randian

Re: Transmit Smell

Re: 6E What happened to HKA? Then you should be equally as dismissive of a player wanting his character to have a super breath power like Superman's, because a human-sized being simply doesn't have the lung volume to blow out any fire larger than a match no matter how hard he expels the air in them. You should never treat items purchased with points as real-world objects or limit their game mechanics because of how you think their real-world counterparts work. It is no more absurd to have the Thumbtack of Doom than it is to have an earbud with planetary transmission range or armor that protects you as well as tank armor while being light enough that it can be worn by a normal without crushing him to death.

Re: 6E What happened to HKA?

Re: 6E What happened to HKA? A paring knife you didn't pay points for is just a paring knife. One you paid points for is made of unbreakable handwavium and can easily cut down both doors and main battle tank armor.

Re: Transmit Smell

Re: 6E What happened to HKA?

Re: Do you think this use of Personal Immunity is reasonable? Supers. Given to them by the owner of the UOO power. Hero is intentionally vague on how UOO works.

If I recall correctly you have said in other threads that the Improved Noncombat Movement (INM) adder does not cost endurance to use. Can I purchase Reduced Endurance on only that portion of a movement power not including INM, in accordance with the "partially advantaged power" rule, and still have a 1/2 or 0 End movement power?

Re: Do you think this use of Personal Immunity is reasonable? I wasn't even thinking of attacks when I started this thread, I was thinking about things like Darkness and Change Environment. There's no defined way to make your friends immune to your powers, but there is the "twins with energy blast" example on 6E1 343.

Re: Do you think this use of Personal Immunity is reasonable? A UOO AoE is probably a +1 to +1.5 advantage. In a 12d6 game, giving your superpowered friends a 5 or 6 die attack isn't exactly game breaking when they do 12d6 by themselves. A more interesting use of it is to give it to a group of normals. Since powers not in use aren't perceivable and thus can't be detected by security equipment, the opportunities for terror are legion. Give each member of your crack squad of suicide bombers their very own 5d6 AoE Blast and have them board an airplane. They can fry everybody in the passenger cabin without hurting themselves, then get to work blasting through the pilot's door. Nasty, but not obviously abusive. The supervillain could easily do it himself, but there are matters of plausible deniability to consider, not to mention that sort of job being so beneath you.

Re: How To Build: Mind Wipe Yes, but I don't think that's what a Time Limited Transform does. It transforms the target for the period indicated in the table, then instantly restores them. If you want to do what Zatanna does, I don't think you need Time Limit. I think you only need a simple Transform -> Target Gains Physical Complication (anterograde amnesia), with the Minor, Major, or Severe designation depending on how much future memory you're wiping out and how persistent the effect is. If you want to make the target like the main character in Memento, who couldn't retain short term memories at all, I'd call that Severe. Physical Complication: anterograde amnesia (next five minutes) is probably a Minor transform, since the time period is very short and you aren't altering the target's existing memories.

Re: House Rules Hear hear!

Re: Transmit Smell Transmit Touch is weird, since Touch has no range, so you'd have to be touching the person you want to transmit to, rendering it rather moot (they could directly touch the object in question themselves). There are of course Not Safe To Discuss uses of this ability. Technically, Radio Perception/Transmission doesn't have to be in the Radio group. You could put it in the Mental Group, for example. You could broadcast thoughts to anybody who could "hear" you with their own Mental Perception/Transmission, which makes it unlike Telepathy (one-to-one) or Mind Link (only the defined group). Also, unlike the latter two Transmit Mental does not create a secure link (you can eavesdrop on the transmissions). I would allow Transmit on Sight so long as you couldn't do any of the large scale effects Images can: create a believable fake, block Line of Sight, occupy more than 1 cubic meter, or be especially hard or easy to perceive. Think of it like an iPad screen. I've considered the use of Transmit on Clairsentience, to allow you to Transmit any of the affected senses through the perception point of the clairsentience. If you had Hearing Clairsentience, you could speak to the people on the other side of the link.

Re: How To Build: Mind Wipe I don't see how Time Limit applies here. You want the power to remove 5 minutes of memories, not last only 5 minutes.

Re: 6E What happened to HKA? Yes. Turn the question around: "Can I really boost 1 DC of Martial Damage Class up to 6d6 with my 25 STR? That's insane!"

A group of characters is given a UOO power with Personal Immunity. This immunity is defined so that each character is not only immune to their own copy of the power, they are also immune to the copy of the power given to every other UOO recipient. I can't think of anything abusive off hand, but I want to be sure.

