Doc Democracy

I have made very little use of trigger in my games. As I do most of the building that means it rarely features unless it is absolutely necessary - like in a glyph of warding spell... There is a definite need for something that allows this kind of thing - there also needs to be a way to avoid the excesses explicit in the rules rather than implicitly in the realm of GM control... Doc

You have intrigued me now, you able to tell us what a palindromedary does in real life?? Doc

Yeah, Lucius, but it is a lawyer asking the questions. You don't wanna get in the middle of that.... :-)

I think the objective is to find a way to facilitate the useful stuff from Trigger and disallow the cheese in a very coherent fashion. I am not sure it succeeds...not Sean's usual insightful best. :-) I think Bob's insight is that, for attacks, trigger is like buying additional SPD. That shows why unlimited trigger can be an issue, you are giving someone unlimited SPD.

If you consider the rules as written then nothing actually takes time. In combat, things happen instantaneously but your opportunities to do stuff only come up after certain amounts of time (segments) pass. Strictly speaking combat movement happens in a discrete rather than continuous flow. But that is for the convenience of the system rather than for any simulationist reason. However, I would be loathe to try and reflect any kind of feel based purely on an artefact of the system that indicates stuff takes no time.

When you want to reply - go to the top left of the box - close to your picture. the little switch allows you to go form WYSIWYG to command line. You can then see the command boxes with quote /quote in them. :-) Doc

I am sympathetic with Crusher's aims here, even if I am uneasy about the mechanic twisting way of getting there. HERO does not give any archetype special powers, though the system does favour certain things, but those have been getting slowly weeded out the system. Speedsters are one of the more difficult archetypes to simulate in some ways. Bricks are the easiest. Crusher is in the same position as I find myself oft times on the boards. He has a feeling that vanilla stuff is not simulating what he wants perfectly and, after some serious thought, has come up with a wheeze that should work for what is desired. When presented on the boards there are a multitude of picky details that tarnish the idea and I push back, more and more defending the wheeze instead of looking to address the problem. I was leaning exactly towards the solution BigDamnHero postulated, that a trigger on an EB might be one or an EB that requires the firer has to make a full move that takes him within HTH distance of the target. There are a number of potential ideas. There is more though. The idea of interposing yourself between an attack and a victim? What about FF usable by others? The SFX are that you dash across, block the attack and get back again. As a defensive power, you can abort to that if you want. There are lots of ways to get the speedster you want, it just isn't as obvious as it might be with more straightforward powers. It also means you need to think before writing stuff down in the character sheet. In trad form this would be FF, usable by others, other must be within full move, etc etc. I would, as GM, be content for the points spent on this to be written as "Takes a bullet - can abort an action to protect a target". I would even work the bureaucracy as an attack against the speedster rather than using FF etc, so that any damage leaking through impacts the speedster rather than the target. My advice to you, Crusher, is learn from my mistakes. Present the idea, listen to what folk are saying and focus on solving the problem than defending the wheeze. :-). I would have felt much less stressed if I had learned that sooner. Doc

I do love how people talking comics take on quasi-scientific stuff, apply what may be real world scientific principles and then provide quasi-authoritative responses for the quasi science. When my son asks me that kind of stuff my stock response is, it depends on what the writer thinks makes for a better story... It is a great response and often a decent principle when ruling in an RPG... Doc

When I ran a Golden Age campaign I had a lot of success in telling players they would have one 'power', that noone else would have. They would all be unique. Obviously some 'powers' need more than one game power to model it. For example to be invulnerable you might need a range of defences. Or for The Valet, he was able to anywhere unmolested as long as he was delivering a service to someone. The Hawk had flight and talons but nothing else. One defining power means you dont get the same levelling out that often happens with point build systems, the characters are unbalanced by design and so each character has its own lace to be special and stand out. Doc

