Hugh Neilson

Re: Need Help With Teleport Power

Re: Multiple Secret IDs I don't see why a character couldn't havbe more than one secret ID. Moon Knight had three. The issue would come down to whether that makes the social limitation worse (either of Firestorm's ID's can get their lives screwed up) or better (MK can just retire one identity). I'd be inclined to go with OIHID (he has to do something to change) on most powers, and leave it at that. So he's two people outside his Super form? It doesn't seem a big enough advantage to merit any extra costs, especialy if you're paying for all the skills in any case. Now, if you're going Classic Firestorm, where Ronnie could trigger the change at will and Stein was along for the ride, I'd say that ends it. If the two have to be in physical proximity, I'd say further limits are in order, especially if one of the Secret ID's, like Stein was, is unaware of the heroic ID. How else could you do it? You've mentioned the Duplication approach. That could work for, say, Infinity Man and the Forever People. What about a Summon that requires more than one person with the power, linked to EDM that moves the summoners to a "limbo" state so they're out of the way until the "Summonnee" goes home? A lot depends, to me at least, on how useful the other personas are. Ronnie and Stein weren't likely to succeed in combat where Firestorm failed and, as you say, their unique skills were always available in the gestalt. You could play it as "Ronnie is the character; Stein is a special effect", and even make Stein a contact, or a follower, of the Ronnie character. Lots of possibilities, but probably no one right answer. USPD II? PS: regardless of the build, I would hold Firestorm to the 350 point campaign max, and he would get xp normally. xp for the other forms would be limited to what's needed to keep Firestorm at his present point total, unless the subsidiary characters were duplicates.

Re: Need Help With Teleport Power Where do you get "right" from? There are NO prohibitions in the book. The furthest Steve ever goes, in my experience, is to say "Under the rules as written, no", leaving the "you may want to vary the rules to enable a reasonable effect to be achieved".

Re: Need Help With Teleport Power Like Hawksmoor, I'm a big fan of trying to apply the rules as written. Sarcasm is just one more service we provide. And I can tell you that, with the SFX you described, the answers I gave you are exactly whatI would give any player in my game - you don't need a 61 point power to get a 1 point benefit.

Re: Role Playing Challenge I've rearranged your post to suit my answer. My comments are generic to the characters, not the situation, and aimed at "what can you do in a social/diplomatic session" Renowned hero? Social skills or not, people will likely listen to what he has to say. He'd probably be good at stirring up the common man - don't underestimate how difficult they can make things for the aristocracy. As well, if his word carries a lot of weight with the populace, he has some leverage on its leaders. Your last phrase says it all. Information gathering. Information is definitely one of those "If you don;t get it, it gets you" situations. Combine with John disseminating info to the locals, and anything up to open revolt can be incited. Pretty limited options here. Stand around and look intimidating? Any chance he can work the demi-human populace?

Re: Too many stats in Hero Just a clarification Caris. Can you abort to assign skill levels, or is it a prerequisite that you must abort to assign skill levels in a defensive fashion? I believe the latter is correct, but I don't have the books with me. Assuming my recollection is correct, you could abort to put OSL's to DCV, or to Block and put levels in OCV, but not (say) to put them in Deduction.

Re: Need Help With Teleport Power Yep, as the fully consistent and well-received posts to this thread clearly indicate, statting out the object would be WAY tougher and farmore controversial than statting the ability to teleport it as a power. Hey, YMMV, but when I post looking for ideas on how to contruct something, I'm generally hoping to get somne creative ideas on how to construct it - preferably options I have failed to consider.

Re: Too many stats in Hero What Reed Richards example? If it's from me, it was done a long time ago, don't recall it, sorry. My hypothetical Supers guy was Richard Reed. Polaris1 may think I'm dyslexic.

Re: Need Help With Teleport Power Well, given the clear fixation on making this low utility power as high cost as possible, what about (sorry, no book with me so no costs): Extra Dimensional Movement (to dimension where everything is the same except I have my Teddy Bear) Usable Against Others (+1) Aea Effect - Radius (+1) Megascale AE (+1,000) - that should affect the entire universe Transdimensional (+1?) - and all adjacent dimensions Oh, better make that 0 END (+1/2) And quadruple armor piercing (+2) so we don't leave anyone behind It should be Fully Invisible (+1) so all anyone knows is Teddy's back I think that covers it - anyone see anything I've missed?

