dugfromthearth

This appears mostly in fantasy, but could be high tech or something else. The character has a body. It can be impaired or crippled through damage, can feel pain and be stunned. But it cannot be killed. The actual life force is someplace else. Usually an orb, bone, or other small object. Stabbing the character through the heart won't kill them, but breaking the thing that holds their lifeforce will. And it usually is fragile with only 1 body. So how would you do this where they could not be killed but could be knocked unconcious, and how would you do it where they could not be knocked unconcious or killed.

oops sorry. it's mind link, not mind scan or telepathy

[a) Three main stats and one to four figured stats instead of eight main stats and six plus figured ones. That's half as many stats!] I want more stats. I hated having only 4 stats in GURPS. [c) No breakpoints.] Nice [d) No hefting, chucking or tallying bulging fistfulls of dice. In fact, no need to ever roll more than two at once.] You don't like rolling 15 dice at once? [e) No tactical movement. Not only do I not need minatures or a battlemat, the game seems to actually run better without them.] I like tactical movement. More tactics. [g) No speed chart] I love the HERO speed chart. A fast character goes more often then a slow character. That is a huge plus to the system.

TSRPHBR6 The Complete Dwarven Beard Guide Is that available somewhere? Can't you buy "secrets" that would create a social stigma if discovered? You could change that to a beard that would create a social stigma if lost. But I was thinking reputation because a young dwarf would have a short beard, whereas an ancient dwarf would have a long beard which might be a +3 reputation.

there is a limit for a focus that is hard to replace, but that assumes you can still replace it soon - it is just dangerous or expensive. The beard would be a personal focus. That means only the character can use it. Independent means that if you lose the focus the points are lost, you can't just replace the focus. Things like uranium or the poison of an asp. This is reasonable given the time it takes to regrow a beard. And it would make the player as protective of the beard as a dwarf should be.

rivalry is also possible if they have been together a long-time you can buy mind scan, requires LOS and perception roll. This represents them being able to read each other and know what the other is thinking without talking. So Partner A is talking to the official. Partner B across the room is watching, can see he is upset, knows the official must have just turned down the request, and knows to get to the door and be prepared for a fight.

dwarves are supposed to take great pride in their beards. They grow them out, decorate them, and display them proudly. The danger with a beard is that it can be cut off, and then takes a long time to regrow. So buy it as a reputation, IIF (assuming you don't want beards cut off in combat) but independent. If it gets cut off, you have lost it for years.

also focus can be bought "hard to replace" so they wear out and are difficult to replace

yes, according to the rules package disads count against character disads. This works well if the packages are a way of making quick or cookie cutter characters. So dwarven fighter raised in the dwarven culture would be like all the others of his type. Killraven has a great collection of packages of this type. It is common, and something I do, to have the disads for races not count against the character total. I only recommend this if the disads balance the points spent, and the disads are physical limitations, susceptibilities, vulnerabilities, etc. If you have a wood elf with +5 DEX and the disad "Love of the woods" and declare it to be 0 points, then you are just basically giving away +5 DEX for free. If you have a wood elf with +5 DEX and a dependence on being within 1 mile of their tree is more balanced.

in my opinion the divide is simple: characteristics vehicles, bases, and followers have their own characteristics. if you built weapons with their own speed, movement, strength, etc. then it would use the rules for vehicles/bases/followers. Otherwise it is a power.

"more appropriately how do you force someone to make a skill check?" A berserk roll is not a skill check. That is where you are confused. A berserk roll is triggered by a situation. Therefore to trigger it you put the character in a situation, or make them think they are in the situation. So you should use images or mental illusions.

I have done up my own weapons system for melee weapons, using the str min system from 4th edition. for OCV penalties you should go with the requires skill roll modifiers worth half value (since you don't buy a skill, you are just using the mods for OCV). so -1/4 is -1 OCV per 10 AP in the power -1/2 is -1 OCV per 5 AP in the power if -1/2 is a flat -2 OCV, then you would be crazy not to take it on a 60pt attack, save 15 points and buy two 2pt levels to get those OCV back. with the RSR mods, the 60pt attack saves 15pts but gets a -6 OCV. With 2pt levels that takes 12pts to get it back, with 3pt levels it takes 18. So the numbers are pretty close to balanced. for OCV bonuses I don't have a good system worked out (doing this off the top of my head). A +1/4 adder on a 60pt power costs 15 points. That is five 3 point levels, or 3 5 point levels. It would be silly to pay +1/4 for only +1 OCV. The basic problem is a sliding cost for a fixed bonus that you can get for a fixed cost. Now you can go with some variant on spreading. Spreading turns 1dc into +1 OCV. So you could buy a dc for 5pts and then put on the limitation only for spreading (-1/2 probably, would make it 3pts the same as a 3pt level which seems right). Being a dc it would get all of the limitations applied to the attack. for rmod you have to face up to +1/2 no range penalty. If I can negate all range penalties for +1/2, then all that leaves you with for a reduced range penalty is +1/4. You could do half range penalty -1/4. Not the same as doubling the range, which only reduces the penalty by -2.

usually use all of them, but the impairing and disabling seldom come up. With half body multiplier for limbs it is rare that someone disables one.

