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dialNforNinja

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  1. Like
    dialNforNinja reacted to Duke Bushido in Dangerous Vehicles   
    That.  That right there.
     
    Imagine your forward momentum carrying you, then you turn.  Your momentum wants to keep going straight.  With four wheels, the suspension on the appropriate corner helps absorb that energy until you've obtained a new direction.
     
    With a trike, you have nothing on the front corners: the  trike happily rolls right over.
     
    I run into this a lot with "normal" street trikes.
     
    For years, I ran a website for beginning motorcyclists.  I was a riding instructor (street and racing) for many, many years.  Frankly, if it were up to me, the big street trikes would be banned for the exact same reason: they roll over and kill people.  Sadly, they kill mostly older people who have decided they can't ride a bike anymore, but feel they would do fine on a trike (which not only takes much more strength to turn, but--- there's the "rolls over on a whim" problem).  "Tadpoles" or "reverse trikes" like that Bombardier thing on the market right now are great: they solve the problem by putting the suspension where it needs to be on a flat-turning vehicle.  However, between the two wheels widely spaced up front and the underpowered 750-powered CVT means there's really no reason not just buy a car. 
     
     
    As for the four-wheeled ATVs and the remarkable number of fatalities associate with those, well, I can't claim expertise, but I live in an extremely rural area (most of our roads around here, in 2020, are still dirt), and there are just as many ATVs as there are trucks, if not more.
     
    What I typically see is that the bulk of ATV riders are underage.  This doesn't mean they're not capable, mind you, but it tends to mean a lot of people without proper reaches for the extremes of the controls and without enough physical strength sufficient to wrestle the controls when they fight back....    well, the bulk of people wrecking the things are kids, and have no business on them in the first place.  I have yet to meet a parent who doesn't believe that his kid is somehow special and able to do things beyond his maturity and beyond his physical development.  Judgment plays a huge part as well, and --- well, there's more than one reason we don't let kids make split-second life-or-death decisions.
     
    Another common cause of wrecks on these things is lift kits.  It's three, maybe four feet wide (for the ride-behind type), and few are as much as six feet long.  Why would you make it taller?  I don't mean a little bit taller; I mean "the floorboard is now five feet of the ground" lift kits.  Sure: you can ride through deeper water.  You can ride through deeper mud.  But ever little tip and lean is so amplified....  over she goes, and on top of whatever momentum and whatever you're landing on, you can add a five-foot drop as the machine _flings_ you very much head-first for a side-of-the-skull impact.
     
    When you find an ATV with a snorkel kit, you know two things:  
     
    You know that the guy bought a kit that will let him creep his ATV through slow-moving or stationary waters regardless of how deep the water is.
     
    You know that at some point, he has or will run that thing with the wick wide open across dry ground and straight into a body of water or mud, either of which will stop him cold from a full run.  Over he goes, straight across the handlebars, face-first into whatever is waiting for him.
     
     
    Then you've got the fact that most people want to treat them like dirt bikes, which just doesn't work: you can't keep the front end up in a jump; you can't slide them sideways around a tree, etc.
     
    Anyway, that already went on far longer than I wanted it to, so let me jump to the point:
     
     
     
    Are they really failing their driving roll?  I mean, sure: they are, but why?
     
    Let's say the character has driving 14-.   Then he climbs onto his ATV.   Now this ATV is _not_ a car.  In fact, the characteristics of this thing-- the very way it is built and operates, means that just going straight and stopping forces a -6 to your roll.  Then you want to do a maneuver-- running full tilt and swerve.  Given the suspension design, the center of gravity, the deep bite of the tires into the earth, etc-- this maneuver takes another -2, perhaps you're going fast enough and over terrain broken enough to make that a -4.  Now you've got a -10.  Fourteen minus 10 means you have to roll a 4.  Given the half-a-percent chance of rolling a 3, your odds don't get much better for a 4.
     
