Thia Halmades

TL;DR; Long Term Endurance is a solid way to represent physical wear of heavy armor. Other thoughts follow.
 
I always get lost in these threads. Are you asking about a fundamental rules question? I.e., “how do I?” Or are you asking “how would you to achieve verisimilitude?” Because we’ll be here for a while depending on how you answer.
 
Short version: Build Armor with the limitation, “weight category, (-x/y).” Weight categories are: Clothing (-0), Light (-1/4) Medium (-1/2) Heavy (-3/4) and Urk (-1). Then the fun starts. What do you want that weight category to mean? This is the beauty and the beast of HERO; you can define for yourself and your campaign what happens when you put on armor of each weight class, and you can also bake in the appropriate skill/ability/super skill to wear it without those restrictions, or have it factor in strength, etc. etc. 
 
For example: When I did Persona, every power included the limitation “Persona Ability (-2).” For that campaign, that was short hand for: Gestures (-1/4), Incantations (-1/4), Only Equipped Persona Ability (-1), Costs END (-1/2). Then there was a bunch of other mods that went after it, which made powers themselves, as you might guess, super cheap! But that’s because you had to pick from a list and each Persona had a corresponding set of powers it could learn. The relationship to your problem being, you can easily bundle whatever it is armor restriction means to you. If you want armor to fatigue, you can use Encumbrance or, for me, Long Term Endurance. If you’re going for a Dark Souls/NIOH vibe, that’s your jam right there. Longer you wear it, the more it wears you down.

@Chris Goodwinbeat me to this when he pointed out that under RAW, a crit occurs when you beat your target by half (in favor of the defender, so rounded down); this is what I’ve always used and it works very well, particularly given how much manipulating of the numbers can be done by skilled players. In your system as proposed, I’d be looking at a pretty wide gap between OCV & DCV and that’s before application of CSLs or other modifiers like Surprise. Not saying it can’t work, just far less often. Also bearing in mind that you have a 0.5% (IIRC) of rolling 3 (that very specific combination; there’s a broader chance to roll any combination of 3 of a kind, but a materially smaller chance to get that exact one).
 
To the question you didn’t ask, a Critical Hit in my games doubles damage rolled. I’ve fiddled with different iterations of this, but I found doubling the dice to be the most entertaining; oh, and if you’re using rolled STUNx, double that and take the higher value. If you’re using the damage chart (almost forgot this) then by every two over the crit threshold, I allow players to adjust their targeting roll by 1.  So, on a crit, you roll a 12, you can move it to 13. 
 
Your second question is messier, because it all depends on what you mean by night vision. However as my games tend to be bouncy science in application, my answer is “no,” because the mirror needs to have something significant to reflect. If you can’t see it with normal vision, then the mirror can’t see it, and I’m pointing my eyes at the mirror and seeing what it’s reflecting, not bouncing my dark vision off the mirror, because my eyes are receptive, not emissive.

Re: Jokes
 
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enough to hold as much info as a CD-ROM disc. Here's
how it works:
 
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(recyclable), each capable of holding thousands of bits of
info. The pages are locked together with a custom-fit
device called a binder, which keeps the sheets in their
correct sequence.
 
Opaque Paper Technology (OPT) allows manufacturers to use
both sides of the sheet, doubling the info density
and cutting costs. Experts are divided on the prospects for
further increases in info density; for now, BOOKs
with more info simply use more pages.
 
Each sheet is scanned optically, registering info
directly into your brain. A flick of the finger takes you to
the next sheet. BOOK may be taken up at any time and used
merely by opening it.
 
Unlike other display devices, BOOK never crashes or requires
rebooting, and it can even be dropped on the floor or
stepped on without damage. However, it can become unusable
if immersed in water for a significant period of time. The
"browse" feature allows you to move instantly to any sheet
and move forward or backward as you wish. Many come with an
"index" feature, which pinpoints the exact location of
selected info for instant retrieval.
 
An optional "BOOKmark" accessory allows you to open BOOK to
the exact place you left it in a previous session -- even if
the BOOK has been closed. BOOKmarks fit universal design
standards; thus, a single BOOKmark can be used in BOOKs by
various manufacturers. Conversely, numerous BOOKmarkers can
be used in a single BOOK if the user wants to store numerous
views at once. The number is limited only by the number of
pages in the BOOK.
 
You can also make personal notes next to BOOK text entries
with an optional programming tool, the Portable Erasable Nib
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Re: Tall Ship Plans
 
Ich bin ein Berliner.
 
I can neither prove, nor deny, that I am a jelly doughnut.
 
Welcome/here/back/still to the HERO board. I spent a lot of time Board Lording at ENWorld - I know what you mean about both wanting to contribute and being frustrated by a bunch of people who find throwing rocks from inside their glass houses to be a good past time.
 
Top Five Things TH loves about the HERO System:
 
5. It's the only system I know that makes sense through and through, with little or no mechanical break. It's clean, and it works.
 
4. The people whom I've met on the boards have been kind, curteous, and rarely (if ever) unnecessarily snarky. The occassional flare up, sure, but a strong, supportive community.
 
3. You'd be hard pressed to find better written base material anywhere. I mean, anywhere. Even the books I don't like are above & beyond any d20 material I've purchased in the last 5 years (my Ravenloft books notwithstanding, but that's a 'me' thing rather than a book thing - but Ravenloft & HERO share a lot in common in how they were approached, which is why WoTC repealed Arthaus' license).
 
