Giving The Children Rides, or, Howdah Do It?

[Duke Bushido]

16 minutes ago, Chris Goodwin said:

 

We have a Size Characteristic for Vehicles, which -- maybe -- works slightly better than Growth, either Then or Now.  Minor quibble that doesn't change the rest of your point though. 

  

 

My point is, you're either one or the other; if you can be both, that's a utility that ought to cost points.  Humans can't -- typically and routinely at least -- carry other humans around inside them, unless they buy the power to do so (or unless they're pregnant; I know someone will go there).  The same way that Vehicles can't pick weapons up and use them, unless they buy the power to do so; they can't even function autonomously, again unless they buy the power to do so.  Or the same way that Vehicles' DEF, Life Support, Radio Hearing, Flash Defense, and probably other Powers I'm not thinking of, automatically work for everyone inside the Vehicle, in a way a person would need to pay points to have it do.  (I've pointed out a RAW way for Resistant DEF to do so, and suggested it might work for other Powers.)  

 

I may even be nitpicking further than the original poster in the thread; I think @dialNforNinja was asking about what you'd use to securely carry someone, whether inside (like a Vehicle) or outside (like a saddle or a howdah).  I haven't been trying to nitpick or be obstinate; I'm honestly trying to figure out what the difference is between, for instance, someone hanging on Superman's back, and someone being carried in a safety sling like one of those tandem skydive harnesses.  

 

I'm looking at the difference between two cases, trying to figure out if there's a difference there; the presence of the discussion seems to indicate there is one, and I think it's worth trying to figure out if as a general case there's something more to it than SFX.  

 

Forgive the lack of truncation, my friend, but since quotes are now folded into a window, it seemed less critical. 

 

Pregnant:  that was funny. 

 

The difference between riding superman's shoulders and being papoosed:

 

One depends on _your_ strength, with regard to being able to hang on, though the encumbrance is still on him. 

If you are being carried in a gizmo, then it's the gizmo's STR to hold on to you, but it's still Superman's encumbrance. If he has to hold on to the gizmo, then it's his STR to hold the gizmo, too. 

 

If Superman is grabbing /holding and carrying you, then it's his STR to hold on and or course, his encumbrance. 

 

At least, that's the way I see it. 

 

If the character is carrying someone on the inside, then it's his encumbrance, and I put forward the idea that it is his Body score or his DEF that determines how secure they are. 

 

Revisiting the Champs Complete ruling:

 

Does this rule exist because in spite of the unlimited number of things that you _can_ be, from microscopic super-intelligence from beyond the stars to the Ghost of Christmas yet to come, there is no place for cars? 

 

Or is it to prevent doubling-down on the 1-for-5 costing?  Personally, I have no problem with a character being a car, so long as he's paying what any other character would pay for the same abilities. 

 

 

More on pregnancy:

 

Due to the commonality of pregnancy, the average number skeletons in a human  body is always more than one..... 

[Tech]

23 hours ago, unclevlad said:

 

Extra Limbs would be another way to do it, rather than Clinging.  I'm NOT considering a Transformers approach;  more like a Goliath approach, or a transform to something like a giant horse, bird, or dragon.

Also...in the car scenario...Clinging, UBO.  Seat belts.  You're asking for "I can hold them in my transformed state" for no cost, based on saying "it's a car."  Nope.  Unless you're paying for it, it'd be more like riding in the back of a pickup truck.  Nothing to stop you from being tossed out from the bed.  So if you want them safely ensconced and protected...pay for it somehow.

 

Yes, you get what you pay for but you also have special effects. Special effects all too often are ignored. I don't recall which Hero Games book it is but it basically said (sorry, badly paraphrasing here because I can't recall which book nor have it memorized): special effects can allow you to do some things simply because of them. Build the power however you want and then ask the GM if anything is needed/not needed. The GMs we have are more lenient and don't require every single detail of a power to be paid for by points because of special effects. Ultimately, the GM decides on what's needed/not needed. As many others have said, any power idea can be built numerous ways.

