Just Joe

Re: KB discussion

I'd like to say I do like Just Joe's idea a lot' date=' too, even if it is for more specific purposes.[/quote']I was hoping someone would actually discuss it a bit, but I appreciate this comment (even more than the rep, which was of course, coming from you, enormous).

Re: KB discussion

Hero does not differentiate in KB terms' date=' about where you are hit, or the way in which you are hit. Maybe it should.[/quote']Though I'm generally sympathetic to your statements in this thread, you're being a bit schizophrenic. Are you looking for realism or not? I'm all in favor of options to match campaign style and GM and group tastes.

 

For more realistic games that use hit locations, a simple adjustment would be to halve KB body for 1/2 BOD hit locations (while NOT doubling for 2X BOD locations).

 

For games that don't use hit locations, the KB roll can represent the way in which you are hit.

 

One could add KB modifiers for particular manuevers, but doing so for more than one or two manuevers is probably way more trouble than it's worth.

Re: KB discussion

I'm in agreement with almost all of what Sean Waters has written in this thread regarding the proper role of knockback, but I have different thoughts on how to go about "fixing" it ("fixing" in quotes, because it's only broken for those campaigns and groups that it doesn't work for).

I see two problems: knockback being too common, and knockback being insufficiently correlated with the strength of the hit. I have an approach that I have designed to solve both of these problems. It is intended for a particular campaign that defies easy description, but is perhaps similar to street level supers in that I want some knockback, especially for powerful attacks, but want considerably less than the standard rules produce. If you like the general approach, the details can be tweaked to get the results you want. (Note: I personally do not think KB should be tied to how much damage gets past defenses, so this will not appeal to those of you who do).

Here is my approach. Everyone gets a default KB resistance of BOD/2. KB dice are d3, not d6.

12 BOD attack on standard rules does avg. KB of 12-7=5" KB

12 BOD attack vs. 10 BOD target (my rules) does avg. KB of 12-5-4 = 3"

Many combatants should have more body.

12 BOD attack vs. 14 BOD target (my rules) does avg. KB of 12-7-4 = 1"

Many bricks should have a lot more body.

12 BOD attack vs. 20 BOD target (my rules) does avg. KB of 12-10-4 => 0"

Note that KBR can be bought up or down (like, e.g., leaping based on strength). Yes, this makes BOD more valuable, but since KBR is overpriced (as SW has argued) and BOD is currently among the lowest primary characteristics on many, many characters, that's fine with me. This reduces the difference between KA/MA and normal attacks and flying target vs. non-flying -- no big deal to me but you can tweak my rules if you care.

Whaddaya think?

Re: Timing is everything

I misread the suggestion at first. I thought you (SeanWaters) were saying that full actions (including full moves) would be completed in the next segment. Movement per turn would be unaffected (well, except that phase 12 moves would be completed in segment 1). Velocity-based damage could be calculated as if a full move had been made, unless the GM determined that not enough distance was covered to accelerate to full velocity. I really don't think you'd have to muck with much else. This approach is somewhere between your initial suggestion and the "run through a phase twice" suggestions. It would not work easily for games with speeds of 7 and up, but the kind of realism you are looking for probably has less of a place in most such games anyway.

I'd probably allow any character to abort who has not attacked in the current phase. Alternatively, you could just treat the new rule as if everyone with a full phase is required to hold of a half-phase action until the next segment.

I'm not sure how to handle the problem of the an opponent avoiding LOS by taking cover every time an attacker moves into LOS. My guess is that there's a solution that makes the new approach superior to the standard rules in terms of both realism and tactical flexibility, but I'm not prepared to back up that statement at this moment.

Re: Balance versus flavour

Though I like a lot of the ideas about how to handle things after characters are already designed, my emphasis would be on the design process, which I think the GM should generally have a hand in.

I wrote a bunch of stuff, but I deleted it because I want to emphasize one main point. Active point and DC limits, and even guidelines, can have an undesirable homogenizing effect, particularly regarding attack, defense, and movement powers.* It may not be a good thing if the brick's punch, the MA's offensive strike, and the EP's energy blast all do 12d6. If the EP's FF gives him about the same defenses as the brick, that's worse. Even if all bricks have almost the same defenses as one another, that can be bad.

I recommend looser guidelines that attempt to establish a combination of balance and variety that suits the campaign. I'll give some examples, but even the ones I give become problematic if they are too standard. So maybe the speedster or MA has a higher speed and is good at taking out agents, but can't do more than 10d6. Or maybe the MA can do 12d6, but only has an 18 DEX and needs to apply all levels in damage to get up to 12d6. Maybe the EP with a big multipower with lots of 50 AP attacks while another has just two attacks: a 12d6 eb and a 7d6, 7 DEF entangle. You get the idea.

