SuperKlaus

Re: 2 for 1 pt STR - Question As gamemaster I have severed STR from REC and STUN in the supers game I am running and have been for several months now. STR is considered fixed at 10 for purposes of those two figured stats. No screwing with Active Points, lifting limits or anything else and I tell you this has worked out beautifully. Much as I want higher RECs and STUNs in my group I felt that STR's addition to them made no sense and I realized that breaking the connection split off 9 points of excessive benefit per 10 STR.

Re: Kazei 5: The Soundtrack "You Got the Touch" Yeah! optimus 4evah y'all But, yeah, anyway, this is for a game you're running? Great choices. "Mad Machine" is a long-running particular favorite of mine.

Re: Another Discussion about the cost of STR I have simply altered STR's connection to its baby stats in my supers game and everything's smooth. You still get STR/5 PD but for calculating REC and STUN we pretend STR is fixed at 10 (that is to say REC is 2 + CON/5 and STUN is 5 + CON/2 + BODY). STR's No Figured Lim is now a mere -1/4 to allow for this. I couldn't quite wrap my head around the idea of strength increasing recovery time and resilience anyhow. I couldn't bear to double STR's cost due to the effect on Active Points.

Re: Star Wars: Empire at War I'll agree with the general consensus here and elsewhere: 1) It's good, but not great. 2) Space Battles for teh win, Land Battles need serious re-evaluation. 3) Should have been Master of Orion with a different coat of paint. Now to tie this in to HERO (or RPGs anyhow). I'll state that I like the game for its general concept in the way that it makes the Rebellion feel like more of a serious force, one with a distinct, respectable military and the ability to control worlds that actually matter. I have never liked the "ragtag farmboys with hearts of gold" schtick that is so blasted common in fiction (I groaned openly when the start of EaW's Rebellion campaign referred to a corvette strike force led by a badass Reb officer as "ragtag"). Empire at War gives me, a potential GM for a Galactic Civil War game in the future, some sort-of-canonical support for a conflict of much grander scale and greater intricacy than the handful-of-insurgents-versus-enormous-death-machine setup the original movies provide.

Re: "Look, up in the sky! It's Super Saint!" Christian-themed heroes The Argent Apostle, Army chaplain and bearer of mighty silver armor that fell from the sky (from God, why not), has proven a delightful member of my PC group. If nothing else, he can keep the other PCs' squabbling in line with threats of marrying them to each other. Best Fringe Benefit ever. And oh the look on his face when the local rival superteam challenges his officially-sanctioned crimefighting role as a violation of the separation of church and state next game...can't wait.

Re: How far have you gone?

Re: Concepts you wish your players would play Or something like that. Think about it; he's right.

Re: How far have you gone? I have erased COM and let players who seriously want being attractive (beyond even what's expected in a hero) to be an asset to their character buy it as a Reputation Perk. 2 pts per level for "big potentially affected group," that being "all members of the opposite sex and homosexuals of your sex," 14- to be recognized (I think of the randomness factor as allowing for differences in taste; a character might conceivably buy lower if he or she wanted to be attractive in some kind of funny way), and then the usual +1 to Interaction Skills and +1d6 to appropriate PRE Attacks per level bought! I think it's quite elegant and offers concrete benefits compared to silly old COM. You guys?

Re: help me! Eating anything sounds like big Life Support (Immune to Poisons and Stuff). If he can swallow grown men whole that's an Entangle with a Feedback Limitation representing the trapped man punching the swallower's stomach.

Re: House Rule: Banning Multipowers & Elemental Controls? Choo choo choo...that's the sound of the thread derailing! And it now looks like it's going to hit that pretty lass before the dashing hero can get to her, too... I'll chime in anyway because I never liked her. I'd like to think I can trust players enough that I'll never be compelled to require X who-are-we-kidding-these-are-used-once-per-campaign Skills. I think Niles is right that a lot of famous and interesting comic book personalities are lacking in Skills and that's no issue. Disadvantages (especially Psych Lims) are where a character shows his personality in game terms.

