stockpilable powers

[vindcara]

Lets say I wanted to build a power where the character gets a new bomb every day, and if used together the bombs combine their damage, so there's no ceiling on how much damage the character can theoretically do in a single phase if they let their stockpile get large enough, how would I go about this?

[Brian Stanfield]

It’s going to depend, first, on what you mean by “get.” Is the bomb an actual piece of equipment, or part of a gadget pool? Is it a Power that is limited by a focus? Is it a spell that’s been cast in order to enchant a physical object? If you can fill in some of those details (which will obviously be campaign-dependent) it will help answer your question. 

[Grailknight]

I can see two ways to do this. Neither of them will meet your unlimited ceiling for a single attack.

 

1- Buy the base bomb power. X.

 

2a- Buy additional dice of  Linked to X with  Extra Time to Activate. Buying multiples will let you add as many as your GM allows within the points that you have. You cannot(without GM permission) buy one linked add and use it repeatedly, the adds have to be distinct. 

 

2b- Buy an Aid to X with Damage over Time and Reduced Fade Rate. x will build until the maximum of the AID is reached. You cannot (again without GM permission) buy multiple Aid's as they do not stack but only grant the largest value. 

 

There may be other ways to simulate this but that's what i could come up with off the top of my mind.

[vindcara]

My campaign has magic crystals that one of my players wants to be able to buy and carve into magic runes that produce various effects, being consumed in the process, and I was looking for a good way to represent which types of magic runes he knows/has the skill to make. Once he has the runes there wouldn't be any reason why he couldn't set off multiple at once, so long as he's linked them to a single activating method ahead of time.

 

(I'm starting to wonder if might actually just be easier to represent it by a bunch of weapon proficiencies...)

Edited June 8, 2020 by vindcara

[dsatow]

Sorry, I feel lecture mode coming up since I see under your icon "newbie".  I am not trying to flame you, just warning.

 

Most GMs I know of will not let a player have a power which effectively makes a combat one sided.  Say you have this power of cumulative bombs and you use it in a game.

1) Either you use the power and take out a villain or more in the first round, or you miss and now effectively you are useless in combat.

2) If you take out a lot of the villains, the GM who makes each villain for you to fight now feels like they wasted their time making the villains for the session.  Remember, especially in a supers game, the time it takes for you to make a hero is about 1/6th the amount of time it takes for the GM each session.

3) If you throw a lot of over-sized attacks, the GM will try to make a villain which is a challenge for you, making the other players roadkill.  At best, this begins a cold war of power inflation.  At worst, it kills the game as the other players get disgruntled (or the GM, if the GM has a set image of a game - Playing in Gotham with Supes and GL really doesn't work when fighting Carmine Falcone).

4) You could wreck the game session.  I've been in a couple of sessions in the past 32 years of gaming where a lucky killing attack (pre 6th) GM'd the villain in one shot.  Think in a 12d6 game a 4d6 killing attack doing 24 body and 120 stun.  In both instances, the game was called so the GM could re-set up a new scenario.  Worst 5 minutes of game time.  

 

If you want to go down this path as a player, pre-6th, the best way to do this is what Grailknight suggested.  I called it the forever aid in our gaming group.  You basically aid the aid and the power it aids with a long enough fade rate.  There is a balance point where given enough time, it becomes an infinite power.  Again, if you ever want to see a GM burn up a character sheet, this is one way to do it.

Ex 5th ed: Aid 1d6, Can Add Maximum Of 30 Points, Delayed Return Rate (points return at the rate of 5 per Minute; +1/4), any [special effect] power one at a time (+1/4), Persistent (+1/2), Can Apply (Remove) Adders (+1) (66 Active Points)  This version adds about 68 active to a power.

 

If you are a GM, then the way the power is constructed for the villain doesn't matter (hopefully you are using it against the players for a dramatic effect).  You either hand wave the power as a story effect or you build the villain with the power level for that night's game.  But as a warning for the GM, doing this, if done poorly, can ruin the gaming experience for the players.  Players like to believe they have around an even chance against villains if they game correctly and an overpowered villain makes them think, why play this game?

[Duke Bushido]

1 hour ago, dsatow said:

 

Most GMs I know of will not let a player have a power which effectively makes a combat one sided.  Say you have this power of cumulative bombs and you use it in a game.

 

 

That.  That right there.

 

Now here's how you do it:

 

Okay, I agree with D-- most GMs will not let a player have a one-sided power.  However, I have allowed, now and again, a "Mega Buster" type attack with all kinds of limitations and drawbacks etc-- sort of a "get out of one combat free" card, with massive side effects or other reasons it generally stays in the can unless the character is in danger or getting absolutely killed or whatever--

 

Mostly, though, it's because you propose a fun exercise!

 

Keep in mind that HERO doesn't do absolutes or infinities, and to be honest with you, outside of Combat, it's pretty lousy at cumulatives, too.

 

However, without putting a lot of thought into it, I would suggest straight from the top of my head buying the first bomb.

 

Then buy a single die of Aid, Standard Effects, Zero Endurance, (I straight up don't remember if it costs END at the moment.  I will probably remember the moment I sign off.    ) and push the limit-- the Maximum Aid you can apply-- to seven points beyond "I can't afford it, ever."  (And likely you can't, because as I said: HERO doesn't do cumulatives really well.  However, you can backpedal to older editions that don't have default limits on Adjustment Powers and try it there.  I want to warn you, though, that buying that Fade / Return rate up in the older editions will _murder_ your budget, since the only step on the Time Chart is "Segment."   )

 

Then buy your Fade / Return rate to a point that you are comfortable that you can keep these "extra bombs" around for effectively ever.  Note (or develop a custom limitation) that once you use The Bomb, the Aid pool is completely empty and you have to start over.

