Gary

Re: Open Ended, etc. Game balance. You can just as easily roll 1d6 and have: 1 .17 max damage 2 .33 max damage 3 .5 max damage 4 .67 max damage 5 .83 max damage 6 100% max damage. That does generally the same thing as your 3d6 method, but obviously it makes combat just a bit too volatile and extreme. Unless that's what you're looking for in which case, go for it.

Re: Open Ended, etc. I don't like the 3d6 as a substitute for Xd6. Percentage of total damage have much too large of a distorting effect when factoring in defenses. For example, let's take 10d6 vs 25 defenses. The results will be as follows: 3F = 0 Stun 4-5 = 0 Stun 6-7 = 0 Stun 8-9 = 3 Stun 10-11 = 10 Stun 12-13 = 17 Stun 14-15 = 23 Stun 16-17= 30 Stun 18= 35 Stun 19= 42 Stun 20= 48 Stun 21= 55 Stun 22 = 61 Stun 23= 68 Stun 24= 75 Stun 25= 81 Stun 26= 88 Stun 27= 94 Stun This method sounds like the killing attack Stun lotto except applied to normal attacks instead.

Re: I need help with a Talent? Perk? Skill? If it's not a PC, then just handwave it. It's a plot device, nothing more and nothing less. If it's a PC, I'd question what he's going to do with it.

Re: portional speed An interesting idea might be to allow fractional speed for real. If you have a 3.4 SPD, you roll a d10 each Turn. A 1-4 or less means you act on 4 Spd and a 5-10 means you act on a 3 Spd for that Turn. This would allow FAR greater granularity between characters, especially at the lower end of the Spd chart.

Re: Exploding Dice I just did a quick calculation. 1 'exploding die' averages 4.2 per d6. This is 20% more damage with a significantly greater chance of a "home run" roll. Based on this, +1/4 might not be out of line after all. Although it gets troublesome like many Hero Advantages if you set it at +1/4 and then you stick other Advantages on the attack.

Re: Exploding Dice It'd be worth more than +1/4. Remember in Hero terms, the last dice in any attack are generally way more valuable than the first few dice. That's because the first few dice are soaked up by defenses. If the target has 20 defenses for example, then any dice after the first 6 or 7 are essentially NND dice. I'd say a +1/2 or possibly +3/4 Advantage. I'd have to do some calculations to determine the proper pricing.

Re: Gang members The members of MY gang are: Takofanes Dr. Destroyer Menton Tyrannon Skarn the Shaper Gravitar and Viperia are my molls.

Re: Dodge Giant Blows Here's the question. Do you want the Giant to automatically hit everyone else EXCEPT for gnomes and dwarves? It doesn't seem in genre for Giants to automatically hit fighters, paladins, and rangers. They have to work at it. I'd just remove the Area Effect from the Giant and simply give them 2-4 CSLs with giant hands as the special effect.

Re: Problem with Missile Deflection Or I can pay 6 pts for +3 Dex (after speed rebate) that gives me the DCV AND OCV, initiative, and Agility skill rolls. Costs 1 pt more than just DCV, but far superior. At base levels, DCV is probably superior. However, consider that it can cost an attacker only 2-3 pts in general to counter a 5 pt defense using OCV skill levels. For a missile deflection user, it costs him 2 pts to counter a 2-3 pt OCV skill level. At a certain amount of plusses, the missile deflection is going to be the better choice. Combined with the ability to block for others and the easier access to frameworks, the choice becomes competitive.

1) The FAQ says that it is legal to Adjust Charges. Does this apply to Charges that Never Recover or Charges with Increased Recovery Time? 2) If (1) is legal, would a Dispel on a power with Charges that Never Recover, destroy that power permanently? 3) If (1) is legal, would an Aid or other positive Adjustment power create "temporary" charges that can be expended without using up one of the underlying Non-Recoverable charges?