This is actually quite inspired Sean. I like it simply because it uses a mechanic already there in the game - the distinction between STUN and BODY and applying it to fatigue. I am wondering if you do this that you simply remove the burning STUN. If you run out of END then you simply gain FAT and when your FAT exceeds your current STUN then you are unconscious and unable to do anything due to fatigue - not because you have been knocked out. It comes to the same thing, you heroically knock yourself out. I think I would prefer one action not requiring two adjustments - thereby doubling the bureaucracy... Doc

I am thinking that using a limited TK (physical manifestation, only to keep two things joined) - continuing charge, 0 end might be the way. It provides a way of pushing two things together with a constant STR. Doc

I have been here - you might even find a thread about it way back when. I am not sure that creating a pool where you add a die for every +4 is more of a reward than converting all 1s into 2s. You would be adding another bit of calculation to the process - whereas my current thinking means that if you have 2 bonus dice for the damage pool - you simply remove two of the lowest rolls prior to counting up the 12D6 damage. Both systems increase the damage done if the roll is good, both put an additional premium on OCV (and conversely on DCV). Mine lets you roll more dice, yours gets you to do a little bit extra calculation. I know what my players prefer! :-) Let us know how you get on, my lot hated the additional bureaucracy of converting 1s to 2s or 3s depending on the roll. Not yet tried the dice pool idea. Doc

If you are not used to the higher gravity then you might impose a requirement that if you take a blow where total BODY of the attack is greater than the characters total BODY (regardless if nothing gets through defences) then the person hit should make a DEX roll or lose their balance and fall over... More bureaucracy though - I am not in favour for most superhero games...

think you are right about the good enugh for superhero work. The second part of your second bullet is wrong though. You can divide by the gravity but diding by 2G means you go half as far and dividing by 0.5G sends you twice as far. :-) Doc

Nope. higher gravity, greater acceleration toward the ground, more velocity at point of impact, more damage... Allow an object to fall at normal gravity it gains 10m/s velocity every second. At 2G the object gains 20m/s every second. From the same point, the object is moving twice as fast. If the knock back is sufficient to hit a solid object before the victim hits the ground then KB damage is just the same. If, instead, the person hits the ground (which they will do over a shorter distance in higher gravity) they will take more damage than if they hit the ground at standard gravity. Doc

I missed that. You are right, the BODY stat could disappear or function as the proposed durability stat.

Could durability not simply be CON? If average CON is higher than 5 and you want that balance in your example, just increase the value of the wound penalty in a proportionate manner... I am kinda anti-new-characteristics... :-) Doc PS - of course that might alter the value of CON enough to make it worth more points...

I have been playing Runequest in Glorantha with my group recently. I grew up with Glorantha, coming from a time when there was not enough world information. I now forget how much detail I know. As such I make assumptions about player knowledge that are far too optimistic. I realised my mistake. Now, when I write an adventure loop, I write down all the assumptions and then provide an index card t the layers for each one. Those cards are building up into a decent library of information that they can organise however they want and can explore at the table. Doc

I am not seeing the impact on gameplay here... In your example the pokemon could fight for 55 rounds before finding itself out of END. That is a LONG time. I am presuming you are double counting END, one for regular use and recovery, one for long term? I can see how running down END with no normal recovery method might hinder. To me, the big question is whether you think this reduction in END will sufficiently hinder the player (no regular access to a recharge point) to be worth a limitation? Doc

Just glancing at this again and it seems to me that it is a limited form of auto fire. You get multiple attacks, only if you keep dropping opponents. Will have to go to books to think about an exact build, but I could see the fighter having the ability to hit, then hit again and possibly even again.

