womble

Agreed. No better, in a moral sense, than spiking the gal's drink and "helping" her semi-conscious body back to your lair.

That complication sounds like it's explicitly for automata and other mechanical beings, and it adds rather more than "no Body REC", stipulating the specific requirements for Body to be restored. Magic Body healing won't apply in this case, which makes it worse, in some settings, than a fleshy person's simply not healing their wounds naturally.

12? Twelve? Players? In one group? Man you're either a masochist or bloody good at running a combat, and so are your players (the amount of goofing-off and distraction that would ensue in any table with 13 round it that I could build from my gaming 'padres would preclude slick and speedy tactical resolutions...)! Respect.

Private policing could also evolve from existing policing bodies. Over here in the UK, there's a sect in the Political Class which would very much like to privatise all services currently provided by the state (except maybe the Armed Forces). It's just a matter of cutting budgets until the existing organisation can't do its job, then asserting that the private sector could handle policing more efficiently, then selling off the assets cheap to their friends in a massive privatisation of the police. The largest private security force in the "not really United any more Kingdom" of my dystopian near-future cybersetting is "The Met, PLC"...

Generally, games seem to go the way of: Start with a balanced party of up front combatants, support combatants, combatant support and noncombatant finger-wigglers The ones doing the fighting die The players of the ones who've died don't want to play a combatant, so switch to combatant support of non-combatant Eventually, there aren't enough front line combatants. Maybe you aren't making the front line combatants' lives hard enough...

Does it help to ask where the (chemical) potential energy of the propellant goes? I know the details are generally well below the abstraction layer, but it might inspire... Similarly, does it help put bounds (upper and lower) on the cost/effectiveness of the ability to consider how the energy manipulator perceives the chemical bonds in the propellant and can discriminate between those and the bonds in the gun/magazine/cartridge's construction materials? If "seeing" (feeling, whatever) through the obscuring layers of flesh, wood/plastic, steel and brass is difficult, you don't have to worry too much if the costs make it a "weak" power: it might even be easier just to dispel the bonds in the gun's chassis... Does the ability to control energy automatically confer the ability to know how to manipulate it? Does the power need a "KS: chemistry" roll? If it's just a "suck energy out of the system" thing, then a Drain on the RKA might be the straightforward way of doing it. Since the character isn't trying to just drain a few of the charges, it doesn't really matter, in terms of mechanical effect, that the RKA has charges; he's just trying to get rid of them. Maybe let the Drain work at full effect/cost against the cost of the RKA, modified by the Charges Limitation only?

This worries me some. 50 sessions (assuming you manage to average nearly once a week) won't put them much past the starting point for "Standard" Superheroes unless you wildly exceed the guidelines for XP awards, which has its own risks when everyone's learning the ropes of the system. Adding maybe 50% to the points of the heroes doesn't come close to replicating the progression in power level you'd get in a DnD game that ran for a similar number of sessions. Specifically, my worry is that the game won't match your expectations, or those of your players.

I think the bracing against knockback should remain in effect: it's only "Stunned" (1/2 DCV). The victim of the clonk won't fall down, or even necessarily drop what they're holding and is still able to defend themselves somewhat. I'd say of they were KOed they go limp fast enough that their bracing becomes ineffective. Many a collision sport player has made a tackle which left them dazed...

There isn't any. But most characters can't get out of range of ranged attacks before they can be shot at, so there needs to be a DCV for movement in the rules because it's harder to hit a fast-moving target if they are in range.

Personally, I think to GM a supers game well, you've got to have a nice strong handle on "supers conventions". I don't think I've got anything like as good a grasp in that regard as some of my friends (who have, in the past, run supers games, though not all of them Hero system; some of the best sessions I've had in Supers were using Aberrant), so I don't feel I'm anywhere near "good enough" to run a supers game. Perhaps that (mis- in some cases) perception is widespread.

Another problem with it is that, RAW, if you choose to aim for a specific location, and don't hit it, you miss entirely. "Calling a shot" is therefore a combat option that entails some risk. To compensate for that, a default head hit should be further over "base hit" than if you take the risk of missing. I'd suggest a base increase in DC of the damage for every n (where n might be anywhere from 2 to 5 maybe, possibly variable by weapon) better than a miss you get.

