PhilFleischmann

IMHO, the critter's full normal STR should be used to break the stick (if that's what it decides to do). The jaw muscles are often the strongest ones inthe entire body, especially on preditory carnivorous animals (and even humans). The HKA bite damage may include extra dice to reflect the size/shape/sharpness of the teeth, which would be irrelevent in this case. If you're already inside the thing's mouth, or close enough, an attack roll might not even be needed. Perhaps a DEX vs. DEX roll, or maybe slight-of-hand if you've got it, to position the stick in the just the right place before the beast can chomp down or twist away. But wait, there's more: If the monster can open his mouth wider (and is smart enough to do this) the stick can just be dropped. And there's less: biting down on the vertical stick might hurt. Even poked yourself in the palate with a toothpick or had a dentist accidentally jab you? How much PD do you have on the inside of your mouth? "Aha! But THIS dragon has a tongue shaped like a saw blade and simply cuts the stick in half with it!"

I don't have a problem ignoring the "No Framework can add to another Framework" rule in certain circumstances. For example: Case 1 - completely within the rules: A simple gun 2d6 RKA. A VPP spell pool of "enhance the gun" spells (make the bullets AP, Explosion, Penetrating, Extra Damage, etc.) Case 2 - not strictly legal Same as case 1, only now the gun has two settings/bullet types: MP 1 u 2d6 RKA 2 u 6d6 EB Same VPP as case 1. Seriously, what is so abusive about case 2? You get more flexibility, and you pay more to get it. That's fair isn't it?

Something else that I'm surprised no one has mentioned (although I guess I shouldn't be, considering the pervasive deendee influence): there's a big difference between adventurers and soldiers. If you're riding (or marching) into battle, you put on your armor first. If you're travelling from point A to point B, you're probably dressed more comfortably. If the road between points A and B passes through the deep, dark, dangerous dale, you'll probably be wearing some armor, but you won't be a tank. I like what was said before about the social/political privelege of wearing armor. In most cases it simply isn't done unless you're looking for a fight. You don't wear armor for a night of carousing at the local tavern, a hunting/fishing trip, to deliver a message, etc. You want to hurt the big combat guys? Try an ambush along the way. Orcs are not going to stand there and wait for you to put on your armor. Here's another radical idea: reduce the amount of defense you get from armor. Have top-of-the-line plate armor give you, say, only 5 DEF, with lesser armors proportionately less. Close your eyes and imagine two fully armored guys swinging swords at each other. Shouldn't they be hurt at least a little when they get hit? If 1d6 K should hurt a full armor target a little, then that armor cannot be over 6 DEF in game terms. No armor has ever offered 100% protection. A weirder idea is to define armor as Damage Reduction, that way, they're always taking some damage. I usually impose a Running penalty equal to the DCV penalty, which no amount of STR can negate. I'd suggest that instead of increasing the cost of STR, try increasing the cost of DEF (PD, ED, Armor, FF, etc.) Just some random thoughts on the subject.

I certainly didn't mean to start a flame war about how much math we should be expected to do. Perhaps I've misinterpreted what we were talking about, but I get the feeling that many of the arguments and complaints and suggestions for improvement stem from a reluctance to do a little extra math. Maybe that's not the case here. Fine. I like the HERO system because of its flexibility and the ease with which things can be balanced.* To achieve this benefit, I'm willing to do more math. If I wanted to, I could use a different system in which all the math is done for me, at the cost of having to select from a limited list of pre-packaged "classes" which may not quite match my character conception. But I'm getting even farther off the subject now. To get back on the subject, I use a house rule for skill rolls (only for background skills, usually Sciences, but sometimes PS's and KS's) that does provide some game-effect difference between an 8 INT and a 12 INT: In some cases where I feel (as GM) that raw intelligence has more of an impact on a skill (in a particular situation) than the specific study or training in that skill, I modify the roll thusly: Standard: 9+INT/5 (+ extra levels with the skill) More INT: 8+INT/4 (+ extra levels with the skill) Mostly INT: 8+INT/3 (+ extra levels with the skill) This way, a person with a 10 INT has an 11- roll in all three cases, but someone with an 11 INT would have a 12- roll in the third case. * Notice I said "can be" not "are guaranteed to be."

