secretID

You have an MP, but one of the powers you want in it costs a good deal more than the others, so you pay for part of it in the MP, and rest as a stand-alone power linked to the MP power. I assume this idea comes up a lot. Cheesy?

Re: Characteristics, a special type of framework

Very interesting thread - thanks.

Re: Fun Character concepts

As seen here' date=' I'm rather fond of Field Test. A bit like Random Man, but more hapless, and less random. ^^[/quote']

 

Right before reading this I happened to have seen in the FAQ that you don't have to take "no skill roll required" on a VPP when you have no control over how and when it changes - thought you'd like to know.

Re: character design help, please (long)

My suggestion would be a hybridization of the other approaches:

 

Fuel Charges with Costs End on the STR.

 

Armor and Speed would be purchased as powers with the Continuing Fuel Charge Limitation

 

STR would be purchased with as a Continuing Fuel Charge with Costs End (note that because of a quirk in the rules this would make it not add Figured Characteristics).

 

I think the character would only look too powerful for the points if you put the Armor and Attributes in an EC--without an EC the character looks fine, or even somewhat weak for the cost.

That looks basically like what I did. Maybe my mistake was using the EC, or maybe I just can't properly gauge character power. One reason it seemed a bit like a cheat was that the character is considerably better with a fuel charge than with, say, several one-minute charges.

One question: Without the EC, do I take linked for the powers - seems like I should.

Off topic: Nice tag line. I've often found my self saying something similar. "It was just your opinion before you said it out loud - now it's your statement."

Re: character design help, please (long)

Thanks for the responses.

The problem with making the abilities cost END only to turn on is that there's nothing then limiting their time on.

I'm avoiding the END reserve for the reason I gave - I just dislike it on principle that the armor, e.g., will be charged by phase instead of by segment or turn.

The fuel charge is what I had written up ("My best shot") - I guess I didn't explain it well. It's good, except that the character ended up very powerful, and it felt like I was manipulating the rules.

Something else did occur to me - maybe I'll just make them all OIHI, say that hero identity can only last for an hour total per day, and call all of the powers limited powers as a result. I would call that about a 1/4 limitation - it's a much shorter time than the day/night limitation, but the character gets to pick when exactly the powers are on.

I'm very inexperienced, and I've been wrestling for hours trying to fit the rules to a character.

The power(s) in question:

Every day she powers up with a device, Green Lantern style. This gives her a finite energy supply to use on STR, SP, and armor. She can only boost them to a set amount, and she has to boost them all together. Basically, she turns herself superhuman for a limited time. She doesn't have to use all of her energy in one activation - she has a limited energy supply that she can use in spurts throughout the day. This is her main power.

Things I've tried that don't seem to work:

Multiform - Because the form must be based on the same number of character points, the new form would have to have way too many disads.

OIHI - Intriguing, but her on-the-spot power-up shouldn't be cumbersome, and it still leaves the issue of limiting her time in that form.

Powers cost END, with a END reserve - This seems like the obvious solution, but my big problem with this is the way that the END is charged. Paying for STR every phase makes sense, but it irks me to pay a lot more for, say, armor, simply because the character is fast, so has more phases. Paying for the SP is even stranger - the increased SP almost becomes a disad, because it makes everything else so expensive. The ER would have to be enormous - hundreds of points.

My best shot, but still in doubt:

STR, SP, and armor are all turned constant. SP and armor cost END. They're all in an EC, which always looks suspicious to me, but in this case I think it makes perfect sense. Then the important part - there's a one-hour single charge for the EC and the powers. (It doesn't matter in this case whether it's considered one power source or several, since it's a +0 adder.)

The problem is that she ended up looking damn powerful when I did it up, considering all the limitations. The EC and each power each get -1/4 for the drop to constant. The SP and armor get -1/4 for the cost END. 70 points for the whole EC buys quite a bit.

My questions:

Is there a better way to do this, considering my strong aversion (partially on principle) to paying every phase?

Did I miss something in the way I did it?

Is it really that much of a weakness to be normal all day long when you get to be awesome in a fight?

Thanks for reading this long post, and for any help.

Re: Character name help!!!

B/c of his Latin skill: Animus or Forte - Forte is nice because of the conection to fortitude, a strength of mind/spirit. Dr. Animus and Dr. Forte work too.

In more of the direction of a pun, he's military, he's medical, and he's very strong: Mash!

