Duke Bushido

The original rules for Transformation Attack were pretty much perfect. It was all the subsequent things, edition by edition, that peoole wanted to cram into T-form that led to the absolute mess we have now. For my money, I still tend to stick with "for the same price as making a corpse, you can turn them into something else that is just as useful as their corpse, " and leave it alone. I will build _ridiculously_ complicated things to avoid using T-form for anything more useful than a corpse: Turn rocks into beef and potato stew? Life support, useable by others, focus of opportunity, one meal only. That sort of thing. As alluded to by the previous poster, each attempt to "tweak" T-form- for my money, starting with grading from "cosmetic" to "major," has just made it a bigger and bigger mess, not unlike EDM, where I can know EDM to the universe where we successfully did the thing and just keep going from there.

Yep. Out of character PVP action is always a great tension breaker. "I cast Dice Storm!" (I have a set of of oversized foam dice specifically for this. We all them the Hit Dice. . however, it really takes the right group to attack each other "the right way." )

I got nothing to add. I just wanted to point out that this was without a doubt the best possible answer I think you could have gotten.

Thank you! Every time this subject comes up, I point that out as a problem-- even after a single recovery, an opponent can slap them right back to sleep (which is hilarious, by the way) any time they start to stir. And when you are asleep, you really have nothing to do but take recoveries, right? So when do you wake up? Positive STUN? "Post Twelve, adventurers! Wakey, wakey! Hands off Snakey!" Or do we concoct some sort of delayed autofire or Trigger to keep them out for a bit? And there is still the damage problem: "well, I just took a nap, so I am ludicrously low on hit points for the next xouole od hours..." I tried EGO drain a couple of times, but similar issues: everyone wakes up as more or less zombies, vulnerable to any command (which is also hilarious, but not in the visceral slap-them-back-to-sleep kind of way that "drain damage-soaking characteristics" produces. Eventually, I settled on Sleep spells as very specific Mind Control spells, with modifiers to the breakout rolls and possible ligering effects (groggy for two phases; 1/2 CV, -2 to PER, -2 to Dec Rolls- whatever) as appropriate to the individual spell (basic Sleep spells usually last for a specific brief period and upon waking, the victim is very much aware that he was affectes by a sleep spell, etc- lots of imperfections in the spell make it affordable and provides some utility without making it a walk-through-the-snoring-army" kind of thing. In all cases, taking any damage will immediately break the spell (I learned that one after running with a brand new player to a newish group: our dedicated sorcerer came from a deeply murder-hobo group that had fizzled out after their GM moved and no one else wanted to run. (Which I totally get! If I knew ahead of time that I had to spend hours a week building something that my players would burn to the ground, i'd be hard-pressed to volunteer for the position myself.)

Best way to steal skills and memories. Be immortal. Win sword fights. Decapitate opponent.

I need to be brief, so I am going to address only one point. Sorry, folks; I am enjoying the conversation, I am just short on both time and energy right now. The point was raised that the large AoE of a grenade versus how far a person could reasonably redirect or throw it, etc-- I wanted to ask that we consider-- at least in non-supers games-- that a grenade is typically built with AoE: Explosion. With this in mind, we know that every hex we can move the dead center of the explosion increases the odds of surviving the explosion, making this a much more tempting maneuver-- at least in a game-- than it would be in the real world, where the best option to survive is to dive for cover immediately.

There could be. All it takes is pre-Sharpied duct tape and a stealthy approach...

Gonna need confirmation. Hey, Old Man- that jibe with your memory?

