psyber624

Is this a thought exercise or an actual campaign question? If its a thought exercise then either method will work with different side effects (many already mentioned). If its for an actual campain then like Sean said this is a plot device and not something that needs to be statted out.

If for some reason you stat it out the BIG issue is that you are opening a door for players to want limited followers as well. As you demonstrated in your example its very easy to get the RC down for a ridiculous number of followers to the point that it would break a game. While you can always say "GM's Only" IME many players get upset if you do something in the rules that you would never allow them to do (and its weird because if its just "plot device" thats fine, but if you have a statted up object then especially rules lawyer types can get offended by this.)

Sweet deal i got it. Thanks for the heads up

I do have a problem tho, Star Hero is JUST too large to send to my kindle (where i read most of my HERO pdf's). Its like 51 MB when the limit is 50. Anyone know how i can shrink the size so it will fit on the kindle? I only have acrobat reader, not the full version. Thanks for any help you can give me.

I prefer a simpler approach. Since SA's main emphasis is modifying Interaction/Presence rolls anything over 3d6 is basically beyond human norms. +3 to a skill roll is a HUGE modifier in this game so should represent someone so incredibly beautiful that Persuasion/Charm/etc. is practically guaranteed to work (and thats without any actual "skill" at those abilities.

Someone with 3 levels of SA basically has the ability to turn normal human beings into drooling pushovers JUST with the power of their beauty.

Hi all,

 

I have a character concept which revolves around Karma. Her name is Ripple. One of the major powers that I thought of is a Karmic rebound. How would you build a power that enables a character to reflect an attack/power use onto the initiator (good or bad)? 

 

A couple of scenarios to work with:

 

1. Bad guy throws a knife at Ripple and she uses her Karmic rebound to reflect it back on Bad guy. This one is easy - Missile Deflection with Reflection.
2. Bad guy throws a knife at random person in sight of Ripple and she uses her Karmic rebound to reflect it back on Bad guy. random person could be on other side of room from Ripple.
3. Bad guy attacks Ripple with a mental power and she uses her Karmic rebound to reflect it back on Bad guy.
4. Bad guy attacks random person with a mental power and Ripple uses her Karmic rebound to reflect it back on Bad guy. Again, random person could be on other side of room from Ripple.
5. Wash rinse repeat with attack type of your choice be it physical, energy, or mental.
6. Bad guy is healing self or comrade. Ripple uses Karmic rebound to reflect the healing power to wounded friend of Ripple.
7. Good guy is bestowing advantageous power or ability on a comrade. Ripple uses Karmic rebound to reflect that back onto the good guy, even if the good guy can't affect himself because the power is others only. 

I hope this gets the concept across. My guess is that it's going to be convoluted to build. 

 

Thanks for your help!

The only RAW legal way to do that would be a VPP with limitation "Only to Dispel a Power and Replicate power with a different target". Missile Deflection would cover most of the attack angles but healing and such cant be deflected, wont work on melee, and can never get around exclusions like "Others Only".

For the record, sorry if i wasn't clear. I didn't mean to insinuate that RAW mental powers only worked against similar minds. If I am running a campaign that is how I interpret it. IMHO plants, computers, weird alien rock creatures, etc, just don't have minds that are susceptible to "standard" mental powers. Animals are a bit iffy in my mind and my "opinion" might change from game to game depending on how I wanted psi to work in that world (and how prevalent it would be. Psychic powers are somewhat unusual in that they tend to be drastically less effective the more prevalent they are in the game world).

As far as a line in the background making a character immune I am the GM and I would never permit that sort of excuse to fly. If your mind is so Alien that mental powers wont work on you then it is too alien for you to work effectively as a member of a team. If you REALLY want to play something like that you will need to pay the points for it (as increased MD or DMCV, etc) And note that in my world creatures that Mental Powers wouldn't work on would be relatively rare (I don't set out to punish my players for their choices).

Following a Defense Drain with an AP attack is self defeating, since the AP attack would have already penetrated half the dice you drained......  just not cost effective

CC doesn't really change much for me on the "class of minds" front. Just because class of minds was removed a telepath doesnt get to know what the ficus is feeling or read a file off of a disk while standing across the room from the computer. That is simply now the "default" limitations for what mental powers affect. If you want your mental powers to affect something other than the default (ie cyberpath, florapath, etc) then you define that as the special effect (and your mental powers only work against those types of beings.)

one thing to note is that it isnt draining full OCV since you can still use PSL's vs Range to counter the increased Range Penalty (which are much cheaper than OCV)

If I have a Block + Strike combination, can I do two strikes as a Rapid Attack, both qualifying as the Follow-Up maneuver? (e.g. with a two weapon cross block followed by left and right thrusts, or a neck grab plus two quick jabs to the nose)

 

As per the rules, I could do a Block +  Strike  + Strike with both strikes being the follow up if they're on different phases, of course. But I'm not sure if it's true (and balanced) for a combo attack. If not, would a Rapid Attack be possible, but only the first strike counting as the follow up?

I may be misunderstanding you here, but the "follow" element is applied to the 2nd of the two attacks, so it would seem you are asking if you do a block can you Rapid Attack with two moves built with a "Must Follow Block" effect on them. In this case since a follow up maneuver can also follow itself I would generally say yes, but it would depend on the build of the power (im not certain that something munchkiny couldn't be built with this, and you have to watch that follow isnt used as a way to simply make a martial move cheaper in the first place. )

Well, first of all im not a huge fan of MPP/VPP to start with. But I do agree with most on here that it all comes down to fun and balance. If it seems like it would be fun and not abuseable then sure, you can have it.

One thing I do not use is the "it makes sense" justification. Because honestly in a fictional Superhero world with magic, superscience, aliens, alternate dimensions, whatever, ANYTHING can "make sense". Hell, all you have to do is say "I am a mage" and boom you have an in game logical rationale to do ANYTHING you can think of. Justification "I have a spell for that".

The problem I have with these suggestions is that they take away the ability to hurt Bricks/High Def characters.

Dodge Monkeys are countered by AOE, High Def is countered by AP. If you reduce the effectiveness of AP how then do you deal with High Def characters? Your only remaining option is NND which comes with its own host of problems (has to have an immune defense, doesn't do BODY (at least not cost effectively) etc).

Look at the name: ARMOR Piercing. Its for attacks meant to be good at getting through armor.

at least thats my opinion.

That concept is actually a power build in APG, the Piercing Power, it is a stopsign power that costs 2 pts to remove a point of Normal Defense, 3 pts to remove a point of any other Defense (each bought separately). At that price it is actually MORE expensive than the amount of damage you could get for the same price (on average) and yet is STILL considered to be a Stop Sign power by the game designers.

So personally I think a "Only to bypass armor" limitation would be worth -0 in most cases. If I expected the player to frequently come into contact with someone with NO armor then MAYBE -1/4, but the thing is that limitation is only limiting when the target has LESS armor than the amount rolled on the dice. In EVERY situation where the target has more armor it is the exact same end result as just adding more dice of damage.

Say your target has 20 PD.

12d6 will, on average, do 42 points of damage getting 22 points past defenses.

9d6 + 3d6 "Only to bypass armor" will do exactly 22 points past defenses on average ( 31.5 average damage roll, 10.5 average "damage reduction" leaving 9.5 defense resulting in 22 points past defense).

So unless your player is buying huge chunks of "Piercing" dice and very few actual damage dice, or you are regularly having him go up against unarmored opponents, the two builds have identical results and therefore would not qualify for a limitation. That is the type of thing I am saying you have to be wary of.

Actually increased maximum was added back into the game in CC.

I don't know that there would be many skills needed for the "Liason" super other than normal, possibly a few KS's/Perks concerning the organization they REALLY work for. Many such liasons in the genre don't seem to do much "paperwork" that you would expect a normal liason to do.

However a complication "Subject to Contrary orders" would be highly appropriate

"You can give me all the orders you want, Captain Amazingman, I have different ones. And mine come directly from the President."

