Toadmaster

Re: Gun write up: .442/450 Solid Frame Wesley Double Action It would be roughly the same as a .45 Colt revolver or .45 Auto. As I recall there is no real difference in game terms between Single action and Double action (something I disagree with btw).

Re: Expanded Equipment Availability I think I would break it down like this Normal, law abiding (in the US, some variation for really strict places like NYC or SF) Most fighting knives firearms >.50 cal, and non automatic / non short barrel long guns soft concealable body armor minor incediary devices (road flares) Grey area, probably legal but may raise eyebrows .50 cal rifles smoke grenades special ammo except hollowpoints ammunition reloading supplies, black powder & smokeless powders black powder heavy weapons (civil war cannons etc) fireworks (in some areas) Potato guns (some shoot more than potatos), technically may be illegal but I don't know how well enforced Minor explosive devices (M-80's, cherrybombs etc) technically illegal in most places but likely just a warning or citation and confiscation from Law Enforcement) Switchblades, butterfly knives, martial arts weapons etc, again may or may not be illegal but even if illegal probably a minor punishment and confiscation. Lawn darts (illegal in many areas but really who cares) Street level Commercial explosives, dynamite, TNT, ANFO (sort of homemade plastic explosive) Incendiary devices (commercial incendiary grenades are used in forestry and firefighting) Light automatic weapons (assault rifles, smgs) Silencers Short barreled long guns (sawed off shotguns, short barrel carbines (under 16") Firearms < .50 cal All of the above can be owned in many states with a permit regardless of affiliation to a law enforcement agency, mining company etc Grey area probably street level but could attract unwanted attention Heavy weapons (machineguns, recoiless rifles, mortars) Non-lethal grenades again these can be owned by private citizens with a permit, but if you are wandering around with them that might not go over well, if you are part of a SWAT team, no problem. anything else military as far as making stuff, this is illegal so falls outside the classification but full auto weapons, there are plans that can be bought to make weapons full auto or even to build your own (WW2 STEN Gun copies could be built in an average high school metal shop) Pipe bombs, pvc or metal pipe, smokeless or black powder, and some cannon cord (its for my cannon ), add some BBs or scrap metal for more fragmentation all legal components, but illegal to put together. Plastic explosives (well sort of), ANFO can be made from commonly available petrolium and gardening products, it is a thick paste or putty like consistancy. It requires a blasting cap to set it off though, you can make your own but that is considerably more difficult and dangerous. Other explosive / incediary devices, many can be made from household items, far to many and too dangerous to even start listing, lets just say you could easily get all you need from a trip to the groocery store. Most of these are seriously unstable to mess with. Silencers, these can be easily made for a one shot (2 liter full of foam peanuts), more effective (quieter, longer lasting), can be made from common products and some skill with metal work. Most of these items you can find instructions for online or in books on the subjects. I'm not going to look for any or recommend any but I knew people in high school who did make a few of these things (1 or 2 even got arrested for it). Others I've learned about from work (Hazmat classes can be fun)

Re: post-apocalyptic genre book You're welcome, and I expect Aftermath HERO (or whatever) to be better, I've been a little frustrated where a couple of books have gone (Dark Champions) but I have yet to be disappointed with the quality of any. I hope it does include the idea of PA supers, there was a computer game several years ago, The Hoboken League of Superheros, it was a nice combination of PA, supers and some comedy. The heroes had fabulous powers like can eat anything without harm, can clean up any mess etc, (they had some more mundane powers like lazer eye beams and such too) these powers seemed stupid but they became critical to surviving and rebuilding in the PA world they were in. I would highly suggest you send your computer geeks out to find a copy along with a 486 running dos (okay so maybe it was a little more than a few years ago), it will be worth the effort. Here is a link about the game, at the very least it would make the book stand out among PA game supplements Actually no need to send out a search team, it looks like the game can be downloaded from the site. http://www.thehouseofgames.net/index.php?t=10&id=92

Re: post-apocalyptic genre book Aftermath is still the best PA resource made, the game system was a little funky but the back ground materials were great. You can still get it as a PDF and there was a reprint within the last couple of years. So until DOJ puts out their own... http://www.drivethrurpg.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=70_97 People have been saying PA is on the decline because most new gamers didn't grow up with the real prospect of the world being destroyed by nukes. Thats probably true but PA is still one of my favorites.

Re: War HERO WW1 was basically modern weapons so you are right, many could just be renamed from one in the HERO book with minor modifications such as magazine size etc. Weapons like the Chauchat definately deserve some disads, actually works 11-, burnout etc.

