LoneWolf

If anything, the values @Gauntlet gave are on the low side. He started with a short sword so the base damage is lower. Even in 6th edition you can buy the skill levels with the weapon instead of the martial art so the cost in 6th edition does not have to increase. He is also not factoring in pushing which will usually get you at least an extra DC maybe two. This is also using an ordinary non-magic sword. Magic swords are often going to increase the damage. A character purchasing all of those things is going to be martial focused character. The character is not going to be purchasing spells and his contribution to combat is killing things as quickly as possible. These numbers are around the amounts in the warrior package deals in Fantasy Hero. A character taking the light fighter template could pick up all the skills and talents suggested here without having to spend any extra points. The only thing that the suggestion has that is greater is a STR of 13 instead of 15, and that is only two points. If I take a cultural or racial package that gives me a +2 or better bonus to STR everything suggested is covered by the templates. So, a starting character using a mundane sword could easily be doing 4d6 without pushing. A character taking the Warrior Culture and Light Fighter templates would still have about 34 points after picking up combat luck to give them a little extra defense.

Like anything in the Hero System this can be abused. Just because something can be abused does not mean that non-abusive uses need to be banned. Most heroic games the character does not pay for equipment, so this is probably going to come up more in a superhero campaign than a heroic. There are a couple of things that will reduce some of the abuse. First in a game where you are paying points for a weapon you are considered proficient in that weapon. When a character starts handing out his spare foci the characters, he hands them out to did not pay for the weapon, so are not automatically considered proficient in the weapon. That means unless the character using the weapon paid for weapon familiarity with that weapon or the group it belongs to they take a penalty to hit. Also, chances are any skill levels the characters have are not going to be applicable to the weapons. This means the characters ability to use said weapons will usually be reduced. Second most characters only have two hands. Purchasing an extra 32 does not mean the character can fire all 32 at the same time. A character could buy extra limbs to be able to do so, but how many characters actually do that. If you are buying extra limbs just to use extra weapons to exploit the doubling rule the GM should veto that hard. Drawing a weapon is usually a half phase action so even if the character is dropping the weapons after being fired, they are still limited to how many weapons they can draw. A character could purchase fast draw for this, but that means extra points and a there are still limits to how many actions you can perform in a phase. What it comes down to is the best way for the GM to prevent abuse is to simply tell the players to stop the abusive behavior. You can usually find some reason to veto these types of things, so you don’t seem too heavy handed, but in the end, it is up to the GM to control the game. If the character paid points for fast draw and two weapon fighting than allowing them to draw and fire two weapons should not be a problem. If that same character wants to draw and fire 32 weapons that is not something a GM is required to allow.

A lot of Fantasy Hero games use the encumbrance rules, which means someone using plate mail is usually taking DCV penalties. This means that some characters avoid using heavy armor and rely on DCV to avoid the hit. Those types of characters will get less value out of these talents, and will probably go more for combat luck instead. In campaigns that try to have some realism sleeping in full plate means creates problems. Often you end up sleeping in the padding for your armor which will give you the equivalent of cloth armor. There are also a lot of circumstances where wearing full plate not possible or acceptable, but you may be able to wear lesser armor. If your character is hunting wearing full plate is going to make it impossible to sneak up on your prey, but leather armor is not a problem. There are a lot of other circumstances that can limit what armor you wear.

I have seen damage get as high as 5d6 in a Fantasy Hero game. 2d6 is fairly normal and 3d6 is not uncommon. When you start factoring in damage boosting talents like deadly blow and weapon master the damage can get quite high. Prior to 6th edition the max a KA attack can be boosted to is twice its DC. Talents like deadly blow and weapon master count as base damage so a 1d6+1 with an extra 1d6 from one of those could get as high as 5d6-1.

Neither of these gives the impenetrable advantage. Was this intentional? You should also specify that the character must not only be aware of the attack but also be maneuver. This might be worth more of a limitation.