Alphas

Heroes (maybe, not sure that one qualifies as street level)

Hugh is not so much incorrect as stating opinion vs RAW. Note the line from 6e1 : "The GM may alter the value of a Limitation taken just for a Multipower reserve if he thinks that would be appropriate."

He is right that in that situation applying the modifier just to the pool cost gives you far more benefit than it should (the -1/2 Extra Phase is designed to require you to spend an extra phase on every use, not just every once in a while) and so it seems appropriate that the modifier should be adjusted accordingly.

Yeah, wasn't talking about your build but about the concept in general (in response to BR's post about thinking about it).

Careful with the concept of limited damage "to bypass armor" That sounds good on paper but actually isn't a limitation at all. ALL damage is designed to bypass armor. If the damage is bypassing armor then it is adding THAT EXACT AMOUNT to the amount of damage actually done by the power so in effect all you have actually done is bought a 2nd d6 of damage and set it to SER (which should be worth no limitation).

You need a different limitation such as "Only vs. Heavily Armored Targets" or "Only vs Rigid Armor" or the like for there to actually be any limiting value to the limitation.

That would likely be about as interesting as watching Wolverine take on a gust of wind, neither would really be able to hurt the other very effectively (if anything the nod would go to Thor since Plas is able to be KO'd from physical damage, just not easily).

You might also consider an "Easily Angered" Psych Lim instead of Berserk. Make sure your player knows that if he goes this route he knows that you may be calling on EGO rolls frequently and that you both spell out exactly what "angered" means to the player (This is basically Enraged but based off of EGO instead of a flat roll if you want changes in his EGO value to affect how well he can control his rage, it also allows you to change exactly what happens when he is "Angry" while staying RAW).

Just remember that the PC's will totally destroy your plot and be ready to allow them to do so.

But anyways thanks for the advice guys (and yeah, sorry for the OT drift here :/ )

Fury didn't feel like Fury to me at the end of the last episode, way to "whiny" and not "Hard" enough.

As far as the reason Coulson lived, I am perfectly okay with the explanation

"he was stabbed but survived, Fury figured that wouldn't be as motivating as 'He's dead because you couldn't get your act together, boys", so he kept the intel down, then sent Phil to Tahiti to recuperate where his secret could stay secret a little longer.

I am NOT okay with the whole "Does he know?" hints and foreshadowing, and we have his word for word response (which reads as Mind Programming to me, although I could be reading too much into it), and whatever else they do to "explore Coulson's survival" only to find out in the end that the big secret was <see above quote>. Don't build it up if your not going to have something worthy of the buildup.

And they did the same thing in this last episode. Spoiler Alert!!!!(For this and CSI)

Ugh I wish I could write. I have written numerous short stories and even TRIED starting a novel once based upon my old D&D character (it was going to suck but I was of the mind that you have to start writing before you can get good at it). I read about 100 books a year and have a great imagination and tons of plot ideas but whenever I try to put them into an actual story they fall flat (or turn out to be horribly derivative, my favorite short story I wrote was pointed out to me to be derivative of SK's Carrie and I nearly cried when I realized how right they were )

This wont apply to all gamers so you may have to "read your audience" but make sure that the pregens have limitations/complications that can be roleplayed and bring the player into the game more. Far to many convention games I have played in have been bare bones slugfests and that can turn me off to a system quicker than anything. Remember that your players will likely NOT have read a rule book or genre book or anything so their decision to continue in HERO is likely to be based less off of the mechanics of the system than how "fun" you made the game. They wont get a firm enough grasp of the mechanics in a one shot scenario to make any kind of true opinion of it, that's not your job (unless your giving a technical demo of the system). You need to make it fun and unique.

Sorry, kind of rambling there :/

I got bored once and designed an entire TREE of martial arts powers (Kung Fu Temple Styles) with prerequisites, advancement paths, the whole nine yards based upon what was in HSMA. Nothing I would ever try to foist of on my players but it was a fun exercise.