TaxiMan

Re: Change the STUN Multiple Rule? Let's see... One point to making the minimum 0 is to simplify the rules. That's a good thing by itself. Next, the STUN done equals the BODY done according to the rules already - IDHMBIFOM so I don't know how that works exactly. Is it STUN = BODY taken, or STUN = BODY of the roll? Is this minimum STUN "NND", or does it apply against defenses? I'm betting it = BODY of the roll and defenses apply (from fuzzy memory). In Champions campaigns, that means nothing since it won't ever get past defenses. Yes, I'm enjoying making absolute statements that I'm sure someone could find an exception to. And yes, I ended that statement with a preposition. I think both "errors" are of the same magnitude. Now it might be different in Heroic campaigns. That's part of the reason for the thread, since I don't play those. The Hit Location chart (again memory is fuzzy since I don't regularly use it) could be modified by adding a "0" with the entry for "1" - seems a trivial mod. I could do that in 1 second with a ball point pen. With the change, we wouldn't have to remember that the STUN multiplier is 1d6-1 except when a 1 is rolled. We wouldn't have to wonder why a killing attack with +1 STUN Multiple doesn't just multiply BODY * STUN Multiple. I agree it's a minor thing; it doesn't mess up my games. But it's clunky and useless and should be stripped out of the game at the first opportunity.

Re: Change the STUN Multiple Rule? I think we're all aware the average STUN done by a Killing attack isn't very significant; it's the chance of exceeding the damage done by a Normal attack that matters (aka the STUN Lotto). If you're new to this debate, the gist of it is that a good roll on a Killing attack can CON stun an opponent, and that can make a Killing attack more effective than a normal attack. I plotted the various possibilities for STUN from each attack (12d6 Normal vs. 4d6K); it turns out that the Killing attack exceeds the STUN of a Normal attack 25% of the time. - EDIT - I didn't update the title of the graph, it's now "12d6N vs. 4d6K". The horizontal axis is STUN and the vertical axis is probability (out of 1; multiply by 100 to get %).

Re: Change the STUN Multiple Rule? Awww, I'm not too impatient. I should have split my original post into pieces, like many others do. That way I wouldn't have to be so obvious about it. And thanks for the rules - reminder! I didn't remember that.

Re: Change the STUN Multiple Rule? I hate it when there are zero replies.

Why don't we let 1d6-1 result in zero if a "1" is rolled? I'm talking about the STUN multiple for a Killing Attack, and by the rules it's [1,1,2,3,4,5]. Steve L. said the strangeness continues even when you buy +1 STUN Multiple; you end up with [1d6-1] + 1, which is not the same as just 1d6. You can't escape the weirdness. Who cares about minimal STUN? The only effect I can see is that some munchkin build with +10 total Advantages might not work. For that matter, why not change the rule to be 1d6-1 (starting at zero), but a minimum of 1 STUN / BODY taken? For non-resistant defenses the result is the same. I admit to a Champions mindset where minimal STUN means nothing, so fire away & convince me the rule is good. Right now, it seems overly complex for no reason.

Re: Mister Silent and Doctor DiscorD Do you know if we have these already? With the increase in traffic cameras, I was wondering when / if people would start driving with their faces covered. People wear ski masks for the cold - not illegal, ... Just wondering.

Re: Looking for a new cape. Can I get one here? Since there aren't levels in Hero, how about setting power level limits for your players? That's done by setting Active Point limits - for example: Start of game: 40 AP limit to powers 10 sessions later, 45 AP limit 15 after that, 50 AP limit 20 after that, 55 AP limit Every 20 sessions, bump it another 5 AP. That way the players have a lot more XP to spend than they can add to their max power, encouraging spending on Skills, Contacts, Vehicles and Bases, and buying down Disadvantages. You still need to require their purchases (a) don't break the game ( fit in their character concept © don't overlap another player's "thing". It'll take forever to reach 75 AP, which is a very reasonable non-planet-moving power level. My group couldn't do this since we'd die of old age long before, but it sounds like your guys play almost daily. Lucky devil.

