knasser2

Well, we all know players are sneaky little gits. If there's a weakness they'll want to exploit it in-game and they'll arrive at it as simply as: "Wait - so it can fire at us but we can't fire at it? " / "Well the force field is synchronised to the shots it fires." / "Carol, run in front of it and get it to fire at you, I have an idea..." I like to be ready for such things so that I'm playing fair with them. There are laser weapons in the game (also plasma), but this particular tank has a machine gun variant called a shuriken cannon. Basically a rapid fire electro-magnetic rail gun that streams out tiny monomolecular edged discs. I figure bursts are probably about a third of a second. It's not much but with great skill and perhaps one's own rapid fire weapons, they should have a chance. Not able to fire whilst under fire is an interesting idea which would fit, but in this case I want to stay close to the original.

But the vehicle already has STR. Am I buying a separate STR attribute? Applying a Limitation to the existing Strength? The point is there's no cost for a manoeuvre and that's really what I'm after. Just using Strength leads to the scenario in which a vehicle without this capability costs the same as a vehicle with it which seems wrong to me. (And actually, I've given the Klaw less strength than the vehicle's base otherwise it would be impossible to escape). I need something that gives the vehicle the manoeuvre it wouldn't otherwise have, it seems to me. Well you weren't really mistaken. It's just that I figure there's not really any difference between a vehicle being in hand to hand range and being within a metre or two of it. If you're close enough to grab, you're close enough to strike back. Picture of the WH40K model for reference. Both battlewagons, the one on the left has a Grabbin' Klaw.

First finished document: Vehicles. My thanks to everyone who replied and helped me put this together. Armour, Characters and Weapons lined up next. First two are largely done and just need some layout tweaks. Last one is going to need some re-working as I've changed my approach. wh40k_vehicles_hero6e.pdf

Well that was nice and simple. Thanks a lot. Grabbin' Klaw as follows, then: Grabbin' Klaw (Telekinesis STR 30, OIF -½, No Range -½, Durable (18PD/18ED)). Active Points: 45. Real Points: 23. I become more and more impressed with Hero 6E the longer I use it.

For my WH40K conversion, there is an Ork Vehicle that has a "Grabbin' Klaw". Like one of those crane-mounted claws you see in scrap yards to pick up junked cars. I've looked at Entangle and it doesn't feel appropriate because I can't see the character escaping it by stabbing the heavy, solid steel talons but I can see strong or multiple characters prising it off him. It really feels like I should represent this using the Grab manoeuvre but I don't know how to give a vehicle a power that does a manoeuvre. How do you make a weapon that does Grab? Do I just buy the vehicle 40 STR (Limitation: Used only for Grab) or something?

Thanks! Three good answers, all different - it's the Hero way! Just re-casting it after failure seems the simplest. It depends on whether I'd like it to be worn down over time and then come fully back up or if I want it to rebuild more slowly. I think I'd like it to come back up bit by bit so players get a nice feel of this constant pressure to keep it down rather than the more frustrating "we got it down and then suddenly its back, that was pointless". So for that reason alone, I'm going to go with one of the regeneration variants. And of the two, slapping on a Regeneration power is easiest. I'm not worried about cost particularly because I am the GM! Players might get their hands on this tank for a bit, but if they do, good for them! So my tank now has the following: Serpent Shield (Barrier, rPD 20, rED 20, 20 BODY, 5mx4m front of tank only (90CP); Non-Anchored +10CP; Mobile +¼; One-Way Transparant (Vehicle's Attacks Only) +½). 175AP / 175RP Serpent Shield Generator (Regeneration, 4 BODY per Turn, 64CP; Serpent Shield Only -1). 64AP / 32RP. I should possibly give the generator Linked, but I think not. Five turns to completely regenerate feels about right. It gives the PCs a window of opportunity once they've brought it down but still creates a feeling of urgency. It's supposed to be tough. Plus the shield is only to the front of the tank so there are tactical bypasses. There's one final touch which would be nice but I think it might be more complex than it's worth. Fluff-wise this is a force-field and it flickers off for fractions of a second for the tank to fire. Basically it's synchronised to the tanks own weaponry. I know it will come up that players will want to try and time their shots to be at the same time as the tanks. Which would be very hard but juuuuust possible. I like the idea of a heroic PC judging it just right to get that critical shot through. Anyone have any idea how I could tweak this to make something like that possible? EDIT: This is the Eldar Wave Serpent from WH40K that I'm creating rules for, if anyone is interested.

N/m. Double-posted somehow!

