Duke Bushido

Agreed. But after a couple of decades, "eyeballing" a build become second nature, and you just kind of... _do it_, just in case...

No offense taken, Sir. That was the point I thought I was making. That, and unless the story centers around different levels of temperature tolerance-- Well, out another way: the rules put total immunity at what? 4 points? That in itself suggests how often it matters in the source material. Moving from Champions to "a universal system" actually brought the price _down_, suggesting that outside rhe original source material, it matters even less. Ultimately, you are paying those for points for defense against flavor text. (Although as the guy in charge of weiting that flavor text, you think I would be more bothered by that realization)

Funny you mention those dual-stat books; I was just thumbing through Robin Hood last night.

Thanks, Hugh; that is mightly kind of you. Excellent observation, and I 2ish I had considered stunt work as SFX for wealth. He is a periodically recurring character. About every other story arc, he pops up, and volunteers himself to help-- mostly it's a publicity grab; he is attempting to continue the buzz started when he foiled a kdinapping by dropping off a skyscraper and tearing a large hole through the hood of the kidnapper's vehicle. Since then, he has kept a higher-that-normal profile (for a stuntman) as "Hollywood's superhero"). This is the "seeking out falling hazards) that led me to bump him from -5 to -4: two or three times a year, he does it under uncontrolled conditions on purpose.

OP: all of these guys are telling you the truth. I just wanted to say that if you recieve too many replies, or conflicting replies to a martial Arts question, this guy is the voice to focus on, I think he has spent more time pondering the MA rukes than all of they guys who wrote them combined, You might not get an answer you like, but you will get one that is one-hundred percent. Book-correct. (Conversley, never listen to me on the martial arts questions; I dont use them)

I am not wanting to derail this discussion; iwas struck by the differences from group to group. Myself, I regularly take one or the other temperature extreme LS on my Blaster characters- most of their SFX lend well to the idea of being able to use a miniscule portion of their power to either heat or cool themselves. I don't often take both. Noa the rules (at least the older ones I use) let me buy "immune to extreme heat and cold" in one whack, so I usually take a limitation to have just one. For me, that is granularity enough. Given that so many of the modern rules (post 4e) have moved to things like "Growth is in larger steps, but you can declare your character to not be at maximum size" and other such things-- even 4e had changes to Reduced Endurance (half, then zero) and verbiage that said "but you can declare that it still cost a some amount of Endurance if you want to." All that being said, and the initial cost of that particular Life Support anyway having gotten cheaper over the years, I wouldn't bother doing anything more than possibly taking a minor limitation to create a character who is "cold tolerant' instead of "cold proof," and then declare what his limit is (keeping in mind that to deserve a limitation, it should be a level he can reasonably expect to exceed now and again, of course). Either way, I though that the difference from,one table to another was extremely nteresting; thank your for sharing! Another table to table difference that fascinated me. Possibly because of all superheroes (with whom,I admit to having very little familiarity), I am most familiar with Captain Marvel (the original character from the old-as I-am-and-then-some comics (there was a stash of them in the loft over my grandfather's milk room) and Spiderman (same reason). I recall Spiderman complaining about the cold, the heat, and catching a cold from patrolling in the rain- all,that seemed to make him that much more real, and prove his dedication. In the words of my father (who always scoffed at superheroes: "it is easy to brave when you are invincible." To this day, I use the chill of the night air through leotards or the rain wicking through your pants and into your socks, instantly filling your boots-- things like that- as a vital part of setting the mood for a scene or even a short journey. Even our superheroes have to cope with high humidity and the concern of deodorant failure. Outside of high-tech settings, LS vs weather / temperature extremes isn't terribly common for us. In high tech settings, most characters have an all-climate survival suit or battery-powered undies. Again; the observation interested me. I return you to the regularly-scheduled discussion. I havent seen one of those since I left Circle in '78, and I dont miss them _at all_! Modeling it accurate to real life effects, it's a Transform: rarely do the capillary beds fully restore (tons of tissue from micro-scarring, even in the meat of the extremity) and the nenrve damage- well, we all know that nerves don't heal- anyway, a victim of frostbite picks up the disadvantages of prone to frostbite (once you get it, it is easier to get again- at least in the same general area- owing to the healing issues noted above) and "pain on exposure to cold- dependinf on the severity of the nerve damage, the cold doesnt even have to be "extreme" by game standards: just cold. There are myriad distinctive features that go with it as well, depending on exactly what tissue died (for you warn-climate types, the blackness associated with frostbite is necrosis: dead tissue. That is going to fall off and is never coming back. There is a small chance of systemic infection, but thanks to the freezing of affected blood vessels in the same area, that chance is much smaller with frostbite than with other types of necrosis. If you are really unfortunate, a tiny piece of frozen or dead internal tissue makes it to the bloodstream, lodges in your brain, and causes a stroke, but this is ridiculously rare. However, that is an even bigger T-form, and I would tie it to rolling 3 one's on your unlike dice and even that would only trigger an,activation roll of six or less. It is _rare_.)

