stan da ork

Re: Normal with powered "Friend" To jump in, I was the one who asked about a character who could summon his imaginary friend, but that friend could take different forms. The best solution that came out of the thread, in my opinion of course, was to just use Summon with the Expanded Class Advantage. Several of us agreed that the +1/4 level was probably sufficient to model this, and it allows the Summon to have different powers in different situations. I think that Summon works very well for what you want, since you have to either convince or force Summons to do what you want, or they get to do what they want instead. Whether you should use the above idea or Thia's Summon with a VPP is dependent on how easy you want the Summon to be able to change its powers. With Thia's idea, it can change its powers easily, whereas with the above idea its powers are set until it is dismissed and Summoned again. Use whichever one fits your idea of the power better.

Re: 6th Edition thoughts Totally off topic, but I just wanted to say, I played Magic for many years, and I still play occassionally these days. I think it's a terrific game and a ton of fun. I wasn't faulting WotC their flagship game. I was just poking fun at the explosion of "collectible" games in general (CCG, collectible dice games, collectible minatures games, etc.).

Re: 6th Edition thoughts Weird, but when WotC first annouced D&D 3rd, I joked that it would be a collectible RPG, and you would buy packs of pages. All the most important pages for playing the game would, of course, be rares. You would end up with four hundred copies of page 12, but would have to pay fifty bucks to a collector for the all-important page 13.

Re: "Hey! Look at me!" 5ER. It's an "extension" of sorts of the Visible Limitation, and is described under that Limitation.

Re: Leaping Limitations! Just a thought, but why can't an unlimited Leaper leap down a long hallway? I can certainly see such a character making a simple Acrobatics roll to flip his feet against the wall, then pushing off in the correct direction to "leap" down the long corridor. Very cinematic, and totally in genre for many genres.

Re: Affects Solid World I think what Phil and Gary are really getting at is this - STR comes with all sorts of "extras" that don't really cost points, including (but not limited to) wielding pretty much anything you can pick up as a weapon, pushing buttons on orbital death rays, triggering nasty traps, etc. The RAW even specifically state that such uses are fine, even in a game where everything costs points (as long as they don't become an everyday occurance). However, for a character that buys Desolid, then buys ASW on his STR (a rather pricy advantage, to say the least), all these freebies just disappear. That seems wrong. Now, the other side has a point as well, since a character who buys all his attacks through Foci can just buy ASW on a little bit of his STR and pull the "set the Focus down, go Desolid, and pick it up again" trick. Which also seems wrong. It sounds to me like a good solution has already by suggested by a couple of different people - if a character possesses attacks they want to use while Desolid, or if they want to pull these sorts of Desolid tricks on a regular basis (like every fight), then the character needs to buy ASW as appropriate, perhaps through a Framework of some sort. However, if it's a once in a while action of opportunity that comes up a few times, then just let the character do it. Just like any Joe on the street can push the button on the orbital death ray, even though he didn't pay points for it, if he happens to be in such a situation; but if said Joe wants to be able to use the orbital death ray whenever he wants, he has to pay for it.

Re: Fixing Find Weakness Actually, and I'm just playing devil's advocate here, the one time I GM'd a character with Find Weakness, he was the least effective character in almost every combat. The character was a James Bond type super agent, and had Find Weakness usable with his pistol (2d6 RKA) and his martial arts (Martial Strike and some defensing manuvers). Obviously, the character was built such that he was expected to use FW at least once against most opponents, since his attacks were about half as many AP as the other characters. What happened in play was always one of two things - either the player failed his FW roll early on, so it wasn't very effective; or he would keep making additional rolls to try and get a bigger defense reduction, and by the time he finally attacked the opponent was almost down anyway. So I really don't see FW as a problem. If you're really worried about it, I'd go with one of Sean's options, probably either 1 or 5. Oh, and I would advocate using 6 regardless of anything else you do, since it makes more sense to adjucate FW that way.