You see Clinging UBO as necessary, I don't. We'll agree to disagree.

[Greywind]

By RAW, RAW is nothing but guidelines. Do what works best for your game.

[Chris Goodwin]

1 hour ago, Duke Bushido said:

Does this rule exist because in spite of the unlimited number of things that you _can_ be, from microscopic super-intelligence from beyond the stars to the Ghost of Christmas yet to come, there is no place for cars? 

 

Or is it to prevent doubling-down on the 1-for-5 costing?  Personally, I have no problem with a character being a car, so long as he's paying what any other character would pay for the same abilities. 

 

On this we agree, especially the part I bolded.  I'd have them pay 1 for 1 rather than 1 for 5, but that's to be a Vehicle rather than have one.  I'm not entirely certain that a character using a Vehicle character sheet, and starting from Vehicle stats, is necessarily point balanced with a character who is a person, but in theory at least they're close enough.  

 

I think we start from the assumption that the character is a person, and go from there.  I know for a fact that I'm not hollow; I've seen my internal organs on various medical imaging devices.  If you want to define your character as hollow for zero points, you can do so, as long as it doesn't change any of the game mechanics.  You could carry someone around inside you, maybe once or twice; if you want that to be a regular thing your character does, then pay the points for it.  

 

An example I like to use: the Hulk can pick up a manhole cover in combat and throw it.  He can even do it more than once.  The third time he does so, the Avengers get a call from the city's public works department, asking if he can kindly stop throwing their manhole covers, and billing them for the costs of replacement.  At that point, the GM suggests that if he wants to carry an eight-pack of 100kg steel throwing discs around he can, as long as he pays the points for it.  

 

1 hour ago, Tech said:

Yes, you get what you pay for but you also have special effects. Special effects all too often are ignored. I don't recall which Hero Games book it is but it basically said (sorry, badly paraphrasing here because I can't recall which book nor have it memorized): special effects can allow you to do some things simply because of them. Build the power however you want and then ask the GM if anything is needed/not needed. The GMs we have are more lenient and don't require every single detail of a power to be paid for by points because of special effects. Ultimately, the GM decides on what's needed/not needed. As many others have said, any power idea can be built numerous ways.

 

SFX aren't, and shouldn't, be a way to get additional effects for your Power for free.  Your sonic blast might crack the glass in the area, and that can be one of those extra things you do for free once or twice to stop the robbers' getaway car by shattering their windshield so they can't see.  But if it's something you want to do more often than that, add a slot in your Multipower.  

[dialNforNinja]

4 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

This sort of touches on where I wanted to go next, before bowing out, because we are bumping the same division we have been bumping the past decade or possibly longer. 

 

Do the rules say you can't have a car as a primary form? 

 

If the HS volume 1 and 2 are "the" rules, and all else optional, as some have suggested on the boards in the past, what is the relevance of a rule outside those books? 

 

Must I own Champions Complete in addition to the other books to ensure my characters are legal with...  Well, for lack of a better term, "the rules"? 

 

Nah, but CC and the BBB are the only corebooks I have. (Though yes, I did also get the two APGs, Martial Arts, Skills, and 5eTUV along with Champions Powers...) I can't check FREd or the 6e pair to quote from, so I specified my sources since there may be a difference. And of course, "the GM says you can" (or can't) overrides anything the books may say, but they are intended to be the general go-to answer for a baseline.

 

 

Quote

Other that build suggestions, I don't think you're going to get anything more out of this thread.  Frankly, I hope I am wrong, but we have come to that point where we bump into the division of "people who need permission"  and "people who wait for correction." 

 

(...)

 

My suggestion is to pick the side that gives you the level of creative freedom with which you are the most comfortable, and go from there. 

Have fun with it.  It _is_ a game, after all.   

