Grailknight

Just got in from seeing The Marvels. It's a solid entry, not their greatest work, but nothing to be ashamed of.

The action is good although Carol's power level isn't as consistent as I'd like.

Kamala and Monica are excellent, Carol and Fury are good, Kamala's family feels very real and the villain actually has a valid motivation if somewhat extreme methods.

I'll score it a 7.5 out of 10.

On 11/9/2023 at 12:27 PM, Pariah said:

My right ankle is almost completely immobile today due to swelling and tenderness. I must have twisted it in the sheets last night. (Not the first time that has happened, incidentally.) The acetaminophen only does so much....

Advil is what you should take for that type of pain.

10 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

Agreed, Doc - taken to its ultimate extreme, that rule should eliminate Mental Attack in favour of a Blast with IPE, LoS range, AVAD and ACV.

That metarule only applies to combinations of Powers, Advantages and Limitations to achieve results not covered by an existing Power. If Mental Attack did not exist, then your method would be the correct one.

Bion would just watch the parade, and he'd tell the rest of the team and any other heroes to just watch also. CLOWN wants attention more than anything, so unless they blow their MO and start something with the citizenry, just don't give it to them.

If you have access to 4th or 5th, the rules for Negative Characteristics are very complete.

On 11/4/2023 at 8:01 AM, unclevlad said:

LOL  that would require me to pay attention to it.

 

And might mean I have to watch some of the games...on those *hideous* courts..........

20 hours ago, Pariah said:

Looking at some of those court designs makes me wish for the glory days of black and white television.

Some of the courts are ... distinctive but others are pretty nice. The red ones should all go into the woodchipper as soon as their team is eliminated though.

NBA debuts In-Season Tournament courts for all 30 teams | NBA.com

5 hours ago, Gauntlet said:

 

Then perhaps PRE with a limitation of some kind may be the best way to go.

Which is exactly what Striking Appearance is.

Hero is not overly complicated. It is overly frontloaded. 

3 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

Maybe; I am not sure of where you are at with it, so let me try a rephrase:

 

Striking Appearance is COM.  It is the same thing, reserved for what would have previously been more elevated or lowered values of COM.  Instead of buying COM, one buys the mechanic of COM.

 

Similarly, if we do away with DEX and declare that any rolls for physical coordination and deftness default to 11 or less, but can be raised by 1 by paying a cost of (the cost of ever-how-many points of DEX it takes in 6e to raise a DEX roll, well...  We're still buying DEX.  Even at half the price, we are still buying DEX.

 

Same with Striking Appearance: we are still buying COM. 

 

We are just calling it something else, and we are requiring a bigger buy in, unless "wow; that guy is strikingly striking" or "stunningly stunning" is an acceptable thing (don't see why it wouldn't be, but the name suggests otherwise).

 

And there, Sir, is my problem with Comeliness as a stat or any appearance-based mechanic:

 

Who _is_ the author with the say so here?  "The player determines his character is shockingly, jaw-dropping my, car-crash-inducingly beautiful."

 

So the GM has no say in his NPCs:  all NPCs will now react according to the points spent in Stellar Appearance (or COM:30 or whatever). 

 

And I say it's not really your decision as to how the rest of the world treats you or reacts to you. If you want to control how people treat you, well, as I have mentioned, we have a mechanic for that: it's called Mind Control.  Buy that.  

 

There isn't a guide.  There's a mechanic.  GM agency is lost here.

 

While I agree with on one level, I do see an inconsistency in your stance.

Yes, COM and Striking Appearance are both attempts to place a mechanical value on a subjective value, but that doesn't mean either should be free.

By the nature of HERO, spending points on either means that you should get some value from them and that does affect GM agency. I think that NPC who varies from the general consensus is better represented as one with a Psychological Limitation- Likes/Dislikes COM/Striking Appearance of SFX X though.  This can vary from a 0-point quirk to a 25-point murderous hatred and fits perfectly in the rules. It's an extra step but it perfectly restores GM agency for that NPC while allowing the PC the general benefit of his spent points.