I tend to run Heroic groups more than supers, so this one has actually come up several times over the years. What are the official rules on this? I don't know. What is the best way to resolve this? I dont know that, either. What did we do in the past that was reasonable enough in the moment that we just stuck with it from then on? We caught it. A brief explanation: It was decided that a character should not have to be a ninja to have a chance at this, nor should he have to buy a special ability to do it (deflection, reflection, etc). Why would we decide such a thing? Because outside of supers, this is a really odd and dangerous thing to practice as far as building skills goes, at least outside of baseball. So we started looking at various maneuvers (everyman maneuvers, figuring catching /blocking / cracking with a bat were not particularly "martial") and eventually decided that Block was the best basis as it was an offensive maneuver ("throw grenade") versus an offensive maneuver ("attack grenade"). The grenades "CV" is calculated from its base movement- that is, determine how many hexes it will travels in this segment and use any appropriate DCV modifier a character moving at that speed might receive. Add in any DCV modifiers a character would recieve for Shrinking to the size most equal to the grenade. Finally, if the throwing character has any special relevant throwing skills like "baseball pitcher" or something to suggest he has a specific talent at throwing something yet making it challenging to intercept, determine a way to add that as well. (Typically, I just add relevant skill level: "+2 with throwing grenades," for example, to the CV. Actual skills-- professional Baseball Pitcher, maybe-- then the player rolls the skill and the amount by which he makes the roll is applied). This is the CV of the grenade-- the CV against which the deflecting character with his Block maneuver, and not against that of the CV of the throwing character. Sounds complex, but it is pretty simple in practice. As with the person throwing the grenade, the person attempting to deflect the grenade is allowed relevant skills and skill levels. The blocking character must specify (and pay END for) the amount of STR he wishes to put into his attempt. If the Block is successful, then the grenade is deflected from this point of contact. Roll a d3 to determine if the grenade veers left, right, or up-and-over. The grenade will travel a distance equal to that of having been thrown by 1/2 of the deflecting character's declared STR. If the deflecting character makes his roll by half the target number, roll a d6 for direction (with one result being "up and over" the target hex and the people in it) and the grenade travels a distance equal to the full declared STR throwing distance of the deflecting character. If he makes his roll by 1/4, he may select the 3-hex_face arc he wishes to deflect into, and roll a d3 to setermine the line of travel. The full declared STR determines the travel distance. If he rolls a 3, the grenade is stamped "return to sender," provided that this target is in range of his declared STR. Otherwise, it travels as far back towards the throwing character as the declared STR will allow. "But this seems to make it so difficult..." Well, first, that stands up to real-world observation. Honestly, this results in 1 in 200-something grenades being sent back to the user _at a minimum_. I feel certain that if this ratio was attained real-world, people would just stop using grenades, so it seems dramtically generous. Second, this is an everyman way to do it. Deflecrion and Reflection are actual game elements that can be purchased if one wishes an easier way to do these things.

Just dinished helping one of the kids in the youth group put the finishing touches on her speedster, Starling. I pushed for Hummingbird as she can start out at top speed (extra inches specifically for boosting launch speed) and has a solid 12 skill levels in maneuvring while running (to offset penalties of moving super fast, obviously.) She is not the fastest speedster this group has producws (that honor goes to Kinetica), but she could full-speed an agility course blindfolded!