Re: Fixing Find Weakness Ay, no kidding. My eyes still bug out every time I read the official writeup for missiles. The hardware in the Vehicle Sourcebook is downright scary. I've learned not to mind so much by treating my superheroes as super-SWAT or something, used in the city to respond to supervillain threats with a lot more speed and (maybe) less collateral damage than the National Guard. Anyway, about Find Weakness, it seems OK to me. Don't forget cutting a target's defense to 1/16 would mean accruing penalties for repeated rolls, that the target might mush you while you're Finding, and you can only target one defense thingy at a time instead of just cutting all PD or ED in half. But I play Champions and almost nothing else, so maybe I lack perspective.

Re: House Rule: Banning Multipowers & Elemental Controls?

Just how closely must a Duplicate's expenditures match the spawning character to be considered "the same" for figuring % of points spent differently and thus the appropriate value of the Altered Duplicates Advantage? If the character spends 15 points on a Power and the Duplicate buys the same Power but spends 10 points, are the two spending 10 points in the same way? Does the presence of Limitations change the situation (as in the Duplicate is spending less because he "Must Be Near the Prime To Use This -1/2")? I know a Power with an Advantage is considered a totally different entity, but I didn't catch anything in 5ER saying the same about Limitations, though it would make sense. And the fact that the Duplicates have to pay for the base Duplication power means that those points are spent the same, right? I don't start figuring my percentages from the base character's points excluding Duplication? I'm making a guy whose new selves all complement each other and I'd dearly appreciate clarification. His precious CPs depend on it!

'Sup homies! I'm making a character who can split himself into three parts and each new self complements the others with Mental Defense, CSLs, and stuff. Each one makes the others stronger so long as he's in the fight, right? I'm currently doing this through stuff that's Usable Simultaneously, x2 Targets (+3/4). These bonuses are only for the man and his Duplicates, though, not the other members of his team, so I'm Limiting the Advantage. What value do you all think is fair for "Usable only on Self and Duplicates", -1/2 or -1? Or do you think it wiser to build all selves with all the bonuses involved and Limitations "Only While X is Nearby, (-1)" (like those teamwork Powers suggested in UMA)? If I went this way, would it be kosher to dispose of or shrink Altered Duplicates (+1) because the differences between selves are kinda small? An illustration: Number One would have Mental Defense, 10 points, and +10 PRE, Only While Number Two is There, and +1 All Combat, Only While Number Three is There. Number Two would have MDef 10, Only While Number One is There, +10 PRE, and +1 All Combat, Only While Number Three is There. Number Three would have MDef 10, Only #1, +10 PRE, Only #2, and +1 All Combat. They are spending points differently, but, well... I hope that made sense.

Re: Opinions on build with Naked Advantages That's what I'd been doing wrong... I always assumed the "up to X AP" thing was how it was all across the board, but when you use a Naked Advantage for a single Power, as I'd be doing, you play differently. You find the Real Point difference between the Power and what the Power would be with the Advantage and this difference is the Advantage's cost. This Naked Advantage automatically gets the Advantages and Limitations of the parent Power with no effect on its cost. To automatically suffer a Limitation that's only on part of the parent Power seems unfair to me (when we're talking x5 END in particular) but I'm not sure what the alternative is. Probably something about splitting savings like you do when dealing with Linked powers in ECs.

Re: Opinions on build with Naked Advantages Aw, I've been working on this post for like an hour and now I find out I was doing something wrong at the base. Seriously guys, I just undid like 2 pages of crap. I might have something to say here but I need to know what the heck happens when sticking Naked Advantages on a partially-Limited power and/or a power with Limited Advantages.

Hey HEROdom, I'd like some opinions and ideas to help me with a character build here. If I've got EB10d6+4d6, Increased END inside an Elemental Control, do you guys think it's cool to have a couple Naked Advantages on EB up to 14d6 (these are bought outside the framework, naturally)? The book suggests not allowing naked Ads on slots but I'm not seeing how it could be abusive here. Also, given how Haymaker works, I could happily unleash an 18d6 EB with the Advantages, right? I don't need to cover myself by buying the Advantages for EB up to 18d6? Hope I'm clear.

