Utech

Re: Monate Thoughts on creating this new Power. I'm not asking how a concept could be built using existing Powers.

I'm interested in creating a new Power that is something like the opposite of Duplication. Some details are below. I'd appreciate any thoughts (positive or negative) on the concept and pricing. Monate A character with Monate can merge his form with another. The target must be willing, unconscious, or non-living. Monation takes a Full Phase and is considered an Attack Action. The cost of Monate is figured by adding up several different factors: Target, Form, Power, Characteristics, Skills, and Consciousness Target A small group of targets. Must be defined at character creation. Cost = ? A large group of targets. Must be defined at character creation. Cost = ? A very large group of targets. Must be defined at character creation. Cost = ? Any living target. Cost = ? Any non-living target. Cost = ? Any target. Cost = ? Form No Change: The character absorbs targets into itself and does not appear to change. Cost = ? Least: The character takes on the least desired of the character's normal form and the target's form. Cost = ? Average: The character's form and the target's form mix -- usually by averaging the character's and target's size, number of limbs, etc. Cost = ? Most: The character takes on the most desired of the character's normal form and the target's form. Cost = ? Additive: The character's form and the target's form add together -- increasing height, weight, number of limbs, etc. Cost = ? Power No Power: The character loses all Powers when Monated. Cost = ? Least in Common: The character retains any Powers shared between himself and the target at the lowest level between them. Cost = ? Most in Common: The character retains any Powers shared between himself and the target at the highest level between them. Cost = ? Average: The character retains any Powers shared between himself and the target at a level determined by averaging the two. In addition, he gains Powers the target possesses but the character does not at half the level of the target's power. Cost = ? Additive: The character gains any Powers the the target possesses but the character does not at the level of the target's Power. In addition, any Powers in common are added together. Cost = ? Characteristics Least in Common: The character retains any Characteristics shared between himself and the target at the lowest level between them. Cost = ? Most in Common: The character retains any Characteristics shared between himself and the target at the highest level between them. Cost = ? Average: The character retains any Characteristics shared between himself and the target at a level determined by averaging the two. In addition, he gains Characteristics the target possesses but the character does not at half the level of the target's power. Cost = ? Additive: The character gains any Characteristics the the target possesses but the character does not at the level of the target's Characteristic. In addition, any Characteristics in common are added together. Cost = ? Skills Least in Common: The character retains any Skills shared between himself and the target at the lowest level between them. Cost = ? Most in Common: The character retains any Skills shared between himself and the target at the highest level between them. Cost = ? Average: The character retains any Skills shared between himself and the target at a level determined by averaging the two. In addition, he gains Additive: The character gains any Skills the the target possesses but the character does not at the level of the target's Skill. In addition, any Skills in common are added together. Cost = ? Consciousness Shared: The character's consciousness and the target's consciousness (if any) share the same body when Monated. They have equal say over what the Monated body will do. Conflicts generally result in the termination of the Monate Power -- the character and target split. Cost = ? Dominant: When a character and target Monate, they engage in an EGO vs EGO contest. The winner has complete control over the Monated form. (GMs may wish to set a time limit or allow "Breakout" Rolls.) Cost = ?

Re: Sixth Edition Showcase #3: Area Of Effect And Damage Shield I'm interested in the new Surface AOE way of handling Damage Shield. A couple of thoughts... 1) I wonder if very large characters will be able to pick up this Damage Shield for the same price as normal-sized characters. The AOE notes seem to suggest that very large characters would have to purchase enough AOE (Surface) to cover their entire body. 2) I wonder if any character will be able to pick up this Damage Shield for only portions of their body. (For example, an animal with spikes on its back but not on its limbs, face, or belly.)

