Toadmaster

There are many good ideas and suggestions listed above but to add my $0.02. In general I agree that you don't want the packages to get too expensive or there are few points left to make the character differant. On the other hand the justification many give for "classes" in D&D and like games are that "in the old days" most societies did restrict where and how you could get skills often only being available by belonging to specific guilds. Typically I don't like "classes" so I don't make Fantasy packages really expensive but if you like "classes" then it makes alot of sense to make your packages very detailed. There are reasons stereo types exist, one Dwarf fighter may be very much like the next, Hobbits may have the monopoly on thieves guilds etc. Also which the exception of racial packages generally no player has to take the package. Also keep in mind the point value of "normals", it doesn't make much sense to have a town guard package that no "normal" town guard could afford to buy. Remember the player characters generally have many more points to spend so if a package leaves them with little left over how would the non heroic people of that class hold the job, they can't all be heroes.

Pretty much wing it, but remember that characters without PSs have few if any "job" skills and will usually have minimum wage jobs (you want fries with that?). Of course there are exceptions, a character with acrobatics and acting might be a clown or other performer but its unlikely that a character with a ton of combat skills will be employable except for as muscle (or an adventurer). I also generally base starting equipment on skills, one weapon for each CSL, medkit for paramedics, tool kit for mechanics etc.

Just how bad was this, I remember seeing it on HBO in the late 1980's or so but all I remember is something about an armored bulldozer and a conversation about nipples. I saw this available at the video store a few months back but didn't get it in case my poor memory was a defense mechanism. You want bad PA films, anyone remember Night of the Comet?

Originally posted by C_Zeree So I was thinking. If the end of the world is upon a world where super heroes exist, what would they do as the world was coming down around them? (snipped) Any thoughts on the matter? Back when 486's were the hot computer I played a game based on Superhero's in an apacalyptic world. I believe it was "The Superhero League of Hoboken" rather silly, it kind of reminds me of THE TICK cartoon, with powers like "can clean any mess" or can eat any food no matter how spicy", of course they also had lesser powers like eye rays or martial arts but the main powers were needed to complete the main quests, one I remember in particular was a wherehouse full of Jalapinos so hot that one drop of their juice in the Atlantic Ocean would litterally burn the tongue out of the mouth of anyone tasting the water. While definately a comedy setting it would offer some ideas for a PA supers game.

Its been many years since I have seen the movie but from what I recall the war seems likely to have been WW1 extended until civilization collapsed, I think the movie was made in the late 1920's. I thought the coolest part was that "THE FUTURE" you mention with the Buck Rodgers tech was 1967, the year I was born. Speaking of WW1 era apacalypses has anyone looked at Iron Storm the computer game based around the idea that WW1 extended into the 1960's?

I agree that the "deal" in the packages is sort of confusing since the freebee points are no longer included but the packages do still offer some benefits that otherwise may not be available. Many of the disadvantages would be questionable under normal circumstances, for example "subject to orders" in a structured campaign such as a military or government agency based one this is hardly a disadvantage, you follow the "mission" or there is no game, but as part of a military or agency package it is completely justified even if only marginally a disadvantage. The packages can also be used to restrict skills, advantages etc, for example in a place that firearms are severely restricted you might be prevented from taking WF smallarms unless you take a military, law enforcement of criminal package, same could go for other "powers" such as magic being resticted to a "guild" package. Finally the are quite nice for providing some color to the campaigns background and can help eliminate silliness such as a "green beret" character having less military skills than a "cook" because of players having very differant ideas of what military skills are appropriate.

The weapon stats in Western Hero are about the same, the only differance is the .45 ACP magically now does almost the same damage as the .44 Magnum, and more than the .357 and .41 Magnums, all of which are significantly more powerful in in the real world, oh yeah, also the 120mm cannon almost doubled in damage. You are better off sticking with the 4th stats until DoJ comes up which a rational coherant method for assigning damage as existed in the 4th ed. If you want more death use the optional rules or add a DC across the board. Personnally I thought Western Hero had the best gun rules of the 4th ed products.

Twilight 2000 is being reprinted by Marc Miller's Far Future Enterprises, the same company is reprinting the Classic Traveller "little black books" http://www.farfuture.net/

It's been years since I played a FH game but we used to reduce the STRMIN by one or a couple of points (lighter, better balanced etc) and added a few to its DEF/Body (assuming better quality steel). The more you were willing to pay the more the STRMIN, DEF/Body was changed. Nusord, I too like your idea and also may steal it. We allowed some of those options for certain weapons like +1DC for an extra heavy axe, but yours offers more variety.

