Fearghus

Re: Beginner Character Creation

Thanks for your input everyone

 

I guess i didnt word my question correctly though. I understand the theory of how open ended it is. But when i sit down to fill out my character sheet I just do not know where to start. Like i do not understand the first decisions i should make as far as what to purchase for my character

Well I have said before where you start is character concept. If you don't know what to build... the book is not going to tell you. After I have that where I start depends entirely on the character. I tend to jump around a bit too. I will normally start by building the characters primary powers (the ones essential to the concept) and before I begin I have a good idea what his disadvantages are going to be so I will normally scribble those down next then move on to characteristics, finally skills and talents. This order changes though depending on character concept. If I am building a skill I will likely begin with skills since skills are his essential power.

Re: Strength Minimum

Isn't there already a mechanic that makes using a weapon with a lower strength min more advantageous. I don't do fantasy games too often, and I don't have my books with me, but I would swear that I recall reading that any strength above the strength min of a weapon gets added to the damage of the attack. So the example you posted above. broad sword and butterfly sword. some characters would get an extra pip of damage out of the butterfly sword, but not the broad sword.

I might be mis-remembering, but I think that is how it works.

Re: Beginner Character Creation

Neverway said it right. the hardest thing new players I have introduced to the system have to deal with is the totally free form character generation. The character concept drives your character unlike other games where the stats you roll drive your character. Even further than that in a class / level game characters get pigeon holed into categories. A fighter is pretty much always a fighter. In Hero it doesn't necessarily work that way. While characters still tend to fall within a few different archetypes the lines are much less distinct in Hero System. This is actually one of the things I love about the system, but alot of people find it intimidating at first.

Now if I have not scared you away. Once you get past character creation hero has a fast uncomplicated combat system that resolves combat more quickly than most games (in my opinion) so ROLE playing tends to be more important then ROLL playing.

Re: Newbie and GM shouldn't go together.

One approach I like for new players' date=' new characters, new genres, etc. is "cage match". Throw the PC's up against one another. Throw them up against 1 orc per 2 PC's. 1 orc per PC. 2 orcs per PC. A Gargoyle. None of it happens in-game. It's a way to feel out the characters' combat capabilities, and get a feel for the rules. for new players. One PC seems ineffectual? Maybe he needs some redesign. 1 orc per PC seems like a walkover, but 2 is a TPK? Then 1.5:1 is probably more in the game for a reasonable challenge.[/quote']

 

I do this as well... especially for new players and I will kind of walk them through the combat have the NPCs in the combat use a wide range of attacks so they get to see how they all work. It's very informative.

 

Another thing I do sometimes is write into the story (for the first couple scenes of the campaign anyway) a friendly NPC that could come in and save the day if I accidentally create an axe murder encounter.

 

lastly there is always the option of fudging stats, if you find you made the encounter too easy or too hard.

Re: Any good character sheets for use on computer? That track END, STUN, BODY, etc.

We all use laptops now

Not to hijack your thread, but this annoys the heck out of me. I have a weekly game and the game master uses a lap top, and two of the players keep their characters on their Iphones. Table top gaming is supposed to be about spending time with friends and interacting with them NOT your electronic devices. Admittedly the Iphones are less offensive than the lap top, but it is very hard not feel disconnected from someone who is looking at a computer screen rather than listening to what is going on in the room he is in.

In answer to your question. No I don't know of any such a thing. Not that I have looked for one.

Re: How best to replace "Find Weakness"

This was one of those 6E changes I couldn't really get too worked up about; I won't really miss Find Weakness. Using 6E rules to 'toolkit' something similar in a way that's legal and makes more sense invariably seems to result in a power that's either less useful' date=' or a good deal more costly, which says a lot about the old version of Find Weakness, IMHO. I don't even use the 'half defense' rule for the Armor Piercing advantage any more; the alternate rules in the APG raise a good point -- halving just penalizes those who bought higher defenses. Find Weakness abused this concept even more than Armor Piercing does.[/quote']

 

Good point. I am still running 5ER (though I did recently just pick up a copy of the 6E Vol 1&2) and I have pretty much outlawed find weakness in my game. I kind of like the idea of building it as an AP naked advantage with an activation roll. Lets face it. facing half defense kicks butt, and it was probably removed from the game because it was unbalanced.

