Oruncrest

From reading your OP, I gather that this fellow is like He-Man: Pulls out the Sword of Eternia, says "By The Power of Grayskull!" and transforms, keeping the sword around to use on his enemies. If that's the case, then here's my ideas:

1) First, build the power that transforms the PC into their HID with the Focus. Like so:

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By The Power of Grayskull... I Have The POWER!!!: (30,30) Resistant Protection (Armor if you're not using 6th ED), Hardened; OAF (Sword of Eternia), Incantations; 112 AP 50 RP

Activating this power turns Adam into He-Man, deactivating it changes He-Man back into Prince Adam.

DO NOT put this power in any frameworks that also have OIHID. In fact I'd recommend not putting it in any frameworks at all.

Any powers that can be used after the PC transforms should use Restrainable instead of Focus:

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Throwing Your Sword Always Works: 7D6 RKA; OIHID, Restrainable; 105AP, 60RP

This power can be put in a framework.

And concerning the original post, while everyone else was wondering about whether or not the attack could discern between the varying shades of Gray, I was wondering how the attack is deciding whether the target is evil or good in the first place. Evil is not a Special Effect (which are observable), but a Character Alignment (which aren't).

If the Chris Claremont Magneto (Anti-Hero) were to fight the Grant Morrison Magneto (Mad old Terrorist T***), the MOTT! Magneto's attacks aren't going to be any different from AH! Magneto's. They shouldn't be colored differently. They won't give off any eeevil vibes. It's just magnetic attacks hurled by the same character at different points in his life.

The main 'advantage' of this limitation is that it's getting Detect Evil (a 12pt. power) for free.

4 hours ago, pawsplay said:

 

The Charges modifier, same question. A Limitation that is less limiting is worth less of a value. If the user could purely control who was affected, that would actually be an Advantage, Selective on the Area Effect.

So if you had a character whose only means of attack had 4 charges, you'd give them an extra -1 to the limitation to compensate? Or if he had another power with 4 charges alongside the first, would you take away the -1 on both limitations because 'you can switch to the other one'? Of course you wouldn't! A limitation is valued only by the effect it has on that power (unless of course, the limitation is on a power framework, in which case, the framework is the 'power').

And the answer is (drumroll please)...: A.

The general idea behind Only in Alternate ID (henceforth written as OIAID) is that the Player Character has two (or more) distinct identities and that the power(s) with OIAID are only accessible in one form. If a sniper fired bullets at Clark Kent and Billy Batson, the Bullet that hit Clark's head is gonna vaporize when it hits his head, whereas the bullet that hits Billy's head... well... Billy's brains will make pretty art. Both of them are invulnerable in their superhero IDs (Superman and Captain Marvel, respectively), but Billy has to be Capt. Marvel to enjoy the benefits of his powers, while Clark can use his in or out of costume.

To maintain suspense, sometimes there is a 'fail condition': a specific condition must be met in order to shift into the alternate identity (Billy Batson must say the magic word 'SHAZAM!' (incantations), Donald Blake must rap his walking stick on something solid (gestures), Bruce Banner's body warps and bulges as he transforms (full phase), and if that condition is interfered with (Billy's been gagged, Loki throws Donald's stick out the window, Bruce has been KO'd) then there is no transformation.

This isn't always the case, though. Sometimes a PC can transform through a simple act of will (Piotor Rasputin doesn't have to say anything, make any funny gestures or take any time to become Colossus - he just activates his (30,30) Resistant Defense, Perceivable (inobvious to obvious) and he's suddenly in his Alternate ID and all the abilities he bought OIAID (+70 STR, +15 CON, Life Support) come online instantly). The only thing Billy, Bruce, Donald, and Piotor have in common is that until they transform into their alternate IDs, they're vulnerable to their opponents, and that commonality is what makes OIAID a limitation.

10 hours ago, dialNforNinja said:

... are you saying that as a GM, if I as a player told you I'm going to make PRE attack by otherwise harmlessly giving the opponent a nice trim and feather with my lightsaber, you wouldn't (at best) impose a massive penalty on that attack roll to NOT burn and/or just cut the top of his head off, in the LACK of such a Transform alternate mode? Heck, even actually doing the Kyle Katarn idle animation and trimming my own beard just for the sake of it? Because I can't think of a single game I've played in, in any system, where that would fly. Theoretically maybe Exalted, but I've never played Exalted.

