DasBroot

For attacks, maybe you want to consider the DCs rather than just the point cap. 

 

If I had set a cap at 60 points as you give in your example, I would consider the first option to be a clear violation of that. I also wouldn't let you buy a 4D6 HKA and increase it using a power framework (e.g., a multipowr slot for +2D6 HKA).

A mistake I made and won't make again at character creation in my first attempt at a Champions game in 20 years two years ago.  I put a 60 AP cap but didn't make a DC cap per se - so more than one person ended up with a base 70 str and a 12d6 hand attack.  26d6 wasn't what I had in mind - especially when people new to the system thought they were doing pretty well with their multipower with a 12d6 blast in it.  They didn't know they 'had' to take an out of pool Aid for it to be anywhere near the bricks and 'having' to take anything was a feeling I wanted to avoid.

Then there was the system pro that had an energy attack with three naked advantages laired on to it. Double armor piercing, autofire, and no-end.  Burned a lot of points on a one trick pony - but it was a hell of a trick.

Little of column a, little of column b.  

My current brick in a game that I'm playing, not running, has a base 40 strength and a 20 point multipower.  In the pool are straight up extra strength, a ground cone attack (str w aoe), a flash attack linked to STR (right in the breadbasket!), str with double knockback,  and newly the ability to punch things through a wall (indirect stretching).

I use Champions Complete and if it weren't for the fancy punches (the blinding knee to the groin, the indirect) technically it would be 'better' overall to buy 59 str base and then make a 1 point multipower to throw the mods in - since damage class is adjusted on the fly under the 'adding damage' rules.  I've just never been a fan of that thinking (and might be wrong about it).

I looked at it this way: Most combats or stories I provide a similar point value GMPC from a pool of people that the team has helped/worked with before anyway as an interactive mouthpiece and light combat support (no party buffs, no controls - just hitting things) - if the mastermind gets to say 'he works for me' when Konig Lederhosen pile drives Armadillo into the sewer via a street instead of Lederhosen already being on the scene (maybe the one who called the heroes in the first place) I'm ok with that.

If you go the 'no more than two' as a limitation route you just have to figure out how limiting that actually is for the character.  On the surface it might seem incredibly limiting - if they're 300 points you've reduced his follower active points from 4800 to 600: a factor of 8. This is 'almost entirely' which is -1.5 to -2 but that doesn't feel right - but if these minions aren't meant to be the core of the character, just an add on, and the player is trustworthy and not going to take that rebate and do something terrible with it I'd consider it.

It will come down to other people at the gaming table as much as anything - are they ok with 'Bob' getting 3 turns?  Will they follow suit and have you end up running an army per fight? My golden rule is "When the stars align and your shtick goes off - how much fun is it for everyone else at the table?".  

1 - 90 points or more in attacks and defences isn't terrible - so long as everyone is similar.

2 - Can't speak to direct conversion points but with that kind of active point expenditure you'll have to fudge any opponent a bit based on their role (let the mooks still be mooks, beef up the threats). Don't worry about the points on villains in the adventure so much as making sure that if they are supposed to be 'as powerful as the hero' that they have attacks and defences comparable to what the heroes are fielding (hence my comment 'so long as everyone is similar').  

3 - You are correct.  If his invisibility is always on to hearing he can't be heard. Not even by discriminatory. It's one of the most obviously  disadvantaged 'Always on' there is - one actually worth points as opposed to an attempt at free points (I'm looking at you, always on life support)

4 - Entangle scares me.  I'll let others take a crack at it.

Edit: As for the ocv/dcv penalties and attacking invisible opponents they're in the books. And frankly, it's painful. The character will be more or less untouchable at range without tactics or special powers from the opponents.  Let him get away with it frequently (though given his entangle attempt I'd be less lenient than normal) but as the world learns of him don't be afraid to have organizations adapt from time to time - held actions with AoE attacks to target the hex his attacks come from, etc.  Try not to give everything under the sun a targeting sense that can find him but do make a few enemies that can (Danger sense, spacial awareness, etc). 

