Ice9

Re: base 5 point stats? problems with that? It's very low power compared to "standard" FH, but that's not inherently a problem. It seems like it'll be less "heroes saving kingdoms" and more WHFRPG-style "trying to survive in a deadly world where your greatest asset is a small but vicious dog", but that can be a fun game if everyone's on board with it. I would say that in a setup like this, forget trying to be good at everything, or even adequate at everything. Pick a niche and specialize in it. Also, can you get anything else with your points, or only stats and skills? Because at very low point totals, followers (like the aforementioned small but vicious dog), perks (with great wealth comes great bodyguards), and powers (you can accomplish much with five points) are often the most bang for your buck.

Re: PC that can see death on people Agreed on the Precognition. For seeing ghosts, it depends on why normal people can't see them: On another plane? Transdimensional (ghost realm) on Normal Sight Invisible? Detect Ghosts (Unusual Group), Ranged, Sense, Discriminatory, Targetting, Affected as Sight (assuming he can't see them when blinded) Not a "creature" in the normal sense? Detect Ghosts (Sight Group), Discriminatory

Re: More Abusive characters Actually, I've found that you pretty much need Regeneration for an Automaton character. Because, barring really excessive defenses, you will be taking BODY - and sitting back at base recovering for months after each fight is not generally desirable. Of course, the regeneration doesn't have to be Terminator-fast, just enough that you're not dragging everyone down. As for abusive characters - Summoners can be abusive by accident! In fact, I actually had to retire a character, because what seemed like a reasonable level of summoned creatures turned out to be a veritable army that stomped the opposition flat.

Re: Extra-Dimensional Personal Sanctuary... The way you're describing it now, I wouldn't make them pay for it at all. If equipment stays behind, then it's not even possible to explore it without finding a safe spot in the normal world first - much less sleep, train, or take shelter in it. So it's not really a "base" in most senses, more like a location they might want to explore.

Re: Toolkitting: Relative versus Absolute It's not all equipment though. In "BatGod" mode, he's got enough DCV/Combat Luck to evade or survive attacks that can hit the Flash and wind Superman. Put those defenses up against street-level opposition, and he's in so little danger that he could wait for the thugs to run out of ammo, or just casually stroll past them. Not sure what this means - if you cut the caps to street-level, then it will be like spitballs against galactic threats. While I could see not getting out the Bat-Dimensional-Array to deal with local criminals, it's a bit of a stretch to ignore the high-grade stuff entirely.

Re: Increasing Damage Attack A power with both Continuous and Damage Over Time would do this. For instance: Phase 1: 1d6 from 1st instance Phase 2: 1d6 from 1st, 1d6 from 2nd Phase 3: 1d6 from 1st, 1d6 from 2nd, 1d6 from 3rd ... and so forth. The issue is, as cptpatriot mentioned, the target will get defenses for each instance, even if you get the "Defense Only Apply Once" advantage on DoT. The solution could be as simple as an AVAD (NND) attack, or Penetrating. Also, for streamlined use, you'll want to set the DoT interval equal to how often you act, so that the damage increases smoothly instead of a mess of overlapping increments. Example: Gray-Goo Bomb RKA 1d6, AVAD(NND, defense is force field, electrified surface, or exotic composition). Does Body, Damage Over Time (4x, every 3 segments), Continuous, Uncontrolled, Charges (1 continuing charge lasting 1 turn), Area of Effect (4m Radius) NOTE: Damage is 1d6, 2d6, 3d6, 4d6, 3d6, 2d6, 1d6 Alternately, if the GM allows it, applying DoT twice may be a more consistent way to achieve this result (since then the ramp up will be independent of your SPD). In that case, you would build the above as: RKA 1d6, AVAD(NND, defense is force field, electrified surface, or exotic composition). Does Body, Damage Over Time (4x, every 3 segments), Damage Over Time (4x, every 3 segments), Charges (1 charge), Area of Effect (4m Radius)

Re: Character for Review: American Icon I like the concept. Just a couple minor things: 1) You're missing CVs. While you could probably leave MCV at the baseline, you definitely need some OCV. 2) I think if you stick the floating fixed location inside the MP slot, it would be lost when you switched slots. You may want to move it outside the MP. 3) Accurate doesn't apply to Images - they can already be smaller than the maximum area. 4) Inspiration: Not sure how much sense Selective makes with a 1m Radius - how often are you getting multiple allies plus an enemy within that area? Accurate may be more suited, or a bigger area. 5) What does Postal Code detect? Literally their postal code? If so, I don't think you need Analyze, and maybe not even Discriminatory. Not necessarily a bug, but with Unified Power on everything, a Drain/Suppress will hit you extremely hard. ... ... can't resist saying it. In America!