I don't think that's what he meant. Invisibility to Touch is bought on the Power or Desolid - meaning that you can't tell the person is desolid by touching him, he still feels solid. However, this doesn't mean they can't still pass through you. They'll just be able to feel you on the way through, which can be kind of icky. OTOH, "Cannot pass through solid objects" should cover that part, so you're fine. Of course, any power bought with +1/2 Affects Desolid still affects you. As does any power with the defined SFX that you specified when you bought the power, of course.

Zornwil said, "When Steve Long says figured characteristics are getting to be more trouble than they are worth, that's an interesting statement.." When and where did Steve Long say that? For the record: I don't think they're more trouble than they're worth. I think that the people who complain about having to do "so much math" are whiners. The math in HERO does not go beyond anything you learned in the sixth grade - no algebra at all - just simple arithmetic. I do occasionally have problems with the "granularity," but not so much that I'd want to drastically change the char cost structure. The only real issues I have are: * INT (8=12 in game terms, as previously mentioned) * fights between slightly different normals (a guy with 11 STR should have a slight edge over a guy with 10 STR, all other thing being equal). I have my own house rules to deal with the above two minor problems (which rarely come into play anyway).

And just like in 4th, the left out the section for Swinging in the movement section of the book. Every other form of movement gets a detailed explanation, but not Swinging. And the "Teleportation Damage Table" has overlapping entries for 9-11, just like it did in 4th Ed. They just copied it verbatim into FREd without looking at it. Fortunately, the do provide a fix in the errata. A long time ago, I sent a long snail-mail that mentioned both of the above problems, along with the missing Movement Skill Levels in the BBB, but it apparently never got to the right people to fix them in FREd.

This sounds more like a Disadvantage to me. I wouldn't charge any points for it if it is mostly an annoyance to the character. If it is useful more often than not, then I'd treat it like a Power. Off the top of my head, maybe an odd variation of "Accidental Change" is appropriate. It's not a change into super/normal form, but rather an accidental manifestation of power. IOW, "Accidental Power" should have a similar cost structure to "Accidental Change," IMHO.

"The funny thing about Clinging, and how it helps hold you to a single spot, is that it uses STR. Says so right in the description of Clinging." So what? The boat already has STR. You shouldn't have to buy it again just to use it with Clinging. Just like a character doesn't have to buy his STR twice in order to use clinging. And the boat or ship already has inches of Swimming, too. What's the problem? I've found other problems with TUV, the more I examine it in detail: (I suppose I should put these in separate threads, but I'll just mention them briefly here.) 1. I question the idea of having to pay for the entire vehicle's size. It seems to me that only the useful size (used to be called ISIZ - for "internal size" - in an old edition of Hero) should cost points. You buy a vehicle to move something, people, cargo, weapon payload, etc. The mechanism by which it moves is just a "special effect" and therefore shouldn't cost points. The example that really drove this home for me was the Airship (Zeppelin) on page 75. What would be the game difference between that and a flying ship with Size=just the useful cabin space, using a different special effect for the flying? It would cost less points, but would be more useful, since it could fit in a smaller area and isn't vulnerable to the gas igniting. 2. Notice the Space Yacht on page 93. Why pay 10 points for three additional Backup Life Support systems, when the same 10 points would give you three additional Full Life Support systems? 3. I noticed recently that Move-Thru damage is not based on actual velocity. A car with 20" ground movement and 4 SPD will do less damage with a move thru than one with 40" and 2 SPD, even though their both going 60 MPH. What do you do about this? This is a general rules problem, but the Vehicle rules seem to exacerbate it. 4. What about "spider-shaped" Mecha? When I get a round tuitt, I'll start threads on these topics. Or you can do it yourself if you want.

I agree with Derek. 50 Active = 10d6 EB, or 4d6 DS in 5e rules. Can anyone honestly say that these to powers are equally useful? The central balancing idea of Hero System is that equal points should be roughly equally powerful. 60 Active = 12d6 EB or 8d6 DS in 4e rules. This is simply more equitable in price. Don't forget the additional added drawback to DS's: that you have to pay END every phase, since you don't know whether or not you're going to be hit. A guy can take shots at you at range all day long and never have to worry about your DS. IMHO, Continuous is for the *effect*. If I touch the human torch and then continue to burn until I can find a swimming pool to jump into, then it's Continuous, but if I stop taking damage as soon as I pull my fist back, it's not.

