SableWyvern

Re: Desolidify/Tunnelling Actually, allowing someone else to tag along was not part of my original intent. I was content to allow it as a side-effect of choosing tunneling as the Power on which the ability was built, but it was only ever that -- an acceptable side-effect.

Re: Desolidify/Tunnelling Ok, extension of the original question: So far, we've got a guy that can't interact with metal in any way, but is otherwise normal. Technically, this gives him the ability to ignore metal armour with his unarmed attacks (which he will almost certainly have). Now, as written, desol says he has to pay for Affects Physical World to affect the physical world -- no exceptions are listed just because his desol has some limitations applied. We've disregarded this rule for convenience, and thus the character steps around that limitation. My instinct is thus to say that if he wants to bypass armour while using this particular version of desol, he needs an attack which specifically allows for this already. Thoughts?

Re: Desolidify/Tunnelling Given that the paramaters I gave my players can basically be summarised as, "Come up with a concept that involves magic", I'm pretty sure I'll have plenty more for you before character gen is done. Edit: And, there's also the fact that I'm actively encouraging any wierd idea they happen to mention, especially those they assume aren't really workable...

Re: Is this a reasonable NND attack? Ok. I think I'm sold on EB, Does BODY, AVLD, Indirect.

Re: Desolidify/Tunnelling Actually, my initial thought was for this to be something he needs to consciously activate, so no need for triggers/always on in that case. If he gets ambushed, too bad. If I understand you correctly, you guys are taking the "only vs metal" limitation and saying that that also means he only suffers the downsides (inability to interact) with metal. Which is pretty much what I wanted, but something the rules don't overtly support. I do agree with Diamond Spear that metal is too broad to justify a full -1 lim. Looks like a nice, simple, Desol only vs metal is excactly what I want.

Re: Desolidify/Tunnelling "Only through metal" -- is that just a generic limitation, because I don't see anything like that in the actual Desol description ("Only to protect from" is the only material based limitation I can see). Have I gone blind?

Re: Is this a reasonable NND attack? Gah. I've confused this issue. My AVLD question was completely unrelated. Perhaps I should have stuck it in another thread. On the other hand, it has opened the original conversation up to some other possibilities. Your assessment seems to make sense, Hugh. In any case, I'm very interested to see where the discussion goes from here.

Another metal elementalist question. How would you build a power that conveys two benefits: 1. Allows the user to pass through metal. 2. Provides invulnerability to metal weapons. Yet, otherwise allows the character to interact with the world (and be affected by it) normally. The best I can come up with is: Tunneling X" Fills in (always occurs) Metal Only Desol Only to Protect vs Metal Linked: Tunelling Which is pretty ugly, but has the desired affect if allowing for the option of not requiring Affects Physical World. My instinct would be to drop the Only vs Metal to a -1/2 instead of -1 in this situation, though. Is there a better way?

Re: Is this a reasonable NND attack? The attack is meant to cover crushing damage, not just asphyxiation, though.

Re: Is this a reasonable NND attack? Thanks. On a related note: AVLD: Ignores Metal Armour +1 1/2 or +3/4?

Re: Character Build for Critiquing Heh. I started planning this campaign over 12 months ago. Ended up burning out on GMing before I actually started my HERO game, and became a regular player for the first time in ... well, pretty much ever. I'm just starting to get back into the GM groove and am back in the planning stages. Probably won't actually be running anything until much later this year.

The character in question is a metal elementalist, and the power is the ability to cause metal armour/bracelets/necklaces etc... to constrict and damage their wearer. RKA 1d6+1 NND (defence = no constrictive metal) Does BODY By the book, defences to NNDs defined by what they aren't are frowned upon at best. Given a fantasy environment where metal armour is relatively common (but far from ubiquitous, with magical and other defences often taking the place of mundane armour), does this look like a reasonable power? If not, how else could the effect be modelled?