    Now let's say that you're small:  you're too light to affect the center of gravity (you have to lean and roll your body as if you were on a bike, just because the things are so cussed small; this helps prevent a side-ways roll-over.  You're also short: in order to really throw the bars, you have to lean _into_ your turn, actually _increasing_ your chances of rolling over sideways.
     
    You're also inexperienced:  you don't really understand the importance of all the stuff above, or when to do what.  You don't even understand the danger that you're in (or that your idiot parents have put you in).
     
     
    Realistically, what's killing you?
     
     
    The machine?  Or trying to outclass your skill level?   Or using the wrong skill set entirely, assuming "well, it looks like a motorcycle; it must work like one" or "it's got four wheels; it must work like a car"?
     
     
    Yes; this could go on and on and on, but it boils down to that last suggestion in most of the cases I see around here:
     
    Not so much as "blowing the skill roll" as "not having the right skill to roll against."
     
     
    Just because someone can operate an end loader doesn't mean he can operate a bobcat.
     
     
    Now game-wise, it works the way you want it to:  perhaps "dirt bike" or "motorcycle" or "combat driving" provides equal skill in your game for for cars, pick-ups, vehicles pulling camper trailers, and ATVs.  If so, that's fine.    But if you want to apply the game to the world around you, I strongly believe the real world problem to be "wrong skill" or simply that you think you have more of that skill than you actually do.
     
     
     
  2. Like
    dialNforNinja reacted to Scott Ruggels in Dangerous Vehicles   
    Long ago I wrote an article about a fictitious Italian sports car. The car had 3 dice of unluck. Every time the driver had to make a driving roll, they had to make an unluck roll. The car itself had good stats and would grant pluses to driving skill, but missed rolls spawned unluck rolls, with one level causing minor irritation, two levels ending your trip, and three being life threatening. I’ll see if I can dig up the article. 
  3. Like
    dialNforNinja reacted to Ninja-Bear in Enraged plus Beserk?   
    Easiest would be to make it a Psy Lim: Warrior Code and the buy it at what level the Race can stop it and define a warrior Code as what you listed. 
     
    Fwiw by RAW, Berserk means that (when go into it of course) you do your most damaging attack to your nearest target whether they’re friend or foe. And you hit till the target drops. (I don’t believe until they’re killed though.)
  4. Like
    dialNforNinja reacted to unclevlad in Enraged plus Beserk?   
    What do you call a race where all its warriors always go berserk?
     
    Extinct.
     
    Another side aspect is a suspension of disbelief issue.  For a PC, why are the other PCs hanging out with this guy, if he berserks so much?  A berserker is as much, if not MORE, of a danger to his friends, compared to his enemies, and the risk of collateral damage is also huge.  The powers that be have no problem sending a berserker on a suicide mission;  better in the other guys' territory, and hey, no matter what happens, one problem's covered, right?
     
    By and large, if I'm the ruler, the best places for a berserker, best to worst:
    --the graveyard
    --far, far away
    --a very, very secure jail
     
    Berserkers are far better as literary devices, where the rampage and recovery are completely in service to the story.
  5. Like
    dialNforNinja reacted to Chris Goodwin in Giving The Children Rides, or, Howdah Do It?   
    Thanks for the shoutout!  As the guy what wrote it, probably not. 
     
    Many years ago in a Fantasy Hero game, I played a ki-rin (or more accurately, myself transformed into a ki-rin, in a fantasy world).  The GM, who wrote up all of our transformed versions, gave me PS: Magic Steed, with the idea that I'd be able to use that as a complementary skill in order to help someone (with Riding skill) stay on my back.  Probably not quite what you're looking for for an Autobot type character.  
     
    The Resistant Protection Power includes a +10 point Adder:  Protects Carried Items, which can explicitly include other characters.  That might be what you're looking for.  (6e1 p. 276 or CC p. 83)
     
    Edit to add:  Clinging, if you want them to just be attached to the side of you, or effectively seatbelted in place inside your Resistant Protection.  
  6. Like
    dialNforNinja reacted to Duke Bushido in Giving The Children Rides, or, Howdah Do It?   
    I understand it's not the answer you are looking for, but STR is the answer. 
     
