Doc Democracy

Re: Cloak of Belief (Faith) Hmm. I am wondering exactly how much this cloak helps its wearer. It tells other people their belief system and how well they abide by those beliefs. I would say that it looks like it is giving you a reputation only when wearing the cloak....no?? Doc

Re: "We don't need gas money"

Re: Question about keeping equipment balanced in heroic campaigns?

Re: Question about keeping equipment balanced in heroic campaigns? I tend not to use equipment pools as standard and allow the PCs to have the kit that they think the PC would reasonably have access to. As pointed out - things that are not paid for are easily acquired and easily lost as the plot demands. If a player wants a piece of kit that they do not want to lose so easily then they pay points for it. That means they lose it less readily and if they do they pick another up at the earliest possible opportunity. Players LOVE getting stuff. If they know that you will regularly give them access to stuff then they will be less upset about losing it and, if they get really cool stuff that they really want to keep, they will pay points for it.

Re: "Leadership" multipower That is a limitation on the power. I would indicate that the application of another Leadership Aid immediately causes the benefits of the first one to disappear. The value of that limitation would depend on the next part - duration.

Re: "Leadership" multipower Will have to check through the rules but I would have thought Aid was indeed the thing for this. You could buy the Aid with a variable effect, standard effect and area effect. You essentially build a compound power 6 points of Aid to chosen stat +6 points of Aid to chosen stat 14 or less +6 points of Aid to chosen stat 11 or less +6 points of Aid to chosen stat 9 or less +6 points of Aid to chosen stat 7 or less And there you have up to 30 points of Aid if you make the right roll. Rather than fixed numbers you could make the rolls relative to PRE or some other stat. You could also add limitations to reflect the impact of combat factors etc. A bit more detail on what you want to accomplish and I might come up with a more detailed build. Doc

Re: room filled with water

Re: room filled with water So what I am hearing you saying (forgive me if I am putting words in your mouth), is that the question of build is not as simple as "I want to create water" it depends on what the player wants to achieve with the created substance? It seems to me crucial to the discussion with Ragitsu about whether the game needs a create power. I suppose that the answer to that could be yes but it would have to be costed depending on the effects of the substance created... Doc

Re: room filled with water

Re: room filled with water

Re: room filled with water I think the difference is that transforming water should not provide the same reliability of effect that using specific powers would. If a player had a power to create that amount of water then I would tend to apply real world physics such as that it would not remain within a room and might not even stick around long enough to cause any real amount of drowning or to effectively drench everything in the room. Doc

Re: room filled with water Really? So why use a ruleset at all? What if the player wants more than 350 points, or a cheaper defence? What if the player wants invulnerability? What if the player wants omniscience? Not everything can be subject to the whim of the player, it is playing within the rules to achieve something fun and entertaining that is the point and that is a joint project between GM, players and a decent set of rules. What HERO wants defines the style of the gameplay. If the player wants/needs something different, then there are lots of other rulesets that provide very different styles of gameplay for the player to use. Doc Doc

Re: How Much DCV? I presume that you are referring to my suggestion of doing away with CVs? I'm not sure how you could know that when I haven't outlined the implementation but this was my first thought. I think that the presence of Damage Negation as a power leads me to this - dodging would not prevent the attack hitting (in game terms) but could negate all of the damage. I haven't thought it through yet - so there will be holes in my logic but I am thinking of a place where you do not roll to hit but others may use their actions to negate the effects of that hit - Utech suggested in this thread that there might be a place for offensive and defensive SPD. I am thinking of bringing that in here too so that you can actively as well as passively defend but focus the action on the damage caused rather than on whether an attack hit. I am thinking that I might be able to remove one mechanism (the to hit roll) from a system overburdened with a variety of ways to do things.... Early days and rough thoughts really but I am intrigued to how it would play... Doc

Re: room filled with water This kind of question always gets a bit angsty and to say that because one system has something that another should to is not a productive way forward. HERO has always been different from other systems because you look at the game effect and wrap the SFX round that - most other games come at it in different ways. So there is a 'wrong' way to ask questions. In this case it is difficult because the concept is so easy. The character has the ability to fill a room with water. HERO wants to know what effect that has in game terms before suggesting possible ways to build it. The problem with such things is that they can be effective instant kill powers if you are not careful. If the character creates the water, how quickly before it drains away? All problematic. Now if the main effect is to drown people (kill them) then HERO sees that as a killing attack - limited by the fact that it will not affect those who had life support or can hold their breath - a good NND effect as anyone can hold their breath for a certain amount of time. The side environmental effects are all about change environment. Once you buy the effects, then the SFX (and associated practical questions can be handwaved with SFX style responses). If you want to create a bulk of water then you can do that with transform - create the water and allow the GM to decide on how long it hangs around etc. I do not think Summon really works for this - your power is to turn nothing into something - bring water into existence that never existed before. The core description of summons is that the "character can summon a being from another location or plane of existence". It does become more fuzzy with the next clause, "Or create certain types of beings or objects". I do not consider a body of water to be a being or object and the power description indicates objects to be, for example vehicles or bases. In essence, something complex. Transform does indicate that creating objects out of thin air to be a major transform. In this case the BODY rolled would be the volume of water created. I do not think HERO needs a create power because of the underlying philosophy to the game any more than it needs a fire or electricity power. Doc

