Chimera 12

Re: Only in Hero ID

call it a complication greatly impairing (or slightly)

let the player decide on it's frequency

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?

I like bricks

but hand killing attacks got real cheap for them

60 str and a 1pip pen knife in 5th ed is a 1/2d6 KA switchblade

60 str and a 1pip pen knife in 6th ed is a 4d6+1 KA great sword

the points you save could go to buying skill levels on throwing said pen knife

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

Not going to change it but ran the numbers yesterday and it saves like 2-3 points if I did do it

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

Here's how I look at it:

 

If you're giving someone a permanent power, rather than just temporarily letting them use of a power with the UBA advantage, you're effectively changing their character sheet. In cases like that, I opt for a transformation attack.

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 suspect that most of Johnny Storm's attacks are based on normal attacks. When he has fought characters that I don't think of as having rDef (ie Spiderman) I don't remember Spidey getting burns.

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

Don't you read Nodwick? Their Cleric is always duct-taping various parts of his anatomy back on.

If that sort of thing fits the campaign, by all means go for it.

Re: D&D 4E Beholder Eye Of Flame

The Eye Of Fear And Flame was a monster that first showed up in the AD&D Fiend Folio. He was an undead guy with two gems in his eyesockets -- one shot fireballs and the other one caused fear.

 

My thought was just, if you're going to have beholders with "theme" power sets (fire, ice, etc.) then you might as well go hog wild. Give him Wall Of Flame and Burning Hands (fire attacks with different special effects). Make him sort of a half-fire-elemental beholder. Something along these lines.

 

Not, "I guess we'll just give him three eye rays instead of 10, and change his Eye Ray Frenzy to a Fiery Burst. That makes total sense!"

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

I call it restrainable' date=' but it is really a couple of minor limitations neither of which I feel were worth -1/4 but together..., including elements of Unified Power (any adjustment power as the GM I feel it should work against (A drain based on slowing him down no but one based on interfering with the nanites in his system yes) and restrainable by means other than grabs, specifically he needs a booster shot once a week or he starts to loose his power, over a two week period he will be basically be as he was before he had said powers[/quote']

 

Mightn't that second part be better modelled by a Dependence?

Re: How best to replace "Find Weakness"

Lots of good ways to do a Find Weakness as mentioned already. The thing I never understood was why FW should let you keep halving defenses for each successful roll' date=' either logically or in game terms since it was so potentially unbalancing (not as bad as the old STN lotto, but still problematic). In my mind there shouldn't be a discussion on how to replicate the multiple halving mechanic in 6e because that was a good reason to get rid of it. Maybe its just me, but I don't miss it at all.[/quote']

 

In retrospect, what strains my suspension of disbelief was more the encounter-length nature of Find Weakness. What, you mean that once you've spotted a weakness even once you get to reliably exploit it with each and every eligible attack you make until the fight ends, but if you fail, then for the rest of the same fight you can never try to find one again against the same target...and, for some reason, you can't even point out this specific and apparently lasting weakness you've detected to any of your allies? That doesn't really even match my intuition of how such things should 'really' work...

Re: rounding Armor Piercing

I can't cite a page number or anything' date=' but I am fairly confident that Defenses round up when hit by an Armor Piercing attack. Of course maybe I have just been playing that way for so many years I assume it must be true.[/quote']

 

While I can't cite something more modern at the moment, there's an old (Fourth Edition) example that seems to indicate that that's indeed the case. Under "Armor Piercing" on page 92, the Big Blue Book itself has Mechanon fire an AP Energy Blast at Solitaire, with the Advantage effectively reducing her ED from 19 to 10.

 

Unless that's been explicitly changed somewhere, I'd expect that to still hold true. Fourth Edition already had the same general rounding rule (fractions other than .5 to the nearest whole number, .5 in whichever way is best for the character) that Sixth does today. Besides, I still have faith in the logic of my earlier post.

