Grailknight

It all comes down to game balance. There is no other reason that I can find to restrict EC's more than MP's or VPP's. In my experience, almost all MP's would and should fall under the drain one-drain all rule used for EC's with the exception being for gadgeteers.

I'd like to see something along the lines of the Universal Brotherhood from Shadowrun. DEMON uses fronts as self-help charitable organization to recruit streetpeople and people in emotional distress. Most remain ignorant of anything wrong (It's run as a real charity/new wave church), but a small percentage get to see the inner workings of DEMON in various-usually unpleasant ways. This gives DEMON a constant source of income, a creditable front and a steady supply of sacrifices who won't be missed. The UB storyline was probalby the best done thing in the Shadowrun universe in terms of foreshadowing and story.

Aberrant is definitely the game that models THE AUTHORITY best, in fact THE AUTHORITY almost seems like the reference used to design the game sometimes. In Aberrant, the best defense is taking the other guy out first. Unless you spend roughly 1.5x more on your defenses than your attacks, plan on seeing some hospital time after major battles.

Good job, he's about as ludicrous as he should be. Minor quibble, the taint resistance can only stop outside effects, side effects automatically bypass your defenses.

Maybe I was a tad too harsh but not much. The game is far too heavily weighted towards bricks in combat damage. To be fair, some of this was inherent in the game design based on the world they wanted to model. But it still seems as though the designers never actually played the game. I can roleplay any system but a game that features combat should have a playable combat system.

I think you did a very good job with these guys but its hard to over come the disparity between attacks and defenses inherent to the system. Playing Aberrant reminds me of reading The Authority, death is just that common and the only way to avoid it is to be a tank because Nothing makes you harder to hit.

I've tried a campaign using hit locations and we didn't like it. It made normal damage into the stun lotto. The one shot stuns on 12/13 rolls were balanced numerically by the no effect arm and leg shots but all it takes is a 1.5x at the start of battle to ruin a scene. We did use it for killing attacks and found it works better than the stun lotto.

power level Ahh Aberrant, the only game I've seen that has RULES for creating a UNIVERSE in your character's image. The game has some very interesting ideas but suffers from a fatal flaw. It's a Superhero game where combat is DEADLY!! Despite that I recomend it wholeheartedly as a setting or an idea mine.

Bion- The Rock less the attitude and more of an inspirational leader. Racer- Wesley Snipes, Denzel is too pretty

Power Levels You're rightabout that LL, CKC was a definite sign of a change in power levels in official products. Strikeforce is one of the Hero classics but I actually felt that the heroes were underpowered compared to their main nemesis: Overlord. His main attack does BODY to all but 2 Characters and only 3 can penetrate his defenses which are up close to Gravitar's. 53/50?

Minor correction, Drain does not have a cap.

Definitely a Major transformation, might be better with a cumulative Mind Control

My big arguments are easily house ruled around so I don't get too worked up over them STR and Char in general-Leave them alone, take away figured stats and you get another game entirely. Damage Shield was fine at plus 1/2-just keep control of the other advantages on the power and you won't have a problem. Kyrptonite Man situation- Its a disadvantage and you shouldn't have to pay fot it. The Human Torch wouldn't cost more if he was fighting Iceman and vice versa. Shape Shift and Images do have conficts but each has just enough that the other doesn't to stay as separate powers. Instant Change and Regeneration were both bad calls IMO-I agree with the idea of fewer powers, but these special cases take up more space for explantion than the old separate powers would have. +1 Stun Multiple- Make the 1st level +1/2 and then +1/4 from there. Cumulative Supress- Not a problem as long as you remember that as as adjustment power it still has a maximum, that it still costs END and breaking LOS should make it go away.If it still bothers you relative to Drain then take its range away. My personal arguments MEGASCALE-too much too easily, first step should be 10m at +1/2 then 100m and so on for +1/4. Flash-too cheap for what it does-unfortunately IMO this is one of those genre vs game simulation powers that don't match up well. At 5 pts/die your typical MP Flash slot will cost your opponnent 1-3 near helpless actions. The problem is that you can do this over and over as long as you make your to hit roll. In genre, Flash is a once per battle suprise attack and is usually only used to heighten suspense or to help an overmatched foe put up a fight. Cost of defense is too high relative to the penalty for not having any defense. Honestly, How many PC's have you written that had Flash defense that wasn't sufficient make you immune to what agents might carry? Adders-They should be adders and not part of the power and subject to advantages and disadvantages. Megascale is so popular because it costs too much to be a speedster under 5th. At the very least bring back the idea that adders don't affect END cost. Any adder that you feel is too good under this system is shoud be a power advantage. Adding damage rule- This is because the hand attack rules that what is supposed to be a disadvantage[limited power] and turn it into a special case power that is not consistent with the older rules for analogous powers( HTH KA). The idea that this disadvantage allows free advantages on your STR when you have to prorate STR for HTH KA is the biggest inconsistency I've seen in 5th. EC's- Back in 4th, some powers - most notably the spot defenses and LS were classifed as special powers and couldn't be placed in ANY framework. This worked pretty well as long as you changed Damage Reduction to a special power. It allowed any of the other powers to be placed in EC's or multipowers without trouble and that seems to bethe way most of us houserule it. Drain one, drain all is too restrictive because it affects too many special effects. Munchkin hint : Drain Flight -you'll be more hated and go down quicker than a mentalist. Also why are Multipowers, which are more efficient and should be just as tight a concept immune. Again, all of these are just my opinion and what I and my players use as our house rules. Do what's fun for you

Damage Shield isn't abusive at the +1/2 level anymore than any other power is. Abuse comes when lots of other advantages are piled onto the power. Personally, I've never run into any one who would rule that AF on DS would hit with all the shots fired. The character with the DS didn't make an attack roll so the DS should only do once per time the attacker hits it.

