Black Rose

Off-topic, but I literally just realized that being on the Satellite Of Love means you're SOL. I feel very dumb.

Apologies for the rambling, I find that if I take the time to write down a topic question I frequently already know the answer. But this time I'm not sure if I do. There was a stretch in the oughts' and early teens' where I was bouncing back and forth between HERO and GURPS semi-regularly. This has messed with my understanding of both, I'm sure. Regardless... There's a rule in GURPS, primarily for combat, called "Readying". The idea is that you have something held or carried such that you can use it pretty much immediately, with no fiddling. To use HERO terminology, it's strongly related to the "STR Min" and somewhat related to the "Required Hands" of the weapon. Por ejemplo: Something like a knife or a short sword is almost impossible to Unready, while a polearm or great sword held with one hand would require great strength to maintain Ready after an attack. Marching in formation with your rifle against your shoulder means its more available than if it were slung on your back, but Unready for combat -- you need to shift it to either a shoulder or hip position to effectively fire it. For an out of combat example, you could carry a big Maglite flashlight like a mace, and that would make it Ready for combat, but Unready for you to turn it on/off. Likewise, if you held it close to the top, with your thumb resting on the switch, you can turn it on/off very quickly, but now it's Unready to use in combat. And yes, I know that it only takes about a second to shift grips and take something from Unready to Ready, but GURPS runs on 1-second turns, so that means "you don't get to do anything this round but get ready for the next one." On a cursory look through Fantasy Hero and the Equipment Guide, the closest thing I could find was Extra Time for reloading. STR Minimum gives penalties to OCV and DCs, but says nothing about taking longer to hit. Weapon Length mentions Initiative Penalties, and I feel that's the closest I'm going to get. I think the fact that it's harder to fully Disarm someone in GURPS than it is to Unready their weapon (seconds count) might have something to do with this -- Unreadying is a more realistic, less cinematic effect, and HERO prefers a more cinematic, less realistic vibe. Does anyone have thoughts on this?

Okay, starting with the Danger Sense build: Detect Danger Detectable By Normal Human Senses In Combat, Including Range To Danger, Increased Arc Of Perception (360 Degrees) (total cost: 10 points) plus Targeting (10 Active Points); Only If Character Makes Half Roll (-1) (total cost: 5 points). Total cost: 15 points. That's 5 CP for the Detect, +5 CP more for the Increased Arc Of Perception, and +5 CP more for the Limited Targeting. This gets me the base Danger Sense construct. +2 CP gets me "functions as a Sense", and +1 CP per +1 to Danger Sense roll. Moving on to Dangers Detected: +5 CP lets me perceive dangers in and out of combat -- I assume that would simply be another class of things (Detect Danger Detectable By Normal Human Senses Out Of Combat) for +5 CP, or expanding to a large class of things (Detect Danger Detectable By Normal Human Senses In and Out Of Combat), also for +5 CP. +10 CP lets me perceive dangers in and out of combat, even if I lack the Senses to perceive it. Is that simply rewriting it as "Detect Danger In and Out Of Combat", and removing the mention of "normal human senses"? Next is Area Covered: +5 CP for "immediate vicinity" +10 CP for "general area (city-wide)" +15 CP for "any area (planetary area)" Ordinarily I'd assume Range, Telescopic, or MegaRange, but 6e1 112 specifically says "These forms of Danger Sense do not suffer from the Range Modifier, nor do they require Telescopic or MegaScale to work." So that's out. Anyone know or have an idea what the thinking is behind the Area Covered costs?

