GAZZA

Re: Poisons You could do it with Continuing Charges, but not just straight Charges (unless you really don't mind a single attack, and then gone...) Continuing Charges work for all cases where you want to attack per Phase, but it doesn't work so well for a less virulent poison (you need to extend the duration of the charge too much). The reason I use the "clips of charges" thing is because that's how HSA1 did it, which means I have (to some extent) "prior art". Of course it can certainly be argued that this "prior art" is the equivalent of a kindergarten finger painting instead of the Mona Lisa.

Re: Master List of Scales in HERO OK, we have experimental individuals - perhaps they are Hero Gamers in their Secret IDs. You couch the above query as something that the individuals would find mysterious - "Hmm, it makes him X better, but me Y? I wonder what's going on?" However, that wouldn't be the case. If the individuals in question had studied things to the extent that they were able to figure out - in some sense - how the "combat system" worked (OCV vs DCV), then they would already have encountered many situations that were analogous. For example, they would have noted that with two identical individuals attacking the same target, the one that tries to Punch will hit more often than the one that tries to Grab, and they'll deduce the exact same difference in percentage that this amulet will have. It is true that the fact Champions uses 3d6 to resolve actions (a bell shaped curve) rather than 1d20 (a line) means that +1 means more for some rolls than others, but it's still linear - it makes no difference where you are on the scale, +10 is still +10. At best you are arguing that the world of the bell shaped curve means that nothing is linear, and if you insist on that definition, what term are you going to invent in its place?

Re: Armour has a fixed SFX? Yes, I agree. You can't generalise the "use the cheaper version" to all cases, but it certainly seems to be fair in this case.

OK, I want a character that has a poisonous bite - a paralysing poison. There's a couple of ways to do this: Some sort of Entangle. Kind of all-or-nothing, and if you "break" it you're not even slowed. Not really appropriate. Mind Control, based on CON. Same problems as with Entangle. Drain DEX and/or SPD. Does the trick fairly well. So I start with 2d6 Drain DEX and SPD simultaneously (+1/2), Continuous (+1), Return 5 pts/5 minutes (+1/2) [60 Active], 4 clips of 6 charges (-1/4), must follow Grab (-1/2) It's going to have a Linked Penetrating HKA that (technically) has to do BODY in order for the poison to work, but since few characters have Hardened resistant defences, I'm going to call that a -0 limitation. Mechanically, he Grabs someone, bites them, and injects 6 charges worth of poison that attacks on each of his phases from now on. The "reasonably common" way to shut it off would be to treat the poison appropriately. All good so far? OK, here's the niggly bits: The creature in question is sort of snake like. Immunity to snake venom should make you immune to this poison. I don't want to go the NND route (because frankly I think Power Defence is a pretty reasonable way of building poison resistance - and that's backed up by one of FRED's examples of Power Defence), so what sort of limitation is "Not against creatures with snake venom immunity"? -1/4 feels about right to me (it is a Champions game, but Life Support Immunity to Poison isn't exactly ubiquitous). This is supposed to be a combat-effective devastating poison. But what if I wanted the same attack to occur only once per Turn, once per Minute, and so on (any worse than once per 5 minutes would be silly, since you'd get recoveries more often than take damage)? The old HSA1 had a Gradual Effect table for this that is completely different to the current Gradual Effect table; I think -1/4 per level down the Time Chart was how it suggested. This still seem OK to you guys? Is there a more "correct" way to do poisons in 5th edition? I realise that NND Does Body is the accepted mechanism for deadly poisons, but it's obviously not the way to go for merely debilitating poisons.

