Thia Halmades

Re: Buying the Aid Power I'll agree with that. It is inefficient; I do agree with Diamond Spear in his interpretation of the OPs perceived attitude, and I think I grasp now what's going on. Yes: while there are 'more efficient' ways to do it, AID is often the easiest way to do it. It has a set Fade rate, costs END, etc. However. Nothing says you can't do this: +30 STR, Only for 10 minutes (or something similar; it can't be Uncontrolled as it doesn't cost END, and if you make it cost END that makes it even stranger), Side Effects (user loses 10 STR for 1 hour after drug wears off), OIF Fragile (injector & vial), Charges (4 charges that recover under limited circumstances; must be resupplied in a lab). And so on. It's trying to put together the proper sequence to grant a power that Aid/Succor already handle. Personally, I'd go with Succor/Red END 0/Uncontrolled to do this, but that's me.

Re: Super Shield And I would never allow a Triggered Missile Deflection without a hefty stack of limitations. Looks like cheese. Smells like cheese. Tastes like cheese.

Re: Free equipment side discussion. I think we did this by accident at one point, then threw it back out, because it made STUN too weak for our purposes, when a sword strike deals 7 BODY/21 STUN on average, and we use the Hit Location Table. I think it's a viable alternate rule, but not one that worked in our game.

Re: Where did it go? Actually, that's about the most eloquent answer you could ask for.

Re: Free equipment side discussion. This is a really eloquent version of the post I was about to write; Diamond Spear is exactly right. A super is a super because they have 350 points to spend. A super who doesn't buy any kind of defense is undefended. Period. They take normal damage from weaponry, because they handle it normally, like anyone else. SupraMentalist, the ... super mentalist... if you will... is a TP/TK. When Supra is paying attention, she can put up a Force Field that absorbs 30/30. If you catch her off guard, well... she has normal PD/ED and no resistant defense. It's already hard enough to 'kill' someone, and having a super take half damage "just 'cause" makes no sense to me, personally, and I'm usually all for rules adjustments that improve the distinction from Heroic to Super Heroic. This, though, seems to fall under the category of "curing a problem that doesn't exist." Now, if you want to house rule that all Supers, by nature, have 50% Damage Reduction against 'real weapons,' hey, GREAT. You can do that! The rules account for that, the option is already there. But I would not condone this being any sort of official sanctioned guideline.

Re: Changing the System: Action Points Suggestions? I'm full of... well, okay. Let's attack this from another angle: What kind of game do you want to run? FREX, if you're doing a Heroic game, then you're probably tracking weapon load outs, charges for guns, and people have batons, swords and so on. Most of the time, the weapons in HERO are built with Red END: 0 END because the focus does the 'work.' This means that a user only pays for the END in STR, and frankly, unless you're feeling very picky, you can ignore that. If you want to go Super Heroic, that's a separate issue, because most powers (flame powers, etc.) cost END to run, including Force Fields, Walls, Flight, and so on. However, nothing says you must keep track of END, you could reasonably elect to skip it. But it adds stress and flavor to Super Heroic games much more so than, say, Heroic games.

Re: .50 cal Longarm Oh, so your problem is one of scale. The rules don't account for that, although there is a house rule... somewhere... of every two size steps over the base size of the thing being fired grants a -1 DC. In which case, you're talking about something 25m in height, or roughly 12x the size of a human (2m). According to the text, we're probably dealing with Gigantic creatures, over 8x human size (easily) and up to 15x human size. Groovy. Since the weapon itself is human held, I'll say that the weapon is the base level, and thus, at three steps, the opponent gets an automatic -3 DCs against whatever human weapon he faces. That in turn gives you a stronger mechanical reason, since by canon, the size is just an SFX at that point. You can also give them Armor, Only Against Human Sized Weaponry (-1/2, since they probably get hit with it quite a bit) or something similar.

Re: .50 cal Longarm I'll echo the above; you can call it whatever you want, but what does this weapon achieve? Is it anti-personnel? There are many lighter, cheaper weapons for that. Is it anti-materiel? Those get pricey, and the odds of outfitting people en masse with such a fragile weapon (fragile: odds of a non proficient user maintaining it, and using it effectively past 'average' rifle range is nearly nil) are very low.

Re: The thumb-lighter trick 1 pip RKA no range, SFX: A small fire. Costs END.

Re: Lose Weakness And oh yeah. I have a violent allergic reaction to 'find weakness.'

Re: Lose Weakness Then the build is still valid; it's still a Force Field, still requires calibration, etc. and so forth. If you want him to become vulnerable again, cool: either use, "Only Maps resistances for the duration of a combat or extended sequence of like combats, (-1/2)" or "Only knows X resistances at a given time, (-N)," and that still covers the basics.

Re: Lose Weakness Er... not to ask the silly question, but why aren't you modeling this the other way around? Force Field; 30/30. Limitation: Force Field only applies once a given attack has been used three or more times (-1), requires a calibration roll (as power skill, -1/2). Poof. Instead of everyone else trying to 'find a weakness,' you build the power to the character. They have a forcefield that only operates once they've "learned" a specific attack. It sounds powerful, because there's no mechanic to 'forget' an attack, and then you realize that canonically, a force field by nature protects against everything anyway. You can also add: Power Defense (blah) Mental Defense (blah) Damage Resistance (blah) And so on. Sure, someday he'll be immune to everything, but most bricks are to begin with. I think this is an instance of buying the defense and limiting it, rather than putting the onus on the attacker. This goes to my design philosophy though; the character with the power pays for, and does, the "work."

Re: Kamarathin Sneak Peek My guy looks AWESOME.

Re: Lingering Teleport It's also a matter of paying for what you're doing; I agree with my peers, here, this is a question of paying for the power as it is. Movement is always, at minimum, a half phase. That's a game balance issue, IMNSHO.

