secretID

Re: easy 5e succor build...?

No, I meant 2x60.

 

30 point pool plus 30 point pool using OAF = 60 point pool.

 

When you build a 60 point power with OAF it costs 30 real points and you can get 2 of them in a 60 point pool.

 

VPPs are not nuanced MPs. Nosireebob.

Hmm...Is this what you're saying?

If the focus is unavailable, you can only use 30 AP of powers, for 30 real points (assuming for the sake of example no other mods on the VPPs).

If the focus is available, you can build a 60 AP power, but since to do so requires the focused portion of the VPP, the whole power has OAF, so costs only 30 real points. You can therefore build another 60 AP power.

I haven't crunched all the numbers, but something seems cheap about that. What if you want to build multiple 30 AP powers? If you define them one way each has the OAF, and you can therefore have four at once. On the other hand, you could also say that one power comes from the unfocused VPP, and therefore costs 30 real points, so that you could only build one total, though one wouldn't have the OAF. To build it so that you have four devalues the OAF, in much the same way it does to use focus within a variable lim. (There's a FAQ about that.) You lose the focus, and you just redefine (granted, with a full-phase action and a skill roll) your powers such that you still get to keep one.

And in light of recent events, I must say: Don't call me Bob. ( :

Unless you are already set on the Succor approach another idea to consider would be to build the full VPP with all the Limitations (Focus, etc..)

then build a custom naked buyoff of on part of those limitations outside of the VPP.

 

something similar to this:

Huh. That's interesting. I'll play around with that.

Re: easy 5e succor build...?

Focus does not work brilliantly with VPPs because it can not affect the cost of the pool, just the control cost, but as prestidigitator suggests, it may be best just to buy it as a bigger pool when you have the staff: then you have more power and can run more spells simultaneously when using the staff. A lot less messy than succor, which takes time to build and means you have to keep track of points and switches off when you change your VPP powers (6.1.140).

 

I'm assuming there is a total -1/4 on the control cost. Building a staff to double the pool size (and allow trice as many powers to run simultaneously) would cost 30 for the pool + (15/2.25) = 7 points for the control cost i.e. 37 more points. That is almost double the cost but it is also something like 4 times the utility, so a bargain (you can now run two 60 point powers simultaneously).

Ah - I see the succor problem now. You can boost the pool right off, but each time a slot is switched the new power has to be boosted.

I was a little confused by your last line - you mean two 30-point powers, no? Actually, I guess it's one 60-pt. power and one 30-pt. power (see below).

If I understood you both, I would have two VPPs, one with a common mod of OAF and one without. Arguably, the one with the OAF would also have linked.

This is a little funny b/c each VPP has different mods. E.g., to build a 12 DC EB, I would use all 30 points of the first VPP, but only 15 points of the second. Then I could take another 30-AP power with the OAF VPP with the other 15 pool points.

Would this violate the rule about one framework modifying another? I guess that's why I might need to ask for GM permission...

At least I think it's succor - I'm not great with adjustment powers.

Magic VPP, 42 total cost (30 base + 15 control, with lims). When the character holds his staff, his VPP is twice as big.

That's it. I can live with having to use an attack action to activate the boost, if that saves from having to buy trigger. He'll have the staff most of the time.

Thanks for any help.

Re: DCV vs. beneficial "attack"

In 5e the "attacked from behind in combat" modifier is part of the Surprised modifier and the further explanation/qualification is there. The 6e version isn't so much a change as just a matter of being re-written for clarity. The 5e version also includes text noting that the Surprised modifier only applies if the person being attacked isn't expecting to be attacked.

Huh. Found the section in 5e and a question in the FAQs as well. That part of the rules sure did need a rewrite - I had no clue that's what was meant.

Anyway, I'm going to stick with the 1/2 facing penalty. It just fits well with all of the other DCV modifiers.

Re: DCV vs. beneficial "attack"

To just address this' date=' there are no DCV modifiers due to facing in Hero. There is a note that one of the most common ways for someone to qualify for the Surprised modifier (1/2 DCV) is to be attacked from behind, but it also notes that just being behind someone doesn't automatically grant that.[/quote']

Are you talking about 6e? I'm using 5e (unrevised). There's a table giving 1/2 DCV for "attacked from behind in combat," and I can't find further explanation or qualification of that. There are also the general penalties for not perceiving an attacker with a targeting sense.

Re: DCV vs. beneficial "attack"

Thanks for the very interesting responses. They've made me think about the nature of DCV.

