Talon

Personally I'd make the sensors and stuff cost END, so the GM can mess with them when there's a power failure. Otherwise, looks good!

I think that all the campaign-specific stuff Hero has put out remains pretty generic. Details are left for the GM to fill in as he sees fit; while of course there's standardization and choices made in terms of available special effects and power levels, there's very little that you couldn't lift for a campaign that uses a similar tech level. If anything, I'd say Hero is lacking that bottom level of specificity: it's very hard to impossible for someone to run an "off the shelf" campaign using existing Hero products, without doing a decent amount of customization work.

I have an article on the current rules, and a proposed house rule which "normalizes" the 270-272 damage adding rules, at http://www.shalott.com/hero. EDIT: Made link work!

The problem I have with allowing 8- rolls is that people with Familiarities feel gypped; everyone else gets the same thing without having to spend a point. Thus, I use a house rule: unskilled characters get a roll (usually 8-, but depends on the Skill and task in question). However, the consequences of failure are much more severe than for someone with an 8- roll, to reflect the fact that the character really doesn't know what they are doing. An unskilled Mechanics check, for example, would be very likely to cause further damage to the car if it failed. This is something I'd hope to see addressed in The Ultimate Skill.

Frodo's wound was probably just a RKA in a world where the SFX to heal that RKA were rare to non-existent. In a more varied world, I'd suggest the aforementioned Drain plus Power Defense, UAA, only to prevent Healing attempts on the Drain, not vs. "appropriate" Healing SFX.

Since it wasn't in the playtest, my guess is that it was a last minute gremlin of some sort. In general, Steve & Co. are amazingly good about catching these things (especially compared to the nightmare that was 4th Edition proofreading). If FH is rife with this kind of error I'd be surprised.

Yup. You could have Advantages worth +4 on the HA, and your STR would still add 1 for 1. Finding abuses of this rule is left as an exercise for the reader.

It's closer to how it should be, but it's not correct. You get to add STR to HA, up to the amount of HA dice, without considering Advantages on the HA.

See pages 270-272 of FREd. In short, you do get +3d6 with Double Knockback -- you get to add a number of STR damage dice equal to the number of HA damage dice, straight, no pro-rating for advantages or anything. If you had 25 STR, you could do 10d6. If you had 30 STR, you could still only do 10d6 -- once you hit that limit, that's it. It's definitely an odd rule.

Charges and MP can get abusive because most MPs have plenty of slots that can be used to attack, so for a Limitation on every slot, you're still getting lots of attack usages. What are the intended uses for Variable Advantage on the Radar and Flight? I agree with the other comments about Extra Time and Concentration: if all the character does is climb into the suit every morning and stay in all day, then the Limitation value is too high (unless the GM makes a point of inconveniencing the character). I would point out that the Extra Time and Concentration apply if anyone hits the armor with a Dispel, so inconveniencing the character might not be that hard. I'd suggest reducing it to a -1/2 or -1/4 "takes more than usual time to get into suit" Limited Power, which would then come up only occasionally. One of the fission powers is listed as using Personal END, I assume that's a typo. The STUN Lotto effect of the RKA would make me look twice too, except that I would have already house-ruled it away.

FH also has the critical hits rule (same as UMA, if I recall it correctly) as an optional rule.

Re: On the Shelves in VA The cost was 11 in the playtest file; what is it in the book? (Mine's at home.)

A catapult uses torsion, like those propellor planes that work off a wound-up rubber band. A trebuchet uses a counterweight -- the force of the weight dropping at one end lifts the other end fast enough to throw a rock. Check http://www.trebuchet.com/ for more specifics.

For a first-pass by an RPG newcomer, this was a great job. I would ask the GM the following questions: 1) What are values for low/average/high defenses? 2) Does the average character have lots of resistant defense? 3) What are values (low/avg/high) for SPD? 4) What are values for OCV/DCV? 5) What are values for DC (Damage Classes)? Going by overall averages, your character is way too high on DC, too high on CV, high-ish on SPD, and low on defenses. In my campaign I'd insist DC and CV both be lowered. But on the other hand, you don't want to show up and find out that everyone else (villains included) is built to a higher standard...so asking is good. If possible, have the GM provide a standard or sample NPC sheet so you can see his vision of characters.

Oh no, it's all yours. Feel free to use any and all of my ideas and/or writeups. I just want to see someone put it in there!

I like the feel: characters may have to wait a bit for the computer to notice them; characters in combat may be dodging too much for the computer to "lock on"; someone with hacking or cyberkinetic ability can override the function to break in; etc. Hm, Online Spacer's Toolkit...

