Thia Halmades

Re: Converting Prestige Classes (a question) Actually, I think what Killer Shrike did is excellent; give them the requisite package (the Duelist) and then build the level powers appropriate to the package, and allow the PC to pick and choose among the powers as they see fit. This is the route I was going to take anyway, once I had the time and attention to devote to it. It's the intuitive solution half my players already figured out. You don't have to be great at evertything from the get-go in HERO, any more than you do in d20. However, in HERO it's much easier to get a "feel" for what you want to be, rather than in d20 where you feel like your character just got off the boat for the first six levels.

Re: I just thought of an extremely scary relationship. "Do you, Sauron, take the White Witch to be your lawfully wedded wife, to rule over and lord over, to condemn, threaten and manipulate, til death do you part?" "I DO." "Do you, White Witch, take this disembodied force as your husband, to think faster than him, give him ideas and let him think they're his own, to brutalize his minions and point out the smallest tactical errors just to get under his skin, until he executes you for treason in the finale?" "I do." "Very well. Lord Sauron, do you have... da One Wing to Wule Them All?"

Re: Giant Robot RPG (carry over post to SH from DC) I could certainly export it with tab delimiters, the problem would be other people importing it into Excel. As noted, I'm already using Excel. But it doesn't cooperate with any PC version I know of, which rather defeats the pupose of using excel, mais non?

Re: Giant Robot RPG (carry over post to SH from DC) I'm going to sit here with my book and do it this morning, in fact. If you know how to get a 2001 Mac Excel sheet to export in a format people can read, please let me know. I'm doing things in MS software that's MAC based but no one with a PC can access the material. And I say unto thee: "IT'S CRAP!"

Re: WF for Weapons on Vehicles v Vehicle Weapons I would agree with GA (as I often do) and I would also submit you may want to take a closer look at the mechanics you're working towards. Do you want every pilot capable of using anything on any plane, or would you rather have them train on specific ordinance? Me, for my part, I'd have WF: Airborn Missile Systems, WF: Airborn Bombardier, WF: Airborn Ballistics (etc. and so forth). It may complicate things, but a lot more goes into getting a lock on with a missile than just a basic skill.

Re: M&M pees in HERO's cheerios... If it makes anyone feel better, I've been told by numerous credible sources that my presence alone unbalances things in favor of the heterosexual crew. I believe the exact quote was: "Thia, you're so straight it causes me physical pain."

Re: GURPS - more like us every day... I've already gone ahead and expanded the skill system somewhat - specifically, I needed it to go well beyond the normal "15-" because it becomes far too cheap to make yourself G-dlike in your ability, especially built on Heroic points where your focus is buying up stats and skills, since equipment is purchased via cash. The only changes I've made so far are making it clear that there's no longer simply a set difficulty, but an expanded difficulty table (up to -20, maybe more) and that I'll be enforcing a Margin of Success - 3, 5, 8, 11, and so on. So extremely tricky stunts could require both a distinct difficulty mod, AND a margin of success. Beyond that I'm waiting for TUS.

Good morning, Steve! Hope you're feeling better. I'm still popping pain meds, but I'm improving each day, so it's all good at this point. I'm finally doing the "work" of converting/building etc. now that I have a lap top, and I noticed something on the character sheet that caught my attention. On the lower right hand side there's both the Hit Location Table, and something I missed before I was putting the whole thing into Excel, a "targeting table." It's right below the range modifiers, but looking over it I saw a possible solution to the random location dilemma - the -1 To Hit penalty for a main body shot. This seemed totally reasonable to me, but what I can't figure out is this: Is that supposed to be only for Range Attacks (which would go against the spirit of the system, but I'd understand if it were) or is that a universal? As in, you walk into a room full of Deep Orks and say "Thia, I'm going to take point and - in a rising sweeping motion - aim for the head of the first ork in front of me!" and take a -4 to hit the "head area?" At -4 you're only at a 1 in 3 chance of making the head shot, instead of the -8 guarantee; that seems balanced to me. Sorry, rambling. Pain meds. Is this the solution I've been looking for that allows me to keep the "hit location chart" without making everyone roll randomly every time?

