tesuji

Re: A Storeowner's First Impression an interesting set of fact to consider would be to compare sles of the bbb in its multiple printings including hero system rulebook - the last versions with cover art. art which i really enjoyed btw sales of hero 5 and 5er hero 6e1 and 6e2. comparing the sales of the last art cover edition vs the two editions with no art might be informative.

Re: Speeding up combat "Restrict SPDs" is Dead Wrong i read "speeding up combat" to mean "takes less time real world to resolve the fight" and thats what i think the op meant. combats typically resolve when one sid or the other flees or is defeated and loss of stun is a critical element in that usually. the more free non-action recoveries one gets the longer it takes to resolve that loss of stun or have it reach critical. everyone gets a free recovery at eot. if during each turn they lose 45 stun then they will fall faster than if they lose 15 stun per turn. so lowering speeds will cause more free recoveries vs loss of stun unless those speed points are allowed to increase damage in some way. it is not uncommon for some games cap damage in some way usually ata level most character can reach. so i seee the op point. however resticting speeds to ONE SPEED, everyone gets an action, effectively doing away with the speed chart, does tend to speed things up in my experience. i played in a game once where you were expected to know your action immediately when your time came. if you didn;t immediately announce "i am doing..." the gm started ticing down 1-2-3... and those were segment delays as you stopping to think was your character stopping to think. if he counted so far down anothr character's tic came up, they went and then he came back to you. that not only sped up combat, it kept people paying attention on their "off turns" figuring out what they wanted to do. it worked well for that group.

Re: Movement Multipowers 6e1 pg 140 If a character uses Adjustment Powers such as Drain to reduce or decrease a Power Framework, he must reduce the individual slots rather than the base pool of points. Reducing the base pool of points doesn’t affect the individual slots unless the slots are also reduced. This may be different than 5e. But for 6e the "multiple drain" aspect is not a characteristic of multipowers at all. It can be added to any power using the unified power limitation. So for those who feel this is the key downside of the multipower, they should likely consider this carefully before going to 6e. Me? The whole drain thing is rather uncommon in my experience, not rare by any means but certainly not worth a price cut of over 50%. I mean heckfire, if someone asked me to evaluate a lim such as "any drain or suppress on this power and it shuts off for an entire day" I would not come close to giving that lim a value of -1 even much less the savings given to multipowers. Likely more like -1/4 or maybe -1/2 if i was in a really bad mood.

Re: Movement Multipowers this presumes that there are non-movement powers in the multipower which did not seem to be what the op was asking about. and it presumes there is an actual cut back there. If i have a mp with a 90 pt pool, six attack powers each at 60 and four movement powers each at 30, then i am NOT losing any utility at all for the movement issue. I can run one attack power and 1-2 movement powers per phase. mathematically adding 30 to the original 60 pt pool and adding the 3 pt slots is THE SAME COST as creating a separate movement multipower with 30 pool and 3 pt slots. So i would not allow this anymore than i would allow the movement power because effectively the movement slot isn't preventing me from using other slots.

Re: Movement Multipowers I am not sure i understand your point. if all of those powers were bought outside the multipower paying full cost, he would only be able to access two of them per phase and if he accessed two of them only for half-moves. if they are bought in a multipower for grossly reduced cost, the same holds true. Big savings for little or no loss in utility. thats a bad result. f instead we look at a multipower with say six attack powers vs the same six attack powers bought outside the mp, we see that you can use all six at once, barring any special restrictions, but if we put them in a multipower we get only one at a time and big cost savings. loss of utility (one at a time vs six at a time) and we see a large savings in cost. thats a good result.

Re: Movement Multipowers there is a huge difference. the attacks are simple enough = if bought outside a mp paying full cost for each they can by the rules all be used at once as part of combined attack - with likely some exceptions. put in a mp, you are limited to only 1 or 2 and 2 is unusual. big difference = big savings. cool so far. movement is not the same way. if i buy leaping and flight and teleport and running and swimming all separate i still am pretty much limited to one maybe two at a time period. i cannot buy 12" each of these and use them all for 60" travel in a phase. slap them in a mp, a well constructed one, and i lose really no utility at all. so now i am losing little to no usefulness and savin big and to me thats a problem. so yes its just like attacks in that you drop to 1-2 at a time but you are starting from "use them all" with attacks and "use one or two" with movement.

