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i3ullseye

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Posts posted by i3ullseye

  1. Re: Lifetime Subscription

     

    I am a horribly addicted MMO player. Play tons... beta tons... but thats a steep investment for a blind buy. I have a free account for life on another game, and it isn't even installed anymore. Sure, it kept me happy for a few years, and they still "technically" support it. But there are still soem things that make me fear this game will not hold my interest like many others have.

     

    As a PC gamer, the whole "co developed for PC and Xbox" thing just worries me.

  2. Re: It's the Little Things....

     

    Our current game, one character is The Mime. Whatever he does becomes fully invisible reality. Walls, ropes, ladders, jackhammers, etc....

     

    He has 2 really cool little powers added for effect. One, in his multipower, he has eating... requires skill roll like everything esle.. but it created real food with a Transform on the air around him. Sure, you can't see it, or taste it.... but it fills you up.

     

    He also has Clinging... bought with Gestures, requires a Mime roll, does not resist knowckback.. and cant use it to climb or move. This allows him to sit on invisible chairs and lean on invisible walls without falling. he can also do the whole body tilt and mambo like a champ! Really funny things come out of this... all for only 3 points.

  3. Re: Master of the Unseen Fist

     

    I think invisible extra limbs with stretching, and indirect... actually keeps this in check. You get the benefit of surprise, and no range mod. But it is expensive to build, so you aren't hitting people 30" away. A solid super level build (350 pt character) will have about 5" of stretching. This also means you can hit ONE tyarget that far away with a strike. But if you grab, your inches of stretching used must be less than 5" total, so you can grab 2 guys 2" away, but if the 3rd guy is also 2", he is 1" out of your range.

     

    It is a complex character to run I think also, and a nightmare for a GM who isn't ready for it.

  4. Re: It's the Little Things....

     

    I am a big fan of giving the GM soemthing to work with.

     

    11 pts....

     

    Retrocognitive Clairsentience (Sight Group And Normal Hearing), Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2) (67 Active Points); No Conscious Control (-2), Extra Time (1 Minute, Character May Take No Other Actions, -1 3/4), Precognition/Retrocognition Only (-1), Blackout (-1/2)

     

    This gives the character flashes of the past, but only when the GM decides those flashes would help propel the story forward.

  5. Re: effective megascale teleport

     

    You might also want to consider a form of radio perception that links into the global GPS grid or something similar. That would allow for Latitude, Longitude and Altitude to pinpoint where you are going. Not exactly seeing where you are going, but you could use maps at that point. Megascale radio reception with Targeting added could cover this.

     

    Lighting Calculator and Eidetic memory for maps and plotting locations would seem to be a nice effect for something like this. If you expand this inter stellar (more than 50 AP) you could even use astrogation to pinpoint targets. I would say this is a movable fixed location.

     

    But thats just me.

  6. Re: Master of the Unseen Fist

     

    yeah, I don't mind this approach either... but should ANY maneuver really have a DCV modifier? Also, adding DCs to an art, and having that apply through TK... gets nasty real fast. So instead of adding 4 points to get 2 strength or so... you are getting a full +1D6, or 5 strength applied force. Sure, it is only with those maneuvers, but it is something to watch I think.

  7. Ok all. Just wanted to ask/discuss some ideas about telekinetics and martial arts. I built a concept art around TK a while ago, but haven't updated the idea in years. So I want to throw a few ideas here and get some input, and maybe come up with what may be some of the best ways to approach this.

     

    I know this isn't as sexy as 6E talk, but maybe most of it will carry over anyway.

     

     

    Option 1) Normal Telekinesis and a Weapon Element for the existing arts

     

    This is nice and easy it seems. You can use all your martial maneuvers at range basically, which accomplishes quite a bit. But what are some of the complexities? Benefits? Pitfalls?

     

    Obvious benefit can be surprise maneuver bonuses out the yang. But when we look at telekinetics, do you really use an arm or a leg shaped force? Do the same rules even come close to applying? At the minimum you may want to require Fine Manipulation. But with no action reaction, and no real limbs per se, can any hold maneuver really function the same?