 

Now this is assuming that all these bombs together result in one single larger bomb.

 

If you are instead adding an Autofire or additional Charges-- well Charges is easy enough.  Autofire is going to get pretty gross, as the current rules seem to assume that you're going to stop at 10 shots.  However, you can extrapolate from the current rules just what's involved in making "infinite Autofire" up to whatever point you think will cover you.

 

 

At any rate, it really is just a mental exercise, because if you are really going to try to model "effectively infinite bombs," the price is also going to be "effectively infinite."  

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Brian Stanfield]

19 hours ago, vindcara said:

My campaign has magic crystals that one of my players wants to be able to buy and carve into magic runes that produce various effects, being consumed in the process, and I was looking for a good way to represent which types of magic runes he knows/has the skill to make. Once he has the runes there wouldn't be any reason why he couldn't set off multiple at once, so long as he's linked them to a single activating method ahead of time.

 

(I'm starting to wonder if might actually just be easier to represent it by a bunch of weapon proficiencies...)

 

There is a doubling rule for gadget pools. I haven't really worked it out in full, but I was brainstorming something about charges, time delay between charges, etc. etc., for an additional 5 points per doubling. I'm not sure it'll get to where you want to go though, so it's a pretty half-baked idea.

 

On the other hand, and this is why I asked my original question, because you're buying the crystals as mundane equipment and then modifying them, you are effectively enchanting mundane objects, which implies all the limitations the other folks listed above (OAF, real weapon, etc.). It seems to me that you could do this to as many objects as you want. You just need to be very clear on the rules and restrictions for the magic rules. 

 

 

[Doc Democracy]

I am wondering just how much of this needs to be thought through.

19 hours ago, vindcara said:

My campaign has magic crystals that one of my players wants to be able to buy and carve into magic runes that produce various effects, being consumed in the process, and I was looking for a good way to represent which types of magic runes he knows/has the skill to make

 

This sounds like stuff you buy/find.  Essentially the GM can decide how many bits of this stuff can be found, or are found.  The player gets to use some skills to make this stuff into one use magical items. 

 

I think that the key bit of the character sheet is a bunch of Knowledge Skills to represent the magic runes known.  I would also give him a Carve Rune skill possibly based on Dex Int or EGO depending on whether the carving is more about knowledge of the rune, manual dexterity or force of will.

 

So.  When the player finds this stuff (and the availability is in the GMs hands) he gets to roll and spend some time carving.  I would say that he makes an KS to see how powerful the crystal is and that the carving roll is modified by the active points (-1 per 10 is the usual) of the effect being sought.  If it is carved correctly the player has a one use magic item.  If he has five and throws them, he may win this encounter but will have none for later encounters.

 

Doc

[Doc Democracy]

Just now, Doc Democracy said:

So.  When the player finds this stuff (and the availability is in the GMs hands) he gets to roll and spend some time carving.  I would say that he makes an KS to see how powerful the crystal is and that the carving roll is modified by the active points (-1 per 10 is the usual) of the effect being sought.  If it is carved correctly the player has a one use magic item.  If he has five and throws them, he may win this encounter but will have none for later encounters.

 

Doc

 

I forgot to mention the adding stuff together - this is hand-wavium to me.  You might ask the player to make a KS roll (-1 per 10 points of all the effects together) to get them all to affect the opponent as a single attack rather than a bunch of separate ones.

 

Doc

[Grailknight]

After a day to clear my head, I've come up with one more possibility.

 

Adapt the rules for multiple Mental Powers, so that the player gets full value for the first and largest power used and gets to add 1/4 of any others. Again requires GM permission and can get abusive very quickly if the user has a fairly large number of charges available.

[Brian Stanfield]

I think Doc is on the right track here. Because the crystals hold the magic, you’re really looking at a Skill roll, whether it be a science skill, knowledge skill, magic skill, or whatever. You could even have the effectiveness determined on a scale based on how well your roll succeeds. Remember the basic rule of power construction, @vindcara: The mechanic and the special effects are separate. The crystals and the bombs are the special effect, while the driving mechanic overall seems to be the creation of runes out of the crystals. This is clearly a good fit for a skill roll,of some kind. 

[Grailknight]

2 hours ago, Brian Stanfield said:

I think Doc is on the right track here. Because the crystals hold the magic, you’re really looking at a Skill roll, whether it be a science skill, knowledge skill, magic skill, or whatever. You could even have the effectiveness determined on a scale based on how well your roll succeeds. Remember the basic rule of power construction, @vindcara: The mechanic and the special effects are separate. The crystals and the bombs are the special effect, while the driving mechanic overall seems to be the creation of runes out of the crystals. This is clearly a good fit for a skill roll,of some kind. 

 

 

??????

[Brian Stanfield]

1 hour ago, Grailknight said:

 

 

??????

Sorry, not in response to you, just the earlier discussion!

[Ockham's Spoon]

I would do this as an explosive Blast or RKA as you like, with Boostable charges, and then a custom limitation: Can only generate one charge per day.  You will be limited by the total number of charges you can afford, but that could be quite a few (up to the GM's discretion).  Also, since each additional charge only boosts the overall damage by 1 DC each, it keeps it from getting out of hand too quickly.

[Chris Goodwin]

In Fantasy Hero, Delayed Effect plus Charges is used to let a character stockpile their charges over multiple days.  I'd recommend doing that.  

[vindcara]

Thanks Everyone!

I think I've decided to go with the skill roll for the carving, and the player paying 1 point for each type of rune he can carve.
(Thanks for the -1 per 10 active point rule Doc, I'd never heard that before and it fits really well)