thereisnoart

After recently converting over to Hero, it looks like I'm just about ready to start a superheroic campaign with my group. While "rolling up" some villains, a question occurred to me... What is a good general point-range for a single villain that would serve as a good challenge for a group of 3-4, 350 point superheroes? I know almost any villain with the right powers in the right circumstance could pose a threat, but I am strictly talking points here. Anybody have any general rules for scaling villain point totals per number of opponents?

Re: Old Palladium player wanting to start with the HERO SYSTEM HU and TMNT were, and still are, great fun - but in different ways. My biggest complaints about HU were the base characteristics meant little to the game mechanics and that two characters of the same level could be WILDY different, in terms of superiority. Random powers are fun (and play off of the "do what you can with what your dealt" dynamic), but that huge imbalance made designing villains for my players to fight rather difficult. I like that in Hero, two characters of the same point totals can be roughly equal (as long as someone isn't trying to abuse the system). Plus your starting characteristics play a huge role in what (and how) your character can perform (at least for the time being ). If I were going to run a "quick and easy" campaign for new players, though, I would probably still use HU for that. The rules aren't as complex and combat is more abstract, meaning its easy for a GM to fudge some rules together on the fly to handle certain situations.

Re: Old Palladium player wanting to start with the HERO SYSTEM Looks like we're in similar situations! I recently decided to convert over to Hero from HU as well. I decided to dive right in with 5th Edition Revised instead of Sidekick. There was some confusion for me, but thanks to the extremely helpful (and prompt) people on these forums, I was able to get around a lot of my questions. Besides being extremely well balanced and infinitely more nuanced (for the better, in my opinion), the biggest advantage Hero has over HU is the wonderful, friendly community surrounding it.

I'm trying to convert aspects of a Heroes Unlimited power from an old campaign. There may have been more to it than what I am listing, but this is all I am interested in: The character can change the direction and/or increase/decrease the velocity of a thrown object. I understand that "Indirect" would be a good advantage (on an EB), but I'd rather not make a set of EBs for the power (unless that's the better solution). I would rather the character be able to take something that exists (like a throwing dagger or a screw or small stone), increase or decrease the velocity when throwing it, and also be able to direct it after it leaves his/her hand. The velocity changes would be able to modify the amount of damage the object does. Should I build these powers as a naked advantage to all thrown objects, and if so what should that cost? As an aside, in HU a skilled character could modify the damage of a blast in 1D6 increments at certain levels. What is the Hero System equivalent? Do you just announce how many AP of the power you want to use with no penalty to roll? (As in Pulling a Punch)

Re: Disadvantages - Anybody know of a good resource? How odd... just IMed my wife at home (I'm at work) and sent her the link. Turns out it opens just fine at home! Guess I'll check it out when I get off. Sorry for that confusion, but I've never ran into a site that wouldn't open up from the office. Ah well, thanks again! If not for those responses, I would have just written the site off

Re: Disadvantages - Anybody know of a good resource? Hm... the page must be in your cache or something. I tried to open the link in both Firefox and IE and it wouldn't open. Same goes for when I tried to go to the main page (nextgenrpg.com) by itself. It just says it cannot display the webpage. Everything else is working fine, so I know it's not my connection.

Re: Disadvantages - Anybody know of a good resource? Awesome - Thanks guys! Hyper - I can't get that page to load... It's doing the same thing as that lost coast link I referred to.

A while back, someone posted a link to something like "lostcoastgaming.com" and there was this huge database of disadvantages. It looked like an awesome resource, but I went there today only to find that the site is gone. I've really been hitting a brick wall on disadvantages lately so I was heart-broken to find it missing. Did anyone happen to get a backup of that site or does anyone know of a similar resource for disadvantages?

Re: Linked/Compound Powers and a How to Build Ok, that helps. As for the Darkness/EB thing... I remember when I was trying to build that power it was getting pretty expensive. The way Darkness works is why... that was the quandary that led me to this post. But you're saying if you were to build the grenade as a Darkness, define the area, and then link an Xd6 EB to it, you wouldn't need to buy an AOE advantage for the EB? (It would just inherit that property from the Darkness, right?) As for the Focus thing... I was running a test combat between the Weapon guy and a Kung Fu genius. The Kung Fu guy did a Takeaway on the weapon and it shrunk in his hand. I figured he could then throw it (really far, according to the Throwing Table) to eliminate that threat almost completely (which is really the bread-and-butter attack for the character). In that case, I suppose I'll leave it as a focus, but lower the cost of the limitation to accomodate the weapon's ability to shrink/be concealed.