Re: Attacks OK Defenses No Way? If the defensive multipower was no more problematic than an attack multipower for example, then why are the published characters loaded to the gills with attack multipowers, but not with defensive multipowers with adjustable defenses? Obviously if fighting Grond/Firewing, the point level is higher. If you don't like the Firewing/Grond example, then we can lower the scale and use Ogre/Lazer. Fixed boy with 40/5 or 5/40 can fight only 1 of them. Flex boy can clobber both. Thus Flex boy is far more unbalanced than Fixed boy. IOW, you would treat defensive multipowers differently from attack multipowers. That was what I wanted to hear. Anyone with a reasonably high DCV or flash defense or a targetting sense can beat a Flash attacker. This is because the flash attacker still has to hit before being hit 2-3 times, which is quite plausible if the defender has equal CV to the attacker. Now the people with single attacks are basically SOL if they need 6-8 hits to take out Flex boy and Flex boy needs 2-3 hits to take them out. The example gives flex boy lower total defenses than fixed boy. Don't forget foes like Viper 5 teams and Demon Morbanes which generally use energy attacks. Ignoring exotic attacks there are 3 possibilities (assuming Flex boy has 40/10 or some unbalanced defense of that nature): 1) Vs someone with only physical attacks, both Fixed and Flex will clobber 2) Vs someone with only energy attacks, Fixed gets destroyed and Flex clobbers. 3) Vs someone with both attacks, Fixed gets destroyed and Flex is competitive. Sounds like Flex is far better off to me... It's not an "occasional" easy win just from your research. Depends on the situation. Hunteds would certainly be designed with the PCs in mind and so would master villains. For rank and file villains, I would certainly want the ability to throw a good selection of villains. I wouldn't want to rule out entire common archetypes because the PC has a defensive multipower. Cap certainly does a lot better than AH would've. His full Pre only took effect when he revealed himself. In ROTJ, his Pre was VERY obvious. Extremely violent in the context of a superhero or supervillain means much more than a 4d6 HKA. That may qualify vs agents, but I wouldn't give that bonus unless it's quite apparent that the level of power is significantly higher than the PC's. So 45 Pre, assuming the good soliloquy also applies. If you allowed anyone to get the 2d6 violent action mod at any time, then anybody can quite easily make characters with 5 lower Pre lose a half phase half the time or more. And this only would be applicable if Turtle Man was suprised by the Pre attack, otherwise he can set the mp into Pre. Skills only would be 5 pts according to your example. Since this Pre can also be used for offense and defense at the cost of some defense, the overall value is probably about 8 pts for 10 Pre. I think it's pretty much a nobrainer that 10 MP 1 u +10 Pre 1 u +5/5 Def is worth far more than just +10 Pre. I don't even know why you were quibbling about it. 45 Pre, unless the violent power is well beyond the power level of the target. And I'll say it again. Going desolid in a MP isn't unbalancing because the character can't attack effectively. I've said it multiple times in this thread that nigh invulnerability is unbalancing when the nigh invulnerable person can affect the opponent. Puh-leeze. Starburst's multipower isn't what we've been talking about. Try a multipower with adjustable defenses, some movements, and perhaps some utility powers. For example: 15 1 u +15 PD 1 u +15 ED 1 u +8/+7 1 u +7" Running 1 u +15" Leap 1 u +7" Flight

Re: Rant? Speed in Hero How do you handle it if elapsed time becomes a factor? Suppose the party needs to get past the defenders before a bomb explodes in 15 seconds. What would happen if you rolled a couple of early 1's and there are still lots of defenders around? How would you handle something like a chase?

