Leach Power

[Sicarius]

Likely I'm blind and certainly I still ignorant of Hero as a whole. I am looking for an attack which directly drains some characteristic or power and adds it to yourself/user.

Absorption seem to only act against an attack and Drain doesn't transfer it to the attacker.

Unless I'm missing something.

Thinking Rogue, Elric's Stormbringer, etc;

Thanks for the help!

 

[archer]

Under 6e rules, that's usually built as a Drain with an Aid that's linked to the Drain.

[Sicarius]

39 minutes ago, archer said:

Under 6e rules, that's usually built as a Drain with an Aid that's linked to the Drain.

Thank you.  I have yet to get to the link rules but remember something like that from 4th ed.

[Jhamin]

7 minutes ago, Sicarius said:

Thank you.  I have yet to get to the link rules but remember something like that from 4th ed.

 

You aren't wrong.  Back in Fourth there was a "Transfer" power that worked the way you describe.  It was removed because it was basically Drain and Aid mushed together and Steve Long felt it was cleaner just to have the two powers each do their thing rather than have a 3rd one to worry about.

 

I miss the simplicity of Transfer, but the new way works fine.

[unclevlad]

There's a fairly extended debate about why Transfer was dropped, IIRC from some time last summer.  There is at least one fairly common logistical problem with having them combined;  that's if you want to tweak the fade or return rate.  By 5E, each side (fade or return) has to be bought separately, but the costing is being applied to the "combined power".  

 

IOW:  

1d6 Drain, 5 points per minute (+1):  20 points

1d5 Aid, 5 points per minute (+1):  12 points

 

1d6 Transfer, 5 points per minute fade, 5 points per minute return (+2):  45

 

And of course that active point cost comes into play for END costs and for power frameworks.  It also limits you on the amount you can drain, to the amount of Aid you get.  You can't do a 2d6 Drain and, say, a 6d6 Aid so you can drain over multiple phases.  So the combination really isn't a great idea.

[Sicarius]

1 hour ago, Jhamin said:

 

You aren't wrong.  Back in Fourth there was a "Transfer" power that worked the way you describe.  It was removed because it was basically Drain and Aid mushed together and Steve Long felt it was cleaner just to have the two powers each do their thing rather than have a 3rd one to worry about.

 

I miss the simplicity of Transfer, but the new way works fine.

Odd.  Its such a staple of fantasy and sci fi to have a Leach or Transfer power that splitting them seems more like dividing chicken noodle soup into ingredients and calling it a simplification.   I do get the desire to break everything into basic building blocks yet some things are better left whole.  Like Time Travel broken into:

 

Time Travel Power

A -Make a Time Door using Time Mastery power.

B- Link Time Door to Open Door power

C-Link to Movement-Walk power

 

If you want carrots or peas in your chicken noodle soup you can use an Advantage and if you don't want noodles then use a Limitation. 😉

Everyone has an idea of what should be the basic power molecule and Steve is the author so ultimately I have to respect his decision.  Yet being the GM I would suppose its totally fine for me to add new basic molecules if I choose.  But I'm not sure if that is necessary or even what is best without trying it so basically I'm just blowing gas at this juncture. 😝

[Lord Liaden]

I really like Transfer. I kept it for my 5E Hero games, along with other rules that had officially been dropped. The beauty of the high cross-compatibility between different editions of Hero System is that it's usually easy to insert elements from one into another.

[Greywind]

The 5th Edition Element starring LL.

[Hugh Neilson]

4 hours ago, Jhamin said:

 

You aren't wrong.  Back in Fourth there was a "Transfer" power that worked the way you describe.  It was removed because it was basically Drain and Aid mushed together and Steve Long felt it was cleaner just to have the two powers each do their thing rather than have a 3rd one to worry about.

 

I miss the simplicity of Transfer, but the new way works fine.

 

As was noted above, there were issues with the mesh of Transfer with advantages.  Put Area Effect on Transfer and...oh, it's basically useless to have AoE on Transfer.  If you want an advantage that makes the Drain more effective, you get to pay it on the Aid as well.  Range, AoE, AP, NND, AVLD...why did I need to pay for those advantages on my Aid?

 

The Aid and Drain must work in lockstep.  Why not 4d6 Drain and 2d6 Aid?  No, you'd need 2d6 Transfer + 2d6 Drain.  But at least the extra 2d6 Drain would keep working after you maxed out the Aid.

