6th ed rules GM questions

[Grailknight]

Having run and played in these scenarios with Mentalists, I'll share some of the things I've seen used as solutions. 

 

Using 60 active points as the base.

 

Drain Ego is a problem but that is common to any Characteristic Drain in 6th. Make EGO and PRE defensive powers to slow this.

 

One-Way Mind Scan  is 10 points/die. Unless he has cumulative that means he barely gets a +10 effect on a normal who gets an 11 or less breakout roll right away. EGO 13 impedes this power and Ego 18 shuts it down as they raise the threshold for +10 effect and the breakout roll is easier. 

 

Mental Blast is fine because Stun damage is universal.

 

Just say No to any sort of Ranged Attackers who are invisible. 

 

 .

[Pranqstr]

Most of the characters have 90pts in offense, too late to change it in this campaign. But, I did do one thing correct: I limited OCV/DCV , so most of the party has OCV/DCV of 8, and OMCV/DMCV is very low (most of the party...). So on against an average villain, they have a 50% chance of success.

 

AoE, and alternate senses will make it hard for an invisible characters, and the mentalist isn't going to do well in physical/energy combat.

 

Would a fog cloud/smoke cloud expose an invisible character? Opinions?

 

9d6 mind scan has an average roll of 31.5, so an 18 EGO, will not stop a +10 mind scan. But, he could render a victim useless in 1 round using other 90pt mental powers.

 

SO... I will bring more mentalists to the fight. It could become a chess match, Villain mentalist vs Hero mentalist... Villain can take over members of the party, and hero can stop the attackers, if they don't go head-to-head (pardon the pun)

[bigdamnhero]

You said "...voluntarily turning off part of his power to talk...", but Always On is a limitation, so it should not benefit him. I told him he can not have Always On as this is a roleplaying game, not a combat boardgame.

Yeah, sounds like he wants to have it both ways. I'd say you were right that he can't get points for Always On and then ignore it whenever it's convenient.

[bigdamnhero]

Ah, this is my beef with Champions Complete - I applaud it's attempts to reduce the word salad of 6E Vol.1+2 but it has gone too far in a lot of places.

Meh, I do like CC and FHC, and I think they did a good job of covering 90% of situations, especially for players. And I love having the core rules in a manageable size that I can wave in the air without scaring people off! As a GM, I still like having 6ed as the Advanced GM Rules Lawyer Edition to refer to, tho it's surprising how rarely I need to pull them out. YMMV.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Generally, a 350 point 5e character is actually more powerful than a 400 point 6e character.  I think this holds true for 4e as well.

 

In my many conversions I found that 1-4th edition didn't change much in cost, 5th only slightly and 6th added about 50 points overall to the cost of characters.  So a 250 point 4th edition character is about 300 points in 6th.  There's some variance, of course, based on the abilities.  Lack of Weakness vanished, so that's no longer a cost, but other things got more expensive.

[Hyper-Man]

Generally, a 350 point 5e character is actually more powerful than a 400 point 6e character.  I think this holds true for 4e as well.  But I am not sure if it does with 3e too.  For stuff from that era I really think you'll just need to compare CV's Defenses, SPD and Damage Class of attacks.

 

 

Generally, a 350 point 5e character is actually more powerful than a 400 point 6e character.  I think this holds true for 4e as well.

 

In my many conversions I found that 1-4th edition didn't change much in cost, 5th only slightly and 6th added about 50 points overall to the cost of characters.  So a 250 point 4th edition character is about 300 points in 6th.  There's some variance, of course, based on the abilities.  Lack of Weakness vanished, so that's no longer a cost, but other things got more expensive.

 

From 5e to 6e I was comparing characteristic heavy rookie versions of Flash and Superman. I had to lower the DEX and CV of the 6e versions to get the equivalent power level.  I was basing the 4e comment on a similar comparison of the different published versions of Durak from Eurostar. I believe the 4e version is arguably the most powerful.  However, the issue with that comparison is that the point levels are not standard starting either.

 

HM

[Grailknight]

Most of the characters have 90pts in offense, too late to change it in this campaign. But, I did do one thing correct: I limited OCV/DCV , so most of the party has OCV/DCV of 8, and OMCV/DMCV is very low (most of the party...). So on against an average villain, they have a 50% chance of success.

 

AoE, and alternate senses will make it hard for an invisible characters, and the mentalist isn't going to do well in physical/energy combat.

 

Would a fog cloud/smoke cloud expose an invisible character? Opinions?

