Ice9

Re: Surely You're Joking, Mr Long. While a 5-EGO golem might have it's own disadvantages, a 10 EGO, 20 INT creature will be smarter than most humans and fully able to work without your micromanagement. Going from that to 30 EGO is going to make the summon a lot more difficult for not that much benefit - it won't even have increased DMCV.

Re: Pranking Speedster with Seizures For the "faster during a plan", I could see a couple ways of doing it (here I'm assuming a normal speed of 3 and a boosted speed of 6): Time Compression - +3 SPD, One Continuing (1 minute), Recoverable (automatically recovers after 2 minutes) Charge. This would let him accelerate to high-speed for a minute, but then he'd have to "rest" at normal speed for a couple minutes before using it again. While not directly linked to planning, this would encourage figuring out what to do in advance. Acts Fast, Thinks Less Fast - +3 SPD, Only when following plan. The direct approach - he still thinks at normal speed while moving at high-speed, so he needs to know what he's going to do in advance. I'd put the limitation value between -1/2 and -1, depending on how flexible he could be while executing the plan. If you want the planning to take time, add Extra Time and RSR to activate. As for instant action, you could try something like this: Act Between Seconds; all slots Unified Power (-1/4), Requires Path (-1), Virtual Rounds (three; -1) 1) Move - Teleport 18", Position Shift 2) Look - Clairvoyance (Sight), Linked (Move) 3) Act - Telekinesis (10 STR), Fine Manipulation, AoE Hex (Selective), Megascale (1"=1km), Linked (Move) 4) Reposition - Teleport 6", Usable as Attack, Autofire x3, Linked (Move) NOTES: * This is set up to cover approximately three rounds of virtual time (assuming Running 6" and STR 10, adjust accordingly otherwise). It's not a power framework, just a list. Activating it would be a half-phase action, or full-phase if you use Reposition. * Requires Path is a custom limitation, representing that the normally-indirect powers can only be used in ways that would be possible to someone who was actually moving around and picking things up. So for instance, you could open a door (with TK), look inside the newly-opened room (with Clairvoyance), and move a chair from inside it outside (with Teleport UaA). But you couldn't Teleport through cell bars, use Clairvoyance into a sealed vault, or use TK to grab a key from on top of a tall tree or out of a vat of acid. * Virtual Rounds is another custom limitation, representing that you can't just use all the abilities at full power - what you do must be achievable within three rounds of virtual actions. So if you want to grab your buddy and carry him 18" away from the pending explosion, you couldn't also scout around the corner, punch the villain, grab a key from across the room, and climb up onto the roof - even if those would all be possible separately. * Because of the way I did the TK, you can only punch an individual person once (although you can punch as many different people as your Virtual Rounds allow). If you want to hit someone repeatedly, add Autofire to it. * I didn't add up the cost, because I'm lazy (and don't have my books with me). But I think it's on the order of 140 active, 40 real. It's a strong power, but not as crazy as the AP might imply - you probably won't wreak that much havoc with it. However, if you want to get crazy, add this to it: Use Things - Naked Advantage (Trigger, Ranged, and Autofire x3), for any handheld device up to 60 AP (the Trigger is activating Act Between Seconds). Now you can handcuff people or stuff live grenades in their pockets while you're time-stopped.

Re: Collapsable weapon 5th ed In general, OAF would cover this. If easy concealment is a big advantage in your campaign, then I'd put it at -3/4 (between OAF and IAF).

Re: Meditative Sleep Talent I would cost it at 1-2 points, based on being worse than LS (no sleep), but better than nothing. Lightsleep is just overpriced.

