massey

Let me give you my perspective on this. For several years, I played in a Justice League level game. We started back in 4th edition with 375 point characters, and by the end of the campaign, we were probably pushing 700 real points. Every character was min-maxed to the extreme, so our actual effective point value was probably 1500+ points by the end. Breaking into a secure lab? Virtually every character on the team could do that with their eyes closed. Our Martian Manhunter knock-off could go Invisible and Desolid and fly right into it (using N-Ray Vision to see where he needed to go). Or he could shapeshift into the lead scientist and walk right in like he owned the place. Our telepath could read the minds of the people in the lab from his couch. He wouldn't even need to get off his butt. He could control the security guards into turning off the cameras and propping the doors open. Our bricks could just smash through the walls and take anything they needed. Our Flash character could do like Quicksilver in Days of Future Past and zip through any open doors without guards even seeing he was there. Our shrinker could drop to microscopic size and ride the electrical currents through the wiring of the base. Our wizard could just open a portal and walk inside. Heck, our team had a satellite base with Star Trek style transporters. Every person on the team could just appear inside the base any time we wanted. Moreover, none of these characters chose powers with the idea of "sneaking into a secure base". These abilities came as a byproduct of their other powers. Of course, not every game is a JLA level epic adventure. But in a superhero game, sneaking into the lab is only going to be the focus of the game in very rare circumstances. In most cases, it's not the primary challenge, it's not even a secondary challenge. It's something you do in a few minutes while Bob gets up to use the bathroom, and Dave is ordering a pizza for the group. The real story comes later.

Seriously folks? In a 600 point game, the ability to open locks and bypass security systems is not a big deal. It doesn't need to be a 100+ point power. In a game where people can smash through walls, kick tanks into orbit, fly to other galaxies, turn invisible, and control minds, you think a GM will be concerned over somebody who can open locks? Here's the answer -- build it however you want to. I think a 6D6 Dispel vs Body, only vs locks and security systems (-2) should work fine. Buy it Indirect and Area of Effect if you want to. That way you can blast locks on the other side of a door, or something contained within a wall. It doesn't matter exactly how the GM imagines the lock working -- if it's a physical object, it's got Body. Barred doors or whatever may simply have more Body than the power can effect. It's not going to clear away a collapsed tunnel because you just don't have enough dice. I'd buy it that way and tell the GM "this spell opens locks, just like Knock in D&D". If he thinks that's too powerful, I'd question whether I wanted to be in that game.

He played roles where he looked 90 years old for the past 50 years.

You guys are crazy. 5” of Teleport will get you through any locked door, even massive vaults. Or just take Desolidification and walk through it. End result is the same. You don’t need some 150 active point monstrosity of a power.

I forwarded it to you.

I used to be part of that group until last year, when I got married, and then had to spend Saturdays with my wife instead of my gaming buddies. Because craft fairs and eating at places where they use truffle oil are somehow better than gaming and pizza. 😒 But anyway, I had a character exactly like that one. I only got to play him in like one or two sessions before I left. The guys should have a copy of that character. I'm sure they're not doing that same campaign anymore, but it could give you something to work from.

I was born in the late 70s, so my introduction to fantasy was early 80s fantasy movies. Conan the Barbarian, Krull, Clash of the Titans, Last Unicorn, etc. I also saw older swords and sandals movies, like Sinbad and Jason and the Argonauts. Ray Harryhausen played a big part of my childhood. Of course I can't leave out the classic Disney cartoons. Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Sword in the Stone, Black Cauldron, etc. And who can forget the occasional Looney Tunes set in a medieval period -- I still love Yosemite Sam riding on the back of that green dragon. When I started reading fantasy novels, I started with Chronicles of Narnia when .I was about 10 years old. That and some old books of myths and legends that must have been published in the 60s that my grandma had at her house. I read Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit in junior high. But I really haven't read much fantasy beyond that. I picked up a collection of Jack Vance books a couple of years ago and I liked those, but that's about it.

This. I used to game with a guy who had very strange ideas about politics. He'd cram that stuff into every game he ran. He was a good GM for the most part, but then we'd have to fight cultists of the evil god of bureaucracy. Not making that up. They intentionally try to make the government less efficient and more bloated. His games were like a weird combination of D&D and Ayn Rand. It was certainly unique, but it would completely take me out of the game. You just thought "oh yeah, I have to give the right answer here or Jerry will flip out". Of course my dwarven battle-rager hates red tape and filling out forms in triplicate. That's totally something a medieval fantasy dwarf would encounter regularly and deeply care about.

