Brian Stanfield

Ok, so let me reframe this a bit: Why buy 5 contacts when it seems having 1 "floating contact" is good enough from game to game? It seems punitive to make a player pay for being so well connected worldwide that he has to buy at least one contact on each continent, and probably area knowledge for each continent as well, and probably city knowledge with some of the major cities. In a heroic campaign where players are only 175 points, that takes up about 20-25 points, which is pretty significant just to make them seem like they know a lot of people. In reality (in game terms), it would make sense to give them one blanket Perk for each category: 1 Contact, 1 Area Knowledge, and 1 City Knowledge, and have them roll each game when they want to use one of the Perks. Otherwise, I'm making them pay a lot of points for something they'll almost never use. I have the "Well Connected" Perk Enhancer for a couple of my players, but then that's another 3 points to save a handful of points, so it's basically a wash, points-wise. Although it's a globetrotting campaign, I don't see them visiting more than 2 continents per game session! Any advice here? I thought the Resource Pool might work, but I've never used it.

I can’t tell if you’re joking or not, but I’m asking about the Perk: Contact (as in a person to contact). Im wondering if there’s anybody who’s actually used the Resource Pool approach on this problem? Any advice?

I'm running a globetrotting pulp game with a lot of area/city knowledge skills, and a lot of contacts. It seems ridiculous how many points get sucked up into this stuff, so I'm wondering how you all do it more efficiently. I did a little looking through the archives and found some good advice with Resource Pools. Is that a good way to go? If so, how do you show it on Hero Designer? If you don't use Resource Pools, how do you do it? So far I've kept the contacts fairly vague (for example, Contact: Europe), to the point of being too vague. But I'm wondering if this is good enough, and then allow characters to redefine them each session to meet the needs of the game. Still, this eats up a lot of Character Points, so I'm interested in the Resource Pool approach, if it works. Any advice on this would be much appreciated. As many of you have seen, I'm starting with a brand new group next weekend, and I'm teaching the rules to them for the first time, so keeping everything as simple as possible is my first goal here. As long as the points make sense to me I'm ok with that, as long as I can explain what their representing.

Agreed. Although Hero Designer doesn’t exactly conform to the rule on this, I think it is a bit more consistent in how it’s applied. And I don’t really care all that much. In a piece of equipment like a knife, it makes 1 point of difference in the Real Cost, and because it’s equipment it doesn’t cost anything anyway, so no biggie. I was just curious for the purposes of teaching the rule to new people.

It's worth it! Everyone on these forums would pretty much agree with that. Its accuracy and completeness is top notch, and there are many, many prefab/character packs to supplement Hero Designer so that you don't have to build everything yourself. These are especially helpful if you have a lot of equipment in your campaign like I do, but also if you are looking for pre-made write-ups of the characters provided in the rulebooks, etc. I can't recommend it enough.

I feel like I'm going insane. I swear that I saw rifle scopes in a Hero Designer prefab somewhere, but now I can't find them at all. I also swear that the prefab had different selections based on the kind of sight (fixed iron sight, micrometer, etc.). I have the 6e HS Equipment Guide prefabs, and the Pulp HERO prefabs, but I can't find it in either of these sets. Has anyone else seen this prefab? Please help assure me I'm not mad!

You say this like people should disapprove, while at the same time Game of Thrones is the most popular show on television . . .

I'm looking for a good office building map that will work as the Carthage Club in Hudson City. Just 2 or 3 stories, but the first story needs to be more like a ballroom/dining area to match the description of the building. I'm just using it for my new group in a Pulp HERO campaign.

I did the same experiment and it came out with the same increased result. I asked the designer and he says that the advantages (other than 0 END) count against the prorated STR, so it is "supposed" to work that way. Although I'd interpret the rule differently, since the text specifically says otherwise, it's not worth arguing with Simon about anything. It just makes him terse, and he digs in his heels. So I'll accept the increase. Since I'm dealing with heroic characters, it's not that big of a difference anyway.

I was considering that, but it may get used in future adventures. I may just use the empire Club floor plan and file the serial numbers off in case in case I use the Empire Club later. I’m looking at floor plan software, but most of it is nominally free and not entirely useful until I subscribe.

Yeah, this is what I mean, and of course forgot to say. The conversion of characters (especially the CU villains and Champions, etc.) from 5e to 6e left them with crazy high points to match the original builds. Really, the original builds should have been completely redone with fewer points, but that would make using any pre-6e material really problematic. So the easier (and understandable) move was to keep the stats the same and just increase the starting Character Points so that new characters could keep up with the traditional ones. That is another sort of opportunity “not taken,” and could have gone a long way toward correcting the slow creep in the Character Point totals.

I did that and came up with some good stuff. I realized what I’m looking for is more of an office building. I’m trying to come up with something that would work as the Carthage Club in 1030s Hudson City. Think “Empire Club in a smaller city.”

