Christopher

The pricing of things, the avalibility of money and thus the non-XP based power of characters has been a thing every RPG has struggeled with for ages. If you want it balanced (usually the goal behind pricing), I would adivse you towards the Resource Points mechanic (APG 1, p. 191). It is co-opting the basic rules of a VPP that is free but expandable with Experience Points.

It is not that they have no downside. They just have that downside already from another source. They are still at half DCV. But I agree that "double dipping" is allowed by RAW. Not like that half DCV get's less penalizing anytime soon. As a counter question: If you had a semi-automatic Firearm, could you Brace+Multiple Attack? Or what about a automatic rifle?

As the other posters said well: "Dustcloud" is a special effect. That could work for a lot of different hero system Powers. So within limits you can build it however you want it to be build. When building a power, always start with the game effect. Do not model the special effect. That is a classical mistake. The special effect has little meaning in the end of the day and should not even force any limitations (it can still guide you there, but no enforced limitations).

The bow was a very hard to train for weapon. Wich is why we developed Crossbows and later Firearms. They were not inherently superior, but thier training requirement was less. The crossbow was perhaps the first industrialsiation of warfare. Regarding the mages: Aren't mages in fantasy supposed to buy thier spells with points? And limit them insanely as a result. If so, that is one heck of a drawback already. Far beyond those few points you would need to fire a bow without concentration penalty. Note that if you want to draw comparisions, the DCV+movement penalty is the same thing as the "Attack of Opportunity" from D&D. It is just a bad idea to make a ranged attack in range of the enemy.

Barrier has an option to Englobe a target. Effectively taking it out of the combat (until it breaks out). You could in theory apply that to a single item. But with a Focus in superheroics, this can get muddy. In all likelyhood the attack powers (the part you want negated) are on the item. So neither can the weapon free itself (no action), nor will the user be able to free his weapon (without the damage he get's from it) against the defenses of that barrier. You might have entirely negated a Focus. And thus a focus user as well. Without locking yourself out of attacking the Focus user. It is one of those cases where a smaler scale makes it less balanceable. Less of an issue if they are a team (a ally might be able to break that barrier with a casual attack). If you can disarm him first so the weapon is under your control, it should work out. But the disarming maneuver (Telekinesis or normal combat maneuver) and activating barrier would have to be two seperate action, I think. The target needs at least some way to his item back.

It was one of the APG's. It lacked a name, but I called it "Naked Buyoff". But I keep not finding it right now. At it's core it works like a single power Naked Advantage. Just rather then the difference between AP with/without Advantage, it takes the real cost with/without Limitation as Base Value. There is no "group" version for this mechanic. But I asume all bows count as one power for this purpose. Edit: FInally found it: APG I 142 "Temporarily removing limitations" (Yield sign)

We have to clarify one thing: Transmit (Sense Adder) is NOT weaponiseable. It is purely information and it is only availible for those who actually listen/read. However it is also a broadcast transmission. Everyone in range can eavesdrop*. It is not images, Telepathy, or Flash. If you want those game effects, buy those game effects. *Encrypted raido is often build via "Mind Link, affect as Radion adn Sight Group". That way a Telepathy build is needed to get in. The classical examples are Radio and Broadcast Television (some television or CCTV is build as Clairsentience[sight] instead). Another one is the human voice. While either might incur a distraction modifier (see Perception Modifiers), neither of them makes using that sense inherently impossible. In both cases the distraction is easily turned off/not that usefull (if you shout for help or the other person shouts so your shouts are not heard - the end result is the same). I would say non-canonical Transmissions should not even be able to incur that distraction modifier, if just for the difficulty with possibly "turning them off".

There is a "Resource Point" mechanic in 6E APG II page 191. As it is based on VPP and that one did not change meaningfully between 5E and 6E, it should be adaptable. However that is a campaign style guideline. And what he wants sounds more like a dynamic Kit (even beyond that mechanic). As you do not pay points for mundane equipment, a point buy mechanic is propably difficulty to do. Mundane items by nature tend to be very swingy with Active Points/Real (part of the reason they are bought with money), so it is hard to find a reasonably priced VPP for this job. In Pathfinder the "Pathfinder Chronicler" has a very similar ability, "Deep Pockets": "Deep Pockets (Ex): A Pathfinder chronicler collects items as well as lore, picking up small amounts of this or that throughout her travels. As a result, she may carry unspecified equipment worth up to 100 gp per class level. This can be any kind of gear that can reasonably fit into a backpack, including potions and scrolls (but not any other sort of magic item). As a full-round action, the chronicler may dig through her pockets to retrieve an item she specifies at that time, deducting its value from the allocated amount of cost. This item cannot weigh more than 10 pounds. When the total remaining cost reaches 0, the chronicler can retrieve no more items until she refills her deep pockets by spending a few hours and an amount of gold to bring her total up to 100 gp per class level.[...]" Maybe you could adapt that? Maybe wealth with a advantage?