Re: Character Build for Critiquing Thanks, DS. I'll take a closer look at those mental abilities. A quick glance over some of the generic antagonists I've been working on shows CON in the range of 15 - 22, with the lower end more common. I'm not expecting mental defences to be common, although they should turn up with some regularity. I didn't think the mind control was all that powerful, and I'd be happy to peg it back if it is. I have been struggling to sort out the DEF vs Damage balance. There should certainly going to be attacks capable of penetrating 12 rPD/rED (or ignoring normal defences completely). It's something I'll continue to keep an eye on, however. You're certainly right about the skills. Quite possibly, given your comments on the efficacy of the character's mental powers, we can steal some points from those for more skills. The psych lims make sense in the context of the character -- the justice part represents the sword's fundamental attitude, while the homicidal part represents the wielder briefly breaking free of his psychological imprisonment on rare occasions (the sword is actually a device of justice which was bound to the wielder and given domination over him, as punishment for the wielder's crimes). The blood thing was just something I threw together when I was struggling to fill out the last few points of disads. Note that it is technically the sword that is dependent, not the character. The activation penalty represents the impact on the sword, while the STUN represents the damage feedback suffered by the wielder. I think it worked out to a 10 point disad, and I agree that's generous (I also skirted the edges of the official rules on the limitation by including two consequences). The player in question didn't like the idea at first, but it seems to have grown on him. Anyway, to be honest, as I kind of alluded to upthread, I'm not too concerned about players getting a few generous deals on disads. Thanks for your thoughts, that certainly does help.

Re: Metal Elementalist? Thanks, guys, I'll take a look at both of those. Edit: Pretty sure there's some stuff there I can use. Thanks again. I also bothered to pull out the FH Grimoire and take a look, and what do you know? Metal spells. Who woulda thunk it?

One of my players has expressed an interest in playing a metal-based elementalist. So far, he has suggested the ability to improve his armour, strength and weight on-the-fly; corrode, mold and melt metal; and some magnetic powers. Any other ideas on how metal elementalism might be usefully applied in a fantasy environment?

Re: Character Build for Critiquing Yeah, I'm aware its on the very high end of the scale for a fantasy game. The PCs are a select group of renowned heros chosen as defenders of a fledgling empire, assailed by powerful forces from both within and without. While 3d6KA is pretty potent for a more typical fantasy game, I'd say it's reasonable for a high-point game. No point throwing huge amounts of points at the PCs and limiting them to mundane attacks. As to gear-for-points, mundane gear will essentially be free for the PCs, if they want it (given their status, even monetary cost will be of little relevance). The world is one where magic items are generally attuned to specific wielders (although, you could feasibly build a character that can use whatever magic item he picks up; probably simulated with a VPP in that case). Given that all the PCs will have magical ability of some kind or another as central to their concept, it would be unfair to give the equipment based characters a free ride. Especially given that money isn't much of an obstacle. So, with all that cleared up, any comments on the actual character? Does it look pretty much playable as is? Any obvious inefficiencies or problems? Important things I've missed out?

Re: Character Build for Critiquing Yeah, fantasy. Probably should have made that clear. I originally started with lower base points and more disadvantages (200 + 125, IIRC). The more I messed around with things, the less happy I was with that, however. The system seems clearly to be written on the assumption that PCs will take disads up to the available limit, and I found that putting together large disad "pools" (for fantasy characters, at least, I can see how it might be easier for supers) can quickly become difficult and/or silly. Add to this that I have an outright dislike of some disads (like Hunted, which really affect everyone in the group, not just the character taking the disad), and the range of options becomes severely limited. The end result is that I slowly whittled away the disad pool, and incrementally increased the base points to compensate. 250 + 75 is where I finally settled.

Quite some time ago, I posted a build here involving an intelligent sword (the PC) with a possessed wielder. At the time, I was trying to build the sword as the PC, with the wielder as a follower. The general consensus from those who responded that the concept should be built as a single, combined character. While I still feel that the wielder-as-follower is, in principle, a better solution, the combined character is a far less complex approach, and ultimately more workable within the constraints of the system. So, here's the remodelled character. Your input greatly appreciated. Built on 250+75. I should probably also mention at this point that this is essentially just a sample character to present to the player in my group whose concept it is. His final design may be very close to what I present him with, or may differ in any number of respects. STR: 20 DEX: 17 CON: 22 BOD: 18 INT: 18 EGO: 20 PRE: 10 COM: 10 PD: 8 ED: 5 SPD: 4 REC: 13 END: 60 STUN: 54 Sword Multipower Multipower Pool 52 (OIF) 3u HKA I 3u HKA II 3u Dispel I 3u Dispel II 3u Dispel III 3u Mind Control 3u Mind Blast HKA I HKA 3d6+1 (OIF) HKA II HKA 2d6 Variable Advantage +1/2 (Armour Piercing, Affects Desol, Pentrating) OIF Dispel I Dispel 8d6 Cumulative END Based Magic (one at a time) OIF Dispel II and III as I, but vs Activation Roll and Charge Based Magic respectively. The game is a fantasy one, but with a huge, wide-open range of possible magics. "Magic" by itself is not any kind of limitation, while specific schools of magic would be far too narrow. Thus, I settled on mechanical definitions. Mind Control Mind Control 10d6 Telepathic OIF This is not the means by which the wielder is controlled (that means is part of the backstory, and is not actually modelled, but is presupposed by the combined character) Mind Blast EGO Attack 5d6 OIF The Focus might get adjusted to OAF. For the moment, the wielder cannot be disarmed. In any case, the Focus is really the wielder, as the sword itself is both the character and the source of the power; the game effect is basically identical -- if sword and wielder are seperated, the sword multipower doesn't function. Other Powers Mental Defence 5 Mind Link Anyone Up to 8 simultaneous Extra Time (5 Minutes) This exists primarily as the means by which the sword exerts its control on wielder. The extra people were added in because Mind Link is nifty. Telepathy 8d6 Communication Only Kinda redundant, but allows the sword to communicate directly with non-mind linked individuals. Armour Average of 12 ED + PD, using sectional defences. I won't go into the details here. Detect Magic As sense, discriminatory, increased arc (360), range Skills 3 x 3pt CSL, Sword Multipower Weapon Familiarity, Common Melee 4 3pt skills, to be determined. A few more skills possibly to be added, depending on the ability to shuffle points around. Disads Distinctive Features - sword, armour, not concealable Psych Lim - evil homicidal maniac (wielder's true nature), uncommon, strong Psych Lim - dispassionate urge for justice, common, moderate Enraged - on suffering BODY damage, common, go 11-, recover 11- Dependance - Blood, very common, 1 day, activation 11- + 2d6 STUN

