GAZZA

Re: More Blockages I have reservations. Firstly, not all blocks are unarmed. From what I understand of fencing, the main advantage of strength is that you can manoeuvre your blade more quickly - the power behind it isn't really as big a deal. I have a hard time believing that you would define a successful fencing parry as anything less than "deflected the blade so it missed"; to my mind, if you only partly deflected it so you still got stabbed, then in Hero terms I'd say you failed your Block. Of course one can add greater Damage Negation on to weapons to deal with this, but it's not as simple as "bigger damage weapons are better at blocking". Secondly, it calls into question other mechanics. The reasoning here appears to be that Joe Normal trying to block Grond is going to get hurt even if he is successful. We actually already have a mechanic for that if you want it - Damage Shield - but forget that for the moment. Let's consider Dodge in light of this change. Dodge is defined typically as getting out of the way of an attack. But if you can only partially deflect a block, then you most certainly can partially dodge a blow - you didn't quite get out of the way, but you missed the worst of it. More Damage Negation for this? What about considering Speedster Dude, with the power to punch you thousands of times per second. Is it reasonable that Joe Normal could dodge such a person, since by the time he even realises Speedster Dude has moved he's already been punched 500 times? Now of course one could say that Speedster dude should represent this "inability to miss Joe Normal" with a high OCV - which is of course true - but then we return to the fact that if you want to represent things that are dangerous to block, we can use Damage Shield to do so. It comes down to a judgement about whether the average attack is of the "hurt you even if you block" type or not. If you think it is, then I can see why you'd feel that adding Damage Shield to virtually everything was a PITA. But my own intuition suggests the opposite - I'd rather deal with the lightsabers as a special case than the fencing swords, if you take my point. There are already optional rules to represent Joe Normal's difficulty in blocking swords, if you need them (6e2pp58).

Re: Is our approach to ' Combat Levels' fundamentally flawed Snipping to just the bit I want: As you note (and prestidigitator pointed out) the damage bit isn't really going to be that easy. This might work out more similar: Multipower, 90pt reserve [90] Boost 10d6, any one damage power (+1/2), 0 END (+0) (average +35, which is +7 DCs) [18-v] +14 OCV [14-v] +14 DCV [14-v] Note that this doesn't really work either - you could fire up +14 OCV and +4 DCV. You might be able to get it to work with some sort of Boost addon outside the MP with a lockout or something, but it's close enough for government work. This is 136 points, which is pretty close to 14 10pt combat levels.

Re: Visualising Block I once ran a game where one of the PCs was a rock star superhero. He had Armour (it was a 5th edition game) defined as the groupies that always surrounded him throwing themselves in the way of oncoming attacks. But yes, that was very silly.

Re: AE Accurate War! Ugh ... what is it good for? (Absolutely nothing?) Sure, if you don't mind a +2 Affects Physical World on all your other stuff.

Re: Enhanced Senses query: when do you need to buy Discriminatory? Analyze, 6e1pp212, says that you can buy Analyze for Senses that are Discriminatory "... because the Sense Group provides Discriminatory for free ...".

Re: AE Accurate War! Ugh ... what is it good for? (Absolutely nothing?)

Re: Enhanced Senses query: when do you need to buy Discriminatory? Perhaps I phrased the question poorly. Let's try another way. Why would you ever buy Discriminatory for Sight, when you could just buy Analyze for the same cost?

Re: Teleport and Clairsentience Well yes, of course, but I was more interested in how other people did similar things (the question arises for any long range teleport - the light years version I'm doing is merely an extreme case). Ah! Indeed you could. Very clever.

Re: Teleport and Clairsentience Interesting you should say that. The robots in question have the ability to construct a Gate that allows them to come through enmasse, but it's a time consuming operation that requires a lot of rare and exotic materials to do so. The Megascale Teleport power is basically only used to establish an "advance guard", so to speak, since it's risky and often fatal. I will certainly use Targetting Clairsentience - seems like a much better way to do it. I'm not sure what you're referring to by the floating location though. As I understand it, Teleport specifically forbids using Clairsentience to establish a floating point. Can you construct a floating point for somebody else? Transfer it through a Mind Link? That sort of thing?