This is one of those powers that could be potentially very unbalancing, as it removes a character from the combat without any obvious or likely defence. Hence there is no direct, balanced way to do it. We can look at different levels of approxmiations. The closest example I could find would be Yukio from the Fullbring Arc of Bleach. It's danger is mostly for the ability to remove combatants entirely, without them having any feasible chance to return. Barrier. Simplest build. Just asume that somehow the borders of this subdimension are damageable. Wich is kinda what happened with Yukio's Fullbring near the end. You will need adders to make the walls non-transparent to senses (sight and sound at least). As the enemy could escape on his own, no allied/own presence in the field is nessesary. But it can be helpfull (i.e., the enemy could not risk Haymakers to get out). EDM, Usable As Attack: I never was a fan of using Usable As Attack on any Movement power. A movement power that is also a stop sign power? Not even a discussion for me. Transform: Rather then using something as hard to manage as EDM, UAA how about a Transform? The asumption is that the dimensional location of a Character is a property changeable by Major/Sever Transform. The same way not being a stone statue is. It would be easy to define a Side Effect "caster must be in same dimension" and a healing condition "defeat caster". If I wanted to build a "send into the Cornfield" power, Transform would be the way to go for me. Teleport, UAA + Images: Rather then actually going to another dimension, just teleport the target someplace close. Wich has a illusion aplied to it to look like Cyberspace. There is one hard and fast rule about making hero system Powers: Model the game effect. Do not let the special effect or original idea force anything about the used power, advantages or limitations.

They really screwed that part up back in Dark Wick: http://www.darkwick.com/index.php?comicid=50#comic 7th, it might need rare materials. You can get a lot of guns or one interdimensional/space portal created by the Cosmic Cube, not both.

And it is not 2:40 am, where only a minal crew is in place. You don't have a right to be served quickly. It goes as fast as it goes. Even if you had it, it is not the kind of right you can threathen people with a deadly weapon to get it.

Creation and lending of items in Superheroic games is in general hard to balance, and thus not allowed. In heroic games the rules are a bit mor lenient. The general rule for Superheroic games is: You only get what you pay for. You can ocassionally lend a item, or pick up an enemy weapon. But not regulary. What you want sounds like a regularily used power. Wich implies some use of the Usable on others/by others advantage. The important part when building powers is this: What is the intended game effect? What is the intended game use? The intended game effect appears to be a heal, that goes off one hour after being applied. What is the intended game use? Pre-emptive applying healing to the team?

Is Character (duplicate) death even a relevant factor in that game? I mean outside of "the player wants the duplicate to temporarily die as part of a radiation accident/storyline." If not, then there is no writeup needed. If nobody dies, nobody dies - duplicates included.

One important thing about Duplicators is: They have a lot of powers that have Duplication as Special Effect, but do not actually involve Duplication (the Hero System Power) being used. Especially the rule that a Duplicate/Summon needs time to orient itself might throw a monkey wrench into many ideas. So you have to build other powers more direct. The Alisha example: The weakness is the somewhat hard part to model. Everything else is already part of Duplication rules. Do you need to have the weakness, or can you just run without it?

