Herolover

Re: I ordered the entire StarHERO Line; and have a question I have a couple of comments and options for you.... 1) As some suggested get another Sci-fi RPG game and just port the cost and money into your HERO game. 2) Take a really good look at Terran Empire. It has some feel like a Traveller game and it comes with cost and price list. 3) This is really just a note...but I HATE the system that base price on how many points it is. With that system you end up paying buttloads for a real effective flashlight, but can get other high tech leading edge technology cheaply. This is not the way it should be.

Re: Julian May Just to tell you no, I have not used this setting in any campaign, but I have always wanted to. What a great series off books.

I have a player that has come up with a very interesting skill. As I understand it the player says his character grew up in a bad environment and as a result his character has learned how to study a group of teenagers interacting with each other and as a result of that study he can learn what the social pecking order and situation is. It is not a supernatural ability. It requires some time and some amount of study. The player, he is new, at first bought the Analyze Skill. I have thought about KS: Analyze Teen Social Structure, or it could be built as a Detect of some kind. How would you build it?

Re: Teen Champions Starting Level? I recently started a Teen Champions game and according to the books it is 100 + 100 and they reccomend a lot of limitations on powers with active points around 50. However, after playing a couple of sessions I boosted my teens up to 150 + 125, less limations requirements, and active points of around 60. I discovered, for me, I like the higher level because at the low level they can't come near to handling any of the CKC villains and even a couple of agents pose great threats. At the higher level I have far more options of what villains I throw at them and it feels more like a comic book teen group. I admit that this is just for me and I might be the odd man out, but I thought I would tell you what someone else did.

Re: Teen Champions PCs vs Minuteman. This question was meant to be more philosophical about how different GM'S run their campaigns. Do you strip down every villain, or do you run villains as is. As far as stripping down a villain there are many ways of doing it. The main thing to remember is there are more ways of doing things than just changing the character sheet. Look at the environment the fight is going on in. Perhaps the foe has already been in a fight and is hurt. Perhaps his power supply is low...imagine a villain that has just fought battle, after battle, after battle and their endurance (per LTE) is low. D&D gives a lot of examples on how to take a power foe and let them fight a low power hero. Another way to think of it is you say that you have a problem lowering the minuteman to fight. The real question is do you lower minuteman across the board therefore weakening their power for the entire campaign world or do you just come up reasons why this particular one is limited?

What is the most useless power/ability that you have heard, read, seen, or know of? An example is the character from the movie "Sky High" that can melt. The character that can call rain. The character that can transform small matter into food. What others are out there?

Re: Teen Champions PCs vs Minuteman. lol Yep that is is the way to go. I love it actually. I still may go through with the way I have it, but this is a good way of doing things. I was thinking more in the lines of how do you handle a situation when your teen PCs run into someone that should be obviously out of their leauge. Do you adjust them, or just run them?

Re: How to handle Western Hero Duels/Showdowns

Re: How to handle Western Hero Duels/Showdowns Pretty much that is where I stole it from. Really, if you look at a duel in the Hero system it is just a series of presence attacks. You could, if you wanted to, just get rid of Bluff all together, but I feel it adds something.

Re: Teen Champions PCs vs Minuteman. I agree with all that was said. I know the tricks of making the minuteman work. In fact, the minuteman they are fighting, is going to be very experimental and therefore have some activation rolls, some weakness, and it will even loose a couple of actions due to "computer errors." If, there were no other supers in the world I would agree that starting out at MkI is the way to go. However, how would you justify the fact that your teen pc's can just handle a MK I while the big bad Champions super team can't? Do you ignore it? Do you say Minuteman or only a threat to low level supers? If you then want to run a high level normal campaign in the same universe how do you justify using minutemen?

