Tech

Beast Boy's forms are definitely superpowered. No gorilla is going to jump around like Spider-man, get pounded on repeatedly by a creature that can damage concrete and come back swinging afterwards, or survive a 30 foot fall and get back up fighting (ala Teen Titans cartoon series).

As the title says, do you have silly adventures occasionally for the players? In the campaign I'm in, definitely yes. I'll tell you some of them:

- If you've seen the silly movie 'Inframan', the PC's had to fight various monster baddies eventually ending up fighting Princess Dragon Mom.  Yeah, that name is horrible.

- I doubt you've ever seen the very old cartoon series 'Clutch Cargo' where just the lips moved, I had Foxbat make a cartoon series with himself in that style. The heroes (and players) joked about that for a couple of weeks.

- If you've ever seen the old tacky series 'The Banana Splits', Foxbat had 4 supersuits make to look like the four, um, characters... and he was the fifth! "The Foxbat Splits!"

- The old Thundercats cartoon series was used: the heroes went to a different dimension and fought Mumm-Ra, defeating him with finality.

- He-Man's Skeletor has shown up a couple times; got trashed both times. The last time, I suddenly ended up having in midgame to beef up his PD, ED & Stun but it didn't make him last much longer; the heroes were just on a roll.

Those are just a few. I often use Foxbat for fun episodes because now & then, the players need something like it.

On 7/25/2014 at 6:18 AM, steriaca said:

Beast Boy, like Rouge, is an expenses build to do. The Doom Patrol/Teen Titans member has a power which works well for comic books, but hard to write up for roleplaying.

Rouge or Rogue (X-men)?

My brother tried a shapeshifter like Beast Boy. The character didn't last long. A Multipower can be made larger over time but you need to ask yourself, "What will I do with my XP gained after 100 pts, 200 pts, etc"  A multipower properly done can grant you enough powers so you don't need anything else to buy. You end up saying "what do I do with my points?".

However, many years later, he tried another one but with Multiform. That one's lasting. It's not a pain to create each form; it's fun!

iaml, I ran a 500 pts-to-start game once: it lasted only a couple sessions. Some people might like to try it and some may not. Apparently, my players don't.

On 3/27/2021 at 7:53 PM, unclevlad said:

There are going to be fringe cases, but the starting point is that you don't have instantaneous acceleration/deceleration.  Normal combat acceleration is 5 meters per meter.  Normal noncombat acceleration is limited to your combat move per phase, so x32 NC takes, yes, 32 phases to reach full speed and 32 phases to stop from full speed.  This is a tradeoff for buying non-combat movement over combat movement.  

 

So here:  let's start with saying the flyer's scaled down to combat movement.  In the phase he's going to go into the water, he starts his decel before entering the water, nominally hitting 0 before/as entering the water, at which point the swimming kicks in.  If both Flight and Swimming are up...no problem.  Swimming kicks in.  I'd probably say that the character's used a half move with his Flight, and can make another half move with his Swimming.  If the Swimming can't be active...the player loses the rest of his phase and has 0 velocity in the water.  

 

If the character has non-cpmbat movement going and doesn't want to take the time to shed it first?  I'd probably be mean.  Depending on SFX:

--perhaps he just skips across the surface like a flat rock.  Most appropriate for low angle of entry, of course.

--more than likely, he'd enter the water but be completely out of control.  If this is a controlled entry...I'd lean to v/10 damage.  (So trying to do this at 300m per phase would be Really Bad.)  The deceleration here is RADICAL, and you are gonna feel it.

I think we have to separate reality from comic books here. Reality says the deceleration is gonna be something you notice; comic books say 'who cares? if it looks/sounds good, use it'.

A player wanted to created a goo character but wanted a larger picture. Does anyone know where this is from?

1 hour ago, Tjack said:

What you’re going for could be considered the Energy Blast’s version of a Haymaker Punch.

Like the Wave Motion Gun in Star Blazers.

Tj, if you're suggesting using a Haymaker for the power, it falls far short of the concept. Chris T, a nice variation but more complicated than dougmac's.

A player in the campaign asked, "Does an area effect attack also hit any accessible foci that the target may be holding, such as a sword or blaster?" What about Inaccessible foci?

Gonna go with dougmacd's version. Thanks.

I'm looking to build a villain who uses a 5d6 Blast attack. Not very effective. However, in the next attack phase, his power starts charging up and he gets to add +3d6 for a total of 8d6 Blast. The following phase is an additional +3d6 for a total of 11d6 and finally the next phase culminates in +3d6 for a total of 14d6. At this point, the power is spent and it drops back down to 5d6, which starts the powering up cycle again. How would you build this?

Note: the power builds up regardless of whether the blast hits or causes stun damage.

On 3/17/2021 at 9:56 AM, ihollaway said:

Haven't played HERO since 3rd/4th edition era, but thinking about picking it back up.

Is it worthwhile to upgrade to 6th?  What kind of improvements have been made to the game?  How different are the mechanics?

(If there is already a Topic on this, apologies.)

