Doc Democracy

Possibly with a dice or two of NND blast...

I see teasers as much more like an entangle that immobilises through pain than an attack... I might be inclined to have them be an entangle against CON as the base power

Lucius' solution also meets these criteria. The bag is not actually holding them, simply represents a time portal to the time when the owner of the bag "removes" them. As such they do not interact with each other nor do they have to be searched for. They will not decay or age as they are moved through time. Should be essentially instantaneous from the held object's perspective. Lucius' build would indeed work for that or for sneaking a group of murder hoboes into a heavily guarded mansion....I think I might need that oxygen limit, or nothing living as a limitation... Doc

ooh! Well, I think you would have to take a real think about what you want to promote. If you really want HERO Lite, then you want the play of the system to come into focus and provide a taster of the power building flexibility. Personally I would leave characteristics out of it. I would provide a couple of templates that cover the main archetypes of the genre the book was meant to reflect. I would have a very cut down power building side to it. Choose powers with add-ons - those add-ons would be altering the power (like AP) or beefing it up (like additional DCs). This would allow some customisation but not the mega-disorienting level of detail that it is in the main books. I think everyone can handle skills but I might leave levels etc out of it - they conflate characteristics and powers and that is complexity that should not exist in a Lite product. I would then have a bundle of weird talents or some other such thing that would be related colour to the genre being reflected by the Lite book. What would need to be considered in advance would be, which genre, the point value of the characters to be created, the balance of lethality you want built into the game (reflecting the genre chosen) and the caps you would put on powers etc. You would then need to decide the balance of powers, skills and talents for each archetype - they should (for interests sake) be different for each one (reflecting the archetype and the points spent getting to the right CV, STUN, BODY and END). I would have a well-designed, colour character sheet for each archetype that shouted out the genre being reflected with all of the core system stats reflected there. I would also have a chapter at the end explaining what HERO is, what has been done and how GMs and players might further customise these archetypes and powers using the full HERO System if they wanted and if they begin to chafe at the restrictions in the Lite rules. personally I would go with superheroes as the first book, it is cool and where HERO first began - I think I would look to do a Teen Titans level game with at least one adventure, half a dozen fleshed out villains and at least one organisation. If I was to do a Greyhawk style game, then I would go to town on the skills but leave out the Powers build and get two or three magic styles (with a decent spell list for each) in there - one for wizards, one for clerics and another for the kind of charms and hedge magic that anyone could pick up. That's what I would do... Doc

I think you are in the dark places of the system. The CV system was not designed to be a detailed simulation of combat - it was built to encompass all the things that make you harder or easier to hit - you can presume it includes all of the things you might expect someone to do to make a difference. I think Nolgroth was not telling you to go RTFM but instead that the manual will not be able to cover everything and that there is a need for a guiding intelligence to decide which of the options to utilise. I would be careful about what detail you go into. I do think that there is a case to be made for a prone target being more difficult to hit. If only the head and shoulders are visible then that is harder to hit - it should also mean that any hit is hitting either the head or the shoulders... What you need to do is pull together the various penalties and modifiers and then you can discuss with the players... "You are on a low flat roof with guards on the ground, shooting at you from behind some trash cans; some from a window opposite and one from the roof. Yes, if you drop prone then the guys shooting at you from behind those trash cans are going to find it impossible to hit you unless they can gain some height, the guys at the windows will have a smaller target to shoot at if you are head on but, if you do that, any hits are automatically on head or shoulders while the guy on the roof is not going to be inconvenienced at all. Remember that if you do drop prone you will lose half your DCV, so that will counterbalance (partially or completely) the bonuses you get for being a small target." Doc

Noone else has mentioned this as yet, I presume having played before that you will be aware but it bears repeating: in HERO you get what you pay for. If you buy extra limbs you have extra limbs. Merely having those limbs does not provide you with additional attacks, better movement, or anything else. Having extra limbs is indeed incredibly useful - you can hold three weapons while still being able to scratch your bum. :-) It allows you to grab someone, hold them with two hands and still have a limb that you can attack with. If you want to throw a flurry of punches, buy autofire on your STR; if you want to reliably wrap someone up without all of the hassle of grab rules, buy a no range entangle (only when you have two hands available); if you want additional attacks in a round, buy more SPD. Of course, you can do all that and still buy extra limbs (especially if you use the limitation I wrote for the entangle a lot). Stephen

