Cloppy Clip

Thank you for clearing that up, and this is the joy of exponential growth, Duke. It does create some oddities when rolling dice, since +1 BODY is supposed to double mass, which means a bad roll on 4d6 might only be enough to break a TV while a high roll sees you toppling the Statue of Liberty! All ostensibly from the same attack fired at the same setting, but I think you have to accept things like this sometimes if you want a game that can model Superman and Batman on the same scale. Or, of course, you could just roll with it and decide that every star is hollow and suspiciously easy to destroy. After all, what's more true to comics than a bad sense of scale for space stuff?

The Questions forum is for 6e, and this is based on a 5e Star Hero book so I hope this thread is in the right place. If not then I'd be grateful if it could be moved to where it needs to be. In Scourges of the Galaxy (page 66), the Lord Vorpal's Snicker-Snack is statted as a Major Transform with a standard effect of 105 points, enough to transform a 104-BODY star into a black hole. But normally Transform needs to total twice the BODY of the target to take effect, and the Snicker-Snack has the All Or Nothing limitation so it needs to do this in one shot. Is there a rule somewhere in 5e that says objects only need to take their full BODY, and not twice, to be transformed or is this an error?

I'm struggling to get a sense of what each tech level would mean for a game. With the GURPS tech scale, for example, there are only four levels past the modern day, so I can take my time and come up with some ideas about what stories would look like at each tech level. But you have fourteen levels above where we are, and I'm getting a bit lost trying to make sense of what sorts of stories each level would encourage. If it's no trouble, can you tell me a bit more about how societies would look at the different levels? If you're still thinking about ideas for a third feature for 20, would probability manipulation do? I've seen some high-end science fiction make use of it, and being able to control things like the collapse of a wavefunction or make 1 in a million chances happen on command seems like a good capstone for technology.

Not to worry about any lack of updates; you're doing this in your free time so I understand if other things have to take priority. That said, the set-up you have for these little talismans is a nice bit of flavour for your setting. They're the sort of thing that probably won't come up in the average adventure, but provide a little glimpse into the day-to-day lives of people in Aerelios that make the world feel a little more lived-in. I'm afraid I don't have any questions this time, but whenever you get the chance to update this thread I'd be interested to see what comes next!

Oh, that example wasn't the most thought-out one. I just wanted to illustrate the concept of "this character is good at X, but I don't see them as being stronger than average overall so I'll make them bad at Y". You could have someone with high CV and SPD but paper-thin defence, or a Brick who can destroy anyone in hand-to-hand range but who has pathetic mobility options. Or, of course, if you're going for a Dr Destroyer type master villain, you could just make them better than averge at everything. But the idea was you'd use the baseline to quickly judge where any given character lay with respect to the universe. The point about baselines for grunts is an important one to consider. If every minion is running around with Laser Auto Rifles that do 3d6 AP, and you want your baseline super to be able to shrug off an average roll then we're looking at about 20 rDef. Which means that if you want Swordsman, with the power of a really big sword, to be able to do much then he might want a total HKA of 8d6 or so, which comes out to a 24 DC attack. So, by giving high level weaponry out to our grunts, we've ended up with quite a powerful setting. And there's nothing wrong with a powerful baseline, but I think it's useful to decide on that at the start of a campaign rather than introduce these super-mooks partway through one and tear your hair out trying to balance things in the middle of it.

As someone coming in with 6th edition, I'm not sure how exactly figured characteristics were used. Combat Values and Speeds can be set at any baseline, so if you start with a few extra points in those from DEX then that won't affect gameplay so much as long as everyone has similar DEX (if you don't mind everyone having similar DEX, of course), but Defence's value depends entirely on how it scales with Damage, and the figured characteristics from 5E seem to give you quite low defences compared to the damage you'd be dealing out. Were you expected to buy up defence on top of what your figured characteristics gave you, or was everybody playing a version of rocket tag back then? Obviously each table would have come to their own solution, even if it's something like KingAdipose describes where you effective de-figure the characteristics, but I'm curious as to what most people did back before 6E.