Apart from the fact that it's mostly abusive, and points mentioned above, just how does an energy-draining God remain in Deep Cover and maintain his Anonymity when just talking to people can freak them out? A bunch of his "side effects" sound more like "Costs END" (which would reduce the value of the limitation, and clip his tactical wings rather). All his "Godlike presence" side effects are better covered with a distinctive features type Physical Limitation, I'd've thought. He's stacking PD and ED from different sources, even if individual sources are within AP guidelines you might've set. "Requires Characteristic roll" isn't a limitation if the characteristic roll in question is only ever failed on a natural miss. How are any of the "perceivable" limitations on the skills justified? Can you literally see/hear the cogs turning? How are "linked" powers that are linked to persistent other powers at all limited? They aren't, so he doesn't get to have it as a limitation on costs. Not that you should argue it point-by-point: the whole thing needs chucking out, IMO, unless you're running a game of cosmic scale, where the heroes are supposed to go insane, indiscriminately drain entire city power grids to sustain themselves, and drive populations into rapture when they give a TV interview. Just because his mind is strong enough to warp reality, doesn't mean he can necessarily warp it that much, nor that he can warp it with enough control to magic up a "Living Super Suit" that's "difficult to replace". The sort of "at will" power shown in the Multipower would seem to me to be better replicated with a Cosmic Power Pool. And remember that "needs an INT roll" isn't a limitation if the INT roll can be made "18-".

I am, indeed aware of that creation.

Aye. At least ab initio I'll be doing most of the heavy lifting, and having the character sheets reflect the dice-plus-modifiers system would be part of the project. As has been said, it's the character generation that's probably the most intimidating part of the process of introducing new folk to the fold, and many of the "11-" flat chances are set (potentially for the lifetime of the character) at that stage, so I can gloss them out of ever existing. There's a big difference between a task to be done and a constant nagging jarr. Or keep the context? Damage is "high-is-good" (both in total and in 6s scoring you Body damage); positive modifiers are good (and the higher the better); high stats or high numbers of dice are better. In the context of the game. Pardon the brainfart on my behalf, but what's this referring to? I know that there are states in which characters are at "half DCV" (or the like), but isn't that the CV (or whatever) modifier that's halved, rather than any roll? Thought so. Thanks for confirming.

In a fit of general ennui with the shortcomings of various RPG systems, I was undertaking one of my periodic tinkerings with a homebrew rule set. Then I meandered back into thinking about using Hero. The one thing that makes me wince, though, is the "roll low" dice mechanic. I very much prefer the "roll and add; get a high number" way of doing things; it just seems more intuitive that "higher is better". It doesn't seem too taxing to translate "fixed" dice rolls into their inverse (8- becomes 13+, 11- goes to 10+ etc) and just add the stat/5 or CV as a modifier to a roll. I'm leaning towards giving everything a "target number" of 10 and applying difficulty modifiers to the total rolled, with higher margins of success, as usual, providing greater effect as appropriate. The roles of the rolls of 3 and 18 would, of course, be reversed. Has anyone else taken this approach? It seems to me that introducing a bunch of new players to the Joy of Hero, as I'm going to have to, would be assisted, if only in a minor way, by this change. Is there any statistical reason not to do it this way (I don't think there is)? Does the dice mechanic have any thematic or "feel" benefits (other than simple familiarity and nostalgia) for you that would be lost with "roll and add"?

RM's his healing paradigm was quite original for a RPG community used to Clerics being both healer and utility caster. The sheer variety of ists you needed to learn meant you'd probably have to be a specialist healer,and the Transferral Ways (take the wounds onto yourself and have lots of "cast while unconscious" cures to fix all the broken bits was... novel. RM (like the (prestige) class proliferation of D&D) is its own argument against class-based systems: all those hybrid classes just so people can play the character they want to... Why not use a classless system like BRP or Hero and build your character the way you want it?

Origin story: "Short, round and hairy" and I channel various different Wombles as circumstances warrant. First rodeo: Basic D&D in about '78; player and DM. Current gigs: D&D 3.5ed putatively fortnightly, but life is making it more like monthly recently. King Arthur Pendragon, a campaign intended to run the whole "Great Pendragon Campaign" from Uther to Camlann a year a session, running monthly. We've managed 10.5 years in 12 months. Another D&D 3.5 game an a biannual Con I go to. Empire: a 4 x a year fest LARP. It's not even like I like D&D, but it's the only game in town... I'm working on a Hero-based Shadowrun-alike, and a "What if the Trojans burned that horse (and all the Greek heroes in it)?" alternative Classical-period fantasy game. I first played Hero system with Champions, possibly even when it first came out, in the early 80s.

That's the reason I declined my friend's invitation to Dark Age Early Medieval re-enactment: since there's no evidence (or there wasn't back in the day, and I'm assuming none has been found, since I saw a group recently, and none of them had mail gauntlets) of mail (or better) hand protection in that time period, the group in question permitted only leather reinforcement on your gauntlets. Not enough protection from errant Dane Axe shaft hits (for my liking), let alone actual business-end contact...