Well thank you; that is very kind of you. I confess, I have favorite "sparring partners" here myself, conversationally-speaking. I love discussing things with Hugh because he has a mind for details and unlike most of us, never seems to accidentally contradict himself somewhere down the line and create confusion in so doing. He will also discuss something as long as you might need him to, and in all the years of fun I have had here, I have only seen him lose his cool twice, and both times it was after someone spent a couple of _days_ being obviously and deliberately obtuse. Even then, it was a pretty mild thing akin to "I am not going to agree with you for all the reasons given in this conversation but I am open to reasoning more in depth than "I really want you to agree with me" kind of thing. I like LL for his demeanor and his ability to pull from topical knowledge from pretty much all of the published sources seemingly simultaneously. I like Unclevlad- yes, even though we disagree as often as we agree- because his thoughts are never knee jerk reactions, and because he will explain his reasons. Just as with Hugh, he will be just as polite to you as you are to him, and he will approach the discussion with the same seriousness or tone that you do. You have been warned. I love hearing from Chris Goodwin because he brings an exhuberant joy to his posts, as if every conversation is a fresh and wonderful thing, and that is extremely contagious. Doc D is great because it is almost like reading my own thoughts if I were British, and Sean loves tinkering for its own sake, and that is how I ended up with PTO ports on my motorcycles... I could go on and on, but the point here is that I was not always someone to really think about all the ramifications or complications of a problem, or to really think about complications a potential solution might create. I learned that. My middle and high school-even college- didn't offer classes on critical thinking or even have debate teams where you would be taught how to study and how to present and defend a position (and in so doing, often discover that your position wasn't worth defending! Ha!). I learned all that, and I learned most if it here, by the excellent examples set by the members of this board. If you find anything I have ever said to be reasonable, well-researched, or minimally intrusive into the larger set of rules, I promise you, it wasn't my fault! Thank the people who were here when I came along (many of whom are still here). Were it not for them, hearing from me would be like dodging poo at the monkey cages. For clarification: Any confusion on object /focus brought into this thread is quite likely my fault. I know the rules say object (and as someone else noted further down, that is stepping all over the mechanics / sfx division upon which this system is based). I believe at this point everyone is aware that I can only access this board via phone. I found "focus" and "foci" much easier to thumb type than "object" and "objects" and so I unwittingly slipped into using the terms interchangeably for most of my posts, assuming everyone would 'get what I meant,' but I admit, doing so kind of walks all over clarity. Mea culpa, and I apologize for it. To expand on what Vlad says here: I can declare that my character doesn't have a focus per the focus rules, but he suffered a debilitaring accident and lost his hands. His powers come from the technology in his cybernetic fingers. They are not foci, as I want none of the restrictions or drawbacks that the focus rules impose. This chacter buys a 12D6 Energy Blast. He has a laser built into a finger. It costs him 60 points. For 15 more points, he can have one in each finger. Combine /Multiple / 'Sweep, but only the one guy' rules let him use all 8 of these lasers at once. Now if Lightwave, the Living Laser decides that he shoots a laser from his fingertip, that's that. He can even decide that he shoots lasers from _any_ fingertip. But as the rule is written, unless he spends 480 points to buy eight separate lasers, he doesn't have eight at once, while the cyber-hands character _does_ have eight lasers, and for only 75 points. At a _minimum_. i would be just as happy--probably more happy-- to see those rules officially highlighted with black Sharpie.

Screw the entire internet opinion system; I loved the Green Lantern movie.

So you can no longer instant change to werewolf form?