This is for a spell, and the effects I'm going for are: This spell lets me know I'm being "spied upon" (Detect Observation). The observation can't be obvious, it must be covert in some manner -- anything from scrying, to CCTV cameras, to a location-tracking bug, to a bloke wiv' a newspaper what's got eyeholes innit. I can't automatically target them, I only know that they exist and they're in roughly that direction; I can try to find out more details with a bit of effort (END cost). A variation of this spell lets me do the same thing with a defined area. Pretty much just as above, but takes more effort (increased END cost). Finally, I can make it so another person will know if they have been observed. Nothing "happens" when they are observed beyond them knowing it -- there's no visual effect or anything, they just know "I'm being spied upon!" Anyone have any thoughts? TIA

Partly to let me keep track of my own questions, and to get answers. Okay! I'm trying to figure out how to simulate this effect: I can make one target at a time suffer a momentary spasm or twitch. Most of you know what that looks like -- briefly lose your grip on something and fumble for it, stumble as you're walking along a normal path, and so on. Voluntary muscles only -- no stopping someone's heart. Anything that can be recovered from in about a second or so (a little more if you tripped and fell). The important thing is that I activate it, you "twitch", and we're done; if I want you to keep having problems, I must repeatedly do this to you (so no Constant effect). Now, thanks to writing this out, I'm starting to think Change Environment with Varying Combat Effects, that way I can effectively "inflict" a roll for what I'm trying to do (mostly DEX penalties I'm thinking, but also Running or Leaping penalties as needed). But there might be a better way I'm not seeing. Anyone? TIA

My first Superhero RPG was the FASERIP Marvel Super Heroes. Didn't get to play it much, but I bought a bunch of the material. My next "superhero RPG" was GURPS Supers. I was, among other game systems, a GURPS junkie in the '90s and early '00s. I suppose my third was White Wolf's Aberrant, because another system I was into in the '90s and early '00s was "anything White Wolf is putting out... that isn't Werewolf, Wraith, or Changeling". So... Vampire, Mage, and Exalted, also Aberrant. Then Champions: New Millennium, but that doesn't count because it doesn't exist. I only picked it up because I was getting the Fuzion Bubblegum Crisis book, and then realized I had bought an old HERO 4e rulebook second-hand years ago, couldn't make sense of all the acronyms, and promptly went back to GURPS. I dabbled with Mutants and Masterminds very briefly back in 1e (one game), then again in 3e. I both really like, and am greatly frustrated by, the simplicity of the system. I prefer the crunch of HERO. I would probably have enjoyed V&V back in the day, but I just don't like random character building anymore. Almost every new Superhero game I see today seems too simplified in character building. I could be wrong.

I am working on these two spells, Enlarge and Shrink. The fiddly bit I'm having trouble quantifying is that, when you get bigger (or smaller), it takes a little while (one Phase per size category, including the "semi" ones from APG 1) and you pay END for each full Size category (costs END to cast the spell first, but then only to change). Por ejemplo: I go from normal size to Enormous (8m tall, weighs 6,400kg; +30 STR, +10 CON, +10 PRE, yadda yadda). It takes 4 Phases (Semi-Large, Large, Semi-Enormous, then Enormous) and costs 2 END (for Large), and 5 END (for Enormous). The power tops out at Semi-Gargantuan (140 CP; tall enough to see your head and shoulders above the roof of a 10-story building) I already have Costs END Only To Activate (+1/4) on the build. What would you value the Extra Time and Costs END Per Level Limitations?

This concept seems reasonable to me, but I've not seen it anywhere -- and I don't know why. Here goes... We've got two different power constructs I'm looking at: The character can act as a "conduit" between a power source and a device needing power. The ultimate universal converter -- they can connect to wall current, or a battery, or a turbine, and use it to power something (like a laptop, or a 40w phased plasma rifle -- without needing a physical connection between the two things. They might need to touch one or the other, or possibly both, but that would be fiddly Limitations TBD later; the point would be the base concept here. Related to this, the character can act as the power source itself, not needing to be a conduit. This would most likely be the more expensive option. Anyone have suggestions here? I've thought about Reduced Endurance (0 END) as a Naked Advantage, but it's not exactly right -- the power source is being tapped, so a battery would be drained.

