Sean Waters

It is a lovely idea but I probably would not build it as a power: after all anyone (I think) can access what is in the puzzle from the completed puzzle and if you take it apart it takes a long time to set up again. It is no different, really, to putting it in a time lock safe: you can leave the safe open or lock it for a minimum time. The only real advantage is that you can easily smuggle contraband and do not have to worry about weight: given the problems and opportunities for plot hooks, I'd probably handwave it - it is not something that sounds likely it is useful in combat. You COULD build it as a 1 Pip major transform (object to image and back).

MisQuote: A villain who has a photographic memory for quotes but constantly uses them inappropriately. She's distantly related to Boromir. How's that? I thought you set the theme when you said that wasn't how you do things on this thread. I was trying to start a politically themed villain group subthread, but obviously misunderstood how things work around here.

MisUnderstanding is a villain who is talented at disarming opponents, often getting the wrong end of the stick entirely. Is that better?

OK, that's probably not what you meant by 'Big Cat'...my bad...

Yes, apparently the movie opens with Diana Prince and Barbara Minerva playing high stakes poker and Diana somehow losing despite having four aces. The rest of the movie is a chase scene with music scored by whoever did Bennie Hill.

The Coalition is a group of politically themed villains: Terror-Tory is the leader, an extreme right wing-nut, he is a mercenary for hire, but he prefers jobs involving oppressing the poor and attacking minorities. He is extremely homophobic and misogynistic. His strange powers include the ability to manifest a nose almost anywhere that he can then look down and he can create a sense of foreboding and fear wherever he goes. Despite all this he remains unaccountably popular, especially with the elderly. Difficult Labour (aka Caesarian) is the team brawler. She is constantly covered in coal dust for some reason and uses a variety of industrial implements to mete out damage to those who stand in the way of the tide of historical inevitability, often quite ineffectually. She has a firm belief in determinism, but she usually derails her own plans at the last moment. She is constantly arguing with Terror-Tory, often to the detriment of both of them. Despite professing broad tolerance she is desperately anti-semitic, which is about the only thing she and Terror-Tory agree on, well, that and their secret liaisons that they are both disgusted and excited by. DUP! is the raging, incoherent monster who, despite being a newcomer to the team often dictates its actions if only by doing something utterly deranged that the rest of the team are obliged to dig him out of. It appears that he holds something over Terror-Tory, but everyone is confused as to what that might be. YouKip is a psychic character who can duplicate himself a large number of times, but only for short periods and put people to sleep by repeating the same trite phrases over and over.

Beautifully put.

I like glass cannons for villains - dangerous but relatively easy to stop. Not so much for players who get narked if they spend half of all combats unconscious.

I would suggest 'Cyberkinesis' on page 70 of the Advanced Players' Guide and 'Possession' on page 74 of the Advanced Players' Guide. Basically I'd suggest the Advanced Players' Guide if you do not have it yet. Sounds very much like what you are after but: 1. it is all going to depend on how your GM plays computers in his game and 2. if you are the only intangible computer hacker that can be difficult to run, especially if the DM wants to set part of the game where there is no useful tech to appropriate...

