Rapier

Re: Charges on a Multipower's Reserve

Re: Charges on a Multipower's Reserve I agree with the constructs completely. Both are totally valid and acceptable. However, the -1/2 mystery limitation on Example B is also the extra point I'm trying to make. That mystery limitation makes any comparison between A and B pointless. They are not the same constructs. If you remove the mystery limitation, the costs are not the same. I don't have HD on this computer and not up to the math right now (darned allergies). If you remove the -1/4 from A and the -1/2 from B then you can compare the relative values of the constructs. In the case of Example A (as above), I would disallow it without the extra -1/4. IMO the actual charges belong on the slots. Trying to purchase charges on the slots (without limiting it to a pre-selected number of charges) seems to be a cheese-around for evenly splitting the charges between the slots. Yes, there is still going to be a price-differential. However, since the examples provide different effects/results that is all hunkey dorey. There are also campaign considerations. We ran into this in my old skool DnD days. 1 guy running around with 4 spears, 3 swords, a mace, 5 daggers, a 10' long blowgun, a lance and 3 handaxes. What, is he draggin a wagon behind him? Some archer comes into my game with 128 arrows on his person, he is REALLY gonna have to dance quick to rationalise it. I have no problem whatsoever with charges on an MP. The RayGun example is the proto-typical charges on the MP power. Its even juicier if you use some of the extra Charge attributes that is in on of the DH articles. There is one in there that lists costs for Slot Uses 2 Charges. I completely understand you pointing out that there is a cost advantage on Charging MP and Charging Slots. However, I believe that concept will trump any such comparison (as per the 128 arrows above).

Re: Charges on a Multipower's Reserve Well, I didn't say it was impossible, nor that I hadn't done something similar in the past. I just said that it was the rarity. All concepts fall very nicely into either "Charges on the Slots" variety or the "Charges on the Reserve" variety. There are some cases (as you post above) where there is a little wiggle room in where the charges are applied but, again, its a rarity. When I was writing my post, I thought of exactly the situation you offer...the archer can only fit 32 arrows so predetermines how many of each type he is bringing with him. Although I'd probably ask the character to take another -1/4 (maybe even a -0) must determine MP charges before play. Actually an additional -1/4 would be a good idea. After all, it does remove some flexibility and usefullness of the MP. Neato.

Re: Charges on a Multipower's Reserve Points, points, points!! SHEESH! I'm so sick of everything coming down to points! I guess that is the nature of the beast, neh? The SFX of the power must determine how the charges are bought. I can understand maximising a character with a couple of tweaks here and there (I myself tend to buy Characteristics in nice point friendly breaks), but CONCEPT is what is important. Yes, you can min/max your way into cheesing out a significant number of uses in your multipower by creatively applying limitations, especially in a multipower. But the concept is what determines how the charges are purchased. I would never (well, maybe not never if the concept is tight enough) allow an archer character to purchase charges on his reserve (with arrows in the slots). It is darn difficult to rationalise how a MP can be charged when you have tangible charges (eg arrows, bullets, etc). Not impossible, but rare.

Re: New To Hero: Character Advancement Yeah, I just had a character come back from hiatus. He was off running around the wilderness learning to use his new shapeshift power. His player was running another somebody with a little bit of TK.

This came up on one of the boards. I dug through the FAQs and can't seem to find the answer: If a character has Shape Shift (sight, touch, hearing) is there a PER roll to see through the shift? What if, without Imitation/Disguise/Mimicry I try to shift into a specific person (eg Bill Gates)? Obviously the PER roll mods would be huge...but how huge? Then we began discussing looking like Dan Rather. If I SS into Dan Rather (with the above construct), a Disguise Skill (or Mimicry Skill) roll is needed. In this case the PER roll to determine that I am, in fact, not Dan Rather is a skill vs skill (Disguise vs PER) roll? If a character has Immitation Shape Shift (sight, touch, hearing), FREd states that a -3 PER roll would disprove/disbelieve (however we want to term it) the Shift. This is because the Imitation adder replaces the Disguise/Mimicry Roll. I think this last bit is what threw me. In the case of imitation you are seeing through the disguise and not the shape shift, neh? Further, what if I have Imitation SS AND a Disguie or Mimicry? Would the Disguise/Mimicry roll allow a further penalty with the PER roll? Off the cuff I would say that for each point the roll is made by would apply another -1 penalty, and each point the roll is missed by would apply a +1 bonus. Is this reasoning fairly sound with regards to how SS is defined? Thanks!!

