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House Rules and Interpretations

1. DUPs
2. Time -- Weeks, Months and Years
3. Powers
   • The Amphibious Power
   • The Growth Power
   • The Intangibility Power
   • The Magic Power
   • The Shrinking Power
   • The Weapon Creation Power
4. Combat Rules
   • Parries
   • Charge into Combat, et al.
5. Advantageous Backgrounds
   • Contacts
   • Brilliant Mystic
   • Immortal

DUPs

I find that the recommended number of DUPS, 7 per week, allows characters to improve too quickly for my tastes. (Or possibly I prefer to stagger adventures further apart than is usual, with the same net result.) In any case, what this means is that characters will usually be working from a base of more like 5 or 6 DUPS, and will be encouraged to spend DUPs on things other than sheer mechanical improvement. This is where role-playing comes in. So things like parties for the idle rich, charity work in (or out) of Superhero ID which may (or may not) help campaign ratings, dates, and so on are all things on which DUPs should be spent.

In other words, DUPs are tool to improve both the role and the numbers.

Time -- Weeks, Months and Years

The standard unit of time in Golden Heroes is the week; DUPs and bonus DUPs are awarded on a weekly schedule, power improvements require some weeks to adjust, and so on. So to make life easier, we're not going to worry too much about time other than on a weekly basis. Therefore, for record-keeping purposes, all months will have four weeks.

The Amphibious Power

• Grade 1: The character breathe underwater unimpaired and is more "at home" in the water than on air. The character can move and maneuver in water at their original movement rate. (Not reduced to 1/5 for normal swimmers.)
• Grade 2: In addition, the character's body is built to withstand the pressures of the deep. so they can dive to any depth without impairment. This grants the character +1d6+3 Strength and +1d6 Vigour. However, the character must regularly be in contact with water or their amphibious body dries out, causing them problems. After 1 hour without contact with water, the character may not recover HTC or HTK. After two hours, 1d6 HTC per minute is taken. AFter unconsicousness, it becomes 1d6 HTK. This effect is stopped by either immersion in water or water being poured onto the hero (A minute in the shower would do.)
• As an option, a character who rolls this power may upgrade to Grade 2 without an additional power roll, but must take the following limitiation in addition to the regular Grade 2 limitation: the character can only breathe water ... on the surface, he must have some sort of "respirator" to function.

The Growth Power

Growth as listed in the rules, does not have any grades above 1. In fact, there are multiple grades, and they work similarly to multiple grades of the "Larger/Taller" power.

The Intangibility Power

As an option for Grade 2 Intangibility, the character may choose to be able to affect more mass including other characters. They must be in physical contact with the person or mass, which means either a willing accomplice or a successful grab.

The other Grade two options (full immunity, solidification attack, ec.) are not gained if this option is taken.

The character can "phase" 25 kg without difficulty, allowing them to carry their clothes and so forth. Larger masses cost 1d6 HTC/+50 kg, and the cost is applied each turn after the first full turn of "phasing." Most humans can therefore be carried for 1d6HTC/turn since they mass less than 75 kg.

The Magic Power

1. Extra Options for Enhancement
   As a Gimmick, the Enhancement power can also provide some or all of the following enhancements.
   • Amphibious, as the Grade 1 Power
   • Wallcrawling
   • Infrared Vision, as the Heightened Sense
   • Freeform Shapechange

2. The Mystic Weapon Spell

   This is a custom spell available as a gimmick.

   For 5 MP the mystic weapon is forged. The form of the weapon should be chosen at character creation and be fixed. As an option, one could also choose to have both mystic weapon and mystic shield, but each "forging" would be seperate. The caster may choose for the weapon to do damage as either a one-handed or two-handed concussive or penetrative weapon, regardless of the actual form of the weapon. eg. one can have a mystic sword which does concussive type damage. The damage is chosen at character creation and is fixed.

   The weapon strikes in either a frame or an action, depending on the chosen damage rather than the form.

   Each additional magic point spent allows an extra d6 damage, caster's choice of HTC or HTK, but the dice may not be split by more than 2 - like energy attack. In order to use these bonus dice, the attack must take an action - even if the form and/or basic damage of the weapon is one-handed. eg. If The Warder has a mystic sword which does damage as a 1-handed penetrative weapon, but has spent an extra 3 magic points to raise the damage by 2d6HTC and 1d6HTK to 3d6HTC and 3d6HTK total, he must use an action to attack if he wishes to do his full damage. If he attacks in a frame, he will only do the base 1-handed penetrative damage of 1d6HTC/2d6HTK.

   The weapon strikes as WC3, but may be trained with like any other weapon, perhaps even gaining Weapon Skill, as the power. (If WS is already a power, then the Mystic Weapon or Weapons may be taken as the WS weapon.)

   Strength damage bonus may not be added to Mystic Weapons.

   For 3 more Magic Points, the Mystic Weapon will reduce a target's damage dividers by 2.

   When cast, all other spells of the caster's are immediately dispelled.

   It requires one additional magic point per round to maintain the weapon.

