Fox1

Re: Strength Damage: Pathetic or what?

Re: Strength Damage: Pathetic or what? I'm afraid the FBI research and JFK Jungle Warfare School trumps your (surprisingly poor) high school physics. We're done here. Take it to PM if you insist.

Re: House Rules? Oh I don't know if we need to take it to PM or now. It just seems like we watch different kinds of movies or read different kinds of books. But if you want to sure. I also don't tend to use the mook rules like "only damage and a DCV". Tends to break the illusion of it being a 'real' world for me. Of course with my changes I don't need to

Re: House Rules? I already use the hit location rules, wounding/disabling, bleeding and all. Although I did change the concept that body damage is cumulative, it's not for killing attacks. I also removed the 1 point body loss from going to zero body and replaced it with bleeding to avoid doubling up on what is basically the same thing. (all noted on my website). Without the firearm changes it didn't work out. In the real world and the cinematic fiction, most people drop from being shot once. I wanted that to happen. 1d6+1K (a typical HERO system damage for common handguns) in the chest only does 4.5 body on average and 13.5 stun- not enough to drop even a perfect average character (or even impair him except for being stunned a round) let alone a slightly up-stated goon. In fact you'd have to roll a 6 on the die to drop the average guy. Far less than the movies I tend to watch (but I'm old, newer ones tend to have everyone hit by dozens of bullets- typically all in one 'attack'. Hong Kong action requires you buy auto-fire with pen knives). Even the rulebook notes that firearms don't do anything close to real damage. It suggest a straight up double body damage rule, but I feel that makes rifles too powerful and also prevents using the same rules for Heroic and Superheroic campaigns. I use it for all my games including 4 color supers. The Armor effect limit has a huge impact there. I also restrict Body in all my games to being based upon body mass. You'd have to be a giant to have 20 body. In fact I'd make the claim that you have a lower chance of being killed in my game for the simple reason that people won't have to shoot you a large number of times in a cumulative body approach.

Re: Herogames: The Sportscar Product I can't speak for others, but I think the argument is clear. I've heard it many many times and not just in connection to HERO. I know people who would claim that there's nothing in HERO to support ANY genre. We really don't want to go down this road since we're here on a site that is basically all about supporting HERO. As to the whole Sportscar metaphor of the thread, I don't have strong feelings on the matter. I assume the company will make the decision without consulting with me. Heck, the company went ahead with Fantasy Hero after I told them it was worthless years ago when they did sort of ask me so My only opinion on that matter is that if it can't do Superheroes, it can't do anything. That's the game's original roots and it shows at nearly every turn- even if it does so in a style that doesn't please you.

Re: The Trophy Room hmm. I think I may be confused about the question at hand. Are we talking about a character with a background concept, or the idea of requiring characters to pay for a trophy room period?

Re: Herogames: The Sportscar Product I don't think we really want to debate this. Especially since the whole thing turns on what one wants to see in their comic book rpg and not really what is there. For many including myself, HERO is perfect for superheroes. 'Nuff said. And of course he can say you're wrong. Judging from his desires and needs you are. That's the implied concept when one is speaking of fuzzy fun things like games. Don't look for insults or you'll find them.

Re: Strength Damage: Pathetic or what? Urban Myth I believe.

Re: Strength Damage: Pathetic or what? KE doesn't measure "work done on the body", it measures KE. And the full article goes on to say how much if not most of that energy is wasted in creating the temporary cavity. The simple conclusion quote at the bottom of the page states the following: "Kinetic energy does not wound." Two points now... 1. The FBI used the ideas in the link (together with others) to select their handgun. They chose weapons with lower KE (m*V^2) but higher Momentum (M*V) and Diameter as a result. That started a trend (actually recreated a trend for at least the second time) that has been picked up by nearly the entire world of law enforcement and the military. 2. We are seriously off topic and need to stop on that basis.

Re: The Trophy Room I wouldn't because (except for special plots likely of my own creation) they wouldn't be using it. It's not part of their character concepts. In general I think this whole idea of paying points for stuff like this or for mundane items (flashlights, etc.) comes from the defeat and loot days of rpgs. Superhero games are all about concept, if you're playing the game that way and built your character that way- I don't see questions like this coming up.

Re: Strength Damage: Pathetic or what? If Marvel is four color, it works there. The typical upper strength limit for their characters (such as Thor) is something around 100 tons. Doesn't work for classic world moving DC so much however.

Re: Strength Damage: Pathetic or what? This is the modern Internet, a person would find a link that would 'backup' the idea that the world is flat. But here: http://www.firearmstactical.com/hwfe.htm'>http://www.firearmstactical.com/hwfe.htm Check under the heading 'Mechanics of Projectile Wounding' for the concepts of bullet wounding. Here is the reasoning why law enforcement has abandoned the 9mm in favor of the lower KE value weapons such as the .40 S&W and .45 ACP. The site http://www.firearmstactical.com/ as a whole is fine resource. For even more detailed information, look up a journal called Wound Ballistics Review put out by the IWBA.

