Hugh Neilson

Finesse the 15 STR Rogue does 4d6 normal damage when he clubs someone with a +1d6 Bar Mug, while Throg the Barbarian does 7d6. This is really an outgrowth of allowing STR to add to KAs at all. 30 STR 2d6 HKA Man can do 4d6 KA and 6d6 normal damage. 10 STR 3d6+1 HKA Man can do 4d6 KA and 2d6 normal damage. If we are really concerned when both cost the same but one of these has better options available, STR should not add to HKA at all. You want more KA, buy more KA. You want it to require STR, add a limitation. What stops 60 STR man from doing a Multiple Attack to do 5d6 KA, or 2d6 KA if you apply the doubling standard, and a 12d6 Normal attack at the same time? Maybe 60 STR Man should buy 15 STR and a Multipower of 4d6 HKA and +60 STR. +12 points to get +15 STR when he does not want to use the KA seems like a good deal, and now he can add lots of other STR tricks as new slots.

As well, abilities that reduce the opponent's DCV become much more powerful. Danger Sense is a flat roll, which is different from the opposed to hit roll. Really, there should be more granularity on the Danger Sense limitation as well. This seems like another outgrowth of "when in doubt, discount the limitation heavily"

I think there is a suggestion somewhere that, if the weapon (or at least an improvised weapon) is used to hit for more DCs than twice its [BOD + DEF], it breaks, or something similar. I find that a bit lacking - great skill in placing a shot should not be as bad for the object as a massive STR Giant with a fairly fragile club. I find the removal of the doubling rule solves some issues, but most of my experience is Supers, so it's just the HKA (where it makes HKA and STR a lot like a Multipower - very cheap to change the type of attack). For Fantasy, I suspect a big change is that you don't need a huge weapon to do huge damage. You could be a hulking brute with a greatsword, or a surgically precise knife fighter.

You can buy it down to automatically resetting. Resets automatically immediately after activating adds +1/2.

While expensive actors for cameos, all of these characters fit well in a "Batman as Detective" movie in roles of contacts he might question, rather than the villain of the piece. Pick one to be the major villain, and the other three as cameo players Bats questions or investigates for intel, and the other three could play more major roles in sequels.

As seen on another thread recently, using 10 point Fixed slots in one, or multiple, Multipowers to simulate most of the benefits of variable slots at half the cost.

IIRC, we were considering 45 AP of mental paralysis, 2d6/2 DEF. A 45 point Mental Blast averages 16 STUN with no defenses for most Fantasy targets. It hits on the same basis as Mental Paralysis, and will STUN a lot of targets. It will also shatter a 2d6/2DEF mental paralysis on an average roll (targeting that Entangle at a DCV of 3). Actually, a Triggered Mental Blast, only affects Mental Paralysis, seems like a spell which could provide a real defense to that attack. You'd think some wizard would research that if mental paralysis is a common magical attack form. A 4 1/2 d6 STR, DEX, PRE or INT drain is pretty effective too.

If my opponent is entangled and helpless, I can also put all my skill levels into OCV (to offset called shot penalties) or enhanced damage, since I should not be needing my DCV. But if my opponent is not alone, perhaps I do not want to be lining up that head shot with reduced DCV... I also agree with MrKinister that a greater diversity of encounters might help. Also, perhaps the problem is as much with the Called Shot mechanics as the Mental Paralysis mechanics. Maybe we should restrict called shots to, say, a -4 maximum penalty (High Shot, Low Shot) without ALSO having to carefully line up the shot (Concentrate, Half DCV) making yourself more vulnerable.

As opposed to "hey, let's have a guy grow big feathered wings and be able to fly - we'll call him Angel"? I think she was a disco-based character when introduced because most of the music industry was disco-based, so a musician looking for that big break was pretty likely to go for a disco look. Roller skates were enjoying a resurgence, so she had roller skates. The roller skates didn't last all that long, unlike the very serious, street level "Night Thrasher" using a skateboard throughout his published career.

