Digest Archive vol 1 Issue 469
From: owner-champ-l-digest@sysabend.org
Sent: Tuesday, July 27, 1999 12:50 AM
To: champ-l-digest@sysabend.org
Subject: champ-l-digest V1 #469
champ-l-digest Tuesday, July 27 1999 Volume 01 : Number 469
In this issue:
Re: Stun from Killing Attacks
Re: Stun from Killing Attacks
Re: Stun from Killing Attacks
RE: Stun from Killing Attacks
Re: Stun from Killing Attacks
Re: Stun from Killing Attacks
Re: Stun from Killing Attacks
RE: Stun from Killing Attacks
Re: Stun from Killing Attacks
Cinematic vs. Realistic (was Stun from Killing Attacks)
Re: Stun from Killing Attacks
Cinematic vs. Realistic (was Stun from Killing Attacks)
Re: Stun from Killing Attacks
Re: Stun from Killing Attacks
Re: Cinematic vs. Realistic (was Stun from Killing Attacks)
Re: Stun from Killing Attacks
power question
Clairsentience: Precognition/Retrocognition
Body vs. Stun (was Stun from Killing Attacks)
Re: Clairsentience: Precognition/Retrocognition
Re: Clairsentience: Precognition/Retrocognition
Re: Stun from Killing Attacks
Re: Stun from Killing Attacks
Hero System Mutant Generator
OT: Coming Attractions At the Movies
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 09:52:12 -0700
From: "James Jandebeur" <james@javaman.to>
Subject: Re: Stun from Killing Attacks
> In real-world terms, minor cuts, scrapes, bruises and such that you shrug
> off quickly.
>
> In heroic terms, you could also lump in more seemingly serious injuries
> such as broken noses, sprained ankles and such.
Actually, I've never thought of any of that as anything but doing Body to
the target. Maybe the minor scrapes and such, simply because it wouldn't do
enough body to add up to a whole Body pip. I've always thought of Stun
damage as the shock to your system that the damage causes that can cause you
to lose consciousness, in other words the "systemic shock" that has been
bandied about recently.
So, if it is systemic shock, why can't it kill you in the game mechanics?
Because this is the HERO System, and that kind of thing doesn't happen to
heroes (or villains or whatnot): they get hit, stabbed, beaten, and so on,
and get up afterwards reasonably all right (unless they actually die). Not
because it is something other than
shock. For realistic games, the addition of Stun damage being able to
roll-over to Body or otherwise kill you would probably work, as someone
suggested with the CON roll.
However, I freely admit that though I think of it that way, I have no rules
quotes to back it up. Can anyone quote something from the book on what Stun
is? I also can't think of anywhere that says any kind of cut, scrape or
bruise, much less a sprained ankle or broken nose, is Stun damage, but it
could very well be there.
Of course, all of this is about Normal or Killing damage attacks that do
Stun, not about NND's or Ego Attacks or Stun Only attacks or whatever: while
those could have that special effect, they don't have to. For that matter,
neither do the Killing or Normal attacks.
JAJ, Gaming Philosopher
http://www.javaman.to/philosopher.html
------------------------------
Date: 26 Jul 1999 13:19:04 -0400
From: Stainless Steel Rat <ratinox@peorth.gweep.net>
Subject: Re: Stun from Killing Attacks
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* "James Jandebeur" <james@javaman.to> on Mon, 26 Jul 1999
| Actually, I've never thought of any of that as anything but doing Body to
| the target. Maybe the minor scrapes and such, simply because it wouldn't do
| enough body to add up to a whole Body pip. I've always thought of Stun
| damage as the shock to your system that the damage causes that can cause you
| to lose consciousness, in other words the "systemic shock" that has been
| bandied about recently.
Systemic shock does not knock you unconscious. Systemic shock kills you.
| So, if it is systemic shock, why can't it kill you in the game mechanics?
1. Because Stun is *NOT* systemic shock.
2. Because systemic shock is rare to begin with, and even when it occours
it only infrequently is lethal. It is a highly chaotic phenomenon,
almost totally unpredictable. Modeling it with game mechanics would be
unweildly at best, so Hero does not even bother.
Put more bluntly, Stun is a generic measure of damage that you can shrug
off quickly; Body is a generic measure of damage that can kill you. Minor
scrapes and bruises and cuts and such will not kill you. A broken nose or
sprained ankle in an heroic setting will not kill you. These are Stun
damage. That does not mean your nose heals almost instantly; it means the
debilitating effects of having your nose broken go away quickly.
