atlascott

Re: Idle Scalability Notion I have players routinely complain that the XP awards and character progression is TOO SLOW--and compared to d20, it is. I think HERO has a MUCH easier to manage character advancement system. I dont think it is really appropriate to use the characteristic/power cost doubling in superheroic. I like it (the cost doubling past a certain point) for heroic campaigns to keep some semblance of realism, but tend to use it only on characteristics. It might be appropriate to have heroic characters develop fantastic skills. After all, 50 character points, while really able to make a massive difference in character power level, would still take, on average, about 20 or more scenarios (most probably spanning 2 gaming sessions) to accomplish. It takes my group over 2 years to meet and game that much. Sure, "Lord of Bricks" could double his STR to 100 from 50 with those XP, but he is going to be a frustrated puppy unless he rather spends some of those XP on speed, and better defenses, or he will be a real-life one hit wonder. When all the other characters are taking 4 actions, and he is taking 2, and even the martial artist now has PD that rivals his, it doesnt take players long to figure out that it doesnt pay to spend everything in one charactertistic, ability, or power. Campaign caps AT CHARACTER CREATION are fine. I dont enforce them on XP spent. If a PC wants to develop the strongest man on the planet, I dont stop him. Its a slow progression that hobbles him in other ways. On the other hand, no campaign caps at character creation means SOMEONE in your group is going to design "Big Long Claw Man" with a 6d6 killing attack, some CSL's and lots of defenses. Good luck balancing that with "Commander USA" and "Shadow Mistress"--the more standard characters of the genre.

Re: Megascale Movement and Perception What do the turn radius rules say about megascale? For standard movement, my recollection is your turn radius goes up as your speed goes up. Can a character who sees an obstacle at those speeds have the turn radius to get out of the way, anyway?

Is END really necessary for any roleplaying genre? I am tending towards "no." ALlow me to explain. I have run about 3 supers campaigns, and 2 nonsupoers HERO games (mini-campaigns). END is cheap to buy, so everyone buys alot of it, or structures their powers so that it is rarely an issue. But it DOES require alot of bookkeeping for player. END is sort of a non-issue in heroic (non-superheroic) campaigns. What is END meant to simulate? A character's power that is so taxing it can only be used rarely? What about just buying it as a charge? A power which is effective but wipes the player out? Buy it with a limitation that drains the PC's STUN by so many dice when the power is used. I submit that heroes that shoot their EB and then rest just doesnt happen in the genre. And wouldnt be real fun to play, either. Now I know, some may defend END by reference to comics where a long, arduous battle takes place between evenly matched supers and they pause to 'rest' and soliloqy. But, with cheap END plus REC working the way it does in the HERO system, would this scenario ever even happen in the HERO system? I'd submit not, unless a player SPECIFICALLY bought his character this way. In which case, one of the other approaches cited above works as well or better to fit genre convention, especially in those cases where a hero needs to push their power and passes out from the strain, but is able to save the day. So, why not do away with END? Well, as a practical matter, with advantages and disadvantages in the system, it throws off the point balance. But, if ALL characters, heroes and villans, PC's and NPC's, all play by the same rules, then there is less of a problem. Obviously, having a high number of charges is no longer an advantage. Low number is still a disadvantage. So, what do you think: is END indispensible? Or do I have a point?

Re: Strength Damage: Pathetic or what? Hey, its one thing to tell the guy he's wrong. Its another to call him names. Take it down a notch. No one is saying that you need to attack the earth from every angle simultaneously. You just gotta do enough to penetrate it.

