DasBroot

Toying with the idea of removing the DC limit, allowing rebuilds, and then watching him drown in his own paranoia trying to maintain absolute immunity, knowing in his heart of hearts that a 40d6 (60? 80!) blast could be out there waiting for him, or a 60 active point standardized drain speed, or a 24d6 mind control...

Honestly, it's probably the best political decision *and* it provides more leeway for challenging the group, since I was using the same caps. 

I am going to take the suggestions here and mirror match them, however - been looking for an excuse to run a few sessions on Multifarian Earth, anyways.

I considered throwing an 'Evil Twin' at the team, but it would have to be more of a 'mirror match' - my players work really well as a team (honestly, power armor guy spends more  time using Dive for Cover to intercept attacks leveled at the psychic or glass cannon than punching things.) and while the armor provides a decent chunk of mental defense it's mostly the team psychic using mind control defensively that keeps him from being turned into a turnip against the psychic enemies they face.  While he's being a team damage sponge the other brick is rampaging around the battle map beating things up - and would have an exact replica evil twin of the armor grappled in a heartbeat (being 30 points of strength stronger).

I don't want to discourage that in any way.  He's not saying 'Stay and guard the base. I've got this.' and clearing adventures himself... I wish he was because it would be easier to crack down on.  

The second guy is tough but there can be handled. Use Flash, AVAD vs Flash, Darkness, Tunneling, or auto-fire as mentioned above. Since his bubble is Mobile, Bricks can grab and throw him vs 3 DCV. Other Mentalists can attack him and he loses his attack when he has to reset his Barrier. He is far more vulnerable to agents than most supers if very tough vs one or two opponents.

Ok, I flat out missed  that it takes an attack action to activate the barrier defensively.  I thought the attack vs DCV 3 was reserved for using it at range - otherwise why would it be on the list of powers you can abort to?

The player would be fine with spending the attack action - I just want to make sure that's the proper ruling.

"The Big Bad, as Hugh described above, may not have higher DEF or BODY than the PC, but could be plural instead, such as a version of Aaron Allston's Steel Brigade power armored goons, space marines, or bio-driven alien world conqueror machines ala the Mechanoids, serial numbers filed off of the latter to protect rights."

They fight ai controlled automatons immune to stun all the time.  Their main antagonists use them to help capture new psychics to indoctrinate (one of the first fights as a team was one of these "psychic press gangs" trying to get the team psychic, which is how he became 'team psychic').  They typically have defenses of 8, or 6 and 50% damage reduction.  The other brick actually has a low point compulsion towards breaking things, and loves, loves, LOVES when enemy robots show up.

One enemy robot had a 14 - after a few whacks doing 0 the stronger brick put a 40 ton water tower on top of it and walked away.  Its still twitching hand has become background scenery for downtown scenes a few times.

Of course the armor is hardened and impenetrable.... he's learned the hard way with a long list of killer GMs the folly of doing it otherwise.  It's why I *don't* go the route of 'oh yeah, well, penetrating * X+1!"  It's a simple solution, but it gets into an 'arms race' between player and GM that I don't find constructive.  He's a good player and a good friend, but he's damaged goods when it comes to trusting any GM (every RPG his characters are built to be as hard to disable for the GM as possible because of how he's been worked over by his last GMs), and I don't need to feed that distrust.

We've talked about limiting it to 12, but his concern comes from the lack of rules in Champions Complete.  Clearly his Resistant Defense is the largest Power in the armor, so even taking 1 point of damage and rolling a 3 would eliminate it, meaning the next hit would severely cripple and the one after likely destroy it (it has 20 body).  So it's frustratingly hard to challenge AND made of glass.  He might be more willing to the idea if the rules say that armor isn't on the list of Powers that can get turned off - he'd probably be cool with taking a point or two of body every once in a while if it meant his cannon went offline, or he lost a sense, or the flight engines go offline until repair.  Maybe that's us misinterpreting the rules or building the vehicle wrong?  If the armor was bought as base PD/ED instead it couldn't be taken off the list, could it?

