RDU Neil

Oh yeah, good point. Wasn't thinking of that, more in the mindset of hth, but of course. So making it a more general rule would be taking something away from EBs (which I'm loathe to do, as they are the most inefficient form of attack in the game), but in general is not a broken concept.

Totally get where you are going with this... I've just had way more success with this as Step 2, rather than Step 1. Get a game or two under their belts with a pre-gen, hand-over character. Some players immediately start to grok it and want to build their own... others may never want to... they stick to "I want a character who basically does X & Y... and feel this way and that... and..." and then I build it.

I like this idea... doing something the opposite of using CSLs to increase damage... you can drop a DC to give you CSLs... on vs. block, or just pure OCV bonus? Is there something broken here? To say, "You can sacrifice a DC for +1 OCV? Getting +2 to hit for a single does seem broken... where as sacrificing +2 OCV for 1 DC has been fine in play for years. I think whatever you are sacrificing should be higher value than what you get, because it is the flexibility in the moment you are paying for. Does anyone here see a huge, potentially exploitable, broh-ken aspect to allowing this? I don't, but the math guys might see something.

When it comes to OCV/DCV... I still think it is possible to start out. "You want to roll low for hitting... high for damage." Done. They roll, you tell them if they hit or succeeded. Funny how "Stealth is 14 or less" never seems to cause problems, but rolling low to hit is a nightmare. Then, if they want to know "How does it work?" then you can say something like. "Because we use 3d6, 11 is the median score you are likely to roll... So 11 is base and add your OCV you have your Attack number. Write that down. Now, going forward simply subtract what you roll and that tells you the Defense number you hit. So a low roll... subtracting less... leaves you with a higher remainder." But do NOT say all this unless they ask, and only do it outside the game. I've played with plenty of people who are happy with "I rolled X... did I hit?" and are ok with nothing more than that for years of gaming. They are ok with maneuvers, too... because they get the basics... "This maneuver means more damage, or puts the guy on his back, but there are penalties to hit... this other maneuver gives me bonuses to hit, but lower damage... etc." That intuitive stuff comes quickly, as long as it isn't buried in formulas and numbers... at least in my experience. Also, it has been said several times here (myself, Killer Shrike, Deglar) that I don't want it to get lost... I really REALLY think the best way for newbies is to "Just describe what you want to do... and then I'll talk about the rule that best captures that maneuver. You'll catch on to what the rules are doing as we use them." And do the same yourself as GM. "The bandit sees you draw you sword and is attempting to slam his shield down on your sword arm. Basically he is trying to knock the sword out of your hand rather than really do damage, so this is a Disarm maneuver, which some characters have. If he hits, instead of doing damage he gets a bonus to his STR vs. STR roll to knock your sword away." That should lead to things like, "I don't have Disarm... can I do that?" and "Yes, you can try, but since you are untrained, it will be harder to do. It defaults to a Grab roll then STR vs. STR without bonuses." (the idea that most answers to "Can I try that maneuver?" in HERO is "Yes... you just might not be very good at it based on your skills, etc." And hopefully this leads to, "Can my character learn Disarm?" and now we off and running. "Absolutely... that kind of thing is exactly what EXP is for. Your characters learn new skills and maneuvers and knowledge, especially in cases like this where there is good reason for him to train/learn this maneuver." Story and description first... make it cool... then bring in the rules. Personally, I often try to emphasize that I prefer "the rules to be invisible." I much prefer a dramatic, descriptive statement than looking in the rule book. "As you play, you'll learn a lot of the basics and start to realize when certain maneuvers are better than others, but the rules should never over-rule what is dramatically appropriate." That might not be your play style, but I certainly emphasize it in mine and have found new players tend to respond to that well.

whoa... I always pictured MODOK as like over a story tall... all in the head. I swear there are scenes where Cap is like half the size of MODOK... not that he is a fat head that could sit in an office chair. Larger MODOK is weird, but tiny MODOK is just gross.

The fact that you even noticed this indicates we are from two VERY different planets.

Because it belongs here as well...

He is indeed! And like his movie role, he is a total nerd who loves games and minis and all that!

You were in tech, not Medieval History... but maybe you had classes with a friend of mine. Ilan Mitchel-Smith taught at San Angelo. We used to play on online Champs and joked about it.

Us... the new movie by Jordan Peele. Excellent, creepy, hilarious and thematically deep... best of all, doesn't bother to explain itself, just asks some hard questions and leaves you wondering. Makes me look forward to his new Twilight Zone reboot.

Was this a deliberate mis-spelling or have the Kree adopted a new logo?

