dialNforNinja

... (sighs) I'm honestly not trying to be a troll, but it looks like I need to lurk moar to stop being one anyway.

... 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.

Eh, not really though? I've played a lot more Mekton than anything else, which is only slightly less DIY than Hero. The problem is that I think about things from an in-character perspective, and building in Hero absolutely requires thinking it through OOC, because you can't trim your beard with a lightsaber unless you add a Cosmetic Transform (Hairy target to clean shaven, Cumulative, Partial Transform) no matter how badass you are IC. ... and shaving your target with a weapon would be one heck of a "violent display" for PRE attacks. to bring it back around to the original topic. Zorro's Z marks are a classic for a reason after all.

"Oh, you wanna steal my spotlight? Okay, have fun with that."

I got sidetracked a little into thinking about a simpler mode change example - General Grievous, with his ability to switch between two and four arms. Obviously Multiform is overkill here, but does Extra Limbs and a point of Speed as a Unified Power limited by Only In Alternate ID (4-arms mode) sound fair? Does he need to buy the Ambidextrous and Two Weapon Fighting talents twice to cover four arms? I'm guessing no, since the Extra Limbs power is for any number of extras. What about Animated Greivous' (or X-Men Beast's) ability to use their feet as hands? Still covered by Ambi+2WF? Would you use some kind of martial arts maneuver for his "spin those blades like you're a V-22 Osprey" move, just use the IC as fluff for a multiple attack action, or a combination?

Non-Anchored and Mobile would cover it as long as "moves with the character" overrides "must stay linked with the ground" and only having 12m of speed, I guess. How much would the Limitation of "only while waiting for the VPP to change" be worth? I could see it being argued either way, as barely more than fluff for having attacks "blocked" instead of "dodged," or patching a significant weakness with most other combat options locked out during the specific time it appears.

Not only do things often happen during a form change, multiple episodes show the FX spinning around him blocking enemy attacks while it's happening. While sensible from an in-universe enchantment design perspective, I'm not sure how you'd even try to represent that in Hero, though, and it's not really an iconic part of the power like doing it on the move so I wasn't going to worry about it.

A form change takes OOO about ten seconds (0:29 to ~0:39 there, uncertain as it ends off-camera with just the sound effects playing) when the camera is paying attention, but he doesn't have to stand around waiting for it; even switching them and using the scanner thingy he often does it while running or jumping. A half phase action actually seems too fast for that even only counting while his hands are occupied, but it's necessary to be able to take Move actions at the same time, right? Or does it work like Extra Time (Only to activate) where you can move around but not attack? As for the number of items... I'm now up to 79 "mentalist" powers that will fit into a 10/10 VPP just because I'm enjoying fiddling with them. (Granted, I'm not sure of the legality of some, and sure some others are not by RAW, like those CSLs in my previous post. Weeding those out would still be a pretty wide selection, though.) Toyriffic trinkets is just an excuse! Simple is good. I need to get in the habit of reducing complexity as much as possible, and in more than just fiddling with game systems. What happens when someone swipes one and uses it as a super-powered fist load though? Swapping them between Riders, stealing them or having them stolen by enemies, and as previously mentioned getting them from or because of enemies to begin with is standard fare, and if they're just fluff for the working of the VPP they're not actual Focuses, right? Should, yes... there are many things that should be, but only sometimes are. Last quote and reply should have been first, but the editor box won't let me get the cursor above the quote form the post I actually replied to to add it in: The RGB trios I listed off before were just quick examples, not necessarily even the bones of a final build. That said, most of the time, things hit by a Rider Kick just fly back a few meters and explode without leaving more than a few patches of flames behind, even if they are not normally or logically explosive/flammable. Boss characters, dying soliloquies, and props like cars or scenery are generally the only exception barring some kind of "you have to get around this gimmick" trick. It's a finishing blow, and even primary protagonist Riders have Code of Heroism, not Code vs. Killing. I can't actually think of any character in the forty year history of the series that would qualify as having CvK in the strict Comics Code Authority sense it's usually applied. Sometimes a run of MotW will be converted civilians who need to be hit with a De-Evilizer special attack instead of exploded, but that's pretty much the limit as far as that particular moral quandary goes. "Am I really any different from the monsters?" is more common, but usually answering "Yes, because I don't want to kill 90+% of the world population," and escaping the Evil Organization lab is part of their origin story, and possibly happens in the pre-title scene.