I think the answer, for things that can be retried, is that extra time moves it into "mundane use of skill" territory - it simply succeeds. Only if there is actual time pressure is there a need to make the rolls ("OK, you can hear heavy bootsteps getting closer, down the corridor - do you want to try to pick the lock again, or escape?") But that's also the case for Extra Time - if you can just hang around trying to pick the lock for a whole day, how important is the roll, really? Lockpicking is a good example. What happens if he fails the roll? If he can just try again, Extra Time is useless. Trying again raises his chance of success more than the Extra Time bonus - don't bother with one extra roll at +1 when you can try five times without that +1. If you cannot just try again - failure means you simply cannot pick that lock (or cannot pick it under these conditions), but you can try again if you can improve your roll (with better lockpicks; by taking extra time; whatever), now there is a reason to take that extra time. How realistic is it to say "well, you tried to pick the lock in a single phase and failed, so now it does not matter if you keep trying all day - the lock is unbeatable for you"? I'm pretty sure that is not how it works for a professional locksmith. And I don't think the time needed scales up as fast as the Extra Time rules suggest. I'd also note that the difficulty -6 roll is a lock so good that trying to pick it is beyond "sheer folly". By RAW, the penalty generally caps out at -5. Maybe a magical lock SHOULD be beyond the skills of someone with basic locksmith training (base skill) and a bit of natural aptitude (DEX 13).

He'd get smacked pretty easily with a 5 - 8 full DCV, wouldn't he?

I think you've been away, Sean - maybe we just have not been on the same threads. I think I'd go with 1d6 + CHAR/5, if only to keep the numbers inflating too rapidly. Given there is only a 1 in 216 chance to roll 3 1's, I'm not sure fumbles are worth retaining on this basis. I'll leave those for a bit. To me, penalties make the task more difficult, so treating them the same way makes sense. I am, however, leaning to a standard effect model for penalties, including increased difficulty. This creates less volatility, and less dice adding. I was thinking "first roll is not enough, so he did not find it in a couple of hours; he takes extra time to roll more dice for the extra time bonus and add that roll in". I'm actually thinking Extra Time is problematic, as it is under the present rules. Consider, for example, a character with Pick Locks 14-, up against a lock with a -8 penalty due to craftsmanship and magic. He doesn't like that 6-, so he takes an hour to get a +4 bonus, and now has a 10-, or a 50% chance of success (taken from 6e v1 p59). But if he had just rolled once a turn, he would get 300 rolls in an hour. If he rolled 25 times, he would have almost a 70% chance of succeeding once. Under this model, he gets 6d6, so an average roll of 21 STUN, 6 BOD. If we impose standard effect on the difficulty, he needs to accumulate 34. He can roll twice and get there. Why take extra time moving up the time chart to get another 1d6? At the same time, cumulative becomes problematic. If I have a, 11- roll, and this incredibly difficult task will take a total of 100 STUN, I will be there in ten rolls. Someone with a 21- roll gets 13d6, he needs three rolls. Feels like any cumulative task can be achieved by those of average skill pretty easily. Perhaps those truly difficult tasks do need some form of "defense". Tim rolls 4d6, Frank rolls 6d6 and Sam rolls 9d6. They need 28 to succeed. Sam averages 30.5, so he should succeed unless he rolls a bit below average. That seems a lot like 11-, a 62.5% chance of success. Frank needs a super roll to succeed, versus needing 8- (25.93% chance). If the roll accumulates, he should get there in two rolls, though. Tim has no hope of a first roll success, but a 6- was only 4.63% likely. If the rolls accumulate, though, he also gets there in two. It feels like cumulative is too easy for lower skill levels.

