Doc Democracy

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... One of my favourite books ever was The Practice Effect by David Brin. Not a brilliant piece of story telling but a clever turn around on the way the world works. Obviously The Postman is another good story, don't be put off by the Kevin Costner film. (links are to sample chapters on David Brin's website). Doc

Re: Help with Fire Elves Hmm, decent suggestions so far but I can see why you shy away from actual fire elves - it seems a contradiction in terms. Unless you make the fire elves the corollory to the drow. Instead of evil darkness dwelling elves, these are the deranged elves who seek to destroy and defile rather than nurture and grow and fire is their weapon of choice... Just a thought. Doc

Re: "Rechargeable Batteries", one for each SFX As has been pointed out several times, the big problem with END reserve is that it often paying points for what is effectively a limitation to your power. I would think about going with recoverable charges - it requires the player to record the number of times they have been hit with attacks of particular SFX and can then replicate later. So having bought eight charges the player will begin by being unable to fire any Energy blasts at all (or agree some mix of SFX with the GM). As he runs out of charges the player has to record each time that he gets hit with a particular SFX and mark it down on the list of eight charges that he can then call on later. I would make the player purchase anf SFX on his EB (but limit the cost of the advantage by 'only those SFX recently hit with' -1/2). I would allow the player to decide if their charges are fully there whether to change SFX or retain the ones already stored. Doc

Re: Mental Paralysis..how do I keep this from being game breaking? One way is to have the players encounter an enemy with the power. Players, in my experience, detest this power. If you play the encounter and half way through the enemy is doing what the players hope to do by using the power have a discussion then about the power being overpowered and how you would like to limit it. I think that the power should not be reduced in power but in application, so that it has devastating effectiveness in particular circumstances, just not in combat... That way the players can use it if they can engineer the proper circumstances and must face it if they get manouevred into such ciircumstances themselves. Doc

Re: Handling day and night on infinite plane?

Re: Handling day and night on infinite plane? Why are you worrying about physics or gods running about in circles? You already have an infinite plane. I would have the Sun god turn his attention to the physical plane once per day (noon) and this is when every point on the infinite plane experiences the hottest/brightest part of the day. The seasons occur as the balance shifts between the Sun God and the god of night/darkness/death waxes and wanes. In Summer the strength of the Sun god is at its height and so the effects of even partial attention are pronounced giving greater warmth and light throughout the day. Good mythic explanation, no science necessary. Doc

Re: Complex and unnecessary I think there is something here for particular types of game and I think that the discrepancies are more likely to come up in Star Hero kinds than others. In heroic genres it makes sense for damage systems to be fuzzy and abstract and even for main battletanks to be taken down by a machine gun weilding heroic figure. In superhero systems potentially planet busting damage will often barely result in cracked paving stones... In more 'realistic' games there might be some need to make distinction in scales and thus introduce varieties of BODY to the game. You do use 88mm howitzers to target individual soldiers, nor small arms fire to take down tanks. This could be done in a number of ways, would be nice to see it worked up though.... Doc

Re: Complex and unnecessary Was first edition that I remember... Doc

Re: Complex and unnecessary Didn't they do something of this in WEG D6 for Star Wars? I vaguely remember it. It is like putting MegaScale on damage and defences which allows you to use reasonable numbers and numbers of dice without squeezing everything into a small scale. So earth would have 86 MegaBODY - to do a MegaBODY with normal damage you would have to do 10, 100 or even 1000 BODY with an attack. Much easier to attack MegaBODY entities with MegaDice attacks.... Doc

Re: Delayed Missile Reflection Well, I might allow the MP to be limited in that you cannot choose which slot to use - you have to alternate. So perhaps -1/4 or -1/2. Makes a difference when the reserve is limited. Doc

Re: Delayed Missile Reflection The problem with this build (as well as the limited AP DocSamson indicated) is that it provides no defence. I would think more of a system where the character effectively has missile deflection and a secondary attack in a multipower (i would buy this as an AP attack rather than dictate powers or advantages or anything else). The player has no control over the multipower - it is missile deflection until an attack has been deflected and is then the attack power until it is used. I would charge the player END every phase that he holds the power, whether or not he uses it. The player would be able to use the deflected power (up to its maximum AP) either as a single power or as an MPA with his main attack. At that point the multipower flicks back to missile deflection. I'm at work so dont have the time to properly write this up but I think it would be an interesting construct even if it is not rules as written.... Doc

Re: Do you see? My response to this is never. If Minnie wants to be invisible then she has to buy invisibility. You make a PER roll at the same time you'd make a PER roll to see anyone, its just that if you have to make a PER roll then it is at a much reduced value when Minnie is the one you want to see. So. If you are distracted and Minnie enters the room and it is important that you see her then you may be asked to make a PER roll. If you are in combat and she is trying to blindside you, you may be asked to make a PER roll. If you are sitting in a room with everyone chatting, I would not expect you to have to make a PER roll to see or hear her.... Doc

