Christopher R Taylor

Yeah but those only apply against attack powers, not healing or Aid

The only real advantage is when you buy it at the "faster than the official rules" optional level in APG I for 18 points (once per phase) which would basically be a free recovery every phase. Although its probably worth considering a halfway stage, like "once per two phases" at 18 and once per phase at 20, just to push the price up a little

I asked this in the "Ask Steve" board, but Simon suggested I take it down here instead since its not an official part of the printed rules: In the Advanced Player Guide I, they mention the option of regenerating characteristics other than Body, which makes sense and is a useful concept. However, there is no real details on how to do this. There are three possibilities that I can think of that might be used: 1) You regenerate 1 (insert characteristic here) per time interim; 1 Body, 1 END, 1 Speed, etc 2) You regenerate 1 character point of (insert characteristic here) per time interim; 1 Body, 5 END, 1/10th Speed, etc 3) You regenerate your recovery worth of (insert characteristic here) per time interim (based on the rules on how to use regeneration to recover drained or otherwise lost powers). 1 Is the simplest and seems the most balanced one in terms of controlling effects in the game 2 Is the most logical and rules-consistent concept, but can be broken with characteristics like END or STN 3 Is the least plausible, since you only get 1 Body per interim, so why get more of other stats? How does it work? Simon suggested this answer: I liked that a lot when I read it, and it made sense, but then I started to think. Body is normally recovered with your REC score as well, its just really slow (you get REC in Body per month, or per week with proper medical care. But Regeneration only gives you back 1 point per time increment. That makes me think that its 1 character point back per time increment. This might or might not be better than your recovery for something like END, since its 1/5th a character point per point of END. Note: normal "defensive powers" adjustment rules do not apply to Regeneration (or, if they do, then Regeneration doubles its effect so you get the full 1 Body per time increment).

I had a dragon die and a big battle between several groups trying to get to the treasure, which was made mostly of huge objects like chariots, thrones, etc. A lot of the rest was valuable but not much use to the player characters, like tapestries, art, carpets, barrels of oil etc. https://oldschoolfrp.tumblr.com/image/40942949700

Peter Jackson said repeatedly in interviews that he really just did not like magic so his portrayals in the films is very limited and fairly mundane. We only had a few very limited accounts of what the other rings did; Gandalf immune to the Balrog's fire, Elrond (I think?) Flooding the Nazgul at the ford, killing their horses.

In the Advanced Player Guides, they mention the option of regenerating characteristics other than Body, which makes sense and is a useful concept. However, there is no real details on how to do this. There are three possibilities that I can think of that might be used: 1) You regenerate 1 (insert characteristic here) per time interim; 1 Body, 1 END, 1 Speed, etc 2) You regenerate 1 character point of (insert characteristic here) per time interim; 1 Body, 5 END, 1/10th Speed, etc 3) You regenerate your recovery worth of (insert characteristic here) per time interim (based on the rules on how to use regeneration to recover drained or otherwise lost powers). 1 Is the simplest and seems the most balanced one in terms of controlling effects in the game 2 Is the most logical and rules-consistent concept, but can be broken with characteristics like END or STN 3 Is the least plausible, since you only get 1 Body per interim, so why get more of other stats? How does it work?

A roll is like changing your facing in a hex, it doesn't require a turn mode.

Its about active cost, mostly. Most limiting structures in the game are based on active cost, so if you change that, it can have some major effects.

And honestly I didn't say it ought to be, only that I wondered what the reasoning was for just removing it and if maybe we come up with something to replace it other than "just buy more dice and tack a limitation on it". Exploring the ramifications of that is really what I was interested here. I don't have a solution I just wanted to discuss the whys and wherefores. Yeah as I said, the "increased maximum" stuff really only has validity if its long-term, not for quick battle effects. That's the realm that this has to be hashed out. But I personally am of the opinion that concern about "how can this be abused" has to have a limit, because everything in Hero can be abused so the argument needs to be "will this likely be abused and how easy is it to do so" not "can it be done?" There are several powers with potential for severe abuse in the rules that have been there for decades, because they serve a useful function and have notations to warn people about it. Just plain ol' Aid flat out with no modifiers at all can be easily abused (part of why its been recosted and adjusted several editions in a row). Adding multiple powers at once makes it even more potentially abusive, which is why the book has all those symbols and text warning GMs about that.

Yeah I didn't say I wish I knew how to get him to do art, just that I wish I could. I understand fully well why artists insist on being paid (having done decades of freelance work) and why its pretty impossible to get a working artist to donate their efforts or some new pieces. And it was great to learn the origins of the Goodman build tips in Champions II and III. Guys like that might be annoying but they are critical for good game design and playtesting. I had a player in my gaming group named Anthony who without any real effort or intention would by nature and instinct always find the best way to maximize power for his characters.

I think that's exactly what happened

That just looks so uncomfortable

It was a fun, geeky romp through Hero history, revealing a ton of interesting background information and secrets behind how things were done. Some very clever marketing and business decisions and some unfortunate ones.

Because you fade every turn 5 points, on every character. You can stay sort of ahead, but its always losing power and you're constantly burning END. How many people in your party? That's how many phases you use to Aid them all. How much END do you have to use on just maintaining 5 Aid powers at the same time constantly? Even at half END that's going to exceed your recoveries. Plus without uncontrolled, attack powers require you to keep maintaining that ability.