When the GM remembers to check it in the first place you only get something lucky happening if you roll a six, so even without taking how the degree of effect scales with multiple sixes, if you don't have at least 3-4 dice you're rarely going to get any result. I guess that doesn't count as "lots" of dice in a game where every character having a 12d6 attack is the standard, but compared to SAS/Tri-Stat dX's Divine Relationship or WEG D6's Good/Great Luck, it's paying a lot for something so unreliable, GURPS' Luck is also kind of pricey but you get the performance you're paying for, and even Mekton/Interlok's Luck will at least perform consistently even if buying it as a stat is if anything even more dear. Luck and how it's handled really wasn't the point, though.

I'm probably doing a bad job of explaining the concept if it sounds that complicated and wooly - Let me give a quick but more defined example of what I mean, using just three sets in red, green, and blue, and every one has the same 20 total points available so they can be mixed and matched in a 60pt pool. It's dreadfully unoptimized with no modifiers or limiters, but I wanted to keep it simple enough to just count up in my head. Red wuns go fasta, so the set bonus is Speed. Each Red has 7pt reserved for the purpose, so when you've got two that's 14 and buys +1 SPD while all three is 21 so it's +2 SPD - there's some wasted points there, but such is the cost of Super and Ultimate forms that you're not always using. The other 13 points go to +2 STR/+1 DEX each, then increasing Run and Jump, maybe including 1m of each with 1m=1km Megascale. In an actual Kamen Rider game that would probably be an Everyman Power with how much even civilians tend to run at the speed of plot Blue wuns iz lucky, but Luck isn't allowed in frameworks and kinda sucks without lots of dice, so instead of Speed the combo items are Any CSLs. Each Blue also has +3rPD/rED, +1 DCV, and a point of Power Defense, defined as just being that hard to get a solid hit on. Green iz da killiest, so each green adds +2 DC to the base form's HKA Rider Kick, one level of Density Increase, +1 REC, and the combo bonuses are 5pt each for OCV, so it's +1 with one green, +3 with two, and +5 with all three. In any case, being in any particular form is just a matter of what you put in each of the three trinket slots, and what color the trim stripes and panels are on your super-suit, so the modular combo bonuses are the only thing that makes me even ask if they each have to be a new Multiform slot. It may well still end up making you worry about being too Mr. Anything to let a player you don't know have a go with, but that's not a character sheet level issue.