Re: Alignments

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... Hmm. Not sure if it belongs in here but I just finished The Elfish Gene by Mark Barrowcliffe. It is a autobiographical account of "Dungeons & Dragons and growing up strange". I really enjoyed the book and recognised a lot of the people in it (by character type if not actually by name!). I walked a different path from the author but it could easily have been me...in another life. Doc

Re: Alignments Like Phooks said, that is like everything else in the disad section. You may have a DNPC who gets killed, or a psych that you no longer keep to. That is all down to the roleplay side of things and a discussion with the player on how they want it to go down. If they no longer have an affiliation with good then maybe they'd prefer an affiliation with evil. Maybe they do not want any affiliation and instead end up with a watched by Good forces or even hunted by them (steal an artefact from the temple - no good person would do that!). Nothing is insurmountable and using this kind of alignment with supernatural forces can add to the meta game. As I said. There is no need to argue about alignment in Hero - every GM can address it exactly how they want in their game and the mechanics will change to reflect each referee's vision of alignment. Doc

Re: Alignments

Re: Alignments What do you mean by tied to it? If you detect as good/evil/chaos/law then you can be considered tied to it. That's what people identify you as... If you want alignment to mean more than that, then you build it in...that's the beauty of Hero. My take on alignments will be directly reflected in the mechanics of my game. Your take might differ but that would be explicit in the build in your game. In D&D everyone's take relied on the same mechanic. No need for alignment arguments in Hero. Doc

Re: SFX vs Power Modifier Talk or I'll tickle you to death however is!

Re: Alignments How to do it in Hero depends on what the GM wants it to affect in his game - a major distinction from D&D style implementation. If the GM wants it simply as a marker then it is only distinctive features. If the GM wants it to restrict actions, encourage others AND be a marker then it is a package with a number of things - several disad types, several potential powers and/or perks. It is customisable, like all aspects of Hero games. I dont think that there can be one way to implement it in Hero and the very fact that people argue about what the D&D implementation is, shows that it is impossible to precisely map a Hero implementation of a D&D style as you will not get agreement on what is being modelled, never mind how that modelling is done. Doc

Re: brand new and trying to figure things out You are coming up against one of the big things about Hero. It can often mean a lot of preparatory work and, when you are doing it the first time, you can get drawn into doing too much work. The Cruetalen are a race with a number of abilities. The first question is whether you are going to allow players to play this race. If you are then you need a good idea of how things like immortality work for them. If not then you can simply decide that membership of the race is a perk worth (for example) 40 points and handwave a lot fo the effects (such as resistance to aging effects and starving and drowning). It is fiddly to do this kind of thing. If you find yourself having (or simply wanting) to model such things you have to sit down and describe the effects in text first. It is really worth sitting down and getting a good full, textual description of what you want to achieve before you delve into the powers section of the rulebook. Think about what it means to be a Cruetalen and then model it. When it comes to a suite of things like Cruetalen Immortality then it is up to you to describe and model that - all we can do is point out some of the things you might have missed (like the power defence against aging effects). Personally you need a defence power that addresses SFX (something that the core Hero rules does not provide) - something like 10points versus aging effects that would work against normal attacks that use aging as an SFX, against adjustment powers with that SFX and transformations and other complex powers with that SFX. You can search the boards for discussions round this but it would be up to you if you wanted to allow this and how much you would charge or whether you would simply buy a suite of defences that you would limit (only versus against aging SFX). Obviously come to the boards with questions and for ideas but it will come down to how you want your game to run. Hero demands a lot from its GMs. It will be worth you learning where you have to put effort in and where you can simply declare certain things to be so. Doc

Re: SFX vs Power Modifier I think that you have to say yes. The mechanical effects are the same. There ARE significant differences if your game often has the kind of social follow-up where the SFX are important but the drawbacks and bonuses are social and will vary wildly from game to game. It would be valid for the GM to point out to the character about heroism and the problems particular SFX may have but I think as far as the game goes the powers are probably equivalent. Doc

Re: Adjusting AoE

Re: Adjusting AoE Well, personally, and gut instinct again, I would have them safe within the AoE - after all - you have effectively dispelled the whole power - for that person. For anyone else - it is still there. Doc

Re: Adjusting AoE Good question! My instant take on it would be that if your Dispel is not Area of Effect that you would dispel the effect purely on the person you cast the dispel on. You would affect only one person and (instant decision again) would apply the dispel against the full value of the area effect attack. You would need to dispel the whole attack to get the dispel the effects from that one person. I think to dispel the whole thing you would need area effect dispel... Doc PS: I'm already forming arguments against my gut response...

Re: Defences against the stun of KAs I'm glad you captured that post in a quote Archermoo - I went away to find the thread and came back to find it gone - I was beginning to wonder if I'd imagined it! Doc