Re: Attacks OK Defenses No Way? Buy them together or separately with lockout. That's just as conceptual as a multipower and less abusive. De facto statement is no published characters with such a structure. Now it's your turn to show me an example. I've only asked about a dozen times already. Not with adjustable defenses. Where did I ever say "not book legal"? There are a lot of things that are book legal such as charges of end reserve that are highly abusive. And multipowers with adjustable defenses. You're paying twice as much if you want fixed defenses. Otherwise Firewing clobbers you. Flex boy can destroy Grond or Firewing in a fight. Limited Mana. Zippy doesn't fit the condition. I'll repeat since you didn't seem to pick it up. If I can hurt him and he can't hurt me, I'll eventually win Ok, you previously said you would allow a single attacker to perhaps get 2DC over a flexible attacker, not 6DC. That's 70 pts vs 90, or alternately his slots are worth 1/3 of their normal cost for active point purposes (2 pts each). A corresponding 1/3 adjustment to the defensive multipower would allow 24 pts with 3 slots (30 active points but the 3 slots are collectively worth 2 pts for active point purposes). So +24 PD or +24 ED or +12/12. Or alternately he has 14/14 defenses and the 20 pt multipower. That seems to be a fair way of using comparative costs. Which considering it would take Flex boy 2.3 hits to take out his opposition means a fair fight even against someone with multiple forms of attacks. Yay! Recognition that you have to treat a defensive multipower different from an attack multipower! I've made the adjustments to his defense above. Not much changes with my analysis. 25 to 24. Doesn't change the analysis much. If every combat was a team vs team perhaps. A broad range of encounters means that there will be quite a few vs 1 form attackers. Which still has to hit which means he still has the chance to inflict 2.35 hits first. If every NPC was geared specifically to counter Flex boy, that would strain credibility. Do your games always involve the NPC optimized specifically to deal with the PC? Cap does not look like just a normal human being in uniform. AH and WC accomplished some pretty impressive stuff out of combat. I somehow doubt that it would've done much for AH if a Russian squad broke into the Berlin Bunker in 1945. I would say Darth Maul or Darth Vader had 30-35 Pre. Highly visible. Now throw someone with a 60 and it becomes pretty much impossible to hide. He may have a 10 or 15 to start. That extra 10 is worth +2 to all Pre based skills which is a bargain for 2 pts. I've played 20+ years knowing that the ability to switch 10-15 pts to my defense from pre is worth a whole lot more than 2 pts. If you don't agree with that statement, then I really question how much you've actually played the game. LionMane with a 60 Pre represents less than 1% of plausible encounters in any world. At the cost of a whopping 2 pts, Turtle Man is disadvantaged vs LionMane. Vs the other 99% of encounters, he gains a huge advantage. Sounds like a bargain to me. I think you're the one being intentionally dense. Remember what I said above: If I can hurt him and he can't hurt me, I'll eventually win. Now tell me how someone desolid can fit that condition? Giving up your attack is huge and changes the equation completely. I'll leave you with a previous statement: The theory that "the GM will balance it out" is commonly raised as a defense to issues of point imbalance. The GM can certainly do so. However, if the GM will juggle the books in this fashion, such that the point imbalance is unimportant, why do we need points at all? It's a fundamental question of fairness and a belief that the cost of something should reflect its value. I don't automatically eliminate anything that can be unbalancing, but I always err to the side of fairness. I do note that even you in this thread seem to outright ban a multipower with both defenses and movements in it.

Re: WHY is combat so slow and what have you done about it? At higher levels, this could be a problem with D&D. At lower levels, not so much of one. And even this gets mitigated if people have printouts or photocopies of their relevant items, spells and abilities before the game starts. Your experience may be different, but I find due to aborts/held actions/recoveries etc, Hero is slower than D&D in general.