I'm thinking (in flux) that DCV is a combination of: 1) flitting about to generally avoid anything, like a boxer moving in the ring; and 2) little, specific dodges that aren't quite Dodges. The 1/2 (as opposed to none, or total) loss of DCV from facing and similar seems to fit that.

Applied here, let's see...

1) if B is totally unaware, then he has a 1/2 DCV penalty anyway;

2) if B is aware (and wants to be hit), he can keep flitting about, but decline to specifically avoid A's attack - in game terms, he can drop his DCV to 1/2 vs. A, without using any action, and without any lingering effects;

3) if B is aware (and wants to be hit) he can make himself completely still - in game terms, he drops his DCV to 0, a 0-phase action which would drop his DCV until his next full phase.

B's awareness and the timing of it all is more complicated, but I think I'd rather leave that fuzzy than work out an approach with rolls. The shorter and clearer the communication the better - "Go limp" is a great example - and prior practice with the maneuver would be a factor. Regardless, though, I think I'll only apply that to situation #3 above, dropping the DCV to 0.

Using the existing example, B sees that Enemy is loading up this haymaker, then he sees his teammate A trying to do something to him (. I guess B might reflexively flinch away from that, but with regular teammates I'm inclined to say that B just knows that A is trying to help him, so he doesn't duck or similar, and he drops his DCV to 1/2 vs. that "attack."

I know I've come across this, but I can't find it anywhere in the (5e) rules.

Character A is doing something beneficial to teammate B, but an attack roll is required.

1) What can B do voluntarily do to his DCV to help?

2) Can B do "it" (some kind of voluntary DCV lowering, I guess) between his phases?

3) If B does "it," does the effect last until his next phase - i.e., do enemies get easy shots as well?

4) Is there anything official limiting B's options if he isn't aware that A is trying to do something good to him? (Of course, I may limit it regardless.)

In case it helps, the specific situation is that Enemy has started a Haymaker against B, and A, realizing this, wants to pull B away with telekinesis.

Thanks for any help.

Re: 5th Ed: Flying Dodge

Here's what we made as our Flying Dodge houserule. We've found it to still be a good maneuver on fast characters. I have repeatadly observed the "auto-avoid melee attacks" portion of un-houseruled flying dodge to be way, way overpowered every time I've seen a character both (a) have flying dodge and ( know that you could use it to auto-avoid melee attacks.

 

Case 1: You are using Flying Dodge as an aborted action

Step 1: You gain all benefits of Flying Dodge, including extra DCV, linked powers, reassigned CSLs, et cetera, but don't move yet.

Step 2: Fully resolve all non-area-of-effect attacks targeted at you.

Step 3: If you were not in the area of any area-of-effect attacks, go to step 5. If you were, then you make a DEX roll; for every 1 point you succeed by, you may take up to 2m of your movement immediately. Note that your DEX and/or movement may have been reduced in step 2.

Step 4: Resolve all Area of Effect attacks whose area you were in.

Step 5: Take any movement not used up in step 3. Note that your DEX and/or movement may have been reduced in steps 2 and 4.

Case 2: You are using Flying Dodge as a held action

In this case, treat Flying Dodge exactly as if you used your held action to move for all purposes (including needing to make a Dexterity/Ego roll to move first), except that you also gain the defensive benefits (per step 1 above) of flying dodge immediately (before rolled-off actions resolve).

If it becomes a problem, I'll probably do something close to this. I would simplify and just say that whenever FD is interrupting an attack, there's a DEX context to use the movement part of FD.

There's a speedster in my campaign who uses FD to great effect. He holds every action until just before his next scheduled action, so he always has an action in his pocket to use for FD. He's virtually unhittable as a result, but it hasn't been a problem b/c he isn't an offensive powerhouse. As I think about it, it makes the team more powerful (b/c enemies waste actions) w/o making the character seem overpowering because he's not knocking enemies out left and right.

Re: 5th Ed: Flying Dodge

Why is that a problem? If anyone has a higher SPD or even a higher DEX on the same SPD they still go before you' date=' so you won't always have a held action. If you have the highest SPD and DEX in the campaign, well than you paid for it so why/how is that particular strategy inherently a problem?[/quote']

I don't have a huge problem with Flying Dodge, and I wasn't arguing for a change. I think it's the best martial maneuver and that's it's underpriced, but I haven't felt the need for a house rule yet.

 

I was commenting on someone else's proposed adjustment. I was just pointing out that it wouldn't actually change that much because of the loophole that the player could de facto abort without ever literally aborting.

Re: 5th Ed: Flying Dodge

Breaks haymakers?

