TrickstaPriest

Okay, this one has been troubling me for a while now, because it's potentially very powerful but also very awkward. I have several campaign settings that I am importing into HERO, but I have some characters who have very peculiar powers that don't fit well with the HERO system. One prominent theme is "Reactive Powers", as they are rather hard to do. Trigger seemed like a good idea at first, but the problem with it is that it needs to be set first. The powers are usually Instant, though a few are Constant, and usually can be turned on and off manually in addition to being "reactive." One example of this is an energy surge a character uses throughout their body, destroying any foreign powers in them. This is basically a Dispel with Personal Immunity and Self Only, but it activates in one of two ways. The first is when they are Paralyzed, Mind Controlled, or otherwise rendered incapable of controlling their power, the "floodgates open" as it were and it sends it through themselves. However, they can also opt to use the power manually, sending it through themselves to get rid of annoying minor effects. It uses up END, but since it can be activated many times in a fight, it cannot be "set" by means of a Trigger. Furthermore, even when it is "manually" used, it doesn't require much concentration. The character could activate it and attack an opponent in the same Phase. There is another one just like this for Healing, as well, which is similarly difficult to represent. (I'm aware of how potentially powerful these are, but they have some disadvantages of their own that I can easily add myself once I get a working model) Another annoying one is Powers that can be "set" to activate automatically or not when in the right circumstances. 'Mindy Ness' can go Incorporeal in darkness, but she can make it her default to do so "reactively" when she goes into a shadow, or make it so that she has to activate it "manually" to go all shadowy. Regardless, she has to be in a shadow. Another one like this is a villain whose body is composed of metal cubes that look human when gathered together. He can control the amount of force holding together his body, so he can act as a solid being, or as a fragile LEGO toy that can be shattered into hundreds of pieces with a single blow (and quite effectively reducing damage he takes!). Of course, he can survive as those individual blocks as long as the ones containing "vital portions" are intact. That part I'm not even going to approach yet... Needless to say, all these are basically abilities that are "triggered" but do not need to be set first and can be set of manually besides. Some can even be controlled on whether they trigger or not when the trigger comes in. Any thoughts?

I tend to get a rather eclectic approach involving a little bit of development here or there and a fair amount of inspiration. Often, I'll picture a character in my mind, decide a few fundamental things on what they are like and maybe what they can do, and then I "Power Framework" it. That is, I decide upon a defining description of what the character's abilities entail, which then brings up a whole host of "sub" abilities at least as long as my arm. I find it actually helps to decide what a character -can't- do as much as what they can do. This not only helps with disadvantages, it also helps define in what direction the character's powers go, and this helps you define even more powers. Really, this is the most important step for me, getting a foothold and then building up from there. Recently I've been breaking people's powers down into their power concept and their basic "feats", or what they can do with it at the most rudamentary level. Then, I can come up with a good half-dozen different powers in each "feat" group. I've made some frightening and bizarre powers with this. To get that initial first step, I find it usually develops either from sudden inspiration, looking at what I came up with the character so far, or simply looking at something familiar and twisting it into something unfamiliar. Of course, I also cheat when I'm desperate and use a random table I made to give me a power "theme" of some sort.

Very helpful, especially for figuring out scale on things. Maybe I can eventually start making Mindy and Michelle in HERO... it could work, in theory. (Assuming Mindy will ever work cleanly in any RPG system on the planet...) Of course, some silly individual had made a character sheet only using that translation system and without using enough references from other HERO books. (In my defense, the emitter wasn't supposed to be one that you could easily switch from one mode to another, it required going all the way back. The basic idea was that the different modes weren't powerful (I wasn't sure to what degree energy attacks existed, I assumed very low), but if you have half-a-dozen soldiers hammering at you in three different ways, it'll be hard to defend against.) Here's to handy and helpful articles and more reading of the basic book. Of course, I still need a good source for scale, since I've had trouble finding enough characters I know well on your site. ~_~