Re: 20 Years ago Today ... I think I was 10 (20 years ago, I must've been) and they called us out of class to watch the aftermath on the news. We hung our heads, and said a prayer. It was discussed at home. Did I want to be an astronaut? I didn't know I could get blown up, I replied at the time. It was a tragic time, but amazing how much I learned from my parents about JFK and how a nation reacts to that level of crisis. That was the closest we came in my generation to that magnitude of tragedy. *salute*

Re: Giant Robot RPG (carry over post to SH from DC) Hey, Tgrandjean, thanks for chiming in! All comers are welcome. Part of what I'm doing here is building a new thing from the ground up - like many HEROphiles, I really don't care what came before, I have to hammer out my way of doing it. That may mean eventually adopting someone else's way (Killer Shrike was a big influence on my magical VPPs for my epic setting) but regardless of that, I have to do it myself. Stare downs WOULD be a huge element of this. Also, the Front Mission series of games are a big influence, as they have Giant Robots bashing it out and men involved in the skirmish (who get swiftly and violently shredded, as well they should). There's a sense of weight, scale and menace that some of these things should convey - PRE and COM will be incorporated into the designs, thank you for the suggestion. I made mention of the STR Minima requirement elsewhere I think because I'm thinking on the exact same lines that you are - you want the Guass rifle, you have to be able to CARRY the Gauss Rifle. Those shouldn't conflict with the Robot Warriors rules much at all. I also need to build a template for RW construction in Excel. I'd ask if anyone has one, but I'm using a Mac with the 2001 Microsoft Excel built in, and it refuses to read normal .XTL files. Bastard. I'm going to make full use of both versions of size diff rules when it comes to Mecha, because I want to draw a clear distinction from "mech class" weaponry and "vehicle class" weaponry and finally, "hand held firearms." The smallest "vehicle class" weapon I'm envisioning is a .50 Cal - something that you just wouldn't be carrying around by yourself without considerable aid. From there you know the drill - 110s, Missile Launchers (Mavericks, Hellfires, SAMs, Anti-Armor Rounds, HARPOONs, HARMs, etc.) Then your classic Battletech inspired mech-class weaponry: Auto Pistols, Auto Cannons, AA Shotguns, Point-Defense Lasers, Laser Weapons, Beam & Particle Guns, Mass Driver/Rail/Gauss weapons, dumb-fire FFARs with a broad dispersal area for anti-personnel and single-shot Fire & Forget rounds. Most RIGs (Robotic Interactive Gear, for now) will have lifters capable of picking things up - any military model is going to have fully articulate hands in anime style to pick up any weaponry left on the battlefield, retrieve items and objects, and so on. I really need to make that spreadsheet. One down (did the normal HERO 5th version today) and one to go (Robot Warriors, here I come...)

Re: Giant Robot RPG (carry over post to SH from DC) I'm with you on the general dislike of the vehicle rules - I get them, but I find myself wishing I'd been around when they did "WWYD" thread for TUV, because I'd've made strong mention of including an updated mass system for vehicles. Yes, it would be an additional mechanic, and I know that goes against the general design philosophy of the whole thing, but you just can't get the proper feel for the thing outside of that. I would not, could not in a mech. I would not, could not in a vette. I think I may make Ilene take me to Dunkin' Donuts this morning. Get some java up in me. I also DL'd Hero Designer on muh Mac, so I'm going to spit ball with that a bit today. I also need to design some martial arts (Blade Arts) for the Empire in my epic campaign and a separate set of arts for the Aelves and Sea Orks. Gonna be a busy week!

Re: WWYCD: A Brief Warning Uncle Hammet, to himself: "Hammet - Daniel is going to kill you. Just a heads up. - J.A. Hammet."

