Altair

It depends on what you want to do. If it's just a series of magically appearing weapons, a la video game characters? Multipower with IIF, nice and tidy. Otherwise, I like Netzilla's idea, EDM, storage only. Whether or not Concealment 20- works depends on your game, GM, etc. If Stealth 20- is essentially invisibility in your game, then sure, why not? Maybe Concealment with Megascale?

For sure, if that's true in the game said character exists in, then no doubt. 100% agree. It's not my default assumption, but it's not my game either The thing I think we can all agree on is that you're supposed to Get What You Pay For - so if it's just supposed to be SFX, then it shouldn't cost a significant amount of points, if it costs anything at all. If, however, the switching has effects outside of access to the power set, then one can adjudicate accordingly.

You could also model it as a Hand-to-hand attack, something like: Spinning Piledriver: Hand-To-Hand Attack +9d6, Armor Piercing (+1/4) (56 Active Points); Limited Power Must follow a grab (-1/2), Hand-To-Hand Attack (-1/4), (Only does knockdown, not knockback; -0) Basically, the jumping and spinning are straight up SFX, since they don't really do anything other than look sweet. You could certainly slap an extra time limitation if you wanted the jumping and spinning to take longer - though I'm of a mind with Bigbywolfe on this one - Must Follow a Grab makes it take long enough. I would also drop it in a multipower, alongside Victor Zangief's other grapples, and just do a pile of different special moves. Because that could be delightful. (Edit: Disclaimer! The above is statted out for CC, or 6.1 if you prefer. There are probably changes in edition that I'm not accounting for)

So, I built some papercraft terrain. http://www.herogames.com/forums/files/file/269-%7B%3F%7D/ Somebody, somebody is going to rip that giant steel "M" out of the ground and whack somebody with it. It will be the zenith of human achievement, the crowning moment of civilization, the day where everything changed. ... Maybe not. But I do think it'll be wicked rad.

Arise, ye thread, and live! Is there such a sheet of paper available? Just curious - a couple of us have picked up the .pdf of 6E1, and I don't want to trip over myself while trying to learn the game. And frankly, helps me build characters much faster. I really like chargen software, or custom excel sheets for anything this granular. Oh, word. Hero Lab is likewise brilliant, and also priced accordingly. Its UI is a bit more attractive, but other than that, Hero Designer is now the standard that I hold chargen software to. I know a lot of people really dig Hero Lab, and it's understandable. But I never shelled out the cash, not when PCGen exists for Pathfinder. Also, frankly, I've done enough PF characters that the software is only marginally useful to me. New question: let's say that we're starting to get a hold of the core rules pretty well. What optional stuff would be interesting, and why? Is the APG worth picking up? Its sequel? What do they contain?

Rock. I will say that this thread (starting at page 2) is chock-full of advice on how to make GMing combat less brain-intensive, and might have some tips on streamlining you'd like. What I've seen elsewhere on this board, and have found satisfying in my own tinkering, is abstracting mook BOD & STUN to roughly "one good hit." Somebody takes a hit? They're down. Obviously, salt to taste, but I've found that to be useful. For hirelings, what role are you looking for them to fill? Are they around to carry Real Adventurers' stuff? Are they skilled mercenaries, able to provide combat assistance above and beyond what the player can bring to bear? Are they large numbers of unskilled peasants with crossbows? Hireling can mean a lot of different things.

And to bring things back on-topic; the way that RPGs simulate randomness tends to make for a highly unpredictable world. Even a bell-curvy model like HERO still has to deal with the vagueries of randomness, and if a statistically improbable run of high dice totals happens in a circumstance where its effects are particularly pronounced - like handguns shooting at tanks, or whatnot - then that can wage a full-frontal assault on verisimilitude. As several people have pointed out, this is where military specs get dicey; we don't have reliable data on what happens when hyperkinetic energy beams impact modern vehicle armor. But bullets? We know about bullets. If that's a concern, it might be a good idea to have all milspec weapons work on a standard effect model, like Massey suggested. I tend to take it setting-by-setting, so for me, it's much more about how things work in the world as portrayed. Do supers rip tanks in half in this setting? Maybe they don't in Champions; maybe it's supposed to be difficult in that world.

Yep, law of large numbers. Roll enough, and it'll even out. Multiple dice help bring things toward expected central tendency. It's frankly one of my favorite things about HERO, and you're right to point it out. However! Human beings operate under primacy and recency effects, and so whether or not something averages out, those outliers can feel huge, depending on where they happen. And since I am engaging in an experience, not a mathematically sound research model, the feel is significantly more important to me. If my character makes 100 3d6 rolls, my mean value is going to be extraordinarily close to 3.5. But those rolls don't exist in a vacuum. And by the time that we're a couple rolls in, if we start with some outliers - which is not particularly unusual - then those establish primacy. Also, one "bad" roll can overwhelm the feelings associated with the past several average, or even good, rolls. This is further conflated by the fact that most dice are not Vegas weighted, and are in fact, going to skew a little. No need to throw around accusations of cheating players - if people buy dice meant for RPGs, those dice will skew. It's a simple truth of the manufacturing process. And can be fun, leading to people's various dice superstitions, which I at least find interesting. But yes. Primacy. Recency. They are real things that exist. To ignore their effect makes as much sense as ignoring normal distributions - and I'm not even saying don't! I think that d20 games are much less frustrating for people who don't understand how randomness works, or have made peace with linear randomness as the way physics work in Faerun, or whatever.

