Vulcan

Re: Learning from the mistakes of others A HEROS character's disadvantages are not neccessarily 'static throughout a campaign.' There are two ways to change them. The first, as has been mentioned, is buying off the disad. But it does cost the character something in 'advancement' (so to speak). The second is to change the disad when the circumstances are appropriate. Quote 5E, p212 under 'Changing or buying Off Disadvantages': "With the GM's permission, characters can also alter their Disadvantages during the coruse of the campaign. This can reflect the way the character is being played and helps promote character development. Perhaps a character begins the campaign with the Psychological Limitation Greedy. As the campaign progresses, this could be changed to Generous, or even Idealistic. Similarly a character with the Social Limitation Secret Identity could be discovered and have to trade in the Disadvantage points into a Hunted, or even a Public Identity. A character who manages to kill or capture his Hunted may acquire another one - the former Hunted's ally, for example. So long as the points remain constant and the GM gives his permission, the character's Disadvantages can evolve to suit the character." So character change and evolution is actually written into the HEROS rules after all...

Re: Super Transportation I agree that it was premature, there are only 2 Raptors in service right now (that I know of). Of course, in exercises they routinely wax 8 Eagles Air-to-air... Not sure how far they go to repalcing the capacity lost with the Nighthawks. Sure, you could use Spirits, but at a half-billion dollars apiece I don't see them being risked for 'routine' stuff very often.

Re: Super Transportation My bad; I appear to be behind on my military news.

Re: Prisoner Exchange My bad, misread it. So Living Target is playing the part of Roberto in the 'prisoner' exchange. And once the FoJ Agent is safe... PHASE 12! Of course, Living Target could play the deep cover game and try and get close enough to Mr. Tiberius to catch him!

Re: What do you think

Re: DEX vs. CSLs In your games, sure. I just prefer the separation of 'skilled normal' and 'clearly superhuman' that skill levels give over DEX. This is probably an artifact of the primary HEROS game I'm playing in. The big (one might say ONLY, it's so big) conflict isn't good vs. evil, it's human vs. superhuman. The forces of evil on both sides are pushing for a war, and those of us that are 'good' are stuck in the middle trying to stop it. But the government is leaning ever more strongly toward the 'anti-super' side, a time could arrive where being superhuman is going to be a major limitation in and of itself; it could be nice to be clearly labeled as 'highly skilled normal' rather than 'potentially superhuman, kill him just in case.':help:

Re: Prisoner Exchange hfergus had a good one - exchanging the double instead of Mr. Tiberius. Call up Living Target for the job...

Re: Marginally Powered Sit-Com Heroes All that and not a single mention of Lurch from the Addam's family... For that matter, the whole bloody family is low-powered supers (in my opinion anyway).

Re: Bangkok Dangerous I've got to remember that for my next Dark Champions character. That's so cool...

Re: Prisoner Exchange Dante would create a magical 'tracer bug' and plant it on Roberto (he's a professional stage magician in his normal ID, so his Sleigh of Hand is pretty high, it's unlikely Roberto will notice it was done). Then it's just a matter of bird-dogging PRMIUS and/or UNTIL onto the bad guys as they make their 'getaway. Once everyone's ready for the surprise party, it's PHASE 12!

Re: DEX vs. CSLs Thank you. That was exactly the point I was trying to make. If you want to play a skilled normal, that's fine. That's your choice. But a 36 DEX isn't normal. Period. Once your DEX exceeds 20, you're getting into an abnormally high ability range and you're probably a superpowered being. Once you exceed 30, there's no way around it, you're definitely a superpowered being of some sort.

Re: DEX vs. CSLs The nice thing about Batman is that someone who hits him with a 'power supression field' is in for a big surprise - an advantage not shared by the guy with a 36 DEX. Even if you do have NCM, a 36 DEX is not normal.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Sounds like some of the crew of the General Armstrong was serving on the John Henry at the time.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... To be fair, I've got to give the credit for this one to the guy playing the captain of the General Armstrong, Joe Sullivan. The whole thing was his idea and he petty much derailed the whole campaign with it. But it was great fun anyway.

