Zanthis

Re: Always On + Linked That's the tricky part. It's a "text book spell" that is available to many mages in the campaign. One of my players is a healer type. Another is more of a blaster type. If the blaster takes this power, he doesn't have any beneficial adjustment powers at all. The healer on the other hand has tons. Aid, Succor, Healing, you name it. This would limit her very much. Seems kinda weird to have a "text book spell" cost 30 points for one character and 20 for another.

Re: Do you allow Find Weakness in games using Hit Locations? It's amazing how powerful an effect a name can have. I wonder if there would be an issue if the power had always been called Induce Weakness rather than Find Weakness. That said, Find Weakness isn't for everybody and certainly not every campaign. I agree it should have provisions in the rules for applying it only against specific hit locations rather than an entire target's defenses. However, it is the correct power to use for personal cumulative curses. It also works well on say a phasing creature that has the ability to inflict a partial dephasing on its target thereby allowing it to better penetrate the target's defenses. Actually, the one thing I find most missing in FWeak is the ability to allow it to apply to others. So one character can FWeak a target and his allies can take advantage of the lowered defenses. Granted, it should be at least +1 if not closer to +2, but if I wanted fantasy wraiths with the above mentioned ability to worsen the player's armor while they fight, this would work better than Suppression which would allow orcs in the same battle to take advantage of the lower defenses which I don't want to happen.

Re: Always On + Linked Yes, the point was while it protected against damage and harmful drains and other vs-PD effects, it also reduced the effects of Aids and Healing on the user. This is a fantasy campaign spell and the user would be a fairly frail (compared to fighters) mage and so he won't want to be dropping his FF considering the time & skill roll required to cast. So its pretty much up for the duration of the fight, and if he does get hurt, its gonna be hard to heal him. Hence I feel it is somewhat of a disadv. in this case, although I personally felt it more like a -1/4 on the PD part not the full -1/2 of Always On.

Re: Do you allow Find Weakness in games using Hit Locations? LOL...I have a name for the D20 system. I call it addition. Geez, I can't believe they call "d20+x" a system. Anyways, Warhammer uses d6 rolls against target numbers determined by table. The Doom spell I'm referring to made the target "doomed" and caused any attack that hit him to automatically deal damage without having to roll Strength vs Toughness. Since many units had only 1 "hitpoint" (called Wounds) it pretty much meant if he got hit he died, hence Doom. Worked very well with the spell Guide which allowed you to skip the to hit roll. Combined equaled one dead unit instantly, no rolls needed. It was very common at the gaming table to hear the two spells together: "I'll Guide Doom your Wizard and then..." Obviously I made some modifications in my HERO version. But the concept of a curse exploitable only by the person doing the cursing is sound. It was almost never necessary to use Doom twice since most targets died instantly. A second use applied to a second attack, if say you targeted a Hero (IIRC). But in any case, Naked Advantages (either AP or Pen) do not work. They cannot for the simple reason that they can't be attatched to all my offensive abilities. I may attack with Strength, or my EB, or my RKA or HKA or HA. How do you build a naked advantage that can do that? What if I MPA or Sweep with 4 powers at once?! Suppose I use an AE radius power at hit four bad guys, but I've only FWeaknessed one of them? Can AP/Pen do that? Not to mention that AP and Penetrating aren't cumulative. Any power which requires cumulative local defense reduction should generally use Find Weakness. If you don't like it, don't use it. Look at its game effect, not its name though. Otherwise, you'd never allow an EB in realistic 20th Century campaign because we don't have Energy Blasts, even though the mechanic is the correct one to do a lot of different effects.

Re: Always On + Linked But I don't think that covers the fact that the Power Defense can sometimes be a limitation, such as when someone wants to heal the character while the FF is up.

Just curious, but would you allow the following: Force Field: 10rPD/10rED (20 Active Points), 20 Real Points: 2 END Power Defense: 10 points (10 Active Points), Linked: Force Field(-1/2), Always On(-1/2), 5 Real Points For a FF that 1) Can never be activated without the Power Defense and 2) the Power Defense applies even against beneficial powers such as Aid/Succor, etc. Just seems kinda weird having an Always On limitation on a power that isn't actually Always On.

Re: Do you allow Find Weakness in games using Hit Locations? Here's a power that modified from a spell in Warhammer that would use the Find Weakness power as is, even against sectional armor: Doom - This vile curse opens the target up to grievous damage from your attacks. Tada! (do I get a cookie?)

