psyber624

Re: Stop Hits Aborting to an offensive action, if allowed, really negates the purpose of DEX, (and to a much lesser extent SPD). What does it matter if my DEX is better than yours if you can simply declare that you are aborting your next action so that you can attack faster. I am not saying that it CAN'T be built in a manner that isn't abusive, but seeing something like that instantly gets my guard up. (Also, triggers in themselves are dangerous things. A trigger that can reset instantly can allow you an attack as often as the trigger is used. Also, triggers don't require phases to use so you can potentially get extra attacks in a turn even if they take some time to reset... dangerous little buggers I say...)

Re: Clothes only TK True, but what other game would let you actually BUY a "clothes only TK" or other power constructs? Personally I love seeing character sheets with odd power builds and advantages/limitations designed to simulate a certain special effect/restriction rather, even if its not as "points efficient" as it could be.

Re: Playing around with the rules... I cant remember if it was HERO or FUZION that made this comment (and I don't feel like flipping through books right now) but I have always used skill rolls exclusively in under pressure or competitive situations only. If a character is not competing with someone else through their use of skill (such as trying to find something which had been hidden with concealment) and can take a reasonable amount of time without undo pressure there is no roll required. They just succeed. You don't have to use skill rolls to adjudicate every mundane task. If you are trying something exceedingly difficult, or under a lot of pressure, then a roll may be required, but even then your easy/mundane tasks would have huge bonuses to succeed (and the chance of failure can be because they are interrupted.) I will also say if you think the average person with a "Familiarity" with math can make change under pressure, you have never managed cashiers....... Also, the "best in the world" values are a guideline applied to the REAL WORLD so that you can gauge how "relatively" skilled someone is. If you are talking supers or fantasy, real world limits are routinely surpassed so your Magic Skill: 20- may easily fail to be "the best Wizard in the world". I will agree that the odds spread is not as bad as i thought it would be for d10. I hadnt compared the numbers, i just remember from when i played with d10 i didn't like it as much as 3d6. I need to remember to double check my math on stuff like that.

Re: [Demo] Jason at the Mages Realm, Sacramento CA, Saturday Sept. 29 Darn, now if only I could afford to fly to CA for something like this. That would rock.

Re: Role-Playing the Mantle of Heroism Amen Lord Liaden. I had that issue the one time I tried running a supers game with people i didn't know. It was a total nightmare with half the players running vigilante characters who were more than willing to stab each other in the back as well, and the other half trying to play your standard supers... what a total nightmare (and something I will NEVER attempt again.)

Re: Stop Hits I personally have an issue with a Trigger assigned to go off when you block. That is allowing you to "abort" to an offensive action and screams abusive to my GM sense... but that's just me.

Re: Playing around with the rules... 3d6 makes being relative in skill levels, OCV and DCV matter more. You also have a much better idea of what your character can accomplish. d20 is wildly random, not to mention the fact that the upper end becomes MUCH more likely (3d6 has 2.7 chance of rolling an 18. 1d20 has 15% chance of getting an 18 or better.) You can adjust the difficulty of skill use somewhat to accomplish this, but the end result is you still have tons of instances where the person with pathetic skill succeeds at the impossible, and the person with the awesome skill failing to do mundane uses. Also, without the bell curve they are much less important as the odds don't change much with each step (with a d20 every skill point is a flat 5% increase in chance to hit. With 3d6 the benefit is relative to the target number (the closer you are to the target, the more benefit each +1 gives you, but as you get further away from the target (ie over or under) each point quickly diminishes in effect. I played Fuzion/Power Core for a while, and it recommended a d10 system (with modifications to difficulty and such to compensate for the narrower range of possible results). I tried it for a while like that, but it seemed that skills levels became almost TOO important, with only a range of 1-10 you still flubbed easy tasks far too often (without really high skill levels), but there was also no reason to even try that truly difficult stuff, you had no chance of succeeding. I personally prefer 3d6 (i like bell curve resolutions. Stuff around your skill level is fairly easy to hit, with Exceptionally good or bad rolls being infrequent. It also makes critical hit/miss rules (if you like those things) less disruptive to gaming (as they occur less often)

Re: Rules question: HTH Limitation Actually, 6e DOES have a doubling cap rule. It's simply not stated as a general rule that must apply to all campaign's. One of the goals of the system is to allow for more flexibility with less restrictions, so while the game rules don't DECLARE that this is how it is, it is suggested that you use it as a guideline.

