Robyn

Re: Transfor: Limitation into Disadvantage

Grenade Man can physically count how many grenades he has on him - some outside arbitrary "they're gone now" would be frustrating to many I would think' date=' much more so than "It's too hot in the steel foundry for your ice powers to work."[/quote']

 

I dislike that phrasing for several reasons. It's more of a "telling the player why their character's powers won't work" than "showing the character what happens when they try to use their powers".

 

"You reach through the air to gather together nearby water vapor, and notice right away that the air here is very dry. As the small amount coalesces, you can feel another force acting on the water, pressuring it to return to its gaseous state rather than become a solid."

 

What the PC makes of this is up to them. Is there a villain nearby, Dispelling or Suppressing their powers? Is a fire elemental (or a family of salamanders) living in the steel foundry? Is it just too hot? There is room for coming up with an original idea, independently, and taking appropriate actions (such as asking the team cleric to cast Banishment on the room by sanctifying the place).

 

Whether that idea works may depend on what the GM was thinking, or perhaps the GM will reward them for the effort and clever ideas (locate the spiritual "center" of the building so they can sanctify it, so the ice powers can be used to cool what is in their way and safely get past it).

 

Narration can also maintain focus on the character's perspective, which is important.

Re: System cap on creativity

Based on that' date=' then there is technically nothing that the ruleset forbids, since the GM can always create an Adder/Subtractor/Advantage/Limitation that may overrule any strictly worded rule or definition in the system.[/quote']

 

I only addressed Limitations . . . you did say Advantages too, I hadn't caught that until now, but I think Advantages would have to fall outside of the core rules, since there is no entry for "custom Advantages" under that section as there is for Limitations.

 

Additionally, a Limitation only expands the existing prohibitions - an Advantage removes them, so they can potentially rewrite the entire ruleset.

Re: Super Origins

The problem with freak accidents is that when they happen again and again they stop looking so freakish.

It's not that they've happened a lot, though; just that we're looking at a portion of the population which is significantly biased towards them. It's like going to the support group for a disease only affecting 1 in 10,000 people; if you only spend your time with them, it begins to look less rare.

Re: WWYCD?: Champions Universe Zombies

What would the evil Holocaust make of the good one ?

I don't think the new Holocaust is good; in desperate need of allies/vassals, perhaps, but not rescuing potential assistance out of the goodness of his heart.

Re: The Genesis of +5 = 2x power?

Equating it to real world benchmarks is a vain attempt' date=' because there are no real world benchmarks for intelligence. Not any that anyone agrees on, anyway.[/quote']

 

Not that everyone agrees on, rather. There are plenty of real-world benchmarks that find many supporters.

Re: Need a new game

Copied all files to the C:\ drive' date=' ran install.exe, got the DOS prompt of death again.[/quote']

 

Looks like an emulator will be your best bet then.

Re: Limitations as Vulnerabilities: modelling Advantages from the other side

How anal-retentive are we getting here? Is this just on the takes extra damage side' date=' or on both? If you half to buy "ice" as vulnerable to "fire", do never have to buy "fire" with extra damage "only versus ice"?[/quote']

 

That's the idea - only one side should be modelling the interaction of powers. This maintains consistency. If you're worried about players always going for the "superior" SFX, simply think about SFX before approving the character; if they have anything specific in mind, it's probably obvious enough that you can see it too, and in those cases you can assign Limitations to the power if you wish (it's only everything else that falls under the proposed Limitations).

 

If they don't specifically pay for the power interaction, they rely on your interpretation of "common sense" (in the future) to allow their idea (from the past) to work as they envisioned it.

Re: New guy here, wondering about hero system

So does the system target for special or super heroes like in comic books?

No.

The system targets "generic toolkit".

Its terminology is drawn from superhero gaming, but don't be fooled; if a word confuses you, just substitute a nonsense word like "smergle" for "Block" (or whatever it is that brought you confusion) and look at what the rule does, not what it is called.

There is more support for superhero gaming because this is what most people like to play (characters more powerful than we are), but this isn't part of the system. Templates for how to organize the system, and entire books published for various genres; if you don't want to play them, don't worry about buying them.

