dsatow

Why can't I add ranged to to HA like I can HKA?

I want to devise a power not as lethal as a killing attack usable at range with damage increased by strength.

There doesn't seem to be a way to do that in the system/hero designer?

Re: HERO SYSTEM MARTIAL ARTS -- What Do *You* Want To See?

I don't think you need a martial art for this. I don't need a martial art to try and knee someone in the groin. And if you are using hit locations, you don't need martial arts to do extra damage for hitting in a sensitive location. For my thugs I tend to use "fights real good" 1 or 2 CSLs, 1 or 2 d6 HA. That'll let 'em whup up on ordinary citizens without too much difficulty.

Personally, to defend this position, Thugs tend in comic books and cartoons/anime to rough up normals in no time flat, even if they are professional boxers and the like. Note that I am not talking about a common gang banger here but the mafia thugs you see in comics. Ex: The mafia goes up to a boxer who they want to throw a fight and he doesn't play ball. An extra 1d6 isn't going to cut it on the boxer. Furthermore, these thugs tend to fight so much better that only superheroes can take them down. They tend to be agents with better CVs and damage than police officers.

Isn't this just martial throw? Whirling around simply sounds like haymakering a martial throw or even just special effects.

No, a martial throw as current described generally slams the target in your hex. Its really more like a slam which in real life martial arts is what these throws do. But in comics/anime/cartoons/etc., these martial artists tend to throw or redirect the attacker into objects (like walls or boxes of rubbish, causing failed move through damage), out of a combat area (to avoid innocents in fights), or to toss them into inconvenient places (like off a cliff).

Point: as a GM I wouldn't be going for this. Tight group is martial arts (skills) or martial arts (multipower) not both.

Just to be clear, I don't allow this, but I do see many people try this.

Re: HERO SYSTEM MARTIAL ARTS -- What Do *You* Want To See?

UMA and NinjaHero were always my most favorite of the supplements. Sadly, haven't bought many supplements lately being house poor.

Personally, here's my input:

1) Lemon Meringue; much better than Key Lime.

2) Include under fictional martial arts, one for thugs. You always see the common thug doing grabs, gut punches, knee groin shots, chin shots, etc.

3) Under maneuvers, a martial toss. There are many instances where the martial arts or brick grabs a person and spins them around and tosses them a good distance. There seems to be two versions, one where the person is spun around the martial artist and one where the martial artist tosses them over them.

4) Standard generic write ups for the KungFu/Karate student agent, the Ninja agent, evil government spy agent(for all those 007esque fights), and generic warrior with a sword(for the fantasy/swashbuckling fights against guards and soldiers). Include the common thug if you do the thug martial arts.

5) Clarification on levels for martial arts. Every so often I see people in 5th ed using a 3 point martial arts level or a multipower level with the other. Ex: You have 2 multipower levels and a slot in the multipower which is a HTH attack. You use the HTH attack with a martial strike and then use the 3 point levels on DCV from the martial strike. This is the 5th ed analogy. I am not sure about the 6th ed analogy as I am not starting the 6th ed camapign until after Christmas.

6) Some explanation on how tournaments work for martial arts. Example, if I want to make a game based upon a Gym which hosts a Boxing Club, the players would be boxers and enter fights in the ring. While this scenario isn't really enough for a full separate supplement, it would be interesting here for a page or two. For instance, HERO ring fights would be like fighting Mike Tyson in all the situations(the first person to land a good +4d6 hit would most likely take out the other). How do you get around that. Similarly, some players may want to join a dojo to learn martial arts. Some basics over what it would be like and the challenges you see in movies would be cool.

7) An optional rule for doing something similar to find weakness for those who miss find weakness would be cool.

8) Did I mention Lemon Meringue?

Re: new to hero system

Hi I am new to hero system what books do i need to have to play the game.

Minimally, what you need is what Steve has stated. Etherio also makes a good point.

My two cents would be:

When getting 6 sided dice, get two which are total different in color to themselves and the other dice. This helps in roll stun for killing attacks and for 1/2 d6s.

If you can't afford Hero Designer, get a cheap $10 calculator. It helps with the math.

This came up in a game and I's just like to know the official answers. (I'll not note which side I took on the subject to get an impartial answer. If the answer is "It's the GMs call." thats fine but I'd like to know how you'd do this in your game.)

You have player A and Player B both with force fields. Player A has force field based on a continuing charge. Player B has a force field based on a Costs End only to activate. Neither force field has any other advantages bought on it.

They are currently fighting Foxybat (Foxbat's little sister) and needs to take a recovery (she's blond and a little slow:eg:).

1) Does Player A's force field drop when taking a recovery (cont. charge)?

2) Does Player B's force field drop when taking a recovery (Cost End 2 act)?

3) Would it help either/both players to buy persistent on the power?

Finally, not dealing with force fields:

4) If a person bought their running with usable as a second form of movement (flight), could they just stand on air (not moving nor paying any end for movement) and take a recovery?

Just wondering, can you do a multiple maneuver with a passing strike instead of just a move by maneuver?

I think I remember someone or somewhere being said no, but I'd just thought I'd ask.

Re: HERO System Sidekick

Will there be a 6th ed Sidekick?

To be honest, rather than 6th ed lite, I'd rather have 6th ed abbreviated. No rules clarifications, just the basic points costs, adders, combat values, etc. with page numbers referencing the 6th Ed books for the clarifications.

A lot of times, I like to pull out the book to help create a character during off times but carrying two large dictionary books can strain the back and I can't always plug in and use my laptop everywhere.

On pg 398 6e1:

So if I understand this correctly, if you have a large enough pool and have both growth and HKA from the pool the strength from the growth can not add to the HKA.

EX: Beastboy has a variable power pool defined as animal powers linked to his shape shift. Beastboy becomes a bear getting up 6 levels of growth and 1d6 HKA to represent claws. Because of Beastboy's age, he has only an 8 strength. While the bear form has a 38 strength, the claws only do 1d6+1 because they come from the same framework.

In the text on 6e1 pg 389 and 392, it seems that an activation roll for say armor at 14- should be -1/4 (less than 5th ed), but the example given on pg 391 shows it as -1/2. Am I missing something in the example or is it a typo?

If an EB has attack vs a defense and the defense is only natural PD/ED (no resistant defenses, density increase, etc.) is the advantage +0 or +1/2?

EX: Pestillence has an AVAD attack which causes the normally benign microbes on your skin to attack you. It avoids armor, even the chitinous stuff as the microbes attack beneath the armor. How much does it cost Pestillence to buy the attack?

on pg 285 of 6e1, you note an example of a person with shrinking getting hit by a 2 body double knockback attack. the KB goes down to 0 (actually negative 6m) after doubling and subtracting the 2d6. The shrunk character gets flung back 36m.

Does this mean no matter what is rolled on the dice for damage, say the attack is 3d6 and the character rolls a natural 3 on damage, the shrunk character will fly back 36m? I would have thought that in the example given on the page, the shrunk character would fly back 30m for 0d6 damage.

Re: Another view of Damage Negation (6e)

I'm not sure how goofy it is. Supers frequently survive and shrug off large supers attacks. For example cyclops might blast away with optic beams that blow through buildings and only bruise a super. Even antivehicle weapons of today aren't as destructive as the attacks of a super as depicted, yet frequently in Champions a heavy machine gun would mop the floor with supers. If you are bouncing energy attacks which would take out tanks, it seems wierd when a rifle drops you.

 

 

For this power I'd like a all or nothing version. I like the way normal defenses work vs most super attacks, but I'd like the ability to ignore the attacks from small arms.

The problem here was what was called the stun lottery. The d6-1 stun mod instead of the new d3 stun mod. The stun lottery allowed a character to do more stun than an EB of equal point cost. Now a 3d6K with +1 stun autofire should do for each shot between 3B6S to 18B72S with an average of 11B33S. A 10d6 EB autofire should do for each shot between 0B10S to 20B60S with an average of 10B35S.

