Daemon

Re: Change the basis for speed? You could drop the desolid idea and use lots of Shrinking. The character physically enters the machine, and sits on top of it's CPU, or actually rides around in the electronics. Then buy Telepathy ( Machine class of minds ) to simulate the mind-machine link.

Re: Improving Absorption You just need to Absorb to the right Characteristics. Like, REC. =)

Re: Affects Desolid Put your attack powers into a Multipower. Buy a power slot with your primary attack, at a reduced die effect, as Affects Desolid and Only vs Targets that cast shadows. Multipowers don't have to actually be categorically different powers in each slot; they can be defined as tweaked aspects of the same power. Thus, you can make a 'single-power' character that can do more than one thing, representing very fine control over that 'single power'.

Re: Pistol Damage Class By Caliber This thread should probably not have been made. =P If you go onto pistol forums, there are endless threads arguing about the relative lethality of various types of ammunition in real life. Even the Army can't get it straight; elements within the military argue against 5.56mm, with other elements insisting it does it's job. I just don't think this kind of granularity is achievable or really important in HERO; random die effects versus highly variable resistance to lethality ( BODY and defenses ) makes it way too complex to accurately simulate. It's difficult to simulate even in real-world tests. The best answer is just to apply whatever thematic rules you feel appropriate for ballistic weapons in your campaign, and go from there.

Re: Energiser Bunny Effect High CON, medium defense, High STUN and BODY, No KB resist, and a 1" position shift Teleport defined as a 'kippup'. Get knocked around, take damage, but never get stunned. Use the Kippup to avoid spending half phases getting up from prone after taking KB. Having a really high CON is an easy, often overlooked, effective power.

Re: Lore Spell Lore and Legend Lore are two similar, but different, spells. You need a wider effect for Lore because it's not just for items. Legend Lore does work better as a detect. Ultimately, it doesn't matter much for something like this- once an effect is defined to the GM and players satisfaction, that is all you really need.

Re: Any ideas? here you go.. TK Shield: Missile Deflection (Any Ranged Attack), Uncontrolled - Does not work on energy-based attacks (+1/2) (30 Active Points); Costs Endurance (-1/2), Visible- Area of shielding is visible to the naked eye (-1/4) ( Real Cost: 17 ) This shield deflects physical incoming objects that the character can perceive. It does not work on lasers or other non-physical attacks. Mental attacks, AOEs, and Melee are all effective against it, as are hidden or surprise attacks. It costs END, and is Uncontrolled, so the character needs to fuel it. Additionally, Missile Deflection's roll ablates as more attacks come in between the character's actions; -2 for the second and another -2 every successive attack. This is a weakness for an Uncontrolled power, since the character cannot choose which attacks to Deflect and which not to. A few thugs with Autofire weapons could easily overwhelm it. This is a pretty balanced power even if the character buys up CSLs with Missile Deflect. TK Shield: +5 with Ranged Combat (25 Active Points); Costs Endurance (-1/2), Visible (-1/4) ( Real Cost: 14 ) Basic DCV levels that cost END, so they're not Persistent. Again, no defense against AOE, Mental, Melee, concealed or surprise attackers. This is a pretty balanced power on its own. TK Shield: Force Wall 1" (8 PD), Trigger- When attacked physically at range (Activating the Trigger is an Action that takes no time, Trigger requires a Full Phase to reset, Character does not control activation of personal Trigger; +1/4), Transparent to ED Attacks (+1/2) (35 Active Points); No Conscious Control (-2) ( Real Cost: 12 ) This is a weird power. Trigger states that the Trigger condition can be activated by anything the character can normally perceive, so this power would activate regardless of whether the character actually perceives the incoming attack- in other words, it will protect him from surprise or invisible attackers. However, the character only gets one activation for every one of his Phases, so the power could be tricked into activation by a distracting attack. Then a second attacker slams the character from an unprotected side. Additionally, the power costs END, but the character doesn't control the activation, so he could be paying 2 END every Phase whether he wants to or not. It is a PD barrier, so it offers no defense versus Mental, Energy, or Adjustment powers. TK Shield: Force Field (10 PD/0 ED), Trigger- When physically attacked at range (Activating the Trigger is an Action that takes no time, Trigger resets automatically, immediately after it activates, Character does not control activation of personal Trigger; +3/4) (17 Active Points); No Conscious Control (-2) ( Real Cost: 6 ) Basically the same power as above, only built on Force Field. This time, the field comes on and stays on as long as the character keeps taking attacks. This will drain 2 END per phase as long as the character is under fire. It's not directionally weak, but suffers all the same weaknesses as the Force Wall example above. What I think you should be suspicious of is the character buying a lot of Danger Sense. Additionally, with the active defenses ( MD and DCV ) what you want to look out for is the character buying lots of Resistant Defense on top of them. This sort of thing tends to be self-balancing in the long run, in my opinion. Characters spending a lot on defenses aren't spending a lot on attacks, so they may run into the classic brick situation where they are simply unable to affect their opponent. The opponent may have lots of Movement, or Concealment type powers, or very high defenses on his own. Overspecializing brings it's own weaknesses. Find the area the defensive character skimped on and exploit it with Adjustment Powers, Mental Powers, or situations where his defenses aren't useful- like chasing someone down or winning a negotiation. Challenging characters isn't about bringing stuff against their strengths- it's bringing it against their weaknesses.

