Ockham's Spoon

Re: Slow Gas Trap Undetectable gas trap is a another way of saying "the GM kills you all by fiat". But I think that undetectable misses the point for such a trap, which is to heighten the tension of the party "Holy Excrement! We have to get out of here fast before we succumb to the gas!" For that reason alone they should have some idea of what is happening. You might build it with Invisible Power Effects so that technically they wouldn't know what was going on, but then give them an INT check or appropriate KS roll to figure out why their STN was slowly disappearing. _______________________________________________________________________ "I'd say you boys have had enough beans already! Phew!" - Slim Pickens in Blazing Saddles

Re: Psychometry You could buy this as Clairsentience with Retrocog etc., and if you plan to have Clairsentience anyway, that is probably the way to go. If not, the cheap thing to do this is buy a mental sense called Detect Recent History with Discriminatory and Tracking (you might throw a few other Enhanced Sense modifiers to match your envisioned sfx). That way you get the "recent history", or as much as the GM feels like giving you, and you can use it to track down anyone who touched it like a psychic bloodhound. _________________________________________ Don't touch that, you don't know where its been!

Re: Rapid aging Attack If you are going to model it as a HKA NND, you also need the advantage Does BDY(+1) or you'll only be doing STN. Since you are mostly looking at cellular death due to aging and you aren't really worried about accelerating time, I think the HKA NND should work fine unless you are really wanting a crippling effect rather than just damage. You should include under the NND immunity conditions that it only affects "ageable" people/objects so that you can't really affect a lump of gold, but you might be able to hurt someone with LS: Doesn't Age (depending on the sfx of that ability). You might also make it operate at half power against nonorganics like robots, that could technically be aged until they fall apart but it is a lot harder to age metal than flesh (if possible at all given the sfx of your power). ______________________________________________ It's dark. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.

Re: Encumbrance Very clever; saves a some math, although I still have to look up carrying capacity on the STR table. Make those logs work for you. Worth getting repped though.

Re: Places to Fight My two favorites have been 1) a fight with demons on a rapidly disintegrating bridge between dimensions and 2) a fight with insectoid aliens in a low-gravity, low-atmosphere tritium mine shaft on an ice-ball planet that was collapsing since the power to the magnetic shaft supports had failed.

Re: same old Q: MAs stacking on advantaged HAs

Re: same old Q: MAs stacking on advantaged HAs I won't comment on the official MA ruling, except that I believe Mr. Long indicated it was something that would have to be addressed in 6E. My house rule, which has worked well for me because it doesn't lend itself to abuse is this: If it is reasonable that STR and MA would add to the attack (according to the sfx) they can, but the active point totals have to match as though they had the same set of advantages on them as the HTH. In your example, the STR is 10 active points and the MA Strike adds DC worth 10 active points, for a total of 20 active points of additional attack. AP and EX give a total of +1 advantage, so for 20 active points you could buy +2 DC of attack with the AP & EX advantage, so your 4d6 HTH with AP & EX becomes 6d6 AP EX. This assumes that it makes sense that your STR and MA Strike can have AP and EX (I can easily see the AP, I am having a little more trouble with EX, but I guess it could happen depending on sfx). Hope that helps.

Re: Stealth Suit options As prestidigitator pointed out there is a difference between a minus to PER and true Invisibility, especially if the GM is giving bonus's the the PER based on circumstance. For most cases the -8PER will prevent anyone from spotting the character, but if they are actively looking, or the steath character is trying to cross a brightly lit, empty space then the chances of being spotted are no longer vanishingly small. Of course if you are trying to build a steath suit and not an invisibility cloak, maybe that is what you want anyway. Personally I like the idea of extra levels in Steath because it is just simpler, but admittedly it may not have quite the effect you are going for.

Re: Bullet Kata I am not familiar with the Sucker manuever, but that sounds like what you want. There was a similar discussion under the title "Crossfire" which I would put a link to, but I don't know how (sorry). But barring the Sucker manuever, here's my 2 cents: You might try modeling it as "grab and block" manuever, the exception being the "grab" doesn't actually restrain anybody and would be a DEX vs. DEX roll instead of STR vs. STR. If you make a good "DEX grab" then you have successfully interposed yourself between your target and someone else attacking you. Then you can "block" with the target of the DEX grab (OCV vs. OCV roll), the SFX being you duck out of the way at the last instant and the poor shmuck you set up gets hit instead of you. If you blow the block roll, then you weren't fast enough or you timed it wrong and get hit yourself. To be really good at this manuever, either have a high DEX or buy levels with it. Lots of supers have much higher DEX than the mooks this would typically be used on, so you wouldn't need too many levels to make it reasonably effective.