I have a tank that creates a semi-permanent force field before it as it advances. Can't really alter this as this is how it must work according to the fluff of the system I'm converting from. I want attackers to be able to overload it temporarily through sheer firepower. This part is easy - it's the basic power. But I want it to be able to "come back up". The idea is you have to hit it hard and quickly and it's hard to keep it overloaded. I can't see a way of doing this in the rules. Should I just have it "re-cast" every Turn if it's not at less than half it's starting Body? Would that be a Trigger?

Slightly confused by how to cost these. It seems simple enough but the Vehicle table has Starting Values, in the same way that characters do. Do I pay for these starting values or not? The implication is that I don't. But that also means that if I created a vehicle that only had these values, it would be 0CP. Well, 1CP since there's a rule that's the minimum something can cost. But you see my point. So if I create a vehicle with 12 Body, does that cost 2CP because it's 10+(2*1CP)? Or does it cost 12CP because it's 12*1CP?

Thanks. Of course that's what I should be searching the book for!

Can anyone tell me if the above seems reasonable? It seems rules-legal but I've not really used Triggers before. And can this go off immediately before the HTH Attack is carried out?

I've created some tools to help me crank these out faster and am now picking up pace. Layout is auto-created like the attached and I should soon have systems for Power Frameworks as well and new character templates soon. I reckon I'll be able to have a pretty big library of WH40K conversions v. soon.

I'm converting WH40K units and equipment over to Hero 6e and one of them is a missile system that offsets the difficulties of targetting fast moving things. Speeding bikes, fighter planes, drop pods, etc. It's one of the distinguishing features for this unit. I was going to create some PSLs to represent it and looked in the book to see what the penalties were for a target being fast moving... And couldn't find any. Am pretty surprised. Is this not a thing in Hero? It's a penalty to hit in nearly every RPG system I've played and makes sense to me. Am I just missing it?

Rotation is what I referred to when I talked about the Star Destroyer snapping itself in half trying to turn like an X-Wing. Actually, we can run some rought numbers to see how things are affected. Firstly for linear acceleration we can say that if you double the mass, you need double the Force to produce the same acceleration. Which, because this is linear, means double the Compressive Stress. Compressive Stress is Force / Area. Let's say our big space ship has a central spine the engines are on the back of that in simplified terms is 7m in diameter. Double the Force you need double the cross-sectional area so we can work that out to be a shade under 10m in diameter. Doubling our mass means we need to increase the cross-sectional area of our big ship (those parts that play a role in handing bow to stern pressure, that is) by 40%. As you can see, even for simply going in one direction, it's not a linear relationship. Only in the scenario where the ship length doesn't increase at all but the "fighters" are wielded together side by side, are there not increased mass requirements. And when we come to turning, it becomes a great deal more problematic. Your link is interesting, but it's focus is solely on the force required to achieve speeds. Which is relevant but doesn't touch on structural integrity. It's a short step to calculate it though. Moment of Inertia (l) is mass multiplied by the (distance between axis and rotational mass)². I.e. l = mr². I.e. it increases at a square of the increase in length of the ship. Taking a simplistic example of needing proportional structural mass increases to the increase in moment of inertia you wish to handle (but which is nonetheless a reasonable assumption for purposes of argument), you're going to need exponentially (I don't mean that figuratively) more mass the longer you want your space ship to be but still be able to manoeuvre the same. I think all this is a valuable example to the OP that whilst sometimes science shows our instincts to be wrong, when our instincts say something should be so it's good to check if the science which disagrees is right. OP is right in thinking that a larger ship should be less manoeuvrable and accelerate with more difficulty than a small one. It is not simply a convention of Sci-Fi or assumptions that you would design a big ship for different purposes than a small one (though that latter is true). Just calling a big ship a collection of small fighters stuck together doesn't work. Not unless they're all lined up in parallel like a ruler and only go forwards. Even tilting them up or down changes things. Economies of Scale is really a cost question and based on too many setting assumptions to really be considered, imo. You can't say the Burj Khalifa costs are proportional to a thousand homes that provide equivalent internal space, even if that may be true. Economies of scale typically apply to quantity of unit produced, not relative size of units to each other. You might get a better rate on steel if you're buying 40,000 tonnes than 500 tonnes, but that can only be compared to overall output. If you had a shipyard that could build a thousand fighters or one capital ship in a year and it required the same amount of steel for both, the larger ship would not be cheaper because of "economies of scale". Savings per unit (i.e. capital ships are cheaper per unit if you build a twenty rather than one) are not the same as savings between units (i.e. we need a thousand windows for a thousand fighters, or a thousand windows for one capital ship).