I like this way of thinking. One of the problems with HERO is that you can actually plan everything to the point that you can guesstimate how many rounds a fight might take if everything goes with the average. It can feel almost boring and mechanical (though players do introduce chaos to any such formulae!). However, that problem is a feature here. You should be thinking of this and utilising the detail that HERO provides to drive the pacing of the adventure and scenes within it. As you can gauge things, you probably should, you can give the players a message that they need to do something or bad things will happen by highlighting the damage that they face. You can manage things to give the players space to think or limit their time to think and push their need to adapt to the situation and do something unusual to have a chance of victory. The mechanics on their own might be boring but they can be used to push the narrative and it needs the GM to do more than "Hit, 62 STUN, 16 BODY!!" It needs the Gm to pain the picture and drive the story by describing how the attacks are causing problems and how few the hero might be able to stand up to, even suggesting that they might need to take cover or find a way of taking the opponent out fast. Doc

Well, it looks like the suggestion is that the crossover comes when the Range penalty on the shooter is equal to the half DCV penalty. If you are talking heroic campaign, DCV is high at 6 and so the prone penalty is 3. If you use the optional range modifier table, then you have a penalty of 3 between 17 and 24 metres (about 56 to 80 feet). Doc

ooh, a game! My memory of knockback, and how I have used it, is that you travel that many inches taking inches/2 D6 damage when you skid to a halt. If there is a barrier you subtract inches you travel, then take 1D6 damage for each BODY and DEF in the wall (to a maximum of DEF+BODY or remaining inches, whichever is higher) and, if there are any inches left after removing DEF+BODY, move the remaining distance with the remaining inches/2 D6 damage when you come skidding to a halt. :-) Doc

Hmm. LEGO Batman. I played this lots with my son as he was growing up. The key features for LEGO Batman for me was that when he defeats someone, there are things to collect, that he randomly smashes the scenery to collect more stuff. He accumulates abilities at certain points and, when knocked out, reverts to baseline power set. There is real gaming in this and some things to make other Batman types look at him strangely. I think that defeating opponents should allow him to charge an END Battery that at, for example, power a VPP, or provide him with more abilities (gets stronger or more resilient). When the END Battery is charged you can place a suit change point where he can gain abilities (always relevant to the plot need). He should also need to smash furniture etc to charge the END Battery when no opponents are around. I might be inclined to make him an automaton with resurrection/regeneration. So he does not get stunned or tired but he does eventually fall apart, only to re-assemble. That's all I got just now but it should be significantly different to all the others... Doc

Well, this is where we are butting up against a mechanic and a special effect. Luck as a special effect is a different beast and it probably belongs, in most builds, in a decent VPP with lucky as the binding special effect. I think I need to sit down and really think what I mean when talking about a luck power. What is it that defines it against everything else in the toolbox and, crucially, would it be a useful tool to define other things with different SFX? If not it kind of fails the test of belonging in the toolbox.

I would really like a well-thought through luck power. I would like to know how this works but luck should not be able to be relied upon. It will let you down in odd moments. I would like something that accommodated the concepts of pushing your luck, riding your luck, being on a lucky streak. I have an odd tingle of something like a pool that can grow and shrink depending on how it is used and for there to be points when luck deserts you. I would like a mechanical way for a GM to rule when it is appropriate for luck to be successful and by how much. In a well-defined system like HERO, the current rules eyeball too much.

This all comes back to folk treating the HERO System as if it is a game rather than a system. The obvious solution is for genre books to actually have a game build in it, something that could be played out the box but has options for people that want to tinker. It is a barrier to play when you either have to balance it or even feel you have to. It is a barrier if you have to think about options to allow or disallow. It is a barrier if you have to think about limits on powers or feel you have to. Those barriers remain barriers until you are confident enough to tinker, then they become features. The system does not need to much detail, it would probably take up about a third of the space a genre book usually comprises. Can you imagine JI reprinted as the front section of Pulp HERO? Doc

There are precedents in the literature for arcane magic being poor at dealing with disease and healing etc. You might put that down as a campaign +0 limitation, arcane magic is of limited value in curing disease etc. The reasons for that might be related to your plot...

