massey

There could be a physical limitation "random changes when dies", or something similar. Of course, if it takes a few centuries for an elf to go from birth to adulthood, it might not need a power to represent it at all. By the time you get old enough to be out of diapers, campaign over.

It's Regeneration, with Resurrection, and perhaps a small limitation that you lose your current identity (you don't get to keep your stuff). Might have time delay and a small linked teleport to send you somewhere else.

I'll agree with you on everything that you said. My point on it was, Hugh Neilson's argument as of late has been "if killing is so infrequent, then the psych lim against it isn't worth many points". And I'm saying that the reason is infrequent is because people are playing the psych lim appropriately. Just because players who want to be in a superhero game tend to follow the superhero "rules", doesn't 1) mean they don't have a choice, and 2) mean that the psychological limitation isn't in force. If I, as a player, love playing overconfident characters (and I do), and I will normally always charge into a fight (and I will), I should still get those points. That's how my character is going to behave. I don't need the GM to force me into that situation. If killing is highly infrequent because we don't act in a manner that will kill, then that's appropriate use of the CvK.

Potential for death still exists, even if virtually all opponents have enough defenses to survive a normal attack. Let's say I am Energy Guy. I have a 60 pt Multipower with a 12D6 EB, a 6D6 NND, a 4D6 RKA, and a 12D6 Flash vs Sight. I shoot my 6D6 NND at Blaster Villain. Blast Villain has 12/12 PD and ED, an 18/18 Force Field, 10 Body, and a 23 Con. I roll slightly above average on my NND, getting 24 STUN. Blaster Villain is Stunned, and his Force Field drops. If I shoot him with my 4D6 RKA, I will likely put him to negative Body. I have CvK, though, so I don't. Perhaps this isn't "common" enough for you. Looking at the comics, a surprising number of the X-Men seem to not have CvK. While some may be reluctant to kill, a pretty large number of non-main character mutants seem to bite the dust on a regular basis. We aren't just talking about Wolverine and the Punisher as characters who kill, there is an entire wing of Marvel's universe where the standard appears to be "bad guys die". I could make the argument that you are trying to give characters a CvK for free, without giving them points for it, because it fits your idea of how characters should be played by default.

At least require the power armor to be bought with its defenses on a limitation -- "acts like regular defenses". Just tell the player it's too powerful otherwise.

In my experience, Stretching was really only useful as a cheap shot power. If built properly, they were a pain in the butt. The stretcher would hold action, and then wait for someone with a lot of movement to go, then they would use Martial Throw. You take a lot of damage and now you're out of position so you can't attack. Reminded me of that jerk kid at the arcade who would play Dhalsim and you could never touch him.

1) As I said, I haven't seen the movie in a while, but I can tell you with 100% certainty it would not be a manslaughter charge. Given that Bruce went from "this is a cool place where these guys are teaching me karate" to "oh my god, these guys are terrorists and expect me to murder a man right now, I must escape", he's actually legally entitled to use whatever force is necessary to escape. 2) And as I said, on page 5, in post #90... "But even Batman's CvK is subject to interpretation. It didn't exist at all in the Tim Burton movies (the Batmobile had machine guns on it). In Batman Begins he explicitely tells Liam Neeson that he doesn't have to save him. Sometimes he'll go out of his way to save a villain who is about to get killed by some bomb or something. So not every CvK is the same." He might not have a 20 pt CvK. But he still definitely has a "refuses to kill" psychological limitation. But he's acting in a world where he doesn't have the ability to save every life. What I can't figure out is why we are arguing over a Batman movie, when we can't see the character's character sheet.

