Doc Democracy

Re: Help Required. Undead PC That was 23 years ago and you say you are only 32! You were too young to be playing Champions then...I was playing in '83 and felt a bit too young at 18! And if you've been playing that long why haven't you been on the boards more? Let us know how you get on - we're always desperate for stuff to talk about.... Doc

Re: How to build a Density-altering ATTACK? The problem with any solution that does not actually change the density of the target (such as STR drain) is that it only affects the person being made more dense. It would not, for example, have a game effect on a teammate lifting him to safety. I think what you have to do is decide the effect you want the power to have on the target. If you simply want the target to be less able to use their STR then perhaps a STR drain is the answer - and the SFX of that would be a massive increase in wieght. If you want to hinder movement then you might look to an Entangle - SFX, a massive increase in weight. I think you are falling into the trap of thinking too much about the special effects you want rather than the game effects. Doc

Re: Balanced Opposition In my experience it is usually easier to balance equal or near equal numbers of PCs to villains. I have also found that the players prefer the type of fight where they have opponents at worst only slightly better than they are. They can see small successes during the fight as the villains begin to go down. With one huge villain it can often be frustrating as they try to wear him down while avoiding being one-punched. I agree that the first fight being against a similar number of lower pointed villains, possibly supplemented with agents, being a good intro - the players feel more like they are superheroes in that kind of scenario. Doc

Re: Help Required. Undead PC I'm looking at the number of posts and assuming you are fairly new to Hero. Everyone has made very helpful comments on how you might go ahead with this. One of the main tricks in Hero is precision about what you intend to buiild. You said you wanted an undead necromancer. I'm assuming that you have the necromancer bit covered with some magic system and a few spells. When you say undead, however, what exactly do you mean? There are many kinds of undead and each of them have different specs. Your player may simply want the story potential of being undead with no real benefit over normal PCs then it could simply be a distinctive feature where the PC will show up on detects etc. If the player wants more than that - advantages or drawbacks then they need to sit down and think out exactly what they mean by undead. A vampire is undead with lots of cool abilities but a few major drawbacks. The suggestions above indicate some of teh ways you could model aspects of being undead but the player really needs to define what is meant by undead before you go into the detail of trying to build it. Doc

Re: Adaptive Defense? You might also want to have an aid feeding a particular defence limited to defending aiding a defence he has already been hit with - so the defence adapts to past events but does not anticipate new attacks... Doc

Re: [Campeign Creation Project] Pirates of the Naebbirac Astroid Belt I keep thinking of the electronic thumb used in Hitchhikers. I want an Hyperspace Grappling Hook. I can see the special effects. The pirate whirls an ariel (antenna to you US type folk) round to aid the targetting of a personal, one-use teleporter. He has to make a targetting roll on the nearby spaceship - his own ship would have to be close enough to allow this to work - the teleporter locks on (indicated by the ariel going taut in the direction of the ship) and he swings through hyperspace to the inside of the target ship. Classic pirate style stuff. Will have to see if I can come up with actual game stats for it. Doc

Re: [Campeign Creation Project] Pirates of the Naebbirac Astroid Belt Of course, everyone would know that and that's what would make the system that much more interesting. Someone, or something must have engineered the system - possibly to produce the right environment to generate the mineral/element that is the source of so much concern. Obviously the tidal stresses in the area would be a good source for many sensor and drive and other technology failures that could drive scenario drama as required. The unnatural mix of gravity tides, gases and environmental stresses could also be the source for anything the GM might want to consider. Doc

Re: [Campeign Creation Project] Pirates of the Naebbirac Astroid Belt Now. I have no intention of running Star Hero at any time in the near future but I do like reading this discussion - specially when you are in the formative stages. If you are looking at swashbuckling boarding stuff then you really need to think of how you can get the feel of swinging over on a line with cutlass between your teeth (not recommended with laser blades!) I was wondering if the pirates might have developed some kind of technology that would allow a man, sufficiently close to the hull of a ship, to transport through the hull regardless of shields or anything else? It would be a risky exercise both getting close enough and doing the transport (not for heroes but in every boarding party at least one or two pirates will become superheated gas on the ship shields when the device fails to work). That probably means the pirates get to the ship in a diffuse bunch and that the ship cannot rely on defending bulkheads etc... More swashbuckling action as the pirates kill security and grab what they can before getting off the ship or disabling whatever security/defences/drives necessary for a more daring raid/capture. Doc

Re: Weird Talent Having considered all of the options presented to me, I think that I like the Heal option the best. The skills are an interesting idea but I still think that the skill presents some level of knowledeg by the character when instead it is simply a command to pick up its wheelbed and drive. Thanks for all of the options. Doc

Re: Weird Talent "I can talk to my car but I can't make it work! Even when I scream obscenities it just sits there and I KNOW it can understand me..." I'm doing my best to stay away from transforms, minor or otherwise, but I think it needs somethiung more than being able to communicate. Doc

I am about to look at a pulp stargate style game. I was touting round my players for characters and potential weird talents and got the following. Now this seems fantastic to me - an arab with a PRE attack covers most of it - but what about shouting and swearing at a recalcitrant vehicle and getting it to work? Ideas? Doc

Re: Help me finish a character? Personally, I would drop the 16 COM to 4 (I'm not sure why you think he is so good looking) and plough all 16 points into CON. That makes you more difficult to Stun (an attack would have to do in the region of 41 STUN to stun you rather than 33), improves your ED by 2, your rec by 2, your END by 16 and your STUN by 4. A marked improvement in your combat durability. Doc

