Martin2

Re: The Death of Knowledge Skills: This is probably an example of todays internet youth. "I do not need to learn anything as if I need to know something I will just look it up on the internet" This is why education standards are going down in countries which allow students to have mobiles in classes. Knowledge is not just finding examples of the answer to you exam questions on the internet (and if you pay someone enough money you do not have to as they provide you with an original answer). Knowledge is infact how you use that information. I would like to ask the people who think you can replace every knowledge skill with the skill: use internet Exactly what knowledge skills do they would could be replaced with a person with the only skill of using an internet search engine? Then the people with that relevant skill can then say if it can be replaced by the internet.

Re: Base Power, Disadvantage or just sfx If its just a hole underground which the one character with all the LS to survive underground is possibly not cost anything. But considering a hole underground it will have no breathable air. It will possibly uncomfortably warm (underground tends to be). It has no plumbing or air conditioning and will possibly fill with poisonous or explosive gasses and will fill up with water (or other liquids if its under a city or industrial area). So anyone who does breathe will have a problem. Several SFX technology like air tanks will fill the area with carbon dioxide so any air will become toxic so if someone removes that means of breathing they will start to die. Also the air will fill up with body odours etc from bodily functions which cannot escape. Also staying in a box under ground with no exits may give someone claustrophobia if they did not have it in the first place. So I would call this a big disadvantage and totally uncomfortable if not dangerous for you average hero who does not have natural powers that allow them to live underground. So for other players to use it will need to be built as a base with costs for size, concealment and a whole list life supports. If that is going to happen you may as well install electric lighting of some sort .

Re: Adversarial Answers

Re: Adversarial Answers Yes that is nothing about game balance. Obviously the GM in question was a jerk and the player should leave or if the other players got the same unfriendly GM experience they all should arrange for the other players to boycot the game and run something else with a new GM. With with the majority of VPP's you do not have to have every power approved before hand. That is the thing with a instant change no skill roll VPP you can make any power you want within what a player thinks is within their SFX. So a player meets a situation that has not been covered by a power within the SFX can create a power and say "I am doing this". This is why VPP are picked to be as flexible as possible. Very few VPP have "can only have limited use of slots" as this is a MP. (Unless you have a must change at base option VPP) An experienced player (no mention of competent / incompetent) will have all their main powers listed already and have a good idea how to modify their current ones. An inexperienced one who knows nothing of how Hero works and does not know how to build his powers needs a lot of GM support to build powers outside the ones already designed by the GM. And I have had players like this and they would be a nightmare to control as a GM I would have to nurse them through a power build every time and so slow the game. Also as a GM you can design a power that would work the best in that situation (eg teleport killing attack, do I pick double AP to get past the hardened ED I know exists on that villain or NND a defence he has not got etc). So you have to decide do you want to create a power that fits the situation exactly based on a players "I want to do this" or randomise it to work or not work. The problem is that a character with a VPP is the best power for a player who does not have a clue how to use set powers. As long as you the GM want to do that and want to pick every power to fit the situation the player wants. But in that the GM is playing that character and if you are happy to do that good for you, but I am not.

Re: Adversarial Answers I think it is all about game ballance. And that game ballance is ballanced in the favour of the GM . The GM may not like a perticular game rule as it does not fit in with his setting or may not feel comfortable with the rules. Players can always try and convince a certain GM and these boards have changed my view or understanding of certain rules which I would not previously use. VPP for players have to be right for the player as well as the character. I can emagine some players will bend a VPP to breaking point and waste a lot of game time producing powers that are game legal but SFX not legal etc. Some players will know the rules and be able to play a character with a VPP. Also some VPP will break active point limits for some games (60 point no skill instant change VPP are very high active point cost compared to 60 point MP). Villains are different as the GM should know the rules and are fighting for a story line so know when to win and when to lose. And also when they break a VPP (like for plot effect the VPP gains 10 active points not written on the sheet) they have not actually broken the VPP as a GM has the power to do it for the story. Cost wise very few GM's have a build what you like policy. In those games you build to a SFX and not a point limit. So you can have 200 point heroes with 500 pint characters (like comic book equivilent teams). But most gamers are used to a build to a points level as it is more "ballanced" for game play. Killing people is down to the GM. They set the killing level and beyond that they decide what action to take. Some GM's do not want "heroes" to kill. As heroes should not kill and if they kill above a certain level in game terms they become villains and the local law enforcement starts going after them. And if a GM wants to play a certain way and the players do not want to then the game becomes uncomfortable for the GM and he either changes the game or stops playing. Some GM's have a high body count level or are highly flexible to game theme changes. Some are not. That is also about game ballance. The GM's role is to provide an environment to entertain and make it fun for everyone. And in different games there are different rules for different game ballance for game fun for the GM as well as the players. So to maintain a ballance of rules and game enjoyment the GM picks the balance (the players then have to slowly convert the GM with good points ).

