azrad

Re: Distinctive features

I always think of DF as something about the character that will be noticed and remember, also it can typically be used to accurately describe the character to someone else.

Image the scene: The police walk into an office building and ask the receptionist "have you seen a 10 foot tall robot made out of shiny metal around here"? Her response "Yeah, he came in 10 minutes ago and asked for directions to the lab, its up on floor 12".

vs

The police walk into an office building and ask the receptionist "have you seen a man about 5'10" wearing a dark suit and glasses? Her response "Yeah, I've seen about 30 of them today".

Re: I'm curious, why is Dex still more expensive than other characteristics?

Ah. That could be it. A bias towards action! Not just a crappy business motto anymore.

That is exactly it. If we were playing "Office Cubical Hero", then perhaps Ego, Pre, and Int might cost more. But typically we play an action oriented game.

Re: Computer in a pair of contacts

Maybe a small power pool, IIF fragile, only to simulate a PC, maybe full phase to change powers.

Re: Non conductive powder

Insulation powder grenade: 47 points: 20d6 Suppress, 4 powers at once (+1) (200 Active Points); Only against electrical powers (-1), OAF (-1), 1 Continuing Charge lasting 1 Minute (-1) (ended by any serious attempt to remove powder), Not against powers that target self (-1/4)

It would be tempting to buy it without the advantage to attack multiple powers at once, assuming most characters would have these powers in a framework of some kind anyway.

Re: room filled with water

Saying "I don't want to spend points on it, I just want it to act like water" essentially undercuts the entire rationale around which the rules are built, which is that the price structure assigned to powers is intended to keep different characters in relative parity - which in turn allows a very wide range of possible builds. Hero system is not perfect, but it's the best attempt I've seen so far in this direction.

I think you made some great points. If you create a substance with transform then want to get a combat effect out of it you are totally at the GM's mercy. In most circumstances I wouldn't let a transform (nothing to water) drown someone, because in most environments introducing say 10,000 gallons of water isn't going to drown anyone. Instead it would just spread out. So unless you were in an unusual situation (say fighting in an empty swimming pool) I don't think it would drown anyone. In an extreme situation where a transform of this kind needed to be converted to an attack power to resolve the situation I might allow 1/2 or 1/4 of the active cost to be used (by me, the GM) to construct a power to simulate the situation. For example maybe a very weak TK to simulate the water pushing stuff away from the center of the power as the water dispersed. Long story short if you want to drown people buy an attack power (or change environment), if you want to make a pile of water and hope for the best, use the transform (basically the same advise many people have given already).

Re: Orbital Satellite Cannon in HERO 6th Edition?

Also you should consider how it can be used. Can you only use it to call down attacks in your vicinity or could you just punch in the latitude and longitude of your ex-wife's house and blast it from the other side of the planet?

Re: Entangle That Get's Tougher Over Time

HD is not a source for rules. There's no such restriction mentioned in 6E1/CC. If you can apply Advantages like Constant and Autofire (without the extra +1 cost even!)' date=' I don't see why you couldn't apply [i']Damage Over Time[/i]. Besides, what would be the point of such a restriction? If the rules did include it, I know I'd certainly toss that bit out the window.

 

Your initial thought was on-track. Go with DoT.

Yeah, even if it is a rule that you shouldn't apply DOT to entangle, at least in this case the entangle is not a "combat power" (if you look at the OP's writeup, the target has to be helpless for you to apply the entangle and it takes several minutes to apply it) since it isn't a combat power I wouldn't be too concerned about bending the rules a little for it since it won't be unbalancing.

Re: Entangle That Get's Tougher Over Time

Aliens?

Re: Entangle That Get's Tougher Over Time

Another idea, you might try something wacky like buying a linked AID to PD/BODY (entangles only, DOT) that will be applied to your entangle when you use it, that will slowly increase its stats (basically your entangle hits your target, then the AID gets applied to it, slowly beefing it up).

Re: Entangle That Get's Tougher Over Time

6th edition volume 1 page 218 describes an entangle with the advantage - constant which I think would achieve what you are looking for (although I think you would need to add uncontrolled).

Re: Healing power beyond re-use limit

Well since many people here think it should be possible. What should the cost be given the current (6ed) system? It is +1/4 per increment on the time chart starting at 1 day (for +0). Once per turn is (+ 1 1/2). Do you think (+1 3/4) is adequate for once per phase? Just looking for your thoughts.