Re: "Divine Shield": ultimate defense You do realise that you are playing HERO right? You get what you pay for and so a defence that is nigh on impregnable will cost LOTS of points. The high cost of 3/4 resistant Damage Reduction reflects how useful it is in defending the character. If you want something as good or better than that the basic design of the game would indicate that it would cost the same or more. Sometimes damage reduction is the wrong way to go for effectiveness. If you ar playing in a fantasy hero game, or any of the heroic level genres, you can achieve good protection from the level of threat far better using armour and force field for less points than the damage reduction would cost. Can you tell us the context for your question? You are obviously designing a character with some power/spell/ability but if you tell us what the character is, the game you are designing it for and the limits your GM is imposing then we can do a decent job of giving you options. Doc

Re: Drain STR on Objects? Not got here but doesn't the Ultimate Metamorph discuss Density reduction? It would seem to be what you want mechanics wise.... Doc

Re: Help me finish a character?

Re: Totally Unstoppable? this is the classic, if you don't kill the beast on its home plane then you can't kill it thing. Personally, I'd be inclined to begin with the premise that if you can't kill it it isn't really there. Decide what it is that the summoned creature is able to do, buy those abilities as indirect (trans dimensional), have them require a focus (demon body) that takes damage like the demon back home. When you destroy the focus then the demon cannot use the indirect part of its powers. The summon demon ritual essentially only summons the focus through which the demon can act upon the material plane. Does that make sense? I'm kind of sleep deprived at the moment. Doc

Re: Hero System Combat Examples book?

Re: Rethinking mental powers hmm. I was right. I did propose an alternative system similar to this in this thread but it was prompted by a post you made about elemental controls... funny how it all comes round isn't it? Doc

Re: Rethinking mental powers Did I suggest something like this ages ago? Perhaps that is why I'm drawn to it....will see what I can find but I think your initial thoughts are more elegant than mine were. My main reason for liking it - it makes the system more internally consistent. This is an interesting system but it fails on the consistency side of things. Doc

Re: Autofire Find Weakness So the issue isn't about the lowering of defences but the speed at which it is done? As it was presented, I think that the same Find Weakness skills are more potent without autofire most of the time even taking the extra time into consideration. Autofire Find Weakness is not likely to achieve the same drop in defences as the equivalent level of the skill without autofire. As I said, I think it gives enough of a boost to warrant costing more but I don't think that it is inherently unbalancing unless Find Weakness is also unbalancing. Doc

Re: Is HERO an ideal or even an adequate game for those new to RPGs? Should it be? It is more obvious in Hero. In many other systems you get a description of what happens - in Hero you get all of the system mechanics displayed for all to see. It is a problem when you have complicated builds especially - think magic missile. The player sees huge amounts of stuff including some kind of fudge for the 'automatic hit' whether that be area effect or huge numbers of levels and that makes the mind begin to think about that rather than the cool effect of firing missiles from your fingertips that always hit your opponent.... Doc

Re: Autofire Find Weakness No real difference from a high enough Find Weakness skill - would you ban that too?

Re: Is HERO an ideal or even an adequate game for those new to RPGs? Should it be? It is the colour and sfx of the system that makes something feel magical. Ars Magica makes magic feel like magic and Chivalry and Sorcery did so too. They presented a system that felt like you were following magic systems rather than fractional power systems. In Hero this depends on the GM doing the legwork to provide that kind of feel to the player. It also requires the player to be content not to look behind the curtain and be happy to believe in the great and powerful Oz. Doc

Re: Is HERO an ideal or even an adequate game for those new to RPGs? Should it be? This is exactly where I think Hero falls down - it looks more complicated than it is froma character sheet. It is something I am working on for my group. Will share when I eventually get it finished.

Re: Autofire Find Weakness Hmm. It's a difficult one. Obviously it isn't the fact that you are cutting the defences to an eighth that we need to think about - buying the power straight provides that ability. What the autofire does is give you the extra time in combat to achieve that advantage. Lets take an example: AnalystGuy has a SPD of 5 and a 6D6 attack and 16- Find Weakness. To make his attack useful against an opponent then he really has to get to 1/4 defences. Under normal circumstances this means that on segment 12 he has a 98% chance to half defences, on segment 3 over 90% chance to quarter them and, on segment 5, almost 80% chance to eighth them. He has to survive until segment 5 before he begins to be a threat and this should happen most of the time. SuperAnalyst has a SPD of 5, 6D6 attack and 16- Autofire Find Weakness. On segment 12 he analyses his opponent and has the same 98% chance that he will half defences, 80% of the time he will quarter them and about 25% of the time he will eighth them (the beauty of the bell curve huh?). Obviously he automatically fails in his roll as at some point the penalties will kick in. AnalystGuy takes time but will 50% of the time go beyond the eighthing of defences, SuperAnalystGuy gets his benefits straight up but will rarely achieve eighthing and almost never anything beyond that. I think that the element of time is useful but it does have a detrimental effect on the Find Weakness skill (enough that I think I might increase the autofire cost by +1/4 rather than +1). What I would say is that part of that +1/4 autofire would be that it is a one-off shot - they have to fire it that way - no firing two shots and then trying another two shot salvo - all or nothing. Otherwise I think that I would bump the cost up to +1/2 or +3/4. Doc