Altair

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. 

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!

Champions Complete (as well as Fantasy Hero Complete) represent the current official state of the rules, whereas 6E1/6E2 are a wee bit out of date. Granted, the differences can be summed up on a single sheet of paper, but I think it is still worth mentioning that going forward, the Complete books are the ones to get if you want the official rules and mechanics in their most up-to-date incarnation.

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. 

HD helps make sure you build characters which are valid and by the rules.

And frankly, helps me build characters much faster. I really like chargen software, or custom excel sheets for anything this granular.

Lone Wolf charges ~$30 for Hero Lab, a Pathfinder/d20 character generator.

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. 

I like this as a general rule, something useful for GMs to use with inanimate objects and breaking things.

 

Extrapolating, it might be useful to come up with a method of breaking things automatically; in other words, go the other direction, that after a certain threshold you don't have to roll at all.  Like if your average attack's body count will break it, don't bother rolling.  That saves time, embarrassment, and frustration.

 

For example, the hero Sergeant Steel was a bodyguard for a young PC.  The young PC got taken hostage, and I tried to fly up through an elevator shaft, crashing through the roof.  With the move through I did like 12 dice, but rolled almost all 1's.  The roof dented slightly and I bounced off.  In a comic this never happens unless its deliberately trying for humor.

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!

Also the little 'table' that often comes in the middle of a delivered pizza to keep the lid from smashing down on the pizza can be cleaned and use to indicate a character who is flying.

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

I'm thinking of tying them to Luck and Unluck, and using tokens.

 

The player can spend a Fortune Token to get out of an Unluck roll, or call for a Luck roll.

 

I'm thinking of allowing Luck dice to be added to a resolution roll, and then drop the highest. Maybe I can use Unluck to add and drop the lowest.

 

I plan to revamp the Complications system so that most (maybe all?) Complications don't get you Character points at start, but get you Fortune Tokens in play as they come up.

 

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary thinks players will call them misfortune tokens when I use them against the party

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.

I have tried dice-less systems and games. They usually end up favoring the story that the GM wants to tell over the interactive.

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.

Again, it comes down to what you're trying to do with your game.

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. 

Yeah if you pop the character off that huge base you can put it on a more modest one that fits on maps better.

I did not know that.

*Schemes*

There used to be an adage in roleplaying games: the dice never lie.

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.

Allowing half phase after attack:

Now I am actally confused wich action you could take after an attack:

Other attack actions are obviously a no go

Movement is a no-go

0-Phase actions are a no go

Aborting not allowed

Holding an action makes little sense either

 

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. 

I see HAP as a way to help those players who for whatever reasons tend to roll very poorly.  I have a couple of players that can go for 4 to 6 sessions without using a single HAP.  And I have other players who use them up pretty quickly.

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.

The purpose I see for hero points is to make the game feel more like the genre.  So if you're playing Champions, you encourage their use to make it feel more like a comic book, where there's never a panel where Spider-Man fails to catch the falling girl because he rolled an 18.

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:

1. Addressing improbable dice rolls, or otherwise emphasizing player choice and agency over probability
2. Emphasizing certain actions, calling them out as significant
3. Providing another strategic resource to be used/managed
4. 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.

Taking non-move half-action after attack:

I have no overview how that idea started, but I consider it a bad idea.

A large part of the risk of making an attack is that you can not do anything afterwards. You can not even abort in the same segment. No mater what you abort to next segement, that leaves you open for kinds of attacks that skip that defense maneuver.

When you attack with streching, you continue to be vulnerable to attack afterwards.

Waiting for that "opening" can be the only way to get hold of a speedster.

 

 

Could this be about making a single powerfull foe that can challenge the entire team?

That is often done by just giving it high Damage Reduction (50 or 75%), while slightly lowering defenses. That way everyone can deal damage. But it takes a lot more (2-4 times) damage to take it out or get the target stunned.

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!

Yeah, the 7 points thing is rather tailored to my group's style, which entails almost never spending such things unless you've got a surplus. Even then, it's often rare. I use the term "Elixir Problem" to refer to this, and me & my homies have it in spades.

The term is a reference to the Final Fantasy series of video games, in which there are these incredibly rare single-use items - the titular Elixirs - which completely restore a character's HP & MP. You can't buy them, and there are only so many in the world. Invariably, I would get to the end of the game, and be sitting on a massive pile of unused elixirs. I never used them, because they were a non-renewable resource, and I might need them later. This is even more pronounced with me in tabletop RPGs, and one of the reasons that Vancian magic & I don't really get along. 

The Fantasy Flight system I'm referencing gets around this, by making said points a communal pool, that flip from light side to dark. A player uses one, they flip it from light to dark. The GM uses one, it goes the other way. 

I've found that Hero points - by any other name - tend to be a more satisfying experience for all involved when they're a renewable resource. YMMV.

I'm really a fan of that concept, that instead of treating movement as an action so you have half and full moves, just treat it as movement separate from the rest and let people break it up however they wish.  I'd love to try it out, at least, and see how it plays out.  My biggest problem is that my best playtester moved away.  He was the guy that always found the way to break and abuse a rule, the guy who found all the loopholes without even trying.  He was perfect for testing ideas out, kind of a PITA for regular play but wonderful in the right context.  I miss that big lug.

Yeah, I've got one of those guys. Wonderful human being, perfect for finding where a system breaks, invaluable for ironing out the kinks in my own RPG system, perfect playtester.

He & I in a game together is a comically bad mix, and is just not sustainable in anything we've tried. But man! For one-shots or playtesting?

SOLID GOLD SKILLS, homie.

In what my little group's done so far, we rolled for HAP's as per CC - and immediately agreed to never do that again. Last session, we just gave everybody 7 (average of 2d6), and called it good. 

I've thoroughly enjoyed the use of Destiny Points in Fantasy Flight's new Star Wars games, so if I wind up doing something beyond Iced Coffee & Gourmet Popcorn wargaming (which is like Beer & Pretzels wargaming, run by a hipster who doesn't drink) I'll probably veer closer to that.

Most of what my players have used said points for is declarations about the world, and occasionally bumping up their rolls. The latter is more to lend dramatic weight, honestly -at the power levels we're playing at, the by-the-book efficacy bump is really minor - but I've found it's a great way to get more collaborative, shared authorship going with a group that's been historically resistant to such. 

Introducing shared narrative control over a game world to a group is best done in small chunks, I've found.