Re: The Death of Knowledge Skills: I think having an internet link would have a very basic KS roll and also need extended time required to use it. Accessing the internet and sifting through various web sites takes time. So if you need an instant answer it is useless. It is good for basic information but getting detailed knowledge and how to use that knowledge is a lot harder and needs other skills. Also I would say if someone doesnt want you to have that information it is easy to fill up the internet with false information. You want to know who was voted in which year fine. You want to know what the weakness of a super villain? Well on this site it says electricity, this says it is water and this one says they have not got any etc.

Re: Dead - or just an NPC??

Re: Dead - or just an NPC?? If a necromancer goes into a grave yard and casts a spell it is obviously a summon power. I would also add recquires a focus of a dead body in suitable condition. If the grave yard is small or has very old graves it will have not many suitable bodies. If it is converting a live person to a zombie I think it should be a transform. Here is the information from the 6th Biestry. Zombie’s Bite: Severe Transform 8d6 (human into zombie; heals in manner specified by GM), Trigger (when zombie bites/claws victim; activating Trigger takes no time, Trigger immediately automatically resets; +1), Reduced Endurance (0 END; +½) (300 Active Points); All Or Nothing (-½), Limited Target (humans; -½), Only When Bite or Similar Attack Does BODY (-½). Total cost: 120 points. So in this case the person does not get killed but get tranformed into a zombie before they die. But it would be up to the specific game. Some games may allow zombies to eat dead bodies to create more zombies but that will be like the before mention summon and not transform. But if that is the case it is a GM thing and the GM can do what ever they want to creat the zombie as they can break the rules or have infinite points to do it legally. It also depends on the game style as well. As currently I am watching Walking Dead and its mechanics happens when anyone dies they turn into a zombie as everyone carries a virus that turns all humans into Zombies shortly after death.

Re: Small Town Superhumans?

Re: Storn's Art & Characters thread.

Re: Tiered Equipment or "How to fit Arrows and Antimarter in 60-90 AP" Is this not just a bit too complicated? Why not just have GM control and they ballance the game effect in their specific game. If they have want to have a PC dressed in 1500AD Full plate armour and another in 5000 AD powered armour the GM goes through and gives an active limit and advantage limit for each? If it was a super hero game they could have the same active limits as in comic book fashion they all seem to have the same effect.

Re: Attractiveness - Comeliness Vs. Striking Appearance So in a game when you have aposed rolls or straight rolls against the player a player in some instances can never lose as they are players? So in a game of chess a player can never lose? A simple skill roll to determine if a player wins after scores if not hundreds of goes over several hours of play. It can never go against them as they are players? And a similar charm roll also played out over hours of time boiled down into a charm roll to determine if a player gives up information can never go against the player as it is a social interaction that may go against the player as they may feel bad etc? Seems silly. Do the players always hit what they aim at? Do the players always get missed by the villains? Do they always pick a lock when they try to pick the lock never mind how bad the skill of the picker or how hard the lock is? They charm the pants of the serving wenches and get what they want. They can fast talk the guard into bluffing themselves into restricted areas. All on social interaction rolls based on a game mechanics based on skills and characteristics. But if the reverse needs to happen it can not happen as the players may feel bad and they are players and are immune to it? Seems a little one sided if all the players get all that for free and some characters may have paid for it by investing in the relevant skills.