Yeah, and sometimes that's cool, what you want, right? And sometimes, it's incongruous to the experience that everybody's having. This is why old school gaming & I don't really get along that well - I don't like disparagement humor in most circumstances, and I certainly don't enjoy being the subject of it. And that's ok! Different senses of humor are a thing; my academic mentors kind of pioneered the study of such, so believe me when I say no judgement. Anyway, one thing we started doing was allowing people to just count all damage dice as 3's, rather than roll the whole thing out. The total is less than a standard effect, but in cases where anything but a bad roll should succeed, more than enough to do the trick. I like it in general, like the option to buy successes in Shadowrun 4/5: give the option to take a sub-average total in exchange for surety. Speeds things up, adds a tactical layer that feels solid to me (Play it safe? Or swing big?) and doesn't feel incongruous in a system where casual strength is a thing.

So, most of what I've run as GM are single-player games. I probably have hours of experience in the triple digits (man, where's the time gone?), though none of it would be in HERO. Having said that, here's my 2 CP. OBSERVATION 1: Role-Playing Games are inherently a dynamic medium; nowhere is this more true than in the 1-on-1 game. I'm a writer/artist/amateur voice actor, who runs games for a System Architect with significant Project Management experience. It is probably unsurprising then, that these games tend to contain a very proactive protagonist, getting into positions of power, and dealing with a large array of colorful characters. If the player was more shy, or had a greater desire for tactical combat, or an allergic reaction to their character taking on social responsibilities, the games would be quite different. And they should be! Dynamism. OBSERVATION 2: Even though there's only 1 PC, that doesn't mean they won't wind up with allies. This is, of course, dependent on the character, but even video game protagonists - those bastions of going it alone - tend to have robust supporting casts. My favorite "lone wolf solves world's problems by skulking about" game in recent memory (The excellent Dishonored) gives its protagonist some recurring support characters, as well as your classic dependents. I guess the thing I'm getting at here is, as a GM, be prepared to create a supporting cast worthy of the main character. It can be fun, and often skews closer to traditional narratives than an RPG party tends to. OBSERVATION 3: The GM's in-game workload will be significantly increased In a traditional, party-based RPG, the players talk to one another, make plans, banter, quarrel and so on. In matters of mechanical resolution, you have a lot of PCs with the capability of affecting the world. Whittle that down to just one, and in a practical sense, this cuts down on the time that the GM isn't talking. This has a couple effects that really hit me: You're now talking all the time. Dehydration can be a genuine problem - so hydrate accordingly There's a lot less "down time," so your ability to think and act on your feet will get a workout. It can make games feel really vibrant - after all, less down time means that you're spending more time in the game - but don't be afraid to stop and take a breath every now and again. Also, for the sake of your sanity, get a hold of a giant pile of pre-generated characters of various sorts, so that you have them when you need them. OBSERVATION 4: The Player's in-game workload will be significantly increased Obvious, and perhaps it goes without saying, but if your player tends to be a wallflower type, or likes playing the quiet, skulky sort, the game might grind to a sudden and unexpected halt. Might seem obvious, but it's worth talking about character concepts before the game starts. I could go on and on, but those are the big ones. I hope that they are in some way useful, based as they are on my own experiences. What kind of campaign are you thinking of? What kind of character do you think you'll get? Best of luck with the new game!

I've usually used the little clear plastic boxes that dice sets come in.

Yeah, this is the philosophy of Fate, where you get points when something comes up. I think for my own purposes, I will try tying it to a flip-point system, probably Fantasy Flight Star Wars.

Seen it go a couple ways. Really depends on the GM, the players, and the communication dynamic between them. Which did you try, out of curiosity?

Yeah, for minis I have this giant pile of unpainted minis. They're probably going to stay that way So! Despite having shelled out a pile of money on Reaper Minis, I made a hex grid in Photoshop, and filled it with various bits of character art. Print that out, glue-stick it to a sheet of foamcore, and then cut out little hex minis. Pretty pleased with how that went

Could you trigger an attack power off of a successful block? Or does that not work?

Oh, for sure. I'm a big proponent of taking games as they are, on their own terms, until I have a good grasp of what's being done, and why. Then, promptly twisting the mechanics into an unholy aberration of my own design. As one does.