Re: Extra-Dimensional Personal Sanctuary... I think you may have a problem here, at least if you feel that sleeping there or storing loot there is "abuse". You could easily prevent that by making the dimension intrinsically dangerous and unpredictable - but that's not going to be a "joyful and pleasant experience". I mean, if I had a personal dimensional castle, that was joyful to be in, of course I'd rather stay there than some filthy inn! That's kind of the point of having such a thing. Now as for avoiding the "hop into it in the middle of battle" or "ultra stealth method" situations, that's easily enough done by making the entry/exit procedure take a minute or two and produce some visible effects - a gate of flame that hums resonantly, for instance.

Re: Best Martial Art for a Bodyguard? Not sure as to the entire style, but as far as specific manuevers: * Grasping Block - To grab anyone that tries to attack your charge. * Defensive Throw - For foes too dangerous to grab, this slows them down. This is a block, so you can use it on attacks against your charge. * Flying Grab - Not just for foes, but to grab your charge and move them out of danger. * Passing Throw - To quickly reach your charge and push them behind cover (or slow down pursuing foes without falling too far behind). * Levels with Dive for Cover - To jump in the way of attacks. Then you probably want some offense as well. Given that you've got a couple grabbing maneuvers, then something like Crush might be good, but really it depends on what circles you're moving in. For a bodyguard to a diplomat, Nerve Strike might be good, so that you can subdue protesters without hurting them and causing an incident. For an underworld type, Killing Strike/Throw or Joint Break may be good for the intimidation factor.

Re: Invisible to Touch Group? Personally, I think Invisibility to Touch makes sense in the right circumstances. And while not the only way to represent this ability, it is a valid way to do so. However, I'll note that the Mental Illusions (feels more appropriate than Mind Control to me) route does not have to be hideously expensive. Consider: Nowhere Man - Mental Illusions 1d6, Cumulative (96 points; +1 1/2), Penetrating (+1/4), Reduced END (0 END; +1/2), Continuous (+1/2), Persistent (+1/4), Area of Effect (4m Radius; +1/4), Megascale (1" = 1km; +1), 26 active points; Set Effect ("I'm not here, anything I do was a coincidence or didn't happen"; -1/2), 17 real points. Now this is potentially an extremely potent ability - in fact, I would probably require more significant limitations if someone wanted to use this in a game. But it's certainly affordable. And while it doesn't quite cover a ship appearing suddenly (it will be at least 2 turns before even an average person is affected), it covers movement at any normal speed just fine because of the huge area. Incidentally, I wouldn't quite call this cheese yet. Bump the Penetrating to x2+ and the Megascale to planetary, and it most certainly is. But in it's current form, it is defeatable (with difficulty), suitable for a "puzzle villain" as long as they aren't very potent in other aspects.

Re: Criticals I'm in a campaign that's using something similar: 3 - Maximum damage (same as Sean's rule) 18 - Screw up in some way that's plausible for the situation; shoot at the wrong target (new attack roll with OCV 0), stumble off balance, drop your weapon (if an OAF). Not anything devastating, but definitely disadvantageous. It happens rarely enough that it doesn't seem to work against the players noticeably. Especially since this is a Champions game, so the opposition is just as likely to be a single mega-villain as a horde of agents. If you want to avoid the "really low OCV always crits" issue, you could just rule that you can only crit if you hit on a '4', and you can only fumble if you miss on a '17'.

Re: Question on Combat Sense in Framework (5ED) Wait, couldn't you: Phase A: Use X, switch Multipower to Combat Sense, use Combat Sense Phase B: Use Combat Sense, switch Multipower to X, use X Combat Sense wouldn't be "on" at the time you used X, but at least you would know the position of your foes. Or is there a special rule for senses?

Re: Help with a goofy power build For the temperature adjustment, I would throw a limitation in "Only Within Normal Temperature Range", maybe -1. Normally, +/- 80 degrees would let you turn cold weather to lethally freezing and hot weather to oven-like, so the lack of ability to do that would be a significant limitation. If the small animals don't have a significant effect, they could just be 5 points, or even just part of the SFX. As for control, it depends on how well she can influence her own mood. If she can't, or at least not quickly, then this would merit the No Conscious Control limitation. If she's good at doing so, maybe Always On, plus RAR (EGO roll), with the roll being to change the effect, not to activate it.

Re: Making Screaming Skulls Right, I missed that. Agreed on the Damage Negation - IMC, instead of tripling the cost, I just reduce the final PD/ED to 1/3; this works more accurately for powers like Density Increase, and means that things like Damage Reduction which have the same relative effectiveness are arbitrarily more expensive.

Re: Making Screaming Skulls Looks good, although actually, I believe the "triple defense cost" means you get 12 points back from selling back PD/ED, not just 4. I'm not sure how Complications for Followers work, actually - I mean, you can definitely get them, but I'm not sure it actually decreases the price, or if there's any specific amount you need to have. But a floating skull would certainly have a number of Physical Complications, just from its form.

