chrome_gnome

Re: Yet Another PA Campaign Idea There is the free 600 page E-Book(pdf) about the ramifications of American Society after several EMP Pulses blanket the nation. It is told from the point of view of a father who lives in suburban San Antonio. It is fairly well written, a few typos and there are a couple of places it seems overly preechy about the author's beliefs but overall it was an interesting novel. Don't let the page length bother you, it is formatted to avoid "WALL OF TEXT" and making reading it on a computer easier. I'd say it is probably around 200-250 pages of comparable printed paperback. http://www.survivalmonkey.com/SF%20books/LightsOut!/LightsOut-Current.pdf This doesn't quite match your premise of a physical law becoming invalid but it is an entertaining and somewhat eye-opening look at how people may react when power stops.

Re: HCPD - The 13th District (Campaign Idea) That's the truth, Hunter was an absolutely kick butt setting, as long as you ran it with some other set of rules.

Re: HCPD - The 13th District (Campaign Idea) Well using the 100+100 for points will certainly let you build some interesting creations. I'd envision the 13th as a place where the malcontent members of the HCPD go when they are too unstable to deal with the general public but too good at what they do to be fired from the force. Heck it could be the state or even national dumping ground for talented but terrifying police officers. It would be very possible to have storylines involving internal affairs and police unions trying to occasionally track down members who seem to be on permanent "undercover assignment" or "administrative leave". These types of "bad guys" would certainly pose a challenge the players couldn't simply kill off to solve. They are the opposition but not the enemy kind of thing. Perhaps a tad like Mel Gibson's character in Lethal Weapon. A group kept under key with the warning "Break Glass in Event of Wierdness" pasted across thier dossiers. Its existance would have to be kept on the hush-hush, meaning no squad cars, flashing lights and helicopeter searches. The garbage truck from the movie "Hellboy" seems appropriate as an example. However instead of being a sort of "elite response team" these guys would get hand me down equipment and would have to see what they could beg, borrow or steal from other agencies. A "doing the most with the least sort of deal".

Re: RKA & HKA cost the same? I thought about that but doesn't it takes 5 points of strength to get an extra 1d6 to the HKA? Those same 5 points will buy the same increase in an RKA if I am reading things correctly.

Just reading over the power creation sections of FRED and I noticed that HKA and RKA powers both cost the same amount, 15 points per d6. Now I am no HERO rules lawyer and have never run a game using the sytem so my understanding of the system is limited. It "seems to me" that the ranged attack would / should be more expensive to buy since you get the advantage of range during combat. Can someone explain, or point me to a thread or location that explains, the reasoning behind this balance of equality between the two types of power? In tactical combat, i.e using maps and miniatures, it seems like HERO would work like any other miniatures game where ranged attacks are significantly more dangerous due to the amount of hexes they can potentially affect. I'm sure there is a good reason I'd just like to know what it is

Re: Viability of streamlined HERO combat for Heroscape terrain? Well that is actually what prompted the question. I have no doubt that superpowers can be modeled and played with heroscape but as with the existing powers there is a disconnect in the community's ability to make new "balanced" custom powers. As it stands right now the powers and stats for all the units basically done by designer fiat with playtesting to round them out. That is fine for the units produced in the game since they are designed to be used as a closed system. The probem lay with new powers or designing new units. Right now you have to basically make an educated guess about how much a power should cost and how it should function in relation to existing units. HERO provides a great math foundation to cost out things and make them relatively balanced. Custom creations in the heroscape community right now suffer from not having a formula for their creation. Many have tried to back out a formula from the existing units but Hasbro has stated a few times that they don't use one, similar to Games Workshop and their warhammer lines. At the core I guess that is my question. Can you use HERO to create and play skirmish level wargames like heroscape or warhammer 40k? I read the mass combat rules in the fantasy book and they seem to be a step towards Warhammer Fantasy. I was just not sure of how well HERO would function if combat was reduced to the bare minimum for speed and ease of play. It seems like you could do a warhammer 40k stat line fairly easily and make combat very streamlined but since I haven't had any experience with HERO in actual use I'm not sure at what point it will break and make using the point creation system irrelevant. Can you get HERO combat to run well with 10-15 "character models" having a game finish in 60 to 90 minutes if all you do is move, attack, defend and use powers? My gut instinct says you can but if someone here has already been down that road and run into major pitfalls it would save me the trouble.

I love the toolkit aspects of HERO but our gaming group has gotten to the point where everyone is married, has kids, business trips etc. So when we get together and want to game we have been playing heroscape because it is simple to learn but has enough tactical elements with the 3d map to keep us entertained and can be played by 2,3...how ever many show up on game night No one else in my group has any inkling about HERO. When we played RPGs they always wanted me to run WoD or D&D. So I just bought the HERO books to read since I like to learn game mechanics and the HERO line is chock full of both crunchy bits and good fluff ideas. My big complaint about Heroscape is that they do not use a formula to generate point costs for their units. Granted playtesting is a wonderful method of dynamic balancing but it doesn't foster a good fan created unit system. Everyone who makes custom heroscape units from clix minis/D&D/etc just uses a "see how it compares to the existing ones" method for picking attribute stats for Life, Move, Attack, Range and Defense. The big pothole is the custom powers that each unit has. They basically provide all the flavor and color of the game but fans have no stable way to create "balanced" new ones. Sure people come up with all sorts of powers for their custom units but there are precious few that seem to have a rhyme or reason. This brings me back to HERO. I've never run a HERO game but own Sidekick, FRED, Fantasy, Dark Champs, Star Hero, Beastiary, Hudson City, Spacers toolkit and Ultimate vehicle. I know the HERO system can do anything but my desire would be to use its wonderful point creation system to crunch numbers for custom units for Heroscape. I realize the combat mechanics of heroscape would have to scrapped for the HERO point costs to be of any use and I'm ok with that. I am just unsure of how *simplified* you can reduce combat and powers down into. For those that aren't familiar with Heroscape the jist is very simple. Every unit has the following stats: Life, Movement, Range, Attack, Defense. In combat you roll dice that are six sided where 3 sides are skulls, 2 shields and one blank. The attacker rolls dice equal to his attack stat and the defender rolls dice equal to his defense stat. One shield blocks one skull, excess skulls that are not countered by rolling shields take away life on a 1 to 1 basis. The stats range from 1 to 10 basically. Range is simply how far you can be and still roll attack dice against a target. For those who are very familiar with the HERO system, and heroscape if possible, is such a thing possible? Can HERO combat and power usage be cut down to a minimum that would play with a good speed? The HERO design system is so good that it would no doubt be able to do the crunch in a nice balanced manner but I'm not sure how streamlined it could be made before it ceases to derive any value from the point construction system. I also own Mutants & Masterminds and GURPS, along with about 20 other systems, I like to read things I never play . GURPS and M&M both have point build systems that would work as well but I wonder even more about their ablity to be streamlined to a 5 or 6 stat combat system that doesn't require any mental calculations. All the mental work is something I want to be done in advance so that in the spirit of heroscape you actually are relaxing instead of doing math. As a mechanical engineer mental math is not a problem for me but the absence of it when gaming sure is noticeable.