GAZZA

How would you go about building a power that conceals your secret identity (and only information related to that) from Telepathy? I'm thinking something like +30 Mental Defence, only to conceal secret identity (-2). Normally it would only be "hidden thoughts", requiring EGO + 10 (which would be 20 for this particular character - so a 12d6 Telepathy roll will impose a 7- roll to avoid giving it up), but with this it becomes an EGO + 40 roll (meaning that it is safe unless the roll is 50 or more, and the EGO roll is easier even if they make the roll). Does that seem reasonable, or is there a better way? I did consider Mental Damage Reduction 50% with the same limitation, or some combination of the two, or even Mental Damage Negation. How would you guys build it? The special effect, by the way, is that another mentalist is imposing a mental wall around that portion of the character's memories.

Re: Armour Piercing in Champions 6e I'm not forgetting it, I'm ignoring it. If you have 25 defences in a 12d6 game, then even if you spend 40 points on Piercing and have a 4d6 Blast you'll still fail to do BODY most of the time. If you want to do BODY then a KA is a much better option - after all, in most supers games "STUN only" isn't even considered a limitation. I'm not arguing with the idea of Piercing so much as the specific implementation - it doesn't seem to do the job properly for normal attacks. I would imagine that if you wanted something like: Blast 10d6 Blast +2d6, total Blast cannot do more than 60 STUN and 20 BODY to target after defences (-X) that -X might be considered a limitation to a lot of GMs. Even if that wasn't, something like this: Blast 6d6 Blast +6d6, total Blast cannot do more than 36 STUN and 12 BODY to target after defences (-Y) would almost certainly be worth at least a -1/2. If you were concerned about the fact that it's a bit more random, even if you take Standard Effect you're still doing better than with Piercing. That second construct with Standard Effect effectively reduces the targets defences by 18, which would cost 36 points to do with Piercing (plus it's better, because if you happen to roll badly you get more dice to try and push through a slightly better result)

Re: Armour Piercing in Champions 6e It strikes me that Piercing seems to be a fairly useless power for normal damage attacks. For 10 points, I can reduce the target's ED by 5, or I could instead just buy an extra +2d6 to my Blast that will average an extra 7 damage, so it's better to just increase the Blast. For 15 points, I could reduce the target's Mental Defence by 5, or I could 1.5d6 to my Mental Blast and average an extra 5.5 damage, so again - better to just increase the Mental Blast. And it's not even close if you decide to Pierce with Mind Control or Mental Illusions. For 30 points, I could reduce the target's Power Defence by 10, or I could add 3d6 to my Drain and average 10.5 extra effect - once again, Piercing is disfavoured. In all of these cases, note that Piercing is even worse if you use it against someone with low defences (as they can't go negative). That's not much of a problem with a Blast, but it might well be with a mental power or a Drain. It has some use with Flash. For 30 points you can reduce someone's Flash Defence by 10. Alternatively, you can buy +6d6 Flash Sight, but that's only an average of 6 more segments, so Piercing wins. Although if you're using AVAD Flash Defence (+1) for a Blast, you could buy another 3d6 and do 10.5 extra damage, so it loses there. It's useful for Killing Attacks. For 15 points, you can reduce the target's resistant defence by 5. An extra +1d6 KA only average 3.5 extra BODY. So RKA 3d6, Piercing 5 will do more BODY to anyone who has 5 or more resistant defences than RKA 4d6 will. It is true that the latter will do a bit more STUN, but that can be ignored for killing attacks in 6e, at least at the superheroic level.

Re: Armour Piercing in Champions 6e AVAD is still relatively expensive though. An AVAD versus, say, Mental Defence is a +1 1/2 advantage, meaning that a 12DC attack is 4.5d6, or about 16 STUN through. Considering the suggested maximum defence is 25 for a starting super, that's actually less than a 12d6 no-frills attack will get through. But an AP AE 1m 12 DC attack is 8d6. You're giving up 4 dice for the ability to have a low OCV, not care about your target's DCV, and halving his defences. That is an exceptionally good deal. I've yet to see many PCs now that don't have at least one area effect attack in their arsenal, and they're targetting supers with them instead of agents. Again - I'm not saying this means the game is now broken. Just that it's a very different environment than it used to be, and I'm still evaluating exactly what that means. Previously, you could theoretically get away without a superhuman CON if you had a superhuman DEX, but you're right of course that most PCs are going to have a CON at least in the 18-20 range. However, my games obviously differ from yours with PRE and EGO; lots of players dump on those IME. It certainly doesn't make them unplayable. The points about how useful AE used to be ("not very") are reasonable ones. I don't entirely agree; AEs used to be the agent killers, and even at +1 they were good at that. But it is certainly a defensible position.

Re: Armour Piercing in Champions 6e Debatable, surely? Armour Piercing + Penetrating should be enough for Wolverine's claws, and Hardened Impenetrable for the shield. I submit that if you're worried about something with 24 resistant DEF stopping claws, buy more than 4d6 killing attack. Likewise if you're worried about the shield taking damage from a 10d6 killing attack, buy it with more than 60 PD and ED. The point is that you can certainly model "cuts through anything" or "unbreakable" without resort to even one level of each. Certainly the advantages are handy to have, but what does it actually mean to be "really really truly awesomely armour piercing"? How do you manage to get really really sharp claws, for example, that still can't manage to do more than 2d6 damage? Certainly if Hardened Impenetrable walls are everywhere, you need double Armour Piercing or Penetrating to bust them. But really, I'd say that might be a problem with the ubiquity of the defences. I'm not sure an arms race between Armour Piercing and Hardened really helps to improve the game. YMMV.

Re: Armour Piercing in Champions 6e That actually makes an interesting side point. Do any of you as GMs or players actually buy such things as Armour Piercing, Penetrating, Impenetrable, Hardened, and Cannot Be Escaped With Teleportation multiple times? I've never done it. Arguably if you use the rule that Armour Piercing stacks I guess it's worthwhile now, but other than that - what is the special effect? "My armour piercing attack is even more armour piercing than yours!" "Yeah? Well my defences are ULTRA hardened, so they'll stop even your super piercing attack!" I guess I'm saying I find it hard to see a sfx that would be best modelled that way. I mean, if I want defences that are really tough to break even by armour piercing rounds, wouldn't I just buy more of them? "Substance HardToObtainium is pretty good at stopping teleporters. But SuperDimensionMan can still teleport out of them, so I upgraded to ReallyHardToObtainium. Unfortunately, SuperDuperDimensionMan found a way to get through even that, and the lab boys are still working out the bugs with PracticallyImpossibleToObtainium." One of the problems with this sort of thing comes with Variable Advantage or Variable Power Pools, but it's always struck me as a mechanic looking for something to model. However, I've been shown before that I lacked imagination by the talented posters here, so anyone want to pwn me?

Re: Armour Piercing in Champions 6e I was going through some of my 4e materials the other day, and it struck me how few of the sample supers really were playable with 6e guidelines. This isn't a problem per se, of course, but it has meant that using older adventures has required more tuning than I was expecting. Of course I could go back to old school guidelines (20 - 30 DEF, 12 DCs) but I'm determined to at least give the 6e suggestions a fair shake before I dismiss them. Thus far, it has seemed to me that DCV at 5 points per is a tremendous rip off. An 8d6 armour piercing AE 1m radius attack smashes through 25 DEF and does 15 or so STUN, all for a mere 60 active points. Every single one of the PCs has at least one +1/4 AE power (they haven't cottoned on to Armour Piercing yet though). For the PCs, OCV seems overpriced as well - you don't need much to hit hexes, after all. Which is not to say that I think it doesn't work. Jury is still out. Very different to what I'm used to though.

Re: Can you move backward? From a theoretical perspective I'd agree with you, but there are practical concerns. If you're using miniatures (or Gametable, as we do), then the player can see everything behind him. If you're not, then you're down to either GM fiat or a random roll as to whether or not he runs into something. And cars (for example) realistically can't drive as fast backwards as they can forwards; they're not geared for it. Probably neither are humans able to run backwards as fast as they can run forwards, etc. Therefore from a practical perspective I think I've just about talked myself into allowing it at the 2m=1m rate. YMMV of course; it's been good to see everyone's input.

