casualplayer

Re: Analysis: Extra Limbs - SFX or Power? Well, like most things in HERO I would build it according to what it can do, not what it is. If my extra limb(s) helps me climb it's a Restrainable bonus to my Climbing roll. If it lets me reach the top shelf it's a smidge of Stretching just for that limb. If my extra limbs let me do Sweep Grabs without penalty then it's CSLs for Sweep Grabs (such a sweet example.) Oh yeah, I hate the Fine Manipulation adder for TK. Where I come from we buy a limitation No Fine Work for our TK if it's clumsy TK.

Re: Analysis: Extra Limbs - SFX or Power?

Re: Analysis: Extra Limbs - SFX or Power? Aha! I thought that's how Extra Limbs used to work. Default template in HERO right now is STR 1 hex AE: Selective No Range with some disadvantages that float between the -0 and -1/4 range (Fine work with only specified two limbs, may only Grab with two specified limbs, -5 STR unless Grab is performed with 2+ limbs, Only one strike/phase, etc.) Maybe we need to acknowledge the implied modifiers already incorporated into STR and work from there to emulate extra limbs.

Re: Inherent, does anyone use it? How? Good call, Area Effect: Selective on STR would probably represent additional manipulatory limbs better if they are fully usable limbs and a GM handwave would suffice if the additional limbs are minimally useful. Being a modifier it couldn't be Drained but the core STR could be. You might have something there.

Re: Inherent, does anyone use it? How? Didn't Extra Limbs used to actually have a substantive effect back in the day? Seems I recall it cost 5 pts for each doubling of limbs and gave an OCV bonus for each level. Now Extra Limbs is just a vestigial power left over from editions past. BTW, shouldn't Wings be Inherent? Extra sensory organs? Most SFXs of Regeneration? Teeth and claws?

Re: Whould you buy...CHAMPIONS SOUTH OF THE BORDER and CHAMPIONS OF THE RISING SUN. Both, please. I've already said I would pay money for Oddhat material, so put him to work. I still mine Kingdom of Champions and Champions of the North for material, and have always felt I got good value for them. Feel free to do world books focusing on any nation/region that strikes your fancy and I will buy them.

Re: [interest in an online game?] Avengers: Generation 3 Urbane Hulk would clearly like Mary Shelley. And William Blake. "Center hold if Hulk say center hold!"

Re: Inherent, does anyone use it? How? I was really hoping I would get some input on my suggestion of Inherent as an adder, but I think I derailed us into a discussion of Reductionist HERO.

Re: Thoughts on Extra Time No Tracking sounds like you are Covering the area where your target is standing and if they move they break Cover. Onset sounds like Cover with the time delay span defined within the power. Or maybe it's just me.

Re: Inherent, does anyone use it? How? You won't hear me make this recommendation often because in most cases I despise them, but wouldn't Inherent work better as an Adder? An Adder that can only be applied to Persistent, 0 END powers? 5 pts tops. Sean Waters won't be satisfied til every character starts out as a featureless sphere and we build from there.

Re: Thoughts on Extra Time Groovy. Thanks. Seems I remember Surbrook doing a "Rage Meter" power construct in Ninja HERO that was a sweet build on an escalating power-up. Wish I had my book handy. A smart man would keep his HERO books closer to his computer.

Re: Thoughts on Extra Time Your suggestions for No Tracking and Onset sound like variations on the Cover rules. Does the Cover option still exist in HERO? I'll have to check to be sure. Do you have some other examples of where the current rules came up lacking or are you suggesting the substitution of your ideas? I like the work that you've done but can't visualize the need that they fill.

Re: Thoughts on Extra Time Most of your goals can be emulated with END Battery by putting Limitations on the REC. For example a power that has to be recharged before firing again has an END Battery large enough for one shot and REC bought to however long you want it to take to return to firing capability. 12d6 EB w/ 6 END END Battery/2 REC can probably only be fired 2/turn. If you want the character to have to futz with something to bring the gun back to firing capacity put Concentrate on the REC. Recoverable Charges work well also to emulate what you describe.

Re: AsSFXiate Sometimes a Darkness field is inky black and sometimes it's persistent blinding light. If Dr. Spotlight takes a limitation or a Susceptability to Darkness then they are leaving themselves open to impairment by any old SFX of Darkness that comes down the pike when they were originally thinking just light-supression areas. Conditional/Limited Power and Susceptability/Vulnerability should always be defined in terms of SFX rather than Power-specific terms. The ubiquitous E-M Field could be Change Environment, EB, TK, a funky version of Stretching, Drain, anything.... Defining any of these in Power-specific terms is asking the GM to make on-the-spot judgment calls that can only leave someone feeling cheated. However the "reason from effect" crowd is also a pain. If Chillblame didn't take a Susceptability to heat attacks he doesn't have one! Trying to force-feed weaknesses down someone's throat is the quickest way to make a game unfun. As an example I once had a character with Armor OIF with no activation roll. He picked up a Destroyer minion's firearm, not realizing it had an autodestruct. BOOM! My GM did not let me have my Armor's protection because he did not believe that the Armor could have been effective protecting my hands. I asked him to point out where my character sheet said that the Armor wasn't full coverage, but had to let the matter go or bring the game to an ugly, screeching halt. Later I revenged myself on the GM's flower garden. The best way to address this problem would have been for Powers to not have implied SFX, just effects, and also to insist that Conditional/Limited Power and Susceptability/Vulnerability should always be defined in terms of SFX rather than Power-specific terms.

