Jaxom

Re: Rolling mechanic question Put in zeros. You're going to argue that 11 or less is the same odds as 9 or more. This is incorrect and hence so is the conclusion. It's why I keep saying that everyone should be checking their claims by putting in the zeros.

Re: Rolling mechanic question Ok, I finally got where you're coming from but I think that your math is in error. That's the point of looking at the distributions... SteveZilla made the same mistake in his post when he said This is why I very carefully said you want to use algebra of inequalities and understand probability distributions instead of just using algebra naively... Steve's math is ignoring the inequality... Roll <= OCV +11 - DCV Take the case where OCV and DCV are zero (or equal) and you get Roll <= 11 which is a 62.5% chance. If you change the inequality (choose roll high) then you want to use Roll >= OCV - DCV - If you take OCV and DCV of zero again, you should get Roll >= and if you want to say that you get the same odds (i.e. it doesn't matter which way you choose to roll, you get the same chance) then your constant when rolling high is 10. Note that if you opt to use 10 instead of 11 in the original equation, then you get 11 instead of 10 in the follow-up. Whether you want to consider this a function of the algebra of inequalities or a function of probability curves (both of which could be argued), the fact remains that there is no number in a 3d6 distribution which allows you the same probabilities if you say "roll this or higher" or "roll this or lower". If you had a true integer mean (instead of 10.5) then you could use the true mean and base your number on that with the result you want. Rolling 4d6 and using the number 14, you get the behavior you want. As long as you are using 3d6 to roll to-hit though, if you change from roll-high to roll-low you cannot use the same offset without changing the odds of the roll no matter what offset you use. Perhaps a better way of pointing this out is that under the current system with zero OCV and DCV you have a 62.5% chance of being hit (11 or lower to hit). If you don't change the constant but change the direction of the roll, you *don't* have a 62.5% chance of being missed. Instead you have roll 11 or higher to hit which is a 50% chance. If you were playing with 4d6 around 14, you really could change the direction of the roll with impunity but because it is 3d6 with a non-integral mean there is no integer value that you can ever pick that will behave the way you described. Don't get me wrong, I understand what you want and I understand the temptation. Run the numbers. 10 does not work for you any better than 11 does.

Re: Rolling mechanic question

Re: Rolling mechanic question Because of the nature of the 3d6 distribution, Sean is correct that you can swap 3d6 less than or equal to 11 for 3d6 greater than or equal to 10. Since what he wants is a high-roll system, his proposal of 3d6+OCV greater than or equal to DCV plus 10 is a statistical equivalence. I dunno that it is necessarily more intuitive to me, but it does satisfy his goal.

Re: Rolling mechanic question

Re: The Rouges of Sci-Fi This clearly falls into the list of things I will have to remember when talking to 12-year-olds in Warcraft. Off I go to see what kind of even more obscure references I can use it for. I like the writeup of the Rat. I should clearly spend more time thinking about Star Hero and other future-tech campaign settings...

Re: Can't Touch This (Except Slowly!) Actually, the reason I put in Restrainable was because if the target is restrained, then it should be fairly simple for even an untrained fool to push his hand (and a knife) through the shield. Although I can think of no examples in the books or the many movies, it seems to me that if someone wearing a personal force-field were to stand still or be otherwise immobilized that anyone could tag them with a knife. Note that I very carefully did *not* apply that limitation to the portion that works against projectiles.

Re: Trying to develop an interesting power set Typical Gadget VPP with limitation Focus required to change power slots. Focus is standard "power suit" focus. Might also RSR: Gadgeteer to change power slots. Might also require extra time to change power slots depending on how long it takes you to gadgeteer. Alternative interpretation... Time to change power slots is variable/rolled/RSR and he's spending time rummaging through pockets finding the right item/part.

Re: Silly Star Hero game idea: Star Mice I just wanna know if you guys are going to commission an even bigger computer to determine the question to life, the universe and everything. More honestly though, the initial thought that I had was that mice get into everything through holes that would normally leak atmosphere... And then they survive on available food-stuffs. You might be able to handwave a lot of that stuff away, but you might want to give some thought to whether or not food and power consumption by your mice is noticible to the larger inhabitants of the ship... With teleporters you don't really have to worry about holes in the bulkheads at least...