Re: Can't Feel Pain I can't really decide, but perhaps also some extra CON: Only to Avoid Being Stunned/Feeling Pain? I've got a couple villains with a Pain NND and the defense is having no nervous system/pain stimuli. Interesting to see that there actually IS such a thing.

Re: Shapeshifting Cost effective arguments are always so "heated." They also always come down to subjective experience. I personally, don't believe that ShapeShift is too expensive. I also think you are doing yourself, your players and Hero a disservice to try and quantify everything in terms of Combat Effectiveness. If your games are primarily arena combat or somehow center around dishing out the smackdown, then yes, Shapeshift doesn't give you much bang for your buck. Actually, let me stop and apologise for the sentence above. I didn't mean to imply you are some kind of schlub. There is nothing wrong, at all, with running a primarily combat game. My games have quite a bit of roleplaying and sometimes we can go a couple games without any combat. Shapeshift is a completely separate power from images or anything else. Images can make you look like Dan Rather. However, an observant person (or depending on SFX, a mechanical device like a camera) or anyone with any kind of time to do an examination (say during interaction at a dinner party) can see that you are not, in fact, Dan Rather. While, a Transform could produce the effect (changing from Male/Female or changing your outward shape to another human), I would not allow it since you are using Transform to duplicate another power (Shapeshift). Shapeshift would actually allow you to become, outwardly, Dan Rather (depending on how it was purchased, you could even pass a thorough inspection including bloodwork and fingerprints). This is a very powerful ability. I have a character in my current Hero campaign that has Shapeshift and he is always the point man when lurking around warehouses or things (usually in the shape of a guard or scientist etc). He is a VITAL member of the team and has saved the team and made things much easier on a number of occassions. I guess, I more strictly enforce the intent of the power. I would not allow someone to buy Images (Touch, Hearing, Sight) Self-Only (only to appear as another human). I would demand that they, instead, buy Shapeshift (unless there was a REALLY REALLY good reason why Images was the right power for the concept).

Re: Possession We gamed all weekend (Fri-Sat and part of Sun). Friday we played Champions and Sat-Sun was Hero. I've had a mini-plot running around in my head for the past few months about some kind of Blood Mage Serial Killer. Based primarily on this thread, I had a stroke of genius...a true epiphany, if you will (can you tell I'm pleased with myself?). My serial killer had the power I posted above (with a few extra lims/advantages). He possessed a person (a housewife, a phone company guy and an aide for the mayor so far), then used that person to commit his murder. The Hero's closed in pretty close to the last victim (being murdered/sacrificed by the aide). The possessor took control of one of the heroes briefly to make his escape. I've got to say that the Possession using Transform works beautifully. It's simple, concise and easy...and it does exactly what I wanted. Oh don't worry, I'm not giving anything away. The heroes have discovered all of this. I was careful not to give anything away. Just wanted to say thanks to everyone for all the help and inspiration. I've been bouncing around waiting to spread the news and had to wait until we had gotten into the plot. THANKS!!

Re: Possession I completely agree that Transform can be hideously overused/abused/beaten down and kicked to the curb. However, there are certain concepts/effects that to me, scream Transform. My bellweather is, really, if when defining the power in my head I use the verb "transform" (or sometimes "switch," "change" or "alter"). In this case, I want to actually alter the target so that I have control of their body (KINKY!). To me, that begs for Transform. To do it without Transform would require a vast array of powers (Mind Control, Clairsentience, Mind Link, Desol, etc) that IMO do not really get the effect we are looking for. Not to poo-poo your theory at all. I completely agree that I have seen LOTS of Transforms in my day that are an end-run around other powers (for instance, I saw one just a week or so ago that was a Transform into a mental slave...I changed it to Mind Control), however, in this case I think Transform is the right power.

Re: New to this Genre

Re: Opinions requested on an application of Side Effects

Re: So, why is longevity so expensive? Yep. The problem (I shouldn't say problem, the difference/escalation in costs) with LS is that there is a lot more in there than there used to be. There just used to be one environmental LS (extreme temp: heat and cold). While this is all good and everything what do you do with Flamester O'Flannery? He is immune to high temp...but not cold. So do you take a lim on the LS: Heat only? Well, high temp and low temp are actually two different things. So you split them up. So where are before 3pts (or whatever its costs was) got you immune to extreme heat AND cold, 3pts now gets you immune to extreme heat OR cold. IMO, this is a better construct. Just because you are immune to disease, doesn't mean you are immune to posions. I like the granularity, it allows me to better tailor the LS to my needs instead of getting lots of side benefits that stray from the concept or having to load the LS down with hundreds (slight exaggeration ) of limitations. If you really want to get the cost of LS back down to its old levels, you just need to improve the groupings. Group temperature LS together, group poisons and disease, group other commonalities. Personally, I don't see the problem with the increased cost of LS. I mean, we did get another 100pts for SuperHero characters. A bump of 5 pts for full LS isnt that big a deal.

Re: So, why is longevity so expensive? This is the nature of the beast. Because Steve is writing the rules, what Hero has beomce is Hero as Steve sees it, and plays it. If I was in charge (or you or DustRaven or anyone) people would be unhappy because how I've been playing Hero would end up as rules. However, even though i disagree with some of the rules and don't like some of the changes made in FREd, I am very, very happy with where the game currently is. FREd is leaps and bounds ahead of the BBB, with a few issues IMO. However, the tweaks/house rules/what-have-you that I use with FREd are much much fewer than we used with the BBB. I have every faith that as time goes on, Hero will get better and better. The simple fact that technology (eg the Internet) has progressed far enough that we can share or concerns, questions etc with Steve and Co. demands improvement of the game. Back in the day, games were fairly static because most game makers were unaware of players feelings and didn't know problems existed.

Re: Conquerors, Killers and Crooks How could they forget Takky? He's probably my favourite. Not to use in a game for heavens sake. But I think he's just an all around fun kind of guy. Who hasn't wanted to take over a dimension or three on a long weekend?

Re: Look, Bob! Another Star! Holy guaca!! I don't have Star Hero yet...I'm an earthbound kind of guy. But that Sector Generator ROCKS! We have a side campaign of Silent Death and I spent literally months developing star systems...and did it all by hand, and with nowhere near that quality and evenness. Not only is this utility/proggy thing AWESOME, I'm all but drooling over the sector generation rules in Star Hero (if this is an example). Darn it, just when I had convinced myself I didn't need to buy this book yet. DAMN YOU ALL! *grumble grumble couldn't keep it to themselves could they? NOOOOOOO grumble*

Re: Look, Bob! Another Star! For some odd reason, don't ask me why, I read the title of this thread...and in my head it sounded just like Mary Tyler Moore doing her Laura Petri voice. Shrug.

Re: Fixing Martial Artists

Re: Possession The Ultimate Mentalist (from 4th Ed) has a whole slough of these fun little bits. It's a wealth of fun mentalist facts! There is even a section on dreamscape/astral space/etc that gives you some rules/guidelines on what your physical stats would be in astral space (and its very similar to this). It also give rules/etc on how to perform mental combat (EGO vs EGO, not the EGO Attack/Mind Control type). You should even be able to lay one up pretty cheap.

Re: Possession Yup! The nice thing about Major Transform is that you can define it to do ANYTHING. In this case we are simply defining: (33) Possession: Major Transform 3d6 (Transfer My Mind into the Body of Another, Possessor Making EGO Roll to Return to Body), BOECV (Mental Defense applies; +1) (90 Active Points); Eye Contact Required (-1/2), Concentration (0 DCV; -1/2), Extra Time (Full Phase, -1/2), Returns to Original Body if Possessed Body is Stunned/Unconscious (-1/4) Youare dumping 30 AP per d6 into this puppy. Depending on your GM there are two side considerations: 1) Dual Transform (Mind Swap): Transform Your Mind into Someone's Body and Transfer Someone's Mind into Your Body. Since you are a willing target this is not really much of a brainer...simply tack on a x2 (or even x3) END to represent the casting upon yourself. The issue with this now is that some lumm-lumm is now in possession of your meat. Could lead to problems...or some wonderful roleplaying possibilities. But I don't think this is really what you are looking for. Having someone else have control of your body is a -1/2 (as per 4th Ed's Ultimate Mystic Possession...which I think is a good value for the limitation). 2) Lock the Little Creep Away: You stuff the targets EGO (consciousness) into a corner of his mind and lock the door. In this case, I would increase the heal to a -3/4 and make it Target or Possessor can heal with a successful EGO Roll (as a GM I would allow you to make an EGO roll each turn and use your result as a modifier for the target: you make it by 1 he's -1 on his roll, you miss by 3, he's +3 for his roll). Remeber, your body is now a husk. Hope its well hidden. Again. I believe you are overthinking the construct. The wonderful thing about a Major Transform is that your don't need to worry about too much of this. That is what a Transform does. Are we grabbing some effects that could be similated with powers? Yep. However, the SFX IMHO warrant it. Also, the AP / d6 is already REALLY high. If a GM enforced any kind of AP limits on powers you are only looking at a 2d6 Transform (assuming 60 AP as a typical limit). Considering averages: 3.5 per d6, 2d6 per phase = 7 EGO per phase. Average normal EGO is 10 (which you need to double). 20 / 7 = 3 phases. You are going to blow three entire phases just to achieve a possession. I think you have already paid plenty for the effect you are looking for.

