Sean Waters

Re: How would you do this form of Teleportation? Tunnelling. Linked 1" tunnelling to 'destroy' whatever you teleport into. Couldn't use it as an attack, just against inanimate objects. Doesn't do everything you want, but you do want a lot...and it is cheap!

Re: Limited Increased Mass What zornwil said. One caveat: I'm pretty sure that you'll need to pay for the END (and increased END) for the extra mass even if you are not teleporting extra mass: it doesn't just kick in when you take an elephant through.

Re: Haymaker or mere Push? I'm sure you're right, but I can't think of an example... My view would coincide with JMHammer's: no haymakering in entangles. I know you could have a 'charge up' SFX for your haymaker, but not in my game, sunshine. If your hand gets that hot in the confines of an entangle, you take feedback damage, or whatever justification it takes. The DragonBall example is probably adding energy damage anyway? It is a combat manoeuvre and you are not in combat with the entangle - allowing haymakers breaks entangles, both in game and as a mechanic. Don't do it. I also don't allow most martial arts manoeuvres to be used by someone trapped in an entangle, or, in many cases HA damage or damage caused through foci, although I am a little wary about putting too much limitation on SFX. Pushing is fine. Pushing is heroic. Pushing is tiring.

Re: Ranged OK for HKA, not for HA My take is that strength costs very little for what it does: adds to secondary characteristics, lets you lift and throw stuff, causes damage in combat, whatever. Now, I know what FRED says (hey, Steve, can we have a pet name for 5ER too? Huh?) but you're better off thinking of HA as EB less range (-1/2) with the advantage Adds Strength (+1/2). Which means that the cost is wrong, but there is no problem adding range to throw a concussive weapon. EB and HA should both be 5 points per 1d6, just like RKA and HKA are 15 points per 1d6. HKA vs RKA is ranged vs Adds Strength. HA vs EB should be exactly the same, and if you can make it illegal in the rules to add range to strength, you can make it illegal to buy strength just to add (direct) damage - strength is already useful enough as it is (I'd probably still allow you to buy strength to use in grabs and escapes - there is no other mechanism to do it - but NOT to cause damage directly). Do damage with a power that is designed to do damage. That's a fix I'd like to see. I AM NOT ARGUING THAT STRENGTH IS TOO CHEAP, I AM ARGUING THAT AS IT IS SO USEFUL, IT IS PERFECTLY LEGITIMATE TO LIMIT THE WAYS IN WHICH IT IS (AB)USED. I imagine that the reason it is not done this way is because it would then cost as much for +1d6 HA as +1d6 STR, and so everyone would buy the STR as you get more utility from it. Now I'm still naïve enough to think that some people will go for concept over powergaming. I mean, who are we kidding anyway: you want to use strength at range, you pick up a rock and throw it, it does STR damage to what it hits (subject to its DEF+BODY total...). What is the solution? I dunno, I just play the game, but it may involve making EB cheaper IN EFFECT (assuming the cost of STR is set in stone...). Do it this way: EB or HA come under the same power: Normal Attack with a cost of 5 points per 1d6 BUT are considered to INCLUDE a +1/2 advantage already, either ranged or adds strength (i.e. the base cost is 3 1/3, but don't tell anyone - it'll freak them out). WHY? Well, to, for instance make a 6d6 EB armour piercing and 0 END would cost (30 (x+1)) = 60. To do it with 'NA' would cost (20 (x+1.5)) = 50. Over complicated, but I'm trying to fit a round peg into a blue picture frame. Or something. To summarise: it doesn't make sense, but you have to live with it.

Re: 5ER Out Soon! Superhyped.

Re: Shapeshifting

Re: Armour Piercing as an Adder If you want a penetrating bullet to ignore the armoured vest, in effect, don't buy AP, buy a linked armour dispel with the limitation 'only effects armour if the linked RKA rolled enough BODY damage to penetrate through it' - limitation depends on size of RKA and average defences.

Re: Nature control Well, gravity is one of the 'laws of nature', if you can rescind that one, things will get interesting. This is one of those situations where you'll need to sit down with a pen and paper and list what you're going to want the power to be able to achieve, then get ticked off and buy a VPP, then get told by the GM that s/he wants you to write out a list of sample powers. I loathe VPPs. Doesn't mean I don't use 'em, I just don't like them.