Re: Armour has a fixed SFX? Addendum: I have an old SH game called Golden Heroes (which I believe has been republished with a new name - if anyone knows what it's called, I'd be grateful for that information). It suffers from the same feature many games of that era had, namely random power generation. Anyway, at the end of the character generation phase, they have this funky bit called "rationalisation" wherein you have to justify why your character has all of his powers. If you can't come up with a justification that the GM finds convincing enough, he'll strip you of one or more of them (the examples they give show this exact process). I confidently predict two things, though: There isn't any combination of powers (certainly not GH powers) that I couldn't justify. As a GM I would never stoop to punishing players for being less inventive than others. If a player comes to me with an AP Penetrating Ego Attack that Does Body, I'll point out that buying a BOECV Invisible to Sight And Sound AP Penetrating Does Body attack is cheaper, and we'll go right ahead and apply that. This principle of "always use the cheapest" is not a golden rule - there are numerous exceptions - but 0 END FF/Armour looks like a slam dunk to me purely in the interests of simplicity.

Re: Armour has a fixed SFX? Actually I'd just tell the player (who would, to my mind, obviously be new to the HERO system) that Armour was a more efficient way to buy the power. Note, however, that if you add more advantages FF eventually comes out in front (another +1/2 would do it - say two levels of Hardening). This has a lot of similarities to the BOECV EB/Ego Attack debate. I say (as a GM!) use whatever power is cheaper in both cases.

Re: Armour has a fixed SFX? I repeat my query as to why "it's more points efficient" is a bad thing? After all, "it's more point efficient" is also the only reason to ever buy a Force Field, so we're comparing apples to apples here. Granted that obsessive pursuit of point efficiency can be harmful, that doesn't mean that you should always go and find the most expensive possible way to build a power just to prove that you're "'ard". From what's being said, if I just rename Armour to "Force Field Type 2" you'd be absolutely fine with it - and if a simple name change can change your mind about a power in HERO, then we're clearly not using the system for the same reasons.

Re: Critique of my villain? That's because of my house rules that replace the automaton stuff; in effect, his defences cost 5/3 times as much (Rigid Armour) but they're vulnerable to Indirect attacks (and his own attacks must be Indirect).

Re: Armour has a fixed SFX?

Re: Multiform Question I'm not at all convinced a reasonable version of said Rock Troll for 150 pts could not be created. No, because that is tricky to judge. In some campaigns a troll might well be a valid choice for a starting PC; in another it would be an epic monster. Err, no, you won't, since characteristics in a multipower get No Figured "for free". In any case, yes, you've demonstrated that a 100 AP Multipower would be required to pull this off. However, this is a fairly campaign specific choice you've made there. Many FH campaigns (including those I've run) use VPPs rather than Multipowers, and nothing in that list has more than 30 active points. With the right limitations, I could see that fitting into a 40 point VPP (or less). I realise I did say "Multipower" to begin with, and I'll stand by it for some conceptions. For example, a Multipower with variable slots for Growth, Shrinking, Density Increase, and perhaps HKA works pretty well for a ShapeShifting pool limited to animal forms. But you probably do need a VPP for a fully functional shapeshifter. Well yes, but I don't believe the implied argument "but it should be way easier because this is a minor advantage" is exactly uncontroversial. Yes, evidently the troll choice was an ill-advised example (though as others have pointed out you could do this with Side Effects - I'm not suggesting that gets me off the hook, though). Don't get me wrong, I am not by any means suggesting that Multiform has no place and is always a horribly abusive power. Rather I'm suggesting the reverse - in exactly the same way that not every "force field" is represented by the Force Field power (sometimes Armour or Force Wall makes more sense), you shouldn't always reach straight for Multiform when you have a shapeshifting character. In particular, since Multiform is (in essence) a Multipower of Characters, you should be wary of allowing power frameworks on anything other than the base form (at least as wary as you would be of allowing someone to stick an EC in a Multipower slot). Oh, and to those suggesting that this clutters up the character sheet rather than having a nice new character sheet - was there some particular reason you couldn't write out a new character sheet anyway?

Re: Penalty Skill Levels for Sweep That suggests I should be able to get them for 1 1/2 if I can only use them for a specific maneuver, right?

