MuensterCheese
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MuensterCheese reacted to a file:
HS6E GM Screen
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I rebuilt that part of the character using Physical Manifestation for the Clairsentience, along with OIAID & OIF for the mask. Then I added on the exact same set of Enhanced Senses using just OIAID and OIF. It's now much more affordable. I guess it's strange having OIF and PM on the same Power, but he can't use Clairsentience without the mask (a focus) which connects to the drone (the PM). I do have a question about PM, though. What does this phrase mean: "It has a DCV equal to the character’s base DCV (i.e., as calculated from DEX, with no other modifiers)." What does that mean?
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Scrap may want to give it an attack power, but currently it has none because he can't afford it. The drone can be attacked, takes no STUN, flies, has Life Support, etc. That said, I think I know where you're going with your question. I've looked into the possibility of Physical Manifestation, but since Scrap wants it to push things open (like doors) and possibly Blast, I thought building an Automaton was the better choice. But sitting here at the keyboard, perhaps I could build Blast as Physical Manifestation or Indirect or something. Is that where you're headed?
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My question to all of you Hero experts is this: how can I make the following character affordable for the player? Scrap is a character that builds things from junk parts. His player wishes to build a drone as an Automaton Follower. Among other powers are 48 points of Enhanced Senses, which includes Powers like Nightvision, Infrared, and Detect Global Position (GPS). This cost also includes selling back normal smell, taste, and touch. I also purchased Modifiers like Telescopic. I purchased Transmit for the Sight and Hearing Groups because the drone can stream the data to a Computer. The Computer's special effect is a mask which acts in three roles: it masks the character's identity, can be taken away, and provides Powers to the character. Any powers provided by the mask are bought with the OIAID and OIF Limitations. The Computer mask itself also has the Enhanced Senses that the drone has because of its own camera and mic. I also had to buy Normal Sight and Hearing for it. But the Computer can also receive the senses of the drone because of Transmit. I bought these for the Computer as Clairsentience with Mobile and Only Through The Senses of Others. I purchased Enhanced Senses like Nightvision with the -1/2 Limitation: Only Through Clairsentience (pg. 179, par. 3). I purchased Transmit for the Computer also since it can send its data to Scrap through a screen and speakers. When Scrap wears the mask, he benefits from the Enhanced Senses from the mask, as well as those streamed from the drone. I had to buy Clairsentience for Scrap, too, in the same way I did for the Computer. The Automaton's and Computer's costs are, of course, divided by 5 for Scrap to purchase. Scrap now has a group of senses from the drone and a group from the computer. The computer has its own senses plus that of the drone. The drone has its own senses. My problem is that this character is coming in way over the allotted points for the campaign. Enhanced Senses are essentially being bought four times for three different entities. How can I make this cheaper, or have I done as good a job as I can, given the concept?
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Doc Democracy reacted to a post in a topic:
Movement - how do you do it
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Movement - how do you do it
MuensterCheese replied to Doc Democracy's topic in HERO System Discussion
I just wanted to add that this post came up in a search result because I was wondering the same thing as the OP. Thank you all for chiming in and lending your experience and expertise to the issue. I found the discussion very valuable. -
I no longer have the code, but it was last written in Delphi 7. The algorithm is fractal in nature, using Brownian motion calculations, and uses recursion. The output of the file has to have dimensions which are a power of 2, plus 1. The first time through the function, the "altitudes" of the main 9 points are calculated. The main 9 are upper-left, upper-center, upper-right, left-center, center, right-center, lower-left, lower-center, and lower-right. The map is then divided into four quadrants and each of those is sent into the recursive function. The function randomly calculates the "altitudes" of any unassigned points of the main 9 within the quadrant. The recursive function divides the quadrant into four smaller quadrants, and once again sends those into the recursive algorithm. The further away two points are, the larger the variance in "altitude" at the midpoints. At the smallest level, a 9-pixel box is submitted to the algorithm. Since there is no more to subdivide, the function exits. It did not use threads, so it's kind of slow, but computers are getting faster. The "altitude" is a value between 1 and 255, I believe, which is a color of grey. A color map then maps these values into RGB values. The download includes sample color maps, which are customizeable and you can add more. -
Cool, thanks! I have 6E2 in book form and PDF but I just couldn't figure out what to search for. That should decrease how much that PC in our group has to pay for pistols. And he can probably buy more! (And, yes, it's a superheroic campaign, not a heroic one).
