secretID

Thanks for the fast answers!

BTW, I haven't been on the boards in a long time, IIRC, and it's great to see you still at it, Lucius - "it" being the individualized clever postscripts. I think your dedication and consistency make it the most impressive thing I've ever seen in online interactions.

Am I correct that the pluses and minuses each must fit into the campaign minimums? That is, a 75/75 character only has 75 points in disads and 150 points total, regardless of what's in any package deal?

Put another way, am I correct that a package deal is in fact no "deal" for the player - it's just a list of things the player must fit into the character limits? (I ask this without criticism.)

Thanks in advance.

Re: computer link pricing

You could just make the Company a contact.

 

Here is what 6E comptuer link gives as exampele values:

"For example, a Computer Link to a local police, government, or corporate computer system might cost 1-3 points; similar national or federal systems, 4-6 points;"

 

Also I think "Police powers" could inlcude access to such information among others, so it should be lower than an equal range Police Powers perq.

Thanks - that's very helpful.

I hadn't thought of comparing it to a contact. That way, it would have to be VERY expensive - over 10 points. So as not to overthink it, I'll just go with 6, which looks like the top of the link range.

5e, if that matters.

I'm trying to price a link a player is buying. Didn't quite do an exhaustive search, but I can't find a single published character with a link.

It's a modern-day standard campaign - 350 points. The link is to all US Telecom companies. He would have full access to all billing information, and an advantage for hacking various things (like call history).

Thanks in advance.

Re: Fading Stars...when and why should superheroes retire?

we've seen "my powers are fading" and "my powers are getting out of control" but not "I've found something better to do with my powers."

Beat you by a hair.

I've had these thoughts many times, but they hit me most in a game when I was playing a genius inventor power suit. The GM wanted a long down-time post, and I realized that just about anything my character would be doing in his off time would be far more useful than fighting some bad guy.

With some heroes, I could see them worrying that the repercussions of a big good act could be harder to control. The weather control is a good example.

With the super-inventor, it's just silly. Why work on making your force field belt a tad better when you could, say invent the greatest imaginable water filter, thereby saving tens of thousands of children every day?

Re: Fading Stars...when and why should superheroes retire?

This is outside of genre, but some could just realize how silly and inefficient it is to fight crime as opposed to, say, facilitating the production and delivery of potable water. Similarly, some might decide that it's more important to go after some bad people without powers - say dictators or bankers.

Re: Theurgy side effects in TA

Mechanically' date=' the Turakian Age Theurgy spells are built with the Limitations, [i']Requires A Skill Roll[/i] and Side Effects. That means the listed Side Effect only occurs when the caster fails a Skill Roll, but occurs automatically if he does fail. Conceptually, failing the roll represents the god noticing that the caster is attempting to tap the god's power without permission, and the SE is the god's punishment for his presumption. The GM doesn't decide whether or not this occurs, unless there's some metagame reason for him to overrule the outcome of the Skill Roll.

Thanks! I didn't know that RSK + SE automatically means that.

The book says that they represent a god's punishment for stealing power. Does that mean that it's a GM call whether it occurs? Does it occur when the skill roll fails? It doesn't appear that they're meant to occur every use. Thanks for any help.

Re: expendable foci vs. charges

Personally' date=' with a limitation value of only -1/4, I'd be inclined to say that Expendable focuses are only effectively limited when you're away from all normal supplies for an extended period. So when in a town, or on the road between them, you have as many as you need - but get stuck in the desert, or crossing some huge forest, and you'll likely run out. I don't know if that lines up with the examples in the book, however.[/quote']

Not well. IIRC, the examples in the 5e book are pretty nasty. The FH book is more reasonable - it talks about the -1/4 level as including particular leaves, and such, though that's still not ubiquitous. The actual examples in the grimoire are closer to the 5e book - carved ivory figurines, the blood of a particular creature, and similar.

 

I think I would just do away with the whole lim - just do OAF and charges/recoverable under limited circumstances. This is just a shorthand for that combination, with very unbalanced pricing.

Re: expendable foci vs. charges

Charges without the Recoverable option still recover between adventures (get a new clip of bullets from home base).