Re: Resistant Defence/Defence and Defence Powers: Active Point Limit I do not use active point limits for defence of all powers. Just pick a limit you want for PD / ED and stick to that as you may say only one character is a "brick" and they can have really high PD / ED and the rest must have lower. Having other defences does not mean you have to lower that PD / ED limit. I have picked 35 PD / ED limit with an active of around 70 (+ combat skill bonuses). I think 90 point active is a high starting point but I assume you have started at more than 400 character points.

Re: Is Speed underpriced? The GM should assign the speed limit and stick to it. I currently have most players at 5 and speedster on 7 (with speedster powers to do faster stuff) for a 400 point game. I would allow the speedster to go a point higher but the others would need a right speed SFX which they don't. The villains are mapped around those speeds. If they want to be all higher the villains will go up so a 400 point villain will start at their average with weaker ones -1 speed and bosses at +1 / +2 / +3. A speedster will be the same speed as their speedster or a bit more if they are good etc. Having players on a lot of different speeds slows down the game flow in combat. So set your rules and break them for only the right reasons.

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill If it is him he is not a hero but a nasty piece of work (only from watching the film and reading the book).

Re: Healing Vs Undead

Re: Bells and Whistles and Experience Points I don't like to do it but I should learn to be more flexible. We had an instance when having to speak to a French proffesor and speaking French would have been an advantage. One player said "well I am a lawyer I should know how to speak French". She had not mentioned it in her background or spent the points and did not have the skill but should I have allowed her to spend EXP on it? I did not offer them to spend EXP anyway. Possibly in the future. But then how far do you take it? Players make a Skill +7 knowledge super villain check and knows the villain has a weakness to a known attack that none of the players have. And a player has 6 EXP outstanding he could develop a 60 active point blast which could incorporate that weakness. Would you allow it? In theory the player could pick that power in the next down time spend EXP and improve the character break.

Re: Experience and multiform Multiform is like a MP with each form a slot in the MP. Yes there are ups and downs with Multiform. It would depend on the SFX of the Multiform. In some cases a low powered Multiform is a disadvantage for cost efficiency. Multiform is expensive and if it is only used to purchase low total cost forms that are lower than the rest of the group. This is the sort of power that is to simulate a Druid transforming into small animals for lots of animal skills and senses. That can take a lot out of the True form who uses it for usefullness instead of combat efficiency. Some players will want to produce all of their forms at the maximum level. In some cases to do this it will break active cost limits (not possible to get multiiform 400 points in a 60 active limit game). If a player does this and then produces 3 combat variants you will have to insist that the "weaker" trueform is the form it reverts to when stunned instead of a more useful combat one. Also you need to ballance the other forms or insist that not all are at the maximum for game balance. With Hero lots of builds are game breaking if not monitored.

Re: Experience and multiform But if you do not allow the player the EXP you are not following RAW. But as a GM you can do that. But if I was a player in your game I would want to know why. That is the thing with Multiform you have to keep in mind the forms and decide if the player is planning to min max his forms or not. Every character in itself a different player character but only played a fraction of the time. In some cases you may have Multiforms that are built on lower points than other PC's and be at a disadvantage and have skills and powers that are way below the active points of the rest of the players. Is that fair for the player who bought Multiform? Yes as this is how his character was built. If you are woried about Multiform make it compulsory that you can only have one character as the same of the rest of the players and every other one is maximum 3/4 of the points and 3/4 of the active points so this will mean one is the main character and the other ones is a flavour character and not a game breaker for a min / maxer player.

Re: Coooooooobraaaaaaa!!! Flight 20 (Limitation must have a very bad fright and eaten losts of curries recently -1/2)????

