Zorak1003

Re: How do you keep your dark knights from going "squish"? Compare the game to the source material. In the comics, how often does Superman hit an unknown opponent with his full STR, or Cyclops fire off a maximum strength optic blast against an unknown adversary?" We actually have no idea, unless we get the occasional thought bubble when the writer decided to tell us this. " Now, how often does a PC in your game ever use less than his full dice against anyone in a costume? Having Super characters who are eggshells with hammers forces the issue that full power is not the appropriate default setting when dealing with unknown opponents" Ok- For the LAST frickin' time- I'll type this slow because I know you can't read fast- IF your Player Characters ARE doing "too much damage", SOMEONE will have been hurt, without the GM doing anything special to point this out.

Re: Communicator I've always felt a simple 1-5 point "comminicator" power would be nice in HERO, certainly for Champions, reflecting the traditional one-frequency super-team radio, rather than a convoluted limited Mind Link (which is what I use, myself, to make such things.)

Re: Bricks Get Hosed, Or Not To me, the reasons behind elemental controls are so vaguely defined, either EVERYONE should have one, or NOBODY should have one. I choose the latter. In my first Champions campaign, I used ECs all the time, powered armor ECs. flame powers ECs, insect-related powers ECs, you name it, and I realized it was just ridiculous. Most powers that might be used in a EC are better served in a multipower, in my opinion, or with some common limitation or other, that actually DOES limit the power. And I can't see a "reward for a strong character conception" when I demand that ALL my characters have strong conceptions. I can't see a reason why the Human Torch should get a break on his powers, while Bat-Man pays full price for his skills, martial arts and gadgets. Bat-Man's "character concept" is just as strong, if not a great deal stronger. On the subject of hosed bricks, they're frankly pretty cheap, already. Strength, defenses, a little combat skill, what else do they really NEED? I always had a lot more trouble figuring out what to spend a villain bricks extra points on than finding points for them. (I'm talking your basic "Hulk Smash!" bad guy- Obviously, heroes are going to want to be more well rounded- Still, never a problem) I did have one player who always complained that bricks got 2 extra dice of damage for free from the base 10 strength.

Re: How do you keep your dark knights from going "squish"? "Why not just have the heroes stop a bank robbery, carried out by normal human bank robbers?" Why not, indeed, if you think you have the doing too much damage problem, and want the heroes to kill someone. Ask THAT of the creator of the Gilt Complex. Why not in the case of my plot example? It's a PLOT example, not meant to teach the PC's a "lesson", just a villain screwing with their characters. Work quite well to frame any normally restrained code vs killing heroes into accidentally killing someone, allowing all kinds of nice character angst, bad publicity, courtroom drama, etc., etc.

Re: Obvious/Inobvious I think you have to assume the Obvious/Inobvious part of the Focus Limitation refers to "in-use only", simply because not everyone might know your gun is a weapon- A bunch of australopithicenes are not going to be afraid of your little metal thing until it goes BANG and one of them drops dead. On the other hand, you bring your innocent walking stick to some magical fantasy realm where all wizards carry wands and staves of power, the peasants all assume it's a weapon. The question for the ring is, does the power CLEARLY EMANATE from the ring, like the Green Lantern's does? (Obvious) Or does the ring just sit there, glowing or not, all the time, like, say, the One Ring. (Inobvious)

Re: New to the hero system, trying to figure out some things Isn't Armor assumed to BE visible in the first place?

Re: How do you keep your dark knights from going "squish"? Hulk not DUMB! Hulk SMASH!!!

Re: Delaying an opponent "Every ruling or suggestion I've seen on Speed Drains makes me want to disallow them entirely. The effect on someone of getting hit with a Speed drain after they aborted their phase to Dodge is just too annoying to contemplate. I can't imagine using this power as a GM and using it as a player is even harder to justify." In 24 years of playing the HERO System, I have never used a SPD Drain. It really just seems like an odd, clunky way to slow someone, and sort of abusive to the system.

Re: Shared Damage I've done several such "corsican twin" characters- Gave them Damage Reduction and Susceptibility to their partner taking BODY. (The other guy would feel PAIN when one got injured, so it wasn't precisely shared.) I never bothered taking proximity into account, and always gave them inherent mind link. (Again, there's obviously some new wrinkle to 5th edition's Mind Link I haven't encountered yet.) BUT, I do like the Side Effects on Damage Reduction idea, too.

Re: How do you keep your dark knights from going "squish"? " To the Gilt Complex: The article must be read with the characters. In the article, the writer notes that this kind of strategy should be a last resort, and that one should first talk to the player(s) about their lack of restraint." I did read it, and I've had 20 years to think about it. I stand behind my criticism. Unless the PCs have ALREADY done some serious mayhem, you don't have a problem. If you THINK you do, then you (the GM) are building the bad guys too strong. And you are not going to make a point about DOING TOO MUCH DAMAGE with artificially fragile characters. Now, having said all that- Using some sort of parallel situation, where a mastermind villain puts some idiot patsy in a supervillain costume- Maybe with a remotely controlled forcefield the mastermind can shut off at an inconveiniant moment- In order to have a hero commit "murder", is a pretty good idea for a plot. The patsy needn't be excessively fragile, and if he had a forcefield that meant the first few hits didn't bother him, the PCs would understandable deliver full power blows and pulverize the poor schmoe.