     

    Another real issue I have with this approach is one of CV. Do you get the OCV and DCV mods for what your thoughts might be doing 10+ hexes away? Do you also need a seperate weapon element for each weapon being wielded telekinetically? So you need one for Sword, and then one more for TK Sword? This seems to make more sense because it's movements and uses would be quite a bit different I think.

     

    So what are everyones opinions of Option 1????

     

     

     

    And Option 2) A custom made TK art

     

    This one has some benefits also, like possibly having custom combat maneuvers that could even add to ECV. Doing this you may avoid the basic pitfall of maneuvers that don't quite fit with the idea of using your mind at range. You could just make it a series of various strikes with CV modifiers and damage or STR mods. Would Martial Dodge even be in the art? Maybe NONE have a DCV mod since they have no bearing on your physical body position.

     

    I think this one take a bit more work, but is certainly a bit cleaner overall. You still get the benefits of suprise many times. You can take a weapon element for bare hand perhaps, but that might be a hard one to crossover also.

     

    You could even think of making the motions with your hand and mind at the same time, so the TK adds as a strength bonus to your physical movements, but I really think at this point it should be bought as something other than the TK power... but a cool concept nonetheless.

     

     

    Option 3) Extra Limbs!

     

    I built a character this way once, and it was a blast. I took extra limbs as indirect and invisibe. By definition, I can now have as many invisible hands and feet as I needed within my normal reach. I think I actually bought stretching also, and didn't get the real telekinesis power at all.

     

    I also built an art around this concept, since I now have limbs to do various grab and hit maneuvers. An autofire hand attack is a power, and thus outside the scope of the art and TK itself, but the maneuvers you could build with this using the advanced/optional maneuver building were quite impressive.

     

    This links these limbs to your characters own strength however, but in a way this can be advantageous overall as you pay for strength once, and need not buy it "again" by grabbing telekinesis.

     

     

    So... pros and cons for each approach? Options? Ideas for specific martial maneuvers and costs?

  8. Re: Making sense of Senses

     

    Sight interprets amazing amounts of iformation, but it can't categorize it and quantify it as much as an analyze might. I think spectral scans are a great example. We see a painting, and some people discern the differences in various blues more than others. But an analyze might just be able to tell you exactly how many shades of blue, sort of like Photoshop or other graphics programs pulling the color palette data out of an image.

     

    Perfect pitch is kinda the analyze of hearing I think also. But again, analyze can take that to a far greater level depending on what you want to accomplish. There are some people who can tell you all notes and major/minor chords that are heard when you drop a plate on the ground. I have even seen people play that back with notes on a keyboard and recreate the general tone of the crash. Amazing stuff.... out of well attuned but completely normal hearing.

     

    I think our senses are clearly gathering enough data to be truly analyze in nature, but without the cognitive awareness to process that data (and practice/training), it is just overflow.

  9. Re: 6Ed Character Sheet?

     

    Character sheets for me are just quick reference for what I need to have in Excel... hell, the first things I did on my old Atari computer were random number generators for AD&D character generators.

     

    I am a fan of the 3 column that become popular in 4E in the BBB. But I think a more strict CHARACTER sheet, and then the back side being all the general combat mods and such works better. Back in Champions 2 and 3 we used sheets that were simply stats on top, powers and skills on lines in the middle... and the bottom section for disads. Everythign else was in a book, or on a game screen, or in your head.

     

    I don't think simplifying the sheet is a bad idea. There is a lot of info on many of the current character sheets that the individual character will never use. Many combat maneuvers come to mind.

  10. Re: Making sense of Senses

     

    I would say the eyes are organs that do indeed detect light. But only light that reaches them. They can also determine when it is bright or dim to some degree.

     

    The fact that you can distinguish color is discriminatory, not identifying individuals... you see the different wavelengths of light differently.

     

    Analyze is making sense of this. Putting those color patterns into recognizable forms in the brain is analyzing.

     

    Also... there is no depth perception in the eye. It is only that we can interpret the stimuli from 2 different points that our brain determines the range to the object. Same with hearing for that matter. We calculate based on triangulation and expected levels of input... so lower volumes and such or smaller objects... BOTH of which are very easy to trick or mis-percieve.

     

    Now to be fair, sight as a whole is talking about both the eyes AND the brain capacity to analyze and interpet it, so what one eye can do is not the fair example of sight in game terms. I get that distinction.

     

    But I still think it is more sensible (har har) to make the base sense not ranged, and use a ranged adder of sorts for clairsentience. Otherwise, I see the sun and feel it's light... I see the moon... what are the ranges on these powers/abilities again?

  11. Re: Making sense of Senses

     

    I know it seems that we need to call some of these ranged, when they truly aren't in a pure physics sense.... but if we remove that range modifer form the base senses, the whole power set then completely replaces Clairsentience. And to me would be a lot cleaner overall. Now you pick WHAT you percieve... you then decide if it needs to come to you (no range) or if you can detect it without it being near you (ranged). Then get into the detail of discriminatory and analyze. This allows Mega Scale and other tricks to be applied here also.

     

    Just what seems logical to me.

  12. Re: Making sense of Senses

     

    To add a bit more to this.... referring to an earlier post, no Smell is not ranged. Technically humans have no senses at all that are ranged. We only percieve those items which go out of their way to come into contact with us. Sight is light striking us, sounds hit our eardrums, and smells are exciting the sensors inside our nostrils.

     

    Buying senses ranged would mean seeing the light hitting somewhere distant from you, and is really a bit like Clairsentience. But thats not how they are listed, and that always kind of bugged me. Having Mental Awareness at range means you detect a mental power at a distance, with no energy crossing the intervening space between you and the source of power. To me, that is range... but all the other ranges freely applied to the sense groups are actually a misnomer I think.

     

    ;)

  13. Re: Foxbat? Why am I not surprised...

     

    Ok, they use the true single most Champions villain of all time. No, not howler... I said Villain not Vamp. But for me, until I see Foxbat in game, the jury is out. In game he needs to talk about things as if he KNOWS it is a game, and give you advice completely out of character, with game rule specifics and such.

     

    That would rule!

  14. Re: Why are so many people upset that Cryptic is only using the Champions IP?

     

    Well, I think what needs to be maintained is the feel of the HERO system. No levels, point based designs, advantages, limitations, etc...... Otherwise they could just add Mechanon and Defender to City of Heroes and call it done.

     

    A simplified version of HERO could certainly work for character creation and game balancing. Ever play Freedom Force? Great game, and very much felt like a great start at a HERO system PC game.

     

    For me, while I love the IP, it really isn't as flushed out as say Marvel or LOTR obviously. And the COH/COV story is actually pretty indepth. I know more overall about characters and histories there than i do in Champions... and I been playing since version 1 of the game. Having a background is not huge for developing MMOs. There is just way more content in online games than many PnP game books can provide.

     

    but the argument here isn't just about that. For me, if the new game is level based, as excited as I am by the prospect, i will probably never play. Why not just play COH/COV then? The game is fantastic, so why rehash it?

     

    So to me, the HERO rules issues are more of overall approach. And for my dollar, it has to be there to make this game worthwhile.

  15. Re: Economics 101: Character Building in a Point-Based System

     

    Where i think the economics comparison fails is when you look at each individual item itself. Sure, as stated it is very much like do you want to spend your money on a Microwave or a DVD Player, or a refrigerator. But in this system, there are no competing refrigerators, only one type of DVD Player, and a single type of microwave.

     

    There is only 1 strength, no various types of strength you can buy which prompts market competition to keep the price of strength in check against it's competitors. Spending HERO points is resource allocation, to be certain. But those resources are fixed and unchanging, and your purchases are static items. I think that deviates form a free market economy model pretty drastically.

  16. Re: Economics 101: Character Building in a Point-Based System

     

    I see the point made here... but I disagree with 2 basic statements.

     

    1) The standard free market economic dynamics don't really apply. Nothing but strength is strength. So it isn't actually competing with Dex or PD or anything else for position or 'sales' as it were.

     

    We are prioritizing things that have an internal balance within a constolled system. Str does a certain number of things for every 5 Hero points. When you start looking at Energy Blasts, or Hand Attack, or any other variation on the things that strength (or more specifically 5 applied active Hero points) can do, there is a set guideline of internal checks and balances.

     

    No, it isn't perfect. And yes, some characteristics have innate benefots over powers or skills or other ways to spend those points. But the basic internal balance and integrity is pretty consistent.

     

    Which leads to....

     

    2) Game Balance is a sham.

     

    Nothing could be farther from the truth in this system. We have to remember to compare apples to apples here. 15 points in Strength yileds roughly the same net gain as 15 points in Energy Blast. While hard to quantify, it also yields roughly the same amount of return when applied to Dex or PD or anything else, normally just within differrent arenas of the game.

     

    And yes, this means a 250 pt character is indeed 'equal' to another 250 pt character. However, withing certain circumstances the higher abilities of one character become more important to the situation than a lower characteristic of the other.

     

    NONE of this means they are balanced against the game world as a whole however. If 3 charactyers at 250 pts each go up against one villain at 250, the villains doesn;t have much chance normally. Thats 750 against 250. But a 750 pt character will easily trounce the 3 heroes in most cases. So the game itself produces imbalances by neccessity. Unless you always fight an equal number of villains as there are Heroes, with the same points totals.... which woudl get real boring real fast.

     

    It is the GMs task to make sure the game world ISN'T completely balanced for the heros. They shoudl almost always be outgunned by a bit, or put in situations where their points might not be at their most efficient use. Thats what generates challange. A GM doesn't even need to balance their villians points really, but doing so gives them a rough estimate of what power scale the heroes will be facing up against.

     

    But the heroes themselves are indeed very balanced within themselves, and to each other at campaign start. And that is very important.

     

    One are where the game IS like real world economics is over saturation of a market. If everyone in a 3 mile radius sells nothing but Pizza, then Pizza loses it's value. But this also means Pizza is covered no matter what, but a hamburger is nearly impossible to come by. So how does that relate?

     

    If every character in your game is a fire blaster, with flight and force field, and also higher strength, your game gets real boring real fast. If every character can pick locks, but none of them drive, things get over saturated.

     

    It is also the GMs job to ensure not much overlap occurs with characters. You want to prevent saturation of any certain abilities, and ensure each player feels needed and unique within the group.

  17. Re: New campaign, new member here...

     

    Yes, the HPV vaccine seems to all but eliminate on of the largest cancerous killers of women. But religious right groups have attacked the company, stating that preventing such a thing woudl promote promiscuous sex in youth. It was a very heated debate, but the voices of reason seemed to side with Merck, as did the government.

     

    Then the next hiccup occurred. They proposed to move forward by trying to get the government to list this vaccine as one of those required for public school admission. Now while the effects if this can't be understated, the financial gain of making this not just a legally available drug, but a legally required one for all females within the school system... that raised more than a few eyebrows.

     

    But in the past they have as a company taken some losses on drugs to make sure they made it to the people in need. Not quite on the same scale as Johnson and Johnson have... but maybe this vaccine will be another where they sacrifice profits to have it instituted for school admission. Only time will tell.

  18. Re: Plot Seed: Six Places to Nuke When You’re Serious

     

    Some observations...

     

    1) Detonating it on top of other bombs wouldn't do much more. Bombs must be specifically armed and prepped to detonate correctly. All it would yield is a bit more toxic material to clean up at the site, not much else.

     

    2) Area 51, or Grouse Mountain/Lake/Crater/Etc... may be where the crash was, but almost all materials are listed as being delivered by semi to Wright Pat AFB in Dayton Ohio. This, and Rome NY, are the 2 main tech research areas of the Air Force, and where all the real high tech stuff is.

     

    3) Someone said Fox and News together... bwahahaha.....

     

    4) Switzerland is a great idea, but everything now has digital records and is stored virtually. Other than gold stores, we would be hard pressed to actually hurt our banking institutions nowadays, since currency is virtual anyway.

     

    But I think the 2 most promiing targets for my tastes would be...

     

    1) Just 45 miles west of Phoenix AZ sits the largest nuclear power plant(s) in the US. It is 3 large reactors, and a nice detonation just 200 yards west fo them, at ground level, shoudl do quite a number on the entire greater Phoenix area I woudl think.

