mabalmer

Re: 'Hero System' online (fair warning, long post)

Re: 'Hero System' online It would be an awesome project, for sure. The trouble lies in that HERO is such an open-ended system and there would have to be a character approval process that would necessitate a lot of staff. I think that the system, as is, would be an impossible task to manage - it would take some major house-ruling in order to make it work. For example, hard starting caps on characteristics and powers based on archetype, and then soft caps as you play that would stage up XP costs to buy the things you wanted as you passed the initial hard caps. There'd be other limitations, such as anything that you build which must use a STOP sign power or Advantage would have to be approved beforehand, for example. Yield-sign powers and Advantages would also get flagged, and would probably result in there being a check on those kinds of powers to make sure that there's no abuse going on. And also? No PvP. With the system as it is, balancing a game like HERO for PvP would prove to be completely impossible and would only result in heartache and epic levels of forum whining. So it'd be hard...but doable.

Re: Difference between games? The problem is that they could've been so much more flexible with it than they presently are. The issue is that Cryptic is still tied to this notion of "SFX equals power level" when really, it's not. I can make a power called The Amazing Super Sparkly Explody Effect Of Bedazzlement which, under the hood, is a 5-point EB with no advantages at all. It just happens to look really freakin' cool when I use it. Had they learned to divorce the power level from the special effect, I think we would've been a LOT happier with character generation overall and it would've "felt" more like Champions. What actually worries me more is the tremendously hurried way it was launched, although that's less of a concern on Cryptic's end and more of a concern on Atari's end. I got the distinct feeling when Atari was announced as the publisher for CO that they were publishing CO only because they wanted to get their hands on Star Trek Online and were trying to rush Cryptic into finishing CO (and believe me, the game feels rushed to print; there are still broken powers and options with undocumented features).

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far Hence why I think we should call things like Entangle, Energy Blast, RKA, and such mechanics. That's what they are. Calling them powers creates confusion. I have no problem with calling the finished build a power, a talent, a super-skill, or a blue-finned witcha-didja with cherries on top -- but any time you have something that shares the same name twice like that when the systems are interconnected creates confusion. As a comparison, it's like people who call their computer (the whole box) their "hard drive". The two are completely different things, but for some reason, in their mind, they share the same name, just because one is a part of the other. Once again, I also recognize that HERO gamers are hidebound in their ways and notoriously resistant to change, and I accept that. I'm just saying that I've done it this way as someone who originally grew up with D&D and has had many D&D gamers (and other systems, like Unisystem) play under me. I find that they tend to grok those terms better and thus, it gives them a little bit of an on-ramp to the One True Gaming System. Which is the end desire for 6E, I thought. To reduce confusion and reduce jargon. Meh, we're arguing over a single word. If this were Wikipedia, we'd be linked on Lamest Edit Wars. I have my chosen way of representing it, which I believe works very well, and you have yours. This is why the system is a toolkit, not the whole game.

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far Well, let's see: Powers. Powers are both the name for the finished build as well as the actual underlying game mechanic used. This creates untold amounts of confusion among new players and would be better served by calling the mechanic what it is rather than calling it a "power" (which, depending on your viewpoint, can also be genre-breaking). Energy Blast. An artifact of the old Champions-era stuff. Needs to be renamed something more appropriate, such as "Ranged Normal Attack" or something. The old term is still appropriate if you're running a superheroic campaign (usually) but if you're running anything else its level of themey-ness doesn't always line up right. In my games I've even gone so far as to call Normal Damage attacks "Impact Damage" and Killing Damage attacks "Lethal Damage", but that's more a case of "helping D&Ders to understand the difference." The comparison works, though, and makes a lot of sense to folks coming from other gaming systems. I disagree that Advantages/Limitations/Disadvantages is confusing, because I know that Advantages only ever apply to Powers, so...for me, there's no real confusion. But I suppose that you could say that. Those are the only real two big ones that come to mind off hand. I'm sure there's other concepts that are difficult to grasp sometimes, too.