* Though note that even if everybody has 12d6 attacks, defenses around 30/30, and 20" of some movement power, characters can still be distinctive in combat through powers like desol, healing, and invisibility.

Re: So you need a spaceship for your pulp games?

Oh man. I know you can poke around the site yourselves, but I just couldn't resist posting a few more:

http://www.fabulousfurnitureon28.com/black-rocket.html

I wish you could get a better look at the rear of this one:

http://www.fabulousfurnitureon28.com/fintasia.html

http://www.fabulousfurnitureon28.com/fintasia-side.html

And how about a few "robots" for good measure (though I can't find a pic of my favorite, a 5' tall flightless bird-bot that looked like it could guard the store when the owner is out):

http://www.fabulousfurnitureon28.com/velociraptors.html

Re: So you need a spaceship for your pulp games?

I was driving on Rt. 28 in NY State through the catskills and stumbled upon this great place. It's nominally a furniture store, but the rocket-ship lamps and chandeliers, as well as other sculptures were great. The pics on the website don't do justice to the real thing, but their still worth checking out. Try these for starters:

http://www.fabulousfurnitureon28.com/roswell.html

http://www.fabulousfurnitureon28.com/bttf.html

http://www.fabulousfurnitureon28.com/bttf2.html

http://www.fabulousfurnitureon28.com/rocketchandelier.html

http://www.fabulousfurnitureon28.com/red-rocket.html

http://www.fabulousfurnitureon28.com/mib2-rocket.html

Re: Why do we have skills?

Characters who are meant to be hackers often represent their hacking with powers, not Skills.

 

Characters meant to be based around skills often end up using Super Skills built with powers rather than Skills.

 

Characters meant to be Master Linguists often represent this with Powers or Talents.

 

Even when discussing real world uses of skills and equipment (tapping into a com link was the example that got me thinking about this again) many GMs and players prefer to use Powers rather than Skills.

 

At what point do you say "Skills can't accomplish this real world task in my game, let's use a power"?

 

Why do we have Skills at all in HERO System?

I like regular skills (though sometimes bought at 17- or better). TUS (which I received only yesterday and have barely skimmed) looks like it's going to make me like them even more.

Re: VVP and AP limits

It's a moot point from my perspective. I only use AP limits as a rule of thumb, and I believe that most of the GM's I play with do the same. But I'd say that as a general rule, we don't count the AP of a framework, only of the powers within it. Still, the versatilty of many multipowers and VPP's should be factored in -- I just don't feel the need to have a formula for doing so.

Re: Why do we object to mechanics?

I disagree that this is just Supers. To my mind, this same issue also arises in at least some subgenre of:

 

- Science Fiction (Star Wars, Star Trek - no armor, but rarely wounded)

 

- Fantasy (lightly armored rogues who escape hideous injury by the skin of their teeth)

 

- Pulp Heroes who again wear no armor and routinely engage in gunfights, emerging none the worse for wear in most cases

 

- Dark Champions/Modern Action - Die Hard and similar action flicks feature a hail of gunfire and nary a wound

 

- Horror - those miraculous lucky escapes from the monster

 

You can attribute all these to DCV, but I don't think every enemy always needs a 3 to hit.

Re: Why do we object to mechanics?

To me' date=' the fact that Hero supports KAs as "very effective, so use them" is a good thing. It makes sense to me and is only seen as a problem because such an attempt to "rationalize the fantastic" simply proves how stupid it is to have a career based on violence while wearing nothing but spandex. Ok, if you have bullet proof skin... doesn't make much sense if you are Scott Summers.[/quote']I tend to agree, though I regard it as desirable for the system to help GM's and players to play the kind of game they want to.

 

Your Scott Summers example is an interesting one. If I were to run a Supers game (which I don't think I've done in nearly two decades), either such a character would wear armor or all Supers would have superhuman defenses. But if I really wanted to simulate the comics (the X-Men I read in the Byrne-Clairmont years), he would rarely be attacked at all, much less by killing attacks.

Re: Why do we object to mechanics?

See examples above - it creased your skull. It "missed" sufficiently to do only superficial damage' date=' but still connected. For those characters who define this as active avoidance, another option is that you twist a muscle or joint in evading the killing attack.[/quote']But notice that unless you have enormous amounts of combat luck, it will very rarely produce a true miss.

