The Main Man

Re: Your PCs might be overpowered if... ...if they all bought Does BODY (+1) for their Presence.

Re: Your PCs might be Underpowered if... If the chick who did Tae Bo ten years ago is your martial artist.

Re: Your PCs might be Underpowered if... ...if the guy with a lighter is the energy projector - and no, he's not pyrokinetic.

Re: Your PCs might be Underpowered if... ...if the guy with a smartphone is the gadgeteer.

Re: Lucha Libre? I don't know if anyone realizes this, but a few Santo movies can be found on YouTube. Most of them are not translated though.

Re: Your PCs might be overpowered if... ...if The Doctor is your companion.

Re: Hero (and other generic systems), too flexible?

Can one double up (or more) on Powers or is it only for literal Equipment? Where is the line drawn, if any? I've always been unsure about what to make of the rule. Luckily it's never been a contentious issue in my games, but I'd like to get the record set straight once and for all. I think what set off my confusion this time was that I'm building characters from BotM into 6e, and the Type Theta Attack Craft uses the doubling rule for its Phasic Energy cannons, but Mechanon 3000 has a complete MP copy of its first that costs the same rather than use the doubling rule.

Re: Creating a "campaign doc" for players in a new/original campaign setting...feedba Well, what I do to organize my campaign primer, whether written or oral is the following: 1) HERO often describes characters with Background/History, Personality/Motivation, Powers/Tactics, Campaign Use, and Appearance. Those fields normally describe a single, specific character, but I find that they are equally useful for establishing the style and substance of your campaign by simple inversion. 2) In a similar vein, one may as well go into what kinds of Characteristics, Skills, Perks, Talents, Powers, Complications, and (if applicable) Equipment should be typical or expected of a campaign. 3) A thorough cross-sectioning of the first two usually produces a pretty understandable and cohesive whole for me. Prosaic narration usually makes it more palatable to players, at least where needed.

Re: Hero (and other generic systems), too flexible? Pick a genre with more limits than superheroes so that you can prebuild powers/equipment or find published ones. I would recommend something that your group is interested in but has found no "go-to" game for. If that works, maybe eventually create a campaign that is similar to a go-to game you already play. That could show how convenient HERO's versatility is.

Re: Complicate the Person Above Narratio's fans are currently split as to whether he jumped the shark in his sophomore year or if he's only gotten better since graduation.

Re: Genre-crossover nightmares Naked Weapon X

Re: Complicate the Person Above Death Tribble lives next door to Belgians.

Re: A Thread for Random Videos A Doctor Who fanvid. It's mildly funny but the real charm is how well the two impersonate the 9th and 10th Doctors. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=600AwyKlt5M

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles My mind has cooled off like after getting far in Missile Command or Asteroids, and the absence allowed this thread to sink in better instead of instantly responding like earlier. I now think that in-game adjustable caps may not break the percentile method after all. A character may be built to shift between fields as long as such adjustments reflect a zero sum e.g. they don't just gain DC's without losing something else, et cetera. This would require more scrutiny as far as I can see, but keep in mind that this method has not been implemented yet in any of my games. In any case, HERO always requires scrutiny IMO, but it's equally important to know your players. I also got to considering a few other ideas: 1. Expanded Effect may be another Power Advantage that "raises Damage Classes"; I'm wondering about including Delayed Return Rate as well. They're not as obvious as the others because they're meant for Adjustment Powers and Dispel, as opposed to Blast or HKA. 2. I may simplify the Damage Classes part to Base Damage Classes i.e. the raw dice you buy and a GM just has to eyeball the character's Advantages in general. 3. The same goes for Defenses - just the raw points, but no Advantages like Hardened or Resistant. The second two are more ponderous than concrete right now though. I still have to sit down and do the math.

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles OTOH, I still have a maximum AP limit. That +1 Autofire surcharge still costs points. Not every tool is right for a job. The 15d6 guy is good when his attack is needed, but 9d6 +6d6 guy was presumably designed to be able to shift to alternate attacks because he saved the points to be more flexible. That or, in your examples case, maybe he'd be poorly designed even if the game was set to 100%. 1) Because you must consider both at the same time. Again, why is it that a guy who divides his attacks only a phenomenon because of this proposed method? Are you implying that it could never happen if I just used straight Active Point limits? Might the "flexible character" example you gave actually have other slots to switch between, or are you setting up a divided character as a poor strawman? Straight up guy buys the attacks and defenses he wants, and that's all he ever has. Flexible guy can change to fit the situation. Evidently, Multipowers and VPPs aren't such a hot idea as this thread seems to imply. 2) It's a way to get player so consider niches. I guess it's not a method for people who don't like 'em. That's not to say that the converse is automatically true either - that it is for someone who likes niches, but for someone who likes niches, this may be a method to experiment with. That's why "rule of thumb" is a key phrase. I don't see how my Attack and Defense philosophies couldn't happen under completely laisseze-faire HERO rules. To imply that I concocted this method so that I could sit back and not have to look at my player's character proposals is a bold and false assertion.

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

Re: THE HERO SYSTEM GRIMOIRE: What Do *You* Want To See? I'll be brief by saying that I like KravenKor and JMoz's suggestions. Come to think of it, what about the "Science-Sorcery" from PAH? Will those become Cybermancy spells?

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles Yes indeed. But then, what of the plight of someone with not enough defense to fend off even a small increment? Or what about applying Penetrating? Really muddies the waters. "!" sign indeed.

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles No. If your maximum damage will be 15 DCs, then you must allocate for that. It doesn't matter how you get there. If your maximum DEF AP are at 75, then they must allocate for that, it doesn't matter how you get there. It's all done at character creation. If you allocated to 50 max DEF AP, it will never reallocate to 75 AP during gameplay, because your character was designed to reflect that limit at best. If you allocated to have 15 DCs, then you'll never reallocate to 10 or whatever because your character was designed to reflect being capable of using 15 DCs. A character with a static max attack and defense only has an arguable edge against the flexible/compartmentalized character because he deserves it - he paid more for it. The more flexible character can shift what he has in the first place though, and he probably has more utility in any given situation- that's his reward for saving points and being built the way he is. It would be the same predicament in a straight Active Point limit system though. I fail to see how this is a unique predicament to the proposed method.

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles Let's say in a 100 AP, 75% game, I shifted away 20 AP to make my limit 55 AP (to account for base 2 PD and 2 ED). I then make a Multipower, 51 point Reserve with the following Variable slots: 1) +51 PD 2) +51 ED 3) 51 MD 4) 51 PowD I could activate any combination of 51 AP of those slots at a given time. That's okay because inactive slots/AP do not effectively violate the 55 AP limit because only 55 total AP is ever active at any given point. If I'm shifted to +26 ED, 25 MD, I'm okay because I only have 2 PD and 0 PowD momentarily active. What would be a violation is if the MP was 75 and I shifted to +25 PD, +25 ED, and 25 PowD, because that's 79 AP of active defenses even though I allocated to have a limit of 50.

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles And that's where I think that reallocation shines. Furthermore, that's a big reason why I've pooled Defense powers for years, even before I concocted this. Sure, your Mentalist can't take a punch as well as the Brick, but when Menton comes to town, he's left standing.

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles