Ura-Maru

Re: Thoughts on Dr Yin Wu That was a real question. The champs universe, to my knowledge, doesn’t have an iconic ‘Martial Arts Master’ that I’m aware of, unless you want to count Nightwind. Alternatively: 9 (18) Fighting Hash Table +6 pts Dex, Must Be Within 5” of teammate (-1/2), No Figured Characteristics (-1/2) --- I thought that was only levels built into foci. Just off the top of my head, Cheshire Cat has 5 pt DCV levels that cost End . . . but given how many ‘offical’ characters have No End force fields in their Elemental Controls, that may not mean much. --- “Hai-kiba!”

Re: Thoughts on Dr Yin Wu Especially since Aid as a ‘fighting array’ was a crappy build way back when it was first introduced in the original NH. Wait. On topic. So, ah, does Yin Wu have a son? Who maybe hangs around with MI-6, and dates a Chinese woman with a Japanese first name? --- And is into Fleetwood Mac?

Re: basic permanent stats It depends on what you mean by ‘average.’ (Get used to ‘It Depends’ type answers. Hero is a very flexible system, and as a result almost everything about it varies from campaign to campaign) Hero is, however, at heart, a fairly cinematic system. While its certainly possible to use it for ‘low fantasy’ or modern action adventure, you’re going to run into some problems if you’re trying to simulate real real life, as opposed to movie/book real life. So, what type of campaign were you thinking of? (And were you asking for basic character stat numbers, what the basic stats mean, or some example write-ups?) --- Short version, you’re gritty post-apocolyptic campaign is going to be Fallout, not Aftermath . . .

Re: Request for a write up: Deathstroke the Terminator I’ve always wondered if his rouges gallery included guys like One-Billion-Chinamen-Man who can mind control everyone in china to climb onto a chair and jump off, The Spectacular Spider Spinster, who can mentally command the army of spiders that live in her hair, and Tanning Booth Teen, who can cook people from the inside with UV light. --- And they won’t know they’ve been cooked for days, of course.

Re: Between Two Cities If you want to keep it on a smaller scale, Springfield, MA and Hartford, CT are only about a 25 minute drive apart. They’re both clearly cities, but not metropolises. And believe you me, they both need a superhero team. Desperately. Springfield’s a corrupt hive of scum and villainy. Hartford’s a corrupt hive of scum, villainy, and insurance companies. New Haven or Hartford puts you within easy driving distance of Boston and NY, two big ‘symbolic’ metropolis, with at least half a dozen other major cities in the same range, and it’s just a bit further away to Philly and Baltimore. “The I-91 Avengers†doesn’t have quite the ring to it, though. --- Actually, pretty much anywhere in New England, except for the more rural parts of western MA and Maine, is within an hour of at least two major cities.

Re: A slightly different way of rewarding players I thought Seduction was an attempt to manipulate someone, as opposed to Persuasion, which is an attempt to convince them of something. Successful Seduction Check: “God, I want him to @#$!! My &$%#, and then *!! me until morning!†Successful Persuasion Check: “Well, I do have that 5 pt ‘Lonely’ limitation, and the odds of finding someone better are edging towards 8-. And he does have that familiarity in @#&!! . . .†In either case, @*&!! Is not necessarily the only think you can convince/manipulate someone into. Though why you’d bother with anything else, I’m not sure. --- If it isn’t, it should be, dammit. And it should be called ‘Charm’ or ‘Manipulate.’

