rauer

Re: Order of the Stick Nice catch!

Re: Balancing Mental Powers These two bring back memories for me, and are good to note. Enemies can learn, and some of them can adapt better than others. If the mentalist PC (or, for that matter, any of the PCs) is extremely effective in one encounter, then when the same bad guys face the same PC group again the bad guys might have a new tactic to try and deal with what defeated them before. In the case of VIPER and other agencies, they might actually build files on their enemies and pass them around to some/all of their operatives/nests. This actually reminds me of an old Battletech game I played in. One character had some stunning die rolls and downed an enemy mech every round for either four or five rounds. In the next session we faced another part of the same enemy 'army', and this part had been briefed on the prior battle and ordered to take out the lucky PC first, since he was clearly 'far more of a threat than any of the others'.

Re: Dr. Sebastian Poe

Re: Dr. Sebastian Poe The Mental Shapeshift leads me to think of Dr. Poe as a foe who relies on not being found. If this is the idea, then how about this. If the EGO Drain were lowered in dice to one or two, then you could give it IPE and an increased cap. This might give you a much stronger effect, with a little added time, and would make the power very subtle as well. Something like this: Drain EGO 1d6+1 (standard effect: 4 points), Delayed Return Rate (points return at the rate of 5 per Minute; +1/4), Ranged (+1/2), Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2), Invisible Power Effects (Fully Invisible; +1), Cumulative (56 points; +1 1/4) (58 Active Points). With a SPD of 4, he could use this power on each phase and drain the max of 56 points (or 28 EGO) in about three and a half turns (42 seconds). With IPE, this is pretty nasty. Of course, anyone with Mental Defense might be an issue since the attack only hits for four points, but an AP vs Mental Defense would help with that (a little, anyway), and swapping AP for Ranged would mean that he would have to touch the target, so it could be: Bedside Manner: Drain EGO 1d6+1 (standard effect: 4 points), Delayed Return Rate (points return at the rate of 5 per Minute; +1/4), Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2), Armor Piercing (+1/2), Invisible Power Effects (Fully Invisible; +1), Cumulative (56 points; +1 1/4) (58 Active Points). Something like this might fit nicely with his Mind Scan in an Elemental, as well. One thing that changes sharply though is that the Drain essentially becomes an "out of combat" type of power, where against a foe on a map it might not help Dr. Poe much at all. But... add something else like this and it carries the change even further. Emotion Sculpting: Major Transform 2d6 (Alter, remove or add Psych Lims relates to or affecting emotional states. heals back normally (a month or more)), Works Against EGO, Not BODY (+1/4), Based On EGO Combat Value (Mental Defense applies; +1) (67 Active Points); No Range (-1/2), Limited Target (humans) (-1/2). *cough* Too much of this stuff though, and a villain might be seen as abusive when the players realize what is happening, but that would depend on the flavor of your campaign. And who knows, perhaps the good Doctor starts out small and learns more powers as he goes? If you are looking for a Dr. Poe who can track down a mind (A Connoiseur Of Minds from your post), weaken or incapacitate a mind (EGO Drain), and do some molding of it (Transform), then small doses of those powers can do ridiculous things while leaving your goal (He will NOT be able to "duke it out" with a super hero) intact. Hope all this helps!

Re: Dominos, mountains & small cars I think they key is seeing HERO as a way to model multiple systems. Rather than deciding for you, HERO gives you, as the GM and 'world creator', some options for how you want things to work in your System that you base on the HERO guidelines. The individual GM instills the consistency, if I correctly understand what you are looking for.

Re: Social effects PCs are not immune. The outcome should be roleplayed. I am not trying to be rude, just pointing out that there is a difference. A bit back in the thread, Markdoc made a post which emphasized this difference in his own method of handling social skills. You know, the snarkiness of recent posts, from both viewpoints, really obscures the possibility of exchanging ideas and debating. In fact, a devolution to what I think of as "rudeness that would rarely, if ever, emerge around a gaming table but seems easily found on the internet" means that the rude part really gets in the way of the 'constructive exchange of ideas' part. We should be talking to each other the same way we debate a game idea with our gaming pals face to face, which does not seem to be happening in some of the recent threads. If all this thread really is, with the cover peeled back, is a sandbox where we are grabbing at our little trucks and smacking each other's hands, then I'll go spend more time preparing for finals.