In fact, most of the reasons I've heard about to use negation has been the stun lottery. If the lottery was never there, I wonder if we would have had negation in the first place.

Re: 6E1 & 6E2 help

The easiest way to learn HERO is to play it. I've always found that a Heroic level game is the best way to indoctrinate yourself and remove powers out of the scenario. It then becomes fairly easy to learn the core system, how the dice work, etc. Add in superpower later once you have a feel for the base game system.

Example: Start with a martial arts heroic campaign, kind of like the karate kid level. Up the level of the martial art to next level which would be similar to all those 70s karate movies. Final push it to the Kung Fu fantasy level. From there you have everything you need to do supers.

The other way to play, is to join an established group. Most HERO players love to help others learn how to play their favorite game.

Re: Request for comments: Replacement for Find Weakness

When you are familiar with the game and how to create the powers you want, that isn't a problem. But when you try to teach people how to play the game, complex power creation can be a big turn off. There are people who eyes glaze over when you talk math. Sad but true.

Another issue; there are players who make very complex powers, almost needlessly so, such that they can 'game' the system. You can always ban such players but HERO players aren't in the abundant numbers that D&D or Magic players are. Going over every bit of mathematical mumbo jumbo and explaining why yes or no, for me at least, gets to be a pain.

Can you put Difficult to Dispel on a Blast to reduce the effect of damage negation on the Blast?

Re: Request for comments: Replacement for Find Weakness

The big problem with FW originally wasn't the cutting a defense in half, but rather cutting the defense by more than half. Allow AP to cut defenses in half more than once would just generate the same problem FW had.

Using AP to simulate FW was also problematic in that in a martial arts/spy campaign, in order to stop a FW karate chop, one would have to hardened their PD which in turn would make them not take body from AP stilletos or AP bullets unless you begin limiting the advantage or give them hardened resistant defense only vs HTH killing attacks, not versus weapons, etc.

To me this is a more simple and elegant solution, though I don't know if its game balanced well. In my mind, it should be, but I may be too close to the idea.

BTW: I'm probably gonna change the term Find Vulnerability to Find Opening.

Re: Another view of Damage Negation (6e)

I was thinking the same thing about damage negation as combat luck as I dozed off to sleep last night. Its best use to me seems to be as immunity to a special effect or combat luck. I still think its too highly abusable and cheap, especially the higher power the campaign gets (say a 20d6 campaign with 55 def and 6d6 Negation).

As a defense for NNDs, AVAD against a uncommon defense, I think those advantages have their own defenses and its not really broken.

As a solution to the stun lottery, I think this doesn't really fix that. people will pile on advantage after advantage such that 1 DC (5 active) won't make too much a dent in the power. A better solution would be to remove the stun die and set a standard x3 stun multiple for the killing attack. I've run and played in games like this and it works well.

I've been tossing around an idea for a replacement to find weakness and given so far as I have read, find weakness is gone from 6th ed. I might introduce my version into my 6e games.

Lack of Weakness is 1 pt per point and is valid versus all find powers.

Find Weakness still costs 10 pts for an 11-, +10 for group, and +10 for all.

A new find power, Find Vulnerability, costs the same as find weakness.

Find Weakness, when found, adds +2 DC. Each successful find weakness adds another +2 DC. A failed find weakness roll prevents all further find weakness attempts in that combat. Each successive find weakness roll is at a -2 cumulative.

Find Vulnerability, when found, add +1 to OCV vs that target. Each successful find vulnerability adds another +1 OCV. A failed find vulnerability roll prevents all further find vulnerability attempts in that combat. Each successive find vulnerability roll is at a -2 cumulative.

In heroic games, the finds should be capped at 2 successful rolls.

I am looking at comments of on play balance, cost, and effect in combat.

Re: Another view of Damage Negation (6e)

Just glancing over the arguments and thought I'd put in my $0.02.