Certainly! I hold very strongly to the idea that while the party may be in conflict with the antagonists, and PCs may even have arguments between each other, the object is for the GM and all the players to have fun telling a collaborative story of epic awesomeness, in the classical sense as well as the modern "Dude, that was epic!" - to the point that I didn't mesh with one group at all, because they were deeply into the whole Players vs GM thing and I can't see that as anything but draining for both sides.

 

edit: Oh, right, I forgot to ask - what's the difference between Growth for 6e and previous versions? It's still doubling your size each level as discussed, or halving it for Shrinking. I saw some height/weight charts for that not long ago actually, let me dig them up...

[Duke Bushido]

looks like I'm all out of reputation and atta-boys. 

 

 

Remind me to tap you with the Kudos Stick later.    

 

For what it's worth, way, _way_ back when, when Transformers was still a cartoon on the air and played right after (before) GI Joe, we did a Transformers campaign, based primarily off of what Jim knew of the cartoon (I didn't know much at all: I was at work when it aired), his little brother's comics (his little brother lived with him while he was going to college to help save some money), and a couple of the cooler toys we sunk the group's treasury into for "research." 

 

Never really thought about Transformers again until the movies came out (screw all the nay-saying: I liked them.  At least, I liked the two I saw).  I remember early in the movie when the Volkswagen Transformer was HOLLOW inside-- like an actual car!  It defied logic!   (same with Optimus Prime-- the big truck one).  Our "research" confirmed that the "car" when it was car-shaped was actually completely filled with folded robot.  The couple of cartoons we rented seemed to back that up: nobody climbed into them, and some magical driver just "appeared" in the truck when the character  turned into a truck.

 

The comics touched on that by mentioning "holographic passengers."

 

Then there's the common-sense aspect:  if you have 10 tons of giant robot, it doesn't matter how you fold it up, it can't turn into three tons of car.  If you have three tons of car, there isn't enough material to become ten tons of giant robot.

 

 

That's my own take on the whole "Transformers" thing.  But if someone wants to go the movie route and decide that there is a regular car-looking hollow spot in the middle, so be it.  It doesn't bother me a bit.

 

As to the "freebies" of special effects-- I still don't charge.  It doesn't make sense because no one has gained anything someone else can't have:  if your character bursts into flame, and you want to use that to set a fire, I'm not going to make you buy Tranformation: set crap on fire.  If you want to light a torch with your flaming body ten times a day, go for it.  It's not like there's a rule that says no one else can burst into flames.  You didn't get anything they were deprived of, save what the deprived themselves of.   Just like throwing things with great strength:  if you can find a thing, I will let you throw it, every single time.  Why not?  There are times you won't find something to throw, there are times when you won't find the thing you want to throw.  I'm not going to make you buy Energy Blast for that.  I don't even know that I _want_ you to buy Energy Blast with that, because then I have to make sure that every scene contains infinite identical things that you can throw on your whim.

 

There are rules for throwing things.  None of them say you have to buy Energy Blast to make sure you can throw a thing.  None of them say you have to buy things to throw.  They simply tell you how a thing will be thrown, should you find something that you are able and willing to throw.

 

If  guy has ice powers, I will let him chill his drink infinite times.  I will let him chill everyone's drink infinite times.  I'll let him make infinite snowballs so the other guy can throw them.

 

"this guy spent points and got a thing" and "this guy got a way crappier version of that same thing for free" is really not an imbalance issue, at least not for me.   

 

But again, I'm also the guy who has no problems with "points lost are gone, period."  Mostly because points don't balance the game: they never have, and they never will be anything more than a rough ballpark guess.  If points could completely balance the game, two people of identical points would battle forever, balanced and each unable to overcome the other.  We wouldn't need GMs anymore, either: we could simply read a scenario and-- heck; we wouldn't even need the game!  "You're opponent approaches!  He appears to be built on about 350 pts....."  

 

Well, I'm built on 425-

 

"You win!  As you step over his unconscious corpse, you make your way further into the darkened chamber..."

 

 

It just doesn't work that way, and never has  (thankfully.  I think we can all agree that this wouldn't be much fun   ).

