GAZZA

Re: Skill System House Rules - Comments? Oh, I dunno - Hero is a very munchkin friendly system, if your tastes run that way. To quote Sammy J: "d20 munchkins and Hero munchkins aren't in the same ballpark - they ain't even the same sport!"

Re: Skill System House Rules - Comments? That's exactly what the normal system requires, isn't it? 9+CHA/5 or under? 1+CHA/5 is pretty much the same equation, is it not? ... that saves you ever having to subtract it from OCV+11. I prefer to do my calculations up front rather than in play. I'm not familiar with Heroclix, unfortunately. Can't argue with that one; personal preference is something that is always going to be subjective. I saw something similar for 4th edition that basically rewrote the Champions rules such that it used a table similar to the DC Heroes Result Matrix. Quite impressive, actually. Is your system similar to that? Well, it's not that some people are frightened by simple addition and subtraction. Leaving aside the roll under/roll over for the moment: in the RAW, to work out what you need to hit you add OCV + 11, and then subtract DCV, and that gives you the maximum number you can roll and still hit. If OCV and DCV were relatively stable this would be no problem at all - you do the calculation once at the start of the combat (maybe once per opponent), and then you're gold. But with combat levels flying around and maneuver bonuses, OCV and DCV tend to be fairly fluid numbers, which means that in practice you often have to do that calculation once per Phase (sometimes more than once per phase for something like an Autofire attack or a Selective/Non Selective Area Effect). "My" way (it seems many people have independently authored much the same idea) you are only adding OCV + 3d6. One operation instead of two. The other operation (subtracting DCV) is done up front (in effect adding 10 to the DCV in my system, though if you prefer to roll under you can achieve the same effect by adding 11 to your OCV and subtracting the 3d6 roll, comparing to the RAW DCV - it works out the same). All the other modifiers (combat levels, et al) are all applied to the main roll (in the case of the attacker) or to the adjusted DCV (in the case of the defender). Consider if I have a villain that has a DCV of 10, and assume that I don't want to tell the players that. (Standard practice for many GMs). The RAW don't actually tell you how that might be accomplished. You can roll for the players (rarely popular); you can get the player to tell you their OCV and their roll (leaving you to calculate both sides - rarely a good use of a GM's limited time), or you can do a little math and convince yourself that if the player adds OCV + 11 and subtracts their 3d6 roll, that equals the maximum DCV that they hit. My combat calculation simply inverts this - rolling 11 or under is equivalent to rolling 10 or greater, so you're rolling OCV - 10 plus the 3d6 roll. But lowering everyone's OCV by 10 makes most people have a negative OCV, which is aesthetically unpleasing, so instead I leave OCV as it is and add 10 to DCV (same result, no negative numbers). I do admit that the character sheet looks a bit weird to someone familiar with Hero, and that the first few times you play you'll probably be internally working out "right, I have a +5 to this roll, that means I need an 8 or more..." - but then again it's not really pitched at experienced players. You guys have learned the ropes. I'm aiming at guys (or girls - shya right ) that have roleplayed very little or not at all in the past, and perhaps are familiar with the d20 system (because like it or hate it, that's where the majority of roleplayers start out - and most never leave). All the statistics are preserved - it's just "Hero with a face lift". But absolutely it's not for everyone, and if it is incompatible with other house rules you have then that's reason enough to stick to the current system.

Re: [Heresy] Do we need Killing Attacks? Yes, in theory that would work (you might need to tinker with Penetrating a bit, but that's a detail), and it does have a certain elegance to it. You have to be a bit careful, though - many of the "use an advantage" or "use an adder" ideas suffer from a flaw that Normal Attacks end up doing more BODY per Active Point than the advantaged "Killing Attack" does (simply because there are more dice being rolled). You can handwave this away for the supers genre, though (if it really bothers you that normal people aren't getting splattered efficiently enough by a 12DC Normal Attack With A Killing Advantage, then I'm not sure that 4-colour supers is really your game... ).

Re: Hero Magazines What about the Haymaker APAzine?

Re: KA Vs Energy Blast KA is a mechanic. To the average bystander, any attack that is capable of killing is a "killing attack". This is as true of a 12d6 Energy Blast as it is of a 2d6 RKA bullet. Both will reliably deliver potentially fatal damage to a normal target. Neither will do so to your average superhero. To assume a prejudice against how dice are rolled is silly (IMHO). You mention Wolverine - Cyclops' attack, though probably modelled as an Energy Blast, is at least as deadly as Logan's. You mention Punisher, but Spiderman is more than strong enough to kill as well. What Wolverine and Punisher have that Cyke and Spidey lack is the intent to kill; this is something that shows up mechanically as Reputation and Psychological Limitations, not KA or Energy Blast.

Re: [Heresy] Do we need Killing Attacks? Well, speaking solely for myself, I think there is a niche for a mechanic that separates SharpThings from BluntThings. I just don't happen to think KAs are a particularly good fit - but YMMV. I've no data or experience to evaluate them in a Hit Location context (I could run the numbers, but it wouldn't help me, and nobody else is asking me to ). The issue for me is that I don't think SharpThings should be inherently better than BluntThings - I just think they should be different. For the comic book reality I want, ideally I want SharpThings to do more BODY and BluntThings to do more STUN (not, IMHO, an unreasonable request, since if you ignore DEF and just look at the raw damage averages this is even what the RAW deliver - it's just that once you do factor DEF into the equation KAs sometimes become much better STUN delivery vehicles than NAs - and to me, that is undesirable and deserving of repair. YMMV).

Re: Skill System House Rules - Comments? Yeah, I know, it's not exactly differential calculus. But my experience is that even reasonably experienced players noticeably pause while they do this calculation, and with modifiers flying left and right (even if it's just combat skill levels) it has to be repeated fairly often. It's not that my players and I aren't capable of doing this, it's just that I've found the "always roll high" and "compare OCV + roll to DCV + 10" to be quicker for us to calculate on the fly - and some of that may be due to our D&D experience of comparing d20 + modifiers to an armour class. I'm not proud of it, but it's tough to avoid D&D completely.

Re: Skill System House Rules - Comments? Yeah, it's possible to do these calculations. But it's not as intuitive. Basically you can convert any X or less roll into a (21-X) or greater roll. So you get: +0 to roll: "Succeed by half" if your total is 17+ +1 to roll: "Succeed by half" if your total is 17+ +2 to roll: "Succeed by half" if your total is 18+ +3 to roll: "Succeed by half" if your total is 18+ ... +X to roll: "Succeed by half" if your total is 17+(X/2) or more I suppose it's not that hard, come to think of it. You could make up a simple table for the math-challenged; in many cases it should be possible for the GM to do this calculation for new players. Cheers! I must have had some sort of mental block there "Whoa, this is going to be too hard to convert".

Re: OK, I don't understand Continuous Interesting, but I'm not sure that solves my confusion. Assume I'm SPD 4: On phase 3 I Grab you. You take 1d6 KA from my Continuous Damage Shield. On phase 6, the previous instance of my Continuous Damage Shield is still running, so you take 1d6 KA from that plus another 1d6 KA from the fact that I'm still Grabbing you; on phase 9 you'll take 3d6, and so forth. Again, I don't think that is the way Damage Shield is supposed to be interpreted as working, but it's absolutely consistent with the way Continuous attacks work, and if I Grab you you don't escape via the No Range clause. Let's say "Detachable Man" has a Continuous Hand Attack defined as grabbing you round the throat with his hand and squeezing, and then releasing his hand so that he can move on and bash other people. Hand Attack is a no range power; does it continue to work because it's Continuous, or does it terminate the moment that Detachable Man moves out of range? Or is that just for Damage Shield? Seems to violate the intent of Damage Shield, does it not? Since the latter would be a minimum of +1 1/2 (including Continuous)? Oh, don't get me wrong - I think DS is way overpriced with the "clarification" that Continuous must be applied - but that's the current RAW, and as such I think building it with Trigger is a bit mechanically dubious.

Re: Skill System House Rules - Comments? Roll under, roll over, whatever works. I'm curious as to why you think my system is more complicated, though. Could you elaborate on that? My entire motivation is to simplify things, so if I've inadvertently made things more complicated I'd like to see where so I can fix it. Is it just a familiarity thing?