• DFC = yes
  
• Flying Dodge = yes
  
• Desol = No
  

Why wouldn't desol break a haymaker - i.e., if it's activated between the start of the haymaker and when it lands?

Did I miss anything?

Desol generally completely prevents a ranged attack, while DFC and FD just add a range penalty - i.e., you're not allowed to use the movement portion to duck around a corner, IIRC.

As for flying dodge' date=' I seem to recall Steve saying something to the effect that so long as the special effects and timing allow, the Flying Dodge is a dodging action and thus can be continued until the person doing the flying dodge runs out of movement.[/quote']

That's totally nuts, IMO.

The way I've typically handled Flying Dodge is to allow movement as part of it only if you don't Abort (e.g. you do it with a normal action or a held Phase).

The problem with that is that aborting isn't as important as it seems. If you're willing to hold your first action in a fight, you essentially keep an action in your pocket the whole fight to use as a de facto abort instead of literally aborting.

Re: power usable once per hour

Good ideas. I think I'll go with the END reserve.

Thanks!

Re: power usable once per hour

Yeah, I thought that it might just be recoverable, with no extra lim.

At least an hour - he can stay in one form for as long as he likes.

5e. The character has Multiform, but once changed he has to stay in that form for at least an hour.

I would think this would be very easy - charges and something else - but it doesn't seem to be. Recoverable charges says they can normally be recovered only out of combat, which is too soon, really. Maybe just a custom lim re the extra time to recover the charge?

Re: what should this hacking project require?

Thanks for the suggestions. I went with this:

1) Their security is level 16-. They roll, and their success or failure modifies the PC's roll.

2) Base time for the task is one month.

3) The player makes a second roll for stealth, and that roll modifies the companies' roll to detect. They make their roll immediately, then weekly.

5) The player can announce before rolling that he will apply points to stealth. Every point thus applied gives him a penalty to the hacking roll but a bonus to the stealth roll.

Champions, standard power, setting very close to current reality (e.g., technology available to general public is the same).

A character wants to do the following to track a teleporter. He will hack into cell tower transmissions to track when any cell phone "logs in" with one tower after having recently logged in with another tower too far away to be explained by normal transportation.

Having researched the topic, the player believes that this is theoretically possible based on how cell phone transmission and billing work, and I'm willing to take his word on it. I also like the ingenuity of the idea, and I have no reason to forbid it for story reasons.

This sounds like a huge task, as the player acknowledges. (He's a super hacker, so it's not necessarily impossible.) Aside from the size of the project, another issue is that, because he wants to monitor the data going forward, he can theoretically be traced back.

I'm very weak on this question for multiple reasons. Any suggestions on the following are much appreciated:

1) How long should it take to get the unmodified skill roll for this project?

2) How do I factor in the ongoing nature of the monitoring and the danger of tracking?

3) Anything else I should be considering?

Thanks for any suggestions.

Re: straw poll: Does a Shadow Demon have a "living body"

Demons will not be common other than in this adventure. I'm only using the ones in the Bestiary, and making very few changes to those.

That's why I mentioned the question of what would qualify as "non-living." Robots and zombies would likely already be automatons, so they wouldn't be affected anyway. Undead with minds would count, I guess. So, he's unlikely to encounter anything else with a "non-living body" for a long time, if ever.

Anyway, I know which demons are going to be around, so I'm just going to categorize them now, as suggested, by overall impression. Of all the ones in the Bestiary, shadow demons seem the least alive in the usual sense.

Re: straw poll: Does a Shadow Demon have a "living body"

The power strikes me as a souped up zombie taser more than anything else.

"Zombie taser?"

Is a shadow demon more shadow' date=' or more demon? Does it have any powers that make it incorporeal? If so, temporarily or persistently?[/quote']

I would say more demon. It has Desolid, but it's not always on, and only the most powerful can attack while desol.

 

Exactly how is the power written up and which edition? 6e added some options where an NND might be a Limitation if the defense was common.

5e. EB, NND at the +1 (standard) level, defended by LS: Radiation or "non-living body."

 

Most of the posters thus far are assuming that a demon would automatically qualify as having a "living form' date='" though in most settings that I'd create a demon wouldn't be biological in any sense we'd understand and therefore would technically not be "living" in that sense -- it's something similar to the "Class of Minds" rule. So it's really a matter of how you view the nature (so to speak) of demons in general, at least for purposes of your setting. You could even rule that they're only half qualified, and thus only take half damage.[/quote']

Yeah - for me, I think it is more about the "demon" than the "shadow." That said, the Bestiary says that demons vary in what they eat, how they reproduce, etc., with some more biological (eat flesh, reproduce sexually) than others. It doesn't much specify after that, but it does say that shadow demons eat life energy.

