Power Help

[paladin.oa]

Hello, this is my first or one of my first posts, so be gentl.

 

Anyway I have an idea for a couple of powers but can't figure out how to build them.

 

The first power involves the character being able to pick up any gun, or any s/he has and by using their own energy being able to fire a shot at the gun's normal effect without using up any ammo. But when using ammo the gun's damage may be doubled, and/or gain armor piercing, penetrating, and/or explosive depending on what the character wanted to achieve.

 

The second power is a modified summon where if the power's owner takes body damage, some number of smaller creatures are spawned, but still having the ability to summon them after sufficient time has elapsed.

 

Thanks

[schir1964]

Re: Power Help

 

You certainly have picked a couple of complex powers for sure.

 

The first power involves the character being able to pick up any gun' date=' or any s/he has and by using their own energy being able to fire a shot at the gun's normal effect without using up any ammo. But when using ammo the gun's damage may be doubled, and/or gain armor piercing, penetrating, and/or explosive depending on what the character wanted to achieve.[/quote']

At first glance this would seem to require the Naked Power Advantage mechanic and definitely the Variable Advantage. A linked Aid might work to get the Doubling of Damage portion. I'll leave it to others to give a more fleshed out version.

 

The second power is a modified summon where if the power's owner takes body damage' date=' some number of smaller creatures are spawned, but still having the ability to summon them after sufficient time has elapsed.[/quote']

I think you should elaborate more on what the actual SFX is, but it sounds like you would need the Trigger Advantage applied to a Summon.

 

- Christopher Mullins

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Power Help

 

The first power involves the character being able to pick up any gun, or any s/he has and by using their own energy being able to fire a shot at the gun's normal effect without using up any ammo. But when using ammo the gun's damage may be doubled, and/or gain armor piercing, penetrating, and/or explosive depending on what the character wanted to achieve.

 

I'll stick with this one just now.

 

What you will have to be careful with here is the potential for exceeding the damage limitations of any campaign you happen to be playing in.

 

My take would be on you working with the GM to find out what the largest calibre weapon you can use this power with and take that damage.

 

I would then purchase a killing attack of twice the capacity. For example, if the largest damage would be 3D6K then you have to purchase 6D6K. The power would then have the beam limitation, focus of opportunity, damage limited by weapon. The damage limitation would cover the fact that your 6D6 Killing Attack would only do 1/2D6K if you were holding an empty derringer, or 1D6K if you were holding a bog standard pistol. If these weapons were loaded then you would be able to do 1D6K or 2D6K respectively.

 

Now, this version really only works with bog standard damage types. To get really clever you really need to think along the lines of VPP which would be similarly limited but allow you to add Armour Piercing or Autofire as necessary - or even to use a variety of weapons such as flame throwers.

 

You could probably get by with a multipower that covered the main advantages of projectile weapons but you would need to work with the GM to determine 1) what you will be allowed to have and 2) what the campaign maximums for such weapons will be. After that you can buy the bog standard Killing Attack slot, the AP slot, the Autofire slot and possibly a damage limitation on the reserve.

 

Not at home so cant work up a Hero Designer example for you.

 

 

Doc

[Sean Waters]

Re: Power Help

 

30: 45 point multipower pool, pool and slots require weapon of opportunity (-1/2)

3: 9d6 succor to RKA (maximum 45 points)

2: Naked Variable Advantage (AP, Ex, Pen)

3: 3d6 RKA (maximum damage limited to weapon –0)

Basically you pick up a gun, presumably one you paid points for if this is a superhero game, and, by devoting an attack action, you can boost the damage – an average roll adds +2d6 damage, but you can devoting another attack action you can easily get up to +3d6, although the END cost effectively doubles. Once you have boosted damage you can maintain the boosted damage by paying END every phase.

Alternatively you can charge the ammo to have one of the stated advantages, or fire the fun without using any ammo. This costs END as normal.

38 points. Bargain.