It does work, because you can define what you're detecting however you want. If you don't like my definition of "target", I'm not going to argue with you over it. Whether you'd allow it or not doesn't matter either. But if the original poster is trying to do what I think he's trying to do, Detect Target is what he wants. Seeing a street sign isn't the point -- nobody cares about the street sign. The purpose is to locate the target. The rest is just special effect.

The first version uses the power Drain as its base. Drain goes against the rare defense "Power Defense". PD and ED (which everybody has at least a little bit of) do not stop Drain. As a result, an NND advantage simply changes the attack from going against one rare defense to another. Therefore, it's a +0 advantage. Blast, on the other hand, attacks the most common set of defenses. PD and ED. So to change it from a defense that everybody has, to one that almost nobody has, requires a +1 advantage.

Detect Target, Ranged, N-Ray, 360 Degrees, Discriminatory, Targeting, Megascale (or just a bunch of range bonuses) --only provides info that can be seen out of nearest mirror (-1) Easy as can be. Don't overthink it. Isn't this a power from Palladium's Nightbane? Anyway, the reason the limitation is worth a -1 is because the power is used to track somebody down at a far distance. Without the limitation, you could just pinpoint exactly where the guy was. You'd know direction, distance, what he was wearing, etc. "He's 5 miles away, on the corner of 74th and Pennsylvania." But with the limitation, you know only what can be seen through the mirror. If he's in a bathroom popping a zit, then you can see him, but you don't know where he is or which bathroom. You have to keep using the power and wait for him to pass in front of something identifiable.

I'd suggest something like this for general guidelines: --Build your Sentinels to the desired power level compared to your PC group. Sometimes the X-Men would have to team up to defeat a single Sentinel, sometimes each X-Man could take out one or more on their own. So the first step is to decide which of these you want to emulate. My preferred version is that a lone Sentinel is more powerful than an individual hero, but their tactics are fairly simple and they don't travel in as large a group as the PCs do. --You don't have to worry about building them as Automatons, just do them as normal characters and give them a Disadvantage "destroyed when reduced to 0 Stun". --Give them a range of attacks that would be useful against different character types. Sentinels are expected to fight all different sorts of mutants. Rely on pseudo-real world attacks instead of Star Trek colored lights (i.e., a gas attack could theoretically affect most Desolid characters, as they still need to breath -- so use that instead of some ghostbusters energy beam). Likewise they should have a wide range of sensory abilities to detect Invisible characters and the like. --Moderate OCV and low DCV. They're dangerous on offense but easy to hit. Moderate defenses and Stun. They aren't as tough as pure bricks, but are tougher than energy blasters/martial artists. Speed just a tad lower than average. So for a 12D6 game, where your normal character is going to have around an 8 OCV/DCV and 5 or 6 Speed, 25-30 Def and 40 Stun, they might look something like this (5th edition rules): Sentinel knock-off Str 55 (lower than the pure brick) Dex 15 (slow) Con 30 (very hard to stun) Body 10 (once you get past their defenses, they break easy) Int 5 (easy to trick) Ego 10 (fairly simple programming) Pre 25 (big scary robot) Com 10 PD 25 (on low end of average) ED 25 (same) Spd 4 (slow) Rec 17 (baseline figured characteristic) End 60 (same) Stun 53 (also normal figured, higher than most non-bricks) 15/15 Damage Resistance (enough to make them bulletproof, and won't take Body from an average roll of 4D6 RKA) Life Support: Full 30 pts Mental Defense, not versus telemechanics (or you can classify them as machine minds if you want to go that direction) 10" Knockback Resistance +4 OCV (9 total -- they're quite accurate and can hit most fast characters unless they are actively dodging) KS: Known mutants and their vulnerabilities 10- Tactics 10- 20" Flight 10" Running 10" Swimming (underwater propulsion) Radar Active Sonar High Range Radio Hearing 63 pt Multipower "attack powers" --12D6 Energy Blast "ion beam" --6D6 Entangle "steel alloy constricting net launcher" --4D6 Energy Blast, Area Effect Hex, NND (no need to breathe), Affects Desolid "knockout gas" --8D6 Energy Blast, Explosion "concussion rockets" --10D6 Energy Blast, variable special effects (fire, cold, electricity, chemical acid) "various hidden weapons" --12D6 Flash vs Sight "blinding flares" ------- And there you go. Each Sentinel probably wouldn't have the full range of attack powers. Most of them might only have two or three. But the idea is that ideally they'd be prepared for anybody they ran across. Fast characters get the Explosion attack because their defenses probably aren't as high. Desolid characters get the gas attack, as do people who seem to shrug off too many hits. Entangles go against people with foci or who need to move their arms around. Otherwise the Sentinel will default to the basic Energy Blast, unless it identifies somebody with a key vulnerability (vulnerable to fire, cold, electricity, etc). I try to keep those "real world" as opposed to gravity beams or something too technologically out there. The Sentinels' plan will be fairly straightforward. One plan might be that one will be visible while another 1 or 2 hide nearby (in a body of water, or inside a convenient warehouse) and hold action. When the heroes show up, the hidden Sentinels reveal themselves and attack from surprise. They don't try to wear heroes down by trading blows. They'll pick whatever they think you're most vulnerable to and blast with that, hoping to drop you or incapacitate you with one shot. Flash vs Sight is great for stopping a lot of bricks. They'll hope to drop several characters in the opening volley, and then gang up on the others. The way the heroes beat them is by using clever tactics. Sentinels fall for every trick in the book. They don't hold action, and they don't block or dodge. They don't think on their feet well at all. They are vulnerable to coordinated attacks. If your heroes are just getting stomped, it's easy enough to have the Sentinel use the "wrong" attack against a hero. Who knows what their files say. Feel free to use that 8D6 Explosion against the brick if you need to keep the heroes conscious, and just blame it on a programming error. Likewise you can assume that a lot of their files are at least several months out of date, if not years. Any character who has had a major change on their character sheet will surprise them.

