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Suppose that as a Limitation, you want to make the activation of a defensive power take a Half-Phase action (instead of a Zero-Phase action). I would assume that this would be an Extra Time limitation, but I don't see this option anywhere on the list. If this is a viable limitation, please tell me what it's worth. If it is already in the book, please tell me where I can find it. Thanks!

I'm sure this is a subject that has probably been rehashed again and again on these boards, but please indulge a newbie's stupid questions. :-) My GM just threw an agent team at us which included a guy with an entangle gun. That one guy had the good guys all messed up for most of the combat. Only after we eliminated him were we able to get the upper-hand. The trouble we had started me thinking. Isn't Entangle somewhat over-powered in this system? If you give a squad of agents entangle guns (OAF, area effect, takes no damage), with a little bit of offensive support, couldn't they take down virtually any team of heroes? Maybe the problem is that out of a group of 4 characters, only one is able to fly and only one has a strength above 20. Still, entangles seem to be a real pain-in-the-butt in this system. Does anyone else have the same concerns about them that I do? On a more practical note, can you give me some advice about how to deal with entangles in the future. After the success that our GM had with the entangle gun today, he is sure to use it against us again in the future. I have a martial artist character with a 20 strength. What would be the best way for me to counter the threat posed by goons with entangle guns? Thanks in advance.

thanks Thanks to everyone who pointed out the rules for Selective. That's why I call myself "Perplexed Newbie"!

Re: simulating "Whirlwind Attack" Thanks to all those who have responded. Many of you have said that you think an Area Effect is the best way to go, but I strongly disagree. To implement an Area Effect attack, you only need to hit the target hex. This mechanic is completely inappropriate when we are talking about hand-to-hand attacks. First, it doesn't make sense that you could hit everyone around you without rolling to hit your opponents' DCVs. Hitting your own hex should not be sufficient to damage everyone around you if your only weapon is your fists and feat. Second, what happens if you miss your hex? I believe that when you fail to hit the target hex, the Area Effect scatters. Isn't that correct? If so, this possibility shows even more clearly how ridiculous it is to use an Area Effect to simulate a melee attack. I had not thought of a modified Sweep. That has some potential. I'll have to give it some more thought. But I'm still thinking that Auto-Fire (against multiple targets) seems to do the best (though still an imperfect) job of simulating the type of attack I'm imagining. Auto-Fire causes you to make separate rolls for each target and there are penalties to hit for each additional target. (This makes sense.) Also, you have to spend END for each individual attack. (This also makes sense.) I guess what I'm saying is that I think using the Area Effect mechanic in this situation is a blatant case of rules abuse. I'd be very interested to hear from anyone who is willing to offer reasons to the contrary (either as devil's advocate or as someone who genuinely disagrees).

Hello all. I've got a martial arts character, and I'm trying to buy him an attack that simulates "Whirlwind Attack" in D&D. (For those who don't play 3e, Whirlwind Attack allows a character to attack all adjacent opponents.) I've been trying to build something like this with Hero, but with little success. My first thought was to make it an Area Effect attack (with a 2" radius and a hole in the middle). But this doesn't seem to fit, because I only have to hit the hex, not the targets. (Besides, hitting the hex seems beside the point when I'm using a hand-to-hand attack.) I mean, it would be nice to only have to hit my own hex and do damage to everyone around me, but it just seems to be an abuse of the rules. So then I thought about making it an auto-fire attack. Since this would be much more expensive END-wise, I suspect this is what I should be using to build the power. But the rules for hitting multiple targets with an auto-fire don't quite seem to fit what I'm trying to do. (Or do they?) Anyway, I could use some help from those who know the system better than I do. Thanks in advance.

I'm confused. The description of Move By and Move Through on the character sheet list them both as 1/2 phase actions. That would seem to imply that something else can be done with the other half phase. But both Combat Maneuvers require a Full Move. And taking a full move means that no other 1/2 phase actions can be taken during the round. So I'm confused. If Move By and Move Through take a full phase to perform, why are they listed as 1/2 phase actions? Thanks in advance.

This isn't really a rules question. It's more of a request for help. My character has bought Defense Maneuver I which says that the character is no longer vulnerable to penalties from attacks from behind when the Defense Maneuver is activated. According to a table in the Combat section, we noticed that the penalty for being attacked from behind is that the target is at 1/2 DCV. (However, I couldn't find anything more about how to adjudicate when an attack is coming "from behind.") So I tried to get behind the villain we were fighting so that I could impose the Attacking from Behind penalty on my foe. But when I got there and announced that my target was now at 1/2 DCV, the GM said that he didn't want to have to bother with "facing" in his game. And since he couldn't think of any simple way to deal with "attacking from behind" without facing, he basically threw that rule out. When I pointed out that this made Defense Maneuver I effectively useless, he said that it was still useful because you need it to buy Defense Maneuver II. So I guess what I'm asking for is how you guys handle attacking from behind in your games. I want my Defense Maneuver I to be useful, so I'd like to find some way of incorporating attacks from behind into our game. Does anyone have a suggestion about how we could handle it without facing in a way that wouldn't be too complicated? Thanks in advance for your suggestions!

