PhilFleischmann

This is my whole point: That is NOT its rationale for existence! It's for limiting high stats in non-super genres, not for defining races! The "30 STR hobbit" issue is purely academic AFAIK. Have any of you ever had a player who wanted to play one? I haven't. Why not, do you suppose? It's because most players know what a halfling is! If a player in my game wanted to be wierd and play a 30 STR halfling, I really wouldn't have that much of a problem with it, any more so than if they wanted to play a 30 STR human or a 30 STR ogre or a 30 STR gloof - as long as they pay the points for it. My only concern is that the PCs abilities make a good match for the difficulty of the adventure. I'd have the same reaction to a player who said, "I want to be a wizard with 30 STR, a big sword, plate armor, lots of combat skills and no spells." I'd first say, "Don't you mean, you want to be a warrior?" If the player can't or won't understand the standard meanings of the words "wizard" and "warrior," that's his problem, not mine. He can still play in my game, just like any other warrior. This may be a simple matter of GM style. Some see the GM's job as "enforcing." I see it as "allowing." That's one of the reasons I like HERO over B&D. In the latter, everything is strictly defined in advance. While in the former, you're allowed to build whatever you want, using the point system to keep it balanced, even if it's something wierd.

An Example Numah, the Human has 30 STR (quite rare for a human) Ergo, the Ogre has 30 STR (common for an ogre) Gnilflah, the Halfling has 30 STR (really wierd for a halfling) They can all do the same thing with their STR, in terms of game effect, therefore they should all pay the same amount for their STR. If Ergo had to pay for an ogre package deal that included STR or increased STR limit already, that still counts as the total cost of his STR. The only problem is what happens when a PC is a "runt of the litter" ogre? Does he still have to pay the same for the ogre package when he has only 10 or 15 STR? The opposite problem occurs in the case of Gnilflah. This is, in a nutshell, why I don't use varied char maxima do define races. The only thing you (as the GM) have to decide is: How rare do you want 30 STR to be among your players? If you want it rare, you use NCM as written in FREd, and Numah, Ergo, and Gnilflah all pay 30 points each for their STR. If you want 30 STR to be more common, don't use NCM and the three each pay 20 points. If you want 30 STR to be extremely rare, set the NCM for STR at 15, (or even 10!) or say that costs triple (or even quadruple!) after 20. If you're the GM, you can set the "strata of rarification" however you want.

I think LL has nailed it. Does UOO allow you to switch who has the power on the fly? Should one of your friends fall victim to an enemy's Mind Control, for example, can you shut off his immunity to your invisibility? I think you can. Of course, you have to be aware that he's been mind controlled. I would buy it exactly as Lord Liaden said for the purpose of saying, at the time the power is turned on, "I become invisible to everyone except Bill, Jim, Fred, and Tom (or however many people you've bought your UOO for)." If Tom gets mind controlled, you can turn off Tom's immunity on your phase, but it won't automatically shut off. You won't be able to say, "I become invisible to everyone who isn't being mind controlled." What if you want to be visible to everyone except for one or a few people? At first I would have suggested a simple +1/2 advantage to the invisibility - equal to the difference between Selective Target and Non-Selective Target. I still think it's not a bad solution, and it's certainly simple.

One of my favorites is: FOWTOSF - Figure Out What This One Stands For. The other problem is that most of these are not acronyms; they're abbreviations. Those aren't the same thing. Also, you can check AcronymFinder.com. They've got lot's-o-stuff from many walks of life.

Yes. Those severe limitations should work for balancing well enough. Though I would still offer one suggestion: Call the Death Lord something other than Spanky. I'm reminded of I guy I used to play deendee with decades ago whose character names all ended with the letter y: Snippy, Blippy, Snoppy, Flubby, etc.

Amen to that! Hmmm... Well... Maybe I'll take another look at USPD. It's low on my priority list, but maybe I'll pick it up eventually.