Re: Moving vehicles For trying to shake the person off, I'd convert some of the vehicle's velocity to damage, and treat that as Strength to pry them off. For instance: 60m -> 6d6 / 30 STR. How much of the velocity to use would be based off a Combat Driving roll. If you use normal movement speed however, then the more manueverable (high-SPD) a vehicle is, the worse it is at shaking people off (when moving at the same mph). Perhaps a more consistent method would be to use meters/turn as the base. So, something like ... Combat Driving Roll: Fail by 2 or less: STR = MPT / 30 Success: STR = MPT / 15 Succeed by 5: STR = MPT / 10 Thus, driving at 60mph (320m / Turn): Minor failure => STR 11 Success => STR 21 Success +5 => STR 32

Re: Making Screaming Skulls You don't need them at 10, just above 0. Str 1-3 should be enough for a floating skull, although that means it will have a hard time breaking out of any entanglement. Pre, likewise, doesn't need to be all that high. I'm not sure about needing Con, I was under the impression that Automatons often sold that off entirely.

Re: Making Screaming Skulls Are they really that expensive? With the 1:5 reduction for Followers or Summon, it seems like anything under 300 points is pretty cheap. For example: Followers (4x 265 points) = 63 points Summon (4x 265-point skulls), Amicable (Total Control; +1), 126 AP; Extra Time (1 turn; -1 1/4), OIF (scrap parts of opportunity; -1/2) = 46 points. That's a pretty good deal for a group of decently powerful minions. If this is a standard Superheroic game, you're more than doubling your effectiveness with even a couple of these.

Re: What would do more damage to a non-living object? (also Shatter Limb) Dispel is permanent (until repaired) if it manages to completely dispel the powers in a foci. However, Drain has the advantage of destroying vehicles and walls, and works fine against Foci. The only case it doesn't cover is gadget powers without the Focus limitation (OIAID power suits, for example). But given that they aren't Foci, I'm not sure that dispelling them would last longer than a phase either.

Re: I just got 6E today and I'm looking to build an unusual character: Black Falcon. While Linked is probably not applicable, Unified Power would be appropriate (for the connection between the Darkness Field and other powers). Just watch out if any foe has a relevant Drain!

Re: Little help building electromagnetic pulse as a beam or ray There was a thread on this a month or two ago. There's more than one way to build an EMP, and IIRC the top methods were: 1) Dispel, all Electronics 2) Transform (electronics/vehicles/robots to non-functional "") 3) RKA, NND, Does Body, Fully Indirect, Only vs Electronics All of them are expensive (at least as an instantaneous pulse). The first two work fine in most cases, but run into some situations where they're inapplicable because of how a power/vehicle/automaton was build. The third is pretty comprehensive, but allowing a power to bypass the standard BODY and directly damage internal components is a rather dangerous precedent.

Re: Independent multi-targeting? It depends a bit on what you want to do. If you're firing a set number of shots, which could be at different targets or the same target, then Multiple Attack is all you need. If the character is particularly good at this, you could get CSLs, Only for Multiple Attack. If you're looking for the "shoot every foe in a room, but not shooting one guy 50 times" effect, then you could do something like this: Naked Advantage: Area of Effect (64m Radius, Selective; +1 1/2) for up to X points of firearms attacks. Possibly with a limitation like "Costs one charge per target". Edit: Said "Accurate" when I meant "Selective"

Re: Anyone using 1 pt per Dex in 6E? I've changed it, on the basis that INT (and thus PER) are 1:1. This may not apply to all campaigns, but IME, being surprised (or not) is as big a deciding factor in combat as initiative. I do think skill levels are a bit overpriced relative to stats (or vice versa). Honestly, for the price, skill levels should apply to all relevant skills simultaneously, not just one at a time. Even then, they're not always a good buy.

Re: Gravity power And adding Usable by Others / Area of Effect would give you the "surrounding area" aspect as well. The "gravity field doesn't instantly catch up" could just be a limitation.

Re: Brain Trust - Duplicating the Mind Sort of an odd method, but ... Copy Mind: Duplication, Altered Duplicates, Usable as Attack (defense is opposed EGO roll or very odd mental structure), ACV (MOCV vs MDCV), Line of Sight EDM (to "mind space"), Usable as Attack, (same modifiers), Linked, Only vs Duplicates Interrogate Mind: Transdimensional (to "mind space") for Mind Link This would allow you to copy a mind that you couldn't or didn't want to read at the present moment. Then at a later point, you could pry into it or even "talk" to it. Of course, if the mind you copied has mental powers of their own, then contacting it opens you up to counter-attack. If you possess greater control over the captured minds, then potentially: Reformat Minds: Mental Transform, Penetrating, Transdimensional, Continuous, Persistent, 0-END, AoE (radius), Extra Time This would cause any mind you copied to gradually (or quickly, depending on what Extra Time modifer you pick) be brought under your control, allowing you to tap on their memories without risk. Or alternately, if you can run the captured minds in "sandbox mode", as may be appropriate for an electronic brain-capture in a future setting: Transdimensional on Mental Awareness and Telepathy (instead of Mind Link). Since you're not linked to them, they can't counter-attack through the channel, but they can still try to resist your interrogation.