EverKnight

Re: Limitation Boondoggles?

When I read the section of the book stating how often the limitations should occur I didn't really believe it, even without comparing it to the listed values. I do like Derek's theory that it is not based on overall time but what fraction of adventures the limitation will crop up in at some point. Not that I have seriously thought how well that fits.

When it comes to determining the value of limitations that are not listed in the book I usually go with what feels right. So something that will just about prove to be a problem is a -1/4, somewhat more troublesome is -1/2 and so on. In the end you just hope people are creating characters to a concept rather than the points cost.

This discussion has reminded me of a sonic based character in my current game that the GM allowed to have a -1/4 limitation does not work in vacuum. The result is that we know will be going to into space at some point so that the limitation will prove to be a limitation. So if you want to be cunning when designing a character for a campaign you ask the GM what various limitations are worth to get an idea of what will be happening in the campaign.

Re: Changing speed mid turn tables

EverKnight' date=' when you have time I'd be interested in your comments on the Excel version - and in particular please let me know how you'd prefer to be accredited.[/quote']

 

I have it and I will be sure to comment. First thoughts are you taken my lots of numbers and created even more lots of numbers ; and your explanation refers to a 'Find SPD Change' tab and I have a 'Lookup_Function' tab.

 

As for the accreditation it looks fine to me.

Re: Changing speed mid turn tables

Oh, and given the example of SPD 1 I gave a brief thought to altering the rest of the table to match. So SPD 2 would be 5, 9; SPD 3 would be 4, 7, 10 and so on. It didn't take me long to realise that this was a major headache.

Re: Changing speed mid turn tables

I'm in agreement that SPD 1 should be a phase 12 action so that it follows the rest of the Speed table. As you can see from the tables I developed it caused problems. For the tables to work nicely it needs to be phase 12 but the Speed chart has phase 7; and I didn't want to just say I will have have SPD 1 be a phase 12 action. If I did then I would no longer match what was in the book and my purpose was to add on to the rules and not change them. The result is a kind of blend between the two.

The other problem I have with SPD 1 is does a SPD 1 character act on the initial phase 12 at the start of combat? The book says that everyone acts then but the character would not have an action to do so. Has this been answered?

Re: Changing speed mid turn tables

I personally just like the method of making the character wait until (s)he would have gotten a Phase at both the old Speed and the new one. For example, if before the Speed change a character's next Phase would not be until Segment 8, and after the Speed change the character's next two Phases would be in 6 and 10 (not sure if this scenario is in fact possible, but it doesn't matter), the character misses the, "new," Phase in 6 and resumes a normal schedule (according to the new Speed value) as of Segment 10. It makes things so much easier than coming up with complex lookup charts and such.

 

EDIT: With the exception that the new schedule is always resumed immediately at the beginning of a new Turn.

You're right of course that this approach is much simpler and is how I first started working out the effects in changes in speed. As I have stated I originally constructed a table for changing between speed 4 and 5 for a multiform character I had made. It was then I noticed odd results from this method. For example speed 4 has phases 3, 6, 9, 12. If speed is increased to 5 on phase 6 then there are two more phases at 10, 12. So over the entire turn the character has acted on 3, 6, 10, 12. Despite the increase in speed he does not have any more phases and in fact acts later on his third action. So on my original table I changed it to eliminate that little oddity.

It was only later that I looked at working out other tables and then I became hooked on getting them all done. It was only while constructing them that I established the rules I would apply to them all. Of course this meant that I had to go back and check all the ones I had done to make sure they were consistent. In the end I suspect that for the most part they get the same result as your method.

Oh, and I believe that these tables would be most use to characters that inherently change speed, like multiform characters, where a copy of the relevant table can be kept with the character.

Re: 2 up, 2 down

If I understand your second option correctly it is not possible to get -2, -1, +1 or +2. Is that correct and is it what you intended? In fact the result would lean to extreme values that would seem to ignore that actual OCV and DCV values. Say OCV is larger than DCV by 2, with this method a positive result will hit and a negative result will miss. The difference between the OCV and DCV values are irrelevant unless a zero result is achieved. Compare that to a situation where OCV is lower than DCV by 2, again positive results will hit and negative results will miss. It is only with a zero result that there is a difference in the outcome.

