dsatow

Re: GM conundrum - CSLs Lets back up for a second and take a breath. 1) The people who are responding to your question are mostly long time HERO system players. Many are playtesters and know a lot of minutia about the game. A statement to reread several pages of the book would be as insulting to them as stating to a professor in college that the text book they are preaching from is incorrect and tell them to reread the book they are using. A better approach would be to quote sections from the book and explain why you think its incorrect. Many times its just a wording misunderstanding. 2) What purple justice is noting, though not eloquently in English, is that if a GM sets characters at 400 points, a player could, in theory, buy down all their stats to 0 or 1 and spend close to 500 points on a single power. The 500 points could then be used to buy something like an 80d6 blast. We have several names for players who do this (power gamer, munchkin, etc.) and generally advise the GM to figuratively slap the character down. This game, because it allows you manipulate figures and stats, can be prone to abuse and requires more GM vigilance than other game systems. The game requires the GM to approve and ensure that the characters entering the game are acceptable to the campaign. I can spend 300 points and make a character that would fit in a game doing 8d6 or 20d6 and be "rules" legal. This doesn't mean I should try or the GM will let me. BTW:Hero designer comes defaulted with limits on how much you can configure for a power. This limitation on how much a power can be is not a hero rule, just a default setting in the program. Hero designer attempts to base itself off the hero rules but is not the same as the hero rules. 3) Points. Everything is based on points in the game. Even experience points are effectively character points. There seems to be some confusion here in the posts. In 6th edition, the "400 CP" is usually referred to as the total points of the character. Points in a power is generally referred to as points. Complications, aka Disadvantages in previous editions, do not increase the total points of the character, but having less points in complications in total than the allowed limit will decrease the 400 total points of the character. Thus the 400 total points is the maximum you can spend on a character in characteristics, skills, perks, talents, powers and equipment. To achieve the 400 total points, you need to come up with 75 points in complications. If you come up with only 60 points in complications, your total points will 385. Limitations reduces the cost of powers. This is not the same are getting extra points. Its like putting a power on sale because it isn't as useful as a pristine power. Similarly advantages increase the cost of powers because they make the power more useful. You wouldn't go to a used car salesman and ask for money because the car is used and discounted right? 4) From the original thread, CSLs can be abused like any other rule in HERO. My best advice to you is say, you have a range of CVs you expect people to have compared to speed and damage. In a HEROic level game, its quite easy to be the guy who never misses. On the other hand, the marksman/gunslinger is a pretty well defined category. I would set a CV limit and if a person wants to be the gunslinger/marksman, I would allow them to exceed that limit by 1-2 levels so long as they aren't doing another category like tank, psionic, healer.

Re: Super Heroic Behavior What I try to do I lay out the ground rules for morality, but I like playing on emotional traps in my role playing games so players have to decide how to act. I am not always impressed by the players. So, what is there to do about it? This has been said before in many posts and articles but the effect is to do things in multi-fold. 1) Does the players action deserve a new disadvantage? If it does, then give them a new disadvantage but no compensatory points. For instance, if they killed a henchmen or a villain, they might get several hunteds, from Police and other Supers, to the villain and the friends of the henchmen. They may also have to lose any CVKs they have and replace it. 2) Do their actions have consequences? If Players start killing or beating up villains even if they surrender, then the PCs will note a sharp increase in the Villains going into a do or die mode. So far, my players haven't succumbed to this, but my villains will start to go postal if they start to lose to try and get away if the heroes continue to beat them up after they surrender. 3) The ever present news media. I always thought it stupid to see Lois Lane standing out where she could be hit by a stray blast filming the destruction as Superman fights with people like Doomsday. My reporters usually hide, have good concealment and photography skills. After all, a shove for a B list celebrity is likely to get you a bruise. A shove from someone like Superman is likely to have your spleen ruptured. Also, today, many people do cellphone reporting. This can come from the spectators who are too stupid to know any better to henchmen who are recording it for some supervillain. 4) Karma. If you use the optional rules for heroic points, people who do bad things should have their heroic points reduced. This doesn't stop many abusive heroes. Instead, I give the villains, Villain points. Its just the same as heroic points but only for maximizing their villainous appeal. Hopefully that helps.

Sorry, I'm getting old, so nubie question again. What (or where) can I find the rule to use knockback to hit one character into another?

Re: Champions, IDEA for new source book/adventure book i would guess the biggest obstacle would be Cryptic rather than Hero Games.

Re: The Cape - What do you think of it so far? IMHO, the problems with the Cape. The main character doesn't advance in the past few episodes to correct his problems. Each episode, he should visibly gain another inch on his solution. Burn Notice does this well. The Cape does not. Orwell seems to be Chess's daughter. I was pretty sure(99%) after the first episode. The most interesting characters are the Circus of Crime. The mother and broody kid put me off. Villains for the most part are two dimensional. His partner betraying him? How many times does the poor writing have to occur where the betraying character asks "Have you told anyone else?" or "Let me handling it." Sadly, I'll keep watching this until it falls off the air just because I have a thing for comic book superhero shows and movies.

Can you aid a Naked Advantage?

http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2124

Is there a reason why Joint Lock is not in the maneuvers page (pg 7) of the HSMA guide (and by default in Hero Designer)? It seems to be used in Angampora, Arte Dell'abbracciare, Bandesh, Baritsu, etc. as a common enough maneuver.

Most of the confusion comes from pages 6e2 99-100. Sorry it took so long to reply, work and having everything in place to properly reply was kind of problematic. On page 99, under the toolkitting section, Doesn't this mean that the 10 strength character is limited to 4d6? Also, on page 102, you have two different scenarios with Haymaker. under Combat Skill Levels, Maneuvers, and Movement While under advantages for strength Which is the correct interpretation or am I missing something?

Re: Top 10 #5 You are not quite sure that is his hand. #4 You told Ogre that you'd shake his hand first.

Re: Increasing Damage with a low active point limit I agree with the previous poster in that the AP limit is probably to limit the amount of damage generated. As GM, I hate when I build up a big battle only to have it taken down because a character has a huge capacity for damage (usually in pre 6th due to stun lotteries). Anyway past the rant. Now this is, as a GM, how I would help you make the power to fit in the game (as GM I will always help a player make sure a power would fit into my campaign without disrupting it): Create a EB continuous with AVAD. Talk with your GM and state the defense is ED BUT that each phase of effect the ED requirement will drop by one. This is similar to all those AVAD all or nothings whose defense is a a set amount of some type of defense. I would probably give it as a +1/2 advantage. The idea being you start with a 3d6 EB against a person with 10 ED total. The next round it will drop to 9 ED, the 8, 7 etc. It will take 10 rounds for it to effectively become pure stun. Now this build bends the rule slightly but still in effect is the same. Note that if the power for whatever reason is stopped and is recast, the count down will restart. Similarly if you apply two of these attacks, each would have its own countdown. Another way to build this is linking a drain of ED with the conditional limitation only vs the damage above. This would allow multiple casting to have greater and greater effect without the build up. Anyway, talk to your GM, they have the final say on the power.

I know this is a newbie style question, but I want to make sure that I got adding damage correct with respect to martial arts. To be honest, I am getting a little confused where the extra DCs for martial arts adds. To the base or the maneuver? For the sake of the argument, the super ninja, Silent Bob, has a martial strike, martial throw, nerve strike, and killing strike. He has +2 DC with martial arts. He also has an 1d6+1 HKA, 2d6 AVAD(NND), and 4d6 HA. Silent bob has a 15 strength. Can you verify that I got the following correct. The nerve strike gets no added bonus in any instance and only does 3d6. The martial strike does 11d6. 3d6 for strength+4d6 for HA creating a 7d6 base. He gets +4d6 more from the maneuver and the bonus damage classes. Is this correct or is his base actually 9d6? The killing strike is done similarly. 1d6+1 HKA with the base killing attack pumped by strength 2d6+1 base. +1d6 for the maneuver would give a total of 3d6+1 Killing Attack. If a character(not Bob) had a 10 strength and an offensive strike, he would only do 4d6 because his strength is too low as a base. If he bought 2 DCs with the martial maneuver, he would do 8d6 as the 2 DCs would effectively add to his base.

Re: Superheroes Sponsored by Corporations (Such as the NFL) I made but never got to play The Coca Cola Kid. Martial Artist with Coca Cola weaponry. The Cola Bola. The Coke Grenades (shaken Coke cans which were explosion entangles). Cans of Fury (Coca Cola Nunchuks). The Can of Soda which aided his Stun and End.

Re: Super powered Nation-The Lightning strikes With great power comes great temptation...

