psyber624

Re: Character question on Defense I have never been a fan of "bloodied Supers" approach, although I do think Hugh's suggestion of how to run one might make it worthwhile. Normal rules put way to much variance into killing attacks for my taste which can easily result in a couple of bad rolls killing a character (or at least putting him out of action for several months without healing/regeneration available.) While that might be more "realistic" to me it would be much less fun (of course that is strictly an opinion, i know a couple of people who enjoy playing characters that get killed off, go figure.)

Re: And Now for Something Slightly Different: Mis-Spelled and Reimagined Supers "The Inedible Girl, with the powers of being completely inedible (invulnerability plus a high-point damage shield triggered by being engulfed). She is also able to" Able to what? to WHAT?! I HAVE TO KNOW!!!! OMG I am going to have nightmares now!!!!

Re: World with superheroes - Only one power set? I dont know, there have been several successful stories/games where this is actually the case. Although even in them you get some fluctuation of powers. Like Hyperman said you are basically talking about another "race". In that case any vampire, werewolf, mage concept basically fits the bill (as long as there are not multiple different kinds of supernatural). If you are talking about something more rigid (like all supers have flight, or the same energy beam, or what have you) then it becomes much more difficult to keep it interesting, but I believe a really GOOD GM could pull it off. Just have to make sure the campaign is less about the powers and more about the people who have them.

Re: Character question on Defense That can vary greatly by campaign. If there is a 60 pt active cap on powers (for villains too) that buys 4d6 of Killing damage. That averages out to 14 points of killing damage on your average max powered killing attack. Therefore 10-15 rPD/rED is usually a good number. This will ensure that you don't often take any BODY damage from you average attack. And as a PC, if your encountering KA's larger than that on even a semi-regular basis I would question the goals of your GM (that would mean he is basically TRYING to kill you off). Now, if your GM is running a campaign where you will be facing killing attacks frequently, more may be needed. It may also be worth noting that 6e2 lists a maximum of 2 1/2 d6 of RKA for non-heavy tank weapons (which would mean that 15 rPD would make your character completely immune to all normal handgun weapons. Bullets would literally bounce off of him.) Of course DCV also plays a role in this. The less likely you are to GET hit, the less protection you need if you do manage to get hit. For a non-brick i would probably go around 8-10 Resistant (maybe slightly more if DCV was low, slightly less if I was playing a martial artist with access to plenty of DCV based maneuvers)

Re: Is Speed underpriced? I will say this, i understand why some GM's cater to their players, it can be hard to get players where you live so some catering might be in order. However, one thing about speed. Speed isn't overpriced, if you remember that it is all RELATIVE. If everyone in the campaign is buying speed up to 6, then that's 60 points spent that don't really help you. (CV and a number of other things all work the same way). Speed is only worth 10 points a pop IF you are the only one spending those 10 points, then its insanely cheap. Otherwise all you really got is more END/STUN issues (as you have longer to wait between free recoveries) and slightly more use out of AID or certain other powers. How many powers actually CARE how many actions you can take in a turn? So if literally everyone is buying their speed way up, don't sweat it. Just bump your villains speed up to match and everything works out fine.

Re: Detect Correct Answer Of course it all depends on how you rig it up. If the Two doors had the guys from the movie "labyrinth" your Answer Amulet could easily tell the player how to solve such a riddle (or one done in similar fashion).

Re: Stop Hits Maybe there should be some limitations similar to the "real weapon" limitation that can be applied to sfx if you want things to work like this. ie (Real Electricity, -1/2): powers are ineffective vs insulated opponents, can be used to "power up" electrical devices, can be conducted through metalwork etc. If you use the limitation, your powers can interact with the game world however you or the GM believes they would interact with the real world. If not, they merely "LOOK" like they real world equivalent, but they only ever function exactly as designed on your sheet. (So fire powers cant start fires, cold powers cant cool off a room, electricity powers cant kick start a generator, etc. unless you buy those abilities or make a successful Power skill roll )

Re: Detect Correct Answer While you could certainly get such an amulet to work by using handwavium as a power source for it if your the GM, RAW that is not likely to work. Detects normally function like a form of "sense" and knowing the answer to a question doesnt really fit well in that concept. I would build it as a small VPP only spendable on knowledge skills. When you used the amulet it would slot the vpp with a relevant skill to obtain the knowledge. This also serves to include your limitation of only information available through research, as a knowledge skill would never be able to provide you with information that didn't fall into this category. Here is the writeup i would create: Answer Amulet: Variable Power Pool. 10 pt Pool Cost (10 pts), 10 pt Control (5 pts,No Skill Roll Required: +1, Knowledge Skills Only, -2: 3 pt control Cost) : 13 Pts: (OAF -1), (1 Charge -2) Final RC: 3 pts with this you can buy a 19- roll with any knowledge skill. Example of Use: "Amulet, Amulet on my Neck, who is the most powerful in all of Heck?" VPP Slot: KS: People in Heck, 19-. Roll: 15 "Mistress you are quite powerful it's true, but the Hero SNOW WHITEOUT is more powerful than you!"

Re: Create a Hero Theme Team! Mikah Jordan, the daughter of the second cousin twice removed of the famous Michael Jordan (who she was named after) was a fairly average teenager who decided to follow in her famous relatives footsteps. She showed great promise and was selected as a member of the US Women's Basketball team for the 2012 olympics when her life took a sudden, freakish turn. Almost overnight Mikah grew to be over 8 ft tall when her latent mutant genes suddenly activated. Suddenly she was ineligible to compete in the olympics and her dreams were shattered. That's when Dickson Dover came into her life and recruited her into his new "Mutant Athletic Association" where teams of superhumans would compete in variations of popular sports. He presented her with a special Basketball designed of space age materials similar to those found in the novelty high bounce balls and billed her as "Double Dribble". It didn't take long for Mikah to realize, however, that the MAA was more about violence and Mutant bashing than about real sports, so she soon left the league. She took her trick ball with her and began using it with her increased strength and agility to fight crime and protect others. She kept the moniker Double Dribble, although she secretly hates it. Not long after this she was recruited into the Fearless Five! by Cyberia where she frequently promoted athletics and encouraged kids to "get out and PLAY!" in her frequent demo's. Her comical ball highjinks, reminiscent of the Harlem Globetrotters but even more amazing due to her mutant abilities, quickly won her fans and approval in schools across the country and she frequently had to juggle her crime fighting duties with the requests of yet another school where she was requested to perform. During the fight against the Rogue's she was the first one into the fray, headstrong as usual. However things quickly started taking a turn for the worst. Cyberia never arrived. Herd and the Princess mysteriously vanished. And then she came face to face with The Mad Midget. He used his shrinky-dink ray on her, but this merely brought her down to normal human size. (It did however shrink her Super Ball down to the size of a normal high bounce ball). Stripped of her powers, with none of her teammates in sight (she lost track of the 5th member of the team in all the commotion) Mikah was forced to flee. She barely managed to get away, and is now working in secret to try and uncover the whereabouts of the rest of her team, all the while dodging the Rogue Battalion (who seem to want her to get them off the hook for the disappearances) and Dickson Dover who will no doubt exact revenge on her for leaving his league if he discovers that she is no longer in possesion of her super powers. Whether the effects of the ray will ever expire she doesn't know, but right now its far more important that she find her friends again.

Re: Character: Optimus Prime (from Transformers: Prime) Id say powermasters and Headmasters (and the like) would either be duplication or followers (depending on how you wanted to adjudicate it.) Combiners are actually well covered in APG 1 (with like 5 different ways of doing it).

Re: Fox is dead: The Dragon Honestly this strikes me as an abusive points grab. Unified Power doesn't seem to be appropriate for "Martial Training" unless as a GM you have some form of villain that has a weird drain that is designed to affect it. Also two multipowers sets my GM sense to tingling, especially when you then also apply unified power to the multipower slots. (Generally speaking unified power should not be applied to slots in a multipower, if the multipower itself is drained then all slots are unuseable anyway as they are all bought as fixed slots.) you have nearly 300 points of powers, that you only pay 86 points for. That's the equivalent of around -2 in limitations in powers. And yet there is almost no actual limits on the powers. Now I get that multipowers are frequently used to allow several attack powers with different effects, but IMHO this is well past the limit. Just my opinion of course.

Re: Thoughts on new "house rule" I have to agree with esampson on this. Saying you can only spend 100 points on powers only tends to encourage people to stick on limitations, power frameworks, etc to get their character the way they want him (not to mention that some gamers will flat out take that as a challenge). Requiring a mandatory amount be spent on skills is one way to do it, other ways include reducing the cost of skills (or especially skill modifiers like jack of all trades), allowing "package" skills, giving every character the "Expert" skill modifier for free (but each one has to be a different type of expert). All of these ways encourage players to spend points on skills which tends to be better received than trying to force your players to do something. NCM, AP caps for attacks, CV and DEF caps are all fairly standard in campaigns, setting them slightly lower than normal for this point breakdown would FURTHER emphasize the skill based nature of your campaign (instead of a combat oriented campaign). In general trying to FORCE players to do things one way is less effective than encouraging them to play the way your campaign is being run. And if someone ignores all this and builds a character with no skills, politely inform them that the majority of game play will be involving skills and with this character s/he will likely be unable to participate in most of the "action". If they still insist I would let them go for it, but give them the option to "reroll" at a later date. If you are using caps for attacks and defenses the "combat whore" will not be significantly more powerful than the other characters in combat (as long as your checking their builds to prevent abuses). Hopefully they will get on board with your goals before too long.

Re: The Twelve (If you can think of a better name go forit) What is the [standard] Defense in your NND's represent? As far as names go no reason it HAS to include 12, The Breakers, The Troublemakers, The Anti-Hero Squad, etc. etc. etc. I will say this, while its an interesting thought experiment combat against these guys would take FOREVER with you doing way more than your players are (running 12 villains, all at once, with different powers and such is going to be quite demanding.) If you DID decide to run it I would highly recommend recruiting some "Assistant" GM's to help you run it (and so it doesn't look like you are trying to "hog" the spotlight. It would still be quite daunting. Also, if you have all these VPP's, setting each one will take even longer. Looking over your characters so far I would be rather concerned about throwing them at a group of PC's as well. While they are "slightly" weaker than a 400 pt character, in all honesty the difference between your "average" 400 pt character and these guys is rather negligible. While a couple of them are obviously paper thin (DEF 12, DEF 10) most of them have at LEAST 50-60 AP (with many 400 pt characters built around a guideline of 60 AP max in attacks), most of their CV's are on the low side, granted, but 12 guys will make up for the difference (and at least one of them has mostly AOE's which ignore opponent DCV.) This team of "B" stringers will likely easily take out small to medium size teams built around 400 pts. And if your pitting them against higher point heros you run into the possible issue of standard defenses making their best attacks near useless. Interesting thought experiment tho

Re: A Character Prone to Seizures when at High Levels of Energy I agree that this sounds like a dependence to me, something she HAS to do or suffer some consequences. How exactly you would simulate a seizure in HERO I don't know (honestly I would just say that's the effect of the dependence and not worry about it.) I'd Write It up as: Dependence: Physical Exertion/Power Use. Very Common (5 pts), KO'd (+20 pts), 1 Day (-15 pts): Total Cost 10 pts If she fails to use her powers or strenuously exert herself for 1 day she seizes (in game effect is similar to KO, GM rules how long till she can start taking recoveries. If appropriate medical assistance is available (pharmaceuticals, another character with paramedics, etc) She should be able to start taking recoveries after 1 Turn, otherwise the GM may rule that she cannot take recoveries till she receives some form of outside help (depending on the severity of the seizure.) She might also take a social complication to reflect the fact that she cannot form lasting relationships, but that would be 5 pts max. The only other way i could see handling this would be some form of side effect for her power, but I am not sure how to get a side effect to go off when she DOESN'T use her powers....

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team! Sheryl Crow (no relation to the singer) by all outward appearances is your average little old lady. But when she dons her multicolored quilted body armor watch out! Then she becomes the Villaness CrowShay, wielding her sharpened knitting needles with deadly force and accuracy. Lately she has taken to raiding various nursing homes and killing off the staff...

Re: And Now for Something Slightly Different: Mis-Spelled and Reimagined Supers The Flush - Prankster/speedster with a fondness for cherry bombs Biteman - Modern Vampire that uses fancy gadgets to help him capture his prey. Although he is a vampire, he is no stronger/tougher than your average person and must rely on his gadgets and skill to survive. Aunt Man and the Wisp - this carnival freakshow turned superhero duo fight crime. Aunt Man's prehensile beard is able to trap their targets and render them helpless, while The Wisp flits around being generally annoying. Supposedly the Wisp has an energy attack, but at her diminutive size it is so weak as to be barely noticeable by most villains.