Re: Prophetic Insight Nothing to do with game mechanics, but you'll need to know if you are living in a world where everything is fated - if it is you can potentially know the future (by whatever means you decide to employ) but you can't do anything about it - any effort you make will just become a part of whatever you know is going to happen. The future will be no more mutable than the past. It is knowable, but not changeable. On the other hand, if you live in a world where freewill is all (or everything is predetermined, but there are multiple possible futures - always difficult to justify on a conservation of energy argument, but...) then you can change the future, but not know it, beyond the immediate and obvious. It is a bit like Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle in physics: The more precisely the position (of a subatomic particle) is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known, and vice versa. http://www.aip.org/history/heisenberg/ OK, this doesn't help you with your problem, but it makes a darned interesting discussion after the game over a small sherbert. I've always thought the social aspect of gaming is neglected. BTW I thought that Derek's idea was an interesting one, even if it does shade toward the 'fated universe' side of the argument, but I preferred the Lord Laiden approach (my own personal universe is less deterministic). I would ask you this though: what do you want the effects to be? So far you have only described the SFX.

Re: Are Oaths too general for triggers? Had he bought the trigger/variable advantage to cover his STRENGTH damage too? Expensive... I'd allow this as is. Look, you've got him helpless, you could kill him anyway. It is a good way to give characters a way out of that final solution. I wouldn't allow 'real' armour put on afterwards to protect: it wasn't there when the trigger was put actually on his neck, similarly I would not require a seperate roll to hit or hit location penalty if you allowed him to put his hand around the mook's neck. Imagine you'd defined it as strapping an explosive necklace tightly around the guy's neck... Very relevant about the way to 'diffuse' it. If you assume that the curse is at least partly psychosomatic then anything that allowed the mook to believe the curse had been lifted would probably get rid of it (a really convincing argument by the main villain, for instance), as would the appropriate dispel, and maybe a few other SFX based things (like washing your neck in a scared river). Trouble is this is likely to get abused when the player realised that it can be used as a lie detector, or whatever, blowing fingers off and suchlike. Solution to that one, IMO comes down to how trigger works: I'd specify that the player had to make the target aware of the consequences of the curse before it could be put on...if the mook doesn't agree to not double cross them, knowing in the knowledge of the consequences ahead of time then it doesn't work. Given the chance to run away, the average mook would probably take the curse, but at least it hands control back to the GM. If you just didn't want it at all, you say that it can only work on the mook's perception, and the curse can not take effect unless the character has some sense that allows them to read minds or motivations. Otherwise you have the silly situation that the mook can go into a dark room and write out a warning to the villain, put it in an envelope, hand it over then leave before it is opened, and escape the consequences.

Re: Prophetic Insight Hmmm. Always accurate - which means you wouldn't be able to do anything about it? Sounds more like SFX, or maybe a real good justification for maniac depression. Seriously, I'd be inclined to build this as a disadvantage, probably a combination of physical and psychological limitations - after all, what it is is a condition that limits your choices or puts you ina situation where you have to make them. If you reason from effect then what do you want it for? To be in the right place at the right time? More of a plot device than a power, I'd have thought. To know what to do when the time comes? Read on... Whenever I have a player who wants this kind of thing, I'm inclined to just build it with overall levels. You can add no conscious control, or activation rolls for flavour (even if you saw what was going to happen, you could have interpretted the situation incorrectly.) You could even build it with Luck. Either way, you get an advantage when you need it as a result of your prophetic insight, which is probably what you are after?

Re: How would you do this form of Teleportation?

Re: Shapeshifting Or maybe, transform should work like shapeshift: you haven't changed Grond into a Belgian Waffle, it is just that he- and everyone else - perceives him that way. I'm sorry, it was Bonfire Night this weekend, and I may have inhaled too much smoke...