 

9d6 mind scan has an average roll of 31.5, so an 18 EGO, will not stop a +10 mind scan. But, he could render a victim useless in 1 round using other 90pt mental powers.

 

SO... I will bring more mentalists to the fight. It could become a chess match, Villain mentalist vs Hero mentalist... Villain can take over members of the party, and hero can stop the attackers, if they don't go head-to-head (pardon the pun)

 

At 90 points mentalists become more dangerous but not unmanageable.

 

You get your first breakout roll on your phase after the attack and he can't attack the same phase as he locks on. A 10 Ego has a 9 or less roll, a 13 EGO has an 11 or less roll vs 9d6 and an 18 EGO has a 13 or less. So even low Ego targets have a chance and trained agents or villains can invest in 2 point levels with breakout rolls. I wouldn't do this often because 90 point powers should take out normals and agents. But they shouldn't be any more universally effective than an 18d6 blast or punch.

[Pranqstr]

I was looking and the

"Always on" modifier applies to 0 endurance persistent powers. And invisibility is not a 0 END persistent power... I expected the rules lawyers  to point this out... ; )

 

 

Hhmm...

[L. Marcus]

It can be bought to 0 END, Persistent, no problem. Just take the right Advantages.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I'm still not happy with how most mental powers work, they tend to be either ignored or overpowered, without any middle ground.  You can either mind control someone to like ice cream more or murder his entire family.  I'd be happier if it was based more like transform where you built the potency of the power into the cost rather than stacking dice until it does something useful.

[Spence]

 

 

See, there's a skill to building a good TEAM, just like there's a skill to building a good character.  Every player has to ask himself "Do I want to play a character who can do something no other character on the team can do, or do I want to play the character that makes every other character on the team UNNECESSARY?"  Good players stick to well established comic book archetypes & tropes.  Some players can play a Weird and make it fun for everyone.  Other players can't be trusted to play a Weird.

 

For me I call that the inability to make a Superhero. 

 

Most people just want to make people with powers or just straight up bad guys.   Not Villains, nothing that grandiose.  But just low brow plot-less hacks that smash on things.

 

If you try to make an actual superhero, you tend to get an actual character that can be roleplayed and fit inside a story.   Players that understand this tend to make characters that can fit on the Team you are looking for...

 

At least that is the way it seems to me

[Pranqstr]

He typically designs characters to stop the enemy leader, not to stop minions or thugs. He would attack the leader, and avoid the lesser opponents, which can screw up villain escapes.

 

So, if a mind scan is initiated on a phase the victim doesn't react, does the attacker get info, until the phase the defender reacts?

 

The rest of the party has low EGO and PRE (10-13), so it will be easy to mental attack them, and the party's mentalist will have to stop the attacks, otherwise he will be fighting alone quickly.

 

He didn't pay for the advantage of 0 END invisibility

[Tasha]

I'm still not happy with how most mental powers work, they tend to be either ignored or overpowered, without any middle ground.  You can either mind control someone to like ice cream more or murder his entire family.  I'd be happier if it was based more like transform where you built the potency of the power into the cost rather than stacking dice until it does something useful.

yeah, Mental Powers really only work right at Superheroic Powerlevels. Scaling that down to Heroic levels, where most powers work great when they are 35pts or less. Well Telepathy, Mind Control etc are totally useless with that little power. The only way to fix it would be to come up with a mechanic that doesn't use Ego and overcoming that ego as criteria for the power working. Who knows, perhaps a new stat that is costed like Stun. You would have abilities do damage to that stat and that when you exhaust the stat then you can do anyting you need to do. Perhaps teirs ie exceeding EGO for a minor effect, doing more than half the stat gains the current +10 level etc. Might be too complicated, but it uses a similar mechanic that Stun damage already does.

[DasBroot]

Tasha's absolutely correct. It's pretty much superhero levels *only*.

 

 At 30 - 45 points mental powers barely do anything but at the same time superhero standard 60 point levels tends to be about as high a point cap you can go without risking every enemy becoming a brain in a box (result +30),  You can invest 60 points into mental illusion and on average you'll get a result of 42.  That's enough to brain in a box a weak willed minion (ego 10) but any self respecting mastermind villain better have an ego of 15 or higher.  Even against those types a dangerous +20 (ego / md 22 - harder) is about what you can expect.

 

Aiming for the +0 to +10 makes pretty much everything in the game Naked before the Eyes of God when dealing with even a 60 point mentalist.

 

It gets worse if the cap is 80 or even higher.

