Ockham's Spoon

Re: Buff from kobold god, to aid kobolds You say kobolds aren't a credible threat. Why? In my experience there are two main reasons for enemies like kobolds to become trivial. First is that they rarely hit. The second is that when they do hit, they do so little damage that it can't get past the PCs' armor. To fix those problems the artifact should act as an Aid to all their damage, grant them all Armor Piercing, or something similar. To make sure they hit with those more dangerous attacks, go with the AoE Accurate suggestion or give them all OCV bonuses. Alternately the artifact can hamper the foes of the kobolds, a Suppress vs. Armor or DCV, but I find most players would rather face more powerful enemies than have trouble with weak ones because their own abilities are impaired.

Re: Useful memory flashes While Clairsentience might be more comprehensive, since this is really more of a plot device than a functional power I think I would opt for the KS route because its easier and accomplishes just about the same thing.

Re: Resistant Question They are pretty much the same. The only difference is that if you buy Resistant Protection, your base PD/ED won't be made resistant. You could then apply the Resistance advantage to it to make it so, but cost-wise it is six of one, half a dozen of the other.

Re: MYTHIC HERO: What Do *You* Want To See? Mythic Hero! Yay! Sounds like a great book. Here's my 2 pence: Definitely Legendary Hero should be a separate work. There is too much good stuff for it to get short shrift. I agree with Lucius that Sumerian and Babylonian mythos could get rolled into one, but maybe I just don't know those mythos well enough to see them as sufficiently distinctive for each to get its own chapter. The idea of putting most of the Finnish myths in Legendary Hero has merit too. Jehovah should not be written up for two reasons. One is the potential for offense. The other is that despite his alleged omnipotence, he is a real hands-off kind of god, so any direct intervention would be better handled by angels or just played as deus ex machina. So that said, a write-up for angels would be nice. I could see this in the Demonology section possibly, or maybe you just want to say "For angels, use the write-up for devas or asuras in the Hindu section" since they are similar beings. I think. My feeling is that most gods have rather variable power levels, depending on the story you are reading. As megaplayboy pointed out, heroic level guys sometimes best gods in contests, but other times they are nearly omnipotent. Does the power of the god depend on the venue or the number of worshipers or some other parameter? Since we will have write-ups for the gods, certainly the characters will interact with them at times. Some of those times the PCs might fight the gods, other times it is really just an excuse for GM fiat. At the simplest level this could just be a limitation on their powers or a Complication of some sort. I don't see that multiple write-ups of the same god for different power levels as reasonable, but that could be done too.

Re: Jokes Two old widows, Edna and Grace, agreed to go traveling together since they had always wanted to do so but were nervous about going alone. Grace got behind the wheel and Edna rode shotgun. As they started off, Edna was thinking how nice it was to be sharing this journey when Grace ran through a yellow light. Edna was a cautious driver and she certainly would have stopped, but she didn't see any harm done so said nothing. A few blocks later, the a traffic light turned red, but Grace drove right on through. Now Edna was nervous, but there had been no on-coming traffic and no danger of being hit, so she said nothing. At the very next block, Grace drove through another red light. This time the traffic going the other way was forced to swerve and slam on the brakes to avoid an accident, but Grace seemed unfazed. Edna turned to Grace and said "I didn't want to criticize your driving, but you could have gotten us killed back there!" Grace turns to Edna in alarm and says "Oh my God! Am I driving?"

Re: Telekinesis with PARTIAL Fine Manipulation??? Okay, that was disturbing. Still your point is valid, certainly there could be uses of Fine Manipulation that require a lot of STR. But I don't see that it will come up often enough to justify much of a limitation. Even if it did, that is going to be something like a -¼ on the Fine Manipulation Adder, so you save 2 points assuming there are no other limitations. For me that isn't worth the clutter on the character sheet, but obviously the GM in this case feels differently.

Re: Story Threads from Disadvantages or Complications

Re: New Campaign Idea: "X-Men: First Class" As The Only Canon Hollywood doesn't often insist that sequels/prequels be entirely consistent, so picking a single movie as canon and borrowing from others as you see fit sounds like a good strategy. My own two cents is that while you might limit metahumans to being mutants (no magic or extraterrestrials, etc.) you will probably want to have some kind of foil for the mutants. Governments may try to control mutants for their own purposes, but that is a limited resource pool and they will want to have some non-mutant way to deal with them. You could go as far as the Sentinels from the comics, but you might just have highly trained, super-equipped soldiers. Soldiers could be anything from Competent Normals with really good gear all the way up to Iron Man clones, depending on the power level of the game. However you handle it, the non-mutant forces should be a credible threat, even if individually they are no match for most mutants.