I hear people when they say "why play HERO but then change the system?". However, you all probably know that I am irresistibly attracted to suggestions of how to mod the system. It is, after all, supposed to be a toolkit. Anything that helps mod the system allows that toolkit a broader reach... I often get bored with the STUN/BODY grind. It is because it is so possible to balance damage and defences for fairly predictable outcomes that things can feel so....predictable. I think there has to be an opportunity to tweak the system to enhance the narrative. I have to say though that I don't like the whole spiral of death thing that wound levels etc often bring as you are less and less capable the longer things go on and once you begin to lose, you often just lose faster and faster. I like the idea of tracking hits. We already have a mook rule where one or two hits take them out. That enhances the narrative (and saves on bureaucracy). Why not explore it a bit more. I like the idea of there being a bit more randomness in when you may get tired or unconscious. I like there being the potential for effects other than the attrition of STUN and BODY. Am I proposing something? Not anything properly worked out. In my head I have a vague notion of each successful hit being the core framework. The damage could result in some kind of shock roll - either stun someone, tire them, knock them out or cause a lingering injury that has a specific hampering effect (like choosing to hinder someone's running rather than looking to knock them out, or their sight to make it more difficult to target opponents). Each hit needs to be tracked as the accumulated score should contribute to the shock roll (regardless of whether the damage has been used to hinder or harm). Now, there IS an increased bureaucratic burden here. BUT I think it comes with the potential for more interesting and narrative based combat. It accommodates the hero targeting the legs of the villain running away to make it possible to catch him. It accommodates the idea of shooting out the cameras on the robot to hinder its ability to pinpoint the heroes in combat. Or any of the other multitude of wrinkles that players think of in combat that a system of roll to hit, roll for damage simply does not accommodate, even with a hit location system and disabling hits etc. Surely it must be possible to come up with this kind of add-on for HERO of all systems. All it needs is a number freak to balance it and a flavour freak to come up with some examples that would help guide other GMs to wing the system.... Anyone? :-) Doc

I reckon Tribble was indeed talking about Brexit. People are saying that the apocalypse did not descend. If you are inside just now then I think it is simply waiting for the other foot to fall. We are not outside the EU yet. There is uncertainty. The markets are short-term things and right now everything is relatively stable but it is all a bit fragile - every statement has the potential to further devalue sterling and hit the markets. I will also be interested to see how businesses make their decisions when we have actually left or when the Government actually tells us all what deal it thinks it can get with the EU when we leave and whether that is realistic. Nissan have obviously gotten a special deal to continue making cars in the UK for the short to medium term - a lot of other businesses will be looking for a "Nissan deal" in the near future. I think the worst is yet to come as far as Brexit goes. I wish you all the best of luck - I listened to the acceptance speech and nearly fell asleep - not going to accept second best in America any more, wonderful relationships with everyone, going to build lots of stuff with American labour and "we owe a debt of gratitude to Secretary Clinton for her service" is all I took from it...pretty thin to my view. I am waiting to see how it turns out but he does not fill me with the kind of confidence that almost half of voting US citizens seem to have. Vague platitudes Doc

A discussion on whether addictive drugs are or are not poisons might get too moral or too biochemical - I forego the opportunity to raise one or more cans of worms... :-) Doc

I am with Lucius, It is almost a Perk - something that you get for being something different, I am presuming that this character is indeed something different to reflect that he does not have the biological mechanisms that provide the opportunity for addiction. Like Tasha said - there is no mechanism to reflect addiction but neither is there one to reflect poison (possibly the reason folk reach for that mechanic to address it). I like the thinking there - that for a character to be addicted you add a complication to their lives (and thus the transform attack). Like Steriaca says though, a GM might decide to apply a more exotic build for which the player's defence has no locus (though I would think that writing [immunity to addiction - 10pts POW Def] on the characters sheet would apply to the NND described for a reasonable GM). It takes good communication between player and GM to address this sort of thing. I think the GM should decide how much it will be worth (and take the examples of life support etc into account here) and, knowing the level of game impact, decide it's worth... Doc

I do think there is a place for thinking in terms of a book and inserts - or with a code to download the builds for the book - in case you lose the paper. That way you would always be able to check the buid if you want and the authors would be free to focus on readable as well as usable. I know that most of my early learning was through looking at the builds in printed materials and taking a hint from there. Doc