Re: Strength Damage: Pathetic or what? If your brick punches someone in the face, do their kneecaps get bruised? If the answer is no, then, a non-area-affect power only affects a small area where it is applied. If you energy blast someone in a hex, do you also energy blast everything else in the hex? Same thing--since it is not area affect, it only hits your target. If you energy blast a car's gas tank, and it explodes, does the whole car become non-functional, or just the gas tank? The whole car because it is an explosion. that ends up affecting the whole car. Your energy blast didnt hit every square inch of the car. If your brick punches a normal surrounded by a group of super villans, and you do +8 Body beyong what you need to take the normal to -10 BODY, do you hit all the surrounding supervillans too? If you shoot your energy blast at a wall and exceed it's BODY and DEF by +4 BODY, do you cause damage to some guy standing 10' away, leaning up against the wall? Can you just shoot your non AE energy blast at the ground where the supervillans are standing, and roll enough body so that it creates a 5" hole that swallows all the villans? If they are standing there, right wherer the EB is affecting the ground they are standing on, shouldnt they take the EB damage too? Under the rules, some of these silly effects may apply. Yuk.

Re: Strength Damage: Pathetic or what? ANd as to the Bible analogy--yeah, but htis is not Bible study or Church. This is a GAME with RULES. There is nothing wrong with asking for page cites to confirm/deny disparate understandings of the rules. Therer is a speed chart in the HERO system. If you say there isn't, referring to the page discussing the Speed Chart clarifies things quick without alot of subjective, vague understandings of imprecise rules, correct?

Re: Strength Damage: Pathetic or what? FRED p 159 "Powers with Area of Effect affect all targets in an area...Area of Effect (One Hex)This Area of Effect covers a single target hex..."

Re: Strength Damage: Pathetic or what? In this context, yes. It makes absolutely no sense for a 10' thick brick wall to be only slightly less difficult to breach than a 3' brick wall. No sense. In the 'real world' if you give a man a pick, he can perhaps dig through the 3' wall in 20 minutes of swinging the pick. It will take him more than an hour to get thru 10 feet of wall. But, according to this application of her HERO system, he can plow thru the wall 10' wall in about--I dont know--22 minutes.

Re: Strength Damage: Pathetic or what? "As objects double in mass, they increase in Body by +1." This, if true, is a terrible rule. Let's say we have a wall that take 15 body (between BODY and DEF) to destroy. So now, lets double the wall's thickness. With one more BODY rolled, we go thru both walls? And on and on? Terrible.

Re: Strength Damage: Pathetic or what? Ok, let me throw my hat into the ring. Let's define what we mean by "Blowing up the Earth." An EB with no adders, may be assumed to have an active area of effect of less than a hex, without an area effect advantage. This makes sense, since a standard EB hits a charcater standing in a hex, but does affect the desk, the wall, the telephone in the hex, without the area effect advantage. So, a naked energy blast of sufficient power could blow a hole in the Earth. That would RESULT in the destruction of the Earth, very likely. But the EB would not affect all of the earth equally and simultaneously. It would 'kill' the Earth, however. If you wanted to affect the entire Earth simultaneously, you would have to buy an EB with an Area Effect advantage sufficient to cover the diameter of the Earth. Then, the EB would be affecting the Earth simultaneuously over the entire covered area of effect, and that would allow the EB to blast the entire sphere into smithereens. Either is "Blowing Up The Earth," I guess, but the second description is more accurate described what I think of when someone says "Blow up the Earth." The next issue is one of thickness or depth. Let's say Earth averaged has a BODY of 15. You cannot just assume that the entire thickness of the Earth is 15--it has many, many, many thickness layers. I dont have the books in front of me, but I am sure there MUST be some rules about how thick a material is in order to have 'x' BODY. Once you know this, you divide total thickness by this number, and multiply the result by the BODY for the material. You need to know the DEF as well. Roll your damage. Subtract 'layer one' defense and body. Subtract layer 2 DEF, the Body. Proceed until it becomes clear that you blew the sucker up, or stopped somewhere. That's how you do it.

Re: Herogames: The Sportscar Product Disagree with what? That its a bland game world? That the rules/chargen is totally differnet than HERO?

Re: Herogames: The Sportscar Product Problem is, City of Heroes already HAS a character creation system and a set of rules which precisely define how combat between characters works, and it aint the HERO system. So, if HERO got City of Heroes, they'd be faced with EITHER porting how things work in the video game and shoehorning it into the HERO system, OR writing a completely different set of rules. HERO wouldnt want CoH anyway, because altho it has name recogntiion, it s DOES NOT provide a rich, distrinct game world. Just a rather generic City with a bunch of Heroes, where the City is well-rendered, but desolate and bland, and Villians, who are repetitive and bland.

