Magmarock Posted June 4, 2004 Report Share Posted June 4, 2004 Hey all. I need help with something- reconstructing a certain EC to HD specs. I am taking a PC that I ran in a tabletop campaign and putting her into Hero Designer v2.02 format (without changing any of her powers). After this PC had been carefully constructed and balanced by myself and the (then) GM of our group... I thought that she was built completely legal. Yet now, Hero Designer won't allow me to reconstruct the character. I like Hero Designer, I am just a little dismayed. A submission deadline for a PBeM is coming up and I don't know how to finish rebuilding her in time. And I am not familiar enough with HD to do what I need to do to make her fit. My point is, I shouldn't have to rebuild her EC if it was done properly, so now I have questions regarding EC construction. Let me preface this by stating I looked for another thread discussing EC construction and didn't see any. Second, I created this thread here to discuss the legality of the EC. Later, I'll post in the HD area. Here is my question: Can you take two powers and combine them in one slot so that their total AP fits the EC? I think this is called linking the powers within a slot. The powers in question here are an EDM Time Stop and the linked power is a Full Life Support while she is in the Time Stop (this to represent how none of the gasses/poisons/continuing effects attack affect her when she stops time). The former power is 56 AP while the latter is 45 AP. the control cost for the EC is 35 and these powers fully fit the SFX of a PC who can control the dimension of time, without being an actual time traveler. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks! Mags Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JJR Posted June 4, 2004 Report Share Posted June 4, 2004 Re: EC Concerns... what is legal? You can combine 2 powers in one slot and link them. You cannot combine 2 powers in 2 different slots with linked. In hero designer you need to build this composite power by using the 'compound power' power in the powers section. The problem you are having is that life support is not a legal power for an elemental control. Only powers which cost endurance can be put into an elemental control. If you buy the life support as costs end to activate then it will be accepted by the elemental control. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magmarock Posted June 4, 2004 Author Report Share Posted June 4, 2004 Re: EC Concerns... what is legal? You can combine 2 powers in one slot and link them. You cannot combine 2 powers in 2 different slots with linked. In hero designer you need to build this composite power by using the 'compound power' power in the powers section. Thank you! The problem you are having is that life support is not a legal power for an elemental control. Only powers which cost endurance can be put into an elemental control. If you buy the life support as costs end to activate then it will be accepted by the elemental control. Per FReD, page 204: "You cannot buy powers which inherently cost no END as a slot on an EC unless they take the Limitation: Costs END or the GM permits it." In this case, the GM permitted it, mainly because it only worked within the Time Stop itself. Whether the new GM will permit it or not remains to be seens. But you did bring up a question that I planned on asking in the HD section: What if a GM oks something, but the program won't allow it? How does one get around that problem? I noticed that occasionally a pop up message will say "you can't do that"... but what if it is allowed by the GM? Mags Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JJR Posted June 4, 2004 Report Share Posted June 4, 2004 Re: EC Concerns... what is legal? You can bypass hero designer's rules by either turning off 'modifier intelligence' or by using a custom power slot to build the life support side of the power. Those are the only two ways that I know of. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magmarock Posted June 4, 2004 Author Report Share Posted June 4, 2004 Re: EC Concerns... what is legal? You can bypass hero designer's rules by either turning off 'modifier intelligence' or by using a custom power slot to build the life support side of the power. Those are the only two ways that I know of. Woah. You can do that? Hmmm. I need to play around with my HD a bit more. Thanks again for your help, JJR! Mags Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snarf Posted June 4, 2004 Report Share Posted June 4, 2004 Re: EC Concerns... what is legal? You can also turn modifier intelligence to a moderate level that warns if something is illegal, but doesn't stop you from using it. That's my preferred setting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magmarock Posted June 4, 2004 Author Report Share Posted June 4, 2004 Re: EC Concerns... what is legal? I just posted the PC for review and suggestions, in the Champions thread. Here is the link. I posted her background too. http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17911 Mags Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon Posted June 4, 2004 Report Share Posted June 4, 2004 Re: EC Concerns... what is legal? You don't need to go nearly so far as turning off Modifier Intelligence (that wouldn't help with putting a non-END-using Power into an EC, anyway). The Campaign Rules, among many other things, allow you to specify what action to take when a non-END-using Power is added to an EC. By default, it is set to "Warn" -- which will let you know that you shouldn't do that without GM permission, but then put the Power in anyway (basically, the program lets you know that you need GM permission, but then assumes that you know what you're doing and allows it). You can set it to "Ignore" if you don't want the warning at all or "Do Not Allow" if you want to utterly disallow the addition of non-END-using powers to an EC. If you're using the default Campaign Rules on your character, you will be able to add Life Support to the EC....just "ok" the warning message and continue. You will need to put both Powers into a Compound Power if you want to Link them, however -- as stated above. Just as a side note, I would strongly recommend updating your copy of HD to the most recent version -- 2.33. The updates are free and can be found in the Free Stuff section. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magmarock Posted June 4, 2004 Author Report Share Posted June 4, 2004 Re: EC Concerns... what is legal? Ooh! Thanks! I didn't realize it's been updated. Mags Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon Posted June 4, 2004 Report Share Posted June 4, 2004 Re: EC Concerns... what is legal? Thank you! But you did bring up a question that I planned on asking in the HD section: What if a GM oks something, but the program won't allow it? How does one get around that problem? I noticed that occasionally a pop up message will say "you can't do that"... but what if it is allowed by the GM? HD will allow you to do anything which is legal in the rules. Anything which is stated in the rules as "requires GM approval" is generally given a warning dialog, alerting you to the fact that it requires GM approval while still allowing the action to proceed. Most of these options are configurable under the Campaign Rules section. The few exceptions to this are items which Steve has stated are core to the system and cannot be allowed to change (and most of these can be changed anyway by GMs that really want to customize the app). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon Posted June 4, 2004 Report Share Posted June 4, 2004 Re: EC Concerns... what is legal? Ooh! Thanks! I didn't realize it's been updated. Mags Heh...I'm updating it almost constantly. You can check for full version updates via "Tools -> Check for Updates" within the app (Ctrl+U for a shortcut). Alternately, you can see what's going on in the current interim build (basically the development version of the next update) by going to "Help -> View Change Log..." If there are features listed in the change log that you're interested in, just grab the current interim build and you're good to go. Both of the above features require that you are online when you execute them, as they contact the server to gather the current information. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magmarock Posted June 4, 2004 Author Report Share Posted June 4, 2004 Re: EC Concerns... what is legal? Heh...I'm updating it almost constantly. You can check for full version updates via "Tools -> Check for Updates" within the app (Ctrl+U for a shortcut). Alternately, you can see what's going on in the current interim build (basically the development version of the next update) by going to "Help -> View Change Log..." If there are features listed in the change log that you're interested in, just grab the current interim build and you're good to go. Both of the above features require that you are online when you execute them, as they contact the server to gather the current information. Just goes to show how observant I am... I didn't realize you were the guy behind HD. Whoot! I think the Hero Designer program is super-nifty neat! I had such trouble building characters before- even using our Excel sheets- but if this system is easy enough for me to use, I know anyone can use it. Great job, Simon, you deserve a gold medal! Mags Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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