Re: Question: how to build mechano-link power Lucius is right, barring quibbling over the details. This isn't "one power" in HERO; it's a suite of powers, probably tied together by an Elemental Control of so, to keep everything somewhat cost effective. Especially if you purchase: Mind Control 10d6 5 Overall Skill Levels, of which only 3 can be used at once, only for dealing with mechanical devices (not weaponry, although it may depend on GM fiat) Detect: etc. And then any other specific powers you want to put in, that tie up the special effect. But the big lesson here is that we aren't talking about one power; we're talking about a set of powers operating together to achieve a special effect, "brilliant mechanic."

Re: expert traveler Agreed, it isn't the same as Universal Translator. You also have to weigh total utility (it can be bloody useful, to have a decent chance to know almost anything about almost anywhere) against cost, and then detailing. If I were to allow a 20 pt. version, it would "only knowledge commonly found in travelogues, and widely known local lore, 11-." I'm tempted to say 8-, but then it's arguable no one would buy it.

Re: Missile and homing missile For Giant Robot HERO, I was considering going with a very cinematic fighting style, and including things like 'extra time' (so the missile fires, and begins travelling to its target) and then the jinking rolls/additional attack rolls, and limiting the number of 'passes' that the missile gets (in most cases, no more than 2) before it detonates dramatically. That's an ongoing project, though.

Re: Trigger and multipowers? As a general rule, I don't allow Advantaged multipowers for exactly the reason mentioned. I would allow a single slot to be advantaged, but not the whole MP. That's just me, though.

Re: Help with Abilities Picky git. As it happens, that won't change the cost one iota, since I just modded the 8 to 9 per canon. But (sigh) yes, it would be 'eight more lives.' Should also take a limitation, "Only engages if dead, -1/2."

Re: Water Tunnel It's an advantaged Tunneling. I would rule it as legal, with a modifier to 'tunnel water.'

Re: Review this character Right; this is how I would rule it. You can grab & TP another individual (the Nightcrawler stunt) but they must be willing to go, or it requires UAA. While the text may be a little unclear, that is the canonical answer if you want to TP someone against their will. This is also one of those powers I generally don't allow (movement powers UAA) because it can be very game breakery and leads to one-trick-pony characters who only have to TP their targets up, away, whatever. In answer to the other post I saw in regards to this, I'm not attempting to imply that the character shouldn't be able to Teleport. I'm saying that it shouldn't be a power in this framework. I'd also ask, "What's the distance allowable?" A massive range TP is insanely powerful, and in this instance it looks as though it was bought up to the level of the MP, without real rhyme or reason for it. Movement. Most powerful thing in the game. Sign of distress? Bink! I'm here! Huzzah! Oh noes, I have no defense! SQUIT. New character.

Re: Multiform help and advice. Apologies in advance to my fellows if I'm being repetitive here; I just see a really long list of questions so I'll tackle them in order. That's not a disadvantage, per se, but you stop getting the point break after you've exceeded your base cost. So if you go up to 300 points on the base form, IIUC, you then start paying at a 1:1 ratio on your multi-form. This is part of the inherent balance, to keep things from going to bananas. Does that answer your questions?

Re: Help with Abilities 9 Lives: 36 Cat? I'm a kitty cat!: Healing 10 BODY, Can Heal Limbs, Resurrection, Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2) (187 Active Points); 9 Charges which Never Recover (-2 1/2), Extra Time (Regeneration-Only) 1 Turn (Post-Segment 12) (-1 1/4), Self Only (-1/2)

Re: Review this character From my chair, which is very comfy, I'm taking away the following: I'll echo much of what everyone else has said up to this point about the Skill Roll requirement; I think that the limitation itself is fine, in that it's built as a Side Effect, but I would skip the Skill Roll and go with a variation based on EGO; first, it saves the PC points in that they aren't going to have to sink for a Power Skill, second, the roll bases itself on the stat in question. The odds of them missing said EGO roll is pretty low. I would also enforce (I think it was Incrdbil who pointed this out) the -1/10 Active on that roll. Second, and this is very "Thia" in its thinking, when I think of a multi-power I always think f a very tight structure. While I know there are plenty of variations on Multi-Power that allow for a high number of slots, I generally don't allow it, because it starts to really feel like a massive stretch. Let me explain: 1) You have a shot-gun, and the shotty has a choke, that lets you change up the AOE; while this can be done easily with a Variable Advantage, it can also (and I think this is how I did it in H:CE) be done as a suite of slots, with Lock Out. So one slot is "solid slug," and one slot is "AOE cone" and what have you, and you can limit from there. But it's all within the abilities of the shotty itself. Something like Mental Powers I generally break out into 'sets.' So you have an attack set, a defense set, and a utility set. This keeps things clean, allows the PC to run multiple powers simultaneously and makes a stronger argument for balance. 2) What's with the EC? It has one power in it, but seems to fly in the face of the rest of the structure. Rather than the EC (which is a defensive power, which can be run in accordance with everything else) I'd put together (as above) a second multi-power framework. 3) And in accord with the above, I see lots of classical mentalist powers... and a Teleport. What's with the teleport? How does this fit the SFX of that multi-power? To clarify: If I built Johnny Storm/The Human Torch, he would have an EC. Period. He buys LOTS of variations on fire, and the EC rends a clean cost break. But you could also buy it in multiple Multi-Power Sets, and with that, one SFX would be 'fire control,' one of them would be 'attack powers,' and one of them would be 'movement powers.' Certainly he can fly and shoot at the same time, but his Damage Shield is Always On when he's in Flame Mode. So there are some initial thoughts.

Re: Help with Abilities I'd say something, but it would sound too much like this: