Pattern Ghost

Re: Large Creatures Versus Head Shots You managed to quote a math error after I deleted it. Anyway, weak dragon, yeah.

Re: Possible Teen Champions Help Plenty of plot ideas, though.

Re: Large Creatures Versus Head Shots Fair enough, but the problem with the charts, the critter write ups and the weapons write ups, along with all the combat rules options is that it can all add up to a very short fight if the GM isn't concious of the max potential for damage he's handing his players. Some tweaking is bound to be needed somewhere. If you take too many tools out of the Hero toolkit, you run the risk of dropping one on your foot. =D

Re: Large Creatures Versus Head Shots Looks like that dragon's a heck of a lot tougher than the old generic one.

Re: Alignment Issues I don't know if it's been mentioned or not, but this thread made me think of Palladium's alignment system. I did read the thread, but a couple days ago. So, yeah, slow thinker here. I liked what Palladium did with the idea. They had good and evil types, then they had what most people fall into: Selfish. Instead of Neutral, the Selfish type was pretty much just that, interested in their own welfare to differing degrees and not so much inclined towards heroics or villainy. They also dropped all of the metaphysical baggage and stupidity of alignment languages from DnD. All in all, I thought their descriptions for each alignment were well done and could probably be lifted wholesale as Psych Limit disadvantages.

Re: Large Creatures Versus Head Shots Of course, you could go with my first thought: Why does a dragon take extra damage from a head shot? Make it a called shot to the eyes, nostrils, ear openings if present, or the open mouth. Then apply a ton of penalties for the small target. Dragons aren't supposed to have vulnerable spots. When your head is the size of a largish normal critter, and probably very heavily armored as well, do you take extra damage from being hit there? I think not. A lot of real world critters have heavily armored heads to the point of shooting them with high powered rifles in the head is generally considered a very bad idea. Same could go for dragons.

Re: Large Creatures Versus Head Shots Sounds like a weak dragon to me. I don't have the new FH, but I have the old one sitting here. It seems that this is a problem of balancing the damage output vs. the monsters. In the old fantasy hero, a Very Heavy Longbow is 2d6+1K. The old FH dragon short writeup has 14 PD/9 PD armor (so 23/9r PD), 30 Body and 80 STUN. Before adding any damage through skill levels or martial arts , the bow's max damage would be 13 BODY/65 STUN. The dragon would take 4 BODY and 42 STUN if everything came up 6's. You'd normally not get more than one roll like that in a combat, if at all, so while it's a boatload of STUN, it's still sort of OK. Now, when 4th Edition FH was written, the author probably had in mind that you could add a bit of damage from combat skill levels, though the average character wouldn't have too many to throw to damage anyway, and ranged Martial Arts were probably considered out of genre. However, push that bow to max DCs with levels and MAs maneuvers, and you're cranking out 4.5d6K. That's a max 27 BDY/135 STUN if everything comes up roses, and there are no added stun multiples involved. Same 4th Edition dragon would be hurting plenty in that case. That's 18 BODY/112 STUN, for essentially a one-shotted dragon. If the new edition of FH has similar DCs for the weapons and similar defenses for the dragons, then something is unbalanced. I'd say just give big critters a bit of DR versus Stun only. Stuff that's very big and noted for having a slow to respond nervous system such as grizzly bears, rhinos, elephants, cape buffalo, give 25% vs Stun. For stuff that's larger, such as monsters on the order of medium dragons, medium giants, giant bugs, whatever, go for 50%. For the really scary beasties, sitting at the top of the food chain, give 75%. If it's big, it shouldn't be stunned down easily. An arrow only makes so much of a hole (unless you're the Dukes of Hazzard and you have dynamite arrows... yeee haw!), so it's not likely to stun something the size of a dragon. Most large game animals don't just fold up and die when fatally wounded, they bleed out. Same thing here. Make the body count for taking down big beasties and not the stun. Also, look at the max your characters can dish out when figuring out how tough to make your monsters, as well as the average damage, so you won't be surprised if a serious threat is one shotted. Make your beasties one-shot proof.

Re: WWYCD: Fuel for the fire It doesn't seem like the alien/bug thing can fly. In that case, I gain altitude comfortably out of his reach and assumed throwing range and wait for rocky guy and stretchy guy to get those civllians clear. After dealing with the monster I give the stretchy guy hotfoots for a week for being a noob.

Re: Age and Sanction? Most hitmen will sanction your hero regardless of age. No worries.

