TranquiloUno

Thanks, everybody!

I'm sure this has been answered but all my various combos of "Characteristics + Continuing Charges" I've tried haven't been fruitful. At first I was pretty sure the +X Str from a 1 Turn (continuing) Charge would still cost End to USE the Str it grants during that turn. But after rereading 6E1 I'm less sure. Str would be Standard and Persistent. Char as Power says it doesn't cost End unless it normally costs End and uses Str as the example. But does that include activation or usage? If I have +50 Str as a power OIHID I don't pay End to "turn on" that Persistent power when I go Hero ID, right? Just if I use that Str. Would this be the same with movement? +20" Running, 1 Turn Continuing Charge...do they pay End to Run those 20"? (They'd still pay for their own movement but what about a continuing charge?) Anyway, I figure this has been answered but I can't find it. Can anybody else point me the right direction?

I got the '88 version of GURPS Space to compare and contrast with the 5th ed Star Hero book. Roughly the same content IMO. Templates and write ups might be very useful. Or not at all. Haven't determined who the players are going to be so the entire Spaceship Combat aspect might be totally off-screen. Hero seems pretty workable. I think the trick will be more about finding adventures for the PCs if they don't come up with a good collective identity and skill set(s). The Expanse characters map pretty well to the Pilot (Dex guy), Engineer (Int gal), Captain (Cha guy), Security (Str guy) and even Medical (RIP Shed\"Wis" guy, I guess?) with Bobbi and Avasarala being more Str\Fighter\Combat and Cha\Int\Social types. That and a nice ship are a pretty good basis for a game. But the show\books do make integrating multi-POV splitting-up-the-party type antics a lot easier. I'm thinking about blowing up Earth the first session and seeing what they do. Maybe give them a free medium freighter with some secrets too. Disaster movie kinda feel. And then maybe psionics via protomolecule tech. Shooting for a, "One tiny ship in a huge universe".

Uh, no thanks.

Interesting. Traveller is one of the classics that I've never gotten around to spending any time with. My understanding was that the The Expanse setting was at least partly derived from actual tabletop games the two authors were involved with. Interesting to look for aspects of that in the novels\show. Interesting to see a system based on a TV show\book based on an RPG (at some point). You think his is a significant factor in things?

Oh, sry, the "Why!?", was a semi-rhetorical question directed at the choice of a -2 to 4 stat range for AGE.

Having ready the actual The Expanse RPG a bit I'd say FOR SURE Hero. -2 to 4 is your stat range? Why!?! I'll be using all their nice charts and pictures and travel times and so forth though.

If there's an old good thread on this let me know as I didn't see it in my cursory search. So: How do you do ship to ship combat in your Space Hero game and what do you find works\doesn't work when running it?

While I wait for my actual The Expanse RPG to arrive I wanted to ask the forums: Are you familiar with The Expanse? TV or books? If so do you have any thoughts on how to run that in Hero? Anything that sticks out to you from a Hero perspective for emulating that setting?

Well I had to invest in a Questionite coffee table after my No Conscious Control +30 Str buy with XP and unfortunately somebody built it as a Penetrating Damage Shield so....

Not definitive and not even strongly held but...no, for Stunned, I would not have them fall off the horse. I wouldn't even have them roll Riding or Dex or anything. They're just Stunned and not unconscious and a phase\round\segment is only a couple seconds. You get hit, you hunch over in pain (half DCV), you recover. All in a couple seconds. Stunned (5e) specifies that characters "typically" (why is this only one sentence?! Surely the rules should be MUCH more explicit! ;D) don't drop anything they are holding (eg, reins) and while they are stunned they don't go limp, drop prone, or anything else along those lines. They just (IMO) spend a couple moments in the pain cave thinking about what they've done. Just like if I crack my shin on the coffee table in the dark. Am I at full CV? No! I'm in pain! But did I go limp, fall to the ground, and totally lose awareness of my surroundings? Also no. I think even Knocked Out specifies that at -1 through -10 Stun the character isn't fully unconscious Knocked Out, just...uh...mostly KO'd? In any case, to me, Stunned is (very) momentary pain effecting combat\other performance. Not a total loss of all ability to do anything (still have half DCV suggests to me they are at least a bit capable of duckin' and dodgin').

Thanks! Another fun aspect of things is that while the priests of the various gods believe that they are tapping the power of the moon via the god. Or think they are tapping the power of the god directly they are in fact...not. They ARE tapping the moon directly. It's just that the Gods can effect that tapping. And can commune with their followers to misdirect them. The end result here though is that if you have a god of the amber moon, Drome, who is killed, and his lunar artifacts lost or taken by other amber gods. However the priests of Drome can still call on (what they believe to be) his power. They can still work magic. It's just that for whatever reason (dead, captured, etc) their god no longer directly communes with them. So you can have "dead" gods both literally and figuratively (imprisoned, bound, sleeping, just on walkabout for a while) and you can have churches that still exist though their gods are dead (probably a bit of a theological crisis there) though of course they usually dwindle in size and influence since they no longer have an actively deity actively supporting them.

But in 6e you can just buy DCV directly, right? And limited forms of it? So no CSLs involved in 6e. I think. Yah, that was what I was wondering, how much is "only vs rear attack\multiple attack" worth. -2 seems reasonable. I'd go -1/2 for the Extra Time though I agree -1/4 does fit the pattern. Either which way though about the same 1-2pts per level of DCV compensation. Sure, totally. It seems neater too. "+3 to DCV, only to negate attacks from the rear or from multiple attackers, which requires no extra time" tells me what it does in a way Defense Maneuver III does not. Unless I'm a serious Hero dork and have it memorized. ;D ;D Dropping a half-phase to (kinda) apply combat levels, particularly defensive combat levels, seems worth more to me than just the -1/4 the chart implies.

No! Wait! The elegant solution for 6e is DCV bought with Extra Time and Only To Counter Rear Attack\Multiple Attack penalties and call that a -2. That's 1pt per level. And then it's just like Lightning Reflexes (Dex only for going first), HA (Str only for damage), and whatever else ("Toughness" = Con only for not being stunned?). This gets rid of the weird 3\2\3\2 point structure and the also weird levels of things you can perceive, everything, etc. Just a nice easy 1pt per pt of penalty countering. And then back port it to 5e and say it's 1pt\level by fiat 'cause making that math work in 5e seems trickier. That's nicer, right? Only buy what you need or want (guy that's good against mobs (eg, Fezzik) buys off the full penalty, guy that is pretty good against trash mobs (eg, Aragorn) only buys a couple points, and some folks buy none (eg, cheap Boramir joke!)) and a nice flat cost structure. Seems much more Hero-y. To me. Not it's own weird special rule but just another limited form of a stat. It does eliminate the 10pt version without the Extra Time on it. But, you know, at somepoint in 6e....just buy more DCV, eh? Or call that the 2pt\level version for master villains and Cthulu and whoever.

The moons in my world act as kinda...transformative magical dynamos. Pulling in raw solar energy\magic and transforming it in to more abstract forms\colors. Gods are creatures that have acquired various lunar artifacts that allow them to directly tap that lunar power. The catch being that the more of these artifacts you can find and bond to the more your personality becomes warped by them. The primary way they warp personalities is to drive them to acquire more power and lunar artifacts and control and to project their lunar influence on the world. And to make them more than a little paranoid (reasonably expecting that all other gods are in fact plotting against them). I'd specifically wanted fairly weak gods in contrast to typical (ie, D&D) fantasy RPGs. I think of the tougher ones as being kinda on the level of JLA members (Bryne era Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, etc). Or maybe like The Dominator from The Black Company novels. So they are driven to gain power and influence the world. But while\if they are on the planet they are vulnerable. Super tough, but vulnerable. But while they on on their moons they are unable to directly effect events. Priests can then channel through their connection to a lunar deity. In return for doing the gods will and abiding by the psycho-spiritual nature of the moon in question. So the end result is gods that are both "weak" and active. They tend to have specific kingdoms\realms they have a patron relationship with and can directly channel lunar power to their chosen priests (provided their moon is in LOS to said priest) if they choose. Potentially burning the priests out in an excitingly literal way. They then drive these kingdoms\heroes\etc to do their will. And also secretly hunt down more lunar artifacts. Both to bond them (if of their own moon) or to hide them from the other gods of the other moons. The Great Northern Church of Hexor is fighting Ostermark for control of The Labyrinth because both Hexor (the god) and Illisius (patron god of Ostermark) know there are lunar artifacts (and other nasty magics their mortal followers can use on each other) there. The Grey Elves had Boccob (god of the purple moon) as their patron and were able to create the Sathen Empire because of that patronage (and to serve his purposes). That kinda thing. But they can die, is the point. And be replaced. And are magically warped to crave power and influence. And while they've got loads of resources and mortal orgs and immortal secret knowledge of the world secrets and hidden treasures and magical caches on the planet they are personally only 350-500pt supers (5th) in a world of 225pt (max-ish) mortal types. I'd kinda modeled them off of aspects of The Star Rider from The Dread Empire books, the JLA, the aforementioned The Dominator, and the idea that gods could be statted out...and killed. There's nothing special or extra-rules-y about them.