Ockham's Spoon

Re: If YOU have been playing Hero since the 80's why do you still keep coming back? I've been playing the Hero system since 1985 or so, and would pretty much echo what has been said about flexibility. But the other thing that has always impressed me about Hero is that in addition to flexibility it is balanced. I have been in D&D, Gamma World, Star Frontiers, and half a dozen other RPGs that, when they didn't suit the situation people made up house rules to cope with it. Well a lot of the time that broke the system. With Hero, you can build a world and populate it with characters that all work harmoniously together. Oh sure it isn't perfect, but it is SO much better than anything else that I can't complain. _________________________________________________ "Some people spread happiness wherever they go. Others, whenever they go." - Oscar Wilde

Re: The Character Idea Thread Buy Parachute 30" Gliding, only to arrest falls (-½). That way he can reach terminal velocity, but still be "gliding" and so take no damage when he hits. __________________________________________________________ "Some people spread happiness wherever they go. Others, whenever they go." - Oscar Wilde

Re: Combo too much? I have never played with a Fragile World rule, but from your example I can see problems. If you want the characters to be more resistant to damage from certain kinds of attacks, I think I would have them buy extra defenses, only vs those attacks, as a package deal sort of thing. Then set the active point cost to whatever seems reasonable. _____________________________________________________ "Some people spread happiness wherever they go. Others, whenever they go." - Oscar Wilde

Re: Is Hero too preditable? I don't find Hero combat that predictable; if it were then I wouldn't mismatch combats so badly as GM. There are so many variables (defenses and such as Sean mentioned, and various attack powers as Thia mentioned) that you can't really say it is predictable. If I hear something like that from a player, my response is that you need to be more creative in combat if you are bored just throwing 10d6 each time you hit. This is a role-playing game, not Monopoly. That said, I do empathize with the idea that you can roll a 3 and then do lousy damage. Our house rule is that if you roll under half of what you needed to hit (that is if you need a 12 to hit and you roll a 6 or lower), or a 3 in any event, then you get to roll damage twice and take the better roll. It does take slightly longer, but let me tell you players love being able to redo a bad roll. __________________________________________________________ "Clothes make the man. Naked people have little influence on society." - M. Twain.

Re: "Only Protects Against BODY Damage" Cost? This is one of those case by case sort of affairs. Take a martial artist who has low defenses but a sort of instant regeneration power, bought as Armor only vs BDY. Since a single successful shot may very well knock him out with his low defenses, his instant regeneration really only keeps him from dying. I'd give him a -½. Now take a character who is a sentient robot, built as an automaton. He doesn't take STN so he shouldn't get any limitation at all. _________________________________________________________ "Clothes make the man. Naked people have little influence on society." - M. Twain

Re: Loot Yeah, I give the characters magical loot, but if they get a powerful magic weapon you better believe they will have to fight the original owner to get it. Most magic stuff I tailor to the players for a couple reasons. First, since I don't generally let them have much, I figure what I do give them should be particularly useful to them (unless the point of it is that they have to trade it for something they really do want). Second, it frequently reduces the amount of discussion (or arguement) over who gets the item (for major items; smaller stuff I am less stingy with). The warrior has no need for the Master Staff of Sorcery, the rogue doesn't want a two-handed Axe of Cleaving, and the mage won't find much use for the Gloves of Theiving. Since I tailor the items, I also try to balance them. If it turns out something is much more effective than I thought, the hero will lose it, which tends to tick characters off unless done carefully. The best ways to lose stuff is: 1. Must sacrifice item in trade for something else (like the life of the infant prince or something) so the loss is at least noble. 2. Item is destroyed in combat with big bad villain. This could be some monster with vicious Damage Shield that destroys all weapons, a wizard that can shatter artifacts, a creature that eats magic, or whatever. 3. Item turns out to have a gradual effect curse on it. Great power doesn't come without a catch. 4. Turns out item has limited number of charges; generally the characters find this out when it still has a few charges left so they can at least use it up for times of greatest need. Okay, players still hate losing cool stuff, but this is generally better than some thief stealing it or having it confiscated by the royal guard or something. ____________________________________________________ "The rich scare me. They can already evade taxes." - Grim Reaper