Re: 6E: Weaponmaster, Deadly Blow, and Killing dice Does that rule seem odd to anyone else? I can - to an extent - see extra damage from strength being limited by the base DC of the weapon. But extra damage from CSLs? Given that those often represent skill in hitting more vulnerable places, why can you aim for the weak spot with a greatsword better than with a dagger? Now there are other explanations for CSLs, but not many of those are "extra physical force", so why the limit? Even for DCs added from Strength, the rule doesn't really work. Brawndo the Barbarian deals 5d6 with his 25 Strength, but can only deal 2d6 if he wears 1d6 HA Brass Knuckles? The "durability" argument makes sense for something like a sword-cane vs a greatclub, but fails in more cases than not - weapon durability does not correlate meaningfully to base damage. IMO, a better solution would be something like this: Extra DCs from Strength and velocity cannot exceed a weapon's durability rating. A spear might have a rating of 5, while a greatclub has one of 10+. This does mean an extra column in the weapons table, but you could also use a simplified rating such as: Metal: 6, Wood: 4 Thin (javelin): -2, Small (baton): -2 Thick (greatclub): +2, Short (brass knuckles, punching dagger): +2

Re: The Mosquito Since a mosquito sting causes no pain due to injected anesthetic, you could give her a HKA with IPE (effects only, hide effects of power; +1). Someone hit by that attack wouldn't even realize they'd been injured, until they keeled over from blood loss. This only works if the character has sufficient stealth to get next to people undetected, but with Shrinking that shouldn't be too difficult. For the full blood-draining effect, add a Continuous, No Range, Transfer (body and stun), also IPE, Linked to the initial attack.

Re: PI or Not? Is this really different than Living Lightning (pretty much invulnerable to or even healed by electricity), taking a "Static Pulse" power (electric AoE, no range)? Or Steel Dreadnaught (very high PD), packing some frag bombs that don't do enough damage to hurt him? "No Range" does not necessarily mean "hurts yourself" - it can be applied to beneficial powers as well. Not being able to hit people at long range or avoid hitting your allies, like you could with a normal AoE EB, is penalty enough.

Re: Thrown Mastery or somthing akin.... A second way is to go with a pretty minimal base attack: 5 Deadly with Anything: Multipower (10p), OIF (objects of opportunity), Restrainable 1u Blunt Object: Energy Blast 2d6 1u Sharp Object: RKA 1d6-1 Then get a ranged martial arts style, with thrown objects as a Weapon Element, and lots of damage levels. This also gives you a convenient way to get things like ranged trip and disarm. Also, if you get the WFs and Weapon Elements for it, you can use this with existing weapons that you get via resources. Of course, plenty of CSLs would still be a good idea.

Re: Thrown Mastery or somthing akin.... There are a couple ways. A fairly straightforward one is buying attacks with OIF (objects of opportunity). For instance: 30 Deadly with Anything: Multipower (60p), OIF (objects of opportunity), Restrainable 3u Blunt Object: Energy Blast 12d6 3u Sharp Object: RKA 4d6 3u Blinding Shot: Sight Flash 12d6 (just momentarily blinds, permanent would be a Transform) Other tricks like bank shots and rapid fire can be done several ways: 1) Put them in the Multipower directly (i.e. Rapid Fire would be an Energy Blast 8d6, Autofire x5). 2) Get them as Naked Advantages. The advantage of this is that you can use them with other existing attacks, such as if you pick up someone else's electrified throwing knife. 3) Just buy lots of CSLs and use manuevers like Rapid Fire.

Re: Easily Forgettable You need some Penetrating or NND (defense: time powers? atypical brain structure?) on that Transform, unless you want people with Power Defense to be immune. That said, if you went the NND route, you could reduce the base Transform to 1 pip, thus reducing the AP to 40 (even with both NND and Does Body), and the RP to 16. Yes, this would be an excessively cheesy construct with a different choice of Transform, but given the limited scope it may be reasonable.

Re: Passing through small gaps Really? Metamorphs often have access to the powerhouse which is Multiform, as well as other point-efficiency like variable defenses. Short of the often-disallowed "suit as a vehicle" build, power suit types have no special support. But I guess it depends how you build them, in either case. That aside though, it's not like separating deformation from stretching is a huge power hit to shapeshifters. We're talking about an extra 10 points or so, and Stretching might even cost less. And for that matter, if you were previously buying Desolidification (not through solid objects) as a metamorph power trick, Deformation will replace it at the same or lower cost. Or put them both in a Multipower with Stretching, for maximum flexibility.