 

Given all of that together, I'm not going to charge you points to get a crappy version of something else if you can get a crappy version of it using something else you already have.  I mean, you don't charge knockback resistance to Clinging because that's part of it.  Part of being really strong is being able to throw heavy things considerable distances.  Part of being on fire is that you are a danger to the surroundings-- because you can catch something on fire.  Part of being able to make ice is being able to -- well, make ice.  The same way you can choose between tapping something or smacking the crap out of it, I will let you chose between making an avalanche or making a couple of cubes for your bourbon.

 

 

 The idea that "you can get something free because of your SFX is part and parcel of the universe: if my SFX is an unbreakable staff, I've also got a lever, a door prop, a clothesline, half a hobo kit, and between the right two trees, a chin-up bar.  And I will have it every time I have that staff.   If part of my SFX is being on fire, that fire doesn't become harmless to the environment just because I didn't buy "Gender Reveal Party."  If your killing attack is a deadly blast of radiation and mine is a dozen tiny knives, I've got those tiny knives when I need to split a burrito in half just as much as when I need to split the cave monster in half.

 

 

 

But again: that's just me.

 

6 minutes ago, dialNforNinja said:

 

edit: Oh, right, I forgot to ask - what's the difference between Growth for 6e and previous versions? It's still doubling your size each level as discussed, or halving it for Shrinking. I saw some height/weight charts for that not long ago actually, let me dig them up...

 

 

I'll get back to you on that later tonight; it seems I am needed at the moment.  Rough answer: 6e eliminates the smaller steps.  I get why, but I'd have done it differently myself.  What we have now feels more like it does in other, less discrete systems.

[Ninja-Bear]

@Duke Bushido per Transformers Gen 1, Spike could ride in Autobots. Now where did Optimus Prime’s Trailer disappear and reaper to is a mystery.

[Chris Goodwin]

I mean, seriously?  What's the point of having a giant robot if someone can't fit inside it!   

[Ninja-Bear]

51 minutes ago, Chris Goodwin said:

I mean, seriously?  What's the point of having a giant robot if someone can't fit inside it!   

Depends if the giant robot wants a co-pilot or not? 🤪

[dialNforNinja]

The traditional answer in TF fandom for where all the robot bits go to make room for passengers and a normal looking (or not, it varies from one episode to another) engine etc. is "subspace," along with how Soundwave and Megatron go from thirty feet or so as robots to handheld, and how characters can just suddenly be holding their guns. In at least one G1 episode, the character's gun is actually shown appearing with a purple flash rahter than between cuts or pulled from behind them. Merlin being an actual wizard present in Camelot and... I think Mirage? having been one of the Knights of the Round Table is also canon. A different season two episode featured fish-men from Atlantis attacking the surface world, and a now-solo Cobra Commander is in one of the s3 (post-1986-movie) episodes using Synthezoid technology as the villain of the week. That's just in US G1 TV, mind you - the comics featured Spider-Man, several Mutants, lots of other GI Joe material, Dr. Who, at least one Star Trek crossover... basically, they were not even trying to hide the "giant metal superheroes" angle.

 

Bayformers are actually the odd ones out in that for the most part, robot and alt mode mass isn't played with that way. The shows (or rather, new shows) are still on the air, though, it's not just a "back in the day" thing, and the robo-nudist Bay aesthetic has been thankfully almost completely abandoned in favor of modern takes on the classic, mostly smooth blocky builds. The most recent toy lines (Combiner Wars, featuring lots of gestalts, Titans Return, where everyone become a Headmaster, Power of the Primes that was basically both plus a new spin on Powermasters, Siege that focused on base modes, and now Earthrise with different base modes and basically identical to G1 stylling) are explicitly designed to look as close as possible to G1 animation models, in fact, while generally having ball joint hips, shoulders, necks, and 90 degree elbow and knee bends with bicep and thigh swivels, as a minimum. TR even gave us a Perceptor who turns into a microscope again, when Hasbro had previously held that such a sciencey toy was too nerdy to sell to modern children!

