tesuji

[/b] So, even in HERO you expect the world to make sense. In order for the world to make sense, there needs to be a defined sense for it. That means coveying the sense of what is reasonable and what is not. In spite of your comment earlier, you might well need to tell your players that 3 year olds throwing fireballs is definitely a possibility in this world, whose frequency will depend on the people they encounter. So you seem to be thinking, I wounder why you think that. There is NOTHING in the DND system which forbids this. The most obvious way is to determine the "race" of the creature as a non-standard race. Depending on the strength of the fireball, it may be one looking for an ECL bonus or not. It also depends on whether any reasonable drawbacks are assigned... like a vulnerability to cold and how often the Gm plans to apply that in play. I could probably work it out within 5 minutes with the player who brought it up. Did DND the system assume this would be a standard character and provide you prefabbed rules to accomodate it... no. neither did hero. In HERo it has to be made up, either by GM or by player and then vetted by GM. Avtually it seems to me that you are. I am going to great length to separate the two. classes are not system design, they are campaign design. The degree to which a Gm is willing to vary his classes and races from the baseline is campaign design not system design. people seem to be drawing the conclusion that hero promotes this by not giving you a campaign set and that since DND gives you a campaign set it discourages it. That boggles my mind. Did you feel that all of your scifi campaigns became unworkable after terran empires came out? I agree completely. I agree completely. I never said DND has more consistency. So you seem to be agreeing that neither hero nor dnd has any claim on having more consistency and that any consistency arguments are made at the campaign definition level. is that right? I am? Not sure where this notion comes from. i was if you will notice responding to the specific point where the other poster said all he had to do was tell the players to generate the characters an follow hero rules as opposed to spending time developing classes and such. Absolutely!!! We are in complete agreement. The only difference is that DND happens to provide one such setting in its core rulebooks. if you dont like that setting you can do the same legwork you have to do in HERo, devise your own. The catch is, if you happen to want a campaign that shares any notable similarities with the one already there, then its likely you will be saved some work. If not, you are back at square one, just like in hero. I would not say DND presupposed but rather provides. of course all of its products are set in that universe or the couple universes, much like i expect all of wotc's terran empire supplements will be set in the terran empire sourcebook. right and the same document for a DND based game set in runequest would outline the class difference, added some new classes, and so forth. In either system if you want to create a custom world, you have to do the legwork and provide your players with enough info. One does not require more work than the other, UNLESS teh custom world bears more similarity with the "core" of each system than the other and thus allows more "as the core rules provide" shared code, , which was my point. To be honest, most HERO games i have seen ran have never taken the step to detail their world anywhere near as well as the three DND core books did. Most games, whether supers or fantasy have done mostly what the poster described... tell them the point range and have them generate the PCs. At best there were some cases where either sample NPCs were provided or ranges were given. When i ran my Fh games, i provided magic systems and detailed backgrounds and many different options such as racial templates and the like. The magic systems themselves built in a "logical progression" from weak to strong as part of its mechanics (advancement proceeded in somewhat larger expensive leaps when general increases in power were achieved.) I had to do a lot of work for those games to get them going, not all world building as i also did a LOT of work toning down the HERO-isms in the play to keep it to a level when i could easily get new players and not hero veterans involved. streamlining HERo was a chore, more of a chore than streamlining DND was.

[/b] DND does not use a cost or point system for most things. Can you tell me how many feats i should have to spend in HERO for the ability to throw 4d6 RKA fireballs selective? There are some general costs for magic items and a ring of waterbreathing has a value and there may even be (book not in front of me) an item of the titton or somesuch which gives both water breathing and a free movement sort of thing. I am not all that damiliar with waterdeep having never ran it or played in it, so i cannot assess the regions impact. frankly, it really matters more the campaign the Gm plans to run. Now we are getting somewhere, explain the character concept and source for the water breathing and water movement stuff. It will probably include extra swimming too. Now my first inclination would be too look at the DMG section on non-standard races and the MM section on aquatic elves. They might even give some ECL recommendations which will be taken with a little saltwater since they don't know the specifics of my campaign. Then, after seeing the character background and deciding if it makes sense, i will probably look at one of two approaches. First i will compare the overall racial mods to the other standard races such as elf and dwarf (who have combinations of advantages and disadvantages) and see if your choice is comparable. This will DEFINITELY involve me thinking about the campaign i will be running and how many underwater adventures i plan and how the rest of the party will deal with it. (For example, if as part of the story nereid tears which provide these capabilities to humans will be available, then your own natural abilities are just flavor more or less.) Its possible it will cause an ECL increasde, but maybe not. If i choose not to use the ECL approach, i might provide a significant flaws such as a penalty on saves vs fire that will serve as a counter. Thank you!!! Thats what i have been trying to say. In both systems, you have to look at the values and choose ones that are right for your game. The math doesn;t make the poinbts right. You setting the values to make the cost right does. You make a subjective valuation over whether 5 pts is right for Wb or whether it should be free or more based on your knowledge of your campaign and your assessment. Absolutely!!! the point is that when you are the one choosing whether or not wall crawling is twice as valuable over water breathing or not, then you did not need math to make that subjective decision. I dont know most DND GMs. Of the ones i know, most would consider it. i allowed it in an older DND game, maybe 1e, i took off some of the elven benefits to compensate. in my experience most games use house rules.

