Utech

Re: Create a Hero Theme Team! We've all been there, right? You're young, ambitious, and fresh out of school. You don't just dream about making a difference, you're sure that you will. There's no chance you'll waste your life. So you set your sights on the biggest, best organization you can find. You buy the suit. You get the haircut. You polish that resume and go through the interview process and wait for the call. And the call comes and you celebrate with your friends. Your first day of work you arrive early. You meet your boss. And you're told that all the really exciting work is being handled by a bunch of old farts; not because they're smarter or better or more intelligent than you, but because of seniority. You bridle, but you set your shoulders and play the game. You tell yourself that if you take on some tough assignments and really shine, you'll rise all that much faster. You'll get to that position of real power before your youthful energy, vision, and integrity have been worn away. Oh yes. Yes, you will. So you volunteer for the worst of the worst and they give it to you. And you set to. That's what The Intern did for the Galactic Council of Civilizations. He took on the incredibly difficult assignment of hauling a bunch of backwater barbarians into the enlightened present. He came to Earth to improve it. The locals think of him as a hero and that's fine with The Intern. He wants them optimistic and inspired. The quicker they make changes for the better, the quicker he hauls ass off this rock and climbs the GCC ladder. Six-limbed, orange-skinned, with a mouth set between his four eyes and nostrils atop his bald head, there's no way the Intern can pass for human. He uses advanced technologies to help him fight ignorance, barbarity, and villainy on Earth -- though not technology so advanced it could threaten the planet should it fall into the wrong hands. Nearly all of his equipment uses "stasis technology" to protect the Intern and stop opponents in their tracks.

Re: DC Guidelines versus DEF Guidelines Horses for courses. The guidelines support a game in which it is a good idea for most characters to avoid being hit. One of the great things about HERO is that you can fiddle with the numbers just a little and vastly change the sort of gaming experience you and your players enjoy. Up average DCs without changing the average DEF and you get a game where Dodging, Blocking, Diving for Cover, using the environment, surprise attacks, striking first, and working together are essential to success. Fate is unkind, so players need to get creative and have a healthy respect for their opponents. Up average DEF without changing the average DCs and you get a game of counter-punching and toe-to-toe slugfests are more the norm. A surprise attack probably won't end your character, so players are less paranoid and more apt to plunge into adventure. There's more to it than that, of course. But working out the numbers so they fit your play style is essential. And not really all that hard. It's not my thing, but I wonder if anyone is interested in crunching numbers for different ratios and correlate that information with how it impacts gameplay?

Re: Create a Hero Theme Team! Apex takes on the abilities of the nearest, most powerful apex predator whether he wishes to or no. Taking on those abilities nearly always leads to obvious physical changes. Fortunately for him, he never takes on aspects that are more limiting than his natural human form. Example abilities Black Mamba: While in Kenya, Apex found himself with a cobra-like neck flap, black mouth, sinuous torso, and fangs filled with one of the deadliest neurotoxins known. Cheetah: On a mission to Iran, Apex grew a tail, semi-retractable claws, enlarged heart and lungs, and could accelerate from 0 to 60 faster than a sports car. Komodo Dragon: A jaunt to Komodo Island led to Apex growing a very long tail, a mouthful of serrated teeth, a mouthful of nasty bacteria, and a long, forked tongue. Wolverine: A trip to Canada isn't just about maple syrup for Apex. Nope, he also enjoys powerful jaws, sharp claws, waterproof fur, and special molars that allow him to eat food that has frozen solid.

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team! Lynn Lofthaven was an aspiring actress for years. Starting in her pre-pubescent "cute as a button" years, moving on to her "teen angel" years, throughout her "hottie" years, and... It's not that Lynn never worked as an actress. She did. She worked all the time. But she never got a starring role. She never got the attention of the press. She was a bridesmaid, an also-ran, a cog in the great Hollywood machine. She wanted more. More! And her youth -- her best years -- had slipped away. And then she met him. And he explained what he could do for her. And the price. And she paid it gladly. Lynn Lofthaven disappeared that night. Her body never found. A new, young, talented, beautiful actress hit the town that night. An actress who seems to get all the breaks. All the success. She has the world at her feet. Oh how many of the nation's young girls jealously dream of being Incarnadine? It's a dream come true, all right. A dream that sometimes turns into a nightmare. When he comes a-callin' and tells her it's time for a payment. A payment that must be made in blood and souls. A payment that cannot be delayed. So Incarnadine makes sure she has plenty of both set aside. She's beautiful. She's charming. She's talented. She's successful. And she's literally Hell on Earth with a knife.