Arr... I've had a fair number of problems with certain kinds of powers in HERO. I love how well the system can make some powers... but at the same time, it is very frustrating to not have a few things. (edit) Homing, though that has been said already, is of considerable importance to me at times. Currently, I have an NPC who casts small swarms of attack spells at her opponents. It becomes a little dangerous when they build up, as all of them basically have Continuous + Homing... they keep on coming until they burn out, whether they snag you or not. It turns into a "snowball" effect really, really quickly. Another big one is viral and disease attacks. I have a major NPC in a campaign I'm starting... her power concept is basically that of a metapathologist. She has dozens of mixes that she has cooking at home, all various strains of different viruses. Not all are dangerous... some are used to cause metabolic shifts in herself or others (adrenal mixes, etc.), and most of her viruses don't spread very well after they settle in a body (to avoid an epidemic...), but she has a few extremely dangerous mixes, and if she can dispense them without being spotted she can cripple an entire party with severe cramps and vomiting. Unfortunately, I ~really~ dislike using Transform for anything other than Transforming things... it doesn't have an easy system behind it... especially since a lot of effects that I want to use would be a "Medium Transform"... which doesn't exist. With the effect above... it'd be more than a "Light Transform", but not totally crippling. The group can fight back, but they'll be at a big disadvantage... The Transformation issue is fairly important, too, since it is one of the only ways to give someone a "permanent" effect. For example, blowing out their eardrums with a sonic attack... which can cripple someone's balance rather quickly... A rather important martial artist type NPC possesses control over sound in one of my major campaigns... sound is very annoying to represent. ^^ (edit- I brought up Transformation initially because of a comment Steve made when there was a query on how to make diseases spread. Some thought of "Sticky", but that only works for the source, the stickiness doesn't spread. Steve suggested Transform from a "healthy person" to a "sick person". Eventually the Transformation brought up an issue in itself that I was going to mention later. So, maybe an "enhanced Sticky" for spreading, and some system for handling Transformations better?) Yet another one, back to the first example, is having actions devoted to only certain kinds of attacks. For the sorceress in the first example, she possesses a "magic aura" that automatically lashes out at opponents who get to close, essentially using her magical energy to defend herself. The only way it really would work is as levels of Speed for "only for magic"... which doesn't look too clean in the system. I considered it as a creature... but it doesn't work. It uses her energy, and she has several "self only" effects that boost the strength of her aura's ability as well. Even if I do find another example for this... there is still the problem of not being able to easily have actions devoted only to certain kinds of actions. Another, strange power is one a major villain uses in another one of my campaigns. It essentially splits anyone hit into two of themselves... each with different dominant traits of their personality. The villain in question can choose how the traits are divided, however... this essentially can cause either the villain to have a group double in number and all too eager to fight him, or a mass melee as their differences in opinion cause people to come to blows. It's a very, very unusual power, might I add... but very effective on parties that have very little cohesion or on people who tend to be emotionally unbalanced. Not to mention that I've never successfully created this power under any system without it looking totally unreasonable. And, as a feather on top of this heaping pile... "Invisible Attacks" don't really include any kind of penalty to dodge that I've seen. Also, there isn't any way I can find to apply a "penalty to dodge" to a power. This detail is very important if you are custom-designing martial arts as full powers for metas, since a lot of martial maneuvers apply penalties and bonuses to both the attacker and defender. There ~is~ a difference between getting a bonus to hit and getting a penalty to dodge, too, especially in a fight where people are constantly trying to knock their opponents off balance or putting them in a position where they can't dodge. Getting your DCV halved ~will~ halve the penalties too, after all, but they won't halve a bonus to hit. Arr... I know I had a few more powers that were giving me headaches... but those are the prominent ones. The other one I can think of at the moment is on "reactive powers", or powers that can be either triggered automatically or used as an action... but if they trigger they don't need to be "reset" to have the option of triggering again, as long as they have END for the power to be used again. If I did ever write up a unique Advantage for it, I think "Uses No END" would be doubled in cost (like for Autofire) when combined with it.

Huh? Wait... this is news to me. I thought any power that requires an attack roll uses 1/2 a Phase? I've been sweating on how to figure out how to arrange a power someone was supposed to have that involves a Healing Aid on themselves as a 0 phase action, as well as a few other powers. Where does it say that bit?

Sadly... I probably could, given enough time. One thought that keeps coming to be involves breaking the acabus, though. Of course, there's also how a pair of acabi were used in Peace Maker Kurogane... makeshift rollerblades. Perhaps a character who zips around on a pair of acabi and has another that he takes apart to flick the beads like sling-stones at the enemy? Hmm... well, I have made some potent powers based on some very... odd themes. I'm rather proud of one power which uses a "philosopher" theme, and another one based roughly on... dammit, I can't even think of how I would name the concept. Division on personalities? Anyway... acabi? I'm sure something interesting will hit me eventually.

