Doc Democracy

There are a LOT of books and when you know the system none of them beyond the core are NECESSARY but lots of them are useful. Given your preferences, you might want to dip all the way back to 3rd edition and pick up a hard copy of Danger International or Justice Inc. These are essentially cut down versions of the core rules to apply them to a particular genre (action adventure or pulp, respectively). They have one big relic of pre-6th edition but it would give you a HERO-style game to familiarise yourself with the system. If you want to stick with 6th then I would pick up Fantasy Hero Complete as it seems to constrain the current system into a specific genre. Doc

I have run a game where the whole point was to roll 11 or less to succeed and all the modifiers (good or bad) altered the dice roll. it worked well.

The key point here is that you are right, you are not going to learn the rules by reading the core toolkit cover to cover. Your approach is also a good one, take some heroes and play out some combats. You should also have a go at building a character of two. Do it in stages, here in the boards, you will get all kinds of helpful suggestions. For example. If you have an idea of a character, just in description, no game mechanics, then begin putting it together, one piece at a time. When you have done this once or twice you will have a firm grasp of two things. First, the principles of building powers and using the rules and how simple those principles are. Second, how those simple principles can create huge complexity. We love new players coming to ask questions, it often makes us reconsider the basic elements of the system with fresh eyes. Doc

I think what folk are saying is that you have a decision where you implement the curse as described by the characters in the book (and understand that this will be a high lethality game) or you implement it as a reader of the books sees it, where it is not infallible (at least for the main protagonists which would be PCs in a game). A key problem is getting players to act in ways that characters in the books do. Personally, I think Massey's solution is a good one as it leaves open the real potential of death for PCs while retaining the appearance of infallibilty for everyone else. Doc

more important than being rules-legal is for GM and player being on the same page on how things will play out in-game.

I would say, like Shrike, that the continuing nature of the attack, with no END expenditure, with no obvious break-out kind of thing and no limitation on duration means that it is better than flash or illusions/mind control. Some very small tweaks would bring it well into acceptable for me. It is a cool power to use on the battlefield and will indeed, like many powers be a fight winner with some opponents - that encourages tactics. Doc

You thought about making water elementals unable to use reduced END instead of the limitations? Water drags you down and water wizards probably have to invest in foci that provide them with END. Possibly, if you insist on +1/2, then increased END.

I am inclined to give Power Defence a role in these kinds of things. I also tell players that ask for this kind of power how they will be combated - what SFX might be used to counter them. Finally I pose to them a counter power, similar to the one proposed that would nerf their character, in this case a light illusions power, UAA only to create a halo of all pervasive light. That would destroy his ability to use any of his shadow/dark powers...if he is content for that kind of power to appear, and it will, I am happy to allow the proposed power too. I find that this kind of "if you use, I definitely will use it" conversation leads to a reasonable game. ? Doc

I don't think the OP was thinking that we might know what to do as we are not immersed in the campaign and do not know the significance of the people mentioned or the specific date. I think that the OP was asking whether the actual response of the party in question was rational, responsible and/or heroic. ? I may not be in a position to follow things up in detail but there are a few questions I could already ask and I would not be in need of a hang-over cure or a plane ticket home... Doc

So this is where you need to talk to the player. If he means, only where shadows exist then this is not a severe enough complication. If it means, when immersed in shadow, then it does. Being in a strong torch casts a shadow from you but you are not in shade. PS: I keep forgetting about the sight group...

Well, the first point is that he would need to hit the target to get the clinging to work, if he targets an area, the darkness clings to the area. It is not an area effect attack, DCV will be full. Second, it is defeated by a simple UV vision visor, any hunting villain or organisation will be equipped. If the darkness is one of those "only works in darkness/shadows powers, a decent torch/spotlight beats it. This is a continuing attack, he needs to maintain line of sight (I think), cannot take recovery (except post segment 12) and it will stop if he dodges (I think). Doctor Midnight used this schtick in the Golden Age, I would be fine with it.

Always nice to see returnees. I think you asked a lot of questions in one block of text. Combat values are king in combat but virtually useless outside of that. The ‘base’ chance of success in HERO is rolling 11 or under on 3D6, everything else modifies that base chance of success. In combat your OCV improves the chance of success, each point raising the success number by one point. Your opponent’s DCV decreases the chance of success, each point lowering the success number by one point. There are all kinds of other modifiers that can be brought to bear by combatants such as combat manoeuvres, skill levels and environmental factors. I would not class the Flash power as a combat skill but it will significantly impact on chances of success as will a number of other powers... Doc

I think the thing is that, for Godzilla, I would not be buying Growth always on, as to shrink him, you should be using transform, not drain growth...unless there is Godzilla lore that I have missed (my knowledge is superficial). I would use the Growth table to see what stats I should buy to get the growth benefits and simply say She is Godzilla-sized.