I admit that "Delayed Effect" reads as "use this for spells" in my head. This would be for LOS combat, or at least on a battlefield. The effect is like a zombie or Terminator; inexorably making its way toward you -- you can't just outrun it or get behind a door, you must cleverly maneuver it into shorting itself out. Duration is about 1 minute, then it winks out. Assume SPD 3, so at 6m it's travelling about 18m/Turn, so 90m in a minute. Best used when the target must move around things to get away. I might bump the movement rate to 10m/Phase -- still slower than people running but makes obstacles more frustrating. Think of it as "comic-book electricity". Like Magnetism or cosmic rays, it is an SFX wrapping paper around a ball of BODY and STUN damage. I'd really like to see that. Along with Transform "thin air into thing I want", I feel Summon "thing that does what I want" covers far too many sins.

Despite how disjointed the name sounds, there is a method to my madness. How would you describe an attack (think an orange-sized ball of electricity) that travels at a walking pace (about 6m per phase) in a straight line toward its target, but is unaffected by (and does not affect) any material obstacles... unless they are conductive metal? It could casually pass through a mountain to hit its target, but chicken wire would cause it to pop. I think Indirect for the avoiding of barriers, but how would you do the slow advance?

Huh, hadn't thought of doing it that way. That makes a lot of sense. Thanks, Christopher!

This spell lets you do two things, depending on the distance between the caster and the subject (living or non-living thing): if the subject is more than a kilometer or so away, you can sense the general direction and rough distance to it. You can get all fancy with a compass if you want -- "the target is roughly 15 kilometers away in an East-Northeast direction" -- but you couldn't Target the subject. if the subject is less than a kilometer or so away, you can see it and its immediate surroundings. Still can't Target it, but at least now you can say it's the Duchess who has the Princess kidnapped, not the Duke. Now One sounds like a Detect, maybe without Range modifiers, and Two sounds like Clairsentience (Sight Group). But is there a more elegant build?

I've looked through the forums for an answer but not found it. Here's the question: "How do I make it harder (PER penalties) to "scry" a character and/or an area?" Based on writeups I've seen here, Darkness to Clairsentience is popular. But I don't want to blackout the character/area to Clairsentience (and is that even legal?), I want a penalty to PER rolls to sense a character/area provided the Special Effect of that sensing is "scrying". Granted, most of the time that would be using Clairsentience, but it might also be Mind Scan, or something else I haven't considered. Thoughts?

Like Magomorphosis (HSG 24)? It's probably the best "official" writeup for the concept, but a bit pricy.

I'm trying to figure out how to do this effect in HERO, and would appreciate the help of the Assembly. This is specifically for Illusion spells, but any thoughts about doing it for other types of spells are appreciated. When you have enough experience (high enough skill level) and power (big enough Multipower pool), you can try to "take control of another illusionist's spell", letting you make it do what you want. I've seen writeups in Champions Powers for using Mind Control to simulate "controlling" simple devices (effective INT is Active Points/5; this is covered in more depth in APG 72-73), and I could go that route. But I wondered if there was already something done that was a bit more elegant? Anyone? TIA

Base Assumptions: Teleportation (as described on HSP 334 as the Versatile Teleportation option) is a "spell" that can be learned in the campaign world (don't worry about the points) and requires a skill roll to perform successfully. Barring GM fiat, how would one describe in game terms a defined area (Area of Effect) that both improves the casting roll slightly and makes the Teleport cost a bit less END?

Okay, so the effect I'm trying to simulate here is a character who can be effectively "immune" to metal. It's not selective, so if they are "immune", then NO metal affects them at all -- steel swords pass through them, but so does metal armor, and wooden clubs work fine. They can walk through the hull of a battleship, but if the paint on the side was thick enough, they would have to cut it away. How would y'all do that? I mean, Desolid is the easiest, but then you have to throw Affects Physical World (+2) on everything, and that sucks. It's not that you're really Desolid, just kinda. Thoughts?

