Chris Goodwin

I'm with you on looking at the points. My point is that, if you're the GM, you can overload the PCs with anything. 20d6 of -- it almost doesn't matter what -- is going to wreck most PCs that are built to output and respond to 12d6. Having a villain with a 12d6 <any> Attack that can get up to 20d6 is going to wreck them. Whether that's a Presence Attack or an Energy Blast or even a Stun Drain. And if you're a GM looking at a villain with 60 PRE, making a Presence Attack against a bunch of PCs, thinking "I've got 8d6 from situational modifiers," and laying 20d6 on them... This is my point. It's not necessarily that Presence Attacks are bad because a 20d6 Presence Attack can wreck them; it's that anything that's 20d6 that you throw against PCs built for a 12d6 game, is going to wreck them. As the GM, you've got an unlimited "wreck the players" budget, if that's what you want, so if you're out to wreck the players, it doesn't matter where you spend that. And if you're not out to wreck the players -- and I'm assuming you're not, and I'm further assuming the general "you" -- then you can pull back that PRE attack, some.

Does it matter? GMs have an infinite point budget. I'll just write "Meteor Bonus" under its Discomplivantationages. I do use it. I use it on PCs, occasionally, even. I don't hit them with 20d6 PRE attacks, though, any more than I'd hit them with a 20d6 Energy Blast, out of the blue, or put them up against a 100 STR brick. But sometimes, you do have a brick character get hit by a truck, just to show how tough he is. I think that in this case, a high PRE attack can certainly do that as well.

I think the disconnect with is in how we're reading it, and in whether "missing" in this case is a mechanical effect or special effect. I've all along been reading "you just missed" as a special effect. Also I always read the emphasis on "just" as in "you just (barely) missed", not as in "ha ha, missed me!" Mechanically, it's still resistant PD and ED; there's nothing in the description that makes it do any more than stop 3 points of BODY and/or STUN damage per level. There's no way I'd read a single level as a complete and total mechanical whiff, unless it were enough to completely bounce the attack. Admittedly, a 1d6K could very well get completely bounced by it... And, I mean, in a Fantasy Hero game, a warrior type could easily have 8 normal and 8-10 resistant PD, for a total of 16-18. In the event that all of that entirely bounces an attack, it's effectively a whiff. Still not mechanically a miss, but if a tree falls in the forest, etc. etc.? The Chris construct here is, for most of my heroic level campaigns, to not allow Combat Luck to begin with. I am going to go to the obvious solution, though; just because it's in a book doesn't mean I as a GM have to allow it, or that I as a GM have to allow it as written; and that's sort of the overriding rule. The "GM Construct" maybe?

This sort of illustrates the problem with AP caps. AP caps were a strong suggestion in 4th edition, and they weren't so much a hard rule as a guideline to be used by the GM. Over time, despite no material ever saying "you must do this!", they've sort of taken on a memetic rule presence. There's no rule about whether a character at an AP cap can gain bonuses to take them above that. There isn't. That's up to the GM. As a GM, and a player brought this to me, I'd probably wonder why a player wants their character to have 60 PRE. I'd probably have them tone it down to 50. And situational bonuses are up to me the GM, anyway, but if a character can still get up to a 20d6 PRE attack, I'd let them. As a GM, for my NPCs? See the asteroid thing I posted, above. A GM can hammer the players with a 60 PRE, or 120 PRE, or 1,000,000,000 PRE. Doesn't mean any of that is a good idea. Anything above PRE+30/PREx4 was always GM discretion-land, anyway. I remember hearing house rules that if you got PREx10, they would die of a heart attack. ...Maybe this is all a good argument for PRE having a cost of 2 per point?

As @Jagged pointed out above, it, along with all of the other X, X+10, X+20, etc., mechanics were originally X, X times 2, X times 3, etc. It was a lot harder, if someone bought a few points worth of PRE or EGO, to affect them. If you're looking at it from the standpoint of the GM, then yes, a villain with 60 PRE and situational bonuses to their PRE attack can in theory wipe out all of the PCs. But from the standpoint of the GM, you can drop an asteroid on them at any time and kill everyone. You can choose to wipe them out with whatever you've got, but remember that if you're making the game not fun for your players, they'll leave. You could as easily give that 60 PRE villain 120 PRE, or a thousand, or a million PRE. As a GM, don't do that. ("Doctor, it hurts when I do this!") The players are a lot more constrained.