Re: Attacks OK Defenses No Way? Still doesn't change the fact that he has to hit in the first place and that the defender can be hitting back in the meantime. And a 62.5% chance of fighting back effectively. That sounds like he's pretty competitive to me. He can just set it to a balanced slot until he has more info. Not a big deal. Whereas someone with one form of attack is SOL vs flex boy. Those particular attacks verge on being abusive, so I would either not allow them or put very strict limits on them. He's still competitve. He still has the opportunity to take out his opponent first. Uncontrolled continuous implies low dice, so that gives him several phases to win the fight and find the means to turn it off. I'm suggesting that balanced slots be the only ones allowed in a mp. That way you buy +5 PD/+5 ED for 10 pts. Problem solved, and meshes with every published example I've seen of defenses in a mp. Skills as powers are special powers and need specific GM permission to be used in a power framework. Obviously Black Paladin and Mechassassin had GM permission. Now for the umpteenth time, show me an example of a published character with an adjustable defensive multipower. Of course it's an obvious abuse. But the book doesn't specifically warn against it. Just like the flexible multipower is an obvious abuse. Also, I don't see defensive multipowers used in practice either. The question wasn't whether it was book legal. The question was whether it was abusive. I don't if that defense is fixed. An adjustable one is unbalancing. Spell of Stoneskin (PD). Spell of Energy Resistance (ED). Spell of Iron Body (balanced). 3 discrete spells. Most games disallow lots of archetypes. The mentalist sniper who attacks from miles away with mindscan comes to mind. If I can hurt him and he can't hurt me, I'll eventually win. That shouldn't even be arguable. In any case, it's a lot better than fixed defense guy who'll be in GM option land while Grond has minutes or longer to rampage. Funny how you're counting a 60 pt multipower as 60 pts even though it actually cost 90 pts while you're counting exact costs for the defensive multipower. Why would you treat them differently unless there WAS a fundamental difference between an attack and defense multipower? Let's start with 15 base defense and 25/25 for fixed boy (to parallel attack multipowers). A 12 DC attack vs fixed boy results in 17 stun on average and 40/17 = 2.35 hits needed. Vs the favored defense, it's 42-35 =7 stun or 40/7= 5.71 hits needed. That's a gain of 3.36 hits. And frankly, that pretty much guarantees the fight to flex boy since if he has similar 12 DC attacks and the other guy has normal defenses, he's knock the other guy out in 2.35 hits. Vs the other defense, it'll be 27 stun which is 1.48 hits on average. A loss of .87 hits. True it may stun him, but it's not that unlikely that the attack would roll 4 less than average. And a higher con reduces the chances significantly. There are several other factors: 1) Attacks will hit the favored defenses more often since smart players only put up a favored defense if they perceive it to be to their advantage. 2) Flex boy can always play it safe if he's not sure and use the balance slot. 3) Flex boy will only be hit once at his weak defense. After that, he can adjust. And this will be the minority of hits anyway. 4) Even if he guesses wrong, it's still a competitive fight. It's not out of the question that he hits his enemy 2.35 times before he's hit 1.48 times. I heavily disagree with Captain America. He does look impressive. AH and WC both probably have 18-20 Pre which would be an annoyance if they pull a Pre attack. Someone with a 60 Pre as you used with LionMane would most certainly look fearsome. Frankly, he's only 2 pts worse off than if he just straight Pre. No big deal. Against the VAST majority of foes without extreme Pre, he's far better off. I can safely say with decades of experience that the ability to shift Pre to defense is well worth 2 pts even if it occasionally backfires. Exactly. By switching to the desolid slot, he's lost his ability to attack. The PD/ED multipower is what we've been discussing for pages. If you don't think it's an appropriate construct, then why have you posted pages trying to defend it?

Re: WHY is combat so slow and what have you done about it? I'm not criticizing the abort rules, in fact I like them. But it's a fact that a fight lasts much longer when both sides do a lot of defensive aborting. Another thing is that it's relatively easy to get stun and end back in Hero. So characters that are down still have the tendency to get up after being brought to below 0 Stun. In D&D, you're pretty much out of the fight below 0 hit points. I've played both D20 and Hero and Hero fights definitely last longer on average, unless you get to very high levels in D&D.

Re: Attacks OK Defenses No Way?