Re: WWYCD: So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish... I'd seriously wonder if they meant the fish or the mammal. Because I like the fish.

Re: WWYCD?: The blatant-ening. OIC Shouldn't it have been ":the Railroading" in that case? =D Edit: That was a reply to Nexus's explanation; that sneaky Ghost-Angel, who is cool nonetheless because he has "ghost" in his name, snuck in between.

Re: WWYCD?: The blatant-ening. What the hell does "blatant-ening" mean? That's all I want to know.

Re: Newish to the game, have a question. Definately Sweep penalty levels or AE: Selective would do what you want. AE: Selective is probably more effective, but sweep psls are probably cheaper.

Re: Reading FRED for the First Time HERO Standard OK, now we're up to the minimum power level that's the real comfort zone of the system, Heroic! It is, afterall, called the Hero system. I think that if you come from other rpgs, the 75+75 level is probably a lot easier to deal with. While you may have examples of 25+25 or 50+50 in the lower ends of some games, those power levels are pretty quickly left behind with experience. At 150 points, a character achieves a level of competence that sets them pretty far from every day reality, but firmly in cinematic reality, where a bullet still hurts quite a bit. Games like Top Secret: SI, and DnD at around level ten or so, hit this power level. Games like Twilight 2000 or Traveller would probably hit the 50+50 level. Of course, these are rough estimates and subject to debate, but I hope that's helpful as a rough guideline. I think the most common genre that people use 75+75 for is Fantasy, followed closely by cinematic action genres. ... to be continued...

Re: Reading FRED for the First Time Skilled Normal This is someone who could probably fit into the real world, but they're the exceptional people. You're talking professional atheletes, soldiers of fortune, brilliant scientists, etc. This is probably the lowest level you'll see used in a game. At this level, you're talking a very gritty campaign, usually, where death is a very real possibility and while you have abilities that put you above the rest of humanity, you aren't above the World laying the smack down on you. In terms of fiction, we'd be talking about any of the more realistic genres, like the war movie, a Western (of the more realistic variety), Republic serials, etc. Ever see Tales from the Gold Monkey? I liked that show and to me it's a good example of the 25+25 power level. Here's a better plot summary. Let's make Jake Cutter. Let's see. Jake is a pilot who owns his own plane. He's a veteran and can hold his own in a fight. He has a love interest who gets herself into trouble fairly regularly. He's the father of seven kids and a pastor.. no, wait, wrong series. Pretty basic. I'll divide his points pretty evenly among stats and skills. 13 STR 03 14 DEX 12 10 CON 00 10 BDY 00 13 INT 03 10 EGO 00 13 PRE 00 12 COM 01 03 PD 00 02 ED 00 03 SPD 06 05 REC 00 20 END 00 22 STN 00 Total: 25 He gets a bit above average STR because he's a pretty big guy and can toss a good solid punch, but he's not the strongest guy on the island, either. He does have good reflexes as shown by his ability to make the punches land, fly with far above average skill (this could be skill levels, but it's also evidence of genral dexterity), and he's been seen to be pretty deft and to show good reflexes in general. His CON and BODY were left baseline because he's never shown anything out of the ordinary there. I bought up his INT and PRE because he does show a propensity for outwitting his opponents. I tossed him a point of COM because he's not a bad-looking guy. Afterall, he not only has his DNPC, but a villain lusting after him as well. Skills: 3 Combat Pilot 12- 1 Fam w/Mechanics 8- 3 Tactics 12- 3 Streetwise 12- 3 +1 level with Punch, Block, and Dodge 2 AK: South Pacific 11- 5 Contact: "Bon Chance" Louis 11- (Contact has useful skills +1pts, has access to major institutions 1pt, has contacts of his own +1pt) 1 Fringe Benefit: Passport 1 Fringe Benefit: Licensed to operate his air freight business. 2 WF: Small Arms 1 TF: Small Aircraft Total: 25 Ok, here's where we really feel the crunch of being a fifty point hereo. It's not easy to model cinematic types on a low budget. Still, he's a fairly good example of an everyman type hero and the build captures (most of) his essential abilities. Disadvantages: Hunted by Nazis, 8-, More Powerful, NCI, Limited Area, wants to Harshly Punish. Total: 15 pts. DNPC Sarah White, Slightly Less Powerful than PC (0), Useful Non-Combat Position or Skills (-5), Occasionally Shows Up 11- (10) Total: 5 pts Unluck 1d6 Total: 5pts Total: 25 pts. Basically, the two biggest sources of Jack's adventures seem to be the Nazis and Sarah, and just plain dumb luck. These teaser videos give an idea of the kinds of trouble he gets into. Competent Normal is the example I linked to above, so I'm going to skip it for now.

