Zanthis

Re: Imposing disads or limitations... and Luck! I'd consider Change Environment. He could make a large area, or possibly just the area around one target a field of Unluck. This would apply a penalty to hit, skills, etc to all those in the area. Buy personal immunity if desired. Feel free to buy Personal Immunity as a Naked Advantage Usable By Others so you can protect your teammates from the effects of your Change Environment.

Re: Favorite Abuses My character Office Worker has a base built with all of his available points. His base is a desk in an office building. Somewhere in the world. Given 350 points to work with, this means his base has 620 point to play with, assuming he has 4 of them (3 are back-up bases "just in case"). Assume the desk costs 5 points to build. Using the remaining 615 points, his base buys a follower with 200 points + 150 in disadvantages (40 points) and then uses the remaining 575 to buy multiple followers, giving him 2^115 followers. Keep in mind he has 4 such bases, meaning he really has 2^117 followers (that ^ symbols meaning "to the power" so 2^117 mean 2 to the 117th power, or double the number one a total of 117 times). Each follower has a Multiform taking up 350 active points (with instant change) that lets them go from normal human to alien death-dealer. Their alien form is built on 1725 active points. The alien form has only two powers: 1) Duplication built on 850 points allowing him to make 2^101 duplicates of his 1725-point self. 2) A Summon taking up 874 points. The creature summoned are amiable (slavishly devoted) and clock in at 2185 character points. They have about 685 points devoted to movement, perception, attributes and defenses. The remaining 1500 is in a cosmic VPP (600 point pool size). Ultimately, this yields 2^218 summoned creatures worth 2185 points indirectly slavishly loyal to Office Worker. He general keeps a few thousand around him (all invisible no fringe to every sense which is outside their VPPs) that apply Usable By Others on every possible defensive power, perception power and positive adjustment power (aids) 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Since he has at minimum 600,000 real points (normally closer to 2 million) in defenses being applied to him he's basically indestructable and also aware of nearly anything occuring within a sizable distance of our galaxy (given his mega-scaled perceptions granted through the VPP of his bases' followers' duplicates' summoned pets). This should effectively make him ruler of the universe. And I didn't even reuse any power/perk (otherwise you can nest followers in followers ad nausem). Feel free to make him the villian in your next campaign Just expect your players to beat you unconscious shortly afterword.

Re: Favorite Abuses Can't believe no one abused doubling equipment yet : 1pip RKA(ED): Penetratingx4(+2), Affects Desolid(+1/2), Area Effect: One Hex(+1/2?), No Range Penalty(+1/2), 0 END (+1), OAF Gun(-1): Active Points: 27, Real Points: 14 x64 Copies of the above, Active/Real Points: 30 (5 points per doubling) +62 Extra Limbs: Multiple Arms+Hands, Active/Real Points: 5 Total Real Points: 49 You can now MPA with all 64 Guns (no off hand penalties btw) and deal 64 BODY (and 64 STUN too) to any target within range. Every phase. And you won't miss even at extreme ranges. Feel free to add indirect, some range doubling and N-Ray vision to your character for added fun. Better yet, give your character Duplication with 64 Duplicates, each with 64 limbs each wielding such guns. Your combined posse can deal 4096 BODY (and STUN) divided up in blocks of 64 to any target(s) of your choosing. Optionally, make this 64-armed monster one of your Followers, and buy a couple hundred of him. Then make your characters power the ability to teleport your followers all over the place. With enough tweaking, you'll never have to leave your underground Base, you can just teleport your followers anywhere there is trouble and they'll quickly dispatch it. Or, teleport the trouble right to your base where it will be surrounded by 512 64-armed Followers all with Held Actions.

