Manic Typist

...but... isn't a Turn the same thing as a round, especially since as described your Initiative system allows for multiple actions each "round" for higher SPD characters?

I've been using this ever since I stole it from Killer Shrike... probably a decade ago. RULE OF THREE if a character (PC or NPC) rolls a natural three on a 3d6 roll under type of check then they have the option of either taking "max effect" or an "epiphany". MAX EFFECT If the three was made for an Attack Roll max effect is the maximum possible damage or effect with that attack (treat all effect dice as having rolled 6's). If the three was made for a non attack roll, not only does the character win any opposed roll (even if the opponent made their roll by more) or succeed at their task, but they do so in a stylish looked-cool-doing-it fashion which is also justification for gaining a "Display of Power" bonus to a Presence Attack made sometime within the next few actions against anyone that observed them. EPIPHANY The character has a flash of insight regarding the skill or ability that they rolled a three for and their competency with that ability is expanded. The character gain +2 character points to allocate towards a bonus with that skill or attack. For attacks this translates into a +1 OCV Combat Skill Level with that attack. If a skill this translates into either a +1 or +2 with that skill depending on whether the skill is on the 3/2 or 2/1 costing model. If the three was rolled for a familiarity, the familiarity becomes a full skill instead. This can not be used to upgrade existing levels; for example a character could not opt to bump an All Combat level to an Overall Level with the 2 free points gained in this fashion -- the 2 pts must be spent specifically for the task they were gained from. However, levels gained in this fashion can themselves be upgraded later with experience. For example a 2pt +1 OCV level with a specific kind of pistol could be upgraded to a 3pt "Pistols" tight group level later on.

I've been mulling over something similar to this with an idea that came out of considering the impacts of a foreign occupation of the PC's city. Specifically, I've been mulling over if it could be fun to design a sort of Track system for the Resistance/Occupation, and depending on where you are in the Track there are different modifiers to rolls for PCs (for Contacts, Persuasion, Stealth, etc.). The Tracks might be various centers of power (literal, figurative, embodied in persons etc.) that have specific effects. For instance, the Minister of the Census (i.e. foreign spymaster) might put out a bounty on the PC's heads. They will have negative modifiers to move around the city stealthily as they can't trust all the people around them to not turn them in, negatives to reach certain Contacts, etc. Should they take action to counter this stratagem - assassinate the minister of deal some sort of embarrassing defeat to the occupiers that would make it clear that the PCs will never be betrayed by the populace - the Track moves in favor of the PC's and that center of power is replaced by one for the PCs, giving them bonuses - "Defiant Propaganda" perhaps, where the populace has taken the wanted posters and turned them into bills that mock the power of the occupiers and calls for increased resistance. So, this is a way to put some of the power of the background plot into the PC's hands, but they don't HAVE to engage with it if they don't want to - they could just pursue a central plot that doesn't entail this and it could just be something that inconveniences them for the duration they are in the city. But they have the option, if they want to pursue it, that might make their main task easier in the end (rescuing someone from the dungeon in the Impossible Keep, for instance, would probably be easier if there's a full rebellion at your back).

.....so... a couple of people on the first page (bigdamnhero being one I believe) mentioned simplified character sheets for new players. Does anyone have examples of easy to read PC sheets that hide most of the mechanics? Will happily download from the store if you can name a version there that you liked. Personally, I JUST discovered that the only way to get the "classic" back of the book sheet is to... export it via the PDF option. It's not a template in the Export file types, which was completely counterintuitive to me. I didn't even know there was a PDF option! That's so far my personal favorite in terms of being concise and showing the most relevant things.

Just looked at it on the app store and it mentions 5E; do you know if it's compatible with 6E character sheets? Neat either way!

Aside: Does anyone remember if there are rules (outside of 6E Impairment/Disabling) about how if a limb takes 1/3 of total BODY damage, it's destroyed/you can only do up to 1/3 of total body to a character if it's a non-vital limb (i.e. not head/chest/stomach/vitals)? My first GM used this over a decade ago and I don't know if it was a house rule or a 5E rule.

