theinfn8

Interesting. Is the city unified under one "government"? Does the dome enclose just the city or a bit of biome around it? The city could be a failed utopian society attempt and be kind of a post apocalypse setting. There's still some pretty advanced tech hidden within the city, which is fractured into small warlord domains. The Skulls could have control of most of the city, but not the part that would give them the tech they're seeking. Your heroes could either fall in with The Skulls accidentally on arrival, neutralize their opposition, and then realize their mistake (in typical comic style). Or they connect with the "good guys" out the gate and need to help them defend against attacks that are part raid, part search party. Just some random ideas to get the gears moving.

This does bring us back to the possibility of a sword and sorcery piracy campaign. You want to get around to all of these awesome places with ruins and danger and adventure, put the PCs on a pirate ship. Have boat, will travel. Piracy has definitely been around forever. Not sure where to look for ancient Mediterranean pirates, but I think there are some Arabic source pirate materials. I'll have to putz around the interwebs now...

I have broken down in the process of writing a small... campaign path(?) using only FHC for new players. Giving a unified format to explain the powers that won't require understanding the whole book and giving options to upgrade parts of the characters as you work through it so new players can see how you spend points and "level up" (as it were). Each scene focuses on an individual aspect of the game, working with Normal Damage (no weapons or improvised), then Killing Damage, then a skill challenge type scene, and so forth. As with most projects drastic life changes have made me put it to the side. As far as other system's mechanics, my current game, the players enjoyed the Traveller character creation system so much that they wanted a Fantasy Hero adaptation. So I complied, with their understanding that characters would not end up as a completely equal point value. They are happy with the results, so who am I to complain?

Didn't have access, had to ditch it to live, was too busy chasing someone to be bothered, and even the occasional not safe to be wearing any. Rust issues aside, while chainmail isn't the heaviest thing in the world, I certainly wouldn't want to go swimming with it on (should I get knocked of my boat while pirating). Especially if I was wearing Conan sized chain.

There are definitely some exceptions to note with regard to magic. Since we are looking at the works of REH and pulp in general, let us not forget that Solomon Kane had a friend that was a shaman and used a magic staff gifted to him by said shaman. Not all magic was demonic, otherworldly, or corrupting. It just makes a great scape goat and villain for the hero to overcome.

Moderately more valuable, but the rules also say the GM should put a limit on the amount of damage. Without pulling the book out, I vaguely recall a recommended(?) 3 damage cap on the damage. And depending on your effect, that might be the better way to go. Just don't forget that Change Environment is single target at its base level and is not meant as a primary means of creating damage. You need to tack on AoE, AVAD, and all that other stuff. If you're combining multiple effects from the table, that could get expensive fairly quickly. I always envision CE damage as kind of a side effect (like poltergeists whipping loose objects around an area is meant to impair vision, but it could also cause a pt or two of damage if you got hit). The damage is more of a secondary part of the main usage. Because of that, if the target even has 1 rPD, the damage part of it is basically ignored. If the point was to have the objects hurt people, then it should be a Blast/RKA with AoE (and maybe IIF for the necessary "ground clutter" in my example) and some kind of time advantage for the continued use. And maybe the vision impairment is a side effect of the damage and would be linked that way.

Interesting. I was just at Robert E Howard Days in Crossplains, Texas. They had a panel on the topic of what exactly counts as sword and sorcery, what aspects it must have, and which of Howard's creations is the actual birth of the genre. If you're looking for historical parallel for inspiration, there is of course the Roman empire. If you set your world with an empire in decline you can easily throw in pirates, proto-vikings, barbarians, the Roman based proto-knights in England, ancient Egyptian civilization to the south, with jungle adventure even further south (or head east into Persia and India). Shrink the distances down a little. Take a lot of literary license. There's a lot to mine there. I've also always been interested in working out a game based on Xenophon's recounting of the march of an army of Greek soldiers caught deep in enemy territory. Would be a hardcore fight, some politicking, and a little bit of resource management. Sounds ripe for a gritty sword and sorcery style game. Just replace the army with the player group. Short version: https://m.warhistoryonline.com/featured/behind-enemy-lines-march-10000-greek-hoplites.html Read it yourself: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1170 Or watch The Warriors, I think it's loosely based on the story and is an entertaining watch either way.