Please accept this brief pause in the conversation as a place for me to clarify my position before anyone starts taking anything the wrong way: I dont have an important opinion anything, and at no point should anyone every worry about who they do or don't agree with, becauase- as far as I have aleays understood- these boards are for discussion and sharing, and should never be taken as actual arguments of right and wrong. If I have had that backwards for the last couple of decades, well, thqt's on me,I guess, but it still stands that opinions, ideas, solutions, and problems I have offered have never been offered as any sort of truth, gospel, or one true correct path or anything like that. They are offered in equal parts fairness to others who have put forth their own opinions or ideas to create an interesting discussion (why should I not pitch something out for speculation when someone else has taken the same risk on my behalf, or has provided an enjoyable discussion by having done it?) and the possibility that it might stir an idea in someone else that oroves in sime way helpful to them. At their very core, though, if they are not actual rules quotes, they are personal opinions, and never offered as more than that. Short version: don't sweat what I do ir don't agree with. If I wasn't ooen to discussing even things I dont agree with, I would be incapable of participating in any conversation except,those discussing topics from pre-Dark Champions in 4e. I come here for interesting ideas and inciteful conversations, and not necessarily agreement. I have always believed I can disagree with someone and still see validity in some points of their position. Nothing is so binary as to be all good or all bad, after all. there. Moving on. I do agree with that, but I find that is only one purpose of points. Certainly there is a mini-game of self-satisfaction when a player finds a clever way to buy an ability he might otherwise not have been able to purchase; I have played that minigame myself a thousand times with characters who have never seen the light of day. However, another way to look at that is that the advantages and limitations systems- systems which improve or reduce both the effectiveness and points cost of an ability, _provide_ a method by which clever and points-savings builds can be constructed. The finite nature of character points makes that system more attractive, and thus actively encourages players to find those clever builds. I find there are two other equally-important purposes of points, such as controlling the progression of the character (it is a rare and ancient character who has the points to buy some of everything, and frankly, the roll-your-own Skills System makes skills effectively infinite anyway, adding in a double-layer of impossible (which can be completely removed by the inclusion of Power Pools and Skill Pools, meaning that with these two constructs alone, you _can_ start with everything. The fact that most people don't is a testement to them). Players must pick and choose where to spend their points, either spending them in tiny amounts here and there as they trickle in or saving and budgeting for larger more expensive purposes that won't be possible if they continue to spend points as they earn them. The third critical function of character points, as I see it, is control over the character's development. In level-based games, there is typically a list of specific boons assigned to a character as he passes from level to level. In use-to-improve games, characters may advance in skills or abikities that they have successfully used X amount of times-- in some, they may get rusty and lose abilities that have gone unused for too long. In points-buy games, though, the player is at all times in charge of the directions in which his character grows: he will buy or improve those abilities he wishes his character to possess, and not those which he doesn't find appropriate for the character as he sees him to be. This is also something I agree with, though understand that this is a minority and largely unpopular opinion, as most of us old folks (not all) have spent forty years believing and trying to prove the exact opposite. Yes. I believw we all see that. What seems to be less-popular to discuss is that other than cumulative targetting penalties, the rules as the exist don't stop a character with 38 guns from attempting to shoot his target with all thirty-eight guns (there is the fall back in "common sense," but that is easily countered with the fallback "dramatic sense," but bear with me here)-- There is nothing in the rules to stop a character with thirty weapons from using all thirty-- _nor should there be_. A character can buy sixteen powers and attack a single target with all sixteen powers. A character can buy sixteen foci (without the doubling thing) attacks and use all sixteen of them against a single target. Why? Because the guy who bought his individual powers as innate non-focused abilities can do it, so the guy who bought his focused powers individually should be able to do it. The problem is not the number of attacks that can be brought to bear. The problem is the focus exception. Even if both character bought identical powers- one through foci and one through innate ability- the character with the foci is enjoying a cost reduction (for the risk), but his power performs in all ways like that of the other character. The innate powers character cannot get double the powers for five points. The focus guy can. Effectively, the focus discount gets deeper and deeper. Now someone mentioned innate powers guy being able to fire his innate attack numerous times; I don't know if that applies to the sweep-one-guy maneuver or not, but if it doesn't, then why does he not have access to what the focus guy does? We went through a similar thing years ago, and now we can haymaker fireball. That argument made way less sense (why can't my energy blast behave like his punch does?) than "if I can have two 16d6 hand cannons for five extra points, why can't I have an extra 10d6 optic blast for 5 pts?" That depends, to me, on what the player feels to be the purpose of that / those additional weapons. If it is for the purpose of two-weapon fighting or handing off to someone else every now and again, or some periodic usage or anticipated even- even to scavenge parts should the original take damage- well, I have no problem with that. If the player sees it as a way to neutralize or mitigate the odds of losing access to the weapon- that is, he knows that every now and again, it will be stolen, inoperative, or something to justify the focus limitation and rebate, but his intention is pull one of the backups from thin air when he loses access to the original.... Well, no. I do not find that to be an acceptable use of this adder. Doctor Toybox wants to build a wind up tin duckie that walks around and spits thirty bullets from its mouth. That's cool. He wants to be able to spill thirty of them from a burlap sack-- that's a great use for this x2 adder. Henchman, one thousand lucky glancing blows, one thousand "oops! I foegot to wind it!" Whatever. Though for disarming, at what point does the henchman have to make a search roll to get them all? How many are left if he fails? I feel the same way- I tend to think this was derived from double locarions and increased Noncombat speeds and such as that and would be used to stock an Amory of mundane weapons (because there are those people for whom- no matter how tthey feel about points as a balancing tool, find determining the total points cost of everyrhing in ther universe and the DEF and BODY of all physical things from starships to mildew-resistant drywall to be its own kind of minigame, (I went through a devase of this myself, early on. I don't play rules-light, but eventually a light bulb comes on that reminds me 'i need the range and damage dor the slingshot, but the cost of a 1d plus STR item will never be of consequence) even in genres where points are not actually paid. And, as suggested, it just got out of hand. Just one opinion, of course, and worth every penny you paid for it. Right, and heading toward a more correct (for certain opinionated values of correct, admittedly) solution to boot! And that is where I believe this should be-- if the goal is a workaround for being deprived of the item under all but the most extraordinary of circumstances-- the ultimate back-up weapon-- then the build should be an inaccessible focus. If the goal is to be almost impossible to be deprived, then the build should not be a focus at all, but an appropriate (and maybe even reasonable) special effect: "what? I am so groggy.... Why am I tied to a chair? Wait! Where is my knife? Where is my rifle? Gone! They have taken them! Well, it's a good thing they didnt know about the Kalishnikov I swallowed earlier! Now to induce vomitting.....") What's good for the energy-projecting goose is good for the fun-toting gander. Just like what's good for the haymakering pugilist brick was determined to be good for the energy-projecting gander. Agreed-- provided the player knows in no uncertain terms that this does not make him immune to being deprived of the gun. There is more I would like to hash, but I have had this pulled up for three days to get this far. Noone be offended, please, as it is not personal to anyone, but I think it is once again time for me to keave these boards for a while. I just dont have the time of late, and have been kind of forcing it into my schedule, which really drops the enjoyment factor. Thanks to all!