Re: Things That Exist in a Superhero Universe Alien races with technology capable of destroying planets/stars at galactic distances, but seemingly unable to use them after being "driven off" by Earth based Heros

Re: Rules question: HTH Limitation The only issue i see with this is that you can't normally use STR to do killing damage. If the rules allowed that, then HKA's work JUST like HA'a, they just allow you to add damage to what you can do with your strength. The imbalance in pricing structures comes from the fact that your first 15 points from HKA allow your strength to do Killing Damage. I don't really see this as imbalancing tho, as the damage is still relative to what you can do in Normal damage with STR. I agree that (as with SOOOO many powers in HERO) it is open to abuse (someone buying only 1d6 of HKA to allow them to use their full strength as killing damage for instance). And to note, the "doubling damage rule" is a suggested guideline for GM's to use when evaluating characters. [6e2 99]. It may only be a hard and fast RAW for Real Weapon limitations, but is recommended as a way to prevent abusive power designs for ANY attack.

Re: Stop Hits I have not yet gotten the HMA book yet (though i do plan to at some time.) For more advanced Martial Arts moves you will probably need a source book of that kind to reliably come close to simulating this. Fists of Fuzion is a supplement I used for just such a thing for several years when I didn't know HERO was still around. Its a free supplement to the FUZION rules (which were a sort of HERO Light freebie RPG that came out a while back). While I would HIGHLY recommend getting the HMA if your looking to simulate MA with more accuracy, you could adapt the rules in FoF to substitute till then.

Re: Questions about 6th edition that I missed before. I do believe RAW states that the power must be constant. It also must have no Range, and gets mobile for free. If its an instant power it would just be AOE Surface and not a damage shield (ie it wouldnt get mobile for free, not that it would need it anyway).

Re: Training/Workout Facilities for a Base If you want to get technical about it you need to decide what all you can actually "do" in your training lab, then buy it up like that. Of course this gets cost prohibitive quickly so generally speaking you can just set aside an area of your base (maybe buy up the defenses so you dont accidently "break" it) to be the training room and just use it like that. Otherwise, for a "Danger Room" I'd buy up the defenses, then buy a VPP to simulate different attack scenarios. Check out [6e2 192] for some inspiration.

This is my 6e version of an one of my first characters Psyber: [ATTACH=CONFIG]44712[/ATTACH].pdf Text Version: Background: Jack Vaughn developed the power to control electronics with his mind at a young age, along with an almost instinctual grasp of electronics and electrical engineering. As he grew older he decided he would try to use his abilities to make a difference in the world, so he began working on a way to utilize his powers as a Super Hero and became known as Psyber! With his technopathy powers and gadgets he designed he started fighting crime in the streets. However things were not always bright in the beginning. His original drone designs were automated, however during a particularly violent clash with a bank robber one of the drones malfunctioned and shot a young homeless girl, a runaway, killing her. Frightened at what had occurred, and deeply ashamed Jack fled the scene, leaving the young girl dead in the alley where she had fallen. No police ever knocked at his door, so apparently nothing existed to connect him to the crime. Jack was devastated and almost hung up his cape for good (so to speak). However, after much soul searching he decided that he had to make amends for his actions and so resumed his crime fighting duties. This time he swore the same mistake would never happen again. His Drones are no longer automated, he controls them with his mental powers. He also spent several months training to be a paramedic and during this time developed a device that produced nano-machines that could heal severe injuries to prevent any further accidents from occurring. Personality: Psyber was originally motivated by a desire for justice, but now he is haunted by the death of the young girl. He targets mostly violent criminals these days in an effort to make up for the life he took by saving their current and future victims. Psyber will go to ANY length to prevent killing his opponent, and will do anything necessary to prevent anyone nearby from coming to harm. He has already had several narrow escapes when villains have learned of this weakness and used it against him. He has accepted the fact that one day he will probably die in this fight, and with that he hopes his penance will be paid. Description: Psyber wears a black bodysuit with thin green lines resembling circuitry running across it. He also uses a Domino mask to disguise his appearance. He has been told that he looks somewhat like a villain in this getup and so may eventually change it. Powers: Psyber's main power is his technopathy. He can manipulate any form of electronic or mechanical construct from sophisticated robots to simple machines. The more sophisticated the object is the better he can control it (IE Driving a modern sports car with his mind is a cinch, driving a 1950 chevy pickup would be a challenge). His clairsentience allows him to see through any available device with some form of camera (he usually uses his Drones for this purpose). His cyberkinesis only allows him to manipulate devices (flip switches, push buttons, cause motorized actuators to work), he cannot use it to lift, push, or etc. He also uses a number of devices in his quest to fight crime. The Psyberdrones are little more than blasters that use anti-gravitic technology to fly around. He can release up to 4 of them and they will fly around randomly. He can then mentally command them to fire a blast from an unexpected angle. He will occasional use them, in conjunction with his clairsentience, to scout an area, but he has a fairly limited range through which they can be controlled. He also carries a backup pistol in case his drones are disabled. He also uses a Force Field belt to protect him from damage. However he is still struggling to find a way to maintain the field for any length of time. The belt uses two settings. The active setting provides him with constant protection, but drains the batteries fairly quickly (2 turns of use), The passive setting doesn't drain the battery normally, but there is a chance that it will not activate in time to protect him from an attack, and every time it activates it drains the battery so he doesnt leave it on this setting during high risk combat against multiple opponents (as frequent strikes would quickly deplete the battery reserves). The battery can be recharged using almost any form of external power supply, however doing so in combat would be highly inadvisable. Tactics: When entering combat if there is nothing available to manipulate in his vicinity he will release his drones. He has to use his technopathy to control them so he cannot use it on anything else while they are out. Normally he keeps them in his line of sight, as trying to control them through clairsentience is dangerous as he is unaware of his immediate surroundings while doing so. If he expects to be targeted he will switch his Force Field to active mode, but he usually prefers to keep it on its passive setting unless he is outnumbered or outmatched (passive setting only triggers if he is actually hit by an attack, so it uses less of the battery). Should the drones be damaged he will switch to his pistol and try to fire from cover. Edit: His biggest weakness that i can see at this point is that he has no movement power. He has some modifications planned to his Force Field belt that will allow it to use the antigravitic technology from the Drones to enable him to fly, but that will have to wait till he can conquer the battery life issue (ie he gets some XP)