Re: Golden Age Day Jobs My favorite day jobs for heroes are ones in which they can apply their powers to make the job quick so they have plenty of time for superheroics. For a speedster character this could be about anything really, but other ones I have used are: Character with elemental earth powers who created fantastic jewelry. Telekinetic who could use a AoE TK to repair stuff (actually bought as a Transform) who bought old houses, fixed them up, and then sold them. Character who could created various chemical compounds as a mutant power who was a drug dealer (okay, she was a villain, but you could make her a pharmacist or a supplier of chemicals to research companies). Delivery service for any hero with good movement powers. Character with druid-type powers who was a landscape artist/gardener. Empath who was an excellent veternarian (both for soothing animals and through empathic healing). Psychic who made a killing on the stock market (but could not do so unchecked without bringing on governement investigators looking for insider trading deals). I am sure there are others. ___________________________________________________ "I don't want to stop crime. I just want to fight it." - Tick

Re: The Character Idea Thread I think OddHat is right about the VPP as the best way to represent lots of "stasis" tricks if you want to build it that way; Aid to BDY only to prevent death, suppress vs bombs, etc. For the ability to keep things frozen in time, my initial thought was an XDM through time, UAA to move object to some point in the future when Stasis takes it out of her dimensional pocket. The only problem would be that if she moved from the initial spot (say to a hospital for the wounded normal), the normal wouldn't move with her. You would have to link a Teleport to it or something and now it is getting really expensive. It might be easier to go with the Major Transform, object into "nothing" reversed when removed from her pocket. Such an object would have no abilities, so the wounded wouldn't get worse and bombs wouldn't go off. You should allow others to perceive and remove the objects from dimensional pocket if they have the appropriate senses (whatever you want to define). So your initial post leads me believe you'd like others to post tricky character builds, so let me throw out one I have had trouble with. The Swarmbots are a bunch of modular robots about the size of a cat that individually are only a small threat (small electrical EB and/or HKA, small Force Field). However, they can combine into larger robots capable of greater feats (greater STR, more powerful EB & Force Field, better movement, etc.). Most of the Swarmbots are generic, but some have additional sensors to give other enhanced senses. I did not conceive of a real limit on the number of Swarmbots that there could be or that could combine (well, within reason, so no city-sized bots). I have looked at making the Swarmbots as a single character with Duplication and Growth, and as individual characters who could enhance each others powers, but everything I have tried is pretty clunky. I would welcome suggestions. _______________________________________________________ "You think you have problems, what are you supposed to do if you are a maniacally depressed robot?" - Marvin

Re: Need a really good Marshal Artist Build If you want "good" defenses without armor or force fields, it sounds like you want some flavor of Combat Luck, which gives you "armor" based on the "just missed me" effect or dodging ability. A high DCV will help too. Of course there is only so far you can reasonably go with dodging damage and it won't help against area effect attacks. You might also look at Damage Reduction bought as a blow-slipping ability (same special effect as combat luck really, just a different mechanic). You might also consider a high SPD so she can block and use Missile Deflection a lot. If you can't afford the SPD, you can buy "Super Blocking Ability" built as +20 PD/ED Armor, only works if total defenses aren't exceeded (-½). Does she have any other abilities? If she has any mental powers you can buy +5 PD/ED, not vs. opponents with Mental Def, defined as a subconscious Mind Control "pull your punch". Or even +5 PD/ED, Req. Seduction roll, "I'm too beautiful to hit". Hope this helps. ________________________________________________________ "The rich scare me. They can already evade taxes." - Grim Reaper

Re: Power Build Advice Needed How about a continous Drain vs. INT, only to modify memory of the character with the power? It would look like this: 1d6 Drain vs. INT, Area Effect(+1), 0 END (+½), Continous(+1), Persistent (+½), Sticky(+½), Penetrating (+½), Invisible to all (+1), Time Delay - after leaving (+¼), return delay 5 pts/min (+¼), Only to make people forget character with this power (-2), Always On (-½). Active cost: 55, Real Cost: 16 Here the time delay should let the Drain outpace the recovery. How long does it keep going? Only until the person would have reasonably forgoten anyway. You might consider having this go against Mental Def instead of Power Def given the nature of the ability. And someone with the appropriate defense (esp. hardened) wouldn't be as affected, but every power should have a defense, isn't that what the rulebook says? _______________________________________________ "No I didn't forget. I just wasn't paying attention." - R.C.