Re: Help in evaluating a character Well, before I go off on the particular problems with his build, here's something very important to consider: neither Mind Link or Clairsentience can be used to piggyback on someone and use mental powers on things that person can perceive. Mind Link only allows you to use mental powers on the person you are linked with, and Clairsentience specifically cannot be used to establish LOS (p. 141, 5ER). So his proposed tactics don't work. At all. He will have to march his frail little self around with the group and put himself in danger, or he will have to sit at home and watch everyone else have fun. Now, I'll try to poke some more holes in the specifics of the build... 1.) Unless Pushing is really common in your campaign, or you allow people to push stuff by a huge amount of points, I wouldn't give him -1/4 for "Cannot be Pushed." Seems like this should be a -0, except in something like a Golden Age supers game, where Pushing is an everyday occurrence. 2.) As already stated, unless Multiple Power Attacks are really common, the Limitation should be -0. 3.) Either make him give you a really good justification for how his mental powers are Restrainable (over and above his "Stops Working if Mentalist is Stunned" Limitation), or make him get rid of it. 4.) If the character is going to stay home and use Mind Link and Clairvoyance , then OAF is not appropriate for the Multipower. 5.) If the Multipower violates campaign active point limits, you should axe the whole Multipower anyway. 6.) You normally can't put Characteristics in Elemental Controls, except with special GM permission. Thus the EGO slot in his EC should be axed. The same thing applies to the SPD slot as well. 7.) I believe the Aid Power is something like this - there is a Trigger condition as to when it goes off. He can't use the Power otherwise - only when the Trigger goes off. This is why he took NCC on it. This is totally bogus; you don't get to take NCC on a Triggered Power that can only be used through the Trigger condition. Also, Aid is inherently 0 END; he doesn't need the Reduced Endurance Advantage. 8.) Clairsentience has standard range (AP x 5"). If the person he is Mind Linked with goes out of this range, the Clairsentience stops functioning. Also, Costs END Only to Activate is highly dubious except on body-affecting Powers. 9.) His FF requires Gestures throughout, which means if he is affected by any Power, it immediately drops. Also see CEOTA comment above. 10.) The naked advantages are worthless. AoE Nonselective means you have to make an attack roll against DCV 3 (or DECV 3) to target the area, then you have to make another attack roll against each target within the area against their normal DCV (or DECV). Since he only bought one hex, all he has done is create a situation where he has to make two attack rolls to affect someone, instead of just one. Just a final word on this (although it may not be my place), but this guy has submitted at least three characters that were nothing but blatant attempts to subvert the campaign guidelines and break the RAW. Why are you even letting this guy play? Kick him out. He is more interested in creating a broken character than having fun with the group, and he should be removed before he drives any of the good players off. Just my opinion, of course.

Re: Desolid question for watery bodies Actually, the rules state that if applicable, the Power must have Always On before it can be bought Inherent. The GM is always free to decide it isn't applicable in any given situation, given the Power and the SFX being simulated. As far as on topic discussion, I've tried creating characters with watery bodies before, and I'm come to the conclusion that Desolid is probably not the best way to model it. The best way probably includes several Powers added together, like Knockback Resistance (how do you knockback a blob of water), Damage Reduction (water is very elastic), Shapeshift (for dripping down drains and flowing under doors), Stretching (extending parts of yourself out), and of course Swimming.

Re: Brain Hemorages EGO Attack Does BOD. It doesn't seem like this should be Missile Deflectable, and I think having Mental Defense apply just makes a sort of twisted sense. And this way it only works against stuff with minds. You could add in a small limitation that the target also need blood if you wanted.

Re: New Skills Idea I believe he's saying that when you create the character, you determine a list of "known skills." You can then at any time switch the VPP to include any of the skills on the list. Adding skills to the list takes study time, as if you were actually learning the new skill. This way you don't really forget anything, as you can always change the VPP to any of your known skills, but you don't get to automatically know every conceivable science or knowledge skill. As far as how many skills should be on the list to begin with, well, that would be a matter of character concept and balance considerations.