 

Combat luck is a symptom. To me, the real issue is that, in Hero, killing attacks are sufficiently common and sufficiently deadly that characters MUST have resistant defenses in some form or another, or they cannot compete in the game. Combat Luck is a means of permitting resistant defenses to the classic "dives into a hail of gunfire and never gets scratched" characters in the comics, the Star Wars heros who wear no armor but rarely, if ever, take a serious hit and similar characters in the source material.

 

. . .

 

I think [combat luck is] a relatively simple solution to the problem. I certainly don't see a better fix.

I agree that combat luck is intended as a solution to the problem you describe, but I think it's a poor one. For one thing, as I mentioned above, combat luck rarely produces a true miss. So your character who dives into a hail of gunfire will get stunned to oblivion.

 

Why not DCV levels? Why not NPC's with low OCV's? (Storm troopers, at least in the original Star Wars, have OCV 3 before applying their -1 OCV weapon and range penalties. Or maybe they were just deliberately missing. Soldiers in the real world have certainly been known to do this.)

 

For survivability of a different sort, consider actual armor (as lightweight as the GM allows in Sci Fi games), lots of body, or damage reduction (admittedly quite expensive for heroic level games.

Re: Why do we object to mechanics?

In defense of Ac . . .

 

Of course there are some attacks which should ignore armor (covered rules -wise by touch attacks) and situations where dodging isn't an option (covered by the various "lose dex bonus" rules) . . .

. . . but for most common cases there is no downside to allowing the determination of "did this failed attack miss or was it stopped by armor" to be a "GM calls based on SFX' date=' flavor, common sense and dramatic sense."[/quote'] Maybe . . .

 

For example, its not uncommon in HERO to purchase armor or PD/ED as "super-dodge" or "luck" and so forth, whioch sounda a lot like allowing the muddling of the mechnics between "was it a hit that failed to penetrate or was it a miss" and thats apparently just fine, but doing so and calling it AC is not?."

 

. . .

 

If you are opposed to AC, are you also one to disallow HERO players to buy PD/ED and their ilk as combat luck or use dodge SFX to explain them?

Thanks for pointing out this example. I can't stand combat luck. The only thing I think it can represent reasonable well is something like an attack "just happening" to strike a badge, thick wallet, large coin, or whathaveyou, which is corny enough if it happens once, boring and ridiculous if it happens repeatedly. Why in the world should a 6 body, 30 stun attack do zero body and 20ish stun to a character with 6 PD combat luck? (I've heard semi-plausible answers before, but ultimately it strikes me as a poor mechanic).

Re: Why do we object to mechanics?

It would take me an hour to list all the things I agree with that have been said so far.

A couple of additional thoughts:

I don't want a mechanic that forces to much or too little randomness into the game, without GM's and players being allowed to adjust it to their needs. Arguably, this is part of the problem with the STUN lotto. Less controversially, imagine that the standard effect rule dictated the effect of ALL powers (e.g., every 10d6 eb did 30 stun and 10 bod every time). Or imagine that you always rolled 1d6 and multiplied by the number of dice. Ick.

I want any mechanic that is meant to be simulating something to do a good job of simulating it, while allowing differentiation between different characters and actions. Thus I'm not fond of D&D AC because it does a poor job of distinguishing between defenses that help against AOE attacks and those that do not. It does not allow a good distinction between a sword that magically seeks out an opponents heart (lightning fast, but stopped by armor as easily as a normal sword) and one that is not particularly accurate but cuts through any armor with ease. I have similar objections to very broad interpretations of DCV and of defensive actions (e.g., game mechanic block used as narrative description dodge or brick laughing off attack).

Re: Hitler and the Himalayas The SS Mission to Tibet 1938-39

This is a tangent, but still relates to Tibet and the pulp era (and earlier, and maybe a bit later). Peter Hopkirk has written a number of fascinating histories of explorers and spies in Central Asia and beyond. Among other things, they are excellent rebuttals to any claim that realistic = boring.

Trespassers on the Rooftop of the World is specifically about the exploration of Tibet by Europeans (and American and Chinese).

The Great Gameis about the "cold war" between the British and Russian empires in Central Asia, mainly in the late 19th and early 20th century. I love this book.

Like Hidden Fire is about a WWI German and Turkish plot to foment Muslem rebellion against the British in the Middle East (and all the way to India, IIRC).

Setting the East Ablaze is about the early Soviet Era in the Caucuses through Central Asia.

It's funny. I seem to recall not enjoying the other three as much as The Great Game, but thinking back on them, they all have some excellent truth-is-stranger-than-fiction parts. And I enjoyed them enough to complete all four.

Re: Is this Indirect?

Just Joe, this is the most pertinent entry from the online FAQ:

 

Q: If a character wanted to build an attack that always originates from him, but can attack the target from any angle (e.g., a boomerang arrow), what level of Indirect would that require?