Re: Help me build a shrinkable lab Hey, wait a sec. No way am I giving 54 free points for every base in the world, just because they’re going to define it as a no-engine vehicle. No way in hell. At the very, VERY most, I’d allow ‘No Figured Characteristics’ on the Size, and a cannot ‘cannot move under it’s own power’ phys lim. Probably not even that, though. The way UMV handles these, they just sell off their 6" base running . . . --- I think we’re looking at this from the wrong direction. Bases already have a perk-style cost for where they’re located. Now, ‘Really Really Tiny’ isn’t that hard. If you need, say, 75 points of shrinking to get in, it’s harder to break into than an X-Dimensional base. (How many characters have 75 points of shrinking? Not very many!) But it’s much easier to attack than an X-D base, but almost as hard to find. So I’d say it should be worth more or less what X-D is, 35 points. Since it can’t move under it’s own power, I could live with it being a Base instead of a Vehicle. More than being mobile, you can take it anywhere, which is a pretty big advantage. But, you’re already paying 75 points for the shrinking, which more or less covers the ‘in my pocket’ part. So maybe an extra 5 or 10 points for being mobile. --- On the other hand, and you’re not going to like this, what we’re really talking about has almost none of the normal limitations of a Base. It does have pretty much all the limitations and other characteristics of a Focus, though. So, the really fair thing to do is this. Figure out what the base would cost, (without the ‘location’ perk) and instead of dividing by 5 for a Base, divide by 1 1/2 for an IAF. I warned you wouldn’t like it . . . --- And what are you going to do when Bastion holds it over someone, turns off the shrinking, and lets it fall on them?

Re: Labs in Bases... The main part of the issue is there are just no real ‘equipment’ rules for Hero. In superheroic games it’s hand-waved, and in heroic games, they cost money, which doesn’t correspond to points directly. In other words, there’s no elegant way to buy off the ‘focus’ limitation for skills. This occasionally comes up for other builds as well, for teleporters, metamorphs, gageteers, or super-skill types, and might be very helpful in heroic games, too. Especially ones that use resource pools Since this is mostly going to deal with GM judgment calls, I’d be inclined to use some kind of perk-like system. Say: 3 pts: Buys off the ‘focus’ for a single simple skill (Lockpicking) 5 pts: Buys off the ‘focus’ for a related group of simple skills (Lockpicking, Security Systems, Bugging,* and Demolitions*) or a single complex skill (Mechanics) *Just the fiddly bits, of course, not the actual explosives and bugs! 8 pts: Buys off the ‘focus’ for a group of related complex skills, of (Mechanics, Electronics, and Knowledge: Engineering) or a single very complex skill (Inventor, Weaponsmith, or most Science skills) 10 pts: Buys off the ‘focus’ for a group of very complex skills (Science: Biology, Science: Chemistry, and Weaponsmith: Bio-Weapons) “Complex,†in this case, means the complexity of the focus required, not the skill itself. These don’t actually improve the skill, they just let you make checks you otherwise wouldn’t be able to. You can still use Science: Chemistry to realize that the ‘Acid Attack’ the Master Melter is using doesn’t seem to work on ceramics, even without the lab. But you do need it to whip up a spray-on foam that can protect things from it. Maybe the costs are a bit too high, but the idea should be clear. This wouldn’t be appropriate for all skills, though. An actual torture chamber, for example would be a flat bonus to Interrogation, and a big shelf of research books would probably be a flat bonus to all Knowledge skills, with Extra Time Required. --- An alternative: Figure out the maximum penalty for using the skill with improvised tools, and buy that many skill levels, ‘Only to remove penalties for inappropriate tools.’

Re: where could i find..... Additionally: Dagger = Hot Chick Cloak != Hot Chick --- "Are we finally going to see some horizonatal rhumba, or what?!"