Re: Herogames: The Sportscar Product I'm not dismissing anything. I'm not saying HERO system is perfect. I have yet to see a generic system do supers as well, or even close it, HERO's treatment of the subject. If they base NE on SW rules, all Im saying is that the version of SW will not closely resemble stock SW, so as to be unrecognizable (see the M&M d20 conversation). Or, it will do a poor job as a Supers game. Or both. For me, HERO is about it for Supers, until and unless I find something better, and it does everything else pretty well, too.

Re: Strength Damage: Pathetic or what? If a normal woman slaps you, it is around 1 1/2d6 for damage. But if you give her a martial arts bo staff of boy beating, she can do like 5 1/2d6 of damage. That aint right. Women would be abusing men all over the place. Plus that would kill a normal man. Dead. Head shot, x2 BODY. Dead. What about if she got +2" Running. Then you couldnt even get away. Unless you bought +4" running OIF Rollerblades. But then she could buy like +20" Running and define it as a vehicle and get a big point break. You'll never outrun her with Rollerblades. You could buy up alot of CSL's for your DCV. But she could buy OCV CSL's. Face it, men, we're beat. Surrender now. Or someone please fix these darn rules.

Re: Herogames: The Sportscar Product Okay. There is nothing wrong with Savage Worlds per se. But converting Savage Worlds for supers? When you have a system tailor-made for supers in the HERO system? That's like buying a Chevette, replacing the engine, and welding on a bunch of seats to make a school bus, rather than just buying a school bus. Savage Worlds supers? Yes, THAT would be a welded-together Frankenstein system, and a stretch. And, so its wouldnt be a poor implementation of a good system. It would be along the lines of using the wrong tool for the job. Savage Worlds is a good system for what it does well. The original Call of Cthulhu rules were great for what they did. Neither ought to be stretched, bent, contorted, etc. into a genre beyond their design and reasonably-extended capabilities. Especially when you have a system designed and conceived from the ground up to simulate the very genre that you want to work in. It's like doing a brake job on a car, and rather than choosing a pneumatic lift and socket set and air ratchet, you prefer a bumper jack and an adjustable wrench. You CAN do it, but why? For clarity's sake, Savage Worlds is a decent system--as long as you play it within its limitation. Dont try to make it something it isnt, and you're fine.

Re: Herogames: The Sportscar Product

Re: Herogames: The Sportscar Product

Re: HERO system observations and beefs All of this is well and good, but all of your anecdotal lovers of the HERO system are evidently not enough to make the best game systyem in the world a profitable enough one to keep Steve and the other talented contributors at the keyboard dishing out scrumptious content. No number of good reviews are going to correct the fact that people play genres, not rule systems, usually. And genres and source materials, not crunchy rules, make selling a product easy. It's GREAT that you know lots of people who like HERO. But unless each of these people are willing to buy 10 copies of everthing HERO produces, we need to get the customer base larger. We are, and have been, doing so with the crunchy "check out our cool rules" approach. Why not add some nifty/sexy genres and appeal the the rest (and majority) of gamers? We will still have all of our crunchy goodness and tool-kitiness. But new players will have a gateway into the rules that does not requires hours and hours of rules-reading.

Re: HERO Hall of Fame? But, Blue, dont you have like 2 or 3 that REALLY stood out, that you were extra proud of, or about whom you have a funny story?

Re: Herogames: The Sportscar Product Not off topic--the gent was suggesting SAVAGE WORLDS as the basis for a Supers Game, which I think is a terrible idea. It's like throwing away a key to a door in favor of a crowbarl to accomplish its opening. HERO is PERFECT for Supers genre. Do you think Marvel Super Heros, with its pretty red, yellow and green chart and non-numeric ability scores, was a substantial system? DC Heroes was TERRIBLE. Never read Aberrant, so I can't comment. BTW, your criticism of my post is completely off topic and completely out of context.

