Arc Esu

Re: THE HERO SYSTEM BESTIARY: What Do *You* Want To See? To me, the most important thing for the Bestiary is for it not to simply be a direct 5e to 6e translation/conversion. The addition of creatures from outside of the original Bestiary does a great deal to counteract that and make the book a good purchase even for those with the 5e version of the Bestiary. However, I would like to see creatures that are not simply converted in a direct mechanical fashion, but that are fashioned in a 6e mold (for example: Rather than give every creature an OCV and a DCV equal to their old value based on their 5e DEX, modify it as appropriate for a given creature, like raising DCV for small creatures but lowering it for big ones, etc). After all, I could just do a direct conversion on any given creature my 5th ed Bestiary if I wanted to. Obviously, this would create a great deal of extra work for Steve, but in the end, I feel that such a book would be much more useful to all Hero players and could show off 6e's strengths much better.

Re: Storn's Art & Characters thread. @ Bengalelf: I'm actually the player of Doc Rocket in the Golden Age Champions playtest that the recent batch of pictures came from. Send me a PM with your e-mail and I'd be happy to e-mail his Hero Designer file, or an HTML character sheet if you don't have Hero Designer.

Steve: Mind Link says that you do "not use the subject's Senses." You "receive the mental impressions of those Senses..." In practical terms, what does this really mean? What is the difference, in terms of actual play, between knowing the subject sees a building, but not seeing the building yourself, or not smelling gasoline but knowing the subject smelled it? Some concrete examples may help: 1.) If the subject sees a sign in a language it does not know but you do, could you read the sign? 2.) If the subject smells gasoline, but this was the first time it had smelled gasoline, could you recognize that it was smelling gasoline? 3.) If the subject perceives the world in a vastly different way than you do (either Sense groups you don't share, having a very low INT, or some Limitation like "Unfamiliar with Earth Culture"), can you still "make out" enough to recognize familiar things/get usable information? Finally, if the answers to the above three are all "Yes," what would the point of buying Clairsentience linked to Mind Link with the "Only through the senses of others" limitation" (as described in Mind Link) be? What additional information would it give you beyond what Mind Link already does?

I'm designing a prison with a fence topped with barbed wire. My attempts to locate stats for barbed wire, both on these boards and on the "Ultimate Index," have met with failure. Any suggestions on how to build realistic barbed wire?

Re: Hero Plus Adventure #22, VALLEY OF THE SPIDER QUEEN, Now Available! I like the adventure, but unless I'm missing something, I don't see any stats for the Spider Queen or for her spiders (not even a Beastiary page reference). Are they buried somewhere and I missed them, or is my copy screwed up somehow?

It is allowed for a Multipower which is a Focus to take one level of Focus on the Multipower itself, but more limiting levels on the individual slots (the classic example being a utility belt where the belt is OIF, but the gadgets within it are OAF). How does this interact with Bulky or Fragile, however? Could you have a Multipower where the reserve is OAF, but some or all individual slots are OAF Bulky or OAF Fragile? If it is legal, what would the effect be? When using a Bulky slot, would your DCV be halved, but not at other times? When using a Fragile slot, would your Focus have its defenses weakened until you switched to another slot? Or would there be some other way to resolve it that I'm not thinking of?

Re: Who are the top 5 most powerful characters in your Campaign. In my Teen Champions game, the 5 most powerful characters (in no particular order) are: 1.) Gloriana (straight out of the Teen Champions book; for those without it, an insane teenager with control of cosmic energy) 2.) Telios/Teen Dream (Teen Dream out of Teen Champions; Telios out of the regular Champions universe) 3.) Dr. Meteor (a supervillian of my own creation, a scientist with an armored suit made out of meteoric iron, which he has learned to harness the power of. He also can drag meteors down to impact Earth) 4.) Professor William Lewis/The Ultimate Time Master (the Professor is the father, the Time Master is the young son, both are mutants with control over time itself; however, since their goals contradict, they use their powers to nullify each other. Until one of them is incapacitated...) 5.) Number 5 is... I can't tell you, because he/she/it hasn't shown up in the campaign yet, and at least one of my players is on these boards. But PM me and maybe I'll favor you with a description...