Wow. I totally missed that. Thank you, Hugh. However, I have been ignoring that idea for over forty years now; I trust folks will forgive me for continuing to ignore it. Crater takes a -4 on his PD "only for falling damage" for precisely the reason you mention: it's extremely rare to come,up in games. Even though he is seeking it out (professional stuntman- now that he understands his power), it is still not significantly useful in any other way: if he gets hit by a bus for _half_ the damage or punched in a fight for _one tenth_ the damage, it's useless. I stand by the -4. If he wasnt actively renting himself out to film fall stunts, I might even go to -5. It's just not that useful. It's like a super-powers version of a minor cantrip. What does anyone here chsrge for their version of featherfall, anyway? Consider it to be featherfall with the old +1/4 "Fast" Advantage from the original Fantasy HERO. Balance that out with a nice "character falls" or "lands prone" or something if you want. Done. Honestly, I had considered that very sort of thing years ago when I came up with the character; I opted for the PD specifically because I wanted the damage effects of the "move through," which a fast levitation did not yield.

Sound and touch. That would build low-budget 70s ray guns and pepper mil-- uh, Daleks.

I believe you; no problem. For what it is worth, I have 12 siblings. I dont have any feelings left to step on. Getting back in track: That was the whole point of my post: you can do X or Y or Z in HERO: all you have to do is add yet another thing- perhaps A and B to yield X, C and D and a sprinkle of E to yield Y, and maybe F by itself straight up gives you Z. You don't actually need formal,HER-approved rules for that, but you have them. Add, add, and add some more. There are still rhinga HERO has no official rules for- and yes: you can model things like Traveller's Damage System by changing all damage in the game from EB or KA to Drain: Random Physical Characteristic, etc. But how many things do you have to add to make it feel simple and clean?

How many targets can you split your combined attack across? And I do not talk,about rules complexity. I _do_ talk about _build_ complexity, but that is not the same thing. I talk about rules excess, rules redundancy, and rule conflict- most of which arise from the rules excess and the options upon options that lead to... Eh. It escapes me right now, but I believe the vernacular is "analysis paralysis" as far as what is right for you and your game. The rules are no more complicated than they have ever been; I have never claimed them to be. The fact that there are more than ten times as many pages of them as there once where, and the gains from that are meager compared to the confusion and market disinterest that isn't diminished by that- that is something I discuss a lot. I dont mind snarky comments directed at me, mostly because, havinf sworn off sarcasm years ago, I don't pick up on most of them, bur they work better when they are accurate.

I was of similar mind, but I have been going over Hugh's gun /bullet example, and it holds up. It also leads to a lot of 70's sci-fi where they pointed ray guns, _maybe_ there was a sound, but budget for drawing in energy beams wasnt there, so squibs or sparklers went off, heroes grqbbed their shoulder and grimmaced in pain, etc, etc. In short, it not only holds up, it has extensive precedent.

Maybe. Maybe Grond's not as tough as he acts.... so what is terminal velocity in your favorite version of HERO. that ahould give you the move_through damage that the ground will do to you (of course, the geound will take half, but it's q big ground; it can take it). yeah- that seems backwards, but it is how I would rule this instance.