Re: A *very* different magic system So are the spells like equipment, meaning I could trade a sword for a fireball spell? Or do I actually buy them with character points? And if I have to buy them, how do I steal the evil wizards Mind Control spell if I don't have the character points for it? If I don't have to buy them, how do you limit the number of spells anyone can have so they don't become ultra-powerful? Are their limits to how powerful a spell any particular individual can wield? I think the idea is cool, but it strikes me as better suited to a computer game (like Final Fantasy as previously mentioned) than a RPG unless you can find a coherent set of guidelines for it (and if you do please post them). Heck, I have enough difficulties with just balancing magic items between party members without having to worry about spells. Maybe that is just one of my GMing shortcomings. __________________________________________ "Um, Joel, what is Ator sitting on?" - Crow

Re: Presence Attacks vs Players PRE attacks vs. players is one of my favorite parts of being GM. It is all in the setup. Get them used to some nasty at a "low" level. Then have them meet a jacked up version of said nasty that they just barely survive (or escape), giving them a false sense of climax. Then you bring out the PRE attack version of the nasty. I ran a scenario where some evil sorcerer type was summoning land sharks from the elemental plane of earth. The characters fought off a few man-sized versions at first, challenging but not too bad. Then they faced off against the sorcerer and he had a 20ft long land shark fighting with him. They barely managed to defeat the shark and kill the sorcerer. Then the dead mage's body becomes animated and starts laughing at them and they realize he is just a lackey to a powerful netherworld lord who promptly sets a 60ft land shark on them (making its presense known by swallowing one of the NPCs whole). Yeah, that was fun. Of course the best part for the players (other than the sense of suspense) was the realization they were going to have to be clever to win and weren't just going to blast their way out of this one. ______________________________________________________ "Houston, I think we have a problem..."

Re: Help me design the Silver Belles Here are a few ideas; hope they help, original or not. And probably these names have been used somewhere else, but not to my limited knowledge anyway. Chrome: Basically a female version of the X-man Collossus Silk: Female version of Spiderman with less STR but more versatile web powers (favorite is a silken whip coupled with Martial Arts choke manuver). Costume is black trimmed with silver. Glare: Light-based mutant specializing in Flash attacks (favorite is a continuous uncontrollable AVLD - Flash Def that runs as long at victim is blinded by the linked Flash attack). She wears mirrored sunglasses (or mask) to protect herself from her own powers. We will all want to see the final write-ups of course ____________________________________________________ "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: Characterstic Rolls & Skill Levels

Re: The Invisible World I am not familiar with World of Darkness myself, but I have dealt with similar situations in other campaigns. For supernatural creatures that can be seen by normal people but just not recognized as supernatural, I have run it where all supernatural have Distinctive Features "Supernatural" for 5 points, but they are only recognizable by characters with Mental Awareness (another Detect could be substituted, but this is more of a plot device so I didn't want a whole different sense just for this purpose). For situations where the supernatural are invisible to normals, I have had all supernaturals buy Images vs. Sight, -7 PER, only to bamboozle normals(-1), 0 END, Persistant, Always On, No Range (42 Active, 14 Real). To cover the complex movement of the supernatural, the average viewer gets a +4 to the PER roll, but that still leaves it at -3, so the average joe won't normally see anything, but once in a while they will catch a glimpse. Most often I figure a normal will dismiss such a vision, but it could freak some people out. I only cover Sight with this because people should hear things go bump in the night. Then a typical mage (or other enlighten person) will have a True Sight ability which is +6 Visual PER, only to see through illusions (-½). Although I am a big fan of the pointless plot device, these setups helped put some concrete game mechanics on abilities (especially the Images). __________________________________________________________ "Nobody must know my name, for nobody would understand, and you kill what you fear, and you fear what you don't understand." - The Guide Vocal from The Duke's Travels

Re: Boosted Charges w/o Burnout I don't have a rulebook in front of me, but my personal thought would be to allow Boostable Charges w/o Burnout as a higher advantage (say an extra +¼ for each +3 DC without danger of Burnout or something), just to keep it simple. Just make sure you have a DC cap to keep people from abusing it. __________________________________________________________ "The fiction in her family was that she was never nice. I'd say she was very but I did not see the price." - S. Vega

Re: Characterstic Rolls I don't generally allow pushing for anything but STR and EGO. Anything else is just a straight roll, with modifiers for specific character actions or circumstances. Then again, I can't think of an instance right off where you would push any other characteristic; a person is only so smart so your INT can't logically increase, but I would give a bonus if the character took extra time to memorize something. Similarly for a DEX roll, you aren't going to get more adroit, but if you do something carefully (and slowly) you get the standard extra time bonus. Okay, upon reflection, I guess you could push CON or STN (with a successful EGO roll) to resist being stunned or K'Oed in extraordinary (and dramatic) circumstances, but you should still have to burn END for it. _______________________________________________________ "I don't want to stop crime. I just want to fight it." - Tick

Re: How would you build identity disassociation? If the appearance is the same but the person is just perceived differently, it sounds like a successful Acting roll to me; this might be a Skill bought as a Power with the limitation "Only to change identities". At a high enough level (18- on the roll) you could just assume it was automatic. That said, I still think I like Lord Liaden's simpler Deep Cover suggestion better for most cases. ___________________________________________________________ "Nobody must know my name, for nobody would understand, and you kill what you fear, and you fear what you don't understand." - The Guide Vocal from The Duke's Travels

Re: Simplification of Combat Ah, many thanks. I am slowly figuring out all the abbreviations; one more for my mental dictionary.