Re: Usable As Attack power question I would build this like Killer Shrike, but I think I would include the Variable Special Effects advantage to represent that the original source of the damage could be anything. And if the character has to use weapons he finds lying around, you might also include OIF - weapon of convenience. To take it a step further, make it a 4d6 RKA, but add the limitation "max damage limited by weapon (-½)" in case he ever finds some heavy artillery or if he manages to use this power to turn a villain's attack back at him. If you want to get really fancy, you might put it all in a multipower so you can have one slot for normal damage and one for killing damage.

Re: 6-Segment SPD Chart Although more compact, I don't see that it is that much easier to use than the regular SPD chart, other complications aside. If no one has a SPD over 6, you will never see actions in segements 1, 7, or 11, so you can always ignore those, which is already half of what you eliminate with the 6 segment chart. In my experience, the best way to simplify SPD for heroic games is just to have everyone be SPD 3. It does rob combat of some of its flavor, but it also makes it considerably simpler which makes combat faster. The occasional SPD 4 for someone who is particularly fast or SPD 2 for zombie-types can be worked in fairly easily if you really want it, without having to go back to the full SPD chart routine.

Re: Casual Presence I'm with Sean on this one. I had a player that built a character with a reasonably high PRE, but then had a supernatural PRE Aid, which put his PRE in the range of 50+. PRE attacks from that character short-circuited so many encounters that I ultimately had to convince the player to tone it down for the sake of good game play. The PRE attack is definitely something that needs adjusting in 6thEd.

Re: Favorite 60-point Power Construction Seems I missed that little line about the maximum number of points transferable. Thanks for catching it SteveZilla, and for the proper power construct. In retrospect, I can see where a small, repeating Transfer could be potentially abusive. Of course, a small, repeating Aid with the maximum bought up is abusive too, but that is legal under current rules.

Re: Favorite 60-point Power Construction One of my favorite 60 point powers: Energy Leech: 2d6 Transfer END to END, Continuous, Uncontrolled, Can be stopped by "killing" the leech (DEF 6, 6 BDY), transfered END goes to leech not caster (+0) This is a magical creature called the Energy Leech that once summoned will suck the END out of the target and use that END to power itself. The Uncontrolled can be ended by "killing" the leech, which has DEF & BDY based on a 60pt Entangle. A more lethal version (the Death Leech) would transfer BDY to END. The GM might insist on having a second way to stop the Leech depending on the campaign.

Re: THE BOOK OF DRAGONS -- What Do *You* Want To See? Will there be any thought to dragon "biology"? Lots of dragons are just magical, mythological creatures, but I know various authors have attempted to create "reasonable" dragons with their own ecological niche, which might be nice for those running a less fanciful game. For big scary monsters, you might include some Lovecraftian horrors. Not any creature in particular necessarily, but creatures that are so vicerally horrific that the hero has to overcome insanity-inducing fear before even contemplating physical combat. Another type of monster to include might be animal-archtypes, ultra-powerful rulers of a particular species, as Moorcock had in his Elric books.

Re: Avoiding The Blow/Artful Dodging First off, let me say that I love the concept of buying armor through "Artful Dodging", because it means that nimble characters who aren't supposed to be tough don't have insanely high DCV values. My quibble is with the limitations frequently applied to it. Maybe "Luck-based" is well-defined for some, but I find that term meaningless; I prefer "Only if able to dodge (-½)" as a more useful term. That inherently includes "Nonpersistent", which shouldn't have been there in the first place IMO. I have used the idea of "Always lets the first BDY through" but only if the character doesn't have any other armor. On similar topic, the Damage Reduction only vs. STN could be bought as extra PD only vs. STN, which gives a slightly different flavor but could be more reasonable pricewise. Personally I think that it gives the ability a more coherent feel and makes it more straightforward to use, but maybe its just me.

Re: Ditching PS12 For a better representation of actual combat, I think getting rid of PS12 recoveries is a good idea (but keep it for other book-keeping purposes). For more cinematic fights where combatants go on forever, not so much. If you did dump PS12, you might want to include optional recovery rule that allows you to get a partial recovery (maybe a half or a third of REC) by skipping a PHA but not dropping your DCV; call it a "guarded" or "defensive" recovery. That way when your character gets exhausted or near unconsciousness he can recover without making himself an easy target. This would also better simulate actual combat where opponents frequently step back and circle eachother instead of having a constant flurry of fisticuffs. It would change the balance of the game as mentioned above (SPD and Reduced END become more useful etc.), but not too dramatically and certainly not to the point of unplayability.