 

I also like the idea of Linking a Drain to a Heal, instead of an Aid. 

 

If we had Aid in 1e Champions (instead of having to add it to Fantasy Hero), I'm not sure we would ever have had Transfer as a separate power.  We might have worked some bugs out of Linked earlier, though.

[Sicarius]

Unless I am missing something Aid says specifically that it cannot give one powers or abilities they don't have. For that use Transform. So Aid and Drain do not seem to combine correctly for this usage. Maybe Stormbringer because it really does not give Elric abilities he does not have but I'm thinking of a Leach who drains an ability and gains it for themselves.

 

For example.  The Suckerfish drains the torch of x amount of Fire Blast and now can use this power himself for the duration of the drain.   As the target recovers he loses an identical amount. Later he drains the Thing of some STR and gains it himself.  If he drained the Thing of PD or ED I would have him start looking like the Thing as the Thing started looking more like the old Ben Grimm.  So if Suckerfish we able to drain the Thing of all his over normal super abilities he would become the Thing while the Thing reverted to Ben for the duration.

 

For this I would think Drain linked to Transform, (level determined on what is drained), with a limitation that power or ability drained may only impart identical power or ability and only to self.

 

Now, what about the fiendish Dr. Xerox with the groping hands, who can copy x amount of the Thing but does not drain the Thing?  This seems like a level of Transform based upon the level of copy, (appearance, voice, powers), with a limitation of must copy some aspect(s) of a person he has physically touched.

 

So where am I confused and going wrong?

Thanks for the help in advance!

[dmjalund]

to gain other's powers, I'd use Drain + Variable Power Pool (limited to powers drained)

[Ninja-Bear]

Sicarius  afaik, Transfer NEVER transfered powers to you that you all ready didn’t have. I mainly remember seeing Transfer used against Characteristics. As noted by dmjalund you still would’ve needed to have a base power (say Blast) to Transfer to. (I like the VPP idea). 
 

LL has a good point about how you can (almost 💯) cut and paste older edition rules into new rules (and vice versa). One point minor point though I’d like to remind the board (and at most it’s splitting hairs really). Is that you are encouraged to create custom Powers and such if that is better for your games. 

[Hugh Neilson]

As NB notes, Transfer was never able to provide abilities the target did not have, and would have been very pricy to apply to "any power", much less "all powers of the target".

 

Elric either Drains others and Aids his own physical stats, or more likely kills others and benefits from a triggered Aid.

 

Rogue is a tough character to build.  And rightly so - her abilities are largely a plot device, which conveniently do not work on some opponents.  In a game, someone who can reliably steal anyone else's powers is pretty tough to balance - or challenge.  Transform against her opponent and a VPP of Multiforms is one approach which has been suggested.

 

The "mimic pool" was an example of a VPP from the outset.

[unclevlad]

I've long felt Rogue might well be the single most expensive character to define, at least among the everyday-style Marvel characters.  Not more powerful per se...more expensive.  Think of the number of dice to drain a 15d6 blast...that's at least 75 active points.  Sure, you can take a few phases, but it's still gonna need to be 5-6 dice at least.  Then start piling on the advantages:
 

--any power

--how many powers at a time?  Believe it was several

--return rate to victim

 

On Rogue's side, it can't be Aid as written.  It's a 15 point Transform.  And you've still got 

--any power, but matches power(s) drained from victim 

--multiple powers at once

--fade rate

--Partial Transform?

 

And the active points will be so *insanely* high that 0 END will be needed.  

 

You always have to be careful in trying to translate oddball powers, as they are, as Hugh mentions, most often plot devices.  Rogue's power is a HUGE problem for her...kiss her boyfriend for 10 seconds, steal ALL his powers *forever*?  Or something about that level.  Once you break that down, it's OMG that's an insane power.  I think we as players too often have the very bad habit of trying to recast it so it's semi-manageable and usable, rather than going with implementing it very closely to the presentation, points be damned.

 

 

 

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

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Put Area Effect on Transfer and...oh, it's basically useless to have AoE on Transfer.

 

Other than that it affects each and every character in the area and gives you their stats, you  mean?  How on earth would it be useless?

 

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Unless I am missing something Aid says specifically that it cannot give one powers or abilities they don't have.

 

Correct, which brings up one of the many drawbacks of the current system.  It makes certain kinds of builds easier, others very difficult, and clutters up character sheets needlessly.

 

There is a workaround to Aid, and that's to give someone a power using Usable By Others at the minimum level (1 point of Power Defense, for example), then Aid that.  The Aid stays on the target even when you end the UBO.  But don't try to slip that one past your GM, they'll probably kick you out of the game.

[Killer Shrike]

There's an example of a Aid + Drain combo power on page 197 of 6e, and the Advanced Players Guide II also talks briefly about Transfer type constructs in its section on Drain. I haven't looked at 5e or 5er in a long time but I would guess there's a fair chance that the one in 6e was copy & pasted from the 5e text and such an example can be found somewhere in the black & green era books as well. (edit: Transfer was still an official thing in 5e)

 

 

It's also trivial to just add Transfer as a base Power to your 6e games if you want to; refer to the Creating New Powers section in the back of 6e vol 2. You can either port the ability directly over from an earlier edition and handwave it away or be a little more rigorous and build it back up from Drain + Aid as you prefer...it amounts to very little difference in the end. The Hero System is a toolkit system after all, not a holy text. It has an entire section in the rules describing how to change or expand the rules to use the building blocks it offers to model what you want.

 

As far as something like the classic Rogue power, there is a multi-column write up for a Transference Touch ability in the back of the Champions Powers supplement. It's based on Multiform and Transform to get a more absolute / across the board effect rather than Drain and Aid. As with many things in the Hero System, there's more than one way to skin a cat. It might be a good pdf for you to pick up if you are getting back into the Hero System; the weird stuff chapter in the end in particular (where Transference Touch is provided) may be of interest to you.

 

here's the preamble...

 

 

 

 

 

[Jhamin]

6 hours ago, unclevlad said:

You always have to be careful in trying to translate oddball powers, as they are, as Hugh mentions, most often plot devices.  Rogue's power is a HUGE problem for her...kiss her boyfriend for 10 seconds, steal ALL his powers *forever*?  Or something about that level.  Once you break that down, it's OMG that's an insane power.  I think we as players too often have the very bad habit of trying to recast it so it's semi-manageable and usable, rather than going with implementing it very closely to the presentation, points be damned.

 

This is my thoughts on Rogue as well.  She can ko *anyone* vulnerable to her powers for as long as she copies them, and she can copy any set of powers at it's full power.  Magneto?  One of the most powerful mutants in the setting?  She can ko him in one hit & use all his powers at full effect.

 

That is *expensive*.  In Hero terms it is *more* expensive than Magneto.  She is not a balanced character.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Rogue is easily the most expensive character in the marvel universe to build, bar none.  Even after draining all of Captain Marvel's powers she still has enough to soak up the entire X-Men and fight a bad guy in one of the graphic novels.  She's crazy powerful.  She drained all the Avengers, including Thor, back before she took down Captain Marvel.

 

And that "the longer the contact, the longer I keep the powers" thing is even more expensive.  She's basically a plot device.  Heinous bad guy, though.

 

That said, it does take a while for her to slurp up everything from a powerful character so they have time to fight back.  But it does weaken and hurt them while she's doing it and often stuns them.

[unclevlad]

Just now, Christopher R Taylor said:

Rogue is easily the most expensive character in the marvel universe to build, bar none.  Even after draining all of Captain Marvel's powers she still has enough to soak up the entire X-Men and fight a bad guy in one of the graphic novels.  She's crazy powerful.  She drained all the Avengers, including Thor, back before she took down Captain Marvel.

 

And that "the longer the contact, the longer I keep the powers" thing is even more expensive.  She's basically a plot device.  Heinous bad guy, though.

 

Not sure about that...if you include the cosmic-level powers like Beyonder or Eternity.  Probably not equal to Galactus or that level, either, but that level is "whatever I feel like, they can do."  But that's the limit of my caveat.

And yeah, I wasn't gonna go too far with that longer contact as it's very hard to translate.  Besides, once you get to 20 minutes, it's only another +1 to points per week.  Considering the "any power" is probably, what, +1;  per 20 minutes is +1 1/2;  4 powers at once is +1 1/2.  So that's +4 already...and clearly, we're blowing any notion of damage caps or active point caps out the window before ever *talking* about the Aid or Transform self side.  

[Christopher R Taylor]

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Probably not equal to Galactus or that level, either, but that level is "whatever I feel like, they can do."  But that's the limit of my caveat.

