TranquiloUno

Well since we aren't all playing in each others games...going over if Ben Grimm really has Dex 15 (no 19! No 23!) or what his Speed *is* (because it can't be different in different games!) seems like dickering. That's never really stopped anybody from talking about stuff on the internet though. "You did Superman as a Speed 6 with 65 Strength!??!??!?! UNREALISTIC!!!!" /flipstable To me most of the stat ranges are more about suggested ranges that have been shown to generate "good" results over the years. We could run an all "normal humans" game where everybody has stats in the 30s and just use that to generate more granularity for whatever reason. So Normal Human 1 has Spd 4 and Normal Human 2 has Spd 6 and we just want to create enough of a delta that "Fast Guy" feels fast and "Normal Guy" feels less0fast The toolkit approach to Hero suggests that trying to figure exact stats for Ben Grimm is highly campaign dependent and will vary wildly depending on how we want to set things up. I'd say that standard comic reality says that PCs (wait, there are no PCs in comics, shit!) are pretty exceptional AND that they generally exist in a world without direct comparisons. "Olympic level athlete" could just mean, "He's a Dex build", or it could mean, "It's impossible for him to have Dex higher than 18 because that's the realistic number for an Olympic athlete!", or things in between. And then it gets weirder when we start to stuff in supers specific terms like, "fast brick", which don't really have anything to do with the source material (never heard Supes or Bats call somebody a, "fast martial brick", for instance). And that's where I think it diverges from which version of the rules is mechanically the best and in to the realm of, "How do YOU want to run THIS game?". Folks are certainly welcome to keep dickering over how to stat specific fictional references. I wouldn't want them to stop.

No. I'm suggesting giving PCs (and NPCs) stats based on the genre, points available, type of game, house rules, Rule of X\other, players (and their characters), and so on. Just like normal Champions\Hero. If "Dex 17 GL" can't compete with CU (Champions Universe?) characters then...so what? IF we were designing a GL emulation, for use in a CU adjacent setting, THEN I'd think GL would need more points, get more points, and have values closer to the "campaign" values. IF we were designing a GL emulation, for use in a very street-level and gritty settings, THEN I'd think Dex 18 might be a bit high. But maybe this is a very agile GL. So it'll depend. Just like normal Champions\Hero.

I like the Dex/3 base (and Ego/3 base) as it provides a good initial range of CV based on how generally coordinated and agile somebody is. IMO, obvs.

I don't recall saying it was a waste or time or even that it was of little consequence. I just don't think that HOW to (potentially, as with all Hero stuff) stat things up is particularly rules related. And the (my impression) circularity of the arguments over several pages are funny to me.

Emphasis added. Welcome to the thread! This is kinda the biggest thing for me. Whatever I can do in 6th I can do in 4th. I'm sure somebody can find a bunch of exceptions to this, special specialized optional specific rules that only work under 6th and that 4th can never hope to match, but....for me, nothing has really improved since 4th. Cleaner, clearer, more examples, more specifics, MORE more, but...nothing really seems to have changed functionally. Sure. Mega-scale is a cool advantage. Of course...it's "just" another Advantage. Could just as easily slap, "Not quite FTL but boy-howdy is it fast!", as a +1/2 (or -1/4) on FTL. Or a GM could pretty easily come up with their own variation. Good example of something that 5th added explicitly that was kinda "missing" before. If a player can't take the time to learn Hero they shouldn't be allowed to play. ;D ;D I think 4th was too good at doing what it did (ie, everything) to the point that there's a point of diminishing returns on further versions in that the changes are mostly to address things that most players won't ever be aware of. I think the rules and potential rules interactions are complex enough that more of a GM guidance style balancing is the important thing, not so much mechanical balancing. Certainly we all have our individual experiences playing Hero but many of the "problems" that folks report are...just things I've never encountered. Except for the problem of actually getting folks to learn\play Hero system. None of the rules have done much to fix that. Our greatest weakness! ;D ;D

And how about a Olympic gymnast (who sucks at fighting\non-gymnastic Dex feats)? Same thing?

So you're saying they wouldn't have a Dex of 15+ because they are so incredibly dexterous with their hands?

I'll go: For a world-class concert pianist I'd give them a Dex of 12-15 and a PS: World-Class Concert Pianist 18-. And if really, really, really needed that extra granularity to highly specifically define just how good a world-class concert pianist this character is I might buy them some Skill Levels: Only for world-class concert pianism or something. No more than 25-30pts probably. Bonus question: They'd make a World-Class Concert Pianist skill roll. Dex and specifically manual dexterity wouldn't really factor in to how I'd handle that in-game. It's a skill, they make a skill roll. For a opposed dueling pianos type situation I'd....have them both make skill rolls and compare the degree of success. For an Olympic Gymnast I'd give them a Dex of 15-18 and an Acrobatics skill of 18-. And if I really, really, really wanted that extra granularity to highly specifically define just how bad he sucks at fighting I'd take a Disad\Limitation: Sucks at Fighting for a -2CV. Bonus question: They'd make an Acrobatics skill roll. Dex wouldn't really factor in to it. For competing floor routines I'd have them both make a skill roll and compare degrees of success. They might even get to make a complimentary PS: Olympic gymnast skill rolls to read the judges and pick a better routine. Last bonus question: To me Hero is what they call "effect based" which means that the mechanics are just a way to represent in-game effects in the out-of-game mechanics. So, to me, a world-class anything (skill based) just need an appropriate "world-class" level skill. Similarly I'm not trying to reconstruct reality in my games, just the cinematic\dramatic\narrative effects that I'm after for purposes of this fun game I like to play, so I don't need to exhaustively quantify what makes an Olympic gymnast "Olympic" exactly. Either I'm making a player character and "Olympic gymnast" is part of the concept, in which case I need only hit those minimums and I'll likely, as a player, have more points than needed to hit a certain "Olympic gymnast" level of stats. Or I'm making an NPC and I'm probably very point limited AND don't really care about the outcome (ie, the world-class\Olympic-ness of the NPC isn't going to carry any\much game effect (and since Hero is "effect based" then I don't have to model the effect, since it won't come up)) so I just need a quick way to shorthand, "Yo! Dude is agile, ya'll!". Final note on gymnasts and concert pianists seems to me to be: How good are they really? Most Olympic gymnasts lose (only 3 folks get to medal out of tens\hundreds of competitors) and most folks performing at a high level are also attempting high level feats which carry increased risk (skill roll penalties) and result in failure fairly often (consider how many Olympic gymnasts fall, fail, flub, or otherwise botch their routines).

I see these two examples come up a fair bit so I was curious.... How would you, as either a player or a GM, stat up a world-class (but not "The World's Best!") concert pianist? Let's say this is a "Competent Normal" for whatever reason. Bonus question: How would you handle said concert pianist playing a world-class concert (on piano)? What if it was a skill-vs-skill piano-off with another (Rivalry?) world-class pianist? Next question: How would you stat up an "Olympic" (competitor from a poor nation? multi-time champ? who knows!?!) gymnast with the caveat that this olympic level gymnast sucks at fighting? Bonus question: How would you handle said Olympic gymnast getting in to a gymnastics fight with another Olympic gymnast? Like if they are both doing competing floor routines how would you game that out? And last bonus question: What would your reasoning for all those things be?

Yah but these last few pages are just dickering about how things are stat-ed up. Which isn't really anything to do with 5th or 6th. I love the circularity of some of these lines of thought though. Green Lantern can't have a Dex 17 because nobody stats him up that way so clearly a Dex 17 can't be good enough for an ace test fighter pilot because otherwise somebody would stat him up that way? And really he can't have a Dex 17 because he wouldn't even be an Olympic Gymnast (a descriptor which is universally defining a standard for some reason, like all Olympic Gymnasts are identical) and obviously he's superior to a Olympic Gymnast because those guys can't fight because they don't have high Dex because they don't have high CV. Oh, but then Speed comes out of left field and now The Thing can't be a sprinter because how would it make sense that a guy that can lift 75+ tons while only weighing between 500 and 1,600 pounds and does could he possibly move faster than a normal human? Even tho he is not a normal human and wasn't "normal" even before he had powers. And THEN there's the constant mode switching. In the comics (which don't adhere to a coherent or consistent narrative or power level or anything else) because X or Y happens "all the time" then clearly Hero must also make sure to utterly emulate that situation as well. If characters in the comics are hit by goons all the time then the goons CV must adhere to Hero System standards and then The Thing can't have a Speed X or Dex Y because his CV would be too high and then agents can't shoot him!!!!!! How can we ever resolve these impossibilities!!!!!??!?/!11?!??1 What's that? A GM can talk to their players and establish norms and guidelines for their games? Get outta here! And what about the concert pianist?!??!? How can Hero claim to be any kind of non-crap system if we can't perfectly emulate concert pianists and Olympic gymnasts that suck in fights using exactly the same point-base and stat range as a Heroic Adventure game!?>?!???!?/!!! How can Hero be the best at anything if I can't combat-gimp my concert pianist DNPC, you guys!??!??!

Strategy is what you are trying to do. Tactics are how you go about it. Generally. At the macro level. I think. Good stuff! Thx!

Does this take in to account the historical fact that Dwarven livers are 50% larger and 37% more efficient the average human liver? ;D So more like 3 drinks per hour clearance rate. Given their stature though we can assume a proportional stomach size. Explaining why dwarves go through beer like water and prefer those notorious dwarven spirits for actually getting drunk.

Oh, I see, it's by weapon, not by action type. I was confused by now PDF search has shown me the light. 5er is Conc for Xbows as well. And it effects time spent reloading as well. Good to know!

It does in fact use RSR! That's another solid idea! Thx!

Well, like, what kinds of really weird, wonky, things can he do with this teleporting staff? Doesn't sound like he's actually teleporting either himself or other people (right? maybe?) so then no need for Teleport and no need for UOO. What stuff does he do with it in V&V?

