randian

Re: FANTASY HERO Sneak Peek #1: The Cover!

Our first one is the superb cover, by Tyler Walpole. We're really happy with it and hope you'll love it as much as we do.

Do you have high-res covers like that for the rest of the 6E line? Original JPG art is much better than scanning.

Re: What do speedsters do in 6E?

Not sure where you're getting all of that. You can add your Hand Attack (at full effect--not halved--unless it is a weapon) to a Move By or Move Through (at least when the SFX are appropriate). See 6E2 p. 71.

"doesn’t apply to Move By/Through damage without the GM’s permission". See 6E1 231. Saying "you can to this generally prohibited thing if the GM lets you" is hardly my idea of "yeah, it's ok", especially since the whole point of making something "only with GM permission" is to warn off GM's from allowing it.

Also, neither maneuver halves your DCV: Move By imposes a -2 and Move Through imposes a -3. See 6E2 p. 56.

I was thinking of Multiple Move-By when I wrote that.

my interpretation is that the biggest and most prevalent changes are in moving many more things into the realm of GM discretion.

I think that's generally a bad idea. One of the great things about Hero was the general consistency of game rules from GM to GM and game to game. Since everybody knows everything is at the GM's discretion anyway, all making more things at the GM's discretion does is make house rules more common. I think house rules tend to breed insularity and fracture the larger community.

Re: What do you think of Endurance Reserve in 6E?

I'd add "Lockout: Can't Use Personal REC in Conjunction" to your analysis for another 1/2, making it a firm -2 limitation. 5 REC/2 is a huge leap up from 3 REC/2.

SFX aside, I basically see Endurance Reserve as a replacement for buying Reduced Endurance on everything. That's why the old 10 END/1 Reserve was so great, it was cheap enough to replace Reduced Endurance. Maybe a little too cheap, but you get my point. Since Reserve END is more expensive than personal End, can you buy REC cheap enough that you'd be agnostic as to buying Endurance Reserve vs Reduced Endurance? I suspect that answer is "no" for most characters, you'd always want to buy Reduced Endurance in 6E.

Re: What do speedsters do in 6E?

That extra movement is allowing you to make multiple attacks (other characters have to pay for that privilege too) and allowing you to reduce points paid on defenses, as you want to be a long way away from your attackers.

More like "can't afford defenses", since as I said movement is a expensive damage mechanic. Basically, it's a sunk cost issue. You've already spent beaucoup points on movement, so you might as well buy more because you don't have the points to buy adequate defense.

That latter tactic fails miserably, by the way, if the opposition has a grain of tactical sense. "He attacks, then runs away - well, I'll delay my action until he comes back to attack again".

Been there, done that, have the throw damage to prove it.

I suspect also one that has a significant edge in SPD, but you want those phases available for attacks, not for defensive actions such as Diving for Cover or vibrating into desolid state to avoid AoE attacks.

Sure I would, but SPD is orthogonal to the issue. Martial artists want to avoid those things too.

If you're only buying just enough movement so that you must stay in the thick of things, and have brick-like DCV because you're attacking at half DCV in simulated "move-by" mode, then you must have brick-like defenses to compensate. Basically, you're a low-STR brick who defines his studly PD as "avoids damage at super-speed". Certainly a fine concept SFX-wise, but an entirely different character in terms of game mechanics. Also, there's a reason nobody makes low-STR+HA characters with low DCV: you're totally screwed by grabs, and it's at least implied you can't use HA to damage an entangle that's affecting you.

Re: What do speedsters do in 6E?

First off' date=' DCV is not halved by doing a Move By, but by making multiple attacks. The character could buy bonus DCV when doing multiple attacks (which would also be halved) to mitigate or eliminate this drawback. It does not seem unreasonable, to me, that all characters making multiple attacks face the same DCV penalty. Move by was previously an anomaly in this regard, and I'm fine with seeing it made consistent.[/quote']

Well, doing multiple move-by is the point, otherwise you're just a 10 STR mook with movement. While taking 1/2 DCV is certainly not unfair in the abstract, it further exacerbates the speedster tax. Now you need even more movement to keep you off the board at the beginning and end of your phase so you don't get murdered on the counterattack. Also, whereas before when the enemy would delay to throw you could have some chance to avoid it even at -2 DCV, whereas at half-1 DCV you're simply toast if somebody decides to throw you.

Second' date=' I note HA doesn't apply to move by or through damage "without the GM's permission".[/quote']

Who else's basic Xd6 attack needs GM permission? HA is no more abusive in a speedster's hands than it would be in a brick's, so long as total DC is in line.

I would rule the hand attack is also halved in the move by, but then I would rule the same in prior editions. Move by trades half the usual damage for a velocity adder.