This brings back memories. In my campaign, I figured out, based on the old map, exactly where in California fit the local geography of San Angelo, and placed it there... somewhat mid-way between LA and San Fran. It was considered a sleepy little burg compared to the other big cities, but had a growing metahuman population... then the cataclysm hit. LA was wiped off the map, and millions of refugees ended up in San Angelo and its supers became famous for trying to build new infrastructure, treading the line between a city falling into chaos of tent cities and factionalism, or becoming a city of the future using advanced technology and superpowers to create something new. A decade later, the final Grand Tekken was being held in San Angelo, as the worlds greatest martial masters gathered to fight for the power of the Black Dragon. We never learned the results, because the alien invasion that lasted another decade and wiped out three quarters of the world population took place... and we've never returned to San Angelo in the campaign. Now you've got me wondering... what DID become of that city? There was at least one future timeline explored in the decades of game play where the entire planet was a wilderness, except for one, shining city... The City... where the "Raised" lived... a civilization, the last civilization, of metahumans... maybe... maybe...

Truth... the bridge fight is the best thing Marvel has ever done.

This is a very logical, by the book build. It addresses just about everything except "can feel things as passes through them" which I would say Indirect STR could easily be considered to encapsulate, since STR is the stat that embodies the touch sense for the most part... but whatever. Here is my only issue... How often does a character get put in cuffs or wrist restraints, etc? I mean... in 30 plus years, I'm trying to think of a single scenario in a supers game, where this happened. Is 25 points vs. 3-4 for a simple advantage, really worth it for that "maybe, one in a great while, this might be extra useful" in actual play? I feel not. Now... can Ghost Limb help to escape grabs? As described, I'd say not except in a fun, "The Grabber is suddenly freaked out by your hand sticking through his arm and let's go!" scene... but as soon as Grabber realized no harm done, he grabs again and ghost limb doesn't help. IF Ghost Limb would actually provide bonuses to escaping Grabs... THEN you are in the realm of serious game effectiveness and the extra cost for Desol is much more reasonable.

Civil War, Ragnarok and Spider-Man were quite good. Infinity War was a let down. Ragnarok managed some real, rock-em-sock em stuff that was the right level of over-the-top... while Spider-Man and Civil War do stand up well (but in most cases, that is because they do more traditional fight scenes "turned up a notch" i.e. the stairwell fight scene or the tunnel car motorcycle chase scene, which are both genius). Infinity War and Captain Marvel were major let-downs. Too CGI and plastic an lacking any grounding.

Yes, yes and yes. I've found that Marvel has really dropped considerably since Avengers (the first movie) in doing super-strength well. Every blow from Thanos and the hulk should have had concussive blasts knocking others around. Every shot should have been an area effect attack to those around it. They've turned so many "super punches" into regular punches that just happen to hurt tough guys. The whole fight vs. Thanos on Titan was the same. It felt like Thanos was just some big, brawny lug. One of the best ways to show real power, is that the side-effects of that power are practically attacks in and of themselves, and that normal stuff gets casually trashed as a by-product. They just don't do that well any more... where like Ant-Man and the Wasp did it better than Infinity War or Captain Marvel. (The photon blast vs. juke box really pissed me off... 1) she first a photon blast that clearly has impact mass and heat about six inches from Fury and it doesn't scorch or singe him, but has enough impact to cave in the machine... oh, and 2) they just casually laugh off blowing up the juke box and no one takes issue with it? A separate problem, but exactly the kind of stupid show-off scene that Marvel has never stooped to, but for some reason decided taking Captain Marvel back 20 plus years in terms of action movie sophistication was thought to be a good idea.)

