sentry0

I remember that from the 5th Edition Champions too, but I don't think it's worth the points outside of a Multipower or VPP.

Ah yes, new players with grand ambitions that get crushed when they realize an average housecat in D&D has a decent chance of murdering them because they're level 1 and rolled crap for HP 🙄

There are plenty of fan made conversions and adaptations in the download section.  Perhaps you could offer it up as such?

My rule of thumb is powers do not require an attack roll against an unresisting target.
 
It's only if the target is resisting your power that an attack roll may be required.

My rule of thumb is powers do not require an attack roll against an unresisting target.
 
It's only if the target is resisting your power that an attack roll may be required.

My rule of thumb is powers do not require an attack roll against an unresisting target.
 
It's only if the target is resisting your power that an attack roll may be required.

People on these boards love to rip on edition x because, reasons.  Truthfully, it usually just boils down to personal preference... at the risk of sounding like a hippy I will say live and let live.
 
Or to put it another way, it's highly unlikely that you ripping on an edition because you personally don't like feature x or y will change someone's opinion.  In fact it's more likely to have the opposite effect.  By all means though tells us all again about how hideous the damage shield rules are because that's going to be the critical flaw in 6th edition that will send those users into a book burning frenzy 🙄

People on these boards love to rip on edition x because, reasons.  Truthfully, it usually just boils down to personal preference... at the risk of sounding like a hippy I will say live and let live.
 
Or to put it another way, it's highly unlikely that you ripping on an edition because you personally don't like feature x or y will change someone's opinion.  In fact it's more likely to have the opposite effect.  By all means though tells us all again about how hideous the damage shield rules are because that's going to be the critical flaw in 6th edition that will send those users into a book burning frenzy 🙄

People on these boards love to rip on edition x because, reasons.  Truthfully, it usually just boils down to personal preference... at the risk of sounding like a hippy I will say live and let live.
 
Or to put it another way, it's highly unlikely that you ripping on an edition because you personally don't like feature x or y will change someone's opinion.  In fact it's more likely to have the opposite effect.  By all means though tells us all again about how hideous the damage shield rules are because that's going to be the critical flaw in 6th edition that will send those users into a book burning frenzy 🙄

That appears to have done the trick.  Compound power with the second half being a limited power. 
 
Thanks Gnome and sentry0!

Maybe an Activation roll at 17-.  It should equal the same chance of failure at 0.46%.

I always liked the idea of OGLing the rules.  One could argue that the success of D&D is at least in part to the magnificent PR stunt that was OGL.  We need an online SRD to go along with it and a genuine effort on the part of DoJ to support fan made content as vigorously as Wizards do.  That means creating channels to distribute and possibly peer review fan made content.
 
I personally would love to have the ability to embed an SRD into the HERO System Mobile app without risking legal retribution.  It would open up a lot of possibilities for developers like me, granted this is a selfish request but I think it's worth risking looking selfish this time.
 
I feel like there needs to be zero or as low as possible barriers for entry for players, GMs and game designers to get into HERO.  Right now, the perceived barrier is high because if the 2 tomes and lack of a baseline setting in either.  It's intimidating, but at least the * Complete series of books makes it better.
 
On the topic of settings I also feel it's imperative to take an opinionated stance that this system is about supers at it's core.  Don't get me wrong, I love the systems ability to scale up or down and to suit the genre but this game was made for supers and does supers so well that it would foolish to not use this as the selling point.  To put it another way, make the Champions setting the default setting that ships with the rules.  
 
In summation: OGL the core rules (just enough to cover the basics) and publish them online for free, make an SRD, create and sell a Champions core book, create APG and the tomes and sell those marketing the APGs to players and the tomes to GMs. 

I always liked the idea of OGLing the rules.  One could argue that the success of D&D is at least in part to the magnificent PR stunt that was OGL.  We need an online SRD to go along with it and a genuine effort on the part of DoJ to support fan made content as vigorously as Wizards do.  That means creating channels to distribute and possibly peer review fan made content.
 
I personally would love to have the ability to embed an SRD into the HERO System Mobile app without risking legal retribution.  It would open up a lot of possibilities for developers like me, granted this is a selfish request but I think it's worth risking looking selfish this time.
 