Re: Shapeshifting Hello again. Been away a couple of days, which is nice: you get to see a thread develop. Couple of thoughts (bear in mind I've just re-read Roger Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber. If you haven't yet, DO SO. It is excellent. The main protagonist (Corwin) muses over sophistry: the idea that all you can prove the existence of is yourself - everything else is just a series of chemo-electrical nerve impulses you are interpretting and may not represent an external reality at all, but your own deranged musings...) 1. Lord Laiden. Excellent defence of the changes made to shapeshifting in 5th ed. Part of my concern is created by the rules themselves which clearly say that shapeshift, multiform and duplication are linked but have different effects different. The mechanics of multiform and duplication are handled entirely differently from shapeshifting, which seems counterintuitive, given that there are powers (invisibility and images) which work very like shapeshifting. I can use it as is but I'm concerned that cost seems to have increased without increased utility. The new system allows for enormously increased granularity (see - I am using it!) and definition: you would have had a job doing scent change under the old system, without some reaching. I'm just concerned that the current sysytem seems to be cramming too much into one power, when there are other powers that could have been used, and had it crammed in there...which brings me to... 2. The Zebediah. I like the signature conceal/change idea, but it seems to me that invisibilty already does what you are after here. It wouldn't take much of a change to reduce the cost of invisibility, then give it adders: say +10 for concealment (i.e. actual invisibilty to the chosen senses), +10 for change (making the chosen senses perceive something different). You can, of course, buy both, so that the one power allows you to either look like something else or nothing at all. That would seem (to me) to be pretty much what you are after AND would sweep up the current version of shapeshifting all in one. 3. Generally. If we are rationalising, lets incorporate Images too: you just give it range and area of effect and limitations: Imperfect (allows a PER roll to detect that it is an image) and something like Not Real (the changes wrought are illusory and have no actual effect real world objects other than fooling perception. Hell we can probably get the HERO system down to a four page booklet if we keep this up...

Re: DEX Averages Strongly agree with this aproach - and Speed tends to get artificially inflated too. Usually only MAs and speedsters break the human normal barrier. Even at speed 4 you are acting twice as fast as a normal human.

Re: How is Combat Sense built?

Re: <i>Not</i> Shapeshift Would you consider re-posting this on the Shapechange thread? - I think it contains some interesting ideas and a new perspective, and that thread does seem to be rolling on...thank you for your kind comments BTW. We tend to be very civil, us shapechangers. Well, sometimes it is as if you are the other guy...

