Altair

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.

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.

Right. Or in Shadowrun, where you've got your movement for the turn, and that's how much you can move when you're up - if that's a straight sprint, great. If that's running around a corner, seeing three guards, popping off a manaball, then diving for cover, and scooching over so that your street Sam has room to set up a shot - that's cool. It has, in my experience, made combat much more dynamic. The massive movement capabilities of HERO complicate matters, but I don't think it's an insurmountable issue. Zslane, I like where you're going with those ideas - I'm curious to see this take shape.

http://www.herogames.com/forums/files/file/268-%7B%3F%7D/ Not the greatest, but for somebody who hasn't touched foamcore in over a decade? One could do worse. I'm pretty pleased thus far.

I made a parking garage (now somewhat worse for wear after some mooks got put through it), and a skyscraper out of foam core. I also got some extra counters from the excellent card game Heroes of the Multiverse, which I used to track END, and my homie used to track the points put into his character's absorption power. Our new player used them to track STUN & BOD. I enjoyed having them around.

Yeah, for sure. It's a game-changer. For now, I'm pretty pleased with the "attacking stops movement" mod; we'll see if it introduces any bugs.

Yep! We had another casual rumble tonight, and wound up implementing an on-the-spot house rule that if you attacked, you could still take another half-phase action that wasn't movement or (obviously) attacking. That seemed to address the issue of movement being a dominant strategy pretty well. I don't know if there are other issues it introduces or not - we pretty much made the ruling to give a first-time player the opportunity to do more stuff. We seasoned vets with our 1 week of experience. On that note, I was impressed by how much more intuitive everything was this time around. The mechanics have just taken less time to sink in than I was expecting, which is pretty awesome. I got to see just why double knockback is a stop sign, knocking the big bad through a couple floors, into a discotheque (which we had cleared out earlier). Very powerful. Possibly abusively so,. Holy butt was it satisfying to volleyball spike that monster literally into the pavement.

In my experience and estimation, it still shows up, though admittedly, ToM tends to be less granular, as a rule. Having said that, it matters as much, and in much the same way as any other implementation. True, if you ask the GM how far away mook x is, and they say "not too far, you can reach him," then your extra 20m of movement hasn't really been given a chance to shine. The exact same thing is true if you're playing on a hexmap, and the GM always puts the opposition close enough that your movement doesn't matter. They're different experiences, but I think that's the point. I'll often use different techniques for different fights over the course of a campaign, because every method has its own strengths and weaknesses. They're tools. I want a big toolbox. So I use them both, and other methods besides.

I'll take a shot. Not complicated as in, "I don't understand how to do this, and am having difficulty grasping the concepts." Rather, complicated as in "Making two character sheets, and switching between them at combat speed, while tracking damage on both, adds additional steps which increase the complexity and bookkeeping of the character in play." That's what I took Xavier's meaning to be. Not I can't figure this out complicated, but unwanted extra work complicated. Anyway, that's my 2 CP.

Yeah, I've tended to use wikis to communicate information in the planning and early stages of a game, then move to a spreadsheet on Google Drive once the game's underway. In the above example for the Mass Effect game I'm running, the crew of their ship alone is 104 people (not counting them), each with backstories & motivations, etc. Spreadsheets all the way. On that note, if everybody in the gaming group has a Google account, then Drive is incredibly handy. Dropbox works well too - any way to share files with a defined group. Although, if I'm going to show people an image during play, I usually just pull it up on my tablet, and pass it around the room.

Yeah, Shape Shift can also work if you want to do it that way. Which leads me to a question for the OP. What's the context for this character? Is the gender-swapping thing a big deal, or is it just supposed to be SFX? Is there any mechanical/social/metaphysical weight behind the change, or is it something that the player and GM just kind of want to be there?There's this maxim at the beginning of HERO books: you get what you pay for. That initial post, with the 3 CP power, leads me to believe that the player might not place as much weight on the change as I'm assuming there is. If it's a minor detail, a side thing without any huge metaphysical significance, then maybe work out something smaller. If not, then Shape Shift with the senses + cellular will do the trick, right? If it's not changing your clothes, that's like 23 points, yes?

Nice! Ever use Roll20? That's my VTT of choice, generally. I've also used Obsidian Portal to make some campaign wikis. (Example) The heiroglyphs thing now has me thinking... I actually learned Maya Hieroglyphs as my foreign language requirement in undergraduate... I could legitimately make some etchings... oh man. That would be completely boss for a Pulp Hero game, n'est-ce pas?

