The Souljourner

Re: Reasoning from effect or vice versa?

Yeah. That's my basic problem' date=' I think. I'm so used to being able to get the [i']feel[/i] of the game through studying the rules, that I'm in the habit of defining the "feel" by how the mechanics behind it operate

This is a common problem, and why many people think Hero is too SuperHero centric.

The rules do not define the game. The rules *support* the game.

That's why I never use rules-speak when I announce the powers I'm using. It makes it a lot easier to think about the game and not the rules.

"Baron Von Awesome lets loose his Awesome Blast! on the unsuspecting ZigZag!"

"Sebastian casts a fireball at the group of oncoming goblins"

"I flick my FN-FAL to full auto and fill the hallway full of lead"

Sure, you could say "I'm using my 2d6 OAF RKA with autofire 5 making 5 shots attempting to hit three hexes of the hallway", but that's not nearly as fun

-Nate

Re: Reasoning from effect or vice versa?

Don't forget also that you can handwave a lot of minor stuff. You don't have to stat out every little tiny detail 100% perfectly.

I think the scope, for example, could easily just be +X OCV for one specific attack, OIF. The fact that it can be used by anyone on any gun of a similar type is something you can just handwave.

You just have to describe exactly what it is your special effects are, and any minor stuff just works as you want. It *is* a perfect reflection of the idea that fits like a glove... you just don't bother to model every tiny detail.

For example, my character has weather control as control environment. We needed to wash some goop off our allies' mouths. My weather control doesn't really specify it can do that, but I can create driving rain, and that should do the trick, right? Of course, so, it works.

That's the thing about Hero, you and the GM have to agree to handwave the small stuff, because you can't ever make anything perfect.

Hell, even in other games, how often is your character *exactly* what you want? I bet it's far less than it is in Hero. I'll use D&D as an example because it's what I know best. You take this class or that class, this feat or that feat, and you come to an appoximation of what your character should be able to do. Unless you have a very straightforward concept, chances are it's a lot less of a perfect fit than you'd think. But in D&D you just tend to create characters that fit the rules, rather than vice versa. You know you can't really create a Wizard in Full Plate at first level, so you don't try. In Hero, you could (in theory).

-Nate

Re: One-Trick Pony Campaigns

There's a rather fat line to walk between the guy who can do everything and the guy who can do nothing.

I built a superman type character on the 350 point scale, and he was insanely boring. Sure, he was almost always useful in a fight, but his options were "I hit it" or "I shoot it". And that was it. Boring.

Luckily, the game allowed him to be replaced, and my current character has much more interesting powers, control environment, entangle, flash, indirect EB.... fun stuff... totally not over powered, he can't do *everything* but he can do *enough* that he's useful and fun in almost any situation. Heck, just the control environment with variable effects is a great toolkit.

-Nate

Re: Reasoning from effect or vice versa?

You're pretty much always figuring out rules for special effects. You know your Fire-blaster is going to have fire powers... whether you think about in-character effects and stat them out with powers, or flip through the powers and think about how they apply to Fire powers... it's all the same...

You're looking at the special effect and seeing what powers could fit with it. Sometimes I page through the book, looking at powers for inspiration... for example, I have a teleportation character I'm working on, and I couldn't think of enough useful things to do with him. So, paging through the book I stumble onto missile deflection.... yeah, he could teleport the missiles to the other side of himself... or even teleport them so they're aimed at someone else. Boom, new power. Is that reasoning from effect? Meh, kinda.

Really, the only thing you shouldn't do is grab a bunch of powers you want to use and then try to figure out a special effect that goes with them.

-Nate

Re: Anyone have solutions for the Stun Lottery that a high dice Killing Attack creates?

I'll just reiterate what some other people have said - 6d6 killing attack is equivalent to an 18d6 EB. If you wouldn't allow the latter, don't allow the former. Make him drop it to 2d6 or maybe 3d6 for the HKA, and his strength will add 2 to that. In my experience, 60 active points is a good midpoint for attacks. If he has a 5d6 (effective) killing attack, that 75 points, which should definitely be the high end. 90 active points is just crazy. Too too much damage... 21 body and 56 stun on average, with a good chance of 105 stun? Not in my game!

That's the real root of the problem here, not the stun lotto (though that doesn't help). My favorite suggestion to fix the stun lotto is 1d3+1 for the multiplier. Some variance, but not enough to make it crazy.

-Nate

Re: Immunity to grabs...