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------------------------------
Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 10:47:17 -0700
From: "James Jandebeur" <james@javaman.to>
Subject: Re: Stun from Killing Attacks
> Systemic shock does not knock you unconscious. Systemic shock kills you.
Fine, fine. Whoever brought up the concept brought into the discussion
something irrelevant, then, since it is not supported by the rules at all:
damage that wouldn't otherwise kill you suddenly doing so. That being the
case, it is STILL Stun damage, or at the very least Body damage insufficient
to kill you, but with an optional rule that someone brought up to make a CON
roll to see if it kills you. Since it is not what I was thinking of, I'll
drop it.
Continuing on with the relevant points: Stun damage is a cumulative set of
things that cause you to pass out. It is the pain of being injured, the gas
attack, shock from blood loss, suffucation, and so on. It is not broken
bones and cartilage, nor is it torn and bruised soft tissues. Those are BODY
damage.
Body damage, on the other hand, is the cumulative damage that can kill you,
or how much damage it takes in a single attack to do so. No, a broken nose
won't kill you. Nor will a sprained ankle. No attack that does a body point
or two will kill you, which these are, or at least could be. A broken leg
will also not kill you: are you saying that it is not Body damage because it
cannot (or does not normally) kill you?
However, I never said that anyone else had to think of these the same way: I
specifically said that is how I thought of it. So, if you want to think of
it differently, fine. Broken noses and such are certainly arguable (not that
I would care to argue it any further), since whether they do the 1 Body or
not is impossible to tell. I'd have to go and break somebodies nose, wait
for blood loss, then see if it is any easier to kill them afterwords. I
don't care to do so.
JAJ, Gaming Philosopher
http://www.javaman.to/philosopher.html
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 11:45:34 -0700
From: hunsaker <hunsaker@mother.com>
Subject: RE: Stun from Killing Attacks
I am new to the list, and play AD&D mostly, but have such a modified =
AD&D game, it plays like HERO! Anyway, my input is the possible use of =
an idea from AD&D, where stun damage is taken from "non-lethal" attacks, =
like punching and such. However, I say "non-lethal" because such =
attacks can eventually kill you in AD&D, here is how it works. =20
Every 4 points of stun damage you suffer, means 1 of those 4 is not =
actually stun, but real. You take the total stun damage suffered in a =
fight, at the end of the fight, and divide by 4, dropping fractions, =
this is how much of that stun remains as real damage. =20
HERO could do the same thing, but instead of counting all stun suffered =
in this way, just count those attacks that cause "massive" stun, which =
would be defined by some threshold. You could use, say, CON/2 or CON/3 =
or whatever as this threshold, then whenever an attack does stun, if the =
stun from that attack exceeds this threshold value, 25% of it(divide by =
4 rounding down) is actual BODY damage. Instead of using 25%, you could =
use one of the HERO attributes, say, PD. Divide the stun by PD to get =
the BODY damage. So a hero with say a 20 CON, and a 4 PD, suffers a =
stun attack for 20 points that gets through his defenses. CON/2 for him =
is 10, so only attacks that get 11 or more stun through can cause this =
kind of damage to begin with. Because this attack got 20 points of stun =
through his defenses, it qualifies. Take the stun that he suffered, and =
divide it by his PD, 20/4 is 5, so this attack did 5 BODY. =20
If this seems to much for you, just modify it as you wish, divide by =
the original threshold, for example, instead, and get less BODY damage, =
in this case, if you use the threshold as both the limit for when this =
rule applies, and the divisor of the STUN, then the 20 STUN would be =
divided by the 10 threshold, for 2 BODY from the attack. =20
This was just an idea to see if it might help someone.
------------------------------
Date: 26 Jul 1999 15:29:19 -0400
From: Stainless Steel Rat <ratinox@peorth.gweep.net>
Subject: Re: Stun from Killing Attacks
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* "James Jandebeur" <james@javaman.to> on Mon, 26 Jul 1999
| Body damage, on the other hand, is the cumulative damage that can kill you,
| or how much damage it takes in a single attack to do so. No, a broken nose
| won't kill you. Nor will a sprained ankle. No attack that does a body point
| or two will kill you, which these are, or at least could be. A broken leg
| will also not kill you: are you saying that it is not Body damage because it
| cannot (or does not normally) kill you?
Please read what I wrote. In an *HEROIC* campaign setting, a broken nose
or sprained ankle is an inconvenience. They are painful for a few minutes
and then more or less ignored.
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PGP Key: at a key server near you! \
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 12:43:18 -0700
From: "James Jandebeur" <james@javaman.to>
Subject: Re: Stun from Killing Attacks
> Please read what I wrote. In an *HEROIC* campaign setting, a broken nose
> or sprained ankle is an inconvenience. They are painful for a few minutes
> and then more or less ignored.
I did read what you wrote, I just don't think of it that way. I wouldn't
argue the point if a GM chose to do it that way, though: it's perfectly
reasonable.
JAJ, GP
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 13:12:39 -0700 (PDT)
From: Ben Brown <benbrown@primenet.com>
Subject: Re: Stun from Killing Attacks
On Mon, 26 Jul 1999, James Jandebeur wrote:
> > Please read what I wrote. In an *HEROIC* campaign setting, a broken nose
> > or sprained ankle is an inconvenience. They are painful for a few minutes
> > and then more or less ignored.
>
> I did read what you wrote, I just don't think of it that way. I wouldn't
> argue the point if a GM chose to do it that way, though: it's perfectly
> reasonable.
>
> JAJ, GP
>
This sort of thing is incredibly dependent on campaign and genre.
Okay, so systemic shock is more akin to BODY than to STUN damage.
That's fine, except that in most cases, we're not trying to model
the Real World. We're attempting to do heroic fiction (or superheroic
fiction).
There are games that are very good for an extreme level of detail about
what each injury represents (GURPS is the best example that I play on a
semi-regular basis) but HERO is not one of them.
It is, however, good for doing action movie stuff. In action movies,
people are forever walking around on sprained ankles, and tying up
what in non-action movie people would be critical wounds, and walking
away without slowing down.
Similarly, in an action movie it's easy to knock someone out by clubbing
him over the head. In real life, a knockout is not what you're going to get,
but that's not what we're simulating. That's stun damage right there.
Stuff like that.
It's a cinematic game, and trying to define things realistically
will not work unless you bend things a little. It can be done,
but the cinematicness is part of what I really like.
- -Ben
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 16:25:39 -0400
From: Brian Wawrow <bwawrow@fmco.com>
Subject: RE: Stun from Killing Attacks
Here's the thing about stun. Most heroes, super or otherwise, unless they've
been knocked out, can recover their full Stun post-combat in a couple of
turns worth of forced recovery. Have you ever seen someone have their broken
nose fix itself by walking it off?
To my mind, Stun is all about pain, wind and consciousness. It never ever
involves significant tissue damage. The only possible long term effects of
Stun come from being Stunned into the GM's discretion range or being
somewhere inconvenient when you get knocked out.
Try to remember a specific day that you played contact sports and didn't get
seriously injured. All that pain, exhaustion and lactic acid is Stun, baby,
Stun. If you get winded and need to recover for a second before you get back
up, you've been stunned. If you ever get hit so hard that you lose
consciousness for a short time but don't have a concussion? Your Stun went
below zero. It's not hard.
I think minor injuries like broken noses, dislocated fingers, bruised ribs
and so on are injuries where you suffer one or two points of BOD loss. A
normal human takes days and days to fully recover from those injuries.
This is not a big deal, if you want to imagine that your hero has a big
shiner and a split lip after getting into a scrap where he only suffered
Stun, fine, no biggies. I just got a little freaked out when I noticed
someone talking about using optional AD&D rules for Hero combat. That's just
nasty.
To me, if you were going to change the damage rules to make Stun more
realistic, you would tie it in to END more. Getting knocked around can
really tire you out. Go run a mile. Now do it again and have someone
violently tackle you to the ground every 50m or so and see what that does to
your long term END burn. Likewise, you're much easier to knock on your ass
[get Stunned] after the mile than before it.
I'm not entirely sure how armour fits into this analogy. I played more rugby
than football and there always seemed to be a lot more injured football
players than rugby players. Why? conditioning. If you have a good CON, you
don't need no stinkin' armour. Mind you, nobody was laying killing attacks
on me in the scrum, except for that one time.
BRI
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 13:54:24 -0700 (PDT)
From: Anthony Jackson <ajackson@molly.iii.com>
Subject: Re: Stun from Killing Attacks
Brian Wawrow writes:
> Here's the thing about stun. Most heroes, super or otherwise, unless
> they've been knocked out, can recover their full Stun post-combat in a
> couple of turns worth of forced recovery. Have you ever seen someone have
> their broken nose fix itself by walking it off?
