Greg

Re: pulp hero over opinions? I do a lot of Photoshop work and it looks like someone just found the text transformation tool for the "Pulp Hero" logo. As far as the art goes I don't care for it, but looking at Grigni's site I like his black&white art so I think it may just be the digital coloring that's just not evoking the pulp feel for me.

Re: Tmnt Kevin Eastman says one of the reasons he and the Laird parted ways is that he (Eastman) wanted the comics dark where Laird liked the lighter/zany side of the series. Looking through some of the TMNT books I have it looks like they do pretty standard super hero stuff in most of the adventures as well as the graphic novel I have. Standard fair is crazy scientists and their crazy inventions (robotic mousers), dealing with street vigilantes (Casey Jones), various other mutants, and of course the Foot. If nothing else there's a TMNT Adventures! book that has 5 or so different missions in it. Though it specifically says any one of them could be used with a non-mutant super group as well so think along the lines of low-mid level supers adventures.

Re: Tmnt I have the Palladium game and have played once. The basic rule of thumb is that as an animal becomes more human it would loses its defining characteristics (size, strength, speed, etc) and gains intelligence, manual dexterity and so on. Even as a "perfect human" they would usually have some extra power over a normal person with only some small aspect of their original form. The RPG didn't necessarily focus on the ninja aspect so much as the mutant parts.

Re: New HG book concept - opinions requested You can follow the model that WoTC uses and have FH sidekick possess attribute generation, list of skills, class templates and spells. Add in the sidekick chapter on combat and that's all a player should need. Monsters can be in a seperate book like they are in D&D. If a standard fantasy game is 75+75, no knockback, blah blah NCM then there's an all in one game for a player and the GM can buy whatever he wants to tweak the game. Unlike D&D and nearly every other game there's no secret to creating additional feats or increasing/decreasing power level as it's all done with points. Maybe include a downloadable PDF that has how all the pre-made powers are built so you don't scare off a player with forumulae. That's a condensed version of what my players have asked for when I've proposed FH in the past.

Re: Lack of Fully Developed Worlds I'm going to have to agree with MitchellS. I wonder how many people here are primarlily GMs and not players. The Player's Handbook is WoTCs best-seller not the DMs guide. What does Hero have to sell to players beyond generic Ultimate books that are really geared towards the GM. I have 4 players in my group, none of which have bought any Hero stuff yet. They bought Exalted stuff when we played Exalted and they bought D&D and Rifts stuff in the past. I honestly don't know what book I'd recommend to them besides Sidekick. Hero books aren't known for their artwork or cool settings (classes, races, weapons) so there's not much there for a player to look over and get inspired. I will say that I picked up my first 4th edition supplement last weekend which was basically the Hero knock-off of X-Men (don't remember the name) and that has inspired me to play Champions more than anything else.

Re: Two-Weapon Fighting and Ambidexterity 2-weapon fighting is built using ambidexterity so you'd probably need to reverse engineer it a bit to refund some points. On the other hand, 2-weapon fighting is better than straight ambidexterity and sweep PSLs because even if you miss with your main weapon you'd still be able to follow-up with your off-hand one. You're also not at half DCV.

Re: The Ultimate Steve Long Be sure to include PsyLim: Refers to self in third person http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=34398

Re: Is Power Girl/Kara Starr the DCUs Gladiator? I suppose we're derailed a little, but whereas I don't know anything about PowerGirl I've read pretty much every Superman/boy/Action Comic from 10c to 12c. In the 60s, Superman could pull strings of moons or move the earth while looking like he was standing on his hands. He was definately effected by red suns since there's a fairly famous cover showing him boxing Lex Luthor on a red sun planet. He used to hover all the time so definately wasn't leaping. As well as doing circles around the perimeter of the solar system for part of a charity event. People from Krypton got powers on Earth, but definately didn't have powers on their own planet. There were several what-ifs where Superman ended back up on Krypton for various reasons. There were also issues where Superboy used a machine to help remember his younger life on Krypton. (he has a photographic memory, but exposure to green kryptonite had caused holes) I didn't read any Superman from after mid-60s or so (when my dad stopped collecting) till sometime in the mid-80s when I read the issue where the two concurrent Supermen were revealed. They showed that the new one didn't have invulnerable clothing, couldn't travel in time (which old Superman/Flash did all the time) and couldn't move planets. I've not sure what the other variation of Superman that other people are mentioning unless the 70s completely changed the way he was without any explanation for it.

