Nekkidcarpenter
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Posts posted by Nekkidcarpenter
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Re: How do you encourage your players to buy more skills
How do I emphasize skill use without either having the plot drag (because the character's haven't purchased skills) or having NPC's always showing them up (because the NPC's have skills the player's don't)?And you also have the issue that you GM the players and characters you have, not necessarily the ones you want. Just finished playing in a game where there were no mystically aware characters and every other plot was some magical thing that none of the pc's had any ability to solve or a good rationale for acquiring said ability. Yet for some reason the sorceror supreme kept showing up and asking us to help. Then the npc's would talk to each other and decide what we should do.
And we weren't short on noncombat skills but none of us were magically based. Bureaucratics and Computer Programming didn't seem real useful in any of our encounters with DEMON.
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Re: Move-Through Broken?
There's still the Hero-is-hopelessly-broken-so-I'm-playing-d20 fix.I tried rolling up d20 guy recently.
I could feel my heart racing and I got short of breath and spots started appearing in front of my eyes.
Rolling up a guy. Without cool powers to design and build myself.
I had to go back on my meds.
And while I hate to make my unprovoked claims of munchkinnery across too many threads, the high powered move through can be a classic example of this.
Please note the 'can be', not automatically IS. I don't need more posts stating that I think someones beloved concept is an example of rules hacking and that I'm an idiot trying to force my views on others.
Ah, to heck with it. High powered move throughs ARE a classic example of munchkinnery.
Munchkin: Okay, I've got to buy up my Strength cause it's Strength. And then I need some increased movement cause I got to get close enough to use my Strength. And hmm.......
Wide eyed innocent pc: Hey, you know if you combine your Strength with your move you can do this thing called a 'move through'.
Munchkin reads. Eyes start to gleam, palms start to sweat. He buys his Strength and move to the campaign limits, and then a few weeks later subjects the GM to this attack.
Munchkin: I pick up a bus and run away from the fight.
GM: Uh, ok.
Munchkin: Then I turn around and accelerate to NONCOMBAT speed. I smash the bus into the bad guy. It's an AOE attack, and my 50 Strength and 50" of movement mean that its 10d6 + 16 1/2 d6..... What, is there some problem?
One of my solutions is to not allow the adding of Strength to a noncombat move through. The character is concentrating too much on moving and not enough on using his strength IMO. Sort of like the difference in a flying tackle and simply running into someone at full speed.
Also, I simply disallow attack rolls in situations where I deem there to be no reasonable chance of success.
And I'm aware that the combined Def and Body is too low to allow the munchkin to do his full damage. He still does a lot more than the 50 AP 'cap' that the campaign was supposed to have.
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Re: How do you encourage your players to buy more skills
I tend to side with those who try to encourage skill buying rather than mandating it. When a character describes his concept to you make some notes about the skills you think he should have and present them to him as a suggestion.
The same kind of suggestion the GM makes about who gets the last slice of pizza.
Encouraging continued skill buying is harder, IMO. It's particularly hard in certain groups because they think that you won't destroy your own game world just because no one in the group has Computer Programming, and of course they're right. In this case there is no Carrot or Stick, so the players tend to keep the skills they originally had without improving any.
An approach similar to Alice the Owls', and borrowing heavily from another game is to have each player choose a skill they used during the session and roll a check with it. If they fail the check, they get a point in the skill. So a 8- skill is likely to improve for free, a 14- not so much. If they didn't use any skills during the game then other people essentially get free xp and players hate that. Especially the types of players who don't buy noncombat skills.
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Re: Bricks Get Hosed, Or Not
The issue seems to me to be less about whether the rules are 'fair' to a particular concept, and more about the reason behind having the rule against non-END using powers in ECs in the first place.The rule does not bother me, but it would be nice to know why it is there.
As someone who thoroughly abused a GM who also didn't see the reason for this rule and so allowed non End using powers in EC's I would just like to say 'Damage Reduction'.
Also, Enhanced Senses. Find Weakness. Characteristics bought as Powers.
I felt so guilty about the 10 point Alien Physiology EC with +20 Int, +10 Con, etc. that I only played the guy for a year.
