If you look at the die roller screen, your first line gives you an option for a number of dice, sides, and a modifier. If you keep going right, you'll see a "manual" option.

Enter the die combination you want there. DO not use a capital D. It won't read it. =)

Oh and everyone but Chang Jun please DO roll 3d6 for DEX roll to break ties on DEX.

Tie breaker:

17:04, Today: Sarajen rolled 10 using 3d6 with rolls of 5,2,3.  Tie Breaker Roll.

Couple questions/comments on characters' actions added in purple to Ludvik, Chang and Syssiah's posts.

Please review
This message was last edited by the GM at 13:37, Mon 01 Apr 2019.

You are correct totally forgot that.

Message edited to answer :)

Edit in place.  Still reading/learning about combat & actions, so I'm not sure how much I can do in one turn at this point.  Let me know if I need to adjust further.

Ludvik, here is a quick summary of what you can do.

A character Phase has to halves.  Movement can be a Half Phase, Attacking can be a Half Phase.  Movement can be a Full Phase, Attacking can be a Full Phase.

Move always happens before attack, once you attack no other movement may occur in a phase.

There are exceptions to that move, Move By and Move Through Maneuvers.

Movement can be a Half Move or Full Move. Half moves are Half of a Move total, whether Running, Swimming or Riding or Flying.

A character can use a Half Phase to Half Move  and then use his other Half Phase to attack.

The exception to this is that attacks can be bought to happen at the end of a Full Move, like Charge.

Activating a Defensive Power, like a Weapon Trick is a Zero phase Action, while activating a Offensive Power take a Half Phase, which is an Attack Half Phase action.

Simple, right?

Ludvik - see my further edit to your post.  Need to know what kind of attack maneuver you used and location hit and damage.

Don't worry, this will be 2nd nature soon

What if I want to trip him? (Tackle)

Basically I'm trying to put him at a disadvantage for the rest of the slaves to beat on. (And hoping they do.)

A trip maneuver, call it what you like, Tackle, is a Attack action, so it and any other attack happen in the attack half phase, though there are Attack actions that consume the entire Phase.

Trip is listed in the Combat Maneuvers table in the References Thread.

Your Phase on Segment 12 would be:
- 1/2 Phase to make a 1/2 Move to either the hex with the dead slave driver OR hex LL14 since you have 15m of Running
- 1/2 Phase to attack with Trip.  You're -1 OCV to attack (but we already know you'd hit) and will be at -2 DCV until you go again on Segment 4 of the next Turn.  The Slave Driver will be Prone but will take no damage.  No location or damage roll will be necessary.

Please update you post to clarify the hex you move to and the combat maneuver you're using on the slave driver.

UPDATE: Took liberty of choosing hex for you.  Think it all worked out pretty well
This message was last edited by the GM at 02:05, Wed 03 Apr 2019.

Awaiting update from couple players, will plan to complete Segement 3-5 by Monday.

Sorry for the delay. Almaric would attempt to punch the overseer.

Sent you a PM with the instructions on how to attack, see where you hit and roll for damage.

And it's a good thing because I was going to roll for you and my roll was lousy.

    3d6 = Location = 13 Vitals

1d6+1d3 = Damage   = 1 BODY and 7 STUN

 16-3d6 = DCV hit  = Hit 8 DCV (16 - 8)

That was actually me rolling on behalf of Ludvik.

I'd rolled for Amalric an hour or so ago but I'd much prefer he make his own rolls.

Amalric, if you have any questions feel free to ask.  Even though your Haymaker would hit next segment go ahead and make the roll now; the slave driver isn't going to have the opportunity to move out of the way.

Ah,  so it is, I grabbed the wrong line.

My apologies ... trying to catch up now.  But I'm not sure about combat still, so uncertain what I need to do to proceed.

Best afvice I can give is to ask questions.

Combat in the Hero System works like any other system. There is an order to things.

In particular, combat relies on the "Speed Chart".

Basic combat breaks down into Turns. Each turn has 12 segments, each one being one second long (ergo, turns are 12 seconds each).

A character will have a speed value, which for normal humans is 2. A character's speed determines how many times that character gets to act in one turn. A Speed 2 characters acts twice, a Speed 3 character 3 times, and so forth. A character's actions are evenly divided into the 12 segments of a turn, where that is mathematically easy.

A segment in which a character acts is called a phase. Actions in a phase can be 0 phase, 1/2 phase, or full phase actions. Some actions may take more than one phase: maybe an extra segment past the phase, or two phases.

When a character's phase comes up, they get regular combat choices: move, attack, do something else.

Attacking is a special 1/2 phase action because your phase always ends after an attack, even if it is the only thing you do in a phase and you still have a 1/2 phase left.

If you choose to attack (you've already seen the protocol) you roll:

1. To Hit
2. Location (where you hit)
3. Damage Dice (modified by the location's multipliers)


If two or more characters act in the same phase, the fastest character goes first. The faster character is:

1. The one with the highest DEX (regardless of speed)
2. If tied, break with Speed (higher speed goes first)
3. (optional) if still tied, break with INT (speed of perception and decision making)
4. If still tied, have the players step into the backyard and duke it out. (j/k)

So, in short, in any one turn, you know your character's DEX and you know your character's SPD. This means that on a speed chart you'll be able to see when (in which segment) and who goes before and after (DEX order) your character.

