Zorak1003

Re: "Basic" Question About Transform Assuming the effect is cumulative, it will do it's job EVENTUALLY no matter how small the Transform.

Re: How do you keep your dark knights from going "squish"? I may be unique in that I don't pour extra BODY or defenses on to trained normal type humans- I have a few "almost brick" types who approach normal maxima in those areas, and they wear some armor, because I think a sane person WOULD do so if they had it to wear- But they generally can't stand there and be peppered with machine gun fire. But trained normals in my campaigns are TRAINED- They almost always have higher DEXes and CVs than normal schmoes who happened to get bitten by radioactive wombats or exposed to Deusexmachinium, and so I have really NEVER had a super hero or villain get outright KILLED in play. (I've had them take a lot of BODY- One poor schlub martial artist villain got hit with a speedster's Move By with a very good damage roll- Think YATZEE- And would have bled to death without medical attention, but he got it. Running gag afterward was "Somewhere, Mantis takes a recov".) Anyone remember the Guilt Complex, from an old issue of Adventurer's Club?

Re: Problem with Missile Deflection Ock, I basically agree with you. Missile deflection is ultimately a block manuever you have to pay for, if it can't reflect or be used at range, etc. Your way is simpler, and better.

Re: How do you keep your dark knights from going "squish"? If the dark knight has all the skills and DCV so that he USUALLY doesn't get hit, and on occasion he DOES... Then fine, this is an RPG, not the comics. He gets knocked out or killed, so be it. But again, it's you, as GM, controlling the villain, who decides who gets shot at, with what and at what level of damage to begin with. If the bad guy really DOES think the dark night detective is more of a threat at the moment than the brick, and hates him enough to use his Doom Cannon at full power... It's your story.

Re: Building a Puppeteer A formal dinner reception might be a fine venue for a large puppet- Maybe the skating monkey cancelled. I never considered buying Willie Tyler and Lester in the Hero System, myself, but that's just me.

Re: "Life Shield" - Reasonable Power? [+More] It seems like an awful lot of overthinking for what is essentially regeneration and OIF armor.

Re: Doctor Who - Time Lord Regeneration Yeah, obviously adapting anything is ADAPTING- We're working with a game system that calls for definitions with hard numbers, detailing precisely what we can and cannot do. Pretty much no other media requires that or even attempts it, and you can forget "story bibles"- They seem to throw those out the window after the pilot episode.

Re: WHY is combat so slow and what have you done about it?

Re: WHY is combat so slow and what have you done about it? I think declaration phase then action phase does inherently slow things down, but I LIKE that fast characters know what slower characters are planning. I do impose a time limit on declaration, and encourage people to pass and hold their phase if they really don't know what to do. Counting damage dice is also a big thing, and I have recently eliminated that by basing damage on the to-hit roll. If you roll exactly what you need to hit, it's as if you rolled all ones- If you hit by 3, you rolled all 3s, etc. (Hits by more than 6 are considered all 6s) The drawback is that you need to get an above average roll against someone who is your equal in combat to do significant damage. The jury is still out on this, though it does reflect martial artists well. Alternately, one could say you roll all 1s if you roll the number needed to hit, and all 3.5 or 4 if you hit by any number but 6, all 6s if you hit by 6 or more.

Re: Rant? Speed in Hero I think combat training would EFFECT a character's speed, but it isn't the only thing that would do it. Just plain having SUPER SPEED - Super human reflexes, agility and even mental processes- As a concept seems pretty obvious. And Mr Fantastic would have a higher speed than I might give an ordinary stretcher, not due to combat training, but intelligence. (The man is NEVER surprised or confused by anything!) It's a bit of a chicken-or-the-egg situation. SPD makes one more effective in combat, and training in combat can well increase one's speed- But again, other factors can be involved. I tend to give a point or two of extra speed to characters/creatures with a lot of permanant extra limbs- I made some awakened trees in Fantasy Hero with speeds of 6, despite low DEX and not much INT, and I'd handle Doc Ock the same way- He'd be a speed 3 or 4 at most without his tentacles, but with them, he easily keeps up with Spider-Man. Having said all that, speed is definately relative- My rule of thumb is, if EVERYONE has a SPD of 6, they might as well all have SPDs of 2 and save the points. (And Nekkid's original chart generally parallels my own campaigns.)

Re: Doctor Who - Time Lord Regeneration I like the 12 charges that don't recover healing with resurrection and the major transform side effect best. It's definately a POWER I would give a time lord if I were making one for the game- Regardless of why the character has it ON THE SHOW (excuse for new actors) doesn't change the fact that he HAS it, and it could well come up in the game.

Re: Healing, Regeneration, Lost Limbs The extra limbs thing seems like a pretty good idea in general, certainly for self-regeneration. Making it useable by others, uncontrolled and persistant really doesn't seem too far out to regrow other people's limbs. You might want to link it to the healing, or it could be entirely seperate. There's no real reason why this should be a hugely expensive effect. Also might want to limit it a little if it can only RE-ATTACH a severed limb- If your arm is dissolved by acid or bitten off and swallowed by a monster, you're out of luck.

Re: High power magic (Brainstorming welcome and requested) I like the 10 plagues a lot better than the blessings- Almost any of those would end up giving you a really nice, stress-free, prosperous- and hence BORING- Fantasy Realm. Just because you CAN do it in the system doesn't mean it would be good for the campaign. (Like the harmless looking self propelled wagon in the original Magic Items book- Essentuially a CAR that used no fuel. Horrifying in its implications to the world.)

Re: Democratic Republics in Fantasy Worlds? L Sprague DeCamp's FALLIBLE FIEND and his UNBEHEADED KING series both explore fantasy lands with various governments. I ran a campaign for years in which the central region was a sort of republic ruled by the guilds- They had a sort of "congress" consisting of all the various guildmasters, and a smaller Council of Guildmasters elected from among them that made major policy decisions.

Re: Difficulty ratings for Bestiary/MMM/etc... It would be a lot easier to evaluate character types with a number than monsters, in the HERO system. I suppose taking Dex, SPD and Combat Values into effect would help, as would comparing relative BODY and defenses... But really, you just have to KNOW that sort of thing. (And frankly, the raw numbers don't even hold up in D&D- I've seen high level characters fail a saving throw and die from a low hit die monster's poisoned bite!)

Re: Looking for a fair Limitation value I have to agree that if you're taking this as a BODY Drain Side Effect, take the limitation at face value, never mind how the character deals with the damage. The limit is on the POWER, not on the entire character- Such things as that are Disadvantages. If the damage the healer takes prevents him from using it even once during a single combat, that's all you really need to worry about.. Though if he has regeneration to the extant that it doesn't affect his use of the power AT ALL, then you might as well just make it a special effect and take no limit on it.

Re: Post-Apocalyptic Hero -- What Do *You* Want To See? A lot of great suggestions on the first page here- I'm sure I'm repeating some things others have put in, but definately some "real" info about how long things like roads and buildings, water pipes and powerlines take to decay, along with discussion on how long AFTER the End the campaign is taking place- One where the PCs themselves all remember the past cicvllization is obviously very different from a campaign set many generations later. And while I think sources like 1984, Logan's Run and THX-1138 (and the RPG Paranoia) are really more dystopian than PA, Iw ould like to see isolated pockets of survivors in dystopian settings touched upon.

Re: Attacks OK Defenses No Way? As I've seen a few others reply, I not only have no problem with variable defenses in a multipower, it never occurred to me that anyone else would, either. In fact, I just used such a thing as an example of a "versatile spell multipower" - A wizard who knows how to do a forcefield effect might choose to change the balance of PD and ED several ways.