Yeah, there is a reason that disease is vague. Even in the real world you are missing fungal disease, protozoan disease and what they are now calling prion diseases. I am not sure that looking to the real world will be useful. What is necessary for deciding on disease resistance or curing is for the GM to decide on a hook that can be placed on all builds defined as a disease which will allow for those effects to be corralled in defences. Doc

D'oh! My failing brain. Use resistant protection, costs END. Or like I said, use 100% Damage Resistance with the limitation that it only works against attacks that can be judged to use projectiles small enough to be destroyed. You might even use missile deflection with an obscene number of levels. :-)

I would be inclined to go with forcefield with a triggered RKA. Barrier, to me, either stops you passing through or breaks when you do. The force field gives the protection. I would be inclined to make it all or nothing, it either stops the attack or it does not. I might change that to affects any attack where the killing attack would destroy the missile. The RKA is triggered by anyone passing through the SFX of the force field (a glowing ring of disintegrating force). Doc Edit: if points are no issue, I might spring for 100% Damage a Reduction instead of force field - with the same limitation that the missile must be able to be destroyed by the RKA for it to work.

Well, I am inclined either not to get into legalities or to give the judicial system enough technology to circumvent superpowers. So truth helmets, advanced genetics and other stuff that would make our current system SO much more effective but necessary to deal with a super-powered world. Unless you ignore the difficulties...

I had a similar event (though with a far more established group). I decided (for fun) to run through a court case with a variety of people giving evidenace for and against. The against were all looking to make it look bad, VIPER was using its financial might to get high quality lawyers and (for story purposes) the judge was allowing lines of questions. At the end of the trial, I sent the judged player out and asked the remaining players to act as the jury. They all cast their votes, almost all innocent until I told them that the brick's arch nemesis had mind controlled them to vote guilty. Yup, complication in play. That allowed me to go for a death penalty verdict, supported by the (mind controlled judge) and a scenario where the rest of the group learn of the mind controlling and they have to try and save the brick as he is being transported to death row, unpowered and open for the rest of those with grudges to take revenge. It was good fun, the brick's player was let into the secret after the initial shock and played his secondary character for the rest of the adventure.

OK, so I did it. I actually went and read the rule book. I only come here because I am forced to do this so often! :-) "At the GM's option, a character with a Mental Power may make a successful mental attack even when he does not have LOS. If the character attacks a target he cannot perceive, but of whose location he's reasonably sure, halve his OMCV . If he lacks LOS but has a fairly precise idea of where a target is (for example, he knows someone's hiding in a particular closet or the trunk of a car), his OMCV might only suffer a -1 to -3 penalty. To use this rule, the character must have some reasonable idea of the location of the target mind — he can't just lash out at random, hoping to hit something with half OMCV . The GM determines whether a character can attempt an attack when he lacks LOS." 6th Ed, vol 1, p149 The key words here are "at GM's option". So these are RAW but only if that is the way the GM wants to play it. Doc

Hmm. This, obviously is not a rules question. It depends on your campaign tone and style. If the person is quasi-police with quasi-police powers and the suspect was acting in a suspicious way and it is not Iron Age then I think that the hero might walk after a stern talking to about careful use of powers. In my game (far more four colour), if I had not fudged the result to have the victim look far more damaged than he was, I would find someone to heal the victim and chat with the player about how to play it out. It might be fun to have an internal investigator who dogs the hero's footsteps for a while, sniffing round secrets and other stuff. That would be like an imposed watched or hunted complication. If the player wanted it dropped, I would be looking for in-game reasons for that to happen, or how he persuades the judge (or equivalent) that he can be trusted on the streets again. In extremis, rewind the campaign, retro-actively change what happened at that point. Tell the player you don't do this often but understand it is not something the character would do and so, once, you are willing to make this adjustment. Doc

Yeah, don't limit your invisibility to LOS only... You can pay more and more points. At some point it will be more effective to buy levels with mental combat and/or mental defence....

Hmm. So, to the mentalist, the character is visible to his sight but cannot target his mental powers through sight? That would, for his mental powers, make sight a non-targeting sense, I think. If the mentalist can make a sight PER roll the. That would render the mentalist at full DCV and 1/2 ECV against that opponent at range. If the PER roll is failed then the full penalties for being unable to sense his opponent. Doc

I am currently running a retro RuneQuest game (using HeroQuest for God Plane stuff). When that finishes, my next game needs to be Champions and then I may find the time to invest in learning to properly use the export facilities on Hero Designer.

I am sorry, I never got into playing with Hero Designer. My friend was starting to do a lot then got married and moved away. :-(