Doc Democracy

Yeah - multipower is jargon, options is plain English... :-) personally I think it is all about how much you want to do to get the players away from the detail of the system to play the game and how much you want playing the game to be an intro to the system.... I have posted a few examples of a stripped down sheet to hand out to people simply to play the game. Like this one. Doc

The obvious answer to how often is exactly how often the limitation says it does. Frequently means that those corrective lenses go wrong pretty often....

I think that conversion schemes are only so good. It is far better to eyeball the character, check out its power set and then build it from scratch. Doc

I think that it is a legitimate tactic. Each manouevre has its advantages and disadvantages. You could try blocking to avoid damage completely, that has some drawbacks. Dive for cover avoids all the damage but you need to leap and make a roll and end up prone. What is so bad?

But part of that is because "in real life" there are no such thing as actions... Hmm. Maybe I have been doing this wrong all my life but my experience does not bear out what you represent here. Let me go through this segment by segment for Speedy and Slowpoke in my game. I am going to assume both are SPD 5. On segment 12 Slowpoke is in the middle of the street while Speedy is watching him, safely out of sight. On segment 3 Speedy rushes out, taking Slowpoke by surprise, tries to hit him and runs off to cover again, out of range for Slowpoke to get to him. Slowpoke decides to hold his action, "If Speedy runs out again, I will hit him". On segment 5, when Speedy is able to act again he rushes out. Now Slowpoke is still waiting, he has (in my game) lost his segment 3 action phase, but the intent remains unless he tells me different and given that Speedy has to move to get there he has an advantage in getting in the first blow - he has been waiting for this to happen. Slowpoke tries to hit Speedy before Speedy gets to try and hit him. (A lot might happen here but I am going to presume both miss just to get to the next phase where they are once again separated by distance and both have an action phase coming up) On segment 8, Slowpoke indicates he will continue to wait on Speedy to attack and, when he does, he wants to hit him as he arrives. Speedy now has to decide whether he wants to attack, whether he wants to think about a new strategy because this one does not allow him to attack unmolested or to gain any significant additional attacks over Slowpoke. In addition, because we have waived the cannot move after attack, Slowpoke is making his way, after attacks toward a more defensible position that Speedy might not be able to negotiate to get in and out of or to give Slowpoke more tactical advantages. he might also be moving to a point where Speedy cannot get out of move range after attacking because Slowpoke has made the distance to attack too far. I just don't see Slowpoke losing phases. Even if Speedy has a greater SPD, Slowpoke can still wait until he attacks. If he gives up an action phase because he is holding an action, I might even give him a +1 OCV for being set and ready for the attack. But that might just be me, I have not gone and looked at the rules, I know that if they do not agree with me here, I will simply ignore them for a more satisfying gaming outcome. Doc

I think he means with the hundreds marked out. Hundreds are administrative areas in feudal systems, possibly an area that could deliver 100 men-at-arms or contain 100 homesteads. I think it varied from place to place.

I like the idea. I might modify it based on Surrealone's comments. First off, I should come clean to the fact that I love dice pools. :-) I think that you might expend your dice pool in several ways. I think I would decide beforehand if you wanted to be lucky and add a dice to a to hit roll, you could then choose the best three of four dice. Retrospectively I would allow the use of one dice in the pool to reduce the value of one dice in the to hit roll by three (minimum score 1). That should avoid the problem of taking too much table time in re-rolling. As for unluck? That would give the GM a pool to use against the player, adding a dice to a to hit roll and removing the best dice or, retrospectively, adding three to an individual dice. Doc

Yeah, HERO works on underlying game effects with SFX pasted on top. In this case the end result is a collapsed wall. The game effect way to collapse a wall is to do it damage. If you do enough damage the wall is rubble. So, choose your method of doing BODY, I think you would want a continuous attack so that you can keep going until the wall is gone.... Doc