In the real world, physical damage pretty much can't knock someone out without causing long-term damage (certain types of chemical and electrical effects can). About the only way to 'knock someone out' with a punch is to give them a concussion (knocking the wind out of them can temporarily disable, usually without long-term effects, but doesn't actually render them unconscious). However, knocking people out is a comic-book staple, which is why champions has the concept of 'stun'.
>
> To my mind, Stun is all about pain, wind and consciousness. It never ever
> involves significant tissue damage. The only possible long term effects of
> Stun come from being Stunned into the GM's discretion range or being
> somewhere inconvenient when you get knocked out.
>
> Try to remember a specific day that you played contact sports and didn't
> get seriously injured. All that pain, exhaustion and lactic acid is Stun,
Actually, most of it is long-term fatigue loss, not stun. Admittedly, the distinction is somewhat artificial.
> baby, Stun. If you get winded and need to recover for a second before you
> get back up, you've been stunned. If you ever get hit so hard that you lose
> consciousness for a short time but don't have a concussion? Your Stun went
> below zero. It's not hard.
If you need to recover for a second before getting back up, it's probably fatigue loss, not stun. Unless you had the wind _knocked_ out of you, in which case it really is stun. If you are hit hard enough to be unconscious for a significant period of time (say, post-12d) you almost certainly _do_ have a concussion.
> I'm not entirely sure how armour fits into this analogy. I played more
> rugby than football and there always seemed to be a lot more injured
> football players than rugby players. Why? conditioning. If you have a good
> CON, you don't need no stinkin' armour. Mind you, nobody was laying killing
> attacks on me in the scrum, except for that one time.
Armor tires you out, and lets you absorb a whole lot more minor impacts (which don't do much beyond fatiguing you either).
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 14:02:31 -0700
From: "James Jandebeur" <james@javaman.to>
Subject: Cinematic vs. Realistic (was Stun from Killing Attacks)
As before, these are just my thoughts on the matter. They are no more or
less valid than anyone elses, they are just how I think of the items in
question.
> There are games that are very good for an extreme level of detail about
> what each injury represents (GURPS is the best example that I play on a
> semi-regular basis) but HERO is not one of them.
I don't know about that one: with all the optional rules in place, it does
the job well enough for any need I expect to have, though I don't generally
run games that would be considered "realistic". On the other hand, I don't
generally use any of them except in specific cases, like the hero wants to
shoot someone in the leg or some such.
> It is, however, good for doing action movie stuff. In action movies,
> people are forever walking around on sprained ankles, and tying up
> what in non-action movie people would be critical wounds, and walking
> away without slowing down.
Which is nicely simulated by taking Body pips: if not playing with some of
said optional rules, having taken BODY does nothing to slow you down. So
whether the sprained ankle is Body or Stun is fairly accademic: it has
little impact that I think of it as having taken a Body pip while others
think of it as having taken some Stun, except insofar as they are a tiny bit
closer to death. I see nothing wrong with the idea that 20 similar injuries
could cause death, though it's never actually come up in my games and would
be hard to prove to be realistic.
> Similarly, in an action movie it's easy to knock someone out by clubbing
> him over the head. In real life, a knockout is not what you're going to
get,
> but that's not what we're simulating. That's stun damage right there.
Using the optional rules again, the normal damage head shot doing, say, 6
dice, is going to do 8 body to the normal person you hit in the head, but
nothing to the Hero with 8 PD. The 8 Body is an Impairing hit, and is going
to mess the target up for some time, and the target will be bleeding
internally (most likely) and may die without medical help. The Hero, with a
higher defense, is likely to be a lot better off, and will just be
unconscious.
> Stuff like that.
>
> It's a cinematic game, and trying to define things realistically
> will not work unless you bend things a little. It can be done,
> but the cinematicness is part of what I really like.
Me, too, actually, but the rules are there to make it more realistic if
that's what was desired. In fact, all you'd really need to make it a bit
more realistic is carefully choosing statistics and not allowing them to go
beyond certain levels, like not allowing PD to be bought up directly (so
it's 2-4 in a Heroic game) or having Body start a bit lower. And like that.
Maybe that's more brutal than realistic.