Re: The Munchkin Build Contest I believe the multiplier is [1d6 - 1] +2. You figure 1d6-1 first, getting [1,1,2,3,4,5], then you add 2 which gives [3,3,4,5,6,7]. Steve L. recently reiterated that it works that way... though it's a hassle & we ignore it in our game. How often does minimal STUN matter anyway?

Re: The Munchkin Build Contest Another nitpick (the Visible lim already being spotted) to avoid spreading bad rules interpretations: The Increased Stun Multiplier +2 advantage means the Stun lottery will range from 6 on a bad roll and average 32.7 STUN. Normally 1d6 RKA gets a stun multiplier of [1,1,2,3,4,5]. The +2 advantage makes that [3,3,4,5,6,7]. Since 2d6 has a minimum of 2 and the multiplier is a minimum of 3, 2*3 = 6 minimum STUN. Don't forget you get an additional +1 if you roll a "1". That's the easy part. The average is easy - sum up all possibilities & divide by the number of possibilities. But the median is not the same, since this isn't a nicely distributed set of numbers. The median is the middle STUN - half the time you roll better, half the time you roll worse. I cheated and wrote a quick program to roll every possibility & found: 28 STUN (or less) occurs 48% of the time 29 STUN is impossible (lots of numbers are) 30 STUN (or less) occurs 55% of the time but... 30 STUN or more occurs 52% of the time 31 STUN is impossible 32 STUN or more occurs 45% of the time so the median is 30 STUN. For those big STUN rolls, the odds of getting... 35 STUN or more occurs 41% of the time 42 STUN or more occurs 28% of the time 50 STUN or more occurs 14% of the time 56 STUN or more occurs 10% of the time. Of course, all that means this power is even more effective.

Re: The Munchkin Build Contest Brainless: 2x Hardened on STUN I have no idea what it does, but it sure looks cool. "You can't hurt me, your attack only affects regular STUN!"

Re: WWYCD?: The blatant-ening. I'd ask the GM to continue with his story. What would character do?

Re: Mind link to a vehicle I also believe the build needs more Programs to do other 'interesting' things, like attack. However, don't forget to get a Power skill so you can attempt things you haven't thought of ahead of time...

Re: Suppressing Frameworks I'm with Hyper-Man here, in that a character with a set of common SFX powers should be designed appropriate to the game. Take a special limitation if the powers should be drained together. Alternatively, you could have a special advantage for Drain: Affects All Powers of a Single SFX In a Framework +1

Re: Game Play Concept: No Limitations First, I like ignoring the costs and letting the GM decide if characters are balanced for the game. Second, in the spirit of the OP, how about granting -0 Lims to everything but rewarding players with extra XP if a lim comes into play? The amount of the reward could be something like +Fractional XP - less than 1, after a few of these the GM will grant 1 bonus XP +1 XP - moderately hindering (lost a phase with a serious bad guy, something like that) +2 XP - serious hindrance, like being out of your powered armor I haven't tried it, but if you trust your GM it sounds like it would work. Similarly, and a bigger problem IMO, are Disadvantages.

Re: Newish to the game, have a question. PG has it right; remember the penalty to using Sweep is "miss one, miss the rest".