Re: Stats for a Forklift

Sometimes for stuff like this I usually tend to lean towards "as much as it needs to do." I basically let dramatic license just take over. However' date=' if said forklift is going to be integral to the game and you can't get around statting it up, I believe 20 STR and 15m of movement, SPD 2 should just about do it.[/quote']

 

Well said... Is it really necessary to put stats to everything? I guess if you actually build it then you know for certain what the vehicle is capable of, but the bottom line is unless you are planning on it being a recurring vehicle in your game let it do what needs to be done for the story and move on. Now if your hero is Construction Guy! and he drives a super powered fork lift then by all means build stats for it. but if the bad guy wants to use a fork lift to drop a heavy box on the heroes then just say a fork lift can do that.

Re: Please tell me why this is wrong!

I think the problem here is a matter of scale. Change environment isn't specific enough to effect a single item. so you don't raise the temperature of the block of ice you raise the temperature of the whole area. If the argument you first presented held (that the temp of every object in the area could be effected) then if you had a luke warm cup of water (say 100 deg. F) in an average temp room (70 deg. F) and you raise the temp with change environment by 30 deg. the water would now be scalding after the change environment. Furthermore anyone in the room would die from being cooked from the inside because now their body temperature is around 130 deg... at the very least they would all pass out. The bottom line is that change environment is not priced point wise to have that drastic of a combat effect so i would not

If you really want to melt ice quickly (in a single phase) that is a transform effect not a change environment.

Re: How best to replace "Find Weakness"

Find Weakness always was kind of a naked AP advantage with a skill roll anyway so that is how I would do it.

Re: Simplified Endurance Management?

I have two tricks I use for keeping track of endurance stun and body that I use and my whole group has adopted for several different games. I can't claim credit for thinking up these tricks, but I will describe them for you.

The first and easiest way to track all your characters numbers is to place your character sheet inside a sheet protector and write on it with a wet erase marker. For my character sheets I even have columns of bubbles on them so I can simply tick off where on the column me stun, body and endurance are. then erase and re-mark when I recover.

The other trick I got from the Deadlands RPG. Use the columns in the margin of your character sheet, and place a paper clip where your endurance is. Move the clip up and down the side of the paper as you expend or recover endurance.

I have included a copy of the character sheet that I use to give you an idea what I am talking about. Anyone is free to use this character sheet as they see fit. I know alot of people use character designer, so it might not be useful for most. But I have a sentimental attachment to pen and paper, so I do all my characters by hand.

EDIT:

I forgot to say... this is a 5E character sheet... 6th seems similar enough, but you will see formulas for the calculated characteristics on here.

Re: "Wee Folk", traditional or furry

I agree. If I were to run MouseGuard in Hero' date=' the mice would be built as regular humans (i.e. 10s and 8s) and then scale weasels, owls, wolves, and the like as akin to dragons and giants and the like.[/quote']

 

Depends on the situation. When I run fantasy D&D like games halflings and gnomes simply have shrinking with always on, no END, but in the example you pointed out above where EVERYBODY is playing a mouse I agree treat them as normal humans, and give other creatures size powers based on that scale. I think the scale is what matters. Halflings are the size of children so modeling them with the same stats you would model a full sized human with is fine. but a rat or a rabbit is so much smaller than an average human that saying every rat has a STR of 1 or 0 is useless. Scaling everything down give finer control over physical statistics at smaller scales.

This is for 5ER...

I have a good idea how to build this but once again... every time I think up a unique power I like to post it on the boards so that people can weigh in on it. Quite often you guys think of things I do not.

So first the idea of what I want the power to do. There is a super group (a quite large NPC super group) One member of the group is a teleporter. among his teleportation powers is a power that allows him to port in any member of the team. So... He needs the brick of the team, and poof... he makes the brick appear.

I was originally going to build this with summon, but I have always hated that summons can be dispelled, so I decided to build it as an actual teleport compound power with clairsentience to locate team members where ever they may be.

So here is what I have:

Rally Point (Part One)

Teleport 5" (10pts.)

Fixed Location (Right next to character)

Megascale: 1km to 10,000km +1 1/2

Useable As Attack +1

Ranged +1/2

Megascale Range: 1km to 10,000km +1 1/2

61 Active Points

Only to fixed location -1

Only against team members -1

20 real points

Rally Point (Part 2)

Clairsentience Sight (20pts.)