Re: House rule on Damage rPD and rED (meaning resistant PD and resistant ED) are subtracted from both the BODY damage and STUN damage of Normal Attacks and Killing Attacks. PD and ED (the non-resistant kind) are always substracted from both the BODY and STUN damage of Normal Attacks. If a Killing Attack goes against rPD and you have a single point of rPD, then you get to also subtract your non-resistant PD from the STUN of the killing attack. Same goes for Killing Attacks against rED. So why doesn't every character just buy all rPD/rED? Especially considering the power Damage Resistance that converts normal PD/ED into rPD/rED? Because it costs more. Consider the following defenses costing 42 character points against 45 active points of attack: All Resistant Defenses: 14rPD/14rED 3d6 Killing Attack: Average 0 BODY and 12.25 STUN 9d6 Normal Attack: Average 0 BODY and 17.5 STUN All Non-Resistant Defenses 21 PD/21 ED 3d6 Killing Attack: Average 10.5 BODY and 26.25 STUN (OUCH!) 9d6 Normal Attack: Average 0 BODY and 10.5 STUN Mixed Defenses 10rPD/10rED + 6 PD/6 ED 3d6 Killing Attack: Average 0.5 BODY and 10.25 STUN 9d6 Normal Attack: Average 0 BODY and 15.5 STUN Notice that non-resistant defense are best for reducing STUN damage. This applies to Normal Attacks always and Killing Attacks as long as you have at least some resistant defenses. Since STUN is normally what is most likely to take you out of a fight, mixed if far better than full resistant at high point values (if you're talking 6 points of defense total, just make it all resistant). To really MinMax a character, divide the maximum Active Points in an attack power in your campaign by 4 (round up) and make that your rPD/rED level. Buy the rest of your defenses as normal PD/ED. If you really nervous about taking BODY damage from Killing Attacks, add 1 more pip of resistant defense per 30 points of the Active Power cap (so a 60 point game would be 60/4 + 60/30 = 17 rPD/ 17rED, a 90 point game would be 26rPD/26rED). * To be honest, I can't remember if you get to subtract non-resistant defenses from the BODY damage of killing attacks if you have some resistant defenses, but I don't think you do. You'll have to look it up under Taking Damage.

Re: Nonlethal Alternatives Not specifically. More of a general comment to those who don't like my requirement of non-lethal possibilities on characters. My campaigns contain a different mix of player experience than most here seem to. As such, I have chosen the method that works best for my players and helps them learn the system, and grow to become better role-players at a nice pace that doesn't burn them out or frustrate them. My more experienced players take on the "job" of helping the new players stretch their creativity and learn the boundaries of the game. Originally, my comments in the other thread were in regard to munchkin characters who frequently have no non-lethal power (although creativity as shown by many in this thread would still allow them to handle many situations safely). Why don't they have a non-lethal power? Is it because it isn't in concept for their character? No, they don't have a character concept at all. What they have is a way of stacking powers and advantages with limitations that hardly ever limit to create abusive characters. Why do they make characters like this (besides that it can be fun)? Because they have misunderstood the purpose of the game. They are playing a Superhero game, not a Killing Machine Death-Match Arena game (at least based on the comments of the game's GM in the other thread). Since the poster in the other thread was concerned about his players making munchkin characters, and it sounded like they were somewhat new, at least to 5E, I suggested reminding them of the difference between a Superhero and a Killing Machine.

Re: Nonlethal Alternatives I did say Your Campaign May Vary. I meant it. I run campaigns that have a high number of new players (mainly new to role-playing period). These people are not used to creatively solving problems like handling mind-controlled innocents. The question I ask them starts them thinking. "What would I do?" Then, they typically add something to handle that. But it's really only a crutch for their first character or two. With experience they will no longer need that, because they will be able to handle such situations creatively and understand the difficulties they will face if they cannot do something in such a case. Dust Raven pointed out all kinds of ways of dealing with innocents despite not having "non-lethal" powers. Guess what? Those are all valid answers to my question. No need to have a special Kiddie Power if you know how to use your existing powers to handle the situation. All my more experienced players know the score and I don't need to double check them for that kinda stuff. But if you'd ever run a game and gotten a player new to role-playing into a fairly simple (to most experienced gamers) situation and had them completely freeze up, unable to think of any possible solution. And Watched them get frustrated with them game to the point of not wanting to player again. Then you'd understand why I'm preventing that from happening. I make sure no matter what that my newer players will be able to "do something" without a lot of gamer-creativity. Then with each encounter I push them a little more, helping them to develope their creativity. But the question I ask has a second purpose too. It is a reminder that you are creating a Superhero, not a Killing Machine. More dense players sometimes require a revised questions that goes something like this: "This is a Superhero game, not Tekken Tag Team". So I'm glad your players are experienced enough to handle such situations. Great if you've never brought new people into the world of role-playing. Especially women coming into a male-dominated group that are already very uncomfortable and unsure of themselves. Again, YCMV and almost certainly will.