Re: Attacks OK Defenses No Way? a) You have to hit first. Which gives the brick a chance to beat you before you lower his Str too much because he can hit first. Or block/dodge etc until he gets an opening. Flex dude with 40 PD doesn’t even give the brick a chance. Same as A c) With End drains, the target can still fight back effectively. He can easily get the 2-3 hits needed to take out Leech boy before the loss of stun knocks him out. d) Breakout roll. A 15 Ego defender needs a 12- to breakout, or 11- if it’s a +25 effect. Not too difficult to do. e) Not too many people with a PD energy blast and a ED energy blast in the same multipower. And it’s not too much of a stretch for the attacker to roll 4 under average, leaving flex boy able to shift to a balanced slot and fight back. Whereas against the single form attacker, flex boy doesn’t even leave that sort of opening. Luck pretty much isn’t going to be a factor. I’m surprised you didn’t use the Int or Pre drain. That’s a lot more devastating than any of the ones you mentioned, and virtually nobody has enough of either to resist a 6d6 drain… Adjusting a defense should be halved, yet adding directly to one shouldn’t. That doesn’t compute. I don’t think any of the 4 characters I mentioned is that high in point total. Stormfront has lots of Change Environments, but the other 3 have lots of instant attack powers. If optimizing in this fashion was allowable. Funny how none of the published characters have anything remotely resembling adjustable defenses. If flexible defenses were so obviously non-abusive as you seem to be presenting, then surely it would be a regular occurrence. I don’t see a stop sign or GM option for charges of end reserve either. It works perfectly if that’s what you want. +10 PD and +10 ED with lockout on one of them. That costs 15 or 17 pts depending on whether you make it a -1/2 or -1 limitation. And it makes adding Mental, Flash, or Power defense slots considerably more expensive than 1 pt for 10. Because it’s not as unbalancing as making yourself nigh invulnerable. 3 different spells in a spellbook They would be if it were a 55 or 65 pt damage cap for a campaign. If it were a 60 pt cap, then losing 1 DC from your attack hurts more than the marginal gain from exploiting the rounding rules if you go with 55 pts. The way champions works, that last d6 of damage is worth far more than the first d6 in general. I probably wouldn’t allow a gadgeteer who can change in the field. One who can in the lab isn’t a problem since he has to guess the proper configuration each time. Yes it is a massive improvement. In the first case, you beat Grond after a little delay and he has perhaps 1 turn to rampage. In the second case, you’re lying unconscious and Grond has minutes or longer to rampage. Sounds like a HUGE improvement to me. 90 pts for 5 potential 12 DC attacks vs 1 18 DC attack. Sounds fair to me. 18 pts for 15 pts of flexible defense and 3 slots vs 9/9 doesn’t sound fair to me. So it’s perfectly ok for you to have a player pay .8 pts for PD while everyone else pays 1 pt. Gotcha. In the meantime, Turtle Man has +3 on all his Pre based skills (since they almost always occur out of combat). And the one thing about Presence attacks is that Pre is highly visible (by definition), so unless it was a fear spell or something of that nature, Turtle Man doesn’t leave himself vulnerable vs most targets. I mean LionMane’s 60 Pre should be a dead giveaway. He gives up the ability to attack. That’s pretty big. I consider the PD/ED multipower as inappropriate as a Pre/PD multipower. Yeah, DCV in a multipower can be devastating. I don’t agree with it, but at least there are all sorts of warnings about allowing special powers in frameworks. It gets even more obscene when it’s in a EC like with Vibron who has +8 DCV in a 40 pt EC that costs end. But that’s another discussion.

Re: WHY is combat so slow and what have you done about it?

Re: Attacks OK Defenses No Way? Again, it sounds like you have a problem with flash specifically. Finally! You agree that changing a defense on the fly is overpowered!!!!! We could've saved pages if you agreed to this from the beginning. If you have CKC, you can look at the characters yourself. If that were the case, then surely the sample powers for any VPP user would've had a single example of an unbalanced PD/ED configuration. Show me. Then show me the multipower example if that's so trivial. Then I guess you're conceding the point. BTW, you're the one who was saying that just because the book didn't explicitly ban it, that it had to be ok because otherwise the designers would've put in a note on it. And I'd make them buy up both defenses. It's just as easy and less prone to abuse. And it's 39% difference if the real cost should be 25 pts. If you're saying that you would allow it if the player gave a sufficiently good reason, then that means you're ok with the 18 pt cost. Expecting players to not take advantage of the rounding rules would be like expecting them to purchase 22 Con or Dex. It just doesn't happen with the way the rules are written. Breakpoints always can be taken of. Certainly after the 2nd fight. And possibly the first fight if they do research or if the villain has a reputation. You'll still eventually beat Grond with the flex defenses. If you had fixed ones, not only does Grond trash the ciity, you're knocked out as well. It's a massive improvement either way. It's the nature of the flash attack. Which is why you keep harping on it. You can't give a single example of a damaging attack that can reliably achieve the 1 shot knockout by switching slots. Ok, 1 player is allowed to pay .8 pts for PD but everyone else has to pay 1 pt for PD. I guess you're ok with allowing that. I'm still waiting for an actual cite. IOW, you haven't actually played with a character of this type and you're theorizing. "Turtle Man who looks dashing normally but looks and feels hum drum when in his shell." Would you allow his Pre in a multipower with defenses? Being desolid means that you are giving up something in combat. The ability to attack effectively. That's a pretty big drawback for any character. Also, desolid isn't meant to be up all the time by default unlike Int/Ego/Pre. Are you actually trying to defend a multipower with Int, Ego, Pre, or Running and defenses? I can tell you this. If a player tried to pull this on me during character creation, I would patiently explain why I wouldn't allow it. If he persisted, I'd just tear up his character sheet and move on.