Re: Can you move backward? Couldn't find anything like that, which is why I bring it up.

Re: Can you move backward?

Re: 6th Ed House Rules Assuming they are both foci, the sword vs staff is already fine. You can buy defences for the sword "only vs staves" if you want to.

Re: Can you move backward? The more I think about this, the less sure I am that it should be allowed. I don't believe that facing is entirely irrelevant in Hero. If it was, then there wouldn't be limitations for firing arcs on vehicle weapons, yes? In addition senses have distinct arcs as well. I believe that facing does exist in Hero, with the following caveats: You don't have a "back", or at least attacking from behind doesn't give any penalty to your DCV. This is actually questionable, as there is a listed DCV modifier for attacking from behind, but I think that's supposed to imply surprise. If have no Turn Mode, as most characters don't with Running, you can make as many turns as you like whenever you like which essentially makes your facing irrelevant as far as movement goes. However, characters have 120 degree Sight by default, so the implication that you still are regarded as facing a particular direction is still there. Anyway, that's a side note. The thing is that it occurs to me if you allow moving backwards - at least without penalty - then you're implicitly allowing a "quick reverse" of speed on movement modes that would otherwise require a lot of movement to turn around. On the other hand it's obviously not very realistic to say that (eg) a car can't go backwards, or that you can't walk backwards, or whatever. I think perhaps apply the gravity penalty if you are travelling "backwards" would work (ie 2m for every 1m movement). If you want to eliminate that, then the simplest solution is to buy No Turn Mode for your movement and define it as "moving backwards without penalty". Does that seem reasonable?

Assuming sfx allow, can you move backwards in Hero? Is there a penalty to your movement rate if you do? "Why would you want to?" Well, the case in point is a vehicle that has weapons with restricted arc of fire. You'd like to move away from your current HTH target, but keep facing him as you do so. You have Flight, but it has a Turn Mode, so turning around, moving away, and then turning back again is going to consume some distance with turning. Without a Turn Mode, the question doesn't come up (you just reverse your facing, move, and then reverse it back again) - but can you go backwards if you do have a Turn Mode?

Three scenarios: i) 4th edition (BBB) rules. Suggested guidelines for a standard supers campaign included 24-30 DEF and a max of 12 DC attacks. Armour Piercing is a +1/2 advantage. ii) 5th edition (FRED). Suggested guidelines now max of 25 DEF, and a max of 12 DC attacks as before. Armour Piercing is a +1/2 advantage. iii) 6th edition: Guidelines as per ii), but now AP is only +1/4. Consequences: In 4th or 5th edition, 12 DCs of an AP attack is 8d6. In 6th, you can have 10d6. Average STUN totals in each case are 28 (8d6), 35 (10d6), or 42 (12d6, for a non-advantaged Blast/Energy Blast). In 4th edition, against max defences, the non-advantaged 12 DC attack puts through roughly 12 or so STUN; the AP version gets 13 or so. Armour Piercing therefore is a weapon used mainly by agents, who only get to play with (say) 9DCs. Their 9d6 Energy Blast (31.5 average roll) does barely 1-2 STUN against 30 DEF, but a 6d6 AP (average roll 21) does 6. In 5th edition, the lower defences means that AP is basically useless to supers (which is undoubtedly why the cost was reduced). Against 25 DEF, a 12d6 Energy Blast does 17 or so STUN, and an 8d6 AP does 15 or so (in other words, it does less than the non-advantaged version even against max defences). It has reduced utility even for agents; 9d6 now does about 6-7 or so, and 6d6 AP does 8 or so. The decision to lower defences stuck, presumably so that fights wouldn't take so long, or whatever. Fair enough. Obviously Armour Piercing needed a readjustment. But I wonder if the pendulum hasn't swung too far here? In 6e, while a 12d6 Blast is in the same situation as in 5e (ie about 17 or so STUN), a 10d6 AP Blast averages 22 or so. OK, fair enough, that's max defences, we expect AP to be better there. But looking a bit more closely, we find that if the target has more than 14 DEF, Armour Piercing is a superior choice. I would submit that many agents have higher than that, making Armour Piercing better than a normal attack against almost all opponents. Now, obviously the exception is those who have hardened defences. Not having purchased any of the 6e villain books, I am curious - do most villains (at least "brick" types) have hardened defences now?