You need to decide exactly what you mean by weaken. Do you mean that it becomes brittle, that a good hard blow with a weapon will bring it crashing down, or do you mean that you can dig away lumps of material with a spoon, or both. You can reflect those things by reducing either the DEF or BODY of a wall. BODY can be reduced with a NND KA, you could limit it to say that it cannot reduce BODY to less than 1. You can reduce DEF by transform, or possibly with a suppress or something?? Tunnelling would simply make holes which may render the wall useless (there is a hole in it) but there is no direct mechanic for those holes to reduce the mechanical integrity of the wall. Doc

Lots of SFX associated with answers. The absolutely factual answer is that a focus is a limitation to power, or powers, used by a character. The limitation tells the GM how often and in what circumstances the player will accept the GM depriving them of their power(s). As such, a glowing badge can be an obvious accessible focus, or it can be a special effect of a power. The distinction should be entirely in the hands of the player and the GM's job is simply to tell the player what he thinks that limitation means and the player can either take the discount with that interpretation or can decide to do something else to manage the budget.... Doc

No argument here, I think it is an issue of perceived damage. I think this exposes HERO's superhero roots as damage is often scaled to be a concern to superheroes rather than benchmarking to a normal level. It is prevalent in many aspects of the game. I do think that if you are going to damage that SPD 3 person on a segmented basis you need to turn to segmented movement for that character. How many segments is the character within the fire assuming constant movement rather than saying "tough luck you ended your move there, you'll be taking damage until you can move again...."

I don't understand why you think it is bonkers. The environment does not stop dealing damage. It does not have a SPD characteristic and so the smallest quantum of time is 1 segment. It definitely makes sense. It might be harsh but it is not unfair if the damage rule is known ahead of time. Personally, I have been looking at having a campaign Speed. So all characters and the environment would begin on the same SPD and characters could buy their SPD up and down from that point. There is a thread on the 6th Edition where I have been discussing this. Would that make more sense to you? (http://www.herogames.com/forums/topic/95652-campaign-settings-speed/) Doc

there have been a few threads on this kind of thing and, as I remember, there are a few different ways to achieve missiles tracking a target. As with everything in HERO, it comes down to what you actually want and what you want to be involved. I could see this being bought simply as an attack (Blast, KA etc) with a modifier to it that limited when it might actually work. The to-hit roll would be modified by all the things covered in the modifier and then you roll the dice. It can be that easy. If you want more detail and chase etc then you can go the route Nolgroth suggests. There are a number of half-way houses. You could have an uncontrolled attack - you set it up with a number of charges. It is limited such that if it hits once all the other charges are lost (that reflects having a limited amount of fuel and only one warhead - multiple chances to attack only one chance to do damage). You can then require, after a missed attack chance, that the missile needs to make a sense type roll to retain its target and it may spend time coming round and then it gets another chance to hit. Really, it all depends on how you want it to play at the table... Doc

It took me some time to parse this properly So, if I am right, you are saying every character should start being able to run the same velocity regardless of their speed? So everyone begins, able to run 48m in 12 seconds. Their move per phase starts on that basis, so a SPD 6 character moves 8m each phase and a SPD 2 character moves 24m. Is that right? I don't think it is a terrible place to start. When you buy movement thereafter, it is prorated by your SPD. Everyone should purchase it by turn and use it by phase? I kind of like the principle...

I have always loved the SPD chart. That is why I left the option of buying up or down an individuals SPD. It is likely that the only people buying lots back would be kooks, which would buy off their kit and skills. I think some players will drop one SPD below because they have other things they want. Some players will want the added value, the increasing cost should make it unlikely for many to buy two steps and almost definitely not three, though some may see an additional three actions to be just as valuable as desolidification... I do therefore see the SPD chart still being a part of my game.

I guess me and my group my must be having BadWrongFun then....

