Steve Long

I use the "half" values as listed on the STR Table. For example, STR 10 can lift 100 kg, STR 15 can lift 200 kg; therefore the point halfway between them, STR 13, can lift an amount halfway between them, or 150 kg.

Using that logic, STR 48 could lift 18.75 tons, if I'm doing the math correctly in my head.

1. With the GM's permission, yes.

2. No.

The rules on adding damage are covered on 5E 270-72. There's also a lengthy explanation, and several other related questions, in the Rules FAQ. If you're still uncertain of the answer after reading all that, please post a follow-up and we'll get things straightened out.

Yes, that's correct.

Groundboy loses the power.

1. It probably is double-dipping; I may've made a mistake. I'll take a look when I get home and have access to all my books and notes.

2. For two, I'd keep it at -3/4; for one, I'd up it to -1. Other GMs may have their own preferences, of course.

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If you're submitting something for publication, it needs to follow the WG to the letter. Ideally HD would do all of that, but I'm sure it misses a thing or two; we'll get all that worked out eventually. In the meantime, after you export to a word processor, you'll just have to review stuff by hand -- after all, the characters would have to be submitted in word processing format in addition to HD anyway so we can lay 'em out and suchlike.

I'm away from my books and notes here in SF, so I'm not sure. It may've been some option someone was suggesting, but I don't believe so -- I'll double-check and make sure after I get back home.

Sadly, yeah, it didn't make the show. We have a manuscript here to show people; so far everyone's loved it. The book should ship in about a week to 10 days, according to our best current info.

Obi Long Kenobi, LOL.

Take a look at the third question under "Penetrating" in the Rules FAQ. That should clarify things for you; if not, please post a follow-up.

Since this thread is the start of a discussion, not a rules question, I've moved it over from "HERO System 5E Rules Questions" so others can participate. Enjoy!

I don't have any specific standard other than gut feeling. I'm not intimately familiar with every character you list, but I'd probably call Thor, the Hulk, and the DC Captain Marvel OIHID in most games I run. Multiform I think works better for characters for whom changing shape is a defined part of their powers, as with, say, Changeling or Snowbird.

I'd say, as per the rules on 5E 197, that you should not allow him to take both. He should take one or the other to represent the special effect he has in mind.

Vehicles aren't subject to Normal Characteristic Maxima. Of course, the GM can change this for his campaign if he feels the standard rule causes game balance problems.

Per 5E 204, a character cannot combine two slots from the same EC into a multiple-Power attack.

First off, just to make sure I'm not completely off-base:

A character buys a 10d6 EB with 10 boostable charges. To fire one shot, he spends a charge. If he spends 5 charges, he can do 14d6 damage with his EB (+4d6 for the extra 20 active points from the extra charges).

Each extra Charge spent adds +1d6, correct.

A character buys a 10d6 EB with armor piercing (+1/2) and 10 boostable charges. If he spends 5 charges, he gets 20 extra active points in his attack, but since the attack has armor piercing, he does 12.5d6 AP damage with his EB. (2.5d6 costs 13 points, +6 for AP. This assumes half-dice are allowable, and cost 3 base points.)

OK, for an EB AP, it takes 7.5 points to add 1d6, so each 1d6 of damage equals 1.5 DCs -- thus, each 3 DCs adds +2d6. So by spending +3 Charges, the character can do 12d6 damage. The remaining 1 DC could theoretically get another two-thirds of a die, but I'll leave it up to the GM to decide whether to allow the character to go up to 12.5d6 or make him stick with 12d6.

Now the question: if a character buys a 10d6 EB with 30 boostable charges (+1/2), and uses 5 charges, does he do 12.5d6 damage, or 14d6 damage? Does he need to account for the charges advantage in the active points gained from boostable charges?

Yes, he needs to account for the Charges Advantage. The GM is of course free to rule otherwise if he feels it would be appropriate to do so.

Glad to hear you had an acquisitive day, SS -- and that y'all are enjoying the Bestiary.

Yeah, the general rule board is better for that sort of thing. Design/philosophy questions usually lead to interesting discussions, so it's best if everyone can chime in.

Nope.

These discussions of armor and weapons and whatnot are a perfect example of why I don't intend to waste time doing a whole lot of historical research.

They're also completely off-topic, guys. Feel free to start another thread about 'em, since they're certainly germane to FH in general, but please don't keep talking about 'em in this particular thread.

Thanx for all the suggestions, guys. Keep 'em comin'.

A few clarifications/responses/etc.:

As I've said before, there'll be no gadgets. Please stop askin' for 'em.

I'm vaguely familiar with the Marvel RPG book you're discussing, though I've never read it cover to cover. I don't have any intention of contacting anyone and asking him to participate in the creation of the USPD, for a whole bunch o' reasons.

While the book is going to have some powers that, because of their various aspects, are built as Multipowers or other Power Frameworks, it's not going to have pre-built Frameworks for people. It's got powers, which you can easily assemble into whatever Frameworks you want. Organizing them into Frameworks in advance would waste page space and, in some ways, diminish the value of the book, IMO.

This is not an appropriate board for game design/theory questions, but I'll answer you quickly:

Because there are other powers for providing positive effects, and doing it through CE could prove unbalancing.

how about some maps

Sorry, can't do that. NH has maps for a reason -- we don't plan any support products for that line. Therefore we crammed in stuff we ordinarily wouldn't put in a genre book.

Since we have plans for an extensive FH line (including an FH Battlegrounds book), I'm not going to devote any page space in FH to maps. I'm going to need every bit of the pages I've got just to cover all the subjects the book has to cover!

I notice "Time powers" (Freezing folks in time, etc) come up a lot.

The book does have a section of Time Powers. It won't have Time Stop or Time Manipulation, though; those take up too much page space. For my (detailed!) take on both, you can read Digital Hero 8 and 9, respectively.

The "Jericho effect" where one physically enters another body to borrow it.

Already taken care of. A character in Millennium City has a similar ability, and I'm planning to put it in USPD as well.

I would like to see the shape change power fleshed out.

Just to be clear, this isn't a book of rules. There are a few new Limitations in sidebars, and of course unusual powers comes with whatever "gamespeak" explanation is necessary to explain them, but it's not an exploration of the rules per se. There will be quite a few powers built with Shape Shift, but there won't be any explication of the Shape Shift rules just for the sake of explaining 'em -- any explanation will be in the context of the powers created.

in the interests of furthering the 'database' schtick

Actually we don't really have any interest in that, at least as far as the write-ups go. That would just interfere with peoples' ability to use the book, so I keep the schtick to the introduction. However, we are going to have little "flavor bits" quoting from UNTIL field notes, reports, and such to explain the illustrations. That'll be the last part of the book I write, after we get the layout done. Should be fun.

In other words, give systems-lite types a nice little predefined progression path for thier preconstructed powers.

That's pretty much what we're doing, since one of the reasons to do the book is to make it easier for non-system-types to use the system. Each power comes with a capsule description -- basic effect, target, duration, range, END, etc. -- followed by a text description, followed last by the actual game writeup of the power. Then there's a section called "Options" that offers customization tips -- make it stronger, make it weaker, add this Advantage for this effect, apply this Limitation to restrict it thusly, substitute this power instead to get this other effect, and so on. Some of the options are pretty simple, some are more complex. I'm trying to come up with a reasonable mix of "standard" and "unusual" powers.