[/b] Actually its not "the dnd way" as the issue but how much sense does the world make? What are the "reasonable" things that one would expect. is it reasonably to know how to throw just one extremely powerful fireball and have no other knowledge of magic? or is it reasonable to expect to have to work thru several lower level enchantments and garner a level of skill before being able to throw such a powerful enchantment? these are game world designs. you need them in both games. DND presents this information through example classes and spells with levels. A HERo game GM apparently doesn't need to present these at all and can just say build it and be done? thats not how i remember hero games running? thats not the approaches i recall seeing in FH4th. I find it wonderful to see people decrying classes right left and sideways and yet i see package deals after package deals in every hero product that seeks to show genre or campaign style info. Thats cool but color me simple if i suspoect that the Gm had even a few campaign restrictions or at the very least you and he started on similar pages, so to speak. Why not? if a burly fighter guy with no training can throw 4d6k fireballs, why not a 3 year old? Why should we assume that a huge guy with no magic training can throw fireballs but a three year old cannot? if one is acceptable and fun why is the other unacceptable or unbelievable or silly or just not to be even worth considering? Why wouldn't a three year old who is in fact an abandoned fey son of a ruling effreti hidden away in the world who can throw fireballs not even worth considering in a fantasy world populated by dragons... but Mongo throwing fireballs without a day of magical training is FUN and COOL?

Re: We're on the same side [/b] OK, this seems to be a case of character design by player choice not matching the players goal. If you want to build a ranger with less combat ability and more skills the answer is rather simple, even if you are multiclass-o-phobic. You spend fewer attribute points on the stats which make you combat effective (str, int, con) and more on int so you get more skills. You can double the rangers base skills with the points typically spent on combat stuff and still have points left over. Now if that is also aesthetically displeasing, like apparently multicalssing is tho i dont get it, you could also take the step of asking the GM at the beginning to customize the character class as the books recommend. A simple substitution say, adding 2 base skills per rank in excahnge for losing all the TWF/ambi stuff would probably be acceptable by many Gms. In my game, one character wanted a ranger but the archer model seemed more in line with his character. he asked me and i allowed dropping the AMBI/TWF for a fighter bonus feat. He got what he wanted and play commenced. Well its possible that the player missed something, a rather important note, when they devised their character. Not all of the schools of magic are created equal. Each school has its own level of potence and they are not equal by any means. This means when you take a weaker school, you might not see as many benefits as when you take a stronger one. this may represent itself in sometimes, at certain points, not seeing every possible advantage being paid off at every level... much like how some classes gain very little at some levels and more at others. Of course, this is recognized in the rules. When the PLAYER chose enchantment as a specialization, did she also complain that she did not have to give up as many or as significant enough counter schools as she would have had she chose evocation or conjuration? Did she feel it inappropriate that she give up less to gain the specialization benefits oor did her malaise only begin when she saw the benefits a little less? Anyway, regardless of whether she managed to connect "paying less" with 'getting less" at all, the easiest answer is to, as GM, communicate to your characters that there are more spells than just the ones in the PHB in the world and introduce them yourself. providing access to these spells for specialists and to even normal wizards but through communication and interaction with wizards is a great way to promote less "kill 'em all" and more "talk first" scenarios and foster building relationships. So you as Gm provide her with rules. the gnome in my game wanted lasso too. i gave him rules. he used it a number of times to great effect. The scene long ago where he used it to lasso the enemy dwarf and handed off his end to (or rather had it taken by) the allied dwarven tank who proceeded to drag the enemy fighter into a pit was priceless. BTW just as a point of order, i did not see lasso in the weapons section of the HERO5 rules either. presumably, if she wanted that weapon in HERo5 you would need to build one for her, or possibly let her stat it and you approve it. Why wont that solution work for DND? Why not? Ok sure it should have been done at lower level but certainly both you and the player can concieve of a class who spends more time on skills and less time on combat, thus removing some combat advancement and adding some skills seems possible and no unreasonable at all. Actually i would have been very tempted to keep the multiclass and make it "favored enemy specific" to make it play different from the rogue. But thats just me. But again, having more stats in INT and less in STR, CON, DEX seems to me to be the simplest way to achieve the problem solution as yu described it. I normally play around 32 point builds and Str 12 Dex 14 Con 12 Int 16 Wis 14 CHA 10 would produce about 7 skill points per level and definitely show less emphasis on combat. if they emphasized beef stats in build and spent little on INt and then complained about having too few skills, then i would suggest that the problem was a misunderstanding on how to build what they wanted. Would you fault HERo for a guy who built a mentalist with a 10 ego and then complained because his mental powers missed a lot? Sounds like you and the players you were eyeing as candidates wanted different games. this is not a system issue, is it? Well the first seems to be a mixture of inexperience in design and misunderstanding. The second just seems to be a player and gm mismatch. Ok. Why do i go to burger king on occasion when i like Wendy's more? EVEn if you prefer A to B its not the same as limiting yourself to only ever getting A and then excluding B from your life. Because most systems have good points and bad points and while over the years i have played many systems, including having GMed three different FH campaigns (not to mention the number of HERO based supers games) I find i learn things, both good and bad, from such exposure. Even if i never choose to play FH again, i learned things from those campaigns that helped me when i run MNM or DND or Vampire the masquerade. To me, liking one system better than another, finding one system meets my needs for this campaign better than some other system does not equate to forbidding and exiling the other system to oblivion and then exiling myself from contact with other players who still have the audacity to play that other system. In short, i am amazed that this is even a question? because i find the notion of cutting myself off that much to be incredibly and unbelievably and unnecessarily limiting. Maybe you will notice this but i did not start this thread. Matter of fact you wont find ANY thread about DND vs HERo or MNM vs HERO by me on this board. I dont START extolling... but when i find people on boards i frequent who BEGIN THIER OWN discussions about the aspects of two games i have knowledge of, i will chime in and add my contribution. if i dont have knowledge i usually wont... as you will notice that i have not chimed in on a thread running round about hero vs sas d20. it seems odd that you would find it perfeclty find for other people to start "hero and dnd " threads on this board but would single out only those who dont follow your opinion as those who you consider it rude for them to voice their opinions. also please note that, for the most part, i have not been extolling DND over HERO. mostly i have been saying that DND is as good. i personally see merit in DNDs flexible classes for a fantasy game and dont see them as the strightjackets some people here seem to feel. The impression i get is that its very common round here to see DND as inflexible, when you decide you dont want to alter it or invent your own stuff to meet your campaign needs, and that hero is more flexible because it doesn't give you any thing you need to change and expects you to make it all up. Its highlighted by the idea that changing the DND spells will take a lot of work but making them all up from scratch in hero is fun. i think if your initial world image is far from either systems base designs AND you come at it with an attitude of "i dont want to alter things and create new things to make my image come true" then you will find neither system works well. Think of it this way... if you want to run a scifi game that is unlike terran empires... does the terran empires book make you do more work? NO? Then the greyhawk stuff should not make it more work to run non-greyhawk. if you tried to recruit a bunch of players who had played terran empires and wanted to play terran empires and who decided to not even try the "flatworld" campaign you devides... would you be here beefing about terran Empires ruining your game or how bad HERO players are?

