tesuji

Re: Thats one nimble little bull

Who ever said that it "must equate"? There is no requirement that the design philosophy behind the CU be used by anyone in their own campaigns. Heck, there isn't even a requirement that the Characteristic Comparison chart be used.

 

Sorry, it just seems to me that you are arguing that the folks at Hero shouldn't be allowed to design the CU the way they want. Their choices in how they wanted to design their setting are just setting choices. They have no impact on the rules for the system. Just because their setting has most heroes with at least a 23 Dex doesn't mean that in any super hero game using the Hero system you have to have at least a 23 Dex to be a hero.

 

Their choices for the CU aren't an announcement that "supers can only be done this way". It is just a matter of "This is how we like doing supers, so that is how we did it in our world. Feel free to do it however you like for yours.".

I am sorry but the head in the sand denial just doesn't cut it.

YES absolutely there is NO RULE MANDATING anyone use the Cu stats.

However, most every game i have seen is commonly in that ballpark.

Do you think all those games with 23 dex and speed around 5 all just happened blindly by accident?

NO.

The sameple characters provide supposedly useful examples. And guess what - surprise surprise PEOPLE USE THEM.

If for no other reason than if my campaign is close to theirs in scale, then i can use all those publish materials and characters with less conversion work.

the samples and examples provided are used by lots of folks and have influence beyond their "you dont have to even see them" optionality.

In that regard, the more askew to "good design using the system strengths" these examples are the more confusing rather than helpful they become.

if the remainder of the 6e characters also are just straight ports of 5e, ignoring all the benefits actually using 6e to generate characters allows, the less useful they will be to those actually playing 6e.

I didn't buy a new ruleset to have it produce the same characters with different totals and to ignore the differences..

Re: Thats one nimble little bull

One possibility in 6e is to cap Stun, so if you have 35 defenses, you might only have 20 Stun, so you'll be KO'd in 3 hits on average. If you have 75 STUN, it takes a lot more hits to take you out. I probably want to see a typical attack doing 20 - 25 STUN so you can be taken out in a couple of turns, and that means defenses capped in the 17 - 22 range in a 12 DC game. And a need for CON above 20-25, of course!

I tend to asses character viability and limits not by def and dc but by longevity - how many hits of type X does it take to KO you.

I also gauge the con stun number.

I have in the past told people to lower any or all to meet campaign specs, and this tends to avoid the DEF focused myopia i often see.

then again i also repeat the process for rka and for eb and for mental blasts to get everyone onto a comparison, so really, as long as the pcs all wind up relatively similar in capability to last, I then adapt the villains to matchup well.

this all assume relatively similar dcv. if the dcv is higher, i have to boil it down to "attacks" including misses evening out.

gack!!! i have been doing this too long.

One campaign i handed out six supervillains and said "you have to be able to last more than 12 and less than 36 segments against them.

Re: Thats one nimble little bull

This has been my experience as well, except that I find CON is rarely below 23, and either PRE or EGO, typically the former, is at least 20. Why? CON due to both its contribution to Figured's and the need to not commonly be Stunned; PRE/EGO due to PRE attacks.

To me the inflated con was as much a product of over-simplified balancing tools.

the most common expression of "limits" were a def limit. rarely were there stat limits for things like con or stun

So for example in a 12dc game a character with 30 def was considered HIGH DEf and had to justify the concept and the defense.

However while a 30 def, con 15, stun 20 character might have to justify why he has " a def above 20" a 20 def, con 25, stun 50 guy would likely be just fine and not need any special "why i am so exceptional". A typical 12d6 attack however will KO the former with two hits and need only 3 above average to stun with one shot while the second guy can take three hits before ko and be just as vulnerable to stunning.

If the balance metric wasn't often expressed as "defense cap" but as some measure of toughness "X number of 12dc hits KOs you" and "this value minimum to stun you" or any sort of calculation which keeps a look at overall impacts, then i think we would not see as much of a con drive up effect.

Net summary - even in 6e and the loss of figs, i think the usual expressions of def and balance metrics will keep con inflated into the mid to upper 20s.

Even in 5e though i did enjoy building the atypical brick with very low def scores, often just the base values, and extremely high con & stun - like 40+ con and 70+ stun.

.

Re: Post "gotchas" here

I'd say JmOz is pretty much right with this. When the "focus" and the "physical manifestation" are two separate items' date=' I see no reason why you can't take both Limitations.[/quote']

 

for me it would depend on the specifics.

