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MuensterCheese

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Posts posted by MuensterCheese

  1. I rebuilt that part of the character using Physical Manifestation for the Clairsentience, along with OIAID & OIF for the mask.  Then I added on the exact same set of Enhanced Senses using just OIAID and OIF.  It's now much more affordable.  I guess it's strange having OIF and PM on the same Power, but he can't use Clairsentience without the mask (a focus) which connects to the drone (the PM).

     

    I do have a question about PM, though.  What does this phrase mean: "It has a DCV equal to the character’s base DCV (i.e., as calculated from DEX, with no other modifiers)."

     

    What does that mean?

  2. Scrap may want to give it an attack power, but currently it has none because he can't afford it.  The drone can be attacked, takes no STUN, flies, has Life Support, etc.  That said, I think I know where you're going with your question.  I've looked into the possibility of Physical Manifestation, but since Scrap wants it to push things open (like doors) and possibly Blast, I thought building an Automaton was the better choice.  But sitting here at the keyboard, perhaps I could build Blast as Physical Manifestation or Indirect or something.  Is that where you're headed?

  3. My question to all of you Hero experts is this: how can I make the following character affordable for the player?

     

    Scrap is a character that builds things from junk parts.  His player wishes to build a drone as an Automaton Follower.  Among other powers are 48 points of Enhanced Senses, which includes Powers like Nightvision, Infrared, and Detect Global Position (GPS).  This cost also includes selling back normal smell, taste, and touch.  I also purchased Modifiers like Telescopic.  I purchased Transmit for the Sight and Hearing Groups because the drone can stream the data to a Computer.

     

    The Computer's special effect is a mask which acts in three roles: it masks the character's identity, can be taken away, and provides Powers to the character.  Any powers provided by the mask are bought with the OIAID and OIF Limitations.  The Computer mask itself also has the Enhanced Senses that the drone has because of its own camera and mic.  I also had to buy Normal Sight and Hearing for it.  But the Computer can also receive the senses of the drone because of Transmit.  I bought these for the Computer as Clairsentience with Mobile and Only Through The Senses of Others.  I purchased Enhanced Senses like Nightvision with the -1/2 Limitation: Only Through Clairsentience (pg. 179, par. 3).  I purchased Transmit for the Computer also since it can send its data to Scrap through a screen and speakers.  When Scrap wears the mask, he benefits from the Enhanced Senses from the mask, as well as those streamed from the drone.  I had to buy Clairsentience for Scrap, too, in the same way I did for the Computer.  The Automaton's and Computer's costs are, of course, divided by 5 for Scrap to purchase.

     

    Scrap now has a group of senses from the drone and a group from the computer.  The computer has its own senses plus that of the drone.  The drone has its own senses.  My problem is that this character is coming in way over the allotted points for the campaign.  Enhanced Senses are essentially being bought four times for three different entities.  How can I make this cheaper, or have I done as good a job as I can, given the concept?

  4. In Champions Villains, Volume III, page 60, there is a character sheet for Buzzsaw.  Listed in his Powers are his two Buzzsaw Shooter Gauntlets.  The first costs 38 CP and the second costs 5 for the exact same weapon.  Can someone explain to me what rule is being employed to get this kind of discount?  I ask because there is a PC in my group who has multiple pistols of the same make and model (same powers, advantages, and disadvantages) and I had him pay the same amount for each one.  Thanks, experts!

  5. In my group, I have a member who wants a pretty simple Power.  He wants the ability to emanate a sonic blast from himself in all directions.  Clearly it's Blast, Perceivability is Obvious, and Duration is Instant (which are default attributes of Blast).  But I also see how Area of Effect--Radius applies.  The Range is questionable.  I can see a Limitation for No Range, but not a Limitation for Self.  I guess I could make one up.  And it also stands to reason that Cannot Use Targeting applies, because we've decided to use Hit Locations.

     

    All this is fine, until I imagined this in combat.  The rules state that the character needs to attack.  But why, in this case?  The power emanates from him, so he has no need to Target an opponent, the ground, or anything.  The effect would affect everyone around him in the radius that he purchased, wouldn't it?  Why should he roll attack dice?  Just because the rules say so?  Or should I add an Advantage?

  6. Wow.  These are really great answers to my concerns.  I appreciate all of you for your thoughtful responses and the time each of you took to address my concern.  And, sorry I originally posted this in the wrong forum.

     

    The character I'm creating is a villain minion, and the rules lawyer in me wants to it "right", "fairly", and "well-balanced".  The electricity minions work for a water-based boss who is immune to electrical effects.  The water-based boss first power-sprays the characters and the fighting area with water, and then the minions go to work, shocking the water to shock the characters.  They can't "throw" their electricity, and thus the No Range limitation.  And I just couldn't figure out how to name such powers, limitations, and advantages and to "cost" them to figure out if it would be a fair fight with my heroes.