Re: SFX for Darkness with IPE? I have a Mutant Martial Artist NPC in my Teen Champions game with a power like this. Named, appropriately enough, "Censor," when he activates his power, everyone but him in a small radius (2 or 3 hexes from him, as I recall) loses their sight. I built it as a Darkness, Personal Immunity, IPE, No range, Custom Limitation: Does not block Line of Sight from outside the field (rated at -1/2). I built it this way rather than as a Flash or Mental Illusions because it was simpler and basically undefeatable unless you relied on a sense other than sight, which is what I wanted. As for SPX, the idea is that he can steal the sight from those near him to enhance his own senses... you don't know whether his power is on or not until you get close to him, and then your eyes stop working. Then he proceeds to beat you up with Martial Arts while you're at reduced CV and he has extra CSL (bought with limitationh "Only when another being is in the Darkness field). It was great in the first fight with him when the PC martial artist ran at him with superspeed, intending to do a passing strike, then he suddenly went blind. As I recall, he succeeded on the check to not fall on his ass, but it was good to really shock the player.

I have two characters in my Teen Champions game that have power builds with Constant (or Continuous) Area of Effects that have Usable as Attack so they can "stick" them to a target and have that target followed by the AoE. So far, no problem. However, I intially ruled that in order to make the effect stick to the target, you had to hit the target's normal DCV, not DCV 3 for targeting a hex. I recalled reading this somewhere, and it seemed balanced to me, because otherwise characters that rely on high DCV for defense could be too easily hosed by a Constant AoE UAA effect. However, while doing a rules review, I couldn't find that rule anywhere. So my questions to the community are: 1.) Is my ruling correct? 2.) If not, what is the correct ruling? and 3.) Does this make Constant AoE UAA powers unbalanced?

Re: question about optional rule use For 5 point and higher ranged CSLs, I allow the CSL to be used with DCV (though the DCV only applies against ranged attacks, of course). For lower level ranged CSLs, I don't let it apply to DCV.

Re: Need help deciding points for physical limitation Thanks for your ideas, everyone. I think I'll show the player this thread and see what he thinks. But if anyone else has any other suggestions, feel free to keep posting them.

I'm running a Teen Champions game where most of the PCs are Mutants in a world that hates and fears Mutants (yes, I know I'm ripping off the X-Men, but that was my intention). One PC, a Mutant with electricity powers, wants to add a Physical Limitation where his "blood" is actually arcs of electricity, so if he is injured, instead of blood sparks would come out. This would obviously freak any onlookers out, and would likely mark him as a Mutant (meaning the Department of Mutant Activities would drag him away). I'm fine with the concept (his eyes are already orbs of electricity which he covers with sunglasses), but I'm having trouble deciding on the value of the limitation. After all, the times when he is most likely to bleed are when he's in a super-fight, where it wouldn't much matter (since he's obviously a Mutant when in costume and using powers). The player suggested that the limitation could also include a penalty on Paramedics rolls to treat him, which I'm also ok with, but don't know what an appropriate penalty would be. Any suggestions on making a 10 to 15 point disadvantage out of this?

Re: Let's talk about...Physical disads and powers that minimise them To me, it's a question of whether one or two powers are directly negating a physical limitation, or if the character build as a whole would negate the limitation. Example: In an old Superhero game, one character was "The Mercurial Marvel" (think the T1000 from Terminator 2, but he can't change his color or speak). Because of his various shapeshifting powers, communication was almost never a problem (he could scroll messages across his body, play perfect Charades, pantemime, etc). However, those shapeshifting powers obviously had other uses aside from replacing his voice, so I made the mute disadvantage only worth a few points (5 or 10, I forget which), because he could not, for instance, call out a warning or communicate with someone who wasn't looking at him. Now, if I had a Daredevil-type character, where blindness is directly counteracted by some enhanced sense, and the enhanced sense pretty much just acts as a replacement for sight, then I would allow the Blind disadvantage at full points, and charge full points for whatever sense power they bought. In essense, it's a "trade" which will balance out (usually) in point totals. Technically it does lower the max points that can be spent on disadvantages, but that could be excepted for the character if it was really needed.

Re: Computer translations of Hero that you would like to see Chrono Trigger. It's not as freeform as some of the others that you mention, but it was a great time travel console RPG. I would NOT recommend the sequel (called Chrono Cross), though.

Re: Phase 12, GM's what do you allow? That's a very interesting house rule, Rapier. I like it. I may try it in my next combat.