Re: Any ideas? Ranged DCV isn't a bad idea. The character is still vulnerable to melee and Mental attacks. Missile Deflection can't really be set up as always on, it's a declared or abort action and doesn't happen automatically. ( Though I did have a powered-armor character that sleazed this ). If the player wants to apply Uncontrolled, the standard rules for it apply ( namely, there has to be a common and obvious way to bypass it ). Missile Deflection also does not protect against AOE, Mental Attacks, or Melee, so it's really in the same boat as Ranged DCV. He needs to define the effect a little tighter; typically active defenses are subject to positioning and target awareness rules- like if the character is surprised or attacked from behind, or from concealment. The character would need Danger Sense to be able to react to all incoming attacks, in addition to an active defense like MD or DCV levels. Like ghost-angel said, it's probably best simulated as a resistant defense of some kind, probably Force Field, but conceivably Force Wall. I'll post some examples momentarily ( I'm bored ).

Re: Mechanical Summon Right, unless it comes and goes it isn't a Summon. Better to build it as a follower and take appropriate Disadvantages to simulate machinehood.

Re: Lore Spell That's why I typed Clairsentience as 'Mystic Sense Group'- it's definitely not Normal Sight and not quite Mental. The problem is that the original spell description is not clear enough. It doesn't tell you, for example, if the caster states his request out loud, or needs a material component, or even the format of the answer. It just sort of appears in the caster's head after a period of time. I think that Legend Lore would be better served as a detect. However, Lore is so generalized, what you end up having to do is use something like 'Detect Information'- which is basically just a sense. And that's what Clairsentience emulates, using Senses at a distance. It can be bought with Sense Adders just like Detect, so effectively there's not a lot of difference here. =P Clairsentience already has all the built-in limitations you need, so that's why I used it. Handle all the vagueness in the spell with the concrete limitations you need ( Vague and Unclear, NCC ) and let your SFX do the rest.

Re: Lore Spell Lore: Retrocognitive Clairsentience (Mystic Group) (40 Active Points); Retrocognition Only (-1), No Conscious Control (Only Effects cannot be controlled (Caster does not get instant answers); -1), No Range (-1/2), Vague and Unclear (-1/2) Real Points: 10 Add in whatever advantages you need to simulate spells in your campaign.

Re: Changing the direction of knockback??? TK, affects whole object, only to draw objects toward the character EB, no knockback, linked to TK Some combination of AOE: Line and Indirect, where you target the hex behind them relative to the character, and the Indirect points toward the character. Or, just indirect, really. Define the SFX as a Vacuum Beam and define Indirect as originating on the other side of the target, pointing toward the character. I also suggest Personal Immunity =P

Re: Disadvantage Point Limits. I think Code vs Killing is interesting as a Social Disadvantage. =)

Re: First Couple Attempts Speed 2? ;x This looks like an oversight. Aren't powers that normally cost END normally visible? Buying visible on visible powers is legal, but it makes them VERY visible, like causing a boom that can be heard a mile away. Mind Scan isn't Persistent, so it stops if the mentalist is Stunned or KO'ed already. Mind Link has special rules for recovering the Link post KO. Powers that take an attack roll are made very hard to use by adding Activation rolls. Plus you multiply the number of rolls needed during combat, which slows down play. You can substitute things like Concentration or Extra Time to get some point savings. Same issue as above with Activation Roll. I'm dubious of No Mental Awareness on these, as the powers above provide Mental Awareness. With a lot riding on Cumulative, Continuous powers, this character is going to have problems with only 22 END. But, only going twice per Turn, maybe not. =)

Re: Drain to Add For this, though, you would probably have to do something different. On first glance, this looks like a Drain plus a Mimic VPP, where the powers in the VPP always take 1 non-recoverable charge and can only mimic Drained powers.