And there are several mechanics that affect the way that NPCs react to a character.

Mind Control is the most absolute and the scale descends to Mental Illusions then Images/Shape Shift and finally to PRE and PRE-based skills which is where COM/Striking Appearance enters the discussion. But note that there is always GM agency involved here, it just comes at character generation for both PCs and NPCs. If it best fits your GM preferences for your game, you are perfectly justified in not allowing it. And if you do allow it, then you are perfectly within your rights to create NPCs that have qualities that negate the effects of a particular powerset. That can be Mental Defense/EGO, increased PER, high PRE or conflicting Psychological Limitations. This way your PC has their general desire, but you retain your GM freedom.

2 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

 

Are his new meds helping?

I'll ask him at lunch tomorrow.

I know at least one Clippers fan. 

13 hours ago, Old Man said:

 

Between Payton's exorbitant salary and Wilson's even more exorbitant contract (and cap hit), the Broncos are destroyed if they have to jettison either one.  You'd think there would be a way to get them to work together.

Wilson's contract is hard to deal with because of salary cap rules, so they're stuck with him.

But while there's no limit on a coach's pay, Payton's 18-million-dollar salary also doesn't restrict team spending in any way. It's not a small amount but they can move on from him without it affecting team spending in any appreciable way. 

2 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

Well, here's what the rules say:

 

 

Now, I have never run it that way, I've always allowed changing powers in a multipower at will on your own phase, without any particular negative results, but this would be one way of limiting the problems of being able to act after attacking.

That would allow you to use an attack and then switch to defenses though. That's one the single change is there to prevent.

19 minutes ago, LoneWolf said:

 

It will be incredibly expensive you will also need the advantage ranged as well.   You will need fully indirect and might need to add the +1 Non-Standard Defense to the autofire if the character has any unusual attacks.  On the standard 12D6 attack that comes out to 165 points.  That also only covers attacks it does not give the ability to swap places with his shadow.  

That's just teleport with an SFX and a Limitation. I doubt the Shadow Clones will leave LOS.

Like I said, incredibly expensive but I think it covers what he wants. Sometimes HERO is like that.

1 hour ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

Physical Manifestation seems like the relevant limitation.

 

To limited SP, I've put activation rolls on SPD.  Make the roll at PS 12 for the coming turn.  This allows a character to gradually invest a point or two at a time into SPD.

Thank you, I had a mental block that kept me from recalling that one.

I think I've figured a way to do this, but it's really complicated and expensive.

Zed chould buy all the Powers that the Shadow Clones will have access to first. Then buy Auto-fire and Indirect on all of them as Naked Advantages and add a Custom Limitation based off Retrainable to allow for them being destructible and perhaps an Extra Time to manifest them. I think that covers everything, but I wouldn't want to have to write this up.

Or with GM permission, he could make use of the 5-point doubling rule to make copies of a Multipower bought through a Focus and just have them be Fragile.

14 hours ago, Tech said:

  I don't see how that affects anything but to answer: a hero will have the power and will undoubtedly use it on a villain someday.

It's a matter of campaign utility. If none of the other PC's have Enraged/Berserk, then just used the guidelines for Emotions only. If, however your group has one or more members that constantly go out of control, the utility greatly increases, and I'd knock -1/4 off the Limitation. It's still a Limited power but it's no longer niche. 

Cellular is for fooling things like DNA scanners or blood tests not changing appearance. You'd need Sight for sure and if there's going to be close interaction, you'd add Touch, Hearing and Smell/Taste.

Nah, you can only accelerate to 25 on your first movement from 0. You'd need to add Noncombat Acceleration to cover the distance in two moves.

Who's using it and on whom?

