InfiniteKarma

Bag of Holding: Enhanced Strength +30, Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2) [45 Active Points]; OAF (-1), Limited: Only for purposes of Encumbrance (-1 1/2), Limited: Only for things that can fit through opening (-1/2) [11 RP] There's my relatively simple build. If you want to place other restrictions on the bag (like extra time to store/retrieve items), then tack them on. +30 STR would upgrade a 10 STR normal to a 40 STR for encumbrance, allowing him to carry 640 kg without penalty, instead of 10 kg. +60 STR would let him carry 40,000 kg without penalty. edit: had the wrong breakpoints for encumbrance.

Is this character built to possess his "preferred" bodies most of the time, or to be ghostly most of the time, and possess any body he feels like? If he floats around, nearly invulnerable, and possesses any body he wants to, the power is costed appropriately. As a useful character, it might be better mechanics-wise to build his "Robot body plus possessing spirit" forms as a series of multiforms, and then a multiform for his permanently desolid state. Instead of trying to build the possession powers, him switching forms is how he game-mechanically does that. Then he can build a useful character when he's being a ghost, without all of the "affects real world" stop sign powers.

Compare the Aid build to just buying "Additional class of mind-animal, additional class-machine, additional class-plant, etc..." adders on all of your relevant powers. Adders are designed as additional things to enable new uses of a power already, so adding them with a variable power seems like a rules exploit, like buying Cosmic Variable powers limited to "Any Skill at +3" (9 AP) for really cheap, and for any skill not being rolled as a reaction, saving hundreds of points.

The Aid with "Can Apply Adders (+1)" is the RAW way of getting variable adders on the fly, so you should probably look to that for the cost, at least. 3d6 Aid as standard effect is enough for 10 points of adders, which with the +1 advantage is 60 AP. Some kind of variable adder advantage should probably cost about 30 AP per 5-pts of adder to be comparable. That is a steep cost, but Adders are usually things you buy on your powers, and only apply when necessary, so it seems against the spirit of the rules to only "use" the adder points during the phases when you need them. You're better off expanding the multipower by 20 points, and buying 20 points worth of adders on every multipower slot, as appropriate for the power.

In any balanced game (where DC and CV/defense is supposed to be within certain maximums and minimums), I'd probably disallow that limitation completely. A "witch blast" that deals 12d6 normal damage might be effective and balanced at night, but 6d6 might be completely ineffective versus campaign average defenses. I might argue that a 25% reduction in active points is closer to a 50% reduction in effectiveness, to actually make the character playable. The FX being "half as powerful during the day" doesn't mean that maps as a 1-to-1 direct reduction in points.

What's required beyond the throw maneuver and measuring throwing distance, which are both just a part of the Strength a character already has?

The best way to use precognition powers, IMO, is to follow "show not tell," similar to Christopher's suggestions. Rather than having a player get told the future, his character is told the future, but takes precautions showing that he knows what's coming. Bill and Ted, for example, left themselves keys and set traps for the villains, by traveling back in time "off camera", because they knew how events would unfold. If I were to build a powerful precognitive, a VPP to represent preparations the hero made in anticipation of the future he's trying to avoid, with the understanding that those powers are meant to be extremely specific and effective, is my build of choice. And probably high DCV and defenses, with the FX of "always sees it coming." The FX of the build in general is that the character knows how everything is going to happen, and can act and react with all the (moderate to huge, depending on power level) advantages that provides, but the player acts like he knew things would happen that way the entire time. And then rounding the build out with an actual precognition power with uncontrolled, so the GM can give explicit plot cues when it's good for the story.

That kind of seems like "what's actually a limitation" material, exactly. A good case for proportionally linking powers is when attack powers are linked to movement. If your speedster doesn't actually use your 30" of Running, then your Superspeed Punch doesn't get to be used at full power. Using it at full power actually requires a Move-By/Move-Through, since you can't use all your movement with a half action, which ups the stakes considerably.

Exactly, the idea of "pay for the power you want" is a trap when it comes to very specialized or situational powers. Game balance typically forbids players from taking 30d6 EBs and Mind Controls in 350 point Superheroic games. If the result of "this attack knocks the opponent prone" is what you want, you should be paying for the effectiveness of that result, and if it costs more points than that by the rules, it's an oversight in the rules.

A power dedicated to creating inanimate objects would be useful. We have powers to create walls, but there's no power to create a tree, or at cosmic power levels, a mountain. Transform is both too expensive and powerful for this effect, and not granular enough in its effects. Being able to turn your opponent into a statue is mechanically the same as turning the air (or "nothing" for pure creation) into a statue. And the stats (size, defense, body, weight, special abilities, etc) of things made by transform aren't determined by the transform power. A power based on the final stats of the object (i.e. the volume/mass, defense/body, and any special abilities) makes a lot more sense as a unique power, with the major difference being that it doesn't have to interact with an initial target, because it's built more like Summon than like Transform.

I think the other replies miss a more fundamental problem: if your speed was, say, 250" of flight (by whatever method), you can both attack from complete safety, and escape to complete safety, at will. Instead, the game makes combat/tactical movement expensive, and noncombat movement very inexpensive, so your character can cross a continent quickly, but doesn't break combat with hit and run attacks.

