ajackson

Re: Striking Voices Striking Voice is really just Striking Appearance (Sound Group), and should be the same cost.

Re: Question about Combat skill levels and damage

Re: Question about Combat skill levels and damage

I realized during the 6e discussion board that I didn't really like the way levels were priced in 5e. 6e has changed the pricing, but not in a way that strongly impresses me, so I thought I'd ponder pricing. Basically, 2 CSLs are a multipower consisting of: 10 multipower reserve 2 multi slot: +2 OCV 2 multi slot: +2 DCV 2 multi slot: +1 DC, which we will arbitrarily price at 10. Thus, the natural cost of a level is 8. Limiting to a very broad category of abilities is probably -1/4, limiting it to a broad category -1/2, limiting it to a narrow category is -1, and a single power is -1 1/2.. This argues for: 2 points: single power, OCV only (currently 2) 3 points: large group, OCV only (currently n/a) 4 points: power category, OCV only (currently n/a) 3 points: single power, usable for OCV, DCV, or DC (currently n/a) 4 points: small group, usable for OCV, DCV, or DC (currently 3) 5 points: large group, usable for OCV, DCV, or DC (currently 5) 6 points: ranged or melee, usable for OCV, DCV, or DC(currently 8) 8 points: all combat (currently 10) Given that I've seen 3 point CSLs pretty heavily abused even under old rules, and 8 point CSLs being extremely unpopular even when they were all combat, this seems more balanced. Thoughts?

Re: Cage Barrier Overall, a cage barrier is more useful than a regular barrier, because it will be used selectively -- you'll only use it to trap melee attackers, only use it to protect ranged attackers. A shrinking character could also use it to create barriers that he can move through and other people cannot. A cage barrier is thus probably on the order of +1/4 to +1/2.

Re: Question about Combat skill levels and damage How common this option is depends on (a) whether people have enough levels to bother, and ( power levels. Basically, reducing your hit chance is worthwhile if you get a greater increase in damage. Looking at normal dice attacks, here's the average damage required for it to be worth buying damage, for hit chances from 10- to 17-, assuming normal dice: 10-: 3.8 damage (after defenses) 11-: 5.2 damage 12-: 7.3 damage 13-: 10 damage 14-: 16 damage 15-: 26 damage 16-: 43 damage 17-: 80 damage If you're doing 6d6 against a target with 15 defense, leaking through 6 damage a shot, it's worth spending levels if you'd hit on a 12- normally. If you're doing 12d6 against a target with 30 defense, it's not worthwhile until you have a 14- hit chance. Also, if you have maneuvers, it's often better to use a more powerful but less accurate maneuver rather than spending levels.

Re: 6e Discussion: Combat Values You probably missed that it was a ranged drain.

Re: VPP: Skill roll to allocate w/o changing? Allocating points is changing. It's changing the points from 'unallocated' to 'allocated'.

Re: Independent limitation in 6E It gave the GM the option to permanently make your character worse than everyone else.

Re: Power Discussion: Barrier For comparison to Entangle, I made some suppositions about what modifiers would be required to Barrier. The following come up: Immovable: barrier globes can be moved from inside, entangles cannot. Arguably it is possible to do movethroughs while englobed, using the barrier as a weapon, though this will only be useful to a limited subset of characters. Probably +1/4 to make a bubble 'attached' and immovable. Reduced DCV: entangles reduce DCV, barriers do not; this can be significant if you have a way to fire through the barrier (indirect, entangles that don't take damage, or one-way transparent walls). Probably +1/4 for half DCV, +1/2 for 0 DCV. Restrains: entangles prevent using OAFs and restrainable powers, barriers do not, though in many cases the only thing you can do with the restrainable power is try to blow your way out of the barrier. Probably +1/4 with a prerequisite of reduced DCV. Not Area: entangle targets DCV, englobing targets an area. For simplicity we'll say this removes the base cost of the barrier, though it's technically removal of an advantage. Bubbles Only: barrier can form shapes other than bubbles. So, it's on the order of +1 to turn a barrier into an entangle and you'd pay directly for the defense and body of the barrier. A 1d6 entangle has 1 PD, 1 ED, and 1 Body, for a base cost of 4, or 8 with a +1 advantage, with a limitation of a single form. Overall, I'd probably prefer something like: Barrier: 1 point per meter of width, height, and thickness, 2 points per point of PD, ED, or Body. No base cost. A barrier with a dimension of zero can be treated as merely thin (under half a meter) or as zero thickness (however, the edge is not treated as sharp). This build means an effective bubble (4m*4m, 60 active) drops from something like 13PD,13ED,12Bod to around 9PD,9ED,8BOD.

Re: 6E: Weaponmaster, Deadly Blow, and Killing dice I assume Steve felt the ability to power up equipment (which you don't pay points for) is more valuable than simple increased damage. The cost looks reasonable in comparison to levels.

Re: 6th Edition Question: New Powers?

Re: 6th Edition Question: New Powers?