Well I guess I'll keep doing it that way then. Huh. Yah, I mean unless guns makes you 1/2 DCV too I don't know why a bow would. Might be an interesting house rule though it bows\guns are somehow too powerful.

That's reasonable. Also "Only Costs End to Activate" specifies it's intended for use with Body-Effecting Powers and should be closely monitored for all other uses. Which I did not know when slappin' it on there in Hero Designer.

Without checking the rules.... 1: Half-phase attack action 2: Half-phase to draw\ready a weapon, half-phase attack action 3: Successful skill roll (relevant Fast Draw skill) would make the half-phase draw\ready action a 0 phase actions, then a half-phase attack action That's how I'd run them.

Also in north Seattle area. Also interested in playing Hero.

I might just be missing something in the rules here... Darkness is a Constant power and it says you can create and maintain as many of them as you like and can pay End for. If I take "Only Costs End to Activate" can I then create as many bubbles of darkness as I can pay End for and have them remain active until the next time the character sleeps\gets knocked out? That's seems right by my reading. And is pretty cool. But also a bit gross in some contexts.

I once spent an entire combat running across the map (as the only non-ranged\non-mentalist on the team on a pretty large map) so I could finally, eventually, at last, Double KB some chump in to a very stout wall 2" behind him. I think it was something like 18d and then another 24d from the KB. There were some other good double KB incidents but that's the one I remember most.

Apparently I'm out of Likes for the day. This is great! Thx!

For sure, lotta variability! That's why I was curious about actual in-game tactics in specific games\characters if folks had any examples. Less general possible tactics you COULD do in Hero and more like...stuff specific players\GMs in specific games have pulled off, refined, successfully implemented, etc. Combo abilities, fastball specials, Coordinated Attack\Team ups Hero-style. ETA: OR tactics (I guess I mostly mean team tactics but any non-single-action stuff would be interesting) that you as a GM\Ref have used against the players successfully (or tactics they've used to counter your tactics) for that matter. Heh. I'd first heard of this years ago as a mentalist that stayed in his apartment and just Ego Blasted\Mind Controlled enemies from there when his friends needed him to. Definitely liking the nasty power combos for sure tho!

Oh, interesting. Genre staple but never played that kind of scenario personally. Good example of a terrain oriented fight (there's a safe place to clear them to) with an alternate goal that just total combat victory. What kind of stuff have players to resolve that sort of sitch tactically? A classic! Always. Even IRL. Especially IRL. ;D Sure or I'd think of the Ultimates I think from Classic Enemies where...uh...Slick and Binder? both center their schtick around disabling other folks so their blaster\brick buddies can take advantage. Right? That's my memory of their general stats anyway. Darkness vs Normal Sight by the wizard while the Infravision seein' elf runs in there. Entangles in general. Do you see players setup to do that kind of thing much? And have you ever seen it implemented in...highly rigorous ways? I don't know that *I* have. Not in any system. For sure. Definitely a classic here too. The various mixed enemies and\or mixed PC attack types. I dunno if I've ever seen or run a running combat type deal. The battlemat-centric style of play seems to favor set piece stuff over run and gun. But maybe I've just never tried. ;D

Your's and Mr. Bushido's responses are of good examples of both what I mean and don't mean. They are both a way to solve the problem of fighting people\taking damage but they're just a single thing. It's definitely *A* tactic but it's...also not really a tactic? Like hitting something is a valid tactic. Using a single power. Shooting a cool gun, even a really cool unique gun, is still basically, "shoot it". (Both very cool tricks that are both examples of things that I think Hero does well that other systems do not btw) But I mean more like combo work. The prime example of this to me is Coordinated Attacks in Hero. That's a thing I remember reading in ICE Hero #500, I think, and it really struck me at the time as being a super cool feature of the system that I hadn't (still haven't really) seen in other games. Makes a ton of sense in supers games in particular. Do I just throw a jab? Or save phase, to block, to beat their higher dex\lightning reflexes next phase type stuff. Or I'm sure that something like Battlelords of the 30th Century has rules for suppressing fire but a lot of other rpgs don't and so that tactic can't even really be employed very well outside of a friendly GM. But does anyone ever do that kind of Hero gameplay? I was watching the first Avengers movie just recently and there were a bunch of examples. Iron Man hits Captain America with his repulsors\unibeam (presumably a high DC EB with "Beam") so that Captain America can both deflect reflect it and then...uh...uses his own synergistic combat levels to Spread the deflected beam at the Chitauri. I think my fave was Captain America giving Black Widow a boost so she can leap to a flying skysled which she then flys around for the next few scenes. A tactic evolved to respond to Captain A's request that she get to the top of Stark tower. Or maybe Hawkeye targeting Loki with an (Double KB?) Explosion because he feels the skysled is more vulnerable or that by generating some KB on Loki he can blow him off the sled entirely and let the falling damage Stun him? (In fact I think all the fights in that movie could be very specifically emulate in Hero\Champs with default rules, to include things like moving combat levels around in the middle of fights, but that's beside the point)