Re: WHY is combat so slow and what have you done about it? One thing to consider is that even starting Hero characters are pretty tough and have lots of options/flexibility in any combat. A starting 350 character is probably the equivalent of a 15th level D&D character in complexity/power if not higher. Low level D&D combats are much faster than Hero combats and just fly because the characters are much simpler and there's a lot less to keep track of. If you have a 15 level campaign however, combat can take just as long if not longer than Hero depending on the classes/items/abilities of the party and the monsters they're fighting.

Re: Attacks OK Defenses No Way? I see 2 characters with defensive multipowers in CKC. Black Paladin and Mechassassin. Both have Armor, DCV, and Missile Deflection in a shield multipower. Nothing resembling adjustable defenses, but it should be mentioned for the sake of completeness.

Steve, Blackstar in CKC has both Density Increase and Telekinesis in his EC. Do the restrictions on combining or multiple power attacking in a framework mean that Blackstar can't stick an enemy to him and punch him with his Density driven Str (or use any other attack in a EC for that matter)? How about a Change Environment with an Attack if both are in the same EC? I guess the general question would be: Could a character combine a Constant attack with another attack from the same EC if the Constant attack was already up?

Re: Attacks OK Defenses No Way? Potential. Vs the near certainty of victory if a defensive multipower is optimized against a single form attacker. And yet the Aid or Succor was deemed abusive at full effect on defenses. Phoenix in CKC has 5 attacks in ECs, 6 if you count his damage shield. Other characters with 4-6 attacks in a EC are Cybermind, Howler, and Stormfront. Show me a single published character with a VPP changeable in combat that has flexible defenses of this nature. Surely at least one sample power would have this configuration if it were ok. That's all beside the point anyway. This thread was about defensive multipowers. Please show me an example with a published character. Fairly priced would probably be 15 pts for the first defense and 15 pts with a -1/2 or -1 limitation on the other defense for a total of 22 or 25 pts. Now the question goes back to you. Do you think 18 pts is a fair price for that multipower? I've given lots of reasons throughout this thread such as the fact that defenses trump attacks with numerous examples. Please read through the thread if you want more details. Where did I declare that? I distinctly remember that it was YOU who used the term "rules rapist" first in this thread. Please cite the post where I made this declaration. Grab and throw won't do much if the other guy laughs it off and just blasts you until you fall. You really seem hung up on flash don't you? This is rich. I'll point to a post that may seem familiar to you. Please cite where I said that. I at least have practical experience with this construct. You admitted that you have no experience and you're just theorizing. No, I don't want you to dodge the point. Show me a character who you would allow to have a Pre or Ego multipower like the ones I listed as an example.

Re: Pool like effect without a pool You can always go with the last resort of the cheesy lack of imagination scoundrel. Transform. Pay for 1 slot in your 60 pt multipower and Transform stick into Wand of X spell or paper into Scroll of Y spell or vial into Potion of Z spell. And limit the slot to 1 charge per day or however many times you want to allow it.