Re: room filled with water Doesn't work in HERO as you have no limits to the power. What size of room? You also are not thinking what you intend the power to achieve. If it is simply to produce an amount of fluid then you can do that. Do you mean the whole of the room completely filled or is it just that the water is a by-product and drenches the room. In the second scenario, it is simply SFX, in the former you are talking about a power...and it cannot be as absolute as you intend. If nothing else - rooms are rarely water-tight.

Re: How Much DCV? Hmmm. This is interesting. I was never going to use HERO to run superheroes ever again - I'm not convinced it does it very well - too much emphasis on CVs and DCs than on interesting powers. However, I was wondering if I might be able to put together a HERO based superhero game which did not have CVs. Characters would have a certain SPD and their attacks always hit - what you did was vary the damage applied depending on actions etc. Will have to give it some thought and try it with my group.... Doc

Re: Random Thought: Splitting Speed There is something in the concept tickling my creative nose but I cannot quite tell you why...will cogitate Doc

Re: Need Superhero Name Thought I'd do some reading round the subject and came across the following " no tachyon detection has so far been confirmed. The same is true of another hypothetical faster-than-light particle called a dybbuk (Hebrew for a "roving spirit"), " So how about Dybbuk? Roving Spirit seems to fit the power set, it has the tachyon connection, and could Bleskind be some kind of anglisiced jewish surname? Doc

Re: Not D&D Then I guess that proves there's nothing new in heaven or earth.

Re: Not D&D I've been reading this with some interest. I am with everyone else who say that if you are uncomfortable then you dont do. That means about religion as well as sex or anything else. My take is that you are playing a game. You want to play fantasy and you want magic and all the other stuff that goes with it. That's what you want to deliver to your players but the context of that magic and gods etc may tug at your conscience too much. You could then change the context behind the world. The characters in the world do not have to know how the world works. Not even the players need to know how the world works but you could, in essence, be playing a Star Hero game where the players and characters think they are playing Fantasy Hero. If the deities are essentially mega powerful machine intelligences running organic based programmes (they use the actions of humans on a backward planet to introduce randomness and insight to their machinations) and using advanced nano-technology to deliver magical effects to those who perform the required sequences on their behalf. The intelligences compete for processing units. There you have what appears to players and characters to be deities that they can pray to and have powers granted to them. The magic in the world is a confounding factor introduced by other advanced lifeforms who want to confound the machine intelligences. These provide random individuals with the ability to produce magical seeming effects (either through the use of nanotechnology or perhaps, as suggested above, by enhancing these individuals to generate psionic effects). These people are your wizards etc. None of the things you write down for the players need pierce this facade, they are seeing the world as the characters see it and are trying to manipulate it in the same ways. You know that there is no magical or clerical effects, simply the acquisition of technological or psionic abilities through the intervention of more developed civilisations. You also provide a backstory that may or may not be revealed if the characters played get powerful enough to find the curtain behind which these intelligences hide and exploit their world. Doc

Re: [5th Ed] Randomizing Area Of Effect ? Hmm. would probably depend on how quick you want it to be and how 'realistic' you want the results. You could fire into a hex and determine the next hex by rolling a D6 until you have run out of hexes of effect. That might take too much time though it might be an interesting interlude. You could decide on a radius that takes in (for example) twenty hexes and then roll a D20 the required number of times. You might do that and draw the required number of (numbered) tokens out of a bag (which would be quicker than rolling but the affected hexes are less likely to be contguous). The idea of non-selective is useful and limit the number of people who have to make a roll against the attack. Doc

Re: Extra SPD only to Dodge I think I would be annoyed only if the SFX of the character did not warrant such an effect. I think this kind of SPD tinkering would work really well for time manipulation style powers and possibly a few others. IMO it would be for the GM to be exercising his policing powers. Doc

Re: Extra SPD only to Dodge

Re: VPPs in 6th So the owner of the VPP gets the flexibility at full power? Doc

Re: VPPs in 6th It is not unhelpful though. Where do you think the cost break lies - too little AP or pool and they are pretty ineffectual - too much and everything becomes possible... The rules do not give much guidance on how to draw the lines. in a 60AP game - what should the pool of a VPP be set at?? Doc