Re: Skill System House Rules - Comments? I love the new system for skills. 13 has always been my lucky number, so I'm happy to see it incorporated into Hero. However, the new system for combat has one problem: Anything that halves DCV becomes a kiss of death. Example: Standard system- OCV 5 vs. DCV 5 = 11 or lower to hit OCV 5 vs. DCV 3 (5 halved, rounded up) = 13 or lower to hit New system- OCV +5 vs. DCV 15 (what would be 5 in normal system) = 10 or higher to hit OCV +5 vs. DCV 8 (15 halved, rounded up) = 3 or higher to hit (automatic hit on 3d6) This makes non-combat movement, getting Stunned, or even falling Prone MUCH more dangerous. To preserve the same ratios, you could have the +10 to DCV apply after halving (or "zeroing") DCV in that chart regarding the order to apply combat modifiers. Then the above charts would be: Standard system- OCV 5 vs. DCV 5 = 11 or lower to hit OCV 5 vs. DCV 3 (5 halved, rounded up) = 13 or lower to hit My modification of New system- OCV +5 vs. DCV 15 (what would be 5 in normal system) = 10 or higher to hit OCV +5 vs. DCV 13 (5 halved, rounded up, +10) = 8 or higher to hit (2 point difference, just as in normal system). However, the disadvantage of doing it that way is it in order to preserve the percentages from normal Hero, you would have to apply any straight numerical DCV modifers (+1 from CSL, -2 from Martial Maneuver, etc.) to your DCV, then divide by two, then add 10. That takes away from the prime advantage of the system, namely speed of use and minimizing extra math steps. An alternative would be to have your Normal DCV, and your "Off-guard" DCV (your DCV halved, then with 10 added) be standard stats, and then modify from there (this would be somewhat equivilent to D&D's "flat-footed" and "touch" ACs). For Normal DCV, this would be just the same as the first example. But it would be different with "off-guard" DCV. Example: Standard system- OCV 10 vs. DCV base 10, +1 from CSLs, -5 from maneuver, final DCV 6 = 15 or lower to hit OCV 10 vs. DCV base 10, +1 from CSLs, -5 from maneuver, modified DCV 6, then halved to 3= 18 or lower to hit My second modification of the new system- OCV 10 vs. DCV 20 (base 10, +10 from new system), +1 from CSLs, -5 from maneuver, final DCV 16 = 6 or higher to hit (same as 15 or higher) OCV 10 vs. "off-guard" DCV 15 (base 10, halved to 5, then +10 from new system), +1 from CSLs, -5 from maneuver, final DCV 11 = 1 or higher to hit (NOT the same, mathematically, as 18 or lower, although as a practical matter they're both auto-hits) Using the "off-guard" DCV option actually makes modifers to DCV more "extreme," in that normally they would be halved, for better or worse. It seems like it would balance out, except that CSLs to increase DCV are more common (in my experience) than manuevers or environmental conditions that decrease it. Thus, characters with many defensive CSLs will be much less vulnerable when "off-guard" than those that rely on raw DEX for their DCV. But I guess that kind of makes sense, as CSLs usually represent training. Thoughts? Anyone else think of the half-DCV problem? Is my math right?

Steve- If a character took a "Limited Power" limitation on Aid to restrict the types of targets that could be affected (such as "Only Lions," "Only My Brother," or "Only My Summoned Creatures"), and the type of target the character is limiting the Aid to would not include the character (as would be the case for all of the above examples assuming the character wasn't a lion), is "Others Only" also a valid limitation to take? Or would the "Limited Power" limitation already include that because of the way it was defined?

Steve- If you Abort to use the Flying Dodge Maneuver (from the Complete Martial Artist), do you get a Full Move? If so, does this Full Move let you automatically evade any non-AOE attack (much like Dive for Cover)?

Steve- If you have a power with the "Variable Advantages (+1 Advantages; +2)" advantage, and you choose an Area of Effect advantage as the variable advantage, (I'll use Radius as an example, but the same question applies to any of them except One Hex), how do you determine the size of the area? I see three ways (examples will assume a 5d6 Energy Blast) 1.) Use the Active Points without including the Variable Advantages at all (for a 5d6 EB, that would give a radius of 3") 2.) Don't include the Active Points from the AoE, but include those from the "rest" of the Variable Advantage. In other words, only count half of the Active Points from Variable Advantages as increasing the radius (for a 5d6 EB, this would give a radius of 5") 3.) Count all of the Active Points as increasing the radius (for a 5d6 EB, this gives an 8" radius). Which of these is correct? Or is there some other option that I'm not considering?

Steve- When using Mind Scan, can you specify a type of mind that you're looking for, rather than an individual, specific mind? For example, could you search for "the nearest psychic" or "the nearest child" rather than "Mentallo" or "that orphan I gave a dollar to yesterday?" I ask because an animal-controlling PC in my campaign is buying Mind Scan for Animal minds, and wants to use it to locate nearby animals for her to use Mind Control on. By the way, I agree with Jfry's sentiment that it is wonderful to have you here available to answer questions. That's what made me join the boards.