Paragon

Re: Penalty skill lvl question How can you tell? Seriously, I'm not trying to be snarky here, but I'm not seeing any discussion of how that was constructed, but I'm also working off pre-revised. I'm just not sure what the functional difference here is between a variable level modifier for multiple attacks and a variable level modifier for aiming for hit locations; I understand why you think the former is a maneuver modifier, but I'm just not convinced that in practice that's the case from the data at hand.

Re: Lower Water and Part Water

Re: Lower Water and Part Water What about it? The area rules don't do damage to each hex of a large object, so that's no different here. Its the inconsistency I find unacceptable. And when you buy area damage, the effective overall goes up enormously too in some senses. Let me give the example I find silly; You have a collection of stones in an area. It takes X damage to destroy and Y Strength to lift each of these stones. When you make them area, it still takes X damage to destroy them, but suddenly it takes Y times a lot to lift them. Amorphous materials like water confuse the issue, but not enough to concern me.

Re: Lower Water and Part Water I think in the context of a number of the mechanics in the game including END expenditure and skill roll modifiers for spells, you're underestimating how much impact it has. In superheroic games, it also does strange things in frameworks. And the more I have to do that, the less I like it. If I agreed that was the case, I wouldn't be complaining about it. I don't think it does, honestly.

Re: Penalty skill lvl question I mis-stated that it was a talent, but Two-Weapon Fighting certainly seems to do something like that, as its composed of flawed Ambidexterity and _something_ that offsets the first -2 on extra attacks. It could, of course, be Limited regular levels with Limitations, but given the sweep penalty for multiple attacks doesn't seem any more or less a penalty than the one for aiming for locations (and in games using that, the extra attack doesn't seem any more severe for what it does than the latter) I'm hard pressed to see why it'd be off the table on balance grounds. You might run into issues if you're ignoring Penalty skill levels on level caps and not regular levels (but I think the former has problems anyway in that case) but per se, I'm not seeing why this is an inappropriate use for them if some of the other listed uses are legitimate.

Re: Penalty skill lvl question I'm not so sure the multiple attack bonus for Sweep is off the table for Penalty skill levels, given that a couple of the talents seem to be constructed in part using that.

Re: Do you have players justify experience points expenditure? It tends to vary from campaign to campaign and genre to genre; in superhero games, improvement on extent things I tend to write off to simple practice and not pay attention; entirely new things I prefer to have some in-game explanation for. On the other hand, I tend to be more attentive in heroic scale games; in my upcoming fantasy game I'm using a number of the suggestions in The Ultimate Skill, for example.

Re: Lower Water and Part Water

Re: Lower Water and Part Water I'm pretty much the same way in my posting habits, so don't feel bad on my account.

Re: Lower Water and Part Water As I mentioned, suggesting megascale may well be the most useful thing I've gotten out of the discussion, if I'm recalling right that you can define the smallest megascale increment as smaller than a klick as long as that's always what it is, as that'll allow me to address some of the cost excesses of my builds above. As I said, I'm not liable to have much sympathy for a side property cost that costs that much given how relatively rarely that portion of the power's effect is going to be usable. Given the soldiers have to decide that following into the trough of the obviously dangerous magical water parting, which strikes me as deliberately sticking your head in the bear trap, I don't see any reason it should be particularly expensive. Even the Lower Water example (where you use it to kill a lot of water breathers) is rather specialized, and the drown-the-soldiers example is so specialized that I in no way think a high cost is justified. (Admittedly, this is partly my developed irritation in Hero over the years with Active Point bloat on otherwise cheap powers, but its not like Hero hasn't chronically been over-conservative with the Limitation value for hyperspecialized and hard to apply effects, too).

Re: Lower Water and Part Water In essence, that's what I've done. I simply was trying to find out if there was a cleaner way to do it. The concensus I'm getting is that the answer is, in essence, "no".

Re: Lower Water and Part Water Is that still Steve's take on that? If so its not a problem for me because I cheerfully ignore it. Its no more sensible than spreading the damage out across an area. Transform and TK are what I did use; they just seemed problematic. Problem is that none of them really seem to do so well, for the effect I'm trying for; they either end up being too expensive, too cheap, or don't cover the ground.

Re: Lower Water and Part Water Except, of course, Hero already does this selectively all the time; TK is, in fact, a classic example. TK does a lot of things, but it does them indirectly; its not a blast, not a knockback power, not an activate machinery power; its a power that manipulates objects. I want a power that manipulates water in certain specific ways, and that's what I'm trying to find. I simply don't think end effect works here, and I don't think Hero always does either, or powers like Transform and TK wouldn't exist.

Re: Lower Water and Part Water If you want to allow the GM control of things then buy them NCC - that's a big discount right there. It also means that the GM can engage those effects when he feels it appropriate. If you dont want to give away control then pay the points. It is that simple. No, really its not. I _am_ the GM. But buying all these effects and then Limiting the hell out of them is already what I've done, and it has the same problem there as with your suggestion; it creates horrendous active point bloat, and in a game with Endurance costs and RSR modifiers, that matters.