Re: Resolving a Combat in One Roll? Back to the OP: Sure! You model every possible result with PCs making decisions at every phase in a combat scenario. Then you enter all those possibilities and potential outcomes into a computer that runs a Monte Carlo simulation to determine the odds of each of the top 20 outcomes (for example). Then you roll - once - a 100-sided die and enter that roll into the program. It prints out the outcome that matches your roll! Ex: Capt. Awesome with his invulnerable Flaming Shield is on a rooftop at 2 a.m. when he notices The Cackling Fiend use his supersonic laugh to blow in the gates to the armory. Dr Darkness, tipped off by his informants, has been waiting under a nearby manhole and slides an extended eyestalk through a slimy hole when he hears the gates fall. Will the Cackling Fiend fail his PER roll to notice the heroes, or will they surprise the mutant chicken? If you have surprise, will Dr Darkness pour up through the manhole cover and vomit his Putrescent Cloud to confuse the evil bird? If that happens, will Capt. Awesome ride his Awesome Pocket Missile down upon the scene and use his Belly Buster move through? Well, you get the idea. Enter each possible action for every possible branching result. Anyway, once you enter every single possibility into the program... you roll your die... you get "67" and... "The Cackling Fiend is defeated but rescued by his sidekick, Mont Claire in their armored airship that hops in short bursts down the street using the Fry Drive. Four goons are KOed and left in the hardened stickum produced from their exploded Glop Guns, two inside the vault and two on the side of the origami octopus. Capt. Awesome is bleeding profusely from his left ear, but is more concerned about the loss of his Energetic Toe Ring. The rubble of the orphanage wall covers most of the experimental tank, and Dr Darkness struggles and eventually succeeds in demagnetizing his head, which was stuck against the tank's disintegration ray." Simple stats follow, identifying how much BODY and STUN are lost from each hero, and list consumable items lost. No biggie. We can probably develop that program quickly but I think the user won't be happy entering all the input required for each combat.

Re: Multiform, Multichange Random thought - if you had NCC Multiform and each form had Luck, is that enough to prod the GM into checking for a lucky change into the most appropriate form? I think it'd be fun to sometimes transform into something useful, and sometimes into something ridiculously inappropriate.

Re: Corruption of power In my campaign, I made it a given that mental powers corrupt. I believe that they are incredibly tempting, way beyond any physical power's temptation. So the corruption rate for mentalists is like 99.9%. Plus, I didn't want to have to mess with telepaths and mind controlling freaks.

Re: What is awsome? Don't let them get you down, TheUnknown! I like exclamation points, and you seem a brother in the cause! Be happy! Be upbeat! After all, exclamation points aren't for everyone! But they should be!!

Re: Resolving a Combat in One Roll? Don't forget to add something like "You kill X normals" to the roll. If they are fighting a ton of nobodies with super powers, there's always a chance of a diabetic triple-bypass geriatric aneurysm-laden guy in there. It's only one roll, after all.

Re: Is anything in the system correctly priced? Only STR is priced correctly. Everything else is overpriced.

Re: Super Teams Compete! Excellent points, all. "It all depends" on the fundamental assumptions. I was assuming "normal" people with superpowers - and your personal definition of "normal" depends on who you know. My "normal" is a reasonably social, moderately self-serving and self-interested individual. Younger = more likely to want to hide or show off (either extreme, not often both). Older = more convinced of their opinions, but actually ignorant to some extent. Weird heroes. Not like in the comics at all.

for members. The "How Many U S Heros?" thread made me wonder if there might be a vast discrepancy in the number of members in super teams ... if superheros existed in real life (ha!). Take New York, and assume that those superheros get lots of action, publicity, money, hero worship/fans, perks, etc. If you are a new super-person, wouldn't you want to join the "Superbowl" winning team? Statistically, wouldn't few want to join the one lonely old guy with super-drool that is too tired to leave your small hamlet? Wouldn't that draw tons of supers to big "venues" and struggle to join the A-Team? How many subtle pop-culture references can I make? Anyway, does anyone think we'd end up with bloated "Super Leagues", and only a few second-hand heroes would hang in the smaller cities / countryside? Or maybe the government would want to "hire" as many as it could, and deploy them as it sees fit for national security / best re-election chances? In short (too late!), wouldn't there be some Mega-Teams that had dozens to hundreds of members?

Re: Caution : Superhero at Work Given the cost of a probe to Pluto (or wherever), I think they could build 10 payloads and hope he delivers one correctly. At least a landing probe; with those there's no problem getting it in a stable orbit. Once he's trained to drop off stuff, he could do the same over and over. The initial training phase might only have "beeper" payloads; very cheap (relatively) transmitters that we could check survived the delivery.

Re: Long Range Invisibility Triggered Transform. Or EDM.