I can understand and accept the fact that people will disagree on this, but my reasoning is very simple: In HERO, you only pay points for things that have a *game effect*. You don't pay points for special effects, you don't pay for the rubber-science explanation of your powers, you don't pay for your character's personality, you don't pay for your character's history. If you want to cast a fireball, you pay for the amount of damage you can do, not for the SFX of "fire." If you want to see the future, you pay for Clairsentience with Precognition, not for the fact that the power was granted to you by the gods. If you're a born leader and everyone likes you, you pay for PRE and PRE-based skills, for *What You Can Do,* not for *Why You Can Do It.* At least, that's how I see the system working. Yes, you may be able to find examples from the published books where this idea is violated. Those are precisely the areas that I would argue with as "flawed" or "mistaken." And I see the same principle applying to races. You don't have to pay for being an ogre, you only pay for what being an ogre allows you to do. And of course the converse it true as well: You don't get anything free, just because of a special effect, personality, character history, etc., and that includes race. Just because you add the character detail "ogre" doesn't mean you should be allowed to buy STR for less than what other players have to pay. This is the way I see it and the way I handle NCM and races. It seems the fairest to me. I go back to the central idea of the system: You Get What You Pay For, and You Pay For What You Get.

Steve (et al.): I don't mean to pile on more work for you, especially since you've been doing such a great job with the 5e rules questions forum, but I'd like to see a similar one where you can address rules "arguments." That might not be the best way to describe it. What I'd like to see is a forum where we can ask specific questions about why certain rules decisions were made. I'd like to see the reasoning behind some of the ones where many have disagreements. Some examples are Regeneration, Instant Change, and many of the Talents. You know what I mean - the ones people argue about on these boards. "FREd says X, which doesn't make sense for reason Y, therefore I change it to Z in my games." FREd included some general "meta-rules" which were interesting and useful to see. If we knew the reasoning behind what some of us see as odd rules, perhaps we would by less likely to want to change them.

I don't mean to overstate my case. I loved TUV - there was a lot of useful information in it. I appreciate the writeups for all the different specific vehicles. My problem was with the writeups for each minute variation on each piece of equipment. You say it's not necessarily obvious to a new player, and that may be true, but I find it hard to beleive that anyone needs to be told that you can build a vehicle's radar using Radar Sense. Well, duh! I'm glad the products are selling well. I want you to stay in business for a long time. USPD does not seem like a useful book to me, and I'm trying to keep my gaming budget under control, so I won't be buying it. I can guarantee I'll be buying FH though (and I want the Bestiary too, but my local stores are out).

I like it. The balance problem, IMO, can only be truly curbed by limiting the spells themselves, not by how many points the players can spend on the skill. If you want to keep mages in line with warriors, no spell should have too much more DCs (or equivalent Active Points) than the largest weapon. If a warrior can do maximum 10 DC (2-handed sword+extra STR+martial arts maneuver), then there should be no such thing as a 12d6 6" radius fireball spell. Perhaps there could be a 12d6 EB (no area, with some lims), or a 6d6 EB Area, etc. Unless you want all players to eventually become mages.

O.K., now that we know what a wimple is, what's a GOO?

Devil's Advocate? Yes. I'm also looking forward to this book. However... I've noticed something I consider annoying in some of the books lately: excessive space devoted to the obvious and useless examples. In TUV, which I have, and in USPDB, which I looked through in the store and decided not to buy, there seem to be endless columns of miniscule variations on things which should be obvious to any HERO gamer, even a relative newbie. Things like this: Blaster Cannon - buy this using an RKA defined as energy. Small Blaster Cannon 3d6 RKA, 45 points Medium Blaster Cannon 4d6 RKA, 60 points Big Blaster Cannon 5d6 RKA, 75 points Huge Blaster Cannon 6d6 RKA, 90 points Mega Blaster Cannon 7d6 RKA, 105 points Wide-shot Blaster Cannon 4d6 RKA, Area Affect One Hex 90 points Massive Shot Blaster Cannon 4d6 RKA, Area Effect 6" Radius, 120 points etc. ad nauseum Is this really useful to anyone? Is it worth all the column-inches devoted to it? Back in grade school, when we had to write essays and term papers, this was the kind of stuff referred to as "padding." TUV and USPDB are filled with padding. I really hope that the Fantasy Hero book is not. Size matters not. Only content. BTW, what do you mean by "crunchy"?