Re: Penalty Skill Levels for Sweep Is it not mechanically similar to buying PSLs for Autofire penalties, though? Though I grant you it doesn't list that as an example under PSLs, it seems logical (if you restrict yourself to the examples given for PSLs, then for a superheroic campaign they might just as well have still called them Range Skill Levels). I mean, if I buy it as CSLs I get a bonus to hit (and if you follow through your reasoning that Sweep is not a maneuver, I get it on whichever maneuver I buy it for whether I'm Sweeping or not); I'm not after that, I just want to represent (in this case) someone that can effectively attack multiple opponents at once due to having lots of extra hands. Naturally I could do this any number of ways (AE, Autofire) but Sweep seems the cleanest method. It's not a huge deal point wise, but it does seem silly that if I want to offset a penalty I can't use a PSL to do it.

Re: Multiform Question I think tesuji has a valid point, if I'm understanding it correctly. The point was made that with the 4th edition "Base Form is the most expensive form" ruling, a FH wizard couldn't have his Polymorph spell. I'll come back to whether Multiform is even the way to do this in a moment, but let's assume for the moment it is. Why can't the FH wizard have such a spell? Presumably because the thing he wants to Polymorph into has more points than the wizard has. Since the wizard is (presumably) on the same point total as the other PCs, this argument boils down to saying that wizards should be be allowed to have spells that are more cost efficient than anything a non-wizard can do ... and that just doesn't seem right to me. You're a 150 point wizard complaining that you can't Multiform into a 250 point dragon? I'm not sympathetic. Make a 125 point version of the dragon (which would be allowed even under 4th edition rules) and you're cooking. Now, returning to the specific example: why would you want to simulate Polymorph with Multiform anyway? Traditionally a wizard keeps his own mind while Polymorphed, and can even still cast spells. It sounds far more likely that what you want to do is figure out what extra abilities the polymorphed form has, and buy them directly (in a power framework if you want to be able to change into lots of different things). For example, you might buy some Regeneration, extra STR, CON, BODY, STUN, and defences, a little Growth, and a Reduced Penetration HKA as your "troll" form. Gather all that up into a bundle, put a "Costs END" on it, and slap on some limitations to reflect that you need to cast a spell to get it to work (which will vary by the ground rules of the campaign), and you're done. It's almost certainly going to be cheaper than a Multiform anyway. Polymorph, to my mind, is a spectacularly bad example since it is generally very fluid (lots of different forms) and you certainly don't want to be statting out every single thing you might conceivably want to turn into as a Multiform. Much easier to have a small VPP or even Multipower linked to a Shapeshift, and you just jot down what the settings are as you assume a new form. Hulk, werewolf, that sort of thing - sure, go Multiform. But it's not (by any means) the only way to handle a shapeshifter, and it's often not even the best way, since many concepts don't include the personality of the shapeshifter completely changing (which is the area Multiform offers the clearly best solution).