Oh, rather than getting caught up in speedster rights and wrongs, the other thing a campaign speed would be useful for us continuing environmental effects. Everything bought as an environmental effect would default to the campaign speed rather than any particular PC or NPC speed. That would make things like that work more consistently in-game. I think I definitely need to give this a go...and when I do, will let you know if I see fewer speedsters, or if they have been nerves by the setting. :-)

I think that is only true if you consider a speedster to NEED more screentime than other characters. I have come to consider SPD as a screentime measure, if a comicbook page had 12 panels, how many would your character feature in. So Batman and Wolverine might actually be higher SPD than Flash or Quicksilver. Players hate being allowed to do fewer things than their friends. My speedsters will have autofire and other tricks, they may exceed the campaign SPD by one. Nothing more necessary.

I am toying with an idea I had when thinking about a new superhero game for my group. I am thinking that I will set the campaign speed. That is, the default speed will not be 2, it will be whatever I decide it to be. I am thinking that for a Golden Age campaign I might set it at 4. The idea is to think how many turns folk are likely to have between recoveries. In a Bronze Age, I might set it at 6 and in Iron Age possibly nine. You then spend/recoup 10 points for a 1 speed variation, 20 points for a 2 speed variation, 40 points for a three speed variation. I think this begins to better reflect the play value of Speed. After all, twice as many phases gives you twice as much spotlight.... Doc

I think this nails it. If you have not yet built the campaign you want to run, then scale the opposition to the heroes. They can probably justify much more than necessary to overwhelm normal thugs and mobsters (but still have some concern about weapons fire) and make them vital in combatting something out of the ordinary. I could see this being a great urban fantasy twist, where the modern authorities refuse or are unable to see more mystical or fantastical threats but the less 'sophisticated' Victorian adventurers can. It might even be driven by the UnSeelie Court who have been ensuring the general population has been becoming less sensitive to the fantastical over the decades and the heroes have avoided this influence by jumping through time... Doc

Whoops, missed the environmental damage. I think the main part of this is that the more you exert yourself, the more you expose yourself, like struggling in a room with limited oxygen. The players are not without agency, they are able to modify their SPD if that is advantageous to them, or, if you want, you can push it to a fixed (standard) effect, you just need to remember to push the damage button every 2 to 3 segments. For environmental damage, the phases exist because powers were designed for characters with variable speeds. You could implement some environmental effects to be at a standard speed and others to be based on how often a character moves. In a huge fire the damage is likelier to be constant over time (though breathing in superheat steam can be exertion based) whereas running out of oxygen happens faster if people are more active.

My opinion is that it is about bureaucracy. Phases exist because of the SPD chart. The SPD chart adds a strategic element to combat that is relatively absent from other systems, it is pretty unique to HERO. So, if a character buys it to last for two of their actions it is reasonably simply bureaucracy. If it is a set number of segments then you have an additional layer of time-keeping. If that is trivial to your gaming group, then it is reasonably simple to change the rules such that effects last a set number of segments, you probably are going to choose increments of 2 or 3 segments (equivalent to SPDs 6 or 4) which would probably not require any further cost balancing. Doc

I am wondering what it is that you are trying to encourage with such a talent. Not to tell you not to do it but to understand the drive behind it which would inform costings. My first thought is that the only reason to want to take this is if you are going to purchase more than 10 manoeuvres. If you have invested in 10 manoeuvres, what is the value in the next 10, where you begin to reap the benefits? I would be inclined to make, not the manoeuvres but the additional colour elements cheaper. So buying a style, or KS of a particular martial art style. So you could get a natural martial artist being able to swap or analyse different styles and provide the kind of colour that cost constraints squeeze out of the usual considerations. Now that might not be why you came and asked the question, so I am interested in knowing what is behind the question. :-) Doc

Nice ambiguity there, tabloid journalism is all about putting up all the items and letting readers draw their own, usually erroneous, conclusions....

I think what Lucius and Nolgroth are getting at here is that rather than being messy and trying to give yourself powers that you dont have, it is better to build the communications and stuff right into the crows being summoned. So, in effect, you are summoning a natural crow but the summoning means that, when it arrives, you are able to communicate with it to give it messages or hear what it has to say etc. Just because you are building it into the crow does not mean the crow is supernatural. Doc