 

That said if someone was really worried about mental powers it is cheap to defend against them.  In my example, not factoring disadvantages, it would cost someone 32 AP to become basically immune to the 60 AP mentalist.  It's often just hard to include that kind of resistance on a character.

 

(Power defence is even more hateful.  A drain costs 15 AP per 3.5 points of effect .  4 AP of power defence per 15 AP drain sends it packing.)

[Grailknight]

He typically designs characters to stop the enemy leader, not to stop minions or thugs. He would attack the leader, and avoid the lesser opponents, which can screw up villain escapes.

 

So, if a mind scan is initiated on a phase the victim doesn't react, does the attacker get info, until the phase the defender reacts?

 

The rest of the party has low EGO and PRE (10-13), so it will be easy to mental attack them, and the party's mentalist will have to stop the attacks, otherwise he will be fighting alone quickly.

 

He didn't pay for the advantage of 0 END invisibility

 

You get lock-on but can't attack with anything else until your next phase and you have to maintain the Mind Scan. 

 

The target gets a breakout roll on their next phase.

 

Tasha's absolutely correct. It's pretty much superhero levels *only*.

 

 At 30 - 45 points mental powers barely do anything but at the same time superhero standard 60 point levels tends to be about as high a point cap you can go without risking every enemy becoming a brain in a box (result +30),  You can invest 60 points into mental illusion and on average you'll get a result of 42.  That's enough to brain in a box a weak willed minion (ego 10) but any self respecting mastermind villain better have an ego of 15 or higher.  Even against those types a dangerous +20 (ego / md 22 - harder) is about what you can expect.

 

Aiming for the +0 to +10 makes pretty much everything in the game Naked before the Eyes of God when dealing with even a 60 point mentalist.

 

It gets worse if the cap is 80 or even higher.

 

That said if someone was really worried about mental powers it is cheap to defend against them.  In my example, not factoring disadvantages, it would cost someone 32 AP to become basically immune to the 60 AP mentalist.  It's often just hard to include that kind of resistance on a character.

 

(Power defence is even more hateful.  A drain costs 15 AP per 3.5 points of effect .  4 AP of power defence per 15 AP drain sends it packing.)

 

 Even the EGO 10 minion has an 11 or less breakout roll vs that +30 command, a 62% chance you do nothing. 

 

Drain is only 10 AP per die in 6th. It is more devastating than ever with the changes to Characteristic costs and the fact that is ranged.

[Pranqstr]

EGO 10 minion? Ha. half of the characters in the campaign have 10 EGO. If I add an enemy mentalist (again- last game I used a mind control and took control of the brick to attack the party for a few phases), they are in trouble. And most of the party has 10-13 PRE, I will be using PRE attacks too...

 

 

 

Thanks to the help of the people in the forum, i've learned a lot. Thank you all.

 

Do you think water or fog or smoke would create a situation where the invisible character would be seen or at least note a fringe?

[DasBroot]

EGO 10 minion? Ha. half of the characters in the campaign have 10 EGO. If I add an enemy mentalist (again- last game I used a mind control and took control of the brick to attack the party for a few phases), they are in trouble. And most of the party has 10-13 PRE, I will be using PRE attacks too...

 

 

 

Thanks to the help of the people in the forum, i've learned a lot. Thank you all.

 

Do you think water or fog or smoke would create a situation where the invisible character would be seen or at least note a fringe?

 

Careful with the presence attacks and mental attacks.  You have to use those sparingly lest the players feel the need to start an 'arms race' with their GM in order to survive.  Nobody likes feeling that the next 5 xp they get better go to Presence (or Ego) or they'll no longer be of use to the team.  I've seen that mentality plenty of times on both sides of the screen and ultimately the GM will 'win' any such arms race (his antagonists are built on unlimited points, after all) and 'lose' the game.

 

Whether water or fog or smoke will reveal an invisible character depends entirely on the special effect of the invisibility.  If it's your classic 'bend light', etc - sure, it's classic.  If it's a type of mind control that makes people automatically ignore his presence? No. 

[Pranqstr]

i am trying to use attacks sparingly, but I'm also trying to let the players know ignoring stas except those used in combat, is a bad idea. They have won every fight, and i'm planning on having an important villain escape in combat so I need to use "tricks", rather than beat the characters down- which I think would make them dislike the game more...

 

If the mentalist joins the party, there will be more mental attacks, but if the player doesn't want to modify (no to Always on invisibility) the mentalist character and stays away from the gaming sessions, there will be less mental attacks...