In combat, I'd have you make 2 rolls: Roll-to-Hit, because the target very likely won't stand there and let you do the "Shave and a Haircut" gag. And a PS: Jedi Knight Roll (no minuses unless the target figures out what you doing and makes a DEX roll to avoid it (but if he's never seen you do it before, how would he know?)) because while it's cool, it's not worth a huge outlay of points for the effect, and a Jedi should have spent a few points for the PS if only to fake being a Jedi...

22 hours ago, assault said:

Captain Wonder would travel back to prevent the thing that was prevented from happening by a previously unidentified time travelling superhero.

 

You know, that thing? It's in the history books, people.

So Capt. Wonder's the Dude dealing with the Thing... 😜

3rd, actually. Coatlicue was updated for 4th in an Adventurer's Club adventure, The Nightmare Before Christmas, which saw the Protectors freed (offscreen) of the Skull Pendant - and Santa Claus and his entire 'organization' (down to the Reindeer) as its new victims. I also believe that Scott Heine updated some of the protectors on his 'H-Files'... website? (it's been over 2 decades and at least 5 computers since I've seen it...)

10 hours ago, grandmastergm said:

 

Huntsman is actually a NPC mentioned in Dave's campaign along with SaveCo.  What source material did he get it from?

I'm not sure which came first, but Wayne Savage, Huntsman, and SavCo were part of the adventure To Serve And Protect by Scott Heine.

5 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:

And just looking at the rules, it says

 

"Other characters cannot make PER rolls to 'perceive through' shape shift [which kind of undermines bits of my argument - why has noone looked at the rules!] or determine that a person is shapeshifters.  They have to detect that Shape Shift is being used in other ways".

The reason noone else has noticed it is because it's only clearly stated in Champions Complete - It's almost completely hidden in the giant slab-o-text that is HERO System Sixth Edition vol. 1 and isn't in either 4th or 5th editions. Which means that for at least 2 editions, Shape Shift has been treated like Images, No Range, Self Only by pretty much everyone - including me...

Steve Long wrote about Entangle variations in an issue of Digital HERO. One of the possible variants concerned using CON as the breakout characteristic instead of STR. HERO was still in 5th ed., but it should still work for 6th. Here's an example:

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Paralyzing Toxin 3:  Entangle 3d6, 4 PD/4 ED, Works Against CON, Not STR (+1/4), Takes No Damage From Attacks All Attacks (+1/2) (61 Active Points)

Another possibility is to use Change Environment (Stunning) with the long lasting adder:

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Paralyzing Toxin 4: Change Environment: Stunning; Long-Lasting (5 minutes), -4 to CON Roll (48 Active Points)

10 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

It's also Batman.  And it had no actual meaningful effect.  Did anyone else yank off his ring in the source material?  Did it result in a significant disadvantage?  Or was this a one-off so we could all go "wow-Bats is so cool!"

I wish it were a one-off...

https://youtu.be/IcCGjQ4pUO0?t=183

Now let me be blunt: I can't stand this scene! At least with Hal, you could see how Bats could get the ring off his finger (Hal was out-of-combat, had his hands wide open, no forcefield, and he's being written as a fearless fool, so he wouldn't think that Bats would try to slip it off his finger). John, on the other hand, despite being rather stupid (I have the most powerful ranged weapon in the universe, so naturally I should fly in to fistfight a completely unknown enemy) for a former marine, has his forcefield up and his fists balled up and punching (and connecting too). And despite all that, Batman is able to get that ring off his finger like he's filching an extra donut from the JL commissary. I can't believe the GL Corps lasted as long as it did if it was that easy to get a ring off in combat.

Oops...

On 1/26/2020 at 3:54 PM, Zeropoint said:

If we're doing fictional martial arts, I'd love to see an interpretation of Panzer Kunst. I've been a big fan of Alita since well before any movies came out.

Why stop with just Panzerkunst? Here's a write-up of the Battle Angel herself, written up by Michael Surbrook.

On 1/28/2020 at 6:00 AM, SteveZilla said:

 

Wait, what?  0.o

 Massey misspoke. A CON Roll is made to determine if the target is stunned.

HERO System Advanced Player’s Guide, pg 83:

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When used, this form of Change Environment Stuns the target, subjecting him to all the effects described on 6E2 104 (except for the loss of STUN; his STUN total isn’t reduced). The Stunned effect lasts as long as the Change Environment is maintained. 
However, when affected the victim gets to make a CON Roll immediately, and if the  roll succeeds the attack has no effect on him. If the roll fails, he gets to make an additional CON Roll every Phase he’s affected at a cumulative +1 (so +1 on his second roll, +2 on his third, and so on). As soon as any roll succeeds, the power immediately stops affecting him and he has his full Phase in which to act. To affect him further, the character using the Change Environment has to use an Attack Action and successfully attack him again. 
To counteract the CON Roll, a character buying Change Environment (Stun) can include penalties to CON Rolls as an additional combat modifier.

On 12/19/2019 at 10:06 PM, Lord Liaden said:

I see your point; but by that logic, wouldn't that make military and police training rather pointless? You can't really know what a combat situation is like until you're actually in it, but training conditions your responses to particular encounters, in ways civilians aren't.

In The HERO System Almanac, the Average Soldier was given a PRE of 10, with the text specifying that the extra point came from 'an improved self-image and experience with acting under pressure'.

If the idea of an Average Human having Primaries of 8 took hod around this time then a Genocide Rook having a PRE of 10 doesn't seem so unreasonable...

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I am.it trying to turn it into anything.  I still use the way it was introduced.  Ten years later, it was rearranged and given a mechanic that appears nowhere else,  and the reasons--  while we can retroactively invent as many as we want, because as humans, we are remarkablu good at that-  have never really been there: if the mechanic itself was broken, then why was it left in every other case? 

😕

That took me a bit to make heads of tails out of. So I ran it thru auto-correct, and this is what came out:

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I am not trying to turn it into anything.  I still use the way it was introduced.  Ten years later, Light Illusions was dropped and replaced by a power with completely different mechanics that didn't feel like a copy-and-paste of an earlier power. And the reasons--  while we can retroactively invent as many as we want, because as humans, we are remarkably good at that-  have never really been there: if the mechanic itself was broken, then why was it left in every other case? 

Was it even ten years? My copy of Champions II has a copyright of 1982. And as for the question, I was in the middle of a paragraph about how Light Illusions shared its resolution mechanic with mental powers while not being a mental power, and so could be the reason why it was dropped, but then I remembered, so do PRE Attacks, so in the end, I got nuthin'.

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I'm not turning into anything.

I should hope not. Then I'd have to comment about Images, self only Shapeshift. And we've got enough of a kerfluffle going on as it is.

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THey're two different mechanics,

 

Yes they are.  Now. 

 

I was about to drop a Dr. Strangelove joke in here, but it fell apart before I could properly visualize it. Sorry.

Also I should've written earlier that Light Illusions and Images are two different powers with different mechanics (one can only work if you're too stupid to escape, the other works by fooling your senses) that produce a similar effect, Images being more inclusive (up to 5 senses compared to only sight), and thus 'better'. My bad.

7 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

Nah, per the rules you don't need to roll to see anything that's obvious in front of you, only to find hidden or easy to miss things.

Yeah, this.  And stop trying to turn Images into Mental Illusions. They're two different mechanics, with different effects:

An Image can affect anyone who can see the image, which is dependent on its size (base size is 1m × 1m × 1m, but you can use Area of Effect to make it bigger). You pay for each sense you want to affect. A PER Roll is used to spot the discrepancies (like you would use a PER Roll to find something hidden by the Concealment skill, success means you've found enough discrepancies to realize that the image is an image). And if an Image punches you, you can't feel it.

A Mental Illusion can only affect one person (although you can increase the number of targets with Area of Effect). All senses are affected. A breakout roll is used to disbelieve the illusion (wheupon the illusion vanishes). And if you roll high enough, a Mental Illusion  can punch you and actually do STUN.

13 hours ago, Gnome BODY (important!) said:

I'll use INT as an example. 

Currently INT costs 1AP/point.  There is no difference between having 8 INT and 12 INT.  Only points 3, 8, 13, 18, etc provide any benefit.  Every point in between is just padding that pretends to matter. 