Right - that's what I was referring to, Kraven. With either a charge or an expendable focus, you lose the power in the short term, but with the charge you get it back automatically later, while with the expendable focus you have to go through some trouble and expense to get another.

Re: expendable foci vs. charges

I suppose it depends on how many of the foci the GM lets you have hanging around.

 

There's no number limit placed on Expendable, if the item is easy enough to maintain, or you've accumulated enough, you can keep casting as long as materials last.

I thought of that, but that's why I gave the example of 2x12. I doubt he'd allow me that many, and even so, I might have 8 spells, so hundreds of foci, and the component might be a valuable item. More likely, I'd have about 6 uses for each. In charges, that would be -3/4, and they would automatically recover, and I wouldn't have to spend END. (Yeesh - the more I think about it, the crazier it seems.)

Expendable Foci used to simulate spell components are a way of doing a kind of 'charges' whose availability are firmly under the control of the GM (some times the character will have a surplus' date=' sometimes some components will be in short supply, ie;the key piece of that pesky Clairvoyance spell!). Plus, making it a different Limitation allows you to combine both where appropriate to model certain spells (like a multiple missile "Magic Missile" spell).[/quote']

Those make sense, but they don't explain the pricing. Given the guidelines in the book for what constitutes "difficult," etc., I would think expendable would be 3 to 5 times the value given, at least as compared to charges.

5e - not sure if this changed.

Building a FH mage - and therefore dealing with expendable foci - for the first time. The lim seems very undervalued. For that same extra -1/4, I could buy 2 clips of 12 charges, recoverable under limited circumstances.

Am I missing something.

I'm making my first FH mage for a 5e TA campaign. I have TA and the Grimoires, but FH is in the mail. I'm trying to get my head around some things, and I don't want to keep bugging the GM, so now I'm bugging you. Thanks in advance.

I haven't hashed everything out with the GM yet, but I know that he wants to stick pretty closely to the spells in the books. My questions of the hour involve the use of material components.

First, it seems to me that the spells with material components should have charges, b/c there are only so many components one can carry. Is that problem viewed as just part of "expendable?" I know expendable gets you an extra -1/4 (!), but I'd just as soon take an OAF - magic staff or something. Then I won't have to spend all of my down time shopping for imp's blood and carving ivory figurines.

On that subject, TA says that elves use foci made of their magic wood. Is that usually in lieu of material components, or in addition to, or is there no "usual?"

Thanks.

Re: GM conundrum - CSLs

Hé ?

I understood the french hero system community was ridicoulous.

If we are so tough , why there is no translation ?

Sorry - I meant that it would be tough - difficult - to find a French/English translator on Hero Central.

I don't know about Hero in particular in France - I just thought that there was a lot of RPGers there. (And I did not have very good basis for that belief.)

You might want to post in the "HERO Games Product Line" forum.

Re: GM conundrum - CSLs

I live near Paris. I must find someone who perfectly knows the HS Rules ( GM ) and speaking french and english and living not too far of course. And who'd accept to spend time to RPG and to explain me. A lot of conditions...

The French part will be tough, but you can try herocentral.com for play-by-post remote games.

I was under the impression that there are a lot of French RPGers - maybe there's a French site similar to Hero Central?

Re: GM conundrum - CSLs

Which presumes only the "in-game" aspect is a reasonable basis for character design decisions. Role playing exists on many interelated levels and' date=' while gamers frequently disparage the sin of meta-gaming, the meta-game on the system level is equally important in terms of whether a game, or character is playable. So, with respect to the OP, I simply cannot - and will not - accept the notion that a system and campaign design level considration is less valid than an "in-game" rationale. The distinction ignores the entire interface we use to create the in-game with.[/quote']

Well...I'm not sure he was equating "artificial" with "unreasonable." (He did seem reluctant to use a simple cap.)

 

I would draw a distinction between an sfx cap* and a mechanical cap; it relates to Hugh's post. First, I prefer caps that allow for some trade-off among OCV, DCs, etc. Second, I think mechanical caps should be applied with reason regardless, so that even if there's no general right to...ah..."cap and trade" or similar, the GM would make allowances for martial arts and similar.

 

An sfx cap, on the other hand, would be strictly applied - the GM says that you just can't have a 30 STR, 20 DCs in your MAs, or 15 overall levels.