Re: Create a Hero Theme Team! She goes by the simple moniker i. What does it stand for? Perhaps 20-year-old Vera Ivanovna will explain it one day. Not today. Only one other person would have understood; her mentor, friend, guide, teacher, disciplinarian, and vision of perfection: Psyonica. But Psyonica is dead. Psyonica taught i all there was to know about being psionic. How to move things with your mind. How to place images in the minds of others. How to search a city of millions without leaving your armchair and plucking out that one mind you sought. Psyonica taught i about reading the minds of others and how to control them -- and taught that it was wrong to do so. i listened. i learned. i did as she was told. And i is convinced that these self-imposed limitations led to Psyonica's death. If only her mentor had been willing to peer inside the skull of that man! If only she'd been willing to force him to turn that gun around and put the bullet where it really belonged... But Psyonica did not do those things. So Psyonica died. i will not make that mistake. Though i idolizes her former mentor, she believes the world has changed and i must change with it. Some might say that i is overcompensating. They'd say that because the first thing i does when she meets someone is to rummage about in their thoughts, memories, fears, and desires. They'd say that because i doesn't hesitate for an instant to force others to obey her will. Some call it excessive. Some call it "mind rape". i calls it heroism. And she's convinced that everyone else will, too. Someday.

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team! Andy of the Andes is the Continental Conquerors' South American member. Real name unknown, this young man speaks Mayan, Portuguese, and Spanish, but (even with three languages!) hasn't told the press who he is. So they gave him a name: Andy. Andy has two sizes. He can be 1 meter 72 centimeters tall or 6,692 meters 72 centimeters tall. That's 72 centimeters taller than the highest peak (Aconcagua) in the Andes chain! Along with that size, Andy gains tremendous strength. The Earth shakes when he walks. And he's basically impossible to miss. He can't sneak around. He can't hide. He can't possibly avoid being shot with guns, missiles, and what-have-you of every description. He has managed to hold off armies for as long as a day, but in the end he gets tired, they get lucky, and . . . THUD. He's down. And then he shrinks down to normal human size again.

Re: Question about keeping equipment balanced in heroic campaigns? Keep in mind that if you start out with the wrong amount of equipment, you can easily adjust things. Access to equipment can be limited or expanded by economic or political forces and changes in availability of resources. It can also be an interesting plot point to have the characters work to break up a blockade, negotiate trade agreements, discover a vast stash of unobtainium, learn that their power packs have been tampered with, or what-have-you. (How many times have Star Trek folk had to find more dilithium crystals?)

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team! Mild mannered Penny Parker will never forget that day in the laboratory when a radioactive spider bit her and imbued her with the ability to spin webs as well as strength and agility proportionate to that of the arachnid. Proportionate, that is to say, with what one might expect from a woman-sized spider. But that darn creepy crawly did more than give Penny great power, it gave her the spider's size. Finding herself a mere five inches tall, Penny Parker was in despair. When her Uncle Ben tried to lecture her about great power and great responsibility, she spat back "What comes with wee stature?" Taken aback, Uncle Ben and Aunt May had no response. Penny ran away and joined the Little Folk as Woman Spider! She sure isn't going to wrap up heroes in her webbing (not without a good hour or two to work), but she's a heck of a lot stronger than most people expect out of such a tiny person and she's next to impossible to spot.

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team! Kitty-chan appears to be Hello Kitty. While that is enough to cause many mere mortals to run away (and many others to rush forward for her autograph), there are actually a few heroes willing to face her inimitable cuteness. When this happens, Kitty-chan is able to instantly switch places with any Hello Kitty product in the city. Kitty-chan escapes and the heroes are left holding one of over 12,000 Hello Kitty products. (dolls, bags, shirts, pencils, erasers, cars, credit cards, condoms...)

Re: Create a Hero Theme Team! Ace in the Hole is strong and fast and pretty durable. All those good superheroy things. But he's really not all that powerful. Until things get bleak. The longer the odds, the more accurate Ace becomes. Whether with his fists, a gun, or a thrown peach pit, Ace's aim improves until it's all a matter of "He's only a block away. Which eye should I shoot through?"

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team! Is there anything more embarrassing than being kicked out of a team named for you? Nicola Tesla would say "No." In one of the Tesla Rangers strangest and (strangely) most successful capers, the team of super villains located the body of Nicola Tesla, spirited it away to a lab, and had it reanimated. The skeleton of Nicola Tesla sprung to life very confused and horrified by his own appearance. He made an effort to try to fit in. He tried to use his intellect to help the people who brought him back to life. He tried to rob banks. But he wasn't very good at it. He's not an immensely strong animated skeleton or anything, you know. Just an animated skeleton. So the Tesla Rangers kicked him out. And his heart wasn't in it. Or, more to the point, he had no heart to put into it. Tesla became more and more depressed with his skeletal condition. In despair, he tried to take his own un-life only to find that he could not. His depression grew until he decided the only way out was to get someone really powerful to kill him. He has joined the Vengeance League hoping to go up against really powerful heroes. When he finds one with a really powerful attack, Tesla walks right into it. So far, no go.

