Toxxus

This just annihilates common and dramatic sense. I could never run it this way in my games. If you're invisible then you're invisible. Yes, I did that intentionally to point out how ludicrous that approach is when taken to the logical conclusion. I don't see how it helps, but if it makes you more comfortable we could say they are wearing a suit of plate armor (8 rPD/ 8 rED). Are you suggesting the suit of armor would stay visible since it is always providing protection? I would literally walk off a table for judgement call that bad and I've never had to walk off a table. No, if the Snow Globe of Invisibility is an Obvious Focus then it would be obviously the source of the power when used. Perhaps the character mutters a magic phrase while holding up the globe, which surges with magical energy, as they go invisible. Anyone still able to perceive them would see the power emanating from the Snow Globe. Having the Snow Globe remain visible on an invisible character would just be stupid. Honestly, what part of that would make dramatic sense or be fun for your players or even be a reasonable expectation among them? Greater Invisibility is available at 9th level and it gets used a lot since it is so punishing in 5e. Normal Invisibility and the See Invisibility spell come online at the same time (3rd level). What I've experienced between the two games is that in 5th edition D&D the invisible mage will lob something painful (like fireball) at the party which they cannot Counterspell (requires you to see the caster) and then move their full move distance, invisibly, after casting. Hitting them in return is a very painful game of Battleship. In my Fantasy Hero sessions if I use an invisible mage what will happen is the players with AoEs will pepper the exact hex they know the caster is in because the caster can't move after attacking. It's a VERY different level of challenge created by the effect.

I agree that while invisible if you're lobbing death rays at people the death rays are visible. The use of powers while invisible reveals those powers - not the invisible person. I cannot agree that your clothing is visible while you're invisible because it is OIF - LS: 1 level of temperature resistance or that your shoes are visible because they are OIF - +1m running or 1rPD/1rED protection for your feet. Even with the caveat that carried gear isn't visible unless the power is active makes no dramatic sense. If invisible girl gets hit by an arrow her suit of armor becomes visible? BARF! I cannot get on-board with the idea that all of your gear is visible while you're invisible. I even, counter to the rules, feel this way if the invisibility comes from an OIF. If Invisible Girl has to hold her Snow Globe of Transparency to be invisible then I'd rule that anyone who sees her go invisible knows it was the snow globe. Anyone who can still perceive her with other senses know it is the snow globe. But the idea that there is a visible snow globe bouncing along with any other active gear she has is absurd. Not a ruling I am of fan of and since I'm the GM in my games - not one I'll have to deal with nor inflict upon my players. Besides, invisibility in HERO is much less painful than it is in games like D&D where the invisible party can move after attacking and leave you unable to counter attack effectively. In HERO if they attack while invisible you know exactly where they until their next phase.

I've found Combat Effectiveness caps effective in this regard as well. I have a whole, painful spreadsheet for the characters. You can't have the highest OCV and highest DCV and highest damage and highest speed and strongest crowd controls and highest movement and highest defenses and then have absolutely zero skills, talents, quirks, etc. On my Wednesday night game the party's Anti-Paladin of Tiamat is maxed out. He keeps asking to buy more combat upgrades while sitting on zero non-combat skills. It's like the guy reached 30 years of age and learned nothing but how to smash things with his massive morning star and breathe fire for his goddess. Last night after he claimed a sacred relic of another god (Baphomet) and used it repeatedly he lost his powers and was absolutely flummoxed as to what the problem might be. I asked him to make a Religion check while praying. He didn't have it. He got nowhere. By the end of the session - concerned he would not get his powers back for the foreseeable future he picks up Religion. I can't just throw skill check challenges at the party as he'll just impatiently await the next chance to smash something. I have to throw them at HIM so he feels the direct pain of not being able to do things. Thankfully the rest of the table "gets it".

That was my take as well. The focus is obvious to anyone who can still perceive you. Radar Sense, targeted hearing, etc. But you ARE invisible and that has to cover your clothing and gear or things get ridiculous pretty quickly.

It does if your villains have savoir faire and want to rain down the chunks of the defeated upon their allies. Dead heroes are boring. The grief-stricken terror-filled allies stunned into gaping horror by wearing the bits of their friend - exquisite.

If I'm using a cap (not a fixed multiplier) then if they are struck in a x1 or x2 area I'd use that instead of the cap of 3x. I'm just leery of adding even more math to the game.

This is along the lines of what I was looking for. I suspect the problem with Killing Attacks in general is the multiplier aspect. Using the above examples: 8 BOD to chest of 8 rPD/8PD tough guy = 24-16 = 8 STUN. A moderate amount of stun damage representing a mighty blow barely thwarted by armor. I can live with this. 8 BOD to head of 8 rPD/8PD tough guy = 40-16 = 24 STUN. A very heavy and stunning amount of stun damage that feels very high for a blow that did not get through the armor. If it wasn't so math heavy I'd run with this: STUN mod is capped at 3x until you breach the armor.

In my campaigns in the 80s the percentage of players with plate helms and mithril codpieces was quite high.

We have sectional armor available, but only 1 player is using it. The others balked at the crunch of doing sectional armor weights and just took full suits. The two plate armor wearers are head-to-toe 8 rPD (including eye cover) and we are using hit locations, impairing, disabling and modified bleeding (starts at 5 bod, not 1 bod).

I think this is covered pretty nicely with the optional Wounding rule that requires an Ego roll at -1 per 2 BOD taken after being wounded or you can only take defensive actions on your next phase. Basically simulates the defensive covering and reaction to being hurt w/out having to stun or KO the wounded party.