 

(Sadly, what explicitly AP-related Sixth Edition examples I've been able to find -- basically BR 64 and a short reference in the APG -- all use even-numbered base defenses before AP. Not exactly helpful, and the writeup of the Advantage on 6E1 325, arguably the most logical place to put an example, doesn't come with one at all.)

Re: D&D 4E Beholder Eye Of Flame

And here's the Beholder Eye of Flame from the 4E Monster Manual. It's a pity that' date=' with all the creative juices they have access to there, this is the best they can come up with for a lower-powered "theme" beholder. They had more creativity under 3E and 3.5.[/quote']

 

I believe the Eye of Flame (or maybe Eye of Fear and Flame, my memory's fuzzy) actually is one of the classic lower-powered beholderkin dating back to AD&D 2nd Edition at least. They could probably have just put in a lower-powered 'standard' beholder instead, but then I believe that that wouldn't change the nature of your complaint any.

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!

Now, Laser Recoil or Particle Beam Recoil which one would be more noticeable?

 

~Rex

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?

Sunset's wing can not be restrained by grabbing unless the grabber is comparable in size

 

 

 

the trouble with fighting kobolds is they run around tunnels the guy in plate mail can't even move in

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

Never actually seen that in comics. The guys who jump off buildings to catch people usually can fly.

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

True, but being a Hero, and a leader type on top of that that attack should be used on objects, not individuals (DR. D is another story)

 

I am not sure how tight you are with the rules, IMO All the enhanced senses( funky vision powers, targeting comp) can be grouped in the a sensor suite in his helm. Since they are closely related maybe able to save a few points with a sensor suite EC.

 

I'm just sayin...

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

a small animal is only as easy to hit by another small animal if they are correspondingly closer to each other.

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!

They don't eat or drink' date=' but take up space that could be holding a paying customer, so they're not welcome. Although it is weird that he'd phrase it that way since there is no way to serve a droid.[/quote']

 

There are so many ways to make a terrible pun on 'serving a droid' that...nah, I won't go there.

 

That said, if I'm a grungy barkeeper in a run-down spaceport in just about any setting, "we don't serve your kind here" is probably one of my stock phrases already. And if it's good enough for rabble of the actual-people kind, it's more than good enough for some effin' machine.

 

Hrmph. Dang edumacated kids these days, always goin' on about this 'Seaman Ticks' fella...

Re: Large Wingspan Disad?

So do you give winged characters a Limitation for not working in a vacuum' date=' or not being able to hover (most can't, though I suppose some could)?[/quote']

 

I'd say "doesn't work in a vacuum" would be a -0 Limitation in most campaigns. (If large portions of your game are actually set in space, of course, then it'd be worth more.) For Cannot Hover I'd apply the standard values from 6E1 228, as Restrainable doesn't in and of itself cover that and some winged creatures can in fact hover just fine.

Re: Gargoyle

Since combat happens pretty much every game with most groups and anyone can do a disarm' date=' I would not consider that "contrived". I mean, it's not like you "contrive" to punch a PC, that's just a matter of course in most games.[/quote']

 

Different degrees of contrivance, is all. Sure, I can have a campaign in which the drawbacks of OIAID never come up. I can also have one in which no NPC ever actually tries to do anything more complex to player characters than one Strike maneuver after the other -- no disarms, no grabs, no teamwork. The latter would likely eventually end up feeling more like a videogame than an actual RPG...but the NPCs are under the GM's control, and there's no minimum requirement for clever tactics on their part actually mandated anywhere. So, as I said -- how often an OAF actually limits the character who has it is a GM call.

Re: Gargoyle

The Focus is absolutely worth the points. A simple disarm' date=' and poof it just limited you. I don't have to contrive every story around your limitation.[/quote']

Actually, you do. My point was exactly that if you, as the GM, never bother to take advantage of that Focus -- by actually taking the time to have some NPC try that disarm, for example --, it's no more of a Limitation than Only In Alternate ID is. So you do, in fact, have to 'contrive' events around it to make it worth the points; it may not be as immediately obvious, but it's exactly the same situation.