JAJ, GP
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 16:10:09 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Dr. Nuncheon" <jeffj@io.com>
Subject: Re: Stun from Killing Attacks
On Mon, 26 Jul 1999, Ben Brown wrote:
> Okay, so systemic shock is more akin to BODY than to STUN damage.
Actually, I lost the post which asked for a good way to handle systemic
shock in HERO, but it hit me (like a brick) that it would be an excellent
example of a BODY Drain (with limitations).
It does BODY, but recovers in a short amount of time. Presumably while
you're still getting over systemic shock you're more vulnerable to other
trauma (and its attendant shock) but I guess I can't be entirely certain
about that.
I'd suggest: xd6 BODY Drain, only if linked KA does BODY, effect
proportional to KA's body.
J
"Yeilds falsehood when preceded by its quotation" Jeff Johnston
yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation. jeffj @ io.com
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 14:13:21 -0700
From: "James Jandebeur" <james@javaman.to>
Subject: Cinematic vs. Realistic (was Stun from Killing Attacks)
> In the real world, physical damage pretty much can't knock someone out
without causing long-term damage (certain types of chemical and
> electrical effects can). About the only way to 'knock someone out' with a
punch is to give them a concussion (knocking the wind out of them
> can temporarily disable, usually without long-term effects, but doesn't
actually render them unconscious). However, knocking people out is a
> comic-book staple, which is why champions has the concept of 'stun'.
Can't agree with that. Well, not completely. It probably is part of why they
have a Stun score. However, the thing that makes it unrealistic is not the
separate score itself, but the fact that you often take stun from attacks
and no Body. To use a previous example, in a Heroic game using the optional
damage rules, a 6 die blow to the head would do 8 Body and 40 Stun to the
normal person, on average. That's being knocked out with a really nasty
concussion, which is a fairly realistic effect of such a blow. PD4 gives 4
Body and 38 STUN, while a heroic PD6 gives no Body and 36 STUN, the
cinematic/comic book effect of being knocked out from the blow without
lasting effects.
JAJ, GP
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 14:21:59 -0700 (PDT)
From: Anthony Jackson <ajackson@molly.iii.com>
Subject: Re: Stun from Killing Attacks
Dr. Nuncheon writes:
> On Mon, 26 Jul 1999, Ben Brown wrote:
>
> > Okay, so systemic shock is more akin to BODY than to STUN damage.
>
> Actually, I lost the post which asked for a good way to handle systemic
> shock in HERO, but it hit me (like a brick) that it would be an excellent
> example of a BODY Drain (with limitations).
Not sure what 'system shock' is. I guess it just means 'shock'. Handle it by the bleeding rules; the effects of bleeding and shock are similar enough within the overall resolution of the game system (they both make you go unconscious and die later, unless you recover, which you can do spontaneously or with assistance). If it means hydrostatic shock, its a myth.
That said, bleeding damage probably should be handled specially, in that unlike trauma, it can be healed quite quickly with proper treatment. This also applies to shock.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 14:18:55 -0700
From: "James Jandebeur" <james@javaman.to>
Subject: Re: Stun from Killing Attacks
> > Okay, so systemic shock is more akin to BODY than to STUN damage.
>
> Actually, I lost the post which asked for a good way to handle systemic
> shock in HERO, but it hit me (like a brick) that it would be an excellent
> example of a BODY Drain (with limitations).
If I'm understanding what this thing is properly, it may be that it's simply
the results (in game terms) of an injury that happens to do maximum or
beyond normal damage. For instance, something does 8 normal dice of damage
to you happening to roll really well and doing 13 Body, leaving you dying
from it, though not immediately dead.
But that sounds like the way of inducing such a state, if the game in
question actually allows Body Drains to kill.
JAJ, GP
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 14:34:50 -0700 (PDT)
From: Anthony Jackson <ajackson@molly.iii.com>
Subject: Re: Cinematic vs. Realistic (was Stun from Killing Attacks)
James Jandebeur writes:
> Can't agree with that. Well, not completely. It probably is part of why
> they have a Stun score. However, the thing that makes it unrealistic is
> not the separate score itself, but the fact that you often take stun from
> attacks and no Body.
Hm...ok, I'll agree with that. This has more to do with how defenses work in champions than anything. Just halve all defenses against BODY damage (and give normals slightly higher base PD) and you wind up with fairly realistic lethality.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 17:26:08 -0700
From: "Filksinger" <filksinger@flashmail.com>
Subject: Re: Stun from Killing Attacks
From: Bob Greenwade <bob.greenwade@klock.com>
> I'm wondering, now: what, in real-world terms, *is* STUN damage?