[/b] No nor did i say you did. You also have not claimed to have been on the grassy knoll, to have crashed in 47 at roswell, or to have Jimmy hoffa in your roll out couch. Nor have i claimed you did. Any other side issues you want to bring up before we get back on topic? Well, the value of the start HERO gives you and the process HERo gives after that is wholly dependent on how much belief in its accuracy you have. In my view, the math is a lie. For one thing, there are more examples than the one i just gave, many using basic failry simple stuff, which show the results to be obviously defying common sense and many of these are supported even to this day by the main designer. (extra limbs cost, combat skills array cost, just to name two off the top of my head and the additive nature of advantages vs the multiplicative nature of lims is another huge issue.) Second, the entire notion of the static costs is in itself huge. My water breathing example above is one easy example, as is the Ap one. Thirdly and most importanly, HERO's balance works if and only if the GM makes it work. If the GM builds his worlds, his characters, his challenges with deliberate intent to make it work in HERO then HERO's balance works. if he does not, then it doesn't. In spite of all the math, if he doesn't run the game in a way to make hero work, it doesn't balance. The simplest example i can give you is imagine if in your world you had a PC lightning mage and a fire mage who were identical except for your fx decision. Now imagine if your story for the campaign revolves around anecromancer using his undead minions and his own powers to do the various evil deeds and so most of the scenarios deal with this. Imagine if also your simple vision has undead with vulnerability to fire. Does that sound too far afield? A story wrapped around an evil necromancer and his undead minions and undead being hurt by fire? But suddenly the two PCs are not longer balanced. Suddenly mtr fire mage is wailing in for 1.5xdamage often and moreover in the big story arc sessions. Is flying really worth only as much as running? That really depends on the number of interior battles vs exterior and the number of ground movement challneged encounters and the biggie... the number of flying barmints with ranged attacks that assault your party. Which scenario do you script and how often will determine the answer. is swimming really not worth as much as running? Well in that waterworld campaign... the scenarios you script will determine the answer. i got a million of 'em. if your campaign features a lot of golems built as construct immune to stun, is stun only EB really a no charge change? So, in my mind, as you can see, i dont believe in the math producing right answers in the first place... right here being more or less consistent or logical taken in abstract. Sometimes its right, but too many times it produces unreasonable results. Add to this the final conclusion, that whetever the numbers are they will only turn out in play to be balanced based on what i script, that the points i bless are only valid when and because I make them so in play... and you might see why i dont see hero as providing me with more tools, or with better tools. what hero does do is change the getting started dynamic into an incredibly complex one. That directly smakcs my ability to get a game going and get players involved. personally i dont like PRCs much at all and never use them. they dont fit into my game world. oddly enough, i did not feel compelled to use them. See above... see my sig... balance does not come from the system. it comes from the GM enforcing in play the values he sold to the players in character creation. I am not saying that it is EASIER... i think i said just as easy at one point. I am saying its quicker and somewhat less work. In HERO i got all this math and force my players thru all this math and for every case for every ability i goyya ay somepoint examine the RESULTS and judge whether i think its right by comparison with other things BASED ON WHAT I EXPECT TO PUT THEM THROUGH. if so, great, if not i change it. In DND, i skip all the first part and just judge whether i think its balanced BASED ON WHAT I EXPECT TO PUT THEM THROUGH. If so, great, if not i gotta make a change. The balance occurs because i approve a value and then in play i MAKE that value a reality, i make my scenarios show that value to be a good and proper one.. that is no harder or easier in DND or HERo or Buffy or traveller. Some system just require you and your players to do a lot more figuring before you get to the important stage... approval and enforcement. Now that said... some people may NEED the math. A GM unsure of his GMing or wanting a complex system to make it look like he has 'good math" backing him up, might very well prefer to say "use this book" and not just tell his players that he expects balance will come out in play. he may want them to believe, and even believe it himself that the balance comes from the book and not him and lord knows this may be a comfort when a scenario goes wrong and he has angry, or worse dissapointed, PCs on his hands. But IMO any GM from even moderate level of competence is better served by his own judgement and his own intimate knowledge of his campaign for balance than he is with a bulging rulebook and math out the wazoo. For the less competent ones, the complexity of HERo makes it a poor choice on its own weight.