Ah, the classic Obfuscation power from Vampire: The Masquerade.  Guard: "Wall, floor, couch, potted plant, desk, vampire, chairs, wall safe ... room's all clear, guys!"

A character in my game has this exact power.  It was written up as Invisibility with a Psychic SFX and a -1/4 limitation (doesn't work on machines).  The player wanted the effect to linger - even if caught on camera a person reviewing it later would be 'fuzzed' as well (like in the movie Frailty) - to the frustration of the facial recognition program saying 'no seriously... it's this guy again.' The only reason it was worth the 1/4 is the established presence of autonomous security drones and occasional AI in the setting.

I actually had this exact situation come up.  We had to sit down and discuss what the player was actually looking for out of the situation and in the end we went with this:

Contact (Contact has access to major institutions, Contact has extremely useful Skills or resources, Contact has significant Contacts of his own, Contact is slavishly loyal to character), Organization Contact (x3) (45 Active Points) Roll: 16-

And specified that part of the 'extremely useful skills or resources' would occasionally include combat support resources - doing things like securing the perimeter, reporting on activity, etc - and if the need came up the contact organization itself would step into combat at his side with a fully GM built and controlled NPC built to similar points as the rest of the team (so stronger than a follower, but not directly controlled by the player - despite the loyalty).  

That might seem like a bargain, and it was, but it was mechanically a lot cleaner than specifically telling him 'please don't do that' if he wanted to field the thirty-two 175 point followers he'd bought.  He was the mastermind he wanted to be as his organization worked in the background and I actually varied the 'combat' NPC depending on circumstance and location - giving me a chance to introduce new characters to the game (They were fond of "Konig Lederhosen" - the Bavarian Brawler, Master of the Sidewalk Shattering Suplex.  He wasn't too bright but when you can head-butt buildings who needs brains?).

The magic users are suffering from

 

1) Behind Cover Penalties

2) Having to heal more than attack.

3) A Dominating Swordsmen Ratio That Allows For Them To Force The Spell Casters To Follow The Swordsmen's ideas instead of their own.

 

 

1 - Remove cover penalties for spells.  Either just do or give casters a few Penalty Skill Levels to counter cover penalties for free.

2 - Why? If the casters are having to heal more than attack in my own game either I would think  1) the swordsman defences are too low for my game or 2) my damage is too high.  Both look the same on paper but reasons can separate them in practice.  Falling back for recovery actions on occasion as their fellow swordsmen defend for them really should be all a Hero character needs to stay on their feet for the fight. Save the healing for the end of the fight.  Hopfully it's not 3) The mages are fireballing the pesky fighters that keep getting in their way (tempting though it is). 

3 - That's the only thing not within your power to change instantly as the GM.  If the spellcaster players are literally being outvoted by their fellow players that's a serious problem at the table - and making the dominating players be mages won't fix it. If their style is the kick the door down and kill everything as a fighter there's a good chance they'll still kick the door down and kill everything as a mage.  Many, many times over the decades have I seen the softspoken player who made a character with all the social skills not get to say a word because Mogdar the Cha 8 Barbarian's player is a much more vocal and forceful person in life.

I don't know the details of your setting, game, or world - but maybe mix in a few things not that only mages can deal with at the expense of fighters (a super armored golem) but in addition to the fighters (a couple of things with Desolidification affected by magic mixed in a fight with other things. The fighters mow down the necromancer's skeleton legion while the casters blast at his spectral allies.

Or slip into Advanced Mode and have the party split every once in a while - run simultaneous fights as the fighters lay waste to a room of orcs as the spellcasters slip by to deal with their master.  The power differences in my own Champions game are such that the team very *rarely* fights together - but they always fight at the same time.

Lucius and Scott nailed it - in my own games, regardless of genre, I tend to build world-down.  In some ways that's neccessary, especially in Champions (where unless you've restricted it somehow it's not hard for characters of any power level to decide to fly to anywhere in the world if they want) but in other ways it diverts creative attention away from making the places where you *want* the players to spend their time appeal to them enough to want to spend time there.  I've had to really dial in and focus on the places they are instead the places they may go recently as a result.