Re: Nesting Instinct I have had a number of cagey players that don't feel safe unless they have their own private hideout, and it has never been a problem in my games. Typically not much happens at those private bases, since it is a solo part of a group game; it is more like a security blanket. If you don't like the idea, ask the players why they want to spend points for another base when they already have one? They will either realize they'd rather spend the points elsewhere, or they will tell you why they have a bee in their bonnet. The followers are a whole different kettle of fish, especially because it means more NPCs for you to deal with. If a PC wants followers, they should have to fully write them up, including background, subject to your approval. They should also know that you as GM are free to change anything about the Follower that suits you, which they may or may not know about.

Re: Stun Blaster I think both Hyperman and Doc D have good builds for this. My first thought was just a 10d6 EB, STUN only. If you don't want the gun to do widely varying amounts of damage to normals and supers, then put on a limitation "Cannot inflict more than 25 STUN with one shot" or something similar. Or go with Doc D's build.

Re: Bird Vision I would give them Telescopic Vision to represent their keen eyesight at a distance, but a 5 point Physical Complication "Limited peripheral vision".

Re: Telekinesis with PARTIAL Fine Manipulation??? I have to agree with CrosshairCollie; Fine Manipulation by nature is already limited in STR so I wouldn't give any limitation for it any more than I would make you pay for Indirect on your TK because that is the nature of the beast already. But then I don't know why your GM would specify that either. I would ask what the concerns are and whether this is a real issue.

Re: Upsilon That's cosmically powerful all right. The only error I saw was the Autofire slot in her multipower, because the Reduced END cost for Autofire is higher than for other powers. I am curious to know how you would use her. Most of the time when I have a cosmically powerful villain they are almost more of a plot device than an actual opponent. But Upsilon strikes me as more random; a force of nature that periodically blows a hole in whatever scenario happens to be transpiring. How would she interact with the heroes, or would she even bother?

Re: Effects of "Heightened Libido"? Unless she has a physical need for sex and/or combat, I would avoid Dependency. Maybe Distinctive Features or a Social Complication if she flirts a lot, intentionally or not. But mostly I think this would be a Psychological Complication "High Sex Drive" that would conflict with her other Psych Comps. As for plot hooks, I would have someone she is attracted to ask her for a favor or make her promise something that she would have trouble refusing but would cause problems later, kind of the classic honorable paladin conflict. The object of her affection may be intentionally trying to ensnare her or it might just be a seemingly simple request that gets her in far deeper than she expected. The other plot hook that would be classic would be some villain trying to seduce her in order to ruin her reputation or just for psychological warfare. That works fine as long as she discovers the villain's intent before consumating the relationship, but it could seriously change her character if she doesn't, so you might be careful with this one.

Re: Dissecting Powers Not to derail the thread or anything, but how is HERO more "stop motion" than any other game system? The stop motion effects might be more noticeable because HERO has SPD while most games (that I have played) just take turns back and forth. That makes HERO more granular so the "stop motion" effect may be more obvious, but it doesn't change the basic idea of "on my turn I move X distance." The only game I ever played that didn't work like that was Car Wars, but the nature of the game kind of demanded more careful accounting of movement.

Re: Order of the Stick I'm thinking that maybe Thor's aching bunions could use some Flumphs for cushioning.

Re: Dissecting Powers Lucius's breakdown is excellent, but admittedly space intensive. For what it's worth, I find that when I create abilities that have several linked powers, it is usually easier to read if the linked powers are listed separately with some notation to indicate they are all part of a single ability. You can also put common Advantages and Limitations in a single block which make it a little cleaner. This is nice for reading on the character sheet, although you probably don't want to compute the cost this way. Going out with a Bang: Sight Group Flash 1 ½d6 (standard effect: 2 Segments), Area Of Effect (16m Radius Explosion; ), Limited Power Not against someone who has their eyes closed or turned away that phase plus Darkness to Sight Group 2m radius, Linked (Flash! Bang!; Lesser Power can only be used when character uses greater Power at full value), Instant, No Range plus Trigger Cost (as below) and Invisible Power Effects (Fully Invisible) for up to 5 Active Points of Leaping, Linked, Costs Endurance plus +5 with Stealth All Going out with a Bang powers have (as appropriate): Trigger (Activating the Trigger requires a Zero Phase Action, Trigger requires a Turn or more to reset; 2 Charges which Recover every 1 Week , No Range, Conditional Power Power does not work if wet (raining, Pipkin's been in water, etc) , IIF This is a neat concept for a power, but why include the Darkness, especially since it is instant? If it hung around for a few segments or longer I could see including it, but as is it looks more like a sfx to me.

Re: Order of the Stick Thanks for the link. I am sure this "monster" was created for a reason, but I fail to see why, although clearly they serve a role in OotS.

Re: Order of the Stick It has been a while since I played D&D, but what the heck is a Flump?

Re: Unusual Magic Items Phantom Steed This looks just like a bridle, but when the command word is spoken, a phantom horse appears under the holder. The horse can run at high speed tirelessly over any surface, even while weighed down. A second command and the horse disappears, allowing the rider to roll up the bridle for later use. In game terms this is: 40m Flight, x8 NCM, 0 END, Only over surfaces and for jumping (-¼). Linked with 20 STR Telekinesis, 0 END, only to offset encumbrance (-2). OIF - Bridle.

Re: Chryckan's general dumb questions thread.... One of my favorite aspects of HERO is the character creation, so maybe I do this often enough that it seems straightforward to me. In my mind the secret to making it easier is to make the Advantage a separate line item rather than trying to roll it into another power. So lets take a guy with powered armor who has Density Increase and Absorption to STR, and he wants Hardened PD/ED and Armor Piercing STR that Requires a Skill Roll. His normal STR is 20. His Density Increase can provide +15 STR. At maximum, his Absorption can provide +15 STR. His maximum STR is then 50. AP is a +¼ advantage, so 50 x 0.25 = 12.5 = 12 Active points for the AP advantage. Say the Requires Skill Roll level is -½, so the real cost of the AP STR advantage is 12/1.5 = 8 real points. Now lets look at his PD/ED. His base PD/ED is 2 and 2. His Armor provides +25 PD, +15 ED. His DI can increase his PD/ED by +3. His armor and the PD/ED from DI should be resistant, but all his PD/ED is Hardened. So the total resistant PD/ED is 28 and 18 respectively, for a total of 46 points. Resistant is +½, so the cost to make 46 points resistant is 46 x 0.5 = 23 Active points. If his DI is dependent on his OIF power armor, then the real cost is 23/1.5 = 15. If not then we have to go back a step and buy the resistant PD/ED from DI separately. Now to Harden all his PD/ED. From above, his power armor provides a maximum of 46 points of defense. Hardened is +¼, so the active cost is 46 x 0.25 = 11.5 = 11. Since that is all through his suit, he gets the OIF on that so the real cost is 11/1.5 = 8. His regular PD/ED total is 4. To Harden that is 4 x 0.25 = 1 point. Personally I wouldn't harden his base PD/ED because it doesn't make sense to me since it is his power armor that provides the defense. When he gets hit with an AP attack, halve his base PD or ED but not the rest.

Re: Chryckan's general dumb questions thread.... If you want to avoid the complication of extra STR that doesn't have the advantage on it, buy a naked advantage for the maximum value that the character's STR might reach. Say your character has Penetrating for his normal STR. If his Density Increase adds +15 STR and he has Absorbtion that could potentially give him another +10 STR, then buy a naked Penetrating cost for 25 STR. As for Hardening extra PD/ED from DI, again, buy a naked advantage for the amount you want Hardened. Don't apply Hardened to DI itself.

Re: Transplanted Immortality I think cloning people genetically is almost certainly possible. But it would not be the same person; too much of your personality is shaped by your environment. I doubt anyone could duplicate something as complex as a mature human brain so that it could be transfered into another body, so while your clones might survive you, they would be more like your children and not a new you. Even if it were possible to transfer brains or brain patterns between bodies, you have some major ethical issues to deal with. Personally I think it would be a bad idea. Just watch Joss Whedon's "Dollhouse" for a small taste of what could happen.

Re: Based on ECV and inanimate objects If he bought it as BoECV, then it doesn't work against inanimate objects. If he wants to be able to destroy stuff, then buy a regular RKA and define it as telekinetic blades or something. It seems to me that a BoECV RKA is not a very heroic sort of power since it is really only good for killing people. Is that really what he wanted, or was he looking for something to battle robots and such? If he just didn't understand what power he was building, I'd let him switch it out with a regular RKA. He might want to build a few levels into it though if he is primarily a mentalist and doesn't have a very high OCV.

Re: Always on Death Touch If you want the character to be deadly whenever she touches someone or someone touches her, you need to buy it with the Area of Effect option Damage Shield (+¼). As for whether it works through clothes or not, just put a modifier on it, Requires skin to skin contact (±0). It is a limitation on a regular damage shield because it will be harder to make skin contact, but it is an advantage that the character can cover up to keep from accidentally killing off her friends.