Finally played again tonight. I think it went really well. One PC basically went toe-to-toe with 8 enemies and held them off/took them down one by one (his OCV gets crazy high for a 281 pt PC - he usually sits at something like OCV 9/DCV 11 when fighting, so plugging the gap against a bunch of unarmored opponents with OCV 5 works well for him). The only rule things I can remember now that I want to look up: 1) Movement penalties for taking damage to the legs. I said a CON roll to move at with -2M, or fail the roll and your movement is halved (as always, I made it clear that it was a me making a ruling in the moment situation) 2) Cover/angle penalties. One of the PCs made a game of teleporting around tossing enemies off a catwalk... but one of them he tossed happened to have a still loaded rifle. After the battle, the PCs didn't bother to check on the people they'd tossed earlier. Some of them had fled but one remained, lurking in the shadows, and lined up a shot while the PCs interrogated the people they'd captured. Mr. Sniper lined up for a head shot... and rolled a crit. Fortunately the PC had 18 BODY so after modifiers he was "only" at zero body but man did it scare them. I was worried about the reaction but took it in good stead and I think it underlined that this is dangerous for everyone, even if you are capable of amazing feats. But... perhaps there should have been some additional penalties based on the angle of shooting upward against someone on a catwalk, even if you had time to line up a shot. I'll review the rules for cover, etc.

I didn't bother to caveat it since that would have made it "Zero Phase to Fast Draw (if roll succeeds), 1/2 Phase to Draw (if the Fast Draw roll fails)" but yes.

Christopher already addressed these, but as promised, here are the results of my research: 1) Passing Disarm is +30 STR.... I for some reasoned typed Passing Strike up above. He kept disarming and going intangible, which is fine if you've paid for it but he hadn't paid for it to be THAT effective. In the future he can Disarm and THEN on his next Phase run away Desolid, but he's still at risk for getting hit in the interim. 2) Can't Activate/Deactive non-movement powers in a single segment; also it's an attack action so you couldn't activate the power after performing the attack. 3) Reviewed; I forgot to halve DCV. I think Multy Attack is very useful in a Heroic context but in a Champions game you're probably better off just buying an AoE attack with a SFX of attacking a bunch. 4) NND is AVAD; requires and Advantage for Does BODY 5) This ain't Pathfinder, 1/2 Phase to Draw and 1/2 Phase to move, period. 6) Shapeshift is Persistent and I need to make sure the Zero END Advantage is added given how the player wants to use it.

So I had another one of those nights where I knew I should know the rules but in the moment I was uncertain (I also had one of those "stop watching me do basic math" when determining how much damage was done after defenses, love it). So I thought I'd share what things I drew a blank on, and then go review the rules and share the results, in the hopes that it'll save others time/encourage others to share their own lessons from things they forgot/generate interesting discussion. 1) Passing Strike - the player works straight out of HeroDesigner, and I forgot to print his sheet for my reference, so he ended up asking me "So is it +30 STR or 30 STR total for this move?" and since I couldn't see his screen... I made a call but honestly couldn't be sure. I don't really love this habit of his but if I'd had a hard copy I could have answered it. That was really my biggest pain point all night and it was entirely self-inflicted. 2) Using Desolid/Flight combo power in conjunction with Disarm/Passing Disarm - Same PC, has a Desolid movement power like Reaper in Overwatch. In the case of Disarm, you can definitely do a half move/then Disarm. With Passing Disarm... the PC wanted to activate the Power, then fly across the room, rematerialize and use Disarm (need to make sure the PC actually has Passing Disarm... point is, since they don't have the "Affects Solid" (forget the proper name off the top of my head) Advantage, they would need to deactivate the Power to perform the Passing Disarm. I ruled it was allowable but am going to research the combination of Activating/Deactivating a power and then performing a maneuver at the end. 3) Need to review the Sweep/Multiple Attack w/Manuevers rules. I know it's you take the worst of all modifers and apply it to all, with a -2 to all attacks after the first... but want to double check. 4) Another player thought AVAD couldn't do BODY as a default, like NND requires the "Does Body" Adv. I honestly couldn't recall. 5) Can you draw a weapon as a part of movement? I think I thought this but it's because I was recently reviewing the rules for Pathfinder. 6) Shapeshift - I've never used it as a PC, so I need to re-read it again. Mostly I'm want to be ready for when the PC, who has multiple identities via Shapeshift, gets knocked unconscious. Do they revert to their true form? Is there a heal back associated with it like Transform? Now to pull out my books and see what I can look up.

I just discovered for the first time (re-reading the 6E books for the first time in a decade) that DCs add differently based on the amount of Advantages on the attack. This blew my mind, and my initial reaction was to ignore it since I know the base DC progression well enough. Can anyone articulate the value of going with the reduced DC increase rate that results from using the adding DCs/Advantages table? Is the juice or learning the table worth the squeeze? Thinking of martial artists using weapons with Advantages, etc. Or someone with a big energy blast choosing to Haymaker it.

While reasonable perspectives are presented, I still think sticking with the Zero Phase is probably the best for consistency and (more importantly) balance. The length of time/easiness of "letting go" is irrelevant. If someone's attempting a Move Through on me, it takes just as much time/is just as easy to deliberately take a half step out of the way (Dodge/Dive for Cover) to avoid it... but if I've already acted that Phase, I don't get to do that.; I don't even get to Abort. I have to rely upon my DCV and hope for the best. If a character has just engaged in an Attack Action, either by initiating the Grab or inflicting damage in a subsequent phase, they've committed to the strategy and must bear the consequences of it until their next opportunity to act (a theme you see consistently in the books). Usually this is their next Phase; I'd probably let them Abort their next action in a Segment where they have't already acted to release. Aside: I just recently learned that the "free"/immediate Throw you can perform after Grab is only if you are throwing the character at a non-specific target. If you want to Throw a character at a window or a cactus, etc. - that's a separate Attack Action that must be performed in another Phase. The "generic" throw does half damage to the "full" Throw I believe. ALSO - I didn't know that the max damage for throwing objects is the PD+Body in DICE, not total number. Now I want to go re-read the smashing through walls/hitting objects rules. This certainly wasn't clear to me when I was reading through the earlier sections (I'm currently re-reading the entire Vol2 for "fun."), so I'm concerned that the rules won't be philosophically consistent there. If they aren't, I might adjust them so that the same principle applies when throwing an object at a person as when throwing a person at an object (such as via Knockback, etc.) As always, in this as all other things, YMMV.

Hey all - am I blind or does nothing in Vol I-II say anything about what kind of action it is to willingly RELEASE a character from a Grab? Based upon my reading, sense of game balance/common sense/dramatic sense, and some text from the books, I think it's either a Zero Phase action (which means it can't occur if the Grab just took effect or if the Grabber just Squeezed/Slammed/engaged in an attack action) or it's MAAAAYBE an action that Takes No Time but it occurs at the end of the Segment (like releasing a Grabbed character due to being Knocked Out per RAW). In either case, the reason I care is because I think this is what makes sense/allows for the Grabbed character to do interesting things like run around with the Grabber on their back, slamming them into the walls, or using their Flight to fly the Grabber into the ceiling, etc. Anyone have a strong argument against this/why a Grabber should be able to avoid situations like this by being able to release on a whim?

I really, really like the look of the 6E character sheet. I'm having trouble finding an export file that is more it than not - am I missing it? Is there an editable PDF floating around as an alternative? My handwriting is awful so I don't want to print a copy and handwrite it.

That's dangerous territory - I'm not a player, so I try to be careful about substituting my judgment for theirs. All I can do is try to paint the best picture I can of what they see... so hopefully they scout the place out/roll well on Streetwise to know some caution is called for. Some good suggestions above. I think I'll increase the difficulty/lethality as the PCs advance up - sort of like a reverse dungeon. Mostly unarmed goons on the lower floors, then a group of toughs with clubs and chains, then another with swords and crossbows, and finally a group wearing armor and gearing capslock firearms. I figure I'll try to come up with different "scenes" for them to progress through - a large converted bathroom spraying water everywhere when they fight the people with clubs, for instance, while switchblade wearing men in chemical gear attack them in the drug lab. Perhaps some will use teamwork and try to drown the forcefield PC in a barrel of liquid by holding his head underwater. It's a remarkably inefficient way to kill a PC and he should escape easily enough, but I think it's important for the PCs to face different kinds of dangers and not just degrees of dangers. I think another potential piece could be a set of boards set across some collapsed flooring, with aggressive thugs jumping across boards trying to get at them/knock them off. Uncertain footing, leaps from foothold to foothold, the drama of enemies falling to their doom, etc. Any other thoughts on strategies or set pieces you can think of in a lower tech version of "The Raid?"

Thanks, glad to help. End goal: Not really, as the specifics are too tied up into everything else in your story. I'd say the narrative point would be to give the PCs a clear direction as to the stakes, the nature of the threat, and which way to go to find a solution. I can see them being potentially confused by one this woman attacked them/fled them, etc. so this NPC can explain the backstory and give them a clear direction to go if they want to pursue putting the genie back in the bottle. It is easy for players, after all, to not see the things we think are obvious.

Sorceress was going to betray him, she whiffed, he shoved her into the painting before she could use it on her intended target (who he had trussed and ready). He didn't know how to destroy it without risking releasing her, so he kept it. Probably also some pleasure in taunting her given that she tried to betray him. Even if he changes his mind later when he realizes he wants to change his ways, he was riding the tiger - he can't let her out because she will not let the grudge go. The advantage of this route is that it creates another source of information/investigation - the PCs can find her name among his affects in relation to the painting, they can find the former target whose initial reaction to them dropping the assassin's name is something like "I want nothing to do with him/glad to hear he's dead" but when the PCs mention the sorceress, this contact will likely change her tune and want to be more helpful...