Re: New Skills Idea I've said this before on another skill thread. If you want Background Skills (knowledges, professions, and sciences) to be cheaper, then allow general skills to know lots of minute details about anything underneath them with a penalty to the roll. So instead of buying 50+ points worth of sciences for Reed Richards, just buy "Science" at 30- (or whatever level you think is appropriate) and say that if Reed needs to recall some specific thing about quantum mechanics as they relate to wormholes, he has to make a Science roll at -15 to effective skill (giving him a 15- roll to pull up the fact). No complicated skill webs (note that I absolute despise the Language chart), no weird house rules. KISS.

Re: The Power of Presence I'm with Lucius on this one. Why implement all these house rules and extra rolls, when the answer is quite simple - just assume that a Presence Attack lasts at most a single Turn unless the GM rules otherwise (and while this may not be spelled out, the rules do imply it). If the character wants the bad guys to keep swinging at him exclusively, he'll have to keep making new Presence Attacks, taking the penalty for repeated Presence Attacks each time. Seems fine to me...

Re: The Power of Presence A few things: 1.) A Presence Attack is in no way Mind Control. Even with a +30 result, the opponent still might not follow commands. It's up to the GM, and if the GM feels the opponent has some deep, overriding reason to not follow the command (a Total Psychological Limitation or some such), then the opponent isn't going to attack you. 2.) Repeated Presence Attacks take dice penalties, so you can use that ability a couple of times during a single fight, then it starts to get less and less useful. And once again, how long it lasts is up to the GM. 3.) Is making an opponent attack you really that powerful? As you said, they were probably going to attack you (or at least someone on your team) anyway. Yes, it may be a slight modification to their plan, but I don't see it being terribly powerful. By the way, I love the idea. On a different thread the subject came up of how in the source material (well, at least in comics) opponents always seem to focus on the big thugs first, and leave the poorly defended mentalists and blasters alone until the thugs are dealt with. This gives a great mechanical reason why this happens, and it helps encourage players to make their squishy mentalists and blasters truly squishy, since they can rely on the brick to take most of the damage for them.

Re: I know this probably sounds psycotic, and it probably will be. Page 266, 5ER, under the Penetrating advantage: Broken? Certainly. But book legal.

Re: I know this probably sounds psycotic, and it probably will be. My two best broken-but-legal ideas: 1.) Buy a double-penetrating 1-pip RKA (always does 1 BOD unless the target had double-hardened defenses) with 1 hex AoE Accurate (should cost about 15 points). Then buy as many Duplicates as you can with the -0 "limitation" Cannot Recombine. I actually worked this out once, and ended up being able to afford about 64 Duplicates. 65 BOD per Phase to any target without double-hardened defenses should make short work of the opposition. 2.) Buy a big VPP with IIF, then use the 5-point equipment doubling rule to buy tons of them. With 64 VPPs, you can have just about every attack and defense you should need.

Okay, a comment in another thread got me thinking... We've already got a proliferation of RPG systems on the market. I'm not talking games here, I'm talking rules. Many of the systems are at least attempting to be universal, and more are headed that way. Off the top of my head, I can come up with: HERO GURPS d20 Silhouette World of Darkness (to a point) FUDGE The Window and some more esoteric free ones... Anyway, when I take a stroll down the aisle of my FLGS, I notice tons of books from small companies with what look to be interesting settings and ideas. What stops me from picking up said books is they usually come packaged with their own rules. Which, of course, means that picking up the product means I will probably need to dig through these new rules and figure them out. I'm also being charged for these new rules, whether or not I like them. Back in the day, there was this nifty gaming rag called Shadis. In its heyday, it was marvelous. Most of the content focused on rules-neutral ideas. It might contain lots of nifty NPCs, an adventure, vehicles or equipment, a description of the culture of a fantastic race, or any number of other things. None of this content had any game-specific rules in it whatsoever. What if small gaming companies started heading down this road? What if instead of a bunch of rules, they focused on developing an interesting new fantasy world, and spend the entire book on that, leaving the rules out and letting the players tailor the setting to whatever rules they like? Do you think this would help breathe new life into the RPG industry? Would people be more likely to buy these "Setting Books," if you will, than entirely new RPGs with new rules? Just food for thought...