I saw someone post on the High Plains Hero thread that they weren't sure how to do Duels in Hero. They seem very simplistic, the guy with the highest DEX goes first and therefore usually wins the fight. That would work if Duels were normal combat, but they aren't. Duels are a special situation and they came about for a very specific purpose. If a person was intent just to kills someone they wouldn't go through the whole process of a duel. They would just walk up behind their target and shoot them. Duels came about because the above situation, just walking up behind someone and shooting them, is not accepted by society. However, killing the same person in a duel is accepted because it gives the appearance that the victim had a chance. There are two types of duels, Timed and Untimed duels. They only real difference between the two is when the shooting begins. In Untimed duels two opponents, A and B, face off against each other. The object each opponent is trying to achieved is to force their opponent to either back down, thus becoming a coward, or draw their gun therefore becoming justified in shooting and killing them. Yep, a duel is a fine line. You actually want the other guy to draw first, but you want him so harried that he misses his shot. In a duel when a person’s phase comes up he can do one of three things: a) Draw and try to fire his gun. Bluff his opponent into thinking he is drawing his gun. c) Make a Presence attack forcing his opponent to either draw his gun or walk away. a) This starts combat and is ran exactly according to Hero system combat rules. For the Bluff skill you could use Persuasion, Acting, PS: Gunslinger, or several other skills. Given enough results the target thinks you are drawing your gun and draws his. Usually, I like to give the person bluffed into drawing their gun some minuses to their Fast Draw based upon how well the Bluff succeeded. c) A presence attack, with appropriate modifiers and bonuses for quips, fancy looking gun, reputation etc can be a powerful tool. Suddenly your target can’t act next phase, or if he can act, can just get his gun out and not shoot. In an untimed duel the opponents would continue trading bluffs and presence attacks until someone drew their gun and from their normal combat would start. A timed duel is the same as an untimed duel except the shooting starts when the handkerchief falls, the gun shoots in the air, the horse passes by, or the town clock chimes 12 noon. It is ran just like an untimed duel except the GM secretly determines the segment on which the signal is going off. Of course, drawing your gun before the signal goes off usually means you are disqualified, dead, or both, Once the signal “goes off†drawing your weapon is a fair game and normal combat starts. Example: A and B are facing each other in the town square and when the clock strikes 12 noon they draw. The GM secretly decides the clock will strike 12 noon on segment 5 of the second turn. The secret to running a good showdown-duel is to realize there is a lot more going on than just someone drawing a gun and shooting. Questions, comments, replies, are very welcome.

Hello all, I am gamemastering a new teen champions campaign and the above situation could actually occur and I am wondering how other GM's handle situations as this. Let me explain. Teen PCs have lower point totals and lower active points than normal. I don't have a problem with this, in fact, I think it is right. I also don't have a problem coming up with foes or adjusting existing characters to be their allies or foes. However, in this situation I hesitate to "adjust" a Minuteman since it is standard of the Champions Universe. It would be, to me, much like me adjusting Dr. Destroyer so my PCs could take him on. He is meant to be a real baddy that gives normal heroes a hesitation. Now, I know some tricks to allow my teens to fight this baddy and live, maybe even, with luck, beat it. However, I was wondering how others would handle such a thing.... a) adjust the Minuteman anyway and just forget about the fact that the other adult supers are supposed to have trouble with these. or run the Minuteman as it and just hope your players are smart enough to run and let what happens happen.

Re: What I do not get about package deals.. Package Deals will never be renamed, but in truth they in other games they would be called Templates. Since 5e the "Package Deal" is only useful to show give players examples or "rules to follow." Could you imagine a policeman without the knowledge of police procedures? To answer your question on the stats the reason stats are included in a racial package deal is to show that some races are "on average" quicker or stronger. The average Dwarf has a STR of 12 compared to an average Human's STR of 10 therefore we put a +2 STR in the package deal. When Package Deals started out in previous editions you did get 3 or mabye even 5 free points. Then some GM's allowed players to not count the disadvantages that came witht he package, but that meant you got package deals with huge amounts of disads. I like it better now that it is templates.

Re: A Focus that can Shrink to be hid. Thanks for all the information. You have given me a lot to think about. The focus shrinks down to a pocket knife and it looks like a normal pocket knife, not a mini-sword. The idea is that it is hidden, but can be taken when not in fighting mode. IAF When in fighting mode it it can b e taken away. OAF

Re: Thoughts on the Speed Zone I looked at the Speed Zone and thought, "Wow, that is so neat, no way any character I GM for or play will ever get it." Really cool, but I, as many others, cannot find a way that would allow it to be balanced with other characters. The only way I would allow it is: A) In an all Speedster Campaign. The problem here is that their main enemies, maybe their only enemies, would have to be speedsters as well. I am GM'ing for a single player with a speedster. C) If the character came up with some kind of limitations on entering the speed zone that made it a last minute, oh my lord kind of manuever.