Re: Experience and multiform 6th RAW says that only the form with multiform gets the experience (True form). That form then invests the exp into its character and the GM will allow you to invest a set rate into multiform. One of my players has Multiform and I allow to invest 1 point in about 5/6 points into the multiform as that transfers 5 points into the other forms. This will keep the highest multiform at the same level as any other characters. One way of tracking multiforms is to treat them as normal characters and note their starting points and then extra points added after the start point are counted as experience. So if you have a a 200 point true form and a 100 point sneaky form and 400 point combat form. In my game the True form becomes 200 points + 5 exp (with 1 spent on multiform) and 100 points + 5 points exp and 400 points + 5 experience. This stops the 100 points becoming a 125 point multiform by accident of the player or the GM so getting "free Exp" as you can look at the multiform build and say every build should have "5 exp". But just a thought for keeping track.

Re: Attractiveness - Comeliness Vs. Striking Appearance Currently I think with striking appearance if generalised to 3 points for everyone and 2 points for a more limited group say either men / women / etc for a gaming point of view and to make it easier on the GM. We could have smaller groups available for 1 and possibly 0.5 points available (or possibly smaller list). Eg Striking appearance only effects people who like: Women with big tits Women with small tits Tall slim brunnettes Tall slim blondes Tall broad brunnettes Tall broad brunnettes Short brunnettes Short blondes Men with lots of muscles Men with a good fashion style (and no muscles) Irish accents Chinese accents Dark skin tones Asian skin tones Pale skin tones A person who always smiles etc We could also throw in the fact that obviously a person could be the opposite and have a negative effect to the striking appearance as some people may not like tall slim blondes and take an instant dislike to you so get a negative effect rather than positive. If we sub catagarise that to take into account of all the variables in the world that would be possible this gives the GM a hard time to remember or decide if the person likes the sub striking appearance group so will take a modifier on the interaction roll. Maybe we could create a striking appearance table and every hero and villain has to pick 20 from that list they find positive and 10 things that would give them a negative interaction roll. And they could be recorded on their character sheet so you know if they are effected by striking appearance or not. But you would have to do this with everyone they interact with and this would take a lot of time to sort out and in some cases would work out that a person who has paid for striking appearance for being good at interacting for what ever they are good at will never get their advantage. But I think I will just stay with the 3 and 2 point versions and keep it simple.

Re: Do you consider Batman to be a Gadgeteer or something else? But when he was powered down did not Reed give him a Thing suit so he could still be with the FF? So in the life time of the Thing he could have been built as a a normal person who was Focus armed to get his powers. So that could have made him a powered armour or a gadgateer character . And he does know martial arts so could he have been a martial artist, powered armour, gadgateer, brick character??? Next one

Re: Do you consider Batman to be a Gadgeteer or something else? I think you need to define which Batman you are talking about. He has so many differences he will fit into anyone you want and all of them. Batman is Batman. Name a hero which has 50+ years of comic time that has always fitted into an archetype perfectly with no SFX that fits into another archetype?

Re: Super Transportation OK here is my current teamp super transport. Doesn't look very super? This is the stealth option. In this mode it looks like any White SUV you may see on most highways. But imagine you are travelling down the highway in your normal white SUV and up front you have a whole highway of red break lights coming on and you have to step on the break! And this very similar white SUV next to you suddenly changes. Flashing lights suddenly rise out of the roof. The plain white side and bonnet has the logo of UNTIL and the local super hero group on it (~Disguise skill with options for different logo's and number plates). Then a small hatch appears on the roof and out crawls a small dragon who waves at you and also flashes different colours to attract even more attention (shape changing hero with chamelion powers). This small dragon starts to flap its wings and you think this small creature could never lift a several ton SUV. Then in an instance the small dragon becomes a giant blue dragon who then lifts the SUV from the ground and accelerates at high speed over the now slowing trafic, breathing out a cone of fire and roaring as she does it just to catch the attention of everyone else in the traffic jam. While this is happening the window on the SUV is wound down and the other members of the hero group wave as they leave the traffic behind. This is when the kids in the back say "super cool transport, can we have one like that!". I couldn't find a picture of that .