Re: Visualising Block I'm not saying I wouldn't allow that myself, Sean, but you realise that technically speaking Supes would need Deflection for that - normally, you can't block attacks aimed at those other than yourself. Canonically, he'd probably have to use Dive For Cover to protect Ms Lane. Of course, canonically missed attacks (assuming Lex isn't using an Area Effect Omega Ray) don't hit anything else either, so you're really into a dramatic situation rather than a mechanical one there anyway. Incidentally - I don't have the new Enemies books (I have all my 4th ed ones still,, and I'm not sure whether it's really worth an update - anyone have any advice there?) but there used to be a character in Alien Enemies in 4th edition called "The Champ" that basically had a (poorly constructed, now that I reflect upon it) Missile Deflection ability defined as "bouncing the attack off his chest", more or less. But I guess you're OK with block doing that, just not dodge.

Re: Teleport and Clairsentience Yes, I agree, that's the way I'd do it if I were a PC. But given that the teleport for these dudes includes an activation roll and enough of an RKA to be basically fatal if they fail, they don't really want to muck about with multiple jumps. If Targetting Clairsentience can do the trick though, that's certainly a much more intuitive construct than what I currently have. It's not the cost so much - it's an NPC, it can cost whatever it costs - more interested in the general philosophy of "how do you target Teleports that are megascaled", as there seems to be few examples.

Re: Champions Powers book issues... Here's another observation. Judging by the number of times a Deflection power has a description similar to "To protect himself", it looks likely that someone keeps forgetting that you don't actually need Deflection to do that anymore. For example, Heavy Missiles (pp86) uses it with the description that the missiles "... aimed at him ... fall to the ground before they strike him"; Dimensional Point Defence says that the character can "... keep them from striking him." I'm not wrong about this, am I? As I understand it, in 6e you can block ranged attacks aimed at you without any specific power. (Yes, it says that some GMs might require you to have a shield or something, but I'm assuming that most superheroes are going to be able to do that innately - after all, many of them are stronger than shield materials). Deflection is just if you want to block ranged attacks against someone else now, right?

Re: Visualising Block Well, while Dodge is certainly "better" than Block in a lot of circumstances, Block gives you, in effect, two chances to stop your attacker. First, you get to try your Block. If that succeeds, great, you're set (and as a bonus you get to go first next time). But if you fail, then the attacker doesn't automatically hit you - he still has to make a successful attack. Assuming equal OCV and DCV, your attacker has a 23% chance to hit you if you Block, and a 26% chance if you Dodge. So against a single attacker, you're actually better off Blocking. If you have the Martial versions (and again, assuming your OCV and DCV is otherwise equal to your attacker), your attacker has a 6% chance of tagging you if you Martial Block, and a 9% chance if you Martial Dodge. Obviously Dodge gets better very quickly with multiple attackers though.

Re: Visualising Block For what it's worth, 6e1pp321 specifically uses Block as an example of something that triggers a Damage Shield. So I'm inclined to suggest that it does, indeed, imply contact - if you want a "block" that doesn't trigger Damage Shields, then I think in my campaign I'd have you either buy defences with "only to resist damage incurred while blocking a damage shield" (-2, I think) or more simply to just buy extra DCV with the special effect of "blocking so fast that it doesn't trigger damage shields".