[paladin.oa]

Re: Power Help

 

The first power was just a thought that I had and I was wondering how it would be made, if it could be made, without creating a new power or advantage.

 

The second power is for a campaign that I am creating and GMing, my first one ever. Anyway the sfx is that of a tree-like thing with seed pods that will fall to the ground and open up to reveal lesser enemies as the tree takes damage, or the tree will let all the seed pods, thousands of them, go simutaneously if it is allowed enough time to do so. Oh, and it can do this again and again so long as it lives.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Power Help

 

The first power was just a thought that I had and I was wondering how it would be made, if it could be made, without creating a new power or advantage.

 

The second power is for a campaign that I am creating and GMing, my first one ever. Anyway the sfx is that of a tree-like thing with seed pods that will fall to the ground and open up to reveal lesser enemies as the tree takes damage, or the tree will let all the seed pods, thousands of them, go simutaneously if it is allowed enough time to do so. Oh, and it can do this again and again so long as it lives.

 

The second power sounds awfully like a plot device that you probably don't need to actually build, but if you insist....

 

You can do this with summon, probably easiest.

 

30 Summon EC

 

30 Summon 200 point creature, trigger (takes damage, automatic reset)

22 Summon 200 point creature x 2048 (95 points) 1 charge/day

 

Interestingly enough you could also do the 'damage summon' by building a damage shield using the summon power. Just a thought.

 

You could also do this with multiform, but I wouldn't.

[SCUBA Hero]

Re: Power Help

 

Interestingly enough you could also do the 'damage summon' by building a damage shield using the summon power. Just a thought.

A most interesting thought, indeed!

 

I need to spread Rep around, yadda yadda...

 

The ingenuity of Hero folks never ceases to amaze me.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Power Help

 

A most interesting thought, indeed!

 

I need to spread Rep around, yadda yadda...

 

The ingenuity of Hero folks never ceases to amaze me.

 

Interesting thoughts tend to be products of interesting questions. I really like this board

[Psylint]

Re: Power Help

 

Paladin,

 

I'm thinking a different construction

 

3d6 RKA, foci of opportunity: fire arm, active points limited by active points of firearm.

 

What this should do is allow you to shoot up to a light anti-tank weapon using your own endurance. Also if the weapon had ammo you could, reasonably, use a multipower attack to attack both with the RKA above and the firearm's attack --> double damage, sort of. This is a lot less likely to run afoul of active point limits in most campaigns... 2 3d6 RKA's are a dime a dozen, but 1 6d6 RKA can kill a lot of heroes, besides that's more beat down than an Abram's main gun.

 

To get the or Armor Piercing et. al. just add variable power advantage.

 

On the summon thing, I'm kinda clueless, but as a GM I'd be awfully wary. Summons tend to get out of hand very quickly, particularly if they do not require the character to expend their own phase to accomplish them.

 

Peace

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Power Help

 

Hello' date=' this is my first or one of my first posts, so be gentl.[/quote']

 

Dude, didn't you hear? I am the Lord Captain Thia Halmades. I do a lot of things; gentle ain't one of 'em. Especially when it's misspelled, but you know, I'll see what I can do in this case.

 

Anyway I have an idea for a couple of powers but can't figure out how to build them.

 

Ain't that always the way?! I know that feeling. You have my pity. I'll even make an effort to say something semi-constructive!

 

The first power involves the character being able to pick up any gun' date=' or any s/he has and by using their own energy being able to fire a shot at the gun's normal effect without using up any ammo. But when using ammo the gun's damage may be doubled, and/or gain armor piercing, penetrating, and/or explosive depending on what the character wanted to achieve.[/quote']

 

Ugh. Well, you're doing a couple of things here that add to the problem. The first is this: a firearm uses charges; you want to replace the charges of the firearm with your own personal END, which involves rewriting the entire mechanic of the firearm. So instead of trying to "double" the firearm's damage, you're really building a totally separate power:

 

Killing Attack, 1d6 1/2 (25 Active Points), OIF (Firearm of Opportunity) (etc. & so forth for flavor).

 

In this model, you're just picking up the weapon & burning END instead of rounds, but the damage is capped to what you can do -- not what the firearm can do, a forced limitation of the system. You could, with GM permission, do as was suggested and build the power to the 'maximum' firearm damage, and then add in an additional limitation: "Limited Power; power cannot generate damage higher than wielded firearm, (-1/2)."

 

Then, you build that power as a multipower;

 

Variable Advantage, requires expenditure of a charge from weapon/OIF (-1/4, or -0, since the charges are part of the weapon anyway) and you're effectively 'super charging' the round. I would also require this Cost End (-1/2), to represent that the PC is still using their own 'fuel' to drive the effect.

 

The second power is a modified summon where if the power's owner takes body damage' date=' some number of smaller creatures are spawned, but still having the ability to summon them after sufficient time has elapsed.[/quote']

 

What?

 

Occasionally I get lost; this seems to be one of those times. I'm not certain what this power is intended to do. Certainly you can build a Summon, Trigger (+1/4, must take BODY, trigger resets as a 0 phase action, etc. etc.). But make sure you've read the summon rules fully, and that you know what you want to do. I would need a better description of this power to give you a better build.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Power Help

 

One With The Gun:

-8D6RKA, Focus OAF (any available gun); Limited to Weapons normal damage if no ammo is available (-1/4); May only double guns normal damage if ammo is available (-1/4)

-Naked Advantage: Variable Advantage (Limited List: AP, Penetrating, Explosive) for up to 60 Active Points of Guns; May only be used if weapon is doing normal damage with ammo available (-1/4)

 

Without getting fancy, this assumes that guns don't exceed 60 Active Points (4D6 Killing, 12D6 Normal) for the most part. If you think that's a likely to happen in the campaign increase appropriately. For the most part, official write-ups don't exceed 4D6 Killing in the case of normal ammunition.

 

Second, the NA: Variable Advantage is a bit of a suspect, kind of a cheesy use of Variable Advantage so a cautious GM would have you purchase each of the three viable Advantages separately. A GM wanting a very cinematic approach to the game may not.

 

If you wanted to simulate the characters personal energy only adding damage, and not required for the full doubled amount (I'm assuming Personal Energy = END) then you can add:

-Naked Advantage 1/2 END for up to 120 Active Points; Only applies when ammo is available.

 

Effectively halving the END Cost of the doubled damage easily simulates the bullet costing 0 END and the doubled amount costing normal END.

 

(BTW: the Charges of the gun, they get used up no matter what, meaning you use the bullets up. I'd call this a -0 Limitation: Charges are used anyway)

[paladin.oa]

Re: Power Help

 

Thanks a lot guys and gals. Another question, is there an advantage, either official or house, that allows an aid, or other adjustment power to do its maximum effect without having to roll the die? In other words a 3d6 aid to STR would give +18 points of STR with one use of the power w/o needing to roll any dice? If not then how much would this cost, +1, +2, perhaps needing uses double end in combination?

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Power Help

 

No, that advantage does not exist to my knowledge. You do have some OPTIONS to get there, including Haymaker (to add extra dice) and SER (Standard Effect Roll) to get started. You can make an argument that with enough time eventually you'll max out your effect, but HERO is generally designed to create die rolls. There are very few, if any abilities that I'm aware of, that allow you to maximize outright (although there may be a sub rule for Healing, but I'm TDL to look it up right now).

[ghost-angel]

Re: Power Help

 

Nope - no rules to automatically achieve maximum effect.

 

Takes all the fun out for one.

 

Standard Effect is the closest you come - you sacrifice the potential really good roll (and really bad roll) for just below average and a predictable amount every time.

[Checkmate]

Re: Power Help

 

The other way to do the aid, is to just buy the power you want Usable by (or on) others. For example you have an Aid to STR, and want to aid 30 STR automatically. Just by 30 STR usable by others.

 

Now if you want an Aid that aids any type of characteristic (or similar) you might need to go with a Variable Power Pool.