Re: Eliminating Killing Attacks I just hate the stun multipler period. I like how Hugh called it the "Stun Lottery". That's really what it is. What also annoys me is ED . I'd just as soon drop ED. Of course, best would be drop PD and ED, replacing them with Body Defense (BD) and Stun Defense (SD). These subtract from BODY and STUN damage respectively. You could keep resistant defenses if you wanted (giving you rBD and rSD) or just make "Killing Attacks" Normal Attacks with Armor Piercing (possible a variant of AP that only halves BD). That's my $0.02

Re: Nonlethal Alternatives Unfortunately I lost my post to the forum hiccup . But in effect, I feel every character should have at least one non-lethal solution. I ask every single player the same question: Your character's girlfriend--who's pregnant by the way--has been mindcontrolled, had a Trans-Dimensional Disruptor grafted to her hand (not even a Focus anymore) and told to go nuts at Children's Hospital. What do you do? If your character cannot do anything beyond what a normal person could do, you need to tweak him. Why? Because I don't allow Achilles Players*. It's no fair to the other players. For example, many players build a Gun Multipower at some point. Often, each slot is a different type of ammo or setting. Many of these guns cannot be used at a reduced power setting (reduced power from a bullet?!). I'll get something that looks like this: 1) Silver Bullets: RKA Armor Piercing; 2) Fire Bullets: Area Effect One Hex; 3) Acid Bullets: RKA Continous, Uncontrolled; 4) Ice Bullets: BODY Drain; 5) Phased Bullets: RKA Affects Desolid; 6) Hyper Bullets: RKA Autofire. Sucks to be this hero's girlfriend! And if that's all the "Superpowers" you have besides +CSL and other combat skills, you're character is sitting out while the rest of the team stops your rampaging GF. Add a Rubber bullets option. Add an Entangling bullets option. Better yet, add both! But you need to be able to incapacitate or you will not be happy in any of my campaigns, because odds are about 50-50 that you'll need to avoid killing someone you're attacking in a given session. Your campaign may vary (YCMV?), but in mine I want to players to enjoy their characters, and no one enjoys not getting to participate in half the action. * Achilles Player: A player who creates a character with such a huge flaw that you can never use it because it will literal result in nearly instantaneous death (3d6 dmg/segement from sunlight, dependence on darkness, 3d6 dmg/segment, x2 BODY+STUN from Light Attacks, all defenses bought as "Not against light SFX" and major attributes (STR, DEX, BODY, SPD, STUN) bought "Only in Darkness"...Hey, I'm a Vampire.). The player's theory is, you won't subject him to his weakness because you don't want to intentionally kill him. That means he never has to deal with it. He might need to avoid it, but all too often the team ends up having to bend over backwords to accommodate his strange weakness. Also works for less common things like say Acid SFX. The character can be bought with such a weakness that he knows you can never use acid against him. If you do and he's hit, he'll die. He takes no blame for it, you put him in the impossible situation. Not having a non-lethal attacks is the same. He cannot save his girlfriend, so if you ever put him in such a situation, he doesn't need to worry about it because his character cannot possibly do anything. Therefore, you cannot do such a thing to him. I flat out do not tolerate such crap, having had a campaign (not run by me) completely ruined by such a player.