Re: Giant Robot RPG (carry over post to SH from DC) I have Robot Warriors. I have a laptop, and I'm good on the recovery department at the moment. YES. Now, I do actually have some questions. 1. Chris: You seem to have kept the inverted +Lim/-Adv system from Robot Warriors. Why? I don't see what this accomplishes other than to be confounding. Within the system they have a chart that details how to guage the weapon damage, and how to scale Mr. Chart. I'm having trouble wrapping my skull around the whole thing in terms of mass/construction points and balancing it against my understanding of HERO. Do I need to let this one go and simply say "Hey, fine, that's the way it is?" or can I update it more cleanly than that? For example. 4d6 only costs 8 points IIRC - now obviously if I were to slap Autofire and Armor Piercing on that puppy I'd be bumping up the cost in 5th Edition mechanics - but I don't know that it would balance against the system itself considering how cheap 4d6 is to begin with. Thoughts on this? I prefer consistency, and I read through your site (large chunks of it) and you clearly kept it for a reason - I'd just like to know what the reason is. Is it what I think it is (the math doesn't carry well) or was it simply easier to leave it alone?

Re: If you liked the movie Equilibrium Oh, yeah, should've warned y'all. If you see these words: Uwe Boll Shoot first. Shoot again. Reload. Keep shooting. There should be a fine red mist by the time you're done shooting. RELOAD. Expose it to sunlight it and douse it in running water. The man is a menace who has a fantastic talent for ruining every videogame franchise he comes in contact with.

Re: Help with Werewolves There's a full write up in the Bestiary which covers it. If you're looking for something more detailed, you can do a quick & easy conversion from the d20 SRD under Lycanthropy which will also answer the question. There's no one "right way" to do it; most people purchase it as a multiform, and Lycanthropy itself as a disease. All in all you have three major elements to consider: 1) What forces the change? There are many kinds of Lycanthropes, from the usual "Full Moon" to having the option, to being enraged, etc. There's as many ways to force a Transform as you can think of. So, first question, how do you change? 1a) How do you change back? 2) What are the extent of your immunities? Silver? Other diseases? How dangerous are you? When transformed are you Berserk and thus a threat to the party, or do you just have the advantage of being 10' of raging towering muscle? In HERO an absolute immunity is built using 75% DR except against Silver, followed by a bunch of Armor except Silver. These two things tend to give a very (VERY) generous representation of how a Werewolf is harmed - ONLY by Silver. According to White Wolf, they're hurt by anything, but have a Speed Regen that's off the hizzy. And, in d20, they're hurt by anything that hits hard enough (10 pts. Damage Reduction) but have no Defense against Silver. In other words, Silver is simply going to kill them at the regular rate. 3) Finally, the cool part - what powers do you have in mind for this version of Lycanthropy? My campaign was built on the d20 structure, so it keeps 99% of the structure of that setting. If you look up the SRD entry you'll see in short order they cover everything, you just have to spend a little time converting it into HERO terms. I need to do it myself, but today ain't quite that day yet. I'm still hopped up on Vicadin and can only think clearly in short bursts. Hope some/any of that helps.

Re: Giant Robot RPG (carry over post to SH from DC) You know, I'm half tempted to find some pleasantly insipid J-Pop just to get the feeling down, but I think I'd drive myself insane. I may PM Yamamura, she might have a reasonable plan. Personally, I know that the more dramatic stuff borrows from Wagner and other Space Opera soundtracks as much as anything else, although that isn't entirely where I want to go with it. Hrm is right.

Re: Help building a power? You could also use Extra Dimensional Travel to model the gate, and then as the Kaiju mentioned, Usable on Others, Usable as Attack, Persistent, Must Connect Two Real Points (although I don't know how you want to work that). In Teen Titans they introduced a hero named Herald who could create gates with his horn. Almost the same effect - the gate itself simply opens; you still have to put matter/material through it. You're just opening an extra dimensional gate and then completing the worm hole elsewhere and leaving it as a permanent structure.