Re: DEX vs. CSLs For what it's worth, my opinion is that skill levels reflect a character's actual level of skill at doing something. Raw DEX (or INT, or PRE) rolls is a basic level of proficiency matched with whatever degree of native talent the character has. Levels in a skill (or group of skills) reflects greater proficiency in the skill. Combat skill levels are similar. Raw CV is native talent and/or superhuman reflexes. Skill levels reflect training and experience. So Batman having a 20 DEX and a shipload of skill levels sounds right to me. Batman with a 36 DEX 'because it's more point efficient' does not sound right to me.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... That sounds a bit like the crew of the General Armstrong in a (very short) campaign our group played. Several of us started late, and we were confused as to why the GM had asked us to make JAG officers... until we got to the transporter room to beam aboard. Several of the Armstrong's crew were on the pads with a 'borrowed' photon torpedo. While in dock, someone from the crew staged 'workbee races' around the dock and took bets among the technical staff. And someone spraypainted "Kirk SUCKS!" across the secondary hull of the Enterprise while it was in refits. The captain of the Armstrong organized a work party to clean it off - from the crew of the Constellation, who he got blamed for the graffiti. Yes, it was the delinquent crew-from-hell, led by the first group of players, that we were here to investigate. But they only stole from other ships - the Armstrong routinely had double it's usual supply of spare parts, and twenty shuttles from eight different ships - plus the 12 assigned to it. Then we found out the ship had an informal 'finance officer'... to manage their black market profits. We eventually reccomended the entire crew of the Armstrong be sent to the Star Fleet equivalent of exile in Sibera. They told us that the Armstrong effectivly was their equivalent of exile to Sibera. And now we were assigned to her... Eventually, the Kingons learned to fear our presence at the Neutral Zone. And it was rumored after our one (and only) patrol on the Romulan border that the Romulans tried to cloak their entire empire against our possible return. Not so much from our battle prowess, but from economic damage inflicted by the delinquent crew.

Re: Eurostar is friggin' fast!

Re: Unreal Darwin Awards The ultimate Fantasy Darwin Award. Lerooooooooooooy Jenkins! (Wish I could find that video, it was priceless!)

Re: Death Traps Anyone? That one seems a bit pointless to me. Sure, he's going to regret what he does while Berserk later, but you've reduced a major plot point (the death of a DNPC) to 'roll for Berserk... Ok, you went berserk, now roll to hit DNPC... She's dead.' Talk about a lack of drama. There's no way, short of not going berserk in the first place, for the PC to save the NPC. You chain the brick and the DNPC to each other around the pillar. That makes things more interesting.

Re: Unreal Darwin Awards All right, looks like it worked!

Re: Unreal Darwin Awards Let's see if this works: http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=66864

Re: Jedi Ghosts and fade-to-deaths? Maybe. Quite likely, in fact. But I still think Palpatine was messing with everyone's minds. It's possible that Obi-Wan was kept from realizing how close Anakin was getting to the edge.

Re: Death Traps Anyone? Sand Blaster of the Gods always gets my vote.

Re: Jedi Ghosts and fade-to-deaths? Obi-Wan blamed himself, which isn't neccessarily the same as being the one at fault. There were several points at which Anakin's fall could have been prevented. And the Jedi council (or individual masters) universally did the worst possible thing every time. Which makes me think Darth Siddeous had his mental hooks into everyone on the Jedi council as well. This, of course, means that the fledgling Emperor was even more powerful than we all thought just from watching the movies. And the defeat of the Jedi was like the last move in a chess game. They'd already lost before the Emperor even let them know they were even in danger.

Re: Battletech Elemental Suit I would suspect that digitigrade legs are actually better on flat, open ground and normal legs superior on rough terrain. After all, ostriches and kangaroos are found in open areas, not in mountains. After all, humans are among the best all-terrian capable creatures of all time. Climbing, running, swimming; clear and rough terrain; humans can do it all except fly and walk up walls. Specialist forms may do some things better, but few if any do as well as we do in so many places.