Thank you for the updates! With regards to the pantheon, do the people of Aerelios tend to worship one god in particular for themselves, or do they worship the pantheon as a whole? I'm wondering because, in the first case, would this affect how the worshippers of the chaos side of the pantheon are treated? I especially liked the addition of an NPC for each god, as it gives a more grounded view on how people relate to that deity than a more straight-forward list of mythological accomplishments might do so. How much does the average person from Aerelios follow religious practise? Are they quite strict there, or do a lot of people only worship as is convenient for them, in the way a lot of people today might go to church for special events but otherwise stay home on Sundays?

@Doc Democracy Sorry, a bit late to the party and the thread's moved on since then, but I like your idea of removing characteristics altogether. It goes against the instinct of a lot of traditional roleplaying games, I think, because there's that appeal of being able to say "yes, I'm X strong", but if you want to make HERO into even more of a toolbox system then being able to pick apart those characteristics would go a good way towards that. I think the real advantage if you did this would be in genre books like Fantasy Hero, where you could make your own custom set of characteristics based on what the setting demanded. An intrigue and court politics game could have characteristics based around social maneuvering and standing, while an investigative game could have more focus on analysing clues and making deductions as characteristics. Essentially, you'd have much more power to highlight what a given game was aiming to do, which I think is pretty cool.

Coming in a bit late, but I've been reading through this thread and finding my mind changing as I've done so. More than a few times, too, which might be a sign I'm too easily-led! I'm coming around to the idea of, instead of a formal Rule of X, having a baseline character in mind and then assigning specific characters advantages and disadvantages compared to that baseline to come up with a rough narrative balance. So, if we take 12 DC attacks as a Champions baseline and I want a character with a 16 DC attack who I don't think of as being overall stronger than the baseline, then I might give them abyssmal EGO so that, even if they'll demolish most characters in a straight-up fistfight, there's some weakness for players to exploit. They get an advantage, and a disadvantage to balance it out roughly; that sort of thing. Now, if you don't mind a bit of topic drift, that 12 DC baseline is one I've seen quite a lot for Champions. It makes a bit of sense, since 12 DCs of STR lets you lift 100 tons, which was a good benchmark back in the old Marvel Handbook days IIRC. But, if I was playing another genre like Fantasy Hero or Star Hero, are there any "accepted" baselines for those like 12 DC seems to have become for Champions? Obviously any table can make up what they like, but I'm curious if there are any common answers to be found here.

Sorry for the late reply, but I've been out of town the past few days. Thank you very much for the clarification, and I'm glad to know I wasn't suspicious of this interaction for nothing. The game does say several times to avoid finagling your way around using UOO, so it makes sense that would apply here too.

6E1 p.147 says that Area Of Effect should not be applied to Defence Powers, except in some situations based on special effects and other considerations. Would Absorption bought with Defensive Absorption and Area Of Effect be a suitable exception to the prohibition on AOE Defensive Powers, or should these Advantages not be combined?

Sorry for my absence, but the amount of material to catch up on is a treat, at least. There's a nice mix of NPCs here, and I appreciate that you've kept their entries short and punchy so any GM running from these posts doesn't have too much to juggle at the table. As someone who hasn't played Fantasy Hero, I was wondering about the skill levels for the characters. Some of the experts have skills in the 18- to 19- region, which seemed a little high to me but then got me thinking about what you're expecting the characters to look like for this setting? Is it more of a high-power setting, or is 18- actually not that big a deal and I'm just bad at judging skills? I notice you've got some secrets mentioned for some of the characters, like Marlindia's Glorious Lotus training and whatever Leiria's got going on for example. Is there much backstory you've worked out for these characters behind the scenes? And if so, are there any particular tidbits you especially like?

It's a little bit rubber science, but there are those claims about infrasound causing hallucinations and feelings of awe/fear to play around with. That could open up Mental powers like Mind Control and Mental Illusions if the current selection isn't enough for you. You could also go to the other end of the spectrum and use ultrasonic disintegration for an RKA.

