psyber624

Also, since its built as Telekinesis (and only 5 STR at that) wont your characters STR be irrelevant? As far as I know STR doesn't add to TK STR (unless you are handwaving that for this power) or am I missing something? Not arguing with you here just trying to understand whats going on

Something else to note From the same page (at least in 6e1)

What disadvantage are you talking about? Are you basically using this so that the TK is doing the "grab" instead of the player?

Hrm, I don't have 5e personally but frankly a character that is only 100 points getting 75 points worth of Complications (Bringing them to 175 points) sounds rather broken to me. Were you able to create characters like that in 5e? What was the limit to complications based on initial Character Points? Sounds like that would have been easily abuseable with the right complications. 20 points for a 175 pt follower is just dirt cheap. but to each their own I guess.

I would have to vote on the side of "villain doesn't get to attack". Failing the Dex roll off means that the other players ACTION goes first and is therefore completed (including his move) before the villain can act. Consider this example: Villain is in melee range of Hero, holds his action to see what the Hero does. Hero decides to move out of melee range on his action. Villain tries to go before Hero can move but LOSES the Dex Roll, should he still get to hit the Hero? I think most would agree that he does not. If you state that in your case he should get a chance to attack then what happens in this situation? Now, if he wins the DEX Roll then yes, he can get off an attack, even a melee attack (assuming the speedster passes into melee range for his passing strike), but that does not necessarily negate the Speedster's attack. Unless the Speedster was KB'd out of melee, Stunned, KO'ed, Killed, etc. he will still get to attack after the Villain's attack has gone off. This does make passing strikes, move by's, etc more powerful, but they also have some serious risks (Uncontrolled Movement Anyone?).

The problem with that is the Hover aspect of flight. If the only way you can use a movement power is to take a move action then if you want to "hover" in place you would technically have to spend a half move every phase even if you are not moving at all. And since "position shift" allows you to use a movement power as a zero phase action (just to stand up) I don't see why hovering wouldn't work without needing an action. I do agree MrArgadesh that he might "forget" to declare its turned on and that could be weird. While I know there is a rule somewhere that states you can't use two movement powers as part of the same ACTION (for instance combining 8" of running with 20" of Flight to move 28" as a full move (or 14" as a half move) I don't remember anything stating that they cant be "on" at the same time. Did I miss that somewhere?

That sounds more like a Limited Power limitation than a NND. Do you want the Blast to ONLY do damage if the knife does Body or NEVER do damage if the knife does Body. Or do you want the NND effect to only be applied if the Knife fails to do Body (but normal defenses apply otherwise?). Your wording has me a bit confused. I believe your goal is that the Knife always does its KA damage, and it does its Blast as an NND unless the target has insulated defenses. If the target DOES have insulated defenses but the knife manages to penetrate (do body) it still does its damage even tho the NND would normally be negated. If that is correct there is really only one way I can see to do this. A generous GM may let you define your NND as "Insulated Defenses when the knife fails to do BODY". That is definitely not RAW but within reason (somewhat) and by far the easiest way to do this. That means that the Blast will ONLY fail to do damage when the target has Insulated Defenses AND takes no damage from the knife. However depending on the setting that could be such a rare occasion that this would fail to meet the commonality requirements for NND's in your campaign. Every other method, RAW at least, will bump into issues with negating an NND condition and I do not believe there is any method in the game to do that. At best you could set the Blast part to do non-NND damage linked to the penetration as a 3rd "linked" effect, or change the NND condition to something other than insulated.

Actually thats not true in 6e. I had to double check that myself. 6e2 pg 130 states "If a character takes damage in a Segment in which he has a Phase, but prior to his DEX in the initiative order (in other words, before he has had a chance to act or declare an Action), he may declare a Recovery when he gets his Phase. " The recovery is only negated if he takes damage AFTER his DEX, and he can't voluntarily lower his DEX for that phase either. I double checked that before posting because I THOUGHT your interpretation was correct but turns out its not.