OK, so, you can take AE Radius. For an additional +1/4, you can make it "accurate" so that it only targets a single character. This is somewhat similar, thinks I, to the old AE: One Hex deal. Since the previous editions hexes were 2m in diameter, this is almost exactly the same as a 1m radius. Fair enough so far - certainly you can fit more than 1 human in a 1m radius (in the old rules you could fit 2 people in a hex; if you assume that humans are 1m x 1m x 2m, you can possibly fit 3 in a 1m radius - 3.141592653589... - if you can stack them appropriately ). Now, in 6e, the average human presumably takes up 1m x 1m x 2m. (Can I just say in passing - why has Hero always used metric? Not that I'm complaining - I'm an Aussie, those are the units I'm used to - but as I understand it Hero Games is a US company right?) This means that if you use a 0.5m radius power - I assume that's allowed, right? It says "up to 4m radius", after all - then it basically targets a single person anyway. Possible counterarguments I can see: - "You can't have a 0.5m radius area effect". Well, fair enough, but I can't see any compelling reason not to allow it. I mean, you're getting less than you could have, after all. - "What about dudes that are smaller than that? Your power would still target more than 1". This is true, of course, but is it really worth an extra +1/4 to deal with such a relatively uncommon situation? I would have thought +0 would cover it; it seems approximately equal to "STUN only" (you're giving up the possibility of hitting a 4m radius in exchange for not hurting anyone you don't want to hurt). - "What about Grabbed dudes?" It's not really clear to me that if you've Grabbed someone you really ought to be able to target them without some risk of hitting the other guy. But even if you can, Grabbed dudes are already lowered DCV, which means you don't need Accurate as much to hit them in the first place. I'm just not really seeing why "Accurate" is worth a +1/2 advantage. Let's take a 10d6 Blast (50 Active Points). If you apply AE to that at the +1/4 level, it costs you an extra 12 points; you could instead get +6 CSLs. In a lot of Champions games, you'll often face a better than DCV 9, so it's a good deal to buy at +1/4. On the other hand, at +1/2, you'll at 20 more points, or the equivalent of 10 CSLs. A 13 DCV would be somewhat unusually high - right at the top end of a Standard Superhero game. It is true that the CSL version can be Dodged or Blocked, but it appears to be equally true that an Accurate attack, if missed, runs the danger of hitting someone else as per the standard rules for missed AE attacks. Generally speaking, my experience is that both PCs and NPCs do not "clump" in combat much, in part specifically to minimise the threat their enemies AE attacks pose. You can often fire a 4m radius AE targetted in such a way that it will only hit one target; you can almost always do this with a 1m radius power. Any GM that felt the 1m radius was being abused (and we're assuming he's disallowed the 0.5m radius) would struggle to crack down; sure, villains can grab innocent bystanders to use as "shields" (though they have to make sure they're surrounded by such bystanders, or they have their back to a wall - very situational, in other words), but those bystanders would be at risk from a missed Accurate attack as well. What am I missing? Why is the removal of the possibility to hit multiple targets not balanced with, basically, the removal of the possibility to hit multiple targets? After all, would we say that "STUN only" for a Blast was worth a +1/4 advantage? These two may not be exactly the same thing, but they are clearly comparable; in the one case, the loss of functionality is deemed less than the gain from not hitting innocents (though again, if you miss, it would seem that Accurate attacks are still AEs, subject to the normal miss rules), while in the other case the loss of functionality (not just BODY, knockback too remember) is deemed balanced by the gain of not accidentally injuring your target.

Re: Teleport and Clairsentience Yes, that was certainly the way I read it.

Re: Teleport and Clairsentience Yeah, but does it change the range modifier for a PER roll? That seems unbalancing; it basically means if you have a megascaled Teleport you get megascaled sight for free.

Re: Teleport and Clairsentience The range modifier for a 1000 light year blind teleport is kind of hard to make. While the teleport in my case isn't a gate, I believe you still need to be able to see the target location to open a Gate and I'm also not sure you can open a Gate and not step through. I'd ask it in the Rules Questions but Steve is likely to just respond "No". I'm interested in the reasoning.

Situation: I wish to buy a power that allows me to see and distinguish well between magical auras. On 6e1pp214, there is a power called "Mage's Eye" that appears to be perfect, except for one thing: it has bought both Discriminatory and Analyze. Analyze on 6e1pp212 says that you can buy it for senses that are Discriminatory because the Sense Group provides Discriminatory. On pp209 we see that the Sight Group does indeed provide Discriminatory. Now, I'll grant, it does say this isn't "full" Discriminatory, but no sense group provides that for free. So the way I see it, there are three possibilities: 1. The phrase under Analyze refers to the possibility that you might have previously bought Discriminatory for the Sight Sense Group, for 10 points. However, Analyze specifically says that you can buy it for Sense Groups that provide Discriminatory "for free", which would seem to negate this option. 2. Discriminatory for Mage's Eye is bought because it grants something that Analyze does not. I freely confess this may be the intent, but I am unaware what that might be; the examples for Discriminatory and Analyze suggest that the latter gives you essentially everything the former gives you in much more detail. But possibly that is simply the case of my misunderstanding the examples. 3. Mage's Eye is incorrectly costed, and you do not have to buy Discriminatory before buying Analyze for Sight Group detects. It is the third option I'm leaning towards - have I missed something?