 

* Probably not the best term. Offhand, the only examples that come to mind are limitations on normal humans.

Re: Something fishy about this

And two people with a mindlink could make an effective combat team. Teamwork <18' date=' Naked Advantage: Indirect (always from partner) are just two abilities that jump to my mind.[/quote']

I think it's more interesting as one character, defined as two closely related individuals. It reminds me of write-ups posted here a while back of powers built with a duplication sfx without using Duplication.

Re: GM conundrum - CSLs

Splitting a mighty fine hair I think.

 

Depends on what you mean by "arbitrary". It's not arbitrary in the dictionary sense - it has a justifiable reason, the reason is "we don't want situations where we are comparing massively disparate chances to hit, damage, etc". It's arbitrary in another sense - there's no obvious real world reason for it - but I'm not really sure that's something where we would necessarily say that arbitrary was bad.

For the OP's purposes, this is the relevant distinction. He was reluctant to institute something "artificial," which I took to mean "without in-game rational."

Re: GM conundrum - CSLs

Eh... I disagree. Reason from effect.

But the question of whether it's arbitrary is all about whether it makes sfx sense. If you're playing a game of no superhumans, a STR limit isn't arbitrary.

That's my point. A limit applicable to a game mechanic - "effect" - is arbitrary, but a limit to STR, skills, etc. isn't necessarily so.

Incidentally OCV is' date=' of course, a characteristic, so saying that a CSL cap is less arbitrary than "... a skill roll cap or a characteristic cap ..." is technically self refuting.[/quote']

I think you know what I meant - total OCV, from base OCV, MAs, CSLs, etc.

Re: GM conundrum - CSLs

I won't reiterate the many good points here; I just had something re the artificiality of a cap.

IMO, a CSL cap is less arbitrary than, say, an OCV cap. I see it more like a skill roll cap or a characteristic cap. You rule that there's only so strong a human can be in your game, only so good one can be at Acrobatics or Shadowing, and only so expert one can be with a rifle, just like in reality.

Re: Something fishy about this

Everything else aside, why does a campaign need two identical no-combat characters? Why would two players want to play identical characters? Is this a freaky sex thing? ( :

Re: Changing your Multipower

How is changing Skill Levels at the beginning and half phase any different? (Remember' date=' type slowly, I don't read so fast)[/quote']

As Lucius suggested, at least in 5e, you can't change combat skill levels after attacking, so that's not really an issue. The text for overall levels leaves some question to me as to whether you can use the level for movement, then switch it to use for attack. I bet there's an FAQ on that, but regardless, that's not nearly as big a deal to me as switching points from attack powers/skills to defense right after attacking.

Re: Changing your Multipower

I don't think it would be much more balanced for non-frameworks either.

True, but somehow it just seems even crazier with MPs - maybe because you could deliberately do 2x the same MP when you never have any intention of using one as a MP. I think it probably works much better in heroic campaigns - I haven't GMed one of those.

Re: Changing your Multipower

Better yet' date=' let's make them a focus. Then I can buy the first one and pay 5 points to have twice as many. That works under RAW. Two different slots in two different MP's both adding to the same non-MP ability.[/quote']

That rule is totally nuts. I couldn't believe it when I learned (via a Q to Steve, IIRC) that you could use the 5-point rule with a MP focus and have each focus on a different slot. With a powered armor character, why buy an attack MP, defensive powers, movement powers, etc.? Instead, just buy one OIF MP with slots for all of those things, then buy 3 more "items," and devote one to each purpose.

 

It's theoretically possible that I would allow a second identical focus for 5 points, but never if it were a MP.

 

Re the original question, others have illustrated what the alternative to the RAW would look like. The RAW seem to balance well, so I wouldn't do that big a change. Clever MP designers would have overpowered characters. Of course, some GMs are more willing to eyeball each player for power and balance; I prefer to just let the limits rule in most cases.

Are the pdfs for updated books no longer for sale? I see, e.g., that the Dark Champions pdf is still available, but the 5e Fantasy Hero pdf is "out of stock."

For the moment, I'm just trying to get Fantasy Hero 5e.

Thanks.