Grailknight

Yeah, I love them separately, but that combination doesn't work.

I was trying to refute the example of CRT's argument and that required a VPP with the possibility of a 180-point Power. So yeah, it only has 90 Real Points to work with, but I know any of the three of us can get more than 180 Active Points of Powers from that with just a little effort. Try as you might, you'll never get more than 180 Active points from that 180 Point Multipower but you'll have to spend more to even have any powers at all.

23 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

In some ways, a power pool is a lot like a very flexible multipower: you can only do x number of powers with it based on your points available, so you have to make choices.  I cannot both have my 25 resistant PD and ED (hardened) AND my 12d6 blast.  You gain flexibility but its more expensive than any single power of that active point cost.

 

Unless you're the kind of GM that lets your player have a 180 point multipower, and I guess you get what you deserve.

????

Opportunities for abuse are far more common with a VPP than with a Multipower. 

Any Powers within a Multipower are right there on the character sheet in black and white and are the only available options. A VPP can be changed each Phase and tailored to the optimal available solution. 

It doesn't matter how many Limitations you place on a Multipower slot; the Active Points are what are allocated from the pool. Limitations on a Power in a VPP free up Points to purchase other Powers with. Limitations are also fixed on the Multipower slots, in the VPP, they're options that I don't have to use if I don't need the extra points for another Power.

Multipowers are actually the more expensive option in 6th. 180 Points will purchase a 90 Point Control Cost and a 90 Point Pool VPP. I then set up my initial configuration and go. I can spend that same 180 Points on a 180 Point Multipower Reserve, but I don't actually have any Powers yet.  Just a Reserve waiting to be allocated. Yes, the VVP requires a Skill Roll if you want to change Powers in combat but that's more than offset by the cost of one or more slots to actually have any Powers in your Multipower.

All in all, you only have to read over the Multipower once to vet it as a GM, you have to vet that VPP every time it gets changed. GM supervision is always the issue.

But if the first level of Megascale was only x10 then that issue is solved, right? So that's what I implemented, and it works for me, YMMV.

I also should add that it doesn't bother me because I apply the "Drain one, Drain all" mechanic to Multipowers and VPP's also. Powers drawing from a common pool seems to me to be powers with the same source.

Unified Power is fine if villains with Adjustment Powers show up often enough for it to reasonably come into play. The issue is finding a balance. Some GM's rarely have them and in that case it's free points.

2 hours ago, Black Rose said:

Not exactly. What I want is a way to say "this Characteristic (specifically END, but I've toyed with the idea of spells that reduce the caster's other Characteristics, like INT, EGO, or something like that) is penalized until the effect is over." Like the really powerful spells that cost the caster INT or years of life, but once the spell is over, the "cost" comes back to the caster. Like a rental deposit.

 

I really hope I was clearer.

That's exactly what I did but in order to make it happen, you have to buy the END that will be penalized as a Power so you can apply the Limitation to that amount.

Say that the character has an END Characteristic of 30. Then buy an additional "x" END with the Lock Out Limitation.

You now have 30+x END at all times except when you use the Lock Out Limitation Power. Then the additional END goes away, and you have 30 END as your total. You can't use or Recover the +x END portion, it doesn't exist just as if it were a slot in a Multipower with no points of the pool allocated to it. Your END Characteristic is currently 30. As soon as you turn off the limiting Power, the +x END returns and you have a 30+x END Characteristic once more. Now you can recover up to a total of 30+x whereas before you were capped at 30.

The additional +x actually changes the value of the Characteristic just as if you'd bought STR or ED or any other Characteristic. You just have to purchase it separate from the rest of your END because it's the actual amount that will have the Limitation.

I think the only way to save DC is to split the company into a main continuity and an Elseworlds line. If you clearly label the attempts to attract a new non-traditional customer base and keep them separate from the mainstream storylines, you don't alienate your longtime customers.

I think the pitch clock and the limits on pickoff attempts are much bigger factor in stolen bases being up than the base size. If the trend holds up, we'll see a resurgence of speedy hitters to replace the bottom tier HR or K guys. It just takes some time for roster composition to adjust.

And they can still shift, just not to the extreme positions that were prevalent these last few years.  So, you can still play your SS/2B one step to their natural side and the other at the edge of the infield. Nothing stops a team from moving one of its outfielders in also.

Maybe I'm too straightforward but will this work?

+30 END (6 Active Points); Lockout (-1/2).

When you are using the Lockout Power your base END stat is all you have. You can't recover above what your current END stat is at any time.

If the Lockout Power is something you rarely use, then you'd reduce the Lockout Limitation to -1/4.

On 4/23/2023 at 11:28 AM, unclevlad said:

Reverse receny bias.  Namath in his prime was brilliant.  That period was, admittedly, short...but the same can be said for Gale Sayers.  And, remember:  he's in the HoF.  