I'm starting up a brand new Champions campaign on Friday, and I'm not using the Champions Universe or any of the "standard" NPCs. (We'll see how well I stick to that - I'm lazy at heart - but for now that's the intention). Anyway, I've always liked the idea of Mechanon (if not the actual character himself), and I was also wondering how effective a martial artist of normal Strength could be (ie, everything with extra DCs). So here's one of the villains of my new campaign, presented for dissection - I'm interested to hear any ideas anyone might have for changing or fleshing him out. (Incidentally if posting characters here is inappropriate please let me know; I couldn't see anything in the code of conduct to prevent it, and I can't see any other forum that seems more appropriate). Warning: Some of this will look a bit weird; I have a couple of house rules that are explained below. Centipede 10 STR 0 29 DEX 57 - CON - 20 BODY 20 18 INT 8 14 EGO 8 20 PRE 10 10 COM 0 0 PD -2 0 ED 0 4 SPD 11 - REC - - END - - STUN - Char Cost: 112 Cost Power 30 Rigid Armour +6 PD/+6 ED 63 +76"/Turn (100" Total) Running plus 0 END on 100"/Turn Running [25"/Phase] 7 0 END, Indirect (+1/4) on STR 5 IR Vision 5 UV Vision 15 Radar (Radio Group) 12 High Range Radio Perception (Radio Group) 3 Ultrasonic Hearing 20 360 degrees for Sight group, Radar, Ultrasonic Hearing (so all senses are 360 degrees) 9 +3 Enhanced Perception (all senses) 5 Extra Limbs (Hundreds of pseudopods) 5 -5 Lack of Weakness for Rigid Armour (generic construction) 50 Life Support (Full) 22 Regeneration: 3d6 Healing BODY, Standard Effect, 0 END Persistent (+1), Extra Time: 1 Turn (-1 1/4), Self Only (-1/2) Powers Cost: 251 3 Absolute Range Sense 3 Absolute Time Sense 9 Ambidexterity (no off-hand penalty) 3 Bump of Direction 5 Eidetic Memory 3 Lightning Calculator 3 Perfect Pitch 8 Speed Reading x1000 24 Universal Translator 17- Talents Cost: 61 66 Martial Arts Aikido Choke Hold Grab 50 STR, 5d6 NND Defensive Strike 10d6 Strike Killing Strike 2 1/2d6 HKA Legsweep 11d6 Strike, Target Falls Martial Block Block, Abort Martial Dodge Dodge, affects all attacks, Abort Martial Escape 65 STR vs Grabs Martial Grab Grab Two Limbs, 60 STR to hold Martial Throw 10d6 + VLF Strike, Target Falls +8 DCs (figured in) 5 +1 DCV 6 +4 Penalty Levels with Sweep Defensive Strike (attack 3 at once) 3 Acrobatics 15- 3 Breakfall 15- 3 Climbing 15- 3 Computer Programming 13- 10 Defense Maneuver I-IV 3 Electronics 13- 2 KS: Aikido 11- 5 Rapid Attack (HTH; can Sweep as a 1/2 phase) 3 Stealth 15- 3 Tactics 13- Skills Cost: 115 Total Cost: 539 Disadvantages (250 point base) 20 DF: Caterpillar like robot (Not conc, major) 10 Hunted: WhizzKid (As Pow, 8-) 20 Psy Lim: Code vs Killing (Common, Total) 15 Psy Lim: No respect for human laws (Common, Strong) 15 Soc Lim: No rights in human society (V Fre, Minor) 10 Vuln: 1 1/2x BODY from AP or Penetrating energy attacks 199 Villain Bonus Relevant House Rules: I use the Incomplete Character Rules that were invented by James Jandebeur and Tony Vargas for 4th edition (still completely compatible). This is a sort of expanded technique to develop things like Automatons, Spirits, Vehicles, Bases and so forth. This character Lacks CON, REC, END, and STUN, which means that he cannot be STUNned, never recovers or heals naturally, cannot Push or otherwise use END in any way, and cannot be knocked out. The latter also means that he must buy all defences as Rigid Armour or Force Wall. Rigid Armour is a new power based on Force Wall. It costs 5 points for 2 points of resistant defense. It works similar to Force Wall but for personal protection - that is, a character with Rigid Armour takes no STUN from any attack that fails to do enough BODY to penetrate the defense (but unlike Force Wall it does not fall when so breached). Rigid Armour has to be the "outside" layer of all defenses with the sole exception of Force Wall. Rigid Armour encases the character; the character's own attacks must be Indirect in order to penetrate the armour without going through it; likewise, Indirect attacks bypass Rigid Armour. I'm using the Velocity Based damage with an additional house rule that movement powers like Running and Flight are bought per Turn (2"/Turn costs 1 point, so it works out identical in cost for a SPD 4 character). If anyone wants to examine these house rules in greater detail, I'll try and track down James or Tony to get permission to post their work (it might still be around on the web somewhere). Character Concept: A supervillain Whizzkid created this multijointed robot as a personal bodyguard and general minion; however, he did his job too well, and CPD-01 (Centipede's official designation) achieved full sentience, escaping from his creator and pursuing its own goals. It looks like a human sized caterpillar, but it has "legs" all over its body (there is no "up" or "down", being composed of fully generic modules), enabling it to run at 120km/hr. All of its limbs are perfectly usable as hands, and while it does not possess more than normal human strength, it was constructed originally as a bodyguard and as such has considerable knowledge of human anatomy and combat techniques. While it has a sturdy construction, it is not by any means invulnerable but it is fortunately self repairing. Running on cosmic energy, it has no obvious weaknesses to even electrical attacks, although energy attacks that are particularly narrow focussed are able to cause minor malfunctions (hence the Vulnerability). CPD-01 has a strong prohibition against taking human life (consider it like an Asimov First Law) and will generally avoid even seriously injuring opponents, but it has no real understanding of human laws (in other words it does not have any sense of guilt - it will rob banks or commit thefts without any sense that it is "wrong" to do so). In the campaign in which this takes place, superbeings are a fairly new phenomenon and there are no laws granting obvious non-humans like CPD-01 any rights; it has about the same legal rights as any machine would have (which is to say none - it's considered to be property). CPD-01's long term goals are to permanently sever its relationship with WhizzKid probably by attempting to manipulate superheroes into arresting its creator. While the materials it requires for self maintenance are not uncommon or difficult to acquire (hence no disadvantage points), it will occasionally steal such objects without any remorse. Centipede has no use for money (it's stolen some mostly to analyse what it's for, rather than with any real intention of spending it), but this could change if it teams up with more human-looking villains. OVERALL FIRST CUT IMPRESSIONS: It comes in fairly expensive, but it's not really overpowered (10d6 attacks, which is the same or even a little less than the standard for the PCs). A lot of points are spent on "signature" abilities that it would logically have as a robot (such as Full Life Support and all the talents). It's not intended as a "master villain" type, and the reason it has a comparatively low SPD is because I wanted to experiment with making a martial artist that was effective in combat without having a 6 SPD. Obviously things like Autofiring attacks are a possibility, but I'm not really sure it's necessary - if Centipede could place itself in HTH range of 3 PCs, it could effectively attack all three, which is all I can really ask for a non-master villain type.