I used to think I knew what the Continuous advantage was. I've recently come to the conclusion that I don't, so perhaps some of you can help drum it into my thick skull. Here's what I used to think it did: it turned an Instant power into a Constant power. That's what 5ER pretty much says it does. All good, right? Whack it on an attack, and then all you have to do is feed END to it each phase (no further actions required). You can even smack the same person over and over again with (say) a Continuous Energy Blast, and make them feel the pain of several such attacks going off every one of your phases, at least until you run out of END. But I'm wrong, because if I were right: Continuous would be meaningless for Suppress and Succor. They're already Constant powers; how does one make them "more Constant"? I don't see why you can't already Suppress someone, Suppress them again, Suppress them a third time, and then keep paying END for all of them. Let's say I have a 2d6 Suppress STUN (nonrandom output for simplicity), Continuous and 4 SPD. Apparently this means if I fire it off on phase 3, then on Phase 3 you lose 6 STUN. On phase 6 I hit you with it again, and apparently it fires off again from last phase, so you're now losing 12 STUN from the first attack and another 6 from the second... the effect of Continuous appears to stack with Constant powers. Does this mean that I can stick Continuous on an already Continuous RKA? Let's say a 1d6 RKA (nonrandom again) with Continuous Continuous - does this do 3 BODY on Phase 3 and another 9 on Phase 6, assuming I fire it off both times? If not, why not? Why are Suppress and Succor allowed to do this but not other Constant powers? I don't understand. Damage Shield would now automatically keep affecting targets after they stop touching you. If I hit you with a 1d6 Continuous RKA, then you will take damage from it as long as you are within my LOS (and I keep spending END). So if I have a 1d6 RKA Continuous Damage Shield, then once you touch me all I have to do is keep you in my LOS. I very much doubt this is the way Damage Shield is supposed to work, but otherwise why require Continuous? Trigger is a very similar power to Damage Shield (were it not for the specific prohibition against "whenever I am touched" triggers, the former would be unnecessary), and yet Trigger doesn't need to be Continuous. I don't understand. I think my old friend Continuous is being recruited to play parts that he was never intended to play, and that his meaning has become obscured as a result. What am I missing?

Re: What does HERO Games have against >30 DEX, INT and EGO? Is it just me that finds it funny that Grond is arguing for higher INT?

Re: [Heresy] Do we need Killing Attacks? But that's a fair enough comment. Obviously everyone will defend their pet replacement, but the evidence for this position is easy to see in that not all of the "KAs are broken" crowd agree on a suitable replacement. Well I'd argue that unless and until a different version of KA appears in a published rulebook - ideally 6th edition - it's never going to be widely accepted. That's the nature of a house rule, is it not? But HAs were changed, Aid was changed, Multiform was changed, Duplication was changed... I wouldn't like to bet the farm that a hypothetical 6th edition wouldn't take a closer look at KAs and at least offer some variants if not completely change it. I wonder what odds Lloyd's would give me?

Re: What does HERO Games have against >30 DEX, INT and EGO? An example of where things can get out of hand: several years ago I got a copy of the first edition Mayfair DC Heroes game, and also a copy of some high powered adventure (Four Horsemen of Apokalips, I believe). The suggested DC heroes were the likes of Wonder Woman and Green Lantern (though not Supes); instead we created our own heroes on the suggested point range. One of my buddies basically spent 90% of his points on a Mind Blast attack. This was sufficient to utterly shred all of the villains, and there wasn't really much in the way of a disadvantage (because the way it worked out he also went first virtually all the time - I'm a bit hazy on the mechanics, it's been a long while) - and if he didn't go first, he was basically toast. A "one trick pony", in effect, unbalanced whichever way it works out (either totally dominant or totally useless). Now, granted this wasn't Hero, but this possibility certainly still exists in Hero. Someone could come to the table having spent 350 points on Strength, for example. That would give them 70 PD, 70 REC (enough to recover all the END from their SPD 2 use of STR), and a 70d6 attack. That's arguably even worse than my buddy's DC Hero example (because the latter had more weaknesses - this dude would be cake to any sort of energy attack, but very strong against physical attacks). This is an extreme example. But the difference between extreme examples and more reasonable examples is only degree, not kind. The limits have to be set somewhere; it's just that some people prefer setting them lower than others. There's room for both styles of play, methinks - I neither agree that large disparity in CV/DEF/Damage will necessarily destroy a game, nor that smaller disparities will turn all the heroes into virtual clones.