 

And fembots! We've had no less than four main line Arcee toys and two con-exclusive recolors in those lines, along with three all-female combiner teams, Chromia and Nautica and whats-her-name the Paradron medic who's really just Arcee in mint green, but still a female character getting an actual toy so I don't care! And RID2015 Strongarm, and Windblade, and a couple of Decepticons I can't remember the names of!

 

Still no Minerva aside from a convention event exclusive, sadly, but TR Breakaway with repainted Nightbeat for a head is decently close. However, Headmasters, the closely related Brainmasters (where the mini partner only forms the face and pops into the shell of the head) Targetmasters (where the partner turns into a gun) and Powermasters (where they form an engine) are generally the only Transformers who feature habitable compartments in robot mode, with even transports like Astrotrain or Skylinx, or Titans like Metroplex, Trypticon, and Fortress Maximus, having any other characters thery carry debark before transforming.

 

... I'm kind of into Transformers, if you didn't get that. Just a little. I've only spent a few hundred dollars on them this year! I needed to eat less anyway, and lifting boxes of toys is good exercise!

[Duke Bushido]

3 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

@Duke Bushido per Transformers Gen 1, Spike could ride in Autobots. Now where did Optimus Prime’s Trailer disappear and reaper to is a mystery.

 

 

Forgive the ignorance, N-B, but I don't know what any of those things (except for Optimus Prime) means.

 

I gave my (well, the GM's, but we all watched) references:  a four-hour VHS of Transformers from an era before we had a Blockbuster and had to rent movies in the same single-wide mobile home where we bought fish bait out in Gumbranch.  It seems there were like eight or so episodes on it; possibly a season?  I don't know, and at this point, the memories are too old and faded.

 

several Transformer comics that belonged to the kid brother of my GM (the kid played in a lot of our games over the years, and this Transformers thing was something he was pushing for and we finally capitulated, thinking "Sweet!  Mechs!"

 

Man where we wrong....   

 

 

Three Transformers toys we picked up at TG&Y using the "Treasury"  (which was essentially what was left after you kicked in for drinks, snacks, and periodic carpet shampooing because you got carried away with the drinks and snacks.     ).  Now the reason that even after all these years I know which one Optimus Prime is: we drew lots for the dolls when Jim moved and left pretty much everything to us.  I got the Optimus Prime (when my daughter was born, it was her teddy bear.  She didn't like the bears or the dolls, but wouldn't go to sleep without "Bus Man."  Then my son played with it when he was a toddler, so...    twenty years or so of use out of that toy?  Pretty sweet!)

 

Anyway, the other two: one looked like  a Porsche 911 but I'm remembering it having police lights on it and a racing number.  Again, these are some seriously old memories.  The third one was a pretty cool-looking robot, but it didn't turn into a car.  It was like a purple laser gun if I remember right.  Anyway, I don't remember seeing them in the movie, so I guess we chose unpopular cast members or something. 

 

 

The comics started at issue one, but it seems like there was either just over or just under a year of them.  I couldn't say which; I just remember someone commenting on the odd stopping point.  All I really remember about them was that the cover art of #1 was both horrible and horrifying, and I will probably never forget the explanation that Transformers evolved from naturally-occurring gears and sprockets from all over their home planet.  I wanted to laugh, but I just felt so bad for the people who were expected to stand behind that.....   (Remember: I wasn't really a comic book guy, and those comics were _not_ going to sell me on changing that.   

 

 

That's it.  Like I said.

 

In all that source material, we watched drivers wink in and out of existence in cartoons.  We read comics that confirmed "holographic passengers."  We folded some toys that proved beyond a specter of a doubt that a big robot will completely fill a small car.  (Unless the big robot was....  hollow....      )

 

That's what we had to work with, and outside of two movies, that's pretty much all my knowledge of Transformers.   It was certainly enough to play a campaign that lasted throughout an entire school year for Jim's kid brother.  I wish I could tell you it was a memorable campaign, but even with a plot we spent more time arguing about just why we would want to switch back and forth between cars and robots when we could just be robots and have guns all the time.

