Wayside

Re: We are Seeclons, we are many But then they can't seperate to do other things or have the vehicle take on another rider

Re: We are Seeclons, we are many I'm fairly certain they could even take multiform Vehicle. Or for even more fun, duplication and multiform so one could change into a motorcycle and the other into the rider. Edit: Found what I was referring to, you can take duplication with the altered duplicates advantage so your duplicates could be vehicles, bases, etc...

Re: Not Taking Advantage I'm not sure I understand what you're suggesting since naked power advantages can do exactly what you are saying. They can be bought for a single power, at which point they automatically have all the advantages and limitations of the base power. Which as far as I can tell is verbatim what you are talking about. The only difference I see is that you don't want it to be called a naked advantage.

Re: Change the focus from KO to Killing Fantasy hero discusses this particular issue. Some suggestions from it: Remove STUN damage. Treat a result of stunned as dead. Simply apply a required number of hits to kill an enemy rather than exact BODY and STUN. Ie one hit wonders. Treat any attack that does more than half a foe's BODY in one hit as an instant kill. Introduce critical hits. (If a character hits someone with a roll of less than half what he needed to hit, the attack does max damage. Ie if they need to roll an 11- and they roll a 5, maximum damage.)

Re: Whipping myself into shape I'd avoid the whole issue of firing bullets made of my own body and make the power for whatever projectile weapon use recoverable charges defined as any object of opportunity. The side of a car, scrap metal, concrete. (Assuming this character can absorb the material and change it into what he wants, I assumed he can since he would be changing his body into bullets) And depending on how fast and easily you want him to do it, you could even just make it a special effect, not an actual charges mechanic. So you could take OAF (Objects of opportunity; scrap metal/metallic objects), or even have the power not limited at all if he can use pretty much anything for his ammunition. (Ie the character pauses in the street, puts his hand to the concrete, and opens fire, absorbing up peices of concrete and firing them out his other arm.) So, when he changes his body so that he can form a weapon, how would he end up losing the weapon? Does he form these weapons in his hand, not actually form his hand into these weapons? If he changes his hand into the weapon the point is pretty well moot as he can't lose it, but if he is actually creating OAF in this manner then you could define the VPP as being unable to change the points allocated to that power until he gets the focus back. You could also just do what sean suggested and take the side effect limitation. But define an ammount of Active points that are lost from the power if you lose the item.

Re: Understanding Drow Creation Actually applying the linked limitation like that is explicitly denied (Unless the GM permits it). You cannot link an identical power to another to form a larger one. There's a difference between energy blast 2d6 plus energy blast 2d6 (only vs evil -1/2) (linked -1/2) and Energy Blast 2d6 plus Energy Blast +2d6 (only versus evil -1/2) The former version fires two seperate 2d6 blasts and enemies would apply their defenses seperately against both. So if an enemy has 7 PD he would apply each 2d6 against it seperately, and probably not get injured much. The Latter is the correct way to build the power as the second energy blast is being defined as adding to the first. Forming a power that does 4d6, but only if the enemy is evil, doing only 2d6 if they were not. They will apply their defenses once to the whole 4d6 damage. You cannot apply linked to the second energy blast because it is already being built to explicitly add to the first. That being said your power also needs to have area of effect for what you are describing. Depending on the radius you want you should either take area of effect (one hex) or area of effect (+1 per 1") and double it until you get the desired area. This does however run into a problem since I'm unsure of how the area is affected by the powers being added together. That would be up to the GM unless someone knows the actual ruling. Here's how I would have my players build it. I would give them the benefit of doubt and say it covers the full area of 2" despite it being two seperate 1" radii, combining the active points of the two to determine it's actual radius. (See page 247 5th ed. rev. for area of effect) Energy Blast 2d6, Area of Effect(+1) plus Energy Blast +2d6, Area of Effect(+1), Only versus evil(-1/2) 40 active points, 33 Real points 10*(1+1) + 10*(1+1)/(1+1/2) The cheaper way would be to keep it's area at 1 hex dropping the cost down to 25. Of course with a power as expensive as these you'll probably want to throw some additional limitations on it. Alternatively I could see it being built using the limited power limitation. The power will lose half of it's effectiveness, about half of the time (being a bit generous there). So it's only losing about 1/4th it's actual effectiveness. Energy blast 4d6, Area of Effect (+1) 40 active points; Loses half effectiveness versus evil (-1/4th) 32 real points Edit: After thinking about it for a minute or two after posting, this limitation might not be worth any penalty at all, in fact, may be an advantage. It occured to me that you may be buying the limitation specifically to avoid hurting allies, making it more of an advantage, especially if you will be fighting primarily evil enemies. It's possible that I would not give any limitation for only doing full damage to evil at all, depending on those factors.

One thing that has always bothered me about hero system is that I have no idea how to balance an encounter in Hero System. D&D was easy, each creature has a CR and there is a chart that can be easily modified for different party levels and sizes. Even if a group was comprised of 3 3rd levels, a 9th level, and 2 6th levels, I could figure out what challenge of enemy they should generally be fighting. Yes, it was far from perfect, but it at the very least got you close. Hero system does so many things so well, but it never discusses this topic. I know there are exceptions and this is a generalization, but that's all I'm looking for. Generally speaking, how many points should enemies be? What if you have a single character, should he be fighting an enemy of equal points? What if there are four enemies? How many points should they be built on? What if you have a group of four 250 point characters? Should they be fighting four 250 points enemies? What If they are fighting a single enemy? or two? or eight? I considered looking at the duplication power as a guideline. Assuming a 250 point character should be fighting another 250 point character (which I doubt is correct since that would result in a presumably equal chance of loss as a success). The enemy 250 point character could buy a 250 point duplicate for 50 points making two 200 point characters. But that would obviously deteriorate since each doubling only costs 5 more points. I'm just lost in general on this front. Anyone who can shed some light on this?

Re: Understanding Drow Creation The Hide in shadows ability is unique because in order to hide from someone you need to have something to hide behind. Ie a counter to duck behind, some shrubs to conceal you, etc... So, as long as it is poorly lit you could walk right past someone they get a perception check to spot you as normal, but you are consider "hidden" so you get to make a stealth roll as normal to not be seen/heard by them. You're effectively allowed to consider "the shadows" or any "poorly lit" area as your cover/concealment. So as long as you are in a poorly lit area you can make a completely unmodified stealth check (normally ammount of cover and type of ground and such would give penalties) and if you beat anyone that is "observing you" with their perception check, you are considered completely invisible to their eyes and ears (Ie you roll 3d6 and see how much you beat your stealth skill by and they roll 3d6 and see how much they beat their perception by). Example: Sevra wants to sneak past an orc guard. There is very little light in the room so the GM rules it to be poorly lit. Normally it would be impossible to sneak across the room with the orc observing it, but since the area is poorly lit, Sevra is considered to have plenty of cover to hide behind as he move across. Sevra has a stealth skill of 13-, the orc has a perception roll of 10-. Sevras sneaks across the room using his hide in shadows power so that calls for a skill vs skill contest. Sevra rolls his stealth and rolls a 9, he beat his skill roll by 4, the orc rolls a 9 as well, but that only makes his skill roll by 1. Since Sevra beat the orc in the skill vs skill roll Sevra is considered completely invisible to the orc. That's my interpretation of the power, hope it removes any confusion

Re: Nature + Fire = What? Destruction, living flame (perhaps any of the cardinal elements tied to nature would create elementals?) Those are the only two that come to mind that havn't already been suggested.