Re: War HERO

Re: War HERO Well its not like military RPG's are a new idea, I have copies of Merc, Recon (RPG inc & Paladium versions), Behind Enemy Lines (FASA & The Companions versions), Twilight 2000 (v1.0, v2.0 & v2.2), Delta Force, GURPS Spec Ops & all the WW2 stuff as well as some I probably forget so why not WarHERO? I'd buy it although the vehicle rules and heavy weapons would require some pretty serious tinkering in my opinion. I am interested in what you do for WW1, I know a bit about that period but I've spent much more time learning about the interwar period and WW2. WW1 does offer alot though, particularly if you allow for a little more individual action than a real Yank, Jerry or Tommie would have had, that would be true for most periods but WW1 in particular since its not alot of fun playing that "over the top boys" walking across an artillery pounded machinegun raked open field full of barbed wire and land mines, time to make up character # 37 stuff. Dark Champions did include a fair bit that would be useful for a military game and is worth having for that purpose but DC has fallen into the place I was afraid it would despite the assurances "realistic" gamers wouldn't be forgotten, its primarily low power supers from what I've seen on the boards and in product. I'm not suprised that DOJ has shown little interest in military gaming based on the threads prior to DCs release. I agree with you completely that there is alot more to a military game than books full of guns. I posted some stuff I'd been working on in another thread if you are interested. http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=32726

Re: All Flesh Must Be Eaten Never had a chance to play All flesh must be eaten but I thought it was a well done game, one of the best for the genre and fun to read through. I'm also a fan of CoC and the Horror genre in general. Whether you are a fan of gaming with zombies or just a fan of zombie movies I second (actually I might be third or fourthing) the Zombie Survival guide, I picked up my copy at Borders under $15, it takes a realistic (and funny) look at the zombie genre. As far as it being a hopeless genre, I think many gamers new to the genre fall into the movie horror trap where it is a largely a body count, but there is alot more to it in a well run game, investigation, discovery, finding the monsters weakness, finding out that doesn't work as planned, running, running some more. Running (or more a lack of it) is typically the failure of most new horror players. Even CoC with it legendary death rate isn't so bad, but players need to learn to focus on the way they die, not the death, a character who puts off the end of civilization for another 100 years is a winner even if he will spend the rest of his years in a padded cell, not really any different from a fantasy character going out under a horde of nastys so the rest of the party can escape.

Re: Modern High-Tech Bows and Crossbows?

Re: Purpose of Playing a System-Philosophical, Unscientific and Wordy One of the reasons I like HERO is because I know how to play it, that sounds kind of simple but I am very comfortable with the rules (I should be since I have been playing for 20 years), in many ways I actually think GURPS is a better system for my type of gaming but HERO is "easier" everything is done in a similar way, so I know a skill is going to cost 3 pts and it really doesn't matter what other skills I have, only what skills I think I should have, while GURPS has all these variable costs and prereqs (which part of me thinks is a great idea but that part isn't the one looking them up). So on some level I like GURPS better but in the end I prefer to play HERO if that makes any sense. I used to sit in the back of class writing up characters, I didn't need books because for the most part I could remember what I needed to know to make a character, I could fine tune it when I got home and correct errors here and there. I could never do this with most games since I would actually have to look up the pre-req or the cost or roll a die and consult a chart. Like most I started out playing D&D (78-79? I guess) but I don't particularly like random stats plus that system all stats were basically the same unless you had a 16+ and if you had that legendary 18 STR, Con and/or Dex you really overpowered the other characters which I think is a weakness particularly considering the randomness of it all. When I found HERO and the idea of building the character you want to play instead of learning to like playing the character you rolled up, I suppose for the "true" roleplayer it is as much fun to play a character who's stats are so bad you can only pick from a class with no minimum standards but for most this is simply frustration. While some games follow the progression from a peon to a great hero, with HERO that is not required and in fact most games have the PC's start as pretty competent individuals (there is a reason the Conan stories and movies gloss over Conan as a child, reading about Conan fighting a 40' snake is exciting, Conan getting pounded by an aggressive squirrel is not, quick question how many of you lost characters to Giant rats in D&D, makes you feel pretty lame doesn't it?) Now there are times I like a random stat system but that is generally in a system with a high mortality rate and the idea of playing someone forced into a situation not of their choosing, for example a WW2 grunt in Behind Enemy Lines where Uncle Sam sent you a letter and said, hey we have a job for you, how do you like French beaches , or Call of Cthulhu where somebodies rich uncle died and left you their house... (along with some unfinished buisness in the basement ) I like the fact HERO doesn't have a lot of preconcieved notions telling you how to play, if you want to play a sadistic drunken Holy warrior you can, so long as you can sell it to the GM, the rules won't say you can't. I also appreciate the fact that while the "official" write ups for somethings may not be the way I think they should be the rules allow me to build them the way I think they should be and still maintain some uniformity between them. For example a mace could be done as a 1d6+1 KA, or a 1d6+1 KA, +1 Stun or a 1d6 KA, +1 Stun and penetrating etc, one is the "official" way but the others are still following the "rules". There was a time I tinkered with the rules but I've found in recent years I rarely tinker with the rules I tinker with the writeups.