With HERO it is all about the game effect that you want to achieve. If you throw a pie at an opponent, what do you want to happen? Ignore the special effect at first and focus on the game effect you want to achieve. As Oruncrest said, an obvious game effect from throwing a pie might be rendering someone unable to see for a short time (we use Flash to achieve that). You might want other stuff, like it enrages the target or embarrasses him or something else. The coming apart routine is a complication (if you are not really trying to simulate being chopped up and healing). I would have a complication that indicates that when you are successfully attacked by a slashing weapon you suffer some kind of "separation" with resultant disabilities (head means you have a different perspective with regard to your body; arm means you have only one arm to use, etc) until you spend a phase with parts in the same hex... Doc

I am going to screenshot this one - it is a Duke post that I do not have to scroll down to finish reading....

I will play Devil's Advocate on this, because I understand there might be a situation where a drain might be expected to work but I dont think this is it. So, you become a living temple guardian and you are instantly 12 foot tall. I am going to presume that, for example, this transformation is magical and the effects are all in a framework with a magic special effect, and the drain is some kind of magic drain rather than being directed straight at growth because that would be even more implausible. So the drain hits and you drop a whole level of growth? One level at a time? No intermediate stuff? Would it not be more fitting for it to be all or nothing? Perhaps due to a limitation on the framework, that under certain circumstances the whole framework becomes unavailable?? My issue is with the intermediate effects, the slow draining and possibly slow recovery where the character is not fully an archaeologist or fully a temple guardian. The system works that way but I am not sure it reflects the vision of either the drain power or the character build. I am trying also to think about what a growth drain might be, something that only affects a character that has grown beyond his natural size but will not shrink him beyond that natural size (a failure on my imagination I think) but whatever the SFX, having that growth drain also remove his magical defences, ability to fire flame from his eyes and all of the additional STR seems a stretch.... Doc

I am intrigued that you disagree with the rule. It always made complete sense to me because HERO is human-focussed and that would lead to strange cause and effects purely due to game mechanics. Now, take the example of building a giraffe. In 4th I would have bought a level or two of growth as part of making that character big and the growth would be always on. I do not think that drain or suppress Growth should shrink a giraffe to man-size (but no smaller). What I should have done was use the Growth to get an idea of what stats I should buy for being that big and then simply stating that the giraffe is giraffe size. Any change to size should then be from the base of being a giraffe, not from the base of being a human. I can also take some complications due to my size. There should be no need to have Growth, always on. You buy Growth if you want to be able to change your size during the game, not if you want a character that is always big. Seems simple to me. Doc

It might satisfy my narrative needs for this construct to be comfortable in my head! ?

Saw Steve's response and I think I will be ignoring it. I just thought that if I had a bunch of characters and one had armour bought with the focus limitation and another had bought it without, for whatever (possibly bogus) reason the player had come up with, then when the mass invisibility spell is cast, one suit of armour is invisible and the second one is not. That would not be consistent enough for me. I am more content to make judgement calls about what is personal kit and what is beyond the scope of the magic.

I might even require characters with combat luck, when they take reduced or no damage due to that luck, to make a PRE roll modified by the BODY of the attack, or have their next action to be a defensive one such as dive for cover, take cover, or something appropriate, for the character to have a "That was CLOSE!" style moment... Doc

It would mean that invisibility could not, practically, be bought through an obvious focus...

My biggest problem is not that players take it but the characters act as If they have armour (because the player knows - bad rpg-ing, right). The characters in books that have combat luck do not act as if they are armoured, they "know" a bullet will take them out. The player knows a bullet will not. The cowboys of legend did not walk down the middle of the street, trusting to their combat luck. Their is something missing from the build that makes the players act properly, it should be more reliable than 14-, and I don't want additional dice rolls (what a bore for everyone) but I want moments when it is obvious. I think I might be happier with instant one off regen "I'm hit! Just flesh wound though", you get more of the impacts of combat but less fatality. Of course the regen would come with resurrection adder, the character goes down, dead until someone checks them "he's still breathing!!!" Also does the Die Hard bit of walking over broken glass but sprinting after the bad guys a few scenes later.

I would think it is is. That fighter who gets made invisible but his sword remains visible.... :-). Kinda takes away the whole surprise thing...

As an outsider, where none of the political heat reaches, this looks to me the key aspect. If there is a strong family narrative of native American heritage then she may have a legitimate belief that she had that heritage. Indeed, if you were able to go back through her ancestry in detail, the story might even be true. All that, to my knowledge, been proven is that there is no DNA evidence to substantiate this. It would be entirely possible for both things to be true. I get 50% of my genes from each parent, that is mostly true of everyone. From my mother's mother I could have anything from 0 to 50% of her DNA. I might have randomly picked up every gene that my mother's mother passed to her or I might have randomly picked up every gene that my mother's father passed to her. It is likely that I have a mix but there is no guarantee of such. At every generation, there is the chance for ancestral heritage, even if it is reasonably recent, to vanish from the gene pool and thus from evidence such as DNA tests. People have too much faith in DNA stuff especially those heritage testing things that claim to tell you where your ancestors came from (while slowly compiling their own DNA databases that will be used for enriching someone (but not you) in years to come). Did ticking that box differ from her family stories? Did it advantage her? Did she knowingly tell a lie? These are (to me) the most pertinent questions... Doc