I'm a little fuzzy on this convention in Hero... 1) Is there a difference between Compound powers and Linked powers? 2) I read that Linked powers CAN be used with the greater power it is linked to, but isn't necessarily used every time. What about when you want the linked power to ALWAYS activate? (Like an EB Light Blast that always has a Flash to Sight Group) 3) Must linked powers always buy the same advantages as their counterpart? For example, say I built an AoE EB as a Stun Gas Grenade and wanted to include Darkness to Sight Group to simulate the continuously blinding smoke. Would I need to buy the Area of Effect advantage for BOTH powers, or just the most expensive one? Along the same lines as Question 2, one of my characters has a trademark weapon that he uses. Whenever he isn't in his Heroic ID or when the weapon gets knocked out of his hand, it shrinks to a pendant-sized object that he wears around his neck. Would I build the Weapon as HA (OAF) and then link a Transform to it? What kind of advantages and limitations could best describe that? Any input is much appreciated!

Re: Jungle Character - Summon Animals, Transfixing Gaze Thanks for the input! Gridlock - I see what you're saying about the Summon power. What I was thinking, though, was sometimes you may want to summon a 200 pt. Wolf (for example), other times you might want a 300 pt. pack of dogs, maybe a single 50 pt. bird, and so on. I was wondering if you can do all of that with one single summon power or if it would be better to build a multipower with a few different kinds of Summons (single-being, groups, varying point totals, etc.). I'll probably end up using that Transfixing Gaze you built (or something very close), so thanks Lucius - I think I need to read up on Duplication. That's a power I haven't really read...

I'm new to HERO and had a couple of questions about some powers I want to build: Firstly, I want the character to be able to call out and Summon animals that live in the nearby area. Building the actual Summon is easy (thanks to limitations and advantages), but this is my problem - I want the character to sometimes call on one powerful animal (elephant, cheetah, wolf, etc.) and other times call on several, less-powerful animals (group of monkeys, squirrels, cats, etc.). Should I build two different Summons into a multipower to reflect the different scenarios? Or can one Summon handle all of these situations? Secondly, I want the character to be able to freeze people in their tracks as long as they maintain eye contact (transfixing gaze - like a snake). I thought of building this as an Entangle with "Requires Eye Contact", but I didn't think you could apply that limitation to physical powers. Then I thought it could be a Mind Control, but I wasn't sure how I could properly limit that power to reflect the one-effect, one condition nature of it. Any help, feedback, or suggestions are appreciated. Thanks!

Re: OIHID or Multiform? Hm... well, upon further review, the ruling on the field has been over-turned. Gonna go with Multiform after all. Thanks for all the speedy, helpful replies. I haven't really ever been active in a pen-and-paper gaming forum. Nice to see a community that offers meaningful insight on the topic for a change!

Re: OIHID or Multiform? Thanks for the insight! And also, thanks for moving my post, Steve. I didn't realize that I had posted in the wrong place until after I submitted it (*tries to hide noob shame*). Whether I go with OIHID or not, I think I will avoid Multiform for this character. There's less to track (again, see "noob shame" ) and it seems to be truer to the character I had in mind. It seems like if I used Multiform, the human version could have 100+ points of powers before ever even changing into the other form. Outside of what he learned as a cop, I didn't want him to have any special powers (besides the change). One of the things I love about HERO is balance, so I am trying to keep this guy and his team on the same level power-wise. Multiform might be a bit too unbalanced for this campaign. Now this other character, sort of a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde thing... Multiform is a pretty safe bet for him.

I have recently converted from Heroes Unlimited to the HERO System (loving it, btw) and I was converting some characters from my Heroes campaign (sort of an updated, four-color campaign) when I ran across a question... This one character is a human ex-cop who can transform into a being of lava (Alter Physical Structure: Lava, from HU). He retains all of his same skills and mind - it's not like he becomes something else (like the Human Torch). I know that there is no right or wrong way to translate this, but I was wondering if it would be better to just build all of his lava powers with "only in heroic identity" or if I should build a second form for his Lava Form. I guess I am just wondering what's the big difference between the two. Thanks for any feedback!