Re: Confused about multiple power attacks I wasn't trying to argue that one system or the the other is superior, or that the system as it stands is flawed. My points were simply that: 1. Neither method is more or less powerful than the other. 2. As you mention, certain effects appear to be better modelled one way, others another.

Re: Confused about multiple power attacks Well, it depends very much on what the multiple power attack represents. Firing a weapon from each hand, in conjunction with your eyebeams, is a different beast to a single attack with multiple effects.

Re: Things That Make You Go "Hmmmm...."

Re: Confused about multiple power attacks I can't see that changing from a single roll to seperate rolls for each attack is going to upset the game at all, if that's your preferred method (assuming, of course, that you maintain the rules for applying the worst OCV to all attacks). It simply means that you move from extreme results (all hits, all misses) to a more consistently average result. Over the course of play, the average result will be basically identical. Edit: allowing AoE attacks to be rolled as normal AoE attacks will improve the efficacy of multiple power attacks, however.

Re: Combining Heroic and Superheroic Rules While I already have the great Shrike's pages bookmarked, I'm quite happy for him to direct me to specific sections in response to a particular query. As to the original topic, I have noticed that the Super "STR to Damage" rules are atually identical to the Heroic ones -- except that all attacks are considered to have a STR Min of 0. Taking that into consideration, I'm basically running Heroic rules anyway, with the exception of STR End costs, and I will go with my initial instinct to use CSLs to add DCs. Thanks for everyone's input.

Re: Combining Heroic and Superheroic Rules Atm, I'm looking at typical resistant defences around 12 for the PCs and main bads, with an upper limit about 18. DCs are in the 6-9 range. I'm still trying to get a handle on balancing the two. I'm very iffy about using Heroic END costs, given that one character has a dragon form with 40 STR, and is going to be hard done-by if he's paying that much more END than other characters. I'll provide some more details later; in a bit of a rush atm.

The HERO game I currently have in the works is a high-powered (275+75) fantasy game, wherein all the PCs will have some kind of magical ability as their basic schtick. This could be anything from fairly conventional spellcasting, through to the use of magic items, special abilities like shapechanging etc... In effect, the PCs will be designed more like supers than regular fantasy heroic characters. Importantly, their signature attacks are generally not going to have the normal fantasy weapon traits like Strength Minimums. OTOH, it will still be possible for them to pick up a regular weapon and use it using the normal rule for doing so. Given that, I've ended up with a mish-mash of heroic and supers rules for various game elements: - Use of STR Min rules for adding STR to weapons with STR Mins. - Use of Supers rules for adding STR to other attacks. - Knockdown, no knockback. - Supers END costs. - Hit locations, sectional defences. - Possibly using impairment and disabling rules. - Unsure whether to use Supers or Heroic rules for CSLs adding to damage. I'm mainly looking for advice on the last item in my list. I'm leaning towards adding DCs (for no particularly compelling reason), but given that my other rules are generally based on the Supers options, I'm not sure if that could cause problems. Another possibility is to use the Supers rule, except for attacks already using Heroic rules for adding STR. Any thoughts on that, or anything else relating to how these rules might function in conjunction with each other, would be appreciated.