 

Hmm...I think I just convinced myself that they don't have living bodies.

Champions. PC has a high-tech "pain inducer," NND EB, defense is LS: Radiation or "nonliving form." He uses it against a Shadow Demon, right out of the Bestiary. Does it work?

I confess that, when approving the power, I never thought to ask what a "nonliving form" would be, given that a NND EB (i.e., STUN only) wouldn't work against automatons anyway. So...whadya think?

Re: rounding Armor Piercing

the Big Blue Book itself has Mechanon fire an AP Energy Blast at Solitaire' date=' with the Advantage effectively reducing her ED from 19 to 10.[/quote']

That's good enough for me. Funny that it isn't made explicit anywhere - it's such a basic question.

 

Thanks for all the responses.

I only have 5th, unrevised, and I'm playing 5th, of course.

When halving defenses for AP, how does one round it? E.g., does 11 become 5 or 6?

For Damage Reduction, it rounds in favor of the target. I don't know whether that suggests that one rounds in favor of a defender or in favor of the one possessing the power...

Thanks.

Re: Repricing CSLs

The MP design is a great way to price it, in general.

I think the problem is that there's a declining marginal return to adding attack types to a character's repertoire, and so a similar decline to broadening CSLs. Few characters can do ranged attacks, melee attacks, and mental attacks, so there's less use for "all combat."

For supers, I would suggest determining the pricing much as you did, and then increasing the price of "related group of attacks," because that's what's most useful to players.

Re: looking for some opinions on Focus and Power Frameworks.

When multiple powers use the same focus, I consider them to satisfy the "tight theme" requirement for Elemental Controls, even if they're very different powers. I realize that you said "no frameworks" for Character C, but I thought you may have only been thinking of MPs.

Re: Pondering Grab house rule; comments welcome

somewhere i heard someone suggest that one should be able to escape an entangle in a zero phase action with casual strength

I believe that's semi-endorsed in the FAQ. IIRC, someone had raised the issue that even a wimpy entangle hurts DCV until the entangled character's phase, so it's subject to abuse. Allowing the immediate break fixes that.

But yes, good point about that other entangle advantage.

BTW, I did suggest to the player in question in my game that he meta-game a little more in his tactical decisions, e.g. hold an action until just before his next phase, so that he could break the grab and then counter attack before being grabbed again. Given the DCV penalty to the grabber, that's a pretty effective counter, if you can withstand one phase of squeeze. It looks like this:

A: strike

B: grab & squeeze

B: squeeze

A: breakout

A: strike

etc.

Re: suggestions for OHID trigger?

Okay' date=' if it's so obvious, can you explain to me what is meant here[/quote']

Well, that's entirely my fault. I saw the main differences in DC as extra realism, including blood and gore, and lower power. I haven't done DC before, and because of what I would call a misleading name and the details of this particular campaign, I didn't understand that DC was primarily for non-powered PCs.

 

I still have no clue what "something like Don Blake or Billy Batson, but more...er...dunno - Dark Champions" means.

 

So my response is "er...dunno...what the heck do you mean by 'Dark Champions' in this context?"

I basically meant less goofy and melodramatic, and possibly grimmer, if that word could make sense in the context of this question. You know - dark - since I was (apparently incorrectly) thinking of DC as being just that - Champions but darker.

Re: Pondering Grab house rule; comments welcome

Well' date=' yes, Entangles are often in Multipowers, but the Multipowers themselves cost points. It's not like the Entangles are free... [/quote']

Well, no, but assuming one were already to have an attack that could be MPed with an entangle, the marginal cost is only a handful of points.

 

I think you also left out one big thing in favor of Grab. It essentially acts like an Entangle that's allowed to be almost entirely DEF. With a Grab' date=' you can't whittle it down.[/quote']

Yeah - good point. I should mention that I'm pretty liberal with what actions are allowed when grabbed, including kicks in the shins and head butts, so while you can't whittle down the grab, you can whittle down the grabber. Also, anyone even a little munchkiney will max entangle DEF at the cost of BODY.

 

Thinking some more about this, it occurs to me that the balance depends in part on whether it's a team fight or a solo fight. I think the entangle is increasingly useful when there are more individuals involved in the fight, because: 1) the target's teammates can attack the grabber with high success; and 2) the more targets available, the more valuable it is to be able to fire an entangle and then move on to another target.