griffinman01

Re: Rules question: HTH Limitation Why would you buy a 4D6 RKA with no range? Doesn't that defeat the purpose especially (unlike a no range EB) you can purchase a no str added limitation to a HKA? I understand you're just using it as an example but, as I've sated, I don't have a problem with it because if someone wants to spend more points for the same effect then that's on them. There are dozens of ways to buy powers with this system and each has different costs. The costs may not proportional so you go with the option that bests matches what you want at the cost you're willing to pay (as long as the GM okays it). There's nothing 'unfair' to letting a PC have a few more points to work with and have fun with, the GM can always alter his villains to match the abilities of his PCs. The bottom line, in my opinion, is what's most fun for the players within the balance of the game. If my PCs are going to have a better experience by 'getting all the benefits of a +15 SR for free' that wont unbalance the game, then I don't have any problem with it. If you have a problem then you can change it to better fit your campaign in order to make it more 'fair' for your players. That's the beauty of the system, you can alter things as you see fit for your campaign. I do what's most fair for my player base and there's nothing I see in your post that seems so unfair that it ruins the experience (and if a situation like what you outlined occurred and it proves to be unfair, then I'll act accordingly). The rules in this game are as balanced as they could make them. Does it work in EVERY situation? No. That's why you're given the option to change them if you see a problem. Now, this discussion is getting off-topic for the thread so I'll be ending my train of thought on the topic. If you wish to continue it send a PM, though I've stated my opinions to the best of my ability on the matter.

Re: Clothes only TK They said it was a teen campaign and the guy is talking about clothes-only TK. What kind of tone would fit those? I would be wholly surprised if a wedgie never came up.

Re: Rules question: HTH Limitation

Re: Stop Hits I don't know any martial arts myself, but I do know a bit about fighting since my brother has taken a number of years of Karate. 1) In real life it's generally a combination of momentum (where you use your opponent's momentum against them) and catching them off-guard (which is timing as well as speed). In game terms you'd do it as either holding an action to anticipate the attack and then using it when you're attacked (similar to how we were discussing the clothesline in another thread), a trigger attack, or as a damage shield as shown in the UMA (pg 131): Example: Counterstrike: HA +6d6, Damage Shield (+½), Continuous (+1), Reduced Endurance (½ END; +¼) (82 Active Points); Hand-To-Hand Attack (-½), Requires A Successful Attack Roll (-½), Not When Grabbed (-¼). Total cost: 36 points. That example would trigger on any attack until you decide to turn it off but I think that's a bit more than what you were looking for. 2) I don't think you could use a martial maneuver for that because it violates the 'cannot abort to an attack rule' and even if you built a maneuver as per the UMA source book, dodges, blocks, and strikes are considered exclusive meaning you could only do one. So you couldn't design a maneuver that allows you to block and attack or dodge and attack. 3) Trigger would work and the cost would depend on how you want the trigger to work. If it's only when an HTH attack hits then it's +1/4 since it's one defined (or related) set of conditions. The reset (I'm assuming you wouldn't want to keep spending an action to reset it each time) would probably be +1/2 for an automatic reset. That would be a total of +3/4. If you put it to an HTH attack (I'm assuming a +4D6 HTH) then it would cost 23 points (20 active points, +3/4 Trigger, -1/2 HTH attack = 23 points). You can decrease that by putting on other limitations such as "Must be aware of attack" (-1/4) and "Not While Grabbed" (-1/4) which would take it down to 17 points. 17 points is pretty reasonable for this kind of maneuver with all things considered so I think this would be an easy way to simulate the ability. EDIT: I just saw that Steve Long stated that you would need to purchase it on the strength which would add to the cost. It would probably be a naked modifier with the same limitations and end up costing roughly the same as the HTH trigger so probably around 30 points for the whole package.

Re: Clothes only TK The book does state that it can't be used to bypass armor or personal defenses though the mental image of that would be pretty funny. I'd do that kind of ability as some kind of NND energy blast with the defense as 'going commando'. Seriously though, I'd agree you just come up with a reasonable limitation (-1/4 to -1/2) and then draw the line on specific actions if they're too far outside the scope of the power.

Re: Rules question: HTH Limitation I'm running things off of 5E since that's the book that I have so I had no idea the rule had changed in 6E. I guess it makes sense that only real weapons would have that limitation but it does seem like an unbalance with that in mind (considering that advantaged HTHs have the same double limit and that's what I consider HKAs - a HTH attack with AVLD). Obviously Str should be a component to it (I would think someone who could barely lift a sword would do less damage with it than Conan the Barbarian) but there should be a limit to it because even natural weapons (teeth and claws) would break with enough force. Now that I know how 6E handles this I agree that it seems an unbalance.

Re: Clothesline a someone running by you I pretty much agree with the 'hold an action' then try to interrupt with a move-by using the speedster's relative velocity. I had someone ask the same kind of question in my session just a couple of weeks ago and that's what we came up with.