Re: Eating your lunch... Now that I seem to have started quite the s***storm, let me clarify something. As I pointed out in my follow up rant, you don't know me. Because if you did, you'd know that by "filth," I meant "me no likee," as put forth by atlascott. Call me what you will, but bigoted I am not. Sarcastic and cynical, certainly. I was not trying to insult anyone who likes M&M or other d20 systems. I was trying to insult d20, and as I have already said, the system doesn't care what I think, and won't get its feelings hurt. If d20 fans feel the need to take personal offense when someone doesn't like their game system, that's their problem, not mine. Most of the people I game with like d20. I'm the odd man out. Thus, I end up "getting" to play more d20 than I would like, and sometimes feel the need to send some return fire its way. I am not some "HERO is teh win, others r teh suck!" fanboy. I like several systems more than HERO (Feng Shui!). One of the projects I keep meaning to get on is to put together a set of house rules to fix all of the various crap about HERO I don't like. Anyway, I would also like to thank everyone who rose to my defense. As I said, I respect a great number of the people on this board, and I'm glad to see that apparently I am also respected. Anyway, back our regularly scheduled flame war...

Re: Eating your lunch... Not wanting to try a single game system (based on prior experience with other, similar systems, I might add) does not make someone closed-minded. Edit: Oh yeah, and calling a game system filth is hardly the same thing as insulting actual people. The game system doesn't care what I think. It has no feelings.

Re: Eating your lunch... Just to refute the poster (who shall remain nameless) who claimed that us HERO fans are all closed minded: I have been playing tabletop RPG's for over half my life. I have played Basic D&D, AD&D, D&D 3.0 and 3.5; Star Wars d6 and d20; d20 Modern; Shadowrun 2, 3, and 4; GURPS in various genres; HERO in fantasy and supers; all five of the original World of Darkness games; Exalted; and a smattering of other games like Rifts, Deadlands, Heavy Gear, Tribe 8, Paranoia, In Nomine, Legend of the Five Rings, Seventh Sea, Earthdawn, and Feng Shui (the best RPG ever created by the hands of man). I have enjoyed all these games at some point or another (or I wouldn't have played them). Some of them I keep on enjoying (like Feng Shui, the aforementioned best RPG ever created by the hands of man), some of them I stop playing as I realize they are not my cup of tea. d20 is not my cup of tea. I know this because I played D&D 3.0 and 3.5 for over a year, d20 Star Wars for six months, and d20 Modern for about three. The core mechanic is too random (1d20 is a linear distribution as opposed to a curve), most elements of the system don't feel like they fit well together (ability scores v. skills v. feats), the default spell casting rules are crap ("spells per day" is idiotic), it is level based (an archaic concept to say the least), the default character creation and advancement rules include randomness (the dice should NEVER dictate what sort of character I can play), and (and this is my biggest gripe with d20) most d20 games give the illusion of flexibility in character design, without actually providing that flexibility (shoe-horning all characters into a few basic classes for that particular flavor of d20). This is why I don't try M&M - because I fail to see how it could rectify all of d20's flaws. I once met a kid at college who tried to argue that AD&D (the infamous second edition) was a great game system, because with a two inch binder full of house rules, it was a really fun game. That is how I feel about d20 - that with a huge binder full of house rules, it could be a really fun game. But why should I spend all that time fixing d20, when I can play some other system that is far less broken to begin with? All that being said, I don't really play much HERO these days. I mostly just use it to build characters and try out wacky Power ideas. It too has things about it which I dislike - I hate the 3d6 roll under mechanic (and hated it in GURPS, too), I think some elements of the system aren't costed correctly, and I wish they would quit clinging on to Talents like they need to be separate from Powers. But to me, these issues can be solved pretty simply. And HERO's other virtues, like being truly flexible, and allowing me to truly build anything (as a previous poster already said), far outweigh the bits I don't like. --- DISCLAIMER --- I have finished defending my dislike of the d20 system, and my defense of HERO. If you don't want to read my inflammatory rant that follows, please feel free to skip ahead to the next post. --- END DISCLAIMER --- You can keep on claiming how closed-minded we HERO fans are all you want, but you don't know us. All you know is what has been posted on this board - a board on the HERO GAMES website, specifically to talk about HERO. I fail to see how you can even begin to think you know enough about all of us to make a generalization like that. In fact, I would go so far as to say it is you who is closed-minded for passing judgement on all fans of the HERO system like that. Welcome to the board, Mr. Pot. Meet Mr. Kettle. The Internet makes people stupid. The way things are going, this world is going to devolve back into cavemen throwing sticks and rocks at each other, and it will probably be due, in large part, to the Internet. I willingly accept any disciplinary action that is necessary for my above comments. However, they needed to be said, and I'm tired of sitting idly by while ignorant people sling derogatory comments at me and other people I respect, solely because we have a difference of opinion.

