Steve Long

Re: TUALA MORN -- Interested In More Stuff? If I did, I certainly would, but for now at least I have no interest in revisiting TA. At this point I'm mainly using it to crib names for my fiction projects.

Re: Cost for Growth if the character started as a size smaller than normal. APG 79-80 has rules for characters of non-standard human size using Growth or Shrinking.

Re: TUALA MORN -- Interested In More Stuff? Howdy folx! In a blatant effort to keep people interested in this potential project, I thought I'd post a little sample -- specifically, a map! This weekend (and in the days to come) I've been working on improving my skills with Campaign Cartographer 3, and I decided I'd try to put what I'd learned to use redrawing the map of Acquitaine. It came out pretty well, all things considered, though I may make a few tweaks or try doing it all over at some point. As you'll see, this looks pretty good on the screen, but you may not want to print it out unless you have a color printer -- otherwise all the background colors become greytones and don't look so good. Anyhow, hope you like it! [ATTACH=CONFIG]43365[/ATTACH]

Re: Voice as a sense - 6E2 10 It can either be done that way or as the Physical Complication Mute (see the Slug in CV1 for example); the value is the same.

Re: 5th Edition Pulp Hero vs. waiting for 6th I can't speak for the company officially, but personally I'm aware of no such plans. In fact, to the best of my knowledge there never has been any intention of publishing a 6E PH. So waiting would likely be futile. Fortunately, however, some of the "conversion" work's already been done for you. The guns and Weird Tech gadgets from PH are included in The HERO System Equipment Guide for 6E.

Re: Drain sequence understanding check I'm sorry, but I'm not going to review your elaborate, and typically unnecessary, chain of circumstances. If that method works for you, by all means use it.

Re: Penetrating and Vulnerability No.

Re: Penetrating NND See 6E1 342.

Re: Ice Sheet (Change Environment Example) I am not going to waste any time trying to explain this. Use your common and dramatic sense, please.

Re: Reistant Protection and Multipower Is it legal under the rules? Yes. Would a given GM allow it? Not necessarily. I doubt I would.

Re: Reisistant Protection and "Special" powers Resistant Protection is a Standard Power regardless of which types of defense a character purchases. Purchasing only, say, Mental Defense does not convert Resistant Protection into a Special Power.

Re: Abort to Flash Defense No, it doesn't. 6E2 29 lists "turning on a Defense Power" as one type of defensive action, and Flash Defense is a Defense Power.

Re: Fade rate and multipe uses of same Adjustment power Unless the GM prefers otherwise for reasons of in-play simplicity, or some more specific rule applies, you always track each use of an Adjustment Power, regardless of who it comes from, whether it's been used before, or what have you, separately.

Re: Adjusment Powers - Character Points or Active Points? See 6E1 137 re: Adjusting powers that have Advantages. I believe that answers your question; if I've overlooked some aspect of it, please post a follow-up.

Re: Question Here I think you're confusing me with Steve Peterson (one of the original creators of the HERO System). The earliest things I wrote for Hero Games were in the early 1990s -- parts of The Fantasy Hero Companion II, then Dark Champions. But I definitely agree that a lot of the JI stuff was top-notch!

Re: Question I can address a couple of your points, Dan. 1. There are no other HERO System books already written, much less written, laid out, and illustrated. 2. The rights to the Strike Force characters (and a number of others) were returned to Aaron Allston by Hero Games many years ago. However, for a variety of reasons personally I don't think that an effort to reprint that book would be a good idea for Hero. In general I don't think reprinting/revising pre-5E books is worth it. 3. IMO the prices for and interest in Wings are driven by its collectibility/rarity, not its inherent quality. I don't think reprinting it would be worth the expense and effort. Among other things, keep in mind that there are no electronic files of books that old, it would have to be scanned in or re-typed. That's certainly been said, but I think it's dead wrong. A game's alive as long as people are playing it, and plenty of people are playing the HERO System. But being alive and being an IP capable of supporting a professionally-run company, or even a single person who treats himself in a professional business manner, are two very different things, sadly.