I cant say I am strict on it; as a 2e player, I don't ever encounter it. Even if I were to go forward, I don't know that I actually care enough to have a firm opinion. How can I say this? I am the guy who has spent a lot of time trying to get folks to understand why points do not equal balance and why the "you get what you pay for" mantra is incorrect specifically because points don't create, measure, or enforce balance. However, I am content being in a miniscule minority with that opinion. I am, however, trying to subtly point out that this is a great example of points don't relate at all to balance, and just like the Normal Characterisitcs Maxims debates of days gone by, this five-point doubling thing is a great way to get "free" disadvantage points. Like most rules-lawyering, it is not perfect, and is a little screwy, but let's take a look at the majority opinion on foci: You are taking a cost discount with the understanding that you may (or can or should) be deprived of it now and again (or with some sort of regularity). If you spend half of the discount of 5-point doublings to create fifteen back-ups, the odds that you are going to be deprived of this thing are considerably lower, and you still get that discount Again- I dont care either way; I just find that given the majority opinion on foci, the overall positive reception of this idea is a bit of a surprise. Whatever it is called now: combined, multi, sweep, Death's Head Panoply-- whatever; the ability to unload all of your similar attacks at a single target does not have restrictions that prevent you from firing thirty-two pistols at a single target. For an extra twenty-five points, you can have those thirty-two pistols. There are assessed penalties, but if I was going to get this squirrelly, I could spend fifteen point for eight pistols and some more points for hyper-specific skill levels like "only with this one model of Beretta pistols" or "only with Death Blossom maneuver" and still be startlingly more effective than easily half the other people at the table. For the reasons above and more, I am not convinced it should be anything but a feature of certain powers, and not some sort of universal fits-all add-on. Each additional focus is an individual and separate thing. "Identical" does not deny that they are separate, as the rules state that for 5 points you can have twice as many, you are still buying them and they are still individual things. There is no reason non-ultra Multipowers are not valid. If I have three similar types of attack in a Multipower and that multipower is constructed in such a way that I can to at least some degree use all three of them, then I can do so. Agreed.

To make certain, I have this clear: Under 6e, multiple attack is Sweep, but you have to keep hitting the same target. Like Zangief's tornado: punch punch punch punch- same attack, several times, against a single target. Combined attack is using two or more of your powers in a single attack. Is this also limited to a single target? And getting back to the five point doublings as a universal part of the tool kit, there is my own concern that Super GunGuy can combine attack all 32 of his identical hand cannons. I see more than one suggestion that it is for having a "back up" for your focus. Understandable, but ultimately not acceptable. A player may build his focus in such a way that he saves thirty or more points on his powers, with the risk of being temporarily deprived of them because they are via Foci. But if he is willing to spend 10 of the points he saved, he has three backups, considerably reducing the odds that he will ever actually be deprived of the focus expect through absolute ham-fisted game mastering. The more I review rhis thread, the more I find myself aligned with those who suggest that this is an element suited for certain aspects of certain powers- teleport locations, even teleport additional mass. Additional magazines for clip-type charges, additional wardrobe options for Ins2rant Change- k2ots of other things-- But not a universal toolkit element that can be bok2ted to anything.

