Doc Democracy

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

Re: Is HERO an ideal or even an adequate game for those new to RPGs? Should it be? If you look at the sentence as written it says that the system is written to accommodate super style games. What that means to me is that the powers section of the game (and probably the part, along with frameworks, that scares most people) needs to be larger and more comprehensive to allow all of the nuances that super style games require. Obviously fantasy magic could utilise the same powers but I think that if you were reading the core rulebook as Fantasy Hero and the powers section was labelled Magic Powers and Spells then people wouldn't be as intimidated as they would only crack it open if they wanted magic. They would be secure that they could ignore it if they were playing a muscle brained fighter. As such, I do think that supers skews things because, if the game is to be multi-genre, then it requires so much of this stuff to be upfront rather than tidied away somewhere that the faint-hearted know they can safely ignore it. I wasn't saying that the game was a supers game - I believe I have stated elsewhere that I will probably never run supers again using Hero - but instead that accommodating such a wide range of genres makes the book and system scary to newcomers. Especially if they are the trailblazer in their group. Any system is much easier if there is someone to mentor you through the intricate bits. When Zornwil asked about being for those new to RPGs I assumed a situation where there would be no Hero experience in the playing group. Doc

Re: Is HERO an ideal or even an adequate game for those new to RPGs? Should it be? Hero should be an entry level system. At the current time I definitely don't think it is ideal though. It is set up to accommodate super style games which probably skews things and it doesn't do enough in the core to provide a playable game. I think that the core rules could do with a decent 8-10 page game insert where all the main decisions of the game are made and explained and provide an introductory scenario - something as simple as the bank robbery (for supers), bar-room brawl for Fantasy Hero or Pirate Attack for Star Hero. No production value - should be considered a throw-away but it would show a new GM, what they should be thinking about. Doc

Re: Limited invulnerability Sean's like that. He can't leave well enough alone... Doc

Re: Adjustment powers vs. Megascale Well, it is your game so you can change it. You might also want to be looking closely at the SFX of adjustment powers that you are allowing that would allow them to apply against an F-16 and a cheetah. You could add a requirement for adjustment powers that players want to affect megascale movement to take an adder to their power - that they would also have to justify. Or as GM you could simply not build an F-16 using Megascale.... One of the problems with Hero is that you have to set the World parameters early on so that power interactions work the way you want them - so all undead characters would have to take certain limitations so that a priest brandishing a holy symbol could hold them back, drive them off or damage them. If you build F-16s using Megascale then you think about the consequences and if you don't like them - then change them. Doc PS: Aww! Teflon Bill got there before me and was more to the point...

Re: Fighting talk You're such a humble chap!

Re: Fighting talk Hmm. So the question is, how do you provide an incentive for martial artists to continue to purchase martial arts rather than use them as a supplement to increased characteristics and skill levels? Surely the simple response would be to stack some advantages for multiples of manouvres as long as MAs are being used and, potentially, to make CSLs more expensive to use for MAs. Your problem here is to acknowledge the bonus that martial arts give at the start and continue to add to that without significantly unbalaning everything else. Would it be worth looking at some sort of progression like the D&D monk class where greater immersion in the arts provided almost magical side benefits. I could see this almost as a VPP that grows with the character and allows a limited set of effects such as immune to poisons, longevity etc etc. Doc

Re: Detect weakest defense location This is probably genre dependent. If I was playing a fantasy game, I think I'd be looking for some kind of armourers skill, I'd allow a heavily modified perception roll, -5 to -8 to work as well. Doc

Re: Assumptions within HERO Hmm. I suppose that there is an assumption there that death means death like in the way humans experience it. The character no longer interacts with other characters in the game. Now, in my head that can be because they are a bloody mess or have been turned into a granite statue with no game mechanic for 'healing' from that transformation. I guess that the mechanic as it stands is that a character is dead when there BODY reaches -BODY. How you handle that as a player is probably entirely up to the group as a whole. If a group is into deep immersion (probably as far away a play style as it is possible to get from my group) then the player might as well leave the room and go generate a new character with which to interact, or may be provided with a handy NPC carried by the GM for the remainder of that session (much more satisfactory). In my group the player would probably sit on the sidelines and provide feedback to the other players and suggestions and help with plot analysis (in my dreams!! ). In game, depending of genre death might not be final - plot devices are available in fantasy and superhero genres to return characters from the dead but possibly not so prevalent in other genres. It might make a good discussion in the genre books rather than having a core rule.

Re: OHID and focus Again it is all down to the disadvantage in game rather than what you might imagine the disadvantage is. If you as GM give both characters the same limitation, then make sure you give them the same level of ingame hassle. Don't always point out to ArmourGuy how difficult it is to get these things across and allow MagicWordGuy the space and opportunity to say his word. A stutter spell is really cheap but it would really screw MagicWordGuy over while doing ArmourGuy no major disadvantage at all. I try not to give too many inherent advantages to styles of build. Any focus can take almost any limitation based on what the player and GM expect the game effects to be. I can't remember the summoning of Etrigan (Gone, Gone of form of man and rise the demon Etrigan) being much more difficult than the summoning of Captain Marvel (Shazam)- though it probably should be. Some characters just always seem to have their gear available. No limitations regardless of what rituals or gear they have to have available according to their background. Doc

Re: Spreading PS: Welcome back Sean. I tried to say this to an earlier post but my home PC is in the terminal stages of hard disk failure and I never get to finish posts from there before the blasted thing crashes.

Re: Spreading

Re: Tri-system experiment

Re: Tri-system experiment What does that say to you? It says nothing to me to start. When I apply a Hero Eye to it, it tells me that there is a physical thing (OIF - jargon) that adds to my normal hand to hand damage (+10D6) and returns if taken away. It also tells me that it will usually do some damage regardless of the defences of the opponent (Penetrating - jargon) and will do even more damage if the opponent is an Avowed Enemy of Thia Halmades. To my Hero Eye - I'm not sure what the -1/2 for Hand to Hand attack is for on the HA +6D6. There is lots of jargon my Hero Eye is ignoring right now - needs my GM Eye to see that - e.g. "30 Active Points" "-1/2" etc. Too much information for the player. A player version of this might be: Holy Ice Cream Cone Of Smiting: +10d6 to Hand to Hand damage with a minimum of 10 done. The Cone returns to Thia's hand if taken away and gets a bonus 6D6 when used against Thia Halmades Avowed Enemies. It costs 10 END to use it. Personally, if I were Thia, I would look at the END cost - especially that bonus damage!! Doc

Re: Assumptions within HERO I'm jumping into this as I read instead of waiting to the end. I'm not sure that HERO should define this. I think that this is the responsibility of the player and GM to use their tools responsibly. A player comes to the GM and asks for a spell/power/talent that turns targets into a log. The GM consults the rulebook and says, yeah - 4D6 Transform should do it. Bad GM! Bad Player! The GM and player should be coming to the problem of what exactly does the player want and how does that work in the context of their game/group. The player might indicate that the spell would work so that the target becomes a block of wood and would remain so. The GM would say well that sounds like a killing attack to me - instead of turning into a bloody mess the target turns into a log. If the player said that water from the Sparkling Stream would return the log to its original form then it is an all or nothing transform. Hero is responsible for mechanics but a lot of what you are asking for IMO is SFX and that, again IMO, is the place for players and GMs. Doc