Uthanar that looks like a good build for what you are doing, although not sure exactly what the "Only when leading people" limitation EXACTLY means. Does he have to be the designated leader of the group for the ability to work? Honestly with something like that he would probably (from a flavor standpoint) be able to use his ability on anyone willing to listen to his advice which is pretty much covered by the "Willingness" modifier of UBN so not sure if a limitation is appropriate for this. YMMV of course. I do like the Incantations limitation that DocSamson suggested tho, leadership is all about communication after all

I would say "attacks that bypass a forcefield" might be too narrow a definition. Especially since the way your power description sounds she could be damaged by any attack (that is strong enough to get through the PD/ED of the forcefield of course). The desolid would probably be bought with the "doesn't protect against damage" modifier and a custom "Only to escape from grabs/entangles" modifier since she can't actually walk through walls and such.. The grouping of powers would be "AOE Entangles/Grabs capable of fully encasing" since an AOE entangle with an sfx like "Encased in a solid block of ice" would be enough to entangle her, or a Growth character whose hands are large enough to fit her fully inside them could "grab" her, etc. etc. At least that's how I would build it. I would probably allow her to "turn" this portion of the power on and off to get rid of the need for Affects Solid World advantage on all her powers, she just wouldn't be able to use any attacks on the phase she escaped from a grab. Either that or you build it with a Trigger so it turns on as soon as someone tried to Entangle/Grab her (which fits the SFX alot better since she should always be immune to grabs) or handwave and allow her to abort a phase to activate her desolid (not quite as flavorful since by definition she cant have the FF on and decide to be grabbed/entangled). The Trigger version is just much more expensive (but still cheaper than needing Affects Solid World on all her attacks).

The Trigger was theorised because the character doesn't really _have_ Flight. He cannot use it for any means other than hovering, briefly, after a teleport move. So it would not be correct to Zero Phase action turn on Flight prior to Teleport, and as has been said, Trigger will allow you to get around the no 0 Phase Actions after a Full Move rule, if bought at the right level. So, game-mechanics wise, I can see no real difference, but I think Trigger more elegantly describes this effect. Hmm, I can see that, although personally I would go with a limitation rather than the Trigger advantage to get the feel. I understand the need for something to prevent the player from just deciding to Hover whenever he felt like it (if that's not the flavor he is looking for) but as you are obviously making the power WEAKER (by limiting when he can use it) and not STRONGER (since he can, RAW, have it active after a teleport without the need of trigger) then it sounds more like a limitation to me "Only to momentarily hover after a teleport" (-1) than a complex Trigger setup. Of course I am not trying to argue that it CANT be built that way (technically I am not trying to argue at all here) just stating my opinion that I don't feel it needs to be.

My personal opinion is that the "Powers" books really aren't worth the cost unless you really don't understand the system. They are bloated books with the vast majority of the space filled with common sense builds that pretty much any moderately intelligent player could come up with on their own. And then they really bloat them by listing "variations" such as Stronger versions (which literally just add dice to the power) and Weaker Versions (which literally just take away dice). So far thats the only HERO product that I DO NOT recommend, the rest are very informative with great narratives and plenty of useful material.

Not sure the weaponsmith version would work as intended in a normal champions campaign. I know as a GM I would never allow someone with that power to just decide on the fly that he was creating a bunch of Light Sabers to pass around at the start of an adventure. WAAAAYYY too much power for a 3 point skill. Generally I think that skill is more about being able to identify and repair weapons he finds in a Champions style (no free equipment campaign). For champions it would have to be either UBO, Aid, or Transform. Those are the only ways I can think of to "grant abilities" to someone else. Personally I think UBO is probably the right way to go. Aid has some odd limitations (you can't aid a power a player doesn't have so you can't give them a HA/KA weapon unless they have something similar already). And it doesn't really fit the flavor. You could run it as aid Strength but then it can never be KA. I also think you might be able to do it with some form of focus, by buying multiple copies using the 5 point doubling rule. Of course I would never allow that as a GM but then I find that I am far stricter than some so your GM might allow it.

I think it depends on how exactly you want it to work (note: I am not familiar with the character so I don't know which is more appropriate). If she is HARD to grab/entangle, etc but not IMPOSSIBLE then the Limited DCV (representing difficulty getting it to land) is appropriate. If its nearly impossible then either Limited Desolid or Limited Teleport (I don't think trigger is necessary tho) are more appropriate, but both are countered differently. Not sure how Change Environment would work tho.