[1) Other than the genres mentioned on this site (supers, sci-fi, and fantasy), are there any other genres HERO does well? Would the system handle a mecha-based campaign easily? Could it do spaghetti Westerns? Could it do horror?] Hero works well for horror because it has a Presence system. Characters can scare or otherwise influence others. So if you want a terrifying mummy you don't need to invent mechanics, just give it a high presence and it can scare people. There are additional rules for HERO horror as well, for long term sanity loss and such. Can any system do spaghetti westerns well? The big problem with those is that a gunfight resolves everything, everyone knows it, so players just have the gunfight. But what HERO has is character limitations. HERO could do The Quick And The Dead fairly well. Characters can have codes vs. kiling, honorable, law-abiding, or other limitations that prevent the player from simply gunning down their opponent at the first opportunity. A hallmark of HERO is that characters must roleplay, they have limitations that force roleplaying upon them. [2) How intuitive is the HERO system? Is it easy to learn, or will I have to put some effort into absorbing it?] HERO is fairly easy, but it has concepts other games lack which can make it more complicated. You can have HERO be about as complicated as you like (not RoleMaster complicated, but close). In general the more powerful your characters are the more complicated the game is. The most complicated thing is character creation. With superheroes this is fairly complicated (although you can make very simple but effective characters). With fantasy characters who do not use magic this can be very simple. If you use source books, even magic or super powers are simple. [3) How "realistic" would you say HERO is? Is it more Four Colors and high-powered like Aberrant and Exalted, or is it more low-powered and gritty, like Godlike or AFMBE? Or is it capable of scaling between the two extremes?] HERO has one element of realism that most games seem to lack - STUN. Stun and body are two different things. Running out of stun knocks you out, running out of body kills you. It is very common for characters to be knocked out having taken little or no body damage. In HERO if you are having a fistfight in a bar and someone pulls a knife it suddenly changes everything. With fists (or other "normal" attacks such as clubs you seldom do body to someone. Knives, guns (and other "killing" attacks) usually do body, they kill people. Now even if you use killing attacks, HERO usually is not as lethal as other game systems. But there is a simple recommended fix if you want to use it - you just double the amount of body damage done.

"Consider: you could either take an attack that always does 35 stun or an attack that does either 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 or 60 Stun with equal frequency. " Stun x is d6-1 so the killing curve should be 10, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50

basically no. the mechanics are "broken" and ka are better then normal attacks. the reason to get a normal attack is if you want to avoid doing body. now if you look at real life, weapons are designed to be killing attacks: guns, swords, axes, etc. killing attacks are more effective. so it may not be balanced, but it is realistic.

I just make everyone pay for weapons and armor. I've never liked that a fighter has chainmail, sword and bow for free, where the mage has to pay for forcefield and fireball.

I'm sorry I couldn't follow the multipower thing at all.

is it asian animals like panda bears, asian legendary creatures and such, or a combination?

"because I can't really conceive of any attack that" yes, but it's HERO. Somebody will conceive of such an attack and want to build it, and there should be away.

"PRE already does take the place of skilled Persuasion and such in the form of a really large PRE Attack. If the roll is high enough, the target will do whatever you say. " Right, my rules just clarify that a bit more. The basic rule is already there. "I would occasionally allow a successful Interaction Skill to add a d6 to the PRE Attack, but because this is redundant I allow it rarely" The pre attack modifier chart lists interaction skills as giving a +1d6 if successful and +2d6 if made by half. "but because this is redundant I allow it rarely, and only if it's absolutely appropriate" I agree it is redundant. Which is why I changed them to INT based.

for killing attacks I roll a normal d6 per dc and then just use the killing effects. I elminate the stun lottery entirely. I also use the GURPS hit location modifiers (which are less then HERO) but only apply the damage multipliers after defenses which greatly reduces the effect.

all you should need to do is increase the strength to wield it one handed. either buy it as strength with a -1/2 lim as suggested or if this is a style, build the maneuvers with bonus to strength only counter str min - should be 1pt in a maneuver for +5 str.

okay, INT does help you perform skills such as persuasion and trading better. They are skills, not your raw ability to relate to people. Your raw ability to relate to people is your presence. Think of ego, presence, and intelligence like con, strength, and dexterity. Strength lets you hit harder, dex lets you hit more accurately. Presence gives you the raw impressiveness but Intelligence lets you refine it with skills. mechanically, basing those skills on presense gives you double benefit for increasing your presence. Raise your presence by 5 and get +1d6 and +1 to the skills which gives you more presence.

I have written up rules for using PRE attacks outside of the normal combat use for perusasion and convincing. The goal is to simply expand upon the existing rules, although I have made a few changes. Interaction skills are based on INT instead of PRE, as using a PRE roll to increase PRE seems like a bad idea. I also changed it so instead of a successful skill roll adding 1d6 to the PRE attack, it functions as a complementary skill for the total of the presence attack - giving the skill effect more granularity. But the basic idea is using the mind control chart for the effects of out of combat PRE attacks to persuade. The GM is of course expected to limit the effects to real persuasion instead of mind control. This is probably oriented more towards heroic campaigns, so that the bard can actually persuade the king to do something for the party, or the pretty investigator can get the clerk to let her see the police report. I know that skills theoretically do this now. The problem is cost and effect. If you let someone buy the 3 point skill persuasion and convince the king to make you all nobles, give you millions of gold coins, and his daughter's hand in marriage, then that is the best spent 3 points in the game. On the other hand if you don't let someone with the 3 point skill persuasion convince the king of that, then there is no mechanic for it. As I noted Presence Attack already includes notes that it lets you do this, it just doesn't go into much detail. I have. And since I was so long winded here I have had to attach the rules in a text file. I will put it on a web page soon as well.