Ockham's Spoon

Re: looking for some opinions on Focus and Power Frameworks. I have seen this problem before, especially with players who try to eke every possible advantage out of the rules. Jhamin's summary of the uses of Foci cuts to the heart of the matter: character conception. But for balance, I think Derek's suggestion of using Unified Power is a good one.

Re: Presence power framework I am probably not understanding what you are going for here, but why not just extra PRE? Or for flavor maybe a high Oratory roll to give an extra die or two of PRE attack? What else is he doing with his PRE that isn't an interaction skill or a PRE attack that you would need a pool for it?

Re: Sense to use the power: limitation or campaign rule? I would consider giving a -¼ limitation for biotic powers if they don't work when the biotic sense is Flashed or in a Darkness field, because that seems reasonable. But keeping it simple certainly has appeal too, so just making it part of the campaign ground rules could be a good idea. The deciding factor for me would be one of character balance. If only NPC's have biotic senses and powers, then just make it a ground rule to make it easy on the GM. But if PC's are using these powers, they are going to want some the limitation to make their powers on an equal cost basis with PC's who don't have biotic powers. Unless, as GM, you want these powers to be costly to make them less common or weaker compared to other powers.

Re: Resistance to Poison/Disease I have built poison resistance as LS:Immunity to Poison, blocks only half of Damage (-1), but I have to say I like the idea of using a CON roll because it makes a lot of sense and it doesn't require a custom limitation. Nice idea.

Re: Legal Questions: Pink Defense Whether or not this is legal in your superhero world depends on the tone of the campaign. For anti-mutant type of setting it would almost certainly be illegal, because people are scared of powers. For a more cyber-punk style, it may very well be legal, because corporations control everything, including the government. In a four color campaign, it would probably be portrayed as a clever trap for "good guys" but a dirty, underhanded trick if used by "bad guys". Personally I think public outcry would force the company to end the practice, legal or not, especially as people learn about it and get angry thoughts about the Pink Defense, which could turn them pink, and then their friends and relatives would be outraged and start turning pink too. Before long half the country would be pink and mob mentality takes over. One final point to consider though. Any judge considering ruling the Pink Defense illegal would likely turn pink. Consider how that would affect their decision.

Re: Of Healing Factors The arguments about regaining STN are certainly worth consideration, but in my mind this comes down to character conception. If you want a character that will essentially recover quickly in combat, then simplified healing and/or defenses defined as "instant healing" are probably the way to go. But the limitation there is that if the character ever takes more damage than the healing/defenses can cope with, he is stuck at healing his REC per month like anyone else. So if you want a character that will always come back to full BDY fairly quickly, the regeneration is a better option. If you want a hybrid, you might consider going with some regeneration and then buying extra defenses only vs. STN.

Re: Crone of Cold Fair enough. I think my brain would have opted for the Drain still, with the limitation "Maximum effect is half the value of the target DCV & Move", but I suppose then the level of Drain would have to be pretty high to actually cut a speedster's stats in half. I would rep you for the crone, but it won't let me.

Re: Female Master Villains Are you forgetting Bill Clinton, John Edwards, Mark Sanford, and about a zillion other other politicians? Of course they were politicians so maybe they were already corrupt and depraved...

Re: Crone of Cold Very nice character, the powers really reflect the creepy nature of the crone. One question though, why build the slow field as a heavily modified Entangle instead of a Drain vs. DCV and Movement powers?

Re: Earthshaking stomp 6e has this written up as the power "Shockwave" for the character Taurus. Basically it is a naked advantage of AoE-Surface for STR with Hole in the Middle, so anyone standing on the ground in the affected area takes STR damage. This is one of the classic comic book manuevers that 6e has made easy to represent. Now someone explain to me how exactly this is supposed to work. I get the whole "earthquake knocks you down" effect, but I never understood why just falling down should inflict heavy damage. It always seemed to me like a desperate attempt to give characters like Thing or the Hulk some kind of flexibility, but, if you will pardon the pun, I always felt this concept for a power falls flat.

Re: The Reveal You really can't have the players pulling off an elaborate plan that no one sees coming, since the players would have had to do it themselves. You might be able to do something similar if an NPC or GM character pulls this stunt, but that shifts too much focus away from the PCs which is not generally a good way to make the players happy. You can do something similar though by giving the heroes a riddle or puzzle that can't really be solved because they don't have all the pieces until the final confrontation, at which point everything falls into place (and if it doesn't the appropriate INT or PER rolls can nudge the players in the right direction). I have taken this approach a few times by giving the heroes a prophecy or a portent in a dream that on the surface is nonsensical or misleading, but ultimately holds the key to the villain's defeat. For example the prophecy says "The vampire king's downfall will come not through his heart but through his stars". On the surface this just seems to say the the vampire king is fated to lose. But when the heroes finally meet him, the see that his crown has a star motif. In game terms the crown adds piles of defense, but has the side effect that he bursts into flames if it is removed. It isn't quite as statisfying as a Harry Gondorff stunt, but it can be a nice touch.