 

Oh-- and we _did_ figure out that the entire premise of Transformers is a racially-motivated war of genocide:  Transformers who could fly versus Transformers who couldn't.

 

 

 

3 hours ago, dialNforNinja said:

 

Nah, but CC and the BBB are the only corebooks I have.

 

Ah; sure!  I get that.  Honestly, it wasn't for used books, that's about where I'd be right now:  5 and 6e both happened during financially difficult times for my family, so I missed out on both.  I was around and excited for the build-up, but when it finally happened---   I just couldn't afford it.  It _really_ didn't help that 5e was pumping out at new book at what felt like once a week!

 

I suppose what I should have asked, bluntly, is which books are inviolable core and which books are "suggestions?"  I _didn't_ ask that, and I _won't_ ask that, because the answer has, historically, been as frustrating as it is hilarious:  Only v1 and v2 are core; all others are suggestions and neat ideas!

 

But the same people who tell you that scream bloody murder when you violate one of those "suggested neat ideas," so who knows?

 

If CC is core, then there is at least one power in v1 that isn't core, because it isn't in CC.  (No; I don't remember which one it is.  Without being disrespectful, I have little interest in 6e beyond collecting it).

 

 

 

 

Quote

 

 

edit: Oh, right, I forgot to ask - what's the difference between Growth for 6e and previous versions? It's still doubling your size each level as discussed, or halving it for Shrinking. I saw some height/weight charts for that not long ago actually, let me dig them up...

 

 

That's what I came back for:

 

 

Now I really don't want to dig through all seven editions (remember there were two different 5e "editions" ), so let me just hit you with the one I know cold (2e), the one I tend to use (4e),  and then the 6e (found in v1 under "Growth.")

 

 

2e:

 

every 5 pts of Growth makes you :

 

1 meter taller

Adds 2" running (4 of 6e's inches)

adds +1 to Climbing   (okay, it says _gives_ +1, but I don't do that.  If you didn't know how to climb at 6 feet tall, why would you suddenly learn after your grown to nine feet and doubled your weight?)

+1 OCV for HtH

-1 DCV (not just for HtH)

-1 Knockback

+1 to the PER roll of anyone looking for you

x2 mass

 

 

going by square cube, something doesn't add up perfectly between "1 meter taller" and "x2 mass."  However, as you continue to grow-- say your thirty feet tall-- then you add one meter and double your mass again-- well, you start swinging the other way on the "doesn't add up scale" and aren't gaining enough size to match the mass-- but that's not the point.

 

 

You also get the following:

 

+5 to STR, BOD, PRE.

+1 PD and ED.  (These stats do not add-in for recalculating figureds)

 

 

 

4e

5 pts of Growth:

 

x2 mass

+5 STR

-1" Knockback

+1 Body, +1 Stun (again: the bonuses don't up your figureds)

 

 

Every fifteen points adds the additional stuff:

 

-2 DCV (not just for HtH)

X2 Height and Width  (and while it's not specified, I have to assume that third dimension is double as well, as is appropriate for the fact that you've "x2 mass" three times at this point-- square cube and all that).

x2 reach

 

There is the note that if you are at a "half-way" value, like 10 pts, then you can receive half the value of these bonuses / penalties.

 

Notice that the OCV bonuses to HtH went away.

 

I never looked into it, but I have always suspected that, since 4e was just corralling up all of 3e into one nice house that this was how Growth worked in 3e as well.  At any rate, I feel that this is the best take on Growth to come out of the HERO system.  There's also some brief notes about wounds that disappear and reopen as you Grow (+ BODY) and un-grow ( - BODY)

 

6e

 

First, the rules cover and impressive two full pages.

 

if you want to make any change at all, pony up 25 points.  The next step is 50 points.  Then 90.  Then 120, then 150, then 215---

 

The cost grows almost as exponentially has the character.