 

If its an OAF and a PM i would likely allow it but reduce one or the other. The reasoning is "you can be deined use of the power by...." and both overlap at "the enemy uses an attack action". Just like i wouldn't give you double focus lims for "can be grabbed" and "can be shot" i wouldn't give you extra full price lims for "enemy can attack the focus" and "enemy can attack the manifestation."

 

On the other hand, if its an OIF, so that taking PM doesn't overlap, then i see no reason why both at full would be a problem.

 

Summary - INACCESSABLE focus and PM are fine, ACCESSIBLE focus and PM are questionable and i would likely not give full value on both.

 

OIF POWER RING with PM is fine. OAF RIFLE with PM - not so much.

Re: Thats one nimble little bull

You can have a shift in how you use the system- but you don't have to make the shift. It's possible to leave things just as they have been.

and ignore happily the fact that the reasons for the scores have drastically changed.

yes you can do this. depending on your gm threshold for justification of stats.

i mean one can provide concept of "slow plodding behemoth" and one can give it speed9 dex 300... if one wants to and the gm can swallow that.

one can...

Re: Thats one nimble little bull

Also frankly if the way "HERo officla builds characters in 6e" is going to be "just like they were built under 5e" then IMo with all the significant differences in system, those characters will be less and less useful for 6e games.

Additionally, on the over time thing, when i first started playing champs back in 2e the base speeds were 5 average for supers with 4-6 being the usual range for supers. Defenses were up there more or less where they are now.

from 4e to 5e and now from 5e to 6e i haven't seen a significant increase in what characters have in the way of stats. the prices have gone up some but not the values.

Re: WOW! Stun drain in 6e

another approach would be to have adjustment powers require an advantage to affect characteristics.

say +1/2 for "affects a characteriostic not a power."

thats sort of halfway between the way it works now.

now as an aside that might make "characteristics bought as powers" or even "strength gained from growth" more drainable than "real strength" which doesn't seem all that off to me.

draining the spidey super strength might be easier until he gets to peter parker normal level.

Re: Thats one nimble little bull

Yes' date=' well, the sample characters are just that, samples. Heck, IMO, they're fairly basic and in some cases, seriously under-represent the genre they are a sample for. For example, the Ninja Hero sample character is nothing like what I'd imagine for the genre ( I mean, he's [u']only[/u] 175 points!) The same goes for the Cyber Hero sample character (who's also way too low for my tastes at 175.) Both also lack a lot of the flavor I'd want to build into them. But then they're just meant to be examples, showing how to build a character, nothing else.

 

And in case you're wondering, I'd create a NH character to look like he walked out of a Hong Kong martial arts film, complete with STR, DEX, and CON of 20+, lots of Accurate Leaping, 20+ points of Martial Arts, possibly a weapon, and several special techniques (invisible chi blast/punch, pressure point strikes, sword energy, and so on). The Cyber Hero guy would have a lot more cybernetics, or similar cyber, but with a lot more Advantages/Limitations to better define how they are meant to work. But in either case, I'm also thinking of a lot more specific setting then the highly generic ones the sample NPCs are written for.

 

Finally, I agree with Oddhat's assessment, that despite the standard 175 points for normal heroes that DOJ uses for things like Fantasy Hero, Pulp Hero, and so on, it's too low. Depending on the genre, PCs should be starting with 225-275 points. Of course, on the other hand, Star Hero and PA Hero work just fine at 175 points. It's all a matter of taste.

i fully understand that any given campaign can and will have whatever limits and standards its users wish.

But in this case, we are dealing with genre specific examples in a case where they do have defined standards for the various levels.

175 may seem low to you for Ninja hero and thats fine but the characters they presented matched points wise with the campaign standards they put forth.

What seems askew in those examples to me is the sense of "the points mean something." A 23 dex isn't just a good rounding but a measure of "really high dex" based on the norms.

Now sure, if they define the other characters in the cu so that your typical hulking brute is supposed to be more agile than an olympic gymnast thats fine, but so far nothing EXCEPT THE NUMBERS seems to indicate this as a design parameter.

It looks to me like they just kept to old 5e design parameters where high dex was the norm since thats how you get cv. That status quo to me runs contrary to one of the better changes in 6e and is a missed opportunity to highlight the improvement.

another generation of olympic gymnast bricks is fine of course, if thats what you are into, but for me i am glad to have the opportunity to see more diversity and more "the numbers mean something" concepts not punished by the point buy.

Re: Thats one nimble little bull

Exactly what Vondy said!