Re: Ego vs EB (BOECV) Hmm. 1) is not controversial. With respect to 2, I think I would almost definitely consider a BOECV attack to be Mental with respect to Damage Reduction if it was resisted by Mental Defense (as almost all would be). 3) seems clearly wrong; according to FRED pp 209, attacks that target the character's EGO can't be deflected (and it lists "... and many BOECV powers ..." as an example. Basically go the EB BOECV route if you want an Armour Piercing Does Body Autofire 0 END attack, because it's way cheaper. In fact, if you have more than +3/4 in advantages, it's cheaper even if you whack on Invisible to Sight and Sound (+3/4), functionally making it virtually identical to Ego Attack. Of course there are those who will tell you (with some justification) that you should be very wary of allowing powers with more than about +2 worth of advantages for this sort of reason...

Let's say you want to buy (say) 4 Penalty Levels for Sweep (so that you can attack up to 3 targets without a penalty). The special effect here is that the attack has hundreds* of Extra Limbs, in case it matters, and is able to independently focus with all of them. Assume you buy it as the lowest cost level (ie a total of 6 points). Since Sweep can be performed with most combat maneuvers, would you need to specify Sweep Defensive Strike (for example), or is "Sweep" good enough? I'm leaning heavily towards the former. * Non-specific; the character is called Centipede, and I just bought Extra Limbs and said "He's got a smegload".