I also think this would be an interesting look at things. Some would be annoyingly campy ("Look! The Vermont Vigilante is here to save the day... with... maple syrup guns?!" <shrug>) Some would be regional or media-based cliches ("Oh boy. The Texas Ranger is here. I'm sure he'll... side roundhouse the bad guys." <sigh>) Some, though, would be from-out-of-my-blind-spot fascinating takes on how parts of America is seen. I'd buy it, if only as a PDF.

For a hypothetical VPP (60 pt pool + 60 pt control; Magic/Psychic Powers Only (-0)), how would you value a Limitation like this: only attack powers can go to 60 AP, all other powers (Defense, Movement, Sensory, Miscellaneous) cap at 30 AP TIA for the help.

I'm trying to build a Dancing Shield; a physical object that can be snagged out of the air with difficulty (OIF) but otherwise hovers around the owner and serves as additional defense. It acts like a regular shield, but you don't have to waggle it around. There is a magic item called Soaring Shield (5e Enchanted Items 146). Game Information: Force Field (10 PD/10 ED); 0 END (+½) (30 Active Points); Activation Roll 14- (-½), OAF (-1), Incantations (-¼), Independent (-2) (total cost: 6 points) plus +4 DCV (20 Active Points); Activation Roll 14- (-½), OAF (-1), Incantations (-¼), Independent (-2), Linked (Force Field; -¼) (total cost: 4 points). Total cost: 10 points. Cleaning it up for 6e: Game Information: Resistant Protection (5 PD/5 ED); Activation Roll 14- (-½), OAF (-1), Incantations (-¼) plus +4 DCV; Activation Roll 14- (-½), OAF (-1), Incantations (-¼), Linked (Resistant Protection; -¼). AP/RC: 15/5 + 20/7 = 35/12 No Shield Bash; the idea is it just floats around and blocks attacks but doesn't initiate them. Does this seem to be a good design?

Let me preface this by saying I know that there have been changes from 5e to 6e that make this... problematic. Also that I find using Drain to penalize Characteristics and such to be clunky. I'm trying to write up a "curse"-type power build. Do any of you have a more elegant way of doing "I subtract 3 from that score right there", where "that score" might be Charm, or Stealth, or heck, all PRE rolls or even all Characteristic or skill rolls? I'm starting to lean towards Change Environment, Long-Lasting, possibly with Usable As Attack. I understand how Transform might work, but it seems like you need at least Major Transform to pull it off, and why should I have to build a 60 AP power just to say "you are slightly less stealthy until arbitrary condition occurs"? I'm sure I'm neglecting some details that will become evident once people begin offering their opinions, but this is what I have right now. Any thoughts?

In this case, fluff isn't relevant, but it's a spell that "awakens a[n] [object]’s spirit, granting it awareness and sapience." I know the usual way to do this would be Summon, with a Focus of "this thing here". But this isn't meant to be temporary; it's a permanent change. So, now I'm thinking Transform? Should it be Severe or Major? Anyone have thoughts? Edit: just realized that someone might suggest Followers. While I could see that as part of a character's build, in this case I'm looking for a power build to do it from scratch, and I don't think Followers really does that.

This is my preferred way to do it. I generally like to have a "set" mount of stat augmentation - "with this draught, I gain the strength of five men! (+12 STR)" rather than "with this draught, I might get the strength of five men (Aid STR 2d6), or two. Not sure really. Maybe its a placebo effect?" In my own ideal HERO System, Aid would be used to either boost a variety of things, or grant low-level powers to people. I really like UBO, but it can get tedious, and is one of the many reasons I think magic systems should frequently use VPPs with multiple heavily-limited Control Costs... but that's getting off-topic.

I could see a sliding amount - maybe 3 points of Piercing, possibly as much as 5 in a high-powered campaign. For me, this is one of the few builds in the APG that I think is poorly done. If the power is small, Piercing is too expensive; but if it’s big, Piercing is too weak. All my opinion, and YMMV.

In Champions Powers, under Miscellaneous Powers, there is a “Nega Beam” which is (I believe) intended to simulate Darkseid’s attack. It is hideously expensive, being a Summon for a 1,000+ point construct. But it does home in on its target.