I've seen several on ebay recently, from $1.00 to 9.99

Well they are lighter which means they probably have a higher velocity so probably penetrate brittle targets better than the heavy round nose .45, how they "know" to open up against a person but not a vest would be interesting to see how that is explained. One thing I've found with new ammo is it rarely works out as well as it is advertised, when they are first introduced wild claims begin to circulate, a few years later, they are either off the market or they fit in with similar bullets already on the market. I've seen quite a number of bullets offered that are far superior to anything else on the market, now you have a hard time even finding a referance to them. Several years ago there was a bullet going by the name Arcane, this was a solid bullet with a pointed tip, it was supposed to cut right through armor but act like a hollow point due to its shape causing a "belly flop" effect against the target, years later I read about these and it appears there was nothing particularly stupendous about them except their cost, the came the Glaser safety slug, these were supposed to mystically be able to tell the differance between armor and walls, penetrating armor but not walls, and they were supposed to be like a 12 gauge shotgun against their target. Now from what I've read they are quite effective against unarmored targets but they obliterate on impact with something hard (which they are supposed to do, to prevent overpentration, and where they got their "safety slug" name), I think in this case it was the advertising people that got carried away, since the less fantastic descriptions seem to be pretty close to what it looks like they do. Finally along came the Black Talons, these were supposed to kill you just by looking at them, and even get the doctors if you lived to make it to surgery. The reality is they were just well made hollow points designed to work at pistol velocities (many hollow points don't really expand at the relatively low velocities of pistols) I think the PR killed these off, all kinds of rumors of racial predudice were started about them, laws were being passed and the manufacturer withdrew them until the heat passed, then relabeled them and they are now available under a variety of names, however they are still just hollow points. I guess the point is don't worry about it too much, if you like the effect go with it, but realistically pretty much all bullets fall into a small number of catagories, expanding (hollow point, soft point), fragmenting (glasers), armor piercing (KTW, steel or tungston core) and exploding (rare). I like you idea for AP though, I think that is far better than the typical AP cuts armor in 1/2 which is far to powerful for most small arms projectiles. As far as the body armor, I hear many people talk about body armor like you need a permit to buy it, many manufacturers will restrict the sale of body armor to "authorized" people, I know of no laws restricting the ownership of body armor.

Thanks, I guess I'll start watching ebay for CS stuff. The hero clics would be handy, I'll have to start watching for those too. I've been a bit annoyed with the collectable aspect of the hero clics, they would be good mini's but it would be nice to be able to get what you want instead of buying blind.

Also on the +P, +P+ this originally was done almost as a new cartridge, they were hotter loadings of the 9mm and .38 Special, they were really to much for older weapons, and some even used heavier brass casings. With modern weapons almost all good quality weapons can use them, it has also become common for hotter loads of a cartridge to use this term but in most cases they are not so much a new cartridge as just a loading closer to the theoretical max for the cartridge. There have also been cartridges designed for specific weapons, you can buy .44 magnum "+P" loads that are strictly for use in rifles, you can shoot them in a .44 magnum pistol but you will damage it, at one time there was a hot 9mm parabellum being sold for use in Submachineguns along the same lines, I think it was even being sold as 9mm UZI, but was really just a 9mm loaded hotter than pistols would tolerate, since most SMG's can withstand higher chamber pressures than pistols.

As far as the +p, +p+ whether or not they should do extra damage varies, in real life or a closely spaced damage RPG sure, in HERO the differance will rarely be enough to justify the extra damage, I've got a listing of 600+ small arms cartridges converted to HERO, I ran the various ballistics to allow those cartiridges with several common loadings to have differant ratings if appropriate, only the very few +P and +P+ cartridges that were very close to the break point justified extra damage. On the other hand many of the magnum pistols "medium" loads were worth dropping a DC, I wound up including these since it adds to the value of revolvers where many of the magnums are preferred for their ability to use low powered to hot loads depending on preferance and intended use. As far as bullet designs many of these are worth a change i damage since this is not really related to overall energy but the energy transfer to the target, hollow points, glasers etc rapidly dump energy be creating more of a surface, this also creates a larger hole which in something living is more of a problem, AP is the reverse, energy is conserved by providing less friction either from less surface area or coating (teflon bullets). The Reduced pen +1DC seems about right for a hollow point to me, but the AP for a bullet is too much, as the example given shows AP bullets in small arms penetrates better but it certainly doesn't double the penetration, this is another area I think using a power like piercing would be handy (that would be extra damage only vs armor for those unfamiliar with piercing). AP is fine for large weapons and HEAT rounds since they are build around it to begin with.