If you take the lower of the two dice values then I still think that you will have a similar problem. That is large differences in OCV / DCV would be needed to have an effect on the odds of hitting.

Re: Why we shouldn't worry about 2020

Why worry? The world ends December 24' date=' 2011.[/quote']

 

I'll have to remember not to bother buying any Christmas presents then.

Re: What would your character buy?

Stockade would like to borrow from a movie that's often shown at Christmas and buy a heart for the unemotional guy, brains for the guy that thinks he's a Jedi, and courage for the invisible dude that's not appeared yet.

Re: Changing speed mid turn tables

Saves me having a go at putting it into Excel. Not that I have done any work on it; my free time seems to have been all tied up since the arrival of Civilization IV.

I'll just content myself with pointing out all the bits you've done wrong.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

This one got a groan from everyone else.

One of the players rubbed the back of his head and complained that one the dice sitting on a shelf behind him had hit him. So I commented that it must have been a polterdice.

Re: Final Sanity Rules

At first glance it looks workable to me. All the negative modifiers on the EGO roll mean that they will fail more often than not but this is countered by the number of failures required to gain a disadvantage. So a character with an OK EGO of 12 will have to fail 24 times, which should be at least 30 encounters. How many rolls do you see a character making in a session?

On the penalty based on INT I would have gone with rounding off in the same manner as for calculating skills based on INT, i.e. 12 is a -0, 13 is a -1. This way the penalty to the EGO roll for knowing too much increases at the same as the bonus to skills for knowing more.

As a further thought, how about temporary insanities if a character fails a set number of rolls in a short space of time? For example a character fails three rolls in rapid succession; they could then acquire a disadvantage equal to the next one they are heading for (5pts to begin with). The disadvantage goes away when the character has a chance to rest and gather their thoughts.

Re: Sword of St Michael - A Character Review

At first glance it looks to me to be a pretty solid character. As has been noted SPD 3 is low, a BODY of 20 also seem high to me. The AP RKA also looks redundant; half the defenses but also half of the damage of the other RKA.

I would suggest thinking about an entangle as well. It would go with the preferred police approach of capturing criminals rather than going straight to shooting them.

Re: Changing speed mid turn tables

If you change from speed 7 to speed 6 after your action on segment 7' date=' should the next action not be on segment 9, then 10 then 12? Or am I reading the rules wrong again?[/quote']

 

Before I answer this I would like to thank those that complimented me on the work done.

 

Now for Sean's specific question. The first thing to point out is that one thing I wanted to do is follow the same rules for constructing all of the tables. This has resulted in a few odd looking results, particularly where speed only changes by one point.

 

To calculate the 7 to 6 table is mostly a question of working out at what point the change in speed does not result in a loss of a phase. Following the rules I created we first look at the speed 7 phases: 2, 4, 6, 7, 9, 11, 12. Then remove those that match the speed 6 phases: 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12. We are left with 7, 9, 11. Then take the speed 6 phases that have not been matched (8, 10) and remove the phases immediately before those unmatched ones (7, 9). We are left with phase 11. The table is then constructed so that the character will have a total of 6 phases if the change in speed occurs before segment 11 and 7 phases if it occurs on segment 11 or later.

 

You'll note that this method of calculation pushes the point where a character will get more phases to a later point in the turn, i.e. in this example the character will only benefit from speed 7 if he stays at speed 7 for almost the whole of the turn. I arrived at this way of calculating where the total number of phases change because it, quite frankly, worked. So this, plus the specific phases that speed 6 and speed 7 act on has resulted in table as given. Of course you can always alter it for specific exceptions if you want, I won't stop you.

 

Hope this explains it all for you.