 

I had a discussion with a friend, and it kind of caught me off guard as to his expectations for the system, and others.

 

He said that with a proper Universal System you should be able to open the book, make a character and be able to insert them mechanically into any game and they would fit easily with no fuss.

 

I kind of balked at that... For me, you can't open the book and make a Character. You need to know what the parameters and expectations are. And you can't (or can't always) take a character from one game, or even multiple genres from the same GM, and make them fit together. Expectations could be different in every campaign.

 

Which makes sample characters in the generic rules mildly useless - because they don't have the full setting around them to give context. On the other hand they are useful in that you can see how a full character is put together - otherwise you get Scott Heine's very first character who can project darkness globe and fly... and that's all - not even defenses! While it was a funny story he told, it illustrated the point that an example character is just as much what needs to be put in to a character as it is what the actual numbers are. More so.

Well and true except that - in this case - the sample characters are not actually in the generic brules but in the specific sections on genre by genre examples.

It is common for non- or less frequent hero users, those most likely playing as opposed to gming, to make the mistake of thinking HERO IS A GAME as opposed to HERO IS A GAME BUILDING TOOLKIT, IMX.

But regardless, i would expect sample characters in the genre specific sections to be good ones, exempletive of the system's handling of the genre.

and i too hope they do wind up doing the followup characters from the ground up and if i were them i would simply erratta taurus and the others once the new "how we try and represent these in hero" work is actually done.

Re: Thats one nimble little bull

yes in 5e the amount of dex was whatever you wanted within campaign limits.

but imo in 5e the amount of dex chosen was most often chosen high because of the combat efficiency of buying dex as opposed to the other options.

so in this case, the pointing system being skewed caused the "concepts" to be limited. people would not usually play an actual hulking brute but more a world class gymnast of a hulking brute.

in 6e i see a definite improvement in the separation of those traits so that dex can be something you dont feel pressured by the budgetting system to ramp up.

if you start wanting an agile or fast brick, great, but there is no longer the pressure to make every brick into an agile brick in order to stay competitive.

the thing and te beast are both viable, neither favored mechanically. different but equally playable.

thats imo an improvement. i just wish that difference could have been spotlighted in the sample characters in the core book.

many people do follow those leads, particularly new guys if there are new guys.

bybthe time an enemies books gets out many new 6e campaigns will already be underway working off the core book examples.

its an opportunity missed imo.

not uncorrectable but it really depends on how much effort goes into reimagining the enemies characters and the cu specs.

Re: WOW! Stun drain in 6e

I'd have done it completely differently, myself: 1d6 for 5 points of adjustment, normal defences (pd or ed) apply, excising any real need for power defence from the system (you could still use advantages to make it work against mental defence/flash defence/NND).

 

That wasn't done, fair enough, but I would have likes to see some method for building a character who can recover faster than 5 points/time unit without having to create some convoluted healing build. 'Adjustment Recovery'.

the first sounds a lot like avad as a limitation. so you can build that in the system now.

as for faster recovery, looking at how complex even something like transfer now is, a triggered aid doesn't seem all that off to me. oh wait, triggered healing.

but ok i get the picture.

Re: WOW! Stun drain in 6e

I think we missed a real opportunity with adjustment powers. They have not really changed that much; it is mainly minor adjustments' date=' and associated 'saving provisions' (like Stun suddenly becoming a defensive power...which it isn't) that don't really expand the utility in concept realisation. Still, carry on...[/quote']

 

stun is a defensive power. it prevents an attack from causing any real effect. "loss of stun" is just accounting. depleting stun, thats when things get dicey. (partial exception for con stun)

 

there is relly no discernable difference between having a 42 stun attack lose 10 to defense and knock stun from 70 to 38 and having it lose 25 to defense and knock you from 30 stun to 13.

 

but that irrelevent to me since the more interesting question is what specific opportunities do you think were missed?

 

to me, one major step forward is in avad where we can now have adjustment powers defined as nnd-like effects for a much more reasonable cost.m i very frequently in 5e defined my adjustment powers this way and even then thought the costs misplaced. now they line up better.

 

so, in this regards, 6e scratched my "how adjustments should work" quite well.

 

what specifically do you think was missing?

Re: WOW! Stun drain in 6e

ah hah! thats it.

thanks

hmmm...

6e stun drain looks to be exceptionally effective compared to other alternaties.