 

A: That’s a +1/2 Indirect.

If you'd like an official interpretation of your questions' date=' I suggest posting a question(s) on the "Rule Questions" forum. That would also benefit the rest of us who might wonder about this in future, after the answers are added to the FAQ. [/quote']I'll think about it. I almost started there, but wasn't sure if I could word it in a way appropriate for that forum, and in any event decided it would be worth getting others' opinions.

Re: Is this Indirect?

Actually, the lightning bolt thing is (and I looked it up) an actual example in the text for +1/4.

 

Ok, lemme break this down as how I see it:

 

[see above.]

1. The lightning bolt example travelling away from the attacker on a 2-D map but not directly away in 3-D is in fact given as an example of +1/4 indirect. If not for this example, I would interpret the text as meaning the attack really has to travel away from the attacker, not merely in a 2-D projection, but there it is.

2. Though I was correct that there is no mention of curving attacks in the write-up of indirect, there is a mention of bouncing (as a special effect, not the separate rule on bouncing).

Nevertheless, before the brief mention of this possibility near the end of the description of the advantage there is nothing in the write-up to indicate that indirect attacks do anything other than following a straight line. So as reasonable as your answers may be, I still don't think they strictly follow the FrED text. Is 5ER different in this respect? Does it actually mention indirect attacks curving?

One other thing, your account of the basic +1/4 level of the advantage skips what I read as the paradigmatic case of +1/4 indirect* -- an attack that originates from a fixed point not on the attacker's body (whether in the same hex or not) and goes in a straight line from the attacker toward the target.

* Again, unless 5ER changed this.

Re: Is this Indirect?

A +1/4 Indirect attack has to originate from a single pre-defined point. Usually the pre-defined point of origin is from the attacker himself but not always. For instance it could be defined as a spell that calls down lightning in which case the pre-defined point of origin would always be from the clouds above. Such an attack will also travel away from the attacker meaning that it must travel down range based upon the facing of the attacker. However such an attack can swerve around' date=' over or under intervening obstacles to hit its target.[/quote']I don't think this is right. I think that unless you take the option of +1/4 meaning the attack can come from any part of the attacker's body rather than a predefined point, it is usually pointless to buy an attack as indirect (+1/4) unless it is going to originate from someplace other than the attacker's body or carried equipment. My understanding is that at the +1/4 level, the attack must travel away from the attacker in three-dimensional space, not just on a 2-D map. So your lightning bolt from the sky is not allowed at this level.

 

So If Joe and Mike are facing each other and Joe shoots Mike with his wonder gun' date=' the shot will launch from the gun, head directly down range and impact Mike's front since he is facing Joe. If there is an obstacle between them the shot (with +1/4 Indirect) will arc around the obstacle to hit Mike.[/quote']This is what I want to do, but I don't see it in the rulebook.

 

A +1/2 Indirect Attack still has to launch from a specific pre-defined point of origin but it can fire any direction. For instance it can loop around to strike a target behind Joe. It doesn't have to travel in the direction that Joe is facing.

 

Alternatively a +1/2 Indirect Attack could instead be defined as having a variable point of origin but still have to attack a target in the direction that Joe is facing. The example in the book is a mobile blaster platform that Joe controls and can fire. It could be above him, beside him, etc. It still has to fire down range with respect to Joe (in the direction that Joe is facing).

Your first example seems to me a reasonable extrapolation, the lsecond a straightforward application of the standard rules.

 

But maybe I should just shut up until I get my hands back on my copy of 5ER, since I don't remember if I most recently read "indirect" in that or in FrED, and I only have the latter available at this time.

Re: Is this Indirect?

I could be mistaken but I thought the +1/4 version has to be in a straight line too. Let's say your gun has an X-Ray scope on it so you can see targets through obstacles. You know where to fire the gun' date=' but if there's a wall in the way, the attack would just hit the wall since you picked the gun as the origin of the attack.[/quote']It has to be in a straight line (or maybe "has to" is too strong -- according to the text it standardly is in a straight line). But when you design the power, the point of origin of the attack is set. The gun you describe does not seem to me to be indirect at all. Now if it openned a small interdimensional portal (special effect -- not power), say, 2 meters in front of the gun that caused energy to stream into our dimension from that portal away from the attacker, then it would be a textbook example of indirect at the +1/4 level (and now you x-ray scope would really come in handy).

 

+1/2 allows for alternate origins which I think would fit better. When you fire the gun' date=' the attack "originates" on the other side of the wall. The special effect is that it found a way to curve around the wall.[/quote']Whether +1/2 is appropriate for that special effect is a matter for debate, but the standard +1/2 level would allow you to do what I described for the +1/4 level above, and also adjust the distance of the portal as desired to bypass walls, allies,etc.