Re: Justifying Playable SPD I think the OP is correct in associating Speed with play time. While this is not a problem for everyone, it clearly could be a problem for many. Example: Character A has a Speed of 3 Character B has a Speed of 6 The GM spends twice as much time asking the player of Character B what they want to do to influence the story, and twice as much time in resolution. The player of Character A might well feel bored, jealous, frustrated, put upon, or any number of non-fun things. If this is a problem, I'd recommend giving all characters the same Speed. You can then simulate characters who are supposed to be faster using a bunch of the other tools in the toolkit... Sweep, Rapid Fire, MPA, AOE, etc. to simulate characters who attack more often (martial artists, gun masters, etc.) high movement in the form of Running, Flight, Teleport, Stretching, etc. to simulte characters who cover more ground than normal people (speedsters)

Re: Champions Animal Companions A simpler option: Don't throw attacks at the Followers that will kill them immediately. That's entirely genre appropriate. (Thor and Wasp are both on the Avengers. Superman and Gleek both work at the Hall of Justice.) Laziness is the only reason for Dr. Destroyer to use his Energy Blasts at full strength against every opponent.* Naturally, you should explain that the animal companions are not nearly as durable as the heroes. The companions can simply refuse to approach situations that are out of their league, or you can have them knocked out, injured, or otherwise taken out of a fight. * As a side note, I wonder if we shouldn't reward extra experience to players who use minimal force against opponents? Always using your powers at full blast gets boring. Extra XP might be an incentive toward creativity and restraint.

Re: Teamwork powers You may wish to simply make clever power combinations free in your game world -- perhaps with a required Teamwork Roll (or something similar). Remember that this sort of thing requires two characters to work together on a single action rather than independently taking one action each. You might rule this is how they "pay for" their combo attack.

Re: Alternative systems for mental powers Those are interesting alternative ways to handle Mental Powers. I wouldn't use them, but they're interesting. It reminds me of Super Skills built with Limitations on Powers.

Re: Absolute Range Sense... ever use it? It can be useful for characters who use Leaping or Teleportation as a primary means of transportation. Especially if they often make big "leaps" at small targets.

Re: The "Mental"-ness of Mental Powers 5ER p 253 If you want an Ego Attack that works against different defenses, you need to start with the Ego Attack. If you think that the advantages and disadvantages of Mental Powers put them out of balance with Standard Powers, Sense-Affecting Powers, or Adjustment Powers, you'll need to make adjustments to the way those categories work. I've had no trouble with them. The original post asked about what you need to do to change one sort of Power into another. There are no rules in the game for that right now, but a house rule seems entirely appropriate. In order to turn a Standard Power (or Sense-Affecting Power or Sensory Power or Adjustment Power or Defense Power or Movement Power or Body-Affecting Power) into a Mental Power, I suppose you'd start with the cost of BOECV and add a bit. How much? I have no clue. You'd have to work that out in your own game. It certainly does raise some interesting possibilities... Energy Blasts with a Fade Rate Flash that follows Accelerating and Decelerating rules Density Increase that provides a Sense

Re: The "Mental"-ness of Mental Powers

Re: Technomancer I'll grant you that Summon shouldn't be used to control machines that have INT or EGO. The notes for Classes of Minds under Mental Powers 5ER p 117 make it clear how to handle that with Mind Control. Many machines, however, do not have INT or EGO. The GM could certainly assign a machine INT or EGO just for the purpose of working out how Mind Control (or Mental Illusions or Mind Scan or Telepathy or Ego Attack) works. But I think Summon handles this pretty darn well. If you dislike Summon being used to gain control of uber-guns and power armor, just put an upper limit on the number of points someone can sink into Summon. Enough to control light switches and blenders and MP3 players but not enough for uber-guns and power armor.

Re: The "Mental"-ness of Mental Powers I cannot disagree more. I see no evidence that Mental Powers are designed with sniping in mind. I see them as distinct from other kinds of Powers in many ways. Some of those ways could be used for sniping. The fact that Movement Powers could be used for doing Move Throughs doesn't mean that Movement Powers are designed with Move Through in mind! I have played characters with Mental Powers who sniped from time to time. Worked fine and didn't unbalance the game. I have run games in which a character had Mental Powers and used them from very long range from time to time. Worked fine and didn't unbalance the game. Both characters were built with Mental Powers because of the many, many things Mental Powers can do. The fact that the Powers could be used to snipe was not important during character creation and was not an important factor during game play.

Re: Technomancer Summon is often used not to summon a copy of something present (often an animal), but to gain control of the actual thing present. Of course if the villain is holding an uber-gun, your first command to that uber-gun had better be one that prevents the villain from firing the gun!