This is the classic example of HERO in headache mode. Something that is simple in concept and basically more flavor than functional is going to require complex over-engineering to make possible. Old school... go with STR, Indirect, call it good... which would handle 99% of all actual game play uses. currently... some kind of frankenstein MP for an astronomical cost and wast of time over-engineering it. Or... go new school with old school... it is STR with a Custom Advantage: Ghost Limb... and come up with what you think your description... "Extremity is sometimes a bit out of phase with the real world. Like if he's gesturing broadly, his fingertips might pass through a desk or a wall but so quickly that the people he's talking to aren't quite sure if they actually saw what they saw. In game terms, the extremity can reach an arm (or another limb) through something and manipulate things on the other side with X STR. Character can do stuff like open a locked door or window, flip on the lights, adjust the display inside a jewelry case, feel what's in someone's pockets, feel what's inside a lock-box, drop candy from a vending machine without paying for it, pick up a piece of paper on a desk and bring it close to the window to read, etc. Anything you could do with your arm or leg, he can do with whatever length of limb the character has stuck through to the other side. He can't see through the barrier unless the barrier is normally transparent. If someone grabs his arm while it's pushed through something, he can only exert X STR when trying to pull his arm back through. The arm physically exists in the intervening space so if, for example, he accidentally pushes his arm into the power cable going to a light switch, he could electrocute himself. And he can feel the difference between various substances so he can feel the difference between empty space, studs, nails, Sheetrock, etc. when sticking his hands through a wall."... is worth. So... how much is that worth? It really comes down to "Can't bypass defenses, but could bypass barriers with attacks. Can bypass barriers to manipulate objects on the other side." I guess my only question comes down to the consistency of your description. 1. I'm not sure why it would hurt the guy if he pushed his hand through a power cable, but doesn't hurt going through a wall of razor glass? Just seems odd, unless you are say, "Ghost limb can't pass though energy or energy barriers" which is cool. Just include that. 2. If someone grabs it, why can't he just ghost away and pull back? Clearly no one could grab his hand while ghosting through the wall, and he has to "unghost" the hand to manipulate things, but pulling it back he'd have to ghost it again... so why can't he just "reghost" his hand if someone grabs it? Work those two kinks out and Me... I'd rule +3/4... it is more than just indirect, but less than double the STR cost. Seems fair... good to go. I honestly think HERO works WAY better in cases where, instead of over-engineering a bunch of effects into a gross kludge, you just come up with a ruling and base the cost on comparison of value to what is already defined.

THIS! I mean... MCU movies have been this smart in the past. They've had writers who understood that even a small measure of subtlety and misdirection can turn something simplistic into something resonant. You can take a scene and layer it... the surface layer of what is happening, the 4th wall layer of what the audience sees that the characters don't, the subtext layer of what it thematically represents... hell the inuendo or double meaning layer, where a joke for the kids means something else for the adults... whatever... there are so many ways good writers can create depth in a film... ... and Capt. Marvel hand none of them. It existed entirely in the literal surface layer. This is what I meant by "dumbed down".

Because "to hit" in HERO is a defined matter of OCV vs. DCV or OCV vs. OCV... not a matter of skill roll modifiers. If I'm supposed to be adding modifiers to the OCV vs. OCV of a Missile Deflect effectively I'm saying "Has X OCV to hit, but X+Y OCV for avoiding block" which has NEVER been how Block is defined. You never say, "You are going to Block? Ok... roll to hit an 19 OCV?" And the players are like, "He has a 19 OCV?" and you reply, "Oh, no, he has an 8 OCV, but I'm giving him +11 vs. being blocked because his fist is really small and fast and hard to see... oh, and do you have gauntlets on, 'cause you can't block unless you have gauntlets on"... ... that would never be the case with Block... but that is exactly how Missile Deflect is being handled now, in an attempt to make it "more consistent"with Block. If one PC is going to have difficulty blocking an opponent, it isn't a matter of situational modifiers... it is because that opponent has a much better OCV. yes... environmental modifiers can occur, but they are minor changes and/or not often called into play. With Missile Deflect the way it is, you are saying that every use of it requires massive environmental modifiers that don't apply elsewhere. Now this raises the question: "Well, if those modifiers apply to Missile Deflect, what about when the martial artist just blocks Zippy the Shrinking Man who flies really fast and does a lot of move-throughs... he is small and hard to see and moves fast... shouldn't the Block have massive modifiers?" And now you are in dangerous territory, because you applied "realistic modifiers" that essentially, to be fair, just gave the shrinking and flying guy a bunch of OCV bonuses for free, which is definitely not the intent of the game. At minimum you've opened the door to the GM being expected to apply environmental and other modifiers to every single "to hit" scenario, some subtle and some massive in their effect on resolution. There is a whole can of worms opened with this. Let's look at it from the POV of a character who is a superhero type who SHOULD be able to Missile Deflect with relative ease. In the past, Ninja-Star only needed to buy the level of Deflect that she felt appropriate... then in those situations, she gets a straight up OCV vs. OCV roll. Simple. Under 6th, Ninja-Star has to say, "Hey, GM... what is the max possible minuses you'd give me to deflect arrows, missiles, bullets..." and assuming the GM could provide an answer, she'd have to buy Skill Levels enough to offset the max possible penalties in order to make her character concept work? And she HAS to have a focus of some sort now? Again, by saying it is "realistic" to allow it for everyone, you are by default making what used to be a simple, very common superheroic ability much more difficult and crunchy and arbitrary.