System/mechanically speaking ease of travel, in my opinion, can be one of the greatest challenges of running the Hero system regardless of genre.  In a standard fantasy RPG like D&D you tend to have *time* to sort the world details out as the low level characters save the township/village/etc while working their way up to saving the world - your 'world' is a pretty small place if all you have are horses. Deciding what movement types you'll allow and to what levels can be an important decision.

Persuasive arguments for the bracing standing - it does make sense as a pseudo constant power.

Had the character been imperiled by the result (knocked into a vat of acid, off a cliff, etc) I would have ruled the other way for sure.

Multipower's power slots are fixed. A VPP is not.

ie: Multipower: 60 points.  It can have any number of powers slotted into it, but each are paid for individually and can only use 60 AP at once

Often used for full AP attacks like this:

Punch Attack Pool (60 points)

slot 1: HTH (60 ap) cost 6 

Slot 2: HTH with Range advantage (60 ap) cost 6

slot 3:  HTH with AoE (60 AP) cost 6

In that example he can use one punch at a time but can change which one he wants to use as a zero phase action every phase  - ideal for attack pools that will never change - only be added to.

It could also be used for three 20 point powers at once, etc.  Basically if you never care about changing out what the power slots can do, only adding to your repertoire, a multipower is the simpler way to go.

VPP slots aren't fixed - you pay for the pool (how many points of powers you can have active at once) and control (the strongest level of power).  If you followed the same example above with a 60 Pool, 60 Control you'd end up with one attack power that could be anything you want - if you change it between adventures.

So one day it c ould be the HTH, the next the HTH with range, the next the HTH.  Frankly VPP are terrible for attacks I find - ironically not versatile at all.

What they are good at, though, is miscellaneous use. That same 60 / 60 could have every life support slotted into it as well as a 30 point flight.  The next time you play it could have 20 points of PD and 40 meters of teleport.  The time after Dimensional Travel with a few weight multipliers.  Whatever.

VPP get more mileage out of disadvantages on the individual powers, however, since the Real Cost is used to determine how many powers you can have in it at any time.  That's more advanced than I can hope to explain with any brevity, though.

Interesting situation - a character was using their strength to resist knockback but an abnormally high damage roll saw them be stunned by the damage of the attack they were trying to resist.

I ruled that since knockback is calculated after damage the intended set action of using the strength to resist it failed and the character went skipping down the street (actually a beneficial result for the character in question, as opposed to being stunned at the feet of something that could clearly harm them).  Could a case be made to resisting the impact and then falling prone stunned instead?

I was debating that internally myself.

If you put it on the strength the stretching still can't get through the obstruction and the strength still has no range (and can't have Range added to it) so I'm not sure what indirect would even do as a naked advantage on strength (except *very* expensively replicate the 5 point adder Alterable Origin Point?).

I guess you could add it to both but that seems excessive - and frankly at that point you're  better off buying Telekinesis with the Instant limitation on it (which was my first and simplest idea), but several of my attacks in the "Punch all the Things" multipower pool are compound power slots - like an eye gouge that is a +hth damage power with a 3 segment Sight Flash that I'd like to use.

Since the NPC in question can't ever willingly change into the demon (presumably) it's not really a case of accidental change in my opinion.

I'd go with:

Multiform, No Conscious Control (-2). That lets the GM decide when the multiform is used and to what point level. Sounds like a curse to me. A case could made for the -1 instead since you can't really change the level of effect on a multiform. 

That should do it by itself, but if you want to get over-complicated you can add Trigger: Set trigger, activating the trigger is an action that takes no time, trigger resets automatically immediately after it activates, character does not control activation of personal trigger (+3/4).

Might want to add difficult to dispel on the multiform as well, or even inherent, if the intention is to have the possession cured by plot element rather than power use. 