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Re: Rant? Speed in Hero
Why aren't you railing against supposed munchkins who buy their CON and STUN up along with their STR instead of leaving those numbers at their base levels?
Oh, I will. Coming soon.................
Rant: Con in Hero!At a forum near you.
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Re: Rant? Speed in Hero
I apologize to anyone who finds the term 'munchkin' offensive. I consider it to indicate a certain state in roleplaying when players are tweaking their cha's for maximum efficiency regardless of concept, and as such not inherently good or bad. I think that Hero games attracts such players, and that everyone here by nature falls into that category, as the constant tweaking of guys, the shaving of a point here and a point there is the essence of munchkinhood.
Who shall guard the guardians? Who but a munchkin understands and knows how to curtail the impulse to warp and twist a character till the original idea is long since gone and all that remains is a highly tweaked character sheet filled with stats ending in 3,5, and 0 and miscellaneous and obscure 1/4 limitations spread across the page?
I tend to think that it's vulnerability to munchkinnery is one of the prime things that attracted each of us to Hero over other games. If there is anyone here who hasn't felt a certain guilty thrill over realizing that due to the limitations on a power he can slip 2 more AP into it without affecting it's real cost stand up. Stand up and raise your hand. Then do a little spin and lift one leg, and shout 'Ah oo-Ga!'
I'm not saying that this is true of all players, but I think the vast majority of people on these forums fit nicely into this category. We are aware of the pitfalls that befall the lesser munchkin, and so as self appointed watchdogs (often rabid) we try to protect them from themselves. Whether they want us to or not.
In partial reply to a couple of recent posts I'm including a snippet from my original post.
I was helping someone make a character for the Champions campaign I'm starting and I had what seemed like my millionth discussion about this apparently controversial topic.
Me: Speed 6 huh? That seems high. What's your character origin again?
Player: I'm a scientist that got hit by a bolt of lightning.
Me: And you've done a lot of fighting in your life? You realize that Speed is basically a combat stat.
Player: Well, 6 Speed is easy to keep track of.
Me:
This was not a new player, and I don't have any idea where that idea came from. It's a person that I played Champions with 20 years ago. I went to his wedding, I've babysat his kid, and I've even (the true test of friendship) helped him move. And except for the time when his original character hadn't earned enough xp to buy his Speed up from 5, he's always played a 6 speed guy with varying degrees of justification.
As far as an 'artful dodger' type of character, I don't have any problems with that as a character idea. I tend to be very attentive to the execution of that idea though, as in my experience it's the favorite character concept of the munchkin. It doesn't inherently mean that you are a munchkin, unless you're posting here:).
It might also be worth noting that I didn't object to the character having a Speed 6. My objection was to his REASON for it.
No, I haven't changed my mind about a scientist hit by lightning having justification for 6 Speed. His nerve impulses traveled at the speed of ions traveling through a semi-permeable membrane before, and the most that his concept justifies IMO is a 2 Speed bump to 4.
As I said, I apologize if I offended anyone by referring to them as a munchkin. I'm sorry that they're so thinskinned and I suggest they buy a point of Mental Defense.
It's good vs. NND's too.
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Re: [Warped Game Ideas (WGI)] Psycho-powers
The equivalent to Batman has no powers: He is perfectly sane except for the whole dressing as a bat thing.
This just sounds too unrealistic for anyone to have fun in. I mean come on, Batman is sane? Who's going to believe that?
I actually think its a pretty cool idea where you'd get all sorts of interactions like you think is happening in Blade Runner. So the guy that you think is normal is trying to take down the uber guy whose time is running out, and then it turns out the first guy isn't normal either.
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Re: Rant? Speed in Hero
I personally think you're gaming experiences have taught you one way - you can't think outside that box and are the lesser gamer for it.
Damn, I know enough about debate to know that the first one to slap a narrowminded tag on the other guy usually wins.
Well uh, I think you are gaming experiences have taught you one way too!
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Re: Heroic Characteristic Maxima?
I tried to make this point a few years ago. The way the discussion went' date=' you'd have thought I was posting about wanting to hire Adolf Hitler to manage a restaurant that served up human babies.[/quote']To me, it's even funnier if you change 'human' to 'kosher'.
And besides, Hitler was just going to be the manager. So all he would do is decide which supplier to get the babies from.......
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Re: Rant? Speed in Hero
And again. It is not a problem with the system, but the published setting that ignores its own guidelines for what is within the normal human range. Also, we have plenty of people that fall within Average Joe standards for most or all other characteristics, except Speed or Dex.
This highlights one of the things that has irritated me about some of the posts (and posters) in this thread. Many people make characters that basically fall within NCM for most areas, and then buy their Dex and Speed to ridiculously high levels in comparison. Which is perfectly fine if their *ahem munchkin* GM wants to allow it. Speed and Dex escalation is the first step in understanding and subsequently abusing Hero.
But to then claim with baldfaced innocence that they did NOT buy their Dex and Speeds up in that sort of M.E. (munchkin escalation) is laughable. I personally do not care if everyone else plays with 5-23, 6-26, or 9-38 as their average Speed-Dex. I started this thread as RANT about practices like this, but rants are not by nature intended to change anything. Just to vent some frustration about perceived injustices.
To those who claim that dropping everyone's Dex and Speed down to be in line with their other characteristics would be a bad idea cause then everyone would have more points to spend on defenses, here's a novel idea: the starting point totals are ALSO just a suggestion. Drop starting point totals by 20 points and you'll find that you can have a tighter, more efficient character with all their stats appropriate to their concept. And they won't be burning Stun as often cause they run out of End.
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Re: [Character] Sister Bliss
Pretty cool character, though IME with nuns most of them would probably find it blasphemous to wear a slutty nun's habit and would be far more likely to insist on normal clothes. The habit has meaning to them, it's not a costume to be put on and taken off like a stripper would. And it's certainly not intended to provoke any prurient interest.
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Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat
Two gallons of KY Jelly and a note that reads "Thinking of you."Regifting?
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Re: CU Pondering...
Both Charm Girl and Teen Dream would think he was a spotty kid. And he would think they were awesomely hot.
'Spotty' means occasionally, intermittently in American, not pimply.
Cause we rule the friggin' World!
Please don't contradict me. I have so little............
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Re: Flying out of a moving vehicle
I used the points I got from 'Psych Lim: Compulsively Annoying' to buy my EC: Web Psychic.I took that as a Social Lim, and used the points to buy porn.
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Re: Move-Through Broken?
It almost seems like you're saying Move-throughs should do More damage?
Don't think I've ever heard that before.
Did you add up the total amount of Move Through damage your guys could do in a Turn? If your idea of their velocity damage is based on their velocity per turn then you should consider how many dice each of them throw around per 12 seconds. Your high Speed guy's not at a disadvantage then.
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Re: Rant? Speed in Hero
I mean, can't they make a character that developed superhuman strength, without saying effectively that he is also better than a gold medalist in dexterity for no reason whatsoever? That is all I mean.It's entirely game dependent, and thats the approach to character design that I advocate. As interesting as the published things are, whenever I see a published Champions game I read through character descriptions and then reassign stats based on the description not the known useful breakpoints. It takes a few more minutes but its well worth it not to have martial artists with 30 Strength running around.
Thats strong enough to pick up a small car, and with a Push, throw it.
And Rep to Casual Player for pointing out that Hugh Neilson can't get too much rep for his insight into this matter.
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Re: Rant? Speed in Hero
OTOH, it's a game about flying people who wear spandex, bounce bullets off their chests, and shoot beams of energy from their hands.
Hey, it's NOT spandex! Its a frictionless super high strength unstable alloy that deflects bullets and gamma radiation that LOOKS like spandex.
No, it isn't necessary to shave all my body hair to wear it. I just like to.....
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Re: Heroic Characteristic Maxima?
NCM is already one of the most ridiculously cheesy Disads. 20 points is the equivalent of not being able to walk and in game terms it just means that you can't be more athletic than Michael Jordan while fighting like Tito Ortiz and thinking like Stephen Hawking and looking like Brad Pitt. Perhaps in very high powered games it actually is limiting. Perhaps.