Re: Help Poplulate: Pirate Ship edition Isabella Chavez, was acquired as the cook and as a plaything for the crew. Once aboard, the crew learned that she was anything but what they intended. Though she was lovely to look at, she was fearsome in a fight. the last person who tried to forcibly make his way with her was Gimpy. Now he's the ship's cook and she has earned her own share of any loot. Isabella has had trysts with the Captain but the Captain knows better than to say she's the Captain's woman preferring her strength on the boarding crews. Isabella for her part, cares not what woman the Captain beds, only what gives her the most profit and power. Lately, she's been sharing with the first mate. Everyone thinking the same thing, but none will admit it for fear of her and the first mate. In reality, she exchanging meals with the first mate, to keep her "girlish figure" and because she suspects something with the cook. Jacques "Gimpy" LeMonde was a braggart with the muscle to back it up. When the new cook came on board, he decided that such a fine lass was his to play with after the Captain took his "share". Alas, the woman had other ideas. He doesn't like to admit it, but the first punch to the face hurt. And this was coming from a man who had been hit in the face with the yardarm! She was a lot to handle and when he finally was able to pin her, she kicked him harder in the gonads than all the other wenches he's bedded before. He was curled up for 3 days and the joke of the high seas since. On board, he's been demoted to cook which she earns his former share of the loot. He hasn't been able to regain his former position as her position as Captain's concubine protects her or so he says. He's slowly poisoning her food, in an attempt to challenge her one day for his position back, but her constitution seems to be like an ox.

Re: (5E) Origami summon build You can use the RoD* limitation on the power: Restrainable: requires dry paper and free hands -1/2. *RoD is Read or Die. There is a OAV and an anime series. The heroines are called paper masters and do things similar to what you are describing.

Re: Gravity power Here's a better question What if the wall can't support his weight? Does it fall sideways or down? When the wall crumbles and his body starts to rotate which way does he fall?

Re: Ideas needed for a 600 year old hero Ahhh, but then he just pulls out that mini-gun, ala Predator.

Re: So...if I want to run classic champions (the 6E version)...which books? I would suggest for old school Champions, go with the 2 core books 6e1 and 6e2, and Champions Villains books. This will give you everything you need to run an old school game. The changes from 5 are mostly noted when you make powers. Think about how you would create the power in 5th and just review the powers. I would strongly suggest though the following books Ultimate Martial Arts - minor changes and the options of having all the martial arts maneuvers is very useful. Advanced Players Guide - useful for some of the optional stuff. Bestiary - if you are gonna need a lot of creatures. Not exactly necessary, but useful especially if you don't want to roll your own. The other books are nice but not 100% necessary or are genre specific, so you should probably determine that for yourself.

Re: What support DNPCs do GMs make for their games? I used to add a little obnoxious kid with a stuffed tiger to my games. I stopped because it was just too obvious. I wonder how many people will get the reference today...

Re: Ideas needed for a 600 year old hero Hrmmm, why does every immortal want to use a sword for a weapon. Give him a S&W 500 for a weapon with fast draw and multiple clips (speed loader). Immortal 1: "Draw your sword and we shall duel like gentlemen." Immortal 2: "Nah, I rather just blow your head off." Takes out gun. Immortal 1: "Hah, a gun won't kill me." Immortal 2: "Maybe not, but then again" "it only" "has to" "stop you" "long enough" "for me to come closer." Immortal 1: "Hah! I still" "yet live" Immortal 2: "Not for long."

Re: Ideas needed for a 600 year old hero Watch Highlander the TV series... I would suggest in skills, acting, disguise, forgery, history, navigation, geography. Under perks, cover ids, contacts, wealth Under powers, regen with resurrection and restore limbs, LS: anti aging.

Re: What support DNPCs do GMs make for their games?

Just wondering what DNPC/NPCs GMs usually have for their games. Note that I am not talking super powered NPCs, just minor side characters the players would see in the game. Some of the more common ones I can see are The police detective(s) Gumshoe Detective The intrepid reporter(s) The local mad scientist Obnoxious business exec who might need saving despite being not so good Girlfriend/Boyfriend potentials Weak old Aunt Mary who always seems to be shopping at the place the villains strike Doctor or Nurse who helps heal the PCs

Re: CHAMPIONS BEYOND -- What Do *You* Want To See? Just my $0.02 I wouldn't mind seeing also 1) The riff raff for the heroes. In comics like LSH, the heroes are always fighting some riff raff in every other issue. People with heavy duty blasters robbing a bank or causing other problems. 2) Some basic weapons and equipment you usually see. 2a) A few star ships like luxury liner, police vessel, pirate ship/smuggler ship, and private space ship. 2b) Standard blasters (pistols and rifles). Not a lot but enough to provide a little diversity. 2c) A space station (base) description as a location for heroes to use or save 2d) A standard colony (base) description as a location for heroes to use or save 3) Some info involving life in the future. Things like favorite Holovid programs("I'll buy that for a dollar","ISN news","Real Life:Mars"), recreational drugs(Soma), places to relax (is there a planet Rysa?), etc. Are there some shady megacorps (Brande corp)or major institutions (Time Institute)?