Nobody's touched the soap bubble barrier yet, so I assume the power scans as legit (and the paint idea is hilarious and WILL come up, as I have an enemy group which thrives on such insane tactics).  But if it is legit, what would be the difference between allowing it (nearly indestructible vs single tough opponents) and allowing the vehicle? That's kind of been a point of debate in my mind - do I houserule that all characters must take stun, even if it makes no sense?  What if his concept was 'drone pilot' instead, and he sat in the Base, spending his points of vehicles with AIs, and just oversaw them through a video link, giving the AI commands? Size 0 is a real thing for a vehicle size, and can fit wherever a standard character can. Would I demand his army of remote control toys take stun? Those are better built as Automatons with the appropriate modifiers (which makes it pricier to achieve the same results, but the same results can be achieved... with now the added headache of 'I deploy 8').  There are far worse ways to break a champions game's level of power than having a single indestructible unit kicking around at the end of the day - I'm mostly concerned for the morale of other players.

(Our biggest rule is "At the end of the day, when the stars align and your shtick goes off in full... how much fun is it for the other players?" Both he and the psychic are close to skirting that line, but they're both good concepts well executed, so I've been hesitant to say 'no, bad... rebuild using shifting campaign limits because I didn't think things through when designing them')

I've decided vehicles and barriers have to be the bane of any new GM. (Using Champions Complete)

Hamster ball number 1: A size one enclosed vehicle - the dreaded power armor.  Why is vehicle armor so cheap, and not increased in cost like automatons immune to stun are?  The DC cap in the game is 12, and 16 points of hardened and impenetrable PD/ED makes the thing basically indestructible. I understand why the player wanted to go in that direction (aside from avoiding the stun) - he wanted to spend a hundred points on skills and other things and not be at a disadvantage in combat when compared to the other brick, who has ... demolitions and breakfall ... and a vehicle is a stupidly effective way to do so.

The vehicle also has flash defense, power defense, and mental defense, and can teleport - he's a long term champions player and has had some savage "GM vs Player" GMs before - so is paranoid that the moment he doesn't have those defenses they'll be exploited, as they always have been.  Which is why I straddle the line when I wish he didn't have some of those defenses ... so I could challenge the team (ie 'exploit them').  He can't always be responding to another distress call - the player wants to play the game with his friends, not just be at the same table as them doing his own thing.  

Hamster ball number 2: A mobile, dismissable, unanchored, fixed shape (globe) barrier with no range. He uses Telekinisis and Mental Blast as his attacks, so being unable to attack through his own barrier isn't a problem. A near literal hamster ball.  He didn't go the usual 'highest pd/ed I can afford, 1 body' route - he went 1 pd/ed and as much body as he could afford (because he thought the other way was 'overpowered').  I kind of like this one. Strictly speaking, it's not as effective - it can be burned down by a handful of enemies using submachine guns in a hurry - but he's got some resistant defense underneath to take the edge off of overflow damage before he can recreate the globe, and at speed 6 he's fast enough to put it back up before real harm is done most of the time.

Hamster ball number 1 I'm at a loss to challenge in a fight (I can't in good conscience throw Entangles or englobing Barriers with cannot be escaped with Teleport at him every session of his existence, after all). While that's fine (there's more to a game than fighting, and a reason he wanted his skills, contacts, bases, and everything else that was previously 'hindering' his character in a fight) to a certain extent it's making the other brick feel redundant (he joined the group after her), as she is tough as nails but still takes stun damage from max DC attacks and has been overwhelmed and stunned by combined attacks a few times, whereas the suit has never taken body (and has regen 1/turn just in case).

(At a loss to challenge in a fight without completely overwhelming the very human pilot within, that is - as a GM it's easy enough to destroy any character ... such as fielding an enemy like Shrinker, with phasing and an affect physical world power who phases through the vehicle into the cockpit and knocks out / kills the pilot.  That would get old really fast and is no different than saying 'rocks fall, you die')

Hamster ball number 2 I'm just wondering if it's legitimate.  I can't see any reason it's not, but again in certain situations (facing down a single supervillain or two using a cap level attack) it nearly completely removes any sense of 'peril' from the enemy (his 'under-armor' is sufficient to make taking body or even stun from any kind of overflow unlikely).

