From: silber@m.cs.uiuc.edu (Ami A. Silberman)
Subject: Re: Champions
Organization: University of Illinois, Dept. of Comp. Sci., Urbana, IL
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 18:03:34 GMT

wwallace@ucrengr.ucr.edu (wayne wallace) writes:

>In article <RATINOX.92Jul23103035@splinter.coe.northeastern.edu> ratinox@splinter.coe.northeastern.edu (Richard Pieri/Stainless Steel Rat) writes:
>>>>>>> On 23 Jul 92 13:48:09 GMT, jsalter@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (joshua
>>>>>>> salter) said:
>>
>>Yes, a good investment if you enjoy cinematic, heroic gaming. If you're
>>looking for "reality," go someplace else.

>Excuse me? HERO can't do "reality" ? Try this simple experiment:

>Play fantasy or star hero, or something in a 75+75 or lower game,
>(for the original poster, 150 total points, which is the top end of
>heros, because anything more is usually superheroic) and....

>FORBID RESISTANT DEFENSE. If no one has any defense against killing attacks,
>which all swords and guns are, the average 2d6 killing attack does 7
>body, and for an avg. 10 body character (body is hit points for bleeding.
>another characteristic, stun, takes care of consciousness), he's looking
>bad. A second hit puts him bleeding to death, and with average stun, the
>character is now definitely unconscious and dying. Is that "realistic"
>enough for you? Heck, if you roll a 10 or higher on those two damage dice,
>the average character is BLEEDING to DEATH and STUNNED!!! (Loss of one combat
>round, the current one if he hasn't acted, the next one if he has.)
>Superheros tend to be harder to kill... Oh yeah, if you think falling
>damage isn't strong enough, consider concrete to be a killing attack when
>you hit, so broken bones and such will abound. (IE divide damage dice by 3
>or look at the damage class chart)

>HERO does realism just fine. And if your characters have fantasy or science
>fiction armor, of course, the damage will be lessened a bit. Of course,
>due to encumbrance, the armor usually won't cover ALL of the body so it
>could be ignored if someone has enough plusses to hit to call a shot to
>an unarmored area. 

A couple of comments. First, skills still cost too much. If one has three
INT skills, its cheaper to buy up INT rather than the skills. There are
a couple of ways to fix this:
1. Make skills cost only 1 point to increase the ability by 1.
2. Make an assumption about what the skills really mean. I think that most
people have about three skills at anything over the familiarity level.
If one allows people with familiarity to eventually accomplish non-difficult
tasks, or keep rolling, then it makes sense to have a character with three to
five skills and ten familiarities. For example, your average auto mechanic
has bought the skill. If you can fix your own car, but don't do a lot of
other stuff, then you have familiarity. The pitfall is in the word 
"familiarity", I think that what they really mean is "level at which the average
person who knows how to do this can do this at if he/she is not a pro"
I'ld also give anyone about an 8 to try to do almost anything, but only once.
(For instance, although I know little about car repair, I can fix my car about
one in three times that it breaks down, usually because it is something very
trivial, like a blown fuse or loose wire.)

Another comment. The armor and body given to inanimate objects is far too
low. 
-- 
ami silberman - janitor of lunacy
	silber@cs.uiuc.edu
Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA