Bismark

Re: Chickens? Shouldn't the Hunted be "Colonel Sanders"?

Re: Culture Shock: Slightly less 'cuddly' STAR HERO equipment Calculating damage had to be done using a lot of 'guesstimating', comparisons of every set of rules (RPG and skirmish wargame) I have ever seen (which is a LOT), textbook figures for muzzle energies, muzzle velocities and armour penetration, and finally anecdotal evidence from ex-soldiers (mainly British Army, plus Russian Afghanistan and Chechnya veterans). I would like to do it more scientifically, but it seems to work (and kept my players [many of whom had used firearms in the days before they became verboten over here in the UK] happy - they were originally unhappy with the low damage HERO weaponry did, regarding it as suitable only for superhero-type games). The laser stuff comes from an old Open University TV programme - watching this antique 1970s bench laser blowing a hole in 10mm of sheet steel (and causing extensive fracture damage to it during the blow-through), while creating big plasma balls and sounding like a loud thunderclap was something of an eye-opener when I first saw it. One thing that need to be done is, if using serious gun damage, some kind of 'blow-through' rules are required (like GURPS or even FUZION {no flames please}); I have also to model the really nasty damage that some rounds with odd properties do (5.45mm Soviet would probably do internal damage like a hollowpoint, according to surgeons operating in Chechnya - it's MUCH more unpleasant than 7.62 Soviet). One thing I have shied away from is changing the hit location chart to something more 'realistic' (like the chart in the freebie PDF Atomik Fuzuin' that was done for FUZION a few years back) - it make the head much easier to hit (it becomes location 7 rather than 3-5, and there is only a -5 to hit it rather than -8 ) and even my players are willing to make that concession to cinematic action as they are quite fond of their characters. The changed gun rules have served their purpose - my group stayed with HERO (rather than defecting to GURPS…)

Re: I'm considering Hero... [Just for context, my Fantasy CV includes: HERO (2nd, 4th, and 5th ed), OD&D, AD&D1, AD&D2, C&S1,2,3 and 4, T&T 3,5,6, BUSHIDO 2, GURPS 3, RM 2, Pendragon, WFRP1 and Dying Earth RPG] As an experienced GURPS user, you are already primed to spot the dreaded 'rules-raping' that some people can perpetrate when designing points-based characters (I remember choosing some frankly ludicrous defaults in GURPS 3e just to get a whole group of useful skills more cheaply than paying for them in a 'sensible' way). Like GURPs, often the best way to get good levels in a group of CHAR-based skills is simply to buy up the underlying characteristic (the more skills you have in that group, the better value the primary characteristics become). Some things will be a lot cheaper to buy in HERO than GURPS (e.g. making a competent Mongol-style horse-archer is WAY cheaper). Regarding combat and stunning people - that is actually quite reasonable, in fact if anything, light weapons do far too much STUN damage (light arrow vs. plate helmet at anything above a few feet range should not cause much more than a response of 'is it raining here?'). Where heavy weapons (2-handed hammers, etc) are concerned, bear in mind that a lot of people in plate were only killed by these things because their armour got hammered flat and they were unable to breathe as a result - unlike tacky Hollywood movies and bad fantasy novels [ ], you do NOT cut through serious armour with a 1-handed slashing sword (armour was worn for a reason, after all). If you want to be able to do this, the effect is best done by having scarier (i.e. higher point value) PCs (the Deadly Blow skill combined with Skill levels can turn any character into a 'slicer-dicer'). As other posters have mentioned, the HERO sourcebooks do a pretty good job of making the GM's task easier (the Grimoires are incredibly useful for getting the creative juices going where spell design is concerned, and Turakian Age is a rather spiffy worldbook [Valdorian Age less so, but that's just my opinion - the extra rules are intriguing, the world a bit 'flat']). Best of luck…