I really like Zarathustra's solution. Whatever you do, a limitation on the pool, is definitely NOT the way to go. It would be, in fact, abusive, and here's why: a) 10d6 EB - cost: 50 points 50 pt Multipower, Extra time to switch between slots, -1/2 5 u 10d6 EB 5 u 10d6 Flash - cost: 39 points b is more powerful than a, and costs less with the lim applied to the pool. If there is to be an "Extra time to switch between slots" lim, it must be applied to the cost of the slots themselves, not the pool. There was a discussion similar to this on the old boards, relating to wizards with spell MPs. Some spells took longer to remember or otherwise enable.

Eh? Braced? What does Bracing have to do with an anchor? Bracing gives you +2 OCV vs. RMod. Anchor keeps you in one place. And don't give me another maneuver instead. A maneuver is an ACTION. An anchor operates continuously until you hoist it again. Clinging, sure enough, is a Constant Power - just what the ship's doctor ordered! WRT "keeping it simple," I agree, but I believe Clinging IS simpler than using STR with lots of modifiers. My example used one Advantage and two Limitations - a total of three modifiers. STR requires 2 Advantages: 0 END, Continuous; and at least two Limitations: OIF, "Partial Coverage", the latter of which is wierdly interpreted as has already been mentioned. And yes, I know the book doesn't include Continuous, but it is required, otherwise the boat has to take an action each phase it wants to use its anchor. Clinging looks a lot simpler to me. BTW, this isn't the first time the books have built a power that doesn't quite work as written. For example, check Simulate Death and other talents. They left out "Character cannot move, act, or perceive anything while using the power." Simplest of all would be to not charge for something as mundane as an anchor. Does anyone really believe that an aircraft carrier's anchor should really cost 45 points? Does it really give 45 points worth of game effect utility? Likewise, I might not charge for internal elevators: do they really provide any more game effect utility than internal stairs? And I would have contempt for any GM who charged his players for their car's cigarette lighter.

For years, I've been using "Invisible to characters without Mental Awareness" as a +1/4 advantage. It seems to work just fine. Any character with mental powers (the target or a bystander) can see the attack. Note that even a character without mental powers will still feel the attack and know he's being harmed, even if he doesn't know where it's coming from. Though he may be able to figure it out by other means: Everyone in the crowd is in casual clothes, except for one guy in neon-colored spandex with a shiny bald head and a huge letter M on his chest.

In game terms, The four main, most common, most important things STR gives you are: HTH damage Lifting/Carrying capacity Throwing Leaping An anchor gives you none of these. ZERO! NONE! If it gave two or maybe even one, I'd say buy it as STR with a lim, but since it doesn't give ANY, that seems to me like a different power is needed. Clinging gives you: Ability to climb/perch on solid sufaces in defiance of gravity Resistance to being moved off of your location An anchor gives you one of these two things. Therefore I'd say it's a better match. Yes, you might have to buy it at Range, or buy Stretching for use with the Anchor. I prefer the Range option. Let's see now: Clinging (10), Ranged (+0.5), [15 active] OAF - Anchor and chain (-1), Range only applies downward* (-0.5 to the Ranged advantage only) 7 Real points. * Or how 'bout "Dropped" TUV p30, applied only to the Ranged portion, also a -0.5 lim You generally don't have to worry about hitting the target at range (unless the chain isn't long enough to reach the bottom) because the entire bottom surface is the target. All you have to do is hit it somewhere. Anything else?

Hmmm... A power to keep you anchored in place... I thought that was called Clinging. Why pile on modifiers to fit a square peg into a round hole?

More... If you're interested, there are more in the Non-Gaming Discussion Section, under "FREd Captions." It includes ones from FREd (duh!), TUV, UMA, Champions, etc.

I like it! LTE is not a bad way to go. The -1/2 for the lim "Costs LTE instead of regular END" sounds about right. Another way to do this is to just have all spells powered by an END battery, and limit the recovery of the battery. "Only recovers while the mage is sleeping" "Only recovers while the mage is meditating/praying/studying at 0 DCV in a quiet place" "Only recovers once a day/week/month/etc." Likewise, you could have partial limitations on the battery. F'rex: The first 10 END recovers normally, the next 20 recovers only while sleeping, and another 30 that only recovers with a rare/expensive/difficult/dangerous to obtain expendable focus and only during a full moon. This way, the mage always has access to a little bit of magic, but the more powerful stuff/more frequent use has to be budgetted carefully. He'll think twice about flinging around Bolts of Devastation if it means he's going to have to obtain a fresh dragon tooth to restore his power. A long time ago I came up with an idea of VLTE - very long term END. Which works the same way as LTE, but over an even longer period. IIRC, it recovered every month. This actually has some basis in reality. If you run a marathon, that takes a lot out of you. You will still be at "reduced END" months later. This is why marathon runners in the olympics and elsewhere don't do too well if they had run another marathon a few months before. Even though it may be realistic, it's probably too much bookkeeping to do for an RPG. How often is it really going to come up? But then again, if FH spells cost LTE, mages might gradually start to lose VLTE...

Read the last paragraph under "Enraged/Berserk" in FREd. It can be used to represent something other than anger. It could represent distraction, despair, panic, or fear, for example. "Despairs in X circumstance 11- to despair, 11- to snap out of it." This would cause the character to surrender or just stop fighting in certain circumstances, or perhaps trigger other responces. This is worth about the same as Enraged, because you're not going to hurt your friends, and you'll be "playing it safe" for yourself, but you won't be hurting the bad guy. IMHO, Enraged/Berserk should be used for any disad where a character behaves irrationally under some circumstance that may arise in combat, and has a X chance to happen, and Y chance to snap out of it.

When I said that the Original Magic System Design Sheet was useless, I meant that it doesn't help a GM to design an original magic system. It's just a list of all the Powers in the game. We already know what those are. They're in FREd. There's nothing on the sheet that indicates an actual style: D&D-type one shot spells, Mana pools, inherent magic abilities, etc., or gives any abitiy for a GM to design such a system, original or otherwise. And if a new player or GM can't decide whether to make his fireball AE or Explosion, or agonizes over which way is the "right" way to do it, then this person doesn't understand the basic concept of HERO: You can use your own creativity, your own vision, and your own decisions. You get what you pay for, you pay for what you get. And by the way, "daemon" is correctly pronounced "DEE-mon," exactly the same as "demon." The only people who say "DAY-mon" are deendee players who needed to make a distinction between the two. Deendee (or perhaps other RPG's) is the only context where there even IS a distinction. To the rest of the world, "daemon" is just an alternate spelling of "demon." Look it up!

