Twintails

Re: Harpoon Man -- Advice Needed I'd actually do it as two separate powers. First is a RKA, the metal harpoon bit, followed by a linked stretching. The thing about using stretching in this capacity is that you have to be clever. With the limitations Cannot Do Damage, Focus, Always Direct, Range Modifier Applies, Limited Body Parts, No Noncombat Stretching, and Linked to the RKA you can actually manage to fairly successfully simulate any sort of linegun or harpoon. Just for fun I like the give the RKA a single recoverable charge. It isn't really perfect but it's the closest I've been able to figure. As a bonus it's fairly low cost.

Re: Damage Negation! Having taken a good long look at DN to try and figure the whole DC thing out. I have come to a couple conclusions. This may be a total retread but at least I'm stating it concisely. DCs are complex, anything having to do with DC is inherently sharing that complexity. Calculating DC with advantages is perhaps the hardest as I couldn't find a good equation or anything in the books, and finding dice from DC is harder still since it doesn't even get a mention. I did manage to come up with an equation that works, though it may be needlessly complex: ((Dice x Cost) x (1 + Adders)) / 5 = ((DC x 5) / (1 + Adders)) / Cost. I checked the equation backwards and forwards using the tables in APG2 and it's solid, though you'll have to use your own judgement on partial dice. My problem that precipitated the need for an equation was that the tables provided weren't going high enough. Admittedly this whole thing is complex and could slow play, but in my experience so does trying to use autofire or other combat maneuvers. That is the wonderful thing about Hero system. You can play it as complex as you want. If you want simple, then you can play it simple. If you can handle complex then by all means go as complex as you'd like with things like Hit Locations. Hero system allows the GM and the PCs to customize the entire experience too a degree that leaves DnD green with envy. Some people may find the breadth of choices too expansive, too massive to grasp. Certainly I myself was daunted upon introduction and have only recently managed to scratch much beyond the surface into the intricacies underneath. The thing is that now that I understand how DCs work, I'm completely fine with it. Yes, it's a ton of work, but it does exactly what I want. The usefulness of Damage Negation has been a topic of debate, and there have been several good examples in either direction so I'll not even try those. But I have learned a few things by crunching some number. Damage Negation is not, and never will be a good replacement for protection. It is however an excellent Augment. Something to have in addition to. It takes effect before all other defense but barriers, and it allows protection to go further than it might otherwise. The problem with buying protection is this, Resistant protection is expensive, but regular protection won't do squat against a KA, so you wind up either guarding really well against one, or just kinda compromising somewhere in the middle. DN works equally well against both and more. Plus I find that armor piercing is cheap but hardened is difficult to justify, so DN is efficient on that front as well. It can even be made cheap to use with some smart limiting, personal favorite is to make it cost end to use and make it only activate on attacks above a certain threshold DC. This way it protects against the strong attacks that easily overcome protection while still being balanced. It all really comes down to how it's used. I really just wanted to share the equation since finding that sort of thing is why I came to this thread in the first place. I'll get off my soapbox now.