Re: Inherent: SFX, any? Well, the classic greek "gift from the gods" like invisibility cloaks and winged sandals and etc etc were the first things that lept to my mind when "gift from the god" as an sfx/source was mentioned. The whole concept of "hep made this and so it is beyond mortals ability to affect" leaps out at me. Which might be part of why i come down on different sides from others in this discussion so much. But if i were going to allow inherent much at all, for these kinds of things, the "sword made by hep" would be a poster child. As for whether the luck twice is the same thing - thats where we definitely disagree. if its not a balance issue or a game system problem for me to have 6" running for free and say +6" running inherent because the 6" free can be boosted, then i dont see where it becomes a problem with 1d6 "normal luck" vs 2d6 or 6d6 "inherent godly" luck. The same net effect is there - cheap running can be boosted and inherent running cannot but the good side of inherent applies. either that game mechanic is flawed and produces broken or problematic results or it doesn't. if anything the natural running or the normal pd/ed are a bigger problem than the luck. With the luck example i had to spend 5 more cp for the boostable luck whereas with the running and pd/ed its base free. but along those lines, if the 1d6 non-inherent luck was from a "lucky charm" ie an item, a focus, would that pass your screening? Would 2d6 inherent godly luck and a 1d6 iif lucky charm be ok?

Re: Inherent: SFX, any? So then we tend to agree except on the frequency of godlike powers. see, IMX most of the myths and legends around these demigods and god endowed heroes tend to have them FREQUENTLY up against other godly powered foes. So to me the frequency of "inherent doesn't work against creatuires with similar sfx" is a lot more than -0, those foes will be fairly common, uncommon at best, based on many of the legends. so would this mean say someone with "god gift magic armor - like what appears in classical literature - that provides defenses and maybe some strength, or maybe he has magical sandals that give him god's gift extra running - since IMX most god gifts are literally items not powers - but then i am fond of the greek myths - then would you disallow inherent on those powers/artifacts because they would also have their own natural str, pd/ed, or runni9ng which could be boosted? there are plenty of concepts along this line - seems odd to ban all of them.

Re: Inherent: SFX, any? for me - nah. If one god can gift a mortal with a power capable of doing X, why cannot another god gift a different mortal with power strong enough to undo or nullify X as well? Would you allow a "god gift that allows me to throw webs & entangle poeple" to have an entangle that for -0 gets "cannot be broken by mortals"? If source a can give you the ability to do x, source a can also give someone else the ability to undo X in my games. source a here is god's gifts. but thats easily handled by buying say 1d6 of "normal luck". so say 6d6 of luck is inherent and invulnerable gods gift but then you also have just regular plain vanilla luck of 1d6 like anyone can buy. This luck can be drained but its only 1d6 wiorth so no big deal. But it can be boosted by any amount, limited by the aid not by the size of the initial power. i would think someone favored by the luck gods was likely lucky anyway before that, so it isn't an out of concept idea from my pov.

Re: Omcv 1? I come in maybe halfway between. I feel strongly - a drawback that isn't going to ever matter isn't worth points. not one single point. i dont want to encourage my players to start looking for those. That kind of gaming doesn't help the game play experience in my experience. and it belies any reason for having the points and all that math, In my viewpoint. on the other hand, i am usually willing to front a player 5-20 pts if he can show me its necessary for his concept and i dont see a problem. i often set my point totals higher than the by the book baseline. BUT AT THE SAME TIME... I will not invent a subsystem of mental maneuvers to try anc construe some means of whacking guys who sellback omcv. thats tail wagging the dog. lets step back and see all the numerous "hey lets do a bunch of mental maneuvers so normal guys can block mental attacks with a mental cv 3-4 points below the mentalist" before omcv was raised? They were there right? We all thought "this is a lack in our games. a niche we need to represent our genre" right? werem't we? we weren't? we are trying to insert this in to address a poor mechanical issue? the toolkit doesn't drive my game. in my 6e game, selling back omcv will only be worth points if it produces a negative result for the character - ie if you have something that uses omcv. otherwise you can sell it back or not, your call, but no difference in points. no handwringing, no gaming the system. no fuss no muss no bother.