Yep! Couldn't agree more. I'm probably drowning my statements in qualifiers; sorry if that gets on anyone's nerves. I can get really excited about things that I like, and I want to avoid coming across like I'm attacking the way that anybody else plays. Mainly because these boards are awesome, and have been super-welcoming, and I don't really want to stir up discord.

I did not know that. *Schemes*

And I can definitely see the appeal of that philosophy, especially from more of an old-school perspective. In my experience, the dice lie all the ruddy time. But my play style is decidedly not old-school, which plays a part. This is also, in large part, a reaction to the binary nature of outcomes in classic RPG models; either you succeed, or you fail. The issue with that, is that this too often means that success = interesting, and failure = not interesting. If the game becomes significantly less enjoyable for everyone involved based on chance - and not player agency - then mitigating that has value. Now, this is in no way a criticism or mockery of the hardcore, old-school approach, which is cool and has value. It's just not my thing. Like playing Roguelike video games - often times they'll be described as "not for everyone." Who is everyone? In this case, hi! It's me. I'm one of the people that isn't for. I don't enjoy it, but I don't mind if someone else does. Why would I? My S/O adores the taste of Macha. I think it tastes like grass, but I really dig some coffee types that just taste like burnt beans to her. People like different things, and that's amazing and wonderful.

Cool, thank you. And here was where our change - uninformed as it was - came in. No attacks. No movement. Yes to zero-phase actions, or half-phase actions perception checks, or using TK to pull something into your hand (which are the things that happened when we did this). This is colored by a couple things - mainly, we haven't had a lot of abort actions occur yet, and the action economy is something that we haven't thoroughly explored just yet. I rather like the 'keep off-balance' idea - I've seen it come up in other games, and that's certainly not a strategy I want to take away.

Rock. I have some Fat Dragon stuff that I've never built, mayhaps I should. It always seemed like too much work for my expected joy return, but since I'm on this kick anyway, I might try that. As for minis, I've given up trying to paint them. My manual dexterity is just crap for physical art - I minored in graphic design, and I'm not terrible in the digital, but man. Give me a paintbrush and it's all ruin and woe.

Word. My most mathematically-inclined player also has the dice luck of someone who was cursed by the official witches' board of Las Vegas (they should have one) for card-counting or some such. His dice luck is really bad. Of course, it's more pronounced because he is keenly aware of how statistically improbable his rolls are, so there's also a primacy/recency effect. HAPs offset this somewhat, and let us get back to the game.

I'mma riff on that for a second. I'd say that HAPs (or whatever you want to call them) generally serve a couple different purposes: Addressing improbable dice rolls, or otherwise emphasizing player choice and agency over probability Emphasizing certain actions, calling them out as significant Providing another strategic resource to be used/managed Introducing narrative elements into the game world There are probably more, but those are the big ones that I tend to see most often. I'm sure I'm forgetting something. Anyway! The utility of these can vary depending upon play style, personality, and what type of game is being played at the moment. I'm a communication researcher, so I can't help but look at it this way - and while I shan't drag this into a discussion of unified play style typologies - I will point out that gaming is often "about" different things to different people, and that's a good, healthy thing. Having said that, I've seen #1 rankle a lot of people, who have a very firm investment in the dice saying what they say. Cool! That's important to you - maybe don't use these kinds of things. Conversely, maybe just don't use them yourself? #2's value is somewhat diminished in a HERO game, because there's already pushing to fill that role. Likewise with #3, I don't know how many people have bemoaned the lack of tactical options or bookeeping in HERO. #4 tends to be somewhat contentious, because it takes something that's usually very rigidly controlled - the game world - out of the hands of just one person, and spreads that around a bit. Anyway. If it isn't clear already, my play style really lends itself to the kinds of things that HAPs introduce; I enjoy them a great deal. I really like them as a GM - I often have a hard time being as diabolical as I really want to be. So I flip a point, and now I don't feel bad about introducing the terrible thing. Many GMs do not have this problem, I know. I do. And this is a lovely way to address it.

The idea started in this thread at least, by me, wondering as to the reasoning behind attacks ending one's turn. in my estimation, you lose a lot from that. What is gained, is that high movement does not become the dominant strategy,the "opening" you reference above. I'll want to play with it to see if that's an actual issue in my games, or something I can safely do without. The non-move half action was our on-the-spot ruling for our last little get-together. The primary reasoning at the time, was teaching a new player about half-phase actions. The logic is as follows: If the reason why attacks end a characters turn is to prevent them from moving away, then the rule exists to stop post-attack movement. If that's the case, then it should only stop movement, not everything. It's possible that there is a very good reason for attacks stopping all actions, not just movement. I have not seen one posited yet. Either way, this is lovely. Regardless of what I decide in my own games, I really want to know the logic behind different rules, and what they provide. So thanks, everybody, and keep the feedback coming!