@Grailknight, what would the two Multipowers be for your version, the belt and a trinket pool? I think putting the trinkets in anything but a VPP is going to get prohibitively expensive quickly when you're talking about three each of however many sets, even as Fixed slots. @unclevlad, the Superhero Gallery is all 400/-75cp characters, while C.Powers is only the powers, no characters. I don't remember in CC but there aren't that many example characters, so most likely those were "how to build X" powers examples also. The combination explosion [i]is the point[/i] of doing a character like that - [url=https://kamenrider.fandom.com/wiki/Eiji_Hino]OOO[/url] canonically has 1,729 possible forms with twelve sets of three Medals (actually thirteen and three singletons, but one set is incompatible with anything but themselves, and that's not counting the Shocker Medal or [i]forty fucking seven[/i] Legend Rider medals from crossover movies and video games) though obviously only a very small subset appeared in the show. Probably no skill roll for changing powers, unless it's DEX based to not fumble the trinkets trying to swap them, and definitely none beyond normal attack rolls for using them - that's almost completely off-genre, with the only exceptions being when someone first gains a final form or attack and needs a training montage to handle it. Needing to swap trinkets around would definitely make changing the power Restrainable even without taking them away, though. Taking a full phase to transform or switch sounds about right in general though by at most can do it while moving or driving his motorcycle, which would mean buying that down to at least the half-phase, mid-series a Rider can usually transform instantly (between jumping out of frame and landing, or going around a corner, or just between cuts) when the run time or effects budget is getting tight or they need to jump in front of an innocent to protect them from an attack. Original Kamen Rider could [i]only[/i] transform while riding, as the belt had a wind turbine in the buckle that generated the power. No, really, that was the explanation, though later he learned to do some Gestures that made enough wind for it to work, and Skyrider once used the wind from an enemy's attack when he was being pushed too hard to have an Action to spare. A cunning use of the "you can do that [i]once[/i]" type of Power skill stunts, no doubt. Exactly how to get new trinkets - Riders typically only start with a single form or power/speed/balanced trio - varies, but usually has to do with copying something from an enemy, taking it directly after defeating them, or providing the necessary gimmick to get around their I Win Button trick. Often it's because the enemy uses and/or is the source of them to begin with, which makes the Hunted: Evil Organization and Rival: Secondary Rider (or after Power Of Friendshipping him, a more violent Evil Rider replacement) that are just as much a part of being a Rider as the armored suit a little more palatable even if you do still have to beat the monster of the week first. Which will inevitably explode, so don't forget to append "Humans" to your Code Versus Killing. Limitations similar to a Mimic Pool might apply? So, you'd suggest a Shapechange (SIght and Touch groups) for the actual turn-into-a-cyber-ninja-bug-man part, and slap "only in alternate ID" on everything applicable? Doesn't sound so bad. It's pretty much how I saw someone do Transformers for Hero, actually.

CC contradicts itself on Multiform -- it was half of why I started the thread. Taking what it does say as "other forms can be more powerful than the base form, but still have to fit the campaign guidelines" makes more sense, but holy cats is it ever unclear if that was the intent. WRT point caps, really, 80ap? 90ap powers are common in the CC examples and Champions Powers, though, with more than a handful in the 120 range and I recall at least one in CC hitting 187. A Multipower with a 60pt reserve and 30pt of powers is [i]the[/i] standard building block in the probably-not-authorized Superhero Gallery buffet-style build-a-super pdf I have ... seen ... around ... and definitely didn't save at all whatsoever. Do Multipoewer slots not count as part opf its AP? And guidelines for defenses would have been [i]really nice to have[/i] as I set out to fill a character sheet or two, testing how the system is supposed to work. I did eventually slap myself and check out the spread in the provided builds of the Champions team, for a range of 15 total PD/rPD or ED/rED on the squishy caster and speedster to 25-28 on the bricks, but I'd have happily settled for losing an illustration if it meat adding an actual table of suggested values like that. Well, maybe if there's a CC Revised Edition... If Fifth Revised Edition was FREd, would that make it C-CREd? Sounds more like something for Star Hero. And would 6REd be "sacred?" At least it's not Champions ME While I'm at it, what's the suggested cap at Heroic 125/-50cp? Back on the topic of Multiform, assume a Kamen Rider with the toyriffic collectible gimmick of a dozen or so transformation trinkets that can be combined in pairs or trios, a mix of OOO and Build if you know the series. Assume I have been set straight on actually building the relevant forms, as is hopefully the case. Further assume that the GM has okayed approving the triple-combo Super Mode forms and letting the (inherently lesser) pairs and non-matches slide so managing the combination explosion is my problem to deal with, not his. How do I actually go about mechanically representing that the main transformation item, a belt for tradition's sake, enables a default form, and adding one to three of the power up trinkets adds on their specific enhanced stats/Powers/etc., but any one or two of them can be used untransformed at reduced effect, and with no combo-abilities? Just make the multiforms and fluff it with Focus? Some permutation of multiple Foci? Not a Multiform at all, but a VPP with the Limitation that it only provides the powers programmed into the active trinkets and changing it requires physically switching them around? (This might make the set bonus combo powers illegal/troublesome, I know framework slots are supposed to not affect each other.) Something that will make me say "D'oh!" and set off a whole new round of muckin' about with the new refinement, completely obvious in hindsight?