Er, why? Eliminating every means by which a speedster pays less than 10 points/DC seems unfair. "Trades half usual damage for a velocity adder" is a "so what?" item for me. As GM, why should I care, it's not as if the speedster's d6s are qualitatively different when applied to a target's defenses.

Re: What do speedsters do in 6E?

It halves STR but adds velocity/5 (in 5E' date=' not sure if that changed in 6E), and reduces the damage taken compared to a Move-Through. The fact that people bought HA, only for move-by/throughs, with as large of a Limitation the GM would let them get away with, is probably why it was removed in 6E. Since HA is basically built as limited STR it didn't make sense for it to be an exception to the rule.[/quote']

We didn't let speedsters limit HA in that way and they still wanted it, because the alternative (buying 10 STR for every DC when the brick is paying 5 per DC) was too horrible to consider. We'd still allow limitations like Focus, because everybody needs a truncheon. By the way, in 6E it's velocity/10 for move-by and velocity/6 for move-through, just as you'd expect.

Why do you feel that they were overly expensive? I've never had that problem with speedsters.

a) Speedsters buy lots of movement, but that's effectively buying DCs at 10 per when everybody else is paying 5 for theirs.

 

If you can't buy Hand Attack, you're again paying 10 per for the DCs you need beyond that provided by movement.

 

c) Speedsters start 4 CVs down on everybody else, owing to the basic -2/-2 penalty of Move-By that you must take even before multiple targets are considered.

 

d) You need huge amounts of excess movement, far more than the basic tactical condition would warrant were you not a speedster. This is to accommodate two needs: the movement cost of each additional target, at 6" each, and you don't want to be near anybody because you can't take a hit and are too pathetically weak (remember that STR/2, no speedster buys up STR) to escape any entangle or grab. In 6E it's 10m per target even though characters only occupy 1m spaces. Compare that to the mere 4m of Barrier needed to encircle that same target. Area effect attacks seem cheaper, especially in 6E where small areas can be bought cheaply.

 

Remember this is 4E. In 4E, you couldn't multiple move-by with martial maneuvers since you couldn't mix a martial maneuver with a standard maneuver in the same Phase, so martial arts wasn't an option. If I understand Grailknight correctly, he's saying that now you can buy Martial Arts for your speedster. That mitigates a lot of the problems.

 

a) Your STR isn't being halved

You can buy Martial Arts DCs that aren't being halved

c) Martial Maneuvers surely have better base CVs than -2/-2.

 

Under those conditions I can see why you wouldn't think speedsters overpriced.

Re: What do speedsters do in 6E?

Instead of buying HA you can buy extra STR' date=' only for speed based attacks, or something like that. Now you can use that for Move-By/Throughs, and standing still as a "super speed puch" or some-such.[/quote']

That's horribly expensive, Move-By halves your STR as well as your DCV. That's why HA was so popular with 4E/5E speedsters: it wasn't halved. Then again, the Move-By artist was always so very expensive relative to their actual combat effectiveness.

Re: What do speedsters do in 6E?

Speedsters use martial manuvers' date=' Passing strike being the main.[/quote']

Is that in the new martial arts supplement? I can't find it in 6E1/2.

Actually works out better conceptually for dcv purposes and for adding damage

How so?

Their classic thing used to be move-bys, preferable multiple. Now that Hand Attack no longer adds to Move-By/Through and DCV is halved doing move-by, the classic no-defense high DCV speedster is, well, dead meat in 6E.

If a character buys a Barrier with both the Counteracts Indirect and One-Way Transparent advantages, does that allow them to fire their own attacks through the barrier while preventing incoming Indirect attacks?

Re: 6th Edition Mega-Scale and Movement

In the Megascale section of the Teleportation power's description, it says you can't Megascale Teleport to a Fixed or Floating Location that's less than your range increment. For example, if your scale is 1m=1km, this implies you can't Teleport to a Fixed or Floating Location that's 500m away from you, even though 6E Megascale rules specifically permit Megamovement at less than full scale. That is, you can Megateleport 500m no matter what scale of Megateleport you've bought, but you can't Megateleport to a Fixed or Floating Location 500m away from you. Bizarre. This would be entirely consistent with 5E Megascale, but in 6E this seems like errata.

Re: What do you think of Endurance Reserve in 6E?

Lets hear you say that next time you wake up with 0 END

But you don't wake up at 0 End, you wake up at End = Stun, which by the way would be a lot higher if those points you spent on Reserve Rec were instead spent on personal Rec. And don't forget, you have to buy Reserve Rec starting from 0, which rather puts to waste what you've already spent on personal Rec. Furthermore, if that 10 or 15 points you spent on Reserve Rec were spent on personal Rec, you might not have been knocked out to begin with, because unlike Reserve Rec it increases your Stun too.

