dugfromthearth

Nerve Gas should be bought as an NND with the caveat (required by NND) that it not affect people who need not breathe. There is no immunity to Nerve Gas given to the suit. The Nerve Gas has a limitation that makes the suit immune to it. Likewise Ebola has the limitation "must contact the subject's skin". So the special effect of wearing a suit protects from that. I can invent 1,000 NND's or other attacks with the limitations "does not affect someone wearing shoes" but you cannot expect everyone who wears shoes to have to pay points to be immune to tacks thrown on the road, the bite of ground spiders, puddles of icy water (cumulative transform that makes you sick with the flu), etc. So why doesn't everyone run around in space suits? Because then they would look like bozos instead of great and amazing heroes. Heroes routinely put themselves in harms way. They could be immune to every attack by staying in bed and hiding under the blankets, but then they wouldn't be heroes.

cool Killer Shrike another thing about HERO that is or was unique and an essence of the system is presence attacks. You didn't just say something was frightening, it actually had an effect.

I didn't really understand. the gilf has the power to draw blood from wounds? another character has the power to draw blood from wounds? the gilf's blood is not blood just because that is the way gilf's are? the gilf's blood is not blood because of this power? Long and short of it is that as long as he bleeds, it counts pointwise as just blood. You can declare it is not blood, and give penalties to other people's first aid rolls but he is protected from powers that affect blood. if you want no limitations with it, just the advantage of being immune to powers that affect blood, I would buy it as a lifesupport immunity. Go with poison or disease, and determine price based on commonness of powers that target blood.

ears down protects the ears, which is important in a dog or catfight when they attack each other's ears. Ears are not a hit location in HERO it doesn't really apply. But you could simulate this by having the other abilities include "side effects always occurs" and then a vulnerability in the head location or some such. It would be a very rare hit in normal combat, so make it a -1/4 lim. difference between alert and directional is a multipower with one slot being 360 degrees for hearing and the other being bonuses to hearing. Problem is that hearing is already 360 degrees. So buy multipower with bonus to hearing, and bonus to hearing limited to one arc (I would say a -1/2 lim). There is no "normal". They just default to bonus hearing facing forward.

house rule like I said, i hope to post my house rules for martial arts soon. very similar to the existing rules, I just deconstructed more. You build maneuvers from the ground up. A normal attack is: 1/2 phase action (-2), action ends the phase (-2), attack does dmg (+4) A normal block is : 1/2 phase action (-2), action ends the phase (-2), stops attack with OCV (+2), vs multiple attacks (+2) or the full phase abortable block is: 1 phase action(-4), action ends the phase (-2), stops attack with OCV (+2), vs multiple attacks (+2), abort (+2) with this system you could have a block that only works against a single attack, getting +2 OCV (+2) instead of vs. multiple attacks (+2) if you want to "block" but dodge instead you can get stops attack with DCV (+4), or you could get a regular dodge which just gives you a DCV bonus. lots of flexibility. More for martial arts or heroic campaigns where everyone should have martial arts (or weapon maneuvers).

so what if you just want it to be: once you hit subsequent attacks do not require a to hit roll?

I need specifics. can you give a sample character example and how they use the perk - what they can do with it and how it works.

I can have clothes that provide 20def OIF or armor that provides 20 def OIF as long as it is clear that what I am wearing is providing me the protection, what exactly it looks like shouldn't be an issue for that. If the image prevents people from telling that my armor/clothes are protecting me then it is IIF. remember that a limitation that isn't limiting isn't a limitation. If you are able to easily avoid a limitation then you get no points for it (or reduced).

I would allow two versions of block/strike an aggressive block is a block and strike in one - you roll against the attackers OCV for both. You couldn't do more then one block though. And you automatically hit the limb (which means you do half damage). I allow abort to attacks. But then I have my own martial arts system modifiers (which I am writing up formally and will post sometime soon I hope). I limit maneuvers to 2pts and charge 2pts to be able to abort. So an attack you can abort to is a very weak attack. In general being able to block and attack at the same time is vastly overpowerd. I am in a swashbuckler campaign that allows separate maneuvers for each arm, and the guys with two swords that block and strike are untouchable while they hack you apart.

continuous lets you do other things? I thought it just meant you didn't have to roll to hit again, and uncontrolled meant you could do other things.

I am working on a system for designing weapons and impaling is something I looked at. Grab = roll to hit, target gets casual str roll to resist, then roll dmg Impale = roll to hit, roll dmg, then target gets casual str roll to resist It only counts as a grab if the attack does body damage. Amount of body does not matter, nor do defenses (if you pierce armor or hide it holds the weapon in about as well as it kept the weapon out, and fish-hooks don't do much body but hold quite well). I came to the conclusion that: does dmg before str roll and must do body to grab balance out and it should cost the same as a grab - just a special form of it. The ranged part of it would be stretching.

I was thinking about a flamethrower type attack where you can walk the attack into the target, making it much easier to hit over time. My initial idea (which I still like for some things) is Tracer +1/4 no range modifier on follow-up attacks. This would give no range modifier for attacks after the first on the same target. If you do not attack the target on a phase it starts over. No range modifier is +1/2 so this seemed reasonable. But then I was looking at continuous since being able to hold the flame on the target once you'd hit made sense. And it struck me - spreading. a 6d6 continuous attack could be used first as 1d6 +5 for spreading. Then when you hit switch to 6d6. Seems valid within the rules to me. And a +1 advantage for getting a bonus to hit if you take an extra phase doesn't seem cost effective, so people wouldn't take continuous just to be able to use the spreading modifier.

simple buy extra damage with the limitation OIF- weapon of opportunity (since you can use it with any weapon not just one weapon, if it is with just one specific weapon it would be OAF) this is in the martial arts book for guns. so being better at doing damage with weapons +1d6 rka [15], OIF- weapon of opportunity [-1/2] AP: 15, RC: 10 doing more damage with your daggers then normal people +1d6 rka [15], OAF-daggers [-1] AP:15, RC: 7

on page 274 of Fred they suggest to speed up fights you not let NPC's take recoveries - except for the most powerful or important NPC's. also somewhere else it suggests that when villains are knocked unconcious they just die conveniently, preventing heroes from having to do the very unheroic coup de grace on unconcious opponents. That can be extended to having villains stay unconcious instead of having to keep hitting them when they are down to keep them unconcious. But cinematics rule. If the GM wants someone to recover or it just seems like it would be cool, then they can and do recover.

looking through the packages they are great. I definitely recommend it as a place for creating fantasy characters. http://www.killershrike.com/FantasyHERO/HighFantasyHERO/FantasyHERO.shtml One option I would recommend adding to the dwarves is slow thinker. +5 or +10 to int with extra time limitation.

my world is has familiar races just because a big strong dumb guy is a stock race, light agile people are a stock race. They aren't elves, ogres and dwarves as such. a couple of unusual features to my world are: there are no seasons, the north pole is always dark, the southern hemisphere is always light. The middle does have a day/night cycle but it is alwaysthe same. This is because the world is a struggle of the god of light to take over the world. primals - soul and body are at odds. The spiritually pure (according to the sun god) have little to do with their physical form, concentrating on their minds. But others bind their souls to those of animals and take on half-human half-animal forms (they cannot change form) to aquire much more physical power. There are even "heretical" races of primals such as the wolfen, raven, and vermen (half-rat).

and the navigation rules:

I have written up details for tracking and navigation. These are intended mostly for flavor (the GM and player can describe what they are actually doing or seeing when they make the attempt) but also has mechanics for some modifiers. comments welcome, especially errors or typos.

I really like the "class" arrangement of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, where skills and abilities are restrictd to certain classes. But classes are medieval/fantasy professions such as laborer, woodsman, scribe, etc instead of fighter, thief, cleric. I've thought it would be cool to have "packages" for that sort of thing where you could either just say "the NPC has been a trapper for a long time so they get the trapper 5pt package 3 times". Or characters would just buy up their abilities in such preset packages. I would definitely like a book filled with packages for creating standard NPC types and hero types. Kind of a mixture of warhammer profession classes with the "kits" from D&D 2nd edition for different types of thieves, rangers, etc. It would be great to be able to help a player create a character (or again whip up an NPC) by choosing: townsfolk package, merchant package, and militia package. Or Wilderness package, hunter package X2, and animal handler (falcon) package.

I would like to not see vehicles reprinted. I really liked how the beastiary has little options added like unluck for black cats It would be great if you did something like: WWII Tank - and then options of "main gun is 88", "german optics" (rmod bonus), "russian optics' (rmod penalty), heavy armor, etc. So with a couple of changes you could make a heavy russian tank, medium german tank, etc. The same could be done (in theory, with me having to none of the work) with regular cars - two door to four door conversion, stationwagon, hatchback, etc. Thinking in Car Wars terms, the basic vehicles could be: 1930's compact, 1930's luxury, modern subcompact, modern luxury, modern pick-up truck, etc. And then under each have two-door, four-door, options if applicable. Vehicles I particularly want to see: VW bug garbage truck limousine police car traffic helicopter school bus monster truck scooters (powered ones like vespas) back hoe/tractor

To me the essence of the hero system is: speed system (not the exact system, but allowing characters to have different numbers of actions) stun, allowing characters to be knocked unconcious without really being hurt special effects, being able to define powers as being what you want them to be adders/lims, being able to tailor powers to function just as you want them to

what is combat acceleration/deceleration?

[i'm in the same boat...I don't like the logic of getting hosed for knowing too much] It wouldn't be knowing too much. It would be over-reaching and thinking you knew something you did not. what would be a spectacular failure? failing by 5, by 10, rolling double what you needed? I can certainly understand a normal failure being simply no effect. If you think some failures should have an effect do you have some rule for it?

glad we are getting a fantasy hero grimoire. Ultimate super mage was a huge disappointment to those of us looking for fantasy magic. Nice to see fantasy hero getting its own supplements

suppose you try seduction as a complementary skill to conversation. so it isn't simply a knowledge skill.