Though a 1 pd / 1 end 37 body Barrier did have one unexpected surprise for him one session - Armadillo tunneled through it like it wasn't even there and nearly knocked his block off.

What about an optional Heroic rule similar in theme to the "Bend steel with his bare hands!" that instead doubles the PD/ED of objects to attacks without an appropriate tool? Call it "Bend bars with your bare hands?".

If GMs find a 9d6 to 12d6 attack is easy to get even in heroic this would serve to preserve the theme - a brick wall goes from PD 5 (9d6 chips away at it easily) to 10 (9d6 will still break it eventually, but it's a lot harder).  The typical vault/safe goes to 26+ PD - there's no way anyone is breaking into it with their bare hands in a heroic game without a proper tool/special effect. (the PD would remain where it is in such a case (ie: 5d6 killing Dynamite still blows a hole in the body 6 pd 13 safe.)

"Should" or "Shouldn't" is entirely campaign specific, and easily rectified in this case by changing the underlying PD of objects to reflect what a gm feels characters are capable of.  In theory a game could be run where people throw 40d6 punches around, but if it's not a scenery demolishing friendly themed game 40d6  doesn't even have to be enough damage to break a wood door.  It's GM fudge, but a minimal one that only becomes problematic when the story calls for a door to be broken down.

In a heroic game I'd probably put a 9 DC cap in place.  With said cap in place that safe is ... well... safe... at a PD of 19.  That's higher than the 'vault door' of 16, but not dramatically so (I'd probably just add 3 pd to all reinforced objects, like doors, in said game), and still perfectly destructible by plot provided devices like dynamite.

I do like the idea of damage to weapons inflicting damage to characters hitting hard things in a heroic game, though. "Argh, my hand" is a perfectly logical outcome to trying to punch a brick wall,

(edit: and I had forgotten about haymaker, to be honest.  I dislike it and try to block it out. )

What kind of DC are being thrown around that can karate chop a safe open?  A bullet proof safe has a pd of 13 and a 6 body.  To put a hole in it, not flat out destroy it, it in a single chop a character would need 16 body on an attack. Un-advantaged that's at least an 8 DC attack, with a 16 being need to do reliably at will (your standard 12 dc of pure dice in a superheroic game MIGHT: If anything certain mundane objects are 'too' tough in superheroic games - that's why the bend metal with his bare hands optional rule is there).

If someone has that level of attack, regardless of source, why shouldn't they be able to break down metal bars or tear open a safe? Whether you got to that DC through skill levels, hth attack dice, or pure strength it's all the same mechanically speaking.  It should be - it all costs nearly the same (straight strength is slightly more expensive, but affects throw distance and lift ability so that's fair).  

In a heroic game nobody has the points free for that kind of attack level, even if the GM doesn't put a DC cap in place.  In a superheroic game all bets should be off.  I'd suggest to my players 'real weapon' or 'beam' as a limitation (who doesn't like cheaper powers) if punching man sized holes through brick walls breaks their theme, or the campaigns, but I wouldn't tinker with anything mechanically.

(At least, I wouldn't tinker with MUCH. I do find the object PD/ED to be a little low in some cases and a little high in others, so I do adjust  for flavor - using the weapon damage table as a common sense grounding point.  Is the object 'bullet proof'? Guns do up to 2d6 body, so if yes adjust the value to 12. Etc)

My problem with objects comes with the body scores on large objects more than anything else.  30 body on an aircraft carrier? Mechanically that's a fair number - a few missiles (5d6 ap killing) vs it's 19 PD and 30 body will sink it, like in 'real life'.  Thematically it just feels wrong - most of the supervillains in my game have more body than that (they need to in order to avoid being reduced to -body from several 12DC attacks in the first segment 12 round).

The old Marvel RPG has your back on this one.  Converted to Hero you're looking at stats in this range:

"Incredible strength and endurance", "Good damage resistance"

STR: 40

Con: 16+

Body: 15+

Stun: 50

Resistant protection: 6 pd, 6 ed.  6 was chosen because they're immune to small arms fire (1d6 killing pistols).