Re: Aid's to Stun/End, do you allow it?

AID technically increases the max END, not the current, as stated above.

Aid increases both Max and Current. Look at the example under "Fade Rate".

Re: Aid's to Stun/End, do you allow it?

One might argue that making it Selective should make it require an Attack Roll even for allies for reasons of "balance".

Not a problem: "If the target’s willing to be affected by the Aid, including when the character uses his Aid on himself, the Attack Roll succeeds automatically"

Does a Flash, purchased to affect non-targeting sense groups for 3 points/die, affect targeting senses within those groups?

Re: Do you buy Resistant alternate defenses?

In my group's Superheroic games hardly anyone takes Flash as a major power anymore since the change from phases to segments.

Why? The segment-based Flash is much more likely to get through since it has so many more dice.

Getting 20% less END for your hard-earned character points and measly 1/2 limitation on your REC (doesn't recover STUN) seems mechanically weak to me. Then, consider this gem: "GMs should be wary of characters who buy large Endurance Reserves and then apply the Increased Endurance Cost Limitation to the powers that use the Reserve." Oh really? What good powergamer is going to buy a large Reserve at 1 END/4 points when he can pump up the character's personal END for 1/5? Buying a power should never make a character worse off than not, yet in the name of stamping out abuse ER does exactly that.

Re: Aid's to Stun/End, do you allow it?

Of course' date=' anyone else who enters into the area of the Constant Aids would also be Aided--meaning that enemies will also receive the boost (see 6e2 127 "Area Affecting Constant Powers") for as long as they remain within the area (and then per the Fade rules).[/quote']

That can be fixed with Selective: "If a character enters the area after the power’s been established, and the attacker wants to affect him, he must make an Attack Roll to do so; this takes no time".

Re: Do you buy Resistant alternate defenses?

It also became half as expensive per die.

That change turned Flash from "rarely effective" to "almost always effective". It's very expensive to defend yourself against Flash now. Hopefully nobody will be suckered into buying Resistant Protection: Flash Defense.

That is, rather than throwing off Blasts or punches, the character's primary schtick is to use Barriers, Darkness, Change Environment, Entangles, etc to condition the battlespace, creating tactical opportunities for your team while hindering or delaying the tactics of your opponents.

Re: Do you buy Resistant alternate defenses?

Not sure you could put Penetrating on Flash anyway' date=' since you already count the "Normal Body" of the dice to determine the effect.[/quote']

That's correct, it's explicitly prohibited.

Re: Do you buy Resistant alternate defenses?

Did you mean "Resistant" where you said "Hardened"? I've at least seen Hardened Flash Defense before, whereas this new category of "Resistant Flash Defense" seems to have no real purpose since Killing AVADs don't do Body and their stun is stopped by non-Resistant defense just fine.

I know that the attacker is almost always better off buying more dice than they are buying Armor Piercing or AVAD vs Rare Defense.

Personally, I'd rather buy defense than play a guessing game as to which characteristic is going to be Drained and putting points in it. I'm also not sure buying more Body (for example) is better. What would you rather have, an extra 10 Body or Impenetrable when a Penetrating Killing Attack comes around? That Body buffer looks mighty shallow, especially since it doesn't add to Stun anymore.

I've never seen anybody buy "Difficult to Dispel". Not once. Buying Power Defense was usually better.

That is, Resistant Mental, Flash, or Power defense? Heretofore I have not, seeing it as generally overpriced as applied to those types of defenses (+1/4 would have been OK) and of low general utility, though the potential for getting slapped with a Drain that completely ignores my Power Defense (Sorry buddy, only RESISTANT Power Defense is good enough to stop me!) for only +1/2 is rather scary. That, along with the splitting of Impenetrable from Hardened (implying the introduction of a third mechanic will require yet another advantage to defend against), lends defense design in 6E a certain rock/paper/scissors quality to it.

1) Can it be purchased for defenses purchased with the Resistant advantage rather than Resistant Protection? Its location in the Resistant Protection section, rather than in the general defenses section where Hardened and Impenetrable are, suggests no, even though the book appears to generally treat "Resistant PD" and "Resistant Protection (PD)" as interchangeable.

2) Indeed, must Allocatable be purchased on resistant defenses at all, rather than plain non-resistant PD, ED, or Mental Defense?

3) How does Allocatable interact with Variable Advantage? For example, I use VA to get Allocatable, and then switch around some defenses. Later, I use VA for something else and must switch off Allocatable. Do the defenses (a) switch to some user-defined default state, or ( remain where they are until Allocatable is again used to change them?