House Rules Interesting rule Supreme, I've often used and seen critical and critical failure systems like that. I tend to do whatever sort of "ill effect" I think appropriate, I find merely increasing the damage tends to make me lose heroes and villains too quickly. (¬_¬_Especially with how well these nuts roll... or how poorly...) Most of the ones that I use in what I have played in HERO I've already seen, but there are a couple I'm throwing out. Most of these are character creation, but I find them quite useful. 1. Similar Powers- I tend to allow people to take very similar powers in Multipowers, since otherwise I find there is too much of a point loss for only a little game. Players can often get quite a few powers into Multipowers, though I may require them to take more than one Multipower for powers that aren't similar enough in function. 2. Power Description- I require descriptions, at least small ones, of powers, including how they work. It doesn't require too much in the way of research unless they are coming up with something particularly unusual, and I let some things slide as merely "over-the-top" power effects. I tend to like this when people end up taking lots of odd advantages and limitations on their powers, and I've required people to take advantages or limitations if they would make sense. This also tends to help break away from the confines of thinking of the powers as dice and rules. 3. Creative Use- I tend to like to give the players a bit of leeway in using their powers. The advantage of clearly defining the powers of the characters is that I'll allow them to cook up some homemade uses of their powers, even if it would require an entirely different Power. This tends to require something similar to Pushing Powers, but with more points that can be put towards it. Of course, I tend to increase the END costs or difficulty in rolling the power, and it'll never be as strong as if they bought it fully. How much of an increase depends on how flexible I view the powers in the setting. Some settings are more flexible in their use of powers than others. I'm also vaugely cooking up a Second Life system that'll give me a construct for allowing characters and villains to survive otherwise nasty rolling when the scene is relatively unimportant. I dislike fudging dice, and I certainly can't fudge the players rolls (oooh... critical failure to disarm that bomb? hm...). The nice thing is that it doesn't directly use the system, so it can be used for any type of game, and it doesn't use anything so silly as actual "lives". It will also help me keep my villains from getting killed off by absolutely insane rolls, since I can use it for them too (though to give the PCs a reward I would always use the penalty that comes with it).

Hmm... This is a fairly interesting topic. Martial Arts in HERO sounds like what a Gun Bunny is in BESM. It can be VERY cheap to make a pretty powerful Gun Bunny, simply buying a few levels of the Gun Bunny Attribute, some Highly Skilled, then Personal Gear and some Focused and Massive Damage. That will give you a potent damage dealing monster for a fairly cheap cost. The price is, though, that you can only build on it using those systems for so long. After a while, all your Gun Bunny stuff will be at level 5, the max, and will only do a moderate amount of damage in, let's say, a 60-70 character point campaign. The cost of this efficiency is that you can only go so high, right? If you could build them all the way to the top, it would be unbalancing and too powerful. From what you mentioned about MA, this is your problem with it. However, there are some very powerful characters in BESM that are Gun Bunnies, ones with 100+ Character Points. How is it done? They don't use Personal Gear. Vash the Stampede has Weapon Attacks, Extra Attacks, and other really powerful and expensive Attributes. He still has some of the cheaper ones, like Gun Bunny, to add support to the powerful abilities and "keep the feel", but they are no longer the main damage dealers. A Melee Energy Blast in hero could qualify as a super-powered MA punch, a HKA a Knifehand strike. It's all about the Special Effects, and appropriate Limitations and bonuses to add to it. This is how I run my games... I don't allow people to take things they can't explain. If they want a power with "Uses No END" they have to explain why it doesn't exert them to use it. Similarly, I have heard suggestions for "Damage Shield" or "Trigger" as fair uses for automatic counterattacks. This is expensive, but it's fair. It's the same system all the other superheroes have to use, why should MA be any different? It just means that you should be giving your superpowerful martial artists more points, because when they have powers that strong, they ARE on par with superheroes, or at least weak ones. Certainly I would give Ranma Saotome (yes, a fictional character, but he's being used as an extreme example) a TON of Character Points, even if he is a Martial Artist, because he could spar with some pretty powerful superheroes. If Bruce Lee is "superhuman" by people's standard concepts of human ability, then he costs as much as a "superhuman" would. If he didn't, it wouldn't be fair to the other players. Certainly most Chi Abilities are POWERS. They just can be learned, and have their own sort of SFX. Now, this brings up another problem. What about the HUNDREDS of techniques Bruce Lee might know? Well, taking another anime example, Hatake Kakashi knows over a thousand ninja techniques (spells, really) that he copied with his Sharingan (edit- typofix). There's no way in hell I would tell someone wanting to create his character sheet to take them individually, or even as a Multipower. How is it done? Variable Power Pool. Since it doesn't take time for him to switch powers, I would allow the martial artist in question to take "Switches as a 0 Phase action". It may not even require a Skill roll, allowing the uber-enhancement Cosmic (In Kakashi's case, the "Power Skill" roll could be a memory test "Alright, so you want to use one of your copied Illusion spells? Well, two years ago you remember that fight you had with that Waterfall ninja. Now, if you could only remember how that spell went..." Certainly that'd be an INT based skill roll.). One personal note about this is that the characters more powerful techniques would be taken seperately, as individual powers (Kakashi's Lightning Edge, for example), which means the VPP's cost could be fairly small, since it's only meant to simulate all the "little techniques" he may know. If you want it to represent more, up the pool. If you are having trouble with too many "big attacks", maybe put them in a Multipower seperately, if your GM allows it. (Add- Err, and only after I write all this do I note Dauntless said the very same thing with quite a few less words. Oopsie. Well, I hope my breakdown was some help, anyway. ^^ It does help validate taking a group of techniques as a VPP, and it's just common sense to work them out beforehand. Certainly, Multipowers would be good for starting practictioners (see the post after mine) and VPP for advanced users. It makes sense too, since the VPP would be more expensive (having Cosmic and all), so I think it tends to work out. Also, if you look at Surbrook's page for Ifurita (http://www.devermore.net/surbrook/adaptionsanime/eh/ifurita.html), he uses a similar system for her ability to mimic attacks.)