Yeah the issue here is that it either looks too cheap or looks worthless because it costs too much. That's exactly the solution now in place with the rules. Buy 4d6 Aid or buy 2d6 Aid+2d6 more Aid to increase your max effect. But there's an aspect of this that needs to be considered. Let's say I buy Aid 5d6 (30 active points) and 5d6 more aid "only to increase maximum effect". That's a 60 point power that allows me to grant... 60 active points to someone else with a fade rate of 5 points per turn. Average roll of 3.5 on the die, its going to take 9 phases to get it to take effect (ignoring the fade rate which will chew at this every turn; taking that into account, probably 11 phases or even more), again on average. That makes any character with this build worthless, all they do in combat is move around and Aid ... one person over and over. For the entire fight. So the construct is basically worthless at this kind of build. SO let's just admit that this kind of build is never, ever going to be used on short-term Aid powers. Just never. There's not enough time to make it matter in a fight, and nobody wants to spend the entire fight, every fight as a vending machine. The only way this "can do more than the base stated dice" build is useful is in a long-term investment sense: Aids that last for hours, not turns. With that kind of build, you have a valid time to give people enough of the Aid to make it useful and not fade even as you're trying to hand it out. Yeah, its dull for Aid Lass to use her power to make people slightly better for twenty minutes in the Quanjet, but that's off camera, so who cares? it happens between panels in the comic. So any discussion of this has to focus on the effect of buying the power so its over a slow fade rate over along period of time, not in-combat comparisons.

I love the Silver Age/Soviet concept, lots of opportunities for roleplaying

Concessions are where theaters make their money, so they charge as much as possible. So you pay 8 bucks for 10 cents of fountain drink or 5 cents of popcorn. Here's how it used to work, I assume it still does. Theaters get almost no money from the first week of a release -- the most lucrative period. Each week the movie stays in a theater, the theater owner gets a bigger cut of the box office. Thus, Theaters really like blockbusters that linger, and studios prefer blockbusters that taper off after a week or two. However, recently, a court decision reversed a ruling that said movie studios could not own local theaters (they used to, back in the day. You'd have an MGM theater that only showed MGM movies in a town, for example). That dynamic could make a pretty big difference in the future.

I think the best way to approach this is to compare to the cost of Usable By Others. Is it equivalent? I mean, I can give another person +30 STR and they don't even have to pay the END if I build it right. But Aiding 30 STR is about 9d6 (average effect). Is being able to add more points later game breaking? Only if its too inexpensive. I don't really care about constant. There's no functional difference between buying constant and just re-using the same ability over and over for the purposes of this exercise. The convenience of constant doesn't really change anything in this context. But delayed fade rate does matter, because it means the difference between likely gaining the full point value or not. By way of explanation, look at your example 2d6 roll averages ~7 points per phase of application to one character. That power fades at 5 points per turn, per character. Unless your aid is larger, you're going to start chasing your tail very soon if you have very many people to grant the power to, constant or not. And that's even without the bonus total. But if you add in "fades 5 points per minute" now the cycle stops, you can easily grant the max amount to every character unless we're talking about a host of targets.

I'm willing to wait until the movie goes on to regular streaming and does not have that huge initial cost

Something like this, for instance: Increased Maximum Effect: This advantage adds a number of dice of Aid equal to the dice it is purchased on, only to increase the maximum amount of total effect. For example, if a character purchases 4d6 of Aid, Increased Maximum Effect adds additional Aid equal to the most the dice could total (24 in this case). IME costs +¾ advantage, if the Aid has no Delayed Return Rate advantage purchased on it. If the Aid has Delayed Return Rate, then the advantage for Increased Maximum Effect is equal to the total Delayed Return Rate advantage. Now, the base level of advantage for DRR is +1, for fades 5 points per minute so that seems like a bit of a rip off, but my late night "what if we did this" idea behind it was that it should cost more to increase your max if your Aid has a longer fade rate for reasons shown above. This mechanic makes the cost for increasing the max effect of an Aid continue going up in price based on the fade rate delay. I dunno, just an idea I had last night just as I was about to go to sleep. *EDIT: you could buy a limitation that reduces the max added effect as well, so it doesn't necessarily give the full amount of base dice, like a -¼ for half as much and -½ for a quarter as much or lower.

I used to be on there, but I got tired of being Facebook's product for no return, and their shenanigans annoyed me enough to leave.

And that is probably what it came down to, the decision was that it was almost always abusive without sufficient restraints. Its like in the first Elder Scrolls game; you could build your own spells. Except I found an exploit without even trying: spells that started out very small but built up rapidly over time by large amounts were remarkably cheap and powerful. Yet the "just take more dice you don't get to have unless you use Aid over and over again" idea not only feels daffy but does not really represent the concept very well. I think we need some other mechanic that does what is desired without feeling so weak and silly (to me at least)

Wish I could get Denis Loubet to do some interior art for me, I love his stuff

I don't think anyone is arguing you should not be able to accomplish it, that I have seen. Even in the current system with no modifications you can buy extra dice limited to just raising the maximum roll. I agree. But my question isn't whether or not someone should be able to do it, but "is this construct so broken or abusable it should be deleted?" I mean the rules were rewritten so you cannot make recursive absorbs and Aids (they cannot feed back into their maximum effect as part of the power), in order to stop some potentially broken builds. That made sense because it could get ridiculously out of control. Is this one of those cases? I'm not really seeing it but the people who worked on and built 6th clearly did.

But is the possibility someone might come up with Uber Game Breaking Build enough of a reason to not have that build possible for anything? Transform is still in the game. Skill levels with modifiers is still in the game. All those stop signs are there for a reason; "this can be abused, so be careful."