dsatow

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: a character cannot use STR bought as a slot in one Power Framework (or the STR obtained from Density Increase or Growth bought as a slot) to add damage to an HA or HKA bought as a slot in the same or another Power Framework. 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) 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: Cumulative: Characters should not apply Cumulative to Adjustment Powers that increase a Power or Characteristic (such as Aid or Absorption), since they have their own rules for how many Character Points they can add to a particular Characteristic or Power and how and at what rate they’re added. They can apply Cumulative to Adjustment Powers that decrease a Power or Characteristic (such as Drain). Pg 328 6e1: Characters cannot apply Cumulative to Powers whose primary purpose is to cause STUN and/or BODY damage (or the like), such as Blasts, Drains, and KAs. The damage caused by such Powers is, in essence, already “cumulative.”

Say you have a multipower with a 60 point pool and 4 u slots which are 60 active. Draino, the villain, drains the 4 slots down to 30. Can the hero then use 2 of the slots at the same time or are they still treated as having 60 active for purposes of the framework. I didn't see that in the rules I have read so far nor my scanning ahead.

On pg 137 6e1, For negative Adjustment Powers, each one affects a character separately for purposes of determining when the character recovers lost points — they don’t all lump together. Regardless of whether, for example, two Drains come from a single or multiple attackers, track each use of Drain separately. The character recovers 5 points per Turn from each Drain separately either in Post-Segment 12 (standard method) or 12 Segments after a given Drain affected him (optional method). I am assuming this means that if a person is hit by two drains, each drain is tracked separately. 1) If a person is hit by a continuing drain, does this count as one drain or multiple drains? 2) If a person is hit by an autofire drain, does this count as one drain or multiple drains? 3) What if you combine autofire and constant on a drain? 4) If a person can heal multiple drained abilities at one time, do they heal each multiple drain? As in the cases of 1, 2, and 3. I apologize if this has been answered in the books somewhere, they're a fairly long read and I am only up to pg 137 (with some searches for relevant topics ahead).

Am I correct in understanding that given a 1 pip HtH KA, a brick with a 45 strength can power that up to a 3d6+1 HtH KA?

On page 135 of 6e1, Adjustment Powers applied against Defense Powers and some related defensive abilities (including the Characteristics CON, DCV, DMCV, PD, ED, REC, END, BODY, and STUN) have only half effect. See 6E1 141 for more information. But on page 232 the example is wrong both in how the math adds up for Brother Willem and according to pg 135. Example: Brother Herbert has a Healing BODY 2d6 spell (maximum effect 12 points, or 6 BODY:confused:). Brother Willem has a Healing BODY 2d6 spell, Decreased Re-Use Duration (1 Turn) (again, maximum effect 12 points, or 12 BODY:eek:). Their friend Artorius the Bold has been badly injured in battle, suffering 8 BODY worth of wounds. In Turn 1, they both decide to try to Heal Artorius. Herbert acts in Segment 3 and rolls 4 (thus Healing 4 BODY). On his Phase in Segment 4, Willem tries to Heal Artorius as well. Willem has to roll more than 4 on his 2d6 to Heal Artorius further, and can only Heal him to the extent his roll exceeds 4. However, whereas Herbert has to wait 1 Day before he can apply Healing without being subject to the maximum effect rules, Willem only has to wait until Segment 4 of Turn 2 (one Turn later). At that time he can apply his Healing power anew, regardless of what he, Herbert, or any other healers did in the intervening time. So the questions are 1) Is healing exempt from the statement on page 135? 2) Is Brother Willem's or Brother Herbert's math correct? 3) Why isn't there a woodchuck write up?

If you have Strength with Var. Adv +1/2 and martial arts, I understand that you can apply an advantage to your strength and respectively apply the advantage to the martial art. EX: If a martial punch is normally 9d6, you could make it a 6d6 AP martial punch. Can you apply this to things like say Killing Attack (by increasing the stun mod), or grabs (by making them teleport proof)?

OK, I have a player who built an explosion with the following as an example (not actual build). 1.5d6 RKA explosion (+1/2) +4 Stun(+1) By the rules, explosion drops off 1 DC or 5 active per 1" from center discounting the explosion advantage. Because of the stacking of advantages, this means he effectively doesn't lose 1 DC per 1" but rather 1 DC per 2". Is this correct?