Brian Stanfield

This is awesome! Thanks for the link!

This is what I was thinking too. Make it a contemporary action movie adventure with cool weapons or gadgets, and you're off and running.

Ever since I read GURPS Lite I've been thinking HERO really ought to create something like this, just for an easy, no frills introduction to the system. Something playable right away, but with only a limited number of options, etc., so there is incentive to dive into all the other source material HERO is selling. What's new to me is this idea of a "Convention HERO" package. It would be very genre-specific for the particular adventure presented for the convention, and there could be different packages for different genres and conventions. The more I think about it, the more I like this. The best way to learn the game is by playing it, and the quicker people can get to the playing and not the reading, the easier it will be to learn. I can see a 10-page summary of the rules, description of a pre-gen character's characteristics/abilities/powers (probably even a different packet for each character), and some suggestions for how to use the character. Maybe there could be a very simplified character creation process with some pre-fab options offered for the players, with a minimum of details about the rules regulating those choices. There should be lots of references to the larger rules as an incentive to branch out and pick them up to learn more. Perhaps there could even be a few plot seeds if people want to continue playing with their characters after the convention. I keep using this as a model, but imagine showing up to a convention with Justice Inc. and playing for 4 hours, and then sending them home with that book? It's a complete game in the 1e/2e model (as zslane points out) and does a great job of glossing over the basics and getting the player started. The Empire Club alone is a great campaign "home base" for any future adventures a player may want to run, so all they really need is that little book for the next few weeks or so. Once people become comfortable with the basics, they'll be looking for more possibilities with the Complete books or the full 6e rules and all the sourcebooks that go with them. This sort of thing is of course just a fantasy, and likely wouldn't ever get approval from DOJ. But I think at the very least very basic "Learn to play HERO" events could be held at conventions. I plan on doing something like that as soon as I feel a little more ready to take it on.

Don't worry, there are a lot of illegitimate parents to this idea. It usually pops up about every 6 months or so. I'm just grateful it wasn't me beating this dead horse this time!

In this case I prefer increasing the penalty for a slower weapon rather than reducing the penalty for a quick one. The multiple attack maneuver is penalized as an action, regardless of the weapon. The action itself shouldn't become easier with a quicker weapon, but rather get harder with a slower one. Again, I think defining what is faster and slower becomes the primary challenge.

You should be able to. You may have to extrapolate a few things, but Star Hero will give you enough leads on how to do this. You may be happier, however, picking up the core rulebook PDFs for 6e for the finer details. Once you're more comfortable with the 6e rules you can look at the 5e sourcebooks (vehicles and so on) for more ideas, etc., because there is so much information out there.

Page 26 has a sidebar on facing as well. There is no official facing rule, but they suggest it is a 0 phase action that cannot be taken at the end of a phase. I would simply rule otherwise in the situation you describe. If someone is already engaged in combat and their opponent moves around, I just assume they track the movement for "free" as part of the flow of combat. This of course introduces other problems, but I hunk if it's done with some constraint in situations which make sense, there's no problem with it. Of course, once you take away the surprise bonus as the rule suggests, the point pretty much becomes moot.

There are some suggestions on how to deal with this on 6e2, p.50 in the "Surprised and Facing" section:

Game of Thrones ain't got nothin' on you!

And Wonder Woman sure made it seem really exciting this summer as well!

And I was just reminded of the "Dive For Cover" rule, which I think gives some valuable options in this area. Trading a combat action for avoiding an attack, at the expense of rendering oneself prone, covers many of the concerns I had over how to apply all these rules. There is a clear benefit traded off for being prone, at least for the first attack, which now makes it seem like a more desirable option than before I remembered this maneuver. For whatever it's worth . . . .

Great examples. I appreciate the input. And no, I don't think Nolgroth was wrong in his comments, but I was just asking for some assistance in directing the guiding intelligence in the midst of all of these moving parts. I respect pretty much everyone's insights on these forums, and value the advice, and I realize that the rules don't cover everything, but trying to figure out which rules apply when is part of the collective intelligence of these forums. I don't see being curious or thorough as a bad thing. And you're right, this is one of the dark places of the system, but I kinda like it here!

Ah! Actual data! Well done! The rest of your analysis is dead on. Thanks for your input!