I see somebody's been to Jersey. *Hides under a desk* Kidding! I grew up in Cleveland, I can't really throw shade

Yeah, that's what I was thinking with the whole movement power thing. If I can poke you, then fly 100 meters up to end my turn, it does kind of make that conflict lopsided. What I want is for combat (especially with superheroes) to be exciting, dynamic and kinetic - basically not the "Rock-em-Sock-em Robots" type of slugfest that some games can turn into. Being objective about it, I'm not really that worried. Worth checking out, for sure. For now, I'm still planning on running things out of the book, because I really want to get a feel for the game on its own terms. Yep. Different strokes! It's good that there are different game styles, it's so good. I'm quite pleased at the versatility of HERO so far. When I want something super-tactical (every now and then I get it in my head to run something based off of the excellent Jagged Alliance 2, and I think HERO would be sublime for that) it's right there. When I don't, the underlying physics of the game mechanics are there, modeling things for me. I'll probably try some brawls with Fate-style zones, and some that are 100% description-based, and see how that goes.

Cool cool Sorry if I came off as testy, I was cross at missing the "attack ends turn" rule, cross at its existence, then cross at myself for not seeing the reason behind it in HERO.

Kinetic energy has a serious consistency problem accross genres. Not its fault, really - as a friend of mine once said, it's not a superpower if it doesn't violate one of the laws of thermodynamics.

Is there something in the rules that prohibits using a 1/2 phase to strike, then a 1/2 phase to move? I can't find it. Never mind, I found it. While I can't say that I'm happy with the rule -- it never made any logical or mechanical sense to me -- I'll try implementing that next time I play with this stuff, see what it does. I suppose that with the extraordinary amounts of movement that are possible in HERO, if people can attack-then-move, it might make high movement rates the dominant combat strategy. Easy fix: the awesome thing my player did was a move-by attack. Still hits, just does an unnecessary amount of extra damage. With the movement speed and no turn radius, it still works. Might have even been the player's intent to do it as such, as the route was plotted before the attack roll was made, so that could just be one of the (many) details that I missed. To your other points, I will simply posit that one buys things for all manner of reasons, as many people engage with roleplaying games in different ways, and derive enjoyment from different things. I absolutely believe that that is why you, and perhaps everyone that you game with does so, and they're all very valid, legitimate reasons. Awesome!

Well, to do it as a Transform, I think you'd need something more significant. After all, a Cosmetic transform would change how someone looks, but it's not going to be altering internal organs, or what have you. So, that's gonna be a major transform. Also, what's the BOD of the character? 1d6 is not going to cut it, and I figured you'd want standard effect so it always works. Having said that, I tried to build something that I think might do the trick, based on your original: Sex Change: Major Transform 4d6 (standard effect: 12 points) (transforms Male to Female, healed by Use of the Power), Trigger (Activating the Trigger requires a Zero Phase Action, Trigger resets automatically, immediately after it activates; +3/4) (70 Active Points); Limited Target ([Very Limited]; Self Only; -1) Total cost: 35 points. Having said that, I would heartily recommend one of two things. Multiform (see above) If it's really a style thing, and you don't want or expect the biological sex change to have any meaningful gameplay impact, it's just their theme? Then make it a multipower, with the SFX of sexswapping, or use the 3 point version because that's what works for your game. Hope that's useful! Edit: you could knock the power down to 28 points by adding in the "All or Nothing" limitation, which man, that makes a lot of sense.

Emphasis mine. Two forms? Each with their own powers? This sounds like a classic example of Multiform to me. Having said that, I'm new here, so take that with a shaker of salt.

That Hit List is interesting, I may try that. I am a big, big proponent of physical representations of HAPs, Fate Points, Bennies, Destiny Points whatever they're called in this system. I have found that using Skittles incentivizes their use.

Cool idea - I've been trying to figure out how I want to model AoE-type attacks, and naked triggers are worth exploring. I think it depends on how interesting the tactical part is to what everybody's doing. Watching a speedster have enough movement to thwack somebody, then run around a city block to position themselves behind & out of sight of the boogum? That was a genuinely cool moment, and one that I think was aided by the map being there. I'm about to go overboard and build some foamcore skyscrapers. Reasons!

Wow, thanks everybody! This is great, keep it coming! @Lucius - This. This is absolutely the kind of thing that I was looking for. Awesome to see this see to awesome. @ Pretty much everybody else: thanks for the variety of answers! It seems like there's a strong sentiment regarding the character, which is super rad, and pretty much in-line with my own preferences. I came into RPGs from a performing arts background, so my standard form of engagement is pretty much always personality-centric, fill in the mechanics afterward. It's one of the reasons why threads like this are so useful to me - really getting a feel for what people enjoy in the mechanics, or just enjoy in general, is a great way to get ideas, or maybe think about exploring something I normally don't do myself. This is super rad, keep it up