Just wanted to say that whilst the model of a big ship being many smaller ships wielded together is correct in simple terms, there's a practical difficulty with it. Force and mass may be increased proportionately to produce the same acceleration, but increased Force brings its own difficulty. Namely, stress on the ship itself. A thousand fighter engines on a thousand fighters, means each fighter gets its little bit of force on its structure. But a thousand fighter engines on a large ship that merely has the mass of a thousand fighters... Well unless it's built like a line of fighters glued together and it only flies in a straight line, parts of it are going to be subjected to drastically more absolute force than would ever be the case in one of those fighters alone. Which requires greater structural strength, which requires more mass. And that increases significantly the more you expect it to be able to pull off the same manoeuvres. Zeropoint makes a good point, but there's more to it. Try to turn a star destroyer like you turn a tie fighter and it doesn't matter if the engine power and mass are in exactly the same proportions as the tie-fighter: It's going to snap in half. An ant can lift 50 times its body weight. Make a 2m tall ant and it will snap its own legs trying to walk.

I think I understand how to create armour and weapons now. I think this may be the last of the barrage of questions - and thank you for all your help. Have I got the following right? Aspect Armour (Dire Avenger) 9 rPD / 9 rED. 3 FD vs. Sight and Hearing. Self-contained breathing for 32 hours. Protection from Vacuum and Cold Environments. Mind Link with Squad. +2 Tactics, +2 Coordination when working with Squad. +1 OCV with Shuriken Catapult. All Slots: OIF -½; Real Armour -¼; Slot #1 (Basic Armour): 33 Active Points Resistant Defence (PD 9) Resistant Defence (ED 9) Flash Defence (Sight 3) Flash Defence (Hearing 3) Slot #2 (Environmental Systems): 16 Active Points Life Support (Self Contained Breathing, Safe-Environment: Vacuum, Safe-Environment: Intense Cold, Safe-Environment: Intense Heat); Fuel Charge 32hr (+0); Linked (Slot 1) -¼ Slot #3 (Battle Systems): 48 Active Points Mind Link (Squad only, 12 minds at once, No LOS Required); +2 Tactics; +2 Coordination, 25km range); Limited Range (25km)- ½; Linked (Slot 1) -¼ Slot #4 (Target Select Systems): 5 OCV +1; Usable Only with Aspect Weapon -½; Linked (Slot 1) -¼ Active Points: 102 / Real Points: 53 Calculated as such: Active Points I added each slot together (33 + 16 + 48 + 5 = 102). Real Points were the sum of each individual slot's Real Points, calculated individually, applying all applicable Limitations. E.g. Real Armour -¼ is applied to all slots. Limited Range only to Slot #3, and so forth. So: Slot #1 33 / 1¾ = 19 RP Slot #2 16 / 2 = 8 RP Slot #3 48 / 2½ = 24 RP Slot #4 5 / 2½ = 2 RP Total = 19 + 8 + 24 + 2 = 53 Grand Total: 102 / 53. How did I do? (Inspirational Dire Avenger art follows)

I remembered the Trigger Advantage and have taken a stab at creating the Mandiblaster myself. Thoughts? Mandiblaster. Flash 3d6NB, Sight, HTH Only -½ ; Trigger (One defined condition +¼; Activating is an Action that takes no time +¼; Trigger requires a Turn to Reset (reduce ½ Advantage). Trigger condition: Character makes a HTH attack against an enemy. Active Points: 15. Real Points: 10. The fact that it takes a Turn to reset the trigger seems to make it a cost neutral advantage. Is that right? Not sure what the standard abbreviation for Normal Body is so just wrote NB.

I've put Psychic Powers on hold for now for the sake of getting something out there and because I want to do a slightly more sophisticated approach in terms of how I implement them in my templates. On the plus side, that means I very nearly have something I can upload to the documents area (someone will have to tell me how to go about submitting it!). It's far from a complete conversion of everything sadly but it includes: Common WH40K weapons Common armours including Aspect armour Six of the most iconic WH40K vehicles Fifteen character templates from Imperial, Eldar and Orc factions. Space Marine implants I think it's a healthy start for anyone who wants to run WH40K in Hero. One outstanding thing I'd like to get in there before I upload are the Striking Scorpions (an Eldar unit type. Eldar are Space Elves for anyone unfamiliar with the setting). The sole hold-up is how to implement their signature weapon, the Mandiblasters. Mandiblasters are dual weapons of small size, affixed to the sides of a Scorpion's helmet. They are very short range (approx. 1m) and their role is to blast the opponent in the face with tiny shards that are then plasmerized by small lasers just before the Scorpion engages in melee. Essentially a nasty surprise first strike enabling the Scorpion to gain immediate advantage. They can injure but traditionally are represented primarily as stinging, burning pain opening the target up to attack, rather than the killing blow itself. Imagine someone throwing boiling darts in your face. Things I'm toying with for it are: A bonus to striking first (not sure how to do this. Pay for a Dex boost for the power?) Make it a Linked Flash / hKA A bonus to Called Shots combined with reduced penetration. Really not quite sure where to go with this. Any thoughts are very welcome.