My general advise is to not mix up special effect and game effect. What you are playing is not a ship with a humanoid avatar. But a humanoid with a direct link to a spaceship. I consider it a faulty approach to try to model "Real World body" for AI's. That usually is more trouble then it is worth. Just build that body like you would build any organic technopath that somehow melded with said ship. Now keep in mind, that your points will also be quite limited. This is the Star Hero Forum, wich usually means heroic campaigns. You will not have a lot of points for stuff like Life Support or Superhuman characteristics. Much less abilities like "being linked up to the ship". If the campaign uses buyable equipment and has robot bodies, maybe you could buy the body. You still would have to model teh ability to switch bodies, however: APG I has two Rulesets for Posession - one based on mental powers, one based on desolidification. Either one might be able to fit the bill If this actually is a superheroic character, you really have to ask yourself if the ship itself will play any role in the average adventure. If not, modelling it serves no purpose. If it does, how much use will the body actually be compared to a armed spaceship? For a few more mundance concepts for AI and Spacesips, look at teh wiki of Fractured Space and thier crew. http://fracturedspace.gamepedia.com/Crew In particular CODA, Clara Reisette, Jonsey, Whim and IX-209. I think you can download the game and get a glimpse of each character from the 3 Quotes you can play.

One aspect of the D&D saving throw (that we might be able to copy easily) is the inversion. Normally in D&D (and most other RPG's) the attacker has to proove he hits. This time it is the defender that has to proove he avoids. And in D&D saving throws and Hit rolls are usually exclusive (except for a few edge cases, like deadly Illusions wich might have two saving throws or hit and saving throw). Otherwise both are D20 rolls, derived from class and Characteristics. How difficulty would it be to turn the OCV test of the attacker into a DCV test of the Defender? This might already be a core part of the engagement that Saving Throws offer. Just moving that roll to the other side, makes it more engaging for that side. The math might not need to change at all, but the engagement could be an order of magnitude higher.

A contuniation of the WH40k Orc idea above: What if there was only limited amount of "psychic inpropabiltiy energy" avalible for all these Gadgeteers? There is sort of a finite resource to go around. And how much your works have, depends on how well known you are (your brand, firm, you as designer). So you had to be famous (to some degree), but also keep the devices rare (to not exhaust our supply to quickly). It might even be nessesary to manage the inpropability consumption carefully. Somewhat like Fashion and Poetry have a limited market. People might have to become superheroes/-villains just to maintain thier devices. That would also allow these Gadgeteers to have different skill levels. Some are able to produce less inpropable devices, and thus can produce more of them or need less personal attention for them to function. The lower end would be franchised workers - because there the designs are pre-given and the brand itself recieves the energy (rather then the specific creator). While the higher end would be stars like Carl Lagerfeld/similar conteporary. With the way how art is often only apreciated long after it was made, maybe some realy old guy made some devices that just lacked the attention to work back then. But now are literally overflowing with inpropabiltiy energy, now that they are the DaVincies of the history?

Something like this might have been in one of the APG too, under Complimentary/Contradicting special effects. An alterantive to conventional teamworked attacks. Basically the same logic as combining a electricity and water based ranged attack.

I am not sure if two distinct Characters can even add to the same Cummulative Effect. I mean was the total effect not based on how much you could roll too? Despite using the same basic sheet and being under the same player control, the Duplicates are distinct characters for all other regards (inlcuding being knocked out, Stunned, SPD and everything else). There are some rules for Complimentary Mental Powers. But they might be a bit to unwieldy and hard to balance here. It is his primary shtick to manipulate this way, after all. Complimentary powers are one time uses. Maybe just buying it really high, with several tiers of "Multiple Users" would be better? 6d6 +1d6, Two users at least +2d6, Four users at least etc. That would make the total archieveable power clearer/better acount for (and limited by Active Points limits).

Wayward Sons Legends: http://waywardsons.keenspot.com/d/20100531.html They basic idea is that the Greek (and other) Gods/mythical creatures are actually aliens that got displaced, superpowered but thier technology destroyed. They had to "reinvent" technology using thier powers. "Type Three Gadgeteers are the ones I was initially talking about. They create devices that shouldn't work, but do. Their powers cause the devices to function, maybe just for themselves, or maybe for anyone. There's a woman in Chicago (the campaign city) who has a small business hand-making physics defying devices for clients. (Why yes, she is intended to be a potential ally for the PCs.) There can be overlap between Type Threes and Type Fives." Warhammer 40k Orcs. Some interpretations say ork weapons lack curcial parts - like Firing Pins and Ammunition! But give them to a Orc and they work. It is explained that they affect the warp through thier concentrated presence, wich in turn alters reality so that "just works". From TV Tropes: "Clap Your Hands If You Believe: The Orks' WAAAGH! energy goes a long way toward making their technology work as well as it does, as well as ensuring that red paint actually does increase speed, and also explains why captured Ork equipment is so temperamental in human hands. In early fluff, this was far more pronounced; cross-sections of Shootas showed a mish-mash of gears and bullets in the general shape of a gun, and Ork pirates flew away in stolen spaceships that never had any fuel loaded into them. More recent fluff has severely downplayed the level of this while preserving the general idea that anything that the Orks think is possible is possible, but the more realistic that belief is, the easier it is to make happen. Thus, the better the Mekboy is at making something work properly without help, the more WAAAGH! energy he can (subconsciously) channel into having it make massive explosions or reinforcing the forcefield it generates. This principle may also explain why so much Ork equipment explodes, or why Commissar Yarrick fully lives up to his dreaded reputation, particularly when fighting the greenskins that so fear him."