Re: Reading FRED for the First Time NORMALS Incompetent Normal This really a pretty useless entry on the table when it comes to playing with the system. It's a guideline for building an Incompetent Normal level NPC for the DNPC disadvantage. Standard Normal This is where the system sees normal folks. If you wanted to build an average real world person, you'd start here. All of your characteristics points are coming from Disadvantages, and you don't have a lot to spend. Let's make an ex-Con for a quickie example. I'm going to figure my ex-Con is probably a strong arm robber type. Just a petty criminal recently released for the tenth time. So, he probably has a bit above average strength and physical prowess. He's got a bad reputation and is Watched by the autorities. Since my points budget is deriving only from Disadvantages, I'll start there: Hunted: Local Authorities: More Powerful (15), NCI (5), limited geographical area (his hometown/county) (-5), and frequency is 8- (0), and the hunter is Watching (-10). Total points: 5. Reputation: ex-Con, 8-. Extreme. Total points: 10. Social Limitation: ex-Con. 11- frequency. Total Points: 10 That's 25. Now, I could replace Reputation with Distinctive Features: Prison Tattoos, but that's less personal. This guy is pretty much an outcast in his own community. He's in a bind because it's hard for him to get legitimate work and he's not allowed to associate with his old criminal contacts for fear of violating his Parole and going back to jail. I'm sure that if you asked the board for examples of 25 pts worth of limitations for an ex-Con you'd get a variety of different builds, mostly better than this, but they'd all probably be right. The point is we have some traits that help define the character and we have some points to build with. Now, for chacteristics and skills: 15 STR 5 11 DEX 3 13 CON 6 10 INT 0 10 EGO 0 13 PRE 3 10 COM 0 05 PD 2 03 ED 0 02 SPD 0 06 REC 0 26 END 0 25 STN 0 Total: 19 Skills: 3 Streetwise 12- 3 +1 with Punch/Grab/Block Total: 6 What we end up with is a very Characteristics heavy guy. He's a basic Brick, really. He'll pulp your average 7-11 owner pretty easily, but he doesn't have any stand out skills. Just a bad attitude, a bad rep, and a little street smarts. Actually, Bricks are a pretty simple archetype to build, so I'll probably be using them again.

Re: Reading FRED for the First Time You know, one thing that's possibly making creating a character difficult is trying to do it in a vaccuum. Every GM will tend to set their own benchmarks and expectations for the game. The table with suggested power levels is a good rough guide, but its just that: rough. I'll write up some stuff on each power level, and maybe that'll help you find a comfort zone to play in with character generation. BASICS: Characteristics: All stats flow from the default values (10s on primaries with default figureds), that are the normal, or average human. Most games make this assumption, I think. Now, as we rise in power levels, we move further and further away from the norm. You should try to keep well within the Normal Characteristics Maxima for most levels of power until you hit into superheroic. The system isn't super granular at low levels, because of the way skill rolls are derived from them, but in general a 13 to 15 is a very solid stat and anything higher is going to wow and amaze the normal Joes with 8s and 10s in the same areas. So, rising in power from a normal guy to a hero is definately easily done with Characteristics, but you shouldn't spend too much of your budget here, especially at lower power levels. (There are concepts that are clear exceptions to this, but in general you get a more "balanced" feel from spreading points into other areas.) Skills: Here's where you can really set yourself apart from the norm. Most folks only have their default Everyman Skills. In fact, all of your PCs also have the Everyman Skills, and you should keep that in mind when creating your character. For example, in a modern setting, most folks can drive a car. Unless your character is a professional driver and driving is going to be a big part of the setting, there's usually no pressing need to take Combat Driving. Keep in mind, the skills section is primarily a list of adventuring skills. Many of these skills aren't really accessable to the general population. When people talk about taking Background skills to flesh a character out, they're talking about taking those without a direct adventuring application. Talents: Normal people don't have any talents. These are a bridge between Powers and Skills, and mostly built with the Power rules underlying them. Conceptionally, a normal human without real powers can have a talent. For lower level campaigns, this is where you stop, as many powers aren't really appropriate. Some of the more powerful talents may also be out of scope of some lower level genres. Powers: You can do a LOT with Powers. It's probably best NOT to do a lot with them at first. Powers can range from increasing basic movement (extra inches of Running, Swimming, within NCM), to creating super-skills (AOE, Selective on an RKA to simulate rapid fire shooting against multiple targest for example), to creating magic spells or super powers. In most lower level games, you won't need to dip into the Powers section. This next section will run long, so I'm going to break out into a post with a sample character for each power level next.

