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I agree with the NND Entangle (has to be transparent to attack, of course). Expensive, but it gets the Job done. The "attack" that could disable the Entangle would be any attack with a Space/Time SFX. I would also put the Entangle on Continuing charges, possibly 1 turn or 1 minute in duration. The charges should recover over a period of time, so use of the power would be extremely limited (also, it would still cost end, so it would gain that limitation as well, so it shouldn't prove to be uber-expensive). Under normal circumstances, I would write up a massive Time-stop power as a huge Speed Suppress. (since thats cheapest!) but the Entangle works better for what it sounds like you want it to do (Stop everything in the area from moving) If your GM is pretty lenient, you might be able to get away with a Speed Drain/Suppress and a Linked Change Environment that keeps gravity from working. The basis for this is in the TK STR that Change Environment can simulate. In Star Hero, 1 G of gravity is equivalent to a 5STR pull downward. Change Environment can be built to exert 5pts of TK STR to oppose the pull...in effect, generating a field of 0 G! Of course, thats up to GM interpretation and approval as always, but it should be pretty sound... If you don't account for target mass however. If you want to be able to timestop a falling Mack Truck, that would be either Entangle or a significant level of AE TK STR.

That question is exactly what this issue is about. The answer is within the pages of the 5E. No, it is not sacred. Change what you want for what you need. Ignore anything you believe that doesn't make sense. Use common sense when applying the rules for an effect. In other words, even though the printed rules say the Earth has an 86 Body, in any Heroic level game you are playing (except maybe Sci/fi games where Planet Busters are a reality) nothing will be able to destroy the planet, or at the very least, if something can, its a plot device. Even in a Superheroic level game, the Earth should not be in peril 99.9% of the time. Only in games of extreme power level (like the above mentioned DBZ) should you even consider the body of things like Mountains, humongous skyscrapers and planets. In which case, just use the model supplied by standard Hero math and you will get your Uber-battles where mountains are turned to rubble, mile-wide craters are made when characters impact the earth and entire skyscrapers crumble with but a single hit...