You know, I was thinking about this while lurking on this thread. I’ve always wondered if the character point inflation wouldn’t have been necessary in 6e if they had simply shifted all the Characteristic ranges back down to lower levels. If normal is still 10, and if DEX doesn’t need to be elevated to drive the Figureds, then the ranges could overlap more, and supers could still excel at some Characteristics while remaining “normal” at others. Then the point inflation could be reduced. I only say this as I’m building some pre-gen heroic characters for a Pulp campaign. I’m fighting against every urge to inflate DEX and the CVs simply out of habit. My players are all new, so they won’t be programmed to think like the earlier editions, so I’m trying to reset the ranges in my own mind.

Does anybody have a good source for multi-level floor plans for modern buildings? I'm looking for several stories of a brownstone or low-rise commercial building.

Unfortunately, I don’t have that issue. You’ll have to tell me what it says.

Ah, got it. The "less than half" wording is a Catch-22 way of describing it. "Less than half" is usually a good thing, but in this case doesn't mean "make the roll by more than half" because that would be "less than half." It apparently means make the roll, but "not under half." I'm tired, what can I say?

Hey all, Rather than start a new thread about the same subject, I'm just going to resurrect this one with a question: What that hell does this mean? "Characters with Intuitional Danger Sense get their full DCV against dangers, but cannot make attacks at full OCV if they make the roll by half." I get that the full DCV is a benefit of not being surprised, but making the roll by half seems like a good thing, right? This rule seems to be sayin if you roll really well you don't get to use your full OCV. What am I missing here? I'm sure it's really obvious, but I'm just not seeing an obvious answer . . .

Oh my god, that’s brilliant! I was thinking of some artifact being smuggled into the club and then stolen during the party or something, but this is simple and easy! And a fun way to get into things before it gets more serious.

I decided on the 1930s for a couple of reasons: first, it’s fun to have Nazis around for easy foils, and who doesn’t want to punch a Nazi?; second, one of my characters is an aviatrix, and good international and commercial plane travel didn’t really start until the late ‘20s and early ‘30s; plus, did I mention Nazis? The rest is right along the lines I was thinking. The one missing element is this: I want them to meet at the Carthage Club in order to establish it as a new home base, so I want the adventure to come to them at the beginning, give them a reason to become a team, and then venture forth. In addition, I think (maybe?) that I want them to perform little tasks at the very beginning, with a few opening scenes where they learn the basics about rolling for Skills, To Hit, and PRE attacks, just to get those items out of the way early. So I’m now trying to come up with a few short opening scenes where my industrialist, spy, detective, aviatrix, industrial saboteur, and linguist all have “learning tasks” to do. I’m trying to come up with a handful of ideas to integrate with their meeting at the Carthage Club for the first time. Something other than the classic barroom brawl, which is a habitual cliche I’m fighting against with everything I can muster. On the other hand, I was thinking of having them meet at the club at a celebration on the night that Prohibition ended in December 1935.

After some discussion about the rules in a different forum, I now have a question about HERO Designer's application of that rule. Here's a dagger that I got from the HS Equipment Guide prefab: Dagger:HKA 1d6 (1d6+1 w/STR), Range Based On STR (+¼), Reduced Endurance (0 END; +½) (26 Active Points); OAF (-1), Real Weapon (-¼), STR Minimum 4 (-¼), Beam (-¼). The character who has this dagger, however, doesn't increase Damage Classes at the rate of +1DC per 5 STR. It has changed to +1 per 6 STR. The rule on 6e2 97 says to include Advantages that directly affect damage, and in this case Range Based On STR and Reduced Endurance are not on that list of Advantages. So HERO Designer is including all the Advantages and recalculating the cost of STR to add Damage Classes. Is this an oversight, or am I missing another part of the rule? Also, does HERO Designer recognize the difference between STR Minimum 4 or, for example 7? The Range Based On STR menu option only lists 4-8 as a range rather than a specific number.

Unsurprisingly, this rule is much longer in 6e, and like the description of how to calculate a To Hit Roll, it is worded in a much different and more confusing way. But the 6e rule specifically says to not include advantages that don't affect damage. Reduced Endurance and Range Based on STR are not part of the list of advantages to include when one refigures the cost of adding STR to Damage. I'm inclined to think that maybe this particular case is an idiosyncrasy of HERO Designer.

As I was reading the rule on this, I wondered about Range Based on STR. Does that affect the way damage is done to a target? I wavered, but I suppose it redefines what counts as a target in the first place, so some damage versus no damage is a distinct advantage.

I tried this, as you can see in the writeup above, but it didn’t change anything for me. I’m still getting an extra DC for every 6 points of STR.

All I can tell you is that every single knife build in a HERO Designer prefab is built exactly how I listed it above. That’s cut-and-pasted from one of the prefabs. The Advantage Ranged: Range Based on STR is the advantage that makes an HKA throwable, and Beam is what makes the knife deflectable. The problem is that, even if HERO Designer can’t distinguish between STR Min 4 or 8, the extra DC for STR still isn’t getting added at the normal rate to the dagger as a melee weapon. I think the Advantages are getting applied to the attack, so that the 1d6 dagger is actually a 5 DC HKA, so the STR bonus goes up at an increment other than 5 STR per DC.

All the knife builds share this same peculiarity. I wonder if it’s so that the knife can also be thrown, since it’s an HKA with range based on STR.