Re: Inherent: SFX, any? then you and i are (we find out) mostly on the same page. If you feel sfx warrants being hard to or impervious to drains and suppresses, then pay for the protection. I normally avoid inherent when possible, since i tend to just not like absolutes in HERO, but to me whether or not the protection is given for free or not (and to which powers and what the criteria for selection are) is more pivotal than "of the various options for protection which do you prefer?" thanks.

Re: Inherent: SFX, any? Well OK... then perhaps you could provide examples of how your requirement that draining an ability actually remove something applies to things like drain str and drain int. If i have it wrong and some sort of physical loss isn't required, then what is? and what about the specific example I asked about. Spell of confusion - drain INT SFX target finds it hard to think straight. is this an inappropriate drain in your book? Should it be a transform to lower int person? Ok so good, we are in agreement here. I wasn't clear on your position. You referenced how some felt it tromped on transform but it wasn't made clear where you stand. you may find this surprising but i don't know squat about your history here. I have a hard enough time remembering my own posts. :-) actually i find your positions here very intriguing. they differ very much from the way we do things around here, and as such finding out the ins and outs of them is fascinating. like i said, no one around here ever thought of treating suppress and drain differently except as mechanics goes. No one ever suggested that (separate from the costs end conmstant vs instant kind of things) those two have some kinds of "lowering traits" locked into one and not the other. FYI as an aside... the suppress option would have been cheaper but it did not match the sfx. If the target leaves the area of an area suppress the effect vanishes. with a drain when they leave there is the delay before the points return. That seemed more in keeping with the gill clogger. However, the real answer might be even simpler. this was early BBB days and right now i dont even know if suppress as a drain option were around in early bbb days. :-) Similarly, no one around here ever insisted that reducing a trait or ability by drain should be mandatorily followed by an actual removal of something. We were fine with a reasonable sfx description of what the lowering resulted from. The confusion spell described above for instance would be perfectly acceptable to us, even though it doesn't actually remove anything physical (or mental for that matter) and it clearly does represent interfering with rather than removing. See, around here, drain was just the HERO POWER, the mechanical representation of the result, the effect, not an actual description of the in game world echanism for making the change. Just like +10" running might actuall represent running or it might represent skateboarding and how teleport might represent teleport or it might represent really fast running... so drain ls might represent physically removing gills or it might represent clogging them. By the way - just as a clarification which might be part of our confusion... the power would not have been in my game written as "drain gills" as you wrote it. Thats combining the game mechanic and the sfx in a sort of mixed up mishmash. It would have been written as "Gill clogger" 2d6 drain life support: water breathing etc etc... the game mechanic power drain linked to the game mechanic target, not the sfx. the sfx helps determine whch powers and lims we use, but don't get mixed up into the mechanics write up. just like i don't write "jet pack +10"" for some, i imagine writing "drain gills" would indeed conjure images of "removing gils" and that could be confusing.

Re: Inherent: SFX, any? almost all my adj powers have sfx defined as part of them. indeed the sfx of the powers could lend them to do other things. but had my gm ruled "extra limbs cannot be drained" it wouldn't have been possible. same with ls. to me it still comes down to "there are multiple cheap ways to protect against drains and such" so if your concept supports and requires such protection, pay for it. lobbying for bans is usually more problematic.

Re: Inherent: SFX, any? so, if i read you correctly, in your view, drain strength must actually get rid of muscle? drain int must get rid of brain cells? for example, you would be just as objecting to a "spell of confusion" defined as an int drain based on "the target is unable to think clearly" and would require the target to be transformed into a lower int person? interesting take. round here, the usual bias is to protect the other powers from being tromped over BY TRANSFORm not the other way around. basically if an effect can be achieved by any other power, it should be done that way in preference to transform. period. only use transform when npthing else will do. simply because transform doesn't need defense, it can already do anything. at one point i even think they put that in the books. so to me, if you wantto make someone dumber - drain int. dont transform them into a dumber person. if you want someone weaker, drain strength, dont transform them to someone weaker. if you want them to no longer breath water, drain ls. as for drain vs suppress, we dont see any inherent sfx difference. one is simply the constant version of the other. if it can be drained, it can be suppressed and vice versa. deciding power by power that some can be drained and some can be suppressed and not vice versa ia... unique in my experience. first time for everything.

Re: Inherent: SFX, any? imx most of the obscure drains and suppresses come about as part of vpp. i have seen life support dispelled when a dispel magic was used to eliminate a groups water breathing spells. i have seen a suppress extra limbs used in a vpp to create an emp nillifier to temporarily nullify render useless a doc oct clone villain's extra limbs. this actually made his limitation of "str only with limbs" play a role. his allies immediately moved to eliminate the nullifier but it provided lots of drama for a moment. the suppress life support area gill clogger was also in a vpp, the same vpp that bought self contained breathing gadgets so we could even do the underwater adventure and the swimming boost gadgets. and once again for all the balance hounds, a 3d6 area nnd costs less and disables the same guys as quickly or faster. this is a case of paying more to get the mechanics to match the effect. only a little more. in a game with options like vpps, hoping the issue never comes up seems like less than optimal design.

Re: Oaf only to activate nope but this power while costing the same or close enough 17 vs 16 requires an attack roll as part of its actication and an action. i can pop the constant power pill and punch you same phase. not so with this.

Re: Oaf only to activate

Re: Oaf only to activate barring specific rules to the contrary or a compelling reason to do otherwise i would likely rule the bigger lim trumps the less value lim as a rule of thumb so in this case, oaf trumps charges. which brings me back to losing focus in combat doesn't stop power and so, should focus be reduced.

Re: Inherent: SFX, any? My viewpoint... Lets say i have a pc - smart guy. I start his concept and i quickly realize "hey, smart guy can get really messed up by int drains. Int drains are pretty cheap. I wouldn't like it if he got drained of int. So what do i do about it?" Option 1: LOBBYIST APPROACH I go to the gm and try and make the case that int drains are too cheap and that he should simply not permit them or maybe not permit them in my case for free because of my sfx which is some form of "something that i dont want drained". OPTION 2: BUILDER APPROACH I sit down and see how many different ways i can make it not a problem. 2a - power defense "only to protect int" which ought to weigh in at -2 or so. So for 5 cp i got 15 powdef to block transforms and drains and dispels against my int. That coupled with a reqsonably high int should be sufficient. 2b: Very high int. I buy int like 50 and dont worry about drains too much. Now maybe you might think int 50 is excessive because people rarely buy really superhuman int scores, but hey, are you tougher or smarter? if smarter is more important to this character then why is your stun higher than your int? 2c - I buy a very good int and i buy +3 with int based skills for like 15 cp. Now even if i get drained to int 0 i have 12- with int based skills. 2d - some combo of the above options. either way using option 2, i can BUILD INTO THE CHARACTER the very protection option 1 is trying to get for free by having the gm ban the attacks. Now, maybe its me, it definitely is me, but they way i run things when i gm hero and the way i play hero when i play - option 2 is more in keeping with the game as i understand it. granting invulnerability for free is not to me in keeping with hero's design. if drain ls automatically killed a character, i could see having balance concerns. but at its base form, it doesn't. it will incapacitate them after a while but not for a while. it may shorten the combat but not end it abruptly. if hero 6 or 5 had wanted to protect ls, they could have made them defense powers and granted them double cost for draining. they didn't if hero 6 or hero 5 had wanted to make ls default inherent, they could have. they didn't. if they had wanted to make some sfx of ls specifically inherent and undrainable they could have, they didn't. so to my way of thinking - making some sfx of ls undrainable by default is a house rule, not "how the system works" and that is fine as long as you recognize it as such. But as a house rule, the way i design house rules, it needs more structure than "these few things i picked arbitrarily". The question of "why int drain or running drain if not ls?" and "if i am not allowed to stop gills from working except by actual damage, then why can i drain running without smashing legs?" need answering or my house rule degenerates into "cu i said so". which is fine if thats how you want your rules to go. but definietly not to my tastes. I see no reason an atlantean who has ls water breathing and swimming and strength should be able to have his swimming drained or his strength drained but his water breathing be immune, either by rule, by common sense, by dramatic sense or by sense of balance.