Re: Healing power beyond re-use limit

You could buy multiple copies of your heal ability I suppose. Won't be cheap but what you want to do would be very powerful, so it shouldn't be cheap

Re: "Bloodied" in HERO

I think the value should depend on the character and the genre. My friend's Champions character (75% resistant damage reduction, lots of regeneration, no other resistant defenses) reaches the "bloodied" state pretty often while a more classic brick in the same campaign would almost never reach it. I'd say it would be worth from (-1/2) to (-2) depending on character/genre.

Re: 6e questions - still no move after attack, expensive movement, defense favored, e

I dislike the over-"realism" or Megascale movement. If I fire flames from my hands, I'm not required to have sufficient Energy Defense to be immune to damage from those flames. Even if I self-immolate with a Damage Shield, I am not requried to pay for sufficient defenses to avoid damage from the flames, nor to purchase Life Support to prevent damage from smoke inhalation or the lack of oxygen as the flames surround my head.

 

The character paid for the power, and should be assumed capable of using it. He should not have to buy other prerequisite powers to be able to benefit from Megascale, any more than he should be required to buy prerequisite powers to be allowed to use his Blast, Force Field or Damage Shield.

Yeah I'm on board with this for most genres anyway. There is no limit to how deep this rabbit hole would go (for example, if you wanted to be super realistic, any knockback you inflicted on a target, you would suffer also).

Re: 6e questions - still no move after attack, expensive movement, defense favored, e

FYI! Penalty Skill Levels are strictly a no-no for offsetting modifers to OCV/DCV from maneuvers. For this you would need CSLs.

You got me there, I didn't know that. I just re-read it under 5th and 6th edition. Plain as day in 6th edition. Not clear at all in 5th. What do you think would be appropriate? 3 point CSL's?

Re: 6e questions - still no move after attack, expensive movement, defense favored, e

How's this?

 

Running: 16m, x16 NCM (x32 total); Non-Combat Acceleration/Deceleration (+1)

[72 Active; 72-12=60 Real]

 

That puts a Speed 2 character at about 85 m/s (300 kph, 190 mph) instantaneously (after moving 1m).

With a velocity based DCV of 9!

Re: 6e questions - still no move after attack, expensive movement, defense favored, e

For what it is worth I don't think we should consider the effects of an increased speed attribute when modeling how valuable movement is. While movement powers scale very well with extra speed so do most other powers.

Re: 6e questions - still no move after attack, expensive movement, defense favored, e

To an extent' date=' that's true - and certainly, move-by damage would have to be recalibrated if movement was made cheaper. However, I don't think you can just dismiss lifting a battleship as "non combat". For one thing, you could drop that battleship on someone, and even if they're tough enough to shrug off the damage, they're still trapped under a battleship that [i']they[/i] might not be able to lift.

If you need 50 strength to lift an object, and you have 50 strength and you then drop that object onto an opponent, it does 10d6 damage, just as if you had punched them. You can always create a situation where power X with 50 points is more useful than power Y. Also don't forget your base DCV is determined by the relative velocity between yourself and the target. So shooting a speedster who is preforming non-combat running is not always as easy as you would assume.

Re: 6e questions - still no move after attack, expensive movement, defense favored, e

But for 50 points of Strength' date=' you can lift a battleship. For 50 points of Running, you're still only 5x as fast as a normal person - not even much into vehicle speeds.[/quote']

Lifting a battleship is not a combat effect. The combat effect of 50 strength is the ability to inflicted 10 more dice of damage.

Re: 6e questions - still no move after attack, expensive movement, defense favored, e

Perhaps better to buy a Martial Manuever or extra Movement on a Trigger.

 

Although Penalty Skill Levels would help.

Re: 6e questions - still no move after attack, expensive movement, defense favored, e

And as far as defenses being cheaper than attacks, this seems to be a pretty fundamental aspect of Hero System (that I happen to really like). The heart of Hero System in my opinion is that a 1d6 attack costs 5 points, and the defense required to take 0 damage from this attack 50% of the time costs about 3 points. Works great IMO.

Re: 6e questions - still no move after attack, expensive movement, defense favored, e

As far as movement being too expensive: I just don't see it. For 12 points you can move twice as far/fast as a normal person.

Re: 6e questions - still no move after attack, expensive movement, defense favored, e

hmm...

 

Move By allows one to move after attacking.

 

Running doesn't have Turn Mode.

 

Technically, could I run forward, hit someone with a Move By, and turn around and run back in the opposite direction, back to where I came from, with the rest of my movement?

Yes, just don't forget the penalty to your OCV/DCV.

Re: Lovecraftian-style Magic

I have a relative with the Innsmouth look....

Re: What Is The Deal With Talents?

I tend to think of them as small prefab/template powers.