Dragon-D1

Re: Adjudicating Force Wall (5ed) I thought about doing this but I thought that a normal arrow would be underpowering the arrow considering the Active Points of the attack. So far it looks like everyone would have had the arrow explode on the FW. That was my first thought but I truly can't remember what made me go the other way, it was probably a PC argument that sounded cogent.

Hello Herophiles, I am running a 5 ed game and during one of my sessions we encountered a question with the use of a Force Wall. The problem was this: the bad guys had a large Force Wall surrounding them, one of my PCs is a Green Arrow/Hawkeye type and he shot an arrow with an Explosion effect at a hex behind the Force Wall. I was trying to determine if the arrow would penetrate the wall to explode in the target hex or would it explode against the Force Wall? My thinking was to roll the BODY of the attack just to see if the arrow itself (before the Explosion) would penetrate and therefore bring down the Force Wall then explode in the target hex, or, if the BODY was insufficient to penetrate the wall, the arrow would explode against the wall. Is there an actual rule for deciding this, and if not could I get some suggestions on how to adjudicate this (assuming you think I did it wrong). Thanks:thumbup:

Re: Campaign Limits Yes, this is undoubtedly true, I was saying they seem to be the most balanced because it is assumed that the classes are created equal. However, we all know this reasoning to be faulty.

Re: Campaign Limits I agree with many of your points Killer Shrike. I am not trying to limit the characters to imitate a class system, rather I think my tendency to limit comes from my experiences with a class system. Even though class systems would seem to be the most balanced they still have unbalanced aspects, as you mentioned. One of my first limits on his Multiform concept is that he could not have any forms that use the same shtick as another character. I was hoping this would keep him from outshining everyone else. This is a good point, I will have to watch for this before he finalizes his character.

Re: Campaign Limits Yes, I have had to use it plenty already just to curtail a single player. I think part of the problem here is that I have run campaigns before (mostly D&D) when one or two players way outclassed other players of the same level, so I try to control this tendency with the limits. Our gaming group has decided that the Druid class in D&D 3.5 is overpowered in comparison to other classes due to one case of this. I have another question related to this discussion. Does anybody find Multiform abusive when the character has more than 2 forms (6 in this case)? It seems to be to me, but maybe I am not considering everything since this would be the first time a character has had it in any of my games.

Re: The Distinctive, The Special, The Cool The elegance of the power system, in most supers games, for instance, you have a large list of powers, but in Hero there are relatively few and the ways to make them do what you want. The saleability of character power level Normal -> Heroic -> Superheroic, love the ease and effectiveness of it. Reasoning form Effect: This is the defining feature of the system if you ask me. I know I kind of mentioned this with the fist point, but it deserves a second mention. Did I mention Reasoning from Effect?

Re: Campaign Limits After looking at the rules on DC's I see you are right.:thumbup: However, to some of the players in my upcoming game the "heavy math" (their quote not mine) of the Hero System is a drawback. While they won't have to worry about it during character generation (due to the fact I will be writing up the character as they tell me what they want to be able to do) once they start to get XP they will need to figure it out somewhat on their own. So, this method may not work for my game, though I really like the idea.

Re: Campaign Limits Hmmm, I am still worried about the freedom a rule like this would give a few players to really "munchkin out". Is there any way to prevent this, or at least curtail it?

Re: Campaign Limits I've been thinking about this idea a lot, and it seems to me it would result in every attack having an advantage. While this isn't necessarily a bad thing it would make most villains less effective since they would require Hardened and other advantages on their defenses to make them able to survive more than a few segments. This would require me to build my villains to compensate for the special attacks, rather than to express the concept the villain is based on. The opposite case would happen if I adopted a similar rule for character defenses.

Re: Campaign Limits My rationale behind this is that I based my OCV/DCV limits on the fact that DEX is limited to 30 (I realized that the limit should actually be 20, but I decided to not count the free 10 point starting value) with the 60 active point limit and 30/3=10, the same calculation for EGO gives 13. I thought it was high too, but I wanted to have a logical basis for the rule so it ends up being a little higher.

Re: Campaign Limits At first I thought a 30 defense was going to be the limit, but after looking at villains at the same basic points it seemed it would be too hard for the villain to damage them. I don't want to have to use a master level villain to be able to damage the PCs. Also these limits are only for the start of the campaign to emulate starting heroes, they will increase as the campaign ages. I have already decided to work closely with the players to help them make their characters so I can control these things. The problem is that one of the players got a copy of the rules, made his character on his own and e-mailed it to me (he is the reason I came up with the OCV/DCV limits, he had a character with more than a 20 OCV/DCV if you included the levels he bought). We have exchanged around 10-15 e-mails so I could limit his character. While I like the idea, I don't think the method you suggest would work in this case. Most of the characters will not be making their characters on their own, and I'm not sure how much it would limit the one who will (since he has looked at the example character in the book and that didn't seem to limit him).