2. Steve & Co. aren't WotC. You aren't dealing with a faceless entity which is out to bilk you on unnecessary books. The rules are consistent and remain consistent throughout all of the published material.
 
1. You can build ANYTHING. And just as important (and tied for first) is that you can always - ALWAYS - ask Steve directly on his personal board if you're confused. And should you get stuck, see point 4 - this is a rockin' community I'm a proud member of. There's a reason I'm switching systems, and if I could get away with it, I'd switch my d20 Ravenloft game to HERO as well.
 
But I'd have a mutiny on my hands.

Re: Storn's Art & Characters thread.
 

 
As they would say on FIREFLY ... Shiney!
 
PDS

Re: Complicate the Person Above
 
Death Tribble planted snickers wrappers in L. Marcus' underwear. His girlfriend found them that night.
 
Except L. Marcus only eats Heath bars. DUN DUN DUUNNNNNNN.

Re: Complicate the Person Above
 
Oddhat: having recently been thawed out, his first words were "Og, og og og" and he had to shave, lose the club, and eventually went on to marry.
 
Truth be told, he was better with the club.

Re: Complicate the Person Above
 
L. Marcus, under the false pretense that no gnus were good gnus, took guns to gnus in the news, and is now forced to run from the gnu news, in the nude.

Re: Complicate the Person Above
 
Death Tribble was there, standing in the center of Trafalgar Square, wondering why he couldn't see the whole of London when the Antichrist swept through on his bicycle. - Gratuitously borrowed from Good Omens.

Re: Magic system opinions
 
With regards to spell usage, and keeping it in check, I tend to favor increased endurance cost. Now I know charges covers the feel of the D20 magic systems a bit more accurrately, but then we run into these issues we have here.
 
I like to set an end reserve, and have the usual recovery limitations (like sleep time or prayer) and then i calculate how many spells can be cast out fo this reserve. Basically, I limit the number of spells by ensuring the end reserve can only accomadate a specific number of castings in a given day.
 
This also helps simulate spell levels also. I try to make minor spells cost roughly 3 end or so... and each jump form there increases this by 2 or 3 points. The most powerful spells should cost around 20 End to use. When your reserve is at 100, thats 5 castings of your biggest, or multiple castings of smaller spells.
 
In one game I had a character with 5 distinct levels of spells... End cost on each were 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25. He had a 100 pt reserve when the game began, and got it up to 150 by campaign end. I limited how quickly he could build this so it was a gradual climb.
 
For recovery, it had a 5 Rec, with the limitation you had to be fully asleep for 2 hours before it woudl kick in. Normally 3 hours of sleep got him back to full, but anything less than 2 would not let it kick in fully.
 
So, in summary, I like using End... and especially increased End where warranted, as my limitation tool rather than charges. Charges often end up way mroe advantageous in the long run. Plus having the End reserve gives another way to influence the magic in your world by lettign ley lines or artifacts influece his reserve... or even reduce the casting cost of certain spells.
 
Like taking a Necromancer talent, and now all Necromancy spells cost 1 end less per level, making the new costs 4, 8, 12, 16 and 20. This alone really lets the primary focus on a school of magic have a major influence on how the character works.

Re: Magic system opinions
 
Well, I did a run-through the other night with both a Priest (VPP modified from Killer Shrike's version slightly, but at the end of the day, still a VPP) and a Sorceror (a stack of Multipowers with charges on the multipower). My original build (somewhere in that thread) is very similar to yours - they buy spells, they have an END reserve. Foom, done. However, the major trick (and part of the 'work' that comes from playing HERO) is maintaining the balance across the map.
 
I know now that in HERO, a 250 pt. HEROIC build character, while powerful, can still get creamed by a pure combat build that doesn't have to worry about it's chewy roleplay capabilities, and could reasonably be built on 50 (or 100) points less. That's just how it goes.
 
Steve had posted about a Talent based system which is outlined somewhat better in Fantasy Hero in Chapter 4; "The Gift" I believe its called, which has PCs pay for the ability to draw on certain elements of magic; you could easily blendo the two concepts - KS's MP or VPP with forcing the PC to buy access to various "schools" - and that could get you where you're going. If you do a Multipower, yes, the spells are remarkably cheap, but it's not a good way to curtail their overall power level.
 
One of my PCs put together a Sorceror; gave him 3 circles of magic (15, 30 & 45 point multipowers; each Multipower is designed to have one 'group' of spells in it, obviously) and he fired off a 2d6 RKA w/AP & Autofire against a mook and tattooed him against a back wall. Hardly a game breaking spell, but it was a great example of what basic magic can do in a HERO campaign.
 
If you're concerned about Limitation types, than the normal VPP structure might be a better fit (forcing people to take their RP levels into account when structuring their abilities). In an MP format, you're right - the stuff is cheap and the variations only apply for flavor purposes. You might, though, also put in "Must have -1 (or more) in limitations (-1/2)" which would force your PCs to think before they build. If you want more (Gestures, Incants and Foci alone make up a good chunk of change) then by all means, do more. Multipowers aren't generally the best way towards thematics, though.
 
Using the Tiered system, though, as Killer Shrike built, it's extremlely useful and replicates the 'feel' of d20 magic very well.
 
Hope that gets you started, and if you need more, let us know.

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now?
 
Vatican Rag - Tom Lehrer