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Re: "Life Shield" - Reasonable Power? [+More]
The power:
Life Shield Healing (Simplified): 1d6; Decreased Re-use Duration (1 Segment, +2), Continuous (+1), Trigger (When Attacked, Trigger Resets Automatically, +1/2), Uncontrolled (+1/2), Half End Cost (+1/4); Self Only (-1/2). 52 Active Points, 35 Real Points, 2 END Cost.
Super-advantaged powers are always suspect since it usually represents some munchkinnery at work. This power, while both illegal and probably broken may not be busted enough. Uncontrolled doesn't seem real useful on a power that costs End. You get knocked out and then every segment you burn 2 End you don't have, so it costs you 1d6 Stun for 1d6 of Healing.
Make sure to buy it to 0 End and buy AoE Radius Selective Target so it works on all your friends too.
There are plenty of ways to try and represent this that won't cause problems, like just buying extra Body and Stun with regular regeneration, or higher defenses.
As far as the armored suit goes, personal preference on your choice of limitations. I'm a big fan of Physical Manifestation over 'Focus' for such things but thats just me.
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Re: Rant? Speed in Hero
:jawdrop:Wow. I'm pretty sure whatever I write will receive a quick response affirming it as heresy. Let's try it.
'ghost-angel is completely right in all things and I'm trying to force my own limited view of the way Hero works on a generally gullible and unsuspecting online community.'
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Re: Rant? Speed in Hero
The OP seemed to imply (and several posts that occur after it as well) that SPD is a static benchmark, i.e. every game has the same benchmarks to measure a characters SPD against.
Which is a bad thing - and several posts have pointed this out more or less. The benchmarks for SPD should be set up Game By Game.
\
There is a static benchmark. Normal Characters in each game are the benchmark. Do your npc's get NCM as a Disad? If not, then whatever you have defined their baseline at is the benchmark. In most Hero Games it is the same, but the specific numbers are unimportant. What is important imo is that if you use the same baseline as other people then when you compare characters across these genres they should be recognizably based on the same base.
Now, to say that even though they're using the same baseline 'trained normals' in one game can get higher abilities than characters in another is a Game By Game comparison. But if the 5 billion npc's in one game world are exactly like the 5 billion in another, then they're using the same benchmark and the difference in characters is how far they're allowed to stray from it.
Which naturally, varies a lot:straight:
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Re: [Character] Dryad
Cool build. A couple suggestions.
13 End a phase to use multipower slots and FF seems like a lot.
Actually a Force Field with = PD and ED for a plant creature seems odd as well. Not to mention the Flash Def. Yeah, its efficient but odd thematically. I'd probably give a Detect or Spatial Awareness to a nature spirit anyway, so sight flash shouldn't matter. I think I'd just buy Armor for the defenses though, maybe with Costs End to activate.
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Re: [Character] Impact
Also, Linked is only worth a 1/4 limitation if the power it's linked to is Constant or usually in use, such as Persistent Regeneration.
Cool Character.
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Jack Beddoe grew up gambling. By the time he was 12 he'd won a half million dollars for his mentor Big Vinny.
And then he discovered he could grow to incredible size.
And then he pretended he'd never discovered his power and continued to gamble. But when he was 16 a psychic security advisor on a deep sea cruise ship where high stakes poker was played in international waters discovered he had another power; by prolonged contact he could influence peoples minds so they made poor choices, like betting on bad hands.
Vinny had to work fast to keep Jack from getting thrown overboard. But even though he was still alive Jack wished that he wasn't, because there's nothing worse in the world than a cheater. And he'd been cheating all those years, whether he knew it or not.
After much soul searching he's joined a 'special' school to learn how to use his powers. He has no interest in learning about his size shifting power, and would be perfectly happy to give up all of them if he could be certain that he'd never cheat again.