So, without intending this at the outset, I have begun to prepare for the PCs to end up confronting a major gang in the center of the power - a large tenement building they have taken over and extensively modified. Now, the PCs could easily take this another direction, breeze through it - PCs are great for confounding expectations, so I could be worrying about nothing, but just in case... The building has been heavily modified to facilitate their illegal activities - drugs, weapons, people smuggling... stairwells have been strategically blocked up, floors/walls have been torn up to convert at least one hallway into a kill-box - a long bridge with no cover and the floors on either side torn away for several floors. One PC has an 8 rPD forcefield, another has 6 rPD via Combat Luck.. and the third PC has.... nothing, but has magical tricks up her sleeve if she remembers them. So I'm a touch worried about the challenge, but I'm confident the PCs will either rise to the occasion or retreat when they get deep in the suck. Beyond general advice, has anyone run a scenario like this? Particular scenes I can steal shamelessly, do's and don'ts? War stories? How you handled the potential tone shift of such a starkly violent scenario?

*SIgh* Never mind. I accidentally created it inside a Multipower. Mods, please feel free to delete this... (Subtext: Maybe I really do need sleep...)

So... without modifiers, a 100 END, 9 REC Endurance Reserve is showing up as costing 2 real points and 31 active. This doesn't seem to align with the book at all. Is the problem with me? Do I need to go get some sleep and re-read in the morning?

Grandmaster - sorry I didn't see your post. I'm running a regular game now that meets 1-2 times a month... we have two regular players and a third who is intermittent. We primarily game in the Fairfax area on Sundays. I also occasionally attend a Saturday game out toward Sterling, but it's a bit of a commute when I'm already run a game on Sundays.

If it makes you feel better, since you last ran it.... I've gone to college, grad school, gotten married, bought a house, and started what might be a career? And I feel old myself now...

Wait, are you running Secret Worlds again???? I still remember reading great session narratives back when I was in high school. Something about a sword fight with an ancient Greek warrior on a ship docked at Shanghai...

Yeah... so the player doesn't want any of the cynical BS described above, but more some of the legit stuff is relevant. She wanted to play a very social focus PC, but another PC/player is somewhat infringing on this schtick. I've talked with her about how I can do better to mitigate that, and how she can help on that front. One of our ideas was to play up the part of her background of being highly observant. When I referred to Telepathy, I was using the shorthand for a common build used to tell people's intentions/attitudes with a high degree of reliability, rather than using a plethora of social skill rolls that can fail or take time to adjudicate. Using a mental power can make it more of a sure thing but still low level. Plus, I WANT to give PCs this info - this game involves a lot of intrigue, but it doesn't make sense of me to tell you about the emotional states or potential motives of other NPCs unless you have the skills to justify it. Most of the PCs really don't - even though one is a con man. Since they are struggling somewhat, I want them to succeed, and I want to give this PC more chances to shine/feel special, I'm trying to find ways of powering her up by leveraging the idea/SFX of being extremely observant. Not superhuman senses, just... really observant, and a wide reader. Paying more attention than most people. I'm happy to have it, because I want excuses to give them clues yet make it not seem like I'm just...handing them clues. You have this special ability, look at all the clues you found with it! Well done you! The Detect: Social Incongruity is a perfect example of what I'd suggested to her as a possibility (perfect for giving them warnings that there's someone who doesn't belong...). I hadn't considered building it as a Detect. I also really like the example of a failed roll being explained by someone trying to earnest impress the PC... Oh, and it's a fantasy/steampunk mashup set in a major city. Sorcerers and airships abound.

If the PC has paid points for Contact: Mayor of City, the PC has that Contact, regardless of what happens. If the election kicks that mayor out, they have a Contact: New Mayor of the City. You could spend some time roleplaying out the transition - perhaps the new mayor is from the same party as the old mayor and the PC knows them from previous interactions/city politics. If they are of the opposite party, then Union Man is now perhaps one of the new forces of political opposition and the mayor will want to know him/her well, but the end result is the same. Contact: Mayor of the City. Now, if the PC names the contact and puts down Contact: Mayor Bob Bobberson, then the GM and player need to either agree that the contact transfers to the new mayor OR Bob Bobberson is just as useful in his new position/retirement that equals the cost of the original contact.