4 hours ago, Gauntlet said:

 

I really have to agree with you. His background and personality are rather blah. And to be honest, he isn't really that tough. I have run three games now where the characters have defeated him, and they weren't that high of characters (in all cases under 500 points). His writeup kind of makes him rather a generic bad guy. He is a video game villain, not one for roleplaying.

I'm scared of your campaign. Just how did they beat him?

20 hours ago, Gauntlet said:

Can anyone think of a way to create Regeneration in 6th Edition that regenerates characteristics other than BODY. There is no option to upgrade Regeneration to allow this, it will do BODY only. I had thought of using Healing, but you cannot make healing continuous as it states that you must use Regeneration for that. I am creating a character whose power will even regenerate damage done by some drains, such as poisons, or some types of cellular decay, or other things like this. I don't want to use Power Defense as that will just make her immune to it, and she is not. She still takes the drain fully, but can get it back faster than a normal person.

Hugh covers most of it very well. Here's some other options.

Just like Aid isn't permanent, neither is Drain. Buy an Aid with a Fade Rate equal to that of the Drain and limit it to Healing Drained abilities only.

 If that's too much, buy Power Defense with a Custom Limitation that makes it work similarly to Delayed Effect/Damage over Time. The defenses kick in over time.

5 hours ago, Gauntlet said:

 

So it is looking like you are saying "Don't allow AVLDs in VPP". 

 

I am just checking to see if I understand you. But if you are saying that it is something that I might even be able to agree.

I'm just saying that you should give your VPP a SFX and then make all powers therein conform to that SFX.  I tend to be a restrictive GM because I've seen what happens in HERO with a group of players that were all engineers and programmers. How you want to do AVAD's is on you.

7 minutes ago, Gauntlet said:

 

But still, if it is magic, then yes it is always magic. But that doesn't mean that the Magic Fireball doesn't burn you, or the magic Spear spell doesn't put a hole in you. They are two different sub special effects but both are of the Special Effect of Magic. So, if you have that Magic Heat Ray that causes you damage if you do not have Immunity to Heat you can also have that Magic Dart that causes you damage if you do not have a Force Field. Both are AVADs with different defenses but both can be in the same Magic VPP. The change for VPP is based on the Advantage, not the special effect. Just like Armor Piercing reduced the target's defenses based on the Advantage, not the attacks special effect.

 

Per page 411 of Hero System 6th Edition Volume 1 the Cosmic Advantage is the combination of "+1 Powers Can Be Changed As A Zero-Phase Action" and "+1 No Skill Roll Required". This has nothing to do with the special effect of the power. So technically, if I have a VPP that does not have the +2 Cosmic Advantage I can still have multiple AVADs that have different defenses.

 

The question is "How do you keep this from being abused".

It's only abusive if you allow that Magic Fire to trigger Vulnerabilities and Susceptibilities to fire. If it only affects magic limitations, then there's no issue. The hardest and most important thing for a GM is to learn when to say "NO" in a consistent and fair manner. Reward creativity but not gamesmanship. By the way, 6th does say that any character should have no more than one type of AVLD, but the writer then proceeds to violate that repeatedly in the villain books.

Many powers are OP on villains. Trying to make a PC within the campaign guidelines using that power will show its flaws.

15 hours ago, Gauntlet said:

 

Problem with that is what if the special effect is magic, or cosmic energy, or nanite technology. With those, and many others, they may have a variety of sub special effects. Such as for magic, perhaps an aging spell (defense LS Longevity), or Body Heat spell (defense LS Heat), or a magical dart spell (defense, force field or force wall), or a death spell (defense is Power Defense). All of these have the same special effect, magic, but all have a different NND Defense.

No, if your SFX when you design the VPP is magic or cosmic energy or nanite technology then that's what it is. It may look like something else but that's purely cosmetic. If you want to be able to change your SFX buy the Cosmic Advantage on your VPP or buy Variable SFX on individual powers.

The ability to alter SFX varies from niche to instant win. It's a powerful ability and shouldn't be given for free with VPP's.