Kelcyron

Re: Rethinking Growth DI and Shrinking

If I were the player considering doing DI or Growth, I'd be much more likely to do 14 levels, costs end only to activate: +1/4 (88 active) just to keep the end expenditure reasonable, and have a 20 base strength. Damage stays at 18d6, and my life is much less tiring.

That's just me though

Kelcyron

Re: Dangerous New Powers

To look at it in a similar but much higher powered way:

36d6 open ended will have 6 6's, which will have 1 6. This gives on average 43 body and 150.5 stun, which is 4.18 per original die.

The equivalent energy blast without the advantage is 54d6, which is 189 stun and 54 body.

If "open ended" were only +1/4, you have 43d6, which has approximately 7 6's and 1 more 6, for about 51 body and 178 stun. This averages to 4.15 per original die (very similar to the +1/2 version and probably even closer than that because it's actually 7 and 1/6th 6's on the original 43 dice, and 1 and 7/36ths 6's on the extra 7-ish).

Yes, I realize I'm working off a 270 active power, but the math comes out much cleaner, with fewer approximations.

Kelcyron

Re: Nigh invulnerability and Overconfidence

There is a talent called "Fearless" in Fantasy Hero, which I believe is constructed as mental defense and power defense, only vs fear-based effects.

Kelcyron.

Re: Killing Damage DCs

In the older 4th edition of Hero the costs of 1/2d6 and 1d6-1 were not always identical. Some of the writings I have seen made the cost of the 1d6-1 variation cost 2 points more than the 1/2d6 version.

 

1/2d6 costs 10 points.

1d6-1 costs 12 points.

 

That was not how it was done in the 4th Ed. Rulesbook. I do remember this variation appearing in a number of places though. I don't know if it was a semi-official rule or just a wide-spread house rule.

I believe it was that way in 4th edition Dark Champions, but I don't have the book handy to verify that. The 12 base cost seems like it was trying to do 2.5 DC's

Kelcyron

Re: Inventing

My power armor character, Slipstream, rarely rolled his inventer skill. Mostly it was purchased as justification for his having designed his armor.

On the rare times it was rolled, it was used to devise new ways of doing things or to determine if he was able to spend his XP on some new gadget in his armor; his skill was high enough and there were no penalties assigned, so it was pretty much a formality (and the occasional failure provided comic relief, as the loud explosion is heard through the base )

Kelcyron

Re: Damage from extremely high velocity

As for damage due to air friction? I have no idea, although I am sure there are people here who might be able to do something for you. But then, if Superman, Apollo, Swift, Quicksilver, and the rest don't burn-up due to air resistance, why should you?

DC did actually address this at one point. Flash has a protective aura which keeps him from being harmed by running at high speed. In the Armageddon 2001 annuals, he had a son in the future who was born with superspeed but not the protective aura and gave himself terrible burns whenever he moved at high speed.

Of course, all of this could have been retconned out of existence by now.

Kelcyron

Re: It Costs Too Much!

It also specifically states in FReD (I don't have 5er) that you can't apply ranged to STR. In fact, it tells you that if you want to do stuff with "ranged strength" you should buy TK.

Kelcyron

Re: Characters Places Things and Groups Needed for the Perfect Superhero Universe?

Place: The antimatter universe.

This is also the source for other must-haves (such as SS's evil duplicates in DC, The Crime Syndicate of Amerika).

"Every superhero needs at least one trip to the antimatter universe" -Kyle Rayner (might be slightly misquoted)

Kelcyron

Re: An attack without a predictable defence

I suspect (or at least hope) that a lot of these threads are just thought experiments on how to break the system. I've been in some pretty rules-abusive games, but in those games it was expected (and encouraged, and half the fun ).

In most games that I've seen though, people will push the envelope somewhat for what they can do/get away with, but in general they try to be reasonable.

Kelcyron

Re: Building a Better Flashlight

Doesn't the Wealth/Poverty perk/disad already cover this?

My thought is that if it costs less than 5x(value of your wealth) in Real points, than it shouldn't ever be an issue. (as long as it can be legally and easily obtained by the general public) Anything not easy to obtain would be points or need the equipment perks from Dark Champions.

The 5x is based on the vehicle/base perk cost.

The problem with this is that the default wealth level is 0 points, which is making (I believe) 50k-100K per year. Using (real cost)/5 as the wealth level needed to have an item by default, you'd need wealth 4 to cover the 17 real-cost flashlight. You don't need to make $400K per year to buy a $20 flashlight.

I think it just comes down to a case-by-case decision on what can be considered "normal" equipment, or just go with common sense.

Kelcyron

Re: Can this Detect even work?

Since the teleport tags are defined as the teleporter memorizing locations, I'd say that it's detectable but the teleporter would need to be in range of the teleporter, not the locations. In essence, the detect would be a form of mind reading, accessing the teleporter's memory for where his locations are.

Kelcyron

Re: money vs points

Having wealth can also be used to explain how your character can be fighting crime for days or weeks at a time and never showing up for a job. If you're independently wealthy, you live off your investments/inheritance/etc and don't have to worry about how you pay for the basics of living.

Kelcyron

Re: Damage Reduction before defenses!

We ran a couple of very high powered one-shots (1500-2000 points) a while back where DR applied before defenses (called "external DR") existed and was either a +3 or +4 advantage (can't remember which). We also had rules in that for scalable DR, where the base cost for X% DR (resistant) was 1500/(100-X) and thus 50% resistant DR came out with the correct cost of 30 amd 75% had the correct cost of 60. Yes you could have 99% DR and apply external to it, but you'd have to have a ton of lims on it to be able to have it within the game's pont limit. 90+% internal or 75-80% external DR was not uncommon in that game.