Re: So, why is longevity so expensive? Our Champions campaign had characters that retired due to old age. While some adventures etc happend within the span of a few weeks, others took place over months (and in one case years). I've also had a few time-master villains that had NND vs LS: Aging and Aging Transforms. It spawned a rather lengthy mini-plot for the characters to reverse the aging, and one character in particular decided not to accept the risk for reversing the aging and stayed old. He retired shortly after. I also add some side-benefits to those characters that have been around quite a while. They get bonuses to skill rolls (mostly knowledge based) simply because they have been around a lot longer. They also, on occassion, run into a new contact whose grandfather/father etc knew. I make regular use of those characters with LS: Aging as plot furtherance devices, and the players seem to greatly enjoy these small side benefits.

Re: Fixing Martial Artists Hear, hear! Some martial artists are normal people who have taken a couple classes at the Y. CAN they buy up to some 12d6 or 14d6 within the rules? Sure, but where's the GM in all this? Why hasn't he stood up and said "Um, NORMAL? A NORMAL has 12d6 in MA?" The GM should never allow a normal to have 12d6 MA. For that matter, whats to stop a normal from purchasing 12d6 EB, Desol, Teleportation, EDM or a Damage Shield? I would hope there would be a GM jumping up and down and flinging his feces like an enraged monkey. Now there's a mental picture, isn't it? Some martial artists are highly trained normals. Maybe they can break bricks and dent cars. Maybe allow them to top out at 12d6. Again, the GM should be enforcing genre conventions and reasonable powers limits. Some martial artists are extremely trained supers. They can dent tanks, chew engine blocks and punch through the cranium of your average super-villain. These martial artists should be able to grab 15 or 20d6 in MA. Once again, the GM should be involved and make sure that these MAs have HIGH ENOUGH DCs in MAs. Martial Artist is an archetype. It means that the character in question has, among other things, a significant number/amount/points placed in/around Martial Arts maneuvers and Martial Arts Effects. It doesn't speak at all of AP limits, Damage Classes or anything else. To think it does is a disservice to Martial Artists, the GM and the player. I don't think MA is broken. I think it represents exactly what it was supposed to. I have ruled that certain materials make certain attacks against them Penetrating, Reduced Penetration, AP or completely ineffective. But that is all SFX. Besides consider: MA: I punch the brick wall with my 10d6 Fast Strike. GM: You dent the wall and do some damage, but don't break through. MA: WHAT? I did more than enough BODY to break through a brick wall. GM: Says who? How do you know what the DEF and BODY of that wall is? MA: Well, it says on page xxx of FREd that a brick wall has... GM: Whoa! Who says this is a typical brick wall or that all brick walls have that DEF and BODY? MA: Um. Yeah, ok. The only problem I foresee is if the GM announces that the party is hemmed in by a 4 DEF, 6 BODY wall. In which case, the GM should be smacked with a hex map.

Re: Non-"adventuring" Metahumans *Dons his devil's advocate hat* All righty, Mr Smarty-SS-Guys-Are-Expensive-Pants. Put your SS Agents where your mouth is. Post your typical SS agent. I'm thinking that 75+75 is right proper amount. Consider also, that your average SS agent is that much more trained than some of the high-end FBI agents, cops or military officers (where they actually recruit a number of their people). One of the great benefits of any single SS agent is the other 100 SS agents he/she can call upon in need. They also have a HUGE infrastructure backing them. But they don't need to pay for any that.

Re: Odd Champions campaigns We are currently involved in a cross-over. We decided to take a break from Champions about a year ago. I'm using the same campaign setting, but instead of Champions in 2076, its normal heroic character in 1884. For the setting and time period the characters ARE the superheroes of the day and age. Its quite refreshing and a great deal of fun.

Re: Newbie Seeks Character Creation Help