Re: Campaign Limits I already consider defense powers as a category for the signature ability. I didn't think of separating the DC and active points limits, interesting. We have 5 players in my game and it currently looks like we have one brick (maybe 2 with a multiform character) so I wanted to give the damage sponge some extra padding.

Hello fellow Herophiles, I am planning a new Champions Universe (350 pts) campaign soon and was wondering what advice you all have on limits on the campaign Active Points and such. The current plan for my campaign to limit most powers/stats to 60 active points (except for a few with limited combat effectiveness, and those are limited to 80 pts), OCV/DCV limited to 10 (ECV to 13) counting levels but not maneuvers. Defenses are limted 20/15r for most characters and 30/20r for Brick types, same for Mental Defense (the higher value for Mentalists), other defenses are limited to 20/15r for all character types. Also I have an idea for each character to choose a stat or power as his "Signature Power/Stat" which can have active points 10 higher than the normal limit, no one can have the same "Signature". Hopefully this gives each character something at which they excel (we have had problems in previous campaigns with a single player overshadowing all the others). So, any comments about my plan or other ideas I could use. I would especially appreciate any advice on foreseeable problems with a new campaign. All the players are new to Hero System, but I know a few will learn it quickly and soon be exploiting the system to the best of their ability. Thanks All

Re: Cops, Crews, And Cabals I got this book thinking it had groups like low powered versions of VIPER. It does not have that kind of content. However, the content I found it did have is much better in my opinion. This book covers organizations that would naturally evolve in a world where supers are common place. Such as a emergency service tailored to superheroes, a construction company using supers to build and repair quickly the damage caused by super battles, a group that helps supervillains execute their schemes by taking care of the mundane details, etc. These thing are so obvious but you never see them in the comics, I'm glad someone had the foresight to create a compilation of these groups. I would by more books in this line if they were ever published! So, in conclusion, I think this book is an indispensable resource for anyone planning to run a supers game in which the supers are as common as in the Champions Universe, Marvel Universe, or DC Universe.

Re: 2 Dark Champions: The Animated Series? Yep, your right! The main title line doesn't mention it, which threw me off, plus the fact it is a CD rather than a download.

I was looking over the online store for books I don't own and noticed there are two versions of Dark Champions: The Animated Series. Both have the same description but one is $26.99 and the other is $20.99. I assume the more expensive one is an upgraded version of the cheaper one. Is this correct? If not what is the difference?

Re: How to Link powers in this case Thanks everyone, I think I will use the Limitation discussed above.

Re: How to Link powers in this case Right, i was thinking just use the above limitation but use the cost structure of the Linked limitation. As for the powers he gains, most of them are increases to his stats, there is a Growth, some Armor, a couple Senses, and an explosion for his STR (though that one wouldn't get the limitation since he wouldn't need to use it all the time he is in HID).

Re: How to Link powers in this case The way I see it is that if I don't Link them then he could change to hero ID and decide which powers are in effect and which are not. sounds good, but is -1/4 enough since Linked is -1/2 in general?

Re: How to Link powers in this case I already have all powers with OIHID, I was wondering if I should link them and if so how?

Hello Herophiles, I've got a question that someone should have dealt with before. I am starting a new Champions campaign and I was helping a player with his character, and I am not sure how to Link his powers. His concept is that he can call up a spiritual creature that forms around him and gives him super strength/brick abilities, he wants all of the typical Brick abilities and Growth at once and wants to have to use them all every time. So, do I link all powers but one to the most expensive power and then link it to all the others (at -1/4 limitation each)? Do I need to link every power to every other power? Or, do I only use the Linked disadvantage once on each power and say it covers all the powers? Or, do I take it once for each power that the power is linked to (that seems like too much to me)? Also, I thought he could also do it as a Multiform, but the concept seemed like a OIHD case to me. Plus there is another character planning on making a Metamorph and I didn't want to have anyone stepping on another character's toes Thanks for your help in advance.

Hello Herophiles, I was just wondering what books I should get for info on the organization ARGENT.

Re: Vehicle/Base construction question Yet again I must point out the example given in the book, so let me quote the relevant part so you can see my problem: "The Guardians build a Base. The team consists of four characters built on 225 Character Points, and one character built on 250. Therefore they can build a base with up to 250 points at a cost of (points/5); for all points beyond 250 points, they must pay (points/1). They can then also take Disadvantages for their base, which add to the 250 points without costing them any more Character Points." The example then goes on to do the math and the base ends up with 40pts of Disadvantages over and above the 250 max, for which the characters do not have to pay more. This is a contradiction with the previous stated rule, at least as far as I can see.

Re: Vehicle/Base construction question Yes, that is what I thought it meant, but then the example that is given in the book breaks this rule

Re: Vehicle/Base construction question Then I'm confused about what the book means in the quote in my previous post.