Re: Inherent: SFX, any? so are you suggesting that a mage moving underwater with a water breathing spell cannot have his water breathing spell (LS breath water) dispelled or drained by a dispel/drain/suppress magic? or are you saying that some sfx of LS water breathing get this "cannot be drained" for free by dint of their sfx (natural vs magic)? Why is LS so protected? take clinging. a character can have clinging by dint of a spell. a character can have clinging by dint of natural ability. Would you object to a "drain clinging" spell whose sfx was "covers hands and feet and other appendages with coating that makes clinging impossible? Would you insist that in order to stop gecko man from wall crawling i had to transform him or disable his hands and feet? if i cannot drain someone's ls water breathing, why can i drain their int or their pre or their jumping or their running? what is the criteria beyond "what i feel like at the moment" for dividing these by-the-book drainable traits or sfx catehories of traits into safe and not safe for free?

Re: Oaf only to activate i am not sure i am following you here. normally removing a focus removes a constant power. but it seems like a continuing charge trumps the usual cases where a constant power shuts off. jet pack destroyed? no problem - it was a continuing charge and i got 55 minutes left. or are you suggesting that focus lim rules trump continuing charge rules?

Re: Advantage/Limitation flexibiltiy I would strongly consider tieing this into the power skill. basically letting the acceptance of lims offset some of the skill roll penalties incurred by the advantages.

Re: Oaf only to activate

Re: Oaf only to activate OIF is half the value of oaf so i find it fine. Samples... 20 ap of constant power with some number of continuing charges. Spell: Requires incantations to activate -1/4 cost 16 spell: requires incantations throughout -1/2 cost 13 spell requires gestures to activate -1/4 cost 16 spell: requires gestures throughout -1/2 cost 13 spell: requires gestures and incantations to activate -1/2 cost 13 spell: requires incantations and gestures throughout -1 cost 10 cp exactly the same kind of calculations for extra time and for concentration dcv penalties. OAF: pills required to activate -1 per 6e1 OAF: force field belt -1 etc either a - both the pills and the velt can be removed in combat while the power is working and the constant power stops b - removing either the belt or the pills can be taken while the power is running and the power remains in effect. c - the pricing is inconsistent. As a Gm trying to make these two play out even i would have to steal the pill bottle a lot more often than i steal the belt, since the belt is gonna be shot in combat ending the force field effect while i really cannot do that to the pills you just swallowed. So I CAn make them play even but its more of a case of i would rather cost them to match normal events rather than to have to work to make them balance out due to an iunconsistent pricing scheme. it just seems like the pricing scheme of "twice the lim if constant power throughout" is so well established the oaf example in the core book seems glaringly off.

6e1 for characteristics gives an example power of steroid pills. they grant +10 str and +1 spd for 1 minute each charge. they get a lim of oaf -1. apparently this is a big bottle for only four pills. :-) now lets compare this to say the same effect granted by an oaf magic scabbard. the normal oaf rules allow a power to be attacked in combat. but you know the pills thing seem to be only attackable at the moment of activation. after i take the pill the oaf thing doesn't matter, right? you as gm aint gonna allow them to reach inside me and grab the spd and str out of my bloodstream, though you might allow them to grab the scabbard depriving me of the char. so here is my question - for things like potions and pills, where after started the power will run regardless of the focus issues - should there be a "focus only applies when first starting power" kind of thing, say halfing the lim, like is done with incantations, gestures, extra time etc for a power where the lim does not apply once the power is running?