I will buy the Dead Tree version anyway and of course the next supplement.
  14. Re: Questions for the Canadian HEROBoard members
  15. Re: Questions for the Canadian HEROBoard members
  16. Re: Questions for the Canadian HEROBoard members Oh Lord Liaden, why keep "British" Columbia as a name? Is there any incencitive to change it or are you guys quite comfortable and happy with it?
  17. Re: Questions for the Canadian HEROBoard members Correct. I was talking more about traveling to other provinces for work or school and such. For vacation, I don't think we travel less than anyone else. For holidays, a lot of people are going south (Florida, Virginia, Cuba, etc...), west (British Columbia, Alberta, California, Nevada) or across (France England, Spain, Italy)...
  18. Re: Questions for the Canadian HEROBoard members Now that you had a few very good pointers from my English Canadians fellows, let me give you some Québecois' perspective. Keep in mind that whatever I say is only meant to be a broad generalization so take it with a grain of salt as, obviously, not everybody feels and behaves the same. I'd say Québécois feel a bit isolated within Canada and we often think as Québec versus RoC. Contrary to what some would want people to believe, Québécois do not hate English Canadians and in any aspect of life, may it be sports, politics, wars or anything, we will always side with our fellow Canadians against in outside competition. I guess badmouthing Québec is fairly common in RoC but again, I've met a lot of outside Québec Canadian, both while I was visiting or when they were coming here, and I heard a lot of "I thought " but most of the time, they were quite happy with what they saw and who they met here. None really. The tension were at the highest around both référendum in 1980 and 1995 and even then that was nothing really. The resentment that Québécois feels when they are not adressed in French in their own province is grossly exagerated. In fact, it is almost the other way around. If a foreigner comes here and tries to speak French, he will immediately wins sympathy and even respect. Sometime, even a "Bonjour comment ça va?" followed by an admittance that all your French vocabulary is exhausted will be quite enough to earn you sympathy. Now speak broken French and keep trying and you've got respect. If a foreigner (non-Canadian but even fellow Canadians only visiting) do no not speak French, it is no biggies really since we do not really expect him to (although we would love Canadians to be as much fluent in French as we are in English). From Québec English community we do expect more but will be merely annoyed that "he is not even trying". Now, in Québec, if we get served in English in restaurants, outlets, movie theaters, government services and whatnot, then we get resentful I believe that Québécois tend to travel less in other provinces than American and English Canadian would. I guess it is because we feel like foreigner outside of Québec.
  19. Re: What fundamental thing would you change about the Hero system?
  20. Re: What fundamental thing would you change about the Hero system? Oh! And I would like the Characteristic system reworked a bit (see this post for an example http://www.herogames.com/forums/showpost.php?p=840778&postcount=33). But that would be far from a fundamental change in heroic games. It might upset things a bit in superheroic though.
  21. Re: What fundamental thing would you change about the Hero system? Get ready.... This is a "Me Too" moment!!!
  22. Re: The Last Dominion Campaign Setting
  23. Re: The Last Dominion Campaign Setting
  24. Re: The Last Dominion Campaign Setting Thanks, I got them! Yesterday I had a look at the download in the Hero Games online store and it seems there is only one pdf file (ppp00001.pdf). Like I said, I just browsed it but it looks very promising. I soon as I get the time to read it, I will let you know what I think. Two things will slow down my progress. First, I am in the process of starting a GURPS* Warhammer** game and second, I have a hard time reading on the computer. That's why I never ever buy PDF. I made an exception with TLD because it looked very promising from both the blurb and the preview. *At some point I was battling deciding between GURPS and HERO to play in WH. In the end, I thought it would be easier with GURPS 4 just because it is more gritty than Hero. It also helped that in the last five years I've played Hero exclusively and I thought a change would be nice. Would I have gotten TLD a month ago, my decision, both system and setting wise, could have been different. **Do you know the Warhammer setting? If you, how would you compare TLD to it?
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