 

Besides, here's a full list:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_New_York_Jets_starting_quarterbacks

 

Collectively, that's a really, really TERRIBLE list.  That's the part we don't remember.  How many of these even made the Pro Bowl in individual years, much less have an overall career described as anything but forgettable.  The Jets have had decent seasons...back to back to the conference championship, but that was ALL on the defense.  Hey, the QB was Mark Sanchez, and OK, he's responsible for one of the most memorable plays in Jets history...but it wasn't a positive one.

 

I think that explains things like Watson being the best QB for the Texans...it's serious damnation by faint praise.  And the history is short, too, with them.  I'd still give it to David Carr, for giving a truly AWFUL team what he could.  He's called a draft bust, sure, but he got *killed* on the field.  

The Jets have not had a single player get an MVP vote in 50 years. Not win, get a vote. From ESPN:

Argument No. 2: Trading for Rodgers heals a psychic pain

Every team can have a lean year or two, but what about a half-century? In 1972, 29-year-old Joe Namath led the league in passing yards and touchdowns as part of the NFL's second-best scoring offense. If you were a young person who became a Jets fan over the prior decade, you had been treated to a championship, one of the greatest upsets in the history of professional sports and stellar play from your quarterback. You probably felt like you had made the right choice, right?

Four of The Associated Press' 75 voters chose Namath as their MVP in 1972, placing Namath third that season. Since then, not a single Jets player has garnered a single AP MVP vote. I'm not talking about winning an award; no Jets player has received a single vote from any AP voter in any race over the past 50 years.

Jets players are 0-for-several thousand. Every other NFL franchise besides the Jaguars has had an NFL player receive at least one MVP vote since 1972, and the Jags didn't come into existence until 1995. Unlike the Jaguars, the Jets play in the biggest media market in America, one in which the Giants have had five different players take home at least one vote over that time frame.

Gang Green has enjoyed a few superstars over that period, but they've almost all been either defensive players (Darrelle Revis, Mark Gastineau, Mo Lewis) or offensive linemen (Joe Fields, Dan Alexander, Nick Mangold). Running back Curtis Martin is one of the few exceptions, but even the future Hall of Famer wasn't able to muster a single MVP vote. With two Offensive Player of the Year votes in 2004, Martin garnered exactly half of the OPOY votes the Jets received over the past half-century, with Ken O'Brien taking home one of 75 votes in 1986 and Vinny Testaverde one in 1998.

Brett Favre spent the 2008 season with the Jets, throwing 22 touchdown passes and 22 picks while leading the team to a 9-7 record. Mike Stobe/Getty Images

All of this is to say that if you became a Jets fan after Namath's peak, there have not been many moments in your life where you woke up, thought about your team and felt like you had a quarterback who could win the MVP award. Maybe you felt that way about Testaverde in 1999, but he tore his left Achilles in Week 1. Chad Pennington didn't even make it to the opener after his lofty 2002 season before suffering a wrist injury and subsequently tearing his rotator cuff, altering his career in the process.

If there has ever been a moment in which Jets fans could wake up and feel like they had a true MVP candidate, it was in 2008. Their quarterback that year was the 39-year-old they had just acquired from the Packers, Brett Favre, who had finished second in the MVP race the prior season, albeit with one vote to Tom Brady's 49. Favre had won three MVP awards a decade before arriving in New York, but he had received votes in six different seasons.

Favre got off to a hot start with the Jets, only for a torn biceps in his throwing arm that led to a 1-4 collapse at the end of his lone season in New York. He would retire and unretire again and then move on to the Vikings, where he claimed MVP votes for the seventh time before declining and retiring for good (I think).

Now, in acquiring another 39-year-old quarterback from the Packers, Jets fans have another quarterback who could viably win MVP. Rodgers has four awards on his mantel, including back-to-back victories in 2020 and 2021. The Jets simply have not had a quarterback with a recent résumé as impressive as Rodgers since Namath, who played his last game for the team during the Ford administration.

From this lens, trading for Rodgers is about something more than the 2023 Jets. It's about giving hope to a fan base that has been forced to watch mostly disastrous quarterback play since the disco era. 

Tether a line to a hot air balloon then have the ornithopter attached to it like a kite and run out both behind the ship. Get to sufficient altitude and detach from the line and balloon(which is then hauled in by the ship).

While its 5th edition, Ghost Archer's site is still up.

The Wild Hunt: A Champions/Hero System RPG Site (the-wild-hunt.org)

Welp, was making a character, and this flashed in my mind so giving it one last shot in Hero Designer.

Flight 30m, Position Shift, Combat Acceleration/Deceleration (+1/4), No Gravity Penalty (+1/2) (61 Active Points); Limited Power; Power loses almost all of its effectiveness (Only to avoid falling damage; -2), Instant (-1/2)

61 Active Points and 17 Real Points. A tad expensive and it requires an action by the faller. No Conscious Control could be added to negate that though.

Pretty much all English actors except for Pine and Rodriguez as the leads.

Just saw Dungeons and Dragons and it was a fun ride from start to finish. They really went big on the SFX and you could tell they consulted with people who really play the game. It's filled with lore and the humor had me thinking of actual moments from my old gaming group. 

4.5 out of 5. I will go see a sequel if they make one.