There have been discussions over the years of the roll low mechanic for combat. Many, and I have been one of them, have espoused the view that we would be far better off starting over and rolling high because that tends to make more sense to more people: high = good. Not only that, but the target number would be a 10, which is a much friendlier number than an 11. Now whilst I have seen the argument made for combat, it does not seem to apply to skill rolls: people seem perfectly happy with them because the high = good is already built in – you just look at the skill roll you need to roll under. The mechanic for combat and skills is in fact exactly the same but they feel very different, at least to me. Now I’m sure this has been kicked around the park before, but why not treat combat rolls like skill rolls? Here is a tweak on that concept: You have a combat skill roll based on your OCV and DCV. The Attack skill is 11+OCV, and you have to roll under that to hit: this is slightly different from how combat works at present in that you can roll high and hit a very low DCV, but in practice this rule change will usually only affect characters without increased combat stats (usually NPCs) and speed overall combat. It also gives a ‘miss’ mechanic if you want it, and is more in line with the way skill rolls often work. If you do not like it, skip that bit. Roll 3d6 and work out how much you succeeded by i.e. your skill less your roll and that is the DCV you can hit. Example: You have and OCV of 5 so your combat skill is 11+5 = 16. You need to roll a 16 or less to potentially hit anything. If you roll a 13 you can hit a DCV of 16-3 = 3 or less One nice thing about this approach is that you can also switch it around easily and use Defensive Combat Skill (DCS) or Defence Skill. This would be 10+DCV (yes, 10, because there is an advantage in Hero to being the attacker). The same mechanic then applies. Roll 3d6 and work out how much you succeeded by i.e. your skill less your roll and that is the OCV that can hit you. Example: You have a DCV of 4 so your combat skill is 11+4 = 15. You need to roll a 15 or less to potentially avoid a hit. If you roll a 10 the difference is 15-10 so an OCV of at least 5 is required to hit you. (You can turn this around using the same numbers: if you had an OCV of 5 then you have a combat skill of 16, and a roll of 12 means you can hit 16-12 = 4 DCV or worse. I use 12 because we are ‘reversing the burden’ – a good DCS roll is the same as a bad OCS roll) You can use defence rather than attack to reduce the burden on the DM or you could use both in a climactic duel: each party rolls their OCS when attacking and the defender has to match the success with their DCS roll to avoid damage. Mechanically this is exactly what we are doing at present but it feels cleaner to me, just presenting it that way, and it feels like more of a unification of skill and combat mechanics. Thoughts?

Thrown objects already have limited range based on STR. Technically there is no limit on how much damage you can do with (say) a thrown housebrick, unless you decide that there is a limit based on either a function of the Body (i.e. if you roll more than Body of the thrown object it is destroyed and only does half damage) or allocate a nominal damage value to the thrown object and limit damage to 2x that. I don't think either is RAW in the current edition though I could be wrong. The problem with this construct mathematically is that you can throw very small and light things a long way even with low STR, which is why I would just allow you to throw what you like but limit the damage you can do. I would determine the damage type based on the thing thrown - glass shards do Killing, half bricks do Normal. If this is a superhero game then I would be very wary as a GM as it feels like an attempt to get around paying for a ranged attack - but bear in mind you still have to look at how balanced and aerodynamic the object is - small objects will probably be balanced and may or may not be aerodynamic - generally not. This seems like a classic use of skill levels to me: I would not even bother with PSLs because I'd struggle to understand why it is as easy for the character to throw an awkwardly shaped object as a nice aerodynamic and balanced one, still, up to you and the GM. Also given that the idea SEEMS to be that the damage is limited to 15 STR it is unlikely to be unbalancing - however, it does not actually SAY that, and I suspect a little misdirection may be happening. Bear in mind that a 1/2kg object can be thrown nearly 28m with a standing throw, or nearly 56 with a running throw. Also you can not do it with the AOE accurate thing either - well, you can but you would be limited to 1d6 damage - you can not 'piggyback' another attack for free - that would need the advantages too.