This is something that came up for me when I was designing my Champions character. I have a Multiform character that originally had SPD 4 for one form and SPD 5 for the other. Naturally I closely read the rules on changing SPD and concluded they were lacking. So at the time I worked out a table that specified what phases were left to go after a change in SPD on a particular segment. I covered all the segments because there is an Accidental Change disadvantage on both forms so the character could change form at any time.

Later on while refining the character the SPD 5 form was reduced to SPD 4 and the whole point became moot so I dropped it. Recently however I came back to it as an intellectual exercise, dug up the original document I had created and set about making tables for every possible change in SPD. Along the way I refined the rules I was using to calculate the changes until I had something that was applied consistently on every table.

The main rules I stuck to were that a character should not lose or gain an action on the segment that a change in SPD takes place; also remaining phases should match those of the new SPD value. E.g. going to SPD 5 should result in the remaining phases coming from 3, 5, 8, 10, 12. This second rule was to make multiple changes in SPD during a particular turn easier to handle.

With these rules in mind I came up with an approach to calculating what phases remained to a character after a change in SPD then created tables for them all. You can find them all in the document I have attached along with a more detailed description on how I created them. As I was still difing the exact rules on creating the tables as I was creating the tables there may be one or more errors in there. I don't think there are but I am only human . If anyone spots a mistake then I will be happy to confirm it with them.

The file is a bit larger than I had hoped but there are a lot of tables in it . I haven't put any thought into a suitable layout for use during gameplay, just listed the tables out in order. I am sure that some tables will be more useful than others (changing between SPD 1 and SPD 12 does not strike me as happening very often).

Hopefully someone will get some use out of this or at least find it of interest.

Enjoy.

Edit: The doc has been updated to remove an error in the tables.

Re: Multi-form suggestions?

Gold suggests to me Density Increase as well.

Re: Multiform In A Multi-Power as slot?

I would have to say that I would not let a MF in a MP. Given that a MP prevents the use of other powers in that MP and that MF inherently does that anyway then there should not be any points saving. This would be following the same theory that a limitation that does not limit the character is not worth any points.

Re: Vixen

Power works like this:

 

Throw grenade at hex (the target), the individual(s) in the hex take 1d6 NND and get the "sticky" element, it is the hex that becomes sticky as anyone who breaths it in has the toxin in there system

 

Even if they move away the attack continues in there system for 1 min, doing 1d6 per phase Vixen gets to go for one minute. It will not KO anyone immediatly, but after a minute the targetwill have taken on average 105 stun, minus 5x recoveries

 

The NND is stoped by Self Contained breathing or appropriate Immunity

Ah yes, I understand now.

Re: New Guy likes SPD Chart

Actually' date=' having Speed one go on 7 makes sense After everyone else’s first action, but before the slow people’s second.[/quote']

 

It's odd because if you followed the method all the other speeds have their phases calculated then SPD 1 would occur on segment 12.

Re: A question to the physics-minded...

So while I've everyone's attention, here's another question:

 

One of the things that has always bothered me about supers settings is that they don't usually explain where the energy comes from. Sure they might go into how the effects are generated (i.e. the air molecules are heated telekinetically, so it looks like he's shooting fire), but not where all that energy comes from or how it's obtained.

 

So what's everyone's favourite pet explanation for the source of the energy superhumans use to power their abilities?

er...magic

Re: Vixen

We have always played that stretching adds to your reach, so in this case you can target a target 2" away

 

Continuing Charges adds the uncontrolled advantage to it for free (but you still have to pay for continous, I always find that amusing, but that is the wordsmith in me)

 

The F/X is that the same lenses that give her nightvision allow her to see through the darkness, Technicaly I don't need it (as Nightvision gives a +4 vs -4 for CE) but felt it should be on there anyways

 

Glad you like the COM

Ah yes, I had missed the continuing charges bit. I will have to put some more points into KS: Hero System. I am now wondering how the Sticky part of the powers works?

From what you have said I would have thought that the personal immunity is not needed; particularly if other characters with nightvision can see through it just fine.

