Chimera 12

Re: Only in Hero ID Well, really, how impairing it is directly depends on how many of the character's powers et al. are affected by it. (It's one thing if you buy all your powers with OIAID. It's something else if all your 'real' powers work in either ID and you just get a PRE boost from putting on your cool costume. ) Thus, I'd say that leaving it as a Limitation works fine. How highly to rate that Limitation, now...I'm personally fine with leaving it at -1/4 and relying on the GM to make sure that it actually comes up in play. The Hero System (like most if not all role-playing games, really) already runs on sufficient amounts of "GM Discretion" that singling out this one Limitation as a problem just because it also happens to do that strikes me as making a mountain out of a molehill. GMs who honestly don't think it's worth that much are, of course, always free to house rule it into a -0 Limitation in their campaign instead or just disallow it altogether.

Re: So, are Bricks more expensive in 6th Edition? Well, it does make a degree of sense. That brick already paid for that 60 STR and the associated hand-to-hand damage, after all, and from a certain point of view all that pen knife does is add another DC to the twelve he can already do 'naturally'. Of course, it also converts all 13 DC to killing damage (because STR adds to the HKA and not vice versa). But as far as the rules are concerned, normal and killing damage have always been considered about equal when compared on a per-DC basis, so there's no particular reason to slap on an additional cost or restriction just for that.

Re: Bronze Archer, Agent of PRIMUS Which could for instance make the difference between having a skill at more-than-just-familiarity level and not having it at all, so isn't actually too shabby.

Re: How Give Target Clinging Agreed. This looks like basically a Major Transform ("target acquires Clinging with the Always On Limitation"), add modifiers to taste to make it work like a proper 'disease'; at first glance, I'd say a small base Transform with a side order of Damage Over Time, but that may be just me.

Re: Alien Language Vs Not Very Alien Language Some further thoughts: As far as alien names at least go, humans would probably end up sorting them into three distinct groups. Pronouncable: These you do your best to use as is. Not pronouncable, but translatable: Use your best available translation to refer to the alien in question. If the alien's real name is some impossible cadence beyond the unaided human hearing range but translates roughly to "Speaker-to-Peppermints", that'll do. Neither pronouncable nor translatable: These aliens will just have to live with nicknames that humans can handle. If they're lucky, we'll let them choose their own. Recognizing which case currently applies and handling it appropriately is going to be another nice challenge for mechanical translation devices, of course.

Re: Rules intention question I remember a scene of the X-Men vs. Fantastic Four miniseries/graphic novel in which Johnny did quite by accident burn Storm's arm rather badly (and felt appropriately guilty about it afterwards). Ironically, the person to heal that injury afterwards was Dr. Doom... That said, I'll agree that the simple fact that he did react that strongly suggests that it's not something that usually happens to him in combat. (Of course, I don't immediately recall an instance of him using his flames to blast unprotected people directly on purpose, either. Against 'soft' targets the Johnny Storm I sort of remember would resort to a more indirect approach -- cut off escape routes, slag weapons, gadgets, and vehicles, that sort of thing. So, mileage may vary.)

Re: Alien Language Vs Not Very Alien Language While a lot of good points have been brought up above...if this is for a campaign (rather than, say, a novel or such), sticking to sounds that the presumably human GM can produce in a reasonably painless fashion might be wise. Just saying.

Re: Humor: Duct Tape Charater If that sort of thing fits the campaign, by all means go for it.

Re: D&D 4E Beholder Eye Of Flame Ahhh, okay. I never did get the Fiend Folio (nor indeed anything else from AD&D1 other than the Player's Handbook and, I think, a module or two much later), so I guess I let the name fool me. I still suspect that there's precedent for the Beholder Eye of Flame, mind. I doubt they just made that one up from whole cloth for shits & giggles. It's just that (A)D&D has such a long and varied legacy of oddball monsters, many of whom I've doubtlessly never encountered, that I couldn't point at one right now and tell you "that one's it."

Re: Bronze Archer, Agent of PRIMUS

Re: How best to replace "Find Weakness"

Re: rounding Armor Piercing

Re: D&D 4E Beholder Eye Of Flame

Re: ET Stay Home While I don't know what any aliens' reaction to us might be any better than the next person (and yeah, if life on Earth is any example, there's not much reason to be too optimistic), I'm not sure that the alternative of sticking our heads into the sand and hoping nobody out there sees us is particularly feasible, either. It's not like space will just go away if we ignore it, and anything with the technology to get here within an interesting timeframe probably has the technology to discover us whether we actively try to make contact with it or not.

Re: Another weird science post: Laser Recoil! Intuition suggests particle beam recoil. Most non-photon particles you'd want to fire would have a non-zero rest mass and would need to be accelerated to a useful speed first, so a particle blaster should have more 'thrust' and thus recoil than an equivalent laser. That said, I'll freely admit to not having crunched any actual numbers on this. (And either way I'm discounting any mechanical side effects of whatever loading action we'd be using. "Just plug in a battery and it goes" works better for some hypothetical energy weapons than for others.)

Re: Large Wingspan Disad? Sounds more like a size-related Physical Complication than necessarily a Limitation on his Flight in particular, then. But maybe that's just me.

Re: Top 10 Insupportable Premises in Comic Book Universes Of course, the impact of the catch should still do some noticeable damage provided the falling person has had time to pick up some speed. It's not as though there was anything about the ground that made landing hard specifically on it magically dangerous, after all -- it's all in the abrupt deceleration. Oops. I'll shut up now.

Re: Bronze Archer, Agent of PRIMUS This looks, at a glance, like a Sixth Edition character ('Complications' rather than 'Disadvantages', no obvious Figured Characteristics). 6E doesn't have Elemental Controls anymore. I suppose one could buy the enhanced senses with the Unified Power Limitation, but depending on the campaign that could be either painful (Drain one sense, drain them all -- and it wouldn't have to be a big Drain, either) or a cop-out to get some free points (who uses Drains vs. enhanced senses, anyway?), so I'm not sure I'd normally allow it.

Re: Humor: Duct Tape Charater I can see it now: Aid or Healing BODY, only works on inanimate objects (other than ducts).

Re: Penalty Skill Levels versus the Size Modifier Yes, but that's already covered by their reduced reach (part of the Physical Complication for their relevant size template).

Re: rounding Armor Piercing I'd reason it out as follows: While it's the attack that has Armor Piercing, you still round in favor of the defender because what's being halved is ultimately his defense, not the attacker's; rounding "in favor of the defender" and rounding "in favor of whoever has the power" actually amount to the same thing in this case. Thus, if the defense is normally 11, an armor-piercing attack applies vs. 6.

Re: Another weird science post: Laser Recoil!

Re: Large Wingspan Disad?

Re: Gargoyle

Re: Gargoyle