Re: Help building a power Sorry, no EC by the book since you cannot put 0 END powers in an EC. I'd suggest just buying those extra stat points with a limitation "Only while berserked". Given how easily she can become berserked (damage OR just roll for it) that might only be a -1/4 limitation. For the regeneration time scale change, determine the point cost at the pre-berserk level and post-berserk level. Pay points equal to the pre-berserk level (since it is always applies) and then apply the -1/4 limitation to the difference between the pre- and post-berserk costs. So if it was 10 points before berserk and 40 points after, you'd pay 10 points + 30 points / 1.25 = 10 + 24 = 34 points total. The actual berserk itself should probably be the disadvantage (assuming it actually is somewhat of a disadvantage). Not sure how I'd set it up for a roll to activate instead of just when she takes damage. Hand-wave it or maybe a 1pip HKA, Cannot Add Strength, Penetrating, Requires Skill Roll, 0 END. Should cost around 3-8 points. Use standard effect and she'd take 1 BODY and 1 STUN when she successfully made her skill roll thereby activating her berserk. Add another disadvantage, Susceptible: Becoming Unberserked 1d6 damage. I'm sure others here will have cleaner ways of doing it though .

Re: Power Defence... Ugg I am certainly not trying to claim Normal vs Killing Attacks against equally powerered characters are more or less lethal. All I generally care about in terms of lethality is against innocent bystanders. When all of a Hero's powers would outright kill any normal person that is accidentally hit, I get concerned. Most players forget that they are just as often protecting normal people as death-matching bad guys in their secret lair in the middle of nowhere. That means one wrong shot and they just killed someone. Not good for a Superhero. A few lethal (to normals) attacks are fine. But I've had people come up with 6 out of 6 attack powers that would outright kill any 2 PD 10 BODY (4E rules) character they hit. And this is what the normal Munchkin player forgets. The goal is not just "Defeat my enemy" but frequently includes "and don't kill innocent people doing it". I'd rather let the player know about the problem during character creation than after the game started. Because my villians will use human shields, hostages, mind controlled children and wire wheelchair-bound elderly with nuclear weapons. If you've only got acid bullets, you'll find a lot of combat you just can't do anything at all because all you can do it kill, and there's nothing you want to kill!

Re: Power Defence... Ugg True, dead is dead. However, 15d6 averages 15 BODY, so with 2 PD and 8 BODY of the average person, they'll take 13 BODY putting that at -5 BODY which is not quite dead. Your Superheroes have just enough time to save his life. A 5d6 RKA however averages 17.5 BODY (call it 17) and a normal's PD isn't resistant so all 17 goes through. That puts him at -9 which is quite dead. KAs really are more lethal. They should be taken only if the intent is to kill with the attack. Nonlethal attacks can also kill, but unless your characters "Absolutely, positively has to kill every mother f***er in the room", stay away from KAs. They do exactly what their name implies.

Re: Power Defence... Ugg Firstly, if you don't like Munchkins in the game, TELL the players that. Try this conversation with the offending player: "Ok, so your Superhero has a gun that fires acidic bullets. Looking at the power, if you hit a bystander they are dead. Nothing will save them. Hmm, and your gun is autofire too. Does your character not care about innocent civilians? Is his attitude, 'Oops, sucks to be you dude.' or what? Because you know what, your character's powers look more like a Supervillian to me. In fact, you guys will all be fighting Bob's Supervillian with acidic bullets next session. Thanks Bob for making a really nasty Supervillian. You probably want to get started on your Superhero now though. If I need any other villians, I'll let you know." Then give Bob's character Desolidification, 0 END Persistant, Always On, Inherent and his gun Affects Solid, Area Effect One Hex, double it for +5 points so he MPA each phase and proceed to rip the party into tiny pieces. Afterwords, tell them they wake up from a horrible dream in which they had strayed from the ideals of Superherodom into a moral grey abyss and they all feel they should carefully reconsider their attitudes towards life. 11 out of 10 Munchkin powers are extremely lethal to noncombatants, or to people the hero thought were robbing that bank but instead just got back from skiing. 11 out of 10 Munchkin players like making Munchkins. So let them...just do it as a side arena-style battle, not with their main characters. The thing about most Munchkin players is they don't like repeating the same trick. Once they realize some of the best abuses, they'll feel it's somehow beneath them to continue using them. The thrill is in coming up with new abuses. With a side arena-style game for them to exercise this interest in, they'll tend to leave Munchkins out of the role-playing group. Plus, everyone learns the combat rules REALLY well during these . Also, I recommend you creafully read the 5E rules and FAQ. There are many little details that can drastically affect games with nearly-Munchkin characters. Just very briefly: I'll tell you straight up to disallow the 5 point to double equipment rule. Read the rules on Multi-power Attacks and Sweep Attacks about 30 times until you can recite them from memory. Lots of little details in them. Double check the rules on DCV/OCV manipulation, especially one halving DCV (it can only be halved once, happens after other modifiers, etc). Don't forget to make sure you fully understand aborting to defensive actions and the manuevers that go with them. Know that you can abort to activate your Force Field AND Martial Dodge with the same aborted action. Read the restrictions on the power frameworks, especially ECs and MPs. Learn the ins and outs of Naked Power Advantages. Read the rules on adding Strength to HA, HKA and manuavers together. Then come here and post your questions and learn that we aren't even sure exactly how it all adds up. Read up on the moving attacks, and learn that they can deal damage so insane you'll be wishing for wimpy acid bullets. Remember, what's good for the Heroes is super-good for the Villians. Tell the players this. If they want random insta-death powers in their battle suit, ask them how much fun fighting against Dr. Ridiculous will be when each of his minions has such a suit? The GM can always add enough limitations to make powers cheap enough for minions since the bad guys have a short life expectancy anyways. Who cares if they've only got 3 charges of Instant Death? There are only 5 Heroes in the group! Ultimately, it's a game so just have fun. Know that you can never add enough rules to prevent Munchkins, but you can change your players' attitudes so that they stop making Munchkins and still enjoy playing their characters.

Re: Is Ambidexterity a little expensive for what it does? The only house rule exception I've done to MPAs that use two hands due to SFX covers when one or more of the attacks is not purchased by the character. In that case I apply the off-hand penalty. So if a character picks up an evil agent's gun and MPAs it with their own EB, I apply the penalty. But if they MPA with two guns they bought with points, then no penalty. Haven't decided what to do about Heroic level campaigns.

Re: Power Defence... Ugg I'd like to point out that NND attacks also require more careful GM review than adjustment powers targeting power defense. Changing Adjustment powers into NND by default will result in more instances of power's requiring GM approval, which in my mind is a bad thing. When I create a character, I can get very attatched to him. Last thing I want is a GM to veto him just because I have a Strength Drain whose NND he doesn't like. Sure, I can change the defense of the Drain, but it may not be possible to get something I like. The existing Adjustment Power rules avoid this issue. Further, many GM's have issues with characters who have multiple NNDs that have different defenses. With Adjustment Powers becoming NND, it becomes harder on characters with multiple Adjustment powers to avoid bumping into that campaign restriction, especially if they have additional NND powers. I can easily see a Martial Artist with a NND martial attack and a chi-based Drain that have different defenses. Some GMs won't accept this.

Re: Power Defence... Ugg Thinking about it I have to say, changing Power Defense to only work against specific SFX effectively makes all adjustment powers NND for free. Imagine, for example, your campaign has five categories of Power Defense (Magic, Chemical, Energy, Technology/Nano, Spiritual). Now, normally if I play a character with a BODY Drain power, I know my opponenets may have Power Defense and this will drastically reduce the effectiveness of my power. With this simple change however, most opponents that do have power defense will only have a 20% chance of having it against my specific SFX of Drain. And it doesn't even matter which SFX I choose. All Power Defense targeting powers become stronger since defenses against them become 1) more expensive, five times so in my example, 2) less common, since most characters will not be able to justify multiple SFX blocking Power Defenses. I already find Adjustment powers well balanced, so I don't think making defenses against them weaker to be a particularly healthy solution for most games.