Re: Nethack Hero Sorry, I knew what you were asking and ended up derailing your thread. Here's a list of the Amulet of Yendor's powers: * You get clairvoyance, if it is not blocked. * When casting spells, your energy is drained. * Hunger is increased (additional to normal amulet hunger). * Your luck timeout is increased. * Monster difficulty will depend on your deepest level reached, not * your current dungeon level. * Monsters are less likely to be generated asleep. * When going up levels in Gehennom, you may teleport down 0 to 3 levels instead. The chance depends on your alignment: UP L N C +1 75.0% 75.0% 75.0% 0 6.25 8.33 12.5 -1 6.25 8.33 12.5 -2 6.25 8.33 0.0 -3 6.25 0.0 0.0 * You cannot level teleport. * Teleportation within the level is blocked 1/3 of the time. * The Wizard can teleport or level teleport to find you. * The Wizard will try to steal the Amulet. * You are permitted to enter the Plane of Earth by taking the upstairs, or quaffing a cursed potion of gain level, from dungeon level 1. * You can activate the endgame portals. * When worn or wielded, you get messages about the amulet getting "hotter" as you approach the magic portals. No message when putting on. Cannot be eaten. (Would you sacrifice yourself, then?) To be honest that doesn't look too handy since most of those are bad. I've played Moria, Angband and Rogue and they're meant to be knock-offs of D&D. Many of the mechanics of the amulet are intrinsic to the game so it'd be tough to convert over. I'd probably use the Valdorian Age as a base then use a mana style magic system. Everybody gets a low point sidekick to start. How would you simulate the ability to use a hex editor to modify your guy's stats?

Re: Nethack Hero Isn't Nethack open source? I think it'd be cool to have the D&D ruleset replaced with Hero. I toyed around with it on a MUD a couple years ago.

Re: A new take on "Deadly Blow" My one player who has taken it so far essentially took "spear master" and can use it only with spears, paticularly the specific style of spear he uses for his martial arst (can't remember the name). It sounds like it'd still be built with OIF since he could use any spear of that style whereas the spear itself is OAF in reference to itself.

Re: A new take on "Deadly Blow" I just thought of another question that maybe someone could answer. Is there a reason Deadly Blow is built as an OIF instead of an OAF. Being that swords, etc... are all built as OAFs.

Re: A new take on "Deadly Blow" Good to know. I had already had a player buy a 1DC "Deadly Blow" sort of like what's mentioned above. I might let some other people do the same and just limit it to 1DC. I thought about letting everyone buy up to 1D6, but all that'll effectively do is up the power level of the game 3DCs.

Re: A new take on "Deadly Blow" Sorry to dig this up from the grave, particularly if there's a more recent topic on the matter. The one thing that I'm really finding to be unbalancing with Deadly Blow is that a character could spend 7 points to give them +1d6 killing with their martial arts whereas they'd have to spend 24 points to get +1d6 killing by the "default" method of paying 4 points to add +1DC to a martial arts. Is there something else I'm missing to somehow make the latter even remotely appealing to a player? Obviously I could just forbid Deadly Blow, but I want to make sure I'm not missing something else.

Re: Art for my Friends of Justice Pulp Hero Convention Game I'd go with number 3 and add a sepia tone to it. By the way, is that Doc Justice's gentleman's gentleman/bodyguard?

Re: ??? The basic concept behind Mega Damage for me is that: 1. it's a defining concept of Rifts (over the top) 2. mechanically, characters with MDC traits are essentially untouchable by SDC beings/items I was running a bunch of numbers last night, remembering now why I did so poorly in math, and figured the easiest HERO representation for MDC was simply making armor hardened x2 and weapons AP x2. This made non-mega damage weapons basically worthless unless they just did tons of damage. At the same time I didn't have to add any new rules or anything though for flavor you could just call it a +1 advantage called MDC. I did find one odd thing, Palladium characters are very physically weak compared to HERO characters. In Rifts, a normal human might max out around 22 strength and can lift 100kg whereas a HERO man around 20 can lift 400kg. There are lots of other things that aren't worth preserving like human/robotic/supernatural strength, but I did find because of HERO's geometric strength progression Rift heroes would generally top around 16 strength, robots start around 20 and supernatural start around 24 which is much more logical then having Rifts three different strength charts. Anyways, sort of in response to the message above in my own conversion I want to transfer the overall power level while using all the superior HERO mechanics.