Re: Do you allow Find Weakness in games using Hit Locations? You can also view FWeak as the ability to "tune" your attack to work better against your target's defenses. Rather than finding the weak spot in the target's armor, you find the overall weakness in the structure of that armor. And while AP does do something similar, it should be used when this ability is part of the attack. FWeak should be used when this ability is one the character can apply to more than one type of attack. If you want a Star Trek analogy (please don't shot me!) think changing phaser settings to better penetrate shields. Sure, you could buy phasers as a MP with a non-AP and an AP version, but it might make more sense to give the computer FWeak, possibly with a Skill Roll required by the weapon's officer.

Re: What sort of benefits do Fringe Benefits confer? You'll have to wait until your older to learn what Fringe Benefits are...oh wait, this is the Heroes board. Nevermind. Moving on now... Is your character a licensed pilot in Superhero ID or Secret ID? Just curious actually Although it will limit when you can pull "Thankfully I'm a licensed pilot!" line. Say that in hero ID and the bad guys will go get a list of all licensed pilots. Anyways, since it takes a lot of flight time to get a license (I seem to recall) in addition to maintaining said license, I'd say the perk means your pretty good at it (I might negate a 1-point skill roll penalty for adverse conditions to reflect such extensive regular use of the skill). Further, your character will be relatively up to date on things going on in the aviation world including: laws, companies coming/going, airstrips in the area, etc. This could also technically be a KS. But from the fringe benefit you'd also get a network of other pilots and air traffic tower "buddies" that while not Contact level could be used in a pinch for really little stuff (and if used often, could develop into full Contacts). That's my 2 points, buy with it what you will .

Re: is this legal? Trouble only occurs when PCs aren't balanced relative to each other. The GM is always able (skill and experience permitting) to scale the bad guys to the teams power level. However, if one or two heroes are too powerful all kinds of problems crop up. Its all relative. Personally I find the "insta-kill" powers more annoying to handle such as Extra-D Usable As Attack. I just remind players that 90% of all bad guys will have immunity to their insta-kills shortly after the character learns it. This allows them to have such powers, but only lets them be as effective at removing enemies as other more traditional powers. Someone asked about defense vs Extra-D UAA. We've often used: Ring of Returning: 20 Extra-Dimensional Movement: Any location on Earth (+5 Adder), Trigger: Only when involuntarily moved extra-dimensionally and no other Ring of Returning trigger is already activating (+1/4) [Active Points 31], IIF: Ring (-1/4), Charges: 4 (-1), Limited Power: Only to exact location moved from (-1/2), Extra Time: Extra Segment (-1/2) Real Cost 9 Agent sets all 4 charges when putting ring on (and this is when the Extra Time happens, not when triggered). Only one will actually trigger due to the second clause in the trigger and so the agent is protected four times for 9 points.

Re: 11- or better 10+ Just don't forget when precalculating OCV or DCV, you need to break them back about if your OCV or DCV gets halves . Oh the hilarity when you forget to mention this to a new player (since of course we're used to doing it in the odd case).

Re: is this legal? Just curious Raven, what do you do about MPAs? If the cap is 12 DC and I've got a 12d6 EB and a 4d6 RKA, would you force me to only MPA with partial strength from both, like 6d6 EB and 2d6 RKA? I may not even be trying to abuse the rules, I may be a wind/ice blaster and I want to combine my concussive blast of air (EB) with my razor sharp blast of ice shards (RKA). I'm guessing it also gets messy when powers are Linked, which would suck for my Fantasy fire/lightning mage who had a lightning bolt that exploded at its endpoint into a fireball. Bah, I hate caps. Caps encourage people to hit them. In most of our campaigns, a Strength of 130+ is considered Godlike. No one gets close to that, not because its a cap, but because most people don't envision there character's Strength as being Godlike. Our highest is a touch over 100 (which is category Incredible), but still about 10 points away from the inbetween category of Impossible (115). He's not really going any higher simply because he can't envision his character have such a ridiculously high Stength (although, actually he can since Ridiculous is right below Incredible so he's actually already passed that category).