Re: Wolverine

I've seen some depictions of Wolverine as nearly superhumanly strong' date=' especially during the Claremont-Byrne era.[/quote']

In the fight with Dark Phoenix, she turns Collossus back to flesh while he's holding a huge tree, and Wolv jumps in to help him catch it - that's pretty strong.

 

^^^Knows everything from Claremont/Byrne X-Men, virtually nothing of any comics since.

Re: new dup/MF/sum/follower system proposal (LONG)

Thanks for the supportive post.

This is mostly academic for me, since I haven't even played in a game yet, so I don't expect to be running one for a while if ever. Mostly I wanted to throw this out for consideration by GMs and the designers.

Re: new dup/MF/sum/follower system proposal (LONG)

The point about scaling is very interesting - shows the gaps from my inexperience. I don't know if that would mean that the exponential rule is better, or that my percentages should be adjusted.

The funny thing was that as I was creating characters, and then doing this exercise, I had less of a problem with the exponential rules and more of a problem with the 1/5 rules and the fact that the costs were based on CPs instead of BPs. Those are what really kill Elementalman and Hulkman, and what made gnome's character tricky. If you can't do either of those pretty standard characters without throwing away points, I think the system could be improved.

Re: Multiman, I guess I wasn't clear. I specifically wanted to avoid the duplicates having all the other powers. I could refuse to use the duplicates' points, but then I ran into another problem - I was working with a prohibition of duplicates in an MP (under Global Guardians house rules), so I had to pay this very high price for a pretty modest power. That aside, it still seems to me that the rules could use some tweaking if they're making you throw away points.

Short note: A few people seemed to be responding to me in these threads as if I am approaching Hero with the perspective of some other system. The only RPGs (other than computer) I've played are AD&D and V&V, and that was more than 20 years ago, so I'm not coming in with many prejudices. (Actually, I always thought the AD&D system was terrible.) Hero looks like a great system, but these few rules have been bugging me.

Re: multiform - is this for real?

That's a very cool character.

What do you think of what I proposed in the other thread? I think it could make that character much more neatly.

Re: multiform - is this for real?

I got even more worked up here:

http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=25472

[standing disclaimer: I’m brand new to the game, so please don’t take any of this as forceful criticism – I’m just playing with ideas.]

[second disclaimer: This post is crazy long, but it’s so good that you’ll come back to read it again and again!]

I thought a lot more about this, and came up with this rough proposal:

1) The first duplicate costs as much as its base points. All of the duplicate’s stats, powers, etc. are completely variable – the only thing that makes him a duplicate is his consciousness.

2) Summoned slaves are slightly less expensive than duplicates, and follower slaves are slightly less than that. Both become less expensive as they are less devoted, of course.

3) Each extra duplicate/summoned/follower costs marginally less than the prior one – 90-95% less. E.g., the second duplicate costs 90% of its base points.

4) The most expensive multiform costs 50% of its base points. All of the forms stats, powers, etc. are completely variable.

5) The next most expensive multiform costs 45% of its base points, the one after that 40%, etc., down to a minimum 5%.

6) Any disadvantages carried over to a duplicate or multiform (e.g. hunted) do not count towards building the duplicate/multiform.

The GM would have to closely control disadvantages, of course.

Here’s how this system compares to the rules in a few examples. All examples assume 200 base points/100 disadvantages.

1) Elementalman – Otherwise regular guy who can change into any of four elemental forms (fire, water, etc.).

This is a very coherent character that the rules can’t do well at all. The MF is the only power, so you spend all 300 on it. There’s 10 points in adders for the 4 forms, which leaves 290 for the power, so each form has 1450 CPs. However, each form has only 200 BPs, so you have to do a huge amount of disadvantages and a huge amount of powers, and you end up with something pretty messy. (You may be able to finesse it by making one of the elemental forms the main form – I didn’t try that – but that’s kind of a clumsy workaround.)

By the above system, each multiform gets 176 base points (you can do the annoying math or take my word for it). You can add some appropriate disadvantages to each form to come out with something 200-250 CPs. Each form is significantly less powerful than a 300 CP character, but in exchange you get the flexibility.

2) Hulkman – Similar to Elementalman, nearly regular guy Bruce changes into a brick.

Under the rules, if you make Bruce the main form, you have the same problem as with Elementalman. If you make the brick the main form, you have to make Bruce with a minimum 200 BP, far out of character.

With the system above, you have to make the brick the main form, with Bruce as a MF and appropriate disadvantages/limitations. It’s not pretty, but it works to get you the proper proportions of Bruce to brick.