Re: Restrainable I second OddHat's view. White Wolf and Anne Rice ruined vampires. Give me From Dusk 'til Dawn any day.

Re: Eating your lunch... As far as I'm concerned - M&M = d20 and d20 = filth therefore M&M = filth QED

Re: First time Hero buyer I believe Phil's avatar is a modified Pipboy from Fallout, but I could be incorrect.

Re: Multipower active points vs. reserve points: why? Just a note, the powers in your example cost 225 points (50 + 75 + 100), not 150. Perhaps you meant to include some Limitations? Okay, you keep saying that everyone else is using purposefully abusive examples that you would never allow. Then let's look at the example that started this, since that example is abusive. 50 Multipower, 50 Point Reserve 5u EB 10d6 (50 AP) 5u EB 15d6 (75 AP), Concentration (0 DCV, -1/2) 5u EB 20d6 (100 AP), Concentration (0 DCV, -1/2), Increased END Cost (x2 END, -1/2) This guy spent 15 more points than one that bought a vanilla EB. And for those 15 points, he gained the following: In any situation where he doesn't have to fear retaliation (not many foes, foes are otherwise engaged, this shot is likely to Stun or KO the foe) he can fire an EB that is 50% more powerful without any real Limitation (as I said before, 0 DCV doesn't mean anything if no one is swinging at you). Furthermore, in any situation where he doesn't have to fear retaliation and he has some extra END, he can fire an EB that is 100% more powerful. In either case, if the base EB would have hurt the foe, all the extra dice are effectively NND, since the foe's defenses have already been overcome. In every other situation, he can use his 10d6 EB just like anyone else who bought a 10d6 EB. So, in effect, he paid 15 points to gain up to a 100% increase in firepower whenever the Limitations on that firepower won't hurt him. And you don't see the problem with this? As far as I'm concerned, the unbalancing nature of the construct is clear. If you can't see the problem here, no one is going to be able to make you see it, and I'm done trying to convince you.

Re: Summoning a creature with variable stats Actually, the VPP idea has a lot of merit - I hadn't thought of that. As you said, that way the imaginary friend can have a set of "base stats" that it always has, including Disadvantages. The VPP can then be tailored to the specific situation. The only problem I see with this is that the VPP is unassigned when the friend is Summoned, and remains so until the friend has a Phase with which to assign it; and, since the friend is a Summon, it must use its first available Phase to orient itself. That leaves a lot of time before the friend can assign his VPP. If the friend gets smacked in the interim, and all his defenses come from the VPP, I can see him frequently just getting one-shotted before he has a chance to assign the VPP.