Re: 6th Ed House Rules Whereas now it is +1 STUN multiplier is definitely efficient; you get a +50% increase in STUN for a +1/4 (+25%) cost. If you want to extract the urine, go for something like: RKA 1d6, +12 Stun Multiplier (+3) [60 active] That averages 45 STUN and 3.5 BODY - it is, in many ways, a safer attack to use against a target with low defences for heroes to use than a straight 12d6 Blast. I don't know that I'd call it abusive though - but it is a lot more efficient to buy Stun Multiplier increase than it used to be, and you get more bang for your buck.

Re: Balancing Duplication There was an old APAzine article about this. This is not my work; I am pretty sure it was Dave Mattingly, but if I'm wrong, forgive me for the miscredit. Let's assume you have two character ideas: a) +20 STR, +20 STUN, +10 OCV, +10 DCV, +2 SPD [150pts] +20 EGO, +10 OMCV, +10 DMCV, +2 SPD, Mental Blast 5d6 [150pts] A 180pt character can purchase all of the powers in slot a, and with the remaining 30 points he can buy a 150pt Multiform for slot b. Alternatively, he could buy: Multipower, 150pt reserve [150] All powers in slot a [15-f] All powers in slot b [15-f] Same cost, right? Except that if you want to buy a 3rd 150pt form, it will only cost you 5 points for the Multiform and another 15 for the Multipower. And it gets much cheaper for even more forms. (On the other hand if the forms have some things in common, the Multipower method allows you to get the cost break that Multiform doesn't, so sometimes the Multipower is cheaper for a small number of forms where, say, the INT EGO PRE of the character are the same in each). But let's leave that aside for the moment: the point to be established here is that a Multiform can be regarded, in some sense, as a Multipower of characters. So now let's look at a slight variation: c) +5 OCV, +5 DCV, Multipower 50pts with 10 fixed slots [150] Combine this with a or b. No problem for the Multiform. But the Multipower cannot accommodate this character - it would have to have a Multipower slot that contained another Multipower, which is illegal. This is the point: it can be argued that Multiforms that have power frameworks in multiple forms are, in effect, doing a very cheap equivalent of sticking a Multipower in a Multipower. It isn't exactly the same, but it is similar enough to warrant close supervision. Duplication is a different but related kettle of fish. Very roughly, we could say that a 250pt character might buy a duplicate with the +1 altered duplicate advantage for 100 points. With the rest of his points he buys slot a; the duplicate gets slot b. Alternatively - and very very roughly - he could just buy all 300 points from slots a and b. So in this case Duplication saves about 50 points (and that's if we consider the advantage of attacking twice versus the penalty of being able to be attacked twice to be a wash - when if anything I'd say that the former often outweighs the latter). For all three slots to be available, Duplicator needs to be a 266pt character (as Duplication will now cost him 116 points); the non-Duplicator needs 450 points. So Duplication has an advantage right out the door, and arguably Duplicates that use power frameworks should be very carefully monitored. Of course power frameworks aren't the only cheap efficient character type out there, either - it's been pointed out that you can build bricks pretty cheaply as well, for example.

Re: Handling social stuff in HERO While I don't disagree that it's not "roleplaying" at all, my group pretty much abandoned D&D as anything but a wargame. I couldn't honestly say why, but it just feels like a system with levels tends to focus people's attention on getting to the next one. I have seen groups that wanted to minimise social stuff because it doesn't give XP, and they didn't want to waste time they could be using to fight something. Whatever, I guess, as long as they're having fun, but in the end our group decided that if that's all we really wanted, we might as well just play WoW or something.