12dc

12d6 eb does 42 stun with defenses dropping that to say 15-20 thru

AVAD power defense

6d6 does avg 21 stun vs power defense and this is likely all thru or maybe reduced by 5-10 to 15-20 as well

so far so good

stun drain

6d6 (it is ranged by default now) score 21 effect now as well but since stun cost 2 for 1 thats 42 stun loss if they have no defense and even if we assume 5-10 power defense thats still 22-32 stun drained.

the 2-1 cost issue doubles the effectiveness when compared to other attacks vs stun.

now sure they recover lost stun at 10 cp per turn but hey thats not going to be too far off the typical recovery rate for regular attacks is it?

seems off by comparison.

what am i missing?

what am i missing that makes 6d6 vvad power defense and 6d6 drain vs stun both weigh in at 12dc 60 ap 6 end each and they be of equibalent effect?

Re: A tale of two tails/bases part 6

Yeah. I'd perhaps even go so far as to invoke a meta-rule and say Limit the one that costs the least.

:-) is there a 7e thread yet?

Re: Thinking about combat numbers

a good imo rule of thumb is this...

take dcx4

so if the gaem is 12 dc have dcx4 of 48

make sure con and def equal that amount or more unless you are playing a dodgy eggshell.

i have built a number of bricks based on say a 40 con, with very low defense and high stun totals.

they may take 30 stun on an average hit but are well short of con stunning and can take 2-3 hits and stay up.

this way you get the tough guy who isnt rock hard, he can be hit and hurt by even agents but can take a lot.

this worked fine in 5e with all the figs that con gave but i have yet to run the numbers and see how well it works in 6e but i think with con and stun being cheaper it may be even more viable.

its an atypical 5e build for sure but i loved those.

con 40 costs 30

pd ed 10 each costs 16

stun 80 costs 30body 20 costs 10

add a little resistant def or regen

hmmm...

Re: A tale of two tails/bases part 6

yes it is explicitly defined under extra limbs and the base one is the [artial coverage rule under bases.

i brought this up under 5e and also explicitly added it to the 6e design threads but it remains as the official way to go in 6e. the answer in 5e was along the lines of "if you dont like it dont use it"

still following thay recommendation personally.

Ok so things could be done in 6e differently than they have been but so far they aren't and I am wondering why.

In the old days your typical supers all had dexs in the 20s and up. 23 or 26 depending on campaign standards was overly common even for supers not known for "agility" There were quite a few dex 23 bricks or at least dex 20 or 18.

All of which are "really damn good" or "superhuman" depending on genre/edition/version.

All because dex provided CV and speed, two things every hero needed.

But now we have HERo6 and all dex is about is who goes first and skills, more or less. CV and speed are totally separate.

This opens the possibility for heroes with more normal stats.

There is no reason a gadgeteer would need a high dexterity. Certainly a brick wouldn't.

There is nothing wrong with a brick say with a 10 dex or maybe he is above average and so has a 13 or so.

But when i look at the sample characters provided I don't see any move away from the old way.

Taurus a bull-minotaur based brick, who has in his write0upalmost no mention of being especially agile or a previous career as a gymnast, has a 23 dexterity.

Why?

How does that match his concept?

This isn't about nit picking a given character write-up but looking at the sample supers i see a lot of "just like we did in hero 5" ishness on their characteristics.

the first five characters i wrote up had widely varying characteristics and many had basically normal dex and such.

So as you play with hero6 characters are you seeing a lot more "this matches concept" low to normal human characteristics where you used to see the usual superhuman stats?

brick with 10 dex - got one yet?

Re: Multiform for Free? Frustrated....

I have thoughts about an involved house rule, but at the same time I'd like to use something minimally disruptive (so I can really go to town on my OTHER house rules ).

 

I think I will use the existing rule, but establish a guideline that forms should not be more than 90% of the campaign limit, minus 5 points per extra form past the first. (So in a 400 point game, 1 form is limited to 360; 4 forms would be 345 each, 8 forms 325, etc.) Higher totals than this are possible but subject to strict GM approval. If you are just building a "dial a hero" character these are the limits.

I have decided to keep it simple

Base form pays full book multiform cost

Other forms pay 1/2 the multiform cost each.

Assuming 400 pt forms, thats about the same points as yours BUT...

I dont have any frets about "well if my form is only built on 360 do i have fewer complications. I also avoid the old recursive issue of "well the form is only 360 so the multiform cost is 1/5 of 360..."

There is no difference in 400 pt character who paid 40 for multiform and 360 pt character who didn't, except i think the former is simpler.

So whichever way works.

Re: Omcv 1?