Re: Social effects This is explained very well. Nice job.

Re: Social effects You are correct, I used the word 'character' when I should have used the word 'player.' Also, I would hope that nobody arguing for either viewpoint is experiencing the extremes that both sides are presenting because the extremes seem to come down to bad playing and bad GMing. The less of that the better, for everyone. Regarding a game where the GM's social abilities dwarf those of the players, or the reverse, this is a good situation to look at. Here, the GM should recognize this and make allowances for it. Essentially, for me this falls into the category of adjusting playstyle to suit a specific gaming group. The specifics of those adjustments would depend on the example. I would guess that a group of 12-16 year olds led by a far more skilled GM is probably closer to an exception than the norm (if we had a scale), but situations like this are why I think a 'firmer' system has merit as an optional rule. I see that it has a use and a place (which I've expressed in earlier posts as well). What I do not want is to lose the current system, which I believe works well as the default.

Re: Social effects Yes, social skills should be roleplayed. The rules clearly state that. No, combat does not have to be roleplayed. RP in combat is part of the fun, absolutely, but I believe roleplay is not nearly as crucial to combat resolution as it is to social resolution, and I believe the rules support this. I understand that you disagree and that you would like social resolution and combat resolution to be equally influenced by roleplay. I would not like that because, as a player, I need to have more control over my character in order to contribute to the story in the way that I desire to. Nobody else at the table, including the GM, has the insight to my character that I have and can resolve situations and decisions "in character" as accurately as I can. Every player has that relationship with their own character and the GM has that relationship with all the NPCs. "roleplay" is the trust that everyone is acting in character and making decisions for better or for worse, but more importantly for the story. If that isn't happening then I might as well be playing Battletech. Without the Mechwarrior supplement. Which brings me to the next part.

Re: Social effects I believe that the mechanism used to assess success or failure in the social aspect of Hero is a mixture roleplaying decisions and die roll results. The degree to which each part, roleplaying and die results, is used will be determined by the desires and playstyle of the specific gaming group. This is not the same method of resolution as the one used in the combat side of Hero. This difference looks, to me, like a deliberate design decision. I'd like to point out that I don't see any reason why anyone who wanted a firmer social combat system couldn't simply use the Resistance Talent, as presented in the book (page 65, description and sidebar), to defend against social skills. One could also ignore the statements in the book regarding PCs being allowed more control over their actions than NPCs as well, which would allow free usage of Persuasion and Seduction. Is there some reason why this would not work, or is insufficient, for anyone who wanted to run a game where social outcomes were determined more by die roll results than the format laid out in the Fifth Edition ruleset?

Re: Social effects Hhmm... To an extent I agree and disagree. I prefer to avoid describing 'taking no damage' as 'missing' when I run a game because it can provide different information to the player/character, but I suppose at that point the topic breaks down into specifics like power construction and SFX, and from there I think it all becomes personal preference to a given GM. It's all good.

Re: Social effects This has been my understanding as well, that the social system being debated would involve compelling actions from one who lost a social combat.

Re: Social effects Isn't that just a physical attack missing, where immunity would be more like bulletproof (in this example of someone being shot at), as in the bullet hits and the target is unharmed by a successful attack?

Re: Social effects Well. I typed out a nice, pretty response and then my IE crashed and ate it. My fault for using Windows, I suppose. I think we, and perhaps everyone, are agreeing on this. Systems don't prevent bad GMs/players from being, well, bad.

Re: Social effects I don't see how a hard (or fixed, or whatever name everyone agrees on) social system prevents bad play. In my experience, bad play is prevented by other players and/or the GM helping the 'bad player' learn to play better. No game system I have ever seen has prevented bad players or GM's from participating. Just saying.