Re: Question regarding Hacking Automatons I always thought of Cyberkinesis as TK with the limitation (only to manipulate machines). I dont have the APG's yet so not sure how they do it. After being part of this discussion I am going to have to build my old character again. My screen name comes from my first Champions character, a Cyberkinetic Technopath... Loved that guy, even built a version of him for CoH (with a huge rewrite of his backstory and powers since you couldnt really simulate the same stuff in that game). Should have it up later today, and i think I will be using multiple different suggestions from this thread (as they all have slightly different applications).

Re: Clothes only TK In a TEEN game, ABSOLUTELY not, your going to wind up with a lot of naked people if you allow this (it would be REALLY difficult to describe why someone couldn't just take off their clothes, esp girls in dresses, skirts and the like.) Also note that many clothes would not support the weight of their wearer if you tried this (and if you were flying them at any height/speed when they came out you would have no way to save them so it could easily result in their death.) If I was GM i would allow at MOST a (-0) limitation stating that the target must be wearing cloth. It's not really restrictive enough to be worth more than that (unless only a particular kind of cloth can be manipulated, ie not synthetics, etc.) I would not allow you to remove someone's clothing either (unless I was playing some sort of Adult HERO game for some unknown reason, and even then would require fine manipulation.) If you did allow something like this, i wouldn't require a roll at all. Slipping out of most clothes would be quite easy if you are willing to suffer the consequences (nudity and possibly falling). Maybe for some sort of tight pants a roll would be required...... but that would be about it (and would really be taking this campaign in an odd direction... Bedroom Hero anyone?)

Re: Character Creation Cheat Sheet Good suggestions. Formatting in Google docs is difficult (they dont allow you to change fonts, offer only a few font sizes and effects and such.) I was thinking about changing the color for the Yield and Stop powers, but that could create issues for people who like to print things out. (I will probably add some sort of note to the power to the same effect instead.) To be done: Check values vs official errata, change format so that everything is standard (I changed the way I did things several times over the course of the document, but didn't go back and revert previous entries to the new way), Figure out some way to get it at LEAST legible in google docs, Find a way to host it other than google docs, and add info from other books as i get them (My current purchase plan is Champions, APG 1 & 2, HMA). Gojira I will also look at formatted and unformatted documents, you make a good point there. Glad you guys are enjoying it

Re: Resistant mental defense? k, official answer is that both STUN and BODY would be reduced by the non-resistant defense. Of course a GM may waive this if such attacks are common in his campaign (I guess a Scanners type campaign where killing with your mind is commonplace might be one example).

Re: Two handed punch. Ill grant you that, however the two handed rule is usually only applied in "Heroic" campaigns, and also there means things like you can't hold a shield while using the weapon (and also, the two handed requirement doesn't actually prevent you from using the weapon 1 handed, it merely applies penalties to doing so. [6e2 200]. personally I don't feel that two handed strike is enough of a limitation to warrant any limiters (esp not -1/4). It simply would not be an issue often enough. If I did allow it I would be sure that the opponents occasionally made sure to restrict one of his hands (although the list of maneuvers that would restrict just one hand and not both is rather limited, another reason I would hesitate to put a limitation on this). YMMV of course

Re: Resistant mental defense? Yeah, I know. I just have a bit of rules lawyer in me so I like to know what RAW is, then as a GM i can decide if I agree or not... (and make it work however I wish in my games) Of course I cant really see myself allowing a RKA AVAD in the first place... but its the principle of the thing. Right? Right?