Re: Images and Invisibility I see this as a sfx thing; is the power truly making the person invisible (in which case buy Invisibility) or are they just masking their presence with an illusion? I would allow either if it made sense for the sfx of the power. A ghost might be truly invisible, but a Shadow Cloak might just let you blend into the background. I have had characters use Images for "cloaking" devices and for chameleon abilities where they are not strictly speaking Invisible, just hard to spot (I have also used extra levels for Stealth and Concealment for the same purpose). I find that appropriate since they are much better concealed if they don't move (which would increase the "complexity" of the Image and give a bonus to the onlooker's PER roll). But if someone wanted to build Frodo's ring, that would be Invisibility. As far as making an AoE invisibility with an Images power, I would allow that too, with the realization that for the level of complexity involved in anything but a static scene the onlookers are going to get a pretty good bonus to their PER rolls (+8 or more). If the character wants the utility of real Invisibility they should buy it that way, but if they want the flexibility of Images and can settle for a weak invisibility, that's fine with me.

Re: Heroic v. superheroic genres and the use of powers Granted superheroes are going to get the most use out of powers, but they are really used across the board. A low-level martial arts campaign might not have powers beyond gear, but high-end Wuxia abilities would certainly require powers. As mentioned, magic in fantasy settings are powers, as well as some over-the-top combat manuevers (e.g. Legolas in LotR) Cyberware and net-running programs are powers for a cyberpunk campaign. Any Jedi knight would be built with powers, as would many of the aliens they encounter. Most psychic or mental abilities, regardless of campaign, will be powers. ________________________________________________________________ With great power comes great utility bills

Re: Why Watched? To me the difference between Watched and Hunted was that the latter wants to hurt/kill/imprison/enslave you while the former would just get in your way and disrupt your plans. A Watcher isn't out to get rid of a hero, but they might oppose the hero's mission or goals and that is the complication. Alternatively Watchers can be like the press or a fan club that mean no harm, but are always getting in the way because they follow the hero around. Don't forget that since Watchers gather info on the character, they can cause problems if that info is ever leaked to or stolen by a Hunted or master villain.

Re: "Rolling a Critical" What I have found is that when a player rolls really well to hit but then follows that with a pathetic damage roll, they get really cheesed off. So our house rule is that if you roll less than half of what you need to hit, you don't get max damage, but you get to roll damage twice and take the better of the two rolls. Only a natural 3 is max damage (but not if you need a natural 3 to hit in the first place). I would admit that this has the disadvantage of taking longer than just taking the max damage for rolls under half, but it keeps things from being quite so unbalanced. For players who want to do lots of extra damage with "critical" hits, I make them buy extra damage with their attack that triggers only if they make the hit roll by 3 or better. This is mostly for Fantasy games where the warrior types want to be blade-masters or Legolas-level archers.

Re: Exploring the usefulness of Block And let us not for get the classic manuever of grabbing one of your opponents and using the hapless schmuck as a shield to block with. As Thanee noted, the fact that your DCV is halved from the Grab is less of a concern since you are blocking. This works especially well for martial artists with Grab and Block elements in their style to give them an edge with CV and STR. Granted this usually only works well against mooks, but it still looks cool.

Re: cancelling out the source of their mystic power I don't think you need a "gem destruction" power so much as you just need to define the Focus. It is a limitation, and as such you just have to come up with what you would deem a reasonable way to destroy/dispel it. If you figure it has 5 DEF and 1 BDY, then it takes 6 BDY to destroy it physically. If you want a spell that specifically destroys the gem, either buy an attack that only targets the gem (say 2d6 RKA, only vs. Magic Gems (-1), maybe with AoE Radius 2m so you don't have to target it), or buy a Dispel of roughly equal active points. Maybe that makes magic gem destruction too cheap, so perhaps the gems should be tougher. Maybe the gems can only be destroyed with magic (maybe only with a specific gem-killer spell), but maybe a good blow with a war hammer would do it. Whatever you decide, start with the stats for the focus and then the choice for a destruction power will be obvious.

Re: KA.'s Idea Thread I like the concept of Mr. Danger, but I would change his name to Nemesis. You might also consider a more supernatural version, since you can't "End Program" on magic easily. In that case you might have a "helpful" supernatural creature that is trying to create challenges for the heroes but it got a little out of hand. Or Nemesis could be an atavistic construct that originates in the heroes' own heads after they travel on the astral plane or something. Definitely a lot of options to work with. Repped.

Re: Powers as Active Offences and Defences You could simulate this effect by Spreading the attack for most powers to boost the OCV. Alternatively the hero could buy extra OCV that cost END, the sfx being his firebolt or whatever is massive, taking up most of a hex. You might also allow a house rule for pushing OCV with the same sfx. All of these tweaks would give you the flavor you are looking for without having to use an alternate combat system for superheroes.

Re: Ranged HA - What so bad about it I confess I was hoping for a more logical (in my mind) resolution to the STR boosting/range dichotomy between normal and killing damage in 6e. I can see some point cost rationale for the way it was done, but I find it logically inconsistent to say I can have a HKA with the Advantage Range Based on STR, but I can't do that with a HTH. I was hoping for something like the solutions mentioned above where we would just have a base attack to which Range or STR Adds would be an Advantage (or the lack thereof a Limitation). As is I am just going to let players put Range Based on STR on their HTH attacks for thrown weapons as a house rule.

Re: The character should fit on one side of one sheet of paper in 12 point type There is an elegant beauty to a simple character write-up, but frequently it is the advantages and limitations that really give flavor to the hero's abilities. That said, a 5 page character sheet full of various modifiers sounds like someone trying to game the system to me.

Re: Someone called it mutagenic. Yeah, I had that problem too for a heroic level character with an adrenaline boost sort of ability. My solution was that any points added by the Aid were subject to the same doubling cost past the charactersitic maxima that applied when originally building the characters. So it was easy enough to get to a 20 STR, but getting to a 30 STR couldn't happen (based on the active points in the Aid). As a side note, 6e has definitely balanced Aid better than 5e as far as boosting multiple characteristics. I had a player with a Captain Marvel type hero who had basically one power which was a big Aid to most of his characterisics when he transformed from secret ID to superhero. The resulting superhero was so powerful I had to ban him (the +50 STR wasn't so bad, but combined with +17 DEX and +5 SPD and +25 PD/ED made him ridiculous). That isn't so likely to happen in 6e.

Re: Alternate Blindness/Deafness Given the general rejection of absolutes in the Hero system, I was a little surprised that Change Environment didn't replace Darkness in 6E, although I can see the practicality of the absolute loss of a sense as opposed to just a really big negative PER modifier. I think that Armitage has constructed a very nice Blindness/Deafness power, although I confess I think I would probably go with a continuous NND Flash at 0 END with IPE, if only because it seems to me to be a bit more straight forward.

Re: Your Version of FRANKEN-HERO I didn't think I'd like the loss of figured CHA either, but after making up a few 6e characters, I have to say it turns out to be rather liberating. Figured CHA contributed to CHA inflation (because STR and CON in particular were so cheap) and gaming the system (sure my energy projector isn't an Olympic weight lifter, but he needs a 20 STR to remain cost-competative). It also made characters rather uniform (23 DEX in particular was such a nice breakpoint even for nominally low-DEX types like bricks). From a gaming logic standpoint I totally buy into figured CHA, but practically speaking I think the game works better without them. Give it a try, you might like it. _______________________________________________________________________ Say! I like green eggs and ham! I do! I like them, Sam-I-am! And I would eat them in a boat. And I would eat them with a goat... And I will eat them in the rain. And in the dark. And on a train. And in a car. And in a tree. They are so good, so good, you see!

Re: Time related powers Stopping time is not a defined power in Hero, you pretty much have to figure out exactly what you want to do while time is stopped and build a suite of powers that reflect that. The Amy Jackson character posted above is a nice example of this. You might consider getting the Ultimate Speedster which has lots of time travel tips and details on the Speed Zone. As for freezing someone in time, my favorite way (which maintains some game balance), is Extra Dimensional Movement through time Usable on Others. Normally I don't like UOO with movement powers, but this is an exception. You use EDM to send the target to a fixed point in the future (say 1 turn or 1 minute). The special effect is not that they teleport to the future but that they stand there frozen in time until the future arrives. Now no one can actually attack them, because any attacks would also be frozen in time, hence the game balance (if you want to get fancy, you can make the EDM a Gate that affects everything entering the hex until the future arrives so that attacks lauched into the gate could still hit the target). You could of course suspend a large heavy object over them in the intervening time or set up a placed shot, you just can't attack them with abandon while they are frozen. If you want to be able to attack them while they are frozen, you would go with a Transparent Entangle. You probably want to have it work against a different Characteristic than STR (INT maybe?), since is makes no sense that a brick could muscle his way out of a time freeze. You would have to accept that the freeze field could be disrupted by outside attacks so other characters could help out their frozen teammate though.