GAZZA

Re: Rescue/Kidnap Teleport

Re: Rescue/Kidnap Teleport I'd be inclined to agree that Multi Attack is the best way to do this. That way the victim gets at least one chance to resist with full STR, which is really the only thing that I'd find objectionable about the original idea. Grab and Teleport becomes much like Grab and Throw or Grab and Whatever then.

Re: Damage Negation behind Barrier Alternatively, you can "roll" the damage negation. 6 DCs of a killing attack is 2d6, so the attacker rolls his 4d6 KA and stun multiplier (let's say he rolls 14 BODY and 28 STUN). 2 BODY gets through the barrier (as does 16 STUN). Defender then rolls as if he had a 2d6 RKA (6 DCs), getting 5 BODY and 10 STUN. These are subtracted from the damage (leaving 0 BODY and 6 STUN to further reduce with his other defences). This "roll your Damage Negation" idea is something one of my players came up with; I don't use it universally as it slows things down, but it's handy in cases where you have an area effect attack or something like your barrier example.

Re: PC creation question If it's a Champions type game - or maybe even if it isn't - there is an old Hero System Presents module with a character called "Angstrom" that is somewhat similar. Basically this character has multiple personalities, and each personality has different powers - it is built with Multiform and Accidental Change. There is also some similarity to the Wild Cards character Mark Meadows. Or the Hulk, come to think of it. On the other hand if it's just the personality that changes, then it may not actually change very much in the way of your character sheet - you could probably get away with just some interesting Psychological Limitations/Complications. You don't necessarily have to let the GM decide when you get to play each one - just have an Accidental Change disadvantage/complication that triggers under, say, stress (or each day, or whatever). I'm not really sure what you want with the "one of them is an NPC" idea - obviously the characters in the world don't "really" have such a distinction. I'm going to guess that the idea you have in mind is that some of the personalities are aware of the others, and some of the personalities are unknown to the others - and you want one of the latter personalities such that you can do things and not know about it. If that's what you're after, just a simple Psychological Complication/Limitation "Imperfect knowledge of other personalities actions" would probably cover it. It's essentially a licence for the GM to get you into trouble a lot, which often makes for a fun game.

Re: Rocky's One-Hit-KO Punch Mostly good ideas except for the Push and extra END stuff. The optimal time to push (or use any power that requires extra END) is as early as possible, since the later the fight goes the less END you have left.

Re: 5th edition Hand Killing Attack Question I do not believe that (aside from Foci, Inherent powers, and so on) there are any restrictions to what you can Push. So yes, to the original poster, that works. In fact he still has 5 STR "unused"; if the base attack was HKA 1d6+1 (2.5d6 w/STR), he could Push to 2d6 (4d6 w/STR).

Re: Brain Trust - Duplicating the Mind If you assume that basically you're interested in maintaining the knowledge of these other minds - which was the case with Blythe - then you might want to look at APG and take Universal Scholar and Universal Scientist (perhaps also Universal Jack of All Trades and Universal Translator), all with appropriate limitations that she can only use the skill if one of her "minds" has it. For Blythe that works out OK (she has crippling Psych Comps that make it unlikely she can do more than a few minds anyway - as far as I recall, she spent most of her life insane, though it is possible Tach might have been able to help if he'd been allowed); if you assume someone who doesn't have the psychological problems Blythe had, it's a bit clumsier (you gradually have to reduce the limitations as she gets more and more minds). Blythe's power was technically a bit more than you mention; she didn't "shapeshift" her mind into the absorbed mind, she had all of the absorbed mind's knowledge available to her at all times (IIRC), which was the source of her problems (as she also had all the personality traits and had to use Tach's training to maintain a sense of self). No so much a multiple personality disorder as something more like Alpha or Echo from Dollhouse. If you just want "a series of minds I can have, but only one at a time", then Sean's VPP of Multiforms is the most direct way to do it I think.

Re: Rocky's One-Hit-KO Punch One of the problems I've always seen with this sort of thing is that the "use it as the last ditch effort" is hard to enforce. Take Voltron (I'm only familiar with the lion version) - they always go in first with the lions, get beaten, form Voltron, get beaten, form blazing sword, win. Or Star Blazers - they try fighting with conventional weapons, lose, and then fire the Wave Motion Gun. Karate Kid - fluff around for a while, get hurt, then break out the crane kick. The problem with all of these is that if you try to run this in an RPG, the players are going to whip out that blazing sword first. Anybody else noticed that, and have any thoughts on how to change it? I mean, obviously you can try trumped up limitations like, "must be on 10 STUN or less to use" or whatever, and I suppose you can go with limited charges (but that's dangerous, since the PCs have no obvious way to tell when they've reached the climax and might use it too early before the big boss, with a TPK as the result).

Re: NND vs Barrier I don't really disagree; it feels strange that we have Mental Entangles as part of the core rules but no Mental Barriers. Even if I'm right, that opens up a nice opportunity for some enterprising youngster to create a power that will work in the desired fashion.

Re: NND vs Barrier

Re: NND vs Barrier Well, I don't really agree. The effect is not identical. Starting with Blast you end up with something that is slightly more expensive (but because of the way advantages stack, it won't be with even an additional +1/4) but that has the advantage that you need not see your target to attack them. You can't hurl a grenade over an opaque wall to attack someone behind it if the power that the grenade is built on is a mental power, because you need line of sight for that. Of course there is no range limitation on the Mental Blast version, and it can be used against targets with a lower effect of Mind Scan lock, but these sorts of oddities really just point to the probable result that Mental Blast isn't really the power you're after (unless of course you want those oddities). An interesting observation. I find the polar opposite myself. Once you want a few advantages (Does BODY being common, also Area Effect or Autofire) it becomes much more efficient to start with Blast and apply ACV (+1/4 OMCV vs DMCV), AVAD Mental Defence (+1). If my algebra is correct, the breakeven point is a +1/4 more: Mental Blast 5d6, AE 4m radius (+1/4) [62 Active] Blast 5d6, ACV (+1/4 OMCV vs DMCV), AVAD Mental Defence (+1), AE 4m radius (+1/4) [62 Active] More than +1/4 and Blast is cheaper. Of course the blast version is visible, not indirect, and limited in range. So again - not quite the same thing. Yes, I understand, but personally I think NNDs get off pretty easily in 6e anyway. An NND vs Flash Defence Hearing (typically a sonic blast) is only a +1/2 advantage in 6e, which means you can squeeze 28 STUN in a 60 active point power. That's a pretty good deal without also making it bypass walls, I think.

Re: How to build: "Mental Block" The Telepath that already knows didn't use Telepathy to find out, and it never even occurred to the player to want this defence. Indeed they could, this are all completely valid uses of telepathy. Do you even allow mental powers in your campaign? There are many people who feel that about any use of mental powers by villains. You are entitled to your opinion, of course. It should be fairly obvious I do not share it any more than I'd feel I'd violated some sacred trust by attacking a PC with any other 60 active point power. It is, of a certitude, most definitely not cheating. If you want to play a superhero with 10 EGO and no Mental Defence, you have absolutely nothing to cry about when mentalist villains take advantage of your weaknesses. Nor should you, of course - it's fun not to be absolutely impervious to everything. I should point out again, since you seem to have missed it, that the player in question is not feeling violated, not feeling taken advantage of, and in fact is wondering why this villain is so apparently concerned about his welfare. You know, interested in seeing where this plot goes, kind of thing. And the mystery background being, to some degree, something that the villain is responsible for? That the player in question will, I hope, be horrified to discover at the same time they are thrilled to see how it came about? Honestly, it's part of the same package - if you don't like my GMing style, that's fine of course, but it's all part of the same campaign. The suggestion was that allowing such a power might make Secret ID worth less (concluding that it wouldn't, but considering it nonetheless). How could such a power even be considered to affect the value of secret ID if there should never ever be a threat of having a secret ID revealed in such a fashion? I agree, by the way, that there are plenty of aspects to the disadvantage that it need not be reduced - but it was a very reasonable question. In what way do you imagine that is even possible? Do you think the villains I run have a mind of their own, and I just can't stop them doing this sort of thing no matter how much I try? Surely it is blatantly obvious that no villain can do this unless I allow them to do so. Surely it is obvious that I wouldn't do so without thought to the campaign, the PC's background, players' trust, and the story I am trying to tell. Now, you may feel free to disagree on any of those points. You obviously feel that such a concept violates the thought of the campaign, makes a mockery of the PC's background, destroys players' trust, and annihilates the story I am trying to tell. That's absolutely fine, and I will support your right to feel that even as I disagree in the strongest possible terms. But understand that this is the nature of your disagreement - you can say you don't like what I did, that's fine, but you cannot say I did it thoughtlessly, because that is factually untrue and frankly insulting. Seriously, what? How patronising are you trying to be here?

