Ockham's Spoon

Re: Holding 'em Back How about just throwing a modifier on your Suppress STR power "only vs. exerted STR (±0)". Is the extra END the victim will use for STR really so great as to require something beyond a SFX call? If it is, make it a +¼ Advantage. At the +¼ level it would be cheaper than buying a Suppress vs. STR and END (at +½), but the END wouldn't be affected as much either, so the Advantage level would be about right. ___________________________________________________________ "Why follow me to higher ground, lost as you swear I am?" - Ed Roland

Re: Yet Another Alternate SPD Rules Thread I feel your pain about the second-by-second granularity of combat. Before I comment on your alternate SPD rules, let me offer a couple of ideas to ameliorate your problems with the SPD chart concept. First, if you ever watch people in a sparring match, they do not attack constantly. You throw a few punches and then pull back, evaluate your opponent, catch your breath, etc. The "choppy" way the SPD chart works kind of reflects that. Second, if you do not like the way time passes in combat, ignore it. Don't make each Segment=1 second. Just use the chart as a guideline for how fast people get to go relative to each other. If you need exact times, then just use GM fiat to make things happen at the most dramatic moment. This is my personal tactic, if for no other reason that most HERO combats last less than half a minute strictly by the rules, which does not lend itself well to dramatic storytelling. As for your proposal, first let me address REC. I would give everybody a total recovery, TOTREC=(REC+1)xSPD, where the +1 reflects post-12 recovery. You can take up to your REC score each phase you want to, but not exceeding your TOTREC score per turn. I don't think that the END is going to police this system well enough to keep people from going every segment. It will just encourage them to buy lots of END (which is pretty cheap), or use large END Reserves or lots of Charges. Throw a few penalty levels on top of that and you can make a low SPD thug really dangerous. I think this system will also change the dynamic of combat, for better or worse. People will tend to pack their actions into the front of the turn and then use their last action to Dodge so their DCV is high until the end of the turn. This will hurt high SPD characters the most obviously, and maybe that is a good thing for balance, but they did spend a lot of points to be fast so they shouldn't be penalized too much. Finally, I like the idea of divorcing movement from SPD Maybe your acceleration should be based on SPD for the sake of convenience, but otherwise doing it by the turn gives movement a much smoother aspect. Build movement analogous to the falling rules, which go by Segment already. Nice ideas though. ________________________________________________________ "Why follow me to higher ground, lost as you swear I am?" - Ed Roland

Re: Help me name a team Okay I will throw out a few, but they are not as good as either Darwin's Children or HELIX Mankynd (as distinguished from Mankind) Nucleors (both as a reference to the cell's nucleous and nuclear radiation) Chromosapiens (with chromosomes beyond regular homo sapiens) ___________________________________________________________ "Trumpy, you can do magic things!" "Its called evil kid." - From MST cover of "Pod People"

Re: New Player freaks the heck out of me. As a recovered power junkie myself, let me say from experience that you cannot let this character be played. If nothing else, he will either outshine the other players entirely, or if you enforce the limitations, he will be worthless. In either case he will not be on equal footing with the other characters and this will seriously degrade the enjoyment of the game. You need to tell the player that limitations should not be used for the sake of saving points, tempting though that is. The real purpose of limitations should be to help define the power (e.g. a Telekinesis with a magnetic special effect would only work vs. ferrous metal - you take the limitation because you need it to make the power work as you have envisioned it). The only exception you should generally allow for is powers that are brand new which might be bought with Extra END or Activation or something to reflect that the character is not competent with them yet. This allows the player to get a power and develop it later so they do not have to save up a huge chunk of experience. If the player tells you he needs the limitations to be able to purchase everything his character is supposed to be able to do, then you need to tell him to redefine his concept so that he can build it on the points you have allowed for. If he cannot make this concept work on that many points, he may have to come up with a new character. Sure that would be a bummer initially, but in the end everyone will be happier for it. ___________________________________________________________ "Some people spread joy wherever they go. Others, whenever they go." - Oscar Wilde

Re: The Godfather and sticky wood Okay, I definitely need to get the UMA. I have its predecessor, Ninja Hero, which I always thought was a pretty good compilation on the genre, but I see there is more. So much more. Thanks for the input. ____________________________________________________________ "Uh, Joel, what is Ator sitting on?" - Crow from "Cave Dwellers"

Re: Entangle that costs end to maintain?