I'll play out the version of damage negation before I end up going one way or another but I am leaning towards banning it.

A lot of the arguments state "in order to make a brick immune to bullets". As has been pointed out earlier, to make a person immune to bullets you would pay for say 9 levels of damage negation and attach a immune to bullets limitation -1/4 for 36 points. In the same vein though, you could use the same amount of points with Stun Only limitation (-1/2) and get 63 points of PD. A brick with 27 or more points of PD, not uncommon in a 12d6 game would be immune in either case.

The problem is its too effective without the limitation on what its used against. Just a little damage negation can upset the balance of the game.

Say you have someone who has standard PD/ED for your game and then tosses on 6 dice of damage negation which costs no end, is persistent and takes off dice before they roll. I know in my games, the range in damages is about 6 dice. Just 30 points in damage negation would make any single character just about immune to the damage level of the game. A 12d6 normal attack against PD would average about 42 stun while a 6d6 normal attack would do 21 stun. In most cases, that 30 points can easily be reduced with things like costs end, non-persistant, and linked to a force field.

I would have been happier if it only applied to a single special effect by default and increased in cost the more effects it applied to, much like the way aid works.

Again, this is just my $0.02.

With the standard clauses*

I noticed find weakness was removed from the game but haven't yet seen a replacement for it. Is there a replacement for it?

*Standard Clause: I am reading the 6e books as fast as I am able given the amount of pages and lack of time. Please forgive me if there is a clarifying section farther ahead.

With the standard clauses*

As I understand what I've read so far on Deflection and Blocking Ranged, deflection just allows you to deflect anything at range and what was originally missle deflection now anyone can do, albeit at a severe penalty.

1) Can you add No Range Mod. to Deflect to remove the range penalties? I am assuming yes as this was possible in 5th.

2) I assume that if you are using the Deflect power that you are not considered unarmed. Just making sure.

3) Can you add Area of Effect Accurate to the Deflect to make it easier to deflect? IE, change their OCV down to 3. As an example, say I have a rather large star spangled shield I toss between the target and the attacker rather than trying to deflect the attack with say a purple arrow.

4) Is there a chart or better guideline to blocking ranged while unarmed? It just states -4 OCV to block min. while unarmed. I guess I have a hard time envisioning that especially for thrown items. Too many Kung Fu shows where the monk blocks thrown spears/arrows with ease, or a football player intercepts a pass (which to me seems like a block and would be at -6 OCV, something few NFL players could do).

*Standard Clause: I am reading the 6e books as fast as I am able given the amount of pages and lack of time. Please forgive me if there is a clarifying section farther ahead.

With the standard clauses*

On pg 156 6e1, under endurance, it goes over if a character want his non-combat movement to cost 0 end, they need to make both combat and non-combat cost 0 end. Is the reverse true? Say I want to make a Speedster, Warpfactor, that has to spend more end when he attempts to go into non-combat speed? How would that play out?

*Standard Clause: I am reading the 6e books as fast as I am able given the amount of pages and lack of time. Please forgive me if there is a clarifying section farther ahead.

on 6e1 pg 150: Darkmind uses EGO vs Firelord's DEX to determine trip sheet placement. I didn't see where it was mentioned earlier, but I know this is an optional rule to use EGO vs DEX with mentalists. If I were new to the game, I would probably get tripped up by this. Just thought I'd make the observation/confirmation that that's what's going on.

Sorry if I have this wrong, I have a few minutes at work so I am looking at your responses to my questions. One of the last things I read last night from 6e1 is that for defenses to be hardened or impenetrable, that the entire defense needs to be bought with hardened or impenetrable. I remember thinking, huh?

Are you talking about just a single power like resistant defenses or a PC's entire defenses? IE: I can have a fully hardened force field but not hardened body armor and still get the benefits. I've been GMing 5th this way and think this applies in 6th but the wording seems to be that all of your defense needs to be hardened or impenetrable or its not at all.

Which is correct?

Pg 142 6e1: