psyber624

LOL. Mine start with a seed (power, archetype, background idea, something that strikes my fancy) and then bloom from there into full fledged characters. What sucks tho is that in the limited gaming environment I play in I am always the GM so I never get to breathe life into them (and have to be REALLY careful if they are NPC's not to dote on them too much).

One thing to notice is that in a capped environment "Limitation" based methods (such as 6.Linked) and "Skill/Maneuver" based methods (such as 1,2,7) don't require you to drop your dice of damage in order to accommodate an advantage. Some of them may be more expensive in terms of CP but CP is usually pretty easy to come by if you really want to (heck, most Dual Wield builds are automatically using an -1 OAF limitation).

That advantage seems to work somewhat similarly to what Aid/Healing/Cumulative already does. The problem tho is that unless this is a Constant power already you are requiring your player to constantly give up his attack phases to try for "a little more damage". Unless his 8d6 is his best power and defenses on his target are higher than 30ish he would probably be better making a separate attack each phase than he would trying to increase the damage that his current attack is doing. And with what you stated he only ever gets to actually DO his damage one time, no matter how long it takes him to reach his desired damage level. I would probably simulate this as an Aid: Boost Str, Constant, Increased Maximum, (Possibly triggered to eliminate the attack phase requirement) only while grabbing, only for squeeze/grab, Costs Endurance to Maintain. This would allow him to Squeeze, phase after phase, with his damage getting higher and higher the more phases he squeezed. It would also make his grab harder and harder to escape (as his STR for the STR Roll is increasing). This allows him to A. Keep doing damage every phase and B. Eventually get enough damage through to worry High Def targets. As far as the pricing goes for your custom advantage I would probably say around +1/2, but it would GREATLY depend upon your campaign world. That power is really only effective against low Strength (so they don't break out quickly) high Def targets and in most campaigns those would be fairly rare (high STR tends to go along with high DEF). The other use of that power is that vs low Def targets he can increase the chance of Stunning them, but he would probably be better off just squeezing them normally and going for a KO unless your average Stun is really high. (having them grabbed is already fairly effective at taking them out of action, which is what Stunning does).

I'm going to go with E. Coulson had or gained Superhuman powers of some sort either before or (as LL suggested above) as the result of the method of his demise. Although there has been a disturbing trend on television lately where lazy writers either have "Big Secrets" that turn out to be lame, meaningless drivel or Ominous Foreshadowing that turns out to be the same. Two of my favorite shows premiered their new seasons and both started with an "Oh no someone dies/might die this episode!" moment prior to "flashing back" to actually start the show, and then the situation resolves itself VERY weakly with none of the promised drama/tension the "flash forward" hinted at.

NP, not trying to say you can't look it up, just citing my sources if you wanted to confirm my answers (Some answers are opinions, and some answers are just plain wrong <even mine > so I like to cite my references when I can.)

Seems like we are on the same page finally phoenix. Normal Damage DOES provide more reliable Stun damage. I totally agree. Since that's what it is SUPPOSED to do I don't see what the problem is. KA's are better at getting STUN through high def targets and at Stunning others but that is, as you say, when you roll high (and its better at that than Normal Damage do to higher variance from rolling fewer dice), but that is a byproduct of the way they roll damage and likely NOT an intentional result. And I don't think you are trying to argue that Killing Attacks are worse at doing Body damage (hopefully). So yes, in a Supers game if you follow the suggested rDEF guidelines Killing Attacks will not be very effective. They are mainly used (as has been suggested previously) for breaking things as they roll higher Body (and "things" don't care about Stun). As far as experiences with KA's in 6e my players generally don't use them as a primary attack. If they do have a KA it tends to be an option in a Multipower so that it can be brought out when the need arrives, but isn't the default.

Throwing a character at another character cannot be done as part of the "free" actions after a grab. It has to be performed on a later phase. Assuming you still have hold of the character to be thrown (ie he hasn't successfully escaped) you make an attack roll against the DCV of the "new" target (the one you haven't grabbed). If you hit they both take damage as per the throw rules. If the attack roll fails neither target takes any damage same as for a missed throw in general. 6e2 82 Martial Throw is NOT the same thing as the Throw maneuver. It simply causes the target to fall as well as adding velocity to the damage. So you CANNOT use a martial throw to throw a character at a character, just like you cannot use it to throw any other object at a character. (note that the description shows "Target Falls" instead of "Throw object or character" in the tables. APG 1 and HSMA have more info on this.

Okay "Can only be controlled with successful EGO roll", what are you wanting to be controlled? Does an EGO roll allow the character to add to the power whether they are angry or not? That's limited power with a naked buyoff of the limitation governed by a RSR.Example: +2d6 Blast (10 AP), Only When Enraged (-1) 5 RC PLUS Naked Buyoff of the Only When Enraged above (5 AP), RSR Ego Roll (-1/2) 3 RC Total Cost: 8 RC (Note: this is effectively the build that Hyper-man suggested) Does the EGO roll affect whether the extra power HAS to be used or not? (IE the player normally always has to add the 2d6, but with an EGO roll can prevent the 2d6 from being added). That's more difficult to simulate. The rules for Enrage state that the player will use their powers at full strength (which would include the extra enraged only damage) If you want a Successful Ego roll to STOP the use of the Enraged power levels RAW that gets kind of complicated (a Triggered Self Only Suppress is the only way I can think of at the moment) +2d6 Blast (10 AP), Only When Enraged (-1), 5 RC PLUS Suppress Blast 3d6 (SER 9 AP), Trigger (When Enraged: No Time, Doesn't Control Activation, Zero phase to reset, +1/2) 45 AP Costs End to Maintain (-1/2), Self Only (-1), RSR Ego Roll (-1/2) 15 RC Total Cost 20 RC But that construct is rather odd (the "buyoff" of the power is 3 times as expensive as the bonus power is) so I would probably talk to your GM about some form of custom limitation allowing you to have the ability to turn it off with an Ego Roll. If you are wanting to control something else that is probably all part of the "when character gets angry" concept and would fall under an Enraged/Berserk Complication so you would just buy the extra damage with the Only When Enraged limitation (Enraged already has a roll for "coming out of Enraged") Also note that if you do not use Enrage the limitation "Only when Angry" isn't worth much (probably -0) unless there is some way to control whether or not the player gets Angry. If you simply want the Ego Roll to determine whether she is getting Angry or not just use RSR Ego Roll (-1/2) as the limitation for the extra damage.

Nothing wrong with using TK of course but it still has some limitations (TK can only move a player after a successful "grab" maneuver so abilites such as Martial Escape are useable to "get out of" the gravity field). CE:TK avoids that problem (but is much more expensive to reflect that).

Note that for that option the APG recommends doubling the cost for each successive level of AP (+1/4 for 1/2 Def, +1/2 (+3/4 total) for 1/4 Def, +1 (+1 3/4 total) for 1/8 Def, +2 (+3 3/4 total) for 1/16 Def, so 5 levels of armor piercing gets really expensive really fast and honestly NND quickly becomes a cheaper method for ignoring Armor after 1/4 Def (each successive layer removes much less def, but costs much more).

5 points of normal damage is practically incapable of outperforming 15 points of killing damage. The average damage from 5 points of normal damage is 3.5 STUN, 1 BODY. The average (in 6e) for Killing damage of 15 points of Killing Damage is 7 Stun, 3.5 Body (ignores non-resistant Defenses). At NO time is buying 5 points worth of Normal Damage "Better" than buying 15 points of Killing Damage (unless for some reason you only have 5 points to spend.) That's what your posts don't seem to understand. This, if you are comparing 5 points of normal vs 15 points of killing, seems to indicate that in some fashion you do not understand how Normal damage and Killing damage work. In fact is is a "blue moon fluke" of a roll for the Normal damage to even come CLOSE to the killing damage in that scenario. And if the killing damage "bounced" then there is no way in HELL the normal damage equivalent would have gotten through. I would hazard a guess, based upon your comments here and what I have picked up from previous posts (that you are a well informed player) that you are likely only applying the StunX to the BODY that gets past resistant defenses. If that is what you are doing it would explain your statements because many Supers are designed to not take any Body (or very little) from Killing Attacks in their weight class. That would result in very low Stun damage as well. However, by RAW, you apply the StunX to the Body damage BEFORE any defenses are applied. IF you do that then in no way can 5 points of normal compete with 15 points of Killing (in 5e with the higher StunX 15 points of normal couldn't compete with 15 points of Killing). If you disagree with this can you please indicate with an example how your statement could be true so that we can understand the thought process behind it?

You can't forget the ubiquitous Teleportation, 10m, Megasacle, Triggered, One Fixed Location, IIF, 1 Charge Teleportation Ring so that they can never REALLY be put out of action.

Paul that is one of the issues with power sources like gravity control. In order to maintain game balance you need SOME way for the majority of players to be able to counter it, or the cost of the power needs to reflect the power of the ability. Gravity control as an SFX argues that there really isn't a way for the majority of characters to cancel it (especially melee types). That means that if you want to simulate it you need to make sure it is priced appropriately. One way to do that is to abstract the concept of gravity control and ask yourself, what exactly are the GAME EFFECTS you are trying to simulate. Being able to lift someone off the ground and giving them nothing to push against effectively renders unpowered movement null and void. That's basically what you are doing to them. They can't run, can't leap, can't tunnel, etc. Without gravity to hold them down they would be MUCH easier to push around. So lets look at how we can get those effects in a balanced fashion. The problem with entangle and TK Grabs is that they allow "Strength" to counter antigrav, which seems weird. So what about a CE: -Running/Leaping/Tunneling or a Suppress of the same. That has the same "In game" effect (they cant move) so achieves our objective. Suppress is odd because it would allow PwD to counter our anti-grav power, which again seems weird. So I would go with Change Environment with the - movement option. That costs 1 CP per 1m of movement it removes. Anyone with movement higher than what we buy the CE to effect we can reason it out as "Generating velocity by running in air" or "Kicking off so hard that they move even tho they have nothing to push against (kicking off of the air so to speak)" Granted neither of these are COMPLETELY plausible in real world physics but both explanations seem to sync with the tricks other characters have used in "cartoon physics" to escape such abilities. Since we would define this as Zero Gravity then Environmental Movement:Zero Grav might be a reasonable counter to it, or DI/Growth (they are heavier than normal so the power has less effect on them). (Note that while CE technically doesn't HAVE to have a counter it is stated that some GM's may wish to add one in so those are just a couple of suggestions if your GM wants them.) So now we have a power that does what we want the Zero Grav to do, is priced appropriately for its power, and the game effect interactions are at least a decent match for how the special effect ought to function in the game world. Sprinkle in other abilites as appropriate (The NA: Double Knockback, UBN seems highly appropriate) and there you have it. If you like it give it a Spin and tell me what you think!

Oh, as far as other "gravity" abilities: Heavy Gravity: Suppress Strength, AOE Suppress Movement (Generally Running, Flight, Leaping) (Can also use CE) Entangle, takes no Damage Blast/RKA, Indirect, NND CE: -STR Rolls CE: TK (another way to simulate high gravity) + KB Resist, UBN Low Gravity: Suppress Movement (Running) (can also use CE) Naked Advantage, Double Knockback, UBN +STR (Only for lifting, Throwing), UBN + Leaping CE: - Dex/Skill Rolls (Countered by Environmental Movement: Zero Grav)

Question 1: Depends on how you build it. If its just AOE TK then you will affect everyone in the AOE and you roll against the DCV 3 target hex to center the AOE effect. If you add Selective/Non-Selective that changes things. Question 2: According to the book the "Affects whole Object" allows you to grab, so you still follow all the rules of grab and two limbs CAN be restrained, even with that limitation (you can change the limitation if you want to prevent that from occurring, but I wouldn't say its worth more of a limitation than the base limitation.) Flight UAA is a popular way to simulate "gravity control" type powers but be careful as they can easily be overpowered. While there is a definite "rationale" for the power that says strength shouldn't be allowed to break it using UAA can easily mean there is little to no defense against it for many characters (I have frequently seen the defense defined as having Flight powers of your own) meaning it can be incredibly powerful and nearly impossible to overcome. 2m of flight, UAA is enough to make you immune to melee attacks (they can't get into melee range). It will also effectively nullify Running, Leaping, and Tunneling movement so that anyone without flight/swinging/teleportation is effectively immobilized, all for less than 10 CP worth of power.

Meh, to each their own as always but what's the point of "building" Superman if your not actually going to build him? Superman, in almost every continuity I have seen him in, looses his powers (or at least has them drastically drained) in the presence of Kryptonite. If you don't build that into Superman thats like leaving off Super Strength(or Flight, or Invulnerability, or Heat Vision) and calling him Superman.

Yeah, i looked at the list of former inductees. No FASERIP, No Rifts, no M&M, and thats just to name a few. But Bunnies and Burrows, Das Shwarz Auge, Ghostbusters? If you are TRULY trying to create a Geek Lifetime Achievement in Roleplaying award then you need a list MUCH MUCH longer than the one currently available. Not to mention there is no mention in the Wiki as to how the current crop of candidates was arrived at. Its like someone took a list of their RPGs (or their favorites) and listed them for everyone to choose the "best" out of them. And note, I am NOT knocking the systems I listed here, just questioning their candidacy when other better known options are noticeably missing.

Killing Damage is only 15 points for a full die of killing damage, and for those 15 points you get MORE Body damage than 15 points worth of Normal Attacks (Blast, STR, HA, whatever) and compareable Stun Damage (a 15 point Blast does, on average, 10.5 Stun 3 Body. A 15 point RKA does, on average, 3.5 Body (which is only resisted by Resistant Defenses) and 7 Body Damage). The numbers are compareable with Blast being the clear winner at Stun (on average) and KA being the clear winner on Body (on average). But that is only part of the picture. A 15 point Blast does MAX 6 Body, MAX 18 Stun, but rarely ever reaches those heights. A 15 point RKA does MAX 6 Body (only resisted by Resistant Defenses) and MAX 18 Stun, same as a 15 point Blast. The actual theoretical amount of Stun damage is IDENTICAL between the two, and due to the bell curve nature of multiple dice the KA is MUCH more likely to deal the Max Stun/Body than the Blast is!. Due to the nature of the way defenses work in the game (as a reduction in the amount of damage) there is actually a mathematically provable "sweetspot" in defenses vs DC's due to the nature of the bell curve where KA's are actually STILL better at dealing Stun damage than Normal attacks (due to the higher possibility of higher results) and likewise a greater potential for stunning using them. In this case the cost of the ability does match the utility of the power. If anything KA's are STILL slightly overpowered/underpriced (and this has been mathematically proven on numerous posts here in the past), however the difference is much narrower now than it used to be (in 5th Ed). Of course its your game. If you don't like it go back to the old way. Just expect to never see Blast/HA from anyone who understands the system at all, they are a waste of points.

I'd agree that if the attacker is willing to roll against their target's DCV they should get to roll normally at the Target's DCV +4 (and any other Cover and/or Range (possibly Speed) modifier that the movement entails. Maybe the current rules are an attempt to balance against AOE's effectiveness? IME, AOE is almost an Auto hit in some cases (and debilitating even if its misses if the target successfully DFCs) and it seems to little cheaper in 6e. Yeah, I was rereading the AOE rules after posting that and realized that normally AOE's don't even have the option of targeting the character, they all automatically target the hex. I get that its half of the reason for doing so however I will probably house rule that one personally. If you want you can target the PERSON at their DCV instead of the Hex if you wish to. Gives utility back to builds that want AOE without the incessant multipowers/naked advantage switches normally used to obtain alternate attack options. Honestly reigning in the power of advantages like AOE is one of the reasons I am in favor of AP/DC Caps. Sure, you can have the huge advantage of an AOE, but loosing those Dice of effect will really hurt your throughput so its not a total win. Without caps tho you may find that AOE is far too cheap for its effect, honestly.