Re: Huh? [/b] books not in front of me but i recall there being a section on it in the PHB, a section in the DMG and another set of information in the DMG as well which discusses using non-standard races. Since DND is not a points driven game but an effect driven game, then the pages and pages of mathematical formulae and proscribed costs are not there. the system expects the Gm who wants to make a change to evaluate that changed based on his game and his knowledge of it, not a formula. That may be expecting too much for some. there is a reason for that. We will get to it in a moment. lets see... we select spells appropriate from the existing ones... many necromancy, some other. We may want to create some class specific ones too. We decide between spontaneous and prepared and a spells per day charts... probably looking at sor/wiz vs bard/pally/ranger depending on our view of it as a magic centric or mixed class. We probably add a cleric like turning ability, limiting its ability to affect some undead. We fill in BAB, hit dice, skills and bonus feats as needed. Depending on how far i wanted to go with custom abilities (a spirit companion ala a familiar or a druid's animal companion for instance) and new spells, it could be quick or long. OK so if i get you right then my fire mage character can have only one magic spell Fireball 4d6 RKA Area Effect 12m radius selective with incantations, full phase, 3 uses per day, costs end for about 39 cp. No other magic skills or knowledg is required so then go on to build myself a decent fighter type with the 112 cp left to me out of a typical 150. (I can drop lower if you use a lower total.) Did i miss a restriction? is there actually more about building characters and magic that you forgot to include? Hmm lets assume there isn't, thats back to the point we will get to shortly. Huh? Why is this difficult. option 1: well obviously you change the clerics and other divine magic to read "arcane magic" and drop the gods. the classes still function but the FX for their abilities are arcane instead of divine. option 2: you drop the divine classes entirely. This may mean pulling some of their traits and spells into the existing arcane classes. So you vut out the alignments thing and say "i dont use alignments. tell me who you are and play your character. The spells and stuff which key on alignment don't exist." You are done. Well first off, the key to doing this in dnd is working out with your gm the probalems you have and getting classes customized. Again, classes create a set of "hown stuff works" establishing for instance that you have to learn basic stuff before advanced stuff and what the basic and advanced stuff are. i have a hunch that you really truely deeply do NOT want to play in a world where anyeone can choose to develop any thing at any time.I bet you really do want there to be a rhyme and a reason to what you learn and in what order. I bet you would not want to adventure for a while as a fighter and then because you have saved your points want to develop the ability to throw POWERFUL SPELLS overnight, but that instead you would rather be forced to begin with low level spells and work your way up. Just a hunch. All levels do is prioritize the order in which things are acquired from low to high and put them down that way. do you really want to be able to learn that 4d6 fireball spell and know nothing else about magic? Wouldn't you have preferred to be required to gain lesser magics and work your way up to it? Wouldn't that world make more sense? unless i miss my gues, you had to develop the race, determine its abilities give it costs and such. thats pretty much the same as you would do in HERo although the costs would not be calulated but rather assessed. Now we get to the little point you have been making for me... the reason you dont have to spend hours on the magic system is because you DEFINED your world as 'working like hero system." breath water costs in your world half as much as spider climb (assuming similar "spell stuff") just like or rather because of the pricing HERO gives life support vs clinging. your mages will throw a few spells then recharge quickly, at least the ones who burn end, while some mages might just throw willy nilly until their charges run out and then have a long delay. Again both of these occur this way because thats what hero makes good. So what you are saying is: AFTER you define your world to be like HERO does, then you have less work to do using HERO than you would if you tried to use DND for the same world. Well, DUH! i would actually recommend using d20 modern for that and just drop the modern gear and skills. it is more tailored to a skill heavy environment with light magic. The example you give above is a "world made for hero" where the basic decisions are "stuff works like in hero." This is NOT a general showing that HERo is better for non-DND like worlds, just that HERo is better for HERO like worlds.

didn't Zena wipe out most of the greek pantheon in her last season? Even without her Great Cleavage feat, a party of seasoned adventurers ought to be in the running.