 

Yeah at that level of character you're not really building anything, its just GM fiat.

[Hugh Neilson]

3 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

Other than that it affects each and every character in the area and gives you their stats, you  mean?  How on earth would it be useless?

 

 

From the 5e FAQ (which I think ended up in the 5er rules):

 

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Question: If a character has an Area Of Effect Transfer, does he apply the effect to all targets within the area and get all the points?

Answer: No. He rolls the effect on his Transfer dice and determines the amount. He then divides that as equally as possible between all the affected persons.

 

That FAQ also noted that you had to buy delayed fade rate twice, once for the Drain and again for the Aid, and do the same for Variable Effect.

 

BTW, Killer Shrike, Transfer was in 5e.  It was revised to a Linked Aid and Drain in 6e.

[Sicarius]

I guess I was thinking more along the lines of a partial Transfer rather than godlike levels. 

 

For example: You attack someones 12d6 Blast power with your 10d6 transfer and roll 30.  So you drain 6d6 of his Blast for the drain duration. His Blast is now 6d6 and you gain that 6d6 Blast. As he regains it you loose it.  Each 5 points return 1d6 from you to him.  Perhaps you can only transfer as many character points in abilities as you spent on Transfer. Make the cost something like 10 or 15 character points for 1d6 of Transfer and limit him that way.  Or maybe a 10d6 Transfer power would transfer a total of 10d6 worth of abilities. 

Another built In limitation is that he can only mimic the same general ability from 1 source at time. He can't add together the Thing and Thors STR this way.  Maximum drain would be the greatest of the two yet limited by his own character points spent on Transfer. 

 

If he drained enough to get 3d6 Strech from Mr Fantastic, 4d6 entangle from Spiderman and and 3d6 Flight from Torch he would be at his 10d6 limit until he released the Transfer willingly or waited for it to drain enough to get some more goodies. 

 

The best way to take this sucker down is with nomal humans armed with sticks. 😁

 

Heck, I'm just playing with ideas as the Hero system really gets the mental juices flowing.  Every day I get at least one new "how would I do this" thought.

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

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From the 5e FAQ (which I think ended up in the 5er rules):

 

Well whether or not that concept made it to 6th edition, its... wrong.  In any campaign I run, that rule doesn't exist.

 

By definition, area effect powers apply equally to all creatures in the area. Drain, Flash, Blast, it doesn't matter.  Just because "this will be hella effective!" doesn't mean you ignore that basic Hero rule.  If you feel too uncomfortable with that, you could treat the AE as a "special" attack like the way autofire works, so it takes an extra +1 advantage but "we're gonna break the rules because some dude in my campaign bought this and I didn't like it" does not wash.

[Killer Shrike]

2 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

BTW, Killer Shrike, Transfer was in 5e.  It was revised to a Linked Aid and Drain in 6e.

 

Thx for the reminder; my memory of earlier editions' minutia fades as the years roll by.  I'll correct the response.

[Hugh Neilson]

8 hours ago, Killer Shrike said:

 

Thx for the reminder; my memory of earlier editions' minutia fades as the years roll by.  I'll correct the response.

One in what, three decades?  I'm not sure anyone can match your knowledge or track record.  I know I can't.

 

I was only confident because I argued for the change in 6e due to the 5e FAQs.

9 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

Well whether or not that concept made it to 6th edition, its... wrong.  In any campaign I run, that rule doesn't exist.

 

By definition, area effect powers apply equally to all creatures in the area. Drain, Flash, Blast, it doesn't matter.  Just because "this will be hella effective!" doesn't mean you ignore that basic Hero rule.  If you feel too uncomfortable with that, you could treat the AE as a "special" attack like the way autofire works, so it takes an extra +1 advantage but "we're gonna break the rules because some dude in my campaign bought this and I didn't like it" does not wash.

 

The problem with Transfer was, once again, that it was a Drain (which should keep working as an attack) and an Aid (which has a cap). 

 

Once the call was made that Transfer stops Draining if the points have nowhere to go, the AoE became a problem.  Remove that call, and it's clear that Transfer is just a Drain with a Linked Aid, so why not get rid of all the problems with "Transfer as one Power" by making it the construct KS cited above?

 

I am pretty sure changes to Hand Attack over the years all arose from its effectiveness in prior games being problematic.  Aid acting as Healing - same issue.  Rules often change to address problems encountered in play.