Vulcan

Re: Unreal Darwin Awards Ahh, sure... How?

Re: Learning from the mistakes of others I feel I should point out that there are people on the Fantasy HERO forum posting HERO builds for D&D 4E powers. So all the tactical elements from 4E can be incorporated into HEROS if the GM and players want to take the time to do it. As I've said before, the HERO System can do anything!

Re: Dropping defences While DCV and DEF (whatever it works against) are superficially similar in that they are defensive abilities represented by numbers, they work in very different ways. DCV is a measure of evasiveness and avoidance. It is, to an extent, tunable in combat. For example, in melee combat if you are fighting someone in front of you and you want, for whatever reason, to let your friend behind you touch you, a simple step back can achieve that goal while simultaneously taking you out of immediate danger from your opponent. A similar situation occurs in ranged combat when both you and your friend take cover from incoming fire in a restrained area. DEF, in all it's forms, is a bit less tunable than that - at least, in my opinion. In my games, you would have to 'actively' drop your DEF to gain the full benefit of what your friend wants to do, which means an observant and quick foe might be able to take advantage. It doesn't happen often, but the possibility makes the players a bit more circumspect in their healing spells. And fair is fair, if the PC's make the rolls to spot it and react in time, I allow them to do it to the bad guys too.

Re: Unreal Darwin Awards I posted all my good ones in the 'Humorous Character Deaths' and 'Disads that Kill' threads.

Re: Battletech Elemental Suit The word you're looking for is digitigrade, although for 'Mechs it's not 100% accurate. In bipedal creatures, digitigrade is used to refer to one that walks on it's toes, using the length of the foot as an addition to the overall length of the leg. The advantage of this is that it lengthens the stride of the creature/mech, allowing for faster running speeds for a given energy input. And the longer the shin is relative to the thigh, the faster the creature can go as well. Battletech doesn't take any of that into account. It's all pretty much about the artwork and what looks good. Sure, the Locust is fast on it's digitigrade legs, but the Spider is just as fast on it's regular legs.

Re: How many staffers does a superhero team need? Oh, yeah, I forgot about them. As I recall, the groundskeeper was ex-military - I remember him guarding the tunnel from the X-Mansion to the Morlocks lair with an M-60 right after the massacre... And then there was the first X-employee, Moira McTaggart - who busted into a battle in the mansion with an M-16!

Re: Jedi Ghosts and fade-to-deaths? Light or Dark really doesn't add into it. Exar Kun, from the Jedi Acadamy Trilogy, did it. Of course, the method he used is different in that he was tied to Yavin IV...

Re: How many staffers does a superhero team need? The X-Men are a prime example of the team taking care of the base themselves.

Re: How many staffers does a superhero team need? It probably depends a lot on how much the team pitches in to help as well. For example: is one of the team members the PRIMUS/UNTIL liason? Then the liason NPC is unneccessary. A speedser with AE TK to simulate doing things in an area very quickly can clean the base in a matter of phases, and then the maid is unneccesary. Is there a cahracter on the team with PS: Cook? Then the kitchen is taken care of. Of course, all that assumes that the PC's are willing to do the aforementioned chores. The 'billionaire playboy' would be unlikely to do so, and would want a battalion of staff members to take care of such things for him. That way he can concetrate on being the terror of the night... It comes down to what the PC's want. Some teams will want to have lots of staffers around to take care of the place. Other teams have little to no staff, fearing what the villians of their would might do to them. (This is a big concern in the game I'm playing. The GM is a big fan of the Iron Age, and NPC's are forever getting whacked - or PC's are getting whacked saving them.)

Re: Anti-electrical power, a thread for munchkins, rules lawyers, and rules abusers I really hope my GM isn't watching this thread. My wife plays an electrical character...

Re: Spectre of 6e Just to make sure. I wouldn't want my silence to be seen as tacit approval.

Re: Unreal Darwin Awards Ouch.

Re: Spectre of 6e Even if 6E is not compatable, nothing says you have to upgrade. I've been working hard on the 6E discussion trying to keep the 'total overhaul' crowd at bay (someone suggested totally removing charcteristics! ) so that 6E will be compatable with 5E and (to a lesser extent) 4E. I can always use help though!

Re: Learning from the mistakes of others Having seen similar players in action, I conceed that point. I've been fortunate enough to not play under such a GM, so I can't argue your other point either, other than to say that such a GM isn't running a roleplaying game, but a rollplaying game. And that's fine if that's what the players want to play. I prefer to balance tactics and character. I find it more interesting that way.