Re: 2d6 to 3d6 (math help) OW, this hurt my head, I'm not sure if its what you wrote of the fact I think I understand it. Thanks Edsel, that chart may be helpful, BEL is a great game for a quick simple WW2 game, I actually have been able to round up most of the printed material for both the FASA version and the Companions version. BEL also spawned Delta Force from Task Force Games, if you like FASA's BEL you might be interested in DF, its kind of an advanced BEL set in more modern times. Like most quick simple games it has some things that annoy me by going too far to the simple, like the armored combat, a hit will kill all tanks except for a Panther or a Tiger, they have a chart to show what got damaged, but that was an easy fix, I use the chart with all armored vehicles, Panthers and Tigers are tough enough without getting special treatment. But overall I think it is one of the best games for a grunt military RPG, GURPS or HERO characters are far to complex to allow the characters to get killed off in a freak occurance so there is little real sense of danger to the characters, while BEL gives some advantage to PC's to allow them better odds of surviving vs an NPC the chance of losing a PC is still quite real. Flames, yes, most skills have a maximum of 3-6 meaning you have to roll under that plus any modifiers. In some ways it is similar to Carwars but more expanded. Thanks for pointing out the free stuff, I always forget to check that area out.

Re: Skills I think what you are saying is that whether a Journalist PC takes PS: Journalist and says they are a journalist or if they take, PS: Journalist, KS: English Literature, KS: History of Journalism, KS: The Daily Planet, Perk: Press ID, that in many cases it doesn't matter because the GM will likely just go ahead and let the PC that just took PS: Journalist get the same info by rolliing against that skill all the time. I agree you are right in many cases, however that goes back on the GM, when I've run games or been in games where the GM wanted to encourage characters to take lots of skills appropriate for their stated career the PC that took just a PS would be penalized in some way to let them know they should have taken more skills. So instead of getting the answer directly as you would with the right skill, you get "You seem to recall there is some information in the Archives of a rival paper, you know a guy who works there and he can get you in but its going to cost you". Sure it slows the game down a little bit but it gets the point across and I find most players don't mind little side tracks if done well. Some of my best gaming experiences were little side tracks that developed a life of their own. BTW what is this little Britain you speak of?

Re: Skills No reason to track every use of the skill, to start with the GM would then have to track exactly what the problem was. So mechanics to fix the car the GM would have to decide Ok, its the alternator, you did that before so no problem. Major pain if you ask me, I'm simply saying that instead of looking at the task resolution as % to do the skill look at it as % the required task is something that the character was able to recall and fix without extra time or needed materials. So for example I go out to my truck after shopping and it wont start, so I pop the hood and I make my Fam Mechanics roll 8-, I see that some jerk pulled my coil wire out of the distributor, easy fix, I'm back on the road. On the otherhand I miss my 8- and guess what that guy pulled all the wires out, so now I need to go to the truck and pull out my book to check the order of firing so I can put the wires in the right place (extra time, reference material), I fail my roll again, so guess what, that turd took the rotor too (this guy is really p'ing me off now), so now I go and get my tool box, sort through it looking for parts (tools and extra time), and this time I make my roll (yea, I still have the old rotor from when I did the tune up last year). Its all special effects, the difficulty (+1, -2 etc) just states how hard the task is, the roll is whether it is something that can be done at the time or if it requires more knowledge (get a book), equipment (get a tool box, or parts) or more time (I'm sorry but you are not going to replace a transmission in 10 minutes no matter how good you are but you just might be lucky enough to realize the transmission isn't bad, just the wire to the computer came loose). The roll is a combination of the difficulty of the repair and the knowledge of the mechanic. Sure a task may be something highly specialized but by a freak occurance the character with Fam Quantum Physics just happend to be reading a paper the day before and he does happen to know what the latest theory on the behavior of Quarks is.