Yep yep That's the gist of it. In this case though, I'm the GM. ^^ I've used Champions way back when, but HERO is quite a bit different, and I'm still getting used to some of the things in it. But yes, I tend to allow some pretty powerful abilities to my players if they can describe the powers and if they have enough restrictions to keep it from getting out of hand. Nothing too powerful or restrictive, of course, but enough to give the characters some kind of specialization or useful trick. Also, I tend to think of power bonuses in a broken-down fashion. That is, I list the benefits, then the disadvantages. This works well with HERO, but it runs into some problems. For example, the ability instantly heal damage or convert END to Stun or Body and vice versa... as a 0 Phase action. Of course, such a power would be ridiculously powerful... if it weren't for several disadvantages placed on the powers to restrict them. However, this often means I'm creating powers with very large Active Costs and fairly low Real Costs, and I often have to make some things up. (Such as, Aid being able to be used as a 0 Phase action... I don't suppose anyone would have a clue on the multiple of THAT bonus? ) Such a power would be almost totally invincible... if it didn't have some very heavily restrictions on its use. (Though, for the record, any "Attack Powers" that are 0 Phase I would only allow to be used once per Phase) Even with the restrictions, the cost may be higher than normal, but at least reasonable. There are plenty more powers I'm working out like this, some still very strong, others vital to a campaign world... (still need to decide how I want to represent "Converting Stamina to Chakra" in Naruto... and "concentrating all your Chakra into your legs" or whatever, since technically using all your Chakra is fatal.) Another thing I'm looking at is something similar to Uncontrolled's use of END, where the total END is paid for up front instead of over a period (this would be good for the Spd enhancement, requiring it to be activated at the beginning of the Turn for the total END cost over the Turn). The main reason I'm thinking this out is I'm going to use it for powers that can be used over long periods. That is, it will have a END cost of less than 1 END per phase, but with the restriction that you cannot recover the pre-paid END using recoveries until after the power ends. I tend to like HERO because it really lets me customize powers like this, it's just so many of the enhancements are so game-breaking on their own that it's hard to give a point cost to it.

Good thoughts I was mainly using +4 Spd as an example because it's a large enough number that the math comes out about right. No rounding and a good reflection on the overall differences between the costs of the various tweakings. The side effect one sounds about the best that I've heard so far, though this entire discussion reminds me about another END based puzzle I've been working on. Anyway, essentially what I'm looking for is a Characteristic power that costs less than 40 (in this example of +4 Spd, anyway) but requires non-prohibitive amounts of END to use. Even if it cost 39 it'd be okay, I'm just trying to figure out how exactly this would be done. I tend to work by example, so I can apply this sort of thing to other powers as well. My main question was more, "how exactly is the END paid for this damn thing", the increased END multiplier was simply because I didn't realize how damn fast the costs would add up. I suppose taking "No END cost" for the last 30 points would reduce it to 1 END per phase, but it still doesn't answer the hairy questions of "When do we spend the END?" The Backlash (Drain) concepts look to be a way around that ugly hairball, fortunately.