I believe a Penetrating, Damage over time power that acts on the appropriate segments would work but I can't find the rules for timing to determine when it does its damage right now. (it has to do its damage between the victims DEX and the end of the segment to prevent the recovery). Of course its kinda cheezy to build a power this way so not sure if I would allow it as a GM and it wont stop Post Seg 12 recoveries. Other than that forcing a target to hold his breath stops a recovery, so an Transform Air to Choking Gas(non-breathable), Constant, AOE would work as well (but would probably be very expensive).

Why would you need trigger at all? you can RAW turn flight on and "hover" without using a movement action to do so and I don't believe there are any rules that activating teleport would turn off your flight. So you are hovering before your teleport, and hovering after your teleport, you should be okay. You MIGHT have to take a half move to start "hovering", that's not really covered in the brief glance at the rules that i did but after that point I am pretty sure you can just keep your flight "on" (paying 1 end per phase of course) and teleport as your movement action.

You could also apply a -0 limitation to the power "Cannot affect Brother/member of the family/whatever". This would mean that it will affect you (if redirected for instance) but it cannot effect whatever you defined in your limitation. It is worth 0 points since in most cases it would not be all that limiting (your not going to want to hit your brother). Of course the value depends on circumstances....if your brother is the Arch nemesis of your campaign and you have him as a Hunted and you expect to see him often it might be worth a -1/4. On the other hand if your power is AOE based and your brother is another character on your team then its probably going to cost +1/4 to ensure that you never accidentally hit him with it. Most situations tho I would go with the -0 Limitation.

I agree, this type of MI would be better represented with a PRE attack than MI. By RAW MI cannot have any effect on the players stats (other than causing damage with a high enough effect roll). If you want to build a MI that does something like that you would also need to buy a change environment linked to the MI (and possibly limited as well) to reflect the stat modifiers you want the MI to cause. Otherwise you are making MI more powerful than it already is.

honestly something minor like this you could probably handwave as long as he understands that its ONLY useful for that. it sounds like he wants to use teleport like it was in COH. I really don't see how this is abuseable, all you are really allowing him to do is to ignore gravity in the segments between one teleport and the next. I might disallow him to use it with half move teleports due to combat reasons but would depend on how much I trusted the player.

Unfortunately, where writers can be relied upon to not use the same tactic repeatedly (e.g., I remember the Vision making his hand desolid to use as a killing attack) players are a different kettle of fish and I think it's hard to justify saying something like "don't you think you've used this tactic a little too often?!" So I personally would allow a tactic like this, repeatedly, ad nauseum, as it leads to interesting plot developments. After awhile, the villain community learns that there is a one man clean-up team in this particular city with an unusual and fairly permanent tactic to imprison them. They plot and research the best way to stop this character. They approach Sinister Organisations to purchase teleportation suppression devices so that they might co-ordinate and take this guy down (which they do with the aforementioned Alpha-Strike, ignoring best as possible all other opponents until Teleporter is down). They hire lawyers to protect their (human) rights and get this tactic made illegal (it may even be already) and yes, Bad Guys DO press charges. Master Villains with similar devices or may take it upon themselves to intervene when all of their hirelings are being depleted. They may even surgically, or mystically engineer a villain as an antidote - somebody who can teleport the offending teleporter away at even further distances or better yet, extra-dimensionally. Characters that are stranded may make similar deals with entities to get back. Maybe the deal cost them greatly and they now have a burning psychological hatred of the teleporter that extends to wiping out anything that he holds dear. The campaign is a constant developing thing and their are always repercussions to actions taken in it. The first time somebody played a mutant, the referee didn't disallow it he just made a note to self: Sentinels! :-) Personally I think the better approach is to attempt to recognize and prevent these types of problem powers from ever entering into your games. One of the important jobs of a HERO GM is to say NO when warranted. That's why we have STOP signs and CAUTION signs in the rulebooks to point out that those abilities can cause problems. The big issue with your described solution is that you wind up causing a players ability to become nearly useless, in effect punishing that player for taking it. If he payed points for it, and you ALLOWED him to take it into your game, then he should be able to use it. If it is causing problems that you did not forsee you should probably discuss with him how to change it. Punishing a player like this can quickly alienate your players. Its one of the hard lessons I had to learn about being a GM. It's not your job to punish players for abusive powers. Its your job to stop them from ruining the fun of the game for everyone INCLUDING the player with that power. At least that's my opinion based on what I have learned.

