Vulcan

Re: Order of the Stick THACO dates back to 1st edition as a shorthand, it got formalized into the rules in 2nd. It stands for 'To-Hit Armor Class 0'. Basically what you need to roll on a d20 to achieve damage on a guy in full plate armor with a shield. So if you played D&D before 1E, what did you play?

Re: new mutants; Magik's "soulsword" You can have as many 'real' points of powers active in a VPP as you have points in the pool; that's why you don't get any disads on the pool. In essence, the control cost allows you to reconfigure the points in the pool to anything you want (within any limitation imposed by/on the control) so long as none of the pool powers exceed the AP cap of the pool.

Re: Ninjas in a Champions game Or Lendo-san's RNC...

Re: Triggered Weapon Takeaway And if the GM doesn't care and won't change his mind, then it is up to this sorta costruct to get it 'by the other rules.'

Re: Triggered Weapon Takeaway That would really make Trigger a lot less useful for this sorta thing. To do it reliably you'd also need a bunch of levels with DEX rolls limited to Takeaways. Thinking about it, it might make this sort of construct pretty much impossible to build. As a GM I may opt to discard the DEX roll-off... if I think the concept is justified.

Re: Triggered Weapon Takeaway You might also be able to take a limitation for 'must have a free hand'...

Re: Triggered Weapon Takeaway However there is a REALLY BIG down side to the Damage Shield construct. A Damage Shield only works once you've been hit. In other words, you take damage and the guy hitting you takes the effect of the damage shield at the same time. Since the effect you're describing sounds a lot like something out of Aikido or Jujitsu, I don't think Damage Shield is the mechanic you're looking for. Instead, I think that buying the naked advantage Trigger on the STR of the Takeaway is the way to go.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

Re: Why do the Champions waste so much time being "good citizens?"

Re: Hero System: Design and Intent Oh, I totally agree that Social Butterfly should be able to talk his way through things that Combat Wombat could never manage. That is why I said a good soliloquy should give a small bonus to the rolls. A +1 or +2 to Combat Wombat's 8- base roll is nice, but hardly allows him to overshadow Social Butterfly's 14- base rolls, and the Butterfly likely has complementary skills to give even more of a boost. So with good RP Combat Wombat might be able to fool a low INT goon - if he rolls well. Social Butterfly can do it (most of the time) pretty easily. And SB also has a pretty good chance at fooling much smarter people too...

Re: Multiple pushing Of course, if a player really wants to be able to push more - or more often - in a game, it only costs 2 points to buy "+10 AP in power X, x10 END, requires a straight EGO roll."

Re: Multiple pushing Yep, it's called 'Pushing 'til it hurts' in our games. Our GM will allow extra pushes... with a cumulative -2 to the EGO roll for each sucessive attempt. And the costs escalate too - 10 END for the first push, 20 for the second, and so on... It adds up quick, if you actually make the rolls.

Re: The Price of Power Vigil would be creeped out by this. I mean, like, totally creeped out (and being from Chicago, you can see how this has affected his speech pattens...). Because he couldn't be sure that he didn't actually do it himself in his sleep... He is a reformed villian, after all... The deaths in and of themselves would matter less to him, unless the people in question were really undeserving of that fate. Even a hero could be a deadly enemy (see most 'Iron Age' comic books for what I mean - Vigil lives in an Iron Age world, after all.)

Re: BODY into STUN Your last point has some validity, but at the same time is a bit flawed. What matters is how much energy the bullet has left once it penetrates the armor. If the armor barely slowed it down, then the bullet will continue on through they body as normal. If the armor slowed the bullet down a lot, then the bullet might not make it through the muscle and fat protecting the vital organs - or it might even bounce off a bone for minimal damage. If the bullet barely makes it through the armor, it might not even scratch the body underneath. And then there is that whole 'dramatic realism' thing that is built into the system...

Re: Hero System: Design and Intent That's why sucess and failure is based on you're Character's skill roll, not your acting ability. But if the GM thinks you made a good 'soliloquy' (to bring official terminology into it) and managed to stay in character doing it, then a bonus of +1 or so is fully justified. After all, a good (and poor) soliloquies have in game effects for PRE attacks. Interaction skills can benefit from similar modifiers.

Re: "Uh ... you can *do* that?" I believe that was the point of it in Patlabor: familiarizing the recruits with the capabilities of the Ingrams which were much more flexible and capable than the older models.

Re: Hero System: Design and Intent I'll grant that the combat rules are very tactical, even wargamish in their complexity and scope. But then, they were designed to simulate comic book action, and do an excellent job of that. I think they also do a pretty good job of simulating more 'heroic' level action (a la action movies, not documentaries). On the other hand, social interaction rules are very simple (make a skill roll, or more likely an opposed skill roll, possibly with a complementary skill roll to provide modifiers). So compared to the massive combat rules, the social interaction rules kinda fall short. Or do they? I can only speak for our group, but we've always looked at the basic social interaction rules as getting the rules out of the way of the roleplaying. We can debate, persuade, threaten, and monolouge to our heart's content, and when we're done the GM can make a quick decision as to the results based on the roll - modified by the roleplaying! An extensive 'social combat' system would wreck that, I think. But to answer the original question, yes, I think the publishers should acknowldge that HEROs is primarily an action-based game and market it as such.

Re: Darth Vader vs. The Hulk Of course, the Star Trek Universe material contradicts itself multiple times on virtually every point. But yes, in SFB most ships fight at warp speed. It also occurs a lot in various series in the chase sequences, not to mention the movies... Besides, starship weaponry is obviously effective at warp speed. Otherwise, a pursued enemy would be invulnerable so long as they kept running. That takes a lot of the drama out of the chase sequences, doesn't it? Besides, if a pursued ship was invulnerable, what would be the point of chasing it in the first place? Since these warp-speed chases occur all the time, then obviously the weapons are effective at warp speed, regardless of what any technical manual says.

Re: Order of the Stick Sure, flanking helps the rogues, but only if they hit! Belkar spent most of that page in the middle ('the meaty filling of a sneak attack sandwitch') and hasn't been hit yet! Looks like Belkar has some major AC boosting stuff going on there!

Re: Multiple pushing It depends on the game, the GM, and the situation. I've seen GMs deliberately set the AP limit of the game low, expecting the PC's to push a lot while the NPC's rarely did - sort of a 'hero advantage' on the sly. And then there are GM's that are really hardcore about the 'life and death' conditional aspect of pushing. It comes down to the GM in the end. Do you want to allow it?

Re: "Uh ... you can *do* that?" At least it was the Ingrams. Can you imagine Section 1's Model 98's trying that?

Re: Powers for a Joker style villain A mime!?! That is evil...

Re: "Uh ... you can *do* that?" Yeah, amine does strange things with robots. The thing is, they generally work it in so smoothly you don't realize how strange it was unless you look at it in total isolation, without any of the surrounding material. Case in point: at one point in Neon Genesis Evaqngelion the team of 2 50' tall giant robots are doing back flips, synchronized. So my response is "It's an anime thing, you wouldn't understand...":D

Re: Various explosive gadgets...am I doing this right? For the (more or less) official build for such things, look in the Dark Champions book. Although the suggestions here are pretty good too!

Re: Order of the Stick Umm... yes, Sauron did have a master, go back to the Simarillion. Sauron was just a minion for a greater evil (whose name I forget offhand). And the Big Bad was evil, all right. Slavery, world conquest, murder, theft of artifacts, and even threatening world destruction. All the marks of a good villian were there. Not to say that everyone fighting the Big Bad was good, mind you...