Re: Japanese Powered Exoskeleton Thanks for the additional links, Curufea. With a little more digging I found some more information on this... Apparently the suit in the original link is HAL-5. Fifth generation of the research project. There are a couple more articles (by narrowing to "robot suit HAL" I managed to hit the top 10 articles or so). There is some interesting video with English translation including a comparison of the deep knee bends I mentioned with a person not in the suit. There are also articles about a mountain climber using it to take a quadrapalegic up a mountain (which I didn't read in depth). Based on numbers they are publishing, for about $70,000, you too can buy 30 STR plus 30 STR only for casual STR. Apparently they expected to produce a small number of these this year (like 10) and expect to make a few hundred next year.

Re: Japanese Powered Exoskeleton Ok, I admit to not speaking Japanese so I can't make heads or tails of what the spokesman is saying, but watching the video I am not sure this is anything more than a cartoon. They show a guy doing some knee bends, ok... With bags of stuff in his arms, ok... And he can walk up and down stairs... Cool... So can I, without a costume. Don't get me wrong, it looks way cool and all... With names like Cyberdyne and HAL being thrown around like they are though, I am more inclined to think that this is just a couple of Japanese guys laughing behind their hands at YouTube and followers... **EDIT** Ok, the poster is itnsource which makes it all the more likely that it is a pre-research mock-up or an outright fabrication in my book, but it is still very visually appealing. **EDIT** Anyone got more information about this?

Re: Power Suit examples I've been doing the power armor thing myself recently and here are some tidbits that I can pass along. First, you are not supposed to put sensory powers into a Multipower so your GM may complain about that. Personally, I think it is great for power armor and makes a lot of sense, especially if it takes the limitation "costs END" and draws from the suit END reserve. Second, and far more important, the way you build your power armor will have a huge effect on what happens in the game. OIF Power Armor (-1/2) is how a lot of people tend to build, but if you read through the rules for foci, this has some effects that you may not intend... First, if you get stunned or knocked out, the power armor can be removed fairly quickly by anyone, including your enemies. Second, all foci can be targetted and damaged or destroyed. Right now, just scanning quickly, the biggest power I see in your battle armor is your speed enhancement at 50 Active Points. That means that your armor has a DEF of 10 (50/5) and that anything that hits it (GM may make that a called shot to vital points on the armor itself or may just say anything that hits you and hence the armor) and does more than 10 points of body will start shutting down systems in the power armor. A multipower is considered a single power for the purposes of this shutting down, so one shot can eat all your forcefields, all your motion, all your weapons or all your sensors. Alternatives come from the post KillerShrike made just above me. By making the armor a more inherent part of the character either by using OIHID or just buying the powers outright, you can avoid the possibility of those powers being shut down. Remember, just because it sounds like the special effects, it may not be the case that you want the limitation... A limitation that is not limiting is not worth any points so if you take the limitation, expect your GM to do nasty things to you with it.

Re: Can't Touch This (Except Slowly!) EB, RKA, pick your poison... Essentially, you have the freedom to pick and scale as will suit your universe. It's been 20 years since I read the books so I don't recall what Frank said about personal shield generators. My memory of scenes from the 1984 movie is that they had a visible box on their belt and if it was not on it seems like OIF would be appropriate. This could be bad memory and totally off base though. As with most things sci-fi, I don't think to much about actual physics (like momentum) when looking at these things. The movies show people knocking each other around in shields which makes great cinematography, but again, I don't recall whether or not Frank said anything about inertia. Imparting momentum could be done with the right build (doesn't stop knockback and then giving guns some amount of KB based on weight of gun/projectile being used) but it would have to be pre-planned and applied to all weapons in the universe. I think full superheroic KB would be *way* too much but 1-hex or knock-down might make sense. This also leads to some interesting questions about being crushed by a falling rock... Would it knock you down or bounce off? If it knocks you down and lands on you, does it then shift slowly enough to penetrate the shield and crush you completely? I considered explosions outside the shield a little bit and they are potentially nasty for a number of reasons. This is an unwritten consequence of the DCV build I suggested... If a person targetted a hex with something AE, it would (by the rules) not be affected by a DCV-based shield build. That would make the use of explosions more dangerous. You might be able to build in a damage reduction on AE effects to show the elimination of damage from flying shrapnel but then taking damage from heat, overpressure and being knocked around. Thinking more about the physics as defined by Frank and shown in the links earlier in this thread, I'd be investing heavily in napalm and white phosphorus weapons.... Heat, oxygen deprivation and sticky power effects like Napalm should have some effect, in some cases complete effect, against a shielded target.

