Doc Democracy

As for taking out the Serjeant, I guess it all comes down to GM description. I like called shots allowing extra body to be done but I think that I would be describing how that impacts. As a hero targets the Serjeant there are always mooks hanging around, it may be impossible to engage without his troops intervening and working to protect the Serjeant. For the same reason, he will have one trooper looking for missile attacks and providing cover. This is a highly functioning, well-trained team and if the Serjeant drops his corporal will rally the troops and take over. There are worse ones. For those, I would build in frailties. Susceptibility to called shots. If the troop collapses with the loss of the leader then make that susceptibility high - the added BODY is reflected in troops breaking and running rather than them dying. I like the idea about geometric rather than arithmetic progression for larger scales but you need to be careful about this otherwise heroes attacking armies have strange results early in the battle....would need some additional protections based on the nature of attacks...

I do think we too often get caught up in the wording of the powers in the book. It takes real effort to drag yourself into the meta-plane you need to inhabit to divorce game effect and game mechanic. I need to sit down and actually write down what I want to happen before I can even get close to inhabiting the meta-plane. The area effect on STR and the 2X BODY from area effect attacks came late to me because it was not obvious what I needed until I wrote them down...but they are crucial if I wanted to be able to reflect the ability of the squad to spread out and that the BODY reflected several people rather than just one. HERO can do really amazing things mechanics wise. I would never however show that construct to the players. As far as they would be concerned they were fighting a troop of soldiers. It would be for me to describe how the interplay of teamwork provided their advantages and how (as BODY accumulated) various troopers dropped out of the combat and the gaps that created began to make the combat easier. Once the troop begins to lose it should collapse quickly, easily shown to the players as the squad losing men and unable to provide the cover and distraction they did at the start. The last 10 BODY would simply be using the Serjeant as written...who might then decide to negotiate rather than fight to the death....

If you are GM and you want an anti-venom potion, then you need to dictate how a poison is constructed in your world. Personally, I think it makes for more verisimilitude and an opportunity for colour if you outline a few basic types of poison and the basic anti-venoms available for each one - after all, not all poisons are alike and so it would be unusual for any particular anti-venom to have efficacy for poisons other than the one it was developed. Hyperman is right that what you might want, for a universal solution, is a Transform that targets the special effect and changes someone from poisoned to unpoisoned. Obviously physical damage caused by the poison may have to be healed separately - but there would be no further damage caused by it.... Doc

You know? Let me walk through my thinking for designing a group of mooks. My group of fantasy players are heading towards Greyhawk and I need to have a group of night watchmen for what I plan to happen. I have a decent Serjeant of guard character that any one of the players would be able to take out without too much trouble but I do not want to run eight or nine of these, instead I want to boost the Serjeant because he has his men. I want him to hit more often, be more difficult hit and more difficult to scare. I add the following to the serjeant's stats: +5 BODY per guard (+40) +1 OCV per pair of guards (+4) +1 DCV per pair of guards (+4) +1 SPD per pair of guards (+4) +5 PRE per pair of guards (+20) I don't want to track STUN so I take Takes no STUN, The 45 point level as they will lose the boosts as BODY is taken. I want to reflect that the mooks can spread out and so buy ranged and no range modifier on STR. (I am going to allow the watch to use its weapons within that range as if it was a hand to hand combat) There is no REC, but I don't see any limitation to the Watch so no points for that. I also take regeneration. +10 BODY, 1 recoverable charge. This is simply a way to reflect that the squad might get reinforced. I have also taken the physical limitation of 2x BODY from normal attacks and from area effect attacks this is simply to rebalance the takes no stun element and to reflect the multiple targets an area effect attack would hit. As combat ensues, the Watch begins to lose its powers as BODY damage accumulates. This is a well-drilled group of soldiers which is why the boosts are so high. A more irregular group might get fewer stats per 10 BODY. This watch will defeat a poorly organised group of characters but can be taken if approached correctly. Doc