I'd make it an adder on stretching, call it like 10-15 points (it's pretty useful to ignore that part of grabs). Definitely shouldn't be free, because stretching encompasses a lot of different special effects, not just people made of rubber. Long weapons, abnormally long arms, and many other special effects wouldn't get that benefit.

-Nate

Re: Global Teleportation: How?

I would suggest he can still have a pretty good idea where the Statue of Liberty is when he's spent a few days in NY figuring out where to shoot from.

I know where the statue of liberty is... doesn't mean I could hit it from Boston with a missile that'll go perfectly straight in the direction I fire. Hell, I think I'd be lucky to hit New York City, let alone the Statue itself.

Ok, try this... take a tin can and a BB gun into a completely dark room. Put the can on one side of the room, walk around the room twice and stop at the other side of the room, turn, and try to shoot the can. I bet you miss (unless you have really really good spacial sense).

And that's 10' across a room. If you're off by a half a degree, you might still hit. If I'm off half a degree when I shoot at the Statue of Liberty, I'll probably hit Delaware.

Yes, it's annoying that megascale can be somewhat less than useful without other powers. Oh well. You're getting a godawful hugely awesome ability for a tiny outlay of points. Suck it up. Remember before Megascale, when you just had to buy tons and tons of noncombat movement? Yeah, those were the days.

-Nate

Re: Computers as characters

Yeah, I suppose no matter where the AI is, it has to be in a computer, which represents its "body". From there I guess it's a matter of the whole discussion of possession for taking over another computer/robotic body.

I'm assuming he has standard robotic bodies he uses, plus being able to live in the team's base's computer system... It's not quite multiform, not quite duplication. It's like duplication where you can only control one of the bodies at a time, but the bodies themselves can be attacked even if he's not in them. Not quite sure how to model that....

Re: Thermographic N-Ray Vision

What the Doc said. If you know they're baddies, ok... but be careful it's not someone the same general shape who happens to be an innocent bystander.

Re: Thermographic N-Ray Vision

Detect Heat Signatures (a class of things), Sight Group. 5 points, same as IR, but physical objects don't block it. In fact, you might just say IR works that way, too *shrug*

-Nate

I have an idea for a character who is an AI. It's for a supers campaign, so I'm trying to figure out if I should just try to write up the character as a normal super and use powers to represent the AI-ness of the character, or if I should use the actual AI template.

Here's how I see the character working - an AI is just a program, so it has to live in a computer somewhere. It can move from computer to computer, however, and I want it to have bodies it can inhabit to go adventuring with the team.

I heard star hero has some suggestions for what to do with heroes that are characters, but I don't have that book (not much interested in the genre). Anyone care to help out with what they suggest, or have suggestions of your own?

-Nate

Re: Mindless summon

The automaton thing works beautifully, thanks guys.

Re: Mindless summon

TK with physical manifestation is a good idea, but a little too simplistic. I want this thing to have skills (obviously only physical skills) and abilities, a set amount of body, defense, etc.

Maybe summon a creature with 0 int and 0 ego and have a linked mind control? Almost works, except I don't want it to be affected by anyone else's mental powers... maybe desolid only vs. mental and give my linked mind control affects desolid? Hmm...

[edit] A duplicate automaton is a great idea. I forgot about automatons. I guess I could give my base character some kind of resurrection ability to represent re-creating it after it's killed. Hmm.... that could work.

-Nate

So, here's what I want. I want my character to summon a creature which has no mind of its own, but instead is 100% controlled by my character. Thus, you can't use mental powers on it, since it has no mind to affect, it's like trying to use mental powers on a knife.

I don't exactly know how to do this.

Summoned creatures have their own mind and their actions are determined by how loyal they are to you. Otherwise, the summon mechanic is perfect (creature comes into being, can be killed, takes its own actions, can be re-summoned after death, etc).

Thought about making it duplication. This solves the control problem (more or less... it's handwaveable), but the mindless thing is tough. Plus, death is death, you can't create a new duplicate if that one dies.

It's a bit of a conundrum. Here's a few more details on the power - basically the summoned creature is purely a construct of the character's mind. While it has physical form and can be destroyed, it's not really a creature in that it has no mind and performs no actions that are not directed by my character. Once the form is destroyed, the form can be recreated by my character.

Thoughts and suggestions welcome.

-Nate

Re: Rka?

Really, there's very little difference between killing attacks and regular attacks.

It's like in real life... a knife would be a killing attack and a baseball bat a normal attack... but both can kill you.