To fix this, remove all the intermediate points.  Assuming INT was fairly priced, this means that INT should now cost 5AP/point, and every point improves your INT-based skills and PER roll by 1 instead of every fifth. 

Except every other primary stat loses some effect by doing this. And INT doesn't gain anything.

Every point of STR increases your lifting capability by 15% cumulative.

Every point of DEX improves your chances of going first. Indeed, this was determined to be so useful that the cost of DEX is 2CP per point.

Every point of CON decreases your chances of being stunned, which is determined per pip of STUN damage you take from attacks.

Every point of EGO decreases your chances of being affected by powers like Mental Illusions, Mind Control, and Telepathy, which is determined per pip of effect rolled by those powers.

Every point of PRE decreases your chances of being affected by Presence Attacks, which is determined per pip of effect rolled when a PRE Attack is made.

INT is the only primary stat that doesn't gain anything per point.

Removing the granularity from the other primary stats won't improve INT's game effects one bit, but every other stat would be screwed.

Select a power in your MP. In that powers window, there should be a 'Fixed Slot' option next to the 'Display Active Points' option jut before you get to the Adders/ Modifiers sub-window. Select that.

Sorry for the unintentional Thread Necro. This is what happens when you just wake up in the morning after having looked for old posts the night before.😕

Since your Hera's a channeller of Bioenergy, I would suggest making one transform an Empower Minion Hero, giving a normal person low-level superpowers along with Hera-related disads/comps, and the other, like Lonewolf suggested could be a 'curse' that gives her opponents unluck.

Oh. My... (insert your choice of copulating deity)

Still, my sense of Schadenfreude has me wondering how well the intern fared. Seriously, it's guys like him that (rightfully) give Superhero Registration a bad name.

And has Doc Apep recorded the death screams of all involved as music to go to sleep each night.

I don't suppose you could just use Missile Deflection, Area Effect with a Side Effect that says that the lightning always hits the character?

For FREd:

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• Lightning Rod:  Missile Deflection (Any Ranged Attack), Range (+1/2), Persistent (+1/2), Area Of Effect (4" Radius; +1*) (60 Active Points); Side Effects, Side Effect occurs automatically whenever Power is used (Deflected Lightning is Reflected onto [Character]; -1), Only Works Against Lightning/ Electical attacks fired at other characters in the AOE Limited Type of Attack (-1/2)

For 6th ED:

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Lightning Rod:  Deflection, Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2), Constant (+1/2), Area Of Effect (12m Radius; +3/4) (55 Active Points); Side Effects, Side Effect occurs automatically whenever Power is used (Deflected Lightning is Reflected onto [Character]; -1), Only Works Against Lightning/ Electical attacks fired at other characters in the AOE Uncommon attack (-3/4)

1 hour ago, quozaxx said:

Wait!  YOu are telling me Firewing had a vulnerability to... Fire????   

LOL, Are you serious?

 

No. BOLO (the Player Character) had a vulnerability to fire.

This was back in the day when the more messed up disadvantaged you were, the more powerful you could be.

I remember when I tried to pay for a 750pt demon hunter by having her be hunted by various Demons, Demon Cults, and DEMON (this was CHAMPIONS 3rd ed, where after the first two like disads, all disads of the same type got you half points). 

9 hours ago, Khas said:

This is interesting but is an advantage and just makes an instant power ready without preparation for that time and is not a period during which the power is disabled

Actually, when applied to an instant power, Time Limit allows a character to use that power without having to allow for any limitations that might prevent that power from activating for the duration of the time limit. That's why Time Limit is an advantage for instant powers. After the first use, it allows you to ignore limitations like Gestures (do this to activate), Incantations (say this to activate), Focus (have this to activate)…

...and Charges (wait a period of time between activations).

Which is why I think Lucius' build works (especially now that I'm not confusing Reloading with Recovering).Each 'clip' has one Continuing (I could see an argument for not needing this modifier, but some GMs might want it as it shows that the charge is still ongoing even thou the Blast has already been fired) Charge that the Time Limit nullifies for five minutes, enabling the 'Khas Gun' to fire again and again until the times' up. Once the Time Limit's duration has ended the 'clip' modifier activates, and the 'khas Guns' cooldown period begins and can't be used again for an hour. Wash, rinse, repeat another 15 times.