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Chris Goodwin

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Everything posted by Chris Goodwin

  1. Absent a specific exception, and a GM decision otherwise, the general rules still apply. A character's defenses would apply against the damage from Backlash. Regarding Hit Locations, the general rules would still apply as mentioned. Assuming the game is using Hit Locations, and assuming a Hit Location is used to make the attack (as in a punch or a kick), and assuming special effects, dramatic sense, and common sense allow for it, Hit Locations could indeed apply. (For instance, a Barrier or Entangle (with Backlash) defined as a hard surface might apply hand-to-hand damage directly to the hand, while one defined as a reflective surface that returns energy attacks might not.) And as always, the GM's decision should be final.
  2. I one played a character with it. Always On is a Limitation, after all, so yes, there should be some drawbacks to it. People don't get out of your way in crowds. You should be very careful when crossing the street. Are your retinas invisible, rendering you blind? (That last would be good rationale for taking a Physical Complication; there's nothing in Invisibility or Always On requiring you to be blind.)
  3. You could handwave it. But that seems unsatisfying and not what you're looking for. So let's look at it a little more closely. "...attack will be decreased by 15 Active Points..." sounds like Damage Negation for 3 Damage Classes. "Slick Hull" also sounds like the perfect SFX for the Damage Negation Power. "...per point the DEX Roll is failed by..." sounds like Requires A Roll (RAR), with some slight modifications. From a mathematical standpoint, the power user's roll to activate is the same as the target's (or in the case of a defense power, the attacker's) roll to avoid. This definitely has "must be made each Phase or use" modifier (-1/2 more Limitation) for -1 total. "Uses Characteristic Roll" doesn't modify the value. Normally there would be an Active Point penalty to the user of the power, which can translate to an Active Point bonus to the attacker. We can reduce the initial value of the RAR Limitation to compensate, to -1/2. In this case, the user of the power (the UFO) gets some effect on a failed roll (or, a successful roll by the attacker). How to handle this? Multiple buys of Damage Negation, with increasing difficulty. Essentially, you're buying 3 DC worth of Damage Negation, with "Only If Attacker Fails DEX Roll", another 3 DC with "Only If Attacker Fails DEX Roll by more than 1", another 3 DC with "Only If Attacker Fails DEX Roll by more than 2", and so on. I'd put the value of the Limitation for the initial buy at -1/2, per Requires A Roll, and probably -1/4 per additional reduction. Make sure to factor the previous Limitation values in, so -1/2 for the first, -3/4 for the second, -1 for the third, and so on. Allowing Extra Time to grant bonuses is already handled in the Skill Use rules; I'd use the current rules rather than the ones given in the original writeup.
  4. If they're also Desolidified you can affect them. However, you'd need to either buy Affects Physical World on the Desolidification to make a solid person desolid while you're using it, or deactivate your Desolidification before reactivating it to affect yourself and the target simultaneously.
  5. There is a maneuver called Cover which seems to be what you're looking for. It's on 6e2 p. 85.
  6. If you were to combine my "How to Play HERO System" with it... Except "How to Play" is for 6e. Knowing that they're the peanut butter and chocolate of a HERO System near-free game has me feeling a little uncomfortable about saying that. Because for $5 you'd have the game. Which is good if you're buying, but not so much if you're Hero Games.
  7. I should admit, it was me being a bit grumpy, and a bit less courteous than I ought to have been. @Doc Democracy I hope you'll accept my apologies for that. And I hope in my latter post I was less grumpy about it.
  8. Ultimately, yes. If the setting points out that that's the in-universe explanation, I've lost interest. In large part, the same thing turns me off of Spelljammer. Space in a D&D game? Sign me up! Except it's... not. Not what I'm looking for, really. It's not so much "yay, science!" It's that the world has to have the feeling of a world I could live in. A world where diseases are caused by evil spirits, or planets are surrounded by crystal shells and phlogiston-powered wooden ships fly through the aether, isn't that kind of world. It feels like something obviously constructed, like an amusement park ride. I'm not just looking for something I can throw fireballs and hack enemies apart with swords. I'd like something that I can look at the conditions and draw conclusions from them. I found a post on another forum that sums it up for me, enough that I've got it bookmarked. Fun world building elements, emergent setting, things that to me seem like they could happen. I can anticipate things that might happen and characters that could exist in a world that functions according to familiar natural laws, or at least feels like a place I could visit. Like an idea I've had in my pocket for a fantasy world: in cities, where construction is largely of wood, and there are people packed in, and there are spells that can easily prevent fires, treat disease, purify water, nonlethally stop thieves, light streetlamps at night, and so forth, cities will pay a premium for casters who can cast those. Anyone who can do so gets a reduced entry fee into the city, and reduced even more if they take a few volunteer shifts on watch. This is something that's gameable, that I can hang plot hooks on, that can exist in the background and occasionally come to the notice of PCs even if they're not directly involved. If tides are entirely the whims of Zeboim, then I have no idea what else might be, and just that fact is enough to make me not care.
  9. I was unaware of this about Glorantha... and, while I haven't had a whole lot of interest in it over the years it's been around, now I have zero.
  10. You have to throw in Extradimensional Movement as well! It's a very unstated rule, humorous in nature. A few of us used to throw around a joke... once a thread got long enough, someone would suggest Transform or Extradimensional Movement as the "if nothing else works" solution.
  11. Clairsentience would work. It would let you put your sense point outside the Darkness. Note that if the Darkness affects any of the Clair- senses, then you won't be able to perceive into the Darkness area, but you'll still be able to perceive outside of it. If they've bought Darkness vs. taste/smell, it would cover that sense group even if the group was bought with Targeting. The cost of the Darkness assumes the 'normal human suite' regardless of what extras (i.e. Targeting) the target might have bought.
  12. A cat blep is where the cat's tongue is merely sticking out. As opposed to a cat mlem, where the tongue is engaged in an action. Or: blep is a Delayed Phase, while a mlem is the Phase being used. 😹 Seriously, it's a thing!
  13. It looks like I completely failed to answer this; my apologies! The main differences are intent and implied special effects. Delayed Effect was intended to replicate a Vancian, early edition D&D style magic system with prepared spells. You would prepare the spell and then release it at will later. Trigger was intended more to replicate things like land mines, or other weapons or items that you might place somewhere, with a strong implication that it would be Triggered by someone else, and affect the target where they Triggered it. You need to set up a condition that sets off the Triggered power, which you define at the time you build the power unless you pay extra. The mechanical differences are: A Delayed Effect power can't be Drained or Dispelled, while a Triggered power can. A Delayed Effect power is always activated by the character while a Triggered power is activated by an external condition (even if the Triggered power is activated at the character's location). Further, a Triggered power can't rely on any senses for activation that the character doesn't possess, though they can buy Enhanced Senses that are Limited to only activate a Triggered power. A Delayed Effect power requires the GM to determine how many total "slots" a character can prepare, while Trigger doesn't (though the GM can set limits in the latter case). The differences are pretty subtle, and took me a while to figure out myself.
  14. Seems to be a bit of the old necromancy going around lately... 😅
  15. I wrote a thing, specifically for this campaign style! I was pretty strident about it when I originally wrote it. I'm less so now, and if I were writing it today I'd probably put the parts about powers in an appendix or leave them out entirely. But here it is, warts and all. HERO System Low Heroic Protocols
  16. My favorite was League Of Villainous Evildoers Maniacally United For Frightening Investments In Naughtiness. (From Phineas and Ferb.)
  17. I still haven't taken the time to do any of that design work, not even to work out scale issues (i.e. hand weapons vs. ships, snubfighter weapons vs. capital ships, etc.). I appreciate any and all of this!
  18. Combined attack would be if, for instance, a sorcerer who is also a fencer, were to attack with the flat of his sword while channeling a lightning bolt down the blade.
  19. 1. Two separate powers... but the additional detail in 6e2 specifies that these would be a Multiple Attack rather than a Combined Attack. 2. This would more properly be a Multiple Attack; a Combined Attack would be something like attacking with a Blast and a Flash that are built as separate powers. 6e2 p. 73 goes into a lot more detail than Champions Complete. 3. That would be 1d6+1d6 adjudicated separately. 👍 The 5 point doubling rule for Foci freely allows them to be used for Multiple Attacks and Two Weapon Fighting; 6e2 p. 181 talks about it more.
  20. This is a fantasy setting based around San Francisco?
  21. This points up a problem I'm starting to have with suspension of disbelief around superheroes. Why would someone with powers choose to use them to be annoying at best or just plain evil? (Actually, the same people who IRL try to get away with "It was just a prank!" would probably be the ones who would, I dunno, accidentally cause widespread collateral damage and claim it was a joke.) Let me emphasize that I love superheroes, love playing them, love the MCU movies and quite enjoyed the DC ones. I can still turn that part of my brain off, but afterwards, or in places like this thread, I have to remind myself: buy the premise, buy the bit, as Johnny Carson used to say. In the tragically short Champions game I ran for some friends in 2018 or so, I think I started failing to buy the premise. And while my players had all seen and loved the MCU films, they didn't really want to play superheroes. Thread tax: one of my best friends, my first Champions GM, and the best GM I know, had a slight arms race tendency, and a bigger annoying villain tendency. He'd been playing Champions longer and is generally smarter than me. (I'm certainly not dumb, but he's got me beat by at least 20 IQ points.) His villains were always tougher and more coordinated, and just when I was about to have them down (one on one games usually, or one on two with his brother sometimes), one of them would scoop up his teammates and teleport out. On the few occasions they did make it to capture, they'd escape from custody sometime after. The most annoying one, though, was the Silver Paladin. Dumb as a box of rocks, he thought the heroes were villains and vice versa. His catch phrases were a singsong "Hey hee hee HO HO!" and, to the heroes, "Halt, villain!" in the most annoyingly heroic voice you can think of. (Anyone on the Mutants and Masterminds forums back in the early 2000's would probably recognize him; Geoff used to post there a lot.)
  22. CLOWN as written are exactly those jerks we've all had run-ins with who, when called out on their jerkitude, deflect responsibility with "It was just a joke!" regardless of any harm it may have caused. As a wise man once said... From the Notebooks of Lazarus Long
  23. Ordinarily and per RAW, no. The GM can always permit it, however. 6e1 pages 278-279 discuss it further.
  24. You would substitute the computer's INT for EGO. This is actually detailed in the 5th edition supplement The Ultimate Mentalist, page 89. It's also in Champions Powers, p. 65.
  25. It's fairly easy to get banned from from RPGnet. They have a comprehensive list of rules there. Alexander Macris has the almost singular distinction of having any discussion at all about him or his games banned from there. Basically, he threatened to sue RPGnet. I don't know any more details than "he threatened to sue", and talking about the guy at all makes me feel dirty, so I'm leaving it at that.
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