It does get fugly at high levels, but then again, no game system has ever given satisfactory results at this level (none of the one's I've played, anyway...most don't even go into that territory) Don't forget, that adding +1 Body to an object actually gives it +2 Body. You have to reduce an object to negative its positive Body to completely destroy it. In the case of the Earth with 86 Body, you need to do a total of 172 Body to destroy it. Also, there is a rule in The Ultimate Vehicle that may apply here for those of you who think large objects don't get enough body. In TUV, in order to "Disable" a vehicle, you must reduce it to negative its Body score. In order to completey "Destroy" a vehicle (render it completely irrepairable) you must reduce it to twice that amount. Example: The Earth has 86 Body. Reducing the Earth to -86 Body (a total of 172 Body damage done) makes it completely uninhabitable, but it can repair itself over a few millenia (some slow regen as mentioned above) Reducing the earth to -172 Body (a total of 258 Body damage done) turns the earth into a new Asteroid Belt. Does that sound a bit more reasonable? And thats not even a House Rule, its straight from TUV. Actually, I think this is more of a case of the game designers assuming that the majority of players would be mature enough to use common sense and discretion when encountering situations of this nature. I doubt they saw the necessity of taking their calculations to their illogical extreme and accounting for it, relying on GM's to say things like "No Ralph I don't care how much Body you just rolled for Grond. He can't crack the Earth in half with his Haymaker." Personaly, I don't like playing with numbers that high. At that point I just consider large objects of that nature as Plot Devices and say their destroyed when I think they've taken enough damage. Thats one of the reasons I didn't choose GURPS as my main system, because their Vehicles rules do get into numbers that absurd. I don't mind busting out a calc during the design process, but during actual gameplay, I wanna be able to do it all in my head... Its less flawed than just giving the Earth a Body of 86 and being done with it. This method requires one to either have an attack with enough Area of effect to effect the majority of an Object to destroy all of it, or to do enough Body damage in a single hit to render it to rubble. As far as people/planes/comets etc crashing into the Earth are concerned, the damage is normally locallized at the impact point. The main damage is done by the physical object to an area the size of the Object itself. In the case of a human, A human only takes up .5 hexes of space, thus when he/she impacts, its only going to do damage to .5 hexes worth of ground. A large comet (say 20" across) would do significantly more damage because it impacts a much larger area. In the case of Large Impacts, you could probably treat damage beyond the immediate area of the "impact" zone as an explosion-type attack, and use that to calculate the size of your craters. Easy enough to do. Don't forget also, the "Path of least resistance". A human is soft and squishy. Hard-packed earth is not. When this soft/squishy human hits the Hard-packed earth at several hundred meters per second, that soft/squishy human isn't going to do much damage to the ground. The human is going to absorb 90% of the energy of the impact and go SQUISH!. In the case of soft earth, the Human is probably going to leave a nice indention in the ground (and may not actualy go Squish, but probably all kinds of Crunch!) This is one of those situations Steve was talking about in the 5E when he mentioned something he called "Common Sense". Well, my point is that irregardless of the fact that it breaks down at higher levels, the damage system in Hero is most certainly based on the basic principle of X2 Energy = +1DC. I don't think the designers meant for it to be used to cacluate how much damage it takes to destroy a planet or a star or the Galaxy. It was meant to be able to represent high level supers combat, where mountains and entire skyscrapers were in peril when superbeings do battle. Attempting a linear system is madness. You will end up looking like GURPS high level damage (6D6X20 for a Tank cannon? 25,000 Body for an Aircraft Carrier?). Frankly, the current damage system used in Hero is the closest approximation that can be reasonably done without completely re-tooling the entire damage/body system. As long as you aren't trying to regularly destroy planets and Miles-long spacecraft, there no problem with the system whatsoever. However, for those who want to run genres where the planet is in danger of being blown away (Dragon Ball Z comes to mind, where Goku's Kamehameha Wave was capable of destroying small worlds!) then having a body of 86 for the Earth may be exactly what their looking for.... Very little, IMO. I like the damage system the way it is. I will admit though, that when I first got into hero, the Body system gave me fits. But once I understood the game a bit more and understood about the correlation between DC, Body and Defense, it made a lot more sense. Its just a matter of perspective I suppose.

Here's why I correlate X2 energy per +1 DC in Hero: Body: The body of living creatures and vehicles is gained at a rate of +1 Body per X2 Mass. +3 Body per X2 height or length. Defense: Armor gains +2 Def per X2 mass. Check the armor table in the equipment section. Damage: Each DC has a potential of doing 2 Body damage (this varies for killing damage, but averages out to 2 body per DC). Comparison: Armor has to be twice as massive/tough to completely protect against a gain of +1DC. DEF/DC 2/1 4/2 6/3 8/4 10/5 12/6 14/7 16/8 18/9 20/10 etc... Thus, it requires a Defense of 20 to completely protect someone/thing against a 10 DC attack (note, this accounts for Body damage only). It is well known in Hero, that DEF20+ is the realm of Tank armor. The progression seems exponential at this juncture. This is where I tend to leave it, as it makes sense to me and I've had no problem using this formula (X2 KE = +1DC) to represent real-world weapons such as Infantry weapons and vehicular cannons, such as the M256 Rheinmetal (120mm cannon putting out around 10Mj of Energy...comes out to about 6D6+1K or 19DC in my book) Of course, you must account for such things as Killing attacks vs Normal attacks. Killing attacks are much more efficient at destroying soft targets. Normal Attacks may have high energy, but cannot deliever it efficiently (thus their inability to bypass Normal Defenses). In addition, Advantage adjust this as well. AP, PEN, +1 StunX, etc can all represent various methods of delivering damage beyond the norm. Therein lies your variables based on situation. Thus, Grond may have a punch thats equivalent to a 105mm cannon, but it doesn't penetrate armor like an APDS shell does. He's not going to get his 16D6 punch to routinely punch through tank armor (unless he's lucky rolling the dice). He is strong enough to damage the tank, but in general, the tank armor is sufficient to repell his attack. An attack from a tank cannon with the same energy will likely punch through the tank because of the advantages applied to the attack (AP shell) which modifies how the damage is delivered. At least, thats how I see it. DC is your base damage, which is based upon the principle of X2 KE = +1DC with specifics being represented via Advantages and Limtations...