Re: Reactions to 6e Overall, I prefer 6e to 5e, but I preferred 4e to 5e too.

Re: Reactions to 6e Well, I was just noting things as they stood out to me. In general, my reaction is similar to 5e: Steve has a lot of good ideas, but is poor at giving balanced prices to things.

Thoughts as I read through; will update as I continue. Reactions as I read through Hero 6th edition p40: Characteristics I kind of think Dex should be x1, Dex-based skills are more prone than others to being made redundant by powers, and winning initiative is not that big a deal. Otherwise, looks good; END and STUN actually look like rational purchases, though CON is iffy. p41: Movement Mostly traditional, though it might have been a good idea to reduce the defaults on both leaping and swimming. Still, as long as we're dealing with heroic reality, not a big problem. p41-45: Characteristics I like the section on attributes at 0; it becomes annoying but not fatal. The usage of 'must make a stat roll', when the stat roll will always be a 9-, is possibly overly verbose but does deal with people using levels to act normally. p51: Skill Maxima It seems like the problem with levels and skill maxima could be handled easily by just saying "it requires 2 levels to increase roll by 1 in excess of the maximum". p59: Skills and the Time Chart Now it's possible to take my speedster, buy +15 PSLs vs time penalties, and finish a 1 hour job in one turn. p71: Cost of Combat Skill Levels Given that a CSL is basically a multipower of OCV, DCV, and some form of damage boost (at double cost), general-purpose CSLs really shouldn't cost more than 8 and even then are almost never going to be worth the cost. Given the cost of OCV, cost should probably be 3/4/5/6/7, not 2/3/5/8/10. p76-77: Forgery and Gambling Forgery (all types) is not so potent that it should cost 10 points. Cost should be 1 for a subcategory, 2 for a category, 3 for all. Same for Gambling. p88: Skill Levels Overall skill levels usable for combat are now 12, which is probably a good change, though even then they have the potential to be an incredible deal. Certainly, buying 8 or 10 point combat skill levels seems like a poor choice. p89: Stealth Stealth applies to danger sense now. Not sure how I feel about that. p124: Sensing Powers Visibility is now based on whether the power is self-only, not on whether the power costs END. A good change. p142: Adjustment Powers Reduced fade rate is now vastly more expensive. Adjusting multiple powers at once is now vastly more expensive. However, variable effect lets you adjust multiple powers as long as you use separate actions to do so, so some degenerate adjustment power builds will still exist. p147: Impenetrable Typo; the text still says 'hardened', not 'impenetrable' p153: Based on Con Sample power has AVAD (PD), which is inconsistent with the text. This should probably be a smaller limitation (-1/4 or -1/2) with a note 'should usually be given AVAD for a defense other than mental'. p170: Barrier Um. Wow barriers are tough. 60 active points can now give me a barrier that's, say, 4m x 4m (9), PD/ED 12 (36), Bod 15. Can you deliberately attack a one-way transparent barrier? Otherwise englobing someone in a one-way transparent (attacks from inside pass outwards without penalty) might be abusive. p178: Characteristics as Powers Characteristics as powers remain immune to normal characteristic maxima. Blah. Should be something like 'characteristics as powers may have different maxima than normal characteristics; ask the GM for specifics. Characteristics in excess of whatever maximum applies cost double, as normal'. p183-184: Damage negation and reduction Can now be by special effect, rather than by defense type. Generally good, though possibly overpriced if the special effect you're interested in is extremely rare. p319: Area Effect +1/4 for a 4m radius seems low, though the general concept of radius being a pure advantage has appeal. Area Effect (Surface) seems like a good idea, but overpriced; you get a smaller area for an effect that is generally less useful. p328: Damage Over Time Good idea. Badly priced. Setting someone on fire for 3 phases at speed 6 is not worth a +3 advantage.

Re: Grab my tentacles

Re: Grab my tentacles In general, expendable limbs aren't stretching, they're a special effect of telekinesis. However, if squid had regeneration (missing limbs), no problem...

Re: open Beta for Preorders?

Re: 6th Edition Question: New Powers? That's flash. Darkness is 'obstruct sense'. Mostly because vision isn't normally listed as a power. It also has some cost issues -- you'd need quite a lot of drain to do anything, at which point the blindness would last the entire combat. Because darkness doesn't blind people -- it prevents them from seeing into or through an area. This is equivalent to being blind for people inside the area, but it's not equivalent for people outside the area.

Re: 6th Edition Question: New Powers? Does damage negation work vs AVAD attacks? If so, I see it become a standard part of my builds for giant monsters and the like.

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far The problem with this argument is that it's based on personal experience, and RPGs have pretty aggressive clumping behaviors, because an awful lot of it is spread by word of mouth and personal connections. Of the early 80s D&D competitors, GURPS, Hero, Runequest, and Traveller all still have live fanbases today, so the #2 is probably one of those, but I have no data adequate to tell me which.

Re: One Last 6E Preview: The Covers!

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far Hexagonal taxicab geometry, please. Has the useful feature that pi = 3.