Scott Baker

A big part of the point inflation from 5E to 6E was to cover the cost of buying the no-longer-figured characteristics.

That pretty much is the way we played starting back with 1E on into 3E.

Thanks for sharing. I'm in an area that's middle-of-the-road for ghost sightings, but we've been quarantined for zombie attacks. Unfortunately, everyone I'm quarantined with is likely a vampire waiting for a chance to bite me. On the plus side, the crime rate's low--probably because of all the zombies and vampires!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jaerdaph/extreme-earth-a-dystopian-superhero-campaign-setti You can also see those same numbers in comment 42 above. (124% funded.) I can't tell you when it will be available. All updates about the progress have been for backers only, so I don't feel it's in my rights to divulge that information. Regardless of when, I'm looking forward to the Hero System conversion by Steve Long.

Which is OK, since if you failed your Find Weakness roll you couldn't try again.

Are you looking for something in particular out of those books? The gray cover is the 2E from the boxed set. I have all 3 of those on the bookshelf somewhere.

You can start with the 6E and CC conversion documents. http://www.herogames.com/forums/files/file/154-sixth-edition-character-conversion-summary/ http://www.herogames.com/forums/files/file/153-champions-complete-converting-characters/

AP with an analyze roll is the sample power build for "Find Weakness." (CC 210)

That's not a huge stumbling block. The lack of class of minds actually makes those powers work against a broader range of targets. If it's appropriate, you can always add a limitation to represent the powers not working against everyone/everything.

I don't think you can ever say there is a "typical" combat. With all of the different builds for heroes and villains, there are so many ways a combat can go. In fact, I wouldn't be too worried about how everyone else's games run. You should be looking at how your own game flows. Some thoughts: If your combats are running several turns, are they fun and engaging, or is everyone just waiting to get it over with? A single game is only a single data point. You don't have anything else to compare against for your own style of play yet. Multiple factors will affect the length of a combat, including the relative strength of attacks vs. defense, and OCV vs. DCV. Depending on how those compare, SPD can become a major factor. If it takes an average of 4 hits to knock someone out and everyone is SPD 3, the combat will take a lot longer than if everyone is SPD 6, 8, etc.

I've never met the perfect game system. There's always questions, concerns, and learning to take place. You just have to be willing to work with the players to make changes as you progress in order to have a better game for all. Because everyone is building what they want. In other systems, if you get a sword, for example, it has certain properties, including how much damage it does. In Hero, I'm making my own sword. I haven't run across a GM lately that would let me define how much damage my sword does in say PathFinder or D&D. If we were talking about cookies, SR/PF/etc.are plates of store-bought cookies. there may be a few different types, and some different shapes, but you get exactly what's there, and no more. With Hero, players are being given a set of ingredients and basic recipes which they then go out and modify and make all different types and shapes of cookies. This doesn't make them intrinsically better or worse, just different. What you are missing, and people have pointed out, is an understanding of the basic system (how does combat work for example)..The one thing that keeps coming up across all these "how do you handle" threads is a willingness to talk with the players and work with them to make adjustments if you find something that doesn't work for you.

Long ago I and my cohorts often had one of our PCs as part of the team. We weren't so into the story necessarily that it was a problem of railroading or being an oracle for the players. Decades later, I tend to not play a character on the team. For example, in the game I'm currently in, I normally am a player, but we sometimes switch off GMs for a "guest GM adventure." In those situations, I've had my character off doing something else (hopefully not feeling too contrived). Or, in the last go-round, where my character couldn't just be gone, one of the other players ran my character as well.

I hadn't noticed the chart wasn't there until I went to get a page reference and couldn't find it. Thanks for the additional description at the end, I just posted the stats.

@Pinecone: I wouldn't say the balance is gone. It has always been possible to build an unbalanced character. What has happened is that there are a lot more options to mix-and-match in unbalancing combinations.

There isn't agreement on caps since everyone runs their own games with whatever guidelines work for their particular vision (power level, genre, etc.). As the "generic" super hero game, CC can't possibly define hard-and-fast rules for every possible type of superheroic campaign you want to run. You mention that you're confident in other systems because you've been playing them for a long time. If you had the same experience with Hero, you likely would not have asked your question in the first place. Since you did, we've given you a number of ideas that have come from our own experience. Given time you could come up with all of those same ideas yourself, and know what sort of things to look for when balancing your game, just like you know how to do that for ED and SR. I'm not sure how much is too much to post, so here's the guidelines for 6E Standard Superheroic: Characteristics: 10-40 SPD: 3-10 CV: 7-13 DC: 6-14 Active Points: 40-80 Skill Points: 25-80 Skill Roll: 11-15- Def/rDef: 20-25/12-18

You got that right. And it's true no matter whether the GM is a power gamer or not. Which is often a hard thing for players and new GMs to understand. It's not GM vs. Players, it's the shared experience of playing (and hopefully having fun).

While my post was shorter, it was certainly first. Hugh certainly expanded on that concept in his post. (Credit where credit is due.) And of course none of this is actually original. Doesn't it all boil down to what could be considered a meme here on the boards? "Just because you can build something in the rules, doesn't mean you should build it." (Sorry, I have no idea who first posted this, or what that original wording may have been.)

GMs setting limits and expectations goes clear back to 1E (yes, I've been playing since '81). If you choose not to set any limits at all, fine, it's your game. Of course, based on your thought process, it would appear that a player coming to you with a 1000 point character when everyone else is built on 400 points would be allowed also (it's a great character concept, so...). I'll stick with setting guidelines for my own games; it's worked well for the last 33 years. It will be interesting to hear how you balance your game over time.

Short version: It's not a loophole, you just need to set some campaign guidelines. The power, as you noted, is 120 active points. That's the equivalent of a 24D6 Blast. Did you build your villain to take that sort of punishment? One thing not in CC that was in 5E and 6E is the character abilities guidelines table. By those guidelines, a 120 point power is at the top of the power range for a very powerful super hero (built on 650 character points). For standard (400 point) super heroic, the range was listed as 40-80 active points. These were only guidelines, mind you, but it gives a starting point. The other thing to consider is exactly what you mentioned. Do all of your "bad guys have monster mental defense..." If not, you should consider what a valid limit for mental powers should be. It could very well be lower than the standard for other powers. Edit: started this reply before Markdoc, but got delayed finishing, and didn't see his reply till after I posted.

You can't confuse the build of the powers with entering them into Hero Designer ("grouping powers and making paperwork easier") (based on the 2 threads with the same question over in the HD forum). For ease of entry in HD, we've answered that question over in that forum. For whether to use a power framework or not when building the character, it's about the concept you are trying to represent. When might you use a multi-power? A rifle/bow/whatever, with multiple ammunition types. They all share the focus limitation, but you can only use one ammunition type at a time The weapon is represented by the MP (and its pool). Each ammunition type is a fixed slot in the MP.

I also wouldn't allow the implanted computer as a focus. Unless the player can tell me how it is easily disabled/removed (for accessible foci this is in combat, for inaccessible foci, it would be out of combat). @Echo3Niner - remember the basic rule...if a limitation doesn't limit, it isn't worth any points.

How did you build the power on paper? Post your build and we can give you some guidance for HD. Note: There's a separate HD forum for questions about the application which may get better response on "how do I use the program" questions.

Yes. Fantasy Hero Complete is conceptually the same as CC. Hero Basic removed a "lot" of rules (search the forums--this has been discussed). CC is streamlined and contains all of the rules, just not all of the examples, edge cases, etc. Think of it as the BBB. Derek has documented the changes in CC in the forums as well (again, use the search function). And in general, your entire question about the direction DOJ is taking was recently answered by Jason himself: http://www.herogames.com/forums/topic/87409-i-wonder-how-many-have-stopped-using-championshero-for-similar-reasons-to-this/?view=findpost&p=2378182 (edited slightly for clarity)

Call it 25 products including THA (a collection of the HPA PDFs). As for quality, you won't find them to be complete treatises on the Pulp Genre. They're short, but generally interesting (depending on what kind of pulp action you are looking for). If I had had anyone interested in playing, I looked at most of them as 1 or 2 evening sessions. I never did any hard analysis of them, but I was not unhappy with my purchases.

The 5E HPA (Hero Plus Adventures) offerings are collected in Thrilling Hero Adventures. (Going by memory, I don't think any of them were left out.)