Re: Power Defence... Ugg

Re: Using d20 instead of 3d6 (DON'T KILL ME!) I've been completely ignoring the critical failure/success issue, since it seems entirely separate to me from the issue of replacing 3d6 with d20. Critical success/failure tends to become very house ruled in most cases. We once had an AD&D 2nd edition critical success/failure table so complex, we had a fumbled attack roll result in Orcus and 4 lesser demons appearing and attacking the offending character (the critically fumbled roll yielded a roll on the wandering monster table which yielded a roll on the extra-planar table which resulted in a roll on the named extra-planar creatures table which turned up Orcus who had a special note that he came with 2d4 lesser demons.) Another time, a fighter fumbled, got attack on nearest ally which was the paladin 10' away who had just been healed back to consciousness in the same round. Based on previous precedent, the DM ruled that the fighter's sword flew from his hand and struck the paladin. The fighter rolled a critical hit: x5 damage and sever a limb, resulting in the death of the paladin and the lose of his arm! Come to think of it, maybe I should bring back the insane crit tables.

Re: Using d20 instead of 3d6 (DON'T KILL ME!) I was refering to the proposed d20 replacement for 3d6, which appears to have been suggested without an autofailure chance, meaning with a 20 skill, you will succeed 100% of the time. Now, the suggested d10+5 option is better than d20 and allows for failure even by highly skilled persons. Its just a bit clunky, and I think 3d6 is just as easy to work with. Although, I really do like the Shadowrun d6 system, but hey, maybe I'm just weird.

Re: Using d20 instead of 3d6 (DON'T KILL ME!) Neat, no auto-failure. Does this apply to combat? It's unclear if it does. If so, give me a few minutes and I'll have a character that never rolls dice in combat. I can just sit back and magnamisouly say "I think those evil agents over there should take, say, 60 BODY damage". No roll to hit needed. No damage rolls needed. Nothing! Muwhahaha, I won't even need to bring dice to the game . Kinda ruins the spirit of combat though. Of course, since you are clearly stating that skills have no auto-failure chance, similar things can be done with skills. Breakfall, Roll With Punches and Power to name a few. Heck, I'll by every single power with RSR and have a 20+ skill. Hmm, some extra skill levels in perception rolls and I'll be able to predict exactly what I can and cannot spot. "I didn't notice that? Given the description you've given Mr. GM, I'm only coming up with a -7 penalty to my perception roll. Since I've got 35 perception skill, I'd have noticed that even with twice the penalty." On a side note, I wonder what effect a d20 combat roll would have on the advantage Autofire?

Re: VPP for magic use- encouraged? Beatiful write up KS on that Bloodmage. Did you just happen to have one lying around or did you just throw one together in 50 minutes?! (according to message timestamps) To the OP, KS and Hugh are right on the dot. Your player's Bloodmage sounds more like a Munchkin write-up than a legit character. Heck, he might as well ditch the VPP, replace its point cost with Duplicate, and give each Duplicate its own VPP.

Re: Using d20 instead of 3d6 (DON'T KILL ME!) Yes, when looking at what goes into the likely hood of success, the skill is nearly always greater than the modifer. However, as a player my skill stays relatively stable, meaning I know if I've got a 70% chance of success, I will have a 70% chance of success later too. As such, modifiers are all I really look at as a player. I know how good I am with a base roll, so unless something is modifying it, I don't care. As such, with a d20 roll, penalties can greatly hurt highly skilled characters. On 3d6, highly skilled (16 and up) are less hurt by minor penalties. Yes, very true. Oh, and water is wet, in case anyone didn't know . Unless its dehydrated of course. I assure you, my book has never burst into flames. In fact, I rolled a 2-4-3 this morning on 3d6 and nothing of the sort happened. Ed McMahon did knock on my door asking to use my phone to call the Publisher's Clearing House prize winner, but I don't think the two events are connected. Ed McMahon showing up only to find out I didn't win millions of dollars!? I can't think of anything worse than that! Come to think of it, how'd you know about Ed? He just showed up this morning. To be serious, briefly, I did say around 15-, not at exactly 15-. And yes, I have missed 15- rolls multiple times in a row. Of course, I can always improve my skill and make it 16- or 17- to fix that. But if I were using d20, I would not have that option. I'd be stuck at 95% success. Unless you are proposing that there be no auto-failure chance at all. But I think that does tend to go against the spirit of role-playing games in general (except Amber, but hey, there's always an exception).