I had a formula I was playing around with a few years back that used the square root of muzzle energy, it worked pretty well most current weapons up to 2d6 were pretty close, .50 cal moved up a DC to 3d6+1 and many of the magnum rifles were 2 1/2 to 3d6, funny how adding 1DC gave enough room to seperate the magnum rifles from each other, currently you get the lower end magnums like the .300 winchester falling in with the .30-06, and 7.62 NATO, the bulk falling into the 2 1/2d6 range and a few in the 3d6-1. Only problem I found was that since it was linear by the time you were getting into tanks you were giving out 12d6 attacks and 16" guns were something 100d6 world smashing attacks. Anyway it would be nice to open the damage spread up a bit more than it is now. That is one area I prefer GURPS, you can actually differentiate fine variations such as .32 ACP from .380 ACP and 9mm Parabellum, not the small, medium large handgun feel I sometimes have with HERO.

Two words.... Head shot I've resemble that comment, in a Post Apocalypse DI game I had a character take a 12 ga round in the chest at point blank range, no body got through but recovery was measured in days IIRC Interesting idea, I may have to "borrow" it, hope you don't mind.

Actually I think this is already dealt with by the die rolling system, the biker shot in the head with the .41 magnum got lucky, the shooter rolled 2 body, modified by hit location-head, thats 4 body and 10 stun, assuming the biker has a con and body of 11 (he's a bit tougher than average), he's not even stunned Seriously though I think if I were going to add in extra complexity I'd go for a crit chart or perhaps extra damage based on location, limbs having less chance of extra damage and lower damage adds, head and vitals the most. perhaps something like chance for crit hands, feet 6- +1/2d6 arms, legs 8- +1/2d6, 6- +1d6 abdomen, chest 11- +1d6, 8- +2d6 Head, vitals 15- +1d6, 11- +2d6, 8- +3d6 this would represent the chance of hitting something extra special in the various locations, limbs basically just have blood vessels to hit causing extra blood loss, chest and abdomen have this plus important organs (stomach, liver etc), head and vitals have these plus critical organs (heart, lungs, brain etc) I think this is probably a bit much for most games but if you really want to make guns dangerous, it might be worthwhile to pursue. It also goes a long way to making the shot placement more important than what gun you were using.

Barrel length does have a fairly significant impact on muzzle velocity, 9mm from a pistol is rated a class lower by the DOJ standards for body armor, fired from a SMG you need the next level of protection up, the typical 9mm pistol fires from a 4-5" barrel, most SMG's fire from an 8-12" barrel. These standards are based on actual live fire testing. Most SMG's run about 200fps faster than pistols. Something else to consider is what barrel length the cartridge is designed for, using a cartridge such as the 5.56mm designed for a 20" barrel, in an 11" barrel results in a significant loss of performance and a huge muzzle blast caused by still burning gasses to exit the barrel. On the other end using a round like the .45ACP designed for pistols out of a rifle could result in little increase and in extreme cases could cause a loss of performance as the barrel begins creating drag on the bullet once the powder expands to its limit (this would generally only happen by using a cartridge like the .32 ACP in a 30" barrel) but is a factor in shotguns whose maximum effective length has dropped from 30"+ of the black powder days to about 26" in modern shotguns. On the otherhand all of this is probably a bit much for HERO because of the scale, + or - a DC for extremes is probably all that is called for (pistol cartridge in a rifle or rifle cartridge in a pistol) also the more powerful cartridge DC's are so broad it would rarely come into effect (a .44 mag has so far before it crosses into the 2d6+1 range that it shouldn't get a bonus etc). It all depends on how detailed you want to get.

it depends on what you are trying to simulate, AE 1 row of hexes works for a cinematic "room broom" style of shotgun. For a more realistic view +1 OCV is about all that you expect, at 40m a shotgun only covers about 18" (1/2m), as a compromise perhaps you could give area effect 1 hex row at long range (you could define this as the range damage has dropped to 1/2). As previously mentioned reduced by range and reduced penetration are appropriate. I've seen rules in another game that took the "lost" damage and allowed it to be used against other targets in line with the target, you could create a house rule along with the 1 hex row AE allowing the damage lost due to reduced by range to attack other targets beyond the first, since reduced by range is used to represent pellets spreading to far to hit the intended target.