That's why I would stay away from Personal Immunity, it's asking for abuse. Do the computer thing; something like: Val Char Cost 0 DEX -30 3 INT -7 4 SPD 30 Characteristics Cost: -7 Cost Power 11 Sense Control Batons: Detect Batons 14-, Range, Sense; 2" Range (-1/4) Powers Cost: 11 Cost Talent 1 Program: Transport target through Force Wall 1 Program: Emergency Shut-Down Talents Cost: 2 Total Character Cost: 6 / 5 = 1 plus 28 Energy Shelter: Force Wall (3 PD/3 ED; 2" long and 2" tall), Reduced Endurance 0 END (+1/2) 3 Enter/Exit Shelter: Teleportation 1", Reduced Endurance 0 END (+1/2), Indirect Any origin, always fired away from attacker (+1/2), Usable As Attack (+1); only to transport through Force Wall (-1) Buy it all OAF or whatever.

Cost Power 40 Energy Store: Endurance Reserve (400 END, 0 REC) 25 Stored Energy: Elemental Control, 50-point powers 25 1) Powered Strength: +50 STR (uses END Reserve) 16 2) Powered Defenses: +25 PD; Costs Endurance Costs END Every Phase (-1/2) (uses END Reserve) plus +25 ED; Costs Endurance Costs END Every Phase (-1/2) (uses END Reserve) 25 3) Powered Blast: Energy Blast 10d6 (vs. ED) (uses END Reserve) Powers Cost: 131

I believe that setting in Hero Designer is just for display (since the damage total changes for weapons). You definitely don't need the maneuver twice, just the right Weapon Element. Do you know what the average SPD and CV values are for the game? Kudo can hit 16 OCV and 21 DCV, which is high for most games.

I like the history (especially that you put it first!), but I do think it gets a bit weak at the point where he starts getting powers. As GM I would have some questions about exactly what happened, to give me a better idea of the character. Is this a heroic or superheroic game? Personally I wouldn't allow a Multiform of more than about (total points minus points in Multiform), which works out to around 225 points overall for one form or the other. (Otherwise, Multiform characters are easily flat-out better than other characters.) I don't know what the DEX/CV/SPD limits are like in the game, but SPD 7, DEX 30 plus 7 combat levels would be too much for my games. For Harold, look at Skill Levels or higher stats, you could save points instead of buying each skill up by itself. Also, I enforce the 10 point minimum for Martial Arts, so just buying Dodge is a no-no. For Kudo, you don't need to buy actual Maneuvers multiple times -- just buy the maneuver once and buy a Weapon Element for the martial art. That should save you quite a few points. It looks like Kudo has extra DCs (quite a few!) but I don't see them on the sheet. 14d6 attack plus Find Weakness plus a weapon if you can find one is pretty high for most games, I'm guessing you'll be toning it down a bit.

Assume we want the "penetrable" Force Wall for whatever reason. (Perhaps a superhero wants to be able to trap people but walk in to question them.) Option 1: Force Wall, Personal Immunity Usable By Others. This works fine, but it's a slightly dodgy mechanic (Force Walls with Personal Immunity can be easily abused). Option 2: Force Wall with Computer which resizes the wall to create a gap when the right people want to enter. Also works fine, but has the side effect that the wrong people could slip in at the same time (which might be OK for the SFX or might not). Option 3: Force Wall plus 1" Teleport Usable As Attack, Triggered by the right person trying to enter. Depending on GM, you could either have the Trigger auto-reset or have a Computer which operated the Trigger (or even ditch the Trigger and just have the computer bring people in). The SFX would be that the Force Wall was opening just enough to let that person in -- no actual Teleport would take place. Option 4: Force Wall plus some sort of Suppress which would either be Triggered, operated by an inside Computer, or in a Focus carried around.

Dispel or Drain to "overload" electrical devices.

Look down this page, frpgames did have it in stock (don't know if they sold out or not).

Yeah, and there are other changes that might happen (BODY to 1, maybe). But I'm guessing a lot fewer people would complain about stats getting cheaper.

There are plenty of ways in the new Fantasy Hero to increase damage levels if you want high lethality and high DEF. There are a few feat--er, Talents which raise a character's damage (basically, HKA bought as "weapon of opportunity). These raise /base/ damage...so add in CSLs and Martial Maneuvers and you can get way up there very quickly. Somebody with Deadly Attack (I think that's the name), a moderate STR and a few levels could easily be doing 3d6 without trying hard. In any FH game, the GM has to consider the average armor values vs. the damage-causing elements he's willing to allow. I tend to run games where heavy armor is rare at best, and so I don't allow most things that increase damage.