Re: Role-Playing the Mantle of Heroism This discussion reminds me of one of the best roleplaying experiences I ever had as a GM. I was running a DnD Module with a new group while I finished fleshing out my own campaign that the group would be running in. It was this interesting little idea where the players come across a town that is split down the middle over a feud over a strange clay tablet that was found, with both the baker and the blacksmith each claiming they owned it and it had disappeared. Through investigation it is discovered that this was actually a shopping list left behind by an Astral Dragon (weird supplement but it was quick and fun.) The real fun began, however, when one entrepreneurial rogue asked the dragon if he had any other "shopping lists" lying around. He takes two of them and gives one to each person to collect the rewards both of them had promised for successfully returning the tablet. So I have the ENTIRE mob chase the party as they are leaving town, catch them, and hold the rogue for trial for trying to con the two business men... It was a great roleplaying scene, with the Minotaur Paladin (don't ask) ensuring that the rest of the party didn't just break the rogue out of jail and head for the hills. The moral of the story is that actions have consequences.... and a clever GM can get across a message this way and have fun doing it

Re: Thor and Falcon on the same team: Balancing power levels without all being the sa Ahh AOE, the high DCV characters worst nightmare.

Re: Possible City of Heroes campaign Depends on exactly what you mean there. If you just want to use Paragon city as the background (or rogue isles, or Rikti, or whatever) go for it, a lot of former players would enjoy it and there is no need to put any constraints on powers If you are wanting to "simulate" CoH in an RPG that would be a lot of work, as you would need to build all the different archetype powers yourself from HERO, try to balance them, and then let players earn each subsequent power during the course of the game. Could be really fun and nostalgic, but your going to be spending FOREVER building powers. And letting your "players" build them is an option, but could easily result in disputes.

Re: Bells and Whistles and Experience Points The only issue i have with that is that it makes non-combat skills a waste of points in character design. If the gm will allow you to buy any skill you need, when you need it, why not spend all your points on powers and stats and stuff, then only buy skills as they are needed (especially since skills are relatively cheap so it would take almost no time at all to pick up enough xp to buy one.) I personally believe that skills need MORE attention from the gamers I have come across, not less (and have considered multiple times setting aside a certain amount of CP that MUST be spent on non-combat skills to enforce this... I haven't done it yet but I have been sorely tempted to in the past...) I am not saying all gamers are like this (I am not, and I have seen many builds here that devote plenty of points to skills) but the majority of gamers I have played with in RL seem to ignore the skill aspect of the game.. to each their own and all that, but it's not something I approve of in my games. Edit: And this also makes the skill heavy character incredibly weak. If anyone can spend points to get the skills he set aside points for during character creation, then his utility is reduced to 0 in that area, and he will be weaker in most other areas already due to his skill costs.

Re: Bells and Whistles and Experience Points Heroic Action Points could also be used in this way, without requiring a character to have purchased Luck (if you use them).

Re: Football Fu sometimes its a long often derailed thread debating the virtues of one build over another..... ahhhh good times

Re: Stop Hits I almost brought up damage shields myself, but was worried about thread derail. As its already off track (so to speak ) I will say that I would not allow a damage shield to go off of a block (personal opinion, NOT saying this is RAW). I would also closely monitor damage shields as well as they can be overly powerful quite easily vs melee opponents, and at the very least your damage shield + your standard melee attack (not counting martial maneuvers and the like) would have to remain under the AP cap.

Re: Oihid Mommy! I See Dead Threads!

Re: Stop Hits I can see your point about DEX (although I disagree, to an extent.) After double checking the rulebook you are right that they by default take time (I had forgotten about that, thanks) I was under the impression that only the reset took time by default. And I will concede that most of my arguments are about ways that triggers COULD be abused, with this information. I am still not sold on the idea of allowing a trigger to go off on a block. You would essentially be allowing a player to both get the benefits of a block AND attack in one phase, not to mention doing this on an abort. But that is simply an opinion, TETO.