I liked the way they used Captain Marvel. She was the only Avenger who could stand up to Green Lantern. Bats and Cap was a classic. Hated the diss they gave to Captain Atom and Firestorm but if they didn't the fight wouldn't have been balanced.

Talk about shades of grey... First off, Stellar was wrong. I'd have been willing to excuse this action if it was the first time but it isn't. Have UNTIL hold the hearing and charge him with reckless endangerment or depraved indifference as you like but... Remember who is bringing these charges and the circumstances of the incident. It's not clear in your description if the dead and injured were Eurostar operatives, hostages or just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Did they ask for help when the heroes arrived or defer to Fiacho as if they knew him well? It makes a difference in whether he saw them as innocents or undercover agents. Where was the teammate taken hostage during all this? The entire mood of the scenario hinges on whether Panther is sitting at the table freely on bound and trussed with a weapon to his/her head. I could almost ( not quite, but almost excuse) Stellar if he thought that this was the only way to save a teammate.He should have only teleported the team a short distance freed Panther and then come back to fight Eurostar or perform rescues as necessary. Liechtenstein is going to be on trial right alongside Stellar as it comes out that they have been harboring the most feared and dangerous terrorists in Europe. If I was Stellar's defense counsel, I'd make sure the background leading up to this incident was played up. "International terrorists claim heroes used excessive force in hostage rescue" is not a headline that will get him convicted, especially if links between that govt and Eurostarcome to light. On the Team Vanguard front, Stellar's attitude toward killing makes it unlikely that he is team leader material. At a minimum he should be a provisionary member who requires supervision from a teammate on all field missions. I'd throw his character off the team and make him an outlaw hero. I'd also expect his teammates to bring him in to face trial but I wouldn't pressure mercilessly on that point. Remember they were on a rescue mission. What you do with Stellar's player depends on what happens in your next couple of sessions. I'd have start a new character and make sure I went over how I wanted him to play his psych lims. If he had a problem with this or you don't think its worth the trouble get rid of him if the rest of your players concur.

For the movement part of this power use Tunnelling linked to a small amount of Flight(only to maintain altitude). This will let you go through walls but won't give you much velocity damage. That's the best I can do without a better description of what the character's special effects are.

HA would be a disadvantage and not a power. Base damage added to HA's would have to take advantages into account just as HKAs do. Megascale would have 10x and 100x for the 1st steps and first level of megascale would be +1/2. Mental and power DEF are figured stats based off CON and BODY respectively.(superheroic games only) Reduced END advantage should not be included when figuring END cost of a power. END for autofire attacks should be cost of power without autofire x number of shots fired. Characteristics bought as powers are affected by NCM. Disadvantages on powers in a VPP must be fixed beforehand or taken a variable disavantage. Uncontrolled powers last for a maximum of 1 phase per 5(10?) pts. in the power. Multiple applications of the same Uncontrolled power add +1 DC and 2x duration. Retrofit regeneration and instant change Make the previous mentioned changes to adjustment powers.

I think both Riptide and Zephyr came from European Enemies. That book is probalby the worst hero product of all time although Roadkill is a close second.

Summon a normal. Switch to Transform and maintain it until the desired point total is reached.This will take some time but is perfectly legal and even statted out in FREd under Transform.

Off the top of my head Reduced END advantage does not figure into the END cost of a power. Ditto for Adders. Megascale is +1/2 at base and +1/4 per multiplier level. The first level is x10, second is x100 and so on... Autofire advantage is not added to END cost. 4th edition minimum points in a power are still in effect. NCM applies to CHAR bought as powers. Uncontrolled continuous powers bought to 0 END last for 1 phase per 5 pts. in power. Limitations on VPP powers must be defined in advance and taken on the reserve. No off the cuff limitations allowed. Transfer acts as Drain after max pts reached. Still haven't decided about using new Flash rules.

My PC's fear drainers the most even though 2 out of 5 are drainers themselves. Martial bricks and egoists are tied for second.

I plan to buy SOB but I do have some reservations. 1-Downloads have not been my friend in the past, I would love to buy SOB, USM and PRIMUS but my connection has poor quality and downloads fail more often than not. 2-$12 won't break me but it is more than I expected to pay for something I have to print and which can be lost if I have PC trouble. I would definitely pay $12-18 for such products on CD although I doubt this is really affordable for DOJ at this point. 3-Please rethink your stategy of not publishing old characters and creating minimal new characters in publications. I buy modules for new character writeups. Working up ways to fit in these NEW characters is the source of most of my campaign plots and stimulates my creativity. The main selling point of a supplement is what it ADDS to the existing material and in HERO history this has mainly been characters. Also, on a personal rant, descriptions which say use character X with Y changed set off my buttons. If a character is going to be used in a module then he should be interesting enough to warrant a writeup.

IMO, the main question of this debate centers around the interpretation of "costs END" and the use of STR for comparison. "Costs END" is normally applied to CHAR and powers that do not cost END to use. STR is the only Char which normally costs to use, applying "cost END" means that you would need to spend END each phase to HAVE the extra STR even if you didn't use it. If you bought any other CHAR like DEX or PD with costs END then you would expect to pay END every phase for the use of that extra ability. SPD is only problematic because of the associated game mechanics and in many ways is subject to different rules just as STR is. That said, I would treat the extra speed as an all or nothing power like an Ultra slot and make it cost one END on each phase the character is entitled to move.(Whether from natural or boosted SPD). This means no REC while the power is on.

FLCL makes perfect sense when compared to Excel.