Re: Handling social stuff in HERO Well, two points here. Firstly, "Yes, that works for me." Seriously. If we assume that Star Wars ANH is a Star Hero game, and that Princess Leia is a player character being interrogated by a droid, then I would say that the droid actually failed his interrogation roll by quite a lot. Usually, a failed roll would just mean that the subject had resisted your attempts and said nothing. A bad roll means that they lied, and you believed them. Otherwise, if you can lie even if they succeed, what's the point of the skill? Assume the reverse - you're playing the droid, trying to take out these terrorists that are trying to tear down your magnificent Empire and leaving all humanity vulnerable to some outside threat. You make your Interrogation roll at a penalty because this princess has a high willpower. Are you going to agree with the GM when he tells you that she lied, even though you made the roll? (Doesn't mean she has to be telling the truth - she may not know the truth, she may honestly believe a falsehood - but she shouldn't be able to intentionally deceive). Secondly, and more importantly - using movies as inspiration for gaming is great, using them to prove mechanical points is less so. The princess lied and the droid believed her because that's what the script said would happen. There's no need for mechanics to resolve conflict in a story, so it's always going to be an imperfect match when trying to use specific elements of a story to illustrate mechanics. (But I obviously get what you mean, just being pedantic). Well, I'm not sure that's a particularly inaccurate result, really. I should probably take a step back here and clarify what I mean. Aggressive interrogation, especially torture, does not always (or even often) yield reliable information. Often the victims will tell you whatever they think you want to hear, just to make the pain (or misery, if you're "only" psychologically torturing them) stop. So in the sense that interrogation doesn't always "work", you're absolutely right. But in the sense that you will eventually break your opponent's resistance, I doubt anyone could hold out forever. The sorts of heroes that could never be broken would usually come with caveats like "He'd die first" or "He can't feel the pain" or whatever; the former would be easy to build in Hero (some sort of Triggered RKA would do it) while the latter is harder because of the well known issues Hero has with absolutes. Which is really the problem in a nutshell - in Hero, a 3 is always a success, an 18 is always a failure; given enough retries, you will succeed. Perhaps not even allowing a chance if, say, the adjusted roll needed is less than -5 or whatever would work. Perhaps what is needed here is a consequence for failure. As you say, if the interrogator failing the roll means simply that he has to try again, he'll succeed eventually. On the other hand, if you rule that if he fails by more than 5 (say), that he is instead completely convinced of a lie, then he won't continue the process further (at least not with the intent of extracting information - he might torture you to death if the sharks with fricking laser beams aren't hungry). This works fine for an NPC. But for a PC? Again, YMMV, but I think I'd get less resistance from telling a player, "Unfortunately you can't resist any more, and you tell the sadistic villain what the launch codes are" than telling them, "You're totally terrified and in agony; you feel a desperate need to do anything it takes to make the pain and fear stop". As I say, in my experience players can deal more easily with your temporarily dictating actions for their characters than they can with dictating emotions. I tend to think a lot of PCs would just say, "Well, up yours villain, I don't care what you do to me, I'm still not telling you." Yes, that's heroic. But it's hardly what you'd expect to see from a successful interrogation roll - it seems to imply that the roll failed. Essentially, I would argue that whether or not an interrogator convinces you of his threats and/or demonstrates his sadistic intentions is an entirely separate question from how good he is at extracting information. A scary dude might have you voiding your bowels within moments, but the guy that manages to make it clear to you that you're being silly about this whole thing, that he's really one of the good guys, and that in any case he's already asked your mates and they've told him what he needs to know (he's just giving you the same opportunity to cooperate that he gave them) - well, he might not scare you, but if he convinces you to tell, he's done a much better job, no? A skilled interrogator need not necessarily employ even the threat of violence. And how would you go about demonstrating this success - by telling the player that he really believes this is actually one of the good guys now? I don't know, I just don't see that as being very effective. It sounds to me as if PCs are going to get a lot of leeway with such a system that they wouldn't tolerate if the NPCs got it as well.