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far Well, for better or for worse, here's my summation: The basic 3d6-roll-for-success mechanic remains, and it will continue to be "roll-low." I could see this one both ways, but I also know that HERO gamers are hidebound people as it is. So leaving this is probably for the best. No changes to the Speed Chart. Good. Getting my players to understand the concept of SPD, Phases, and the order of actions in a Turn (something I refer to as the Combat Clock) is difficult as it is. Movement will continue to be measured per Phase. This is also good, because if it was measured per Segment then things get weird. All measurements will be given in meters. There will be no use of "hexes" or any other mapping arrangement in 6E. THANK YOU. Hexes vs. meters is another one of those disconnects my players run into a lot. Comeliness will no longer be one of the Characteristics. It's being replaced with a Talent, Striking Appearance, which a given group can choose to use in their game if they want a character's appearance to have a mechanical effect. Pointless, but I understand why it's being done. I can frequently find ways to use COM as a modifier for PRE-linked skills, and frequently, I allow COM to be used as a Complimentary roll for many PRE-based skills if they're being used in the right way. But I see Steve's argument, and he's the one writing it. All the other Characteristics will remain, but none of them will be "Figured," i.e. derived from other Characteristics. They'll all start with a base value that must be bought up separately. The costs of some of them have been "tweaked" -- no further details yet. This is going to be a nightmare. I don't even want to think about this until Simon updates Hero Designer to adjust to 6E. I think the change is good in concept, but the problem is going to be its implementation. This is going to require a LOT more thinking on the part of the builder to make this work. OCV, DCV, OECV, and DECV will become separate Characteristics, not derived from DEX and EGO. They'll start with a base value of 3 and will be bought up separately. Good change. This allows me to have a high-DEX character who still can't hit the broad side of a barn but can dodge like a beast. Suggested starting point totals will be raised to compensate for the change to Characteristics -- no specifics yet. Expected, given the other changes. I echo some of the other issues that more points = more chances to get screwed by min/maxers, but meh. Perception will still be based on INT. :thumbdown:thumbdown:thumbdown NO. NO NO NO NO NO! Some of the smartest people I know are about as perceptive as a box of rocks! Leaping will no longer be derived from Strength -- it will start at a base amount for all characters, as with Running and Swimming. Good. I'm in favor of unlinking this one, because it conceptually makes sense to. Skills will still be calculated from CHAR/5, but there will be an optional "Toolkitting" note about changing that if desired. Other Toolkitting notes will appear throughout the rules -- no further details on those. Uh. Okay? What else would you calculate it from? Or would you just have everyone start at an 8- and buy it up from there, regardless of what your stats are? I'm glad this is being left alone, because if skill values get unlinked from stats, HERO begins to tread eerily along the footsteps of Shadowrun, where Attributes mean exactly squat for you. Seduction Skill will be renamed Charm. Cheeky. I suppose this is more accurate, if in name only. No new Skills will be added, although a couple have been "tweaked" (no more details yet). Holding my judgement here... Package Deal will be renamed Template Pretty indifferent here. Some new Powers have been added, and others have been removed. The only one mentioned is Find Weakness, which is being removed. There will be no official way to reduce Defenses below 1/2 as with Armor Piercing. THANK ALL THAT IS HOLY. FW was one of the most broken mechanics in the game. Anything that allows you, with repeated uses, to bring down a character's defenses to miniscule numbers so you can one-shot them is positively absurd. Adjustment Powers have been significantly reworked -- no further details yet. Once again...holding judgement. Energy Blast and Killing Attack will still be separate forms of Damage, as they are in 5E. One would hope. The Stun Multiplier for Killing Attack will become a straight 1/2d6. It will still be possible to buy up the Stun Multiplier with Advantages. Yay. No more STUN Lotto. My guess is that this won't change things with Hit Locations, though (i.e., a head shot is still a x5). You will be able to apply your Normal Defenses to the STUN damage of a Killing Attack whether you have any Resistant Defenses or not. Also good. While it lowers the scariness of a KA, KAs were scary not because of the BODY they did, it was because of the obscene amount of STUN they were capable of doing. KAs were scary for the wrong reason, and now they can be scary for the right reason. Nothing has changed about the way STR adds to Hand-To-Hand Killling Attack damage. No opinion. Increased reach for larger-than-normal beings and weapons will not necessarily require Stretching -- no further details yet. YAY! No more of this silly "I stand 50 meters tall and only have the armspan of a six-foot-tall human" nonsense. The method of Adding Damage is supposed to be simplified -- no further details yet. Eh? I presume this has to do with increases to Damage Classes? The Multipower and VPP Frameworks will remain, but Elemental Control is being replaced by a new Limitation, Unified Power (no value given). Aside from GM oversight there will be no restrictions on what Unified Power can be applied to. Not really sure how I feel about this. We'll see what happens. Damage Shield is going to be "different" -- no details yet. Once again...we'll see. DS is one of those mechanics I don't use very often. There will be another, more granular way to make a Power ECV-targeted than using the BOECV Advantage. No specifics given, but it involves breaking the Advantage into its separate components (i.e. ECV Attack Roll, Line Of Sight, etc.) and "reassembling" them to make them more flexible (and simpler according to Steve). Steve implied that he's used this approach for other elements of the system. Good. Making this simpler would be much nicer and allow for people to pay for the Active Points they need instead of buying more features than they need and buying Limitations later. Disadvantages are being renamed Complications, and Psychological Limitations will become Psychological Complications. Why? The terms were perfectly understandable before. Making name changes in other areas would be good, but not this. Meh. I'm ambivalent to it. I'll wait to see what more happens.

