prestidigitator

Re: Stacking Damage Reduction? That'd probably be a good question for Steve Long. It seems awfully potent, but that IS a lot of points....

Re: No more "Abort to Dodge?" I allow a held Phase to be used any time, including before your Dex on the Segment you would normally get your next Phase (however, you don't get the second Phase that Segment; the held Phase just allows you to move up in Dex order). Any time you use a held Phase to try to interrupt someone else's action it requires a Dex-off (unless it's a defensive action, but that's not really "interrupting").

Re: Adding Damage Pretend the relevant Advantages on the power in question are instead Limitations, and apply them to the Active Points being added. The "Real Cost" will be the cost of the applicable dice added to the attack. Example: Pretend a Blast has Area of Effect: 8m radius (+1/2) on it, and you're adding 3 DCs (equivalent to 15 Active Points). Act like there's a -1/2 Limitation on the 15 Active Points, or 15/(1+1/2)=10. 10 points buys 2d6 of Blast, so that's the increased effect.

Re: No more "Abort to Dodge?"

Re: How would you build a cheap detect supernatural or detect magic?

Re: 5e: Intersection of Penetrating and Foci That's probably about what I'd do too. The above was just my attempt to interpret the standard rules.

Re: 5e: Speed Reading vs. Rapid Sense In my mind it would allow examining more area in the same amount of time. For the same area it may or may not provide a bonus depending on the circumstances. In some cases I'd forgo the Half-Phase required to "Look" or the Full Phase required to take a "Long Look", but probably more for taking in a new situation rather than automatically gaining the bonus for a Per roll (e.g. "You jump through the door. Without taking the time to look around, your rapid senses tell you there are 37 people in the room, 7 of which are wearing the uniforms of security guards....").

Re: 5e: Speed Reading vs. Rapid Sense Sure. Sounds good. Basically just removing the Limitation on only using it for reading.

Re: 5e: Intersection of Penetrating and Foci I think the idea is that a half-die that is part of any attack, whether it is 0.5d6 or 1.5d6 or 6.5d6, will contribute 1 Body on a 4, 5, or 6, but that there's always a minimum of 1 Body for the whole attack for ANY number of dice?

Re: 5e: Speed Reading vs. Rapid Sense Notice how Speed Reading is built using Rapid for Normal Sight. 6E1 p. 447.

Re: 5e: Detect Lie Question Personally I'd call it a large (possibly limited) bonus to a skill like Conversation or Analyze Sincerity. I have never been a big fan of Enhanced Senses making a wholesale replacement for Social Skills in this kind of application. In a game "without absolutes" I've noticed a lot of Hero fans quickly jumping on the bandwagon of simple detection being able to trump social skills....

Re: House Rules Different games might call for different criteria as well. In heroic (dark) fantasy it might be appropriate to find the gap between helm and breastplate and bypass defenses to finish off an enemy. In a four-color superheroic game, probably not. One might argue that Foci would make the difference, but I think the style of the game--and yes, dramatic and common sense--should also.

Re: House Rules I'd say, "...with the means to do so," is ambiguous enough to allow GMs to interpret it many different ways without a house rule. Some may allow it with any Killing Attack, some may require a Killing Attack big enough to do enough damage past defenses to reduce the victim to negative Body, and some may use some other criterion (for example, enough Body damage to do the target's Con in Body damage after only natural defenses, or to inflict a Disabling wound to the head or vitals).

Re: House Rules Some people might find their house rules "necessary" to fix aspects of the system they find broken or unplayable, but by the 6th edition, we can hope not everyone will find the same fixes "necessary". Other house rules are introduced because one feels it makes the game more enjoyable, even we don't consider the change "necessary". So "necessary" is pretty darn subjective, and isn't even a requirement for adopting a house rule.

Re: Character Creation question The number of starting points is a guideline, not a rule. If the GM has chosen the wrong power level for the game he wants, more than likely he will discover that pretty quickly and adjustments can be made.

Re: 5e: Intersection of Penetrating and Foci So, simple answer and as we all generally expected. I still wouldn't make it that easy personally, though.

Re: Personal immunity? Yes, Personal Immunity (6E1 p. 343) is what you are looking for. Hole in the Middle (6E1 p. 335) could also work.

Re: 5e: Intersection of Penetrating and Foci Can't hurt, so I thought I'd ask Steve Long about this one. I'm sure we can easily apply whatever answer he provides back to 5E as well as using it in 6E.

For breaking Breakable Foci (6E1 pp. 378-379), is the important part whether an attack does more Body damage than the applicable defense (PD/ED), or that at least one Body damage get PAST the defense. In other words, will any Penetrating attack easily break every Focus that doesn't explicitly have Impenetrable defenses?

Re: Overall Penalty Skill Levels - Discuss Maneuvers don't have penalties, they are just inherently more or less accurate (or, conversely, are harder or easier to avoid). To hit more often with them you just have to be a better attacker (have a bonus), not reduce a penalty.

Re: 5e: Intersection of Penetrating and Foci Personally I wouldn't normally consider Penetrating or Armor Piercing for purposes of breaking Foci. To me those Advantages are about how an attack bypasses armor to affect whatever it is covering; such an attack wouldn't necessarily deal more destruction to the armor itself (e.g. an armor piercing round might make a nice, neat little hole to get a the soft squishy beneath, but it's probably not going to rip and rend armor like a big projectile or swung weapon would). However, I wouldn't be beyond considering a change if the SFX and circumstances justified it. EDIT: Depending on the game, I might even consider most (Durable) Breakable Foci to automatically have one level of Hardened (and Impenetrable, each, in 6E), so it would take double Armor Piercing or double Penetrating (or one of each in 5E) to affect a Focus.

Re: Modular sci-fi weapons?

Re: END Costs - standard vs Reserve ...and the Rec keeps functioning, unless some Limitation prevents it.

Re: Mortal Wounds Yeah, and cyber-hears or genetically modified cat intestine transplants can introduce all kinds of interesting side effects and eccentricities....

Re: Mortal Wounds