Whatever you do, keep it away from Jim Carrey's dog.

Just keep in mind that "realism" is a difficult goal, and subject to a lot of interpretation. Characters in HERO have a lot of Body, and can buy it up even higher. A guy with a 20 Body may not be realistic at all when you consider how many gunshots/sword stabs he can survive without medical treatment. Sometimes it should be appropriate cinematically for a weapon to do much more damage than base x2.

Yeah, I think I'd follow Gnome Body's advice on the Mega Buster. Let's say he starts with a 10D6 Energy Blast for his normal attack (could be more, could be less, it's up to you and whatever the standards are in your game). Then he's going to get +2D6 (or whatever) Energy Blast, Delayed Use (+1/4), Full Phase or Extra Phase, and I'd say something like "Must Use With Next Attack" (-1/4). So that way he spends a phase or however long charging up, and then he can run around with it held so his next attack is bigger. But it's gotta be his very next attack. For the "Boss Weapons" category, you've got a few different options. In a Mega Man campaign, you might give him a Multipower, and at the beginning of the game he's only got one slot for it -- Mega Buster. Then as the game goes on and he defeats the Robot Masters, he gets XP that he uses to purchase an extra slot for the Multipower. On the other hand, in a game that's not centered around Mega Man's player, where he's expected to just be a part of a team with other characters, you may have to do something different. You could have a Variable Power Pool, with the limitation "must defeat other robot to add their weapons to his own". That's whatever limitation you want it to be. Then in the course of gameplay, he'd just keep a list of robots with cool powers that he'd defeated that he wanted to mimic. He's still limited by the size of the power pool, so you could control the power level pretty easily. Another thing you might do is build it all with a few Multipower slots and Variable Advantage and Variable Special Effects. 75 point Multipower --Slot #1: 10D6 Energy Blast (regular gun), variable special effects* (+1/4) plus 2D6 Energy Blast (mega buster) Delayed Use (+1/4), Full Phase (-1/2) *variable special effects can be any sfx of a "boss" opponent he has already defeated Slot #1 gives Mega Man the ability to shoot a 10D6 EB of any special effect (from a defeated opponent), or a 12D6 EB of his normal attack that he has charged up. You could then add a few more slots of attacks that aren't just a simple EB. Alternatively again, you could go with just a bigger power. 10D6 Energy Blast, variable special effects (+1/4), +1/2 variable advantage (+1), limited advantages available (-1/2 lim on the advantage), plus 2D6 Energy Blast (mega buster) Delayed Use (+1/4), Full Phase (-1/2) So your normal blaster is 10D6 of "blue energy zap". Your +1/2 variable advantage starts off assigned to Zero Endurance (you can shoot it all day). You can charge up your Mega Buster to 12D6. Then as you defeat opponents, you get access to more special effects and more potential advantages. Metal Man's "metal blades" might be Armor Piercing. Quick Man's "quick boomerangs" might be Autofire x5. Crash Man's "crash bombs" might be Explosion. Sorry, I only ever really played the second game very much.

Big attack, knocks self unconscious when used (may require outside help to re-enter suit and wake up).

I know the official word is that Flying Dodge prevents a ranged attack from hitting. I think they said Dive For Cover did as well. I just think those are terrible ideas.