Re: Why are 2nd powers cheaper? It depends also on your campaign structure. In a Heroic campaign, you may not have the problem because people generally don't spend points to get gear (generally being the operative word). In a Supers game, they have so much stuff to begin with that it might not make a dent. I would consider (being me) bumping up the cost of a "duplicate to be used cooperatively" to make the "set" a single power, rather than letting them cheat out and getting a pair of 12d6 RKA weapons for ((12d6 RKA + Lims) +5).

Re: Giant Robot RPG (carry over post to SH from DC) Hey QM: That's what I'm referring to in my above post. You could even do "solid illusions" as a limited Duplication, where each Duplicate has 1 BODY or something equally bizarre; there are no 'limits' in HERO as to what you can do with the tech, whereas in Battle Tech there was no toolkit from which to work. I could pick either of the USPDs and apply those "powers" to the Giant Robots. The thought, had in fact, occured to me. But yes, multiform in Giant Robots is much easier here than in Battletech, where it always felt like it'd been included for the sake of inclusion; you never got a feeling that the rules lent themselves to that mechanic, or that look & feel. Very rarely is a LAM prominently featured in any Videogame represetation, which is tragic, because you could build a GREAT game around it. Harmony already failed with their original Robotech cel-shaded version. A mistake I don't intend to make. Then again, I don't intend for my game to suck, either.

Re: Giant Robot RPG (carry over post to SH from DC) Exactly right, that's precisely what I want to avoid, and I want to avoid it within a consistent rules set. I don't mind saying "No, that wasn't built for that" but it's much easier (and inherently more fair) to enforce it if everyone is working from the same base material.

Re: Giant Robot RPG (carry over post to SH from DC) No, but I'd guessed it from what I've gotten through so far. Which is fine, once the twitching stops I'll be able to pull apart the rules objectively and make them work. Now in FREd we use all four Physical stats for machines, yes? STR, DEX, CON & BODY. We also figure SPD. The Battle Game is where I'd begun my reading, and I keep having to edit the material in my head going "No... no that changed... who wrote this?" I'll read it through to be comprehensive then move on to something more interesting. What I want to get too are the freaking build rules, but that'll take some time. It was 5d6, typo, mea culpa, thanks for the correction. Okay, so I won't set expectations that they'll be surviving extended combats (which also takes away a great deal of the drama of giant robots). I did read some of your write ups (and flipped through the other site you posted). 110 tons is a little weighty for a fighter, but I'll let it go. One of the rules in Battletech is that in order to build a LAM (Land Air Mech) you had to follow two basic rules: * It had to be 55 tons or under * 5 tons automatically went to transforming materials/gear. Clearly that same distinction doesn't exist in HERO, so building giant crazy transformers should be easier. They always felt grossly underpowered in BT. Must read, then I'll post more.

Re: Complicate the Person Above Death Tribble. The world's most frustrated secret agent. We won't get into why, he's already trying to find me as it is. Good luck hoppin' that pond!

Re: Captain Atom? True story, SS, but I think (think, without going back) the original question was "How would you build JLU's Captain Atom?" However, the Snake has a great point - we're just spitballing one Hero's history and powers based on inference. If you don't want to run the risk of being a walking nuclear reaction waiting to happen, you may want to forgo the whole suit/explody thing. *ponders* How the heck do you model that? OH, smack. TRIGGER. "If the suit is ruptured (by taking twice its own BODY) Capt. Atom will detonate in a massive (dramatic level dice) explosion. Capt. Atom is not immune to this effect." So - how would you model the suit? I'd almost argue it's an OIF suit that has to be specifically targeted, otherwise he'd be going up like a roman candle in any supers fight, and he takes tremendous punishment which the "suit" is clearly not absorbing. I don't know how you would model it so he's taking appropriate damage (Atom can be KO'd, we saw Supes do it) without hurting the suit, unless you model the suit as an armor with normal DEF; like a suit of Plate Mail you'd have to be specific in targeting it. Hrm.