Re: Pain resistance? How you build it depends on the setting and whether you want pain resistance or pain immunity. For a Champions setting where lots of STN damage is done, Damage Reduction will probably be more useful, although it depends on the character build. For a Heroic setting, extra PD/ED only vs STN might be more reasonable cost-wise. I have used the latter for lots of characters that are resistant to pain, esp. for mind-over-body effects of mentalists and well-disciplined martial arts guys that should not a tough as a brick-type character but that I don't want going down on the first hit.

Re: Language Games and Fantasy Languages I have never gone to the lengths of different languages, but I have used accents for some characters and catch phrases or expressions as a hook. It added nice flavor, but you have to be consistent because the players will come to depend on those little cues to follow who is talking. It is great when I am on top of it, but confusing when I slip. And of course be careful not to offend anyone; I seem to recall a there being some anger at George Lucas about the accents some characters used right after the Phantom Menace came out.

Re: Desolidiification UAA Bury in Solid Matter As elegant as the default T-port damage rules are, I think I would make the character buy it as an attack to prevent abuse. If they don't buy it and try this trick, the target pops out of the solid matter like a ping-pong ball out of water because two physical objects can't occupy the same space. What I don't understand is why it should necessarily be an RKA and not an EB NND Does BDY. That will give you a more standard amount of damage dealt which makes sense to me because you can only desolidify so much mass to begin with which will have some typical amount of BDY. But the ultimately effect is the same, so it probably doesn't matter (no pun intended).

Re: Dodge Giant Blows Just to throw in two more cents, I personally would go with extra combat levels for the giants to represent the fact it is easier to hit with a big fist rather than the AoE option because it creates fewer logistical problems. You might include that the giants extra levels can't be used for placed shots and the like though. If you do go with the AoE option, I would just give the gnome extra levels with Dive for Cover, and then have him buy Breakfall so he can roll out of it without being prone. In keeping with the flavor of a fantasy fight between a giant and a gnome, I would also make sure the gnome had a higher SPD, which would allow him to dodge all the time and still get in some blows.

Re: Use of the Kusarigama I would have thought Chain & Rope weapons would have covered it fine, unless the character is ignoring the chain and just using the sickle part like a regular kama. That said, I have never used one, so maybe I am just pulling your chain.

Re: Do opposed skill rolls work? Sean has a point about going second, and archermoo has a good solution for addressing such contests. But I think casualplayer makes an excellent point about the use of complimentary skills, which would "break the tie" in many cases and avoid the whole situation. Encouraging the use of complimentary skills like that generally results in players taking more skills for their characters because they are useful, not just colorful. But the colorful makes for better role playing in my experience, so any way to promote it I have to support.

Re: Help with a concept Before you get the powers rolling, I would figure out why this ultra-rich girl is going to be fighting crime and not be a Britney Spears/Lindsey Lohan clone. Personally, I like my heroes having some kind of super powers, even minor ones, to set them apart from the masses. So if I were making this character I would go for a background like this: Billionare girl inherits her money when her folks die in some terrible (probably supervillian precipitated) tragedy. She is furious that all her money can't get her parents back. Or can it? She starts investing money in a scheme to get her parents back, either some high-tech time/dimension travel thing or else occult magic, depending on your tastes. Either way her plan doesn't work and literally blows up in her face, leaving her with superpowers, or at least enough occult knowledge to cast various magic spells. If you want closure for the parent grief, maybe she manages to contact them just long enough to realize they loved her and exchange some last words. Once she realizes resurrecting her parents isn't going to work, she turns her new-found powers and abilities to helping others people so that no one else will have to go through the grief she did. I love speedsters, so I would be inclined to go with the time travel option and give her some minor time manipulation abilities. But I think the occult angle works well too because you will end up with a character who has both magic and high-tech gadgets, which could complement each other nicely (how on earth did she manage to conceal a plasma rifle in that tiny purse?) especially if it is widely assumed that she only has one set of powers or the other. So figure out where she came from so you know where she is going. If you have any signature powers that you really like, try working those in to her background, and take it from there.

Re: Sonics - tired power, need new ideas I have built characters with sonic powers who have a kind of subsonic undertone to their speech, ala Frank Herbert's "Dune", which was purchased as extra PRE. Not quite mind control, but it can allow considerable influence, esp. when combined with PRE-based skills. And if the character is a performer in Secret ID, all the better to have a high PRE. One such character also could "focus" his speech so that it could be directed at a single person without anyone else being able to hear. This was bought as Telepathy with appropriate limitations. Also consider Telekinesis, defined as a powerful standing wave that can levitate objects (heck if you can justify flight, surely you can justify TK).