     

    In some of your responses, you presumed that I was not the GM when, in fact, I am.  My sons like to play Champions with me, which is good father/son time.  However, to my detriment, they have expressed no interest in reading anything in the rule books.  They maneuver their characters where they want and use their powers, but have no real understanding of how the game is making these things occur.  I tell them what dice to roll, what characteristics they need to tell me, and let me just say that it is all very taxing.  I don't know the system very well myself, even after reading CC multiple times, so it's hard on my brain to create the adventures, create the bad guys, and perform combat.  To this day, I don't know how power frameworks, combat skills, and variable advantages work.  But that's outside the scope of this forum thread.

  7. As a rules lawyer in the other games I play, I have such a hard time with character creation when it comes to costing things that the real world normally provides.  I still have not wrapped my head around these key concepts.  I don't have the Hero System books, but I have CC6, Powers, and one Villains book.

     

    My latest headache is in regards to electricity.  I have consulted CC6 and read about Electricity.  I have looked at the preface to Electrical powers in the Powers book.  I've searched this forums for answers, but can't find any with my search terms.  So I still don't get it!

     

    I am creating a character that can shock, but with the No Range limitation, since he has to touch his target.  But electricity also flows through metal, water, and other conductors.  Do I *buy* advantages and/or limitations to reflect this natural phenomena, or does the special effect alone justify the character's use of electricity through such mediums?  Do I buy different powers (or a power framework) that represents his attack through each kind of medium, like Shock Through Water, or Shock Through Metal?  Are the different kinds of conductors considered to be foci?  I have spent time enough trying to research this on my own--it was time for a question.

     

    And that's another weakness of mine.  Instead of being creative and accepting my own answer, I'm always looking to cannon or official resources for answers.

     

  8. I will be playing my first Hero adventure tonight with my two 11-year-olds and two of their friends.  I created 250-point characters for each of them.  All four of them decided to let my 5-year-old daughter join, and I didn't even ask them to let her in.  Here is what I took out of the game, and why:

    1. Everything mental (OMCV, DMCV)  With fewer points to spread, I didn't want them to create a super-cool good guy only to be defeated by a weak mentalist taking over their minds.  This should also lead to friendship since no one will be pitted against another by means of a controlling mind.
    2. CON and END, so there's less to keep track of.  They will already be tracking STUN with damage and REC and I figured that was enough.
    3. BODY, RKA, Resistant Defense, Armor Piercing, etc. so there's no bleeding, cutting, stabbing, shooting, dismemberment, beheading, and the like.  We will keep this game like an old-school Spiderman comic book.  And bad guys' guns will always miss.  However, we will still have knockback because it's cool.  I've trained the kids how to count BODY on a STUN roll, which is useful for knockback, robots, and inanimate objects.
    4. Multi-power and VPPP, because they're too confusing, even for me.
    5. EGO and PRE, because they're hard to role-play for youngsters
    6. Ffeet instead of meters, because we live in the U.S. and the kids are used to feet.  I have a printed Excel spreadsheet which shows a bunch of pre-loaded converted numbers so we can go between multiples of 5 meters and feet.

    By the way, knocking out all this stuff for kids' sake also makes supplements harder to use since several stats won't apply and that takes away from the total cost of pre-generated and pre-made characters like Arrowhead.  It's made me go back and forth on whether to even purchase stuff like the Powers book or the 3 Villains books.

     

    We'll see what happens tonight, when they fight Arrowhead from Champions Complete.

  9. Assault poses some very good questions which I'll attempt to answers.

     

    Building a villain with Character Points is my way of helping ensure they can defeat it.  The combined total of my group's heroes is 1000 points, so hopefully making one or two 350-point villains will make for a fight they can win.  "Right?", asks the newbie.

     

    So, it seems the cost of Multiform is based on the most expensive form, but only the true form pays it, whether the true form is the most expensive or not.  When I say my transformer is a 350-point character, I really don't know if that includes the cost of Multiform or not.  How would I calculate the total character cost?  Add both characters together (with the Multiform cost)?  I'm new to this and I'm not sure.

     

    I do like what Assault said about building the power outside of Multiform, which makes perfect sense.  This robot will have the same STR, DEX, INT, OCV, DCV, and other characteristics no matter which form he's in, so I suppose I would build his powers with the OIAID Limitation (such as not being able to Blast while he's a car).  I could also have him Aid/Boost on himself only for SPD when he's a car because he can drive faster than he can run.  In this way, I wouldn't have to re-buy the characteristics that don't change.  So, thank you Assault, for the neat suggestion!