You have 10 points of Absorption -> Stun, with the limitation Only Restores To Starting Values, and are currently down 5 Stun. You get hit with an attack that did no stun (a 1x Stun Multiplier on a KA perhaps) and now have 10 points of Absorption ready to be applied. Assume you are not yet at your maximum Absorption capacity. Do you: a) Increase Stun by 5. The remaining 5 Absorption can be applied to the Stun from any subsequent attack this segment. Increase Stun by 5. You have 5 remaining Absorption capacity this segment. This is not quite identical to (a). In (a), a subsequent NND or AVAD this segment will have its Stun reduced. In (, it won't. c) Increase Stun by 5. The remaining 5 Absorption is simply lost for want of a place to apply it, and you have no further Absorption capacity this segment.

Re: Is the pricing for Telescopic Sense wrong? What puts you on the fence? 6E2 175 states "The Concealment Skill is used versus the searcher’s Concealment roll (or PER Roll) in a Skill Versus Skill Contest". Presumably the searcher gets to choose which to use.

Re: FFW Body Armor? Because these items are intended to be used at the same time, you wouldn't use a multipower. It would be a waste of points and, in the case of the senses, illegal.

Re: Hero System Books Have Way to many Typos You've never seen mentalists with no non-mental attacks, or with all their non-mental attacks using Alternate Combat Value (or its moral equivalent in previous editions)? Besides, if you're doing 3d6 on punch, you don't take a swing just to take one.

Re: Is the pricing for Telescopic Sense wrong?

Re: Hero System Books Have Way to many Typos OCV frequently serves no useful purpose for mentalists, and they'd get more points for selling off OCV than a regular character gets selling off OMCV. Personally, I don't see this as a big problem.

Re: Is the pricing for Telescopic Sense wrong? Making "Clairsentience (Hearing Group)" affected by sight-group sense-affecting powers is a bizarre special effect (More Than One Sense is -1/4 if the second sense is anything other than sight, 6E1 160). That same limitation on "Clairsentience (Sight Group)" doesn't seem like a limitation at all. Since Clairsentience only allows you to use your existing Sight Group senses, and is not a source of Normal/IR/UV Vision itself, getting hit with a Sight Group Flash or Darkness already effectively disables Clairsentience even in the absence of that limitation. Well, your Clairsentience works just fine, but you have no senses to apply it to because they're Flashed. Of course, as GM you can approve all the redundant non-limiting Limitations you like. Perhaps Extra Time instead? Extra Phase (-3/4) + Delayed Phase (-1/4) is worth a net -1/2 on a Constant power like Clairsentience. It's too bad you had to buy them separately, they're 40 active points and 4 End too expensive when purchased that way. It does create the interesting possibility of having your sight and hearing perception points be in different places. Because Clairsentience is a single sense for purposes of modifiers, you can do some interesting (meaning super-cheap) things with modifiers directly on Clairsentience rather than the Sense Groups it affects. Only works for a Clairsentience having multiple Sense Groups, though. Why did you drop Concentration on Microscopic? Because of the implicit lockout with Penetrative?

Re: Is the pricing for Telescopic Sense wrong? Clairsentience is a standard power, but the base senses you're using through it are still special powers. If you want a comprehensive (though by no means complete) sensory suite (some IR/UV/Ultrasonic, an alternate targeting sense, some Enhanced Perception, a level or 3 in Microscopic/Rapid, etc) you're easily 50-60 points all-in before you get to Clairsentience, which itself is an easy 70 or 80 points after you add a couple of extra sense groups, Mobile Perception, Increased Range, and Reduced End. If Clairsentience is the budget method I shudder to think of the luxury one. I've been trying to write up an Enhanced Senses guy (modeled after Fon Tariel of Nemesis for those who read WH40k novels) and I'm beginning to suspect he'll be a dud, or at the very best a backoffice second-stringer. Kind of what he was in the book, but not so good for a superhero. After buying the required skills Enhanced Senses are simply too expensive (there must be a thread somewhere debating the cost of Senses), so he'll either have no offense or no defense, or mediocre levels of both. You know what the sad thing is? Even with that I bet I couldn't get him in a game. In my experience GMs HATE HATE HATE characters with more than very minimal enhanced senses. I'm not talking about N-Ray or Retrocognition either.

Re: The Classic Justice League starting members on 350 points I really like the flavor of the powers with a VPP. The Scarlet Speedster has very respectable attacks, I count 11.5d6 Armor-Piercing Accurate at Full End on Hand Attack or 14d6 Armor-Piercing at 0 End on Hand Attack, when combining "Super-Speed Punch" with "Passing Strike". His low defenses, poor CON, and unspectacular DCV make his offense moot, though, because the Scarlet Speedster would be wise to avoid combat at all costs. He's "one and done" when it comes to taking hits.