First thought: what do you get for a Familiarity, or that other category that's a straight 11- roll? 2d6 and 3d6? That would mean the full skill for someone with a 10 characteristic is only a Familiarity, but if we drop Familiarity to 1d6, you can never roll a 10. Maybe Familiarity is 2d6, that unmodified 11- is 3d6 and a Skill is CHAR/5 d6 + 1d6. Second thought: why not treat a more difficult task as a penalty, that adds to the opposed dice pool. That's one less modifier. I like using the BOD for required training and bonuses, although what bonuses, specifically, needs to be fleshed out (along with BOD of tasks). If you needed 15 and 1, you're pretty much guaranteed a bonus, for example. Seems like this needs to be dovetailed with "taking extra time". I'd be more inclined to allow you to make the base roll first, so you rolled 14/4 and have accumulated 14 STUN (again, we have that guarantee you will massively exceed the BOD; I am going to stick to STUN for now). Nowhere near enough. Spending extra time gets you extra dice based on the bonus it adds. So you can research for another four hours and roll the extra dice. Not enough? Research for longer. Oh, but my note above suggests you don't need to roll 40. You need to roll 10. 40 is 10 + 30, so based on 3 point increments, there is a 10d6 "opposing pool". Hmmm...what if that opposing pool also counts BOD? Any task requiring training likely now does have BOD. That 10d6 comes up 35 and 10, so you need to accumulate 45 and 10. Now, if we used Standard Effect for the opposing pool, each penalty would add 3 STUN and 1 BOD. That would be more consistent with combat - static defenses and opposing STUN/BOD, and rolled damage. It probably should not be a 10d6 penalty pool (a -10 penalty) if we change the Extra Time rule, though. Non-cumulative seems like it's just a task where Extra Time cannot help. Not sure that is Lockpicking, though. I like the "repeatable with penalty" option. From my mods above, that 16/5 is instead a 2d6 opposing pool. If, on the next attempt, you have a further -2 penalty, now the opposing pool is 4d6. We could add in a "BOD only" dice mechanic, so that this guy is not more difficult to persuade, but once you fail once, he's more locked in to his initial response. Depending on the scenario, it could also be "repeatable" by adding extra time, but the timer is ticking. Or a fail by enough BOD sets the bomb off. Or maybe it advances the timer. How much? How many BOD did you fail by? Skill vs Skill could be rolled or static. That 14 INT is a 12- PER roll, so he would be rolling 4d6. That could simply be a 1d6 penalty (a normal PER roll is the 10 base difficulty). I'm not sure why Skill vs Skill would resolve differently than rolling against the lock. Maybe "succeed with STUN but fail with BOD" means success, but not total success, in some manner. He's persuaded, but still suspicious, so future rolls are subject to that BOD penalty. You found only some of what he concealed. You snuck by him, but something attracted his attention, so he's looking around and more alert against further stealth rolls. Sean, in the past I've questioned whether we could modify the system to make combat a simple "skill vs skill" roll, but create a more robust task resolution system for, say, social interaction (a King's Court drama where a duel is just an opposed skill roll, because physical combat is not the focus of the game) or medical treatment (a hospital drama). Your approach could be used for moving any non-combat task resolution into a more granular, robust resolution system. The "main thrust" of the game can use this robust methodology and ancillary checks can be that simple current skill model. Of course, using the more robust mechanic for all task resolution works as well.

Why would Active Sight illuminate the area? Active Sonar lets the bat sense things using hearing, and things with appropriate hearing senses detect the bat. It does not allow anyone else the ability to detect what the bat perceives with its active sonar. As to Duke's comment, that free lighting from SFX is a lot like free lighting from an "equipment flashlight". It works solely at the GM's pleasure. "In the instant flash of your lightning, you can see that he is not alone" "What are the people with him wearing? Are they armed? How many are there?" "Make a PER roll at -6 to pick out any one of those details. The flash distorts colors so you can't tell if they are wearing VIPER green or police blue. And you will only be able to approximately count the ones within 6 meters of any point along the Blast's path. And everyone in the room takes a penalty to sight-based PER rolls for the next few phases thanks to your bright lightning's interaction with their dilated pupils."

Starlord, I thought I had clicked the "political discussion" thread! This is likely a repeat...