 

There is a massive range of possible sizes at any level-- I suppose the shortest summation of this is to say that 6e kills the granularity of Growth a _lot_.  Yes; you _can_ spend 25  points and say you're only 3 meters tall, but remember that before you could spend _five_ points and be.. well, three meters tall.

 

 

I don't know why this is---

 

And for God's sake, don't think I'm bashing the guy: writing a game is hard; dropping a habit is hard.  I am _noticing_ something, period.  If I _notice_ that someone is Lebanese, it doesn't make me a racist.  You don't have to hate to notice.  I can't dislike the guy; I've never met him.  I know three people that tell me they have, and they all say he's an extremely likable guy.  I trust all three of these people, and so I expect that he probably _is_ a pretty likable guy. But for whatever reason, he absolutely cannot _not_ bundle a bunch of extras into Growth-- that is to say, he is making assumptions that sort of push you into a special effect whether you want it or not.  In 5e, it was Growth Momentum.  In 6e, it's STR, CON, PRE, DEF, BODY, STUN, Reach, Running speed, and Knockback.

 

Sure: I understand that you can  simply declare "it doesn't make sense for my character to gain running speed for his Growth because of his special effect."  I have _no_ issue with that.  But Good God!  I just paid twenty-five stinking points to be grow one meter.  It seems like something of a rip to _not_ take all these freebies.....

 

 

Costing in 6e isn't based on getting bigger.  It's based on all the extras Steve assumes that you just get because there is no way you will pick a special effect or concept for which those freebies won't make sense.   Then there is the lack of granularity itself:  at "Colossal," I can be between 65 meters and 125 meters tall.  That's a hell of a lot of variance right there.  For 215 points!  It costs me 150 points to be 64 meters tall.  If I want to be 65 meters tall, _by the book_  (I say this because I would like to think no GM would actually tell me that I can't just be able to grow to 65 instead of stopping at 64 after that kind of points expenditure!), but _by the book_, if I want to be 65 meters tall (say I need that last little bit to reach Faye Wray's window or something), I have to spend another SEVENTY FIVE POINTS!

 

 

 

okay, I want to be 65 meters tall in 2e:  for 25 points, I spend 315 points. (double-check me; It's late, and I'm doing this in my head)  Definite improvement over that, but we already had an improvement, _and_ did away with a lot of the "gimme" that 2e had baked in.  It was 4e.

 

In 4e, being 64 meters tall cost me 75 points.  If I want to be 65, I buy one more five-point level and call it good.  80 points.

 

_not_ 215.

 

of course, there are still some baked-in extras, but nothing like 6e did.

 

And on the plus side, he did finally ditch Growth Momentum as an automatic function of Growth.

 

 

Drawbacks?  under 4e, I also gain 80 STR.  Under 2e, I gain 315 STR.  Not too shabby, I think. 

 

Personally, I'd like to see a Growth system where you "gain" only enough STR to negate the additional mass you're putting on---

 

oh, wait!  You _are_!  At least with STR.  _That's_ why it doesn't add to Figureds (probably)!  In those first two versions, you double your mass every 5 pts, and you get +5 STR.

 

This problem could be resolved by simply stating that this STR is _only_ to counteract the additional mass, but hey-- whatever works.  If you really want him to be strong enough to wrap the Golden Gate around Godzilla, go for it!

 

Me?  I would have stripped _all_ of that out of Growth and left the granularity:  You want to gain STR as you grow?  Fine.  Link some.   More PD?  More BODY?  Link some.

 

Done, and the cost and granularity remain intact.

 

 

6e, I gain 90 STR to be colossal, and could mass as much as 25.6 million kilograms.

 

I gain STR sufficient to offest 6.4 kilotons; precisely the same as 25.6 million kilograms.

 

But at Collosal, I could also mass a mere 3.3million kilograms.  I make out like a bandit if my GM declares that the balance of this STR is available to me after deducting my mass.

 

 

Sure: it's still workable, sort of, and some folks might even find it easier: pick a level and pay that much, grab up your freebies and go.