Overall Skill Levels, only to remove penalties associated with Pain(-1) and Cost Endurance(-1/2). Or perhaps Penalty Skill Levels will work for this...(gotta check the FAQ)

Actually, I would think that there would be a "general" Enhance abilities power. Perhaps adding to STR, CON and DEX all simultaneously. However, it would be much less efficient as it would have to split the points rolled between all characteristics that apply: Example: A 4D6 Aid to Physical Characteristics adds a maximum of 24pts when divided by three adds 8pts to each characteristic which comes out to: +8 Str +4Con +3Dex Seems quite reasonable to me, and would allow the Jedi to surprass normal humans on all levels of physical capability, which they seem to do constantly with no problem. Of course, if a Jedi needs more of one characteristic boosted than his others, he can switch to a slot that only enhances a single characteristic and boost is significantly. In fact I'd probably have two Enhance Abilities slots: One slot would be add to All physical characteristics (well STR, CON and DEX at least) and another slot with an Aid that can add to one at a time (for a siginificant boost to a single characteristic)

Its very obvious that Heros basic damage dice are based on a somewhat exponential progression. Anyone with basic math skills can figure that one out. However, if you want to ignore that yourself, there's nothing wrong with that. People shouldn't rag on you for it, but neither should you rag on people for accepting the apparent exponential nature of Heros damage system. In other words, its kinda silly to argue about, isn't it?

I agree with the Half Teleport move +grab (automatic if the person isn't resisting) +Half Teleport move. If you want to make it a little difficult, apply the penalty for a sweep or Rapid Fire type maneuver to it, which would be a -2 to OCV if an attack roll is required for the teleport. (the fact that the character is teleporting to one hex, then quickly teleporting to another hex is the same as a multiple attack, and may, in some instances, require two seperate attack-rolls) That maneuver is more than reasonable, and I would never veto something like that...especialy if its used in a very heroic manner, such as saving an innocent! We, as GM's are supposed to encourage players who have their characters perform heroic maneuvers...most especially in Pulp and Superheroic genres.

I was just thinking about something: What limitation would you use if you could only change the powers in the VPP a limited number of times per day (or whatever) but once changed, you can use the powers within the VPP any number of times you wanted...

Re: Fuzion Mechs Actualy, Mekton is part of the Interlock System from R-Talisorian games (which includes Cyberpunk 2020) Fuzion was a mixture of Hero and Interlock when Hero and RTG entered into a brief partnership a few years back. Bubblegum Crisis was the first game released which used the Fuzion rules. They were made to go hand in hand with the Mecha construction rules in Mekton (well, sorta).

Arion! Talk about "old skool" You know, Melchior, I'd like a copy of that...

Some of us here are familiar with Mekton. Interlock is my second favorite game system, after Hero. The BGC Rpg came out during the "Fuzion" phase of Hero and RTG (and RTG is still supporting it somewhat) and a lot of us old-timers have it (or at least, the Fuzion version of Champions: The New Millenium) I converted the Hardsuits and Motoslaves over to Hero 4th edition years ago