[bigdamnhero]

i am trying to use attacks sparingly, but I'm also trying to let the players know ignoring stas except those used in combat, is a bad idea.

Word.

[Hugh Neilson]

I'm still not happy with how most mental powers work, they tend to be either ignored or overpowered, without any middle ground.  You can either mind control someone to like ice cream more or murder his entire family.  I'd be happier if it was based more like transform where you built the potency of the power into the cost rather than stacking dice until it does something useful.

 

I've toyed with the idea that mental attacks should cost 10 points per die, but be Cumulative (unlimited). A 60 AP mental attack would require more than one attack to achieve a significant effect, like normal damage requires multiple hits to KO a typical opponent.  It's largely the all or nothing aspect of mental attacks that creates issues.

[Christopher R Taylor]

It's largely the all or nothing aspect of mental attacks that creates issues.

I agree, that's why I think Transform is a better model for mental powers than the presence attack structure used now.

[bigdamnhero]

I've toyed with the idea that mental attacks should cost 10 points per die, but be Cumulative (unlimited). A 60 AP mental attack would require more than one attack to achieve a significant effect, like normal damage requires multiple hits to KO a typical opponent.  It's largely the all or nothing aspect of mental attacks that creates issues.

Hmm...interesting idea. Seem like out-of-combat use could be totally broken tho - buy 1d6, Invisible Power Effects and after a few minutes you can own pretty much anyone?

 

IIRC there were optional rules in Ultimate Mentalist (4ed or 5ed?) that helped alleviate the all-or-nothing aspect, such as allowing mentalists to get some minor effects even if they didn't reach their full target number, while conversely giving targets some ability to partially resist the command if they fail their Breakout Roll but rolled well enough to make an unmodified EGO Roll. Helped balance things a bit.

[Hugh Neilson]

Hmm...interesting idea. Seem like out-of-combat use could be totally broken tho - buy 1d6, Invisible Power Effects and after a few minutes you can own pretty much anyone?

Is it broken, or genre consistent? Depends a lot on what we are trying to simulate. Doubling the base price also implies buying Cumulative and two doublings of Maximum Effect, so one could certainly cap the effect at maximum rolled on the dice x 4, and require further advantages to boost it up. You need that extra IPE or the target knows he has been attacked while you are building up effect.

 

Can it be abused? Sure - Margarita Man is my own extreme example, before we make any changes to the mental powers' default writeup.  Pretty little in Hero can't be abused if you put a little thought into it.

[bigdamnhero]

...and two doublings of Maximum Effect, so one could certainly cap the effect at maximum rolled on the dice x 4...

That would help. Tho capping 1d6 at 24 still lets you get EGO+10 vs most normals at a cost of, what, 12 AP? (That's including the IPE.)

 

Is it broken, or genre consistent? Depends a lot on what we are trying to simulate.

Fair enough. But most genre depictions of mind control do tend to be rather all-or-nothing: the mentalist orders someone to do a thing, and they either do it right away, or struggle for a bit before they break free. The existing rules actually model that quite well; how well that genre convention works in an RPG is another question. This would move mental powers to much more of a noncombat power, which is fine for some genres. (Horror comes to mind.) I'm just not sure the costs are balanced yet.

 

Pretty little in Hero can't be abused if you put a little thought into it.

Sure. But it's a question of how much thought/work is required. Margarita Man is a marvel of muchkinism, but it required multiple Powers with 6-7 Advantages each to "break" it. This appears to be unbalanced on the face of it. Again, I'm not trying to shoot down what I think is an interesting idea; just pointing out what I see as problematic with a "more work required" tag.

[Hugh Neilson]

OK - by making 6 attacks on that normal with Ego 10, I get Ego +10 by 1 point. He then has a 62.5% of shaking off my control before doing what I ask. For 11 points, I could buy a social skill with +4 to the roll. Which ability will be more effective in getting that fellow to do something he wasn't all that opposed to doing in the first place?

 

MM's big abuse combines invisibility with untraceability. Give up on the Mind Scan, toss the other three in a Multipower and change them to be 4d6, Cumulative, 4 doublings (+1 1/2), Target Effect is Invisible to Target (+1/2) (standard 60 AP). Now buy him enough oECV to reliably hit and he can simply stand on the fringes of combat. He can't burn through mental defenses any more, and he spends a bit of END. 192 maximum is achieved with 14 hits, but how often do you need 192 points of effect? He can be detected by Mental Awareness, though, so there is a chance someone will notice him.

 

To me, the big break for Mental Powers is free LoS + IPE, which cries out for a sneaky sniper.