   The Mystic Weapon may never be a speciality spell. (Think about it. Half-cost, so you could create a weapon doing 10d6HTC and 7d6-6HTK, and use it all day long. Blech.)

The Shrinking Power

Shrinking as listed in the rules, does not have any grades above 1. As an option, the following is presented.

• Grade 2: Allows the character more control over his shrinking, from the range of insect size to his normal height. There are three rough levels of size.
  • Insect size (aka Really small)
    • Foes at -3 to hit
    • Ground movement is 1 meter unless other powers would affect it
    • Physical Damage is 1/4 (including Strength bonus)
    • Energy attacks and the like are at 1/2 damage
    • Push back threshold is reduced by 10
  • Doll size (or Action figure, about 12")
    • Foes at -2 to hit
    • Ground movement is 2 meters unless other powers would affect it
    • Physical Damage is 1/2 (including Strength bonus)
    • Energy attacks and the like are at full damage
    • Push back threshold is reduced by 8
  • About 1/2 size (aka Mini-Me)
    • Foes at -1 to hit
    • Ground movement is 1/2 unless other powers would affect it
    • Physical Damage is full
    • Energy attacks and the like are at full damage
    • Push back threshold is reduced by 5
• Grade 3: Allows the character to shrink SMALLER than an insect, down to sub-atomic size, small enough to, for example, enter the human body.

The Weapon Creation Power

This is a new power suggested by Adam Stein for this email campaign. It is still subject to revision as we see how it works in play. (November, 2000)

Weapon Creation

1. Grade One: Character can create any muscle powered weapon out of "Thin Air." An action is taken to create the weapon. Ammunition for weapons can be created as well, in another action. Ammunition usually comes in batches of about 10 for small items such as sling stones, 5 or so for medium sized items like arrows, and perhaps only one or two for large items such as javelins or atl-atl spears.

   The weapons persist for as long as they are directly held/used by the creator. If they leave his possession, including firing ammunition, they disappear 1 round later. Likewise, if the character is knocked out, the weapons disappear 1 round later.

   Obviously this power requires a good deal of GM oversight.

2. Grade Two: Character can create simple mechanical weapons up to the technology base of the campaign out of "Thin Air"
3. Grade Three:(Experienced Players Only) Character can create advance technological weapons out of "Thin Air." Effects of weapons determined by players and GM.

Parries

Hand to hand parrying seems a bit underpowered. Skilled characters are still just pummeled by big thugs. So the following rule is in effect.

• Characters using martial arts or weapon skill have their die roll doubled when parrying. Damage bonuses are unaffected
• Characters using Weapon Skill:Shield have their die roll tripled.

This could be further increased as a power refinement, of course.

Simon Burley, the author of the game, says that we have not been interpreting the Energy Attack parry rules the way he intended. As written, we, and many others it seems, believed that a 1d6 EB could completely parry an incoming blast - as per the missile mode parry of a missile attack. He says that is not the case, the damage of the parry should come off the damage of the attack as it does for melee. I like the misinterpretation, and we will play it that way.

Charge into Combat, et al.

I have come to the conclusion that we are probably playing this wrong, but I kind of like it so I'm leaving it. A charge into combat (or leap, dive, etc.) combines the attack with the movement. The net number of frames used balances out, but the character gains the extra damage. (I think that this is wrong, that the rules intend for a charge to take an extra frame.) In any case, here is an example of how we are playing it:

• Solar is 8 meters away from Sting and chooses to Dive Into Combat.
• In his first frame, he moves 8 meters to Sting and attacks, gaining the Dive Into Combat damage bonus.
• In his second frame, he recovers from the Dive.

The total number of frames expended is two.

For comparison, I think the way it is supposed to work is:

• Solar is 8 meters away from Sting and chooses to Dive Into Combat.
• In his first frame, he moves 8 meters to Sting.
• In his second frame, he attacks gaining the Dive damage bonus.
• In his third frame, he recovers from the Dive.

The total number of frames expended is three.

Contacts

GH has two "contacts" advantages: Criminal and Government. I see no reason to limit contacts to those two categories. Effectively, the player may choose what kind of contacts a character has. The effect is always the same: a contacts score of 10, and a line into that subculture. The contacts should be reasonable, though, in terms of the game. For instance, Computer Contacts or Street Contacts (both in use in this campaign) strike me as reasonable. Scifi Fan contacts or Academic Contacts are less so. While the latter two might well be useful in some situations, they don't warrant a Contacts score of 10.

Brilliant Mystic

The Brilliant Mystic background is analagous to the Brilliant Scientist background, but for magical characters. The brilliant mystic can manufacture magical items like scientists can build gadgets. The rules are much the same, actually, only the ingredients are different.

Immortal

In Squadron UK, Simon Burley modified Immortal as follows:

Immortal For some reason, the character is 'immortal' and will never die
	from natural causes (old age, disease, etc), though they can still die
	of unnatural causes. The player can select one Minor Health Superpower
	to accompany this Advantageous Background.

I'd also be willing to entertain the following options: the character may select a few minor skills to represent their old age, or the character may choose to have a heightened Financial Resource Rating to represent investments and so on. The player may choose one of the above options, and the exact one would depend on the rationale.