     

    2) The Three Gorges Dam in China. It finished ahead of schedule, and water levels aren't up to it's target 156m point yet, but the floodwaters it woudl release, collapsing damns further down river, woudl make the break of 1975 (which killed 200,000) seem like a minor affair.

  19. Re: New campaign, new member here...

     

    Great intro... and in any game, liberties certainly may (Should?) be taken.

     

    One point I would look to, depending on your gaming group, is your presentation of Merck. How black and white is this world? How prone are your gamers to look up real world info to help them with game decisions since so much of your world is based on real history and companies, albeit shifted for your preference?

     

    In an Ethics course I am currently in, Business Ethics to be more specific, Merck is a very active topic of discussion. Not only their new HPV Vaccine, and the way they are trying to roll it out... but also times in the past where they have taken a bath on certain meds but still released them to third world nations where they were needed most. Sometimes their domestic products cost more to counter losses with foreign distrobutions that help those nations mroe in need.

     

    All in all, painting that company with a single Black or White brush would be impossible, so it would be really fun to use them as a backdrop since you coudl never be sure just where they stand as a whole. One player may come with info showing how altruistic they are, and another could argue they are trying to force their HPV vaccine into schools unethically.

     

    Fun stuff for politically minded gaming groups.

  20. Re: How would you (why the hell would you) build this power?

     

    I hear the scream "Captain CAVEMAN!" running through my head right now.

     

    I would certainly do the summon. For a twist, you could build the hardware store as a base, and then populate it with said items... then allow the summon to be a portal between him and his base, so he could pull things from it.

     

    This also allows him to perhaps allow people to travel to the safety of his base (Home Base?), but how he would get them there is best not thought about.

  21. Re: Are HERO gamers more wedded to more "realistic" game physics?

     

    I think another key is one of balance. HERO offers a very balanced environment, which helps regulate things. Currently I have another game system I love, and thats the MURPG. Diceless, uses stones instead of dice... so it is resource based instead of probability based.

     

    Like the old Marvel game, the new Marvel game is very rules light. And because of that it plays fast, and is great for staying with the story and never letting the rules become more important than the character. And it is a snap to teach to people.

     

    All that being said, when issues arise, they are not as easily resolved. How much can be lifted? sure. How far can you throw it, ok, but not as clear. How much damage does that thrown piece of metal do once it drops 30', and has been super heated to 300 degrees celcius? Now we need a bit more detail to work with it.

     

    I think I prefer my 4 color games a LOT looser, and over time I have moved away form Champions as my first choice in many situations. If the group are all HERO system veterans, nothing is better. But for new groups, or casual pick-up games... even the Sidekick isn't enough to make this an easy sell.

     

    But for ANY genre that needs a bit mroe detail, if the players are willing to learn the system, HERO is still tops with me.

     

    And it is detail and customization, not realism, that is my big selling point.

  22. Ok, just an observation/question here, that might make some people a bit cranky at me. It may have been stated before, but I was wondering just how many books can be released presenting much of the same information yet again.

     

    What do I mean?

     

    The combat book for example, seems to add quite a bit of maneuvers and rules for combat. Fine, but how many of them are turly new rules, and how many are ways to interpret what is already in the main rules? Ultimate Martial Artis and Ninja HERO have quite a bit of crossover also. Both add quite a bit to the game, but there is some heavy overlap there to me when I read them.

     

    I guess the overall feel I get form the line of books is that (as we all know) none of them are turly neccessary. Certain books however add a huge new set of rules for the game, like Ultimate Martial Artist did. But do many people feel an Equipment of Vehicle guide really added that much? Did it feel like new stuff, or was it just time savings for not having to stat out your own items?

     

    Now, a book that is just pre-built time saving devices is not a bad thing if you want that. But I get a general feel off most of the books that it is repackaging of many of the same things. I could be wrong, but thats how each new book feels to me.

     

    I know, the content in Genre books has a lot of background, and story, and locales... thats all great. I guess what I am looking at most is the Equipment and Vehicle type books. They are like the Grimoires i suppose, but they just don't feel as new and exciting. And with a system as already detailed as the HERO system is, i can't really see how the combat book adds much mroe than what has already been presented in other offerrings.

     

    Is there something I am missing?

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