Let me see if I can find the motivation to write it up and post it. If I was lucius, you would have two versions already along with some dry wit... :-(

Is that not what I was just describing? :-D

I simply decide how often I want the mob to attack in a round. Often I reduce the damage it does as it loses body to reflect the loss of units coordinating their attacks. SPD will also decline as it loses BODY. :-) Doc

I am with ninja and kinda thought this was what Thia was suggesting though it was not explicitly stated. I am more and more inclined to stat a mob of moods as a single monster with automaton and the physical limitation that normal attacks are considered as equivalent DC killing attacks. I also build the mob with growth which is always on but diminishes as BODY is taken. The game effect is that as heroes deal body, the mob diminishes. It is never stunned but it might make a decision to run away if sufficient PRE attack is made. I can relate the numbers of moods dropping out of the fight by the BODY being taken. The mob monster never recovers but can be healed (statted as a regeneration that occurs when reinforcements sent). That is the way I try to do this in most systems where the mechanics are friendly. :-) Doc

Actually, I like this one. The way to escape from the entangle can be described as the manner in which the transform is reversed. Obviously it does not need to be stone statue but the concept works. Depending on the action of the entangle you might want to base it on a characteristic that most effectively defends against the entangle - most entangles would not care how much BODY you had but may be susceptible to changes in STR or DEX.... Doc

I like the skill tree idea and it makes sense to me in that real practitioners of magic probably need a broader understanding of magic to master the more intricate and powerful spells. What follows is all off the top of my head but I think that there might be some way to put in prerequisites that feed back into the setting rather than be more book-keeping. I am against rules that are there purely for book-keeping purposes instead of game-enhancement purposes. So, look at the things you think a mage 'should' learn and why. When the player 'buys' one of those things for his character then the character should gain some element of magical knowledge or wisdom that will potentially unlock deeper understanding of the magic he/she/it carries out. So, having learned paramedic the wizard also gains 1 point in KS: Humorism which will help him if he decides to learn healing magic, or perhaps shapeshifting magic. If you decide on three or four basic forms of knowledge/wisdom then the wizard can be encouraged to broaden out its skill base as that will ultimately deepen its potential for more heavyweight magic. Your biggest issue will be deciding on the levels of knowledge required for each spell. The idea of the big defensive spells layering rather than anything else can be built into this. There was the example of Shield of the Master/Journeyman/Initiate. In my world the wizard would learn Shield - (FF 10PD/10ED). However, if the practitioner was just an initiate (did not have the knowledge required to be better than that) then the limitation of initiate would reduce the cost (and effectiveness) of the spell to 2PD/2ED version. It should also be possible to increase the knowledge skills by buying spells, it is just that some of the funkier spells (and possibly more powerful ones) require a broader range of knowledge. It should be possible to get to mastery level in blast type spells without having to diversify too much but grandmasters need a broader base to actually draw the massive energies required. Doc

Wow. Gone for over two months and we are still talking about this!! 443 posts on how tough tanks should be...

Well, if the GM has indicated that 20D6 killing is an instant kill (for argument's sake) then following the original rationale for transform - if you can kill something then you might as well be able to do something to it instead - the cost of 20D6 killing would also buy an unbreakable entangle. Given that we do not know the game purpose of the OP it is difficult to proffer real possibilities but I would say that a major transform would also work as an unbreakable entangle (as far as game effect goes but not as game rules go). Doc