After all 12 segments are completed, all characters get a Post-Segment 12 "recovery". This is important. If your character has taken damage (Stun) or expended energy to do things (Endurance), they get to restore some of the damage done to them and replenish some of their endurance. Use your Recovery stat to add its value to your character's STN and END totals. As is to be expected, you only recover up to the character's normal max. Therefore, REC means how quickly a character can recover from battle trauma and pain, and from normal exertion and exhaustion from battle activities. Needless to say, REC is very important for a combat oriented character.

Side Note: in any one phase, a character can take an additional recovery. However, doing so precludes taking any other action and drops one's combat values to zero (effectively becoming defenseless). If you feel your character needs to do so (because their STN is almost at zero and they are about to fall unconscious) make sure they run to a safe place before you do it. If your character takes damage while taking a recovery the recovery is cancelled.

That's it for basic combat structure.

There are, of course, maneuvers you can do instead of the same old boring strike, strike, strike. You can disarm, haymaker, grab, move-through, trip, etc, etc, etc. like in any standard RPG. (If you have the rulebook, look those up.) Hero System also has a special set of attack maneuvers called Martial Arts, which give combat modifiers (to hit, defense, and damage), representing unique and specialized battle training.

In this setting we don't use magic to start but other settings would include the Hero System powers. Since we are not using them right now, I won't comment any further on them.

And... as previously mentioned, ask questions on anything, no matter simple or innocuous it might seem. =)

The Hero System is involved and can be remarkably technical. It would be called "super crunchy" in normal RPG parlance. :p

But the basic rules are easy. Once you have that down, all else builds on it. And it has an internal consistency. Once you learn that, all else is easy to derive and understand from that basis.

If things still don't make sense at the moment, just play with character actions. Tell the GM what you wish your character to do, and he'll help you translate that into allowed actions, movements, and maneuvers.

Great write-up Sarajen, thanks.

I have snapshots of several reference charts available in the References thread link to a message in this game

As Sarajen said, if you just describe what you want to do several of us can recommend how that would flow.

In combat situations like this it usually just comes down to two questions:
1. Do I want to move?  If so move up to half Running stat
2. Do I want to attack?  Pick maneuver, roll attack (3d6), location if hit lands (3d6), damage (based on weapon or just Strength)

We can interpret the results and show you how we're doing it to help you pick it up.
This message was last edited by the GM at 01:32, Thu 11 Apr 2019.

Ludvik, maybe a walk-through will help?  As stated, just let us know if you have any questions and we'll be more than happy to try to clarify/answer.

You're standing next to a prone slave driver; he defense is reduced by half (from 3 DVC -> 2 DCV cause we round up).

Don't move from your spot; just attack.

The Reference thread has a Combat Maneuvers table to show you some options; Strike or Haymaker are good choices based on how aggressive you want to be.  No immediate enemies besides this one slave drivers so either looks good.

Strike is +0 OCV +0 DCV and does your STR damage (you currently have STR 8, that's 1.5d6)
Haymaker is +0 OCV -5DCV and does your STR +4 Damage Classes (so 1.5d6+4 = 5.5d6)

The difference between the two is Strike is your normal swing while Haymaker is going all out with no regard for defending yourself.

1st roll to see if you hit:  11+(your OCV 5)+/-(any modifiers, this case aren't any)-3d6 = highest DCV you would hit.  So for these choices that's 16-3d6, put that in the Manual text box of the die roller and see what you get.  If the result is a least 2 (the slave driver's current DCV) you'll hit

IF you hit, roll to see where: roll 3d6 and consult Location table in References thread.  Depending on the body location you strike will determine if the man's armor is there to help reduce damage or if you get a multiplier for your damage (Vitals or Head really hurt!).  Since you're not using a Killing Attack you'll look at the N Stun column for Stun damage, ignore the other Stun column.

IF you hit roll for damage:
   - if you chose Strike in the Manual box of the die roller you can put 1d6+1d3
   - if you chose Haymaker then put 5d6+1d3
The total will be the amount of Stun, we count the Body damage of the attack by looking at the values of each die rolled: 1 = 0 Body, 2-5 = 1 Body, 6 = 2 Body.   Just total that up for all die

Once you've posted the rolls I'll calculate how much the slave driver's defenses reduced the Stun and Body damage and if he's knocked out or suffers any other affects like CON stun (if you do more STUN than his CON he has to spend his next Phase recovering instead of doing anything else.

Now, if you chose Haymaker, you're DCV would be reduced by 5 until the next time you get to move.  So, other enemies could take advantage of that and have a better chance of hitting you.  At this point in the combat the only enemy that could attack you is the one you're about to squish (with Amerlic's help) so you're not in any danger there but something to keep in mind for the future.

Finally reduce endurance used:  regardless whether you hit or not this effort cost you endurance (END).  Subtract 1 END for every 5 points of STR used, so 8 / 5 = 2 after rounding.  At the end of the Turn everyone gets a Recovery to get some of that back.  Get's really intense if combat goes on for a couple Turns and everyone is getting exhausted.

Hope that help.  Hope if you still have questions you'll post.

 Still here, having computer  issues

Thanks for the heads-up Amalric.

Have a gander at the walk-through posted above for Ludvik.  Hope it helps you understand how actions a little.