Re: Snap Shot Teleport Yeah, only 1" T-port for a Snap Shot. T-port is potentially abusive enough as is. If you want for a character to be able to do this at a longer range (with GM permission of course) you should buy an T-port Triggered to go off one Segment after you fire an attack. __________________________________________________________ "Trumpy, you can do magic things!" "Its called evil kid." - from MST's cover of "Pod People"

Re: The Godfather and sticky wood

Remember the scene in The Godfather where Don Corleone's loyal muscle Luca Brasi gets killed? One rival mafia thug pins his hand to the bar with a knife while a second comes up from behind and strangles him. So I am thinking, how would you build an attack in HERO where the goal was pinning someone like that with a knife or stake or something? (For a villain obviously; I think there was also a version of this in the movie Johnny Mnemomic) It seems to me that the critical factor is getting the knife to stick into the wood (or other substance). Which brings me to another common cinema occurance: the hero dodges the villain's sword blow and the sword ends up stuck in a wooden railing or something just long enough for the hero to regain his own weapon or balance or at least make a snappy remark. So I put it to you, how would you (or have you) modelled a weapon getting embedded in something, whether intentional or not? How hard is it to get back out? And how much would it hurt if you did? ___________________________________________________________ "Uh, Joel, what is Ator sitting on?" - Crow from "Cave Dwellers"

Re: Entangle that costs end to maintain? I have to go with Kenn on this one, what you really want is AoE Telekinesis. You could try a Suppress vs. STR and Movement, but really the TK is more elegant. _____________________________________________________________ "Ow! Looks like she missed the pool folks. That will affect her score." - Tom Servo

Re: Choke holds & silence attacks (build help) Thia, I think you are looking at this backwards. The spell caster took the limitation Incantations, so any reasonable way to make him stop talking should work. It is part of the limitation. You don't need a special attack because the burden should be on the caster not the one trying to stop him. If you want to put a mechanic to it, say the speech is impaired for a number of PHA equal to the BDY done to the neck/throat (this would mirror a Flash attack point-wise). If you have a martial art attack that targets the throat specifically, all the better. Just my two cents.

Re: Personal Immunity: How to... Okay, upon reflection you are right; the charms are really a separate ability and should be bought as such. If they are only going to work on my own power, then they will be pretty cheap and worth sinking a few points into for the sake of the team. And it may even be cheaper than putting the +½ advantage of Selective on the Change Environment power too. Good call. ______________________________________________________ "Some people spread joy wherever they go. Others, whenever they go." - Oscar Wilde

Re: Move Throughs I would agree that in general it depends on the SFX as to whether it is armor piercing or not, but I would base it on the active points not on the actual dice. So 12d6 AP = 90 Active points = 18d6 normal, so I would roll 9d6 and have him take that if it isn't going to be AP. I have a player with a HKA who does move throughs all the time, and it would be silly to make her take killing damage, so I just convert it to normal damage of the same active points and then halve it for the manuever. Seems to work out okay, or at least I have never had any complaints. ____________________________________________________________ "Why follow me to higher ground, lost as you swear I am?" - Ed Roland

Re: Another character idea, I need help for. Well if someone is going to take a name that is an anagram of sinner, then my guess is that he perceives himself as one. So you could have a hero that is atoning for past crimes, or you could have someone who knows what he does is evil but for whatever reason cannot stop. The former case could be part of lots of backgrounds; the vigilante who accidentally kills the wrong guy and so takes on a Code vs. Killing for instance. For the latter, you might have something like a psychic vampire that must feed off of other people's life energy or die himself. If you want to go with the demon motif, you might make him the half-human offspring of a demon that is constantly trying to reign in his evil impulses, but only sometimes succeeding. _____________________________________________________________ "Trumpy, you can do magic things!" "Its called evil kid." from the Pod People

Re: OK, so what makes an interesting villain? I would generally agree with the above posts. Having some sense of moral purpose, twisted though it may be, makes for great villains. They might range from religious zealots to self-styled heroes that believe the end justifies the means. They can be especially fun to have around when some of their moral code lines up with that of the players so that they find themselves teaming up from time to time. I would add another type of villain, which is one that is untouchable. The heroes know the guy is scum, but until they have hard evidence they can't just go beat him senseless because as far as the law is concerned he hasn't done anything wrong. This is especially appropriate for mentalists and masters of stealth who may or may not be a combat monsters, but can still be a real challenge for the players.

Re: How do I build: Caltrops Exactly. Of course the Hulk does not need the DEX roll because he is too tough to be affected, so he goes through at full speed, stepping on the caltrops as he goes but not being hurt because the damage is too small. But if Tarzan is running through the caltrops, he can either go through at full speed and have a the Activation 14- chance stepping on one and being injured, or he can take a half PHA to make a DEX vs. Activation roll to try avoid them. But if he takes a half PHA for the DEX roll, he can only make a half move so he isn't at full speed anymore. _________________________________________________________ "Looks like he stepped in some Trumpy dumpy." - Tom Servo from the Pod People

Re: Chinese Zodiac Team I very much like Odd Hat's suggestion to match their Kung Fu styles to their patron animals for those that have it (snake, tiger, dragon, and monkey). You might give the Rooster the Crane style since they are both birds. In c*ck fights, roosters have spikes on their feet, so you might use foot blades as well (add in superleap or flight so he can always attack from above and get free high shots). I like Levi's suggestion that the ox (or maybe boar) practice sumo. The boar should definitely have a Root manuever The Ram should have a manuever with velocity damage that can be used at the end of a move (some martial arts style move through). And don't forget that rabbits have "sharp pointy teeth!" _____________________________________________________ "That rabbit is dynamite!" - Lancelot

Re: How do I build: Caltrops How about skipping the Change Environment, etc. and just change the Activation limitation on the killing attack? Do it like a skill vs. skill roll where the caltrop "skill roll" is the 14- Activation and the character skill roll is a DEX roll (this should be worth a bigger limitation, say -1 instead of -½). But the character can only make a DEX roll as a half PHA action here, so he can only effectively go at half speed while trying to avoid the caltrops. If he has enough armor he doesn't care, he can go through at full speed. This way high DEX people have an easier time avoiding the caltrops as well, which makes sense. _________________________________________________________ "Uh, Joel, what is Ator sitting on?" - Crow T. Robot comments on "Cave Dwellers"

Re: How do I create the following? Yeah, pretty much what Rapier said on both counts. I would only add that if there is only one character in a group that has use of the Pods, then I might make him pay some token amount of points for it even though it is mostly a plot device. Maybe a 5pt perk or something. ________________________________________________________ "Clothes make the man. Naked people have little influence on society." - Mark Twain

Re: Personal Immunity: How to... The Selective advantage is definitely the way to go. But this raises another issue in my mind. Say I have a "Zone of Night" Change Environment power that essentially makes it normal darkness and gives everyone -4 visual PER. Okay, now I make it Selective, because it doesn't affect my buddies who have the magic charm I have given them. Now say I have a "Zone of Onions" CE where the effect is the same, but the SFX is that the PER penalty is from watering, tearing eyes, not darkness. Again, me and my pals are not affected because it is Selective and we have our lucky charms. Now what if there is somebody outside the area of affect for the CE who is trying to spot someone in the field (like a sniper trying to off me so the CE ceases). Logically, for the Zone of Night, he should have PER penalties to spot me, but not for the Zone of Onions. So is this just a question of SFX? Is is reasonable to say that the Zone of Night can affect people trying to see into it even though they don't have the magic charm? Did I just try to hijack this thread? Sorry. Any thoughts? ____________________________________________________________ "Some people spread happiness wherever they go. Others, whenever they go." - Oscar Wilde

Re: How would you create this power? I think that the TK approach is great for most cases with simple machines. It can even be fairly cheap, depending on how much STR you want (sure you can drive the car remotely, but you might need extra STR if someone else is trying to drive it at the same time). It is best for simple machines where you are essentially operating them from range. The problem is that the TK is way too powerful for its points when you try to control someone's power armor or killer robot. Sure the SFX is the same, but from a balance standpoint a 30 point power should not allow you to seize control of Mechassassin and have him do your bidding. Mind control seems like the obvious solution, but you aren't really controlling Mechassassin, you are controlling his armor. You could buy up the STR of your TK to force the issue, depending on the SFX of your cyberkinesis, but that leads to other problems (like logically you should have a STR vs. STR roll against Mechassassin's normal STR, not his power suit STR, but in game terms you have not taken his focus away yet so he should still get to use it). For me the best solution is (don't hate me) a Transform (object into animate object under character's control, must spend END to maintain). Bigger objects should be harder to manipulate, so it fundamentally works with the SFX. It also maintains game balance, because if you could just as easily Transform Mechassassin himself in to a loyal slave. Granted you kind of assume that Mechassassin's armor has the same BDY he does, but that strikes me a reasonable. _____________________________________________________________ "Clothes make the man. Naked people have very little influence on society." - Mark Twain

Re: Modeling, er, "sexual prowess" I have to go with the psychological camp here. The most important sex organ is the brain after all. Besides which most RPG characters are above average physically already. In games I have played, if the character has the personality that would be suitable for a great lover, then they probably are. If they are a hopeless dweeb, then probably not (although maybe with the right person...). Those things are sometimes fun to ham up, but at least in my campaigns the scene always fades to black before anything past the first kiss. Spending points on such a thing to my thinking is wasteful and/or sophmoric. So why bother unless your background profession (as in the excellent write-ups of the harem girl and fembot) calls for it? ________________________________________________________ "The fiction in her family was that she was never nice. I'd say she was very, I just did not see the price." - S. Vega

Re: Vulnerability questions

Re: Vulnerability questions Granted I haven't really looked hard at the text for Vuln since 3rd edition, but at that point the rule was IIRC that you got points based on the frequency of the given attack multiplied by the level of Vuln. For instance, Vuln x3 to an uncommon attack would be (10pts)x3 = 30. or Vulnx4 to a rare attack would be (5pts)x4 = 20 or Vulnx5 to a common attack would be, well, just stupid. I have never used Vuln beyond x2 for anyone but NPCs, and in those cases it was almost always kind of a plot point. I don't think I would allow a PC to go past x2 unless they could give me a really good reason. __________________________________________________________ I like living in the past. Its cheaper there.

Re: Speedster trick, would you allow this?