Thank you, Hugh. That clears up a cinsiderable amount of the confusion I was having while dollowing this thread. Twelve hours of sleep should clear up the rest.

While I would proba ly go the Damage Negation route mentioned above (it's just clean, and it avoids T-form), I can't help but think "Cause Grevious Wound: 8D5 KA, trigger: assisted healing; auto reset, Sticky. Becauae it is hilarious.

Request for clarification: Arw we uaing "multiple attack" and "multiple power attack" interchangeably, or are we discussing two different things? Thank you.

Oooa- I do have a special bag. It houses a a handful of six milimterer dice I was given. It's somehwere in the pillowcase; I am pretty sure.

Eh. I just sewed a drawstring into a particularly reppellant pillow case and called it good. .it's not as easy to lift as it once was, but it gwts the job done.

I have been away for a gew days, but I wanted to call attention to this in particular; be extremely war of it. Way back in the heyday of RPGs, when you could find ten geoups playing your game almost by accident, I got to play as a Player a lot more than i do now, and hey- way back then, D and D had set a more adversarial tone for RPGs, and it took a long time for us to ge completely away from that..... Anyway, my favorite "dirty truck's back then was Drain: Recovery. Id I could get it Ranged or AOE, even better! Only about a third of GMs picked up on the potential problems when initially presented the character. I particularly like Tranfer: Recover to Transfer, but about half of the GM picked up on that, so it was a harder sell. The wiers thing was that-- was it GSVC?-- eventually there qas an officially published "power comparison" system to tell you who was evenly matched and who wasn't-- like anything else that uses points as a means of determining balance, it was completely useless in reality, but it mase you feel good to know your "power levels" as it were. The best part about this thinf being published was that Cms who had it leaned on it pretty hard, which actually made slipping nasty Drain builds even easier until we all matured a bit and quit with the 'us versus him' mentality. Anyway, before I drift too far, keep an eye out for just what Hugh mentions: a well-designed attack versus an atypical defense can be absolutely devastating. My biggest pro l3m today is making sure I sont accidentally TPK my players with a villain who has taken too big an advantage of an oversight. I like to pick at weak spots to enxourage them to develop a way to xompensate and overcome, but it just isnt fun to flatten them all on accident.

You ever have to leave the headlights on to have light to get your tractor unstuck, but you know you don't have the fuel to idle the engine for three hours? It's a lot like that. Except with combat. The reason I dont have a problem with it is because so many limitations are already hinky and we ignore it completely. Why does the Flash get the same value for "requires a full phase" that I get? Ultimately, it goes back to may pet peeve about why so many people think it is important that everything have a set value or that we agree on the value of something. For my money, that makes just as little sense to me as the idea that having to manage a resource that cant be tripped on and off instantly during combat coyld be disadvantageous makes to other folks-- As a generally upbeat person, though, I turn "equally sketchy" into "equally valid" and roll with it.

I am not ignoring the questions; I swear. I had to leqve work early becauae the wife reported a water geyser in the front yard. At my age, digging up waterlines and pine roots doesnt go as effortlessly as it once did_ eight hours later, the repairs are made and the pard is more-or-less intact. I am going to bed. I will get badk to you, though; I promise it.

I have a machine built into an exoskeleton that amplifies my brainwaves or some gibberish and lests me wield a telekinetic power. I take this limitation because the machine must be up and running, constantly doinf it"s thing, creatinf its tech-garbage field that I then manipulate. The machine has a battery of 50 END and it takes a full phase to switch on. Seriously- this is the kind of thinf that isnt hard to justify legitimately. Seriously- this is one we homebrewed ourselves a long rime ago because every now and again, there is a legitimate need.