In game mechanics.... killing attacks work against slightly more uncommon defenses (resistant defense) which cost 50% more than regular defense. That means that most of the time killing attacks will do more damage simply because the target has less of that defense.

Other than that, there's not really anything more inherently deadly about a killing attack. The average damage per point spent is very slightly higher than normal attacks, but it's practically negligible. The real deadliness comes from the luck factor, which others have mentioned. It's easier to get maximum damage on killing attacks than it is on normal attacks, so it's a lot more likely that you'll do a lot more damage with them (also more likely you'll do less), so they're more random.

So... yeah, you could model a laser rifle as an energy blast (which does normal damage), or as an RKA, which does killing damage. Either way it can kill people, and both will do very similar amounts of damage on average for the same number of points.

-Nate

Re: Usable On Others foolishness

Why exactly do I have to pay through the nose using Usable As Attack to give my buddies Powers while paying the END myself? Why isn't the Rules FAQ Limitation Grantor Pays All END Costs (-0) in the book?

I think you answered the first question with your second. You don't. Use the UBO version, with the FAQ'd Limitation. Hell, I didn't even know that FAQ was there and I just handwaved it in a similar ability I made a couple weeks ago. Me paying END or them paying END is essentially equivalent.

As for why that's not in the book. The answer is "because Steve Long is not omniscient". Should it be? Sure. Just didn't think of it or left it out of the revision by accident, or whatever.

So umm... I think you answered your own question. As long as it's fixed at power construction time, whoever pays the END of a UBO doesn't really matter, just depends on special effects.

One last little thing I'll add here - in Hero there are often times when you have to fudge things just a little bit to get the desired effect. The -0 limitation you suggest is one of them (though probably should be in future versions of the book). The book can't cover every single possible iteration of powers... so for small stuff like that, just fudge it.

-Nate

Re: Phenomenal Cosmic Power... itty bitty rules question

You could always' date=' "rebuild," Pushing with some kind of Aid/Succor (or extra points on each power) with [i']Side Effects[/i] or some other Limitation (Concentration, Extra Time, Requires a Skill Roll, etc.) instead of Increased End Cost. It's a lot of work and potentially a lot more points as well, but would allow you to, "Push," and still make things 0 End. Alternately you could come up with similar house rules for pushing 0 End powers instead of making the character buy it explicitly (for each power?).

Succor 3 1/2d6 (standard effect: 10 points), any 0 END power one at a time (+1/4) (22 Active Points); Increased Endurance Cost (x3 END; -1), Instant (-1/2), Self Only (-1/2), Requires An EGO Roll (No Active Point penalty to Skill Roll; -1/2) 6 Real Points

Costs 6 END. For my character, who has 0 END, costs him instead 6 Stun. I originally had it at x5 END so it would cost 10 END just like normal pushing, but losing 10 Stun is pretty harsh. I figure 6 Stun ~= 10 END. Works pretty well and is fairly well balanced, in my opinion. Not bad for 6 points.

Don't know that I'll bother, but it's a neat concept.

-Nate

Re: Phenomenal Cosmic Power... itty bitty rules question

So, I added a succor linked to the 0 END UBO (which actually averages more than you'd be able to push), and I think that nicely fixes the problem of not being able to push a power that's 0 END. This is a kind of auto-push. You get a bunch (in this case, 8d6) of extra points in the power and now it's 0 END as well. Yeehaw, go to town, my friend.

The whole inherent on stats thing is a neat idea, but it does seem a little kludgy. His recovery really should be able to be drained, it just shouldn't affect his endurance. *shrug* I like the 0 END idea. Sure, I spent about 60 points making various things 0 END, but that's ok, it makes the character do what he's supposed to.

I will look into the drowning thing. Maybe life support: does not breathe. I mean, if you have a fusion reaction going on in your stomach, what's a little oxygen deprivation?

-Nate

Re: I Here this game is no good

^^^^^^ What he said

Re: New Idea For a Power

Um... are you serious? Sounds like a Detect to me.

Re: Phenomenal Cosmic Power... itty bitty rules question

(paraphrased) just make his recovery enough to cover all his powers

This occurred to me' date=' but I thought "What if the character has had his Endurance drained? The desired effect is that he has so much energy available, those powers don't even make a dent in the supply. He should [i']never[/i] be in a position where his power is at less than full."