Kelcyron

Re: Rough Draft PC

I think some of the problem with the characteristics is that the multipower characteristic adders have "modifiers affect base characteristics" and thus the "No figured characteristics" lim is removing most of her figureds.

Kelcyron

Re: Anyone combine Champs with Call of Cuthulu?

Our previous campaign had heavy Mythos influence; both the GM and I are Lovecraft fans. Many references to Mythos elements, and frequent visits to Miskatonic U.

My character (power armor/scientist) was a graduate of the Miskatonic U engineering program and decendent of Albert Wilmarth from The Whisperer in Darkness.

Kelcyron

Re: Straight up easy question . . .

I've seen in a some places (4th ed Dark Champions, I think; it might be in 5th ed Dark Champions too, which I don't own) that you can buy 1d6-1 of a killing attack (sort of "2.5 damage classes") for 12 points. Using that, 2d-1 comes to 27 base, and with the +1/4 advantage it works out to the 31 active.

Kelcyron

Re: Money in Superheroic campaigns

Another thing the money perk allows is an explanation for how your hero can have money to exist (food, housing, etc) in his normal ID and not have to worry about pesky things like a job interfering with his crimefighting.

Kelcyron

Re: Critique and Help...

Berserk will attack any target until they recover, but the lesser form enraged is fine with protective of innocents (5th even lists "when innocents are threatened" as an example condition).

If surgery is required to remove the wings, focus doesn't apply to them. Restrainable is fine on them though.

Other suggestions for the character:

1) Put the 2 KA's into a multipower, and add a "wing buffet" attack (+X dice, hand-to-hand attack), so you have a non-killing option.

2) Increase Dex and Con some. Easy to justify with cybernetic modifications (Neural enhancers, muscle grafts, etc)

3) Add some extra defense (PD/ED/Damage resistance, or be simple and just buy it as armor). Easy to explain again with the cybernetics (subdermal armor, skin weave).

I wouldn't add restrainable to 2 and 3, but the wing attack multipower could take it.

Nothing wrong with the skill set, if that's what's appropriate to the concept. I do think there may be too many martial maneuver though. Do you see yourself potentially using all of them? Also, distance shot and far shot are probably not useful; the RKA is range 225, so an extra +4 or +6 to the range doesn't really add anything meaningful (with the hex map we use in our campaign, that's over 4 maps away from where you're standing).

Kelcyron

Re: Expanded Everyman Skill List

As far as the "general knowledge from modern education" question goes, I think maybe the easiest way to handle it (as long as your character doesn't have a radically differeent educational background from you, the player) is to break character for a few seconds and use a little player knowledge. If your education is roughly similar to your character's just figure that if you know the answer your character probably would as well.

If your character is vastly undereducated, he/she probably wouldn't know a lot of things, and thus the mechanic is likely unnecessary. If he's highly overeducated (PhD's, etc), the "general knowledge" might be a bit higher, but advanced degrees are often very tight and thus may not contribute a whole lot to "general knowlege".

The "highly different educational background" isn't necessarily restricted to pure education. Several years of actually living can give people the "general knowledge" that people can get from a modern education too.

Kelcyron

Re: Brick tricks

The general rule is: if it's something that's only going to be done once or twice, it's a power skill thing; if it's something that's going to be done on a regular basis the character needs to pay points for it. For variant ways of doing damage (area, etc), naked advantages on strength covers it; if you don't want the character affected by his own area attacks, consider Hole in the Middle instead of PI. For things like the thunderclap, link the appropriate power to the strength.

If you can somehow get a copy of Ultimate Brick, it really is the way to go for examples of things like this (and other things bricks do).

Kelcyron

Re: New and trying to find out this question

You still roll only 3d6. I'm not sure if it's official or not, but in our games at least rolling an 18 is an auto-failure. With a 20- roll, you'll almost never fail, and you've also got a buffer against penalties (you can take a -3 for whatever reason, and still have a net 17- on the 3d6 roll).

Kelcyron

Re: HERO 5th Revised

See I don't understand this POV because could easily just keep using 5E' date=' which is no way reduced in value by the release of 5ER. [/quote']

 

5E is reduced in value slightly by the release of 5ER, as it's been stated that answers to rules questions on the forum that are given purely as page references will only be 5ER page references. If you don't own or even have access to a 5ER, the page references don't do you much good.

 

Kelcyron

Re: Question about resistant defenses with power defense and others

Resistant flash/mental/power defense is needed for RKA BOECV/AVLD. Because it's killing, you only defend agaisnt the body with resistant defense (if it has DOES BODY), and you only get defense against the stun if you have at least some resistant defense.

These don't show up often, but they can be built.

Kelcyron

Re: OIF for Powered Armor why?

Taking away the suit isn't the only way to "enforce" the OIF lim either.

I played a powered armor character in a recent campaign, and we had a 2 month story arc dealing with a high-tech terrorist organization that stole the design for my armor, modified it, and attempted to mass produce it. The arc ended with a fight between 5 PC's and 1 NPC, and 10 enemies wearing modified copies of my armor. The fight ended with the power cores of 2 of them imploding, generating 2 mini-black holes in the middle of Japan (I did manage to close the black holes, but not before we got sucked into an alternate dimension).

Seem both the entire group and I got to pay for my OIF bonuses.

Kelcyron