Aversill

How? How do you build a power where you summon magic items out of thin air? Transform? And if Transform, how do you figure out how many active points you can summon (get out of thin air)? Do you need skills to make that happen? I feel like the answer to this is the spell summon, but clearly that has nothing to do with summoning things and not monsters. Any ideas?

Kind of built on detect.... They're talents, not powers. Detect answers would tell you that one is nearby, technically. Start looking at the adders and you'll realize that you're not talking about detect. If it looks like a duck and all... I have detect answers with targeting, go ahead, tell me what happens there. On the other hand, special effects are not rule calls, so.... On the other hand (if you've bought Extra Limbs), getting secrets to the universe is what, 10 Active points? ... yeah, not in my game.

I have real problems with "Detect Answers"-- that seems like messaging the rules to the point of bruising. Just me, but as I wouldn't let my players do that, I don't know that I want to do it. I freely admit that it's a solution, but... I think that there are things in the game that are designed to give you answers. This might be as simple as the common idea that if you want a blast, don't buy transform. You want answers to a question: there's a few skills that will do that already. I'm running my magic system through power pools, so there's a bit of hokiness there in putting a skill or a talent inside of a power pool, and that's a large part of why I don't like my answer, but detect... I don't know. As with everything in Hero, though, at a certain level, it's a matter of preference on how the build's going to go.

I'm with you all in terms of their being better, cooler campaign solutions, but right now I'm just populating the Grimoire right now. I'm turning the 1st edition spells into Hero stuff so I'm trying to be true to the spells as they were written there...before I start drastically breaking them.

I forgot about suppress, probably because I've always thought about it stopping someone from using the power and not stopping the effect itself. Still trying to get used to this whole 'can target the power itself' kind-of-thing. Assuming I go with the transform option, what Body am I trying to beat?

How do you delay other peoples' powers from going off? Say, if someone has a poison that takes a phase to activate (Time Delay limitation), how would you alter that delay (say, with a Slow Poison spell)? Can you buy limitations on other peoples' powers, usable as an attack (like a Naked Advantage)? Or am I looking for something else here?

The text of the spell suggests that you don't know who you're contacting. Otherwise, I'd be fine with mind scan and telepathy. It's just that I don't think you're supposed to mind scan people to use telepathy when the only way to figure out who you're scanning for is to have already used telepathy. In other words, I'm not sure I buy the whole "only on people who know the answer" limitation as a limitation.

I'm trying it with Universal Translator. Going off the APG, it says you can buy that as Universal Scientist, or Universal Professional Skill, etc., with the special effect being that a creature from another plane is giving you the knowledge. I'm not sure if I should buy it as a compound with the various universal's or whether it's enough that it's being put into a "spell power pool." This is the first time I've really thought about divination, though, so I'm not 100% sure I like this answer. I like your idea, Robert, as it seems to congeal divination as a group of possible spells, but why +30? That seems really excessive to me.

I'm trying to make the Contact Other Plane spell from 1st edition D and D. Basically, you make contact with a big thing from some alternative universe and it answers a series of yes/no type questions. I'm fine working out the particulars for myself, but where do I start? What power am I looking at?

The easiest way is to just remove multiples of the average on the damage dice. If someone's throwing 2 dice, but 3 DCs are represented by those two dice, and there's one less DC because of damage negation, I would just remove a 1/3 of the damage and call it a day. This is not entirely in the spirit of damage negation, but seriously, life's too short to figure out how to get players to roll 1.66 dice. I'm kind of curious, though, how people handle max DC for things like HKAs and breakable foci. If I max out my HKA, and I still have Str left over, does Damage Negation stop the excess Str from reinvigorating the attack? So, if I had a 1d6 HKA and 30 Str, I max out at adding 3 DCs, but I could potentially add 6. If there's three levels of DN against me, do I have a 2d6 HKA or a 1d6 HKA (assuming that no one rules that the DN stops the HKA damage first and therefore stops the potential Str bonus altogether)?

Three Questions/points about trigger: I'm not sure why trigger isn't modified by the frequency of the triggering event. If I buy a trigger that happens whenever I do squeeze damage or every time I hit in combat, then it ought to be worth more than a trigger that goes off once every full moon, but it isn't. Why is that, or am I missing something (1)? Also (2), trigger seems to make it possible to hit as an action that takes no time, as many times as the trigger allows, is there a limit to how many times a target can be hit in a phase (or segment) by a trigger? Lastly, trigger can't use senses that the character doesn't possess. So, if a character simulates a mine by setting an area affect, delayed affect blast on a trigger that when anyone enters the area it goes off, will it? Assuming that the character isn't 'monitoring the area' using clairsentience or something, will it go off? Does the character need clairsentience? Is delayed affect needed?

I bought hearing into a related group of dimensions (the afterlife(s)) and then put transmit on the hearing group. That doesn't actually compel the spirits to talk and doesn't even let the character know if they're there. Putting the dimension thing on sight will let the characters know if any ghosts are nearby. It's low Active and it does the job.