Thanks for the rules advice. I get where you're coming from. Though if some poor sap doesn't die a meaningless and painful death through no fault of their own, it's not WH40K. Still, I might work up different tables with different odds based on the level of psychic power (i.e. the Active Points). So a Psychic power could be something like this: Crush. ((RKA 1d6-1 Indirect +½, Constant +½), (Entangle (5d6)); Requires Roll (Psychic Attacks) -½, Side Effect (Major, Triggers on failed activation) -¾) Active Points: 70; Real Points: 31 The psyker projects a cube of force around another which slowly shrinks until the victim is compressed into a compact 2' cube of flesh, bones and hair. I'd like the side effect to trigger less often than on every failed activation. What would you say to having an Ego roll on failed activations to see if it's triggered. And if so, what do you think the change to the side effect cost should be? Final question, it's an attack power so already requires an attack roll. Does the addition of Requires Roll mean that the player must roll twice in all. I.e. First they roll to activate the power, then they roll to hit their opponent. Is that right?

I'm now implementing Psychic Powers in WH40K. In WH40K, psykers tap into the powers of the Warp. An alternate Hell dimension that drives those who look upon it insane. Psykers frequently go mad in the setting and most fall to Chaos. The exceptions are (amongst humans) sanctioned psykers. Those few deemed strong willed and faithful enough to be put to service for the empire. The rest are either shipped to Earth to have their souls consumed by the Emperor or simply put to the torch if that's not possible. In both tabletop and the RPG lines, psychic powers are something of a double-edged sword. They can be powerful but often random and in the fluff can produce a number of horrible and random side-effects. In the FFG game line if a psyker rolled doubles on a psychic test they'd then have to roll on the percentile chart for a side effect. Ranging from the creepy but harmless atmosphere such as everyone in range forgetting some minor part of their past; to the risky - all weapons and technology in range jams, up to the downright lethal with the psyker being grasped by creatures in the warp that lifted his body in the material world and flung him about into walls and ceilings. If you were really unlucky, you'd get Perils of the Warp with things like the psyker winking out of existence to reappear 1d10 turns later, the psykers mind being hurled into someone else's body or, on a 00, spontaneously combusting and a daemon crawling out of their smoky corpse. WH40K is not a happy game. I'd like to simulate this by having a chance of a negative effect, rolled randomly for any psychic powers. I'd like in some way the severity of these psychic powers to increase the more powerful the psychic power was. Occasionally the side effect might be beneficial. How would you go about implementing something like this in Hero? I've looked at Power Frameworks for Psychic powers but I have not yet decided if I will use them. Psyker characters should be limited to a set range of powers, like a wizard that must add spells to her spellbook before being able to cast them.

Ah, I actually have FHC. It was very useful when I was putting together my own Fantasy setting in Hero 6E. Champions I've never looked at.

I believe you! But I'm quite pleased with what I'm producing myself so far. I quite enjoy the tinkering. I'd need a very clear idea of what could and could not be done without buying the source code before I made a purchase. I like having my data in a format I control, generally.

Not sure what CC/FHC are. I presume some Hero acronym I haven't learned yet (there are many). The export to multiple formats sounds useful. It's a hefty whack for a role-playing too, though I've no doubt a huge amount of work went into it and if you only want the software itself like normal people do, it's much more reasonable. I'll hold off on it for now. I've taken a brief break from writing up template characters to create a format for powers. Following your example, I've come to realise this would be useful. It's nowhere near the scale of the project of the Hero software - there's no selecting what you want, you just type in the text for each advantages, etc. However, it will then take those advantages, limitations and base power costs and calculate the Active and Real costs of the power. It will then feed that out to a style template and auto-format all the powers. I haven't quite made it do combined powers yet such as the Space Marine armour, but that will be next. I estimate I'll have it done within the next hour. It may not look like much presently but underneath this page is just the raw data. I could add a Limitation or Advantage to Carapace Armour just by entering the appropriate line in the data file and it will recalculate the points and update the human-friendly web page.

Sounds interesting. I might consider getting this at some point. Looking at the store am I correct that in order to buy the source code version I must also first buy the finished version? So $75 in total?

I have the box and it currently just had "Follow [1]" next to it. I clicked it and it brought up the options and I selected "Do not send me any notifications". But it also changed it from "Follow [1]" to "Following [2]" indicating that I had now chosen to follow the thread. I clicked it again and selected "Unfollow" and it returned it to the original state. I'm still getting notifications. Could it be because the thread is pinned?