Exactly! No matter how much END I give him, it's really hard to make it truly a bottomless supply. 0 END is exactly that - he can use any and all powers as often as he wants and never ever run out of END.

As for not being able to push.... well, that kinda fits his abilities perfectly. If he has infinite reserves of energy, why isn't he pushing all the time? What does pushing even mean in this case? So, pretend he is pushing, he's just *always* pushing.... but since he never runs out of energy, you can't really tell the difference.

I do see how it could be a problem with the original power, a usable by others 0 END.... but honestly, pushing has such a small effect on most powers (woo, 2d6 to my EB, yippee), that I don't think anyone will really miss it. If it ends up being a problem, I'll link a little succor to go along with it.

As for being able to power other things.... it's not actually electricity. I guess I should say it's not a fusion reactor, just a controlled fusion reaction. The power he puts out is pure comic book "energy", which he can channel into whatever vessel he wants.

The special effect is this - he was a mutant when he was born, with the ability to channel energy. He couldn't actually produce any of his own, but he could stick one hand in a fire and grab a lightbulb in the other and the light bulb would light up. Some government types grabbed him and did some wild and nasty stuff to him in an attempt to make him a super weapon. They started a contained, continually cascading fusion reaction inside his body, using his conductive powers to maintain and control it.

Now that he has so much power inside him, it consumes all his channeling abilities, such that he no longer has the abilities he once had. He can no longer "take in" energy to transform it into something else, since his body is already so saturated with power. On the plus side, he doesn't have to worry about a source of energy any more, since he has effectively unlimited energy at his disposal.

-Nate

Re: Phenomenal Cosmic Power... itty bitty rules question

You can go a few ways with a Naked Advantage.. given GM Permission it wouldn't be to out of line to make it "Vs Powers that cost END" as the target of the Naked Advantage.

 

If not then the approach to use the Adjustment Advantage "Variable Effect" works just fine, I would say +1/4 is decent enough.

That's cool, just wondering if I missed an advantage in there somewhere, sounds like not.

-Nate

Re: Phenomenal Cosmic Power... itty bitty rules question

My first thought would be that Aid and/or Healing END would be a lot easier then Naked Modifier.

He has those too, but the game effect is a little different. I like the way 0 END nicely translates in-game to "infinite power". Use it all day, all night, and you'll never get tired.

-Nate

I have a character I'm building (I always have a character I'm building) whose body is a fusion reactor. As such, he has access to effectively infinite power. All his powers are bought with 0 END, not because they don't use power, but to represent the fact that he has so much power available, their effect is negligible. I applied 0 END to his running, strength, etc, too - this guy can run forever and not get tired. Because he has no abilities that use it, I sold back all his END (when your END reserves are already infinite, infinity + 40 is just silly).

So, here's the effect I'm having a little trouble with - by touching another character, he can provide the power (END) for another character's ability. The game effect I'm looking for is to be able to apply the "Costs no END" advantage to another character's power.

Sounds like naked modifier (0 END +1/2), usable by others (one at a time +1/4).

I'm not exactly clear on how Naked Modifiers work... I assume that by default I have to choose a specific power this would apply to, like "Energy Blast", but I want it to be able to apply to any one power of my choice, so I could power Brickman's Strength or Blasterman's EB. This sounds like the adjustment power advantage - variable effect, which is +1/4 for any power with a given special effect. Is that good enough? Maybe +1/2 since I'm not really limited by special effect, just "powers that use END", which is a little more broad?

Thoughts, suggestions, and comments welcome.

-Nate

Re: Thrown non-killing weapon

One thing to keep in mind is that STR on any Advantaged HKA is prorated for the Advantages applied to it. For example, a simple 2d6 HKA can be doubled to 4d6 by applying 30 STR, but 2d6 HKA with Ranged (+1/2) would require 45 STR to double it.

 

This differs from HA, which isn't prorated for Advantages - you only calculate the increase from your base STR. At least that's the case up to double the base damage of the HA; if you want to go above that (only allowed in a superheroic game) your STR has to have the same Advantages as the HA.

That's a good point, and one I should incorporate into my build.

Let's see...

Hand-To-Hand Attack +4d6, Range Based On STR (+1/4), Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2) (35 Active Points); OAF (-1), Hand-To-Hand Attack (-1/2), Beam (-1/4) (13 real points)

plus

Naked Modifier for 40 active points, Range Based On STR (+1/4) (10 Active Points); OAF (-1) (5 real points)

18 real points en total.

Seems fair to me.

-Nate