Re: Question Just a few quick responses from my PoV. Please keep in mind that I'm not speaking officially for Hero Games in anything I say, just for m'self. 1. Just to make sure there's no confusion, Golden Age Champions and Silver Age Champions are Darren's projects through his company Silverback Press -- they're not Hero Games projects and wouldn't be things Hero would be Kickstartering. 2. I can absolutely sympathize with those of you who'd like to see 6E1 reprinted, but that issue's nowhere near as simple as many of you seem to think. There are many factors that have to be considered, not the least of which is the enormous cost. I don't have any actual figures on hand, but at an educated guess I think that the printing alone (never mind shipping costs) for a color book that size would be at least twice what any Hero Games Kickstarter has raised so far, and quite possibly much more. Even if Hero wanted to Kickstart a new printing of the core rules (and personally I don't think it should), the evidence so far is that Hero Games cannot generate the financial support necessary for a venture of that undertaking through Kickstarter. (And as to the suggestions of making it b&w or softcover -- I think either choice would be a mistake. Having chosen the color hardcover route, the company should stick to it. If it can't print them that way now, it should wait until it can.) 3. As to other suggested books, I think it's important for Hero to pay attention to what's been learned in the past six months. The evidence tends to suggest that any given HERO System-related Kickstarter from Hero Games will raise about $15,000 from about 200 backers. That's it. So it can't do any books that are going to cost more than about $13,000 to produce (due to KS's own cut)... and even at that the company would only be breaking even, which isn't any sort of valid long-term plan. It can't even consider large projects that would take multiple months to write and lay out and require a lot of art -- all the evidence tells Hero that its customer base isn't willing to pay for that type of product. It's got to focus either on much smaller products that require relatively little new art, or find some other "hook" that will draw in more backers. So virtually every book that's been suggested in this thread, and certainly all of the "major" ones (Cthulhu Hero, Western Hero, Time Travel Hero, and so on), are more than likely out of bounds. If Hero could get a significant number of ]HERO System[/i] fans to support even one book to the extent that, say, Deadlands fans are supporting DEADLANDS NOIR, that would be a complete game changer. It would give the company all sorts of room to maneuver and plan. But so far all the evidence points to that never happening.

Re: Battlefield Agility and defensive strike Battlefield Agility (HSMA 119) is simply a bonus to DCV that requires the character to make a Half Move. It's not a Combat or Martial Maneuver. So if the character uses a Half Phase Action to make a Half Move before performing a Defensive Strike (or any other Combat/Martial Maneuver), he's absolutely entitled to get the DCV bonus (assuming, of course, he succeeds with the Skill Roll and pays the END cost). But of course, if you as GM would prefer to regard it as a Combat Maneuver so that it cannot be used with other Combat/Martial Maneuvers, you're 100% within your rights to do so. As GM the final rules of the game are up to you.

Re: TUALA MORN -- Interested In More Stuff? Well, all I can promise really is that they will print well on my printer. Hopefully that means they print well on most other peoples' printers too. I will lay them out in the most useful and attractive way my simple layout skills allow, but that's about all I can do.

Re: Valid VPP followup 3 You're getting into game design/philosophy questions, and I don't answer those.

Re: How long for a perception Roll? There is no set amount of time required to make a PER Roll — it’s up to the GM. Some things a character can take in with a quick glance; others he has to look at for a long time to figure out what they are. And of course the Sense(s) used may affect how long a PER Roll takes. For most characters, using Sight to see something is likely to take less time than using Smell/Taste to locate the source of an odd odor. As noted on 6E2 18, the suggested default for most PER Rolls is a Half Phase (the rules also state that explicitly that a Half Phase is required to perceive a target in combat with a Nontargeting Sense; see 6E2 7). For Sight PER Rolls the GM rules can be performed more quickly, taking a little longer provides a bonus to the roll as indicated at the bottom of the leftmost table on 6E2 12.

Re: Variable Special Effect/Usable as other form of movement and Drain 1. A power with Variable Special Effects is only affected by Adjustment Powers that apply to the special effect it currently manifests as. For example, if a Blast 8d6, VSFX, is currently a Fire Blast, it could be Drained by a Drain Fire/Heat Powers 4d6, but not by a Drain Ice/Cold Powers 3d6 (even if one Phase ago it manifested as a cold blast). 2. A Movement Power with Usable As [second Mode Of Movement] is only affected by Adjustment Powers that affect its base Movement Power, not the Movement Power it’s “used as.” The Advantage indicates that it can be used like another mode of movement, not that it becomes another mode of movement for Adjustment Powers purposes. For example, Flight 20m, Usable As Running, is affected by Aid Flight 4d6 but not by Aid Running 4d6, even if the character’s currently using it to simulate Running.

Re: VPP and loss of Powers It applies to all VPPs that fit the description.

Re: Entangle that Starts with 0 Body If it has 0 BODY, it has 0 BODY, and therefore any attack that gets any BODY damage at all past its defenses automatically breaks it.

Re: TUALA MORN -- Interested In More Stuff? For some reason I felt like skipping the duchies of Autun, Auverne, and Aveyron, and wrote up Avranche this evening instead. At least it's one more down. Sixteen to go.