I have made both the 8 rDEF and 9 rDEF options available to the players, but they are using 8 rDEF to avoid the even worse encumbrance penalties that would come with 9 rDEF.

I like the approach. I may give it a trial run on my Wednesday night table tonight and see if they like it. I do have some concern that it will make the already nearly invincible plate armor types (we have 2 in the party) even more invincible. Current Rules: Battle Axe to the face is 8 BOD / 40 STUN minus defenses = 0 BOD and 24 STUN - Seems too high. Your House Rule: Battle Axe to the face is 8 BOD / -- STUN minus defenses = 0 BOD and 0 STUN - Seems too low. I feel like this would be a balancing issue if they are relatively immune to stun damage unless facing enemies with 2.5 - 3 dice of killing damage. We've been using the new 1d3 multiplier for AoE killing damage and it feels low. I like that killing damage doesn't KO everyone left and right, but now it feels like it never KOs anyone at all. I might bump the multiplier by 0.5x.

Firstly, I like the rule and this is largely tongue-in-cheek. I am myself a black belt and have broken many boards and concrete blocks over the years and even a brick once. Secondly, martial artists do these things using the following skills (in order of importance) 1- Deception: Most of the things they are breaking are either very breakable (pine vs. oak) or arranged in a way to maximize breakability (concrete slabs with spacers on the outer edges). 2- Fitness: A huge part of being a functional martial artist is being stronger and faster than your untrained counter-parts. Lose the fitness and your many skills mean almost nothing at all. 3- Conditioning: By slamming your fists, shins and knuckles into hard objects on a repeat basis you eventually increase bone density and this helps a lot when it comes to not breaking your bones on the aforementioned objects. Still, replace a stack of lame pine boards (I've broken 2 at once holding them by my finger tips while hitting with my free hand) with a single 1" thick piece of Oak and you'd see nothing but broken hands. It's cheap stage magic folks and I say that as a former member of the cheap stage magicians guild.

This is a really big deal in Heroic campaigns. Combat Luck even at the 1st level can prevent 6 BOD damage if it involves a hit to areas 3-5 or 13. It's a massive difference and it is further compounded if bleeding, impairing and disabling wound options are used.

I'd have to artificially insert something into a campaign that otherwise wouldn't have such items and the characters who sold off their MOCV would all turn to the mage and bard in the party who have actually raised their MOCVs and just hand it over. There would be zero inconvenience unless I further contrived an encounter where the bard & mage get - say Webbed - where their spell casting is shut down and their low STR scores prevent them from escaping and then follow it up with making such an item only be within reach of the characters who sold it off and.. barf... it would be so obvious I was targeting the character for the sell off that it would likely irritate the player. And while I wouldn't characterize myself as lazy I do have a full time job and a family so the two tables a week I run are based on ready made campaigns (one Pathfinder the other D&D) that I convert on the fly. I may sprinkle in some ad lib material here and there, but I lack the time for a fully home built campaign.

I don't allow buying that attribute below it's base value because there is literally no down side to doing so. Unlike say STR or DEX where you very frequently need those stats to do things in a Fantasy environment. Always feels like a cheap character point grab.

This is one of those areas where HERO has absolutes and it suffers from the clunkiness that absolutes cause. I would recommend something along the lines of Invisibility having a base cost and then a flat cost per rank of invisibility. This could be opposed by ranks of a house-ruled "See Invisible" adder with ties resulting in perception rolls to just make out the invisible target.

This. All. Day. Does it make sense for the players? Is it simple and fun? Done. More hair-splitting technical crunch is not what HERO needs to grow its player base.

The appropriateness of insta-death is largely dependent on the setting you're playing in and to a lesser degree the availability of ways to recover from death. Can you be resurrected by way of powerful and rare magics? Can Scotty restore you from a recent backup in the transporter buffer? Did you have clones 2-7 on standby and a neural transmitter keeping them current? Also, in some campaigns a high lethality level adds to the suspense. Fights are scary and things to be avoided when possible. I recall Danger International being reasonably terrifying because a single bullet to the head could be the end of you.

Honestly, if I used invisibility in a Heroic setting and the GM told me that my armor, weapons, backpack, rope, etc. all did NOT turn invisible because they are built as Obvious Foci I would walk off the table and find a new GM. That interpretation of the rules does nothing to enhance the fun of the players. We could continue on with the torture of the rules: * Your clothing doesn't disappear because it is OIF life support vs. 1 temperature level of cold. * Your shoes don't disappear because they are OIF +1 Running / 1rPD/1rED area 18 only. etc. Horrible.

HERO Designer is a GMs dream. You can construct characters for your players very quickly and build out your other NPCs at a greatly enhanced pace.

I'd personally rule that if you're invisible the Obvious Foci is only going to be obvious to people that can still see you. So while Bob and Sue can't tell where your power comes from Red-Horned Blindsense Man can and he promptly performs a ranged disarm with his improbably little throwy club things. Punishing the player by having their Foci visibly floating along while they are invisible effectively makes their invisibility not a thing.

I feel like the tourney helm basically turns areas 3-5 into a x3 stun multiplier as almost all of the force is transferred to your breastplate and shoulders.

I recommend suffering through an episode of Knight Fight for a rough idea of how a real helmet is donned. It's like 2-3 turns of work. But, those guys are taking head shots that would fell a bull and walking right through it.

My players with vulnerabilities fall into two camps: 1- They didn't want to wear a helm or full helm due to perception roll penalties to hearing & vision. 2- Calculating equipment weight was too painful and they avoid it by only working with full suits. I don't understand it, though, I also remember when the internet and cell phones didn't exist.