Looking at my 4E book, it seems fairly clear-cut that a successful Transform lets you do pretty much whatever you want with the target, for the reasons explained earlier in the thread. So if you want a frog with the mind of a human then you can have such, but if you want the frog to be just a plain frog then you can do that too. In your example of the Sleep spell, you'd be perfectly justified putting the mind to sleep as well as the body, so I think you can argue for a Limitation. It'd depend on how much the target could do while under the Spell: if they can only use their Mental powers in a campaign where most characters won't have Mental powers then it's not likely to make much of a difference, so I'd call that a -0 Limitation. But, if Mental powers were more common in your campaign, or if they could use their mental activity to try and fight off the Sleep spell somehow then that would justify an actual Limitation, in my opinion. What that Limitation would be, I'm going to cheerfully bow out and leave to the experts to hash out of course! By the way, thank you for the breakdown of the different Transforms @LoneWolf; I'd actually just been thinking earlier today that I wasn't quite sure what a Spiritual Transform was supposed to do, so that clears it up for me. Of course, I think I'll do as Christopher suggests and go back to the 4E model of one Transform power. Mental and Spiritual variants can be thought of as the delivery method for the power without affecting the target result, which I feel is cleaner and opens the game up to more potential builds for this power.

@Duke Bushido Of course, take all the time off from the boards you need, but thank you very much for your input up until now. I know enough by now to realise I won't agree with you on every opinion about HERO (same as how I won't agree with everyone else on this forum), but you always have a well-considered opinion that helps give me a new perspective on the question (same as everyone else on this forum, come to think of it), so I've really appreciated your help over the course of the thread. @unclevlad That list of non-Focus powers raises a good point, because there are lots of powers you can think of that would justify the doubling rule without being Foci if you think about it for a while. It seems a shame that, like Hugh points out, the rules explicitly don't allow this, but we can always rule differently at the table. @dmjalund I think it was pointed out earlier in this thread that you also could do a Multiple Attack with one power for another option besides Autofire. Between those two, are there any use-cases for making lots of attacks that you'd still need the doubling rule for?

The gates look like a nice mix of prompts for a game; do you have a particular one in mind for players to start off nearby, or are you open to letting them choose and/or move around? I was also wondering, given the references to smuggling, what the main resources being smuggled into the city are. Have you decided what Aerelios's principle imports/exports are, or is this not much of a concern at this stage? Thank you for the explanation on Clerical Alchemy and the different magic systems, by the way. It's always helpful to see what somebody was thinking about when deciding these things, as it can sometimes feel a bit intimidating with all the potential options available in HERO!

Not at all, it's all very interesting! This is going to be a bit of a jumble, but some thoughts that occur to me reading this are, in no particular order: - When the Three Paths of Magic are formalised, you've left out Clerical Alchemy. Is that seen as less prestigious in-setting, or is it harder to come by, justifying the exclusion? - Just a thought, but the Goblyn Wars take place over a long period of time, such that if everyone has human lifespans nobody from the start will live to see the end of them. I imagined there might be a lot of room for the wars to alternate between hot and cold, with periods where diplomacy is being attempted while the different factions recuperate their losses from the fighting. I have no idea if this is the direction you wanted to take it, but it got me thinking about the different factions that might have sprung up over the course of the wars as different approaches are tried and tested. - The drought in recent times sounds a bit suspicious: is there something in the background of the setting that caused it, or at least made it worse? Because I can see a campaign revolving around adventurers investigating and trying to combat such an influence. - Goblyns seem quite consistently opposed to humans over the course of the timeline. I was wondering how sapient they are, for want of a better word. Are they more like demons, and a purely destructive force, or can some goblyns be reasoned and negotiated with? Come to think of it, the answer to that would have major implications for that cold war thought I had earlier. - Finally, it's nice to see a setting that appreciates the importance of rivers to trade and keeping fantasy cities running. Of course, it's fantasy so you don't have to be realistic, but I'm still glad to see this all the same. Thank you for sharing this setting with us; it's fun watching it develop over the course of the thread so please keep this up for as long as you're interested!

I think my original question was borne out of not knowing the history behind this rule. I was looking at it from the perspective of a Superheroic 6E game, since that's what I have the books for, where a Focus is just a power with a limitation. So I then wondered why only that limitation was counted for the doubling rule. Now that I know the rule was originally designed for Heroic games to be used with equipment, it makes more sense since Foci are the powers equivalent of equipment. I do wonder, though, given you already have to watch out for abuse with this rule, if there are limitations other than Focus that might be limiting enough to qualify a power for the doubling rule? It's all a bit pointless ultimately, but I quite like stress-testing this system to see what can be done with it, so bear with me please!