Re: How many points does a person have? "Pedantic mode on (sorry). STR 10 isn't a 220 pound bench press. It's lifting 220 pounds off of the ground and staggering a few steps. According to the Ultimate Brick, p.9, STR 10 is a 154 pound Bench Press. Not uncommon at all. I've known 90 pound women who could manage it. EDIT: Also note that anyone who hangs out with weekend athletes or even casual weight lifters knows plenty of people who bench over 220 pounds. It's not an unusual bench for people in moderately good shape." Pedantic reply- I don't have the Ultimate Brick. Pretend I said LIFT. If you choose from weightlifters, I'm sure plenty can lift heavy weights. Now include their moms, their little sisters, their 80 year olf grandfathers, the guys in the office they work with... What PERCENTAGE of those do you suppose can lift that? My point is, 10 does not, and was never meant to, reflect the reality of the AVERAGE person, just a rather arbitrary baseline for heroes to start.

Re: Damage Shield "Attacks that are no range by default, however, would be required to pay for "ranged" as part of the damage shield so that they could lose that range, and would therefore require a +1 advantage to be used as a damage shield." I can agree with that. I made a number of damage aura spells for fantasy hero, and noticed that little discrepancy with inherently no-range attacks, too. I don't know if I agree re: no advantage at all for EGO effects, but I could see a +.25 advantage rather than +.5.

Re: How do you keep your dark knights from going "squish"? (By the way, regarding "the Gilt Complex"- This to me ws the finest example of piss poor game mastering I had ever read. If your PCs really ARE "throwing around too much damage", then they will ALREADY have seriously injured or killed someone. If not, then clearly you, as GM, are building people who can TAKE such damage, and maybe even NEED to have such thrown at them to bring them down. And even so, to then build a group of villains with SIGNIFICANTLY LOWER BODY and defenses then normal, even throwing in vulnerabilites to normal, common attacks, that even the most RESTRAINED character is likely to kill, certainly isn't going to teach your players any lesson other then "My GM is a douchebag". If your PCs are routinely seriously injuring characters due to lack of restraint, the GM's first response should be to TELL THEM NOT TO, not pull some "dirty trick" in the game- Which, intended as such or not, is exactly what that the Gilt Complex was.) We now return you to your regularly scheduled chat, already in progress.

Re: Damage Shield "For my part I think putting Continuous onto a standard Damage Shield construct makes mechanical sense when you consider what it actually does. OTOH in my games I've been allowing an Instant Damage Shield, using the DS Advantage without Continuous. My players have found several uses for it..." I can definately see instant "auras" like that- An electric eel basically turns his zap on when he needs it, to use a real world example. But then, that can simply be a no range attack- My point is, for damage shield to actually BE a damage shield, it sort of has to be around (once it's on) to affect whoever touches you. Whatever the advantage's point value, it should be able to do the basic things expected of it, without more advantages. By the way, exactly why does a constant area of effect need a to hit roll against people who enter the area of effect? Can anyone explain how someone could say, walk into a bonfire and not be "hit" by the damage? I would think just being CONSTANT ought to cover the automatic hit- In the same way that it's acceptable for constant attacks to continue doing damage with no additional to-hit roll on suceeding phases. __________________

Re: How many points does a person have? I've used HERO for a lot of one shot Horror scenarios, usually with very normal, average guy PCs. No base points, Normal Characteristic Maxima, and a few psych, social, or even physical disads (like wearing glasses, asthma, that sort of thing) is more than enough. I generally rate characteristics lower than 10 for truly average folks, predicated on STR- How many people do you know who can bench press 220 pounds? I figure all the other stats are simularly higher than what most people have at 10, so you're running from 5 to at most 13. That alone gives you enough for some skills.

Re: To Create a Sin I dunno, as DEMONS, it seems like you'd need to think in terms of these characters having powers that "tempt" others to their particular sin, essentially limited mind control or mental illusions. It's unclear whether you've got these guys going around in human form or even NEEDING things like bases and money.

Re: Beam versus Pulse "It's so big, it's mostly armor and structure!: 75% Resistant Damage Reduction (ED), 15- Activation(-?), Not Vs Area of Effect Attacks*(-?) >AND< 75% Resistant Damage Reduction (PD), 15- Activation(-?), Not Vs Area of Effect Attacks*(-?)" Without benefit of Star Hero or any other official HERO stuff since the 4th edition, I've been doing that with vehicles over a certain size, myself. Things the size of minivans get 25% reduction, "medium sized" ships get 50%, and humungous capital ships have 75%, again all not vs AofE. Allowed me to make ships weapons do hellacious damage to characters, while most characters can't do much to a ship. (And all ship weapons are at least one hex AofE.) As for the original question- I'd go with autofire, maybe continuous (though not strictly necessary), and just let the normal spread rules deal wirth the "line AofE" question.