Re: HERO system observations and beefs [Warning: quite lengthy] Only one real complaint about the 5ER core book (and that is fairly trivial): It's so big that it is very unwieldy to hold one-handed while rading it on the 'pan' (how very stereotypically male of me… ) No problem with the layout - it's clear, uncluttered, and if it reads like a textbook, that's just too bad; it's a RULEBOOK, not a novel [spot the giveaways here - I have an academic technical writing background and, yes, I'm an 'old git' (41 yrs young)]. As for the Genre books, they are WAY better than the previous edition versions (apart from CHAMPIONS, which I have no opinion on as I have not looked at it - not done Superheros since 2nd ed, which is what got me into HERO), and hold up well against the equivalent GURPS books (I used HERO for SF a long time ago, and used the GURPS Space/Ultra-Tech etc. line as my sourcebooks). The World/support books are more of a mixed bag, as much due to my preferences as anything else - Terran Empire strikes me as too 'Supers Sci-Fi' oriented (the aliens look like they would be perfectly at home in the Legion of Superheroes comics - too many humanoids with extra limbs/bumpy foreheads). The Spacer's Toolkit is OK, but normally I do not 'design' stuff for Sci-Fi using the game system, but go about it the GURPS way [decide what the item does, in real life, thenwork out the game effects, and not worry too much about 'designing' it - this is a Heroic, not Superheroic setup]. Also, as anyone who saw my first ever post on the STAR HERO forum will know, I have always thought that firearms were massively underrated damage-wise in HERO [makes sense for Supers - a good brick SHOULD be able to bounce the shells from a Main Battle Tank off his chest - but for Heroic I prefer GURPS-level lethality and above all, so do my players, several of whom have migrated to HERO from GURPS becase of my treatment of weapoms and armour] Turakian Age is great fun - as someone who started RPGing with Original D&D back in 1980, I think it's a decent enough setting with all the right cliches thrown in; though some of the Grimoire spells are a tad excessive (and the design of some of them is a little suspect - some Foci listed as OAF should really be OIF/IAF due to small size, some 'Difficult to Find' components really aren't - but that's another story. Just bear in mind that warriors built for this setting are going to have a VERY hard time against mages if they are not built very carefully (it is easy to get amounts of armour/magic which even a 2-handed can-opener used by a STR 23 uber-warrior will be lucky to get BODY through even with a head/vitals hit). Bestiary is fine, as is MMM - they do what they are supposed to. Valdorian Age is a real mixed bag - while TA competes pretty well with other generic sourcebooks, VA is very much a glorified city guide with some nice touches elsewhere. Probably a matter of taste - reminds me more of Nehwon than Hyboria completeness-wise, and having been spoilt by TA, I was expecting a bit more detail. Nice Sorcery rules, though, and I nearly even managed to overcome my distaste for the Normal Skill Maxima etc. (low-level characters tend to put me off somewhat). BTW, the Rapid Archery Talent , listed as a Fighting Trick, should actually be a Martial Art (it's a staple of Medieval Muslim 'Ghulam'/'Mamluk' archery manuals, often practised from the back of stationery horse; see the Battle of Gaza in the Crusades to check out its effect when done 'en masse' by properly-trained troops). As for the artwork in HERO stuff - it ranges from pretty basic to pretty darned good. There is a little too much art 'recycling', but HERO are far from being the only perpetrators of this… So overall, core book=good; genre books (the ones I have read)=good; setting books=good to fair (but the rating for each book is VERY open to personal taste)

Re: Piercing - where is the description located? Thanks Brother Jim (nice avatar BTW) - a trip to my FLGS is in order next payday, methinks…

Been looking through the 5ed rev book and tried to locate a Power Modifier called Piercing that was present in earlier editions. I thought it had gone by the wayside when it wasn't mentioned in the big book, but having seen a reference to it on the Dark Champions forum I was wondering where I can find the write-up for this ability. I would presume it is one of those things that, like Instant Change, has now been bought as something else (Suppress Armour, perhaps?) with appropriate modifiers. If anyone could provide sage advice I would be most helpful, as there does not appears to be any references to Piercing (as a Power/Power Modifier anyway) in the HERO volumes I have (5ed, 5edrev, FHonebook, Grimoire I and II, Turakian Age, Valdorian Age, MMM, Bestiary, STAR HERO, Terran Empire). Given that the mention was in the Dark Champions forum I would guess that it was in the DC book, but I do not (yet) have a copy. Many thanks in advance…

Re: Weapon not up to the Armor Having horrified the Star Hero forum with my weapon damage adjustments (guns that do SERIOUS damage rather than being downgraded - we aren't playing superheroes after all), I can now add my 2 cents/pence/lire/whatever to this thread. Picture Dark Age Irish (light - very light - javelins, buckler and small, stiff, light shortsword, no other armour) warriors against Viking Hersir (broadsword, Round shield, occasional Danish Axe, Spangenhelm, mail hauberk); apparently, the best chance the Irish had was to THROW STONES - their weaponry was pretty useless against Viking armour. How did they get around it? They adopted one-handed axes with a heavy head so they could 'brute force' their way through (before later on some of them adopted 2-H axes themselves). Shortsword vs. chain is an unequal contest - though a kopis/machaira/falcata (the larger precursor of the Gurkha kukri) or a gladius would do better than most other shortswords because they are heavier than other contemporary shortswords, the former being more like a falchion and the latter being good for the thrust (possibly AP depending on GM's viewpoint). Only skilled people can make a shortsword 'cut it' against good armour; of course, Stiletto-type weapons could do the job (they are DEFINITELY Armour-Piercing against chain). Unless you give your thugs 'can openers', they need to go for placed shots and hit where the armour is not - maybe give one of the leaders Find Weakness just to liven things up a bit. Also try the 'ganging up tactics' - if the thugs work as a group, they get hefty OCV bonuses which allows placed shots to be a possibility. As for not wanting to go the 'realistic' route, trust me - the thugs are lucky they are getting any serious STUN through unless they land a head/vitals shot: (light weapon) + (impact-spreading armour + padded arming doublet) = (not a lot of blunt trauma). The FUZION (no flames, please) 20 STUN = 1 BODY (blunt trauma) rule is actually a very good rule for H-to-H combat. For the record, some of my PCs were moaning about their shortswords (doing about 1 1/2 D6K I believe) not 'cutting it' against 3 DEF cuirboulli armour - it's not my fault they can't roll good damage dice… At the other extreme, I did play a FH character (pure fighter) built on 200 pts whose response to people wanting him to throw a javelin at someone was 'which eyeball do you want me to hit?' : 10 CSLs/javelins, 2 CSL/wpn+shield, DEX 23 etc. When you are regularly hitting people in the eyeball at 10 metres range, their armour becomes largely superfluous .

While running my Turakian Age campaign (which is my first FH GMing for a LONG time), I realised that our party was a right mishmash of oddities, so I thought I would list them, and as well as inviting comments, see if other people have a party quite as 'out there' as this one... I will start with the most 'normal' characters: 1. Restless Elven Noblewoman (from Elvenholme) out to build a reputation and score points off a rival [note: one cliché is avoided here - the player is female]. Has a rather spiffy brigandine corselet (7pt) and a magic longbow with no range mods. Can also cast a 10D6 EB thunderbolt spell or a wall of fog (when she can make the casting roll - she isn't very good at this). Has COM 20 and the 'Unearthly beauty' Distictive Feature. 2. A Druid (High Church priest of Almandré) who was on a pilgrimage to that stone tree but got sidetracked by the party. Fond of healing things, delivering babies, blasting bad guys with his 10D6 'Wrath of the Green' spell (straightforward energy blast) and hitting villains over the head with a cold iron ball-headed mace. 3. A Priest of Asvalak (from Keldravia - so he thinks of himself as a good guy and only carves up bad guys) with a banded mail (7pt) hauberk, 7 pt helmet, 5 pt vambraces and a BIG 2-H Axe that grumbles to him all the time (it is magical and is the 1-hex area effect 'minion-slaughterer'-type of weapon). Very fond of laying on hands before battle (Bloody Hands of Asvalak). 4. A Dwarf from the Vestrian highlands (a small isolated community) - complete with 'kilt', 'tartan', long braided hair and beard; has combat-enhancing spells that require him to chew on his beard and spit a lot while casting them); uses a magical armour-piercing Claymore. Since he spent some time in Aarn he got to know what foreign food was (especially fresh citrus fruits - he loves to eat lemons, and smears himself with the juice - as deodorant). 5. A 'Barking Mad' (it's on his disadvantage list) student of Necromantic lore at the Aarn Mages Guild; studies Necromancy because his parents were killed by undead and he now wants to know everything there is to know about necromancy - the better to hurt undead with. Was brought up by the guild, who indulge his hobby because they know that he is a GOOD GUY (if somewhat unhinged). Knows LOTS of protection from infernal/undead spells and offensive anti-infernal/undead spells as well. Has a morbid fear of badgers (?????!!!!!). 6. A vat-grown cat-woman hybrid (someone has been watching too much animé, methinks), whose master (a mage at the Aarn mages guild) was killed in mysterious circumstances. Is your classic thief/light fighter type. Has no spells, but regenerates 1 BODY per hour if injured. Has other 'talents' best left undescribed (use your imagination), but a 20 COM is a bit of a clue... 7. A renegade (i.e. on the run and Hunted by his fellows) Serpent-Man from the caverns beneath Indushara; he's an albino and recently the Serpent-Men have started to purge all 'abnormalities' from their gene pool - dear old Kal-Turak's influence is making them even more unpleasant than usual. Uses Shadow Magic to mask his appearance and can animate corpses; he is not exactly a good guy, but he's not evil either [he works on the 'enemy of my enemy' principle]. His cover got 'blown' recently - luckily it was other party members that saw him first. We are apparently getting an eighth player in a couple of weeks - I believe we will be acquiring a Drakine character (score another one for inter-species harmony); no idea what his speciality will be, but knowing the player as I do I will expect warrior-magery of some sort. And this lot are supposed to help save the world...

Re: Culture Shock: Slightly less 'cuddly' STAR HERO equipment As Intrope wrote The answer is: not particularly - hits on head or vitals are bad (particularly location 3, which I usually say is the face - 25 point armour might have a 15pt visor if you are lucky) - but others had people Stunned occasionally (until the stim doses built in to the combat suit kicked in) or they went 'ouch, you ##~??~!!!' and proceeded to return the favour (with interest, usually). Additionally, the 25 pt armour was for the non-combat personnel - the grunts wore 35 pt Medium Combat Armour. The fact that the lead combat guy was SPD 5, DEX 23 and had Fast-Draw and Lightning Reflexes, plus some healing nanobots in his bloodstream made him rather durable, although HE was the recipient of that nasty shot to a very embarrassing place and the medic had to extract the bullet from one of his gonads during the whole 5 minutes he was unconscious - this guy was tough [did I mention the 3 pts of subdermal mesh and the CON of 23?]. The party were 250 Pt Heroic characters - not exactly cannon-fodder. 'Real Weapon' benchmarks I used were: Standard Pistol (9mm Parabellum, 400 Joules muzzle energy): 2D6-1 .44 Magnum (1.4 kJ muzzle energy): 3D6-1 Assault Rifle (AK47, M16; roughly 2.5 kJ muzzle energy): 4.5 to 5D6 RKA WWII .303, .30-06, 7.62mm, 7.92mm etc. Combat Rifle (3.3-3.9 kJ muzzle energy): 6 to 6.5 D6 RKA Russian 14.5 AT rifle (31.5 kJ muzzle energy!!!! - a Browning .5 M2 bullet only develops 19kJ…): 15D6 AP (AP AP against non-ultra-tech armour) Combat shotguns were great fun because the loadout options were so entertaining - damage from that took a LOT of 'guestimating' based on what I know about effective payload sizes etc. Some of my ultra-tech gear damages for comparison: ETC Assault Rifle (ultra-tech): 7 to 9D6 RKA dependent on calibre (or a 5 to 6D6 AP Discarding Sabot round for those sick puppies who like them). Cyclops backpack-powered laser (big and bulky): 6D6 RKA AP AP AP in 'pulse' mode (the wave pressure would actually cause a noticeable recoil in Zero-G and there is a spectacular pink/green ball of oxygen/nitrogen plasma formed and a BIG BANG when it is fired in an earth-type atmosphere). 'Long Tom' (respect to BTRC's 'More Guns' for this name) railgun (carried by our resident Combat Monster - but not shipboard…): 2m long, semi-auto, with bipod, 6mm calibre, 17D6 AP AP [yes I know it is gross, but it is a long-range sniper rifle and he's only used it twice]. Also burns up power cells quickly. Of course, one of the PCs decided to make the battlefield FAR more lethal by spraying nerve gas everywhere (do not get your suit unsealed if you wish to live) - the bad guys were somewhat resilient and reacted to bullet hits like automatons, so he did have a point… Overall, the players adjusted quite quickly (and a latecomer to the campaign decided that his character needed Combat Luck for some reason…). Now to do stats for Metal Storm-style weapons (evil snigger…)

My gaming group (who had either been playing HERO in the form of CHAMPIONS or FANTASY HERO for some time or were total HERO novices) got a bit of a shock when they played in my last scenario having been used to the weapon/armour stats in the rulebooks: I went for something just a little less 'cinematic' by not compressing weapon and armour values as is the norm. See the look of joy ( ) on the player's faces when their Light Combat Armour was 25PD/25ED, hardened against all archaic weapons; see their look of horror ( ) when a bad guy hit one of them with an AP round from an ETC (Electrothermal-Chemical) Assault Rifle and I calmly told the victim that it was 6D6 AP RKA (a normal assault rifle would be between 4-6D6 RKA, depending on type; ETC weapons can develop 50% more muzzle energy for the same breech and barrel strength; this job was 9D6RKA when not using penetrator rounds). The look on their face when they saw my conversion for the Russion 14.5 mm heavy machine gun was priceless - well the round could get through 25mm of face-hardened steel at 50m range and was originally an anti-tank rifle round, so did they REALLY expect their armour to be able to take it? [15D6 AP AP, by the way - bad enough BEFORE the Autofire ]. They have since learned that gun combat can be very dangerous (and that 20mm combat shotguns can carry VERY nasty payloads - put angled fins on a projectile to make it spin and fill the round with plastic explosive [HESH - I love it], use HEAP, shotgun grenades, flechette etc.). The players are now really, really good at arranging to ambushes and avoiding direct close-up firefights now (wonder why?). Oh, and BTW, the PC caught that round in the 'Vitals' (OUCH!); AND it failed to get out of the back armour, so it was lodged in one of his very private places - NOT somewhere where you want depleted uranium… Anyone else out there tried anything like this - it gives a lethality nearer to GURPs than anything else.