Good point. I haven't said anything about this, have I? I'm looking at a more gritty kind of Danger International or low heroic Dark Champions kind of game. I'm ok with superheroes dodging blasts and bullets, and all the other crazy stuff that might happen. But how does this all play out in a more low-powered, lethal setting where how you react to a shooter really does have consequences. I hope nobody thinks I'm being obtuse or intentionally obstinate. I'm looking for a rationale that makes sense if I try to explain it to a player, and I'm also just curious where the break-points are in the RAW for 6e. And I'm just bored and curious about how this all can be applied. And by the way, what kind of horrible game would a WWI trench game be?! "Ok, wait for a while. Hopefully there won't be gas. Ok, the whistle's blowing, now jump up and get shot. You're dead. Ok, next: you get to crawl around in the mud for a minute before you get shot and die." Worst game ever!

My point is not about the shooter: obviously he needs to be able to hit me if he's going to hit me. My point is about the DCV modifiers. Am I required to move to get full DCV? The RAW say nothing about this. As I wrote in an earlier post, it is assumed that HtH combat will have movement and interaction, etc. But at range it's more problematic and not explicit at all. If I just stand there, do I get my full DCV? If not, why? And if I do, then why don't I also get it while being prone (the equivalent of just standing there, but in a much more advantageous position)? How about if I squat, and combine the best of both: I get a smaller silhouette and I also don't have to take the 1/2 DCV for being prone. Am I required, as I said above, to run around like crazy to throw off the shooter in order to get full DCV? If not, then what's the difference between standing there like normal and being prone? Now we've come full circle: it seems like being prone would be an advantage at range, not a disadvantage. Obviously there are a lot of moving parts here, as everyone has rightly pointed out. I'm just plumbing the depths of the rules to see how they best fit together in these kind of judgments.

Yeah, except I'm the GM. I'm supposed to know this stuff! God help us all!

I realized that as I was writing it, and forgot to go back and change that bit about the smaller target. The half-sized target is as hard to hit as a full-sized target twice as far away. But the range penalties are specifically designed to simulate the target appearing smaller as the distance increases, so adding a "half size" penalty when one drops prone seems to be double-dipping. As to your cover solution, I ultimately agree with it. But you say "use the simple cover rule," which doesn't actually cover prone targets, although by extrapolation from the 4e example it seems like maybe this is in fact the solution. Are you using the modifiers for 1/2 cover, 1/4 cover, etc. and applying it to the position of the target on the ground? If so, that seems to be a good solution. This may be the part that I've been overthinking. ​Thanks for your patience, everyone!

The confusing part is that it's in a Concealment section. It's a great example, and is exactly what I was trying to get at in my original post. I bought the .pdf last night and looked it up, but it really only exemplified my confusion rather than solve it because at no point does the 4e rule say the DCV is lifted for the prone target, although it seems to imply it. I may be completely wrong in that, and general consensus seems to be to keep the DCV at 1/2 and then subtract the OCV penalties in addition. I appreciate the simplicity and fluidity of the rules in 4e, but in 6e there is a rationalization for every rule, so I'm just trying to nail down the rules to use in this one particular situation.

But the guy holding the gun is shooting a bullet that moves faster than I can dodge. Again, the rules assume in HtH that there is some movement, give-and-take, etc. in the combat. Ranged combat assumes no such thing from what I can tell (and I may be wrong here). Shooting at a distance applies my DCV even if there's no movement, etc. There are, of course, ways to move that are designed to make tracking you more difficult, but that would be a specialized skill. I'm assuming, by what you're saying, that flinching, running for cover, etc., are part of the ranged combat DCV. If this is the case, I'm ok with that. But as for me, I'm still a little bit puzzled. Not to be obstinate, just because I'm curious to see how far the rules can be pushed to simulate "reality." Thanks for the correction.

So was 40 STR the correct answer?

I may have not been totally clear: I was accusing myself of not making legitimate physical sense, not the rules. Even though I understand the physics, and even have this awesome formula from a state trooper for calculating vectors in a head-on collision, I still have a hard time comprehending terminal velocity. Or the fact that a pen and a bowling ball fall at the same rate! The quirky part has already been presented as why a head on collision of a particular net velocity is not calculated the same as a fall of the same velocity. I just never put too much thought into this particular case, and always rationalized it with my own half-baked assumptions!