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In Champions Villains, Volume III, page 60, there is a character sheet for Buzzsaw. Listed in his Powers are his two Buzzsaw Shooter Gauntlets. The first costs 38 CP and the second costs 5 for the exact same weapon. Can someone explain to me what rule is being employed to get this kind of discount? I ask because there is a PC in my group who has multiple pistols of the same make and model (same powers, advantages, and disadvantages) and I had him pay the same amount for each one. Thanks, experts!
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Attacking with a Blast, with Range Self (or No Range), and AoE
MuensterCheese replied to MuensterCheese's topic in Champions
6E1 is the one book I'm missing that I really think I should get. But I just bought 6E2 so I'm going to have to wait. That rule from the book really helps. And I like the Personal Immunity/Hole in the Middle modifiers. Maybe, if I don't want the player to make an attack roll, I could add the inverse of the Requires a Roll limitation (make it a + instead of a -). -
In my group, I have a member who wants a pretty simple Power. He wants the ability to emanate a sonic blast from himself in all directions. Clearly it's Blast, Perceivability is Obvious, and Duration is Instant (which are default attributes of Blast). But I also see how Area of Effect--Radius applies. The Range is questionable. I can see a Limitation for No Range, but not a Limitation for Self. I guess I could make one up. And it also stands to reason that Cannot Use Targeting applies, because we've decided to use Hit Locations. All this is fine, until I imagined this in combat. The rules state that the character needs to attack. But why, in this case? The power emanates from him, so he has no need to Target an opponent, the ground, or anything. The effect would affect everyone around him in the radius that he purchased, wouldn't it? Why should he roll attack dice? Just because the rules say so? Or should I add an Advantage?
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Electrical Powers in a Normal World
MuensterCheese replied to MuensterCheese's topic in HERO System Discussion
You guys have given me some *great* ideas. I can't believe my question generated so many responses, and from so many different people! Now, I didn't understand every response, but it helps get my feet wet in this game, pun intended. -
Electrical Powers in a Normal World
MuensterCheese replied to MuensterCheese's topic in HERO System Discussion
Wow. These are really great answers to my concerns. I appreciate all of you for your thoughtful responses and the time each of you took to address my concern. And, sorry I originally posted this in the wrong forum. The character I'm creating is a villain minion, and the rules lawyer in me wants to it "right", "fairly", and "well-balanced". The electricity minions work for a water-based boss who is immune to electrical effects. The water-based boss first power-sprays the characters and the fighting area with water, and then the minions go to work, shocking the water to shock the characters. They can't "throw" their electricity, and thus the No Range limitation. And I just couldn't figure out how to name such powers, limitations, and advantages and to "cost" them to figure out if it would be a fair fight with my heroes. In some of your responses, you presumed that I was not the GM when, in fact, I am. My sons like to play Champions with me, which is good father/son time. However, to my detriment, they have expressed no interest in reading anything in the rule books. They maneuver their characters where they want and use their powers, but have no real understanding of how the game is making these things occur. I tell them what dice to roll, what characteristics they need to tell me, and let me just say that it is all very taxing. I don't know the system very well myself, even after reading CC multiple times, so it's hard on my brain to create the adventures, create the bad guys, and perform combat. To this day, I don't know how power frameworks, combat skills, and variable advantages work. But that's outside the scope of this forum thread. -
As a rules lawyer in the other games I play, I have such a hard time with character creation when it comes to costing things that the real world normally provides. I still have not wrapped my head around these key concepts. I don't have the Hero System books, but I have CC6, Powers, and one Villains book. My latest headache is in regards to electricity. I have consulted CC6 and read about Electricity. I have looked at the preface to Electrical powers in the Powers book. I've searched this forums for answers, but can't find any with my search terms. So I still don't get it! I am creating a character that can shock, but with the No Range limitation, since he has to touch his target. But electricity also flows through metal, water, and other conductors. Do I *buy* advantages and/or limitations to reflect this natural phenomena, or does the special effect alone justify the character's use of electricity through such mediums? Do I buy different powers (or a power framework) that represents his attack through each kind of medium, like Shock Through Water, or Shock Through Metal? Are the different kinds of conductors considered to be foci? I have spent time enough trying to research this on my own--it was time for a question. And that's another weakness of mine. Instead of being creative and accepting my own answer, I'm always looking to cannon or official resources for answers.
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Version 1.0
605 downloads
In the Hero system, movement is measured in meters per phase. Meters aren't used in the U.S. culture. Phases are "measured" by speed (SPD), and phases are within turns, which last 12 seconds. The number of miles per hour achieved by a character is dependent on their movement (purchased or unpurchased) and their SPD characteristic. This chart, when printed, provides a handy reference to know how fast, in U.S. terms, a character can go given these two variables. Since normal humans are given SPD 2 and running at 12 m, you can see this computes to about 4.5 MPH, which an average, healthy, human adult can run. The chart is also helpful if you want to build a character that moves a certain number of miles per hour. If you have already bought the character's SPD, then you can do a reverse look-up and buy the appropriate movement in meters for the movement ability you are building (such as flying, swimming, running, or tunneling, etc.). For instance, to fly at 40 miles an hour, you buy about 70 m of Flight at SPD 3, about 55 m of Flight at SPD 4, about 45 m of Flight at SPD 5, etc. You are also free to change the Movement column values, and the whole grid will update to reflect your changes (it IS Excel, after all). -
Version 1.1
159 downloads
Several years ago I wrote a terrain generator for SimCity 3000. It was later used to create terrains for Auran Trainz simulator. The code was never part of either of these software packages, but users could save the grey-scale output from my program and import it as terrain inside these other programs. Internally, the program uses a random mid-point displacement algorithm to generate the grey-scale bitmap you see in the middle of the program. A color-map bitmap in the same folder acts as a palette to render the grey-scale bitmap to the right-hand side of the program. The right-hand map is what you should save for your adventures. The size of bitmap (in pixels) is always a power of 2, plus 1. It's not multi-threaded, so the larger the output, the longer you wait. You can do whatever you want with the color output in any graphics editor. You can add cities, hide-outs, political boundaries, rivers, points of interest, and label the seas, bays, mountain ranges, beaches, and forests, all with simple graphic editing programs like Microsoft Paint. -
I will be playing my first Hero adventure tonight with my two 11-year-olds and two of their friends. I created 250-point characters for each of them. All four of them decided to let my 5-year-old daughter join, and I didn't even ask them to let her in. Here is what I took out of the game, and why: Everything mental (OMCV, DMCV) With fewer points to spread, I didn't want them to create a super-cool good guy only to be defeated by a weak mentalist taking over their minds. This should also lead to friendship since no one will be pitted against another by means of a controlling mind. CON and END, so there's less to keep track of. They will already be tracking STUN with damage and REC and I figured that was enough. BODY, RKA, Resistant Defense, Armor Piercing, etc. so there's no bleeding, cutting, stabbing, shooting, dismemberment, beheading, and the like. We will keep this game like an old-school Spiderman comic book. And bad guys' guns will always miss. However, we will still have knockback because it's cool. I've trained the kids how to count BODY on a STUN roll, which is useful for knockback, robots, and inanimate objects. Multi-power and VPPP, because they're too confusing, even for me. EGO and PRE, because they're hard to role-play for youngsters Ffeet instead of meters, because we live in the U.S. and the kids are used to feet. I have a printed Excel spreadsheet which shows a bunch of pre-loaded converted numbers so we can go between multiples of 5 meters and feet. By the way, knocking out all this stuff for kids' sake also makes supplements harder to use since several stats won't apply and that takes away from the total cost of pre-generated and pre-made characters like Arrowhead. It's made me go back and forth on whether to even purchase stuff like the Powers book or the 3 Villains books. We'll see what happens tonight, when they fight Arrowhead from Champions Complete.