You can prove anything with comics It does not happen often though, because it would be boring: a whole book of people surrendering to CA is not interesting to draw or read, except as a one-off spoof, maybe. The film would be awful, however you slice it. The problem with a game is that if you have 35 PRE then you are going to use it because you spent points on it, which either means frequent surrenders or rebuilds of goons/large miscellaneous penalties to the PRE attack to overcome your ace card: games do not run like scripts. I am pleased that you enjoy PRE attacks but then so do I: I just don't use them as the rules allow because, if you do, they are silly and disruptive. They, or something like them, have a place in games, but it is all about context. I do not like them as they are because: 1. I do not think that the rules emphasise the context as much as they should 2. I do not see any downside to using them as written - it is like a free extra attack 3. The results of a high roll can be extremely disruptive - much more so than a lucky damage roll 4. Players tend to hate being told their characters have just soiled themselves Thanos may well get minuses for trying to shoo away heroes defending Earth but: 1. Not all the Avengers will have the same level of dedication 2. He also gets a lot of bonuses from having The Infinity Gauntlet, which is widely accepted as an Ultimate Weapon 3. He's Thanos: as a teenager he fell in love with the physical embodiment of death. It is safe to say his PRE would be off the chart. 4. Thanos (in GotG) cows Ronan into silence, at least until Ronan gets an Infinity Stone and believes himself a match for Thanos: Ronan probably has a lot of PRE - Thanos has a lot more. That last bit is the thing though: is it actually a PRE attack or just a sensible way of dealing with someone who holds all the cards? If a bunch of goons are robbing a bank and a team of superheroes turn up, they are not going to surrender, or not likely - they would maybe change their goal from profit to survival and try to fight clear/run away, but, again, that is not PRE, it is sense. If the same thugs had equipment they thought could take down superheroes, or superpowered leadership, they would not be worried, at least not enough to change plans. Now you will rightly point out that PRE rules deal with this with modifiers, and they do, to an extent, but that assumes PRE totals in (at most) the 15-30 range: much more than that and the PRE dice swamp any modifiers. I think that something like a PRE/morale mechanic has a place, but I also think it needs to have better rules. If people treated PRE like other characteristics and some characters maybe had 60PRE (like a character might have 60 STR) then everyone would need to up their PRE game to the point that they would think that the whole human world smelled of diarrhoea. PRE is an attack and a defence, it is AOE selective no roll to hit and no real range mods. It is an insane bargain, and the only reasons it does not tip over more games is because the people running and playing in them have more sense than that and largely ignore the rules as written and play their own version i.e. use PRE attacks infrequently and for the purpose of game drama.

Megascale anything would imply you are non-combat. Good luck with that... Also, doesn't a Dullahan carry its head under its arm? I'm not sure that the head it typically out of contact with the body, just not where you'd expect it to be, and as such it is probably just SFX for increased PRE attacks. If you want the head and body to operate independently then buy Duplication, but it seems to me that it is probably just SFX for other powers: Clairsentience, Life Support and the like, with some sort of physical manifestation or focus and damage feedback.

Roll High makes much more sense for most new players. It seems far more intuitive. So combat would be OCV+Dice roll against a target of DCV + 10. Skills would be Char/5 + Dice roll against a target of Difficulty + 10 (Difficulty is typically 0, but may be higher or lower in some situations: where there is an opposed roll, the Difficulty will be Char/5 of the opponent). Obviously skills add as normal to OCV or Char/5. Same odds as the other way round, way simpler to explain and understand. This deals with halving DCV and such because you halve DCV before you add the 10. Everyone can add 10.

Would you not just purchase the potions without 'range limited by STR' if that is a limitation or full 'ranged' if that is an advantage? That copes with the range issues and makes the cost of it part of the cost of the potions: I don't know whether the character pays points for the potions or whether you use the point cost to set a manufacturing cost in 'game gold' - if so perhaps they need a stabilising component in the potion to deal with the extra stress of being flung further? If they are paying the cost of the potions then they can limit the cost (at least partially) by having the range element limited by focus: if not they should be able to use a sling staff (or whatever) for whatever they would normally pay to buy it and be proficient in it. As for accuracy, potions splash: buy that sucker with a 2m radius AoE. Makes more sense than suddenly becoming more dexterous.