No, a character with CvK shouldn't do something that he expects will kill an opponent. As I said, the only time I've ever killed a villain was when I fluked out on a damage roll, he failed his armor activation, then I fluked out on knockback, then on knockback damage, and then he failed his armor activation again. So with a 15D6 attack, I hit a guy wearing armor, I rolled like 18 Body (failed activation, only had like 5 PD without it), then did something like 15" of KB, knocking him into a concrete wall, where I rolled another 17 Body or so, and he failed activation again. He was instantly dead in one punch. That kind of thing can happen during a game. It changed the character's whole outlook on things. But that character is a great example. Before that incident, I had rolled terribly with him. He was a fairly powerful character, but every superhuman combat I'd been in, I'd missed a lot, I'd rolled low on damage, etc. As far as everything he had ever seen, lower powered characters were perfectly capable of standing up to his attacks. He was a 75 Str brick, and he fought as if he was a 10D6 character, because I couldn't roll well at all. In our games, having super powers means that you're going to be a certain minimum level of tough. Just getting an energy blast means you're going to have at least a 20 Dex and a 4 Spd. Do you have a combat superpower? Then you've got at least 15 defense. You just do, those are the rules. Your defenses might not be resistant, so watch out for the RKAs, but you will have the PD and ED. And the characters in the game universe know and understand that. They shouldn't have to pretend that the bad guy in a costume is going to be critically injured by their campaign-standard attack. And I'm still waiting for you to come up with something that's not simply a disadvantage in combat versus a character that everyone knows can really take it. We are now on page 6. I have been saying from the beginning that people seem to want to use CvK (and the only justification for it's points value that they've been willing to accept) to penalize a player character every time they fight a new villain. You see, I'm not talking about when Flying Brick crashes into Bald Scientist's lab. He sees Bald Scientist (dressed in his labcoat) standing in front of a machine. Flying Brick has 20 pt CvK. Flying Brick should not throw nearby forklift into Bald Scientist. That would probably kill him. Flying Brick should definitely pull his punch. Or he should use his brick tricks multipower to carefully wrap the forklift around Bald Scientist (Entangle, no range). But I'm not talking about that. That's an obvious case where CvK applies. And you're not talking about that. You're not talking about known quantities here. What everyone keeps saying is necessary to make CvK worth its points is "Here's a new villain. You don't know how tough he is. You have to hold back for the first few phases. You and I both know he has enough defenses that he'll be fine. But your character doesn't. Now, hand me my second bag of dice, it's his turn to shoot." CvK has many occasions where it applies. Superman won't kill Luthor, even though Luthor screws with him all the time. Even though Supes can't get enough dirt on Luthor to put him in prison. Even though he knows Luthor is guilty of so many crimes and has hurt so many people. Same with Batman and the Joker. These characters set off almost every one of the hero's psych lims (stands for truth and justice, protective of innocents, etc), and they could fix it all if they just killed the guy. But they have CvK, so they won't do it. Superman is the poster child for holding back. There's the "world of cardboard" speech that everybody loves. He always has thought bubbles about how he's afraid to hit somebody with his full strength. And yet Superman has killed people before. He killed those three Kryptonian criminals in the pocket dimension. He didn't like it, but he did it. Batman is the guy who never kills. But Batman breaks legs, dislocates arms, uses all sorts of incredibly vicious moves on people. A lot of his villains end up in the hospital. "Rubber bullets. Honest." So CvK and pulling your punch don't necessarily go hand in hand. -- Oh, and overconfident doesn't necessarily mean fighting below your full capabilities. If you've got superdefenses, perhaps. Superman's version of overconfident means that he will stand there and take the hit. Batman's version of overconfident means he doesn't tell the rest of the JLA what he's doing. He takes it on by himself. He jumps into a room full of thugs and attacks. He still dodges, because he may be overconfident but he knows he's not bulletproof. My point is, most disadvantages / complications aren't necessarily worth anything if you look at them in the right light. "Oh, well, players shouldn't kill people anyway, so it's not a disad." But that's the case with everything. Hunteds shouldn't be worth any points. After all, you're going to be fighting somebody every adventure anyway. If it wasn't your Hunted, it would be somebody else. Might as well get points for it. If a player is overconfident and enjoys playing his character that way, he's getting points for something he's going to do anyway. Most of the players in our group would pick a fight with Firewing regardless of what was written on their character sheet. As you said, Rogue's "misses touch" draws her into subplots. But hopefully she's going to be doing something during the game anyway. She's going to be involved in the plot. So it doesn't really make things more complicated for her, because a game where you sit around and the GM says "nothing happens today, you enjoy a quiet night off" isn't very fun to play.