Now I'm wondering why DCV even applies to a gun shot. Can I actually dodge a bullet? I guess I can run around like crazy and make myself harder to hit, but DCV doesn't assume that. I can stand there, motionless, and still have full DCV. Again, I'm not criticizing the HERO System, I'm just looking for solid ground for making rulings. Or, conversely, optimizing the hit modifiers if I'm the one making the decision to drop for "cover." Then why bother ever going prone? It will always be a penalty. Remember, the situation I'm describing assumes no cover. The OCV penalty for presenting a smaller target is offset by the DCV penalty for being immobile. The example from the 4e book suggests it's an advantage to be prone but doesn't actually say why. It's in a rule on cover, but going prone isn't really cover. Maybe it's related to target size or hit locations in the 6e rules, but the range modifiers already explicitly say that the range penalty is a function of the target being "smaller" in appearance the farther away he is. So is it fair to add more penalties when the rule already accounts for decreased appearance of size? Or is it legit to just stack all of those penalties? So far we've come up with some workable ways to do this that I'm satisfied with. But I'm still curious about why being prone is explicitly presented as a bonus in 4e for ranged attacks. We could apply all of the rules presented so far: 1/2 DCV for being prone, but a range penalty, smaller target size penalty, special hit location penalty (high shot, etc.), cover, and whatever else makes sense. But again, why bother going prone? Why not just squat down and keep the full DCV? Does my question make sense in this context? The 4e rules flat out say it's an advantage to go prone, and I'm thinking it's flat out never and advantage if it requires the 1/2 DCV. Just squat down and get all the advantages without the DCV penalty, right? Or does going prone offer a significantly smaller target (again, assuming flat terrain, no cover, etc.) than squatting down? I was going to just go with what everyone was saying right up until the 4e example was given which restates exactly the problem I originally described. I'm not trying to argue just for the hell of it, although it must seem so. I'm honestly a little flummoxed by this oddity.

Understood. I guess I always just considered the fall to be "cumulative" damage over the course of the fall, which is simply a rationalization that has no basis in the rules, or physics for that matter. Quirky indeed.

This is EXACTLY the situation I'm talking about! And exactly the example I'm looking for. What part of the rules is this example given for? Rules for cover, prone targets, or something else? I can't find anything like this in 6e. Notice, however, at the end of that section that it brings up exactly the same problem I was originally asking. 40 meters away gives her a bonus, while standing right next to her puts her at a disadvantage. So what I'm curious about is when the switch happens.

You may not be trying to be a jerk, and I honestly don't believe you are a jerk based on what I've read of your many other posts. But this comes across in a pretty jerky sort of way. Your final suggestion is to read the rules, Mr. GM-guy, and apply them based on the circumstances of the game because it's already covered. This, of course, could be the answer to about 75% of the posts on these forums. Rules are, in fact, canned solutions to a whole range of possible situations, so I don't feel like it is a disservice to understand the rules, and their idiosyncrasies, in order to be able to apply them better. I'm not trying to be argumentative: I'm just trying to solve what seems to be inconsistent (to my mind) in the rules applied to this situation. However, I realize my original post is a bit vague, so let me restate my query. If I, as a normal human, have a DCV of 4 and another normal human of 4 OCV wants to shoot me from 30 meters. Let's assume it's in the middle of nowhere, with no terrain variance, and a freshly mown field, so there is no cover. If I stand there, I have a full DCV and their OCV is 0 because of the range modifier of -4. So his chance to hit me is 7-. If I drop prone, which intuitively makes more sense in terms of trying to give him less of a target, that automatically cuts my DCV in half, which actually increases his chance to hit me to 9-. So it's actually better for me to stand there, upright, and do nothing rather than try to drop down and presumably make myself harder to hit. The rules as written cover a prone target very clearly. What they do not cover clearly, however, and this is my original question, at what point does going prone actually become a benefit, not a liability? This prone vs. ranged attack situation not only doesn't make intuitive sense in terms of the rules, it seems to run counter to the obvious: give them a smaller target so you are harder to hit. What I hadn't considered has been covered here: elevation, terrain, and such are also important considerations, but not part of my question. The rules say this about the range modifiers: "This reflects the fact that it's harder to hit a target who's far away than one who's nearby. Among other reasons, this is because the target appears smaller at range --- there is 'less' of it to hit" (6e1 p. 38). So what the rules are actually saying is that range modifiers are adjustments to what is visible on the player. The suggestions to use the hit location and cover rules, etc., to increase the penalty, are what I'm inclined to apply in this situation, but the RAW for range modifiers presumably already are taking into account the "smaller target size." Is that double dipping on the penalties? The next problem is this: the DCV Modifiers Table on 6e2, p. 37, says a prone target uses the normal hit locations table, which also goes completely against the common-sense solutions everyone up to now has been suggesting. So add this to my perplexity. So, in the end, I'm not all that satisfied that I'll find a clean solution. As you correctly say, Nolgroth, the tactical flexibility is amazing in HERO, and is exactly why I made the switch to these rules back in the '80s. In this case, it's that flexibility that is vexing me so much. I think, in the end, "all of the above" is the correct answer. Thanks guys!