Re: Rifts HERO If this is in response to me, then let me reassure you that there are books that even I won't purchase as that's the most glowing review I've seen for that series. However, there are certain unnamed members of my group that have every single Rifts book published (minus a couple Rifters). I just have an unhealthy obsession with picking up new settings and spending money at Half Price Books.

Re: Rifts HERO If you have a 1/2 Price Books nearby they always seem to have the Rifts book and a couple World Books. The main book is usually around $8. I found a bunch of World Books in clearance one day and bought 4 for $1 a piece. If you're an RPG collector fair warning that there's a "crack" factor in that every book usually has one really cool OCC and each book tries to one up the previous one on power factor. I'd definately check out Wormwood and Splicers though for alternate settings. Basically Rifts in alternate realities. I'm just starting on converting Splicers to HERO.

Re: Experience with Narosia I've played in 3 Narosia games to date via Gencon and am totally in agreement with the original poster's praise. In some other thread Mudpyr mentions you can request the playtest doocument and if you look on the website they have all the characters from the con games as well as the adventures I believe.

Here's the original message: I read through a couple messages in regards to damage, martial arts and weapons, but I just wanted to check that I wasn't missing something. My understanding is that and DCs of damage given by a martial art maneuver are halved for KA. Does this apply to all martial arts or just those that are hand-to-hand that have weapon element added in? In 5rev a Fencing Slash is listed as weapon cost:5 OCV:0 DCV:2 and weapon +2DC. Cost wise it looks like an Offensive Strike, but then the OCV would be -2. If it's a Martial Strike then the cost would be 4 and the damage bonus would be +1DC (assuming the 1/2 applies). _________ Just to narrow down what I'm asking, the sample style of fencing in the revised 5th ed. book says: Slash OCV:0 DCV:2 notes:weapon damage +2DC If this is built on Offensive Strike I would expect: OCV:-2 DCV:2 notes:weapon damage +2DC If this is built on Marial Strike I would expect: OCV:0 DCV:2 notes:weapon damage +1DC I just need to know which maneuver "Slash" is based on and then I'll have the answer to my rules question embedded in the original message. Thanks

I read through a couple messages in regards to damage, martial arts and weapons, but I just wanted to check that I wasn't missing something. My understanding is that and DCs of damage given by a martial art maneuver are halved for KA. Does this apply to all martial arts or just those that are hand-to-hand that have weapon element added in? In 5rev a Fencing Slash is listed as weapon cost:5 OCV:0 DCV:2 and weapon +2DC. Cost wise it looks like an Offensive Strike, but then the OCV would be -2. If it's a Martial Strike then the cost would be 4 and the damage bonus would be +1DC (assuming the 1/2 applies).

Re: Magic field names

Re: What now? I figured you were done with pirates after this last Gencon... Anyways, I ran my first Star Hero game last weekend and user Terran Empire to pull equipment and ran an Aliens-style game that was pretty fun. Though I did find out the hard way that an AF5 2d6 AP laser rifle will take out just about anything in 1 or 2 phases. To keep the game from being too formulaic I built the characters myself and wrote up "secret" backgrounds for each character that let the game play on 2 different levels. The obvious Aliens knock-off on one and a fairly deep space opera on another. For our next go I'm pretty tempted to look at something ala Event Horizon or to be more specific Cthulu in space. The captain of this ship is an archaeologist so I already have a perfect in.

Re: Darksword I was thinking more that Catalysts were Endurance Reserves usable by others. Since I think mages basically just drew whatever extra they wanted and Catalysts don't really actively do anything, though they can turn off the tap.

Re: Character Sheet On a similar note do you have an OO compatible version of your Narosia characters? Apparently OO doesn't allow indirect references to named cells.