Re: How Much XP to Award? As to spending XP, you might want to use things like Activation Rolls to simulate a Power slowly growing or a new power developing. Start by spending a little XP and take Activation 8-. Spend additional XP improving the Activation roll until the Activation roll is entirely gone. This method often both "feels" better than just suddenly developing a new power or having an old power suddenly take a quantum leap forward and makes it very clear how you want your character to progress.

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team! Do-Over was known as Recapitulation when he was a member of the Counter Measures. He is a powerful mutant able to repeat whatever actions were just performed in his presence -- though able to select a different target if he so wishes. Unfortunately, he found himself unable to stop repeating whatever actions were just performed in his presence. His compulsion to repeat everything said in his presence got him kicked out of Counter Measures. After six months of zen meditation and inaction in the hills outside of Kamakura, Do-Over is ready for action once more! Do-Over has a large VPP but is limited to using it only to repeat actions performed in his presence since his last Phase. His power allows him to copy any Power with any special effect. If someone shoots a gun at him, he can "shoot a gun" back at them without needing a gun. At GM's option, Do-Over never rolls to hit. Rather, if the attack he is repeating hit, he hits automatically. Naturally, Do-Over is most powerful when working with supers. Edit: Actually, I'd advise any GMs who might want to run this sort of villain to forget about statting him out and go with heavy doses of handwavium.

Re: 6E Bastard Sword If you're feeling really experimental, you could build the bastard sword using a Multipower. Slot 1: damage for sword used one-handed (useful if you've got a shield or are riding a horse) Slot 2: damage for sword used two-handed Slot 3: damage for sword used with the half-sword technique (shorter reach, better control) Slot 4: damage for pommel strikes etc. You could even make training rules such that an untrained person can only use the first two slots of the multipower. Additional slots are added as a result of training.

Re: How Much XP to Award? There really is no hard and fast rule on how much XP to give players or how often to give it. Some games are a single tight story arc in which no experience is awarded at all. Some games are all about the players slowly growing into their powers over the course of a month or so of game time. This might be played out over the course of a year. XP awards might be 2-4 per session. Meeting once a week for a year, that means characters will have 100-200 more character points at the end of that six months of game time -- a dramatic, but perhaps not impossible, situation. Some games are about short adventures with significant down time (or some other plot device such as traveling to a new dimension) in between. This could go on forever. XP might not be awarded after each session, but rather awarded in chunks at the conclusion of each adventure. The down time between adventures is great for training, studying, experimenting, resolving legal problems, etc. Whatever you decide be sure that you have player buy-in. So long as everyone is on the same page you'll be fine.

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team! Helix likes life. He likes things to be alive. And stay alive. He likes new things to be alive and stay alive. Helix maintains an impressive library of DNA samples from living things around the world. He's even managed to get hold of DNA samples of things long dead. His machines can construct DNA sequences one base pair at a time -- or speed things up with "pre-fab" chunks -- in order to create new life forms. He started with viruses and bacteria, but has gone on to build much larger and more complex life forms. Helix expends a great deal of energy and money nudging along the efforts of scientists working along similar lines. He removes threats to that research. And he insists on having samples of every new tool or life form created. Sometimes he can insist quite . . . strenuously.

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team! Air Time had the sort of origin story all energy projectors talk about. Laboratory accident, radiation, yadda yadda yadda. Sure enough, when she recovered consciousness she found she could fly. Awesome! She'd no longer be mild-mannered Milly, the school newspaper photographer. Uh uh. Now she'd zip through the air and blast people with her... Damn! Poor Milly found that she didn't project blasts of pure energy. Nope. Instead, she projects whatever she sees and hears. She transmits her senses to everyone within several miles. Only with great concentration can she stop her transmissions -- and then only for a short time. She has no offensive powers whatsoever. But (there's always a "but" with Milly) she has recently discovered that she projects strong physical sensations to anyone within a few meters. Hit her and all the pain she feels will soon belong to you and everyone in the immediate area. Of course pain is not the only strong physical sensation Milly is capable of feeling... (I'm not sure how many of these there were supposed to be, but I swore off starting another villain group for a while. So if it is time, someone else please go ahead. Thanks!)

Re: Mundane Item Buildng: Rope

Re: Random Thought: Splitting Speed Interesting thoughts all. Thank you! Something no one has addressed directly: Would it help some character concepts to buy these Speeds differently? Might some characters be better modeled with a higher Attack Speed than Defense Speed (or vice-versa)?