I think we're going in circles here. I'll see if I can clarify. IMO, the NCM rule is not for making sense for non-human characters. It's for balancing PC's with one another. If I'm running a campaign where all the PC's are Ogres, I'd set the NCM for STR at 30 or so. If I was running a campaign where players can be anything from 50 STR storm giants to 50 CON dragons, to 50 EGO angels, then I wouldn't use NCM at all. Perhaps when I said "enforcing genre conventions" I should have said, "subgenre conventions." If I'm running a "standard" fantasy campaign where the PC's are all more-or-less "human" (humanoid, demi-human, whatever you want to call them), then yes, I'll use NCM, because I wnat them to be comparable to the normal people they'll come into contact with. If one player in the party wants to be an ogre, he'll have to pay double for his exceptional STR, not because it makes sense for ogres to be merely as strong as humans, but because of fairness compared to the other players. I want 30 STR ogres adventuring with humans and elves to be at least as rare as 30 STR barbarians. I do not assume that at all. I do not use it that way. I've said as much. I even suggested a mutli-tiered NCM that could be used in some cases, e.g., double after 20, triple after 30. I've never used such a system myself, but I would if I thought it would work for a particular campaign I was running. IIRC, GURPS uses such a non-linear stat system, as does D&D (when you use the "buying stats" method), and probably many other game systems use it as well. Perhaps this is where I don't understand you. I am suspicious of vague notions like "good reason." What exactly is a good reason? Anyone can come up with a reason why their character should have a 30 STR. It's easy: "I'm an ogre." "I drank an Ent potion." "I'm Conan." "I'm half-giant." "I've been blessed by the gods." This is a separate (and significant) discussion in itself. IMO, the answer is, "almost never." Extra STR for any of the above reasons is not a power if I'm the GM.

These aren't special effects, they're just names or slogans. There's a difference. Has anyone ever bought a power with a limitation "Does Not Work Against/Only Works Against Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night"?

I like Susano's suggestion. I'd set "only to disable" at -1/2. The DCs bought with this lim would not result in any actual loss of BODY pips, but the "BODY damage" done would be used to determine disabling/impairing. It is similar to something I tried once with a villain a long time ago. I wanted an attack that was non-lethal, and mostly non-damaging, but extremely painful. I defined it as an EB "Damage does not last" -1. If it does enough STUN to stun you, you are stunned, but you don't actually lose any STUN points. If it does enough to K.O. you, you black out for one phase. Then you get up and say, "Man! That hurt!" The character was a small-time hired thug, who wasn't that powerful, but was a really sicko sadist. Any thoughts on what the values of these limitations should be?

Re: The Perennial Topic of Characteristic Maxima "All Char's over 20 cost double." How is that complicated? One simple sentence to describe the rule. It still allows characteristics to go over 20 if a player wants. How is that inflexible? I'm not sure who's been saying this. I haven't. I do not allow "my high stats are really powers" weasels. Could you give us an example? I've been around these boards for quite some time, and I don't know of any. Of course it does! That's the entire reason detre for the NCM rule! Haven't you read the posts here? I want my game to be flexible: PCs can have 25 STR if they want; but I want such stats to be rare, so I charge them extra, so only the ones who really want it will buy it. It ensures the consistancy of the genre.

This is a very interesting and important question, that all good GM's have to struggle with a little: the fine line between a plot device that enables an adventure, and a deus-ex-machina device that ensures an outcome. Two examples from my GMing experience: The party has to go retrieve a very powerful magic sword from the demons who stole it. Of course, they're allowed to use it to fight their way out, but they will have to turn it over to its rightful owner once they get back home. They'll be rewarded appropriately. The team is hired to infiltrate a criminal organization. The FBI *lends* them some high-tech equipment (mostly for surveilance and transportation), and grants them *temporary* law-enforcement privileges, only for the purpose of completing this mission.

Life Support: Immune to Metarule #6 SFX: Common Sense Replace with Metarule #6a: If there are two ways to build a power, the correct way is the simpler way - not the more expensive, not the less expensive, the simpler.

