Wanderer

Re: Supers vs. Military

In my opinion and experience, it is very much in genre to make high-power supers army-beaters, one or a small team of them easily able to crush conventional armies and effectively immune to their weapons, while remaining quite vulnerable to other supers of comparable powers. While there is not a simple way of accomplishing the former objective, and it needs to be done by carefully tinkering with the AP and Advantages of Attack Powers, or the GM accepting to tinker with world rules to make inanimate objects more fragile to super attacks than superhumans, the latter can be easily and effectively accomplished by giving such supers the following power, without having to buy obscene and unbalancing amounts of defense powers:

Invulnerable to Normal Weapons: Desolidification (affected by all attacks other than mundane real weaponry), Persistent (+1/4), Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2) (70 Active Points); Only To Protect Against Mundane Real Weaponry (-1)

Re: Top 10 Insupportable Premises in Comic Book Universes

I'll do the rest one at a time as they occur to me:

 

6. Rampant exhibitionism. People with beyond-perfect physiques running around in skin-tight/sheer/body-hugging costumes, that in the case of female heroes are barely there. This isn't necessarily an insupportable premise, but that a bunch of people run around in these outfits and generally don't spend significant amounts of time staring at each other, and that non-supers also generally don't gawk for all that much time either, is a bit much. I would go into the whole supers-rarely-get-sexually-assaulted-after-being-KOed, but I do think there's a supportable premise for that, based on my point about the Iron Age above--nobody really wants to go there much, because retaliation would be...severe. But it is still just a tad insupportable to put people in costumes that would qualify them as exhibitionists in the real world, and have the public reaction be muted compared to what it might be in the real world if a taller, bustier Megan Fox walked down the street dressed like a patriotic hooker.

Hmm, personally, I'm not bothered at all by this comic book trope. I find easy enough to justify the vast majority of superhumans having a perfect body physique and extended youth longevity as positive side effect of activated superhuman genes, and the vast majority of superhuman origins can be rationalized as activated X-genes in one way or another. I also think that if one had a perfect physique, the kind of taste for public exposition that brings one to pick heroism as a career, and such godlike personal power as to scare off disrepect, exibitionism becomes natural.

Re: Top 10 Insupportable Premises in Comic Book Universes

In the DC universe i am surprised that the US government has not tried to kill/capture/ or control superman or at the very least developed means to do so (please forgive my ignorance of the DC universe if this has been explored.) It may be nice and fine that supes is patriotic and beats up criminals but there are criminal politicians or even if they are honest they may have a policy that supes does not like. Imagine Superman flying around and destroying abortion clinics, and the authorities can do nothing. I don't see even a benevolent Country willing to be powerless against one single "man"

Contingency plans in the case high-powered superhumans turn against humanity may be a sensible thing, but another comic-book trope, quite extant in the Marvel Universe, that deeply annoys my sense of realism is how the "normals" always seem to be to a rabidly bigot horde always ready and eager to break out into grass-roots witch-hunts and follow the most wingnut politicians espousing severe persecutions and crackdowns on the civil rights of superhumans with little provocation. There is something deeply insane and unplausible in a majority eager to harass and persecute a minority that includes plenty of members able to wipe out entire armies of normals and level their cities with little effort.

Hello Steve, I really need a clarification.

In 6th ed. Detect Physical Objects (as used in Spatial Awareness, vol.1, p. 211) requires Fully Penetrative in order to see through walls. Now, I want to give a character Cosmic Awareness, which is built with the same Detect, only with more benefits, and, according to my character-building purposes and my understanding of the SFX, is never stopped by something so trivial as walls. Yet Cosmic Awareness, as written in Champions Powers p. 63, does not include Fully Penetrative, and still follows the 5thEdR writeup, where Penetrative did not exist and Spatial Awareness was written without it, too (see also the FAQ about Spatial Awareness and walls).

I sense a glaring and confusing contradiction. Perhaps proper addition of Fully Penetrative to the 6th ed. writeup of Cosmic Awareness fell through the cracks ? According to my understanding of the SFX, it is unacceptable that CA is stopped by walls.

Oh, and the reason why I rushed to check that power as soon as I bought Champions Powers PDF: if CA indeed needs Fully Penetrative, what substance or phenomenon would you have written to block the perception, SFX-wise ?

Re: Penetrative for Cosmic Awareness sense

But yeah, that sounds like a reasonably common set for most comic-book concepts of potentially cosmic-awareness blocking materials. Magical wards is the odd duck, but works for this particular awareness that detects magic.

Yep, so far in Hero CA published examples have been written with variants that detect magic too and others that do not. We shall see if Champion Powers changes anything about it or not.