Re: Looking for recommendations for Power Armor information Thanks for all the feedback, guys. These are basically conclusions that I came to looking at the rules myself but it is good to hear other people weigh in with the same answer... I'll give some thought to writing all this stuff up as a single source and posting it for comment and feedback so that we can actually get a thread to point people at for canonical armor rules.

Re: Can't Touch This (Except Slowly!)

Re: Looking for recommendations for Power Armor information I believe that is in 5th Edition (and probably FRED) in the expanded information about Foci. I recall it as well... But what is the flip-side? Assume I am building a power armor blaster. Can I opt not to put any other defenses in and still get 18 (essentially free) points of DEF? The distinction between character (with armor, STUN and BODY) and the focus (with DEF) gets really fuzzy. With a laser gun or a magic ring or something there is a way to shoot the person wearing the focus. Not so with power armor logically, but in general I have learned (or trained myself) to avoid trying to apply logic and instead use the rules and the game-effect to reason the build. If I do that here, you can shoot the "character" without hitting the "armor" so that you hit the right set of numbers on the paper. You just get some wonky situations and I grovel at the feet of the masters seeking canon law (and cannon law, for that matter) before I sit down with the GM and resort to hose ruling some things.

Re: Looking for recommendations for Power Armor information In this particular case, I am trying to build a character for a supers campaign (Champions varient) and it was going to be my first foray into the hardcore power-armor idea, but while I have a number of examples, I have very few good rules-based reasons for them. My initial intent was to go with the OIF focus route and build everything on the armor, but then I dug a bit and got into rules areas that seemed pretty grey... For example, if I build a blaster with a 90 active point multipower in it and someone tries to shoot the blaster it has 18 DEF (ap/5) and if that is exceeded something breaks (one of the powers in the focus)... This sounds like a really cool mechanic... Now let's apply it to power armor... Umm, don't they always hit the focus? So I have two mechanics for taking damage from every shot? Or does shooting the character not ever risk breaking the suit unless someone targets the suit specifically (aiming for a joint or something specific instead of just the whole character)? And then in Gargets and Gear there are some really cool examples with limits on how many points can be built into different parts of the armor (boots, gauntlets, exoskeleton) but if there is a reference about *why* those numbers exist, I missed it. Don't get me wrong... By citing these examples, they are not the only questions that have me stumped, but are examples of the kind of thing I am hoping to see answered in a "rules reference" like I asked for initially.

Re: Can't Touch This (Except Slowly!) Ummm... I think I would call this an insanely high DCV possibly coupled with Immunities or serious Damage Reduction with limitations. Forget the SFX and think in terms of the game effect, then write the SFX you want. The point is that for the right kind of attack the shield does nothing. The quote is not, "You'd have joined me in having a small scratch." The shield does nothing of note against a slow blade. So, in terms of cinematic effect, two guys with knives go at each other and until one of them makes a very specific, controlled attack (i.e. a really good attack roll) neither of them takes damage. When that attack gets through, it can kill in a single blow (i.e. does full damage to a Normal Char Maxima target). I'd still lean toward a build that looked more like: +6 SLs DCV (restrainable, OIF) +15 SLs DCV (OIF, not against melee or slow-projectiles) SFX: anything that would hit normal target DCV hits but does no damage Side Effect: If target is hit by an energy beam Scale the DCV contributions based on the power level of your campaign so that a skilled melee fighter stands a chance to hit but a projectile weapon will not.