Re: Fortune favours the brave I think the cost is basically fine, given that it gives you full control over the luck - many characters will be getting it with NCC at the -1 or -2 level, or with other limitations. I could see reducing the base cost to 10 points, or starting with a 9- or 10- roll, but I wouldn't reduce the cost of levels.

Re: Passing through small gaps I think that Reach could still cost up to +1/2, as it has certain advantages over a ranged attack. Primarily, it lets you use non-ranged maneuvers, like Grab. Also, it has the inherent advantages of HtH attacks, such as not breaking Invisibility. I'm not quite sure where to draw the line between the +1/4 and +1/2 levels - one or two hexes should definitely be +1/4, and reaching across the whole battlefield should be +1/2. Maybe set the dividing line at 6", given that's one move for a standard person? Are we playing the same game here? I've seen a lot more power-suit heroes than morphing ones, and that's in Champions, where Plasticman is at least on the table. In most other settings, morphic characters are even rarer. Besides, here's some basis things that reach could represent, and stretching, without significant limitations, wouldn't: Wuxia: Spring attack, ki-projection (punching at a distance), chain-based weapons. Fantasy: Spear / other reach weapon, magical extending staff, being inherently large. Future: Extending cyber-arms, monowire weapon, exoskeleton armor. Champions: All of the above.

Re: Power "Cooldown": how to write up Re: MPs, if you just applied to the slots separately, not the pool, you'd only be a getting a minor cost savings. I guess you could put "Variable Limitation" on the entire pool, but then you're only getting half the limitation value, which seems reasonable.

Re: Passing through small gaps This could be somewhat resolved by a "Reach" limitation for Stretching, probably -1, which encompassed the entire difference. However, it still gets a bit clumsy applying it to a weapon - what about a "Reach" advantage for HtH attacks? Maybe +1/4 for fairly short reach, +1/2 for longer reach, -1/4 if you can't attack closer than the full reach. So a spear would be +0, a chain would be +1/4, and the monkey king's extending staff would be +1/2.

Re: Passing through small gaps I actually wish this wasn't added to Stretching; removing velocity damage from it was a good start, but this adds in to the number of things you have to limit out from it to represent anything that isn't Mr. Fantastic. I mean, when a spear has to be represented as: Stretching, No Noncombat Stretching, Direct Only, No Velocity Damage, One "Body Part" Only ... it gets a bit clunky. Spears, extending robot arms, telekinetic powers, spring attack - there are more forms of stretching which don't modify the shape of your body than which do.

Re: Sixth Edition Showcase #5: Body-Affecting Powers Teleport (and all movement powers) do have this logic to an extent, via non-combat movement. Summon, Duplication, and Multiform all already have it as well. Stretching is somewhat of an odd case, because (at least currently) it adds to damage. If in 6E this is removed, then maybe it will scale like this (at least non-combat stretching could). Energy Blast doesn't have this directly (the point at which it should apply depends on the average DEF for the campaign anyway), but it does sort of have this via Autofire.

Re: Character Idea - Jousting Knight One tweak - Slash is currently HA +2d6, AP. As an advantaged HA, it would only go up to 4d6 with Strength - pretty puny even for an AP attack. Since you have room in the MP, I'd increase it to HA +5d6 or +6d6 AP - more on the level of Hack.

Re: Alternate Advantage and Limitation configuration As has been mentioned, it really only matters when putting things in a framework. What I do for that IMC, is to count certain limitations as "active limitations" - i.e. they reduce the active points. This is only for things that really reduce the potency, not just the convenience, of a power - like "Emotions Only" for Mind Control. I've found this has to be on a case by case basis, as no general rule can really cover the multitude of possibilities. For instance: Gestures and Incantations on a Fireball: No. Gestures and Incantations on Armor, must be maintained as long as Armor is used: Yes. Extra Time (extra phase) on a Fireball: Yes. Extra Time (extra phase) on a Summon: No.

Re: And the old shall swallow the new... You couldn't do certain powers right anyway - imagine trying to code Shapeshift or Duplication. Now personally, I would play a MMO that was pretty close to HERO - point buy, combat rules, and all. But I'm not sure how popular it would be.