Re: NND vs Barrier Well that isn't actually true. It depends entirely on what the defence is. It was true in 5e, yes, but it is merely "often" true in 6e. For argument's sake? Well I don't accept that barrier is a valid defence (anymore than "not being hit' is), but since Life Support is, and that would make it +1, I'll play along. You have lost me. Are you saying: a) That Mental Blast using OCV/DCV is 10 points per d6, active 12.5? (It isn't; Mental Blast is 10 points per die, and OCV and DCV cancel each other out). That Mental Blast using OMCV/DMCV is 10 points per d6, active 12.5? (It isn't; this is just a straight Mental Blast, no advantages or limitations, and it's 10 points per die active and real). c) That Mental Blast is getting a +1/4 Indirect advantage? (It cannot gain anything by doing so that it doesn't already have). d) That Mental Blast is being reconfigured to use OCV/DCV (a +0 advantage) and then buying Indirect? (Changing it to target DCV with OCV does not stop it being a Mental Power any more than making a Blast OMCV vs DMCV makes it a Mental Power - it merely changes the combat value, and it is still going to be automatically able to penetrate barriers). This is my best guess, but if that's what you're trying to argue, this doesn't quite do it. Based On CON is a -1 limitation that, used on Mental Blast (which doesn't care about EGO anyway), would indeed turn into a normal "barrier stopped" attack power. You could then add Indirect for +1/4 on that if you liked; the real cost would be 6.25 per die rather than 10. Assuming d) above, Mental Blast with the advantages NND (+1), Indirect (+1/4), and Based On CON (-1) is 22.5 active points and 11.25 real points per die. I have no idea where you came up with 7, as your previous claim was that it cost 10/12.5 and then you added another advantage. Possibly you meant a combination of a) and then NND here. If you turn Mental Blast into a NND vs Life Support, that is a +0 advantage, so it is still 10 active points and 10 real points per die. If we use the Based On CON version, Blast with the advantages Indirect +1/4 and NND (+1) is only 11.25 active points per die and the same real cost. A 60 active point multipower can accommodate 5d6 of Blast and only 2.5d6 of Mental Blast, and they are mechanically identical. If we use the Mental Blast, OCV vs DCV (+0), NND Life Support (+0), then it is 10 active points per die compared to 11.25 active points per die for the Blast. Slight advantage to the Mental Blast there, but you said it was a grenade, so you quite possibly want a small AE on that as well. Once you throw in even +1/4 AE, the Blast is now 12.5 per die and so is the Mental Blast version. And in either case you don't have to be able to see your target for the Blast version, but you do for the Mental Blast version. They are, in short, not simulating quite the same thing, so it isn't that surprising that they are slightly different in cost. I don't see why not, as it doesn't serve to make the Mental Blast cheaper than the Blast (only equal cost, and higher active cost). Indeed, Mental Powers Based On CON will often be NND, as they represent such things as truth drugs and similar. It is possible that you missed the important point here: ACV does not make a Mental Power into a normal power. A Mental Blast that is OCV vs DCV still possesses the line of sight and barrier ignoring features that a more normal Mental Blast (OMCV vs DCMV) has. This is completely fair - it costs the same, after all! To make a Mental Power into a normal attack power you need Based on CON (-1); normally this has the disadvantage that it changes the characteristic used to determine effectiveness from EGO to CON, but since EGO doesn't matter for Mental Blast CON doesn't either. And again, this is fair - at that point you basically have a power with the same real cost as Blast but twice the active cost (which means, in practice, that you would rarely if ever want to buy it that way - an unsurprising conclusion, since effectively Based On CON files off the "Mental" from "Mental Blast"). I do not see how this conclusion follows from the premise. It appears that you were intending to demonstrate that if you load Mental Blast with the right set of modifiers you get a barrier-penetrating NND for a cheaper cost than you could do with just a Blast, but unless I've missed what you're saying here, this is just not true. Of course, but routinely granting a +1/4 or better advantage is a lot more than a minor side effect is, I would argue, more than what most "minor side effects" routinely encompass.

Re: NND vs Barrier Err - what? 6e1pp148: "Conventional barriers don't stop Mental Powers" and then gives examples that, I submit, do a lot more than merely "suggest" that Mental Blast gets Indirect-like effects for free. Then there is 6e1pp335 at the Indirect advantage itself: "Mental Powers, which operate directly from one mind to another, don't need this Advantage ..."

Re: How to build: "Mental Block" I'm not sure how you can possibly get from "I'm looking for a power for one of my player's PCs to block his secret ID from prying telepaths" to "I'm about to rip apart the genre conventions of my campaign by revealing everyone's secret ID by casual Telepathy" - especially since Hugh brings up the (reasonable!) opposite point that you could even argue that the secret ID should be worth less points. I'm also not really sure why I have to defend myself, but for what it's worth, and in the interests of harmony, here is the situation: - First up, it is important to note that I am GMing this campaign, not playing in it, in case that wasn't already obvious. - While I hand out experience points at the end of each session as normal, occasionally I will hand out a small package of experience points that come in the form of a prebought package for plot reasons. The first PC to get this gained a fairly powerful Contact as a logical consequence of the way the game had progressed. This is the second such package - and again, it is a logical consequence of the way the game has progressed. There is a villainous organisation of telepathic robots in the game, and another villain telepath that is already aware of the target PC's secret identity, but wants to make sure that these robots don't also get it. The robots are highly advanced AIs, but they are still thoroughly logical and methodical the way robots are; it makes sense that they would attempt to locate their biggest adversaries and they've already established a preference for ambushing (as, like most villainous organisations, they are not a match for the PCs without surprise, superior numbers, or some other tactical advantage). - This PC has a mystery background that even he doesn't know about yet, and there is a third PC with telepathic abilities that has already used those abilities once to help him recover a lost memory. So essentially, to summarise: this is a free power (in effect) that is largely being used for colour, but it is almost certainly true that my campaign owes a lot more deference to realism than 4 colour comic books anyway - not in the sense of the physics, but in the sense of morality and NPC motivations. The argument "that wouldn't happen in the comics" is arguably untrue, but in any case this is an RPG not a comic book. Lots of the conventions of comic books don't really apply to RPGs, or apply less well; they are used for inspiration, not a list of commandments.

Re: SusAn

Re: SusAn Unfortunately that wouldn't work. You always drown at a minimum of SPD 2, for example.

Re: How to build: "Mental Block" I personally disagree on several counts: Secret IDs being at risk is often a plot point even in four colour comic books. Extending the genre to include such series as Wild Cards, we have characters that are aware of the threat telepaths represent to their secrets and take deliberate steps to avoid those secrets becoming public (Puppetman). It's not "out of genre". It does not necessarily follow that a villain that learns a secret ID will make that ID public. Eddie Brock knew that Peter Parker was Spiderman for years. Saying that "it's just wrong" to use Telepathy to get a secret ID is an arbitrary limit with no obvious basis, especially since it specifically calls out in the description of Telepathy what level is needed to get at Social Complications (6e1pp298). Not all Telepaths are villains, and not all heroes trust each other with their secrets. The Joker might not care who Batman is, but the Kingpin certainly devoted efforts to finding out who Daredevil was. It doesn't strike me as implausible that some villains with telepaths on the payroll might want to know this sort of thing. YMMV.

Re: How to build: "Mental Block" Actually I was (tongue in cheek) pointing out that you don't want to have your limitations say "only vs Telepathy". The first idea I had (Mental Defence, only to avoid revealing secret ID) works fine against Mind Control, as do most of the alternatives suggested as long as you remember that Mind Control is also something you need to protect against.

Re: NND vs Barrier On the other hand you explicitly still needed Indirect to bypass your own Force Wall, so I'm not really sure that changed.

Re: How to build: "Mental Block" So instead someone would use Mind Control "Tell me who you really are".

Re: NND vs Barrier I stopped being surprised when I discovered that "Change Environment Special Effects A for X points should automatically be better than Change Environment Special Effects B for X/3 points, even if they are both mechanically identical" was seriously proposed on one of my earlier threads. I found it pays not to make assumptions.

Re: NND vs Barrier Yeah, it really comes down to whether you think a 0PD 5ED 5BODY Barrier (for example) should take an advantage to be transparent to physical attacks. By default, they're not, but you could reasonably argue that the advantage of being transparent (it doesn't lose BODY from physical attacks) is balanced by the disadvantage (it can't stop physical attacks). The only real reason I suggested +1/4 is because 5e considered it worth a full +1/2 for such transparency.

Re: NND vs Barrier

Re: NND vs Barrier Yep, this is pretty much the only conclusion that makes sense to me - IOW, Champions Powers contains yet another mistake (incidentally I've stopped counting the number of times it lists Deflection to stop incoming attacks at the user - I am getting a nasty suspicion this book was simply copy-pasted from a 5th edition version). I do not see that your conclusion follows from the premise. Assuming that an Entangle isn't transparent to physical, then even a 1PD/1BODY entangle should serve to stop any (non-BODY inflicting) NNDs that are doing physical damage, in exactly the same way that a wall would. Likewise, an energy only barrier (by which I presume you mean it has 0 PD) would still stop such an NND. Consider if it was, say, 0 PD/10 ED/10 BODY. According to 6e1pp171, if you punch such a barrier with 40 STR and do, say, 8 BODY and 28 STUN, you do not penetrate the barrier. You reduce it to only 2 BODY, but you don't get through - that 28 STUN goes nowhere. Now consider if that had been an NND it would have done 0 BODY, and could therefore never penetrate it. Of course if by "energy only Barrier" you mean that it has the limitation "Only works versus energy (-1)" on it, then yes, such a barrier is similar to a Transparent Entangle.