Re: Using Power draws attention Wasn't there a disadvantage Noisy that does what you are trying to emulate? Huge bonuses to PER rolls to perceive your use of the power.

Re: Need an organization name The Visionary. Exploritorium. Verne/Wells Society. Envision. Transnational Objective Philosophy/Philosophers (We have TOP men looking into the problem) The Control Group. Archimedics. Observation, Archiving and Theory (OATH)

Re: Firewing vs. Gravitar? Gravitar is Magneto/Graviton's powers with Paris Hilton's brain. It's what keeps her from just throwing the White House into the Potomac and declaring herself queen. Similar to pairing Martin Lawrence's brain with the Flash's powers keeps Vector from being a world-beater. Flight UAA makes perfect sense to emulate lessened gravity. It's not broken as much as it completely ruins Hulk's and Hulkish characters' day. It's why one of my old bricks had to push his Density Increase to escape a deathtrap rather than push his STR (the trap had to brownout the enemy base to support his mass.) Massively experienced, tactical-minded Firewing should beat flibberdigibbet Gravitar, but if you go by write-ups and put both of them in a featureless Danger Room Gravitar will almost always win.

Re: CHAMPIONS OF THE NORTH -- What Would You Like To See? While I know that all Canadians don't talk like the Mackensie Brothers, a list of Canadian colloquialisms and slang would help to add flavor to games set there. I second sites to see and punch villains on. Major cultural influences that would inspire heroism and villainy beyond the included characters (so GMs and players can make their own) would be excellent. I've never been able to visualize how Detroit could have been wiped up without affecting Windsor so you may want to touch on that. Forgive me if this was covered already in Millenium City. Basically I would like enough information that I could decide to set my campaign in Edmonton if I wanted.

Re: Need Help with a Name You could call him Geebee Peejee (GBPG) after the first initials of the Vanguard Four. This is a Marvel Super-Heroes RPG conglomerate of powers! More seriously, I like Arkham's suggestion of Gestalt (first name that came to mind from your initial post.) Also Synthuman, Understudy, Carboncopy, Clone, Vortex, Reservoir, Axis, Sycophant, Ersatz or Cosmonaut (after the cosmo-ray.) More info suggests more names. Hope I helped.

Re: Missile Deflection - Can someone explain this?

Re: Spending END

Re: Missile Deflection - Can someone explain this? It's tough for conversations to stay civil when abortion gets brought up. Hype, I suggested Throw for actingkeith because it allows him to do the things he was asking about. Yeah, I know about the drawbacks and pecadilloes of Throw but you can kit-bash it into something very similar to what he was wanting to do and then he can buy his combat levels to work with his MD, Block and Throw for a very close approximation of what he wanted. There are two types of defense in HERO: passive and active. Passive (FF, Armor, PD/ED, etc) work extremely similar in that they affect all applicable attacks, use a scalable structure and are cost-comparative. The active defenses (Block, MD, Dodge, some might say Throw) are a motley crew that don't play well with others. Several of us are suggesting that active defenses would benefit from being adjusted to work more like each other or perhaps even more like passive defenses for consistency of system. There are times I wish Missile Deflection had never been introduced and people had just realized that Wonder Woman's bracelets are more or less a special effect for hefty defenses.

Re: Spending END Know it, ignore it. EMPs are stupid expensive if they have to affect END Reserves as per the current rules.

Re: What is special about this? Now we have all had the goggles that could be set to IR or UV Vision selectively and cursed that we supposedly couldn't put them into a MP. And we have all built something similar to Daredevil's radar sense and wished it could be in an EC because it's a monstrous gob of points. And eventually we wonder why we couldn't just use Summon for Duplication. Special Powers should truthfully be named Don't Worry About These Powers Til You Have Some Playtime Under Your Belt Powers but that's a real unwieldy category name.

Re: Spending END The experiment of eliminating Red END could be interesting. I would expect to see many players gravitate toward Charges though to end-run around the END issue. END Reserves have always been broken, even back when they were an advantage/disadvantage. The only way the current incarnation stays close to balanced is if Drains do hit END Reserves' active point values not their gross END content. Costs END to Activate should probably be a + 2/5 advantage, if we can ever break free from the tyranny of 1/4 increments. If Costs END to Activate still allows access to Pushing, I would argue that it should be a +1/2 advantage.