Re: Herogames: The Sportscar Product I thought it was funny. I don't think it was rude at all. I apologized because it clearly ofended you, which was DEFINITELY not its intent. I guess I need to not use humor. It evidently is not appreciated.

Re: Herogames: The Sportscar Product Im sorry, Katherine, I was just joking around! I own AW and TE and Fantasy HERO and STAR HERO!!! Im just being a rotten snot!

Re: Herogames: The Sportscar Product "And I don't feel the genre books are done. I'm very excited about Horror Hero and Pulp Hero. But that's probably not what you meant." Here's a likely preview of Horror Hero: "The Horror genre encompasses many sub-genres, all of which contain elements of fear, the bizzare, and confronting the unknown. Suspense is a key element to any Horror game...In the Horror genre, the supernatural may play a large part. The supernatural may include ghosts, devils, demons, spirits, and other forces beyond the ken of traditional human knowlege...for a complete listing of approved Horror Hero entites, see "Entities and Enemies Compendium"....Many different character types are appropriate for the Horror Hero genre: The Professor: This character type is learned, generally having many INT based skills, while sacrificing combat ability. The Detective/'Police Officer: This type of character generally is competent with firearms and in hand to hand combat, abilities sure to have some use. But this character type is truly defined by its ability to use inductive and deductive reasoning to solve mysteries. The Dilettante: Ranging from the studious benefactor of a wealthy family, with an interest in the occult, to the drunken ner-do-well, the Dilettante is defined by his eclectic mix of abilties and skills, and excellent access to cash.... Weapons may or may not harm entities encoutered as antagonists...When designing Horror scenarios, it is useful to determine what average outcome is to be expected in your Horror campaign. These may be categorized as follows: Optimistic Outcome: Heroes triumph over the supernatural antagonist(s); Pessimistic Outcome: Heroes are overcome by the Supernatural antagonist(s)" Multiply this times about 500, and you'll have your Horror Hero...

Re: Herogames: The Sportscar Product Neil, while I agree that HERO could use a "Sportscar Product," I grossly disagree with you on several points. You write: "While I'd like to think that Champions could again be the "sportscar" of the line... I don't think so anymore. It was cutting edge in it's inception, and stayed ahead of the pack for over a decade... but these days, the "generic supers" game doesn't really cut the mustard." But name me a single superhero game that IS a substantial rule system that ISN'T universal? HERO is MADE for Champions! It is the best system for running supers, bar none. You write: "So why not a NON-generic supers game? I was thinking about the maybe-someday to be released product by PEG using the Savage Worlds system." Savage Worlds is a generic system. A vague, imprecise generic system. Which would require alot of addition to get close to being able to handle a superoic game. Any superheroic game based on Savage Worlds would be a generic, kludgy frankenstein. "...it is very, VERY difficult... even for experienced GMs... to make the call on balance issues" Huh? HERO is the easiest game EVER to balance things, because everything is built according to balanced and precisely-defined rules. As to the rest, we agree that gripping genre with only those rules necessary to play in that genre would be a good idea.

Re: House Rules? Since the RPG and math skill level vary in my group, in Chmpions, we usually buy reduced END or enough reserve END so that tracking it is a non-issue. I don't feel that it adds much to the game, anyway--you can buy charges to simulate a power that can only be used a few times per day, per hours, whatever. I also discourage Killing Attacks, which really unbalance the game, imo (for 4 color supers). Other than that, I agree--HERO doesnt really require much in the way of house rules--and thge fact is, since it is a toolkit, Steve suggests variations on the basic rules to fit your needs, anyway, so you cant even really call much a 'house rule' over a basic option. A friend of mine is considering putting together an optional damage system for firearms based on statistical firearm data--essentially, since area of body struck accounts for wound outcome more than caiber (with the type of round being a close second--standard, jacketed, armor-piercing being a close--along with energy (m x v))--it sounds interesting, buy may be more work than its worth. It also might be good for an untra-realistic game, but not for cinematic play.