Just saw I forgot to respond to this. 1) It's been a while since I've seen it, but I believe the fire started accidentally during the fight. He also saves as many people as he can (Liam Neeson). So no, he's not directly responsible for Ra's death. 2) Liam Neeson is responsible for his own death. As Batman says, "I'm not going to kill you, but I don't have to save you." This is the classic bad guy dies by his own plot, so the hero can keep his hands clean. 3) This is just flat out wrong. He went to save Rachel. Joker told him the wrong address. The fact that some psycho sets up a scenario where you can only save one person doesn't make you responsible for the other's death. He beats himself up over it because he is in love with Rachel. Man, it's no wonder we disagree on CvK. It seems like we see absolutely everything 100% differently. I remember ages ago when the first Spider-Man movie came out, there was a guy on here who was talking about how Toby McGuire was responsible for the Green Goblin murdering a bunch of people. I almost disagree with you that much.

Umm, really? I'm sorry, this just sounds kind of silly.

1:13 "Whammo!" "Wait, you ran over a human being? What about your rule?" "Didn't kill him." "You wanna know how I got these scars?" "From Batman?" "From Batman."

First, I see I've been misspelling your name. My bad. In answer to your question, psychological limitations are roleplaying guidelines. They give the character a defined personality, and they give the GM story hooks to involve the characters in the adventure. If a psych lim is roleplayed properly by the player, it will never need to be applied by the GM. It affects the direction of the plot in a fundamental way. For instance: Spider-Man has the psych lim "smartass" (as well as "with great power...", and "guilt over Uncle Ben" and "protective of innocents", etc). As long as Spidey's player makes fun of villains, says inappropriate things in combat, taunts J Jonah Jameson, and generally behaves, well, like Spider-Man, then the GM doesn't have to worry about it. People react how they would normally react. If Spidey's player is having fun (or, in the case of many of our players, can't resist doing it anyway), then he's roleplaying the character appropriately. It's not something the GM has to club the character with, simply because he's enjoying himself. The fact that your players don't tend to kill villains is not a reason to make CvK even more restrictive. It sounds like they're already playing CvK anyway. Think of how your players would respond in a given situation, and then compare to how a group made up of Wolverine, the Punisher, Ghost Rider, and Deadpool would react. Can you tell a significant difference between the two groups? If you can, then your players are doing it right. You don't need to worry about punishing them because they made characters who are naturally nice. Rogue has the psych lim "misses the touch of other people". If her player is content to have her sit around and mope, or uses proper Claremontian dialogue in her conversation, then she's playing it well. You don't have to give her minuses to OCV because she's sad.

Hugh Neilsen wondered how you know that a character doesn't have a vulnerability to your attack. I am asking the same question. How do you know? How do you know he doesn't have an activation roll on his defenses? 50 Defense, 14- activation. x4 BODY from attacks when armor activation fails. How do you as a player know that a villain doesn't have that, if the GM doesn't give you any indication of it? If he doesn't tell you? When you shoot Chernobog with your 9D6 light blast, how do you know he's not going to shatter into a million pieces? Answer: you don't play with a GM who is a douche.

If THAT is the standard you use, no wonder you're all twisted up about this. If that's the case, Batman should never send someone to prison. People get knifed in prison. "Sorry Commissioner, if I'd turned in the Joker he'd have gotten the chair for sure. So I've got him locked up in the Batcave where no one can ever get to him." Edit: By the way, the Nolan Batman never kills a single person through the entire 3 movie series.

Hugh Neilsen asked about "overconfident" or "never tells a lie". Well, those are easy to get around. Overconfident is normally going to act like most heroes do anyway. They'll leap into the fray. It's heroic. Dr. Destroyer shows up? You fight him. What else are you supposed to do? It's a superhero game, not Call of Cthulhu. The worst thing that happens is you lose. That will happen on occasion. Never tells a lie? Big deal. You have a high PRE, Acting, and Persuasion. "You're really Superman, aren't you Clark?" "Why Lois, whatever would give you a crazy idea like that? Honestly, me being Superman."

:57 second mark. "From this height, the fall wouldn't kill me." "I'm counting on it."