Re: Learning from the mistakes of others I think what he's trying to say it that 4E encourages tactical playing, not roleplaying. The idea that a character might make a suboptimal choice because it's in character is subtly discouraged in the 4E format. To an extent that has been true for D&D in genral for all of it's incarnations. But 2E was better than 1E for it, and 3E better than 2E. 4E reverses the trend. Of couse, all of this is simply my opinion. Other people will likely believe differently, and they may go and have fun playing 4E. I'll stick to having fun playing 3.x

Re: What do you think Welcome to my 1,000th post! The problem I see with suffocation as a separate power is that it is a specific special effect. And HEROS is not supposed to be about powers that cover specific special effects. Here's your suffocation build (I've kept limitations to a minimum to allow the maximum number potential builds; limit it yourself to suit how you're suffocating them, be it with a FF bubble around the head or flooding their lungs with water or anything in between): Suppress REC, 20d6 (standard effect: 60 points), NND (appropriate Life Support, +1), 200 AP; Real cost 200 pts. *This covers everyone up to 30 REC; this can be adjusted up or down to suit campaign REC levels* PLUS Drain END 1 point, Trigger (Phase after Suppress hits target, +1/4) *so we don't have to spend further actions on it*, AEH One-Hex Accurate (+1/2) *so we don't miss*, Continuous, Delayed Return Rate (5 AP/5 Minutes, +1/2), 10 AP; Linked to Suppress (-1/2), END lost recovers normally (per Recovery rules) if Suppress Ends (-1/2); Real cost 5 pts. PLUS Drain STUN 1 point, Trigger (Phase after Suppress hits target, +1/4), AEH One-Hex Accurate (+1/2), Continuous, Delayed Return Rate (5 AP/5 Minutes, +1/2), 10 AP; Linked to Suppress (-1/2), STUN lost recovers normally (per Recovery rules) if Suppress Ends (-1/2), Target must be out of END (-1/2); Real cost 4 pts. PLUS Drain BODY 1d6 (Standard Effect 3 points), Trigger (Phase after Suppress hits target, +1/4), AEH One-Hex Accurate (+1/2), Continuous, Delayed Return Rate (5 AP/5 Minutes, +1/2), 32 AP; Linked to Suppress (-1/2), Target must be out of END and STUN (-1); Real Cost 11 pts. TOTAL Active Points 252, Real cost 220 pts. Expensive? HELL YES! To totally supress someone's REC so that they CANNOT take recoveries should be expensive! Not so much because of it's lethality (an equivalent NND would be far more effective), but because it's frustrating and not fun to play against.

Re: What do you think Like I said, Supress REC. Eventually he runs out of END, then STUN, then the GM handwaves the BODY because of FX and your ability to 'coup de grace' him at any time. It's not really practical, though. Because while you're supressing his REC he's beating the ever-living crud out of you. Hope you can hold out until he passes out. That 1 END loss is likely negligible amid the END cost of the beat-down he's putting on you in the process. But if you really must have it, get the GM to allow you to buy a 1-pip Drain END (max drain around 200 AP or so just to make sure you get all of his END and STUN) linked to the supress END. Then a 1d6 Drain BODY.... So why do we need a specific power for this again? The tools are all there, people just need to use them. Besides, an E-Blast or HA NND is more practical, because it doesn't depend on waiting for the target to run out of END, and might even stun him. This way you might actually get to finish strangling them before they kill you. Of course, for an NPC I'd go with the Supress for much the same reasons. Give the hero a little more time to do the hero thing.

Re: What do you think My opinion is that Choke Hold shouldn't be a martial maneuver at all. Of course, a GM could handwave suffocation on an appropritate NND build. But a power that stops REC, forces a 1 END per phase loss, and eventually causes the target to pass out is... pretty useless if you ask me. Realistic? Sure. But unless you catch the target low on END and STUN, it'll take too long to be useful in my opinion. The target will likely take you out with conventional attacks long before this becomes a serious problem. If you aboslutely must have an accurate build, supress REC would likely be the best bet, based on the FX of suffocation. The 1 END/phase will likely be overwhelmed by the END spent trying to stop the power in the first place, and the GM can handwave the BODY once the target is unconscious. That's what the 1st and 2nd "principle for interpreting the HEROS System Rules" is there for.

Re: "Neat" Pictures Wow.... just... wow... I always knew she was hiding a killer bod under that sweater!

Re: High STR + HKAs, thoughts One does have to take into account that the player and the character are often referred to interchangably...

Re: Things Foxbat should try to steal "So, Harvey, whatever happened to that giant coin?"

Re: What do you think But given the FX, there could also be sufficient presssure on the carotid arteries to diminish (or even cut off) blood flow to the brain. That would speed things up considerably. Both in real life and in the game. That could be. But the defense is 'not needing to breathe' (among other things). Debateable. But I conceed your point as your honest opinion. Some advice for GM's about this situation would be nice, I agree with you there. I just don't know that a separate power build is necessarty for this single special effect.

Re: What do you think

Re: Clever Future Weapons In a situaton where the soldier has that most luxuirous of things in combat - time - the laser rifle with all the whistles and bells could very well be superior. But the vast majority of the time, yeah. The guy with the M-16 is at an advantage. And I'd say much of the time the guy with a M-1 is at an advantage over the guy with an M-16, but that's me.

Re: What do you think I was about to say 'buy an NND with the same conditions as a Choke Hold,' then it occurred to me why that won't work. No matter how many times you hit someone with an NND, they never take BODY. Choke Hold will do 1 BODY per phase if maintained on an unconscious opponent. By current definitions, an NND cannot. You'd need a separate Drain BODY, NND, Does BODY, Triggered (when target goes unconscious). Or a separate suffocation power in the 6E rules. Or GM handwaving. But a suffocation power would be a FX written as a power, wouldn't it? I'd settle for a definition on how to do it using the existing rules.