The entire string in the Power listing is: Costs Endurance (Only Costs END to Activate; -¼) It looks fine to me.

As written, nothing about Combat Luck says "the attack misses". The Talent is 3 rPD and rED per level; your Combat Luck could come into play, but you might still take damage from an attack. Also, barring other circumstances, you determine Stun Modifier of a Killing Attack before defenses. So you could -- in theory -- take 0 BODY from a Killing Attack due to your Combat Luck, but might still take STUN from it. In most of the non-superheroic games I've ever played in, armor is free (as in points) to characters. Usually up to 3 DEF overall no questions asked; greater than that is something you buy with money (maybe part of a Wealth perk), or get issued by your agency or guild, or somehow acquired in other circumstances. In most of the games I've been in, characters can start with reasonable gear based on their origin, conception, and so on -- meaning that someone who's written their backstory as a warrior type who has been in armies and battles and so forth, could start the game with weapons and armor. And as I've said in another thread, spellcasters can theoretically cast spells that provide DEF in greater amounts, even to others; also, non-casters can spend points for magical armor. If a character bought multiple levels of Combat Luck, I'd look at that the same way I'd look at the character buying the same level of defenses through other means. It runs up against my general dislike of "anything goes" Powers for non-supers, but aside from that, 3-9 DEF worth of Combat Luck falls within the general amount of resistant defenses characters can acquire through normal armor. If I allowed it in a game at all I'd probably put a hard cap of three levels, and probably wouldn't let it stack with normal or magical armor, but I don't see that amount of DEF as being something that'll break the bank, generally speaking. (Edit to add: also, if players need more DEF than that for sheer survival, maybe the GM needs to dial back the amount of Killing Damage in the game? Just a thought.)

There's something somewhere in one of the books... it might be on that same page, written in invisible ink, but I'm sure I've seen it elsewhere... something about GM permission?

All of the knowledge-style Background Skills have the option to be based on a Characteristic Roll, for 3 points rather than 2. Still +1 per 1 point after.

Aw, shucks. It sounds like science, sure, but it's 100%, homegrown, all natural... something else. ?

There are always enough points... it's just, how badly do you want that last one?

Aerial dogfights over Mount Doom would have been pretty cool.

Well, Gondor didn't have any particular concept of the idea of air superiority.

Schroedinger's edition? The Heisenberg Edition Uncertainty Principle? Frankenstein Hero? I dub it "Schroedenbergenstein's Edition"

If you look at Danger Sense as being an Enhanced Sense and thus falling under Perception and so on and so forth... like Duke said, a cobble. And all the extras and Adders and whatnot are leading us to this discussion. I'd just go back to basics. What is the effect? If you make the roll, you get the feeling of being in danger; if you react, you get full DCV against it. If you make it by half or more, then you know the true nature and position of the danger and can act at full OCV. Done. I agree that the rest of the stuff opens up a can of worms and needs all the GM interpretation, and I agree that that seems to be why the warning symbol was added.

I bag on 4e a lot, but 4e's version is pretty similar to 1-3e, with a few extra 5-point adders for expanding the area the character can detect danger over. 4e's cost is 10 for base, +1 per 2 points.

In the BoH PDFs (and the DrivethruRPG ones) I think 1e and 2e are reversed. The one they have as being 1e has the black and white cover, but is called "Revised Edition" and is copyright 1982. It's fairly similar to 3e. The one they list as 2e is quite a bit different; it has no edition marking of any kind and lists its copyright date as 1981.

I regret that I can only "like" your post once, Duke. 4th edition and later? Always, always, always. Every player in every game. We'd hit 250 points and want more. If there were Active Point and DC caps, every player in every game built to them. In 3rd edition and prior? Almost never. They might not have been "pinch a penny until it screams" builds but we had fun with them. We stopped taking Disadvantages when we felt like we had enough of them. Usually below whatever the GM had set the max at.

Wizards can teleport. Wizards can have 15rDEF without suffering horrific DCV penalties and END usage due to encumbrance. Wizards can throw lightning bolts or fireballs or ice blasts. Wizards can fly. Wizards don't have to count ammunition. Wizards can cause the plants and vines to come to life and grab their targets. This is why I'm never worried about free equipment. Wizards can also learn how to use swords and bows and so on, for that matter.

Thanks! I'll try to keep a log of my thoughts and so on and will share it after, along with the character sheets.

Anyone else going? I've submitted an event this year. I'll be running a Danger International session: Global Task Force Omega vs. the World Terror Front!

Oh, and the answer, that came to me as I was driving home: you're attacking the area, not the target (and are therefore attacking DCV 3) and if the target moves into the suppressed area, he's automatically hit.

sigh Everything's a Power... If all he wants is to hit high DCV targets, and we're doing "everything is a Power", he has a couple of options. Naked Advantage: Area of Effect, Accurate, plus No Range Modifier, applied to RKA. That very nearly eliminates the target's DCV. If I were the GM I'd see that as sort of violating the spirit of the OCV limit, and a session with the Character Approver 9000 as seen in my signature might be in the future. But if what you really want is to reduce the target's DCV, there are a number of ways to do that. Drain DCV Suppress DCV (variant of Drain) Change Environment: target must make an EGO roll or be at some DCV penalty. This is probably what @MechaniCat is asking about. Let's assume you want the target to make an EGO roll at -3 or be at -5 to their DCV. The EGO roll portion is "impose a Characteristic Roll penalty" and is 3 points per -1 according to 6e1 p. 176, for 9 points for the -3 to EGO Roll. -5 to the target's DCV might be covered in one of the APG's, but if it's not, "Additional -1 to the Range Modifier (or, in the GM’s judgment, some other negative Combat Modifier)" is 3 points per. Potentially this might be doubled because DCV is a "Defensive Power" for purposes of Adjustment Powers (6e1 p. 135, 6e1 p. 141); if I were the GM I'd probably consider Change Environment used in this manner to be equivalent to an Adjustment Power and would therefore double the cost. 6 points per -1 to the target's DCV, for -5 DCV, would be 30 points. 39 base points for the Change Environment; apply the Area Effect Advantage as desired. Edit to add: You could remove the -5 to DCV portion, and (on the "slippery spot" theory, see rules question link below) make your Change Environment require the target to make an EGO roll at -3 or go prone, which puts them at 1/2 DCV. The following, asked in Rules Questions a couple of years ago, might also prove helpful:

Suppression Fire is a combat maneuver. 6e2 p. 89. I'd say that describes what you're asking for pretty well.

You responded: To make sure we were on the same page, I asked if you read the link to clarify if your "MORE OR LESS CORRECT" response included the entire section you quoted or only the "Powers" is synonymous with "superhero powers" part of it. That's all. Your opinion is respected, you are respected, and your input is valued. Fair enough. I may have been being oversensitive. I'll further point out that how literal the definition of Powers as super powers, or magic, or psionics, or the Force, or whatever, depends on the campaign. Certainly not a universal thing. But, in the sorts of campaigns that I'm talking about, and the games I want to play in, usually Powers have a more literal definition within the setting. And Champions campaigns tend to be an exception; in fact I often make a distinction in my own mind between "heroic level" games (or "low heroic" in my parlance) and superheroic games. The street crook with a handgun (2d6 RKA, OAF, 6 shots) isn't a super just because he has something that happens to be built as a Power; he's not a super at all, unless he has some other (small-p) powers. And even in, let's say, a "low heroic" Fantasy Hero game, a character could certainly develop "fighter tricks" (like "brick tricks") that would be best represented as a Multipower or VPP. But I want to play in games where fighters don't start with those, or where rogues use the Stealth Skill, not a super-stealth Invisibility to Hearing.