Re: Strength Damage: Pathetic or what?

Re: Strength Damage: Pathetic or what? I'm afraid so. Even if one did attempt to keep with that, you'd still part with reality on a number of levels. KE for but one example is not the determining fact in the effectiveness of firearms on human targets.

Re: Strength Damage: Pathetic or what? The general rule in HERO is that every 5 point represents a doubling of power. I could look up the page reference if you like.

Re: Strength Damage: Pathetic or what? Check out the link to my webpage below. Basically I changed the progression from 2x for every 5 points to 1.53779192x for every 5 points. The rather strange number was picked because my primary Superhero game was Marvel based. At the time the Marvel Handbook stated that a character with a 100 ton lift hit with the force of a 500 lb bombs. This was the old days and 500 lbs bombs in the rules did 27d6 damage then. With a haymaker that meant I needed a STR of 90... and I worked backwards to get the number above. It also had the advantage of a STR 25 lifting around 800 lbs which is what Captain America was listed at in the same handbook. So life was GOOD. Then they changed the haymaker rule. Sigh. I haven't changed the numbers to match the new haymaker rule. It wouldn't work as good. One can pick other progressions, for example 1.4142 would work nicely as that gives 2x effect for every 10 points. Oh, and doing this requires you adjust the Growth and Density increase tables as well. Edit: fixed typo

Re: Is Punisher the problem?

Re: Strength Damage: Pathetic or what? If you're worried about looking behind the curtain, i.e. comparing the game mechanics to the real world... Then it's really only good for over the top action genres. That includes far more than Superheroes. And the use of house rules (such a re-write of the strength chart) and extend that even further.

Why is the limit 'STR Min Cannot Add/Subtract Damage' applied to guns (page 479 of 5E revised) when the base power is typically ranged killing attack which doesn't add STR anyway?

Re: Is Punisher the problem? You won't find real evidence. If I can run games with 400 point differences in character totals and they work just fine as far as balance goes... you just won't find real proof that something like free real world gear breaks things. What you will find are people who don't like it. For them, it is a game breaker. But only because they made it one. Such is life in the rpg world.

Re: Herogames: The Sportscar Product

Re: House Rules? Such as?

Re: So how would you make this? (Silver Samurai) Ok, here's how I'd do it and it's easy. First, remember that in comics statements that "Can cut through anything!" are pure bragging. Do you really think that SS could cut the Hulk's head off with a single blow? Of Course not. So: Katana: 2d6K HtH, No End Cost (+1/2), OAF (-1)... etc. Add: Piercing (from Dark Champions): 20 points resistant PD, No End Cost (+1/2), AP (+1/2) to counter one level of Hardened Defenses. Not vs. Force Fields or 'indestructible' materials (-1/2), OAF Katana (-1) as I've never seen the Samurai use the power with another item. Real Cost of the Piercing Field: 120 points. Active Cost of the Piercing Field: 48 You can scale up or down to campaign taste. For a normal point standard game, I'd use 10 points of piercing instead. Expensive, but a much better recreation of how it would typically work in the comics I think- and a much less complex build.

Re: Strength Damage: Pathetic or what?

Re: Is Punisher the problem? To go slightly off subject... There was an entire storyline in the published comic on that very concept- Captain America without his shield. One of the major panels in it was one when Cap was beating the stuffings out of the bad guy with a quote something like "The Shield isn't Captain America, I am!". I've run and played-in (shared GMs) a Marvel based campaign for years now. Checking my write up of the good Captain (one of two characters I often play in fact)... I see 730 total points. 218 in characteristics. 433 in Skills and talents. 79 in the Shield (which is a multi-power construct) Looks like he's not defined by his gear/powers to me As far as this whole debate on paying points for equipment goes... I just don't think the points are all that important. For me the points just don't matter. That's right, the points are like a role-player in a D&D game Since it's a Marvel based game, I build the characters to concept. If I run a team who's concepts work well together- i.e. each character has a niche that's useful in battle, the result is still balanced even if there are hundreds of points different between them. And because the characters are built to fit a concept, there isn't XP to hand out which makes things easier. So I work under rather special conditions, but the core idea applies in more general mainstream Superhero games as well. Build the character to concept, and pay the points for it. If you've done the character right- any little gear they may pick up along the way is perfectly ok as the Character's Operating Concept as already been paid for. Cell phones don't define the hero, flashlights don't define the hero, grabbing a gun once on a adventure and blowing away a single bad guy (as Cap did in one issue of his a while back) doesn't define the hero (although the action may say a lot about him personally). If the gear gets out of hand and he's using it all the time for important things- then it has started defining him. Pay the points for it.