There are alot of opinions on the various Hero Games versions so I won't add yet another. 6th adds alot of things, but by that standard, also makes it slower to learn: the two college-size books of the 6th ed Hero System is a bit much. Ultimately, I guess the question to you comes down to: do you like more complex character builds or simpler ones?

Btw, if you decide to go the 6th edition route, get the PDF - the binding on the 6th edition hardcovers was awful.

I've got a robot that can create a bright light attack but I'm not sure how to build it. It can create a bright light which originates from it's eyes and is 180 degrees in radius up to about 30 feet out (just throwing out a number, could be shorter or longer) but no further back than its eyes, hence 180'. Probably a Flash Attack. How would you build the area attack aspect of it?

Just listening to the hum of the computer fans. It's nice to have silence now and then.

You know you're a player when:

- you see a movie or show, and start guessing what the character's Dex, Con, PD & ED, etc. are.

- you see a movie or show, and start figuring out the disadvantages as well.

Gave it some thought. I'd go with ECV vs ECV. The HA is only the method of how the damage is being delivered (in this case, not ranged); the effect of it being Mental determines how to resolve it, thus Ego.

Having looked at Change Environment, it is what you want. However, it needs to have Long Lasting added to it, as well as a limitation which is the cure.

It's fun to see this again. Thanks Christopher.

On 10/29/2020 at 4:22 PM, massey said:

I think I know what he means.

 

Limitations affect powers, and should be priced based on how they affect the power they're applied to, generally without regard to other things the character can do.  For example, if Superman purchases a hang-glider (10" of Gliding, OAF bulky, big turn mode, lots of other restrictions), then he still gets the full value of the limitations on the Gliding power, even though he's got 50" of Flight x250 noncombat.  His Gliding isn't more expensive just because he's got a backup power that's just as good if not better.  He's paying points for both powers.  His limitations don't become less limiting overall just because he spent more points elsewhere.

 

If Captain Swordsman has 5 different magic swords, each with its own weird limitations (only affects evil creatures, only vs vampires, does not affect those blessed by a priest, only vs dragons, etc), it doesn't matter that he's got backup weapons.  Those limitations are still real.  He bought each of those weapons individually, and they all cost points.  He shouldn't be paying full price for 5 different swords.  That's way worse than just paying for one sword that does everything.

 

Now... there are certain circumstances where a character is obviously designed with powers that negate his limitations.  The Mind Mole has 10" of Tunneling through 10 Def material (with the ability to close the hole behind him), N-Ray Vision, and an Ego Attack.  His tactic is that he tunnels down into the ground, looks up at you through the Earth with N-Ray, and then brain-zaps you over and over again.  He has an OAF magic wand that lets him do this, and an OAF magic hat that gives him 30 points of Mental Defense.  Unless he runs into a very specific enemy build, his limitations will probably never come into play.  This is a situation in which the GM is justified in saying "I can't think of any way this limitation will ever come up, so for you it isn't worth any points".  Doctor Destroyer's powers all come through his armor, but because it can't be damaged and he never takes it off, he doesn't get any points back.

I agree...   except for what you said about Dr. D. I suppose it depends on the campaign but I've kept Destroyers' armor at OIF because it has been damaged for being a suit of power armor, regardless of how powerful it is. I don't believe his armor is indestructible.


 

To some extent, heroes can be "proactive".  Recently, our hero group ended up going into an abandoned subway station looking for clues to find a supervillain. There, they found a homeless girl and her friends who gave some clues to help us realize we were on a rabbit-trail. However, the heroes didn't stop there. They took the girl and her friends to their public base and given a place to stay, get food, clothes, etc., while they finished their primary mission. When they finished, then they helped the homeless children find a place where they could stay. That's proactive in my book.

12 hours ago, archer said:

Some players will shoot right through a hostage to reach a bad guy while others will bend over backwards to save hostages. And some players will take it personally if another player's PC shoots a hostage. You really need to have a better handle on the group dynamic before deliberately having the bad guys take hostages, in my opinion.

I hope I never run into this kind of player who thinks its ok to 'shoot right through a hostage to reach a bad guy'.

On 2/20/2021 at 4:35 PM, starblaze said:

Yeah, like it says.  Tomorrow I will have one of my wife's nurses coming over for a few hours to an RPG for the first time.  She stated that she likes Superheroes so, duh, let's do Champions.  So what adventure could you suggest for a newbie?  Should I just do like a bank robbery?  

So, how did it go?

Let's see... cursed book to avoid? Howabout the original European Enemies with your 5d6 Energy Blast with +1 Stun Multiplier?

Using mostly 4-5th Edition with a touch of 1-3rd thrown in, we're using 1 End/10 pts. However, I've seen more and more that people aren't buying reduced END. Before you say 'you're not using as much END', if anything, players are designing characters so that they run out of END faster, far faster than the 1/10 benefits them.

Part of it might be we've run into heroic situations where the character is near or at 0 END but has to stop the bad guy but the character continues fighting. That heroic moment where the character shines cannot be underestimated, which is why we still use END.

I hope this didn't go off the trail.

N-B, where can you get those maps? I wouldn't mind seeing them myself.

A definition for each one needs to be established, otherwise the two words are interchangeable if there is no definable definition for either one.