The problem with extrapolating from, for example, Greek myth is that the myth is written with a point in mind. If a God is bested by a mortal then, I maintain, it is generally through trickery, luck, divine aid or the God limiting itself or being limited somehow. The problem is that, like arguing who is stronger: Hulk or Superman? you can always find a counterexample in the source material. Myths rarely make coherent sense, so creating a character sheet for a God will always be a matter of judgement. I note from the examples of points that Steve gives we have a range of just over 1200 points to nearly 2800. At 2800 points you can have virtually every power in the book, and then some at significant power levels: this is the level of power of Zeus or Kali: beings who can probably arrange a cataclysm something like a nuke going off. You could certainly build a nuclear level attack at a fraction of that cost. As for Gods not metagaming, can I introduce you to the Roman Catholic faith? Mysterious ways, my friend.... That kind of leads on to miracles: Gods can traditionally arrange things so that massive effects happen: famines, floods, volcanic eruptions, tidal waves, that kind of thing. All perfectly buildable with Hero, of course, but a bit weird to have as a power - they don't often do the cataclysm thing that often, usually once once or twice. Even in the modern world a 500 point character can be virtually immune to anything any number of normals can throw at them, including most military weapons. You could say that is 'godlike'. Now even if my 500 point power examples were over the top, I could quite easily see a 2000 point character having a 200 point power, and that is 40DCs of damage or, for a trickster god, perhaps, 40 dice of mind control, or a fully invisible 4d6+1 major transform... I maintain that Hero does start to break down at higher levels because defences simply can not keep up with attacks: at low power levels a transform may not be that much of a problem simply because it will require a large number of hits to affect the target, but the higher the power level you are operating at, the broader the spectrum of defences you need as single attacks can become devastating: I worked out once that it would take about 60 character points to defend against 5 character points of attack, assuming the attack could be built however you like. I'm also slightly concerned that we will have the 'Divine Zone' where Gods can create any effect they like with a 40 point EDM... Now the proof of the pudding will be in the eating, or at least in the recipe, so who knows: but I think that the more points you have the more difficult it is to maintain game balance. Gods tend to be described in absolutes or, at least, superlatives, and that does not sit well with me. I am, as I freely admit, a curmudgeon but I would be happy to be proved wrong. My favourite book is Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light (which is being adapted for Netflix, apparently, and which was the film that they were 'supposedly' making in the events portrayed in 'Argo'). That is how to do Gods, in my opinion. Yes indeed.

This is always the problem using characters someone else has written: they may have made sense for the purpose they were intended for, but probably less so when someone is trying to play them out of intended context.

Hero is not great at simulating the real. There are various possible answers, most of which have been rehearsed here. A recording of something, in some ways, does not enhance the power: the character can always tell others what they have 'seen'. In some situations, though, it might be like allowing another character to share your power - for example if the recording captures conversation in a language you do not speak, you can show it to someone who does speak that language. Transmission is not a bad idea: it does allow you to share the information you perceive with others, but does not really simulate a 'recording' that could potentially be copied and distributed by someone other than you. Similar objections could be raised for almost any other solution so I would either handwave it (certainly if it is a modern game then recording devices are ubiquitous and not usually paid for with points) or I would assign a value to it as a new sense modifier, maybe: Sense Modifier: Record: allows you to record what you perceive in the same detail that you perceive it and with the same senses. You can play back the recording at a later time as many times as you want or copy the recording to media freely available in your game world. Once copied the recording can be viewed and copied by others in possession of the recording even if you are not present, if the technology or powers exist to do so. When you create a recording it can be protected in any way freely available in your game world. Cost: 2 points for a single sense or 5 points for a single Sense Group or 8 points for a Full Sense Group. If you choose a Full Sense Group then the recording may contain detail that you can not perceive with your own senses but may be perceived by others with the appropriate sense viewing the recording, for example if you can record with the Full Sense Group of Sight then your recording may contain infra-red or ultraviolet information that someone with the appropriate sense could perceive even if you can not perceive it yourself. Alternatively the GM may require to actually buy the additional senses or sense modifiers with the limitation (only when the viewer has the appropriate sense -1 if you do not have that sense, -0 otherwise).