Re: SPD Standards Word on the FAQ is that Body and DEF decrease per hex but you may choose to alternate. Just like Exploding Entangles.

Re: Spiderman Writeup Why did you make his webshooters OIF? Is it obvious to someone who has no prior knowledge of their existence that Spider-Man's webs depend on an object? What's the Missile Deflection in his web powers for?

Re: SPD Standards I'd be willing to bet many incidents of Spidey webbing multiple targets can be handled just fine with Spreading. The thugs are next to each other more often than not anyhow. That's how I'd do it. Since we seem to be talking about his STR too (bless thread derails), I'll say that one way I saved some points on my Spider-Man is 30 STR compared to your 40, Gary. Plus some HA. Now I am fully aware that his lifting is 10 tons by the officials, so don't point it out to me. I've read my share of Spider-Man comics Silver Age and current, too, and somehow I just don't believe 10 tons. As it doesn't fit my conception of Spider-Man, it's not in my writeup. I always figured he did that Silver Age thing where he lifted the wreckage of Doc Ock's undersea base through an X-Treme Push of more than 10 points, given how completely exhausted he was after escaping, or maybe the wreckage didn't weigh more than 40 STR could lift to begin with. Perhaps I should join the more appropriate thread you've got in Champions.

Re: Learning Heroes - Basic Elements and Balance There is no advantage for running multiple Multipower Powers at the same time. For that you just need to increase the size of the reserve pool, or use flexible/multi slots and be happy with less-than-perfect strength, or use an Elemental Control, which saves points like a Multipower but does not restrict use of the slots under it. You really ought to ignore that MP thread for a while. There's some good debate in there but it's only going to confuse the heck out of a new player. And a Multipower is most certainly not abusive if filled with attack powers. That's their primary purpose, if you ask me.

Re: SPD Standards Thanks a lot for the input about SPD, guys. I think I just might scale it back instead of staying at 5 standard just because that seems to be how the Champs Universe does it. And by the way, thank you! Man, what's up with all the replies of "don't even try?" I opened by saying I consider my build "satisfactory," so nyah, y'all.

I've been brewing up a bunch of Marvel heroes on 350 points lately. Spider-Man was my natural first choice but I've since made Captain America, the Hulk (Professor Hulk, mind you), and Cyclops with a couple others on the way. One thing I noticed very quickly about Spider-Man was that I was mighty tight for points; I've got what I'll consider a satisfactory writeup now but he's awfully sparse for Skills, could stand some more BODY and defenses, and so on. He's also SPD 7...and that's costing 28 points (Quickly! His DEX?). I realized I was doing this because I was bent on Spidey having two more SPD than the typical super so that he could freely Dodge attacks, as he is wont to do. But hey, why is my typical super's SPD 5? A comment I read in an old thread actually put classic Spidey at SPD 4 because he'd still be mighty fast compared to most normals. Could I roll back my SPD scores a whole point for supers, freeing 10 precious points for other things? Only things that this would change off the top of my head: 1) Haymakers are better now because it's slightly less likely your target will get a Phase to move away (I'm using a houserule SPD system that randomizes Phases, by the way). 2) SPD points get a little more precious: 7 is 40% more than 5 (current anybody) and 75% more than 4 (current Hulk) but 6 is 50% more than 4 (possible anybody) and full on double 3 (possible Hulk). 3) Supers would be that much worse at dealing with hordes of mooks, I guess, because the mooks' 2 or 3 SPD stays the same. Do I want to do this and possibly make SPD still more important? How do you guys scale SPD in your games?

Re: Multipower active points vs. reserve points: why?

Re: THE ULTIMATE SPEEDSTER -- What Do *You* Want To See? Couldn't bouncing as a form of movement be Flight with Must Land Each Phase (-1/2) and RSR: Acrobatics? You can turn as much as you please with Flight. The RSR could include an agreement with the GM that you need surfaces to bounce off of.