FWIW... this does not seem like its abusive or even particularly efficient in terms of bang per buck design. The 5 rec is for combat purposes almost irrelevent. The only reason i would see 5 rec would be if the character had a suite of powers that she wanted "on" all the time and her net speddxend cost per turn = 5. For example, maybe thats the price her flight takes so this rec allows her to fly around indefinitely. The +15 rec seems like a decent 5-7 points spent on flavor more than anything else. It wont be a serious factor in combat unless the extension cord is very tough. :-) Out of combat it will reduce the time to fully recharge from 4 minutes to 1 minute or 10 minutes to 2 minutes and so forth. I realize you weren't the one bringing up balance issues, but, if this is the example that sparked the issue, i dont get it. Frankly, being me, I would tend very strongly to have the "extra recovery when plugged in" be just an FX perk. and only charge for the 5 recovery. I mean, if that +15 rec requires attacjing to an appropriate power source and such, is it worth +5 cp? Would the character be better served with that +15 rec in the limited situations, saving her a little out of combat recharge time, or will she see better bang fer her buck from +1 OCV all attacks, one more d6 on her main attack, or 5 mental defense psi-training?

i find limits on end reserves to be the most useful things for taking it away from the worrisome balance level and into the realm of manageable. Imagine a mage who buys mana reserve as a bunch of end in a reserve and a recovery bought slower than per turn limited to "only while sleeping" so that it takes him about 6-8 hours sleep to recover his mana reserve. The total end becomes a de facto limit on his spell casting per "day". That seems FAR MORE BALANCED than the same mage buying 1 point of recovery, leaving it unlimited and knowing that in the space of an hour every hour regardless he will recover 300 mana. Its IMX the unlimited end reserves and recoveries that are more prone to dubious balance. Of course, this goes without saying, but this does assume the limitation applied is actually limiting the recovery/power etc.

OK a few observations... balance doesn't exist in HERO, at least, not on its own. if you are having a problem with making up your own rules, then you need to realize that practically the only effective balance in HERo comes from the GM saying NO and the Gm scripting the scenarios to balance the characters in play. For 150 points its ridiculously easy to fit in +10 CV with three favorite weapons like maybe militia weapons of sword bow and spear. If you want them, you have to decide what they are. That also means taking into account area attacks, mental attacks, and if you want flexibility and such, a wide variety of limited CV levels. What about spells? IS a beginning mage with a 15/15 force field OK? What if that spell can be cast on others? Can a mage's mage armor force field be cast on a fighter and "stack" with the fighter's plate armor? The rules say yes. If you dont want it too, how much of a limitation is this worth in your game? How do your mages buy spells? is it buy them individually with tons of limitations you never intend to really use played off against their cost? is it a multipower with new spells being a slot? Are spells going to run vs character end (tactical limits only, fully recovering in a few minutes), mana (assuming you invent a mana system) so that they do have a slow recovery time between fights? Does the godly magic of clerics differ at all from the wizardly magic of sorcerers? if so how and how is this balanced in your game? If you are at all worried about making up your own rulings and balance, then you should be more worried about the looser less defined game world where you are REQUIRED to determine balance and the whats and hows at every turn. Do not be fooled into believing that the points provide balance. They don't. Look thru the core rulebook and you will see reference again and again to how the GM must decide about this power or that power and what campaign limits to put in play. So, my best suggestion is that before you decide that moving to hero is the thing to do, try and design your campaign worlkd. Figure out how magic works, how you buy spells, how you learn things. Can a simple char woman with no special talents wake up on thusday and decide to become immortal for 5 cp? Can she decide to learn how to heal wounds for 5 cp overnight? If the answer is no, then why is it no? What other "no's" are there. Once you have your world, once you have your "yes" and "no" lists complete, once you are satisfied that you can generate characters you and they will like, and once you are satisfied that balance is yours to understand and decide... then start dragging them over. Otherwise, you are likely to bring them into an unfinished, half-conceived and worse undefined and possibly unexplainable "do what thou wilt" non-campaign. You cannot define a campaign, no matter how many people here want you to believe, by "how its not DND." You must define it by what it is, show them its own strengths and its own advantages and even its own weaknesses. You must show them how interesting this new world you build with hero is. The most often major problem i have seen posted around here and in other conversations about FH is the "how do i get magic to work right" where devising your own magic system just keeps not coming out and where balancing mages seems very tough (finding individual spells purchased at full price to be too weak and finding VPPs and multipowers too potent and not much room mechanically in between.) There are a lot of people here on the boards who can offer their insights, their experiences and help you. The new FH book will be out in a few months and it can help too. But even after all this input, you will need to spend som serious time on devising your system and part of that includes adequate spells and sample characters to illustrate your world and options. You have a lot of work to do before you should even think about dragging your players in. matter of fact, i would have done the majority of the work before even mentioning it to them. but i still come down to the basic notion that, if you are worried that your own decisions will create balance problems in a defined, proportioned classed system like DnD, then your should be terrified of the same issues in a game with no such controls in place, where you are constantly defining classes on your own. I would better recommend an uncertain GM use a few simple scoped changes to DND, a class change, a new skill definition to cover whatever inappropriate diplomacy checks are being called for, and so forth. My main suggestion, if you do not have current experience with hero, is to go back to your store owner and get him to put you in touch with an existing HERO group, preferrably fantasy hero. Play in some of their games. if they do not have room, explain what you are wanting to do and ask to sit in as a spectator. You really need HERo experience before you get into its higher level functions such as designing magic systems and setting good balance benchmarks and so forth. HERo is going to have a learning curve when you bring over your players. This will be compounded exponentially if you are still working things out and the complex target they are trying to hit keeps changing as you figure things out. If you just absorb book stuff, you will likely be stumped by questions like... Why is a +2 cv fighting array (i get +2 cv when fighting near my brother after spending actions to focus) officially worth 24 cp when +6 dex (provides the same +2 cv and more even when bro' is elsewhere) is only 18 cp? You need experience to answer that question when your player asks it. Your need to know you can make the world you want work under hero before you ask your players to fork over the bucks for the hero5 plus possibly fh tomes, right?