First, your god buys a Base. Distant location (other dimension), high enough Defense to prevent people from blasting their way in (with Affects Desolid and Hardened on the Def, maybe even Transdimensional even though I don't think you technically need that). I'd buy a high level of Change Environment to keep the weather perfect (effectively a counter to anyone trying to make Heaven an unpleasant place -- if you've got +/- 20 levels of temperature change "only to keep it nice" then you're probably good). Then, your god buys some options for that Base: 50 points Mental Defense, Usable By Others (all the souls in Heaven) -- defined as "contentment". If you were to build depression or anxiety in Hero, it would probably be some sort of continuous mental attack, so now you've got enough Mental Defense that you're unaffected by that and so you're happy. 20D6 Mental Illusions/Mind Control/Transform, NND, Area Effect, only to make people feel happy -- if the Mental Defense isn't enough (or you think people's default state is misery), then choose your preferred power for emotion control and lay it on. People feel happy in Heaven, and their old cares seem very distant and unimportant. Mental Illusions would also make Heaven appear exactly as you think it should appear, a personalized Heaven. Full Life Support, Usable By Others (all the souls in Heaven) -- You never get sick, and you never die. Thanks, Wilford Brimley. Some form of conventional Defense (Armor, Force Field, just a high PD & ED), plus a massive continuous Healing power with Resurrection -- nobody can kill you in Heaven. Even if some jerkwad breaks in and blasts you with a 20D6 RKA, you'll be fine. 20D6 Transform NND, to "heavenly body" -- Everybody looks good in Heaven. You get a couple levels of striking appearance/+10 Comeliness, all your Physical Limitations disappear (goodbye nearsightedness), and if you didn't have a great physique before, you do now. 30D6 Mind Control NND Continuous Area Effect, "be good" -- There are rules in Heaven. Don't try to rape anybody. Be a good person, don't try to blaspheme your god, don't try to set the place on fire. I'm looking at you, players. -- You buy all these powers 0 End Persistent, possibly Inherent. Heaven is just a great place. Finally, you get your preferred method of transport. Extra-Dimensional Movement plus a Healing Resurrection power would be fine. Combine it with a "Detect: the faithful" sense and you should be good.

There is no "reality" that you're trying to simulate. The only thing that matters is what the character can do in the game. Don't waste points trying to simulate something that doesn't come up in the game. A few years ago, somebody asked how to make a character that can reincarnate. When they die, they come back with different powers, different skills, different memories. The easiest answer is -- you don't bother. That's no different than just creating a new character each time. Wildfire is an energy being held within a containment suit. He needs the suit to interact with the world. But really, that's not very different from Yoda telling Luke that "luminous beings are we, not this crude matter". For all intents and purposes, Wildfire is the suit. When he leaves the suit, he can't do anything. If the suit is destroyed, he's in danger of dispersing. How is that any different than being unconscious and/or at negative body? He just has a clever description of what is happening, a different special effect. Wildfire doesn't really get to do anything cool when he leaves the suit. At most, it's Clairsentience, leaves body behind. Might even make it no conscious control, and just let the GM give him hints as to things his energy ghost form just happens to see.

Clairsentience, invisible, leaves body behind.

I disagree. That would make it more expensive than just having the extra damage all the time.

I'd just say it doesn't do anything against ranged attacks. Attackers don't target a hex unless it's Area of Effect. With ranged attacks, if I hit your DCV, then I hit your DCV. Triggered movement doesn't do anything unless it somehow moved you out of LOS, or into a longer range bracket.

"Double damage" in Hero is tough to do, because twice the dice really means that you're taking way more than twice the damage. If a normal character has a 12D6 attack and let's say 25 Def, then "normal damage" is going to be about 17 Stun past defenses. So I'd say a "double damage" attack is probably closer to 17D6 (so ~34 past def) than 24D6. So I'd recommend having a base ranged attack, you can have VSFX if you really want, and then using Absorption to boost it. Or just buy a big attack, with a limitation "only after character has spent X number of phases soaking up damage first".

Alright alright alright.

Yeah, the problem is that having Con only to prevent stunning is an all or nothing affair. Either you have enough for the damage you're taking that moment or you don't. Excess Con above the damage you're likely to take in a game is wasted. But Con that's too low is wasted as well. There's a Goldilocks number range that is just right, and anything outside that range is crappy. In a 12D6 game where you have 20 Def, then a 10 Con is woefully inadequate. But so is a 15 Con. That 5 point difference is negligible. At the other end of the scale, a 30 Con is probably more than enough (barring some crazy fluke rolls). Is a 35 Con really worth that 5 extra points? Probably not. Is a 50 Con worth it? Most definitely not. In the days of figured characteristics, there could at least be some justification to go higher. These days there's no point to go beyond the amount of Stun you expect to take in a single hit.