No problemo. I've been wanting to write up the VF-1 anyway, so you just got me started is all. I'm doing this as much for myself as I am for people here. The old Robot Warriors game used Scaled movement of 50 meters per Hex. Personaly, I think a scale of X10 is appropriate (20 meters per hex) as that keeps the math nice and simple. Your method sounds pretty good also. Divide everything by 5 and go from there. Again, nice and simple math for faster gameplay. Great idea! I'll keep that in mind for my own games! Well, I'm not sure about those ranges. The information on the Compendium sight doesn't get into that. If you want to keep the ranges the same as the Robotech RPG, I'll give you some more accurate numbers later on (I don't have my book with me now and I'm almost out of time!) Oooh. Sounds nifty. Keeps the flavor of the original Tv show without messing with continuity too much. Keep me posted on how it works out for you... No problemo. It is likely that this post will continue to grow as I come up with more ideas for the Valkyries. Warning though...I subscribe to the original version of Macross rather than the Robotech version, and the original Macross has expanded a lot in the past 10 years, so this discussion is likely to go into the Macross Plus zone at some point in the future. Thats good for you though, because you can use the more advanced VF's in Macross Plus and Macross 7 as new/improved Veritechs for your Robotech campaign Happy Hunting! (P.S. Yamato sounds fine to me!)

Well, as far as this goes, the best indication of what a VF-1 could do with its thrusters while in Battloid mode comes straight from the videogames (they are considered part of Cannon by Kawamori himself, as he helped work on all of them) A Battloid could indeed "hover" in mid-air, but its flight maneuverability is somewhat limited compared to the Jet and GERWALK modes. In the upper atmosphere, where the pressure is considerably less (above 30,000 meters?) they can attain true flight. Obviously, since their thrusters can be used in space, Battloid flying in space is no problem. However, in lower altitudes, and most especially near ground levels, the Battloid mode has severe difficulties in attempting full flight. Since the Battloid is not at all aerodynamic, and does not have wings or a lifting body shape like the Jet and GERWALK modes, it requires around 80% of its thrust just to be able to keep itself airborne. This leaves little thrust for accelleration and maneuvering. The Battloid can use its thrusters to achieve a "Surface Effect" like a hovercraft, and its quite agile when it does this. Its boosters can also be used to augment leaping (just like Mobile Suits from Gundam). Using its normal thrusters to achieve something akin to full flight is possible, but clunky and fuel exhausting. On the Macross Compendium site (see link above) the GERWALK is listed as having a Maximum Hovering Time. There is no flight or hovering performance listed with the Battloid, so I'm assuming here that the Battloid at least shares the same hovering characteristics as the GERWALK. (this is reasonable because the weight is the same. If the GERWALK is using its thrusters for VTOL, it would perform much like the Battloid, but because of its areodynamic body shape, can attain "full flight" unlike a Battloid) Max Hovering Time: Using Thrusters:11,500 kg (xg) x2 Thrust 420 Seconds Using Afterburner: 23,000 kg (xg) X2 Thrust 070 Seconds As you can see, using the standard thrusters, it can "Hover" for a maximum of 7 minutes (420/60) before its thrusters "Overheat" or whatever the reason for the time limit (I highly doubt its a fuel limit) Using the Afterburner, it can "Hover" for 70 seconds...10 seconds over a minute. Now, with the considerable increase in thrust when using the Afterburner, the Battloid would most definately be able to attain true flight when Reheat is engaged...but it can do this for only a minute! Thus I would probably write up the Battloid flight system as such: Flight: 30" (x4) Full Reverse (+1/4) Sideways Maneuverability (+1/2) Hovering/Ground Effect only (-1/4) With Afterburner: +20" (x4) Full Reverse (+1/4) Sideways Maneuverability (+1/2) Thus, when it uses its normal thrust, it can "Hover" when at high altitude..not true flight, but the ability to keep from going into a "stall" (though a skilled pilot can instigate a controlled fall with a Combat Piloting roll) and a bit of maneuvering ability...perhaps the ability to perform Half moves. When above a surface, it can use its thrusters to create a ground effect and maneuver with great agility. When the Afterburner is engaged, it attains the ability to attain true flight, but can only do so for a limited amount of time. Any ideas on how to limit the Hovering time of the Battloid and GERWALK modes? What limitations would you use for that (my initial instinct is to use a single continuing charge that recovers...the recovery being the "cool down time") Oh, abso-fraggin-lutely! I adore the Strike Valkyrie. Even though techinically it doesn't exist in the Macross universe (considering that within the Macross universe, Love, Do you remember is a movie of the events of the first Tv series....pretty slick eh?) it will make an appearance in my next Macross game, for certain. (likely piloted by a certain "Genius" pilot) Oh, don't sweat it. I'm not one to allow criticism to bug me. I take it at face value. As it turns out, you are right about the Valkyries being able to fly in Vacuum without the FAST Packs...it just doesn't have a very large operating range, thats all (and is kinda slow in comparison to the FAST version).

Sure! Hmm...I'll trust you on that one because my memory of the early episodes is really fuzzy. Its been a very long time since I've seen them. The Macross Compendium states that the engines are "Thermonuclear Turbines" I'm going to assume that means the Jet Turbine is powered by some sort of Nuclear Fusion or Fission reaction. If it is a Fusion engine, if the Jet intakes were closed off (and I believe there is prescedent for this within the series) then the Jet could probably be used as a rocket engine as well. We all know that normal Jet engines cannot be used without an atmosphere, but this is a fictional Sci/Fi series, and far be it for me to say "Thats Impossible" within the context of such a series and I don't intend to start now. Yep. The booster was made because the VF-1 is unable to break away from earth normal gravity on its own (or at least not without burning up most of its fuel) which is pretty typical. Later VF models can reach escape velocity without a booster because they have frightening amounts of engine power. (VF-19 and VF-22 especially) Of course. The FAST Packs destroy a VF's aerodynamic streamlining. While they would probably still be able to fly in an atmosphere, the FAST Packs are so heavy (with all that fuel and ammo) that it woud reduce speed drastically. Plus the use of "rocket fuel" in an atmosphere isn't nearly as efficient as a Turbine engine. More later. (gotta get back to work)

Ah yes. The Mecha Compendium. That was it. Yeah, it had a bunch of DP9 stuff in it like Heavy Gear and Jovian Chronicles mecha...

There is indeed a mecha book for D20 out. (Damn that OGL!) Don't know who produced it, as I don't play D20, but anything with mecha on the cover catches my eye and it happened to be sitting right next to the Hero books on the shelf.

Umm...didn't I say something to that effect in my first post? Just kidding. That Aid to VPP as "ritual" is really an ingenius idea. You da man Markdoc!

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Dragon Inn, Iron Monkey all count as fantasy. In china, they come from the Wuxia genre of films...they are not considered to be simply "Kung Fu" movies (which encompass the likes of Jackie Chan's films and some of the more sedate Jet Li movies). Wuxia is fantasy, just from an Asian (specifically, Chinese) perspective. So these movies are quite valid. The formulas are the same, just add lots and lots of martial arts into the mix and you are good to go. As far as "The Anime" films are concerned, many, many of them are deeply rooted in Western (really, D&D based) fantasy tradition. Anime like Record of the Lodoss War, Slayers, Legend of Lemnear, Berserk and Heroic Legend of Arislan have little to no traditional asian martial arts in them to speak of. There are a whole host of Anime fantasy tittles of this type (most of them worthless, though the above mentioned tittles are excpetional..well, maybe not Lemnear) Then there is the Anime that is a blending of Asian and Western fantasy ideas. This includes the likes of Escaflowne (one of the most excellent Anime ever!) Bastard! and Those Who Hunt Elves (yes, thats the actual tittle) Rounding this out is the tittles that are most definately fantasy, but in the asian (mainly Japanese) tradition. These include the various Ninja and Samurai tittles popular amongst anime fans including Jubei Ninja Chronicles (aka Ninja Scroll), Yotoden, The Hakkenden (most excellent, Highly recommended) Shadowskill and even Fushigi Yuugi (based on Chinese culture, rather than Japanese culture) So Anime runs the gamut from traditional Tolkien-esque fantasy (Lodoss) to Sword and Sorcery (Berserk) to political intrigue (Arislan) to Mystial Ninjas (Makai Tenshou) and everything in-between. Don't dismiss it out of hand. You might miss something that would otherwise inspire you.