I've been fooling around with Behind Enemy Lines, its a quick fun game but it is a tad too wargamy since there is little development of characters. I was thinking about adding to it a bit (not too much because I want to keep the quick and simple feel to it). It uses 2d6 for most task resolution, I was thinking that by using 3d6 instead it would open up the skill ranges and allow me to borrow a few bits from HERO to flesh out characters more. Any thoughts on how I can bump this from 2d6 to 3d6? Many of the skills have maximum levels, most range from 3-6, what would these be in 3d6? How would a +1 change etc. Math is not my best friend so any help would be appreciated. Thanks

Re: The Problem with Even Characteristic Costs That is very much your opinion of stats, I've been in many games with 75+75 where characters had stats near or exceeding 20, this was not a case of munchkinism it was a case of opening up the stats to show more variation, in many games the big brawny fighter had a strength of 23 to 28, the ranger and theif types had dex in the 18-20 range, speed 4 and in some cases 5 (too expensive and end consiming to really afford), wizards and sages often had Int and Ego approaching 20. The concept of NCM is fine, if you play with lower stats you can always lower the NCM so it impacts your game. There is a reason racial and cultural packages are seperate, an Elf raised by humans should still have the elf racial package, the stats, night vision etc are not going to go away because he was raised in a human city, but he may not have any of the elvish knowledge or skills. On the other hand a human mining community near dwarves may have the dwarf cultural package even though they are not dwarves.

Re: Skills This is where the GM is supposed to be involved, the more narrow the skill the more detailed the information gained. So if you have KS Literature and you make your roll by 1 the GM will tell you, yes that book was written in the 1800's by an English poet, while the character with KS English Lit, would get the info that the book was written in 1843 by the poet Oswald the Obtuse and the character with KS Obscure English Poetry of the Revolution would get an answer like this, in May of 1843 the Poet Oswald the Obtuse (actually a psuedonym for Alice the Clean, the long time cleaning woman and occasional mistress of Prince Kthulhu of Pictland) wrote the poem in question, it was actually a coded plan for the overthrow of the Duke of Woolite (Alice hated his cleaning products).

Re: Skills Ok I couldn't face wading through 3 pages of this so if this has already been said, sorry. You are looking at the skill roll wrong, it is not the chance the character does it right, its the chance the character knows how to perform the exact task needed or the task can be done without special equipment, so a success means it can be done without resorting to reference manuals or tools. I know how to work on my Landcruiser, but I can't always remember the timing on the motor, and it is a real pain to unbolt the head without a wrench, but if I need to adjust the carburator for the altitude I can usually get away with using my fingers or a key to turn the adjustment screw and listen to the soun of the motor to tell when its right. So the kid with a 7- didn't just get lucky in the sense that he just happend to plug the green wire in the green hole like he was supposed to, he got lucky because the repair he made just happend to be the one thing he remembered how to do from Electronics 101 (his class project was building a toaster and guess what the heroes really needed some toast just now, and lo and behold the build your own toaster kit that they just found is exactly the same one he built before so he doesn't even need to read the instructions), the electronics expert on the other hand actually knows how to do alot of stuff so it is rare for him to find a task he isn't pretty familiar with.

Re: The Problem with Even Characteristic Costs Exactly, I never liked the package bonus, it was completely arbitrary (I mean how do you know ahead of time how useful a skill will be) and you ended up with those people who wanted the ex cop, ex military, ex accountant, ex lion tamer just so they could suck up all those package bonus points. I do think the packages have something to do with PC's though, they help the player make sure they have appropriate skills, a cop without the authority to enforce laws isn't much of a cop, just as a coroner who doesn't know the differance between a liver and a kidney isn't much of a coroner (forget to take KS Anatomy ). I also wish they had changed the name from Package deal to something more descriptive, I mean how many of these types of threads would never exist if they had (how come package deals don't penalize you, how come package deals don't give free points anymore etc). As far as BL's original question I think you overlooked something with the GURPS to HERO comparison, in GURPS STR costs 10 points for one point, in HERO Str costs 1 point for one point, when you get to 20 it doubles, so basically if you spend 10 points in Gurps you have an 11 Str, for a 12 you pay 25, in HERO if you spend 10 points you get a 20 STR, if you spend 25 points you get a 27.5 Str, you need to look at the overall costs not the 11 str (10 points) to 11 str (1 point), also GURPS characteristics work very differently, in GURPS if you spend 90 points on stats and 10 points on skills you still have a pretty viable character because you can spend 1/2 to 1 point on a skill and still have a pretty good skill level, on the otherhand doing that in HERO you will either have only 2 or 3 decent skills or 6-10 skills at a pretty minimal level. It is a real apples and oranges comparison. I like GURPS and I like HERO but they systems are very differant despite the fact they look very similar on the surface, in many ways you can borrow from one to the other but borrowing the wrong parts will really mess you up. I also used the +/- towards the NCM so a Dwarf with a +2 Str/Con and -2 Dex would have an NCM of 22 in Str/Con and an 18 in Dex so buying high levels outside the characteristic norm would cost more than a "generic" human. I also played around with a double NCM, x2 at 20 and x4 at 30, yes we spent alot on charactristics and these are high levels for "normals" but it did open up the stats quite a bit so that "fighters" didn't have to worry about the "thief" being stronger than him without having the dreaded "classes", you just couldn't buy up your "thief" stats and you "fighter" stats because you simply couldn't afford it. We did alter the strength chart so that the strong characters were not throwing dragons around by the tail, other than that it doesn't matter to much unless you just have to go and compare the Hulk to Grondar the Strong.