Re: Need Help With Teleport Power May I suggest you are far from alone in that...

Re: Need Help With Teleport Power Maybe he has a personal movement power so he can go a KM away, Summon his Teddy Bear, and come back.

Re: Is It Worth The Points? I do occasionally have something on a character that I don't expect will come into play very often, if at all, but just fits the character too well to leave off. The GM will often surprise me, however, and find a way to bring it into play at least once, even if only as a "flavor bit" where the character gets to look cool or impressive. If I had to select the most common item, it would probably be life support. I don't think anyone ever gets the full benefit of many of the exotic items. For example, how many campaigns starve the Supers, or last so long that Does Not Age is truly an advantage? But some characters just wouldn't be "right" without these bits. In some cases, they may be better viewed as background than actual power, just like someone else's character may have a KS of Video Games or Music Trivia.

Re: Too many stats in Hero ... Nope, Gary pretty much covered it all.

Re: Limitation punishment My expectation is that the player expects and wants everything on his character sheet to come into focus in play at some time. If he has regeneration, he expects to take Body. If he has a limitation, it should crop up at some time. Not "be maliciously exploited to punish him for saving points", but not "ignored so it is always as effective as an unlimited power" either.

Re: Need Help With Teleport Power Nor has anyone else. An object with noncombat uses can also have a point value. Detective Work is useless in combat, as are non combat movement multiples, yet they still cost points. No, if the value in or out of combat is zero the cost should be zero. A Limitation that does not limit saves no points. Similarly, an ability that grants no benefits should cost no points. The two are a comparison. If the object has no usefulness to the character, the ability to have it around at all times costs nothing. If it has uses, the cost should be commensurate with its usefulness. Note that, sometimes, paragraphs and points relate one to the other, and should not simply be read in isolation. If the object does nothing, then it's a special effect and shouldn't carry a cost. My character has a superhero costume, but he doesn't pay points for being recognizable in it. I recall a character whose cape always flaps in the breeze, even if there is no breeze. No effect, no point cost. If yours always has, say, his Teddy Bear, then why should he pay points for it? It's just a bit of character for the character. [Apologies if, in fact, it IS his teddy bear and I have given away the plot.] Then you fail to understand the point. Just because an ability blinds someone, that doesn't make it a Flash. Similarly, just because a power brings something from elsewhere, that doesn't necessarily make it a Teleport. Let's try it again. Then the cost should be based on the value of what it can do outside of combat. I can't say it any clearer, can I? Perhaps most would. I doubt it. My answer would simply be "Because the character won't use it in combat, he doesn't pay the points for combat utility. Because he does not pay the points, he simply can't use it in combat - not that it is a physical impossibility, but that he just WON'T."

Re: Too many stats in Hero Point 1: Buying up INT is within the rules. Buying skill levels is within the rules. I therefore have difficulty stating either is "wrong". OK, we have a complex scientific problem. It involves chemistry, physics and simple processing speed. Therefore, make a Physics roll (the primary issue) with a complementary Chemistry and INT roll. You get a +1 bonus for every two points you make the CHEM or INT roll by. Because the task is so huge, complex and difficult, you have a -12 to the roll. Richard: "I roll three 11's. With my 19- rolls, derived entirely from INT, I get a 4 point bonus from each of my Chemistry and INT rolls. That makes my roll for Physics a modified 3. Easy success." Scientist: "Vell, I vill put my seffen leffels in Physics. I have 12- in INT and Chem, and a 19- in Physics. I too rolled three 11's. I get no bonus from either complementary roll, so I got an 11. I cannot understand it. Thank goodness ve haff Richard Reed here!" Normal humans have normal human processing speed. How will your 75+75 character buy 56 INT based skills and a stack of OSL's? INT is about processing speed. I won't punish him for having brilliant ideas. But it should take him longer to get there than it takes someone with higher INT. An 8 INT scientist may spend his whole life on a project that our comic book superscientist can accomplish in a day.

Re: Questions about Energy Blast You could buy it as a separate power. However, you could also purchase the Power Skill. This is briefly discussed in FREd, and allows you to use your powers in new and creative ways, with the expectation that anything you do more than once or twice will be purchased as its own separate power. The Until Super Powers Database has a more detailed discussion of use of the Power skill, which provides firmer guidelines for its use. Power Skill - not just for Variaple Power Pools any more!

