Vulcan

Re: Potential New Player Needs Advice Heck, once you learn the system you can join the 6E discussion forum and help shape the future of HEROs.

Re: Potential New Player Needs Advice I think so (although I haven't bought it yet; that's because I'm strapped for cash nowadays). It gives a good overview of what the world could be like with superheroes, and has good genre information and advice. If you're going to GM, I think it would be a great help. The UNTIL Power Guides will be useful if you intend to make your own villians, and the villian soursebook (Crooks, Criminals, and Conqurerers, I think is the title) provides ready-made villians. I also recommend the various Ultimate books for the players, as they developn their characters. The books give all sorts of nifty ideas for characters - not just for the character builds, but background information as well. Here is the fun part. The GM has a lot more power in HEROs, and with that power comes even more responsability. It is surprisingly easy to make a gambreaking character. The GM has to watch out for this, and try and keep it out of the game as best he can. Fortunately, in the GM section the rules say flat out "The GM may make any changes to the rules that he decides makes for a more interesting or fun game." It says so in writing, so you can shove that under the nose of your resident rules lawyer and tell him that you're changing the rule that's being abused... Poke through the various forums here as time permits. A lot of issues have come up, been discussed, and answers proposed on these boards. There is also the FAQ and the questions Forum that can help as well. Finally... well, you've already figured out how to ask for advice here. We're all glad to put in our two cents worth. The HERO System is a great game. Give it a chance and I think you'll agree.

Re: Archetypes Working on it... It takes a while to put some of the old characters into Hero Designer (and upgrade them to 5E while I'm at it).

Re: Superhero Skills I don't know... some of those don't sound horribly appropriate for, say, a Shoulin Monk... Seriously. If you have a concept in mind for the character, then the skills pretty much take care of themselves. If they don't, maybe you should be putting a little more thought into the concept rather than just automatically throwing skills onto the character. I'm gathering a set of characters for the Archetypes thread (it's taking a while to get them all into Hero Designer, and upgraded to 5E to boot!), my point might be a little more clear once I put them up. Although I do note that a fair number of my characters have had a lot of the skills listed...

Re: Modern Swordsmithing Your idea about the Boron Carbide edge with a Titanium alloy core sounds good. You could even say that it is cast with a monomolecular edge, for extreme cutting power... This is Champions. A certain amount of handwaving is not only expected, it's pretty much required. (Sure, a 250 pound guy can carry 100 times his own weight at arms length and not fall over...) Take a plausable premise and don't worry too much about how accurate it would be. Make it a special titanium alloy that melts 400 degrees higher than most. Or just ignore that little flaw entirely, most people won't know the difference.

Re: Superhero Skills It prety much depends entirely on concept. For example, it sounds good to say that all martial artists should have Breakfall. But then there's boxers - trips and throws are not allowed, so breakfall isn't taught. Gadgeteers and Inventor sounds just as good - but what about the guy whose concept is that he uses someone else's inventions? It gets even harder with other archetypes, where often times individuals are even more diverse than the martial artists and gadgeteers. In my opinion, there really isn't any such thing as a generic skills package for any hero. A GM might enforce a 'minimum number of noncombat skills' rule, but that is hardly the same as saying that characters of a given type must have these skills.

Re: Mental Paralysis..how do I keep this from being game breaking? True, to a point. One of the nastiest things we ever did with a martial artist was to give her an 18 EGO and 29 Mental Defense. She was our team's mentalist hunter. But by and large, she suffered for it when going up aginst other martial artists, a much more common foe. I wouldn't dismiss it so cavalierly, it certainly can be an issue if it is abused. But then, so can just about anything in the HERO System.

Re: How to write up this power Another possibility is to buy a 'base fireball' slightly under campaign limits (as an example, in a fantasy game the AP limit might be 40 points, so a 6d6 fireball) focused through the sword, and an END reserve of about 20-30 - big enough to fire it a few times - with a fairly low REC (1/turn, or you could even extend the REC interval with a limitation). And then buy another 4d6 to the fireball that costs a boatload of extra END - enough to wipe out the END reserve. While techincally this takes you a little over the campaign limits, the extra END cost keeps it from getting out of control. So you can either fire off a lot of little blasts (at minions) or one BIG one (at the Big Bad Guy).

Re: We Loves Us Some Elves, Dwarves, and Orcs Fair enough.

Re: WWYCD: Foxbat The Mighty! Siberian Tiger, in 4E, was a super-strength, extremely fast brick (STR 58, DEX 28, SPD 7 20 PD & 50% reduction...), with martial arts to boot. He might have been able to go toe-to-toe with the Super-Foxbat. The 5E rules changes (and a general downscaling of an out-of-control game) brought Siberian Tiger down to more reasonable scale... probably not powerful enough to take on Super-Foxbat by himself. To quote an old GM, "You will try, you will fail...":hush: The archangel Simoriah would scold Super-Foxbat, then (in the highly likely event Super-Foxbat didn't respond appropriately) blast him with the Pure Light of Heaven. And while it looks like Simoriah is chucking spears of light at him, what he feels is the all the pain he's ever deliberately inflicted upon others (Ego Attack), which is enough to make even the most hardened villian reform (BOECV Transform). Assuming Super-Foxbat doesn't have mental defense, anyway... Mist Dragon would draw his Armor Piercing, Penetrating Katana and (with a 29 DEX/7 SPD) try and discover if Super-Foxbat has double hardened PD. Vigil would shake his head and retire to Tahiti out of shame.