Re: My First Character Build -- Comments Appreciated Sort of. Because of the way Hero works, it has almost no ‘safeguards’ for character design, so it’s easy to make a character that’s absurdly unbalanced. Say, with a 50d6 EB, but no defenses at all. It’s not so much a ‘design philosophy’ as a final checklist you want to run every build through: Offense: Can the character hurt other characters, given campaign average defenses? Does he do TOO much damage? Is his OCV much higher or lower than campaign average? (Quick & Dirty: Is the character within 2 DCs of ‘campaign average?) Defenses: Can the character take at least an average hit without being stunned? If his defenses are low, does he have enough Speed to Block or Dodge often? Are they so high he can’t be hurt? (Quick & Dirty: ‘average’ total PD and ED defenses are usually around 2x(Average DC) for the campaign (24, in this case) or a bit less) Misc.: Can the character do anything outside of combat? Can he do anything INSIDE of combat? Does he have more than one attack option? Does he have any options when faced with at least some unusual attacks? The answer to all of these should be ‘Yes.’ Limitations and Disads: Are the Disads or Limitations particularly crippling? (Focus is a common one) When all of them come into play, (and they should, frequently) will he still be fun to play? Concept: Did I buy anything that I shouldn’t have, (often Mental Defense or Power Defense) or did I miss any major ‘uses’ of whatever his powers concepts are? Is he, when all is said and done, interesting enough to enjoy playing? (Remember, Concepts are relative . . . If you want a super-quick martial artist you’re more concerned with the campaign average Dex and Spd than what it says under the Characteristics Chart) Believe me, as far as ‘first characters’ go, this is superb. You seem to understand the mechanics of the system well. A bit of experience, and you’ll be checking everything on the list without even thinking of it. Enough philosophy, now on to the actual build. Be warned I have no idea what the actual character is like. I’m presuming what you’re going for is: A “tough guy” style low level martial artist, (that is, clearly above thugs and agents, but well below a dedicated MA type) who’s Cosmic Rod focus gives him fairly badass energy projector powers. Overall: As mentioned, defenses are low. Assuming you can’t justify an armored costume, Force Field, or the like, adding five points each to PD, ED, and Con, and buying his Combat Luck up to 6 points, will take him out of the danger zone, without changing the feel of the character too much. They’ll still be a bit low, but defiantly playable as long as you’re careful. Powers: You might want to go with an explosion instead of AOE for the flash, but that’s mostly a style thing. As a general rule, it’s ALWAYS cheaper to buy an End Reserve instead of buying everything ‘half end,’ if you can justify it. Something you wear, like Goggles, is usually an OIF, not an OAF, but if it’s as easy to swipe as a pair of glasses, that’s ok. But doesn’t the Rod protect him from his own flash? Skills and Martial Arts: You need at least a 3 point skill level to apply to the rod attacks, a 2 point one is only for one specific attack. [edit: Ok, three other people saw it first. Get off my back!!] I would lose the Martial Arts, and the ranged and 2 point CSL, (25 pts total) and replace them, with 2 8 pt ‘all combat’ levels and one 10 pt Overall Level. (26 pts) That’ll give you a lot more options. Those levels will help with anything combat related, including all normal attacks, and help you in Mental combat as well. And since the Overall Level can be applied to Skills as well, you can save 2 points from Trading, and one point each from ‘Pop Culture’ and ‘Collectibles Dealer’ Now, you can use two of those levels to add +1d6 damage to your punch, (or anything else, actually) so you can probably live without the ‘martial strike,’ but if you want to make sure you don’t ‘lose anything,’ you can take: 10 (15) Scrapper +10 pts Str, No End (+1/2), No Figured Characteristics (-1/2), Not for Lifting (-0) That’ll add to your STR both for punching and ‘disarming’ (This is done by grabbing the weapon) but also to escape from grabs and entangles, move by and move through, and everything else. Most importantly, it will help him hang on to his focus. And you’re only 7 pts down from what you already have. If you want to keep the MA after all, note that you probably want ‘Use Art With Staff,’ for it. And as a general rule, it’s always better to buy 3, 5, or 8 pt ‘Skill levels’ then to buy the skill level itself up. --- Heh. Made it through the whole thing without making a ‘Cosmic Rod’ joke . . .

Re: Tear Gas I’d do a (smallish) Constant AOE NND, with a linked ‘Change Environment’ that would force constant Perception rolls at a –3 or –4 penalty, instead of the flash. A drain of some kind might be better than the NND to get the ‘even after you leave the cloud, you’re still @#$!!ed up for a few minutes,’ but I’m not sure of what. Stun or Con, maybe? --- “Oh no! I’d better release a cloud of noxious amnesia gas!†“It’s not amnesia gas.†“But it sure is noxious. You gotta give me that!â€

Re: How Fast Can I Go? Ah, the joys of Megascale. Since he has 1†= 100 KM, the most precision he can ‘aim for’ is ‘some point within 100 km of his target.†There’s not anywhere on earth where the ocean is 100 km deep. (That’s about the distance from sea level out of the atmosphere completely) So using this power anywhere within earth’s atmosphere has, at minimum, a 50% of having the PC make a very, very big Move Through against the Earth. Which might actually be big enough to kill it, in fact. Kill the Earth, that is, not the character. --- It’s not a good area for experimentation.

