handleyj

I've read some snippets here and there that say that BotE is done, but it's getting some kind of Kickstarter thingy going to do the printing...?

Is there any chance of releasing the PDF now? Some of us are PDF only kinds of folks (PDF on tablet > hardcopy --- IMHO). I don't think I'm alone as this came up in an earlier thread. Anyway, I'll buy the PDF of BotE as soon as I can, but I'll never buy the hard copy, but potentially any PDF sales would help get the printing done for those that prefer that.

Just an idea.

-joe

Re: Interesting Announcement: HERO System Skills

Any news on this PDF? I saw it referenced in Fantasy Hero, but I don't see it for sale in the store...?

Thanks!

-joe

Re: 6th Edition Hero System

If they're full colour and that many pages I bet they are!

 

Adding a Greyscale download option would give the best of both worlds...

Boo grayscale! Yay color!

Re: Breakout

The first time a villain pulls the 'your team mates look like enemies' thing' date=' sure - it is going to cause problems but, given that (at EGO +10) your team mates still act like your team makes and, given that most GMs would probably allow an INT/PER roll to notice the apparent change as well as a breakout roll, that trick gets old and useless - at least in open combats - quickly.[/quote']

 

Actually the book says that to make enemies see their teammates look and act like enemies is only +10 for Mental Illusions. Of course it's up to the GM, but I don't see a "dumb brick" or a couple of VIPER Agents (who happen to be manning a V-12 Destructor Blaster Cannon) getting (or making) an INT/PER roll, even if the GM is mean enough to allow one. I could hear the lamentation of my players now if I started doing that...!

 

However I completely agree that Mind Control is too weak. +10 gets you nothing, and +20 is pretty lame as well (IMHO and according to Ultimate Mentalist). But I think that Mental Illusions is too strong.

 

Anyway, I'm just sayin' ... be careful about changing all Mental Powers, unless you're willing to redefine the effects for +10, etc. on some of them (namely Mental Illusions).

Re: Breakout

My problem with breakout rolls is that they make mental powers' date=' well, useless. In superheroic games where they are arguably most common, EGOs of 15-20 are routine, which means that, assuming around 12d6 effect (average 42 points) you get +27 to +22 effect: pretty good BUT if you are going for a +20 effect that gives you (at most) -1 on opponent's breakouts. With 15-20 EGO you get a 12- or 13- breakout roll: most of the time you are going to be incapable of maintaining your attack long enough to have any effect.[/quote']Wow, I totally disagree with that statement. In fact, I started a thread a while back asking about how to limit Metal Powers more, because I feel that they are too powerful and last too long.

 

But then I guess it depends on the power. Yeah, Mind Control is hard to pull off, as all the cool effects are +30. But Mental Illusions on the other hand, you only need a +10 to say "I make his teammates look like his enemies, and his enemies look like his teammates." And suddenly you have the villainous brick pounding on his teammates.

 

Then the duration is the Time Chart ... gah! If said brick misses his initial break out roll (and how can he possibly make it against a 12d6 effect ... with his 10 (maybe 12) EGO?) ... then he gets another on his next Phase ... but brother, if he misses that one, he's out for a full Turn ... and if he misses that one ... he's basically out for the rest of the combat!

 

Not to mention that now, the entire enemy team is having to defend themselves from a surprise attacker! And some of them may even try to attack the brick in order to "help" him breakout. So you've got the other team members "wasting" their phases trying to deal with their own brick!

 

I had to house rule that everyone gets a break out roll every Post Segment 12, and I really wanted to make it every Phase!

Re: Book Of The Machine Available

Sweet! I'll buy the bundle as soon as it's posted. Thanks, Steve!

Re: Book Of The Machine Available

Awesome! Is there going to be a bundle of the print book and the PDF? Does such a bundle usually go on sale at the same time that the print book is released, or is it a "months later" type of date?

Thanks!

Re: Balancing Mental Powers

Yeah, but Hugh is almost right. There is a level for "Making friends look like (but not act like) enemies." It's considered a "Cosmetic Change" and only requires an EGO+1 (i.e. "Greater than EGO") effect roll.