I feel like there needs to be zero or as low as possible barriers for entry for players, GMs and game designers to get into HERO.  Right now, the perceived barrier is high because if the 2 tomes and lack of a baseline setting in either.  It's intimidating, but at least the * Complete series of books makes it better.
 
On the topic of settings I also feel it's imperative to take an opinionated stance that this system is about supers at it's core.  Don't get me wrong, I love the systems ability to scale up or down and to suit the genre but this game was made for supers and does supers so well that it would foolish to not use this as the selling point.  To put it another way, make the Champions setting the default setting that ships with the rules.  
 
In summation: OGL the core rules (just enough to cover the basics) and publish them online for free, make an SRD, create and sell a Champions core book, create APG and the tomes and sell those marketing the APGs to players and the tomes to GMs. 

I've been mulling over a major change to the app; I want to do away with the export template and read directly from the .hdc files HERODesigner uses.  Far and away, the most common support question I get is from people trying to read from their .hdc file directly.  My rationale for using a custom XML export template was originally to provide the app insulation from upstream XML changes Dan Simon may introduce... after having seen it in action for the last year and a bit, I don't think it's worth the trouble.  This would be a breaking change once it goes live, so a major point increase makes sense
 
Below is a collection of random thoughts going through my head right now.  Please feel free to chime in with any comments and suggestions.
 
Features I want to implement:
Character portraits Opening multiple characters at once tablet support This doesn't mean writing separate UI for iPads/Tablets, this is only to scale the app properly  
Things possibly on the chopping block:
The H.E.R.O. tool (remove or upgrade to 6th edition) People get confused and think the app is only for 5th edition because of this tool The "Library" docs They bloat the app size The overall look and feel of the app Anyone interested in helping is welcome  
Stuff for nerds:
I'm contemplating open sourcing the code, any interest? The app is written using the React-Native framework (JavaScript based, non-negotiable) There's some messy corners that could need some love I am in bad need of unit tests, note to self...stop slacking Need to switch the storage system to use a proper DB in order to house all the data for images/characters Should probably look for a good image scaling lib for portraits Switching to reading a .hdc file directly would be a huge impact We would gain better granularity than we have now in terms of powers, skills, etc Would open up more possibilities for the app in the long run   
At any rate, I'm soliciting feedback, so have it.

I think at the point you're making players pay character points for a cell phone your game is probably dead.
 
It's one thing to have to pay character points for high-tech gadget that is part of your super persona and another thing altogether to have to pay for every day items that are possessed by hundreds of millions of people.

My first ever game of Champions.
 
So the guy that introduced us to the system, let's call him Bimon,  spent a good couple of weeks haranguing us to try Champions. We finally gave in and gave it a go. I drew up a brick character, the Mad Chef of Budapest. (For some reason the game was set in Budapest.)
 
Bimon was a very adversarial GM.
 
The game opened with the characters doing whatever it was they did in their off-duty hours. My guy was making goulash, because chef. Then the screaming begins. We all rush to the trouble spot and see an Ogre crawling down the street. Not the Champions villain, nor the mythological creature, but a huge (about 100 tonnes) automated armoured vehicle from the (Steve Jackson?) mini game Ogre. The thing is firing off rounds from some of its many guns. On its side is a big ol' Hammer and Sickle, my  character's particular hot button. The heroes attack!
 
And we do nothing to it. Our biggest attacks can't even scratch it. This goes on for a turn or so, Bimon laughing smugly at us all the while. Eventually sick of this my character does the only thing I can think of; he gets in under the Ogre, flexes his muscles and tries to flip it over. He had just enough STR to lift the thing. Bimon is not happy. He says my character couldn't possibly get the leverage needed to flip the thing. I (angrily) agree that no, not in the real world,but this character isn't in the real world and what would be the point of having a character with the strength to lift a 100 tonnes if he could never lift a 100 tonnes? Bimon conceded my point. One thing about Bimon, you can count on him to play by the rules.
 
So the Ogre is upside down, it's tracks can't touch ground and it is now immobilised, and all its weapons are pointing down to the ground. Hooray for the heroes!
 