Re: Skill System House Rules - Comments? Yeah, kind of a yes and no there. Existing Hero players are used to the way the system currently works and I doubt anyone would see the point in what is essentially a cosmetic change. However, there has been some discussion that Hero is difficult to teach to new players, and while I do not by any means claim my idea is any sort of magic bullet, it does kind of piggy back on d20 as to the idea of "always roll high", so it might help a bit.

I've been tinkering with the skill system for my campaign. My desire to do so was (unfortunately) created through (most unfortunate) extended experience with the D&D system. Now, I'm not a fan of D&D in virtually any of its incarnations - I always preferred to play just about anything else (even Palladium systems!) But a roleplaying a bad system is still better than not roleplaying, and so I've played a lot of it over the years. Much as I am loathe to praise anything about it, I do think that 3rd edition was on a winner when they unified the mechanic. Always Roll High. Easy to remember, easy to teach new players. Hero doesn't have this; you generally want to roll low (except for damage, where you want to roll high). So here's what I've done in the name of "improvement" - tear it to pieces as you see fit. The basic idea is "lucky 13". For any skill roll, you want to get a total of 13 or better. It's easy to remember (13 being a common unlucky number for the superstitious), and by a coincidence rolling a 13 or more on 3d6 has the exact same probability of rolling an 8 or less - the old "familiarity" skill roll. For 1 point, you get a +0 skill. (Everyman skills that are familiarity already grant this, as per the normal rules). For 2 points for things like Knowledge Skills, Professional Skills, and so forth, you get a +3 skill. (Which works out to an 10 or more, or an 11 or less). Each additional +1 to the skill costs an extra point. Alternatively, you can pay 3 points and get a roll equal to 1 + CHA/5 (so with an INT of 13, 3 points gets you a +4 skill). For 3 points for most skills (or 2 points for skills like Forgery - I never noticed these exceptions until one of my players pointed it out) you get a roll equal to 1 + CHA/5 for the appropriate characteristic, and each extra +1 to the roll costs +2 points. (So if you have a DEX of 20, 3 points gives you a Combat Driving +5 skill). Penalties and bonuses to skill rolls (including those from levels, environmental concerns, or whatever) are applied directly to the roll, always with the goal of getting a result of 13 or more. All characteristic rolls are at 1+CHA/5 (a brick with STR 50 has a +11 on his STR characteristic roll). EXAMPLE CHARACTER FRAGMENT: STR 10 (+3) DEX 14 (+4) CON 20 (+5) BODY 10 (+3) INT 28 (+7) EGO 11 (+3) PRE 15 (+4) COM 5 (+2) Combat Piloting +5 (5 points), Oratory +4 (3 points), Stealth +4 (3 points), KS: Game Mechanics +7 (3 points, based on INT). COMBAT I've found that in traditional Hero combat there's always a bit of a dither working out what you need to hit. If the GM wants to conceal the DCV of the villains (some GMs care more about this than others) it gets a little bit fiddly. In this system, everyone has +10 to their DCV. Rolling to hit is a process of rolling 3d6 and adding your OCV (plus or minus whatever normal modifiers there are); if the total is equal to or greater than the target's DCV (+10, as stated), you hit, otherwise you miss. Statistically this is exactly the same chances as the RAW; I just find it works out a bit easier. GM can conceal the DCVs without any drama; just have the player call out his total and compare it secretly, informing them whether they hit or miss. BONUS COMBAT OPTION: I like to let my players roll for more things than normal. I find it's fun to switch things around: rather than me rolling to see if my villains hit the PC, I let the players roll to see if they avoid the villain's attack. To do this, I add 22 to the OCV of my villains, and the player rolls 3d6 and adds their DCV when they're attacked (plus or minus whatever normal modifiers there are, and note that this is their DCV + 10 as above). If the player rolls equal to or greater than the OCV of the villain (+22, as stated), then the villain missed. This is the same odds as normal - assume that the villain has a (normal) OCV of 8 and the PC has a (normal) DCV of 9. In the RAW the villain would hit if he rolled a 10 or less. With this option the player is rolling 3d6+19 and trying to score 30 or more; he'll succeed if the 3d6 roll is 11 or more, or in other words the same chance. FLAWS The main flaw with the system that I've identified is that it can't capture the "half roll" mechanic properly. At the moment I'm equating that with rolling a total of at least 18 (ie 5 more than you needed), but this is definitely a change rather than just a re-arrangement.