How do you know he won't take x8 BODY from your sfx? "Better go easy on this guy. I might accidentally kill him." -- So you're saying the only way to make CvK worth 20 points is to bring in villains who both you, and the players, know can really take the attack, but require the characters to act as if it's otherwise? Because really, that's the only thing any of you have described. It's the only thing that is really a drawback, according to you. Batman using 3D6 normal attacks against the Condiment King because he's afraid of hurting him, that's not a drawback. The Condiment King is a 50 point character, at most. Superman not using full power against some 12D6 villain isn't a drawback, because he's got 50 Defense and 50% Damage Reduction. He can't be hurt by the guy. The only thing you guys have suggested, the only thing, is to make characters hold back when they're fighting a new villain so that they will be at a combat penalty against villains who are actually tough enough to really endanger them. That's just bad gamemastering, I'm sorry. If you want players with a CvK to hold back, don't play these stupid surprise games. Let them know, make it clear. "This guy is a weakling. He can't take your full hit." Be honest about it and don't screw them over. You'll see CvK players hold back a lot more if you do that.

Costume party is different. Don't forget when he strapped that bomb to the circus strongman in Batman Returns.

I don't think you need it at all. It's not a useful limb. You can just have a tail, for free.

Can he actually use the tail for anything? I mean, since you paid for extra limbs, you can technically open a jar of peanut butter with it.

The Nightmare Slasher would be something similar, but he has Transdimensional on his attacks. Then you just define him as existing in the dream dimension.

Let's see if this formatting works: Edit: Nope. Try this again. Lakeview Slasher Player: Val Char Cost 30 STR 20 15 DEX 15 20 CON 20 20 BODY 20 10 INT 0 10 EGO 0 25 PRE 15 4 COM -3 10 PD 4 10 ED 6 3 SPD 5 20 REC 20 40 END 0 45 STUN 0 6" RUN 0 2" SWIM 0 6" LEAP 0 Cost Power 2 Damage Resistance (2 PD/2 ED) 22 Healing 1 BODY, Resurrection, Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2), Persistent (+1/2) (60 Active Points); Extra Time (Regeneration-Only) 1 Turn (Post-Segment 12) (-1 1/4), Self Only (-1/2) 12 Killing Attack - Hand-To-Hand 1 1/2d6 (3d6+1 w/STR) (25 Active Points); OAF (-1) 17 Teleportation 10", x8 Noncombat (30 Active Points); Only when not observed (-1/2), Must Pass Through Intervening Space (-1/4) 5 Nightvision 24 Detect Sinful acts 13- (Unusual Group), Discriminatory, Increased Arc Of Perception (360 Degrees), Range, Sense Cost Skill 5 +1 with HTH Combat 2 +1 with signature weapon 4 AK: Local hunting area 13- 7 Concealment 13- 3 Mechanics 11- 7 Security Systems 13- 7 Shadowing 13- 5 Stealth 13- 3 Survival 11- 3 Tracking 11- Total Character Cost: 250 Pts. Disadvantage 20 Distinctive Features: Ugly deformed guy in mask (Concealable; Extreme Reaction; Detectable By Commonly-Used Senses) 20 Physical Limitation: Can't talk (All the Time, Greatly Impairing) 15 Psychological Limitation: Vengeful (Common, Strong) 20 Psychological Limitation: Likes to kill (Very Common, Strong) 15 Reputation: Campfire legend, 11- (Extreme) 10 Vulnerability: 2 x BODY Attacks from Final Girl (Uncommon) 10 Vulnerability: 2 x STUN Attacks from Final Girl (Uncommon) Disadvantage Points: 110 Base Points: 200 Experience Required: 0 Total Experience Available: 0 Experience Unspent: 0

That's fine. I said I haven't read it.

Now you're talking about philosophy of game design. There are a lot of things I'd do differently from 6th edition HERO. In fact I'd probably rewrite the entire system. When I initially read through it, I went "blecchh!!!" and threw the book down. I think it's quite out of whack at this point.

As I reread your original statement, I think I'd have to back off on the shapeshift. Since you want it to stop flashes, it needs to be Darkness with a limitation. My thought of Shapeshift to "normal", or to "generic humanoid shape" would cover preventing Analyze and other things like that from working, but they'd still be able to Flash you. I'm still trying to figure out what the special effect of this power is. Why does it work the way it does? What does it look like?