Megascale 1km to 10,000km +1 1/2

50 Active points

Only to locate team members -1

25 real points

Re: New Gamers

The same as the number of new hobbyists who started gaming cold with' date=' say, D&D 3rd or 4th edition. Exactly zero. That's my point. Lucius aside, almost no one starts playing RPGs all by themselves. They virtually always start by being "mentored" by existing players. And I've known several whose first RPG was Hero, including some where I've been the "mentor."[/quote']

 

I can not agree more. I started playing because a friend of mine got me into it. I have introduced people to it. The only example of someone "starting cold" I can think of does not count in my opinion since I basically ended up mentoring him. At the time we played in a comic book shop, and he had never played before, but the group I was with were willing to show him the ropes. So it was him that showed interest and asked if he could play but he didn't learn the game by reading the book and trying to play with an entirely new group he learned by playing with my group.

 

"Familiarity breeds contempt...

and children"

-Mark Twain

Re: New Gamers

I have always thought of HERO as the grown up gamers game. That's not to say that other games are kiddy games, but HERO is more advanced that most RPGs out there in that you can modle just about ANYTHING. Because the system isn't class/level based and doesn't play like a video game where half the decisions about your character are made for you it requires a great deal of effort to think up and create a character. while it is true that a character in any genre will tend to fit into one of maybe a dozen archetypes even in the HERO system... the player still has to work out ever detail of his/her character. For new players (even for experienced gamers) this can be daunting.

So to answer your question. I think that whole "what role playing is" section is left out of the book for the exact reason you stated. Hero is not for newbs.

Re: 5e: Clairsentience/Precognition Awareness

True. That's because 'true' precognition (as opposed to simply being very good at making guesses about the future based on present information) already is time travel: information about the future moves back in time to arrive in the past.

 

Which is why it's hard to pull off in a game where the players and GM aren't precogs themselves.

What this requires (as was stated before) is understanding players and a GM who is not afraid to force something to fit the prediction he told the players about. It can be done, but as a Game Master I hate doing precog.

Re: 5e: Clairsentience/Precognition Awareness

Hmmmm?

Some sort of enhanced perception to detect when clairsentience is in use in the immediate area.

The Ego blast is exactly what you said... an ego attack probably with some custom limitation that they have to use clairsentience on her first and then she also has to detect it. Simply make the ability to sense the clairsentience targeting in the enhanced senses and give the ego attack enough range and your good to go.

As for dispelling clairsentience I would probably go with suppress rather than dispel. It would mean that they would not have the ability to simply try again then, but that is just me.

Granted I do not have 6th Ed yet so all this is from a 5ER point of view. Things might have changed slightly, but all of what you said seems pretty strait forward to me.

Re: Junkpile

Sweet! This is very similar to what I was thinking of. Thank you very much!

Re: Field/Camping Gear

Do we really need to stat up everything? If they have survival basics like a tent' date=' water, a small axe, food, basic first aid kit etc, people can survive without make survival skill rolls.[/quote']

 

Ditto. I was just about to say this. Normal gear is normal gear. you don't have stats for your clothing... You don't write up stats for the lights or other electronics in your house, or any other home appliances, or tools your character might use... some things are just accepted as given. He has a backpack of survival gear... It may or may not give him a bonus skill level in survival depending on your GM.

I really didn't know what to call this thread. So i used the name I intend for the character. I have an idea for a villain. I am quite certain I would not let a player play such a character but he will make an awesome villain. now I can play him fast an loose since he'll be an NPC but I am not sure how I would model it if a player did want to play it so I figured I would put it up to you guys. You always have great ideas.

Here's the concept. The character has no body of his own. his power allows him to form a body out of materials in his environment. This makes him effectively immortal since he is not flesh and bone any longer, and he can simply keep remaking himself out of materials at hand. I am thinking this regeneration process would take some time, but it would be inevitable. No matter how much of him you blew off he could always absorb more. The body he formed would have different abilities based on the materials he used to remake himself. So if he used metal he would have high resistant defenses high strength and be a little slower and heavier. If he created a body out of water he would have desolidification but fairly low strength and defenses.

I am thinking this would be built as a transform VPP or some sort of multi-form... What do you guys think?

Re: Toolkitting for Day after Ragnarok

Whoa! Why on earth would you want to play a game run in 3-4 different systems? It just sounds frustrating and confusing to me.