Interesting additions! Between Malachor and Tenmor, you have a bit of a theme of nautical dealings going on here: do you have any ideas in mind for major players among the smugglers? If you're looking for ideas, maybe there's an unofficial representative of the fishermen who's loudly opposed to Malachor and the guard, to serve as a red herring if players try and ferret out smugglers? I was also wondering what Kamlaca's Totem Magic looks like? Do you have any mechanics in mind for it yet, or is it a bit up in the air at the moment? Either way, sorry for bombarding you with questions, but this is fascinating stuff. The jungles up north are a new development that I'd love to hear more about if you get the time.

I wouldn't really say the goal is to make players feel clever either, but rather it lets people express their cleverness, if that makes sense? I might be seeing a distinction where there is none, but I think a game with as heavy a system as HERO works well with the kind of player who finds fun in getting their character concept in the most efficient way, or finding just the right combination of modifiers to perfectly express their character. A reasonable gaming group won't push things too much, and will have an agreement about what the average character is supposed to look like, but if it's all set by guidelines you could go for a much simpler system that doesn't have all the points accounting and get a similar experience. This might just be my personal preference for tinkering with mechanics coming through, but I genuinely thought this is a big selling point for HERO to its players. Would you disagree then?

Although the players will be modern, so it might be easier for them to keep track of who does what if you use the modern titles with some waffle about them being translated from whatever language characters are speaking. Depends on their tolerance for learning vocab, I suppose, as there'll be a lot of players that will prefer more authentic titles. It's a good base to work with Mr. R, and I like that you have potential plots seeded into each character. If you wanted somewhere to go next, I'd suggest rivals or obstacles to your mayor and deputy. If you work like this, building off characters you've made previously, I find you can keep better track of how everyone relates to each other, and it gives you more options for games since you have potential NPCs ready to hand when you need an idea for what to introduce next.

I don't know if you'd agree with me Duke, but it seems sometimes that the purpose of points in HERO isn't to balance characters so much as to give players the opportunity to feel proud of themselves when they find a clever way to save them. I don't mean that in a pejorative way because I think there can be a lot of satisfaction to be had in optimising a character build for the right kind of person, and there's no sense in not letting them have their fun. But, at the same time, the game balance doesn't depend so strictly on points spent that, as long as everyone's mature about it, you can't have characters with wildly different points totals. The big problem that I can see with doubling for back-up Foci is that the amounts of weapons you're throwing around can get ridiculous very quickly. 5 points for a second gun probably isn't too much to stress about. Your opponent has to disarm you twice, but that still feels manageable. 50 points for 1,000 guns, though, feels very unfair to the poor henchman who has to take them off you to make the drawback of your Focus limitation apply! Like greypaladin says, I wonder if this was really just a niche houserule for a specific kind of game that gets applied to many more situations than it really should be.

I'm away from my books at the moment, but do Resource points work the same way as equipment meaning you'd be limited to the sorts of things anybody could reasonably buy in a setting? Because, if so, it might help to think about how you envision the setting, marcusxbaer. If it makes sense to you that a given thing from Gadgets and Gear would be available for anybody with the right access to buy then it would be valid for your Resource points. This way you can adapt the rules to different settings as needs be. Hope I've understood the question correctly, and apologies if not!

I don't know if I'd be as strict on the subject as Duke, as paying 5 points for a backup Focus seems reasonable enough to me. Maybe I haven't thought it through enough, but it seems like a useful option to have. But I'm not convinced that Combined Attacks should be a valid way to use the doubling rule. I understand Combined Attacks to be the reward you get for buying powers individually, without putting them into a Multipower. But if you can get powers for 5 points that can be used without penalty, that seems open to abuse. On the other hand, attacking twice in one turn because you have two guns seems like an obvious thing to want to do, and the second gun is going to have reduced utility compared to the first one because of its redundancy. All of this to say I'm a bit conflicted, and not sure what the best approach to take it. Maybe it's a matter of degree: 2 guns feels like a different use-case than 1,000 guns, so maybe it's a case of not letting players get carried away.

That's a really cool concept for a power, and it would work wonders for all sorts of spooky necromancy-type villains so I can see it getting a lot of mileage. I don't have much to add, but out of the methods suggested I think I like Power Defence UAA the most. That feels like an elegant way to use the game mechanics to get the desired effect. For the Skill contest part, though, is there any way you could tweak the Requires a Skill Roll rules to resolve with a contest instead of a straight roll? I don't know if that's an option in one of the Advanced Players Guides or something, but it seems like the natural solution.