Thanks everyone for the help!

Re: Mind Control EGO+10 and EGO+20 Examples

It's hard to say what qualifies as what Ego-Plus level without taking the personality and Psych Lims of the target into consideration.

Feel free to define those as well. A "whole" example is quite useful.

So I get the EGO+30 level of Mind Control, but I'm having a hard time thinking of good examples for the +10 and +20 levels. They don't necessarily have to be combat uses, but I'd find those the most interesting. So help me out! Give me some examples of commands that your mentalist would give that should only require a +10 or +20 result on the MC effect dice.

Thanks!

Re: Balancing Mental Powers

Sure' date=' you swap things around so that the Human Torch and Abomination changed places, but when the Abomination flies around and throws fireballs, you simply know something's wrong unless you're an idiot.[/quote']

 

Actually the more I think about this, the more I'm not sure it would work. For example:

 

Mental Illusions are in the mind; it affects all the target's senses. If Wolverine was successfully affected by 'Sabretooth just went running past' as an illusion' date=' he would smell Sabretooth as well.[/quote']

 

Wouldn't your previous example there be the same thing. The victim of the Human Torch/Abomination illusion wouldn't see Abomination flying around and throwing fireballs. Right? Wrong?

 

So I'm not really sure how this stuff from 5ER Page 200:

 

The target of a Mental Illusion receives a chance to make a Breakout Roll (with a bonus to the roll) if the illusion performs in a way that doesn’t meet his expectations...

 

...can really be implemented? Help...

Re: Balancing Mental Powers

Also if the mentalist's favourite move is making the enemies fight each other why not use one big enemy rather then a group? Or one huge enemy who is an animal or an alien (Firewing) and the rest are much weaker human agents he has hired. If any of the agents turn on him' date=' He fireballs them. So heroes with code vs Killing won't want humans (no matter how villainous) killing each other.[/quote']

 

I love this idea! He does have a code vs. killing type disad (not exactly, but close enough).

 

Thanks!

Re: Balancing Mental Powers

I can't recall the last time I saw a mentalist with Mind Scan, actually; it's frightfully expensive to have a useful amount of it outside of the main Multipower, and of course if it's in a Multipower you can't use it to project a mental power later after you switch slots.

I'm going to start another thread on Mind Scan in particular. It's one of those powers that really confuses me.

On another note' date=' I'd think that enemy-switching stunt is a +20...[/quote']

 

Nope. 5ER page 201: "Major Changes -- Making friends look and act like enemies" Then on the table on that same page, EGO+10 = Major Changes.

 

...plus there's the issue of the powers in question. Sure' date=' you swap things around so that the Human Torch and Abomination changed places, but when the Abomination flies around and throws fireballs, you simply know something's wrong unless you're an idiot.[/quote']

 

As I mentioned in one of the previous posts, this is the bestest idea! Thanks!

Re: Balancing Mental Powers

1) Try using agents. That automatically lowers the character's effectiveness. If he gets to affect one agent, then three or four agents just blast him. Who cares if a guy with a 10 EGO and an 8d6 EB shoots another guy with a 10 EG0 and an 8d6 EB?

 

2) Build a brick who's powers are based on his psychokinetic field and give HIM mental defense. Let the misery commence.

 

3) Entangle the mentalist in a 5d6 Entangle that stops sight. Not only have you shut off all his powers, but his STR will likely prevent him from escaping. He's done.

 

4) MOST agencies and supervillain teams have a "Get the Mentalist First" strategy. If he's not hiding behind cover or something, tag him right away. Force him to dodge, abort to throw up a force wall, or get behind some cover.

 

5) Not everything has to be about his hero ID. If he's super-effective, have the villain agencies find out times when he's alone, and offer recruitment. TEMPT him. Of all the character roles, the moral slippery slope for the mentalist is the steepest. Use it.

 

6) An enemy mentalist can be this PC's worst nightmare. Tamper with the minds of HIS friends. And yes, I have run combats where, literally, no one knew who anyone was, where they were, etc. Everyone's places were switched, there was no idea of who was who, and "The Jeep of Doctor Brutallo" was disabled.