FH Requests (Long) First of all, you definitely DON’T need to include what always seems to come at the front of every HERO System book: A list of all the Skills, Perks, Talents, Powers, Advantages, Limitations, and Disadvantages and explain how each one can be used in the genre. We already know that an Area Effect Energy Blast can be used to make a fireball spell, and that Invisibility can be used to make an invisibility spell, and that orcs might have a Social Limitation in a world of humans. Second, you definitely DON’T need to include the “Original Magic System Design Sheet†from 4th ed. pp. 76-77. It was nothing more than a list of game elements with checkboxes next to them. These were the most useless pages I’ve seen since the “Record Sheets†from Champions III. I second the requests for: - travel times over various terrain, sea, and even air. What’s the airspeed of a mage who has transformed himself into an unladen swallow? - Mass combat & sieges. - discussion of the way magic and monsters change the world, and how to control the amount by which they do so. These deviations from history can have an impact on every area of life: economic, military, politics, travel, communication, etc. If wizards can cast desolid spells, will there still be castles with stone walls? If people can teleport, why build roads? Galley ships rowed by ten giant golems with 30 STR would probably have a totally different design from one rowed by 160 human slaves with 10 STR. Most of the time, GMs will want their worlds to have some resemblance to historical Earth. How do they make sure that it works that way? I don’t mind that you won’t be including maps, but it might be nice to see some hints on map creation. Like how to arrange geographical features in a plausible way. I know I’ve gotten much better at this but I’d still like some hints as to how to make the world look realistic. How far is it to the next town? To the next large city? And when you say “no maps,†does that include locations, like those given in the 4th ed. Fantasy Hero Companion and Companion 2? Those would be very useful and could be included without having to create a default world. It might be nice to have a few generic maps of cities, just to give an idea how a tribal village or a walled city is arranged. Also, the castle presented in FHC was not the most useful. It was “a combination of the historical and the fantastic.†I’d like to see two (or more) sample castles: one that is strictly historical in style, and one that is totally fantastic. Also, there was an important sub-genre missing from the old FH books. I’m not sure what it’s called, so I’ve taken to calling it “ultra-fantasy.†I’ll write it up somewhat like the way it would have appeared in 4th ed. Fantasy Hero: ----- EXAMPLES C. S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia series, much of mythology from around the world, most fairy tales, L. Frank Baum’s works, some movies such as The Dark Crystal, The Last Unicorn, Labyrinth, The Never-Ending Story, The Tenth Kingdom. I would also put the movie What Dreams May Come, in this category (somewhat). I’ve heard that Terry Pratchet’s (sp?) works also fit into this category, but I haven’t read them. A lot of it, but certainly not all, is primarily intended for kids, but there is some that is actually quite inappropriate for kids. CHARACTERISTICS Similar to High Fantasy, Ultra-fantasy is usually on a smaller scale, even if the story or conflict has world-wide implications. Ultra-fantasy often takes on a surreal feeling. The story is often highly personal and psychological. The conflict often centers on the protagonist battling his own flaws, rather than an evil enemy. Sometimes the internal conflict must be resolved in order to defeat an external enemy. TYPICAL CONVENTIONS The world is extremely different from our own. Magic is usually as pervasive as air. Superstitions can be real because everything contains its own inherent magical nature. The laws of physics could be totally different. In Narnia, the world is flat, and you can sail off the edge! To the people who live there, these things are well known and accepted. Animals talk. And sometimes, so do inanimate objects! There are no “humans.†Or humans may simply be a tiny minority. Sometimes the protagonist’s race is something like a human, but not quite. The hero in The Dark Crystal was a “gelfling,†and was believed to be the last of his kind. Everything is a metaphor. Enemies, allies, places, etc. often represent abstract concepts, such as the hero’s own doubts and fears. That big turtle-thing from The Never-Ending Story was the personification of apathy. The hero is from somewhere else. Often the protagonist is not a native to this world at all, often coming from “the real world.†THE UNIVERSE Beneficial, even if extremely scary or annoying. The hero is often “destined†to prevail – fulfilling an ancient prophecy or something like that – but to do so, he must learn a difficult lesson, or go through an uncomfortable change. ----- In the character creation section, it would be great to see something that isn’t in the fighter, wizard, cleric, rogue mold of deendee. One last thing: One of my all-time pet peeves with a certain other gaming system was the proliferation of weird words – some made up, some simply obscure – for monsters, weapons, places, equipment, etc. with no indication of their pronunciation. I’m sure many of you out there remember classics such as “otyugh,†“ixitxachtl,†and “nycadaemon†(hard ‘c’ or soft ‘c’? And how do you pronounce “daemon†to distinguish it from “demon�). If you’re going to include words for things that don’t appear in a normal dictionary, be sure to tell us how to pronounce them! Whew! Long winded son-of-a-gun, ain't I? I originally wrote this as a 5 page Word document, but I whittled it down to a page and a half before posting.

There is at least one point being missed here: that of the applicability of magic "energy." Real technology is based on physics, which behaves in predictable, logical ways. Magic is under no such restriction. You can burn fuel to generate heat, convert it into electicity, and use it for countless different functions. A magic fireball won't necessarily work that way. Obviously, it depends on how the GM wants to define magic for his campaign. I, and most GM's I know (in many gaming systems) want they're fantasy worlds to be at least somewhat like the real world at some historical period. For example, kings still build castles of thick stone walls even though magic exists which could potentially allow someone to fly over, walk through, or teleport beyond them. If you want castles to make sense in your game you have to have some reason why they're still useful despite magic. In my campaign world, there exist fairly common substances which can be added to castle walls, making them "Affects Desolid" etc. Which brings up another point to consider when thinking about magic-based technology: Anti-magic. As I use my computer, I know that no one can simply wave his arms and mumble some syllables and cause it to stop working. If "dispels" and "suppresses" are also commonly accessible, that will also keep magic in check. BTW, you've got the inverse of the quote wrong. It should be: Any magic is indistinguishable from sufficiently advanced technology. As an example, the technology of evaporating sea water to get salt is not particularly advanced, and it is therefore easily distinguished from magic. I've seen another inverse of Clark's law which you might also find interesting: Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.