OK so looking at some other examples... compound foci... I have a magic sword. It cuts real guud for 3d6 HKA. thats an obvious focus. Now the same sword can also throw lightning bolts on command (3d6 rka) and heal me on command (9d6 healing healing option or 41/2d6 if i remember the alternative healing wrong.) Neither of these two abilities is OBVIOUSLY a part of the sword. Someone 100' in the air who did not think i could fly up to them would never dream of attacking my sword... as he might if i had a bow in hand. Other example: OIF powered armor dude wears his suit of battledress. Sure his armor is OIF after all you can see he has steel hard exterior. Sure you can probably even surmise it is air tight, unless you see holes. What about his immunity to radiation? What about his autodoc which injects healing drugs into him when he is hurt? What about his Radio hearing? What about a sword cane?

Blue said... "What I figure will happen is this: I'll get them into a fight, they'll realize that their characters have definite problems, then either a)They'll revise said characters (with my blessing), b)They'll want to bring in new characters altogether, or c)They'll want to play something else because they aren't getting the hang of it." IMO and IMG if i approve a character then i am telling that players its right for the campaign. once i do that, its my job in addition to his to make it work out. The campaign centers on and pivots around the characters, their attributes are essential to the story and the game works because of my efforts to make these a reality and NEVER "in spite of" the PCs. If you really believe that after a session or two your players will be dissatisfied with the characters you allowed as to have these three possible reactions, then IMO that is you admitting you are at fault. Why would a fight necessarily be this bad? Specifically, what is it written that tells you that the nature of enemies, the scenario setups and the encounter YOU choose has to be one thats going to show up the PCs this badly? many many moons ago, i ran a very enjoyable summer campaign in DND. The five PCs were two monks, a rogue, a rogue-acrobat and a wizard. N definitive fighter. no definitive cleric. it was an incredibly fun little campaign where amazingly the plot dealt with intrigue and espionage and the "fights" were not stand up slugfests with grim damage totals but instead mobile and highly tactical location battles... in short the story and challenges and events were suited to and made emphasis of the heroes abilities. Their weaknesses when they occured were not scenario breakers but merely obstacles to be overcome. In short, imagine how good a run of wolverine comics would be if 90% of his encounters were against aerial foes outside where he basically gets madder and madder. The writers just don't seem to script him that way, do they? There is a reason. Were i to have approaved those PCs, i would now be looking forward to the challenge and working over their characters and backgrounds to script a story and encounters to fit the ensemble you have been dealt. The goal is to help them and you have fun, not to teach them a lesson for designing "bad" characters. Is that a goal within your reach? Thats up to you. time will tell.

I tend to agree.

Add one more to the list of happy FRPGames customers.

Arguably, the green lantern... one green glow which forms different shapes for different purposes. However, depending on the GM, this may or may not be a genre fiend game where you are limited to only things which have been published in a cimic. For instance, i might envision a cuborg with a demonic hand and an alien grav sled... which probably has not been in a comic... as a decent character. Not all GMs would dismiss that solely because it hasn't been seen in print. Still, to stay on point, it seems like a power "whose nature is obvious only after its too late to abort" has an inherent advantage of reasonable and palpable proportions over a power "whose nature is obvious when there is still time to abort" and IMO if a Gm is going to enforce these and have them play a definitive role IN PLAY then they should not fit within the relatively narrow constraints of FX and should be accounted for. It is at LEAST as significant an effect as "not in intense magnetic fields" which IIRC is -1/4 or any number of 1/4 level disads or limits. heck, reduced penetration is worth -1/4 and it is the best way to handle "stun only" I have seen. (-1/4 reduced penetration -1/4 no KB OR chose to take for free stun only???? Works great with non-protective entangles and rapid fire!)