I had a quick question regarding damage that exceeds a wall and what effect it has on the things behind. For instance, say you had a tank with a 6D6 RKA main gun that shoots a 6 Def 6 Body wall and rolls 24 body (3x stun multiplier for 72 stun). The first 12 body obliterates the wall and there's still 12 body left over. If someone was sitting behind the wall when it blew, would they take any of that left over damage (much like a force wall)? What about the stun?

This came up in my latest adventure where one of my PCs was playing a martial artist (DCV = 8) and they wanted to do a sweep with a martial strike (+2 DCV). Since sweep halves your DCV, I wanted to know the order of the math. Which one happens: 1. DCV is halved at the end (DCV = 8 + 2 from the martial strike = 10. Divide that by 2 for the sweep and get DCV = 5) 2. DCV is halved first, then DCV adders are taken into account (DCV = 8/2 = 4. 4 + 2 from martial strike and get a DCV = 6) Thanks!

Re: Rules question: HTH Limitation Actually, it's not that big of a difference since you could only double the HKA damage with your strength. A 1d6 HKA doesn't see any bonus after 15 Str since you could only boost it to 2D6 (that way you can't cut a guy in half with a pocket knife). In order to see a marked difference you'd probably have to spend a lot more so you could see the full advantage of your massive strength. I personally don't have a problem with the cost difference since I figure the -1/2 No range limitation would be offset by a +1/2 May Add Str to this attack (I'm assuming this cost as the reverse of not being able to add strength to the attack). You do more damage with the HKAs (assuming you have a good amount of strength to put behind it) but the RKA obviously gives you the range (unless you buy the Ranged limitation on your HKA (+1/2) to simulate something like a javelin or spear). I haven't run into any issues where I felt that the cost of these abilities unbalanced the game.

Re: Clothes only TK Or the shocking realization that said target is strangely unaffected by your attempts to give them a wedgie.

Re: Question regarding Hacking Automatons That's one thing that's fun with the Hero System (but also can be confusing) is that there's multiple ways to build a power and get any effect you want. I think the easiest way for me to do this (and how I ultimately built the character) is using the 'treat INT as EGO' for these guys. I'm not too worried about rules lawyering since I'm usually the one who keeps it all in check. Thanks for all of the input!

Re: Clothes only TK I guess the real sticking point is how diverse you consider 'clothes'? Because, as it stands, it sounds pretty diverse since you'd be able to target everyone unless, as previously stated, the target's naked (or the guy in the power suit is going commando). You'd miss out on lifting objects and 'punching' with it but that's probably just a slight limitation (-1/4 to -1/2 at best). With regards to the using it on your own clothing question, I probably wouldn't allow it as a GM simply because it's too similar to using it as 'flying'. It's a fine line there but using it like that sounds like they're trying to dodge the limitations on the power. Side note, since I'm running a teen superhero campaign at the moment right now I have to give whoever came up with this idea props as it's gonna have some golden opportunities later on.

Re: Side effect: aging Yeah, one of my players had this problem when someone stole his mage's staff in a fight. He took it in stride though and just kind of laughed about it. Besides, two phases later the culprit was eating dirt and the staff was back in hand so no feelings were hurt.

Re: Question regarding Hacking Automatons I think this would be the easiest method since it reduces the amount of 'handwaving' to get it to work and best fits what I'm attempting to do.

Re: Two handed punch.

Re: Rules question: HTH Limitation

Re: Question regarding Hacking Automatons That would work too.

Re: Character Creation Cheat Sheet I'm surprised nobody mentioned the Hero Designer software. That's been a godsend and well worth the money I spent on it. I'd be willing to bet that it's the only way I managed to convince my friends to play. They had some time getting used to the rules and when you factor in all of the cost adjustments for advantages and limitations on something like an EC or VPP, I can't even imagine doing it all by hand now. Hell, I remember back in the day when I first got introduced into the hero system (back when the book was called Champions) and it came with the floppy disc software.

Re: Question regarding Hacking Automatons Since my account still requires the waiting period between posts I dunno when this will show up. With regards to breaking out of the mental power I was planning on treating them as if they had 0 EGO but some possible mental defense to simulate some kind of fire-wall. The idea I had with these is that they have some built-in safeguards and anti-hacking protocols that could fight the intrusion and try to regain control. Think of them as trying to reboot themselves to reset to their default programming in the event of an intrusion. So they'd get hacked (via a mind control that only affects machines and requires a computer skill roll) and then their fail-safe's try to regain control of their systems automatically. They're not very sophisticated (these things are pretty much expendable troops) so it'll probably take some time but I figure that they could break out eventually and reboot, kind of like a normal character. For the suit, did Unified come in with the 6th Edition? I'm using my old 5th edition rulebook that I bought back in 2001 or 2002 so I'm only familiar with Elemental Control. I was thinking of using an EC with it but I was never 100% sure that an EC was the way to go with an armored suit like Iron Man. When I first made this guy (before I wanted to clarify the rules here) I went with the OIHID because I figured the suit was custom built and only the villain could figure it out. So I though a Focus or vehicle wouldn't work based on that, especially with your clarification. So I'm thinking of making them unified with an EC and then putting on OIHID. I think suppress and drain affecting them all would make sense since the integrated systems would probably be affected the same. If you drained the suit's power it'd shut everything down. Plus none of the PCs have those skills so it's a non-issue as far as I'm concerned. Thanks for all of the ideas! I think I've got a good grasp on how to get this to work now.