It seems to me that "Bob's Way" - buying Suppress, (or Drain, or maybe even Dispel) no range and Self Only - is completely valid within the rules. Is there some "official" reason why one shouldn't do it that way? The "official" way mentioned above is to apply whatever appropriate limitation to the difference in cost between the power with and without the Always On limitation. F'rinstance: If it would cost you 20 points to buy off the "Always On" lim completely, and you want to be able to turn it off only when Concetrating and spending END, you can buy it like this: Buy off "Always On" (20 Active), Concentration (1/2 DCV throughout, -1/2), Costs END (-1/2), Real Cost: 10 points. So I guess you'd be spending 2 END per Phase and be at half DCV for as long as you wnated the power to be off. This also seems like a valid way to do it, and might actually cost less. In fact, if buying Suppress winds up costing more than buying off the Alway On, why would anyone do it?

It probably would have been a good idea to include the authors of those magic items. I guess Daedalus contributed all the ones with "gold piece costs" listed. For the record, the ones I created are: Metaphysical Oil Potion of Dragon's Breath Sword of Peace Powder of Madness Quindard's Preserving Powder

Re: A Taxing Subject Yes, that is another valid method. It strikes me as more complicated and less flexible than simply altering costs. I don't see why every exeptional ability must always have some disadvantage associated with it. I don't see that as reasonable and realistic. Yes, that's another possibility, even more complicated and inflexible. I realize this is a matter of personal taste in GMing style, but I like to give my players as much freedom as possible within my genre conventions and game world, especially when it means less work for me as the GM. I'm busy creating the world - monsters, NPCs, etc. The last thing I need is to create a huge collection of packages for every type of character a player might want. I don't see any reason why a rogue can't have a 25 STR, nor why every character should have to have a "package" and a one-word summary of who he is and what his abilities are, like "rogue" or "gladiator." It's too B&D for me. That may be the simplest, but I disagree that it's the best solution. The "taxation" or "regulation" is to establish the various genre conventions (for the genre, the setting, or individual cultures and races), no to force to PC's to be the typical examples of their kind. After all, the typical Hobbit stays at home and doesn't go adventuring at all! But then again, they don't get books written about them.

I agree with Markdoc: What's the problem with NCM? If you don't want to use it, you don't have to. But what if you want to *discourage* characters from having 25+ STR without *forbidding* it completely? I.e., you want it to be *rare*, but not *impossible*? It seems to me the best way to do that is by increasing the cost. Of course, any GM can change the level of rarification if he wants. You could make the double-cost threshhold 30 instead of 20, for example. You could even set a triple- or quadruple-cost threshhold at higher levels (say, 40 and 60). It seems to me that one of the central ideas in HERO is that you can do anything you want if you pay the points, that nothing should be absolutely forbidden. That's the way I like to run (and play) my games. If certain powers/power levels/CHAR levels need to be rarified due to genre conventions or other considerations, then you simply adjust the cost. In 4th ed., there was a book called "Mystic Masters" in which mental powers were intended to be more common than normal, so the cost was halved for that particular genre. It's similar to government putting taxes on things it wants to discourage, or subidies on things it wants to encourage.

Inflatable ape Huge, bikini-clad eyesore Does it help sell cars? ----- All things possible "Can't do that," says FREd. Why not, If I spend the points?

I wrote this one a long time ago: When I hold her close, She is warm, like a bag of McDonald's French Fries. I still miss her. Only seventeen Syllables are not enough To express what I

Even in 4th ed., the base was always 10. If the max for Dwarves is 23, that just means the average Drawf is 13. If you want to be average for a Dwarf, you still have to pay the 3 points to raise your STR from the base of 10, to the average for your race of 13. It has been suggested elsewhere, that if char maxima are to be changed for different FH races, that the total increases should equal the total decreases (total in terms of character points). For example, if Dwarves have max 23 STR (+3 cp), they should also have -3 cp from some other maxima, say -1" max running, (-2) and -2 max COM (-1). This sort of maintains balance to a certain extent, but still has some problems.