If CC has that list of recommended limits I missed it, and though that wouldn't entirely be a surprise I did specifically look. Don't have 6e1 or 2, and have no idea what you're talking about with "buying off points of complications" in this context. As for the rest, yes of course, but when I'm here in my Alonecave just messing around with the books...

He... didn't get e-shouted at by forum moderators for drifting off topic?

Oh, physically transforming between a civilian and powered-up state is nothing new or alarming - but making your 400pt build as a 100pt normie with 300pt in Multiform is obviously going to cause problems unless it's a cosmic-level game, in which case why does one character only have a 400pt budget to begin with? The downside of Hero's system is that creatively leveraging a "weak power" costs just as much as half-assing a "strong power" so while that plot element is certainly open, on the mechanics side a point disparity is probably going to be decisive as long as the players have an equal understanding of the system. That's why I've been on the side of only allowing Multiform to result in the same or less points as the character who has it on their sheet, barring, like, a DBZ campaign setting where everyone has a transformation or two to pull out of their ass when the chips are down.

For a particularly egregious example of multiform abuse, consider a character with Summon at 5pt, Slavishly Devoted (+1 ) for 10ap, giving you a 25pt Summon creature with its stats sold down until it can have a 96rp VPP w/60pt reserve and Control, changed as a half-phase action and Only for Multiforms. A 60pt Multiform can then be any character worth up to 275pt. This is where the GM smacks you with a rolled up newspaper and makes you use a pregen of course, but it is fun rubbing your hands and cackling in grinchy glee up until then.

There's a fair few Powers I'd think you could justify as Killing Intent - straight PRE attacks of course, but also Drain or Suppress DEX or EGO, Entangle, even Mental Illusion for "see visions of your death" or Mental Blast with how it can Stun and knock weaker targets out entirely. I'm sure there's even more than that with a closer look. I don't know, it just really seems like the RP element of putting an a show IC should be rewarded more than buying a line on the character sheet, but (as I run into over and over again) I do seem to keep coming at things backwards in HERO, despite how much its structure and granularity appeal to me compared to squishy-soft modern "narrative based" games like FATE, even as it maintains flexibility class and level systems like D&D and its innumerable imitators can't begin to approach. (I did wibble on some more here, but Gold Leader reminded me to stay on target)

Yeah, I was seriously over-reaching my familiarity with the system trying to start a game myself, but no one in the area plays anything but PF, D&D, or Magic The Gathering, and that was before covid shut the game shop down. It was still a huge downer to have two out of four people who thought a superhero game sounded like it could be fun call off, and the other two actually in the shop but too addicted to MtG to come over and play. I seriously should have thought of skills, I've gone through them a couple of times in the last week. Eh, sometimes you have to get the foolish questions out of your system to move on to better thinking I guess. Thanks for responding anyway!

So, say I have a character with Alter Environment in a small radius to raise wind one level and make small objects levitate with 1 TK STR, Image (Sight group) Only To Create Light & Fixed Effect: glowing aura around the user, and 1m of Flight with Megascale 1m=1km so at SPD 3 they can travel 900kph non-combat. Total of 10 Real Points, or twenty-something Active Points - I don't remember exactly. I have them zoom (or at least skydive and catch themselves with the combat movement) down out of the sky in full shounen power-up mode and make a Presence attack to awe or intimidate. Obviously this should get some kind of bonus, but how much? Would it equal the effect of just spending those points on PRE Only For Presence Attacks? Is there even anything else to do with PRE so that's a valid Limitation? Real Points or Active Points? Can I fluff the PRE as having the same FX as the AE and Image if not? Would the character still be able to clear a cloud of dust or collect loose change without bending over?

Too bloody right. Or at least a few added entries for a Champions Powers revision/web enhancement.