Personally I am not a fan of off switches for my Champions characters. The simple fact of the matter is that when I am building a character to play I know that my complications will come into play (and hopefully I *WANT* them to come into play) and a character that is "shut off" is not much fun to play (especially in a team environment where the rest of the team is fine to keep going so my "plight" doesn't receive the same amount of "screen time" it would in a solo game.) Susceptibilities tho are one of my favorite complications. They are dangerous enough that the character/team can't simply ignore them, can offer interesting conundrums with a devious enough GMs, and generally speaking usually tie in to a "backstory" in some way. I just have to trust my GM/Team not to turn them into Off Switches ("Oh, you take 3d6 per phase from Unobtanium? Sorry bud, the evil mastermind's base is lined with the stuff, guess you have to sit this one out" says GmFail.) If you were talking solely about actual Superman/Wonder Woman builds then I don't normally bother pointing up characters like that, but if I DID (and it was supposed to be a "true" representation and not merely an homage character) then yes to Superman (he has always been depicted like that) and possibly no to Wonder Woman (while the latest incarnation MAY still loose her powers from that I haven't seen it happen, but then I am not really a follower of her comics. And frankly that happening would be rarer than Kryptonite by a LARGE margin so would likely be worth no points.)

Your values for CV are wrong, 12 AP would be -2 OCV, -1 DCV (DCV is a defensive power). CV are 5 Points each in 6th

APG 1 offers the "Irreducible" advantage for +1/4 which does that (pg 87). Its one of those "buried in the text" advantages that is considered "GM Option". Also, when you ask about Piercing do you mean Armor Piercing (the advantage) or Piercing (the power from APG). Irreducible is the equivalent to Armor Piercing for Damage Reduction. Due to the way Piercing (the power) is priced I doubt there is any way to cobble that up for Damage Reduction, and Reduced Negation is cheaper than Piercing anyway.

If you want Killing Attacks to be effective in your Superheroic games all you have to do is put more limits on Resistant Defenses. Simple enough. The suggested ranges given in the books are just that, a suggestion. In what way? As far as I know NOTHING was changed about the way Killing Attacks do Body Damage, which is where their teeth should be. All of the changes to Killing Attacks reduced their STUN damage so that they were not always without a doubt better than normal attacks. If you want to do Body Damage Killing Attacks always have been the better option and they still are. That is what they are SUPPOSED to be used for. All that has changed is that they are now not also the kings of STUN damage. How effective Killing Attacks are at actually doing Body damage has always been in the hands of the GM (who sets the caps and guidelines for his campaign) and that hasn't changed either.

The balancing factor is that the cost of the charges limitation isn't affecting the overall cost of the power in that scenario. Since the lions share of the cost is coming from the pool (all the slots are already getting the /10 or /5 slot discount, so a charge limit of 8 Charges (-1/2) is only saving a player 2 points on a 60 AP power in a fixed slot, 4 points in a multislot) having a bunch of slots each with a number of charges isn't really an issue. Even allowing a player to pay for multislots of the same power will add up to a net loss for the player. Compare these two: Blast, 12d6, 8 charges (-1/2) AP 60, RC 40 Multipower: 60 AP 60 RC 8 Slots of Blast 12d6, 1 charge (-2) RC 2 each Total RC: 76 Even if you had several identical slots in a multipower with other slots one slot at +1/4 (32 charges) would STILL be far cheaper than any number of slots with a charge limitation that added up to 32 charges. The ONLY time it is a problem is if you are counting charges in AP Cap calculations. At that point multiple slots of 16 charges (for no limitation) will allow you to stay under the AP Cap and could potentially wind up being effectively "cheaper" than 0 END (which is what a large number of charges effectively does in game effects)

Since this is for Con's it seems, and the document itself seems to be oriented for newbies playing pregens its easy enough to ensure that all the pregens have enough resistant defense to make that rule distinction meaningless in the context of the game he is running. Seems like a good plan. I would put a note IN the two page document that it is a house rule tho.