Re: Side effect: aging I would think a side effect to the powers would work and then have the effect be that his stats lower. If you wanted to be creative you could make a table with all the stats on it and then roll each time he uses an ability like psyber624 said. For example: on a d6 1. -1 STR 2. -1 CON 3. -2 Stun 4. -2 END 5. -1 PD 6. -1 ED or some such. It also just occurred to me, do you plan letting him buy back some of those stats using points? For instance, if he's lost a lot of STR, would it be feasible to have him do a regular strength training regimen to build it back up? You might also need to figure out how this is going to play out in the long run (assuming you're even going for the long-run). I know you said that the character was going to be disposable as a one-shot intro character, but I know the players in my group wouldn't like having to spend their hard-earned EXP re-buying stat points they lost when the rest of the group is getting stronger.

Re: Two handed punch. I know there's a 'requires two hands' option off of Gestures (a -1/2 limitation) so couldn't you do a HTH attack with that limitation on it? So you could put, say 40 STR for your normal one-handed attack and then a +4D6 HTH (requires two hands) and some other limitation (requires a full phase, etc) as you see fit to make your two fisted pound do 12D6 damage. Or, if you didn't want to deal with added damage, you can do some added effect to simulate the extra damage, such as Armor piercing as a naked modifier with the two hand limitation or a Find Weakness for two-handed punches.

Re: Rules question: HTH Limitation I was always under the impression that the -1/2 HTH limitation was because you were essentially buying 5 points of strength but not getting any of the figured characteristics, throw modifiers, or STR rolls out of it. It's the same as if you bought 5 STR with the limitation "Only to add to HTH damage" like what CrosshairCollie said.

Re: Question regarding Hacking Automatons Thanks for the quick replies! I kinda figured that doing some fudging with Mind Control would be the easiest way to do it, the main thing I was curious about was how to deal with the ECV value for it. Both of those options sound really good ways to deal with that so I'm going to figure out which one would work the best. For the second half the main thing I'm kind of hung up on is that the fight I'm planning for this character is a multi-stage fight. The first phase is you see the guy in this large, custom-built mech suit that will eventually fall apart (due to ablative defenses failing) or overheat (runs out of the endurance reserve). Once the mech suit fails, the character jumps out and tries to continue the fight by hacking some of the nearby machines in an attempt to cover his escape. This is making me torn since this sounds like it should be more of a vehicle in this case since I'm planning on the suit falling off (and that the fight will continue with just the pilot being involved), but the pilot will be exposed to the attacks so I would assume that it would be considered armor and that anything that punches through the mech's defenses would hit the pilot (which also leaves the possibility that they can knock him out before he has a chance to try and run). I'm probably trying to overcomplicate this, but I try to do things as 'by the book' as possible in order to keep things from being unbalanced. Plus I have a lot of very creative thinkers in my group and they're always coming up with unconventional means to solve issues, so the more sense I make of it now, the better prepared I am for when these guys try to exploit it.

I'm new to the forums but I'm a long-time fan of the HERO System and have run a number of campaigns. I've got a question that I'd like some opinions on how to implement an idea. Basically I'm looking at making a gadget-based villain who will have the ability to hack nearby automatons (either defense turrets, bots, or other mindless drone defenses) and I was curious as the best way to simulate and implement such an ability. I know that Automatons are immune to mental powers otherwise Mind Control would be the obvious solution (with it having a limitation that it requires a Computer Programming skill roll) and I don't have any good ideas on an alternative, so I'm curious to see how other people have done something like this in the past and if there are any house rules that people have used to deal with this kind of situation. Also, on a side note, how would you deal with fire-walls or counter-hacking (ie. any defenses that these drones might have to resist a hacking attempt). Second question, while I'm here, this same villain will probably be using a mech suit (think something along the lines of the power loaders from the movie Aliens) and I was wondering if something like that would be best designed as a vehicle (and how you would deal with an exposed pilot in such a case), or as set of powers (linked together by a Multipower or Elemental Control) that is either considered a focus or Only in Heroic ID limitation. Thanks in advance for any assistance.