Allowing damage negation vs healing would be the way I would do it. Use the Damage Reduction as Immunity option. Probably need UAA and persistent. It would require the GM’s approval and not sure how it would handle normal healing. Another way would be to simply buy an attack that does damage that is triggered by healing. Put the limitation only as much damage as healed. Use a RKA with NND, Does Body as the basis for the power. Probably need Constant and uncontrollable and Cost END only to activate on it as well. At 64 active points it will be expensive. You will be able to apply the only to prevent healing (including recover) -1. That brings the cost down to 32 points per die.

Unable to delete the double post for some reason.

What is well rounded is going to be dependent on the campaign. What is well rounded in a high-powered superhero campaign is going to be overwhelming in a low powered street level superhero campaign. When you start comparing superhero campaigns to heroic campaigns it gets even worse. The other thing to factor in is how optimized the characters are. There are a lot of ways to write up effective characters without having to spend huge amount of points. A lot of player forget about complementary skills . Sometimes the best way to be the best at something is not just to throw more points at it. Having the right complementary skills not only gives you those skills, they can in the right circumstance boost up your other skills. Background skills are particularly good at this and with skill enhancers can be dirt cheap.

One thing that can prevent abusing this is to make it so that duplicates do not stack. Wearing 10 of the same magic ring does not give you 10 times the defense. The items are supposed to be the same so why would they stack?

The way I see it is that you use a contested roll (3d6) on things that are not a direct completion. Both characters could succeed but what you are looking for is who did the better job. These types of rolls are often using different skills to oppose each other or use different aspect of the same thing. For example, a character is using his perception to spot a character using stealth, or a computer programmer trying to hack into system that someone else setup. One programmer is looking for flaws, where the other is trying to fix the flaws. Often these contests have a lot of modifiers. The programmer may take extra time or have special equipment he uses. A BODY roll is used for more direct completions. In these types of contests, you have a winner and a loser. You are also using the same thing to directly oppose the other character's ability. These are usually contests where you are using raw ability without many modifiers. The arm wrestler is pitting his raw STR vs the opposing character. Outside of Duke's suggestion not much else besides the characters STR matter. Having both methods available allows the GM to have more flexibility in running his game.

What is the concept of the character? The character seems to be more of a random selection of powers. Other than flying and hitting things the character cannot really do much. You have a multiform but what do you change into? Some of your disadvantages are questionable. I am not sure what "He has no face" is supposed to represent. It is listed as easily concealable. If it is because his costume has no face, that is not a disadvantage. You have can’t stop speaking out loud as very frequently severe. This means he is constantly yelling out things almost all the time, but he has stealth, shadowing and concealment. Kind of hard to hide when you are yelling at the top of your lungs. Is the 14d6 the hard limit of the campaign or the normal damage? If the normal damage is usually lower you would be better off purchasing more powers at a lower level. Right now, you are one shot wonder that does not do much. The best way to build a Champions character is to come up with the concept first. Write down some of the things the character can do without using any game terms. Think of the special effect of his powers and what they can accomplish. Once you have a concept you can start to build the character. If you give us more ideas of what you are looking to build we can give you more useful advice.

Most of the time when different methods are used it is because the circumstances are different. In some cases you want to have a chance of a character with a lesser stat being able to win the contest, in others you want to give the advantage to the character with the greater stat. When you are making an opposed characteristic or skill roll the character with a lesser stat has a better chance to succeed. The character with the greater roll still has the advantage, but the character with the lesser roll has a chance to succeed. A character with 30 STR has a 15 or less STR roll. 95% of the time I will make my roll, but I still fail it about 5% of the time. The character with a 10 STR has a 62 % chance to make his roll. So 3% of the time the character with a 10 STR can beat the character with a 30 STR. If I am rolling dice and counting body the overwhelming advantage goes to the character with the greater number of dice. The chance of a 10 STR character beating a 30 STR character by rolling more BODY is .1%. The larger the spread of dice the worst the results become. Characteristic rolls will give you more variance in who wins the contest. BODY rolls will heavily favor the stronger character. To me this is a good situation because it gives more chance of the player succeeding out of combat, but still gives the advantage to the stronger character in combat.