Re: Bye all Do you have a link to a website you can give me to prove you've actually left the HERO boards? So I'm a mean bitter old b*****d, you try secretly running the universe for awhile, and while I'm on the topic do you have any idea how much ruler of the universe pays? I'll tell you its not enough, I can't even afford a decent summer palace these days and Igor's had to cut the red hot irons down to 3 days a week because of the price of oil Hey Sean that demotivator site is awesome, we have all kinds of "motivational" crud around the station, I think I'm going to sneak a few of these in, some actually could be legitimate. I really like the one about none of the rain drops causing a flood, and the family values one would be perfect for our EEO / HRO people who strangely have many of their family members employed in our EEO / HRO while they make us watch videos about making sure we hire fairly

Re: Book recommendation for guns? Actually if I understood your question, you would like guns already made up. In that case you don't really want 3g3 (guns, guns, guns) you want More Guns, it is a supplement to 3g3 that has more gun making rules but more importantly for you it includes reems of premade weapons for HERO along with other systems. Also if you can find it Edge of the Sword was kind of an updated The Armoury, it included stats for HERO and more modern weapons than The Armoury. It was also written by Kevin Dockery who did The Armoury. BTW you might also be interested in a book called The Armoury I do agree with Fox 1 somewhat about 3g3, although I don't see the use of energy as a failure I do fault the weapon design rules because they fail to consider just how big that hole the bullet made in you is, (damage is strictly based on penetration so as a result bigger often results in less damage If you don't care too mauch about this stuff and just want a big list o guns I prefer 3g3 and more guns over the Dark Champions treatment, (although as a whole DC is worth getting, I just didn't care for the guns and there was too much supers stuff for my taste which knocked it off my best HERO book ever list, down to my pretty darn good but it frustrated me HERO book list)

Re: Pistol Damage Class By Caliber That is about it in a nutshell, the human body is just to obstinate to make things easy, it happens all the time a person is killed in a minor fender bender while another survives a crash no one could survive without any long term effect. Trying to relate damage to living organisms is funky at best, ballistics is no different.

Ok, something I have been playing around with is the idea that large guns (like vehicle weapons) are difficult to aim at close range, so I was looking at a -OCV (typically -1 to -4) but then the same amount added on the other end in RMOD (so if it should have an RMod of +3 but it has an OCV of -2 I would give a total Rmod of +5), so this way within a few meters the gun is so unweildy that it is somewhat to very inaccurate, but as range increases that -OCV is offset by the RMOd (still has a -2 OCV or whatever but the Range penalty and Rmod make up for it), so what you would get is a penalty to roll, followed by an area with no penalty and then finally range begins to take its toll. Does this make sense or am I missing something.

Re: Modelling Artillery Payloads

Re: Pistol Damage Class By Caliber Ok, obviously you need to take english comprehension, clearly my post alluded to cross section, equal size and weight means equal cross sectional density, I'm not writing this for physics teachers, I'm trying to make it understandable to the average person, I think someone without a chip on their juvenille know it all shoulder would have got that, but you are too mired in your delusions to catch that. As far as the article goes get sad all you like, I based much of my work on a similar article 4 years ago, I don't agree with the statement the KE is meaningless but agree with the basic tenant of the paper, this is not as impossible as you might think, some of us have the ability to take from many sources, combine them and find where the truth lies. The reality is we are not that different in our results, only how we get them. That and I can remain mostly civil even when talking to irritating immature paranoid prxxx with delusions of his own greatness. (well blew that one) You might try being a little respectful of others even when you think they are full of it, you will go farther in life. Minds are like parachutes, they only work when they are open, now you even have me quoting hippy bumper stickers

Re: Hard Target: Statting The Minigun