Which is one of the reasons why the damage doubling suggestion from 6e2 pg 99 exists. If you use that suggested limit then the STR 50 guy only does 1d6+1 KA

That's more of an abuse prevention measure than anything else (other than the mentioned effect on power up Drains). One of the old tricks for RAW legal characters was to buy a whole bunch of minimum point powers then buy an Aid that could boost them all. Perfectly legal RAW and abusively cheap It also helps stop the "Hyper-advantaged" super cheap power

The fact that something could be bought cheaper by using VPP isn't really an argument that it is overpriced in my opinion. VPP is far too cheap for what it does and shouldn't really be used as a guideline. I am also not really sure why you applied those two advantages to your build to get the 37 point cost, they aren't really needed. I would also highly disagree with what you said fully invisible would do in that situation. (Honestly it wouldn't do anything, Universal Translator is built with Detect which is a Sensory power meaning its already fully invisible according to RAW) I can agree that for many campaigns the cost for languages can be more expensive than what you get for the points, but that can be said for most campaigns. The same can be said for many other collections of skills (Scientists, Scholars, etc) that you might want to include on a character sheet without expecting them to actually be useful. I don't think that Universal Translator is the best way to build something like that tho. I will agree however with your original idea that at some point you could allow them to speak anything they want to. Unless you plan to have your players routinely travel to exotic locales its not like doing that would have ANY effect on your game, and, as the GM, you would have total control over what effect it would have as well so no objections here

There are MANY benefits of grabbing that may not be immediately obvious or used by your group. That is part of the equation here. Grab is a tactical move available to ANYONE and offers a lot of benefits in a team based fight situation (which HERO is really designed for). 1. Its a free maneuver, anyone can do it. Of course the higher your strength the better. 2. A grabbed character cannot use most handheld Foci, allowing a Strong character to easily disable someone who relies on those. 3. A grabbed character is at 1/2 DCV against ALL attackers. Someone that is grabbed is then very easy for other party members to hit INCLUDING the grabbing character. Even tho the attacker may have to make an attack roll to do things like Crush he has his full OCV vs the Grabbed characters 1/2 DCV so unless landing the grab was a lucky shot chances are he will almost NEVER miss (and many GM's I know of don't even bother to roll once the odds get past a certain point to speed up gameplay unless its dramatically appropriate). 4. A grabbed character is at 1/2 OCV against all others (-3 vs the grabber). That means that for the most part he is effectively negated unless he has non-OCV based attacks (or something else is going on). In most games 1/2'ing OCV or DCV is a HUGE advantage/disadvantage that really changes the likely outcome of an attack. 5. You can grab things other than hands. Grabbing feet can prevent someone without exotic movement abilities from fleeing. 6. I don't feel like calculating the odds but in most cases if you are at least 5 points stronger it is actually VERY hard for someone weaker to break out of a grab (By RAW they have to roll MORE NDB against you in a Str vs Str roll. With 5 more strength they have to basically get 2 more 6's/fewer 1's to break out, and that is really hard on its own. Adding in an attack roll, especially with the normal modifiers, would make escape even less likely in many cases. Basically a Grab is a Maneuver that is VERY similar and offers many of the same benefits as an Entangle, but it is a free maneuver that ANYONE can do. If your players don't think grabs are worth using then either you aren't using them correctly or you and/or your players aren't aware of how to use them effectively.

I would say something like that should be very genre-dependent. In a game like Champions throwing sand in someone's eye shouldn't be very effective, otherwise why pay points for flash attacks? If a player wanted to do something like that ONE time and it was dramatically appropriate and in the spirit of the game I would probably allow it with a modified skill roll, granting 5 CP worth of power for each +1 they rolled. Other than that they would need to purchase the Power Skill and follow the rules for that. Sure, in the real world anyone can throw sand in your eye to blind you but for the same reason that you cant just go "buy a gun or some body armor" in a supers campaign this isn't something that should happen often at all. For the same reason I don't allow "real" electricity or fire (or other) SFX in my campaigns. You don't get any bonus abilities for free just because of your SFX. You have to build the power how you want it to work.