Battlesuit Building Advice

[Dr Rotwang!]

Hiya!

 

I'm building my first...well, second battlesuit character, using Hero Designer. I have some questions on the subject -- not about the software, but about the theory of powersuit design.

 

1) What, exactly, is stopping me from building the whole thing as a single compound power? I mean, isn't that what is is, example power suit (Destroyer) in Champions notwithstanding?

 

2) What's the advantage of putting the weapons in a Multipower, besides, you know, the price break?

 

3) Relating to 1) above, how much sense does it make to put, say, Armor, Life Support, Flash Defense and maybe even Endurance Reserve together as a Compound Power?

 

I'll be the first to admit that I'm not yet expert at using HERO, and the third to admit it as well (may the honor of second go to one more worthy). Thankfully, no one's tried to kick me off the HERO boards yet, so I don't mind asking if you don't mind answering.

 

Thanks ahead!

[Cyberknight]

Just my $0.02 on battle suit design.

I try to let the game mechanics flow from the nature of the suit itself. Does the suit have armor, or just Damage Resistance? I answer that based on my mental image of the beast. A suit that's essentially a walking slab of Exoticum plate gets armor, while a 'battle bikini' will get Damage Resistance or Force Fields.

 

Weapons in a multipower? That's pretty much a standard feature of most battlesuits, with ultra slots to represent a whole array of weapons that the pilot can select.

 

I'd keep things as simple as possible in any case. There's enough to keep track of in a Champions scenario (Phase / Dex order, your stun, your END, situational awareness of your teammates, how many slices of pizza are left in the Papa John's box...) without needing an owner's manual and or reference card to figure out how the powers on your suit interact

 

Cyberknight

[Dr Rotwang!]

Sense!

[Lightray]

1) Compound Powers are intended to represent one power -- every time the compound power is on/is used, everything in the compound power takes effect.

 

It is a convenience to memory, more or less, so you don't have to go hunting across the character sheet for all the parts to one power. It is also useful in HD to put more than one power in a framework slot.

 

2) Multipowers can represent when your hero has a choice of abilities to use, some of which exclude the use of others. For a power armor character, it would be good if your weapon systems are more-or-less exclusive -- you fire blasters or missiles, but not both at once.

 

Don't discount the point-break. The benefit this gives you is ease of upgrades for your power armor. Want to add another weapon? ~40 points bought straight, ~4 pts. as a multipower slot.

 

3) As above, it makes sense to use compound power only if they're all always on and off at the same time.

 

For power armor, though, you're not getting any point break for the Compound Power, and it just makes it more difficult to read in HD. They're all probably OIF anyway -- lose the focus, you lose them all.

 

What you've got is a List. Put them all in a list, put the OIF disad on the List itself. Makes it much more legible and easy to read on the character sheet. Costs the same, and functionally operates the same.

[Mastermind]

Don't forget Enhanced Senses!!!

 

and something pretty cool...a Cloaking Device. Check out Stalwart in the CU book!

 

better yet...here's an example...

 

Cloaking Device: Invisibility to Sight Group, Nightvision, Infrared Perception (30 Active Points); Costs Endurance, per Phase (-1/2), OIF (-1/2); Total Cost: 15 points

[Demonsong]

Hello,

 

I apologies in advance I am not trying to be nitpicky. But you can’t give obvious focus invisibility. I emailed Steve about it a while back. So I will just post it here. Hope it helps.

 

ME:

Locust has a set of Advanced Power Armor (-1/2 OIF) and he wants to be invisible to Radar and IR Perception. However according to the rules on Focus any Obvious Focus only make the person invisible not the Focus. And that means that I (The G.M.) get to shoot him out of the air (again) with Radar guided S.A.M.s. Loads of fun for me, not so much fun for Locust. How do I handle this? Are the rules a little off or did we (I) missing something?

 

Steve:

You're not missing anything. There are several possible solutions. First, you, as GM, could ignore the standard rule and just let Locust be Invisible to Radar and IR, despite the Obvious-ness of his armor.

Second, Locus could buy his armor as an IIF to get around this rule, but otherwise have it act as an Obvious Focus based on special effects.

Third, you, as GM, could allow Locust to include in the cost of the

"stealth mode" power the ability to temporarily "buy off" the Obvious-ness of his Focus. Calculate the difference in cost for the ability between OIF and IIF, and simply include the difference in the power's cost. In other words, the "stealth mode" would temporarily make the Obvious into Inobvious while the power's in use -- though again, based on special effects, it's only Inobvious for whatever the Invisibility covers. Someone with normal eyesight could still see the armor.

[Mastermind]

No...that's a good point. I would choose Steve's third suggestion...make the OIF into an IIF...I think the difference is -1/4...

 

so the Cloaking Device above would be...17 pts

[Citizen Keen]

For the first time, FRed's index has failed me.

 

What is a compound power?

[winterhawk]

Originally posted by Citizen Keen

For the first time, FRed's index has failed me.

 

What is a compound power?

 

Compound Power is a way of making two powers in the same slot in Hero Designer...like if you wanted an EB and a Flash in the same mutlipower slot.

 

I've found that the List option is useful for Powered Armor types. You can load up Advantages and Limitations on the main listing and when you plug the suit's powers into the List, it applies the limitations to all of the powers. Real time saver.