Re: Variety of Summons Neither a VPP or a Multipower handles the limitations quite right, however. For a Multipower, the limitations that are shared by all your Summons (Extra Time, Gestures, Invocations, are some common ones) work fine. But any limitation that isn't shared (Hostile, for instance) is going to have minimal effect, because MP slots are based on active points. Now if the worst your summons go to is indifferent, no problem. But note you may be getting effectively shorted some points on anything less friendly. VPPs are even worse in that regard, as even common limitations will have only half or less the effect on points. If your Summons have a fair amount of limitations, a VPP will be significantly more expensive. A Multipower still might be your best bet, but you might want to compare the cost to simply taking a Summon with Expanded Class and the highest Amicability and quantity you need, and "Limited Power: Some Creatures are Less Friendly" (value would depend on the specifics).

Re: New to Champions. One thing to note about characters being at different power levels than each-other is that the number of points is only half the story. In fact, points often correspond more to flexibility and rounding out more than raw power. To keep people on the same playing field, check that certain things are fairly even across the board: Active Points in their primary attack, Defenses, SPD, and CVs. These don't have to be exactly the same for everyone (and probably shouldn't be), but if someone has attacks/defenses that are a lot higher or lower than the rest of the group, it may cause some issues. Something that you might want to cap, more so than the rest, is SPD. In my experience, characters will tend to creep toward the maximum SPD, so by setting a limit of 5 or so, people don't have to spend a ton of points in that area to stay competitive, and you can use premade foes without rebuilding them. As to combat, I've found that making a SPD chart (which you can do before the game starts if you know the PCs' DEX and SPD) speeds things up a lot. As does taking average for large numbers of dice. An easy rule of thumb is that 10 dice averages 35, so for 14 dice you could roll 4d6+35. You also might want to ignore Knockback for small attacks (anything less than 7 dice), as they're unlikely to cause any.

Re: Superpowers in the Courthouse Yeah, it works for settings where all superpowers have the same distinct source (psychic abilities, cosmic energy manipulation, magic), but in a setting where people are getting their powers from things like "extensive training", or "being an alien", or "made of living metal", it just doesn't work. However, you could just conduct trials remotely, with the jury, judge, and accused all in separate facilities. Then the only thing you have to worry about is people with electric/radio powers screwing with the transmission, which is a specific effect that can be detected and blocked.

Re: An Opportunity For Self-Improvement Ah, but that's the rub, isn't it? As a player, you don't want to mess up the balance of the campaign. But as a character ... I have to say, most of my characters would rebuild themselves in as overpowered a way as they could. For those who are idealistic, they want the power to fix everything. For those who'd rather be fishing, they might do just that (get the power to summon something potent enough to protect the world/country/town in their stead, and retire). The only exception is that most wouldn't take advantage of Multiform. A potent tool, but from the character's perspective it's not really them, even if it looks and acts the same.

Re: Help with an Ineffective Ice Mage... This may be a bit after the fact, but what's with all the restrictive archetype stereotyping? "The typical mage is not fast"*, "the typical mage is out of shape", "the typical mage wears a pointy hat and smokes a pipe". Maybe entirely true, but why would we assume every magic using character is the typical mage? And why use a point-based system designed around extreme flexibility, and then set up archetype rules more restrictive than many class systems? And for that matter, what about the mage-as-gunslinger archetype, entirely fitting for a combat-oriented wizard? When two mages with earth-shattering power and fragile unarmored bodies face off, victory goes to the quick. Back to the OP, an idea for the Ice Armor power - while moving it outside the Multipower is tactically sound, it's also not that interesting. An alternative would be to put Uncontrolled on it, giving you short-lasting but potent protection. I think it could be fairly strong without stepping on toes, since it doesn't work against surprise attacks and you have to waste time activating it every few phases, or else tie up lots of END. *Incidentally, I find this one amusing, because I also play D&D, where Dex is often a Wizard's second highest stat, usually higher than everyone except the Rogue. So "the typical mage" is in fact quite fast.