RAW alignment

Every VTT claims to implement the rules. Here is how Kirby proves it.

The HERO System rulebooks teach through named worked examples — a character recovering from being Stunned, a flying brick doing a Move By, a hero fighting blind. Each states exact numbers. That makes them the sharpest available test of whether an engine implements the rules or merely resembles them.

So Kirby runs them.

This page ships no rules text

Kirby ships no Hero Games content, and neither does this page. Each entry names a page, describes the book’s scenario in our own words, and shows what the engine produces from those inputs. Open your own copy and check us.

Each example below is backed by a script in the kirby-combat repository. The scripts assert the book’s numbers rather than printing them, and the test suite requires every one to exit cleanly. So this page cannot drift from the engine: if Kirby stops agreeing with a book example, the build goes red.

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Recovering from being Stunned

6E2 p.107 · script: examples/raw_andarra.py · rule and example agree

The book’s scenario. A character with DEX 20 and SPD 3 is Stunned by an attack in Segment 6. Her next Phase falls in Segment 8, and she must spend it recovering. She recovers when her DEX comes up in that Segment — regaining her full DCV, with Placed Shot modifiers back to normal — but still cannot take any other Action until her next Phase in Segment 12. The book is explicit that she may Abort that Segment 12 Phase during Segments 8 (after her DEX), 9, 10 or 11.

What Kirby does with those inputs:

Segment 6 — Stunned by an attack

Segment 7    {stunned}                  DCV 5 (base 9)   Abort allowed: False
Segment 8    {recoveringFromStunned}    DCV 5 (base 9)   Abort allowed: False
Segment 9    {— none —}                 DCV 9 (base 9)   Abort allowed: True
Segment 10   {— none —}                 DCV 9 (base 9)   Abort allowed: True
Segment 11   {— none —}                 DCV 9 (base 9)   Abort allowed: True
Segment 12   {— none —}                 DCV 9 (base 9)   Abort allowed: True

Segments 9, 10 and 11 — the ones the book names — are asserted by the script.

Where Kirby is approximate, stated plainly. The book restores her DCV partway through Segment 8, at her DEX. Kirby derives conditions by folding a combat event log, which carries no intra-Segment DEX position, so its edge is the end of Segment 8 rather than DEX 20 within it. Kirby therefore over-penalises her for the remainder of one Segment. The script prints that case and labels it — it never asserts it, because asserting it would claim a fidelity the engine does not have.

Why this example is here at all. An earlier version of Kirby got it wrong. It refused the Aborts the book grants in Segments 9–11, and halved a DCV the book restores, because the design had cited two adjacent pages for a rule that lives on a third. The entire test suite was green the whole time. Running the example is what caught it — which is the argument for this page.

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Move By — where the book contradicts itself

6E2 p.72 · script: examples/raw_starburst.py · the example disagrees with the rule; Kirby follows the rule

The rule. A Move By does half the attacker’s STR damage plus one d6 per 10m of velocity. The page adds a parenthetical instruction: halve the character’s STR before working out its damage, specifically so that nobody has to halve a half-die. The attacker takes one third of the damage done.

The example, on the same page. A flying character with STR 15 and 30m of Flight Move Bys a villain from 10m away, ending 20m past him. The book computes the damage as (½ × 3d6) + 3d6 = 4½d6.

These do not agree — because the example halves the dice, the very thing the parenthetical exists to prevent:

	STR → damage	Result
The rule — halve STR first	STR 15 → 7 → 7/5 = 1 DC	1 + 3 = 4 DC
The example — halve the dice	STR 15 → 3d6 → ½ × 3d6 = 1½d6	1½ + 3 = 4½d6

Kirby follows the rule: 4 DC. Everything else in the example matches exactly — 20m past the target, and the attacker taking one third.

If you are checking Kirby against your book by hand, this is the one place on this page where the engine will look wrong and is not. We would rather tell you that than quietly match a worked example against its own rule.

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What Kirby cannot reproduce yet

Listed so the gaps are visible rather than implied.

Example	Page	Needs
Fighting an opponent you cannot perceive	6E2 p.9 / p.127	the ½ OCV / ½ DCV penalties and their per-opponent mitigation — in progress
Aborting to Dodge	6E2 p.24	a driver that spends the aborted Phase
Adding damage to a weapon	6E2 p.101	turns on a GM ruling rather than a rule; not mechanically reproducible

The first is the agreed finish line for Kirby’s sense-affecting powers work: that feature is not done until the book’s own blinded-hero example runs and asserts.

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Kirby is a HERO System VTT in active development. HERO System™ is a trademark of DOJ, Inc. d/b/a Hero Games; Kirby is not affiliated with or endorsed by them, and ships no Hero Games content.