Some more ideas I had for the Plant element of my old Character Septa (5E writeup, handle values with care): Plants Healing: 2d6 Healing BODY, Can Regrow Limbs(5), 25 Base; Increase Re use (5 minutes, +1), 50 AP, Minor Side Effect(always, Target aquires Distictive Feature; -1/2), Common Limitation (-1/2), 25 Real Replaces damaged tissues and seals the wounds with a symbiotic plant material, that slowly recedes as the flesh heals normally." Living Dress: +10 COM, 5 AP; Physical Manifestation (-1/4), 1 Charge (-2), Extra Time to Activate (5 Minutes), Concentration to Activate (0 DCV, totally unaware; -3/4) A complete set or piece of clothing that is the third lifestage of a special, magical flower. Can easily be spoiled by things other than damage (someone spilling liquids over it). No matter how baldy damaged, it will always compact to a single seed after use. The seed grows back to the flower in less than one day. The Aura of Liveliness makes her seem a lot more atractive. Walk among Plants: Environment Movement? LS: Aging, Food, Water? Touch of the Element: Detect touch impressions (3 point, passive), Unusual Group, Sense (2), Range (?), 360° (?) She can expand her touch Sense to one of the Elements. She is aware about the structure and volume of that element (how tunnel or buildings are formed) as well as feeling anything touching that material. She can only feel through one Element at a time and her sense is blocked by any barrier of any other element.

Trees have eyes: How about Touch, Ranged, Megascaled. If the fights is in the park, the character knows everyone sittng in a tree, everyone stepping on the grass. And even some form of flight (human torcher flying close to the ground). Pass without Trace: In 5E it was gliding. I personally am partial to "IPE (Touch), for walking". What in the end makes the tracks is your touch on the surface. Note that "only along surfaces" modifier for Flight explicitly does trigger "pressure detectors", so it would leave prints.

Megascale would affect the realworld size of that zone, not the perceived size. Beside that, you would be applying a Stop Sign advantage to a yield sign power. So you are a few steps outside the are covered by the rules. Note that there is a special ineraction of CE and Megascaled, per 6E1 342: "The Encumbrance rules apply to MegaScaled movement. The MegaScaling affects what 1m equals. Thus, if Encumbrance imposes a -4m movement penalty, and a character has MegaFlight 20m where 1m = 10 km, the 10 km “multiplier” applies to the -4m penalty, so he can only move 160 km per Phase."

With APG stuff I always consider a "danger, possibly not well balanced rule. Use at own risk" written all over it. And as I said, with charges: How many editions did it take to work out all the kinks? And are the charge counts truly universal application to begin with? Most limitation values change depending on the Campaign. I did some Martial Arts training once, and the trainer used to say: "There is only one perfect block against any given attack vector. Any given martial arts - armed or not - is just approaching that perfect block with different precision". The "succinct" builds were the previous, inperfect approximations. Breaking them down to thier Atomic* components is a advancements. And if you want the previous "succint" builds, just write them down once. Done. Just do not forget those are derived powers. Like Reach is derived from Stretching. Or Growth/Density Increase/Shrinking is derived from other more common concepts. I wrote something about this that should be in the archives, but I have issues finding it again. *Atomic literally means indivisible. Granted it does not actually apply to physics Atoms anymore.

You are thinking the way I am thinking here... He might not even try it, but it will likely not work. Undead are clasically on the Negative part of the Positive/Negative Energy axis. There is at least one suplement that introduces "good Undead". The "Unliving" or something like that? In any case, they are undead powered by positive energy. So they are normally healed/hurt by healing and damaging spells. Since his soul is stuck in "Heavens Foyer", I would guess he is a positive energy undead while manifested.