Unfortunately true, and I tend to think far more IC than meta so prying at what in HERO terms are just the SFX to see how they can be leveraged to get more benefit from what a character is already shown doing is my natural mode of operation... but the more things a character can do, the more it costs, even if in character it's all just various applications of a single simple thing. The most versatile example is telekinesis with a decent amount of force and arbitrarily fine control; you can do nearly anything physical with it down to mind control via manipulating brain chemistry, but no one is going to argue that the game's TK Power should allow all that. It would be a textbook case for a VPP with TK as the special effect, of course, which is kind of the point, but at the same time doing something like buying the Fine Manipulation adder two or three times is a good justification (and investment in points) to get away with a good cross section of those tricks on a Power skill roll, at least some of the time. If you want to excite the air to high temperature in a coin-sized circle just a bit past your fingertip and direct the result into a cutting/welding torch on the regular, you need to buy a fire-FX Blast or Transform, but one time to weld a bent rebar into restraints on Dabrickly F'Chozme you might get away with. That still doesn't change my main point, though, which is... ...if you're going to call a power "Duplication" in a supposedly generic superheroes system, it should be based on the most common expression of the power, not a single character who had a particularly nerfed but quantifiable version of it. One niche enough that as someone who followed a few specific lines but only has cultural osmosis for the majority of the comics scene I had never heard of, and only knew her entire massive team as a name other people had mentioned sometimes, that had something to do with OG young-Clark Superboy and handed out flight rings as their membership badge. Size Increase, when you actually look at what the Size Level modifiers are, is just a prepackaged group of other powers effects, so it's not like there isn't precedent for something similar, even if it's more of a tricky character example build than a Power to go in the list on its own. Maybe a small collection featuring the various approaches that have been suggested? Would anyone else be interested in helping with that, or at least seeing it once the effort was put in? On a lighter note, talking about the LSH (and a relatively quick wiki walk, I only spent three hours on it honest!) leads to... What's an "unclev?" ... Oh, right, it's "uncle Vlad!" 🙃

I think it's telling that even in the Duplication Powers section of Champions Powers, the only ones that actually use Duplication are the example of it, and the variation that works like a planarian or a starfish where losing a body part means both parts regenerate into a full body and can't recombine. Everything else is just other powers fluffed as the action of a bunch of short-lived duplicates; this is of course perfectly in line with the way HERO system works, but a disappointing look behind the curtain when it comes to realizing the IC action you want your character to take as rules mechanics.

Shameless double post since it's been a couple hours and I have an actual direct suggestion for the original question: Size Increase + Desolidify (group of normal size bodies) with (interacts with normal world, not other desolids) as a limitation, and base the number added in the "swarm" on the added Body for that Size Level (1-3, 4-6, or 7-9 for the full squad.) Combine that with the earlier suggestions of extra Speed and the ability to spread or concentrate attacks based on how many Size Levels you currently have, and maybe some Stretching to let some members of the squad go further away than Size Increase has reach, and it looks pretty good from my (admittedly very much novice to HERO system) perspective. The Strength and movement increases are probably too much for the concept, but trading those points for the Speed and Stretching should work.

Desolid is an obvious answer for a character who turns in to a swarm of small critters, but this would be a bunch of normal-sized copies that are just very vulnerable to damage, so they can't really do any of the usual Desolid things like going through small openings or ignore attacks, and they both affect and are affected normally by normal physical items. I guess you could combine it with Size Increase and use Desolid (swarm at normal human size) though. That would also handily cover the ability to have a bunch of clones work together to lift something, or do increased damage in hand to hand combat, and includes some extra reach and movement that could represent being spread out. Getting a few extra clones from the added Body and Stun is nice, and might actually be all the clones you get if you just take the power directly on the character who uses the clones.

Old comics are apt to be hard to find and (in enough numbers to actually follow a storyline or two) not exactly cheap, but I can look him up on internet at least. I also finally remembered that TriStat dX (and I think Silver Age Sentinels) had an explicit Swarm Form power that was pretty cool, and could work with a nominally-single Duplicate-like-HERO-does-them to not be totally awful for the more common disposable horde type clones - basically, each point of Stun or Body would become "a separate copy" for SFX purposes, popping when damage is done to the swarm as a whole and not lost unless all of them were killed at once. How you'd represent that in the mechanics, though...