Re: A slightly different way of rewarding players Doh! Still works, though. Maybe moreso, actually . . . wandering groups of adventures are pretty much indistinguishable from bandits to most normals in fantasy settings. Having someone on the team that the peasants actually trust can’t be a bad thing. I was actually thinking of ‘Sir Duncan the Tall’ from the Hedge Knight short stories. That’s where the quotes from, actually.

Re: Usable on Others Questions You could always add the +1/4 from ‘useable simultaneously’ on top of the +1 for UAA. Since with an AOE attack, you’re already paying for the ability to affect multiple targets, I’d be inclined not to require it on a AOE UAA. --- ‘Drawer Forwarding’ is a hard power to build . . .

Re: A slightly different way of rewarding players A positive rep, something like ‘Decent and Trustworthy’ or ‘A Great Guy.’ Not a big deal with most supers, but normals, and even cranky officials like him, because he doesn’t put himself above them, and seems genuinely more concerned with helping people. Best if you don’t even let him know it’s there, except through play. He’s the guy people come to when they have real problems. Give him an occasional moment where the normals stand up for him, not the other way round. (Remember that great bit in Spiderman 2?) And give the particularly vile bad guys a hate-on for him, for the same reason. Having Dark Seraph say “You, above all others, I despise!†is a reward in it’s own right --- “Are there no true knights among you?!â€

Re: Best bit Speed chart, as has been previously mentioned, rocks, no doubt about it. It’s so much better than most other games ‘multiple attacks per round’ mechanics that it’s hard to even compare the two without gibbering. Pity they had to go and throw in ‘multiple power attacks’ and ‘rapid fire attacks’ and @#$!! it all up . . . And though I may have issues with some individual maneuvers, I absolutely love the ‘buying individual martial arts maneuvers’ concept. --- Though the speed chart works less well in low-point heroic games where people have speeds of two and three . . .

Re: How to Build: Portal Punch Deflection Copied from an older post of mine on the same power . . . --- I think the ‘official’ way would be something like: 100 (100) My Name Is Riekianzie, Vampire Hunter, And Killing Men Like You Is My Greatest Pleasure! Variable Power Pool, 100 point base 60 (150) MNIRVH,AMLYIMGP! Pool Control Cost, Zero Phase Action To Change (+1), No Skill Roll Required (+1), Trigger: When A HTH Attack Is Blocked, No Time, Resets Automatically (+1), Only To Mimic Melee Attacks Blocked That Phase (-1 1/2) That’ll let you mimic up to 50 active points of an attack thrown at you. (You need the other 50 pts to make up the Triggers +1 cost) You might be able to squeeze in some other pool disads . . . I don’t use pools if I can possibly help it, so I’m not that familiar with them. AND it fits on the character sheet. I loathe that use of ‘Trigger.’ Another alternative would be tacking an extra advantage on Damage Shield to let it work with Block. The +3/4 total for ‘maneuver other than grab’ is too little. +1 to +1 ½ sounds about right. I’d probably just say to hell with it and allow ‘Usable Against Melee Attacks’ as a +2 advantage on missile Reflection. --- Missile Deflection could use a top-down rebuild, to be honest.

Re: Name This Gun How about the “Even More Phallic Then A Normal Gun FG900!†The Fire Cutter? Flame Guardian? --- “Does it make me look too butch?â€

Re: having problems with my 1st attempt at a multipower There’s always at least five ways to do anything. Fortunately, mine is always correct. Independent isn’t for superheroic games, unless a GM really wants to stat out every ‘plot device’ that the bad guys build. It puts the GM in an unpleasant Mexican-standoff position. If he uses it, the character looses points forever, and the player is irritated. If he doesn’t, the character is getting a huge price break for nothing. Even if it’s an agent, it’s a bad idea. If your focus gets taken away or broken, you can get another one. Independent means you can’t do this. If a hero takes his gun away, or he leaves it on the bus or something, he can’t go back to EvilCo head office and get a new one. Stick with Focuses. Ignore the ‘the ability to use the fireball is part of the wand, not the wizard.’ bit under Independent, it’s absolutely wrong. A Universal Focus, which almost all guns are, DOES have the ‘ability to use the fireball’ as part of the focus. --- No End does kick up the Active Point costs, unfortunately. You might want to check with the GM, many ‘don’t count’ No End against the price Active Point levels. Precisely because you can always work around it by using the nifty End Reserve trick Zed-F brought up. --- “If you damage your weapon, you will spend a week in the box! If you damage your armor, you will spend a week in the box! If you loose your weapon or armor, I’ll kill you myself!!”