Re: Simplification of Combat A few thoughts on the previous posts: Hail of Mookfire! I love this idea! I will definitely try this out. On the topic, my prefered method for speeding up combat is to cap defenses and REC so that it only takes a few hits to put a character down and they don't keep getting up. It also means that the Mooks have a chance at actually hurting a hero. Also when a Mook takes BDY they are automatically down unless they are drug-crazed or something. I first saw Action points in the James Bond RPG, which at the time seemed like a good idea at the time, but it is one more thing to tally and I have such chaotic notes already that I don't need any more to keep track of. If characters want to alter dice rolls, let them buy Luck and use the optional Luck rules, or maybe even grant everyone a couple dice of Luck per session for this purpose. This could speed up combat too, since you would more likely make critical shots work. Finally, pardon my blinding ignorance, but what is M&M? ___________________________________________________ The only dumb questions are the ones you don't ask.

Re: RFC: Adjustment to STR cost I agree with Dust Raven that the cost of STR is balanced vs. an EB. Even though both essentially cost 5 pts per DC, EB gives you range and STR gives you benefit in Figured CHA. The combat versatility is about the same in my eyes. I have never played in a game where a brick could hold a candle to an energy projector at range because they simply run out of suitable stuff to throw, especially if you are a hero and worried about collateral damage. But the brick can perform Grab manuvers and can pull a bus back onto a bridge, and so gets some "free" abilities that the energy projector would have to pay for separately (although MitchellS point about power frameworks is true and may make this trivial). If you asked me, the CHA that has a cost problem is CON, which has less utility than STR in my eyes but costs twice as much. But that is another topic. _____________________________________________________ "I don't want to stop crime. I just want to fight it." - Tick

Re: Compound power question I think whether the powers scaled together or not would depend on the sfx of the power. For instance if a character has a light blast EB linked to a Flash, reasonably the stronger the EB the stronger the Flash, so those would scale together. But if a character had a 1 Hex Gloom Field that was a combined Darkness vs. Sight and a 3d6 Drain vs. PRE, they might not scale, because the Darkness is all or nothing, while the Drain wouldn't have to be used at full power necessarily. In any event, the GM and the player should figure this out for any set of linked powers before it comes into play. ______________________________________________________ "I don't want to stop crime. I just want to fight it." - Tick

Re: Killing Attack as a special Penetrating Attack Conceptually I like the idea of being able to wear someone down with tiny attacks, but I think this method would give me a cerebral hemorrhage if I tried to use it in combat. But to address tiny attacks, I think there are two methods already that would suffice. Taking the example of the ant, if you want to make ants into an attack, you would treat them as a swarm so that the aggregate attack was noticeable (½d6 RKA Reduced Penetration or something). For an attack that would gradually wear the target down, just apply Gradual Effect to give you the proper duration. One question Grail Quest, why just apply this wearing down system to Killing Attacks? Or have I completely missed the point? ____________________________________________________________ "I don't want to stop crime. I just want to fight it." - Tick

Re: Learning how to play HERO I am in definite agreement with the character creation being the daunting part of the Hero system. I have played with a number of people new to the Hero system who inevitably pick it up quickly and like the flexibility, until it comes time to actually design a character from scratch. But you can't have a rich, flexible system without a little complexity. The advantage of the Hero system, in my mind, is that once you do have a grasp on how most of the powers and advantages work, you can do anything. For other systems I have played, every new thing you want to do requires a new rule or new spell or some handwaving GM fiat, which is ad hoc and requires a lot a rote memorization of how each little thing is done, and in the end may not be very well balanced. A second advantage is that once you are comfortable with character creation, that is a fun part of the game too. Making characters in other systems was just praying over dice rolls for a character that ultimately would not be substantially different from any other character of the same type. But with Hero, every character can be unique, and the creation process encourages making a character with real depth (what skills should he have, what Disads, etc.). I will never go back. __________________________________________________________ "I don't want to stop crime. I just want to fight it." - Tick

Re: Mental Powers Based on DEX I think I got the price right (for once); 10 STR Telekinesis is 15 pts, total Advantage of +1¾ (for Trigger, 0 END, and Fully Invisible), which gives 15x2.75=41.25 pts. And of course I would use it to dodge the critcism except I only have 17 free XP and not the 20 I would need.