Plus of course, Cosmic Powers might be able to block Cosmic Awareness, though that might be more of a plot device unless there are a bunch of cosmic-powered characters around.

Yup, although in either case, it would boil down to cosmic-powered Barriers, and a case-by-case approach is probably fit for it. In most cases, cosmic power use would likely fit under "extreme energy output", if any.

The real difficulty lies in the fact that in source literature, cosmic awareness is usually not blockable (except where plot necessary or by writer laziness).

Which is radically at odds with 6th ed. rule that Penetrative always has to be stopped by some material, regardless of SFX.

Of course, Champions Powers (and later, Champions Beyond) shall almost surely republish a 6th ed. official version of CA, and we shall see how Steve deals with the matter.

Re: OIAID vs. Multiform for Bricks

Still' date=' Colossus' change is virtually instantaneous and I have never seen it interrupted or prevented (outside of 'Xd6 Suppress vs all mutant powers' devices, which work on everybody), so I would still say Colossus does not have an activation limitation on his powers. [/quote']

 

This is true. OTOH, SFX-wise, it is wholly conceivable to make a Colossus variant where activation of powers require a Full Phase or an Extra Phase of undisturbed concentration.

Re: Penetrative for Cosmic Awareness sense

So following on your ideas, a possible unified list of Cosmic-Awareness blocking materials fitting for HD definition could be:

"strong gravitational or electromagnetic fields, extreme energy output or dimensional anomalies, ultra-dense or unstable matter, anti-psi screens, and magical wards"

The rest of your suggestions seem too broad as SFXs go.

Re: OIAID vs. Multiform for Bricks

In 5e, at least, OIHID required some preventable action on the part of the character. I would say that Colossus simply activates his Armor/Density Increase powers and has no activation limitation on them, as I don't recall him ever being prevented from armoring up.

 

DC's Captain Marvel is OIAID, though, as he has to say 'Shazam' to get his powers.

Actually, this is not true for 6th edition, and IIRC the rule has not really changed (apart from the different name) from 5th ed. It is required that the change must take at least a Full Phase and/or there must be other difficulties or ways to prevent the character from activating powers. Following printed examples indicate that extra time or additional ways to prevent transformation requirements are typically meant to be alternative and not combined, unless specifically meant by the character concept.

Re: Penetrative for Cosmic Awareness sense

I was thinking of walls, force walls, etc.

I was thinking of that too, even if I would expect anti-psi/magic area defenses typically to be set up in terms of Dispels and Suppresses, not area-effect "personal" Defenses. No problem about that, indeed.

However, I'm not sure personal defense wouldn't work either - we're not talking about what can't be detected, but what can't be detected through.

So maybe he can percieve a character with Mental Defense, but not someone else hiding behind that character.

Maybe, but I'm rather skeptical. The purpose of Mental/Power Defense is to protect the individual from being affected by active powers, not to deflect passive sensing. Using them to make the character an "opaque screen" seems to push the power's purview beyond reasonable expectation. Anyway, at the most it seems to me such a rare occurence to be settled by a case-by-case basis and to be explictly mentioned in a power's writeup. At the least, I'd expect the Defense in question to have an UOO in order to become a serious concern, i.e. to "spill" in the area somehow. Wards are a wholly different matter.

Re: Bring in the clones

In 6th edition, I'd rewrite the power as follows:

Cloning: Duplication (creates XXX-point form), Trigger (character is dead or permanently incapacitated) (Activating the Trigger is an Action that takes no time, Trigger resets automatically, immediately after it activates, Character does not control activation of personal Trigger, Misfire (character is imprisoned); +1/2) (XXX Active Points); Extra Time (1 Season, -5 1/2), OAF Bulky (-1 1/2), No Conscious Control (Only Activation cannot be controlled; -1), Cannot Recombine (-0)

I would also write the power so that it can create multiple Duplicates (it seems foolish and counterproductive to build cloning equipment so it can only be used once), at least 10-20, but I would slap a Limitation (-1, perhaps) so it may only create one Duplicate at a time.

Re: Bring in the clones

wouldn't the Focus be OA- Immoble(-2) because it only takes place back ay the lab?

The Duplication indeed only takes place in the lab, but using Bulky and not Immobile assumes that the cloning equipment itself is not that cumbersome (the clone growing vat and little else, which is a little more than man-sized; a Bulky Focus is also described as being statue-sized, so it fits) and can be relocated to a different hideout/safehouse/base if need be. Better to plan for safety, this is the character's main guarantee of immortality, after all.

Note: the writeup I posted is only valid for 5th Ed. Rev. I have not yet got around to check and revise it for 6th Ed.