Re: Captain Atom? The best example I've seen of Captain Atom is in the superfight vs. Big Blue, where he held his own for an extensive period of time. Were I to build him based on that fight, and aware that he's capable of many of the same things Supes is. According to the Wiki I got the impression that he's a sentient mass of energy, so I'd have to assume he's a radiation accident hero, formerly Captain Nathaniel Adams. For his powers set, I'd go with some of the following: Flight (doi). He flies, in fact, he also Glides, but I doubt you'd need to buy both. His feet are rarely on the ground. This is both in character and a power mechanic. EB (doi). His EB seems to be part of a VPP because he can change the nature of the radiation at will; I'm not sure what the best way to model this is. If he can flip to Red Sun radiation (thus bypassing some of Superman's defenses) we all wondered if he didn't also have the capacity to convert to Green Kryptonite radiation, which would've ended that fight REAL quick. I'm more than willing to take suggestions on how to build "changing radiation type" EB. Super Strength. He's strong. w00t. Damage Reduction/Decent DEF - he can survive direct hits from Superman. I don't know that he's on par with Big Blue in the ability to take a hit, but he's certainly tougher than the average hero. Energy Absorbtion - as it sounds, he doesn't seem to take damage from energy based attacks. I'm assuming that the energy he absorbs is converted to END for his own fuel. In the same episode referenced earlier, he's hit with an Energy Based Entangle and simply adjusts and absorbs it. So among his primary suite of powers, Absorbtion is rather high on his list. Various Life Supports, I don't know enough to comment on this one. EDM as Time Travel based on how far over his END of energy he absorbs, according to the Wiki (although I don't know if it's a power with NCC, or if it just happens when the plot demands it). Lots of psych lims, generally all involving duty and his code of honor. Again, I don't know enough about the character to go into much more detail, this is just based on the episodes I've seen him in.

Re: Running an Epic Battle If you're doing a full scale, all out super fight, then there are a few things I would make note of. First, it's tricky (although you already realized that, clearly). However, you're at an advantage, because HERO is built to simulate this exactly. So here's my (number of steps as needed and I think of them) plan. 1. Set up. For any fight of this magnitude to mean anything, everyone has to care, be involved, and be willing to sacrifice everything to do it. I have a few fights of this type coming up, and right now the bulk of my energy is spent making the world a place the PCs are willing to die for. Once you've crossed that hurdle, you'll have a much easier time describing the things that happen around them - you'll have developed a shared language. It allows you to zoom the camera in on specific situations that highlight the trauma. 2. Bigger isn't better; what you want to model is what we see in film. It isn't just that the world is coming to an end - we don't need long static shots of Galactus standing around with his feet where buildings once stood. It's more important to see Galactus in motion, doing something horrible, and focusing the camera on a normal the PCs are familiar with and showing the pain/terror through them. 3. Once you've successfully established the scene, and the gravity of the situation, you can start building an encounter sequence that gets the PCs closer and closer to their goal. Do you want them to attack Galactus directly? Will one of his 20d6 EBs (if he's feeling generous) be enough to scare them? Is there a "solution" in addition to pounding him into the dirt? 4. I'm talking about establishing the dramatic conflict. For some people it's enough to model the fight, but the fight itself is far more than simply a slug fest when you're dealing with this many supers. The dramatic angle, the RP that occurs between swings and in between turns, is what makes a fight like this memorable. I'm talking about going beyond an exchange of hits, misses and powers and instilling your combat with a true sense of drama and scale that will make it truly memorable. When we watch a film and there's a DNPC involved, we cut to that person and see them hanging/screaming/crying/fighting back/unconcious before getting incinerated by the leaking gas trailing towards them. If there are multiple allies in the fight, you could also reasonably be dealing with multiple mooks - people whose job it is to wear down the PCs until they are, as you suggest, batter, bruised and barely combat capable. Using any of these models will get you where you're going, whether you've made the BBEG so insanely powerful that people must sacrifice themselves, if you've built them with a specific exploitable weakness that many other people must sacrifice themselves to exploit, etc. All of this is a matter of scale, involvement with the world beyond rolling dice and dramatic sense. Is any/some/none of that what you're looking for?