Re: Mental CSL's and base cost weirdness (6e) I think I could probably count on no hands the number of times I've ever seen anyone Bounce anything in my games, but I admit that's more my lack of imagination than anything else.

OK, I thought I had this understood, but Champions Powers is throwing me for a loop. My question is fairly simply put: can you use Clairsentience to perceive your desired location to Teleport to? I was previously of the opinion that you couldn't, based on the following: Clairsentience isn't Targetting (6e1pp179), and even if you make it Targetting it still can't establish LOS. "Viewing a location by television (or similar means) doesn't count as perceiving ..." (6e1pp300). Many Clairsentience sfx are conceptually similar to television. You cannot study a location with Clairsentience to set it up as your floater (6e1pp301) This combination led me to the conclusion - possibly erroneous - that you cannot use Clairsentience to establish the location you wish to Teleport to. However, in Champions Powers pp79, the Stepping Through Shadows variant "Big Steps III" (a megascaled Teleport) says that you can use a power like "Eyes of the Shadow" to perceive the target area. Which is, of course, a Clairsentience power. I'll put this in context. I have some NPC robotic aliens in my Champions campaign that have the power to teleport thousands of light years, built as: Teleportation 10m, Megascale (1m=1000 light years; +5), Activation 11- (-1/2), Side Effect 4d6 RKA (-1) This is 30 active points, 12 real. At the moment, the tricky part is the ability to see their destination. I built this as: Teleport Sensor: Detect precise location to teleport to (mental group), discriminatory, analyze, targetting [base 23]; Megascale (1m=100 lightyears +4 3/4), extra time 1 year to activate (-3), costs END to activate (-1/4) 132 active points, 31 real points, with no discernable use other than to make sure the teleport doesn't miss. (This is based on a similar power someone else posted on the forum; I have lost the original reference, but please do not take this as an implication of plagiarism). It would be very nice to be able to do it with Clairsentience, even if the cost doesn't work out any cheaper.

Re: Mental CSL's and base cost weirdness (6e) Hmm, side question: what happens with ACV attacks? For example: a PC in my campaign has an 12d6 Blast "fireball" with ACV "OMCV vs DCV". Can that benefit from mental CSLs, normal CSLs, neither, or both? The text for Mental CSLs implies that any attack that uses OMCV uses Mental CSLs. But that's a bit weird, as it would imply he can assign the level to increase his DMCV even though that's not what the power targets; it would of course be even weirder to have a mental CSL able to boost the "normal" DCV of the user. Stranger still, the same text says that Mental Powers get to use Mental CSLs - apparently even if they are ACVed such that they now work on OCV vs DCV.

Re: Mental CSL's and base cost weirdness (6e) Your analysis is certainly difficult to refute. Compare it to "normal" powers. You can get +1 to all HTH or all Ranged for 8 points - I submit this is roughly the equivalent of "all mental powers" as far as utility is concerned. This is less than the cost to buy +1 OCV and +1 DCV, so it doesn't seem right that the cost for all mental powers is not also cheaper than +1 OMCV and DMCV. Perhaps it would be best to ditch the 3 point levels entirely and only have the 4 point levels; that would seem the most balanced compromise.

Re: Mental CSL's and base cost weirdness (6e) Assuming you are correct there Sean, it has even more implied consequences for "real" OCV. A brick would appear to be better off ditching or even selling back OCV and buying 3 point levels in Punch, Grab, and Haymaker. Even a martial artist is possibly better off with 5 point levels than "straight" OCV, for much the reasons you come up with. Interesting points.

Re: Combat Flowchart As long as we're talking about Hit Location - anyone besides me think this got overlooked in 6e? Killing Attacks in 6e do 1/2d6 STUN multiplier (average 2) whereas in earlier editions it was 1d6-1 (average 2.667). The big clue that something got missed is that the hit location table is exactly the same as it was before - and the average STUN multiplier if you're using Hit Locations is 2.87 (619/216) - acceptably close in 5e, but way more than normal in 6e. I suppose one could argue that the STUN lottery isn't really as prevalent in a game where you're using Hit Locations - indeed, Hit Locations were previously touted as the "fix" to the STUN lottery - but still, I would have expected with the general STUN reduction of killing attacks in 6e that the Hit Location table would have been revised.