Re: KA Vs Energy Blast I was wondering the same thing (your post on KAs was spot on, and one that I've never seen before from "the other side" - good job!) Ah, but KAs don't kill - they only hurt - that's part of the problem. Enough resistant defence to ignore BODY? Trivial. Enough defences to ignore the STUN? Much harder. If KAs were just better at delivering BODY than NAs, then I'd have no problem with them whatsoever ("working as designed"). Every game is different, of course. Certainly if Spiderman got tagged by a gun he would be in serious danger, but I'd argue that's because of BODY rather than STUN (at least IMHO). I have tended to find that heroes with high DCV do better against such agents than heroes with high defences - in other words, the best defence against a killing attack seems to be not being hit (OK, that's always the best defence, but you take my point, I expect).

Re: What does HERO Games have against >30 DEX, INT and EGO? I have to say, that sounds like a cool game you have going there trebuchet and incrbil. (Sorry, I don't really have an opinion on the balance of it - too hard to evaluate in a vacuum, and from what I can gather it looks balanced enough anyway once you take the rest into account).

Re: KA Vs Energy Blast Sure - and the classically, the genre rates these as "no threat to a super". Doesn't it? Classically, superheroes are cautious around supervillains, and wade into mobs of gunmen knowing that there's no risk. YMMV - if you disagree with that, I can see where we have a disconnect (and for what it's worth this is not something even all of the "KAs are broken" group agree on - infinite diversity in infinite combinations, as Spock would say). I guess here's my basic point: if I want a villain to have a scarier attack than the heroes, I'll build it on more Active Points. I don't think I should be able to switch to an attack of the same Active Points but just use a different mechanic that is innately more dangerous. But that's just my opinion - for those who think KAs are fine in your games, good for you (they're just not in mine - I've all but given up using Killing Attacks for my agent level villains because they just dominate far more than they're supposed to - and it's not the type of game I'm trying to play).

Re: KA Vs Energy Blast Oh, I don't know. You're basically reducing damage to get either a bonus to hit or a chance to hit more than one person - don't get too hung up on the word "spread" - I can see that working with many non-beam attacks.

Re: KA Vs Energy Blast A 4d6 RKA against typical defences can be dangerous, but it's a crap shoot (as you point out). However, lower dice are more effective as KAs than NAs. For example: assume a DEF of 20 (some of which is resistant); a 6d6 normal attack averages 2.22 STUN while a 2d6 RKA averages 4.73 STUN (more than double). Make the defences "brick level" at 30 DEF and the NA drops to 1.09 average STUN while the KA drops to 4.22 - in other words, the bricks 50% greater defences barely mean anything at all. Switching to a KA is more effective than switching to Armour Piercing or Penetrating for a low DC attack (4d6 AP NA does 4.19 STUN to 10 DEF and 0.93 STUN to 15 DEF; about 4 STUN for 4d6 Pen regardless of DEF). A typical fight might be 4 agents per superhero (assuming no superpowered assistance on the villains side). Arm them all with 6d6 normal attacks and you really don't have to worry very much; arm them all with 2d6 RKAs and they can quite feasibly take out the slower moving so-called "bullet proof" targets.

Re: What does HERO Games have against >30 DEX, INT and EGO? Yeah, Mystic Masters applied that across the board, but then everyone in that setting is expected to have high EGO and MD. It's a tricky one - the All-Or-Nothing nature of mental powers means that the balance is hard to strike (to some extent the new Cumulative option can be used to get reasonable-AP effects if you're prepared to take a bit longer, though).

Re: What does HERO Games have against >30 DEX, INT and EGO?

Re: What does HERO Games have against >30 DEX, INT and EGO? I think what KarinsDad is saying, while possibly a little on the strong side, is not invalid. CV 11 vs CV 8: CV11 hits CV8 on a 14 or less, or 91% of the time. CV8 hits CV11 on an 8 or less, or 26% of the time. That works out that CV11 hits approximately 3.5 times as often as CV8 does. All else being equal*, that means that CV8 has to do about 3.5 times as much damage on average as CV11 does (whether that is achieved by more powerful attacks or DEF, or a mixture of the two, is up to the GM). You absolutely can set things up so that this differential exists, of course. *Yes, perhaps the CV8 character has more noncombat utility, can move faster, or whatever - there are a number of factors - but that doesn't make the comparison invalid, just harder.

Re: Continuing Thought in This Direction...