Re: Handling social stuff in HERO OK, I can buy that for Persuasion to some extent. After all, most of the description of the skill is about telling lies. But really, telling players that they believe the lie or not based on the liar's skill roll doesn't really address anything; YMMV, but if anything I would say players hate being told what their character feels even more than they hate being told what their character does. For other skills - I don't know that it really helps at all. I've never had anyone complain about doing something while Mind Controlled, but they hate being told, "Your PC is frightened and inclined to tell this guy whatever he likes" in response to (say) an Interrogation roll. I can tell them that they believe the Interrogator really means what he says ("You think he really will kill the puppy"), but so what? I mean, that's really not what the Interrogator is trying to achieve - he's trying to get the PC to tell him the location of his Dad so that the bad guys can nuke it from orbit (it is, after all, the only way to be sure). How did the Interrogator "succeed" at his roll if he totally failed in his actual objective? Interrogation uses fear and intimidation as a means to an end - it's not an end in and of itself (that would be sadism - and yes, many interrogators are sadistic, but they won't be considered successful interrogators unless they deliver useful information. That the interrogation will involve torture, for such an individual, is an added bonus - not the point of the exercise). Or take Bribery. If you offer a corrupt individual money, he's going to take it. The Bribery roll determines whether or not he'll do what you want him to do - not whether or not he believes you will be upset with him if he doesn't. I'd imagine no roll was needed to convey that. If you successfully bribe someone and then the "bribee" doesn't do what the briber wants - well, good luck explaining to your players, "No really, you succeeded on the roll. He really does think you want him to overlook the regulations. He just doesn't really feel like actually overlooking them, cool?" And if we assume that this is what players expect when they bribe someone, surely logic suggests that it's what we should expect if the player is bribed? Sure, he can say he's totally opposed to the idea, such that you give the briber a -8 or so to the roll - but that's the limit that I'd allow. I think if you let the briber make a roll, let him succeed, and then have the player just decide not to act in accordance with the briber's wishes - well, I don't see that this is functionally different from "Social skills don't work on PCs" really. Acting - well yes, OK, that is all about "was I convincing?" But here again - how does this help? Suppose the player thinks that something is up - he just "has a feeling". If the Acting roll is perfect, and you tell the player "You are completely convinced that it is Awesomeman - he's acting exactly how you would imagine Awesomeman to act" - then if the player says, "Well, screw that, Fireball coming online" in what way has he conveyed that he was convinced? Surely the act of being convinced here implies a restriction on the player's actions - he can't really start asking difficult questions, surreptitiously go for a DNA scan, and so on because if he did, he's acting in a way that shows he's suspicious - the opposite of convinced - and therefore again we have the equivalence to "social skills don't work on PCs". In fairness, I think we're going about this the wrong way. NPCs are not fully fleshed out characters in the way that PCs are. There's no player behind them (the GM is not playing the NPC in the same sense that the players are playing their PCs). So a roll to determine whether or not they're affected is fine. But with a PC, there's a player there. The GM has total control over what the PCs see, hear, and so on. If he wants to portray someone as convincing, he can do it without ever needing to tell the player that he was affected by an Acting roll (or whatever). Make the roll for the NPC, and then if it failed drop hints - otherwise, don't. If the players are the kind of paranoids that will suspect everyone they meet, then have a lot of unfortunate misunderstandings involving the blood of kittens until you cure them of this. It won't work for all skills - it's hard to force a PC to stay bribed, and they are damn hard to interrogate sometimes as well - but it will work for many of them.

Re: Not Quite Free Equipment Well, for the FH game we're about to start, we're flat out paying points for everything - if you want a sword, you buy the HKA equivalent. The GM has accepted (with reservations) such things as a VPP Weapon pool (change at arsenal), and so on. I suspect all of us will end up with some level of magic, though.