Re: Shapeshifting Sorry this is such a long post, but... Freaky, huh, Rapier...I was writing this when you responded and you'll notice it uses THREE levels of effect. Not quite the same as yours, but have you bought Mind Link recently? (And if you have, I can only apologise!) Right, with kudos for Von D-Man for giving me the idea in the first place, here is how I would re-write shapechange, based on the transformation power. In effect it has 1d6 of transform and extra time (to account for the fact that you’d have to hit yourself several times with a cumulative transform to have the desired effect), and you can change into anything as a default. Then you get self only, shake and…it isn’t an exact science, OK? SHAPECHANGE/METAMORPH Standard/Body power Constant Shapechange comes in three levels as follows. It is constant and costs no END to change OR to maintain your form, but it is not persistent unless you buy that advantage. No version of shapechange allows you to change your mass, but might let you change your density. No version let’s you shapeshift clothing or costumes, but might let you appear to be wearing something when you are not. Each version takes a full phase and an extra phase to complete the change. You can make it a half phase change for +1/2 and a zero phase change for +1. You can buy shapechange to change your body, mind or spirit, but the former is far and away the most common, and that is all I’ve addressed here. You’d probably never need more than a cosmetic transform for mind or spirit. No level of shapechange has any effect on combat directly, except through possible surprise modifiers and changes in height and/or density do not have any effect on your characteristics or grant you any powers (INCLUDING REACH) – buy the linked powers for that – and as noted to make it difficult to target vital spots. You gain no linguistic skills other than the ability to make the appropriate sounds. All versions can take the following adders: +10 imitation (You can perfectly imitate a specific being within the confined of the power. You will need to be familiar with them or in their presence, or your imitation is of your recollection of them, which may be inaccurate) +5 extra limbs (whilst you can form extra limbs with certain levels of the power, they are non-functional unless you have this adder. It works just like the power of the same name) 1. Cosmetic metamorphosis. BASE COST 10 points. You can not change your basic shape (you must remain humanoid if human), but you can shift your mass around a little (+/- 10% to height, but you get fatter or thinner – the more you do it, the more noticeable it is) and you can change your colouring (blue hair!) and your features to a certain extent. This will have no effect on combat but will allow you to imitate specific individuals with a disguise skill check or the imitation adder. You can change how your voice sounds with this level of the power, but you can only make sounds appropriate to your species, or within the same vocal range. Whilst you can change your skin texture to a degree, it is still recognisably skin (or whatever you have covering you) if touched. You can not change your smell or taste (kinky!). You can impersonate inanimate objects that are humanoid. You can squeeze through gaps that are half the size you could without the power. 2. Minor metamorphosis. BASE COST 20 points. This allows you to truly change shape to anything you like. You can shift mass around to the extent that you can change your density somewhat, and appear up to +50%/-25% of your normal height without appearing disproportionate – but your mass does not change. Your skin will feel like whatever you are imitating and, whilst you can not control your scent or taste, you can, in effect, remove them if you wish. You can appear to be an inanimate object but, whatever the changes, you can be detected by virtually any appropriate special sense, and a detailed medical examination will reveal that you are not what you seem if you are impersonating an inanimate object or another species. You can sound like pretty much anything but can not make ultra or infra sonic noise unless that is normal for your species. You can squeeze through a 6†diameter tube (but you couldn’t get the football through the tube with you). You can conceal small objects (no bigger than a football) inside your body. All hits targeted at vital organs are at an additional –3. You can stretch up to 400% of your normal height but gain no bonuses for doing so – but it is useful for reaching high ledges. 3. Major metamorphosis. BASE COST 30 points. True metamorphosis. This allows you to basically become whatever you like. You do not gain any powers thereby, but you are basically undetectable except by at least one logical sense or detect defined by you (for example, if you are a mutant perhaps that could still be detected), and, of course, if someone sticks a hot wire in you and you freak out. You can shift mass and alter your density so that you appear +100% taller/-50% shorter without looking disproportionate. You can squeeze through a 2†diameter tube. You can hide something of your own base size inside you although you would always look very big when doing so – you can’t make something smaller by enveloping it. If you envelop as an attack you get no bonuses for being a shapeshifter, but it is a damn good justification for linking appropriate powers. You have no differentiated internal organs and opponents cannot gain extra damage to BODY by targeting head or vitals. Always roll for STUN multiples, or apply a campaign average value. You can smell/taste/sound like/look like/feel like anything you can perceive, and if you have enhanced senses, you can appear to those senses as you wish to (subject to the one you can’t hide). You can stretch up to 1000% of your normal height, but gain no bonuses for doing so. Persistent costs +1/2 as you’d expect, and you may want to limit the range of things you can change into to bring down the cost. The limitation will depend on the level of the power you have brought – you don’t get a cost break for only being able to turn into humanoids if you have cosmetic transform (maybe slightly limited group (living things) –1/4, limited group (animals) –1/2, very limited group (people) –3/4), narrow group (men) –1 (or –1/2 for cosmetic transform) or single form –2. Have fun

Re: Transformation trouble I play in some strange games, what can I tell you? Actually all the games I play in tend to get a little strange...

Shapechange (this could apply to various other powers too) is a power that is made up of various components, but ultimately creates, in effect, a single power for that character. If you are draining it, should you remove the individual components as you get enough drain to do so, or treat it as a single power, and only 'revert' when the whole thing is gone? If the former, in what order? I could apply common sense, but mine seems to be a different flavour to everyone else's... ."..he still looks like a badger, but now he doesn't smell so bad..." (THE MIGHTY SYPHON)

Re: Shapeshifting Plastic man - I see what you mean, but I'd say that we had a sight and touch shapeshift - you can see that he is a different shape, afterall - with a limitation that it is obvious that it is him (-1/2, maybe) - he can't use it to disguise himself or hide in any meaningful way, it is far more a SFX for his other powers. I'm still unclear how a touch only shapeshift would work: and that is my problem with the power as written. I'm an experienced player, reasonably imaginative and flexible. Liked the new shapeshift in principle when I bought FRED. Then I played it, and it just seemed...difficult...unnecessarily so. I mean it can do so much more than just changing your shape: you can change your pheremonal signature to throw bloodhounds off the scent, but that didn't feel like it should necessarily be in a shapeshift power. I'd like a power that did what it said on the box, and whilst I'm all for appropriate rationalisation, maybe another power that dealt with fooling senses. Despite my earlier rant about images being more useful, they can't so the pheremone thing - it would be prohibitively expensive to make it persistent and uncontrolled, whereas, presumably, once a scent trail has been laid down it stays that way permanently (or does it shange back to your normal scent too, when you do...) I AM SO CONFUSED. And that is my objection to this. Whilst you can make it work, it is not intuitive. If HERO hets slated it is becsue it is difficult to use. This power really does not help.