  10. I posted this in the Hero 6th Edition forum, but the Administrator directed me elsewhere:

     

    On pages 80-81 of Champions Complete are the following sentences which totally seem to contradict each other.  Please help me determine the cost of Multiform for a 350-point villain robot that can transform into an SUV (which I'm not counting as a regular Vehicle in game terms, but a character vehicle):
     
    "The player must choose one of the character's forms (depending on character concept) to be the true form, and the other forms are alternate forms.  Only the true form pays the cost for Multiform, and the true form need not be the most expensive form."
     
    So, in math terms, Cost(True form) >= Cost(Alternate form) or Cost(Alternate form) <= Cost(True form)
     
    A few paragraphs later, we read, "Alternate forms must be regular characters (not Vehicles, Bases, Computers, Automatons, or the like), and are built on the same Total CP (including Matching Complications) as the true form (or fewer CP, if desired)."
     
    In math terms, Cost(True form) >= Cost(Alternate form), but NOT Cost(Alternate form) <= Cost(True form).
     
    For my Transformer, it seems like the first sentence will let me choose the robot or the vehicle as the true form, but the second sentence seems to say that only the robot can be the true form.  Which is true?
     
  11. On pages 80-81 of Champions Complete are the following sentences which totally seem to contradict each other.  Please help me determine the cost of Multiform for a 350-point villain robot that can transform into an SUV (which I'm not counting as a regular Vehicle in game terms, but a character vehicle):

     

    "The player must choose one of the character's forms (depending on character concept) to be the true form, and the other forms are alternate forms.  Only the true form pays the cost for Multiform, and the true form need not be the most expensive form."

     

    So, in math terms, Cost(True form) >= Cost(Alternate form) or Cost(Alternate form) <= Cost(True form)

     

    "Alternate forms must be regular characters (not Vehicles, Bases, Computers, Automatons, or the like), and are built on the same Total CP (including Matching Complications) as the true form (or fewer CP, if desired)."

     

    In math terms, Cost(True form) >= Cost(Alternate form), but NOT Cost(Alternate form) <= Cost(True form).

     

    For my Transformer, it seems like the first sentence will let me choose the robot or the vehicle as the true form, but the second sentence seems to say that only the robot can be the true form.

     

  12. What follows are the Powers, Adders, Advantages, and Limitations for this 6e Creative Energy Power Framework, where 'AP' equals Active Points and 'RP' equals Real Points:

     

    Prepare to Energize - SUMMON (8 CP for 37 CP object (the Multipower below); +1 slavishly devoted; = 16 AP; -1/2 for two-handed gesture; -1/2 for Extra Time (full phase); = 8 RP)

     

    Creative Energy - MULTIPOWER (40 CP reserve; -1/2 No Range as some Range powers are restricted to being created right in front of him; -1/4 this is a greater power Linked to a lesser power (SUMMON); = 23 RP. Note that this Power and the Linked Power cannot be used in the same phase per the instructions since the lesser power takes a full phase to activate.  The desired Power from the SUMMON activates at the beginning of the next Phase as a 1/2 Phase action)

     

    Energy Shield - BARRIER (Fixed slot; 3 CP; +27 CP for 27 BODY; +10 CP for Non-anchored; = 40 AP; (do I apply No Range limitation again?); 40/10 = 4 slot points)

     

    Energy Club - HAND ATTACK (Fixed slot; 25 CP for 5d6 vs. PD; +1/2 Affects Desolidified = 37 AP; -1/4 HTH Limitation; = 30 RP; 30/10 = 3 slot points)

     

    Energy Net - ENTANGLE (Fixed slot; 30 CP for 3d6 BODY/3 PD/3 ED; +1/4 Both take damage; = 37 AP; (do I apply No Range limitation again?); 37/10 = 3 slot points)

     

    Energy Disbursement - DESOLIDIFICATION (Fixed slot; 40 AP; -1/2 Cannot pass through solid objects; = 27 RP; 27/10 = 3 slot points)

     

    Energy Skeleton Key - Lock Picking Skill (Fixed slot; 3 CP + 5 to roll; = 13 AP; 13/10 = 1 slot point) (Note: doesn't work against locks that require no physical key, such as computer passwords, combination locks, retina scanners, etc.)

     

    Slot cost total: 14 CP

    Multipower cost total: 23+14=37 CP

    Summon + Multipower = 37+8=45 CP

     

    Here are my questions:

    1. There are two Advantages applied to two different slots totaling 3/4.  Should the AC of the Multipower actually be 70, and the RC be 40?  Or none of the above?
    2. Did I cost the Summon power correctly?
    3. Did I do the Skeleton Key/Lockpicking ability as a Power correctly?
    4. What Limitation would you recommend for having to perform the SUMMON one whole phase before the MULTIPOWER?

    You guys are the best support group a Hero newbie like me could have, honestly.  Your feedback and thread posts have been very helpful.