Not real?:)
Seriously, though. In real life, there isn't really anything that
quite matches up to STUN and BODY. They are less than perfect
simulations.
For example, suppose you got stabbed with your average light nail,
because someone turned a nail gun into a weapon. Ten rounds, or
twenty, probably wouldn't kill you. But you wouldn't be recovered
completely in another 10 minutes, either. The wounds will exist for
days.
Another example is a broken finger. Is it BODY or STUN? How about a
broken toe? If broken toes and fingers are STUN, why do they impair
you for days afterwards? If they are BODY, when was the last time you
heard of someone being killed by breaking all his fingers and toes?
Even with hit location modifiers, that's still 10 BODY, no matter how
you call it, enough to kill the average man and more than enough to
kill the average woman. In fact, it should be 20 BODY, so just
breaking all your fingers should kill you. In fact, a broken index
finger certainly impairs the use of that hand, so that should be 5
BODY, or 2 after hit location mods. But I doubt you can find many
people who were killed by breaking all the fingers in one hand.
Nevertheless, you can expect a great deal of arguing about whether or
not a broken finger, or broken nose, or a nasty razor cut, are BODY or
STUN. Guess what? They're neither; they're real.
Filksinger
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 17:33:22 -0700 (PDT)
From: Anthony Jackson <ajackson@molly.iii.com>
Subject: power question
I was looking at ways of making the hero system scale more accurately between different size frames (current scheme results in a variety of statistical anomalies) and was thinking of a construction in the form of:
'Scale X: each level of scale adds 1 DC to all your attacks, subtracts 1 DC from all attacks against you, and gives +5 STR for lifting purposes. It also increases size and mass per growth. Every 3 levels doubles the area of all area effects.' I'd also make the CV modifiers for size only apply for negating range modifiers.
This means that giant monsters (godzilla-type) can just be built with normal character sheets (probably 50-100 points) and then given scale-15 or so.
This could maybe be done with aid/suppress combinations, but assuming I don't want to create such combinations, what _should_ this sort of effect be worth? I'm figuring 25 points or so, but...
aid: 1d6(5), all attacks (+2), constant (+1), persistant (+1) (25), self-only(-1/2), always-on (-1/2) = 12. +Max is cheaper...
suppress: 1.5d6(7), all attacks (+2), affects incoming attacks (+1?), persistant (+1)(35), always-on (-1/2) = 23.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 18:12:06 -0700
From: "Mr. Cup O. Slaw" <coleslaw1@wa.freei.net>
Subject: Clairsentience: Precognition/Retrocognition
First, thanks for the quick reply on the multipower slots concerning
extra time.
Now, my new question concerns Clairsentience. I understand that for
+20 pts the character can see into the past or future and for +40 the
character can see into both. However, the book is not clear on whether
or not the character still maintains his ability to use clairsentience
in the present. I assume that since the cost is "+" 20 or 40 that the
player is simply making an already existing power more powerful and is
able to use clairsentience the same as if he/she had never purchase the
+20 to look into the past or future. Am I assuming too much??
Thanks for your time & help,
Coleslaw
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 18:09:56 -0700
From: "James Jandebeur" <james@javaman.to>
Subject: Body vs. Stun (was Stun from Killing Attacks)
> > I'm wondering, now: what, in real-world terms, *is* STUN damage?
> Not real?:)
> Seriously, though. In real life, there isn't really anything that
> quite matches up to STUN and BODY. They are less than perfect
> simulations.
True. But, then, what simulation is? P-) (my hair is rather long at the
moment, and tends to hang over my face a bit)
> For example, suppose you got stabbed with your average light nail,
> because someone turned a nail gun into a weapon. Ten rounds, or
> twenty, probably wouldn't kill you. But you wouldn't be recovered
> completely in another 10 minutes, either. The wounds will exist for
> days.
Would each nail do a body or more? Probably not. If such wounds are
considered to be Body damage, the whole attack (5 nails, say) could be
considered, for example, a half or single die killing attack. The attack
could also be considered to be Stun: the wounds exist but don't impair you
or bring you closer to death, so the little bit of bleeding is special
effect and has no further game mechanical effect. The fact that it's days
later that you heal is also special effect.
Under either circumstance, the system does not break down if simply applied
properly. No game system I know of simulates reality particularly well with
no input of the common sense of the players and the GM.