Re: Using d20 instead of 3d6 (DON'T KILL ME!) When rolling a straight d20, the modifier generally matters as much or more than the skill. Further, the degree of uncertainty in the roll is always high. A player will want to max his roll out, either by exploiting situational modifers as often as possible and/or increasing his skill. Even so, he is stuck at a 5% failure rate. Good thing driving doesn't have a 5% failure rate . On the other hand, 3d6 provides a high end that becomes nearly certain. Once you get around 15- you can stop fishing for modifers and/or increased skill levels. Further, the rate of failure actually drops to the point where a player can begin to feel confident in his ability to perform that task (unlike a d20 roll, where I'm sure everyone has endless stories of how they missed 3 times in a row when they only needed a 2+). Also, on 3d6 it is the character's skill that matters, not the modifier in most cases. As such, if you know a character has a 17- Lockpicking, you can be darn certain he's opening most doors unless you give him a fairly hefty modifier. At the same time, assuming you wanted him to be able to unlock a door, but also did not want to make it sound too trivial, a -1 or -2 modifier would allow you to provide a little bit of tension without having to explain to your players why Dr. Doom has a crappy padlocks in his Dungeon of Inescapability. Compare to a d20 roll, where the same character would have a 2+ roll for lockpicking, meaning he only fails on a 1. He's already starting worse off than the 3d6 fellow, and if you give him even a -1 modifier you are noticably increasing your chances of his failure. A -2 modifer just begs Murphy to come in and mess up your story telling. What about average level skilled folk? At a 10- (3d6) and 11+ (d20) both character have a 50% chance of success. Toss a -2 modifer on either and the effect will be sorely felt. Moreso in the 3d6 case. So learn your players' strengths and weaknesses and hand out modifers appropriately. This is good advise even in a d20 setting, but HEROs actually allows more flexibility. I can create dramatic tension with big modifers on people with skills or to hit chances that are insanely high. And at the same time, even small modifers for situations will affect averagely skilled characters, encouraging players to seek out situational modifers.

Re: OCV bonus or extra roll? Your OCV bonuses are too high. Even a simple +1 OCV can be very significant. Since you are attempting to model increased ROF increasing the likelyhood of a lucky hit (where aim doesn't have too much to do with it), you may not want an OCV modifier at all, since that will play off the character's natural aim. Either way, if you do want +OCV for autofire (which I recommend against, just give the guns built in CSLs for use with autofire): 3 rd burst: +0 OCV 5 rd burst: +0 or +1 OCV 6-10 rd burst: +1 or +2 OCV 11-20 rd burst: +2 or +3 OCV However, a special house rule for resolving some autofire attacks could work: For bursts of 10+ rounds, treat the attack as an area effect, one-hex, attack (no special OCV bonus for autofire). Determine the number of bullets striking the hex at 1 if the roll succeeds, +1 per point the roll succeeded by. These bullets are used in a second, completely standard rules autofire attack roll with an OCV equal to the target's normal DCV (before manauvers, but after 0 DCV and 1/2 DCV modifiers). Example: I fire 20 rounds at TargetDummy from 3" away. I have an OCV of 5 and he has a natural DCV of 9. I roll to hit DCV 3 (a non-adjacent hex) needing a 13 or less. I roll a 9 meaning I get 5 potential bullet hits (4 below number needed, so 1 base + 4 extra). Now I roll an attack against TargetDummy's DCV, but my OCV for this is 9. This attack will be an autofire attack with 5 bullets available to hit. If TargetDummy had aborted to a Dodge before I attacked, his DCV would be 12 but my second attack roll's OCV would still be 9. If he currently was entangled, he'd have a 0 DCV and I'd still have a 9 OCV for the second roll. If you think it gets wonky for 0 DCV or 1/2 DCV targets, consider against TargetDummy above, I need a 20 or less on an autofire attack with 5 bullets, meaning I'm pretty much hitting with 4-5 bullets (50% chance I'll hit with all 5). If I'd only used an autofire attack with 5 bullets, I'd have my 5 OCV versus his 0 DCV giving me a 16 or less to hit with a 5 bullet autofire attack. That means 3 hits (50% of the time) and sometimes a 4th, rarely a 5th hit. Also, this method means on bursts of 10+ rounds, you'll hit the target with at least 1 bullet nearly 50% of the time, no matter how good his DCV (barring manuevers). If that isn't good enough for you, you can give a slight OCV bonus to the second autofire roll, maybe +1 or +2. Keep in mind a +2 bonus would mean you'd be hitting with 2 bullets 50% of the time, and at least 1 bullet something like 70ish% of the time. Of course, YMMV. Zanthis