Glacius I think that the biggest hurdle for anyone moving to HERO is the design philosophy. The powers and rules are a means to an end, not intended to be the final product that you use. For everyone - when designing a power - you need to divorce the 'powers' in the book from the game effects you want to achieve. Rather than looking through the book and thinking, I need Absorption, you think I want my character to access powers or become more powerful when hurt. There are a number of ways to go about that. One is using a 'power' that provides a direct link between damage taken and gaining power. Absorption gives you some of that but as you found out, it is not quite the power that you see in your mind. You might decide that this is satisfying because it gives the direct route and you tinker (advantage, limit etc) to make it play more like your vision. You might decide to do something else. It would be possible to have, for example, 20 STR that you can use any time - around the maximum of human normal range. In addition you buy +20 STR (only when BODY below maximum). The value of that limitation would depend on how often you would expect the character to take BODY damage - if he has no defences and takes BODY with almost every attack then this would cost you the full cost of 20 STR and the limitation would be as much for colour as anything else. If he had 20 resistant defences in a campaign where average attacks did 18 or less BODY then it could be worth as much as a +2 limitation and only cost a third of normal. Like that, you might decide that she gains the ability to throw hellfire when she has taken three attacks that do BODY. There is a little bit of bureaucracy in this and the limitation would apply - this time I think I would definitely give at least a +1/4 limitation to the power and increase that depending on how unlikely taking BODY is. However, this approach has nothing to do with the 'power' absorption. You might also have a small power framework that is powered through an Endurance Battery. The battery might only recover when the character takes damage. So when the character takes damage he becomes able to use those powers as the battery gains from the attacks. Doc

Or possibly structures and vehicles that you want to be more susceptible to shearing and tearing should have a susceptibility to being manipulated with super strength etc. then those shearing forces are actually damaging the structures from within rather than limiting the actual protection of surfaces....

Are we really talking here about a limitation of real world defence? Definition being that they are strong and tough when exposed to the usual forces applied to them but have little or no defensive value against unusual forces?

I think this highlights the difficulty of a universal system that has evolved in strange ways rather than having been designed from the ground up. Obviously the HERO principles are pretty universal but a lot of the background was not always written specifically for a universal system and some of the traditional standards came from different genres that were not based on the same standards. Those disconnects only appear in certain places. I think one place that was used was the damage dealt by weapons - often making them enough to alarm superheroes. If those weapons could alarm superheroes then, to retain some elements of verisimilitude, tanks needed to reflect their ability to ignore some of those weapons. That lead to defensive values that would trouble superheroes. :-) I think that the response has to be that the system has provided a lot of example values that you can use in most situations without any real problems. If you want to have a consistent world however, you need to sit down, decide what your personal standards will be and then base everything else from there. More consistency means more work... Doc

Christopher. How can you be so deluded. It is obviously skill level on str with an OAF limitation...

I am with Xavier on this. I might even be more radical and suggest that the gender switch be a side-effect of the powers being used. No power for the switching unless s/he can switch without using powers and then there might be social advantages by being difficult to identify through switching gender. Then I would use shape-shift so that the player paid the points for the utility... Doc

Is there a thread in this? :-)

Vulnerabilities are just as easily (if not more) modelled through limitations on defences, possibly even on BODY. I was wondering if that might give better values than complication tables. Of course there are lots of complications that might not be so easily modelled through limitations...

Not due to my questions surely? :-( I was asking questions not criticising. Apologies if I came across as critical... I like the idea of the weapon, I like the idea of the frost blade as you have written it, better than the D&D version...I just wanted to get it straight in my head how it would work in the game, and to see if there was a way to make the explosion more colourful...

And so we have another limitation for players (Kryptonian supervillains SHOULD heat up the floor and do killing damage!) of "only for small/hand-held items)" You can justify this with smaller items are easier to heat up significantly in the short time we are talking about. You can meta-justify it to the player if necessary that you are not going to allow it otherwise! :-)

I think it is a great idea. It is beer and pretzels stuff, no great investment required from players. I had to run a few combats when I first bought Champions to get my head around how to use the system and run a couple of scenarios to get better at judging what was important to spend points on... My friend bought into the system when the bad guy kicked him through three walls due to knockback and I turned to him and said, "your action". He was amazed he was alive to begin with, never mind being able to get immediately back into the fight. If you can run a fight where there is a huge amount of scenery to shred, explore knockback etc, you get a definite superhero feel.

I have uploaded a cut and paste version. Could not find any of the physical ones to scan. I have a box of the scutters somewhere unless my wife has been motivated to "tidy up" my gaming stuff. :-) Link here