  13. Wonderful advice, from both of you.  And the thread's still open to whoever else wants to post.  That's exactly what I'll say to this new player, since I'm new.  I'll tell him it's doable, but very complicated.  And since his character is new to his abilities as well, we'll start off with a few objects he can master, and everything else takes a lot of practice to make (XP).  This will be the first and only VPP I've had to deal with, and the math looks very confusing to me, but I think I can give it a shot.

     

    Since he creates objects that give him powers, I presume that every object will have the Focus limitation.  Since has 40 points left to devote to this ability, I have to do some weird reverse math to see how much protection his barrier is going to give him, how many damage classes he can actually attack with, and what his skill rolls will be when he uses devices (like a key for lockpicking).

  14. As a bit of background information, I will be GM'ing a Champions campaign with 4 11-year-olds.  I don't have a GM to look to, and I have no experience with actually playing the game yet.  But I've read Champions Complete at least 4 times.

     

    We were creating the last of the 4 characters Saturday night and his first ability I don't know how to create.  His inspiration is Green Lantern, whom I don't know much about.  This player wants his character to create just about anything with energy.  OK, so he wants a Summon power with Slavishly loyal since he can only summon (create) inanimate objects with this energy.  The area of effect is limited to 1 cubic meter and the range is limited to No Range, since it's always created right in front of him.  And he also needs to move his arms around to create it, so that's the gestures limitation.

     

    But now where do I go?  He wants this creative energy to become ANY inanimate object, but sometimes that object looks like a Power to me.  For instance, he wants to be able to create a shield which is Barrier, non-anchored, cannot englobe, restricted shape, no range.  He wants to be able to change that shield to a sword, which is hand-to-hand attack, I suppose.  But he may opt for a warhammer, club, screwdriver, computer, waste basket, candy, sunglasses, keys, and other objects.

     

    I have no idea what to do.  I told these guys we could build any character they want, and he comes to me with this.  I based my claim off the Champions advertising.  That's pretty clever, wanting a character that essentially never needs to buy so much as a pocketknife to get by in life, since he can create a temporary one.  But that just seems way over-powered and way too difficult to create.  Assuming I allow him to create such a power, how should I go about it?  Does this power generate other powers?  Do these generated powers get put in a VPP since he can't possibly use them at the same time?

     

    I'm at a loss.

     

  15. I am still really, really new to Champions and the whole Hero system.  I have read much of Champions Complete and it's a lot to try and keep in my head.

     

    But I still don't understand how combat is actually DONE.  Between powers, combat maneuvers, skills, talents, protections, adders, limitations, OCV, DCV, BODY, STUN, END, REC, and other acronyms, I can't wrap my head around how two characters fight!  Would someone kindly take the time and show me like one or two phases, or segments, or a whole turn, on a sample fight between Sapphire and Arrowhead from the book?  It would help me a lot.

  16. On page 25 of the 6E Champions Complete manual, there is a paragraph under "Extraordinary Skills" which reads as follows:

     

    "Buy a general-topic Background Skill based on a Characteristic, and increase the roll by +10 (purchased specifically for the

    Skill; not via Skill Levels). Then allow that Skill to function as a Characteristic-based roll for every subject in that field. For example, an INT 25 character with “SS: All Science 24-” would have a 14- roll with any field of Science."
     
    This paragraph makes little sense to me.  Here are the questions I would like answered:
     
    1) If the sample Background Skill was bought with 10 CP's, it is unclear how the +10 comes about.  If you buy a Background Skill, the base is 2 CP and every additional +1 is another CP, so that would make a maximum +8 to the die.  Where does +10 come from?
     
    2) The example appears to make it worse for the character to roll when science is involved, going from a high 24- to a low 14-.  How could that be advantageous since it's a Success Roll?
     
  17. I am new to the Hero system and the Champions universe.  I have the new Champions Complete book and am struggling with matching character concepts to rules.  Please help me help a player to create his character.

     

    This player wants a robot character that looks and acts human.  This robot can sprout rockets out the back of his thighs and wings out his back in order to fly.  This robot can also sprout laser guns from his forceps.  He can fly and shoot at the same time or choose to only use one.  He must drink motor oil three times a day to keep his robotic parts lubed.  He is wanted by the secret federal organization that created him so that they can remove his A.I. and produce more of him.

     

    In game terms, I am sensing he needs Flight, but is there a Power Modifier to represent that he needs to sprout those wings and thrusters before flying?  I think I can model the laser guns, but does the required sprouting considered a Transform or maybe a partial Multiform?  He obviously can't Transform others, and I see no Power Modifier to limit the Transform to himself, but it's not a full Multiform either.

     

    Once those are decided, do I group them in Unified Power and/or Multipower, since he is a robot with this ability to change into a flying, fighting machine?  Does the Transform get Linked to Blast and Flight somehow?

     

    Any help you can give this noobie would be great.

     

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