I said "shieldless fighters" so read the damn post. Nothing I'm saying has anything to do with the use of shields. I covered that above. You are putting words in my mouth about what I want or not. And the realism argument is the worst. You are suddenly going to say Joe Schmoe has an improbably chance, but should get that chance... when a) the worst odds Joe Schmoe has are 1 in 216 which is unrealistically high... and b) you ignore other "realisms" for the sake of one very improbably realism... i.e. the realism of "even if he did get his hand in the way, it would still likely blow through, or it was too fast, big, heavy to stop, etc." By assuming one "realism" of "he should have a chance" you've opened up the glaring unrealism of it all, which again defeats the axiomatic action adventure basis here. It would be much easier to do as I said above, have certain itesm (shields, whatever)... grant Joe Schmoe the base level of Missile Deflection... because that's what a shield was for. If Joe doens't have WF: Shield, he is at -3 to do it. Just like a tennis racket grants Missile Deflection/Reflection, only vs. tennis ball like objects... and requires a Weapon Fam: Tennis Racket or at -3 to attempt. hell... there are so many better ways to use already existing mechanics in 4th Ed to exemplify what you want to simulate... the new ruling just made it way more complex and variable and subject to arbitrary decisions.

I'm not pining for 'effing charts, I'm saying that the game should not require a GM to have to consider special modifiers or special ephemera (do you have a silver platter) whenever an "everyman" maneuver is used. I don't want Rolemaster or Aftermath! or any of that. With Block it is just an OCV vs. OCV deal. Suddenly with Missile Deflect the GM has to adjudicate modifiers based on the attack, the scenario and ephemera in play for what is supposedly an "everyman" maneuver that otherwise had a nice, simple, grokkable rule set in place but was just chucked for... whatever. It is pure bad design to take out something that worked and adjudicated success in a simple way, and replace it with "GM judgment, you make it up" no matter how detailed or seat-of-the-pants that judgment is.

But here again... look at the source material that is axiomatic to HERO. You don't see every grunt on the field knocking arrows out of the air, let alone trying. You never see the shieldless fighters under a hail of arrow waving their swords around trying to swat them aside. The only ones who do it are the big, badass named characters WHO PAID POINTS FOR THE ABILITY because that is what sets them apart. Right... and now we have all these caveats that don't apply elsewhere, because making this seemingly "consistent" change opens up a huge can of worms. The new ruling doesn't match source material, it doesn't match reality and it makes play more complicated and GMing more difficult. Pure... bad... design.

Yes, but the game doesn't provide me with a rule/mechanic when it used to, and that is crap design for a system created to simulate action adventure. And again... I'm supposed to do all the work to come up with a massive chart that calculates, speed, size, angle of attack, etc., so that I can use it for every ranged attack? Now that is utter crap, and such a set of calculations should be created and provided with such a system expectation, not expected to be part of a GMs prep. If they want to go this route then they have to do a lot more of the work... and any chart of size/velocity/angle of attack should be applicable to ALL attacks, not just ranged (a fist at your face is really only different from a bullet at your face in that it is usually slower and more obvious)... I mean... do we now have to calculate the velocity times mass for all attacks in order to resolve them? This is just ridiculous. What if there was a simple chart that broke down the basic categories of likely attack that were progressively more and more difficult to deflect... you know... LIKE THE ONE THAT USED TO BE IN THE GAME! This whole deal is just one of the clearest examples of the mindset that tossed out playability for that of intricate thought problem consistency. The simple fact is that everyone grokked "block as everyman skill" and they also grokked "missile deflect as special ability" without any consternation. It only became an issue with the over-thinking/over-engineering of later editions. (Heck, if you want to over-engineer, I'd much prefer if they took out Block as an everyman ability. Anyone with even a passing partaking of hand-to-hand combat (sport or real) knows that most "blocks" are really just "taking the shot on a less vulnerable location, like the forearm or shoulder, and a real 'block' tends to be punching/kicking away an attack, thus you have to be able to move/hurt that attack for it to work. Make block a graduated skill/ability similar to 4th Ed Missile Deflection. Level 1 - block any barehanded attack of the same relative STR, speed and size or less, Level 2 - block hand attacks up to twice the STR, speed and size, Level 3 - Block up to 5x STR, Level 4 - block all Hth... whatever. That would be way better than current standing. )

The Thing isn't missile deflecting, he is creating a barrier out of the environment. In almost every example, the beam is one of those "constant attacks" that has already struck, and he is pulling up the ground to put a barrier in between him and it. In no way does Ben see the energy blast coming and THEN bend over, rip up the road, and somehow get it in front of the beam before it ever reaches him. Ben doesn't have Missile Deflection, he is either "just using the environment" like picking up a bus to hit someone doesn't require special powers on the sheet... more maybe Ben's player does have a "Strength Tricks" power pool that allows for impromptu Barrier use. Either way, this isn't Missile Deflection. You've obviously never played competitive doubles. This argument makes no sense. By this standard, Aunt May could also roll a 3 and Missile Deflect Cyclop's Eye-beams. Giving every character missile deflection by default only exacerbates this problem.