Re: Drain to Add Bite: (Total: 65 Active Cost, 28 Real Cost) Killing Attack - Hand-To-Hand 1 point, Penetrating (+1/2), Armor Piercing (+1/2) (10 Active Points); No STR Bonus (-1/2), No Knockback (-1/4) (Real Cost: 6) plus Drain Blood: Transfer 1d6 (REC to REC of END Reserve), Can Transfer Maximum Of 20 Points, Delayed Return Rate (5 per Day; +1 1/2) (55 Active Points); Linked (Bite; -1/2), Extra Time (Full Phase, -1/2), Only vs Creatures with Blood, Only when bite does BODY (-1/2) (Real Cost: 22) and an END reserve with 0 rec: Blood Pool: Endurance Reserve (80 END, 0 REC) (Real Cost: 8 ) Buy extra Characteristics or Powers that cost END and only use END from the END reserve.

Re: Staying conscious and alive That would work as well, I just didn't want the die effect to be too powerful. It's more intended as a 'It's time to leave.. NOW' kind of effect, rather than a 'Keep Fighting' effect.

Re: Doppelganger (Weird Horror!) You could buy the Cellular, Imitation adder with the limitation 'Requires successful Sense DNA.' Then buy 'Sense DNA- taste group, Sense, Requires appropriate DNA sample (quantity of flesh or blood, -1 ). This allows the creature a little more leverage in what it can find out by eating someone's flesh. You could buy sense adders to simulate greater ability in elder creatures, or even buy off the limitation. I'm of the opinion that a Mental shape shift handles some of the issues of telepathic impersonation. For greater effect, I agree with the KS or Skills VPP. One thing I also like is very limited Distinctive Features. DF- Doppleganger, Not concealable, Always noticed and causes Major Reaction, Only detectable by Unusual Senses (Enhanced Smell) , Not distinctive in some cultures ( Among Dopplegangers ) - 5 pts.

Re: Staying conscious and alive I built a similar character, but used Aid STUN and BODY with Trigger. The character is a parapalegic who uses a nanotechnology-based powersuit in order to get around. The suit was originally designed to operate as a sort of mobile hospital bed, but the character upgraded it by reprogramming the nanites for all kinds of unintended effects. It was built as a cluster of multipowers for the different systems, each of which carried a triggered slot designed to keep the character alive if his BODY or STUN dropped below a target value. So the suit's powers would gradually 'turn off' as it devoted more systems to keeping the character alive. Emergency Neurobridging: Aid STUN 3d6, Can Add Maximum Of 30 Points, Trigger (Zero Phase Action, when STUN is below 0, Trigger resets automatically, Character does not control activation; +1/2) (54 Active Points); Stops working if END reserve depletes (-1), Locks this slot until points fade (-1/2), OIHID (-1/4) Crisis Microsurgery: Aid BODY 1d6, Can Add Maximum Of 20 Points, Trigger (Zero Phase Action, when BODY is below 0, resets automatically, Character does not control activation; +1/2) (25 Active Points); Stops working if END reserve depletes (-1), Locks this slot until points fade (-1), OIHID (-1/4) So, when the character went below 0 BODY or STUN, the Aid was immediately triggered as a Zero-Phase action, over and over, until BODY or STUN were positive. As long as the Aid had points left to fade, the character could not use the given Multipower for anything else. The Aid would remain on, keeping the character at positive values, until he healed or the extra points got overwhelmed. I like the Healing variation with limited charges. Aid has the built-in limitation of the points that can be added. You could use a flat Characteristic adder, if the power won't be in a Power Framework.

Has anyone done the grunt work to make a Hero Designer prefab for the weapon tables? Or does anyone know where I can find one? Thanks!