3) Beastman – Regular guy transforms into different animals.

This is another classic character I don’t think the rules do well. As with Elementalman and Hulkman, you have a huge problem when you put a large portion of your CPs into the MF. It’s even worse here, though, b/c each form has the same BPs, so you have trouble making the different animals.

With this system, you pay for each form in proportion to its power. Though each successive form is relatively cheaper, you can’t make an enormous variety of forms, but how many different fish do you need?

4) Blackwhiteman – Hero with two distinct but equally powerful heroic personas. I can’t think of a comic book example, but I’m thinking of maybe two mystics sharing a body, but not simultaneously.

The rules do this pretty well. You make Black the main form, and spend 50 on the White MF, for 250 CPs each. White takes 50 points in disadvantages, so he’s actually slightly better than Black, but close enough. I think that’s probably a little to powerful.

The system above is very similar but a little less powerful. You start by taking 65 from Black, leaving him with 135 BPs and 235 CPs. White gets 130 BPs. White can’t make CPs from disadvantages shared with Black, but you can give him new ones and possible add some BPs to him to even out the two forms somewhere around 210-225 CPs each.

5) Multiman – Rounded character with beefed characteristics, plus growth, shrinking, density increase, desol., and duplication, for a fairly coherent character.

This is actually a character I was making. The idea was that he could only do one of these things at a time.

This should work better with the rules, because they seem to work better the fewer points you spend, but it still doesn’t. The problem is that you really can’t use the powers separately, because the duplicates have to have the other powers. You don’t HAVE to actually use the dups' CPs, of course, so the duplicates don’t have to have the other powers, but it seems strange that the way to make it work is to just throw away points. When I was building this character, I quickly realized that the duplication made him hugely powerful – instead of 65 more CPs, I had two more 235-CP fighters.

With the system above, you just give the “duplicate(s)†as many points as you like, so the duplication power can be a power on par with the others.

6) Mobman – Completely normal guy creates exactly identical clones.

Obviously, under the rules if you put all the CPs into duplicates it would be ridiculous. (I thought I crashed Excel for a second – in scientific notation, it’s 2.81475E+14 duplicates.)

Under this system, each duplicate costs only 1 point, so you can make 300. You can’t buy anything with the disadvantages because of rule #6. He’s a lousy character, but his power level seems about right to me.

So...whaddyathink? Be gentle with the newbie.

Re: Hooray for Newbies! why are you suddenly here?

I was told there would be cake and coffee.

Re: help the newbie? - two unrelated Qs

Some history.

 

The exponental adders were possibly an overcorrection from 4th edition where you had to pay the same cost again for another duplicate or multiform. This made it so expensive that it was impossible to even consider having 8 more-or-less 16 duplicates or more than 2 other multiforms. Some thought this was great since you didn't need to worry about someone trying to play The Angry Mob Man or the Swiss Army Transformer.

 

This brought about lots of work-arounds in 4th edition. These were built to have the effects of having 16 duplicates or several multiforms, proving that by themselves, these were playable constructs just priced too high for the effect wanted bought the way that they wanted. Having 16 duplicates is really not much more dangerous than having lots of extra STR when you're already the strongest brick or having lots of extra dice on a powerful energy blast.

 

Ok, so the cost of the adder became 5 points for x2 Duplicates or Multiforms. Since 5 points of Strength gives you a doubling of lifting capacity and (supposely) double the offensive power in an attack (represented by inflicting another BODY or so of damage). There was already the rule of 5 points for x2 Followers or Vehicles or creatures Summoned.

 

Ok, how does that help you?

 

Well, you can house rule a change in your campaign to say the cost is 5 points for ONE more duplicate or Multiform or Creature Summoned. This allows small numbers, but prevents from becoming amazingly cheap at the high end.

The history - touched on earlier as well - does explain a lot.

Your solution looks like a pretty good one - makes multiple duplicates, multiforms, etc., more expensive, but not impossible if that's the main point of the character.

If I were to run a campaign (haven't even played in one yet), I would still probably re-write the rules along the lines of what I said above, but I'll shut up now. Thanks for all the responses.

Re: multiform - is this for real?

I like the game design overall, but I still think multiform, duplication, summon, etc. are a bit screwy, even when the theme is coherent and there isn't anything abusive. I said more at the end of this thread:

http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=25393

I hope I'm not being a pest - I didn't come here just to criticize. I'm interested in people's thoughts.

p.s. I made things confusing with multiple threads - I was hoping this one would die out.

