Snarf

Re: Re: GL style Endurance Batteries? Wouldn't that build mean he has to carry the battery with him everywhere to get the Reduced END? And he has to do incantantations every time he uses his ring powers? The naked power advantage sounds easiest, unless you're willing to do a lot of endurance bookkeeping.

You could give them a psych limitation. "Hates Blood Stags" and "Hates Ember Steeds" or something similar.

Wow, it's so cool that there's a real world example of this kind of power. If you made that ability using Rebar's method it would be a little cheaper: Samurai Determination: 2d6 HKA, (AP 30); OIF (weapon of opportunity, -1/2), Only Works Upon Death (-4), Only Works Vs. Immediate Point-Blank Attacker (-1), 1 Nonrecoverable Charge (-4), (RC 3); plus +5 OCV, (AP 10); OIF (weapon of opportunity, -1/2), Only Works Upon Death (-4), Only Works Vs. Immediate Point-Blank Attacker (-1), 1 Nonrecoverable Charge (-4), (RC 1); plus +8 Penalty Skill Levels (head/vitals shot), (AP 12); OIF (weapon of opportunity, -1/2), Only Works Upon Death (-4), Only Works Vs. Immediate Point-Blank Attacker (-1), 1 Nonrecoverable Charge (-4), (RC 2); Total Cost: 6 Points

Sounds good to me. Self-Destruct: RKA 8d6, Explosive (+1/2), (AP 180); 1 Nonrecoverable Charge (-4), Only Works Upon Death (-4), (RC 20). Alien Hatchling: Summon 1 800 point Monster, (AP 160); 1 Nonrecoverable Charge (-4), Only Works Upon Death (-4), (RC 18). How's that look? Seems a little pricy for something you would never want to use, but even the threat of what could happen can get results sometimes.

I love this idea. I'm going to steal this for one of my games at some point.

What limitations are you using specifically? I can't figure out precisely what you're doing.

I agree that that's crazy cheap, but it still doesn't justify the cost of the trigger. What seems more useful, a 4d6 energy blast that you can only use once or a 4d6 energy blast that you can only use once which goes off when you die?

A trigger works great, but it seems wrong to me that an effect which only works when you die costs more points instead of saving them. Doesn't a plain 4D6 Energy Blast seem more useful than a more costly 4d6 Energy Blast that only goes off when you die?

Champions? I'm looking at the Hero System Fifth Edition basic book. If thats what you meant or you have that book then you can do this, otherwise, I don't know. It's not specifically listed there, but a susceptibility can be for anything. You just define that thing as uncommon, common, or very common. The character takes damage (or whatever) from an effect which does not harm ordinary people, namely severe stress. You can find the option for having the suceptibility trigger a custom attack based on APs somewhere around 2/3 through the susceptibility text. This is an indirect way to do a physical defect, but I think it's the only way to do a precisely statted out condition within the rules. Normally, I would just take a physical limitation and declare the character takes 10% damage a turn while under stress, or whatever seems totally impairing, but there's nothing illegal about making the disadvange with susceptibility.

If you want something more detailed, you can construct pretty much any effect using a power tied to a susceptibility. Look near the bottom of the page where susceptibility is listed, if you want to know the details. -35 Weak Heart: Susceptibility to Extreme Stress (Uncommon, Instant, 60 AP) While the susceptibility is being triggered, the character would suffer this attack: Heart Attack: 2d6 RKA, NND (+1), (AP 60). You can do a 60 AP drain, or whatever you want, instead of an RKA.

I disagree. A power that you have to die to use is not going to win the game for you, no matter how sick it is.

A mental damage shield with the +1/2 advantage that makes it affect mental and physical attacks is pretty close to what you're looking for, but it wouldn't work against ranged attacks.

Firegolem's suggestion would work that way. Whenever you're away from the computer system or don't have an hour to spare, the clairsentience will still be vague and unclear.

You could buy a bonus to the clairsentience PER roll with limitations on it (focus, extra time, etc.).

I've read various books where a character had the ability to unleash some massive disaster if they were killed. In the book Snow Crash, there was an extemely badass guy called Raven who had an A-bomb as a sidecar on his motorcycle. It was triggered by radio to go off if his heart stopped. There was another book I read where you would get horribly cursed if you killed someone with royal blood. I think that was based on what some slavic countries used to believe. Do you think it's ever worth buying a power like this? How would you construct a power like this? Has anyone already used something like this in a game? I thought of two ways this could be done. One way is to just buy the A-bomb with points or money and place some steep limitations on it. Things like Only Activates At Moment Of Death (-5) and One Non-Recoverable Charge (-4). But, if you reason from effects, the main point of a power like this is that enemies are afraid to kill you, and the actual explosion is mostly a special effect. So, you could just buy a huge reputation and forget about statting out the power.

I just give everyone the same amount. I tried giving individual points but it was too much work keeping track of what happened to each person.

There's another issue to consider that's come up in previous flaming sword threads. If you're dealing with enemies that have a lot of defense, it's not cost effective to split your damage between a physical attack (the weapon) and energy damage. 8 PD vs 4 PDR/4 EDR = 4 damage 4 PD/4 ED vs 4 PDR/4 EDR = 0 damage Depending on how magic spells are purchased in your game, this might not matter.

Absorbtion doesn't give any defense against an attack, so I don't think it has anything to with invulnerability.

Those were insectish things that clamp on a wrist and shoot energy blasts right? Yeah, those would be a better example of living focus than what I was trying to make. If I remember those things correctly, they didn't move around or anything. Things that are more device-like and less character-like, like biotech gadgets, could justifiably be made using something other than follower.

All that still sounds like it's worth more like a -2 than a 1/5 cost to me, but thanks for all the good ideas to work with. Have the characters made that way ever seemed overpowered to you? I'll stick with the usable by others method for now, since it seems like that's the way the existing rules best support, but if I start running into problems, I'll switch to a the "requires specific animal nearby" limited power.

Sounds reasonable, but where do you get the -1/2 number from? Also I was planning to require physical contact to grant the power, for the specific animal I was going to make, so how much do you think that would be worth? WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ME FLUFFY, IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN MEEEEEEE

Yeah, that power would not be for the faint of heart. Inobvious would be much more playable, if you wanted the realistically helpless kitty.

I thought accesible might work because you can easily target the animal and "disarm" by knocking it out or killing it. But I see your point, a limited power limitation could be less awkward than stretching focus so much.

Just let it go. Nothing you say will change that guy's mind and he's entitled to his opinion.

That sounds good to me, but when you're using the living focus method, what level of focus would you use and how would you treat breakability? For a small animal like a cat, I'm thinking OAF Fragile and the powers are unaffected until the animal dies, then they're lost. Also, does it bother anyone that buying a follower with usable by other powers gives the player powers at 1/5 cost? It seems like a really cheap way to buy powers for a minor tradeoff in convenience.