Just remembered that COM should be bought in even numbers as well, unless you have house rules that too.

Re: Vixen

20 UT Belt: Multipower' date=' 30-point reserve, (30 Active Points); all slots OIF (-1/2)[/b']1u 1) Nunchaku: HA +3d6, Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2); OAF (-1), Hand-To-Hand Attack (-1/2) plus Stretching 1", Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2); OAF (-1), Only To Cause Damage (-1/2), Always Direct (-1/4), No Velocity Damage (-1/4)

...

1u 4) KO Gas Grenades: EB 1d6, 6 Continuing Charges lasting 1 Minute each (+0), Explosion (+1/2), Sticky (+1/2), Continuous (+1), NND ([standard]; +1) (20 Active Points); Range Based On STR (-1/4)

1u 5) Smoke Grenades: Change Environment 4" radius, -4 to Sight Group PER Rolls, Personal Immunity (+1/4); 6 Continuing Charges lasting 1 Turn each (-1/4), Range Based On STR (-1/4)

My understanding of Stretching is that 1" will not get you anything in combat. All this allows you to do is attack one inch away, which characters can do anyway.

I believe the gas grenades require the Uncontrolled advantage added to them as well.

I am also wondering about the personal immunity to the smoke grenades and how that works?

BTW, I personally had to smile at the +7 COM power on the suit and spent a while imagining what it looked like.

Re: Character Concept: Nanites and their host

First thought is: how about a mutant flying energy projector with a force field, they're much easier to build.

If not then moving on to the subject at hand I would say that the nanites are really just a special effect of the powers the character has. They are not independent enough to be separate characters.

As far as operating the body when the character is unconscious, this is a tricky one. Effectively you are having the character turn into an automaton. I suppose you might be able to put together a Multiform power triggered to go off when unconscious that turns the character into an automaton. How legal this would be what problems is might cause I can't say at the moment as I don't have any books with me. For a simpler solution you could just buy up the STUN and define a point where the character is unconscious but the nanites are in charge. Eventually the nanites cannot cope and the body falls completely unconscious. You could have a psychological limitation that the character acts in a specific way when the nanites are in charge to represent the different attitude of the character.

I suppose the requirement to recharge could be represented by charges or and END reserve. The ways to affect the nanites would be based on the build of other powers defined to affect a nanite sfx.

Where you've said that the nanites are also subject to mental attack I would think that you could come up with some disadvantage that makes you vulnerable to mental powers versus the machine class of minds as well as human. The rest should be sfx and psychological limitations.

Hope this is the sort of thing you were looking for.

Re: A question to the physics-minded...

Wow.

 

That's more detail than I've ever written down for all the games I've ever run, ever. Really interesting background. Very impressed.

 

Sean Waters

I second that wow and raise a wowee. I admit to being hooked reading the background and wondering if the world is going to tear itself apart.

I was wondering if you have an organisation of metahumans devoted to helping those that have recently discovered themselves to be metahumans?

Re: New Guy likes SPD Chart

Cheers' date=' EverKnight......yet another rule I was unaware of . One day I'll know it all....having looked at it again I now realise that even speed 1 characters drown at speed 2. Funny old game, eh? (rep if I could but you've obviously been making too much sense lately - keep it up )[/quote']

 

You'll never know it all, what you don't realise is that you've just forgotten another rule to make room for this one.

 

Anyway, this just happens to be a rule that stuck with me. Must be something to do with the intense reading of the rules regarding changes of SPD to do with my multiform character that had different SPD values for the two forms. Then being somewhat dissatisfied I created my own rule. Then I changed the character so that the two forms had equal SPD and I could forget about it.

Re: New Guy likes SPD Chart

....and presumably doesn't get to go on the first segment of combat' date=' which is segment 12: I think it is anticipated that very few heroes will ever have to worry about SPD 1, unless they are drowning or something.[/quote']

 

Especially as SPD can only be voluntarily dropped to 2, so they don't reach 1 even when drowning or suffocating.