Re: Bulletproof I suppose we are getting to playing philosophy here, if that doesn't make it sound too grand. I wouldn't like to see 50% more BODY (the suggestion I made adds a couple of points to the average, but makes the word average far more meaningful i.e. the result is far more likely to be near the average), but I would like to see many more characters built with low or even no rPD so that when someone comes along with a KA they are perceived as a threat to life and limb. I'm not advocating a campaign where characters are dying all the time (most supers have 15+ BODY anyway, so it would have to be a pretty powerful hit to be a one shot kill...) but I would like to see characters with killing attacks - who use them for that purpose - the subject of fear and loathing, and dealt with as such. I'm just saying that if killing attacks are common, resistant defences will be. If everyone decides to go for transformation attacks, PowDEF will become common. Thank goodness (in my opinion) they are not. I would like killing attacks to be just that. Most heroes should be pretty safe from normals with guns: the average superhero who relies on DCV will be so far above the OCV of an average mook it is hardly worth rolling. If caught unawares, well, that may be more of a role playing situation, anyway. One of the best combats I've ever been in involved the heroes hovering for most of the combat in single STUN figures, following an ambush and some lucky villain rolls, several bleeding to death (nothing like that to make the pace a REALLY important feature: I have nine phases to win this and get medical treatment...). None of them died, but BOY did we feel like we'd earned THAT victory. I mean we KNOW that if the villains KO us they are not going to wait around to deliver a coup de grace, otherwise our GMs wouldn't last long. If we are bleeding already, however they are probably not going to hang round to patch us up either. I read in a post recently (sorry can't recall who said it, but well done anyway) something like being a hero involved taking risks and you'd only be a real hero if you took real risks. They put it better, but you know what I mean. Funny that this thread started with me trying to find ways to make characters bulletproof. Hmmm....I suppose that is game philosophy too. I don't mind so much getting stomped by a villain as I do getting stomped by a mook with a bad attitude and fortunate dice. Not that I don't mind, you understand - I just don't mind so much!

Re: How is Combat Sense built? I noticed your question to Steve Long. I'm stating the obvious, but do not use the simulated senses rule unless you already have a sense other than sight that is targetting, otherwise your combat sense (your ability to fight without penalty in the dark) won't work when it is dark...but if you do you can save the 10 points for targetting.

Re: Shapeshifting ...but worryingly, VPP Multiform only isn't illegal. Hell, if you are worried about a single power VPP, make it Multi form and transform, it would cost the same and then you could change yourself or anything else you wanted into anything you wanted...used to be under 4th when multiform was a special power, but no more...just checked the erratta and it is still a standard power. On your second point, whilst I can see the internal game logic point of making it sense based, I completely agree with you. It makes sense from a sense point of view but not from a common sense point of view (if you see what I mean), and I'll take playability and ease of use over shoehorned internal consistency any day. Can I take this opportunity to thank Lord Laiden though, for some excellent input which I think does help clarify the issues on shape shifting. I still think it is too expensive based on the utility/other power comparison test, but your insight makes the power as written far easier to understand and so to play.

Re: Bulletproof I think that we are in a rut in designing (superheroic) characters, and that rut exists largely because of the existence of KAs in Champions as written. You have to have resistant defences, because a significant proportion of your opponents will use killing attacks. This doesn't reflect 'comic reality' where a significant proprotion of even quite powerful heroes do not have resistant defences (but, of course, never get hit by bullets...). Characters with killing/deadly attacks in comics are usually feared, referred to as psychos and hit really hard really early. The power name may be causing my hangup with it, but, just to be clear, it is KILLING ATTACK (as in an attack likely to cause death), not KILLER ATTACK (as in an awsome attack that is really effective). I think it should cause more BODY and less STUN, even if that does make it useless against heavily defended supers. The thing about Wolverine (and I've referenced him myself to try and 'prove' a point so mea culpa too) is that he is written for an audience of adolescents who wouldn't be allowed to buy the comics if there were severed limbs and buckets of gore everywhere. In several of the 'for mature (read 'older') readers' titles, there are no such qualms. Anyone calling themselves a HERO should be extremely unlikely to use a killing attack against a living target in any event, but it will depend on campaign tone. I just feel that the generic EB power, which, let's face it, is designed to deliver STUN damage, should be the best there is at what it does.