Re: Bring in the clones

Cloning: Duplication (creates XXX-point form), Trigger (character is dead or permanently incapacitated) (Activating the Trigger is an Action that takes no time, Trigger resets automatically, immediately after it activates, Character does not control activation of personal Trigger, Misfire (character is imprisoned); +1/2) (XXX Active Points); Extra Time (1 Season, -5 1/2), Independent (-2), OAF Bulky (-1 1/2), Cannot Recombine (-0)

Re: Penetrative for Cosmic Awareness sense

Well, I'm not really sure that personal Mental Defense and Power Defense, by themselves, should be able to stop a Detect. That does not really seem like what those Defense powers are built for. But Anti-Psi fields and Mystic wards certainly seem promishing ideas. As for uncollapsed wave forms, well they surely don't seem a too frequently occurence in our macroscopic reality, although one can never say never, in a comicbook universe.

Re: Penetrative for Cosmic Awareness sense

Well, I meant to use a slightly toned down version of the Cosmic Awareness power writeups found on USPD Rev. p. 42, USPD II. p. 30, and GC p.30:

Quantum Sense: Detect Physical Objects and Energy 13- (Mental Group), Discriminatory, Analyze, Increased Arc Of Perception (360 Degrees), Penetrative (stopped by XXX), Sense, Targeting, Telescopic: +12 (58 Active Points);

In comparison with the constructs published above, I dropped Tracking both to spare some points and because it didn't fit the concept. Likewise, I made the Power a Mental Sense both because it fit with the concept and to spare some points.

I was uncertain whether to add a "Detect Magic" too to the power construct like the USPDII/GC version does, would fit with the SFX and power concept, or not but I am tentatively in favor of dropping it, also to spare some points (in the opposite case , I would also add a corresponding Limitation:

Quantum Sense: Detect Physical Objects, Energy and Magic 13- (Mental Group), Discriminatory, Analyze, Increased Arc Of Perception (360 Degrees), Penetrative (stopped by XXX), Sense, Targeting, Telescopic: +12 (63 Active Points); Sense Affected As More Than One Sense (Mystic Sense Group) (-1/4).

In comparison to the above 5th ed. Rev. writeups, I added Penetrative like 6th Ed. now mandates for Spatial Awareness-like Senses, but I am uncertain how to define the mandatory materials that would stop Penetrative: Force Fields ? Dense matter ? Radiation shielding ? Lead and gold ?

Re: Penetrative for Cosmic Awareness sense

Hmm, maybe I misexplained my question. I was not inquiring about a way to bypass the built-in limitation of Penetrative for this power concept, but about the types of barriers that would fit with the power concept.

Re: Penetrative for Cosmic Awareness sense

No feedback on this ? :-(

According to my interpreatation of 6th edition, it now requires fully Penetrative in order to work like the SFX is generally expected to. However, Penetrative is required to state the handful of materials the sense is stopped by. I'm unsure which kind of materials would fit the SFX concept. Force fields probably fit, but what else ? Could we use heavy metals like X-Rays ? Maybe magical wards too ?

The value is up to the GM, since it depends on how often the Complication affects the character to the point where he'd ordinarily be taking BODY damage but doesn't because of the Advantage. I suspect it's a pretty low value, though.

No, the Constant nature of Boost doesn’t allow it to work the way you describe. I’ll leave it up to the GM to decide if he’d want to allow that via an Advantage, and if so what that Advantage is worth.

Well, in my group I typically happen to be trusted expert advisor & deputy GM in charge for rules issues, so you are practically addressing the (vice) GM in question. The bucket stops at me, so when I'm uncertain myself I'm forced to seek advice from an higher authority.

As it concerns positively adjusting power frameworks, I certainly rule that Boost should be allowed to have a stable effect on PFs as a matter of course, since it makes most sense to me from a game balance and common/dramatic sense standpoint, given the inherently Constant and ongoing END expenditure to maintain features of Boost. I'd be almost tempted to allow this without an Advantage, but I heed to your contrary ruling on this. Concering vanilla Aid, I'm kinda less enthusiastic, but still willing to allow it via an Advantage, in order to maintain game balance between different character types that are Framework-heavy and those who are not.

I heed your advice about low value. However, I'm still rather uncertain about which values to assign, and which shorthand but descriptive name to give such an advantage forAid/ Boost (I'm rather uncreative about names) and I'd really treasure advice from the fount of all Hero wisdom whether I'm on the right mark or not.

Tentatively since you prod the GM to give a ruling of his own, I'd set the value of STUN Only Limitation at -1/4 for Dependence and Susceptibility alike. About positively adjusting PFs, I'd name the Advantage "Stable Power Framework Enhancement" and price it at +1/4 for Boost, +1/2 for vanilla Aid. But I'd really like to get a definite advice/ruling whether this makes sense in the light of the overall vision of Hero System.