1) Not sure how agents "automatically lowers the character's effectiveness?" I think you're suggesting he'd waste time using his powers on the agents. However, were I the Metalist, I'd ignore the agents, and Mind Control/Mental Illusion the Brick, and have said Brick take out the agents.

2) Hmm ... I like that!

3) AWESOME! I hadn't thought about attacking the LOS requirement at all.

4) Yup.

5) Another AWESOME idea!

6) Yup.

Re: Balancing Mental Powers

Something from the FAQ that may help you out:

If a character knows that the person attacking him has Mental Illusions as a power, does that hinder the attacker’s chances of creating a successful illusion?

It may depend on the circumstances, but generally yes. Treat the knowledge of the power as requiring a +10 modifier to the Effect Roll to achieve the desired effect.

Also excellent. Thanks!

Re: Balancing Mental Powers

Also from 5ER Page 200:

 

Those two sentences are, in my mind, key to dealing with a mentalist.

Yes! This is excellent. It gives a role playing way to dictate that a victim gets a breakout roll with more frequency. I may still impose the "everyone gets a breakout roll on post-seg 12" rule. As I also wouldn't want a player to be out of the combat for as long as the Time Chart dictates. Also, I'm not sure, but other mental powers (like Mind Control) may not have the same rule (I'll read up on it later). And so in the case of other mental powers, the post-seg 12 house rule still gives more breakout attempts ... at what I would consider a fair amount of time.

But (at least in the case of Mental Illusions), those sentences give us the opportunity to make more breakout rolls. One of the interesting side effects of this rule is that if someone is attempting to help with a breakout roll, then they've effectively given up a phase in order to help. I like it.

Re: Balancing Mental Powers

Two words...Killer Robots!

Yeah, unfortunately he's got "Human and Machine classes of minds" on all the powers. He's a cyborg type. But Aliens! Oh, the aliens are coming out! Thanks for the suggestion.

Re: Balancing Mental Powers

Some really good ideas here! Thanks guys. I want to respond and ask further questions on some of them in particular, but I'm on my cell phone and it's a pain to type too much. However I do have one simple question for now: how bad would it be to house rule that everyone gets a breakout roll during post segment 12. So a breakout roll on the victim's first phase after attack, then every post seg 12 there after?

Re: How to Make Maps??

I looked at CC, but like you, I couldn't figure out if it could really do modern maps. I ended up buying Dundjinni after seeing example maps like these:

http://www.dundjinni.com/info/images/urban_sample.jpg

http://www.dundjinni.com/info/images/streets_ad.jpg

After going through the tutorials, it's quite easy to build maps like that. But it is time consuming. The maps I end up making with it aren't nearly as detailed, but if I wanted to spend the time, I believe I could make one that detailed. And that's encouraging to me, since I have not an artistic bone in my body.

I believe both programs have free demo's that you can try (I'm sure Dundjinni does, as I used it to go through the tutorial before purchasing). So you should try 'em out.

Let us know what you decide.

Re: Balancing Mental Powers

Also let me point out that this is a "standard" 350 point campaign with the Standard Super Heroic limits as stated on page 28 of the big book. Most of the other PCs have settled on 60-point powers instead of the 80 points suggested by the rule book.

The powers in the top post above are all about 70 points. I don't mind making him lower them to 60 points -- but that's still 10d6. And of course, then I'm scared about what he'll spend those "saved" points on! ;-)

So I have to admit that I am a Brick by nature. But I'm GM'ing for a character that is a Mentalist, and I'm having a hard time making combat a challenge for this PC. A sample of his powers include:

Ego - 26 (ECV 9)

Mind Control - 12d6

Mental Illusions - 12d6

Ego Attack - 7d6

Telepathy - 11d6

And I find that not many (published) villains have Mental Defense. And not many (published) villains have an ECV above 5 (and most are lower than that).