> Another example is a broken finger. Is it BODY or STUN?
It's Body, most likely, since it has long term effects. In a seriously
Heroic game it might be Stun if it has no significant long term effects: the
character splints it and moves on. So, as always, it could be either.
> How about a
> broken toe?
Still probably Body.
> If broken toes and fingers are STUN, why do they impair
> you for days afterwards? If they are BODY, when was the last time you
> heard of someone being killed by breaking all his fingers and toes?
There is no reason, however, to assume that breaking a toe or a finger is,
individually, a Body pip. It takes 2 Body to the hand (after halving) to
disable it, that could be several broken fingers or a badly broken one that
is painful. If in one of those torture scenes where the bad guy is breaking
fingers of the hero, what are you doing getting to all ten? And, in any
event, after the first one the next is probably mostly pain (in game
mechanical terms): they'll probably heal just as quickly as one, as long as
cared for and watered. If the first broken finger is considered to impair
the hand, you don't have to impair the hand again, so you could simply
ignore the Body done. Just apply a total Body score for the various fingers
broken after the fact.
> Nevertheless, you can expect a great deal of arguing about whether or
> not a broken finger, or broken nose, or a nasty razor cut, are BODY or
> STUN. Guess what? They're neither; they're real.
Real things that happen during games and can have useful effects on the
running of those games. And therefore completely appropriate things for
discussion in game terms. Different views of handling those things is a
perfectly reasonable thing to present, as long as it does not become too
argumentative. I thought this was part of the point of the list, but the
tone of your last statement seems to imply otherwise.
JAJ, GP
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 18:18:47 -0700
From: "James Jandebeur" <james@javaman.to>
Subject: Re: Clairsentience: Precognition/Retrocognition
> Now, my new question concerns Clairsentience. I understand that for
> +20 pts the character can see into the past or future and for +40 the
> character can see into both. However, the book is not clear on whether
> or not the character still maintains his ability to use clairsentience
> in the present
That's what I've always assumed without some limitation that would imply
otherwise (for example, I have an Archaeologist that can only see things
that happened at least a hundred years ago).
JAJ, GP
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 18:32:13 -0700
From: "Mr. Cup O. Slaw" <coleslaw1@wa.freei.net>
Subject: Re: Clairsentience: Precognition/Retrocognition
>>That's what I've always assumed without some limitation that would
imply
>>otherwise (for example, I have an Archaeologist that can only see
things
>>that happened at least a hundred years ago).
>>JAJ, GP
I also thought I could just throw a limitation on the
Precognition/Retrocognition to make it "only in the past" or "only in
the future" but was not quite sure if that was correct. Thanks for the
quick reply.
P.S. What would you make that limitation worth??
Coleslaw
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 21:02:50 -0500
From: Ross Rannells <rossrannells@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Stun from Killing Attacks
Stainless Steel Rat wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> * Ross Rannells <rossrannells@worldnet.att.net> on Sun, 25 Jul 1999
> | Niether does Ballistic Shock directly. It can cause muscle spasms and
> | loss of muscle control and when severe enough can cause muscles to shut
> | down. If the muscle happens to be the heart, it can kill.
>
> Thank you, I learned what systemic shock is some 20 years ago when I took
> my first First Aid and Lifesaving course.
>
> Systemic shock is *NOT* Stun damage. Systemic shock can kill; taking Stun
> damage cannot, ever, under any circumstances, kill someone. A person could
> be hammered to -1x10^128 Stun; he will not die from it. Which means that
> Increased Stun Multiple doesn't even come close to simulating systemic
> shock.
Then what is?
Considering the fact that a person taken to -1x10^128+20 stun
would require an artificial means of support to keep them alive for
the 2.5x10^127+5 recoveries it would take to get back to 0 stun.
If the GM is nice and gives them a recovery every phase, It would
give them 3.1536x10^7 recoveries per year. Which means that in
about 1x10^119 years they will actully be concious. Nobody is
going to be kept on life support for that long.
Lets move from the rediculous back to the fantasy entertainment
of Champions. If I recall correctly the damage from specialized
munitions only increases the chance of death by a few percantage
points, just beyound the statistical error of the sampling. Meaning
that there is an increase, just a small one. Now even a single
damage class increase in an RKA guarentees at least one
additional body, which is 1/20 of a normals life or 5%. Now it
has been a couple years since I did any reading in this area but
I do not remember any of the fatality rates increasing by that
much, or even on that being within a standard deviation of 5%.