Re: Help me build a force field please. I'm gonna side with Hugh on this. That being said: I'm not sure if the Shield Belt is intended to be a regular item available to a fair number of the population or just this particular character. Also, it really depends on the availability of other ED attacks. I guess I see it breaking down as follows: COMMON means "The Shield Belt is a standard police/military item. Players will often face enemies with this item." RARE means "The Shield Belt is held only by the character and possibly a small handful of other enemies." ENERGY means "Energy attacks besides Lasers are fairly common and the players could expect to encounter enemies with such attacks." LASER means "With rare exception, only Lasers do energy damage." Given that, in a campaign world with: RARE/LASER: I don't see a problem. Only Versuses Lasers isn't really limiting and should probably be ignored. Especially if the character or a member of his group is one of the lucky few with a non-laser energy attack. It should almost be unnecessary to make it transparent to non-laser energy attacks, but if you must make it transparent to non-laser energy attacks, I'd call it an advantage because that's how the players will use it. RARE/ENERGY: Clearly transparent to non-lasers would be a disadvantage since the players will often encounter enemies so armed. COMMON/LASER: Basically the same as RARE/LASER, except if the players have access to non-laser energy attacks, they will be able to cut through their enemies' defenses very easily. In a way, I might end up costing it as a limitation for the bad guys and an advantage for the good guys. COMMON/ENERGY: Best case IMHO. Doesn't stop non-lasers would be a disadvantage. I could easily see a COMMON/LASER setting turning into a COMMON/ENERGY setting as ways of combating the Shield Belt are investigated, producing new non-laser energy weapons and probably even FW Drains, Dispels and Suppresses. But ultimately, YMMV.

Re: Power Armor EC Question Just to play a little devil's advocate: If I had a Fire EC, why couldn't I have a power designed to suck the heat out of nearby things to boost my own power. I could easily see a fire character drawing the heat out of a nearby fireplace, thereby extinquishing the fire. Taken to a higher level, a master of fire/heat manipulation could draw the body heat out of a person causing them to freeze. Sure, I'd probably rule that to be a fairly advanced power in the fire set, but it is still reasonable and I'd allow it in a EC. But as to EC in general: A focus done as an EC has one special restriction automatically: if you are deprived of it, you lose the whole thing. Consider SomeAssemblyMan a character with Armor, EB, Strength and Flight in a Battlesuit using only OIF. Now compare him to UniBodyMan, the same powers but inside an EC. Both characters are completely deprived of all their powers if he loses the suit. But SomeAssemblyMan gets no point break for this. In fact, he should probably declare each focus as a separate item so they must be taken individually. Further, never overlook the joint draining effect of EC's, nor the lack of 0 END powers. My basic rule is, if a drain against any one power should affect the rest, an EC may be the right choice. Even a Magic Powers EC or Mutant Powers EC can make sense. If you stick all your mutant powers in one EC, someone with a drain is gonna make you sorry. In fact, if the GM uses power drains often enough, most of your players will stop wanting to place everything in creation in their EC. Also, remember that the SFX grouping of most ECs automatically focus the character into a SFX area that enemies may be able to take advantage of. Sure you've got a Magic EC, too bad those bad guys have 50% Resistant DR PD/ED/PowerDef Only vs Magic Powers(-2). Personally, I've found most characters end up with an EC or a Multipower. They both have advantages and disadvantages. As long as they aren't trying to munchkin the system, all is good. Keep in mind that being a munchkin is relative to the other players. If everyone is happy with their character's performance then it ain't broke, so don't fix it .