Re: System cap on creativity

And again, this goes back to the presumed viewpoint of Robyn. If Robyn's viewpoint is that GM created custom Limitations/Advantages are considered part of the core ruleset, then the answer is "yes, the ruleset covers it". If Robyn's viewpoint is that GM created custom Limitations/Advantages are considered House Rules to overcome the inflexibility of the ruleset, then the answer is "no, the current ruleset doesn't allow it".

 

Robyn must descide in this instance whether it is considered part of the ruleset or just a House Rule.

I hadn't realized you wanted my input (I thought you were just making an observation) . . . I'll have to lean towards the former, with an emphasis on Limitations in published characters/constructs. If it can be seen in the core rulebook, it specifically can be considered part of the core ruleset; anything else, only generally.

Re: Bullet Time?

Silly me. I always thought switching from non-combat time to combat turns WAS bullet time.

Or in the first Spider-Man movie, when Peter's senses suddenly sharpen (try saying that three times fast! ), allowing him to hear the buzz of a fly down the hall, and showing the bully's fist moving as if in slow-motion.

Re: The Genesis of +5 = 2x power?

Hmmmmm....

 

Gee... My buddies Dwarf in our old FH game with his 23 Body should have weighed in at 800 tons.

 

Whoodathunkit?

It gets more complex from there:

If we assume the epidermal layer (which covers the whole body) to be an equivalent of a "full coverage suit of armor", we can give it the "mass" Limitation.

We can then reverse-engineer from 800 tons that the natural "thick-skinned" DEF should be 36*.

*Math was not checked. See page 487 in 5ER, under "Buying Armor", for details.

Re: Frameworks modifying frameworks

Also' date=' the fact that we are dealing with an accessible and physical manifestation of the base power(RKA, for example) strongly argues that a focus limit shoudl be required of the power.[/quote']

 

I agree. There should be more than just the system to ensure realism; there should be a GM looking at what the players try to get through and saying "Hold on, the SFX you're proposing should logically have these mechanical equivalents."

 

I found one of those "catching ranged attacks" threads, by the way.

Re: The Genesis of +5 = 2x power?

I don't say "you can't be 8' date='192 times the intelligence of the average person, that doesn't make any sense" to someone who wants a 100 INT.[/quote']

 

Ah, but it only "doesn't make sense" to GM's who don't have an IQ of 800,192

Re: Frameworks modifying frameworks

I wouldn't consider the physics to be purely special effects.

True, the system does care, as you said:

After all, that's why we have all those modifiers on hit rolls and skill rolls.

But those are derived from the SFX; to identify anything as such, I generally ask myself "If this sentence were to be transplanted into an entirely different system, such as AMBER, would there be any relics of the HERO system that stood out as not belonging there?"

If, on the other hand, it still makes sense, it's an idea/concept - SFX.

To elaborate on, and hopefully clarify, what I see as the difference between idea/concept, SFX, and system/rules: an idea/concept is what we had before we even knew about HERO - when the system tries translating this to rules, it gives that idea/concept the name of "SFX" to distinguish it from the mechanics.

Re: Frameworks modifying frameworks

As for how to do it' date=' why not just make it one heck of a hit roll, then apply the rules for breaking foci and hitting people behind cover respectively?[/quote']

 

Was the (other archer's) arrow taken as a Focus, though?

 

You hit the arrow. Fine' date=' roll to do damage to the arrow.[/quote']

 

I think at the very least arrows should be taken with Physical Manifestation, or at least the Ranged Attack should (whatever its Focus is).

 

The reason you can do it with an arrow and not a fire blast is because of the focus limit on the arrow' date=' which gives you something to break up.[/quote']

 

I recall that most bullets aren't taken as Foci*; the gun is, but without a specific Limitation we're getting into whether SFX should impose penalties that are of at least a -1/4 Limitation level. Or would Real Weapon cover that?

 

*The question came up in regards to catching bullets, axes, and other ranged physical attacks; Missile Reflection promptly labelled them "Return to Sender", which was problematic since the wielder could retrieve it without your possession (9/10ths of the law) interfering.