Re: accepting rules suggestions for 1st Annual Combat Wombat Steel Cage Grudge Match! Still need to know if caps apply even in game if exceeded via say a Transfer (i.e., if I drain 10 STR going from 100 to 110, do I have a 22 DC attack?). Also, are limitations specifically mentioned in the book with powers themselves available (i.e., All or Nothing on a Transform -1/2)? Obviously only on the associated power and only if that power is already allowed . You said all defenses down, does this include persistant ones such as Armor? You banned Rapid Fire, but are the other optional maneuvers available? Are we asking too many questions yet? -Zanthis

Re: is this legal? Just looked it up, no can do with PSL vs Sweep. You can however use 2 point CSLs, so not really that difficult to do. A lot of options exist on negating the OCV penalty. My main point is, only 12 DC per attack is nice, but when you can make 4+ attacks in a phase, it really is going against the spirit of the DC ceiling rule. -Zanthis

Re: is this legal? He sounded more like a MA type to me, and he should easily be able to soak up a -6. If he's got two-weapon fighting style, it's already only -4. That means just 4 PSL to counter, so between 6 and 8 points there (9 to 12 if he doesn't have two-weapon). A DC limit is in no way going to prevent abuse. It only prevents people with limited creativity from easily causing problems. The system we've always used provides ranges to powers, OCV, DCV, etc. This let us know that if a 15 OCV is at the top of the range, that most enemies we will face will be fairly easily struck by this OCV and that unless are character is supposed to be insanely accurate (on the level of Bullseye say) we shouldn't be getting an OCV that high. This encouraged us to limit characters ourselves, based not on numbers but on our vision of the character. -Zanthis

Re: accepting rules suggestions for 1st Annual Combat Wombat Steel Cage Grudge Match! That'll teach me. Totally missed that line. Plus, never had to play in a DC limited environment, so not used to looking for it . -Zanthis

Re: accepting rules suggestions for 1st Annual Combat Wombat Steel Cage Grudge Match! What about 100 STR + 18d6 HA? Total of 38d6 damage? Just curious actually, I won't need to do that to be abusive. -Zanthis

Re: is this legal? I'd be more worried if this player learns Sweep and MPA rules and opens up with 2-4 of your 12 DC attacks on a villian in 1 phase. An MPA or Sweep with four 12 DC attacks will deal 12 damage against a DEF 30 villian 4 times, equaling 48 total damage, 6 higher than you are currently worried about. -Zanthis

Re: accepting rules suggestions for 1st Annual Combat Wombat Steel Cage Grudge Match! Can we use vehicles or followers? Do the maximums to AP on powers/stats apply as caps in game, or just during creation? In other words, can Transfers or Aid/Succor increase powers above those caps? And I assume the 90 point cap on stats means 90 STR and 45 CON, not 100 STR and 55 CON, right? -Zanthis

Re: What's the Benefit of Having Same Power Twice? I don't have the book in front of me, but I seem to recall MPAs eliminate offhand penalties. I'll have to check when I get home. It just struck me as extremely odd when I read it, and I don't know if I like that "feature" of them. -Zanthis

Re: Second Piece of Equipment Perfect! Now, I just need to add Duplicate. How many duplicates of himself can be built on 350 points I wonder. -Zanthis

Re: Second Piece of Equipment Ok, I hate to reply to myself, but this thought just cracked me up: Hero: Agent 64-Shot 6d6 RKA (90 Active), OAF:Hand Gun (-1), Charges(8x2 Clips) (-0) 45 Points x64 Hand Guns: Gadget Rule (5 points per double of total) 30 points Extra Limbs (62 extra arms) 5 points Total 80 points Add 15 or so CSL with Hand Guns, maybe some Lightning Reflexes: Hand Guns, combat Sense, and pump his Speed to 12. Probably want to add Affects Desolidfied and Penetrating and/or AP just in case. Now I can MPA with 64 guns every phase ;p Sorry, you can go back to the rest of the board. Although...maybe I should enter him in the Grudge Match. -Zanthis

Re: 11- or better 10+ We've always just added 11 to everythings OCV from the start. If you use the OP reverse method, you can add 10 to everythings DCV (which is nice because less things will have negative DCV). And my group has been doing the roll and call out what AC/DCV/AR/etc since forever in every game system we've played (except Amber, but only because you don't role in that system ). -Zanthis

Re: Second Piece of Equipment Thanks for the reference page. I think I'm just going to have to disallow this, since otherwise I'll have to apply STOP power level review to any use of it. -Zanthis

Re: Frozen Feet: Entangle? Well actually, it is area effect , although I used Explosion since Area Effect Radius made it too big. -Zanthis