 

For energy blast you could go with something like: 6d6 EB Usable By Others, Variable SFX must add to existing EB and mimic existing EB's SFX. Or again the VPP.

[Psylint]

Re: Power Help

 

Thanks a lot guys and gals. Another question' date=' is there an advantage, either official or house, that allows an aid, or other adjustment power to do its maximum effect without having to roll the die? In other words a 3d6 aid to STR would give +18 points of STR with one use of the power w/o needing to roll any dice? If not then how much would this cost, +1, +2, perhaps needing uses double end in combination?[/quote']

 

Well, seems to me if you use the standard effect roll and you wanted to get the equivalent of say 3d6 Aid, with all 6's all you need to do is take 6d6 Aid standard effect.

 

So if you wanted to do it, I'd say +1 is the minimum to get that level of effect. However, I suspect that the motivation for such is either extreme efficiency, i.e. not paying the "double end cost" or fitting in under the Active Point Cap.

 

Personally, I'd just tell folks to use 2x the dice and standard effect and be happy with it.

 

Peace

[paladin.oa]

Re: Power Help

 

The main reason why I was asking about the max effect is indeed effiecency(sp?), and to eliminate bookkeeping on my part. I'm a GM and I have a critter that can pump up other critter's stats, so I was just trying to see if there was a way to do the aids so that they achieve maximum effect for a turn, then fade completely with no trickle down. In this way I don't have to make an excessive amount of notes on the critter character sheets.

 

The gun power is still hazy to me. I am the GM trying to give it to a player character, so points aren't an issue. To remind you, and to do a better job, I'll reiterate the ability.

 

This ability will allow the PC to take a 3d6 sniper rifle with no rmod and do several things with it. The first is that he can fire it, using his own end, at the weapons base damage plus any base modifiers, without using a bullet. This would be like a 3d6 RKA w/ no rmod. Secondly the PC can add his own end (on the base damage of the weapon) and use a bullet to do double the base damage, but without adding or subtracting any modifiers. This would turn the sniper rifle into a 6d6 RKA w/ no Rmod. Finally the PC can add AP, penatrating, and/or explosion to the weapon, expending any extra end that the extra points for the disadvantages dictate. Please note that this should only take a phase at most to do. Also I am somewhat new to HERO, I've played in a campaign before, so I would appreciate it if there was some explanation along with the power build.

 

This post was waayy to long, so sorry. And for those who made it, please, help !

[Psylint]

Re: Power Help

 

Paladin,

 

It's easier to model a power when you give specifics. In the case of the AID, what you want is +X pts, and only +X pts, only usable on the target's next phase, and only on the target's next phase.

 

So, +18 pts. of AID (6d6 standard effect) [active cost 60] Limitation hastened recovery time to 1 phase -1/2; Increased recovery x4, i.e. 20pts per increment -1/2 (a house rule applied to drains/transfer et. all based on standard multipliers i.e. -1/4 for 2x, -1/2 for x4, -3/4 for x8]

 

So you get +18 pts of AID for 1 phase for for 30 pts.

 

Peace.

 

Also relative to the "powering guns with no bullets" power I'd seriously look at your campaign, 6d6 RKA is, by itself, a 90 AP, 18 DC attack that averages 21 Body killing damage, significantly more than a howitzer round. That kind of smackdown, is generally, only appropriate at the Cosmic level.

 

But seriously, you've gotten good responses to your request:

 

X d6RKA (where X is the killing dice of the heaviest RKA that's still a "gun") Variable power advantage (to cover whatever funky advantages it might have, if there are AP, Penetrating, no range mod sniper rifles, then this one will get expensive very quickly) active points of RKA and advantages limited to active points and advantages of underlying focus of opportunity.

 

If you wanna be chessy add.... +30d6 AID to RKA, only on "guns", only to max of twice active point cost.

 

But seriously, friend, take a look at what you've already been provided, before asking for more. If you don't understand a suggestion, maybe send a PM to the author thereof and let them explain it to you.

 

Peace