HAWK THE SLAYER!!! Oh, wait. You said good fantasy movies. Oh well then that excludes Hawk the Slayer. Personaly, its one of my favorites, but even I will admit its far from "good". I just happen to like really cheasy b-flicks.

No! You add it to the base of "10". 10 is considered the "average" for a PC. 8 is considered the "average" for a couch potato. The unwashed masses, so to speak. This is an individual who isn't very active physically, and doesn't use their noggin on a regular basis. 10 is based on societies standard of "average"...i.e. an adult male is supposed to be able to bench press their own body weight (provided they weigh something reasonable). Average I.Q. is supposed to be around 100. So on and so forth. Characteristics of 10 represent these ranges. A characteristic of 8 represents someone is still falls within the lower range of "average" (measured between 8 and 12) but isn't active enough to garner a full 10. So to answer your question, the "average" Malvan has a PRE of 13, not 11.

Oh, and lets not forget that the D20 Mecha book just came out recently. I saw it when I bought my copy of Ninja Hero a few weeks back.

Actually, there was a time when Mecha-type RPG's were popular, most especially Robotech and the aforementioned Battletech. There was also Mekton, Riftsand a little-known game called Mecha!. There was even a magazine dedicated specifically to Mecha Roleplaying called Mecha Press which lasted for several years. This was because of the generation of roleplayers who grew up on tv animation like Robotech, Transformers and Voltron. After those shows were gone, and there were no more shows like them on TV, interest in Mecha roleplaying waned. Now that Anime is back with a vengence, and Mecha are at the forefront of that wave, Mecha roleplaying is once again being focussed upon by the industry. (there's GURPS Mecha, Big Robots-Cool Starships for BESM, TUV-which includes Mecha for Hero and RTG is preparing to release their Gundam RPG for Mekton) The popularity of mecha videogames may have had a little something to do with it (games like Mech Warrior and Amored Core being extremely popular) but mostly its due to the increased influence of Anime on Pop culture in the U.S. since the late 90's

Re: Fantasy Hero Characters That sounds like Una from Legend Hmmm, lets see. A "Dispaced" samurai who's entire village was transported from Sengoku era Japan to a high mana world complete with Elves, Dwarves, Orcs and Trolls etc. An Avian-type humanoid female with high magic potential and the ability to shift to a Succubus-like form (this was an accidental change unknown to the base character...she just had periods of "black-out" whenever the change occurred) A Wood-Elven Ranger/Scout/Ninja. Good at sneaking and Martial Arts. My personal favorite characters of my own creation: A pair of Twins. One is a Ranger (the male twin) the other a Magic User (the female twin). Unfortunately, the men of their family were all cursed with Lycanthropy, so the Ranger was a were-wolf. Of course, his sister had Animal Handler: Wolves to deal with him when he changed. She also had the ability to change into a Hawk, but was in complete and utter control over the ability to shift form. The Ranger was always getting into trouble because he was easy to anger, and when so angered, would often shift to his Half-wolf form in the middle of a villiage, which would then start the villagers to hunting the "demon". She would end up having to use magic to bail him out and cover their escape. Boy they were certainly fun to play with... Note that these characters were originaly created for the game Rolemaster and the boy's Lycanthropy and the girls ability to change into a Hawk form were the results of completely random rolls. No I wasn't copying from the film Ladyhawk as many of my friends accused me...I just liked the pair so much, I re-created them in Hero.

Yep. Uncontrolled Missile Deflection allows you to make missile deflection rolls automatically, without spending a phase to do so. Its mentioned in FREd (or was that The Ultimate Martial Artist...I don't remember which) with a big CAUTION in the text.