Duke Bushido

I agree completely, which is why I will continue to fuss and gripe until "luck," which plays _zero_ part in this power, is removed completely. Call it "invisible armor" or "big girl panties" or "I want the stylish and rugged charm of not needing or wanting armor, but I also definitely want me some armor." "oh, but it so perfectly models not getting hit in spite of your opponent flat-out hitting you." Well so does any other armor, if that's how you want to define it. Granted, I have issues with that definition (make Combat Luck a DCV boost, for Pete's sake: then you can actually model" well how about that! You didn't actually hit me" without sticking in the craw of the guy who vey clearly hit you.), but it'd be a Hell if a lot easier to ignore if it wasn't being called "Luck (a thing that actually exists in the game)" without remotely _being_ Luck.

Or roll your Luck Dice. Every 6 gives you +X appropriate defense.

I will first confess that I've been a Ed with flu for going into my fourth day now, so I can't read too well (watery eyes) and I'm posting via phone. But you are proposing the notion that you will accept Danger Sense with Limitations, in some cases pretty sever ones: The Danger Sense based on telepathy, for example, is useless against pitfalls or other death traps. It might even be useless against a sniper (your discretion, of course) or smoldering sawdust about to ignite paint-thinner-soaked rags three floors below you and block any chance of escape. And on and on and on. and I can go two ways with the sense group idea (three, if I admit that it's valid-and yeah; I kinda do. I mean, it's your game, right?) First: there is only one sense group, and that is touch. All senses are variations by being filter through specialized touch sensors. (at the end of the day, this is what's difficult with PD and ED: all energy is formed of some sort of measurable (and therfore touchable, and therfore physical) matter; there are just a lot of specialized forms of matter. (hey! Digression! I must be getting better!) The other way I can go with this is that from its inception, or, to restate: in 2/3 of the rules editions, Danger Sense had its own mechanic. This would suggest to me that it belongs in the "Danger Sensing" Sense Group. Though I don't like to discuss sense groups too deeply. At the end of the day, it just reminds me that ShapeShift still exists as a power. Why don't we do like GURPS Supers and make whole new powers out of all the other popular special effects, too? Duke

Neil: Loved the post; would have quoted it but that's a pain on a touch screen. At any rate, I think the bulk of your answers (drone or pilot, 36000 years, etc) can be answered by studying, mechanically, what it is Danger Sense does: as you noted, it's the last-line defense against being surprised. So the answer, I would think (and generally how I use it) is that it is responding to that thing that _will_ attempt to hurt you if you don't move _now_. When the missile gets launched, you've still got twenty minutes or so to go on about your business before it becomes a "now or never" situation. Of course, the raises questions of "danger payload" (at least, it has for me in the past) : no amount of "dive for cover" is getting you out of the blast radius of seven Megatron fuel/air bomb; I give a _rip_ what the maneuver says. There are guys on this board way more familiar with comic books than me, but when this question came up at my table, a couple of players pointed out different scenes in Spiderman's history were his danger sense went off either repeatedly or protractedly while he was trying to figure out what was the danger. Turned out (according to the guys education me) that it was really, really big danger, and his more or less ignoring his danger sense (thinking something was wrong with him) nearly got him killed. Again: there are likely actual experts here who can tell me if I got played, but given that basis, the point at which something becomes an immediate danger is going to vary depending on just how big that danger is, and when it's "now or never" to get out of the way.

Sorry, Sir. Looks like I'm all out of rep again. I gotta get over this bug!

Thanks to both of you. I would prefer to buy it here (I have no idea, of course, but I'd like to think the company gets a better "cut" that way. )

Holy cats! If I wore a hat, I would take it off to you, Christopher. If I had hair, I'd take it off, too. That sounded almost like _science_! ? (though if I had hair, I'd want that suave world traveler hair like Ruggels has )

I've been lying abed ill for a couple of days; I thought I'd use some of this time to catch up on some reading. The problem is the HERO books aren't exactly novels, and hard to keep open and out of your face when lying at odd angles. So I thought I'd pick up the PDF and read it on my phone. I went to the 5e section for the store, and there is no PDF for this book. No; I take that back: I can't buy the PDF because they don't have a paper book to go with it. So: Does anyone know where I can buy- legitimately buy- a PDF of this book? Thanks. Duke

It's not for typing into this phone, but I did a race once that had a very long chain as a cultural weapon. More than just a weapon, it was a significant part of their social and familial standing.

Yup. It just grows and grows, don't it?

