Steve Long

Re: Well, hello there, HERO System! (New Guy) I can definitely sympathize with that. But if you can come out and hit DDC for a day, please do. Just to be clear, Strongbow, when we do this, we try to make it clear what we're doing and why. We don't tweak the rules for specific settings just for the fun of it and then ambush you with 'em. Well, not often anyway.

Re: Well, hello there, HERO System! (New Guy) Strongbow -- not only do we have a lot of fans in the San Fran area (that's where the company and the game got started, 30 years ago), but there's a great Hero gaming opportunity coming up in just a couple weeks: DunDraCon, Feb. 18-21 at the San Ramon Marriott. The Hero crew (myself, Darren, Jason, Tina) will be there, selling books and doing seminars, as will some of the people you interact with here on the boards. And there'll be lots of HERO System games being run all weekend long. Come on out and join the fun.

Re: Well, hello there, HERO System! (New Guy) As several people have pointed out, I don't think that HERO is necessarily more abusable than any other RPG rules system. However, because of its nature -- because it gives you the tools to build what you want, instead of building it for you -- I think it's a good idea to put warnings in the book about potential areas of abuse to help the GM (and the players, for that matter, who are hopefully mature enough not to "drive on the sidewalk" just because they've been given a driver's license, as I like to say). There are so many possible ways to combine the different elements of the HERO System to create things that we figure a few notes, based on experience and user feedback, about possible points of abuse improve the gaming experience for everyone. Hope you enjoy HERO as much as we all have! As you've already figured out, this is a great place to post questions and observations; we have the best fan community in gaming, IMO.

Insane, but possibly inspirational for some campaigns:

Re: For all your Nazis-invading-America needs.... There was at least one other magazine article on this subject that had an accompanying map of "threats to the US" -- I see the map for sale on eBay occasionally. If anyone ever sells it for what I regard as an acceptable price I'll pick it up for my collection as a curiosity.

Re: AOE conforming Area Of Effect (Conforming) is covered on APG 134-35.

Re: Sensing with megascale movement 6E dropped that as needlessly confusing. It's simply assumed that if you can move at MegaSpeed, you can "MegaSee" see well enough to avoid obstacles... unless of course the GM wants to make things tough on you and require periodic PER Rolls for you to avoid collisions.

Re: Slight confusion about Based on Con Limitation Looks to me like it's just duplicative. Scratch it out.

Re: Joint Lock I'm sorry, I don't answer game design/philosophy questions.

Re: Sais Me Up Q: Some weapons provide bonuses to Maneuvers other than Strike — for example, the sai provides +2 OCV to Block, Bind, and Disarm attempts. If a character wields two such weapons, one in each hand, does he get to apply this bonus twice? A: Typically no, he does not — no more than a character wielding two weapons that both provide +1 OCV gets to add +2 OCV to all of his attacks. However, the GM is certainly free to make exceptions if he feels that’s appropriate (as it might be in the case of Block, since that’s a defensive Maneuver rather than an attack, and the rules tend to be more forgiving when characters protect themselves from harm ).

Re: Hudson City Map Question Based on the example you posted, I think it means "Keith removed the hatching from that section of the track so that you could more easily read text overlaid upon it." I'd have to dig out my own copy and look for other examples to see if that explanation holds true though.

Re: Adding Damage The text box you're referring to on 6E2 99 is an optional "toolkitting" note, not a standard HERO System rule. The standard rules and examples given in the rulebook don't take it into account. The correct interpretation is that the rules in the rulebook are correctly expressed, but if you want to use an optional rule or toolkitting suggestion you have to alter them to account for the change you want to make.

Re: Adjustment of Defensive Powers (SE1 141) 1. Power Defense applies first, then any remaining “damage” suffered by the target is half effect as described in the rulebook. 2. Standard HERO System rounding rules apply. 3. The victim/recipient of an Adjustment Power that affects a defensive Characteristic or ability regains/loses the removed/added points of effect at the standard rate of 5 Character Points per Turn (or other time increment defined by the Delayed Return Rate Advantage). The “halved” effect of the Adjustment Power does not apply to the recovery rate.

Re: 6th Edition apperances of the Minuteman Robot Ah, yes, I'd totally forgotten I put one in there. Good catch!

Re: Champions Villains Products Update Of course.

It's Thursday, and that means it's chat time! Come on over to the Chat Room at 9:00 PM Eastern, 6:00 PM Pacific to get the lowdown on the latest news and developments, ask questions, and talk Hero! Our special guests this week do not include Olivia Wilde, Tom Selleck, and Summer Glau!

It's Thursday, and that means it's chat time! Come on over to the Chat Room at 9:00 PM Eastern, 6:00 PM Pacific to get the lowdown on the latest news and developments, ask questions, and talk Hero! Our special guests this week do not include Olivia Wilde, Tom Selleck, and Summer Glau!

It's Thursday, and that means it's chat time! Come on over to the Chat Room at 9:00 PM Eastern, 6:00 PM Pacific to get the lowdown on the latest news and developments, ask questions, and talk Hero! Our special guests this week do not include Olivia Wilde, Tom Selleck, and Summer Glau!

Re: 1927 Cartoon Map of San Francisco Nice! There was a sort of trend of doing maps like that for cities during the Twenties and Thirties; I see them occasionally as I troll around looking for maps for my collection. Usually the seller slaps the label "Art Deco" on them and jacks the price up by 200% or more because of it.

Re: The Cape - What do you think of it so far? I haven't watched this week's episode so far. The pilot didn't set the world on fire, but it was tolerable and certainly had some bits you could steal for characters/campaigns.

Re: Unity -- UNTILs Superpowered Team That's correct, they were drawn by Jonathan Davenport. Right now we don't have any specific plans to update the UNITY character sheets to 6E, but if we ever have an appropriate place to squeeze 'em in we just might.

Re: 6th Edition apperances of the Minuteman Robot We haven't re-created them for 6E (or even 5E) yet, but we do plan to look at the IHA and all its resources in a future book... and that certainly includes Minuteman robots in all their many fiendish variations.

Re: How Would You Create Absorption of Mental Attacks in 6th Edition? I'd use the "Absorbing From Mental Attacks" rules on APG 80.

Re: Hero Games books on Android I am eager to find out how the Xoom will handle PDFs... hurry the hell up and release it, Motorola!

It's Thursday, so let's have a chat! Come on by the Chat Room at 9:00 PM Eastern 6:00 PM Pacific to hear the latest news, ask questions, and talk Hero!