With a 40 strength the attack is 8d6.  In the marvel system they'd knock each other out in about 3 punches. Accounting for avg damage of 24 vs their pd of (depends on version - I'm using 6th, so no derived = 8)= 16x3 = 48.  Con is chosen around that model as well, making it so they don't stun each other on an average hit.  Body's a little more arbitrary, though its sufficient to protect against a few hits from an average asgardian using an axe (2d6 killing, 2d6 bonus for a 30+ strength).  Volstag himself packs a 55 strength.

"Remarkable fighting skill and psyche"

About an ocv and dcv of 9, or CSL that get them to about that level with their chosen weapon.  Went with 3 as an average OCV and then added 2 per marvel category (good, excellent, remarkable).  Seems about right to me, and Captain America and Thor (Unearthly fighting) would peg in at OCV 17 using it.

Psyche is straight up ego and presence.  Remarkable puts them square into superhuman, so 20+ is about right.

"Good agility, reason, intuition"

Harder to quantify, but 13 dex and int should cover it.  Spd 3.

"Unearthly resistance to aging and disease".  That's just flat out Life Support: Immortal (or 1600 years option) and Life Support: Immune to Terestial Diseases.  Thor obviously has the whole array, depending on writer, but the average asgardian does not.

All that clocks in at about 200 points not factoring in a few skills.  Fear the asgardian farmer, who is firmly an Agent level opponent - which would be consistent with how they've always been portrayed in comics.

As to what to do with the other 275 points? 30 on a sword (2d6 killing, puts you to a 12 dc limit with your strength bonus, or 1d6+ ap or penetrating) is a given.  

Beyond that I'd look at what the other bricks are packing, defenses wise (pd, ed, stun, body) , and put myself to 3/4 that level and dump the rest into skills - which they probably didn't - so you could have a niche beyond 'not as good as that guy in a fight' and fit the 'support' side of things.

Ok, so it looks like I was slapping non-selective on to every AoE that wasn't explicitly something else.  That does clear things up.

As for the character using accurate (which we were using correctly) - it's a sonic implosion grenade.  The grenade hits the hex and then attracts sonic waves powerful enough to do damage to hammer the target from all directions at once.  It's conceptually the shakiest of his 5 attack powers (a cone, a single target blast, a penetrating hand to hand attack, an NND keyed to life support: does not eat ("You seriously put thought into a brown note ray?"), and the accurate AoE) in his 60 point sonic weaponry multipower.

He dislikes the power conceptually so now that it's clear his beloved cone attack (which is unmodified) should be attacking DCV 3 most times he'll probably ask to ditch it and get the points back to reinvest in a different attack for the pool.  The cone only does stun damage and his character's attitude is 'better a migraine than a morgue' so he's used it on people holding hostages before, anyways (and the brick gets caught in the area at least once a fight).

Don't all these attempted balancing techniques just go out the window once characters come into play?  To be honest, I've usually found that the player's creativity, tactics, and roleplaying ability have far more impact than the character's stats. In the main Champions that I used to play in that lasted for many years, there was almost nothing resembling a rule of X.  I believe there was a total point limit and that was that. We had a character that had no stat higher than 20 and no attack bigger than about 8d6 being tremendously effective while a character with an 120 Cosmic Power Pool was dead within about 3 sessions. We had a STR 100, DEX 33 brick that was much more effective in combat than a lot of us, but combat was only one aspect of the game. We also split up frequently to deal with different plots or subplots and probably did many other thngs that "conventional HERO wisdom" tells you not to do.

This was my experience back when I last ran a game (back in ... about 88. Hence my newbie questions all over the place).  Even in my most current game with a 12 DC/80 ap cap there's a sizable difference in combat abilities.  The brick is tough and a single target heavy hitter, but the sonic blaster and mentalist are almost as tough and could lay waste to the field without her - and the infiltrator got so caught up in characteristics, skill levels, perks and such that he forgot to buy attack powers so punches things for 3d6 (15 str).

The team splits quite often to deal with multiple threats and I've taken to slapping the infiltrator's out of combat actions into the initiative order if a fight breaks out to both prevent the other players from sitting around as the sneaky guy infiltrates a Viper base and hacks some computer systems and to prevent the infiltrator from being bored (or worse, useless - it's not a lot of fun to punch a viper grunt for 3 stun) in a fight.

The GM in Hero is the ultimate rule of X, but I've been watching these ones with interest mostly to plug my own player's characters into them in order to design better encounters.

The way we've been handling AoE's vs DCV so far:

1 Pick target hex.

2 OCV attack roll vs hex's DCV 3 (0 if within 2 meters of attacker) as per Champions Complete pg 145

3 If the hex is hit, or close enough for the AoE to interact with the target(s) desired make a second OCV roll vs target's DCV

The confusion arises due to the wording on Dive for Cover (pg 153). "Unlike Dodge, Dive for Cover gives a chance to evade both attacks that target an Area and attacks that target individuals"  

That said, nowhere under Dodge (pg 149), which is a flat DCV bonus, does it say it doesn't apply to AoE attacks that catch the character in their radius.

One of my players is speculating that hitting the hex is the only attack roll, and that if you're in said AoE and don't want to be blasted you'd best do something about it - ie: why would Kinetic's DCV allow him to stand next to a time bomb that goes off.  It's a logical argument (which has nothing to do with game design, often) and nowhere under AoE on pg 145 does it say anything about making a second attack roll.

The way we've been doing it makes Accurate really handy (you had a DCV 12 from dodging. Too bad it's now effectively 3. Should have Dove for Cover instead.)

The other way makes it useful in less situations (you had a DCV 12 from dodging but since I'm targeting your hex it's effectively 3 anyways. At least I didn't blast the hostage you were holding or the team mate in melee.)

We're fine either way (or a third way I'm just not getting).  Just want to do it right (and yes, Accurate is an advantage said player has on his character).

edit: Everything under AoE on pg 97-98 seems to back my initial interpretation up, but 'Non-selective' kind of muddies the water - how would an AoE that didn't take Non-selective or Selective function? Is one of those targeting types mandatory? Etc.

The 'psychic overwatch' approach is what triggered this part of the story to begin with - there was a bank robbery and the team's psychic picked up through her mental sense that the robbers were the target of mental powers.  She ended up in a long distance mind-scan duel with the controller (and won), but since the controller was across town in a base - it was like kicking a bee hive.  This was the response team to that.

It went largely as I expected - I mixed it up went with one Agent of each option (ego roll bonus, MD, and Mental Damage Reduction), along with a smattering of guards (true mooks armed with pistols).  Assuming that the agents were mentally shielded she focused on the gun toting mooks.  One of the agents was grappled on the start of combat segment 12 and was promptly thrown 40 meters from the rooftop the heroes had chosen to make a stand on to another rooftop across the street (and lacking any super movement didn't bother coming back) on segment 3 of the first round.  The second joined him on segment 9 after being grappled on segment 6.  The third surrendered after being grappled on segment 12.

The psychic made the hired thugs all forget they were armed on the opening segment 12 with her 8d6 selective AoE mental illusion.  They were a non-factor after that (downgrading a 2d6 RKA to a 2d6 hth attack does that), but the sonic blaster picked them off from above anyways, not wanting to ruin the brick's game of Agent Skeeball (she was aiming for the rooftop access door of the building across the street, but at that range (-6 OCV) she was lucky to hit the rooftop at all - which she worked to rectify after the session by spending the night's experience points on Penalty Skills Levels with Range Modifiers on Throw.)

I really like the idea of specialists - one of each in a fight, keep her guessing.  

Though realistically I suspect it won't really come down to guessing as much as ensuring the brick stays uncontrolled long enough to place heavy things on the agents (last session said brick decided to deal with a very heavily armored cyborg - 32 pd vs her 12d6 60 strength punches - by placing a rooftop water tower (about 30 tons) on top of said cyborg (str 35), allowing the psychic to mind scan lock on and mental blast without having to fear plasma cannon reprisal.)