One of my team-mates has a Barrier power.  I want to punch someone they have englobed.  Or punch someone through a window without breaking it.  Or a wall (I have penetrative sight).  Basically, this character really likes to punch things.

I think stretching for the reach is a good first step, but the built in indirect is insufficient even with the 'doesn't cross intervening space' advantage so I figure I need to take Indirect on it.

How many levels of Indirect do I need?  I think it's the +1/2 advantage - source point differs every use (instead of my body it's the other side of the barrier), path doesn't change (direct to whoever I punched) - but  I'm not certain.

Or is this even possible?

Gotta disagree with Marcdoc about point cas being a hinderence. Even being experienced GM they are a useful tool.

I think it was back in the SETAC days leading up to 6e that one of us mentioned certain advantages causing issues with AP caps. Steve Long indicated that was why he set caps in terms of DC's, not AP. So the 5e/6e designer thinks so as well.

Yes to both these things.  In my long term gaming group (over two decades) we love the idea of Champions, but each of us picked a 'specialty' to GM. One guy was the Champions guy. I'm  the D&D and Shadowrun guy.  Another guy was the White Wolf guy.

The Champions GM hated the idea of caps with a passion, as well as any kind of GM oversight on powers, really.  It's a disasterous combination. Any attempt for the 'Champions GM' to run a game usually ended in two sessions of character creation, 1 - 3 sessions of play, and then - having ruined his story and possibly the entire setting due to a few unforeseen power combinations on a few notoriously disruptive players (pretty much all of us back when we were teenagers, if I'm looking back objectively)  - done. This happened a half dozen times over the past two decades.

I decided to take a stab at the Champions GM slot and treated it the same way.  It wasn't a TOTAL disaster but three sessions in we, in a group vote, decided to rework the characters with DC caps on attack powers and AP caps on everything else this time (at character creation).  Inexperienced players were doing things like taking 30d6 blasts but themselves only having 15 rPD/rED . Experienced players were going the other direction - enhancing defenses to ridiculous levels (needed if Mr 30d6 got Mind Controlled with his whopping 10 ego and no Mental Defense, in their minds) and keeping attacks moderate.  What our resident 'if it doesn't have a stop sign, it's crap' player ended up doing leapfrogged past 'kill the game' straight into 'kill the genre'  (he left the game after the rework).

The only real rule we have in our gaming group regardless of RPG is "When your shtick goes off - how fun is it for everyone else at the table?" - yet Champions, where that rule is needed most, has always been our kryptonite.  It's fine for Iron Man and the Punisher to team up in a comic book but at a table (unless you go out of your way to split the party) they really don't belong in the same fight.

The caps did help everyone get on the same page - and after the first 12 experience points I took the caps off.  With xp being slow and powers being expensive people are tending to do things like pick up slots in a multipower or raise a skill over setting anything to 'max'.  When another player decided he wanted to run his own Champions game on alternating dates with me there was no question as to whether we'd use the caps at character creation again - we just each see 'superhero' too differently to do otherwise.

Would you, as a GM, let a character using a persistent or constant power that has a hand held OAF (a magic wand used to put up Resistant Protection, a sword that provides Power Defense, etc) benefit from that power if they put that item away but it remained Obvious (wand tip still glows, sword sparkles, etc) and Accessible?

Pros (player): Obviously it means you don't have to run around with a magic wand in your hand all day if you want your Mage Armor spell to last.  It lets you use the power and then use your hands for something else. Though Baron William may wonder why you have your mage armor spell up at his ball while dancing with his daughter.

Pros (GM): It's easier to Disarm since the attempt isn't resisted by the targets strength any longer. Handy if said Focus provides Strength.

Cons (player): That whole disarm thing.  If your rival uses a 3 point Telekinesis to steal the wand on your belt that is currently sustaining your 60 ap Resistant Protection power you have nobody to blame but yourself.

Cons (GM): Here's where opinion comes in.  I don't really see any.  So long as the criteria of the limitation are met  and the Focus remains Obvious (so no sticking it in your backpack), and Accessible (so no chaining it to your belt with anything that would impede its removal: a length of iron chain, a magic scabbard that is itself an IIF that somehow holds the item in place (Clinging, Telekinesis, selective Desolidification, etc)) I don't see a problem.