Re: Lower Water and Part Water Actually, I have no evidence there's any direct mechanic to do that all. It seems well beyond the description present in Change Environment, or you'd be able to do the inverse too, and that seems cleary beyond what's intended to be possible given the cost structure of it. Otherwise the inverse would be possible, and that would be an incredibly cheap large area lethal attack.

Re: Lower Water and Part Water Because many of them are not relevant at the same time, and their relevance is outside of the control of the users so a multipower is not operant; in other words you'd be paying for a bunch of ability that frequently would be irrelevant.

Re: Lower Water and Part Water That seems well beyond what Change Environment is used for to me; as I said, its hard for me to compare this effect to, for example, making a light fog; its hard for me to even compare it to more intense effects, just because the implications are so far reaching (consider the simple case of using lower water in an area where you have a collection of water breathers-only present).

Re: Lower Water and Part Water I'm not expecting to stat up absolutely every effect; I just consider in both these cases there are multiple effects that are significant and that I expect to see used, and I'm not a fan of trying to cover that with just SFX, because its exactly the policy that leads to SFX shopping for freebies.

Re: Lower Water and Part Water And with the latter, its the issue involved; the expense, complexity and active point bloat seems out of proportion to the benefit, but that's what seems like its needed to cover all the effects.

Steve, I finally got around to looking at one of the local copies 5eRev in regard to my question, and I'm afraid that your pointer to page 383 doesn't really seem to address my question. I'm not sure I was clear enough, so I'll try it again and perhaps you can either answer it directly or give a new pointer. As I understand the rules currently, we have the current situation: 1. Dodge and Martial Dodge bonuses apply to both ranged and melee combat. 2. Most levels that apply to combat maneuvers only apply to melee combat, as they're melee levels themselves. Now the muddy issue involves using certain types of levels with the aforementioned Dodges. I'll mention the three cases, and (if they're different) perhaps you can tell me in which ones the levels would apply versus ranged. 1. Three point levels that apply to three maneuvers (say, Dodge, Block and Dive for Cover); 2. Three point levels with a martial art (say, Aikido) that includes a Martial Dodge. 3. Five point hand to hand levels (which presumably apply to both sorts of Dodge). Do any of these three classes of levels help against ranged attacks when dodging? If only some of them do, can you explain the difference (I know you don't do design philosophy; this is purely so I can sort odd cases out as they come up).

Re: Lower Water and Part Water Its the issue of degree involved; I'd use Change Environment to change the temperature, create currents, or otherwise manipulate the water within limits, but this seems beyond that; I'd have the same issues with creating true vacuums with it, for example.

Re: Lower Water and Part Water I did; I just wasn't entirely satisfied with the result. Let me post what I ended up doing; perhaps it'll help to understand where I'm coming from. (Apologies for some oddities of format; this is a combination of Metacreator output and the summary I did for my campaign document; some of it will look a little odd because of features of the magic system and/or my houserules, but it'll at least show the tact I took). Spell Name Color Roll Duration Mana AP/Tier RP Lower Water Grey -10 Instant 10 105/7 26 Construction Summary: Transform 2d6 (Major, Single Object); Area Of Effect (Radius): 64" Radius / 12097 Hexes, +2½; All Or Nothing: -½; Limited Target (Water Only) (Very Limited): -1; No Range: -½; Gestures (Activate Power Only): -¼; Incantation (Activate Power Only): -¼; Requires A Skill Roll: -½. This spell acts to lower the water from the point the caster touches out to 64" in all directions. The water is not destroyed, but is temporarily sublimated into the surrounding air (it will feel very muggy for some distance around) and will return at a rate of about 10% a day until all of it has come back. Spell Name Color Roll Duration Mana AP/Tier RP Part Water Grey -6 1 minute 6 65/4 14 Construction Summary: Telekinesis(2 STR); Affects Porous: +10; Area Of Effect (Line): 256" Long / 256 Hexes, +2; Deep Line (Up to 64" deep): +1½; Reduced Mana: +½; Only works on water or objects on or in it: -1; Limited Power: Only to hold waters apart: -1½; Gestures (Activate Power Only): -¼; Incantation (Activate Power Only): -¼; Requires A Skill Roll: -½. This spell acts to part and keep apart water in a line 256" (512 meters) long and up to 64" (128 meters) deep for two minutes. Part Water works, but I probably undercharged for the TK Strength needed (by internal logic, I probably should have charged for the Strength needed to lift a man-sized volumn of water (not a hex sized, as that should be covered by the area) and that would have bloated the active point cost to uselessness) and its pretty convoluted; Lower Water was a brute force use of the Big Hammer of Transform and as such I can't help but think there ought to be a better way. But its possible I'm just trying to produce effects that are by their nature near the weak spots in the Hero mechanics.

Re: Lower Water and Part Water Sometimes the cause and the effect are too interrelated to separate that way. If that wasn't true, I don't think effects like Change Environment, Transform and Telekinesis would exist at all, since to one degree or another, they're all based on what you're doing, not just what it does.

Re: Lower Water and Part Water Honestly, I suspect anything that does not really base what its doing on manipulating the water simply isn't going to work here; I'd have to deal with way more special cases coming up in use to be comfortable doing the sort of backdoor approach with the more common effects. Anyone got the FH Grimoire and can describe in general the tact Steve Long took with this?

Re: Applying traits to objects