Re: Reading FRED for the First Time I'd suggest going ahead and building the character over budget, then trimming it down from there. That can help tighten up your concept. Why don't you post the over budget version and we can help trim it down on the boards?

Re: On the Use and Abuse of Character Weaknesses.... I agree on using the characters' backgrounds to fuel your scenarios. However, if one of the hunteds (or more, and most likely more based on one common hunted and seven individual hunteds, even on an 8-) shows up every session, then you've just created a cycle of the same guy showing up every 8 sessions, or even more frequently. This can get old very fast. Again, I think the proliferation of hunteds is the issue. Perhaps if "Hunted" was replaced with "Nemesis" it'd be more fitting of an advantage. Let's take Batman. How many Hunteds does he have? He has a large, psychotic, rogue's galley, many of whom would like to see him dead or worse... but how many are really dedicated to making his life hell over the long term? Really, the Joker. He's the flip side to Batman's coin. He's the one villain that does the most to define the Batman. He's worth points. The rest aren't, they're just an occupational hazzard. So, allowing just one Hunted per character would solve a lot of problems. You could just rename the disadvantage to "Nemesis" and assign a couple of choices for a flat point value to the disadvantage.

Re: Mental Illusions Well, looking at the example, it seems the Illusion attacks on the creator's SPD and the attacks are resolved using ECV.

Re: Is Find Weakness mispriced? Well, it was a mostly rhetorical question. The fact that it has a cumulative effect is indeed what makes it unique. It also seems to be a big bone of contention in the thread. If a cumulative effect is potentially unbalancing, then you should disallow the power in your game. Besides, how many special effects does Find Weakness really emulate? A lot of folks use FW for their martial artist type character. Ok, you roll find weakness! You find a weak spot! Do you: a) Quickly strike at the opening, dealing a devastating blow or Study it some more, hoping to find an even weaker spot. Really, in most comics or action genre stuff where people have a find weakness type of skill, you will usually find option a. For martial arts applicatons, the power defies logic. Now, if you have the power to study something, finding ever increasing weaknesses, then you could justify a find weakness on a cumulative level. However, I can't personally think of any examples. Even Karnak, who has it as a kind of perception power doesn't seem to use this applicaton. Perhaps a nice middle ground would be to allow only one extra halving of defenses?

Re: I finished reading 5th Edition, Revised In other words, you don't want to leave the GM room to do his job or you fear contentious players. It's still the simplest construct. Only the GM knowing how the attack was built will be out the window the second the dice hit the table in combat, and whether that attack should have been a Killing or Normal attack will also be subject to debate. By using such a counter intuitive construct, you're asking for MORE problems IMO. Not literally. As I said, you can do the effect several ways. I was trying to find a nice way to say that the way you are insisting on is not logical and doesn't flow naturally from the game mechanics. The more sense your solutions make, the more easily they're understood down the road. IMO, anyone familiar with the game should be able to pick up a character sheet and looking at the power write up be able to get a good idea of what a power does, and why, based on the descriptive text and the power mechanics write up, without having to dig through a lengthy explanation in the background section.

Re: Regen again IMO, take the 4th Edition Regen + the 5th Edition adders, and you're set.

Re: New Power: Active Point Pool It sounds a little like a Multipower with Multi Slots that cost more to me. Maybe I'm not reading it right?

Re: On the Use and Abuse of Character Weaknesses.... I think a big part of the problem is weaving 8 Hunteds into any storyline. I think we all grok what you're saying about varying means of using hunteds (and agree the rules could cover that some more, though I don't know if revised has expanded there or not as I don't have it), but a big part of the problem is the large number of disadvantages suggested as the default for a campaign. Another way to handle some categories of Disadvantages where having too many can get difficult to manage just occured to me: Team disadvantages. The idea is similar to pooling points to buy bases and vehicles, except in reverse. Hmm. I don't have any suggestions on mechanics for that thought, as it just occured to me and I've been up all night.