Linked and a focus can be used on the same power if the link actually limits the character. The basic rule of the Hero System is that a limitation that does not limit the character is not a limitation. That includes limitations that are basically duplicates of another limitation. For example taking the limitation only in Hero ID to simulate a focus that is never taken away means you cannot take the focus limitation. For example if I had a gun that fired poison bullets I could link a drain to the RKA and still take the focus on both powers. I could use the RKA without using the drain, but if I want to use the drain I have to use the RKA and actually do BODY with it. In the case of armor that just has to be worn that is not limiting the secondary power any more than needing the focus. So linking life support to armor that is always active when the focus is in use is not limiting the life support more than just having the focus. If you linked the life support to a force field that costs END to use that would be different. Under 5th edition rules force field is not persistent and you have to pay END every phase. Having your life support turned off when you are stunned, knocked out or out of END does limit the power more than the focus so would be a legitimate limitation. If you are running out of points it is probably because you are going overboard. Just because you are using power armor does not mean your character has to be invulnerable. In the comics characters like Iron Man tend to be near indestructible, but that does not work well in a game. You can have decent defenses without being indestructible. Your character is also one of a group instead of the main character. Some things can be done to improve the character but having the details of what you have done would help. Using frameworks can help a lot.

Most games do not really worry too much about forms of government. When they do they tend just use monarchies because that is what everyone is familiar with. This is kind of a shame because in a world where magic is real it could have a real impact on how society is organized. Even the forms of government we are familiar with would be changed. In the real world a theocracy is government by the church. In a world where deities are able to be contacted and contact their worshipers that would not be the case. In a world where the deity can be contacted a theocracy would be much different. In such a world divine right could actually be real. When the deity the country worships says that this is who they choose to rule the land people are not going to argue. Another thing that could happen is the some people may be able to draw power from the land itself. The idea of the rightful king being chosen by the land instead of the people could actually work. The land may even grant the king and to a lesser extent the nobility powers that commoners do not have. That would fit with the Celtic myths of the king being linked to the land. There could be a lot of other forms of government in a fantasy world that do not exist in our world.

This sounds similar to what happened in the Harry Dresden series when Harry killed the red court vampires. Something similar could have happened with the Dragon. If the PC’s managed to use some of the Dragon’s power against him that would allow them to have killed him, but they without making them so powerful that they can defeat anything throw at them. The aftermath of killing the Dragon could also be similar with lots of powers struggling to claw out what they can from the vacuum left behind by his death.

The system makes all characters weaker, that includes PC and NPCs alike. If adopted on all attacks, it makes the game into rocket tag. The first person to land hit will usually end up winning the combat. If it is only used for PRE attacks and mental powers those become the gold standard. A character with a 50 PRE and a few points into striking appearance becomes almost unstoppable. 12d6 mind control will be enough get almost anyone to do what you want. There is one way that rolling defenses could work without destroying the balance of the game. If you were to have damage negation roll dice and subtract the damage instead of just eliminating damage that could work. On the average it will have the same result, but it would add an element of chance. Sometimes your damage negation may not protect as well as it does, but other times it may give you more protection. The only problem is going to be killing attacks, those will become more deadly. Killing attacks will do less stun but have a greater chance of doing body.

@Sketchpad I am sorry I offended you, but what you are suggesting alters the balance of the game in a detrimental way. One of the basic premises of the Hero System is that the defense is cheaper than the offense. Usually, the defense costs about 70% of the offense. This means to have the same level of protection a character needs to buy their defenses up by 142%. Take a character with 20 EGO being hit with a 10d6 mind control. Under the normal rules the average roll for Mind control will be 15 over the characters EGO. That is enough to cause the character to do something he does not mind doing. Under your system the result is 21 over the characters EGO. That is enough to get him to perform actions he is normally against doing. The character with 20 EGO has a 94.6% chance of rolling less than 20 on his defense; his chance of rolling more than 20 is 2.7%. This system makes the characters substantially weaker. I tried to come up with a way to make rolling defense work, but it is everything I came up with significantly alters the balance of the game. I can see using this for PRE attacks in a horror-based campaign, but for anything else I don’t think it is a good idea. Most contested skills are based on a 3d6 roll instead of damage. Something like that might work, but I have no idea how to implement it and really have no interest in figuring it out.

From a cost stand point this is a waste. 1d6 of luck cost 5 points. Using the alternative rules from the APG that 1d6 would give the player 1 reroll per session. Those rules also state that the reroll must achieve a better result than the original result. A single die of luck would give you a lot better results than using an xp to gain a +1 on a single roll. Unless the campaign is only a one or two sessions the cost of a single die of luck is a much better deal. Besides you can probably get the same thing by bringing a bottle of the GM’s preferred drink, or snack.

@Sketchpad the reason no one has experience with this is because it is a very bad idea. Even without trying it you can analyze the results and see it makes the characters a lot weaker. Under the normal rules the chance of a PRE attack affecting someone of equal PRE is extremely low. You have a 2 in 6 chance to roll a 5 or higher on a six sided die. So, there is about a 5% chance that someone with a 20 PRE can roll 20 or higher on a PRE attack. That means without some bonus the chances with a 20 PRE affecting a target with 20 PRE without some sort of bonus is about 5%. Under your proposal the odds of being affected by a PRE attack of someone with and equal PRE are about equal. I don’t have to actually try it to see that the chances of affecting someone are far greater under your proposal than normal. It also opens the possibility of a high PRE character rolling extremely badly and being affected by someone with a much lower PRE. A character with a 25 PRE has a 30% chance to roll under 15. It is not that hard to pick up a few dice on a PRE attack so it is not difficult to for a character with 15 PRE to get 5d6 or more for a PRE attack. At 5d6 the chances of affecting someone with a 20 PRE is about 23% under your proposal. Under the normal rules the chances drop to about 3%. If this is applied to mental power they become the ultimate character type and nothing will stand against them. This might work if you are running a horror based campaign and want to make it easier to frighten the characters. Using this will turn a campaign into something similar to Wimp World from Champions 3D.

All that is going to do is to slow down the game. Both PRE attacks and Mind Control also have to factor in psychological complications. This is going to end up rolling a bunch of opposing dice and make it take way longer to figure out the results.

Most people don’t really understand all the implications of a disability. Often it has both more and less challenges than people think. In the case of hearing loss, this is something I understand from personal experience. I am happy to share my experiences with others. Not only does this make someone game better, but it also gives anyone reading this some idea of what it is like. It seems to me that there are two main thoughts on how the sirens song works. The first is that the music is magic. With this version if the person hears the song at all they are affected by the magic even if they cannot distinguish what it is. The second version is the magic is the music. In this version the magic is delivered by the music, so if you cannot really hear the music it does not affect the target. Both of them are valid concepts. @assault as the GM, it is your right to define how the song works.

Dean, I can confirm what you are saying. Hearing loss is not always the same, often different people have slightly differences in what they can hear. In most cases where people are diagnosed with a hearing loss a lot of the difficulty is in the frequencies that human speech takes place. It also depends on the cause of the hearing loss. Someone with a “Tin ear” probably has a hearing loss even if they don’t have trouble understanding speech. Growing up with a hearing loss meant that music was never that big of a deal for me. I simply could not hear some of the sounds even with hearing aids. Modern digital hearing aids have really improved on the old analog models. With the newer hearing aids I was able to hear sounds that I had never heard before that allowed me to appreciate music more. Even that has its limits. My hearing aids have selective noise filters that can cut the background noise so I can function in more environments. When those filters are in working music sounds a lot different and I cannot always hear everything. If I turn off the filters I can appreciate the music, understanding speech become more difficult.

With my hearing aids I have the equivalent to a moderate hearing loss. Even with the hearing aid it is difficult for me to hear a song on the radio. When I am in the car I cannot hear the radio at all if the volume is less than 10. For me to understand the song the volume has to be at least 15. Most people consider to be incredibly loud. One of the biggest issues with having a hearing loss is that it is difficult to deal with background noise. With my hearing aids I can usually understand people fairly well in an otherwise quite environment. But if any background noise is present, it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish individual sounds. In a loud noisy environment, it is like a constant roar of noise where nothing can be distinguished. The other issue is distance. The further away you are from the source of the sound the harder it is to hear. If someone is right next to me, I don’t have as much trouble, but if they are any distance away it become a lot more difficult to hear the sound. What other consider close by is far away for me. The two issues are cumulative so hearing something from a distance where there is background noise is really difficult. On an island there will be a lot of background noise especially near a beach. The sound of the wind and the waves makes it difficult for someone with a hearing loss. Supposedly the reason the song of the siren affected the sailors is the music was so beautiful it entranced them. If all you hear is a low hum I don’t think the song is going to affect you. A moderate hearing loss is probably not going to offer total protection but will make it difficult to be affected by the song except at extremely close range. More often than not the target is going to spot the siren before they are close enough to be affected by the siren's song. When you have a loss of one sense your other senses do not really become more acute, what happens is you learn to use them better. My vision is not better than normal, in fact I am a bit nearsighted due to spending all my time looking at a computer screen. But I do notice things that other people seem to miss. Part of this is that I am in the habit of constantly scanning my surroundings. When out driving I often spot things before others do. Part of this is that your brain can only process so much sensory input. Since you are not getting as much sensory input form one of your senses your brain has more time to process the others.

This is something that I know about from personal experience. I have severer to profound hearing loss. I have hearing aid that allow me to function, but that does not mean my hearing even with them is normal. Hearing loss is not always all or nothing. Hearing is classified as normal hearing, mild hearing loss, moderate hearing loss, severe hearing loss, and profound hearing loss. For immunity to the song of the siren you probably only need moderate hearing loss. Moderate hearing loss is when you need to have a hearing aid to understand most conversations and sounds start blending together. With any hearing loss it gets worse the farther away you are from the sound. This is particularly true when it comes to being able to distinguish individual sounds. The farther away the sound the more difficult it will be to be able to distinguish what the sound is. Even with my hearing aids I have difficulty understanding people who are too far away. Someone with a moderate hearing loss would be able to hear some noises but may have difficulty identifying what they are. They will be able to understand a spoken language but will have some difficulty. The person speaking may have to speak loudly or even shout. In some cases, the person with the hearing loss can read lips to figure out what is being said. Even if you cannot fully read lips being able to see the other persons speak often helps. Most of the time the person with a hearing loss will have trouble pronouncing words so may be difficult to understand. This is not always the case but is pretty common. Most audiologists who have tested me are surprised at how clear my speech is. For the natives of the island, I would buy the hearing loss as Very Frequently, Slightly for 20 points. Their native language is sign language so it has less impact on them. A character from outside the island it would probably be greatly impairing instead of slightly. If an islander buys a spoken language, they should have to make perception rolls to fully understand a normal conversation as long as they can see the speaker’s lips if the speaker was within a meter or two at most. This would also mean if the siren was right next to the islander, they may be able to be affected by the song. This would represent the minimum level of hearing loss for an islander to be safe. They would probably be taking a -4 on other hearing-based perceptions rolls.

The Hero System already has a bad reputation as being too complex and involving too much math. This makes it even worse and if adopted would probably end up driving the majority of the people play it away. Most people can add up 3d6 in their head fairly quickly and easily. Doing that with 3d30 is a lot harder and will slow down the game considerably. If people have had a few drinks it is going to be even worse. This is exactly the opposite way the game needs to move. If anything it would be better to simplify the game instead of making it more complex. The only problem with trying to make it simpler is that doing so would probably end up destroying what makes the Hero System a great game. I don’t doubt your math or that your suggestion does what you say it does. What I object to is your objective. This would be fine in a computer game but has no place in a tabletop game.