assault

7 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

as another example, I absolutely positively _detest_ combat-oriented magic.  It's just so...  Tawdry to me: "I can bend the fabric of reality to my will; I know the secrets of reshaping the universe to my liking.  It is within my grasp to mould a world where all are fed, and none have want of anything. Today, though, I just want to set this one guy on fire."

I'm not too bothered by this.

Lighting a candle is the kind of easy magic students might learn early in their training. Magnifying the effect of basic spells seems like a natural extension.

Protective magic would be similar. If you are messing about with dangerous energies/entities, being able to protect yourself seems like a good idea.

Combat magic seems like the kind of easy magic even the dubiously talented and incompletely trained can do. It's magic for hacks, at least if that's all they can do.

Not to mention "I was walking down the street and this guy tried to grief me, so I whipped up a bit of fire and he backed off. Lucky, because I'm pretty useless with my sword."

2 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

Someone inspired by this thread to try to buy Enemies United would be in for a lot of frustration.

You have to write it now.

I've seen a bit of Sailor Moon.

The most important power Queen Nocturna would have is the ability to empower flunkies. (Or boost the power of lieutenants that already have powers.)

This means that there is no shortage of monster of the week plots you can run. Eventually, though, a "real" plot should kick in, with the secrets of the Magical Moon Kingdom being revealed, and Nocturna's attempt to take it over, initially through her lieutenants, only getting involved directly once that fails.

VtM, and the World of Darkness in general, appealed to a milieu of edgy Emo/Goth types.

When that milieu faded, so did it.

Riding fads is lucrative, but risky.

2 hours ago, dmjalund said:

he could have been a soldier in the Korean War

Vietnam War is possible.

Also more likely given his name.

The nearly ubiquitous nature of PTSD as a result of that war might have something to do with it.

Aaron Allston's Strike Force setting had the Blood, amongst others.

Officially published by Hero Games, although not part of the official setting established in the 4e days.

Dean's stuff is great.

You can do the same thing when you have your PCs too.

"This origin exists", therefore other characters can use it too.

Personally I favour the gonzo approach, at least for PCs.

I then build out from them.

It's not necessary to rationalise NPCs who will only show up if you want them to.

2 hours ago, Mr. R said:

This is a hold over from ADnD 2ed where the ONLY class a halfling could get ANY decent level in was thief. 

Long before that.

 

2 hours ago, Mr. R said:

My point is that NOW you are free to make what you want!

Which leaves everything bland, unfortunately.

Funnily enough, while you are free to make what you want in Hero, Chaotic Evil Half-Tortle Paladin/Ranger/Assassins seem to be less of a problem.

18 minutes ago, Ninja-Bear said:

Also I have some cool miniatures. Is that valid reason? 😁

Certainly.

6 hours ago, DShomshak said:

Or, you know, don't. If the only reason you're even trying to make halflings "work" for you is that people expect them 'cuz D&D, you probably shouldn't waste your time.

This is pretty much what I think except for the expectation.

Actually, I would be inclined to get rid of Dwarves, and make "Halflings"  the small folk 

Frankly, I m tempted to go with Johan et Perlouit, and make Elves short and blue. But I would have to be in a mood for that 

I'm going a bit closer to sub-Tolkien D&D style fantasy than I usually do.

One of the things that that requires are Tolkien-esque PC "races".

I've got a handle on Elves as being more like Moorcock's Melniboneans, with influences from Poul Anderson, Terry Pratchett and others.

I'm struggling with Halflings and Dwarves though.

For Dwarves, there's CS Lewis, Pratchett, Snow White(!) and various minor sources.

For Halflings there's Tolkien - and D&D.

Nelwyns from Willow could be either - and that's the problem.

Why have both? (And don't get me started on Gnomes!)

OK, Dwarves live underground and are miners, while Halflings live on the surface and are farmers. But why have that degree of separation/specialisation? Why not just have one "race" that does both?

Norse/German mythological Dwarves are different again, so they aren't useful.

Aside from being friendly towards people familiar with D&D, I can't really see the point of having two groups. And yet...

Has anyone else addressed this kind of thing? How did you differentiate between the two, or justify having both?

The 6e version is the Hero System Basic Rulebook.