 

But given how much of Steve's work in 5, 5 er, and even in 6 itself went into tearing things into smaller and more granular bits, merging like builds more firmly into like builds, 6e Growth just doesn't feel like it fits at all.  It's more like a D&D spell that just gains buckets of power because your level went up.

 

 

 

Anyway, that's both your answer, and one man's opinion.

 

 

Good night, Folks!
 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ninja-Bear]

@dialNforNinja I’m not sure if the exact pages in CC but it’s in the front and easy to miss but it talks about breaking the rules. If you need to break them for Game Balance, common sense or dramatic sense go ahead. In this case I would also add what makes less headache? So if transforming into a vehicle and using vehicle sheet is easier to gronk then do so. For example in Conquers, Killers and Crooks Steve Long points out that it was easier to built Dr. Destroyers Mecha units as characters than vehicle rules. (Which I was sad cause I wanted to see the vehicle write ups.)  

[Ninja-Bear]

@Duke Bushido, there isn’t 2 different fifth editions. All revised did was to take questions that popped up on the forum and added clarity and added more samples and genre by genre info. 

@masseyi believe some of the confusion with Shape Shift is the name of the Power and when to use it. For example I have a character named Ghost Panther which in the original version he turns into a literal panther. Does he need Shape shift? (We bought it that way). Now if you look how werewolves and similar monster are described they are called shape shifters. So my point is that even though I may not need it per Hero System rules it is a logical assumption that someone may think they should.

[dialNforNinja]

Thanks for the explanation, Duke! I can see where you're coming from with that... I think my preference would be to calculate height from the doubled mass or mass from the linear increase in height rather than specifying them separately, but I can see how that would not appeal without a calculator at hand if you're dealing with intermediate values at all.

 

2 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Anyway, the other two: one looked like  a Porsche 911 but I'm remembering it having police lights on it and a racing number.  Again, these are some seriously old memories.  The third one was a pretty cool-looking robot, but it didn't turn into a car.  It was like a purple laser gun if I remember right.  Anyway, I don't remember seeing them in the movie, so I guess we chose unpopular cast members or something. 

The car was probably Prowl, who is actually a Datsun 280ZX, but that just means he looks like a Porsche who decided he had too much junk in the trunk and went on a diet. He was pretty much Prime's second in command as much as any kind of command structure was ever shown. At least, the only other s1/s2 characters I can think of who had light bars look nothing like a Porsche, the closest being Red Alert who is very much a Lamborghini Countach with all the angularity that entails. An actual Porsche with numbers but no light bar would probably be Jazz, resident Cool Cat, voiced by Scatman Crothers in the cartoon, and probably the worst done by as supposedly included in the first Bayformers movie. That had his alt mode looking more like Bluestreak (who despite his name is silver and black, with red bits on his robot mode,) talking all tryhard "gangsta" as a bigger hothead than most of the characters who've been named Hothead, and killed like a chump to demonstrate "Megatron's" bad ass cred. RUINED FOREVER!

 

The purple space-gun was certainly Shockwave, one of the big name Decepticons, left in charge of Cybertron while Megatron and his elites chased the escaping Autobots. His name was reused for the building-eating snake things in I htink the third Bayformers movie, but by that point I had entirely dismissed them as connecting to any other Transformers property on even the thematic level and didn't pay much attention. As for the motivations of the war, once upon a time it was just Evil Decepticons Want to Rule Everything vs. Good Autobots Want To Protect Freedom, to the point that Megatron's signature quote was "Peace though tyranny," and Optimus's was "Freedom is the right of all sentient beings," then they added Decepticons having been built as military products and Autobots as civilian merchandise but having rebelled together against the Quintessons and only later split into opposing factions, then in more recent comics they turned it into Megatron raising a rebellion against an oppressive Autobot government and then going off the extremist deep end, retconned that two or three more times, and now I have no idea. There were something like thirty more or less related Transformers continuities when I counted them up in the mid-noughties, and that number has only kept growing.