I see where we differ here. To me, that raging conflagration is a Hazard, doing combat damage every segment. That's an ED problem. The desert or arctic are more as what I see as environmental damage.

It also ties into the Hero costing of combat and out of combat abilities. Combat uses being much higher on average, whereas anything Hero puts on the noncombat time scale is fairly cheap.

On 4/4/2023 at 12:19 PM, LoneWolf said:

With flight and gliding you are using it in place of the normal falling movement.  This allows you to control how you fall.  By putting a few limitations on the power allows it to function the way it should.  The disadvantage of this is that it requires you to make a full move.  Any character with flight can fly straight down and be in total control of their movement.  

 

The rules for leaping do not say you have to double your vertical leap.  You can subtract your vertical leap from the velocity.  Since your vertical leap is half your horizontal leap you have to double your horizontal leap.  This also requires the character to make a move.

 

Gliding is probably the cheapest way to do this.   If the character has leaping already, they can use that to reduce the velocity of a fall.  I would not buy this as leaping but can see a character with some leaping using this to reduce falls of lesser distance.   The fall in the clip of the original post is only from a 4-story building.  A lot of characters with leaping have enough leap to handle that high of a fall. 

 

The 15m of flight is not going to be enough to counter your existing velocity.  The turn mode does not cancel existing velocity.  
 

Sorry for splitting my replies but life was calling at the time.

The turn mode does not cancel velocity, but it does completely alter the vector. And no, going down is not a special case in any way other than velocity. If No Turn Mode can let a speedster navigate a stairwell, then it can let a flyer do a down to up U-turn. The Noncombat Acceleration/Deceleration is what I forgot because that'll let you stop and then land in a very short space.

3 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

That covers SFX. I'm discussing cost. And that "immune to extreme heat" covers both the sauna and the grill flare-up, but not Stanley Steamer's Hot Steam NND or Blowtorch's Flamethrower.

 

 

This is my costing point from a different angle. If you are charging the character 10 points for immunity to high heat, then you need to set up in-game situations that make this immunity worth 10 points. 

But you're not discussing cost fairly. Life Support for either extreme heat or cold costs 2 points and 4 for both. When it comes to making a character, that's a trade-off of 1 skill on average. Don't compare it to PD/ED compare it to Survival. That's really what the Life Support options are for: superhuman adaptability not superhuman toughness.

1 hour ago, Hugh Neilson said:

Why am I flashing back to the "falling" discussion?  4 points to be immune to arctic weather and another 4 to be immune to Sahara-level heat.  How much to be immune to the cold of space and the heat of a volcano?  Maybe I'll just spend those points on ED instead - I'll get way more benefit over the course of a campaign.  I can play "immune to extreme temperatures man" in a game where the GM applies costs commensurate with the benefits.

Because environmental damage is different from combat damage.

One is about resistance to instantaneous shocks and the other is about resisting conditions that upset bodily functions over time. If your grill flares up and you're too close, you may get a burn. If you sit in the sauna for 6 hours, you'll be lucky to survive but you won't have any burns. Heat is the root cause of both but there's a difference between the magnitude and intensity of heat in each situation.

PD/ED is about the grill, Life Support is about the sauna. The first is general and covers a wide range of SFX, the second is very specialized and tailored to specific SFX. Yes, points spent on PD/ED will be more generally useful but sometimes we want to tell a story where those other points shine. When you're the GM you can tell your players not to spend those points that way because it will never come up. I think as a GM that the player who spent those points should get a chance to shine if only by not being inconvenienced by the setting. If you're going to enforce Limitations, then highlight specialties once in a while also.

Rich European playboys maybe... ?

I forgot to put Noncombat Acceleration on it.

1 hour ago, Sean Waters said:

 Technically 'no turn mode' will allow you to change vertical movement to horizontal movement instantly, thus preventing contact with the ground, but it is not going to stop you moving.  

Never thought of this before but it might be the best solution.  Way to think outside the box, Sean!

You'd technically need:

Flight 15m, Position Shift, No Turn Mode (+1/4) (25 Active Points); Limited Power, Power loses almost all of its effectiveness (Only to stop damage from falls; -2) 

Less than 1 per 50 people per week. I'd actually expect more.

23 hours ago, death tribble said:

To End in Fire by David Weber and Eric Flint

This is the last, at present, Honor Harrington book. Well she is in it but it is more a part of the Crown of Slaves series with Zilwicki and Cachet doing their snooping bit. Trying to find where the Mesan Alignment went and how to stop them once and for all. However the baddies have a second hidden system and sacrifice one system to protect the second. The last part of the book covers this and it is the hope of the Alignment to throw off the Grand Alliance. There is room for a sequel as the baddies have infiltrators of their own but Honor is left to look after her kids and have a quiet life. For now. I like the book but you have to be heavily involved in the series so you just can't read this one as a stand alone. At least not in my Not So Humble Opinion.

This book is good when it stays on point but too many pages are wasted on the Anti-Slavery League and there is a huge plot hole that all the military geniuses failed to notice.