Re: Armour has a fixed SFX? OK, this is bizarre. I'm just unable to understand those of you who say they would make people buy Force Field at 0 END rather than Armour, or Armour that costs END rather than Force Field. Here's the thing: sometimes it's handy to have a power with fewer active points. Active point limitations come up most commonly in Multipowers and Variable Power Pools. You can have a more powerful Force Field than you can Armour in such situations; that's the niche that it's for. It's also handy for VIPER agents and similar (Force Field belts - basically anything using charges). Armour is basically shorthand for "PD, ED, and Damage Resistance". Want to ditch Armour and just buy it longhand? That's fine. But you can pursue that path to its logical conclusion and ditch quite a lot of other powers as well (eg Glide could be limited Flight; Hand to Hand Attack with a few changes could be Limited Str, and you could probably manage to unify Force Wall and Entangle). There's nothing wrong with powers that duplicate others, especially if they cost exactly the same - it just makes for a slightly tidier character sheet.

Re: What would be the effect of Extra Limbs, Useable as Attack?

Re: Analysis: Extra Limbs - SFX or Power? Sorry, just had to point out - you owe me a Coke, since the above forced me to snort mine through my nose.

Re: Armour has a fixed SFX?

Cruising around reading some of the other threads, I saw a couple of references saying that Armour was a bad power, that it had fixed sfx, that it couldn't be used in place of Force Field, and so forth... I'm not seeing anything like that in 5RE. It does say that you can't buy (eg) Mental Defence or Power Defence as Armour, but those aren't particularly common for a Force Field either. Because it doesn't cost END you have that stupid EC rule that would prevent sticking it in, but that's more of EC problem than an Armour problem. What am I missing here?

Re: Multiform Question In 4th ed this wouldn't have worked (and not because of the new +5 = 2x forms, either). No forms could have had a cost greater than the base form after subtracting the cost of the Multiform. So you'd be limited to two 291 point forms in 4th rules. Grandfathering in this rule for 5th edition limits abuse a bit (especially if you also disallow power frameworks for any form other than the base form).

Re: What would be the effect of Extra Limbs, Useable as Attack? Here's a quickie why I don't think you could control the Extra Limbs: virtually anything you do with Extra Limbs is using STR (Extra Limbs merely allows you to use your STR on more targets than you would otherwise - so you can still punch while Grabbing, etc). You didn't buy any ability to use the target's STR. Therefore only a cosmetic change. The ability to use the target's STR is pretty much going to have to be TK - and if you buy TK, Extra Limbs UAA becomes unnecessary (it's then just a special effect). See, that looks like a good reason not to allow UAA Flight to me. TK can duplicate anything that UAA Flight can do, it will just often be more expensive - so if the best argument to using UAA Flight is that it's cheaper, it's not an argument I find at all compelling.

Re: Multiform & Point Balancing: What am I missing? My personal take on Multiform (had this issue come up for a PC in my new campaign which starts Friday): Multiforms where the base character is not the one built on the most points need careful justification. Multiforms where the personality does not change, where the skills are the same, and so forth are not necessarily the correct way to build things. I don't allow Multiform characters to use power frameworks on anything other than the base character. There was an old Haymaker article that led me down the path of the last point. A Multiform is, basically, a Multipower of characters; a Multipower slot cannot contain another power framework, so a Multiform shouldn't either. A lot of shapeshifting concepts don't need Multipower. The character in my campaign that was being considered was a human mage that could turn into a dragon form, but he wanted to be able to use all the magic in both forms. I suggested instead of Multiform just buy the extra stats and powers for the dragon as "Only in Hero Id". Vampires that can turn into bats and wolves can acquire the appropriate powers with a Multipower linked to a Shapeshift. Werewolf type concepts, where both forms are very different from each other, are what Multiform is really needed for (as it's very clumsy to develop two sets of Disadvantages, for example).

Re: Ogre NND Question