Gary

Yeah, I agree that we mostly see alike, although I don't think 2X damage = 1DC makes a whole heck of a lot of sense. You really get silly results at the high end of damage. I would love it if there were more variety in modern weapons.

It's more expensive having 2 multipowers. You have to pay the base points twice. Plus, you can't switch slots between the 2 multipowers. My advice is to just keep a single multipower with a -0 limitation '20 ready slots' as a special effect.

Re: Extra Time, Charges, & Multipower, OH MY! -0 limitation. Having 16 charges is -0 limitation, so having 40 charges with 20 in easy reach would be -0 limitation. It also doesn't strike me as limiting enough to be worth a -1/4.

It's because of raw dice. A 16" shell vs a 18th century cannon would sorta be like a bazooka vs a flintlock pistol. If they both fire at exactly the same target, the 16" shell will do scads more damage than the cannonball. What GM would consider a flamethrower a PD attack? Wouldn't that cause a problem that a hunk of raw iron would have more def vs high tech weaponry than the same mass of steel in a tank? At least the system as a whole would be consistent, without having to make up rules on a fly.

If a battleship fired at a tank at optimum range, it'll nuke it in one shot. If a 18th century cannonball hit a tank at its optimum range, the tank wouldn't even notice. The 16" shell does a lot more raw dice than the cannonball. Let's take a modern day weapon that does do ED damage. A flamethrower would not be twice as effective vs battleship armor than a cannon. This should be obvious. What happens when your Star Hero dudes go to a more primitive planet, a common motif, and the natives do the same amount of damage as you? Flamethrowers. ED damage that is easily resisted by battleships. Plus you would have balance issues as most people would start purchasing ED type attacks for their characters if it's the same points and they're more effective.

Trust me, a 16" gun is far more powerful than a 18th century cannonball. The ED solution isn't very appealing. A big hunk of steel would probably resist fire or lasers easily as well as cannon shells. Some materials such as wood probably should have less ED, but not battleship armor. The AP part vs old tech might work, but then you'd get the silly situation where 20th century armor specifically designed for protection would have less def than non-manmade objects not designed for protection. Yeah, but Hero claims to be an Universal System where a character or equipment in one setting dropped on another could function with no adjustment. You should be able to drop on a planet with 20th century tech and use published sources for 20th century damages without any alteration. It's better to do the work up front and be consistent, rather than having to make ad-hoc adjustments on the fly.

Yeah, but then you start comparing battleships and 18th century ship of the lines. Which of them does far more damage?

In some ways, this is better. For example, adding area effect to a 2D6 AP attack should double the total cost, because it's affecting the whole power including advantages. However in many cases, it doesn't work as cleanly as this. For example, if an attack already had increased stun multiple, adding a second increased stun multiple on the whole power doesn't make sense. Adding +1 stun multiple on a 4D6 killing attack costs 15 pts, and adds 14 extra stun on average. Adding +1 stun multiple to an existing attack with 1D6+5 stun multiple costs 14 pts, and adds only 3.5 stun on average. In this case, the increased stun multiple affects only the base dice, not the total power.

124 seconds on expert level, baby!

But the FF can be placed in a EC. Also FF's happen to be the defense to far more NND and AVLD attacks than Armor.

Can you have a NND where the defense varies? For example, a wand of wonder type of weapon where the defense is on a dr: 1 Power defense 2 Mental defense 3 Life support 4 Flash defense 5 Lack of Weakness 6 ED force field or force wall

NND area effect martial throw. I actually got away with it for one session before it got banned by the GM.

I just checked. The TO&E for an artillery battery of 6 guns is 144 officers and men. So we're talking about 500 or so men for 20 guns. Just being anal. It doesn't make me feel better. If a 120 mm gun only did 6d6, then it would take 10 or so hits to take out an opposing tank. If 16" guns did only 8d6 damage, it would take 2-3 hits to take out a tank. 2X damage = 1 DC doesn't make a whole heck of a lot of sense. Besides, velocity damage has absolutely no relationship with other damage. A terminal velocity fall does more damage than a 120mm tank shell?

The big problem was frameworks. A typical 60 pt multipower could have multiple 12D6 aids or slightly fewer dice with advantages for a ridiculously cheap price. Now, it's reduced to 6D6 which is much better. The same problem occurred with HA, and the only solution is to increase the active cost.

There were still plenty of BB vs BB fights. Some include the Bismarck vs the Hood and Prince of Wales, the Scharnhorst vs the Duke of York, and the Washington vs the Kongo. The Battle of Leyte Gulf had a huge BB vs BB engagement. There were a number of British vs Italian BB engagements as well. It's also more dangerous bombing with the BB. Anti-ship missiles are a real threat, and if you lose a plane, it's cheaper than if you lose a ship. Also, the ship can't go too close to the coastline, and thus it's range is severely limited. A plane can bomb anywhere. Since when is it a crime to wander from the subject? Especially if I'm having fun. However, Champions treats all targets, barring hardened, and all damage, barring AP or other advantages, the same. Since we don't roll different amounts of dice based on the target, we have to make sure that the attack that does more aggregate damage (the FAE) does more damage (more dice) than the attack that does less aggregate damage (the 16" shell). How about WW2 era tanks which essentially were big hunks of steel like vault doors? By your logic, a King Tiger tank would have more protection vs a super than a M-1 Abrams since it doesn't have all the sloping, composite materials, and special construction to be bypassed by an attack. Give the martial artist in a space suit a 2D6 HKA sword, 3D6 with str and MA. You'll allow the first find weakness to drop the ship's defenses from 40 to 10? For gunner, I meant someone with a pistol or other small arms with some find weakness.

To a certain extent this is true, but not completely. For instance, a 155 mm gun will do more damage and cover a greater area than a grenade. The FAE is of a much higher magnitude than the 16" shell. Warships being too rare to fight is very uncommon in science fiction. Most science fiction is like Star Wars or Star Trek with lots of space combat. There were no battleship engagements after WW2 because there was only 1 country with battleships. During WW2, there were lots of battleship combats. The 16" gun requires a 60000 ton battleship to deliver. A big slow plane is cheaper. The 10D6 with megascale would do far less vs tough targets than the 18D6. Whereas a bunker buster bomb would do far more damage (more body) vs tough targets than the 16" shell. Both a FAE and a 16" shell would affect every hex of a building. However, the FAE would do a lot more net body. Since nobody is claiming that a FAE is AP, more body translates into more dice. I'm still not quite sure why tank armor which is deliberately designed for protection, would be halved while vault doors and boulders which aren't wouldn't be halved. The fact that the sides, rear, top, and bottom of a tank is already reflected in lower Def for those facings. The halving for ships could matter for non-supers. It makes a huge difference whether that first 'free halving' occurs for a martial artist or gunner with find weakness. Would that first find weakness roll drop that 40 def ship to 10 def or 20 def?

Thanks for the clarification. I didn't realize the FAE was quite that powerful. I think you're right. I was thinking of the bunker buster bomb, which weighs 5000+ pounds and is rocket propelled. I should have said bomb not missile. This is true. Actually to be nitpicky, probably only about half the 5" guns could fire at a target, because the ship itself is in the way of the other half. I don't quite how you get 1500 men to equal 20 guns. I thought it required a crew of 5 per gun. Even if you allow a reasonable amount for support units, it still wouldn't come close to 1500 men. Yeah, I still feel that 30th century tech compared to 20th century tech should be like 20th century tech vs 17th century tech.

I think a fuel air bomb has between 20 and 30 tons of tnt equivalent vs about 1 ton for a 16" shell. Possibly more than that for the latest one that they tested. It'll take out a bunker if it wasn't completely sealed. But we have this technology in place. If we ever run into an enemy that requires this sort of weapon, we can recreate it relatively quickly. A fuel air bomb does more damage than a 16" high explosive shell. A bunker busting missile does more damage than a 16" armor piercing shell. Regardless of the type of damage you want, we have weapons that are better for it than a 16" shell. Damage does mean more dice. A fuel air bomb will do more body to a building than a 16" high explosive shell. A bunker busting missile will do more body to a bunker than a 16" direct hit with an armor piercing shell. More body = more dice. Actually, if you want to blow up ground cheaply, a few batteries of 155 mm guns will cover more area than a battleship without having to have a crew of 2000+. Does this house rule apply only to starships, or vs all inanimate objects? Would you halve the def of boulders and vault doors as well? Would this rule apply to martial artists and other 'non-super types'?

If the force field is a focus, it can't take the always on limitation, because the focus can be removed and the power would thus not be always on. If it's in an EC, draining or suppressing any power in the EC zaps all of them at the same time at double effect. Just hit him with a few characters with suppress flight, and have some fun.

I had a joke character once who bought all his powers based on CCV (Comeliness Combat Value). This guy was so amazingly skilled that he could hit anyone, but he secretly shrank from hitting a beauty. Of course, he'd be willing to pound on ugly people all day.

This bomb is a lot larger than 10D6. http://msnbc.com/news/883752.asp

Continuing charges won't work because you need to spend a 0 phase action to activate after a charge is used up. That means the FF will give no defense to any further attacks that occur before the character's next phase. Just define it as a power limitation. Takes 5 hits in one day is probably work -3/4 or -1, unless it's easy to reset in which case it's probably worth -0 or -1/4.

Re: Re: Re: Apples and oranges, I think... Not just time travel, but campaigns where there are different tech levels on different worlds. That's a reasonable idea, but some kinks need to be worked out.

This has an unintended side effect that energy attacks should then cost more than physical attacks. Otherwise, you're getting more bang for your buck when a PC purchases a laser instead of a gun using character points. Besides, it doesn't make sense in many cases. A metal door should probably be more resistant to a torch than a gun.

Hi Steve, I noticed that many of the ships in Star Hero have force walls as their primary defense. However, they don't have Indirect on their attack powers. Is this intentional, so that ships can only fire while the force wall is down, or is this an oversight?