Welcome back, Sean! Always a pleasure, Sir. And as someone notes above: steampunk, dieselpunk, and several other punks are more style than genre. You can do rollicking Victorian Adventures and dark continent exploration; you can do thirties and forties two-fisted pulse-pounding pulp adventures; you can battle pirates on the Mars-Io run.... Steampunk is a flavor: how does your tech work; what is your society like; does the elevated control platform for your death ray have safety rails? Flavor. Works in any genre.

In the Greyhawk era, Sir, non-lethal poison meant your DM weak and undeserving of glory. Shame on him.

Tell you what- I have a lighthearted and,very heroic Suoers game going and am preparing to launch a sci-go campaign (havent decided between HERO or Classic Traveller. So how do you feel about starting off as freshly-civilianed and looking for work, knocking around space and getting into a few scrapes and some legal two I led, then overthrowing a corporate government and restoring a ruling family, possibly winning them over to join the Imperium? I plan on launching that one in maybe two months- for a few things to finish up with it. Warning: I am goinf to need at least one muatered out Scout; two is preferable.

This I completely agree with. This I absolutely agree with! The scab that has gone unpicked, though, is that sometimes the mechanics of a particular game enforce a flavor. The discussion has come up before. Unfortunately, as we are fans of not just the same system, but the same universal system, it isn't a popular topic. Just like "what makes it feel like Greyhawk," sometimes the question has to be answered by referencing unique or quirky mechanics not found outside one particular game system. (Looking at you, Saving Throw). My example was mostly humorous, but also just a little serious: Claw-Claw-Bite. Claw-Claw-Bite is _ingrained_ into classic D and D settings because it was such a huge part of the suspense of an encounter way back when. Nowadays, there are probably all kinds of feats and unique class abilities that make CCB meaningless over all. But back when Greyhawk was the king of settings, it was _critical_. What is it? Well, the monster gets three attacks. HERO can't do that. Sure, you could declare that it is a multiple power attack (which never had formal rules until 5e, as far as I can recall. We just assumed- well, some folks did; others assumed _an_ (which means one) attack ended your turn. Others assumed it was a single attack action. Still others figured you could shoot each power at a different target akin to some sort of MPA-as-Sweep. And you could rule "CCB is an MPA," but then your ninja is going to want to know why he can't MPA with Punch-Punch-Kick. Or you could define a massive HKA, take Reduced Penetration but split it three ways instead of two. You could create a power called "Held Action that costs 30 pts for an extra phase to be used whenever you want, give the monsters two of them and _that's_ how they CCB more than one target- ir even define it as a limited no-range autofire but claws and bites so identical damage. You could sig go the old Combo System we used for our Pitfighter campaign back in the 90s -- all kinds of things that you _could_ do. But every one of them is outside the rules as they are right now, and every one of them requires that you _add something else_ to a famously slow combat system. Again: still totally do-able, but _what else_ 'feels like Greyhawk?' Well, you can sub a characteristic roll for a saving throw (roll 7 to not die!), but that has other HERO-related problems, since the only way you are going to need a save versus most things isn't necessarily fatal in HERO like it is in DnD. Poison doesnt just kill, it does damage, which has to be applied, and within parameters determined by how the poison was built. So so you get a con roll every time? Free life support versus poison? Or just for those special occasions when you know the poison is instanty fatal [30d6 NND does BODY]. Of course that has the unitended side effect of ruining being poisoned to any lesser degree: You have been poisoned! Do I make a Con Save? No; I dont think so- Oh, good. I will be fine for a while. Better go look for a medic. So yes: you can simulate the effects of other mechanics, but when the mechanic itself is part of the vibe-- well, only one game-- the one you designed specifically for that vibe- is going to give it to you. I mentioned playing my first Western RPG with Traveller. Since then, we have played a _lot_ of western HERO, but even in the same setting, the game feels different. HERO as-is just does not deliver that "combat is lethal" feel the way that Traveller does. One-shot kills are _Way_ more common in Traveller than in HERO. You can use Hit Locations if you want- add another step into combat- but Traveller gives you things like "take this 2d+2 damage directly into a randomly determined characteristic whose value was determined by rolling two dice... All hits are disabling hits- all damage goes directly against a characteristic. Again- you can add in similar things, bur you _are_ adding: going over and above what the rules are in order to force a feel found somewhere else. It works; I won't pretend I haven't done it myself. The only thing that you can't recreate by additional rules is a quick-and-dirty feel. Now if you want a _supremely_ lethal western, play Boot Hill (at least the first couple of editions). We had some of the kindest, most courteous, most chivalrous gun slingers and lowlifes you ever saw-- everyone was afraid to offend _anyone_. Honestly, if you want a game heavy on social interaction and very light on combat, play Boot Hill! After their fourth or fifth character, the players will think long and hard about if their character even _wants_ to carry a gun! the only,game potentially more lethal would be Paranoia, but only if you were playing the day after the GM's wife left him- for _you_. and you brought her to the game. sure- lethality is but one tiny facet of a game system; it is simply easy to point out as an example. There are other things, too. I cast level nine fireball! I cast Ranged Killing Attack! Hiw many dice? I'm not sure. How many guys where here? How close together are they? Oh, crap! My END is pretty low; let's make it four dice and see what happens, okay?