If one wishes to give the STUN Only Complication to Dependence or Susceptibility (meaning that the harmful substance/condition or the lack of a needed one can make the character accumulate STUN damage and pass out, but cannot ever inflict Body damage or kill him), according to the optional rule on APG, p. 155, how much would this Limitation be worth ?

A clarification: if an Adjustment power is bought to affect many powers at once (e.g. all Physical Characteristics and/or all Powers), does it it cost:

Expanded Effect (+3 1/2) + Variable Effect (+1/2) = +4 total

or

Expanded Effect (+4) + Variable Effect (+1/2) = +4 1/2 total

Hiya, Steve. Having received my much-coveted copies of 6th ed and APG, I'm angle-deep in character conversion. Hence, my first 6th ed. questions. concerning Boost.

If a character has standard effect Boost, Self Only, and can only apply it to oneself once (no stacked multiple applications by paying multiple amounts of END), does the power qualify for the One Use at a Time (-1) Limitation? If not, how much would this Limitation be worth and how could it be named ?

If standard-effect Boost works on the Reserve and all slots of a Multipower at once, through the Ehanced Effect and Variable effect Adavange combo, and the player wants the Boost to maintain its effect on all the slots, no matter how much they are switched around (i.e. the enhancement never fades, as long as Boost is maintained, even if MP slots are switched back and forth), would hte Constant nature of Boost allow to do this, despite the general rule on Adjustment powers and Frameworks ? Otherwise, how much would this Advantage be worth and how could it be named ?

Re: All Books In Warehouse: APG, Both 6th Ed

No much of a delay.. 1 to 2 weeks once it leaves here.

 

T.

As far as I can tell from experience with Leisuregames, HG stuff gets the usual two-week delay from US producer release to Euro retailer shelf. Only a few RPG lines, such as White Wolf stuff, benefit from an accelerated shipment channel that ensures a one-week delay. Of course, as a guy that routinely buys the PDF+hardcopy combo of everything that really catches my fancy, I don't mind one extra week for the hardcopy as long as the PDF gets an ASAP release. So at the moment, after much rejoicing for the APG PDF release, I am only still fretting for the APG update to Hero Designer, so that the full implementation of 6th ed. can begin in earnest.

Re: Building a "Superhuman Scanalyzer"

Other universes often have any SFX you can justify but rarely allow a detector to go beyond on SFX. For example, in the Marvel universe there are Mutant Scanners aplenty, but they don't usually show Peter Parker or Reed Richards as anything unusual. Meanwhile Dr. Strange picks werewolves out of a crowd easily but could never tell you which folks have taken Super Soldier Serum and which haven't.

 

As for Superheroic Hero games? Back in the days of 150 pts of disadvantages lots of my characters had "Detects as a Mutant" or "Mystic Aura". Now that we are much more limited in our complications I suspect that the SFX will just be implied.

Actually in most current comics settings (Marvel, DC, Ultimate Marvel, Wildstorm...), the overwhelming majority of guys with innate powers, be them mutants or mutates, get them because a special set of genes that bestow powers get activated. The only meaningful difference between the X-Men and Carol Danvers or Reed Richards, or Superman for that matter, is the means of activation, spontaneous vs. caused by an external cause. Therefore, it is wholly conceivable and actually rather easy to build a scanner that detects "activated superhuman genes in humanoids", and only guys with magic (Dr. Strange) or technological (Iron Man) powers or who are just glorified mundane martial artists would escape its notice. If your setting, like most, follows the X-gene convention, you can have a similar scanner. Moreover, it is far from unconceivable for super-science to build a scanner that detects "major concentration of magical energies in humanoids" and that would register all the guys with magical powers (Dr. Strange, Ghost Rider, Thor, Absorbing Man, Ares, Morgana, Hellstrom, etc.). Combine the two types of scanners (and SFX) and you have a scanner that can net the overwhelming majority of superhumans in all typical settings.

Re: All Books In Warehouse: APG, Both 6th Ed

Probably none' date=' assuming European Distributors have ordered their copies.[/quote']

 

From my previous experience, Hero books take about two weeks from HG shipment to American distributors to shelf of my Euro online retailer of choice (Leisuregames of London).

Re: The HERO System Advanced Player's Guide

Yes' date=' there'll definitely be a PDF. In fact we'll probably put that up for sale sometime very soon.[/quote']

 

That's great. I'm impatiently drumming desk for APG, since I regard it as 6th ed.'s 3rd book.