Doc Democracy

Re: Endurance Reserve question Hmm. I'm with Ghost Angel in not thinking that was the way it worked. May have to go home and read 5th edition rules _again_ My take on it would have been that the 50 END battery could be powered up to 50 and would retain that END until it was used. If extra END was added then that extra would fade until the capacity of the battery was reached and it would hold at 50. My understanding is third edition! My understanding is based on the way it worked on characteristics in third edition. Did all of that change? Doc

Re: A couple of how to questions

Re: Taming Absolutes Sean did you say lawyer or actuary - that looks more complicated than my last pensions seminar! Doc

Re: Taming Absolutes You forgot the REC factor Sean. Because you're STUN is being multiplied your REC is more efficient in replenishing all of that extra STUN you just bought.... Doc

Re: Bodyjacking I can see the initial jump to mental power - we are after all talking about minds but there would be justification for the transformation route as well. I wonder whether the defence might vary dependent upon the chosen SFX? I'll be interested in seeing what you come up with. My own version of body-jacking was based on transformation and duplication (short summary was that the transform converted the victim into my duplicate and the duplication power allowed the attacker to merge the victim and attacker into one body). That was very complicated to explain to people! Doc

Re: Bodyjacking DR, this is completely off topic - but suerly Peacefu Chaos would have lost the horizontal cross bars as well (you'd have the CND logo within the chaos wheel - very appropriate!) Doc

Re: Bodyjacking Another variable would be where the minds switch bodies. Physical attributes are swapped but knowledge and skills are retained (thinking Wild Cards here). As far as I remember that series meant that mental powers remained with the body taken over but personal knowledge was carried over. Skills would be carried over as well but using the new DEX/STR etc of the new body. Doc

Re: Entanglements Personally I'm in the complete rethink on entangle - and would call it immobility. Haven't got any further - like with useful mechanics or anything but I think that Entangle has become so widely used to model effects in Hero beyond what it was ever supposed to. I think Entangle is obviously derived from Spidey's webshooters but is now used for things like gravity traps which it is not really well designed to model. Looking forward to the big brains tackle this... Doc

Re: Entanglements Bloody hell Sean, do you just sit there flicking through the rulebook deciding what to complain about next? Doc

Re: Power Build Advice Needed Now I never watched the second matrix film. What happens to the the transofrmed person? Are they able to return? Dependent on that answer I'd go with either a transform or a killing attack and duplication or summon. The transform makes the person 'disappear' and the duplication is limited in that the duplicate/summoned replacement can only appear if someone has disappeared. If the person 'heals' the transformation then the duplicate/summoned replacement reintegrates with the original/disappears and the victim 're-appears'. The killing attack 'removes' the original to be replaced by the duplicate. The duplicate is then available until it is killed etc. I think the biggest problem would be that, as far as I can see, the power is an infinite one limited only by the availability of people to transform while duplication etc aren't infinite powers.... Doc

Re: Interesting telekinesis situation.

Re: New Advantage: Painful

Re: Superheroes: The Five Essentials Hmm. You want superhero stuff. I think you have to get the idealism of superheors - the whole Be a Hero type thing. You also have to get the group idea and something of the sense of fun and irreverence that comes through in many comics. 1) Judas Contract - Marv Wolfman Teen Titans 2) Justice League - (first 10 or so of the Giffen/De Matteis run) 3) JLA - almost any of the first story arcs done by Grant Morrison to provide a different context to that same team. 4) Dark Pheonix - agreed as an excellent epic story 5) Fantastic Four - the recent Mark Waid hardcover (volume 1). You have to have something by the FF and these were classic FF stories against their arch-enemy Victor von Doom. Doc

Re: New Advantage: Painful I love it when Sean makes me smile even as he publicly humiliates me!

Re: New Advantage: Painful

Re: New Advantage: Painful

Re: New Advantage: Painful Either it is SFX or its not. If it is SFX then there's no need for extra mechanics, if its not then I'd like to see something a bit more elegant than limited damage. Doc

Re: New Advantage: Painful This would work for me. It provides a defence and should answer some of the balance points. Doc

Re: New Advantage: Painful

Re: New Advantage: Painful Good points, can always rely on Gary to see the detail. Still, I like the idea of this. I think it might, due to the examples above require that painful on non-standard attacks be +1. Painful attacks _should_ stun people more often, it is the whole idea of the attack but I would like to know what would defend against this advantage - like hardened defends against AP. FenrisUlf? Doc

Re: Ultimate Customisation I think that everyone is focussed on house rules here. Personally I would like this book to be a discussion about how certain feels can be achieved by using or banning certain aspects of the game. This wouldn't necessarily be fifteen ways to achieve a body jack power but discussion of how removing END from the game would affect the way the game played and guidance on what you might want to tinker with for particular genres. Possibly this should be more of a chapter in the genre books - a bit more focus on the practicalities of setting up your game. Hyperman in Zornwil's thread mentioned that there are few games where the GMs have to set the standards before the players can participate. It would be nice somewhere to have discussion of what you might want to consider and how to customise your game. Doc

Re: Has HERO achieved maximum desirable complexity? Hmmm. Maximum desirable complexity? I'm not sure that there is such a thing. I suppose there is a level of detail that provides enough control over the feel of the game beyond which you have detail that requires the GM and possibly players to make too many meta decisions before they get to the good stuff. If I'm playing a game I don't want it to be difficult (a commonly used synonym for complex), I want it to be fun. I'm not sure that some aspects of Hero haven't fallen down that side of too much to think about. Like everyone else who has posted so far, I wouldn't mind a bit more broadbrush basic Hero system with guidance on how to go into detail if necessary. (Personally I think this is simply a book along the lines of the one Sean was suggesting in another thread). Doc

Re: New Advantage: Stackable Well. That one slipped past me. You think that if character A had its own 6/6 force field then it would have 18/18? Makes usable by others much more valuable than I imagined.

Re: New Advantage: Stackable Not really. Usable by others doesn't allow two characters with 8D6 EBs to combine for a 16D6 blast.

Re: Comics that I miss. I miss DC's Earth-2, for a long time my favourite titles were All-Star Squadron and Infinity Inc.... Doc