Just took a shower and had a random HERO thought pop into my head. Would it be at all desirable to split Speed into two parts: Attack Speed Defense Speed Each would cost half of what Speed costs now. On one of your Attack Speed phases, you could perform any attack action. On one of your Defense Speed phases, you could perform any defensive action. Taking an attack action ends the benefits of any defensive action. Movement could be either an attack action or a defensive action. Or you could split Speed into three parts: Attack Speed Defense Speed Movement Speed That's as far as I got. I have no idea if there would be any value in this, but I figured I'd throw it out there to the HERO community and see if anybody can make anything of it. A note: I'm well aware that you can already do this with the RAW.

Re: Mundane Item Buildng: Rope I am serious. I once put together an automaton to model handcuffs and it was an interesting exercise. Look at it this way, any rope is a very simple mechanical device not unlike a very simple zombie. It is capable of "understanding" only a few simple commands that must be "spoken" with an appropriate Skill roll. It can perform the Grab maneuver very well and clearly has 0 END cost on it's Strength. It has no ability to move, but can be easily picked up and moved by someone else. It obeys anyone who can make the appropriate Skill roll (Knots, Lasso, etc). It takes no STUN damage from attacks and cannot be Stunned, but it definitely has a BODY score and can be "killed". Give your rope automaton: 0 STR + 20 STR only for Grabs or when used as a Whip, 0 END 0 DEX 0 CON 6 BODY 1 INT in order to understand the simple command, "Hold this." 0 PRE 0 COM 4 PD 3 ED 1 SPD 0 REC 0 END 0 STUN 0 Running 0 Swimming Sell off all senses Add Stretching for as long as the rope needs to be. Add Does Not Bleed, No Hit Locations, and Takes No STUN (only takes BODY) If you wish, add a Vulnerability to Fire and a Vulnerability to AOE attacks such that AOE attacks that cause BODY result in the loss of 10 STR If you wish, add REC that only functions to heal BODY when a "rope doctor" succeeds with an appropriate Skill Roll. All this will end up costing very little. I think it's entirely reasonable for the GM to insist on bumping up the final cost to something like 10 points.

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team! The Doctor is Tesla Rangers' brain. Funny thing: he's not all that smart. What he lacks in smarts, however, the good Doctor more than makes up for in connections. For reasons unknown (and perhaps unknowable), the Doctor's brain is connected with every patent office in the world. Whenever a patent application is taken out, the Doctor becomes aware of the application. Whenever a patent is pending, the Doctor has a good understanding of the general outline of the creation or process. And whenever a patent is granted, the Doctor instantly knows everything there is to know about that creation or process. As the good Doctor likes to say, "I am not an intellectual giant. I stand on the brains of giants."

Re: Cutting the Drama Out of Character Creation I think it's great if you and your players enjoy having the real threat of PC death hanging over the table. Very dramatic. In order to speed up character creation, I suggest that you create more than one character at a time. Give your players three or four character sheets and build that many characters all at once. You'll probably find that you can build three or four characters simultaneously in just a little more time than it takes to build one. As your players look over the different possible Characteristics levels, Skills, Powers, etc., they'll find that they don't have to pick one or the other -- they just assign one thing they want to one character and another thing they want to another character. After you have three or four characters in the bag, pick one to start with and play until he pops off. Then you just whip out the next character in your stack and you're good to go.

Re: Mundane Item Buildng: Rope Try building it as an automaton.

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team! Phi was a martial artist before his transformation and he's a martial artist today. That aside, he's a wholly changed man. While he once practiced unarmed, circle-style martial arts and sought always to find an indirect, "soft" solution to any problem that came before him, now . . . well, he's different. Phi is obsessed with the Golden Ratio in all its forms (the Golden Mean, Golden Section, Golden Proportion, Golden Cut, etc.) Now employing a heavy sword, Phi approaches problems and opponents as opportunities to find that perfect cut. In combat he will often fight defensively while he takes in the measure of the opposition, then step forward and with a single aesthetically perfect slash solve the equation. From time to time, Phi comes across a piece of architecture, a person's body, a piece of music, or something out of nature that appears ruled by the Golden Ratio. He steadfastly refuses to mar that perfection regardless of the consequences. I believe that is six. I'll start one more team and then try to stay out of the team-starting business for a while. The Chemists are a group of five super-thieves known for their extraordinary planning and measured execution. They practice carefully and take every safety precaution they can think of. Once one of their plans is in action, though, things can get noisy, or messy, or explody... Each member of the Chemists specializes in a different sort of chemical, chemical interaction, or theory of chemistry.