Re: Too many stats in Hero

Re: Need Help With Teleport Power You're being very sleective in what quotes you choose to refer to. A home, a job, a vehicle and $5,000 have no effect on the character's success as a Super. It may not be in 5e, but I recall an excellent statement from a Hero product that a character can be assumed to have a car, but if he wants to use it in his heroic identity to enhance his movement, he has to pay points for it. Similarly, a character can use anything he finds lying around in the course of combat - be it a cord to tie up the villain, or a VIPER blaster to fire on another VIPER agent. But if he wants to keep it and use it regularly, he has to pay the points for it. If a Brick wants to pick up an object and throw it, great. If he always wants such an object to be available, he has to pay the points to buy this rock that he will carry around with him. As Hawksmoor states, the teleportation is a special effect of the power you want, not the power itelf. The power itself depends wholly on the object, and that is why you aren't getting an answer on what the power should cost. It will cost whatever the actual abilities conferred by the constant presence of this object will confer. Let's use an example (a nice silly one). Let's say you want to be able to teleport a feather to you. Just a simple, ordinary crow's feather - a specifc one. What would this cost? Well, for 99.999% of the population, it will cost nothing. It's a feather. It doesn't DO anything. Even if it happens to trigger Dr. Parrot's mindless rage against people who despoil avians, or the Wheezer's 3d6 Susceptibility to Animal Products, that's a function of Dr. Parrot and Wheezer's unique disadvantages, and it doesn't cost you any extra, any more than Fire Guy has to pay for a 3d6 NND vs. people with 3d6 susceptibilities against flame attacks. But let's say your character's name is "Dumbo", and he has 40" Gliding and 30" Flight that only work if he has his Lucky Feather clutched in his trunk. That feather would normally be either an OAF or an IAF (depending on how blabby he is about the feather letting him fly). Well, if he can summon it to his trunk just by thinking about it, the feather is now an IIF, at worst, and those point savings are going to have to be reversed. It's not what the object is, whether mundane or magical. What it does determines the effect of your power to bring it to you at any time. The effect of your power determines its cost. For an ordinarly mundane object as you describe, it may just be a snazzy special effect of the character, and cost no points at all, But the cost depends on what you want the object to do, not how your special effects will bring it to you. Sorry if you find my comments unhelpful, but the simple fact is that you have fixated on the name of the power "Teleport" as the only way you could possibly teleport an object to you, and that fixation seems to be preventing you from considering that there may be other power builds possible. "Reason from effect" is the key here.

Re: Need Help With Teleport Power Assuming a Supers campaign, where equipment is purchased with points, not $$, your "Teleport the object here" power is useless unless you've purchased the object's abilities. Player: "I use my 61 point telepoort to bring my rope here". GM: "OK" Player: "I tie up the bad guy with it." GM: "No, you'd have to buy an Entangle to have a rope that can tie up the bad guy." Player: "Well, I'll swing from the roof with my rope." GM: "Did you BUY swinging?" In other words, your amazing Summon Rope ability is only a special effect for the things you can do with the rope. It's not a separate power, complete unto itself.

Re: Need Help With Teleport Power You're misinterpreting the FAQ here. Normally, the cost of a base or a vehicle is determined, and the character pays 1/5 of the cost. The FAQ is only saying that you don't get to build a 200 point base, divide the cost by 5 to 40 for the cost of the base, then divide it again to get an 8 point Summon. It's just resricting you to one division by 5.

Re: GMB Hard to find in my area. "GMB" - Game Master Book? Hero has never had a separate GM's book, but it's the only abbreviation I can think of.

Re: DEX vs. CSLs

Re: DEX vs. CSLs As an aside, how many games do you see the "levels in DCV are either vs range or HTH unless they only grant DCV" rule applied? In my expoerience, this is frequently ignored in Supers campaigns. Probably rightly so, as the highly skilled combatants in the comics don't generally get hit easier by one type of attack over another. That night be an easy quick fix for combat levels. In non-NCM games, levels in DCV always apply to range and HTH simultaneously. "Pure" DCV levels could also apply to ECV, I suppose, or be downgraded to 3 point levels (like buying DEX with "only for DCV; -2).

Re: New Advantage: Varying Dimensions