Re: Frameworks modifying frameworks

Then why discuss the topic at all in the Hero System Discussion forum?

Because the whole point of having a system (any, not just HERO) is to have a framework that can objectively represent ideas. Players may differ in their idea of what something does, and will probably differ on how things interact; by translating their concepts into something the system will support, they can use that system to answer such questions without games devolving into endless arguments of "No, it goes MY way!"

The system doesn't predate the concept, though. Gamers didn't say "Gee, let's invent a hypothetical framework that serves no purpose." and then try to come up with ideas to justify their work; they started out with some ideas and specifically tried to create a framework that would support as many of these ideas as possible.

Since these ideas did predate the system, it is entirely possible for them to be conceptually valid but unsupported by the rules. Where the rules fail to support an idea, this is extremely relevant to the System Discussion forum, because it's a failure of design intent!

Instead' date=' go to the appropriate Genre forum if you want to talk about [u']genre specific[/u] special effects.

We're not talking about any Special Effects that are specific to a genre, however. The arrow SFX could be done in Fantasy (medieval) or Dark Champions (street level) or Champions (superheroes), just to name what comes to mind.

Re: Frameworks modifying frameworks

Could it be this?

Yes, that's the one! Thank you.

Re: Frameworks modifying frameworks

For a Robin Hood / Green Arrow type character' date=' I'd be inclined as a GM to allow the player to buy Missile Deflection separately with a Trigger to allow the 'shoot the oncoming arrow / energy blast and continue on to damage the target' - possibly with a Limitation that the main attack used is reduced by some multiple of the Active Points of the attack that was deflected.[/quote']

 

I also remember a recent power idea for energy blasts where two attacks meeting each other head-on would "push" each other about the battlefield, or was that just one example of how it could work out in play?

 

I just tried a few times to find it with the forum's Search function, but had no luck, perhaps someone else remembers what I'm thinking of?

Re: Re-Imaged Hero(ines)

This was indeed the Starshine I'd been thinking of.

Oh. Too obscure

Re: What's with all the points

I look at a lot of the player made characters' date=' and will never be convinced this is THE reason the majority of the players like the increase.[/quote']

 

To repeat (part of) my question from earlier, was this increase only from player-made characters or did HERO officially pave the way?

 

If it was only the player-made characters, I could see how this was all caused by escalation from the munchkins submitting 350-point characters, and everyone else just trying to keep up

Re: What's with all the points

heh.

My avatar can beat up your avatar.

Not yet, she needs to settle her identity crisis first

Re: What's with all the points

I don't have a copy of 1st. Where do you live? Do you lock your doors?

 

According to the Location entry, Mhoram is in Ogden Utah

Re: New Spells for a New Player in a New Campaign

Teleportation question: the player wants to be able to teleport basically as far as his eye can see. Obviously, the distance he can see varies depending on his height. I am not adverse to this power, because it means he couldn't teleport from room to room, etc. I'm just confused as to how to best represent the vagaries of sight as the limitation for range. At first I was going to add the advantages of Ranged and Line of Sight to Teleportation, but then I thought that this wasn't appropriate. It would be if I was going to TARGET something to be teleported (assuming I also took the Usuable as Attack advantage), but not for the character to teleport himself.

 

Should I just cop out and Megascale it with some arbitrary number?

I think you'd better ask the player what they have in mind. The intention could easily be to not just have Megascale-range Teleport, but to be able to teleport across the room, and Megascale doesn't allow that.

Re: Frameworks modifying frameworks

Cinematic doesn't mean license to igore basic timing rules of the system.

But, again, you completely miss the point!

Mike W wasn't talking about the rules or the system.

At. All.

He was discussing the "common sense" and "real-world physics" difficulties, which fall squarely under the aegis of - here we are again! - Special Effects.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

The Palindromedary gets crabby and says that's a lousy thing to imply.

 

 

 

 

Hey! What am I doing down here in the tagline?

Reversing your perspective on things so you can see matters from two sides?

__________________

Or perhaps you harbor a "secret" desire to go both ways . . . ?