I'm fairly sure this has been asked before, but: If an Automaton has Takes No STUN on their build and buys a Combat Skill Level with DCV, does it cost normal or triple? I asked Dan about it earlier, but he seems to feel that it counts as a Defense Power, and thus costs triple, so I felt I'd make sure before I went and applied any cost multipliers to correct it in the meantime.

If one looks at Doctor Destroyer's sheet as of Conquerors, Killers, and Crooks, it lists him having PS: Play Piano 15-. With the new rules on musical instrument familiarities introduced in Ultimate Skill, should MIFs be permitted in the Jack of All Trades skill enhancer, given that the old way of representing them was to use a PS?

Re: Repeated Attempts I realize that I'm about as newbish as it gets, but I pretty much almost -exclusively- lurk. In this case, we're comparing two different mechanics - skill rolls and powers that roll damage dice. Note that what I say here is just my interpretation of how things work; if you disagree with me, that's fine. I'm a bit long-winded on it, but I'm just trying to explain my thought processes. Since Telepathy rolls damage dice, the trick is going to come down to three things for me: Can the character breach the defenses of his target? If the character can breach said defenses, is it enough to get any appreciable effect, or is it so minor as to be pointless? Does the character have a reasonable chance to hit the target with said power? For the first, that's just checking dice vs. defense. Same for the second. Even if the character yahtzees the roll and rolls 6s on everything, can he have any kind of reasonable effect? And as for the last, I'd say that anything below an 6- chance to hit is probably not worth it in terms of "reasonableness" - It's possible, albeit unlikely to nail 7- rolls and even 6- -- but when you start getting 5- and less, it becomes an exercise in futility. That's for powers. Skills, which is what a lot of people keep bringing up, is a completely different beast. Powers don't have a "base time to activate" in the same sense as a Skill does, unless there's a Advantage/Limitation on them to represent it (like Extra Time or Delayed Effect or such), and even then, you can't push those activation times up the Time Chart except in very specific circumstances (spellcasting is about the only thing I can think of). With a Skill, I typically consider it in how much time the character wants to waste ICly on a skill roll. I might let him retry a single failed roll at no penalty in some circumstances, but that's skill-dependent. Something like Deduction or a KS, even if it was failed by a single point, IMO gets no re-roll without the appearance of new information to the equation, and then it allows a reroll at the standard base time. If he wants to spend extra time to research? Sure, I'll give time chart bonuses. If he wants to hurry? Penalties come into play. Skills like Climbing, Acrobatics, and such, IMO, would allow immediate rerolls of a failed roll, because they are, in a sense, a singular attempt. Most DEX-based skills would fall into this category. Skills such as KSs, SSs, Deduction, and any other INT-based skill would be permissible in circumstances largely up to the GM's discretion. Time chart bonuses or penalties would accrue in any case. Skills like Conversation, Oratory, Persuasion, and other PRE-based skills would also be rerollable, but potentially with penalties (to represent the gaffe made earlier). Base Time might come into play on certain things (e.g. Seduction) along with penalties/bonuses as necessary, but usually, these are one-off skills just like DEX-based, IMO. So...more-or-less, that's my opinion on the topic. That, and $0.75 will get you a cup of coffee down at your local diner.