I still remain curious for those who make it so how much of an advantage (+1/4 +1/2) having "my attacks are not obviously what they are until its too late to abort actions against them" is worth. I can imagine the experienced and veteran HERO gamer who defines his multipower as "each of the powers when used emits a glowing blue ball which releases its effect when it strikes or reaches the desired range. All the blue balls look identical, regardless of power." His multipower includes various single target attacks, a couple area attacks including NNDs, darkness effects, and the lot of them. Now, by FX, the guys who are already immune to the NNDs and know it won't know until "its too late" and so will still be tempted to D4C against attacks that cannot affect them. Guys with senses so that fog clouds are no problem or other reasons not too still won't know its darkness until "its too late" and will be diving for cover or dodging anyway. It seems to me that once your Gm adds in the "you must decide against some attacks whether to dodge or D4C before you have any credible knowledge of the threat" that this becomes a very useful ability. Why should it be free? What's the balancing downside between Arcane Guy who defines his attacks as spells firebolt (RKA), lightning ball (EB area), fog cloud (darkness) and spirit storm (EB NND Area not vs force fields) where each of his spells has a unique look from the get go (allowing the enemies to decide with knowledge whether to dodge or d4c or not) vs Alien Juggler who throws identical blue balls for each of those attacks who only reveal what they do AFTER they "hit", after an attack roll is made and too late for knowledgable choices? How much would you charge for this advantage? If I were playing under a GM like listed above, where you have to make these decisions blind, but only for some SFX, then I would certainly expect to see a cost difference.

[/b] You would not AT THAT INSTANT. Nothing in the dive for cover rules states that you have to make the decision when it leaves their hand. nor in the dodge rules for that matter. A premature declaration. A bad result indicative of a poor sequence, not an example of bad rules. Its not precognition at all. its the GM allowing a premature declaration. How about this... GM: The alien hurls his circular energy globe at you. Player: OK GM It lands at your feet and explodes Player: I dive for cover to avoid the blast GM: Make your roll. Dive for covers are made IN RESPONSE TO area attacks, not in anticipation of them. None of the rules for abortive actions require prescience on the part of the player. The enemy raises his hand and a green beam shoots out. Is it "at me" or "at the guy next to me"? I don't have to guess that at all. I am told within the rules if it is at me and i get to make my decision based on that knowledge. I don't have to guess when the dragon takes his intake of breath if there is an area attack and whether i am in its area. Neither should i have to guess whether the glowing ball is a grenade or not. If i can decide to dive against the dragons breath once we know he is breathing fire, then i ought to be allowed to dive against the grenade once it goes off, for one very simple reason... they both paid the same amount for area. Now if you want to give "grenades" an advantage such as "not obviously area attack until its too late to dive for cover" then maybe you should look into some form of the IPE. perhaps you should take IPE on the area effect portion of the power. Otherwise, you simply encourage and reward the SFX wranglers who just want to define their "area" attacks as all "looks a lot like a non-area attack until its too late" for free. "My enemy wont be able to reasonably dive for cover until after i have stung him once or twice" is a solid palpable advantage not SFX. ************* On another note, do you allow dodges against laser strikes? By the time you know its a laser beam aimed at you, then by definition its too late? ************* IMO, the main reason to allow D4C against any attack not just area is that area attacks are so weak that normally the hero is better off just letting the effect go and not wasting the action and a half diving against a scratch.

I would simply surmise that in many cases an area attack is very evident as such. A dragon's breath looks a lot different than a bullet. Most attacks are visible and obvious, so it shouldn't be too hard to figure it out. Is it your position that in the majority of cases an area attack and a single person targetting attack are indistinguishable?

Since there is no downside for the rage, by your own admission, then i would just buy this as powers with charges. This is especially true given you want to be able to turn off at will. Example, say you have the ability to rage for 8 "rounds" a day, Then you buy, assuming a +10 rage so to speak. +10 strength (-1/2 8 charges) = 7 pts +10 con (-1/2 8 charges) 13 pts Free figs include +2 PD +2 ED +4 REC +10 Stun +20 END I would tend to avoid continuing charges because this is intended to be short duration and you need to have an obvious means of shtting off the continuing charge, while the rage does not seem to have one.

Actually, that looks like a rather big difference. Below average occurs near 50% of the time and above average does so as well, however, well below average occurs a lot less. With the numbers you show above, a slightly below average pair of hits or a normal pair of hits separated by a single recovery keeps the 25 def character up. It would take two significantly below average attacks to not Ko the 20 defense guy. In addition there is the much better chance of being con stunned. Adding this in with maneuvers... the 20 defense guy can on **average** be KOed with a single +4d6 haymaker. The *average * 25 defense guy wont be. So i do see these numbers for lower defenses combined with more "more damage" options as making for a significant change. It certainly seemed that way in my hero5 games, and we weren't even down at 20. ******************** That said, i personally think it is a good thing. i know i much prefer a game of supers where the chance of getting con stunned from a "routine supers" attack is present and heck, maybe 40.1% is a little high but probably 25% is more apropos. 1 shot potential (or even two shot typical) KOs might not be everyone's cup of tea, knocking out a super in that quickly. For example... "Some people consider this comic book like, personally I have seldom read a comic where the main villain was taken out in 2-3 panels. " But then again, people's tastes vary.