    How many people can Superman carry?  As many as he can hold, maybe one in each hand and two piggyback. 
     
     
    How many people can Giganto carry?  Six fit in the palm of his hand, no problem. 
     
    It's a matter of STR and size.  STR because-- well, being able to move staggering weight is why you buy that.  It is limited by how much you can physically grab or hold.   A Trnsformer is pretty big; plenty big enough to cayy at least one person, and the biggee they are, the more they can carry.  Really the only difference between them and a giant human character is that a giant human isn't inclined to carry someone in his lung.   
     
    If that's not enough for the feel that you want, then look at how you are designing his "car powers."   the answer may lie there:
     
    Are you doing a multiform?  Are you building it as a vehicle?  What are your campaign rules for building vehicles?  How do you determine how many people can fit in a car with your vehicle rules?  What makes the car firm of a giant robot different from any other car in your campaign?  Do those differences affect how people are carried? 
     
    I think looking at it that way will help you find an answer that works for you.  While it's nigh-anathema to say on this board, not everything needs a special costs-extra build. 
     
  7. Like
    dialNforNinja reacted to mallet in Help Driving HERO   
    Although it unfortunately never got released for 6th Ed, the Ultimate Vehicle for 5th edition has a lot of extra vehicle combat stuff that might be helpful to make the combat driving more interesting and would be easily adaptable to 6th ed. 
     
    But as to your question, I think since vehicle combat, driving and stunts are going to be such a major part of the game you should use Hero to create what you want to see/experience. 
     
    Maybe create some new skills like: Vehicle Stunts, Fast Driving, Fast Turns, Vehicle Jumps, Off Road, Chasing (both to follow someone and lose someone following them), Etc... And the players have to buy all these skills and they can by levels in each of them to start and as they progress. This will allow some of them to specialize in different aspects of driving and use them to their advantage. And make things different and challenging in situations. Maybe keep Combat Driving as the "control skill" (so no one can have any of the sub-skills higher then their Combat Driving skill) and they roll Combat Driving either only in situations where no other skill might apply or as a complementary skill roll to the other rolls in special situations. 
     
    And then maybe modify some of the other skills to be driving related. For example, allow the Teamwork Skill to be used in driving to coordinate special stunts (two cars towing a giant safe down a city street and working together to use it to take out the cars chasing them, or one car spinning and facing the other teammates car coming up behind them, and using their car as a ramp so the teammates car can use the "ramp car" to make a jump, or when a passenger has to jump from one car to the other) 
     
    You can make some Talents like: Damaged Driver (gives penalty skill levels when driving a damaged car), or modify Deadly Blow so that it makes the car do extra damage when ramming another vehicle. 
     
    Some powers might be: Hood Holding (Clinging, but only for staying atop a moving vehicle), Drive Thru (Tunneling but only for driving car car through a wall or building without taking damage), Slow Down (Drain vehicle movement but only by hitting the other car first), Smoke Screen (Darkness, but only by spinning the wheels of the car and burning the rubber).
     
    This is all off the top of my head, but you get the idea. There could/can be tons of great ways to build up and make a game like this really fun and cool, including adding in maneuvers and driving martial Arts like dmjalund suggests. 
     
     
  8. Like
    dialNforNinja reacted to mallet in Help Driving HERO   
    Didn't want to Edit the last post, so doing another one. Sorry for two posts in a row. 
     
    One of the things I remember form the movies is that they always say stuff like "It's not the car, it's the driver" and you put any of the lead characters behind the wheel of any car and they can make it do amazing things.
     
    So maybe focus on that, not only stuff in my last post, maybe also have stuff like Aid (increase movement, only for car they are driving), Resistant Protection (only for the car they are driving), etc...
     