Re: Mental Paralysis..how do I keep this from being game breaking? The ultimate trick is not to overuse it. If it becomes an 'instant death' power against martial artists, or even 'parlayze the martial artist for the entire combat,' that has great potential to make for a not-very-fun game for someone. If it happens once in a while, it's not a big deal (especially if the villian has a 'paralyze him and leave him' strategy, as opposed to 'kill the helpless martial artist' which is decidedly mean). Of course, if the mentalist has a BOECV Entangle, he likely also has an Ego Attack that will stun the living daylights out of the martial artist, to much the same effect (for one phase, anyway). A viable alternative, if the BOECV Entangle is too nasty, is the Mind Control "Freeze!" At least there, the mentalist has to try a bit more.

Re: We Loves Us Some Elves, Dwarves, and Orcs There is that. With a kender in the game, everyone has to keep a sense of humor. The fun one I had in a game was really good at picking pockets. She never stole from the party, but the characters kept finding various odds and ends she stashed in their pockets so she wouldn't have to carry them (being small and of limited carrying capacity).

Re: Indestructible Extra Limbs/Stretching? TK would be how I would buy it. Alternately, take the "Does not cross intervening space" advantage on your streaching. Or buy +30 PD/ED only for the streched limbs.

Re: Make Starblaze for me. Sounds a bit like the Asguard (from Stargate) may have taken an interest in things...

Re: Archetypes Do you want them all posted together, or split up?

Re: Mental Paralysis..how do I keep this from being game breaking? In my experience, the martial artist tends to HOLD first, a very important tactical distinction - especially on Phase 12. Well, it the GM lets someone haymaker their EGO, the entangle BOECV won't last very long. On the other hand, it would likely last long enough... It's a tough one to balance, that's for sure. Soneone earlier in the thread suggested using it on the PC's first, and let them see how it feels to be on the reciveing end. If they're ok with it, then by all means let them have it. Just don't forget to return the favor.

Re: We Loves Us Some Elves, Dwarves, and Orcs GM: "Wait a minute. You want to play a half-Kender, half-Drow assassin? Player: "Yeah." GM: "Moron. Before asking to play a kender, try reading about them and figuring out their mentality first..."

Re: Unique, interesting powers What's not obvious is that the whole thing is a bluff. An 'obvious' focus adding to a bluff would be kinda pointless...

Re: Can this be done legally? Some GMs and rules lawyers might have a problem with it. But by and large I think you can get away with this one based on special effect. Talk to the GM. If he doesn't like this solution, ask him how he would like you to do it.

Re: Changing Class of mind We had a big discussion over 'class of minds' in the 6E discussion. The problem with PC's having an alternate class of mind is that it makes them totally immune to standard mental effects. Unless the GM is prepared to deal with that, he should probably NOT allow PC's to take an alternate class of minds. I've been in favor of changing the 'class of minds' rule from an adder to a limitation on mental powers. The default is everything, only humans is a -1/4 (at most) and the others scale depending on how often they come into play. Only vs. computers wouldn't be much use in a pre-1980's game, after all. After all, a mind that can deal with humans on their own level on a regular basis is pretty much a human mind anyway. Whatever differences there are get overwhelmed by the common point of view needed for communication.

Re: Famous People Super Heros "For Whom The Bell Tolls" was my favorite Joxer episode.

Re: Fusions that aren't actually all that nightmarish I'm sorry, what were we talking about?

Re: The Ol' Cross-Genre Bait-and-Switch If your players don't like the classic 'cross-dimension' genre shift (you can probably tell from their disad and perk choices - lots of contacts, DNPC's, and established reputations tell you they want their characters to be an integral part of THIS world), there is the 'Delta Green' option. That is, you run a fairly standard campaign of the type, but slowly start integrating cult sightings, bizarre happenings, odd magical arifacts... and then the cultists summon Cthulu or something and things go straight to Hades... Or if you want shock value, pull the Aliens option. It's just another mission, until the walls come alive with creepy monsters... In short, the horror genre can be added into anything without needing anything so blatant as a dimensional shift.

Re: Protection against the mooks Sounds like something that happened in a Champions game a while back. Chain (a Chost-Rider ripoff) steps through an illusionary wall, and is confronted by 16 DEMON (or was it VIPER? I don't remember very well) agents. He still has an half-phase, so he pastes one of them. The other 15 coordinate and blast him. All told, the damage is lethal. The rest of the party (on the other side of the wall) 'sees a burnt corpse blown back through the illusion.' We went another way...

Re: Group Designed Anime HERO Not bad. Not bad at all.