If you have an data that does show this, I would be glad to see
it.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 21:29:49 -0500
From: Ross Rannells <rossrannells@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Stun from Killing Attacks
Filksinger wrote:
> From: Ross Rannells <rossrannells@worldnet.att.net>
>
> <snip>
> > The explanation I gave came from an emergency room Doctor. He said
> > the trama was roughly equivelent for rounds with equivelent loads.
> The
> > difference was in the balistic shock effect. Balistic shock can
> kill and doe
> > do some harm to the body, but its effects are also easily recovered
> from,
> > so I interpret that be the stun component. The trama effect kills
> more
> > readily and takes a much longer time to recover from, so I
> interpreted
> > that to be the Body component. Now I have seen other documentation
> > stating that hollow points killed on a higher average then standard
> rounds
> > but only one that broke down the effects. If you have a reference
> that
> > contridicts mine, I would gladly check it out.
>
> The FBI did in-depth ballistics studies about 5 years ago, shortly
> after a disastrous shoot-out in Florida. Others have been done. They
> show a definitely larger wound channel from hollow point rounds. They
> also show a larger _temporary_ wound cavity, where the wound shrinks
> after the initial trauma, though some tearing occurs. This second is a
> major cause of "ballistic shock".
>
> You might also keep in mind that ballistic shock cannot be STUN
> damage, because ballistic shock kills, and STUN damage does not. OTOH,
> it isn't exactly BODY damage, either, as it heals so quickly.
> Personally, I'd limit ballistic shock to realistic games.
I'm only running Superheroic currently, but the point is well taken.
> What I'd do
> with it there, I don't know. Temporarily doubling the damage from
> bullets _might_ not be a bad idea, with a healing rate of 1 BODY/Turn
> for the additional damage, and STUN multiples adding +1 BODY for each
> +1 STUN. It would probably dramatically improve the realism of guns in
> your campaign.
>
> Filksinger
It seems a little extreme to increase the both the damage class and
the stun multiplier. That's an additional 17 points for a 20 pint attack
and 20 points for a 25 point attack. That turns a, 8 Str Min gun into
a 15 Str Min gun. Especially since the effect is so short lived. Of
course if you ruled that this only effected Non Central NPCs it
would go along way to giveing the cinematic effect of the PCs
mowing down large numbers of agents with only one hit each but
having the main villian take several rounds to bring down.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 22:25:42 -0500
From: Bob Cahill <bcahill@starwind.net>
Subject: Hero System Mutant Generator
Hello all!
I recently finished putting together a mostly random mutant generator.
The webpage http://www.starwind.net/hsmg will allow you to put in some
numbers and get a random character creator.
It should work in Netscape and MSIE 4 and higher. Viewing and printing
works better in Netscape than MSIE.
Please let me know what you think. And send any suggestions or comments
my way hsmg@starwind.net
Thanks,
Bob Cahill
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 14:09:48 -0700
From: Bob Greenwade <bob.greenwade@klock.com>
Subject: OT: Coming Attractions At the Movies
I was doing a little research this morning, and came across this little
tidbit on the Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com).
To soon be added to the growing list of classic television programs
being remade as movies is none other than "Gilligan's Island." Little
specific information is available aside from Brian Dennehy as the Skipper,
and Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Mary Ann. (I was even unable to identify the
producer and director -- but these two cast members, at least, don't give
me the kind of misgivings I felt when I learned that Will Smith had been
cast as James West in the film that will do for his career what "Ishtar"
did for Dustin Hoffman's.)
(This does kind of relate to this list, BTW, in that I think that
"Gilligan's Island" would make an interesting setting for a published HERO
System game. Once, when I was gaming in Salem, someone threw together a
Gilligan's Island one-shot game using the HERO System, and while I wasn't
able to participate in it, I did hear stories about it afterward about how
much fun it was.)
- ---
Bob's Original Hero Stuff Page! [Circle of HEROS member]
http://www.klock.com/public/users/bob.greenwade/original.htm
Merry-Go-Round Webring -- wanna join?
http://www.klock.com/public/users/bob.greenwade/merrhome.htm
Interested in sarrusophones? Join the Sarrusophone Mailing List!
http://www.klock.com/public/users/bob.greenwade/sarrus.htm
------------------------------
End of champ-l-digest V1 #469
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Date: Monday, September 06, 1999 10:46 AM