    I mean by the time they got to the 4th or 5th movie they are basically super heroes so nothing wrong (and it is probably right and fitting for the genre) to allow them to build powers to simulate so much of what they do in the movies. 
  9. Like
    dialNforNinja reacted to dmjalund in Help Driving HERO   
    Have driving based maneuvers and "Martial Arts" so different drivers can have different driving styles
  10. Like
    dialNforNinja reacted to Grailknight in Help Driving HERO   
    The Fast and Furious series are really Caper movies with driving as the action scenes in stead of individual combat. You can't take Combat Driving out so do what you can to emphasize the other skills needed for the Caper.
     
    I'd suggest that most of the PC's be drivers but that each should have a specialty related to the job. 
     
    So you'd have the Hacker, the Con Artist, the Mechanic, the Navigator, the Fighter, the Thief and any other roles necessary to execute the investigation and planning phases do most of the sessions  before the climatic chase scene occurs. 
     
    And of course everybody drives at the end. Encourages friendly banter and competition at this stage. They still want to be the best.
     
  11. Like
    dialNforNinja reacted to Ninja-Bear in How would you build...   
    Retrocognition with appropriate focus and other limitations to taste.
  12. Like
    dialNforNinja reacted to Ninja-Bear in PRE attacks - making a display vs just buying more PRE   
    What Grailknight said. You’re not a Troll. And in this game like others, what one GM disallows, another permits.  It’s all good.
  13. Like
    dialNforNinja reacted to Grailknight in PRE attacks - making a display vs just buying more PRE   
    I've never seen you as a troll, you're just new to the system. Just like not seeing all the Skill uses for PRE, it's easy to miss the Power Skill when you're just learning Hero.
  14. Like
    dialNforNinja reacted to Oruncrest in PRE attacks - making a display vs just buying more PRE   
    In combat, I'd have you make 2 rolls: Roll-to-Hit, because the target very likely won't stand there and let you do the "Shave and a Haircut" gag. And a PS: Jedi Knight Roll (no minuses unless the target figures out what you doing and makes a DEX roll to avoid it (but if he's never seen you do it before, how would he know?)) because while it's cool, it's not worth a huge outlay of points for the effect, and a Jedi should have spent a few points for the PS if only to fake being a Jedi...
  15. Like
    dialNforNinja reacted to unclevlad in About Multiform and a sane version of Duplication   
    AARGH.  Why my brain fixates on the d6-1 for a stun mult, I don't know...because I know d3 is the rule, but my brain just reverts...

    It still does mean that you need to consider rDef a fair bit, but also suggests the sweet spot is something like 10 Def total with 7-8 resistant, and 4 DCs negation.  A 4d killing attack drops to 2 1/2 d or 3d-1 depending on the GM...so you are taking some BODY on average, and versus 12d normal, you're taking high teens still.  An odd aspect of, say, 6 DC negation and 4 rDef is, you're exposing yourself to MORE variance...because 2 dice killing rolls 9+ BODY almost 30% of the time.
     
    Plus, Ninja, it REALLY means you want to look at amplifying your killing attack.  Doing that, you are seriously lethal.  You won't knock out;  you'll leave them bleeding out.  Unless the campaign is particularly dark, that is not a good thing.  So you don't necessarily want to be buffing it like that...or using a KA as a main attack, period.
  16. Thanks
    dialNforNinja reacted to unclevlad in About Multiform and a sane version of Duplication   
    I agree those are Multipower slots or a VPP, not Multiform.  In fact, you shouldn't need 3 multis, and you don't want variable slots because the combo effects are not necessarily pure multiples.  You can't link between different multis, or different slots in a multi...but you don't need to.  What you described is a 9 slot Multi:  1 Red, 2 Reds, 3 Reds;  1 Green, 2 Greens, 3 Greens;  1 Blue, 2 Blue, 3 Blue.  The points define the combo, and that you can't use the 2 Blue and 2 Green combo.  Each slot is a combo power, but that's perfectly legal.  The rest is SFX.   BUT, if you have *12* sets????  So you need to define 36 separate line items.  THAT becomes a VPP...but it's also gonna cost you a TON.  60 point pool size;  the control size depends on how many of these trinkets you can swap at a time.  (And I would not allow a 20 point control cost with Zero Time to Switch, as that feels like an end run around being able to swap all 3 out.)
     
    But good lord, what a bookkeeping hell, if you have 36 separate combined powers to define.  And what a mess to try to assess.  And again...how many combinations are really that different?  +2 DCs with your HKA is actually less versatile than +10 STR which does the same thing (and more besides) for the same END cost.
     
    I probably would not allow CSLs bought like this...or I'd probably require they're the more expensive ones, like All HTH.  Skills normally should not be purchased in a framework, as they're a Special power.  

    Also, your math is off.  The +2 DCs on the HKA is 10;  the DI is 4, and the REC is 1.  That only leaves 5 points for +1 OCV.  Or are you saying that the 2nd green ONLY gives OCV?  Those "amplifying" combinations generally don't work on the math.
     
    You're trying to translate the utterly untranslatable...completely foo, descriptive SFX by the writer...into mechanics.  If there's really all these many tweaks, I'm hearing a 60 point VPP with a 60 point control cost, no skill roll, and probably a half phase to change slots.  Granted, that's, what, 135 points....but that's the cost of extreme versatility.  How you set that pool isn't relevant t the GM;  YOU define it as swapping around those trinkets.
     
     
     
     
  17. Like
    dialNforNinja reacted to Hugh Neilson in About Multiform and a sane version of Duplication   
    6e resolved the KA being the go-to to pound STUN through high defenses with a Stun Multiple of 1-3.  Hit locations still range up to 5, but normal stun is also modified by hit locations.
     
     
     
    Sounds like a Multipower with variable slots.  Put 1/3 in each of blue, red and green and get a mix.  Put it all in one colour and you focus on that attribute to the detriment of others.  But if the GM is operating on a hard maximum for each type of ability, you end up being either max in one and poor in the others or below the norm in all three.
     
    If the GM allows each of the three to hit campaign max at 2 slots and exceed it at three (knowing that three means he's well below campaign norm in the other two categories), but that means a balanced allocation has you below campaign standard in all three areas.
  18. Like
    dialNforNinja reacted to IndianaJoe3 in PRE attacks - making a display vs just buying more PRE   
    I would give it +1d6 for an exhibition of power, and +1d6 for a good description.
     
    Buying PRE will always be a better value (and less complicated) than buying other powers for the sole purpose of using them in PRE attacks. 
  19. Like
    dialNforNinja reacted to Grailknight in PRE attacks - making a display vs just buying more PRE   
    Whether or not it's going to get X number of d6 of PRE Attack is a GM call, dependent on the many factors and variables. Just as an easy example from DBZ,  making that entrance to say Yamcha or Krillin would have a much greater effect than to Goku or Vegeta.  You could expect the same 1- 3d6 you'd get for any other power demonstration or violent act.
     
    If you haven't seen anything else to do with PRE, your game either is way too focused on combat or one that let's the player's words override their character's abilities in role playing events. Take a closer look at the skill list.
  20. Like
    dialNforNinja reacted to CaptainCoulson in 6e attractiveness PRE attack modifier question   
    The Presence attack is flavoured with whatever style you want to give it (scary mobster, impressive robot, seductive snake-person). That means that the Striking Appearance rarely affects it (only when the style of flavour includes "being attractive" and the target can percieve the style of flavour that your Striking Appearance takes) but when it does affect the roll, then your Striking Appearance adds +X/XD6 to the roll. +X to the difficulty you must roll under to affect the target, and XD6 added to the 'Damage' effect dice if the attack 'hits home'. The number for X is the number of levels of the Striking Appearance that you have that are applicable.
  21. Like
    dialNforNinja reacted to dsatow in 6e attractiveness PRE attack modifier question   
    If you are using your PRE attack to influence a person in a positive way or where appearance may make a difference.
     
    Ex: Say your character is a Hollywood Starlet or Supermodel.  You need to rent a room for you and your party but you are in one of the hotel's servicing a convention.  You could use a presence attack (I am a star!) to cow tow the front desk manager into giving you the better rooms and denigrating the worse room to conventioneers who haven't arrived yet compared to persuasion which doesn't rely as much on sheer presence as compared to talking.
  22. Like
    dialNforNinja reacted to unclevlad in About Multiform and a sane version of Duplication   
    First, are you sure you know which form of duplication was the most common when Champions was being written?
     
    Then, do you want the most popular, or a form that can be presented reasonably, or is more adaptable?  How about cross-power considierations?  Duplication can easily be considered as a special case of Summon;  Summon works great for the kind of short-term, disruptable "instant minion" or "instant horde" forms...the massive replicators don't often have a whole lot of powers on their own, and they rely on overrunning by numbers, or creating too much of a distraction to ignore.  Duplication gets the inherent advantage of full cooperation, to the point of self-sacrifice, for free...so it needs a downside when it can be included in an arbitrary build.
     
    One thing this discussion is pointing out...one could probably dedicate at least a chapter to duplication in all its intricacies.   
  23. Like
    dialNforNinja got a reaction from Germydo in About Multiform and a sane version of Duplication   
    I found a post on Stack Exchange about building a massmind character that suggested using the Follower perk, which seemed like a reasonable approach as explained. It also mentions the (fantastically expensive) 4e villain Tyrannon who had an entire army of transdimensionally Mind Linked subordinates, which sounds like a great enemy idea. I'll have to see if I can find the relevant book somewhere for cheap.
     
    I'm posting the link to both the Playing A Horde thread and my own about Shadow Clone not-Duplicates-like-HERO-does-them copies, for the benefit of later searching.
     
    https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/125324/how-to-build-a-hive-mind-character-in-hero-system-any-edition
  24. Like
    dialNforNinja got a reaction from CHellsmith in Playing a horde - Suggestions?   
    Shameless double post since it's been a couple hours and I have an actual direct suggestion for the original question: Size Increase + Desolidify (group of normal size bodies) with (interacts with normal world, not other desolids) as a limitation, and base the number added in the "swarm" on the added Body for that Size Level (1-3, 4-6, or 7-9 for the full squad.) Combine that with the earlier suggestions of extra Speed and the ability to spread or concentrate attacks based on how many Size Levels you currently have, and maybe some Stretching to let some members of the squad go further away than Size Increase has reach, and it looks pretty good from my (admittedly very much novice to HERO system) perspective. The Strength and movement increases are probably too much for the concept, but trading those points for the Speed and Stretching should work.
  25. Like
    dialNforNinja reacted to mallet in Playing a horde - Suggestions?   
    No problem! I love things like this. 
     
    Some additional ideas:
     
    -Lots of extra limbs (+18 for a 10 man squad) to represent all the team members can be holding items
     
    -somehow work charges into the build. 9 charges which only recover at HQ (one for each extra member of the unit) it is these charges that are lost when a unit member dies, until you are back down at the single, base, trooper. Each charge might give certain bonuses representing the extra people on the team. All of them are activated at first, but as you lose them you lose the bonus abilities/stats/skills/etc... that they provide. 
     
    -Naked advantage of Selective, Area of Attack. With a custom limitation that the most targets available to hit is something like number of remaining unit members -3 (1 min) or something similar. That way you can represent lots of guys firing individual weapons each turn at different targets. but the total number of possible targets drop as unit members die off. So at first (with 10 unit members you could hit 7 opponents a turn (the other 3 unit members are said to be reloading or doing "something else" that phase). But when you are down to 6 unit members left, you can only hit 3 targets that phase, etc...
     
    -Bonuses to base attack damage based on number or remaining unit members (-3) so if the base guy has a gun that does 2d6KA, at full strength it might do 4d6, when 5 people are left only 3d6, etc... you'd need to find someway of mixing this with the area of effect mentioned above and not be overpowering.  Maybe make it either/or. Either they can area of effect and hit multiple targets at normal damage, or "concentrate" their fire and do more damage at one target, but not both in the same phase. 
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