On top of that, when he uses his Mental Illusions to make an enemy think that his teammates are enemies (which only requires EGO+10 to accomplish ... too easy at 12d6), the villains basically only get 1 Breakout Roll. On the villain's next Phase, he gets to make a Breakout Roll. If he misses it, then he has to wait for a full turn before attempting another. And usually he's a gonner before that happens. If he does survive the Turn, and if he misses that next Breakout Roll, then forget about it ... he has to wait for a Minute (of game time) to try again (what is that, like 4.5 Turns?)! AND! Mental Illusions (and Mind Control) don't cost END to maintain. The victim of the power just has to make Breakout Rolls until they succeed.

What I don't want to do is start giving all villains some Mental Defense, or artificially raise their ECVs. I find that HERO System usually has some way of keeping itself balanced, but I don't see it in the case of Mental Powers.

What am I missing here? How do you all deal with Mentalists in your party? Does every villain team need a Mentalist to compete? Does every villain need 20 points of Mental Defense?

GIMP, PosteRazor, HeroClix

When you find a map on the web, you probably want to scale it up to battle map size (1 sq (or hex) = 1" (or 1.5" if you're using HeroClix)). I use this process for doing that:

http://www.enworld.org/wiki/index.php/Mapping_with_GIMP

All software used to accomplish the scaling is free:

http://www.gimp.org/

and

http://posterazor.sourceforge.net/

As the article points out, you can also use it to scale up maps that you extract from PDFs.

Also, I'll go ahead and answer the #1 question: doesn't scaling up graphics make them look all pixelated and bad? Pixelated, yes. Bad ... not so much. I was surprised at how usable and acceptable the final maps look anyways. At this point, my group only plays on full-color, full-size, pixelated battlemaps. And we (well at least I), think it's great.

-joe

PS: the article may not be crystal clear at first. But try it out. Also, if anyone needs some help, I could probably type up some step-by-step instructions.

Re: Tactical Genius

Thanks, guys. These are all really good suggestions. I'm going to have to look at the price of CSLs. Obviously he'd want more than 1 (perhaps 1 for each teammate -- at least). I suspect that limiting the CSLs similar to how I have the VPP in the first post may be good.

Killer Shrike, thanks, as always, for example characters! I'd completely overlooked Change Environment. Do you have the HTML export file you use for those characters available for download someplace?

Ice9 ... awesome examples!

So I have a player that wants his character to be able to analyze a target, find it's weakness ... and then relay that information to the rest of the team.

I thought about something like Find Weakness (Usable on Others), but it didn't really seem right.

Then I came up with using Suppress, perhaps in a VPP. Perhaps something like this:

[b]Analyze and Negate Targets[/b]:
Variable Power Pool
55 base + 10 control cost, all slots Only Benefit Teammates (+0) (82 Active Points);
Limited Class Of Powers Available Very Limited (Suppress Only; -1),
Requires An Analyze Combat (INT) Roll (-1 to Analyze Combat roll per 10 Active Points in Suppress; -1/2),
Restrainable (Covering Eyes Prohibits Use of VPP; -1/4),
Real Cost: 65 points

So the idea is that he can analyze a target and weaken that target in any way he desires (i.e. Suppress STR, or Suppress PD, etc.).

I like the idea of using Suppress instead of Drain for balance issues. As soon as the character stops paying END, then the Suppress wears off immediately. As opposed to Drain which wears off at 5 points per Turn.

He is supposed to be relaying the information telepathically to the rest of the team, but I don't see any reason to actually purchase Telepathy. It can just be the SFX, and when he stops paying END on any particular Suppress, then that just means he broke the link to the team for that Suppress.

Comments?

Thanks!

-joe

Re: Character Markers for 1in Hexes

Precis Intermedia sells the little stand up stands you're looking for:

http://www.pigames.net/store/default.php?cPath=67

Do a "find" (CTRL+F) on that page for "Plastic Stand-Up Bases." There are black, red and blue ones available. I've bought a bunch, and they work great.

I'll have to look up these Marvel dice thingys.

I currently use Hero Clix. They are too big for 1" hexes (as the OP mentioned), but I've got a process down for rescaling maps. I should type it up sometime and post it here...