Re: Champions Powers book issues... In 6e, Wonder Woman indeed would just buy block levels. Missile Deflection now is the power you use if you want to block at range (ie block attacks against other people); you don't need a power to block ranged attackers where you are the target. Now, if you're saying that this is weird and you prefer it the old way - well, I can't say that I totally disagree, and as I pointed out it would seem even Steve forgot that you didn't need Missile Deflection when writing Champions Powers. But as written, the 6e rules don't need Missile Deflection unless you want to block ranged attacks against other people.

Re: Enhanced Senses query: when do you need to buy Discriminatory? Well, it's an option. But I don't typically do that, no. Most of the time for a PER roll, I'm interested in a success or failure (possibly with a penalty or bonus to the roll, of course). The only time I usually worry about margin of success is when it is an opposed roll (typically with Stealth). That's not to say your approach isn't probably more correct than mine, but given that margin of success is a pretty random element, it would feel weird to me to get a good roll with a fairly average PER and get told, say, the exact shade of pink that the woman's mascara was, along with her range to the nearest centimetre. Which is a fairly subjective objection, I admit.

Re: Enhanced Senses query: when do you need to buy Discriminatory? Yes, so, still in the dark here. I cannot imagine why Analyze would mention that you can buy it for senses that have Discriminatory for free unless it is intended to refer to Sight and so on. But if that's true, then either full Discriminatory gives you something that Analyze doesn't - and I have no idea what that might be, as Analyze is basically Discriminatory On Steroids - or else despite the Magesight example power, you can just go straight to Analyze for a custom detect that you put in an appropriate Sense Group (and save 5 points). I mean, really, I think it should be a middle ground. Say that you still need full Discriminatory to buy Analyze, but that buying Discriminatory for a sense group that already partly provides it costs 3 points instead of 5, or something. Of course that's definitely into house rule territory there because it specifically says that you don't get a cost break like that.

One of the most drastic changes for 6e I've noted in my campaign is Area Effects. In 5e and previously, you might see the odd Explosion for a +1/2, but AE powers were your "agent killers" - at +1, you weren't going to hurt your average super with it. Now that you can get a 4m radius for +1/4, though, I'm seeing a lot more little +1/4 area effect attacks. It's not an agent killer anymore - it's the equivalent of doing 10d6 instead of 12d6 damage, and not having to worry about missing. With the lowered defences that 5e brought in (and 6e has continued), a 10d6 attack is still definitely worthwhile against 25 DEF. I don't know if this is a problem or not - my 6e campaign is only 3 weeks old so far (session 4 tomorrow night) - but it certainly seems like a very good deal for +1/4 to basically nuke your opponent's DCV. I've certainly started to consider "countermeasures" (such as innocent bystanders and so on) - it really does feel like buying DCV is kind of a waste.

Re: Is our approach to ' Combat Levels' fundamentally flawed Again, I do not believe so. You can use Boost multiple times, certainly, but as soon as you use it the second time you're no longer maintaining the first one, so it fades. Sure, you would eventually roll the maximum result, I guess. And you could certainly do as you suggest with Aid instead of Boost. Yes, I can't see any reason why you couldn't do that. Something like this: Multipower 112 active 5d6 Aid, any one damage power (+1/2), Autofire 3 shots (+1 1/4), 0 END (+1), Self Only (-1) [11-v] +12 OCV [12-v] +12 DCv [12-v] Works out to 147 points. I might be wrong about Autofire; I'm assuming since aiding yourself doesn't require an attack roll that you have to pay the +1 premium on it, but that may not in fact be true. It occurs to me that neither of these really work though because they don't give a 0 END +1 DC. I don't really know how to do that without "special GM permission" (and returning to a variant of Sean's original idea): VPP CSLs Pool Cost 10pts [10] VPP CSLs Control Cost, Cosmic (+2), Only for OCV, DCV, or a +1 DC naked advantage (-2) [5] Define the naked advantage as +1d6 Blast, 0 END, Variable Special Effects, or +1 DC RKA with the same advantages, and so on. That gives you 15 points for the equivalent of 2 overall levels, so saving of 20 points - but it does require that you allow a naked advantage in a power framework, which typically is verboten.