Re: Question regarding Hacking Automatons Trust me, I agree. But I got an extra dose of the research gene running in my blood, and after making a couple of erroneous statemets a couple of weeks ago I am becoming nearly obsessed with double fact checking before I post here.... lol But I guess with the complexity and flexibility of the HERO system, a few cracks in the wall can be forgiven.

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... Just finished "To Have and To Code" By Deborah Geary, another excellent book in her Modern Witch series (which i posted about on its own just a few minutes ago before finding this thread) Easily 5 stars, Recently finished "Silence" By Becca Fitzpatrick, 3rd book in her "Hush, Hush" series. 3 stars. YA Romance, Falling Angels and Nephlim (immortal humans). Not great but a decent read. "Enthrall Me" by Anne Violet, 2 stars. Sequel to "Enchant Me" shows SO much promise for a book, which basically sucked ass. Should have been 1 star but there was enough potential that wasnt realized to move it into 2. Modern Paranormal centered around Druidic Powers (which are almost indistinguishable from witchcraft really) "Craved" by Stephanie Nelson, 3 stars. Standard Witch/Vampire Romance Novel "Initiation" by Imogen Rose, 3 stars. Prequel to "Faustine", which I haven't read yet. Supernatural Academy series. Has some decently fresh ideas, but the writing is a little weak I could go on and on, all of those are in the last month. Its rare for me to find a good book tho, as my voracious reading appetite forces me to buy the .99-3.99 ebooks for my kindle. Occasionally I do find the gold nuggets tho.

Re: Rules question: HTH Limitation Personally I disagree. limitations don't really add up like that all the time. Some do, yes. There are plenty of examples in the books of limitations where a power/ability is broken down into parts and when totalled up all the parts add to a total -2 disadvantage, but there is nothing in the rules that states that has to happen. Honestly, outside of HA I would rule that Str only to do damage is worth a bit less than 1/2 for someone planning on building a melee character (who will use it for this more than anything else most likely.) (-1/2) sounds about right for blasters and such, but why would they buy str only to do damage? The -1/2 is to keep it inline with the old cost of 3 pts per level, while still keeping the active point costs the same (which was one of the flaws with the old HA). Not to mention that it makes the math simpler with adding damage and such, and keeps the cost of advantages in line with what they should be (3 pts with (+1) is cheaper than 5 pts with (+1) and (-1/2)) HKA is a different beast altogether. It doesn't get the disadvantage because of the fact that it doesn't get ranged as part of its cost. Note that you CANNOT apply ranged to HA's. Therefore there was no need to make HKA's cheaper. You could easily say that an HKA has to be bought as a RKA with (STR Adds to damage: +1/2) and (No Range: -1/2), instead they just removed those requirements for HKA's (as they nearly cancel each other out in the end) and again this makes the math, and adding damage, a lot easier.

Re: Resistant mental defense? Right, but thats not the issue here, The question is if a KILLING attack is bought AVAD to a non-resistant defense (this discussion is about MD but the same could apply to FD or PwD) and then buys the Does Body advantage, will the non-resistant defense protect against the BODY damage? I get that it will prevent STUN, and that if the avad was bought as (+1/2) more it could be made to apply to rMD/rFD/rPwD for both stun and body, but Killing Attack is somewhat of a strange beast, because part of it is normally protected by non-resistant defenses, and part of it requires resistant defenses. The question is does a Killing Attack AVAD lose this benefit (if AVAD'ed to a non-resistand defense) or does it still apply. Both arguments are supportable with statements made in the books. Both are supportable by common sense and dramatic sense. So it's not a clear cut case which is the RAW interpretation of what happens here. To boil it down to examples: If i have 3d6 RKA, AVAD (MD), Does Body And i hit someone with 10 MD, 0 rMD, and I roll a 13 for my BODY damage, would this person take 13 BODY (BODY from Killing attacks is only resistible by resistant defenses), or 3 BODY, (AVAD applies all the damage to MD, the RKA BODY "loses" its standard ability to ignore non-resistant defenses). In either case the target will take STUN -10, that much i know. If i instead changed the AVAD to (rMD) i get that he would have 0 defenses, it is the other corner case that concerns me.

Re: Question regarding Hacking Automatons Actually, 6e RAW allows Machine class Mental powers to work against any computer (using INT instead of EGO if necessary). [6e2 184]. It does mention that it may not work very well and could easily be assigned penalties by the GM. Only Automatons are defined as being immune to Mental Powers (unless they have a computer brain)