Re: Naked Advantages in frameworks... Perhaps a compromise? I can definitely sympathize with the ‘this looks too complicated on the character sheet’ argument . . . How about setting the slot cost for a naked power advantage in a multipower is equal to the powers TOTAL COST/10 (or 5), not just the Advantaged part? So AP on 60 Str would have a slot cost of 9u, not 3u, even though the multipower only costs 30 points Actually, if you apply that, I wouldn’t have really have a problem with the example ‘adds to powers’ multipower I included above. Which is good, because if you’re going to allow NPA slots to ‘add on’ to non-multipower powers, you should allow other ‘add on’ multipowers In fact, that would make a pretty fair ‘add on’ cost for NPAs all on their own. Does anyone see any potential problems with this I’m missing? --- The metarule in question might be better phrased: “Costs are based, roughly on the effectiveness of the powers. When you allow much cheaper ways of simulating them with other powers, it destroys the value of the original power.†So don’t allow cheap workarounds, unless you want to replace the power with another. Or, even shorter: “The system is to be used, not bypassedâ€

Re: What's up with Charges? But both of them are unnecessarily complicated. I’ve always thought it would make vastly more sense to up the cost of AUTOFIRE when used on something with Reduced or no End. Then Charges could be simplified considerably. A related, but maybe more complicated possibility would be to have ditch the advantage side of Charges, and have ‘extra charges’ as an End Reserve like power. --- Autofire ruins everything . . .

Re: Why is Strength so underpriced? I say thee, nay. +15 Ego = 30 points 12 (15) 15 pts Mental Defense, Not vs. Ego Attack 6 (6) +3 to Ego Roll 25 (15) +5 DECV --- 43 pts total. Not unreasonable, and I’m not sure a defensive-only DECV level is really worth 5 points. If you actually have metal attacks, add +5 3 or 5pt skill levels that can’t add to damage or defense, for around 15-20 points. Getting up there, but you paid a good amount extra for ‘Based on ECV,’ so it still doesn’t seem too much to me. Definitely on the high end of reasonable, though. I’d still prefer not having all mental powers use the same stat for everything. Of course, if the game doesn’t have mental attacks, or if they’re very uncommon, (as they are in most DC, FH, SH, and quite a few Champs games) then its ‘real value’ goes down to somewhere around six points. --- “I’ll make it move . . . WITH MY MIND!!” --- Edited to cover dumb mistakes: Well, THAT’s embarrassing. Originally put down the wrong number of levels, which messed all the math up. Hey, I had to stay up all last night. Get off my back, dammit! I guess in mental-heavy games, it is pretty good. Doesn’t change the fact that in non-mental heavy games, it doesn’t do much at all.

Re: So...About Seeker... I fail to see how Seekers origin is any dumber than Nightwind’s. Or significantly different, in fact. That said, his MA build was pretty generic. But at least he wasn’t wearing a Gatchaman cosplay getup. Anyway, you ever notice that there’s, for all practical purposes, no supercrime in Australia? Why is that? Big cities, English speaking, lots of outback to hide in, few supers, and too far away from any of ‘the big guys’ for them to get there fast . . . should be a paradise for any American supervillain who just want the money, right? So why do none of them go there? Well, it turns out, if you dig a little deeper, they do. Captain Demon, the Red Claw, The Human Howitzer, many, many others . . . all died in unfortunate accidents shortly after arriving there. Oz is, apparently, an unhealthy place for supervillains . . . --- For the record, the best martial artist I’ve ever met, by a fair margin, margin, was originally from South Africa . . .

Re: It Costs Too Much! I don’t know. I think a better way of doing it would be a 1/2 limitation that removes one of the KB dice. So you’d actually get KB almost every time, but you wouldn’t have the ‘occasionally fly back 20 inches and take 20d6, but half the time get none’ scenario you have now.

Re: Tomb Raider Hero You think that's bad? You should see what Nethack characters have to eat! --- "This storm giant corpse tastes terrible!"