I'm rather assuming that Mythic Hero is going to be a book of Gods: a Mythic Hero book would have to contain something useful to use in my games, or a game I might create or play in. I remember the old Deities and Demigods book in DnD and how, despite the fact that I bought it, I never really found a use for it: the characters portrayed were too powerful for even the mightiest of heroes and took on an almost arbitrary aspect because there were no rules for creating them - you could make up what you wanted to. So I suppose the first thing a book of this sort would have to answer is 'what is a God?', then 'what is the place of a God in my game?' Almost by definition a God is something that is beyond the bounds of the world we live in. A lot of comic book characters are described as 'godlike' in their power, but are they? Gods in story and legend could do whatever was needed for the story or legend, and were limited in whatever ways were needed. I would not be particularly keen on a villain/NPC book detailing the stats of Gods: at the sort of power levels we are talking about, Hero starts to break down unless you have very strict build guidelines: a 1000 point character can have a 100d6 Blast and still have 500 points to spend on other stuff. Another 1000 point character could not usefully defend against that sort of attack without being very fortunate in the way they built the character. In fact, at that level some powers become almost de rigeur: damage reduction being a case in point. In addition the sheer variety of attacks becomes impossible to usefully defend against: a 50d6 NND will take down almost anything that is not specifically shielded against it. The above examples also shows how unplayable the characters would be: if you are rolling dozens of dice for damage, you will be spending most of your time just adding up. Gods should have weaknesses: not ones that allow them to be beaten in combat, because that almost never happens, but ones that allow them to be outsmarted, misdirected or tricked. If a mortal beats a God, it is almost always because they are smarter, or luckier in some way, than the God they beat or that they had the help and guidance of another God. You do not usually hear tales of mortals besting Gods in direct combat, not unless the God has deliberately limited itself in some way, or been limited. Gods should affect the world in various ways: some as mere superstitious talismans, others as active participants in fate, but always as a plot device rather than an active antagonist. You might defeat Hades by foiling his followers' machinations, but you are unlikely to simply punch his lights out... ...having said which, that actually happened in a game I ran where the characters were 250 point superheroes - but I had not statted up Hades and calculated his stun and KB, it happened because Hades was passing through a portal to the mortal world and the character, Fortress, struck at exactly the right time and, well, it made sense for the game. I had not planned it, but I certainly took advantage of it. That, I suppose is the point: even if we assume that most Gods are basically high powered superheroes, who plays games at that level? The effect they have on the world should be as shadow on a screen. If I had to say what I would want from Mythic Hero it would be rules for building a game that could stand the pressure of Gods as active participants in the affairs of the game world. On a personal note, I am sorry to hear of Steve's health problems: nothing too serious, I hope.

Not, as I understand it, by the rules as written: you just declare that you are making a PRE attack and see what the result is: no roll to hit, automatic AOE, see how you do, no time taken, boom. I'm quite sure that the way most people play PRE attacks is far more reasonable

Power Cosmic is a handwave, to my mind. There is not a 'trump' SFX in Hero that beats everything else. That would not work for me. When I build or approve (as GM) a character I will always look at whether the build makes sense. The fact that Hero can 'build anything' does not mean that you can play anything. I mean, you could build 'clairsentience' as a spy who goes and listens in and reports back to you (which would probably fit in more or less any setting). You COULD, but if you wanted to them I probably would insist on a different build. In answer to the OP, the rules say that darkness at the origin point or the viewing point blocks clairsentience. Of course that depends how you have built the clairsentience and how you have build the darkness, but it is nonsensical, I think, to suggest that you can define your darkness against clairsentience: clairsentience is really just an advantage (indirect) for a sense: if the darkness blocks the sense, the clairsentience is blocked. If not, it isn't. You could build clairsentience for your ranged, targeting, discriminatory sense of smell: that is not going to be blocked by darkness to vision, wherever you put it.