I really like the background for the Crimson Skies game (PC flight game) and was wondering how much world detail was included in the FASA books, I know it was more of a mini's game like Battle tech but Battle tech included quite a bit of background (and eventually spawned an RPG Mechwarrior). Basically what I am wondering is, whether the FASA products include lots of background, or if it was mostly just rules and stats. I was considering hunting some down if it includes good background stuff.

Sorry, I didn't notice when I first replied that you were asking what effect certain bullets should have, not providing an example of what a 9mm should do, it was just coincidence that I felt the 9mm is about right for the example you gave. Typically most gun "experts" consider a 9mm or .38 to be the minimum caliber that should be considered as a serious defensive fire arm, most also agree no that pistol can be considered reliable for a "one shot kill" and most also agree you need a rifle or shotgun to reliably stop an attacker with only one or two shots, and even thats not assured. Based on that I was thinking that a 9mm or .38 Special (1d6+1, +0 STN) with an average of 4-5 body and 12-20 stun would con stun the average (8-10 con) individual and cause them a pretty solid ouch, move that to the vitals or head and there is a good chance they are out of the fight (8-10 body, 16-40 stun), so either good placement or make that 2 hits and I'd be pretty confident that they are no longer going to be a problem to me. Now if you move up to the "man stopper" .45 ACP (1d6+1, +1 STN) the average becomes 4-5 body and 16-25 stun, normals are very likely to be out of the fight with a good hit. If you start looking at the magnums, rifles or shotguns and one shot "kills" are quite likely using the current rules. I think part of the problem is most people look at the characters or semi-important NPC's when comparing the damages not "normals". Again, if you want to lean to the deadlier side I can't really provide an argument against bumping 1 DC, because I don't really disagree with that concept, it just depends on how scared of guns you want your players to be. If you plan to have lots of gun play in your games I'd lean toward staying with the current damage, if you want gun play to be the exception I'd go for the +1 DC.

Actually based on what you say yu are looking for and your examples I think that the current damages are pretty good, you figure a 9mm does an average of 4-5 and a max of 7, doubled for a head or vitals shot, particularly when you keep in mind that two things that are taught in self defence oriented training is to double tap (two shots) and that shot placement is more important than the caliber of the weapon used. I wouldn't be as concerned with the instant death aspect as that is far to variable, people have survived being shot dozens of times or been killed with a single shot from a .22 short, the emphasis in my opinion is whether or not the target is renderd ineffective, rather than killed and I think that with the current 2d6 to 2d6+1 of most military rifles and the "average" body now being set at 8-10, most rifles stand a good chance of dropping a "normal" with one shot, particularly if hit in the head or vitals. If you still don't feel guns do enough damage, I saw a suggestion of adding 1DC, while I don't feel the need to, if I played in a game where that was the house rule I wouldn't object, currently HERO is on the survivable gun shot side, adding 1DC would move it a little to the other end of that spectrum (there isn't much room to wiggle within HERO's damage scale), 1DC less and I would feel guns were clearly to weak, add 2 and I think they would be too deadly. If you haven't seen it there is some discussion related to this here, http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=2267 I included charts for some of my ideas in this thread which may or may not be useful to you.

I only played in one Western Hero campaign so I don't recall how much was covered on things like show downs in the rules as opposed to gm tips, but it worked fairly well for the typical high noon show down and big climactic town shootem up, where our campaign went bad was when the gm set an ambush around the high noon show down, we were set up for an OK corral type show down with the bad guys but they had marksmen in surrounding buildings, who shot us all in the back, that was the end of that campaign but I don't think it would have gone much better in other genres either. You might be able to find 4th ed Western Hero on Ebay, I've seen several listed recently at reasonable prices. If you like the genre I thought the book was well written.

Sorry about that, I was making sure I responded to your other comments that I missed your direct question. The Captain has it right, basically its extra damage only vs armor (no body or stun), my intent is to allow more flexibility so a .44 magnum (2d6) and a .30-30 (2d6) are not exactly the same, the .30-30 would have an extra level or 2 of piercing so would penetrate armor a little easier. Many rifles penetrate far better than pistols even though the muzzle energy would put them in the same DC. My thought is Piercing will held differentiate them.

I don't see why the energy to damage conversion wouldn't work the same, a precordial thump (the whack the guy in the chest to try and start is heart move so popular in medical movies and tv) is generally estimated at about 50 joules, (it is used when the arrest is witnessed, the defibrillator provides a 200 to 360 joule zap if the thump doesn't work, which is why I know the estimate for it) a good solid punch could probably approach 200+ joules so 3d6 N seems fair.