Not that you would see this in FHC, but one of the examples in 6e1 uses 1 pt of Killing Damage at a 5 cp cost. Really, that only means the difference of a pittance of stun, but that would change the defense required. And the example is listed as AVAD, defense is LS: Safe Environment [High Pressure], so you could always take that route as well. It does make sense that 1 pt of Killing Damage in a CE would cost 5 cp. As that is what it would cost to buy it straight up.

I like your player's concept. I agree with you, VPP does seem like the best route. I would also make the time to switch something that needs to be done out of combat. I would sit down with the player before hand and express my concern that the concept has the potential of overshadowing the other PCs and ask them what things we could do to make sure that everyone still had fun. I would come to the table with some ideas, but ultimately I want the player to choose to self-limit so they have buy-in on what they are playing. Treating players with respect and dignity FTW.

How "high tech" we going? Laser chainsaw! Could also give him a ranged blast (or a limited range blast that is extending the length of the blade), the ability to block energy blasts, a tunneling effect wouldn't be out of the question.

In San Angelo (the real one) options are even more limited. It's basically Pathfinder or D&D5 here. When I brought in other systems I had to market aggressively. "Oh, you're not doing anything? Why not come over to this room and grab a pre-gen and we can pink mohawk this shadowrun..." But it worked.

Well, be persistent. Reschedule. Show up a little earlier. Maybe talk to some of those cool helpful Pathfinder guys and see if they might be interested in trying a supers game. Tell 'em there's no commitment, the first game is free I seriously hope it all works out for you. GMing can be very rewarding. And some times your players are asshats. You don't always get to choose.

Point conceded.

The adrenaline power doesn't use Endurance, it uses a charge. But you make a legit point otherwise.

Well, there is a weird RAW side effect of using Time Limit that I would ignore, using the power each time is technically a Zero Phase action, though using it would still count as an attack and thus end your turn. But this would technically make it an advantage, since you would have your full phase available for non-attack actions, then toss an attack out at the end. OP seemed to want something straight from the books, or I would have customized it and split the difference on the two as you suggested. (-1/2) maybe (-3/4). Suppose it depends what kind of game your running and whether an hour to wait is really much of a limitation. If I'm a dungeon crawling wizard, then an hour could be a lifetime. If I'm a space smuggler who only really needs to get out of bad situations every now and then, an hour might not be such a bad thing.

Sorry it didn't go so hot. I take it you have an FLGS near you? Do they have a game bulletin board? Maybe you could advertise for people interested in playing a supers game? Edit: I put my current group together by running an open table Shadowrun game every week as a Catalyst Demo Team Agent for two years. I made friends, noted people with similar play styles and interests, then invited the people I knew would be interested. If you have the time, it's a fast way to meet more gamers and improve your GM chops at the same time.

Don't forget that your Aid STUN is only half as effective, since you're adjusting a defensive characteristic.

Right. That's why the Time Limit. The one use lasts 5 minutes. It technically doesn't "end" before the 5 minutes is up.