A while back I started looking for information about Power Armor suits and got some good stuff... I'm still looking for good sources... I have a copy of Gadgets and Gear which does have a chapter on power armor but it is almost all examples. What it does not have is the rules behind some off-hand comments that caught me off guard... I also tried a search here on the forums but I am not smart enough to make it search for the phrase "Power Armor" (instead of just the pair of words, ya know a lot of threads talk about powers and armor). Is there a good source, product or forum, that discusses the rules implications for building power armor? (E.G. The 5th edition rules do a nice job of pointing out that you should make vehicle and base weapons bulky OIF or IIF items because they are not designed for removal and use generally and I am looking for similar suggestions and logic regarding power armor builds).

Re: When success is a failure Alternatively, use the roll to define the SFX. A failure is a failure. A success is a success. If you fail with an even roll, you don't understand enough to explain. If you fail with an odd roll, you over-analyze and get tired-head. Or maybe the player gets to decide which is which... The problem with this is that it means that a player who wants to be an expert in "temporal/zen physics" spends fewer points on it than someone who wants to be ok at it. And someone who wants to "become and expert" needs to be allowed to remove points from the skill at some point.

Re: Invisibility, No Fringe, Requires Squid What, they can't? But didn't Star Trek say... Oh, wait... That was Cetaceans.

Re: Complex power build advice needed You're approaching this using the same "math-head" approach that I tend to use. It may not be entirely appropriate here, but it is appealing because it is simply explained (even if not simply solved) and can be justified. As the other two have suggested, there is also the complete opposite which is to go with Transform as an abstract and simple build, even if you added the partial limitations that Psylint suggests. Rather than go with the array as you have suggested, I am going to suggest that you (or you and the GM if that is not you) sit down and discuss how you see this power being used and define an appropriate custom limitation. I don't know what will be most common, but I can envision situations where you might want to duplicate a low-point-value, high mass object like a stack of bullion or a set of barbells. In that situation it seems you would expect to spend extra time, but not make the AR. It seems, then, that you are taking too much limitation for the points there. This will likely make the power more expensive (which should be the case if the situation I described above is at all common) and will mean that you might have to re-evaluate the limitation if you put more experience into the power during game-play.

Re: What rule don't people know? I'll fess up to being one of the people who always pauses gape-mouthed and says "You can haymaker that?"... I'm learning though.

Re: Is "Hollywood-style" decompression accurate? So is he a replicant or a replicant hunter? Hollywood loves to ask questions like that and leave it open for the audience but in this case you have to have suspension of disbelief and accept the cartoon science for the question to hold. The fact that they ask the question implies that they want to think that it is ambiguous and that means they were ignoring the right physics. At least that's my $0.02.

Re: Help with Power: Regen as Armor I wholeheartedly agree with this. And I know that my original question was a kinda obscure build which is why I brought it here. Using regen as a special effect for armor is not something I have a problem with at all but it leads to situations which numerically look strange.... Take my earlier example where you have regen 3 Body, rPD 3. If you get shot by a guy with an uzi (call it 1d6 killing per shot, AF 5, just off the top of my head) you get to apply the armor to each shot. He hits you 4 times and gets some crummy damage rolls of 3, 2, 4, 2. Your "special effect" eliminates all but 1 point of damage instead of only eliminating the first shot and then being overwhelmed. Take the flip side where he rolls 6, 5, 5, 5 and you wind up "regenerating" 12 points of body this segment, but only 3 each for the next three segments. Numerically this is not appealing to me, but it is certainly and easier and cheaper build which maintains the feel of regenration as defenses. In the end, it seems as though the only solution to the numerical matching is going to be a GM-approved limitation combined with other limitations like ablative defenses and is still probably not worth it simply to make me happy with the numbers. (I'll confess that I was hoping for a cleaner build for it although I didn't really expect it.)