On the other hand I kinda like the idea of using a deck of cards to determine initiative. It does allow that poor shlub who only has a speed of 2 to occasionally get to go first. It might be interesting to play with though I am not sure what it would do to the pace of the game, but it would add a bit of randomness to combat that might be interesting.

I have always house ruled a disconnect with movement and speed. In my games you can only move up to twice your non-combat movement in a single turn.

I have contemplated drawing up a roll-high system for Hero just because like you said in my head higher = better. I realize that functionally there is really no difference, but it's just a little thing that has always nagged me about the system. If you figure it out post it and I will probably shamelessly steal it as a house rule.

The rest of the stuff I don't really have an opinion on either way

Re: speeding up character creation v0.01

Hmmmm? Call me a curmudgeon but the stuff you covered with this work sheet is the part of character creation that takes me 2 minutes anyway. I do think you've made it more visual which some players can understand better. In general I think it is a herculean effort to simplify the game for new players.

I find the easiest way to introduce players to the game is to create the character for them. Then after they have some play time under their belt and know a little better what the numbers mean they know what choices they want to make let them make their own. Some people I have introduced to the system go cross eyed when presented with all the options... Maybe you could work up some system where you limit the powers and advantages and limitations the characters have access to. I realize that this would ruin some of the flexibility of the game but it would help new players get acclimated to making the kinds of choices you need to make in character creation.

Re: Common 6E House Rules

Typically when I run the vast majority of villains have no recovery' date=' once they hit zero stun they are unconscious.[/quote']

 

I tend to do this as well. I figure (especially with your common thugs) that even if they do recover after having been knocked out they sort of come to their senses and say something like "I'm not getting paid enough for this." and run off. In fantasy games where players want loot I guess I would have to work it a little differently.

Re: Common 6E House Rules

I do not have 6E yet so this might have changed... but in 5ER I always use a house rule for movement. you can not move farther than twice your non-combat movement rate in a single round.

The reason for this is simple. I had a player create a character that was basically a speedster... he only had a move of 6 (12 Non-combat) but had bought 8 attacks. Well when it came to a foot chase in one game he was able to move faster than the character that had bought his movement up. It just didn't seem right to me that buying extra actions made you run faster. This way Bruce Lee can run up to you and punch you 20 times (spent points on actions), but he is still not going to be able to run faster than Jessy Owens (spent points on movement).

Re: New advantage idea: Permanent

And no' date=' permanently summoned beings would still be different from followers in a few key ways. Followers are generally assumed to be at least somewhat responsive to requests, while summoned beings are not, and you either have to take an advantage permitting automatic or easier control, or devise a means of compelling their obedience. Also, followers aren't instantly replaceable, generally, while a summoned being who is killed could be replaced by a new summoned being.[/quote']

 

Why bother spending points on a summon that is not compelled to at least be "friendly" to you. There is nothing preventing a GM from making ANY summon an NPC in the game. I think everyones point about making a summon permanent is that there are other devices in the game that cover it.

 

A demon you summoned that has decided he wants to kill you is a hunted

A demon you summon that does everything you say is a follower

A demon you summon that helps you out occasionally is a contact

A demon you summon that treats you indifferently is an NPC

 

The bottom line is as far as the summon is concerned is that no matter which way you cut it making a summon permanent is not really practical and the mechanic is kinda clunky

 

As for the aids, drains, and transforms... again it seems like there are already game mechanics that are in place that cover a more or less permanent change.

Re: New advantage idea: Permanent

I've noticed a lot of powers have time limits on them, like adjustment powers, summon(number of tasks), transform(subject can recover), etc.

What would be the appropriate value of an advantage which rendered, say, an adjustment power permanent? I'm thinking in the ballpark of +2, but could be persuaded slightly higher or lower.

Or Summon? That also seems like a +1 or +2 would capture it pretty well, imo.

A permanent summon is a FOLLOWER

Permanent personal adjustment powers are pretty much unreasonable. If you want to aid your Body... just spend points on body

Permanent adjustment attacks are also pretty much unreasonable. Would you really want to face a villain that could drain your Dex down to 1 and leave you there permanently? Essentially stealing dozens of character points from you?

I am with Indiana Joe on this one. If you want it to be long lasting buy it on the time chart make it last years or even centuries for a +3 or +4. even then as a GM I would probably not allow it.