1) The 5E optional velocity rules (292-94) distinguish between controlled and uncontrolled movement. There are examples of uncontrolled movement, but I can't find anything about controlled movement in the rules or FAQs? Anyone know what advantage "controlled" gives?

2) Follow-up. If Denseman jumps off a building with the intent of smashing something below him, would that be controlled? - I would think so.

Thanks for any help.

Re: multiform - is this for real?

Sorry about my confusion. Right after I posted this, I posted both my Qs under another heading in this forum:

http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=25393

Re: should I buy 5th revised?

Thanks. I ended up posting this under another heading, before it was moved. That seems to be the general consensus.

Re: help the newbie? - two unrelated Qs

Thanks for the great - and quick - responses.

I appreciate the idea of maintaining a good character concept, but it still seems to me that the exponential adders are much too powerful (too cheap, actually).

The doppelganger power set in Champions is a good example - for 55 points you get 8 different 200-point forms. Even if your base character only had 200 points total, it's a huge bargain. You could have a pure combat form, an aerial combat form, an underwater form, a stealth form, etc..

I would think the principles should be:

1) Each duplicate/form/follower/whatever should be less expensive than the one before, but not exponentially.

2) Multiforms should be less expensive than the duplicates, followers, etc., because you can only have one at a time.

3) Followers and summoned should be less expensive than duplicates do the degree that they're not directly controlled (I'm not very familiar with follower and summoned rules).

4) Aside from those subtractions, the duplicate/multiform/whatever should have an active point cost equal to its base points.

Wouldn't #4 - basing cost on base points instead of character points - solve the problem of Dr. Dinosaur?

Note: I know I'm very new to the system. I don't intend any of this as forceful argument - I'm just throwing out ideas.

Maybe I should have posted these both here, instead of in the 5E rules section:

1) should I buy 5E revised?

I bought the 5E rules just a couple of months ago. I haven't played at all, but I'm getting pretty comfortable, and I was thinking of looking for a PBEM game.

Are the revisions substantial enough that I should/must have them?

2) multiform - is this for real?

I'm very new to the system. The powers with exponential adders (multiform, duplication, etc.) and some 1/5-type rules like multiform and follower seem off to me, multiform and follower have both, and multiform in particular seems screwy.

This is my understanding:

If I am limited to 200 starting points, 150 disadvantages, and 75 individual power active cost, I can have a 75-point multiform built on 375 points, and still have plenty to spare on the main form. I could also have, say, 16 different multiforms built on 275 points each.

The abusive possibilities are obvious, but even using the rule as it seems to be intended (as in the vari-armor example in the 5E rules and in the doppelganger power set in the Champions book), it looks much too powerful to me.

I've been poking around a big PBEM site (Global Guardians), and I didn't see a single multiform, duplication, or follower, though there's no house rule against them, so I've been wondering if I'm just misunderstanding these rules, or missing some big disadvantage.

The 75-point active cost limit keeps duplication from getting out of hand (and also prevents any advantage on duplication, unfortunately), but it doesn't stop multiform.

As I said, I'm wondering about the other exponential and 1/5-type abilities, too.

Thanks in advance for any insight.

I'm very new to the system. The powers with exponential adders (multiform, duplication, etc.) and some 1/5-type rules like multiform and follower seem off to me, multiform and follower have both, and multiform in particular seems screwy.

This is my understanding:

If I am limited to 200 starting points, 150 disadvantages, and 75 individual power active cost, I can have a 75-point multiform built on 375 points, and still have plenty to spare on the main form. I could also have, say, 16 different multiforms built on 275 points each.

The abusive possibilities are obvious, but even using the rule as it seems to be intended (as in the vari-armor example in the 5E rules and in the doppelganger power set in the Champions book), it looks much too powerful to me.

I've been poking around a big PBEM site (Global Guardians), and I didn't see a single multiform, duplication, or follower, though there's no house rule against them, so I've been wondering if I'm just misunderstanding these rules, or missing some big disadvantage.

The 75-point active cost limit keeps duplication from getting out of hand (and also prevents any advantage on duplication, unfortunately), but it doesn't stop multiform.

As I said, I'm wondering about the other exponential and 1/5-type abilities, too.

Thanks in advance for any insight.

I bought the 5E rules just a couple of months ago. I haven't played at all, but I'm getting pretty comfortable, and I was thinking of looking for a PBEM game.

Are the revisions substantial enough that I should/must have them?