Apparently people used to get confused by the name Sidekick.

Either are nice little books, but still more general than you need for a specific game.

1 hour ago, unclevlad said:

 

Well, they wasted no time, did they?
The weaponization committee has been created.  

 

Yeah, this darn sure looks more like the House Un-American Activities Committee than anything legit...

Bi-partisan, or totally GOP? If the former, which Democrats are going to be... willing to be part of it.

Actually, if it can't be stopped from existing, AOC and other members of the squad should be on it. Just for fun.

That makes things bit easier, without solving the problem.

Looking at 3e Fantasy Hero, and doing an in my head conversion to 6e, Elves and Dwarves should be doable.

Multi-classing will still require serious compromises.

3e FH is the only set of Hero rules I keep on my phone. I'm still a little tempted to use Justice Inc for Pulp fantasy though.

Back on topic, Magesight and other character taxes on Magic Users need to be kept under control.

1 hour ago, Ninja-Bear said:

Yes but IIRC, it’s really hard to do elves or dwarves at that point level. You can make a decent fighter at that point level though.

Good point.

Part of it is that we are trying to balance the unbalanced.

It can be partly worked around by being minimalist in terms of "this is what an Elf/Dwarf is". If it doesn't cost too much, the points can be found, at the expense of something else.

Multi-classing is something else. The only way I can see to handle It is to make the character weaker in each class than a single class character. That's pretty basic point budgeting.

So an Elf or Dwarf should be possible, but they are going to have to forgo a bit of power.

1 minute ago, Old Man said:

I've played campaigns with 50 point PCs, it works but it feels weird for the entire party to have to gang up on a single goblin.

Sounds like the goblin is the problem.

6e, I presume.

Let's see.

Deduct 25 points for conversion to earlier editions. That leaves 100 points.

25 points for characteristics, 25 for skills, 25 for spells, 17 for Magesight, leaving 8 points over.

Yep, you have reinvented the First Level Magic User.

An entirely viable character when compared to other characters built on the same points.

There were certainly over-powered characters, but if you want characters to play in a game you should stay away from them.

Many years ago now, during the 5th edition days, I did an analysis of as many Golden Age characters as I could be bothered. My conclusion was that characters could be built from a common template.

The main issues were sidekicks, and, unfortunately, female characters. Very few of the latter could  be justified as throwing a punch quite as hard as the red-blooded boys, but they could still take out mooks, or indeed the normal variety of villains.

Actual training wasn't an issue  Red-blooded men could be supers without any special training.

1 hour ago, Old Man said:

IOW, imagine if WotC became Games Workshop.  Yesterday.

I wonder if there is enough money in D&D (read mass market RPGs) for a viable competitor to Hasbro to move into the market.

Of course that would require suits who understood and cared about the market, so forget that idea.

53 minutes ago, batguy said:

cool,man,give me some examples of out of copyright characters i can find and use,and swipe their look and powers

6 hours ago, wcw43921 said:

The International Catalogue Of Superheroes is an excellent resource for Golden Age Superhero characters, as is The Public Domain Super Heroes Wiki.  Both have scores of heroes and villains alike which should give you an idea of what you want to make into a Golden Age Superhero.  

 

Hope that helps.  Good Luck, and let us know how it goes.

The second, chronologically first, quote is a good answer to the question.

I'll a add one point: Golden Age characters were very cookie cutter. Once you have designed one you can really churn out others.

7 hours ago, steriaca said:

Humm...I can see a generic "defense martial arts" for blocks, disarms, and escape manuvers. Nothing to increase STR for damage purposes. 

My original suggestion of martial arts was intended to increase the character's damage, but if we are going this way, there needs to be another way to do it.

The combination of high defenses, mediocre damage and average DEX/SPD makes for a good paperweight or doorstop, but a mediocre combatant.

Perhaps the character could have Martial Arts, to top up their attack with extra damage, and provide some tactical options other than Hit-Hit-Hit...

Campaign City was named after the Marquis de Campaign. He was French of course. Isn't it obvious?

As far as mapping the supers in the rest of the world goes: I'm Australian. Don't.

If you need a local contact, that's fine. If you want to fight a local team, that's fine. Otherwise, stay away from local heroes.