Dust Raven

Re: What does HERO Games have against >30 DEX, INT and EGO? I ran a character with a 36 DEX once, called Suicide Dancer. He also had a PD and ED of 14. His basic shtick was to take out an infinite number of mooks. Well, mooks without AoE attacks anyway. He was almost useless against full blown supers though, except as support (DC of 9 in a DC average 12 campaign). Great fun to play, but he would get boring in solo adventures.

Re: Learning Via Audio You mean like this? http://podcast.tlot3.net/

Re: Ruminations on Skills And a lab. Don't forget all real scientists have a lab. And a really hot & nerdy assistant.

Re: What does HERO Games have against >30 DEX, INT and EGO? The benchmark guidelines presented in the rulebook should be considered nothing more than just another graphic. It's a picture of benchmark guidelines, but as far as actual benchmark guidelines go, they don't seem to apply to anything else ever published. Really, out of 400+ (or whatever) characters there are absolutely none with superhuman intelligence or ego? None at all? Ever? Oh sure, lot's of legendary people, but none that are actually superhuman. Lots with superhuman strength or stamina, and though not many at least there's a few with superhuman agility... but no one, not even gods or supercomputers, has superhuman smarts or willpower. It's gotta be the benchmark is just a neat picture of a benchmark and nothing more. Please disregard completely and create your own. By the way... since so many people have gone through so many characters... any of you want to compare stats to character descriptions of published characters and take a stab at listing the actual benchmarks?

Re: fantasy village 0f 350 persons That's a wicked cool site! Repped!

Re: Ruminations on Skills I do things a little differently. PS: Physicist gives you the ability to perform worthwhile experiments, ask thought provoking questions about physics of yourself and others, know how to run a physics lab, contact other physicists, know the various roles of certain people in a physics department and so on. It does not give you any knowledge, practical or otherwise, of physics. KS: Physics gives you all that stuff I said above. You could probably work as a researcher in a physics department or possibly as a physics or science teacher at the high school level. SS: Physics give you all that stuff I said above. You are an actual scientist and do actual science stuff.

Re: Ruminations on Skills Having not started playing Hero System until early 4th Edition, I've always seen KS and SS as different types of Skills, each doing something different for the character. For example: SS: Physics give you a working knowledge of the science of physics. You know all of Newton's laws, you understand Einstein's work at least a little bit, can you perform experiments to test the laws and theories of physics and you know what the current laws and theories are. You understand the underlying principles of how the universe works (on a non-subatomic scale). KS Physics is different story. You would know all/most of the laws and theories, who came up with them and when, and could even quote a few formulas. You would do really well on a multiple choice physics exam. You would however lack any real understanding of the physical laws or how they work in the "real world". For example, you could also not use your knowledge to figure out why something that seems to defy the laws of physics. Note: I make sure any real scientist I make has both the SS and any applicable KS for what he's a scientist of, as well as a KS: The Scientific World.

Re: Green Goblin Jet Boarding Questions.

Re: KA Vs Energy Blast

Re: KA Vs Energy Blast This is what I do, though in some campaigns I replace the d6-1 with the Hit Location chart. You still get the spread, but the extremes occur less often and I feel better knowing you just did OMG STUN by hitting them in the head.

Re: What is STUN? Hey look! zornwil has brought another thread out of GM's Option! Okay, bad STUN joke, but were else was I gonna use it?

Re: Power Question More specifically, it lets you select Mental Defense instead of whatever defense the attack is normally applied against at the time you buy the power. Personally, I'd let you get away with BOECV for only +1/2 because Drain is by default versus an equally common defense. This is a house rule though, by the book you have to apply the full +1.

Re: Green Goblin Jet Boarding Questions.

Re: KA Vs Energy Blast

Re: How to build: Traffic Light Changer

Re: Green Goblin Jet Boarding Questions.

Re: The "Sentient Vehicle" style of character I've done sentient vehicles as player characters just using the standard character, rather than the Vehicle, as a template. At least for campaigns where at least some of the player characters are not also vehicles. This tends to keep things more or less fair. If everybody is a vehicle, then go ahead and use the Vehicle template and add in INT, EGO and PRE as additional Characteristics. For buying the passenger area of a vehicle character, just give the character a FW to cover the interior space and put Feedback on it. The character's casual STR is how much he can carry without slowing him down at all and should be considered his max load (though he could be overloaded and just move real slow and spend loads more END).

Re: Green Goblin Jet Boarding Questions.

Re: Another "stimulating" power build question Good idea with the Multipower Hyper-Man. What you are probably gonna need is an MP with a number of different tricks, and you just pick whichever one seems appropriate at the time. You're gonna need special GM approval to put DCV levels into an MP though, assuming you want to go that route. Other things like Missile Deflection, Desol, Teleport, and TK easily go in though.

Re: Combat skill levels If all they have is high accuracy they are already nerfed because it would mean they don't do enough damage to their targets when they hit. Otherwise they'd have accuracy and damage potential. Of course, maybe they do have damage potential but they think that doesn't count because they didn't pay points for their guns. You could try creating a group of equally disproportionate villains they could try to fight. One with even more accuracy than they have (with accuracy tricks bought as powers), one with enough armor their guns can't penetrate it, one who turns intangible so it doesn't matter if he gets hit, one who turns invisible, one who specialized in explosives or some other AoE attack, etc. If the heroes are all that accurate as a baseline, turn everything ridiculously anime and have some fun with it.

Re: Combat skill levels Yes, that's legal so long as they've spent the right points. A +6 with swords will cost more than a +6 with broadswords for example. What might not be "legal" is they're buying that many Levels. Does your campaign use any character building or experience spending guidelines that restrict the max OCV a character may have?

Re: How to build: Traffic Light Changer I've been thinking about the Foxbatmobile thing. Foxbat has 6d6 of Luck. He doesn't need a traffic light changer, he just happens to hit all the green lights, and anyone chasing him happens to hit the red right after Foxbat makes it through. Of course, if anyone else is driving the Foxbatmobile, that's a different story.

Re: Green Goblin Jet Boarding Questions. This is what I did when I made a character with a similar power (a high tech Silver Surfer meats Green Lantern). It worked out great, though it was expensive to armor the sucker enough to encourage people to hit my character instead of the board.

Re: Implicit Mental Senses Senses in game terms are used to detect the environment, the world around the character, not the character himself. Thus there is no Detect "up" or other balance sense or any other number of real world bodily senses. The only Senses we have, as far as game mechanics go, are the ability to detect things other than the character.

Re: Implicit Mental Senses I've always handled this based on the SFX of the power. In general a character knows they've been attacked in the same way they know they've been touched or which way is down. It's not a Sense in game terms but a sense in realistic terms. Depending on the SFX of the attack, it can be a "nagging feeling", a sudden chill, hair suddenly standing up on the back of the neck, "skin crawling", etc. Anyone familiar with mental powers will immediately know what is happening or what has happened, but someone completely unfamiliar may not (in the same way someone who's never tasted an Altoid mint won't have any idea why their mouth feels that funny). As for knowing the attack, it's more about knowing the location of the attacker. It's that feeling like someone is watching you feeling, or perhaps part of the attack leaves such information implanted in the target's mind by default (a possibility with telepathy).