Re: Delaying an opponent "As for your comments about 'no meed to give the tanker a low level attack that stuns...' - why not?" Because in HERO a character has SPD and can do anything he's able to do every phase. In CoH, you have a certain number of attacks and powers in your tray, that recharge at various rates. If you have jab and nothing else, for example, it's like having a SPD of one in HERO. Even if you enhance your one attack up to the hilt with recharge reductions, you're still pretty slow compared to those with several attacks. And some powers in CoH recharge slow and some recharge quick, so most characters will be doing their quick moves a few times waiting for a slow one to recharge. None of this is necessary in the HERO system in the first place. I suppose one COULD put a bunch of strange limitations on one's powers to force them to work exactly the same as in a totally different system, but WHY? The only reason CoH's powers work as they do is because that's what that systems mechanics dictate. It's like adapting a book into a movie, and constantly having voice-overs describe every character and action, because the book does that, rather than just letting the fact that the audiene can SEE what's happening in a movie do the job. When you're adapting something, it isn't all a one-way street- You have to take what you are adapting the material TO into consideration, and play to its strengths, rather than being slavishly devoted to the source material alone. HERO may do some of the things CoH does slightly differently, but that doesn't call for you to re-invent the wheel.

Re: lets make this work: Instant Change Let's face it, it was dumb to change the power. Nothing wrong at all with an arbitrary 5 points or so for certain characters to be able to zap inot their super hero costumes. It has no effect on combat, and could easily be a given for certain characters, anyway- The Flash comes to mind, or anypne else with super speed. I'd say grandfater it in, use a custom power in Hero Designer, and thumb your nose at anyone who doesn't like it.

Re: Delaying an opponent Quote- "Been playing City of Heroes again, and several of the powers there incapacitate an opponent in some way, stunning them temporarily or knocking them down, so that they cannot attack for a few moments"... Call me crazy, but HERO can, indeed, STUN characters and knock them down. Far as I know, it was the first system to do those things. So what's wrong with just using that? City of Heroes does some things that really don't NEED to be adapted directly to work in the HERO System- A brick doesn't need 5 different versions of punch with various advantages and limitations on them like a CoH tanker, because he has STRENGTH and combat manuevers. No real need to give him a low damage attack that can stun someone when he can stun someone already with his normal blow. And you can bother to buy a power like Hand Clap, that knocks foes back- Seems to have about a one hex AofE in CoH- OR you can use the old Shockwave manuever. You just plain don't NEED to adapt every little thing. Capturing the spirit of the character is far more inmportant.

I recently switched over to 5th Edition HERO after a decade of playing 4th, mainly so I could use HERO Designer. I noticed that Damage Shield as an advantage doesn't seem to actually do anything ITSELF anymore. You have to purchase Continuous to even have the option of the advantage, which was automatically part of Damage Shield in 4th edition, (and frankly seems rather the point of the abilty), and you apparently need a further +.25 advantage to use the 'Shield offensively- Though the definition in HERO Designer itself seems to indicate otherwise. So why not just buy a continuous no-range attack and be done with it? At least then you get the break of the No Range limitation. And by the way, Damage SHIELD has always bugged me as name for this advantage, since the designers then felt it necessary to go to great lengths to explain that it provides no protection. If they hadn't called it SHIELD, no one would be making that assumption. My players and I have always referred to it as "Damge AURA"- Whether it was called that in some earlier edition or not, I don't remember, but it seems like a more descriptive name for it, in any case.

Re: City of Heroes to HERO conversion? So far, I've only based City of Heroes characters on Champions characters, not the other way around. The mechanics are SO fundamentally different, a hard and fast "this = that" conversion seems almost meaningless.

Re: Problem with Missile Deflection AND ANOTHER THING- Why does it even matter that the attack you're blocking is ranged? Anyone that's ever hit or caught a baseball is essentially missile deflecting. I'm more and more convinced that the cost of blocks/deflections should just be based on the active points of what they can defend against.

Re: Problem with Missile Deflection Again, correct in that it seems unfair to make the special effects of the blockable attacks that much of an issue, when the effect of the deflection may not be "batting the missile away", but dodging it, or erecting an instand shield-shaped forcewall or whatever. It would be much more reasonable to consider the active points of the attack than its special effects in the base cost of deflection.

Re: How do you keep your dark knights from going "squish"? What's "squishy"? Any character who lacks bones, or some form of exoskeleton. Seriously, though, I guess I'd define it ordinarily as someone who could be seriously injured by normals with normal weapons... But really, most every character is "squishy" to SOMETHING. A brick may be able to bounce howitzer rounds off his chest, but keels over when hit with a psychic bolt. The stretcher is immune to physical attacks but can't take fire or cold, The energy blaster can fly through an inferno but a konk on the head will bring him down... And very few characters are inherently resistant to transforms. In a point based system, almost no one is going to be immune to EVERYTHING, it's more a question of how common a character's weaknesses are.