[b]Jax R Bettor - Jake [/b] [b][u]VAL[/u] [u]CHA[/u] [u]Cost[/u] [u]Total[/u] [u]Roll[/u] [u]Notes[/u][/b] 10 STR 0 10/50 11- / 19- HTH Damage 2d6/10d6 END [1/5] 15 DEX 15 15 12- OCV 5 DCV 5 20 CON 20 20 13- 12 BODY 4 12/20 11- / 13- 13 INT 3 13 12- PER Roll 12- 13 EGO 6 13 12- ECV: 4 20 PRE 10 20 13- PRE Attack: 4d6 16 COM 3 16 12- 5 PD 3 5/15 5/15 PD (0/10 rPD) 5 ED 1 5/15 5/15 ED (0/10 rED) 3 SPD 5 3 Phases: 4, 8, 12 6 REC 0 6 40 END 0 40 27 STUN 0 27/35 16 RUN 0 16" END [3] 2 SWIM 0 2" END [1] 2 LEAP 0 2"/10" 2"/10" forward, 1"/5" upward [b]CHA Cost: 70[/b] [b][u]Cost[/u] [u]POWERS[/u][/b] 10 Luck 2d6 - END=0 6 Mind Control 1d6 (Human class of minds), Telepathic (+1/4), Inherent (+1/4), Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2), Persistent (+1/2), Continuous (+1), Invisible Power Effects, Hide effects of Power (Fully Invisible; +1), Cumulative (48 points; +1 1/4) (29 Active Points); No Conscious Control (-2), Set Effect (-1/2), Stops Working If Mentalist Is Stunned (-1/2), Eye Contact Required (-1/2) [Notes: Currently his only effect is to make the victim exercise extremely poor judgement. This involves things like betting foolishly, drinking and driving, having sex on the first date, and so on.] - END=0 1 Mental Defense (4 points total) - END=0 10 Elemental Control, 20-point powers - END= 20 1) Growth (+40 STR, +8 BODY, +8 STUN, -8" KB, 17,664 kg, -4 DCV, +4 PER Rolls to perceive character, 7 m tall, 4 m wide) (40 Active Points); Limited Power Full power only (-1/2) - END=4 7 2) Running +10" (16" total) (20 Active Points); Limited Power; Based on Growth Power loses about a third of its effectiveness (-1/2) - END=2 13 3) Armor (10 PD/10 ED) (30 Active Points); Limited Power Based on Growth (-1/2) - END=0 [b]POWERS Cost: 67[/b] [b][u]Cost[/u] [u]SKILLS[/u][/b] 4 +2 with sight perc 8 Gambling (Board Games, Card Games, Sports Betting) 13- 3 Analyze: Gambling style 12- 3 KS: Games of chance 12- 3 Sleight Of Hand 12- 3 Persuasion 13- 3 Conversation 13- 3 High Society 13- 3 Seduction 13- 2 Language: Italian (fluent conversation) 2 PS: Gambler 11- 1 WF: Handguns 1 Combat Driving 8- 1 Trading 8- 1 Lipreading 8- 1 Deduction 8- 0 TF: Small Motorized Ground Vehicles [b]SKILLS Cost: 42[/b] [b][u]Cost[/u] [u]PERKS[/u][/b] 5 Money: Well Off 1 Fringe Benefit: Passport 7 Contact: Big Vinny Costanza (Contact has significant Contacts of his own, Contact has very useful Skills or resources, Very Good relationship with Contact) 11- [b]PERKS Cost: 13[/b] [b][u]Cost[/u] [u]TALENTS[/u][/b] 5 Eidetic Memory 3 Lightning Calculator [b]TALENTS Cost: 8[/b] [b][u]Value[/u] [u]DISADVANTAGES[/u][/b] 20 Normal Characteristic Maxima No Age Restriction 20 Psychological Limitation: Dislikes Cheating and cheaters (Common, Total) 10 Hunted: Gambino Crime Family 8- (Mo Pow, Limited Geographical Area, Harshly Punish) 15 Psychological Limitation: Loves to Gamble (Common, Strong) 10 Psychological Limitation: Not interested in using his powers (Common, Moderate) 10 Hunted: Silas Beddoe-Father 11- (As Pow, NCI, Watching) 15 Social Limitation: Has never been to school (Very Frequently, Major, Not Limiting In Some Cultures) [b]DISADVANTAGES Points: 100[/b] Base Pts: 100 Exp Required: 0 Total Exp Available: 0 Exp Unspent: 0 Total Character Cost: 200
Rant? Speed in Hero
in HERO System Discussion
Posted
Re: Rant? Speed in Hero
Damn you and your 'knowledge'.