Not quite. At this point Bimon says that the Ogre opens up a missile launch silo on its top (now facing the ground) and fires a nuke. Not some pissant tac-nuke neither. A 100d6 Killing Damage beast.
 
That ended that campaign.
 
The thread rules ask for a possible solution... 
 
Bimon is a good friend, although I haven't seen him in years, as we live far apart. I'd like to say he got less adversarial as a GM over time but not last time I heard about one of his games, a DnD3.5 game. Another friend (let's call him Mr. Wobbles) who was playing had gamed the system to make the unkillable character. Every build option had gone into being unkillable. Character couldn't do much except survive. And Mr. Wobbles had immense fun running his character around madly staying alive while every other player went through half a dozen or so PCs across the course of the module. Bimon by all accounts had a great deal of fun trying to kill the unkillable without breaking the rules. Wins all round.
 
Gosh this anecdote went on a bit.
 
 

Ah yes, new players with grand ambitions that get crushed when they realize an average housecat in D&D has a decent chance of murdering them because they're level 1 and rolled crap for HP 🙄

What I would do with a hypothetical Seventh Edition is avoid it like the plague.
 
By this point the rules have been combed through, deconstructed, revised, game-balanced, clarified, optionized, and hair-split to within an inch of their lives. There are no more pressing problems in the system that need to be addressed. Any further modifications would simply reflect the personal opinions and preferences of whoever was given responsibility for creating a new edition; and we all already modify the RAW to suit our preferences anyway. For alternative ways of doing things, we have earlier editions to draw from.
 
I see no need and feel no desire to invest time and money learning yet another iteration of Hero.

I'll start...
 
Back in the 90s in high school I was in a Vampire: The Masquerade game being run with a group of friends.  One of my friends, the GM, was a little older than us and needed to travel to Germany for school so he handed the reigns over to me.  We did a quick knowledge transfer session and went our separate ways.
 
When I started running the game I found out that one of the players had been amassing a small army of illegally created vamps.  Not only that but he had access to military grade equipment and had some personal body guards that were always hiding nearby that were serious badasses.  He started to launch his campaign to overthrow the local Prince shortly after we started playing.
 
I naively went along with all of this as this particular player assured me that the previous GM know all about this and had sanctioned it.
 
Fast forward a few terrible months and my friend returns from Germany.  We reconnect and talk about the game and much to my surprise I learn that this player had been lying to me the entire time.  I was furious at him for lying to me and ashamed of myself for being gullible enough to believe him.
 
So, I had a huge mess on my hands to clean up.
 
I think I was like 17 at the time so I didn't have a lot of coping skills so my solution was to have one titanic battle of a session that ran to 6am where I completely and utterly dismantled this player, his organization, and his lies.  
 
In retrospect, I should have just told him to make a new character or just threw him from the game but as I mentioned, I didn't have a good set of coping skills at the time.  I'd also be lying if I said 17 year old me didn't enjoy it.

I think you can simplify this a bit by starting with Clairsentience as your base power with a limitation that it only works through cameras/sensors.  I personally would give it 1/4 or maybe 1/2 limitation value if anything given the relative ubiquitous nature of sensors in our world today, let alone the near future.
 
Strictly speaking, Clairsentience doesn't provide you with telescopic or microscopic vision.  Perhaps a small VPP would make sense in this scenario.  One that only works with your Clairsentience and only to mimic the sensor you're looking through.

I think you can simplify this a bit by starting with Clairsentience as your base power with a limitation that it only works through cameras/sensors.  I personally would give it 1/4 or maybe 1/2 limitation value if anything given the relative ubiquitous nature of sensors in our world today, let alone the near future.
 
Strictly speaking, Clairsentience doesn't provide you with telescopic or microscopic vision.  Perhaps a small VPP would make sense in this scenario.  One that only works with your Clairsentience and only to mimic the sensor you're looking through.

Thanks, that reminds me that I need to convert that to feet/lbs.  I should probably add a setting to let people use metric measurements too.

It's been my experience that there's plenty of salt available on these boards.  😜

2 new screens for folks to digest... apologies for the terrible background I wrote
 
     
 

What about this: hide 5th edition actions unless you turn on the "Use 5th edition rules?" flag in Settings? 
 
I kinda like that, it's consistent with how other parts of the app work when that flag is on.