You can guess how I ruled in my game but I'm curious as to how other GMs would.

Thanks for the replies.

 

Some interesting ideas. Hmm. Given a ballistic trajectory, would Leaping, Usable Against Others make sense?

Careful with the UAA and travel powers. That way leads to the dark side in a hurry.

The player calculation being halved again in the original post was a typo on my part.  

Thanks for the answers and asking Steve Long.

At what step does Power Defense get applied to a negative adjustment power attacking a defensive attribute?

Or, if easier, at what point does the effect of that attack get halved?

Right now I'm running it like this - a 12 point standard effect Drain Body attacks a character with 5 power defense:

12 (effect) - 5 (power defense) = 7 .  7 / 2 = 3.5 = 4 Body gets drained .

A player maintains that the true way of handling it is 12 / 2 = 6 (because the 'effect' is halved) - 5 = 1 / 2 = 1 Body

I  figure it's no different than how PD/ED and Damage Reduction interact with regular damage - but I could be wrong.

A player in my game has a 20 minute continuing charge on his invisibility power (an invisibility spell).  He also has multiform to take the form of various elementals in combat.  If he multiforms while the charge is running does he end up with an invisible earth elemental, for example, or does the power end prematurely (for some reason)?

Thank you

 

A few thoughts:

• +10 vs range mods for sight means no penalties out to 8km (if I've done my math right). That might be more than you need.
• 12 points of Flash Defense is overkill. You're protected against 99.74% (actual percentage) of attacks at that level. Dropping it to 9 would still protect you against 82.5% of attacks, and save you a couple of points. (8 points of FD would protect you against 62.25%, in case you were wondering.)
• If I was the GM, I'd definitely want to know how these qualified as, "Perceivable". It's not just that people can see he has implants. They have to be able to tell what functions he's using.

 

Solid case for 9.  Two points is two points - though I'm not sure where I'd reinvest them as they'd literally be the only two points I have left.

Not sure what the reasoning behind 'perceivable' was, myself (I purchased the basic cybereyes from his special equipment list and then sunk my points into augmenting them - 'stock' they were Nightvision, 6 points of telescopic, +2 perception, and 6 points of flash defense) but I agree.  I'd probably go for Non-persistent - having to reactivate the special vision modes after being stunned or KO'd makes thematic sense. Or maybe Extra-Time - Delayed Phase only to activate.

My original cybernetic eyes looked like this:

Cyber-Eyes, all slots Perceivable (-1/4), Unified Power (Cyber-Eyes) (-1/4)

1) Nightvision (Active Points 5), Real Cost 3

2) +10 vs Range Modifier for Sight Group (Active 15), Real Cost 10

3) +4 Perception with Sight Group (Active Points 8), Real Cost 5

4) Sight Group Flash Defense (12 points) (Active Points 12), Real Cost 8

Total Cost 26

Not that I ever come near it but there's a total limitation maximum on any given power in our games of -1.5 (well, that's all you get credit for, point rebate wise  - nothing's actually stopping anyone from putting -6 on their power if they want) .  That's about it for build restrictions.

(My other 9 points went to 3 rPD and 3 rED - dermal plating.  Felt a little squishy with the Modern Soft armor (Def 6) we were provided for free since 2 to 2.5d6 killing attacks will be pretty common)

The holding the barrel angle was what got me thinking.

Building it as a compound power is definitely a neat idea that I could see working (we only get 35 points for powers and I spent mine pretty quickly on cybernetic eyes with a ton of adders including a probable overdose of 'flare compensation' (flash defense) but I might be able to retool a bit before play starts).

Does telescopic on a targeting sense counter Range Penalties in addition to countering Range Modifiers?  Thematically I would think so. That being said since it costs the exact same as Penalty Skill Levels for All Attacks it's a flat out better choice if it does and is available for purchase in the game being run, and that always gets me thinking.