Oh! Hmm, I didn't know that! I thought the x8 END would only apply for the points of Speed bought in the Characteristic Attribute. Hmm... what should I do to do it the way I intended? The idea is that the villain is fast, but can move much faster for short periods by burning a lot of END.

Essentially, the ability in question buys several points of Speed as per Characteristic. The Limitations are Costs Endurance (per Phase) (-1/2) and Increased Endurance Cost x2 (-1/2). Assuming 4 Levels of Spd are bought, that's a point cost of 20, and costs up to 8 END to use. The question, my friends, is whether the END cost is paid during the character's original Phases, or both original Phases and the Phases given to him by the ability?

Interesting... I don't suppose we'll get to look at the finished product somewhere? (Of course, it is only long after I post this that I notice the website in your signature and realize that I've been there a dozen times before. I thought your name sounded familiar... @_@ I think it's bedtime for me.) And, considering how inconsistent terribly silly anime is... I pity you, and your little dog too... Good luck. (Added) Before my sanity tries to escape out my ear, in my sheer lack of lucidity tonight, something helpful popped up in my brain. A specific ability (even a high Str boost) that specifically enhances the character's ability to do Knockback. I'll need to drag FLCL out again and check, but it could even be all focused into her guitar. Of course, she still has a high Str stat (judging from the poor robots being trashed), but it could help against getting an insane one, and her guitar seems to be her primary weapon... except maybe the moped... Of course, it all depends on whether you think it was a particular ability that let her hit that thing so high, or just a product of her strength.

Alright, I was wondering what a "Naked Advantage" was. Perhaps I missed something when I read through that part, so I couldn't quite understand it. And now that I've gone through both Charges and END Reserve, I think that END Reserve would work better in the end, although I can easily think of some uses for knowing how to group Charges. I'll probably have to make another topic at some point for some of the trickier things, but I think I can figure most of it out as a general rule now.

Hmm... Yes, I do tend to play different RPG games depending on the type of character I want to play. This was mainly an exercise in learning the finer points of HERO (and sadly enough, the characters in question work BEST in HERO! Let's not get into the crap I pulled out of my *** for the original game...), and to get used to doing various "tinkering." The main problem with the END battery is the lack of control over END costs. Although, I am wondering if you could buy "No END Cost" over only part of a power...? Actually, there's a whole other question, could someone by an Advantage on an Advantage? I know you can buy Limitations on Advantages, but... Also, if anyone had seen an example in a book somewhere on someone using a Shared Charges Limitation, that could be very helpful as a general rule. I can think of a lot of other character concepts it could be useful for, even if this one doesn't need it.

Here we go... Alright, sorry about that. I've been fairly new to Hero, or rather, new to the Hero System. I used Champions a long time ago, and recently decided to pick up the Fifth Ed. Hero System book. For practice, I've been converting some of my characters from other games to it, and as you can imagine I've already hit some snags. A few of the characters have a special set of powers powered by their own ability points. Since none of these powers use normal END, Charges would be very useful in this. However, there is nothing mentioned about powers Sharing Charges in anything other than Multipowers, and none of these powers will work within a Framework (for a variety of reasons). Furthermore, there are ways for these characters to steal or regenerate these points, which normally recover at 1 per hour. This recovery rate itself shouldn't be a big issue, since it'll take at least 12 hours to fully recover a set, up to 20 hours for those with a lot. Furthermore, I get into situations where some of the powers use multiple Charges. I considered dividing the Total Charges by the Used Charges to figure out the "Charge Range" it would be on the chart, but I still lack a way of sharing them, as I am not sure how much of a Limitation that is, or how exactly to handle it. I considered using an END battery, but it will get awkward for some of the powers, especially since there isn't an exact control for the cost of the powers the way there is with Charges (Some of the powers are powerful but exceedingly cheap, just with Limitations to even it out.). Even if someone finds another method of doing this, knowing how to make powers share Charges would be exceedingly useful anyway, so that is really two questions in one. The other ones would be "Does the method I'm using for multiple charges sound acceptable?", and "What kind of power could be used for recovering/stealing these charges?" The only thing I could think of for stealing is using the power that recovers them linked to a power that removes them from another.

Test. It threw an error last time I tried, and I don't want to retype three paragraphs again for no reason.