Christopher R Taylor

An extremely long term drain (destroy!) could simulate a curse as well, especially if you put a limitation on it that lets it be lifted with some special technique. Recover per decade = effectively permanent.

It gets a bit unclear when you start adding modifiers to the effects. You can't build a power using advantages and limitations.... then use that power as a base with its Real Cost and build something else out of it using advantages and limitations. That's not giving you remotely an accurate read on its cost or power level. The active points of something that does all this (cannot): Is going to be up in the high 70s or more. Especially since its absolute: it doesn't matter what your recovery is, its zero now. No body, no stun, no endurance coming back. More importantly no post-12 free recovery. That's a lot more than 20 points worth of power. I mean put it this way: if someone came up to you as a GM and said "I built this guy" and assigned all those abilities to one power for 20 active points, then applied limitations to it what would your response be?

I wouldn't at all worry about the "granular" nature of Hero's rules, since that only takes effect in combat interaction. Its there to help structure combat and give it a nice simulation of comic book action, not to force your story playing style.

Like you say, it is way cheaper than it would cost to zero out someone's Recovery, I'd guess.

Yeah, that's exactly the point here. Do you really want the monsters to be able to kill PCs with it, or just demonstrate a creepy ability? If the latter, then it doesn't need to be built

I think its way too cheap, for what it does honestly.

So they finally figured out that people were playing for free using resources and buying game time? Took them long enough.

I woudn't require a severe transform to fix someone back the way they were. Major maybe, or even minor, depending on the transform effect. Basically one category lower, I'd think, so if it was a severe transform human to statue of an eagle, then major to transform "petrified eagle statue back to human"

You can't dispel transform because its an instant attack, there's nothing to dispel. Another transform is the most logical device, although a GM may let you buy a Heal to Body that targets the Body the transform affected; its not exactly by the rules, but it kind of makes sense.

Area Effect Surface isn't like an explosion, its a way of applying a power to an object. Like, a fire that burns along a wall, or an electrical crackling field around a creature.

In AD&D ('first edition' I guess) it took d4 rounds and you died. Period. There wasn't even a save.

The ability to eat brains was one of those AD&D PC killer abilities I always hated, like the "save or die" poisons and the various monsters with similar powers. Gygax was enamored with murdering characters off, apparently he though that would be fun to people or just was sadistic. I'd personally just treat it like eating anything, its a non-combat ability they have to off NPCs and bystanders, not something they can do in combat to a PC.

Jack Burton is a sidekick, Wang is the hero in Big Trouble...

That's pretty misleadingly presented. For every black man shot by the cops, 3 whites are. Since blacks are significantly more involved in street crime than whites, its even more stark a difference. Whites break the law a lot, but they do so in more white collar ways, which don't involve armed confrontations with the police. Yet still are shot many times more often. The really sad part is a black man is many, many times more likely to be gunned down by a fellow black citizen, but nobody seems to give a crap about that.

I agree, I think its a better game system for fun and game play, even if it doesn't really simulate real life expertly

Well, if I was designing a hyper-realistic role playing game, I would have very few actual stats and no "body" or "stun" stat. You'd just lose all stats eroding away and all abilities getting worse as you take damage until they all zero out and you die. Nobody has a Body score that goes down while being fully functional and effective. As you take damage you get worse and worse. The problem is, in game terms, that really sucks because you just get more and more likely to lose the more you're hurt.

What's amazing to me about all this is that 9 times out of 10 or more, the outrage machine cranks up screaming and waving its arms, only to find that the brutality wasn't brutal and the poor innocent lamb of a child victim was a monster they had to stop. But that doesn't stop the machine. There are still people fool enough to believe the "hands up don't shoot" lie.

Doesn't "beam" cover "cannot be bounced" already?

I don't see how that's any different than using Endurance out of combat. You don't need to keep track of END out of combat, either. Unless you unexpectedly get into combat and start out at a detriment -- which is worse for Stun than END.

Well yes, that's the point isn't it? You can build it with a limitation that reduces its cost... or with an advantage that increases its cost, then a limitation that reduces its cost. To me, the least complex one that doesn't pointlessly make it have a higher active cost seems the better one. But its up to the GM and player what they want to do.

It also makes it awkward to put in power frameworks, and makes it pointlessly difficult to dispel, suppress, and takes longer to drain. Active cost has more effects than just campaign limits.

I ran two in my recent Golden Age game. One was a guy with a magical wand that could make any animal become his servant, and the other was a ice projector that could create ice minions. The PCs tend to avoid the minions and plaster the summoner, if possible.

Well its certainly a way, but I would think requiring people to buy their active cost up for a power that's essentially weaker and penalized to use is a direction I wouldn't want to go as a GM or player.

Also the "Create a hero Team" thread would be useful. I agree with what others are saying though: build a bunch of standard archetypes and familiar heroes to give players a chance to get used to the idea and play.

Take a look at the "create a villain theme team" thread for lots of concepts and related build types. I would echo the suggestion of starting out lower power level, to match your campaign concept. It sounds like you're looking at less Justice League and more Justice Society (sans Specter).