Hi guys. Here's my fourth rules question. My character has a 20 STR and has bought 8 DC of HA on top of it, but he has bought the HA with a No Knockback limitation. He also has Martial Strike. So let's say my character makes a Martial Strike on Bulldozer using all his STR. Suppose I hit. I'm now rolling 8 dice of damage from the HA, 4 dice of damage from the STR, and 2 dice of damage from the Martial Strike. But I've only bought No Knockback on the HA. So does that mean that I can still calculate Knockback using the other 6 dice (from STR and M. Strike)? Or is the whole attack a No Knockback attack because part of it was? Here's another situation that I'm not sure about. Suppose the same character tries a Move By attack on Bulldozer, and suppose it hits. The rules for a Move By state that Strength is cut in half for the purpose of the attack. Does that mean that only my 20 STR is cut in half and I still get to use all 8 dice from my HA? Or is the whole attack effectively cut in half? Also, do I pay the full END cost for my STR, even though it was cut in half? Or do I only pay half the usual END cost? Thanks in advance for your response!

Hello all. Here's my third rules question. Yesterday was our third game session. Our 4 characters were fighting Gigaton. He shot a blast at my character, so I told the GM that I was Aborting to Dodge. He said OK and then explained that the blast had an area affect. So I said, "Oh, in that case, I'll Abort to Dive for Cover." Then the GM said, "Nope, it's too late. You saw the blast coming at you and Aborted to Dodge. You can't change your mind now that you know what the blast does!" Does this sound right to the rest of you? What it boils down to, I guess, is when a player needs to make the decision to Abort. Do you Abort when you see the attack coming (and before you know what the attack's effects are), or do you choose whether and how to Abort once you know what the effect of the attack is? I thought it was the latter, but I couldn't find anything in the rulebook to back me up. Ok, here's where I acknowledge that part of what my GM is saying makes sense. After all, my character had never seen Gigaton before. So I had no way of knowing what his blast might do. Still, though, it seems pretty harsh to force me to waste my next action for no effect... What do you guys think? Thanks in advance for your comments. P.S. If you want to know more about how my GM adjudicated the situation, after we had seen a few of Gigaton's blasts, the GM gave us a Perception roll to see if we could determine what kind of blast was coming at us before making the Abort decision.

Hello all. My group just had its first regular session with all players, and so I'm back to ask my second rules question. One of the characters in our group is an energy projector with an area effect advantage. Our problem was figuring out how to adjudicate the knockback for the power. In particular, we couldn't figure out which *direction* the target would go in an area effect. Let me start by laying our assumptions out on the table. We are viewing an area effect energy blast kind of like a D&D fireball. Basically we are thinking of it as an explosion that has a center. So if the area of effect is more than one hex, we figured that the victim would be knocked back away from the hex that is the center of the area of effect. (Is this right?) But here was our problem: the character in question was using an energy blast whose area of effect was only one hex. So if our "explosion" model of an area effect is correct, then which direction should a character caught in the blast be thrown if the victim of the blast suffers knockback? Should we choose randomly? Or should it always be away from the energy projector? As always, opinions are welcome, but if someone can give us a page number to refer to, that would be even better. Thanks in advance!

Re: Basic Rules Question (please help!) Thanks so much for all the help, folks. It is much appreciated. Still, wouldn't you say the wording on p. 238 is a bit misleading? It doesn't say that you pay 1 END for every 10 Active Points required for the distance you actually moved. It says you pay "1 END per 10 Active Points in the Movement Power." That seems to indicate that any time you use the power, you have to pay the full cost. I'm glad to hear that I'm wrong about this, but the wording sure seems confusing. Wasn't just 1 END per 5" of movement in the old system? That sure seems a lot easier to communicate (and to keep track of) than the new system. Thanks again for your help. I'm sure we'll be back for more as we run into future snags...

Hello all. I didn't want to bug Steve with something so basic. My gaming group is just starting up a 5th edition Hero game, and we can't figure out something as basic as how much END it costs to move! 3 of us own the 5th edition hardback and here's all we were able to find: p. 84 "Movement Powers cost 1 END per 10 Active Points, regardless of whether the character uses Combat or Noncombat Movement." p. 238 "Unless noted otherwise in the Power's description, all movement costs END at the rate of 1 END per 10 Active Points in the Movement Power." p. 286 "Some Maneuvers and other Actions don't have a listed STR value; in such cases, a character spends 1 END. This includes such Maneuvers as Block, Dodge, or firing a weapon." All the movement power descriptions refer me back to the first two statements. Unfortunately, these statements are not very clear. Can somebody please help me with the following questions. 1.) How much END does it cost to move my natural 6" of running? (My guess: Since I did not pay any Active Points for this 6", I would pay 1 END if the rule from p. 286 is applicable or 0 END if it is not.) 2.) Suppose I have a fly power bought with 30 Active Points, but I only want to fly 2". How much END does this move cost? (My guess: Since there are 30 Active Points in the Movement Power, it looks like I have to pay the full 3 END even if I only move a small portion of what I have bought.) 3.) Suppose I have spent 40 Active Points to buy an additional 20" of Running (for a total of 26"). I only want to run 13" for a Half Move with this power. How much END does it cost? (My guess: 4 END.) 4.) Suppose I have spent 40 Active Points to buy an additional 20" of Running (for a total of 26"). This time I want to run my full speed of 26". How much END does this cost? (My guess: 4 END for the Running Power plus 1 END for the original 6" for a total of 5 END.) Are my guesses about the movement rules correct? If not, what rules have I missed? Thanks in advance for your help.