The other problem I have with RAW PRE attacks is they are too easy and low risk. They do not really take any time and they have no penalty for doing badly. This makes them a no-brainer for the savvy player and, for that matter, the savvy GM. That means more rolls than are really necessary to make the game flow. What if, for example, you had to declare the effect you were aiming for in advance? If you roll really well (or they roll badly if you implement the defence roll idea) then you succeed at the declared level, but, even if you could have achieved a higher level, you are capped at what you were aiming for. If you fail to achieve the level that you were aiming for you actually inspire the opponent and they get a bonus equal to 1 overall level (only usable against you) for the remainder of the combat. I think this would: a) limit the sort of ridiculous over-effect that you sometimes get with PRE attacks and b) create an element of risk for the PRE attacker Of course if someone has 120 PRE to start off with then they may not have those worries, which means that the NPC is either there to make sure that PCs break or has been badly written in the first place. It is easy to make something ridiculously powerful when you do not have to worry about points. I'm just saying. There are plenty of other things you could do to even them out: require the attacker to put his or her money where their mouth is , for example: make a PRE attack an action and require the attacker to be at 1/2 DCV - again that would make people think twice before popping off those PRE attacks, which is very much what I would be aiming for.

I usually treat PRE attacks as ridiculous and ignore them. When was the last time you saw a hero type character in a comic just run away screaming? I'm pretty sure none of The Avengers will be depicted just giving up when they encounter Thanos in Infinity War. It does not make good cinema and it does not make good gaming. For that matter, when was the last time you saw goon level characters surrender just because Captain America showed up? Might happen if there is just the one, or Cap does something spectacular like take down their superpowered leader with his first hit, but I'd call that role playing rather that build a specific mechanic for it. PRE attacks tend to be one of those unwritten contract things between the players and the GM: I generally do not allow PCs to make PRE attacks without positive bonuses and even then it has to be something out of the ordinary. Equally I do not hit PCs with PRE attacks very much because they do not like it and (as in the OP) a big result can derail the game - well, assuming the plan was not to have most of the party run away and the remainder get massacred. The problem with PRE attacks - and this applies somewhat to the way Hero deals with mental powers too - is the all-or-nothing nature of the attack. I say that knowing that there are different levels of effect, obviously, but I mean, it is a single roll result. Physical combat rarely has that sort of 'one punch' ending - even if you surprise your opponent and get in a good one, they are probably not out of the fight entirely unless they had no defences to speak of working at the time. To an extent it makes sense for a 'shock and awe' attack to be sudden and decisive, but the problem is the mechanic works the same against everyone. If you have two characters with 20 PRE (which is about as brave as a very brave normal), they will both have the same level of effect from a PRE attack. In my experience people do not react the exact same way to the same stimuli. If I were doing it from scratch, now, I would either make PRE attacks 'standard' and roll 'defence' PRE as dice (i.e. A 20 PRE attack would be 14 points of effect and each 20 PRE target would roll 4d6 for their PRE against that PRE attack, potentially resulting in very different results) or have a table of results that you dice for depending on the level you get, so you could have anything from surrender to rage: PRE attacking someone might cow them, but it might also push them over the edge...

Absolutely and, like a lot of adjustment powers, I usually insist on some sort of SFX based limitation: electronic jamming field, mental interference generator, or whatever. I just can not think of one (save perhaps the God of Surveillance favours you....) that would 'work' generally.

They are subject to sense affecting powers at both the viewing point and the point from which the power is being used (6E2 14), so in the example of a sight based clarsentience, you would not be able to use it if either the viewing point or the viewer were in a darkness to sight area. I think that the second bit is the right way to look at it by the rules, but it does not make much sense to me that you can buy darkness to clairsentience because of the huge array of different mechanisms by which clairsentience could operate - I can't think of a SFX (other than something completely Deus Ex) that could reasonably block both telepathic scrying and surveillance cameras and a crystal ball. You can mechanically build a 'darkness to clairsentience' power, but I can not see how you would explain how it is supposed to work in the game.