That is an excellent question, Hugh, and one I'd never before stopped to wonder. I've been giving it some thought, and it's hard to answer. I mean, I could say "I don't know; maybe half" and let it ride, but out of respect for you and the others, and my enjoyment of the things I am learning here in this thread, the best I can say is "somewhere between 2/3 and 3/4. _But_.... Most (not all) of my play groups, at least until say the last ten or so years, are filled with pre-internet veterans. That doesn't sound significant, until you stop to realize that we couldn't post a question to the mass of humanity and wait for an answer; we certainly couldn't jump onto a website and ask the guy that wrote the book. So where did we get answers to questions? Isolated groups worked it out for themselves (like my first group; I told you about our "gaming store" ) by study of what was given in the books and and nigh-endless discussion. But there were game stores and rec centers (we had a rec center) where other gamers hung out. We could talk to them, too, so long as we played the same game. Game stores were big one (eventually, we all lived close enough to make semi-regular trips to a couple of different ones). And we'd sit in on each other's games now and again, and there was almost always something--or a couple of somethings--the other group did differently. If we liked it, we'd adopt it, and if we didn't, then we didn't. Same for them, too: if they liked it, etc. Local colleges and high schools weas where the bulk of gamers seemed to come from, and certainly they discussed the games as much as anything else (except possibly dating, for the high schoolers). I know I kept in touch with every gamer I could find on the ol college campus. All of that is a long way around to say that even at those tables I didn't teach, how much "local influence" were we already sharing before we even sat down together? How many learned from people I taught, or who taught me? I have no real way to evaluate that, except to say that I can assume "more than I would have thought," given how much easier it used to be to teach the game. Okay, I kid on that last line: I know our brains harden as we get older, and that's kind of sad to me. So again, really good question, but I don't know if I can answer it any more accurately than if you'd asked "other than my GMs, who else has affected the way I play?" I just don't know, accurately. (Take the following _only_ as the good-natured teasing it is meant to be:) .... Says the guy who knows that KA is the most effective way to deliver _STUN_ to a target..... Seriously: I've been playing slug abed for two days now with the flu (turns out the shot people guessed wrong this year), and I just needed a good laugh (and subsequent coughing and hacking fit. ) That's entirely possible; the only published characters we had access to for years were the ones in the rules book, but we seem to have used them differently. We didn't look at them as models for "how to build a character" or "what a character should look like" as much as we used them as references for specific bits of build: how to use a multipower; how to apply an advantage; what's a "good" CON or a "typical" DEX. That sort of thing.

Now that's an interesting take on it. Thanks!

Okay, had minute to check BBB. It doesn't specify being able to use it on behalf of others, but given the assumption that at its base, it means "detect when you are in immediate danger," I would have to interpret the Adders "danger in your immediate vicinity," "danger in your general area," and "danger anywhere" to mean detecting danger to others in that area, as no matter how far away _you_ can sense danger_, you're only in danger because you are _right here_. You know: where the sniper is aiming, or where the missile is going to land, or where your ex-wife's attorney is heading. Given the interpretation of detecting danger to others, that "detect danger anywhere" thing has got to cause a lot of sleepless nights....

And you may be right. I'd have to check. But I seem to recall (and again, I could be way off; I haven't sat down and read 4e for a long time) that there was a separate adder or advantage for detecting danger to others.

That's it? You're not going to tell us?! (you, Sir, have an evil streak in you....) Duke

Now that I've had a chance to re-read it, I can offer something more plot-oriented than the ol' reliable T-form. Doc and Christopher are dead on: create a new Characteristic, similar to a damage-type characteristic, define what affects it, what defends it (Devout Believer, prior exposure, whatever) and call it a day. On the other end-- and I don't like this one as much _for this particular application_ (there are places where it works great) you enforce a +0 Disadvantage /Complication that defines both the vulnerability and the effect, and what mechanic will recover against it (if any). Enjoy (I'd rep Doc and Christopher, but I'm out)

Yeah, me too. Sort of. I mean, I know most of the 6e fans are delighted about doing away with Figureds-- and I _do_ agree there were costing issues if you opted to raise this or that rather than the associated primary. I just would have preferred adjusting the cost of both the figureds and the Primaries that they draw upon, and re-costing Levels so that they were a better option for raising CVs, groups of Skills, etc.

Sorry; somehow I deleted that line a moment ago. And yes; that's all it is. The only "source material" I have a passing familiarity with is Spiderman, from the movies and a couple of the cartoons the kids watch, but from what I can tell of that particular source, that's really all it is. But it's astounding how useful that can be in certain types of campaigns, so if you use it, keep your eyes open for abuse. (using the 4e version can help curb some abuse because you have to buy a range element with the power. 1 & 2 (which I summed up above, and I don't know about 3e) do not require a range element: it simply says "you are in danger, right now!" and if you roll well enough, then you know exactly what danger and where it is. You could be being targeted by a remote drone missile in a South American jungle: you _will_ know (if you roll good enough).

Well yes; that should work: it's the exact same mechanic with cheaper pricing. Being as how it's the same, it should work the same. And as Chris pointed out, there are adders in 4e to define specific Limitat-- I mean, ranges. Precisely. However, under anything 4 and up, if you don't buy the correct amount of range, you don't have Danger Sense. Or, specifically, it simply doesn't work, no matter how much actual danger you are in right where you're standing. Precisely. And as Neil pointed out, making a simple PER roll means "you register something;" it's going to take further inspection to realize just what it is you registered: Hmmm.. Oh. That sounded kind of like a cal-crikt, kind of like when you cock an automatic pistol. Let me check that out. Versus: "Crap! Shooter in the catwalk! Dive!" It must be, because that's the new edition, which is mechanically perfect. Duke

Here you go, Neil: A successful Danger Sense roll gives the character a "feeling" of being in danger. He gets his full DCV if he reacts. If he makes his roll by half or less, then the true position and nature of the danger known, and the character may act at full OCV. Danger Sense costs no Endurance to use. Cost 10 pts for base 11- roll; +1 to the roll for every +3 pts. No cobble, and it works so well you want to keep an eye on it . (think BBB yield sign) Duke

Nah; Just different concepts and play styles.

Neither. I am running an older version of the game; I use a pre-cobble version of Danger Sense that has the gall to have its own mechanic. It has nothing to do with a perception roll. See above The push for uniformity is robbing the core of a lot of flavor.

I find the multiple cross overs: several references all brought together-- to be extra amusing; that's all. Probably the reason my favorite bit player on the old Tick cartoon was Baby Boomerangutang. It just tickles me more.

I've always used it two ways: If you flub a Per roll for a danger you could detect with your other senses, then check danger sense. If there is a very real danger that you have no realistic hope of detecting with your other senses, then check danger sense.

Thanks, NB! Now I've got to track down Enemies for 1e.... Ive got 2e (revised for new ruled) and 3e (2e book reissued with a butt ugly cover), but not 1e.