Having introduced new players to the game fairly recently (about a year and a half ago, and we're still playing HERO), here are some things that I did and noticed. To start: I built out a set of semi-generic pre-generated powers. Basically, a power set for a brick, a weapon based martial artist, a mentalist support character, etc. These were all the offense and defense capabilities of the heroes. I then assigned a color to each one (5, cause I had 5 players) (150 pts) Then I built a set of supporting powers that included a movement power and something unique. An entangle, a barrier, etc. I then assigned each one of those a metallic color. (50 pts) I then selected 5, 15 pt complications. Then I assigned a pattern to it (swirling, star bursts, shifting mist, what-have-you). Printed those out on their own individual page and brought them to session 0. Then I printed out 5 copies of the skills listing, the perks listing, and the talents listing, and the game specs for a competent normal (100 pts) At session 0 I handed out the competent normal sheet and a blank character sheet to everyone and had them build their normal unmodified human being before getting powers. This allowed us to work through what the characteristics, skills and perks were without getting tied up in powers. The only real character direction I gave them was "build someone that would be curious enough to touch a space rock and that would choose to be a super hero once getting powers." The conceit I was going with was that a giant Comet had struck the earth but in the process rained down a bunch of smaller fragments, that when touched the first time would grant the individual powers. I then had them take turns picking one page from each of the previous mentioned sets with only the color, metal, or pattern visible when they chose. So one person might have chosen a purple rock with gold star bursts. At this point I could explain the powers to them in more detail, but they didn't have to worry about the specifics on point costs. Then I gave them the last 100 CP to tie the powers together and add skills that they had gained in the last 5 years since they had gained their powers. I ended up building any new powers they needed on the fly at the table or let them have at depending on their comfort level with the system. I did it this way for a lot of reasons. 1. Random power generation is cool. Players get to see their hero built from the ground up (as it were). They're still mostly pre-gens, but they don't feel like it. 2. I didn't have to introduce any power build rules to anyone that wasn't ready for it or that didn't apply to their character. Or try to shoe horn in someone's crazy hero idea that would have required ridiculously complex builds. 3. I controlled the composition of powers in the group, even if the players didn't feel like I was. This is actually the most important. I knew what the defenses and offensive capabilities of the heroes would be right out the gate. No one had the chance to build an unbalanced character and dominate the game. Additionally, I was capable of generating my villains before we even got to session 0. Which leads me to one of the things I learned: Build your villains based on your players stats, pay no attention to their CP cost. With this method, I knew what the average level of ability was for the heroes, so I could easily say "their DCVs are in the 10 range, I want this villain to hit about 50% of the time, I need a combined OCV at about 9 (straight OCV, CSLs, etc)." Having all of their stats made it very easy to judge how much average damage I would be facing, how often I should expect the villain to get hit, what kind of damage my villains needed to dish out, how hard a skill check I would need for any given situation. Get your players in the habit of telling you how much they beat a skill roll by. If they have an 11- and they roll 9, they should say "beat it by 2". Then, if you have modifiers that are applicable that they don't know about, you can describe the result without giving that away. I like to also use it as a measure of success, with a greater number showing greater success. Then, when we move to combat (and I think this was already mentioned) I treat To Hit as another skill. Starts at 11- and your "ranks" are effectively your OCV. Pre-calculate it and write it on the character sheet. If you have a temporary adjustment it modifies this number. They get it immediately and are already used to saying how much they beat it by. That number tells you what DCV they will hit. This is already longer than I originally intended. I'll post more if I think of anything else.

I like Lucius’ build, it’s a nice clean implementation. I’ve had several different thoughts on the question at hand, but the truth is, I don’t really know *exactly* what is being built. Going bare bones, since you say you don’t need the Endurance Reserve, and the cooldown seems to be the most important thing, I submit the following: Kha(o)s Cannon: (Active Cost: 80, Real Cost: 32) Blast 8d6, Time Limit (5 Minutes; +1); Limited Power: Delayed Use (1 hour; -1.5) Using Limited Power for cooldown is in APG1. This will allow the use of the power for 5 minutes from first use, then lock it out after the power is done being used for 1 hour.

I ran a weekly open table Shadowrun event at the FLGS for about a year and a half. Player count could range from a couple up to about ten, swinging with little to no warning. Got orders to deploy, so I scheduled the final event. Word got around and I think the table hit about 16 players as people came to play one more time before I left. Heart-warming and a freaking nightmare for combat. Private games, I stick to around 4 players normally. Granted, I used the open table as a means to meet people and build a group I wanted to game with. Still playing with those guys. So, mission successful I guess.

The kind of standard for precompiled programs is to install into it's own directory in "/opt". So something like "/opt/herodesigner". But it technically doesn't matter where it's placed if you set the permissions right. I only have one user on my machine, so I'm not sure about the appPrefs.xml file. I'm also on leave and nowhere near my desktop to play around with it. Couple guesses, check your write permissions to the app folder? Make sure you run it from the directory it's in (cd to where it resides before running your java, or set the working directory appropriately if your using a desktop based link)? Could also be a built in function of the program and there isn't anything you can do about it. Guess I'll check back after I get home and have the time to check my own.

Looking into it, check out Desolidification (Merging), Advanced Players Guide I, pg. 93. It covers this exact situation. In short, yes, you buy them linked.

Advanced Player's Guide I, pg. 74

Speaking from a HEMA perspective, if you're going for something more historically based, then I would suggest that the game is still correct. I would leave Bind as an active attack. This type of immobilization always takes place after weapons come into contact with eachother (be it sword, shield, hand, etc.) Such a weapon "bind" is more like applying a joint lock to an opponent's arm after they have thrown a punch. You still need to defend against the attack before moving to the lock itself. You can't abort to a Martial Grab or Joint Lock. I could argue there is a case for making a Parry, Block, or Dodge a pre-requisite to conducting the Bind...