Actually, as an aside, from my experience the DCs went up while the defenses went down. Now actually the dice rolled did not increase, but there are more ways to get more damage now. Obviously, haymaker being expanded to cover even non-hth means the ranged shots if well timed get an uppage of 4d6. Also, the addition of rapid fire makes the possibility of "an attack" being 2-3 shots a definitely reality, in addition to raise the stock values of "target and entangle both take damage" entangles and "stun only" EBs. A 12d6 eb becomes a 16d6 haymaker, doing 56 syun - 20 defenses = 36 stun. Thats a CON STUn or often a one shot KO against 20 defenses. This requires good timing. A pair of 12d6 EBs vs 20 defenses are going to do 44 stun total, 22 per hit, and against a 23 con thats not too unlikely to get one of the hits high enough to con stun. Three shots seems much more deadly and an auto KO vs anything but bricks. ********************** The combo of lowered defenses and the various additional options for greater damage seems to be acting as a double whammy. ***************** Now, in some ways that is a good thing. Tactics have changed from hammering the bad guys to finessing to get the single big whammy smackdown. Hold action to setup the haymaker, wait for your partner to throw his pass-thru entangle then rapid fire three shots at the 0 dcv with a stun only eb, etc. This also encourages counter tactics like an enemy super holding an action so he can missile deflect shots against the member of the team webbed up OR holding action to drop a darkness around the entangled ally "laying down smoke" so to speak. The fact that a suoper cannot just expect that the first couple of hits against him will hgit the "wall" and provide no real effect (other than the bookkeeping assault on the player) has some merit to it as it does prtomote thinking outside the sgrug. Not totally sure that early Kos is a good thing though.

FWIW... when i built "reactive defenses" using vpps and other means, i always set them up so that the change was in response to an attack, not in anticpation of. So if you were hit by a firebolt, your reactive defenses would shift to ED AFTER the hit, not before. If it shifts to whatever is about to cause damage, then that doesn't sound too much different than simply having every type of defense. I mean, how is a set of defense, say 10 points woirth, that switches to "whatever works against any given attack" different from say 10 pd and 10 ed and 10 flash d and so on? The "its defense that morphs on demand" is just the FX for buying each of these. Maybe you would need a limitation for "when hit with coordinated attacks of different defense types the total points spread about must total no more than 10". If so that limitation is not worth much unless coordinated attacks of different types is common.

My preference for mana is and end reserve with a mandatory recovery rate of per hour (-2 iirc.) This does several things. First, it avoids any figured characteristic issues. If EGo for instance provides manam for free as a fig'd, then you should consider whether EGo is still just 2 cp per point. Second, it gets rid of several problem issues i always had with endurance based magic. The main one was that it meant there was only a short term tactical limit, since recovery of magic end took minutes at the most. By simply making it a factor of time, it adds a daily strategic element. The "model" behind it was that of a simple collector. One physical difference between "mages" and "normal people" was that a mage acted like a mana sponge. mana existed in low concentrations almost everywhere. Most people passed thru it like air. Mages acted like sponges, just naturally collected it and storing it up. So a typical mage would regain maybe 9 mana an hour (recovery 9 at per hour costs like 3 cp) and the storage capabilities varied with the mage. He would simply buy endurance reserve, some up to 120 some up to 200+ depending on how much they wanted to invest.

you did not. i think it was shrike as i referenced above. you did your own good job of raking them.

[/b] I mentioned it more than once. i didn't overlook it at all. It makes perfect sense for the Gm to design characters, adversaries and scenarios. i never questioned that. All i questioned was the same GM deciding to dismiss himself from having any fault in the unpleasant outcome. As far as i was concerned, you and i had settled that a ways back. Actaually i did. i think perhaps others missed it. That is a definite step in the right direction. it is a far superior conclusion to just blaming the players and their other game system. Thanks for the explanations of what all you did. OK, so if i get this straight, you designed the scenario EXPECTING them to wade stright in and they did just that. They played "down" to the expectations you had of them. So, which is the case... you expected the result, wasted by the robots, when you setup the scenario OR you expected wading straight in to work for them? It soulds like you prepared all the characters and the players did exactly what you expected... so was the result what you had expected or did you misjudge the balance? I think i have said repeatedly that i did not believe you were being dishonest. The only direct element i find myself unable to believe is that the players stated the game, as opposed to your scenario, was too hard for them. Thats way out of character for people as you have characterized them to be saying after a drubbing. My suspicion is that is more or less what you got out of what they said and not a more or less quote. Until i posted you got none of that. Everyone who responded was perfectly happy to run with the DND bashing and calling your players names and laying it all at their feet. The auestions i asked of you and the attempts tpo direct you to conisder things other than the players and DnD were serious and i think helpful. if you no longer feel that way, its your loss, not mine. Not much more i can say. Although, i might ask one more thing... have the comments i have made that have inflamed you been worse than the comments you made about your players, or worse than the follow ups you got about your players? have i treated you worse than you did your players when you took the rant to these boards? have i been less fair to you than you were to them? Did you say one word on these boards in defense of your players when other people based on your comments called them "dumb beasts"? I mean, no matter how flagrantly over the top abusive you think i am, at least you are getting to respond to my opinions, assessments and judgements. this is all happening right in front of you and you just did a fairly credible job of "confronting your accuser." Did they get that chance? Did you give them the chance? Did i do you worse than you did them? I haven't called you a dumb beast? YMMV and clearly does.