And that's fine by me.

Interesting angle.  How would penalty skill levels be applied to counter a breakout roll penalty?  I'm using Champions Complete, and it reads that it's for modifying penalties applied to OCV or DCV.  Nothing on the table mentions characteristic roll penalties.

I like the idea - keeping the breakout rolls near 11- regardless of success levels - but our group's One Guy will be reading the PSL entry carefully after it goes into play to see if it's worth imitating - part of the reason I wanted to check on the legality of the +Ego roll to Breakout skill level.  

Simple MD is an option, but I'd rather see an effect shaken off over fail.  Psychic powers aren't cheap and it's already pretty easy to mess up 75 active points of mind control with 10 active points of MD as it is (not seeing many situations were resistant mental defense would be needed - a tricked out AVAD killing attack with the Does Body advantage to turn it back from stun to body? Not even sure how that would work mechanically speaking).

One of the enemy groups in my game specifically hunts down psychics (and people with psychic potential) to recruit or 'recruit' as the situation warrants.  They wouldn't be very good at their job without some sort of mental conditioning, but I'm wondering which way is the most 'fair' to the psychic PC(s).

Option 1 - Skill Level +(X) to One Characteristic Roll - Breakout.  Is this even legal?  This way lets the PC affect the agents pretty easily, but it's hard to keep them locked down.  Doesn't stop them from being mentally blasted to unconsciousness, leaving an 'out' for the PC.

Option 2 = Mental Damage Reduction.  Affects mental blast damage, reduces EGO +X rolls making it harder to control them in the first place, but doesn't affect breakout.

Option 3 = Mental Resistance.  As option 2, but more 'you failed to affect them at all' results, which I try and avoid (most of my villains have thematic Damage Reduction instead of Resistance so everyone can contribute to a fight, whether they have a 4d6 blast or a 12d6 melee attack).

Option 4 - Ego bought with a limitation "Doesn't Affect Breakout Rolls".  Makes them hard to affect in the first place, doesn't provide any bonus to breakout, doesn't reduce blast damage. Could probably replicate with 'Doesn't reduce mental blast damage' limitation bought on mental defense instead.

They'll already have an increased DMCV - this is mostly for the 'wow, these guys are hard to brainbox' factor (what she calls her EGO+30 mental illusion roll, and which she can nail fairly routinely with her 13d6 mental illusion power attack against ego 10 - 15 enemies.)

The player knows this group is out there and built herself to protect the team from enemy psychic agents partially due to their existence so will be fine with whatever I go with. Just looking for opinions on which is the best balance between 'memorable' and 'frustrating'.

That PDF really helps.  Thanks!

So hypothetically if the brick decided she DID want armor piercing strength and then decided to slam a robot with an unmodified 4d6  Hand to Hand Attack it would be 8d6 AP (strength, becoming the base because of the advantage) and, after running it through that spreadsheet, 3d6 AP from the hand attack for 11d6 AP?

New GM here using Champions Complete.

How do positive modifiers on the Hand to Hand attack power (HA) on page 70 work in conjunction with the base strength damage? It's the weirdest power I've found because it adds to another damage source - and doesn't function without it.

For example, one of my players has a 20 str and a 4d6 hand attack with Penetrating.  His strength damage is 4d6 and the hand attack adds 4d6 for 8d6 total. Is he guaranteed 4 stun damage or 8? 

Similarly another character has armor piercing on her hand attack (well, monstrous armor cracking sledgehammer attack, technically).  This one is 8d6 from strength and 4d6 from the hand attack for 12d6 - is the entire 12d6 armor piercing, or just the 4d6?  How do I calculate the damage against a foe with 20 rpd?

I've read the sections about independant advantages but it doesn't seem appropriate here - the first player wouldn't want to have the option of using Penetrating without his Sonic Gauntlets hand damage, and there's nothing armor piercing about the brick's 8d6 strength.

I'm certain this has been answered a hundred times, but I've read the combat section, advantage section, powers section, and characteristics section and just don't see it.