Well, we arent done yet. We have To figure out how to squeeze Desoldification in there so we can get the entire Trifecta of Cobble....,

The fact That those first two were for the same game, and the fact that the first western I ever played in used Traveller as the base, suggests that a background and mechanics aren't tied together too terribly tightly. factorinf in the thousands of home brewed settings across the hobby, and it's a lead pipe cinch that replacing the setting is far more about want-to than it is about can-do. One might go so far as to say that the setting is almost exteranneous, especially when one considers how many of our early favorites had no setting at all.

Ooh! Better! He can turn the electronics into a dimensional breach device that imparts Extradimensional Movement onto the characters passing through, allowing them to move to the dimension where they already have the detection devices....

You guys are all under thinking this. Try this: Major Transform: from normal,but to guy who's location shows up on certain detection devices. Then you gadgeteer can find a couole of old radios and a Mattel Electronic Football game, use Shapeshift: usuable as attack against these gadgets to turn them into appropriate detection devices. I mean, it's so _obvious_.....

I kind of recommend,the Spell,Book from that era as well. It has a bit of errata for the magic section in the FH book; it has some additional ideas, and of,course, ir has lots of prepare spells, many at varying power levels. I heartily endorse rolling your own magic, of course, but a pre-filled list can certainly,get you in the game,in a hurry.

Given that I absolutely cannot draw, and I have no hope of ever commissioning art for commercial use, I don't bag on art no matter how bad it is; I am just glad to see it.

The biggest difference you will find is figured characterisitics and a lack of "package deals," if you are only looking at the mechanics. The biggest difference you will find if you are looking at the overall products is that the first edition of Fantasy HERO is a complete and ready-to-play game. There is so much focus on the system that HERO Games no longer actually makes games. That pqrt is on you.

It's not. Roleplaying is literally acting out the social interactions- dialogue, attitudes, etc- between characters. Desceibing your combat actions is fun, but if you aren't interacting- speaking, emoting, being nervous or cocky _as your character_, then you are not role playing. If you are saying "my character moves to location X for cover and waits for an ipoortunity to return fire," you are war gaming. The two go hand-in-hand in RPGs, as RPGs grew from war games to begin with, and there are still unshakeable elements if wargaming in RPGs today, simply because we arent interested in shootinf our friends and don't like playing games with our enemies. But the question you have asked is "if X is Y, then why is X not Y?" The problem is that X is not Y in either example. If you enjoy role playing, then odds are your group doesn't require the purchase of social interaction skills. If you do use dice-based social interaction systems, the you are wargaming that, too. That is fine, if that is your thing- no one at any of my tables has ever been really comfortable role playing the Seduction-type skills since we grew up, entered the real world, and decided that actual seducrion is a ridiculously fun and _very_ private thing to do. So persuasion and arguments and interrogations (to varying degrees) we role play; seduction we wargame. (Though the last time I told that story on this board, I was quite wrongly and insultingly accused of capitalizing on homophobia, so I don't tell it often, and even when I do, there is still an edge of 'screw that guy!' in my voice.)

I think I am to old to understand every bit of that. Or any bit of that. I also cant shake this tiny niggling sensation that I should be happy about it, so I am just going to run with it....