 

Of course' date=' if this is just a heroic campaign, I wouldn't worry too much about costing out this equipment as long as the players understand how it works.[/quote']The campaign is weird, but for simplicity's sake, consider it low-powered superheroic where equipment must be purchased.

Re: Is this Indirect?

+1/4 doesn't have any origination limits, other than it must be from the same point. The example in the book, iirc, is of a lightning bolt. The lightning bolt always originates from the sky.

 

+1/2 would originate from any point and move away from the attacker. If a character was an earth elemental and could conjure up fists of stone to smash someone, the origin point could be anywhere, as long as the target was not between the origin point and the character (eg the attack can aim towards the attacker).

 

If the attack always originates at the character (at his gun) and travels generally towards the target (even if it loops around a couple of times) thats a +1/4.

 

+1/4 means that the origin point is always at the same point in relation to the character (3" in front of the character, from the sky above the character, from the character's hand or gun). +1/2 means that the origin point can be anyplace but still move away from the attacker.

I think you're missing my point, though it's certainly possible that I'm just being dense.

An ordinary energy blast with no advantages or limitations at all originates at the character (the same point every time). So the fact that the power I described at the beginning of this thread also originates at the character is clearly not enough to establish that it is +1/4 indirect. As far as I can recall, there is nothing in the text that indicates that an indirect attack can do anything other than follow a straight line.

I think it's a natural extrapolation to treat the power I'm asking about as indirect, but I don't think it fits the strict definition. And since we're adding abilities not strictly given in the write-up of "indirect", I don't think we can just automatically follow the advantage levels based on the point of origin of the attack.

Furthermore, under the standard rules, even at the +1/2 level, the attack moves away from the character (as you point out above). But if the attack can loop back, then it's debatable whether it fits the criterion. I'm not looking at the text right now, but the power we're talking about starts out moving away from the character, while potentially moving back toward the character later.

So again, I think we're stuck extrapolating. You seem to think that we aren't, but I don't see why you would think that. Lord Liaden's way of extrapolating strikes me as a reasonable one, though not the only possible one.

Re: Is this Indirect?

Classic Indirect at +1/4.

 

Attack always originates at the same location (eg gun/hand) and is always fired away from the attacker.

The supervillain Holocaust from Conquerors' date=' Killers And Crooks[/i'] has an Indirect attack similar to this. It "arcs around to attack an enemy from behind, turns corners to hit someone trying to hide behind cover, and so forth." (CKC p. 160)

 

This attack has Indirect at the +1/2 level. If it sounds similar to what your proposed gun could do, I'd buy it at that level. If your gun is significantly less flexible than that, though, +1/4 should be sufficient.

Re: Is this Indirect?

As I've usually played such things (mortar rounds' date=' lobbed grenades, etc) that's Indirect, yes.[/quote']So what level of advantage do you consider that? (+1/4, I'm guessing).

 

What I was thinking of could curve left and right, or down then up, not just up then down. What level of advantage would you make that?

Re: Populating your Lost World

Man' date=' I would LOVE to see the stuff in After Man statted out. I spent hours and hours over that book in Junior High School.[/quote']I did a little bit of work on this recently, but didn't get that far. Two things stopped (or at least delayed) me. One is that as cool as they look, the creatures don't necessarily stat out that differently from real-world animals* (which made the task less exciting). Second, my gaming attention shifted, as it is wont to do.

 

If anyone's interested in my not-quite-complete write-ups of the horrane and two types of raboon (grandis & vulgaris), remind me by PM next week, when I should have time to try to get them up. (Can I put HD files up directly on these boards?)

 

* OK, I gave the large raboon 35 STR, 24 BOD, and a 1 1/2d6 HKA (3d6 + 1 w/ STR), which is nastier than what I'd give any real-world modern terrestrial (as opposed to aquatic) predator. Hmmm . . . I need to look up a polar bear and compare. The large raboon should be nastier (except possibly lower OCV).

 

Edit: Of course, knowing Susano, I'd bet you'll end up with more and better write-ups from him before next week anyway.

Re: Did someone mention Trains?

Rep

Did I miss the coach? They seem to have everything but . . . (for a passenger train)

A ball of energy (energy blast) comes from a gun (or a hand). It can curve around barriers, but must cross all intervening space. My gut says that this is an example of a power with the advantage "Indirect". But upon reading the text of the advantage, it seems not to be. I'm guessing it still counts as indirect, but is just not a paradigmatic example.

What do you think?