Generally you don't roll damage until after a successful hit. The physical equivalent would be' date=' "if you roll at least 20 STUN above the targets defense the target isn't allowed to Block or Dodge". It just doesn’t sit well with me.[/quote']

 

How about we treat it like ipe

 

IF the attacker declares the effect roll to be seeking +20 level for unaware, then its an attack the target cannot see coming and so he cannot dodge or block.

 

Just like you could not block or dodge against an ipe attack you could not sense.

 

this requires the attacker to "go for" the +20 effect level. if he fails to reach that level, the attack fails anyway.

Re: Idea about Dex

OR - the way I'd probably go - is simply to assume that abilities that just act as skill bases are ditched, completely, and you buy skill levels, calling them for what they do: well educated, but not too bright? Buy skill levels with memory and general knowledge that do not help that much with 'new' problems.

In my curent homebrew, a very simple system, I also ditched after decades the notion of "attributes" or "characteristics" the lumped group of traits that apply to skills.

If you want to be dextrous buy up the traits that should be high.

So dumping characteristics as skill bases seems logical to me.

Want to be good at running buy running, climbing buy climbing, etc.

Re: Multiform for Free? Frustrated....

True enough. OTOH' date=' the same argument could be made concerning Multipower.[/quote']

 

and with the same solution...

 

at some point it becomes more cost appropriate to buy a multiform vpp.

 

just like at some point it becomes cost effective appropriate to turn a mp into a vpp

Re: Is there a "penalty to skill roll" modifier for powers?

No' date=' because if I reduce their cost, those with high skill are not "privileged". Which would not emulate the kind of game were great power needs to be controlled by great skill, such as is usually the case with magic.[/quote']

 

The simp-ler way to do this is just set a number of bonus xp for those who have high skill.

 

Something like

 

If your magic skill is 15- gain 10 extra cp

If it is 16- gain 20 extra cp

etc...

 

thats effectively the same but less complicated.

 

In my games, limitations are used not to just alter cost but to alter cost so it is in line with the power's effectiveness. if it takes a 60 pt power and reduces it by half, the cost drops by half.

 

So if the "offset" for a lim or set of lims is only "pay +10 cp for +5 to a skill" then you ought not to save more than 10 cp from the lot.

 

Now, if you have stuff like - rolling to activate takes a half phase so these powers dont turn on as zero phase actions" or "if you turn on more than one their penalties combine" etc... then you have reduced their effectiveness.

 

But the kind of thing you are suggesting - more points saved for -2 to the skill roll" should not be worth more than +2 to skill rol

 

IF and i do mean IF your goal is charging fair price for abilities

Re: Is there a "penalty to skill roll" modifier for powers?

Well, it is intended to be a good deal. I mean, even if it was exactly 4, as soon as you take two or more powers that have the same limitation based on the same skill, you save points.

So the goal is to just make powers cheaper?

Why be so complex. just reduce their cost?

Same result but more forthright and upfront.

We think these powers ought to cost less.

BAM cost loweder

ewsult - they cost less.

beats the heck out of

"we think these powers should be cheaper"

BAM we add a not really limiting limitation and scale it so they reduce the cost but buy more skill and save points for nothing

result - they cost less but its a much bisier character sheet.

Putting a lim into place at a value so that they will get powers cheaper and thats after buying off the penalty - thats just lowering the cost, not using the system.

house rule the prices down and be gone..

i mean heck, in FH i think some of the established options are things like "divide the cost of all spells by 3"

do what works but do it simply.

Re: Size Powers

The goal is to group similar mechanics.

Actually, isn't that the rule? Thats the "solution" its what you are doing. Thats not "why"?

What is gained? What will be different in play? In chargen? as a result of this change?

The catch with Desolid is that I don't think that you can duplicate its benefits without using Desolid. Thinking about it some more, I don't think that I will include it in the expanded Size Powers group; but I'll add a note under its Limitations saying that you don't have to remove the END cost or make the power Persistent before making it Always On: at least in the case of this one power, taking Always On automatically kills the END cost and renders the power Persistent.

So, if i get this right, you are giving desolid always on an automatic persistent and 0 end for no cost?

have such characters in your games so far seemed underpowered?

I mean, sure, i might consider the value of "always on" in regards to desolid and of course it might go up, depends on character build and how serious this is. But i think i would still make them buy 0 end and persistent.

I myself loathe having limitations that grant free benefits .I find it throws the active points comparisons, for what little they are worth, right out the window.

ymmv