Derek Hiemforth

It wasn't in Adventurer's Club (or Digital Hero). It was in Haymaker #27. If you saw these in an article, it must have been there.

I think this is the best answer: Don't get too hung up on the mechanics of "aborting to Drain," and focus instead on the SFX of "stopping an incoming attack." While area-affecting attacks can't normally be blocked, a grenade is certainly one that falls under the common sense exception.

For anyone familiar with AD&D 2nd Edition, The Complete Fighter's Handbook, by Aaron Allston, had the concept of "fighting styles." It pointed out that melee combat could be boiled down to one of four approaches at any given time: A one-handed weapon in one hand and a non-weapon (typically a shield) in the other, which it called "Weapon and Shield" style. A one-handed weapon in each hand, which it called "Two Weapon" style. A one-handed weapon in one hand and nothing in the other, which it called "One-Handed" style. A two-handed weapon, which it called "Two-Handed" style. Years ago, I brought this concept to Fantasy HERO using Martial Arts and Combat Skill Levels. I named the four styles Bear Style (weapon and shield), Bull Style (two weapon), Bee Style (one-handed), and Butterfly style (two-handed). Bear style got its name from the straightforward style of a weapon and shield attack, Bull style from the fact that two swords resembled two horns of a bull, Bee style from the unpredictable darting movement of a bee (similar to the evasive approach of one-handed fighting), and Butterfly style from light patterns on the flashing blade of a duelist with a two-handed sword seeming to dance like a butterfly in flight. You could buy levels in a style, and they applied whenever fighting in that fashion, no matter the weapon or whether you had any of the martial maneuvers for the style. If you were really skilled in a style, you could buy Bear Style, Bull Style, Bee Style, or Butterfly Style as a martial art, and each had maneuvers that reinforced the "feel" of that fighting style. For example, Bull Style had the highest-damage maneuvers, because the SFX included the idea that you were striking twice (even if not actually using Multiple Attack (or Sweep, as it was known then). Bee Style had maneuvers that were lighter on damage, but excellent for DCV, etc. They were a fun addition.

That's true, but it also reminds me of another point about the mass that hasn't been made so far in the thread. While the mass effect of a level or two of Density Increase may not be all that problematic, the problem rapidly accelerates. If you're using DI to ramp up your STR to supers-caliber attack levels (say, 10-12 levels of DI), that's a LOT of weight. You're basically reaching the point where you all but can't fight anywhere but on the ground (or under self-powered movement), and even then, there may often be environmental side effects. If you're trundling around weighing in the neighborhood of 100-400 tons, that's no joke...

Great! Sounds like you've solved it for your game. As long as you and your players are good with your approach, then all is as it should be!

Yes.

I don't think it's overpowered. Yes, the component pieces would cost you 9 CP. But when they're bundled as Density Increase, they also have a bunch of downsides: They cost END every Phase the power is active, even if they're not used (for example, having the +5 STR costs END even if you aren't using the STR, then costs more END if you actually do use the STR). The increased mass is more of a problem than a help. They have visible power effects. They're not Persistent. etc. If you figure the package of 9 CP worth of stuff also comes with Costs Endurance (-½) and another -½ Limitation for the combined value of extra perceptibility, extra mass, etc., then the 9 CP is knocked down to 4 CP, just like the power has.

In the rules as written, there is nothing that does what you describe. So if you want to take an approach different from Drain, etc., you'll need to house rule something. A post in the HERO System Discussion forum will likely generate some suggestions. I believe the rules you're thinking of are the Spirit Rules from HERO System Almanac I (for 4E). Those rules also did not have an effect like this, and they used Drain to affect the spirits' Characteristics, etc.

Thanks for the kind words, and I completely agree with you (about the CV thing... not about me being a swell guy ). I'm under no illusion that the way I described prevents the player from knowing, or that the player won't quickly figure it out, or that it's a problem if/when the player does figure it out. My only point is just what I said: that it doesn't require the player to know the opponent's DCV. So if you want the uncertainty for those first few dice throws, you can have it.

Trouble is, this requires you to know the opponent's DCV. The other way, you can just announce what DCV you hit, and the GM can announce whether or not you succeed. You don't have to know the DCV, or whether there were any modifiers, etc.

Roll 3d6. If you roll exactly 11, you hit a DCV equal to your OCV. If you roll below 11, you hit a DCV one point better than your OCV for each point you roll below 11. If you roll above 11, you hit a DCV one point worse than your OCV for each point you roll above 11. It sounds slightly complicated to write out in words, but it's very easy to do in play. I've never really encountered a player who struggled with it... EDIT: Obviously, this is the same thing greypaladin_01 suggested above; it's just a different way of getting there that generally lets you add or subtract smaller numbers.

The sidebar on page 100 of The Ultimate Martial Artist (5E) specifically addresses this question.

Not in a single Phase (the Moon is much farther away than that), but yes, he could. The average Knockback would be 668,072m, which is far enough to reach space, and you'd travel that far in a single Phase, which would be 668km per second (much higher than escape velocity, which is a bit over 11km per second). Even if you halve the distance traveled because you're opposing gravity, and halve the velocity accordingly, it still exceeds escape velocity and still reaches space. With the right trajectory, you could probably eventually drift to the Moon, but I'm not enough of a mathematician or astrophysicist to calculate what that would entail.

Actually, that's correct. The typo is that his Kick/Rear attack is supposed to be HA +334,043d6. Them Centaurs are scrappy!

It was an oversight on my part that Aid was supposed to be excluded from Increased Maximum Effect. So yes, it's (accidentally) allowed in CC as written.

It does indeed.

Here is a write-up I did a few years ago. This represents a Silver Age Green Arrow, shortly after his joining the Justice League. So this is definitely the higher-powered (650 CP base) JLA super-archer, not so much the gritty Dark Champions-style character of later years. So you might need/want to tone him down if you're using him in a different context, but this might be a helpful starting point. I also have the Hero Designer files if you want those. EDIT: I should also mention... This was for a convention game I ran, and the game did not use END. So END is missing from this write-up. arrowcar.doc arrowplane.doc greenarrow.doc

I uploaded a couple of these to the Downloads section a month or so ago, @Scott Ruggels.

Check out this Wikipedia page. It has the information you seek. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Hero_System_products

Well, current recommendation is still to wear masks indoors regardless of vaccination status. So while this is not technically a "restriction," I don't want to wear a mask during play, and I do want to follow the recommendation, so I won't return to meet-up play until that recommendation changes. After it changes, I will be doing a mix of online and face-to-face, but for now, it's still all online.

It also needs to be bought to 0 END.

Well, it would need to be the other way around. Hero Designer would need to create the PDF (by exporting the proper output). There used to be one, but at some point, a Java change broke it. I don't know if the change only broke that specific one, or if it would no longer even be possible to write one that worked. But it sounds like you're asking if you could have a PDF with blanks that Hero Designer could fill in, and no, I'm fairly certain that's not possible. It's obviously more work to create a character sheet in Word instead of just having Hero Designer output one, but I have to say, I love how customizable it is. Here's another sheet for Black Widow with more tweaks as I continue to play around with it.

It's not a Hero Designer template. It's a blank Word document, like a blank character record sheet. So yes, you have to write in it, or copy-paste into it, etc.

Here's an old character of mine as presented in the template. I tweaked a couple of things slightly, but I like it!

I really like this! Is there any chance you could share the template?