Re: The "Mental"-ness of Mental Powers Absolutely!

Re: EGO Attack Yes. That's what I said. Those Advantages work well with other Powers. They work poorly when they are used to build an already existing Power. No great shock there.

Re: Super hero one liners "You're it? No way. I can't be bothered. You run off and find some friends to back you up. I'll wait." (or, if our heroes are clearly overmatched...) "You're it? No way. I can't be bothered. I'll go find the paperboy and send him back here to deal with you."

Re: Technomancer I recommend Summon (Any Machine) Must Inhabit Locale, Slavishly Loyal. Your Technomancer spots a machine and sets about taking control of it (the time it takes to Summon it and for the machine to "orient itself"). The machine then happily completes tasks for your Technomancer. Naturally, this is only tasks the machine can accomplish already (no flying toaster ovens). You'll need to come to an agreement with your GM as to the point value of a few representative items so that you know your limits. Off the top of my head: very simple electronic mechanism such as a wall light switch: 1 point simple electronic mechanism such as a five-function blender: 2 points electronic mechanism such as those found in a car: 5 points more complex electronic mechanism such as a smart cell-phone: 10-15 points quite complex electronic mechanisms such as computers: 20-25 points special electronic mechanisms such as robots, computers built with character points, AIs, gadgeteer's gadgets, and power armor: point value of the device

Re: EGO Attack

Re: EGO Attack

Re: EGO Attack

Re: Michael's Mook-Mashing Concept You could add "mooks" as a common circumstance in the Living in a Dangerous World chapter (5ER pp 444-446) as far as determining damage to our heroes and add "mooks" as a class of objects on the Object Table in the Breaking Things chapter (5ER pp 447-449) as far as determining how much damage it takes to get through them. In other words, treat mooks not as individuals who attack our heroes and must be dealt with individually, but as damaging obstacles. Some heroes will be immune to the damage certain mooks can do. Some heroes will be able to use superior mobility to avoid mooks. Some heroes will have attacks that allow the removal of many mooks at once.

Re: EGO Attack No you can't. You can take Usable [As Second Mode Of Movement] on the more expensive Power. But that's neither here nor there. What I was talking about was building Flight by taking Advantages on Swimming. I imagine that it could be done. But it's silly. If what you want is Flight, you should buy Flight. If what you want is Flight that can also be used as Swimming, you should buy Flight with the Advantage Usable As Swimming on the Flight. If you want Ego Attack, you should buy Ego Attack. You shouldn't buy Energy Blast and apply a bunch of Advantages to turn it into Ego Attack.

Re: EGO Attack Yes. And you can build TK with Usable at Range on your Strength. Except that you shouldn't. That's not the way TK is built in HERO. You can build Flight with Advantages on Swimming. Except that's silly. It's not the way Flight is built in Hero. You can build all sorts of things by putting Advantages on Powers. But that doesn't mean you should. Particularly when we've already got a Power that does what you're talking about. Ego Attack is not Energy Blast with Advantages, it is Ego Attack. Though you can build something very similar by putting Advantages on Energy Blast, it's not the way Ego Attack is built in Hero.

Re: EGO Attack You could build TK with Usable at Range on your Strength. But that's not the way you should do it. You could turn your father into your mother. That doesn't mean you should do it. Especially when you've got a perfectly good mother at hand.

Re: EGO Attack The fact that you can pound away at a nail with your modified screwdriver does not make me want to toss away my hammer. Ego Attack is intended from the outset and designed to work vs minds only. Energy Blast is intended from the outset and designed to be a normal attack at range. Different tools costed differently. Each well designed to do what they do. I suppose you could build Flight with Advantages on Leaping or Running or Swimming. But why would you? You certainly won't convince me that the best way to build Flight is to put Advantages on other Movement Powers. It's just silly. The Hero System comes with a lot of tools that are well suited for what they do. It also comes with all sorts of ways for you to modify the tools. You can even -- as you've suggested -- take an existing tool, break it, and make it function like another tool. Not surprisingly, it doesn't really function the same way. If this doesn't answer your question, I really can't help you.