Having it be a hard and fast rule that Duplicates always permanently die, and injured Duplicates always recombine to harm the original character, seems like bad design to me, especially since there aren't advantages to bypass those limitations. Plenty of concepts would utilize Duplicates as disposable cannon fodder, and from fictional sources, disposable Duplicates seems to be more common than vulnerable ones. RAW, building Multiple Man or Naruto seems very difficult - neither Duplication nor Summon have the proper options to make them "guilt-free". On the topic of permanently losing CP, that's a pretty touchy subject for most players. Permanently losing character points is usually outside the ability of game mechanics, and a GM building an ability that permanently stripped CP from other characters seems inappropriately adversarial to me. You do lose all of your CP on death, but you also get to create a new character that will be similarly powerful to replace him, unless your group kicks out players when their characters die. Having your character crippled, but not dead, isn't very much fun if you can't meaningfully participate in the game anymore, which would be the case if you had a 200 point character in a 400 point game. At that point, it's breaking the most important rule, which is to make the game fun - just retire him anyway. Of course, spending 5 XP to buy more duplicates to replace dead ones is an option, but that's a unique penalty to the Duplication power that exists nowhere else in the game system. Sure, Duplication is very powerful, but other powerful abilities have a set cost, not an open-ended one. It's just not consistent.

Banning mutant as an origin story, to prevent players from skimping on background, seems like begging the question to me. Are you intending on forcing players to write a backstory, in spite of their inability or unwillingness to do so? A player who wants a backstory will create one, even if his power origin is "mutant", and a player who doesn't want to write one, will find a different low-effort origin to fill in the blanks with. I personally find backstory to be a great part of most RPG characters, I'm just saying that this is kind of creating an in-character rule for an out-of-character problem. Engaging players directly to say they need a richer backstory seems like the better thing to do.

The main limitation is that you still get moved by the knockback, you just get to make a break fall roll to avoid the damage. E.g. if you get knocked back 10", and a wall is 5" away, you move the 5" THEN start applying the resistance. Really, I'd be happy to pay points to still try and make a break fall, instead of auto-failing. I'll mention that my group plays 5E, I didn't realize KB resistance had its cost cut in half in 6E.

For agile, high DCV superheroic characters, knockback is a problem (IMO) - you might have enough breakfall to safely land from a terminal velocity fall, but there's absolutely no way to avoid getting knocked prone or taking damage after any small amount of knockback that runs into an obstacle. Is there a good power construct to avoid the damage and auto-prone of getting knocked into an obstacle? I'm thinking of Knockback Resistance, limited to reducing inches that would result in hitting an obstacle, maybe with a Breakfall skill roll required? What would a fair value on that limitation be, -1/2?

If it helps, in real life, cutting off the air supply takes a long time (30 seconds to a minute) to cause unconsciousness, the same as someone holding their breath, which is what expanded breathing is comparable to rules-wise. Cutting off the blood supply causes unconsciousness in a handful of seconds, which the NND chokeholds would have to be, rules-wise, to be relevant in a typical combat. The skin effect described here doesn't necessarily need to prevent the second scenario (which would cost more points, IMO) to be useful in the first.

I think you've got a pretty solid build for the power, but I think the Limitations are pretty aggressively discounting the power. The active build doesn't seem unfair, it should just cost more real points, IMO. The -1/2 "Stops when stunned" discount seems like free points with the other limitations on the power; you already have restrainable, and it's already going end with the "Easily negated" condition in the Damage over time adder. I don't think that is really a separate limitation at all. The -1 Limitation is also overestimated in its handicap, IMO. This character is obviously Presence-focused, so he's going to be able to buff himself 100% of the time, and that's its primary use. Having other party members gang up on weakened opponents (if there are other Presence- or Ego-focused characters at all) is really the only thing you'd be missing out on, and that's going to be less common. -1/2 seems more appropriate.

I really don't get Invisible Power Effects a the build for this. It makes using the power undetectable to normal senses, it doesn't make the results disappear. An IPE fire attack against a book would still leave a charred and damaged book, even if the flame didn't visibly originate from the character. How is movement different? You're trying to hide an entire person from a specific set of senses, that really sounds like a form of Invisibility, to me.

The flaw in your logic is the "1/3 as effective" limitation. It's going to be rare that taking the better part of a day, instead of the shorter part of the day (but still squarely outside of "right now") makes the resurrection ineffective. Regardless, Regeneration already includes a hefty limitation for running at once per Turn (or once per 20 minutes). If you want credit for resurrection working slower, it only makes sense to get credit for the difference between 20 minutes and 1 hour, which is -1/2. That frankly seems generous to me, I'd eyeball that limitation at -1/4 based on other limitation costs.

Gliding, limited to moving along the ground, is a special-case limitation for representing this kind of ability. Given that you could argue things like disturbed branches, or scents, could also be used to track, you could also go with "Invisibility to detect tracks/tracking", and make it simple. There's precedent there with the Simulate Death talent that's based on "Invisibility to detect life signs/paramedics".

I'd say the trouble with Longevity (and a lot of other non-combat powers) in Hero, is that it's too expensive for the strict interpretation, and if it gave common sense results, it would be impossibly powerful. If a campaign runs for five centuries, and the non-immortal characters automatically die, that seems like poor planning on the part of the GM. If all the characters are required to buy Longevity, why isn't is just free campaign flavor? And if non-immortal characters get plot immunity and skip between centuries, why spend the points on Longevity when it's being handwaved? Time travel is another great example. If a player got the greenlight to take arbitrary time travel, and paid the ~60 points for it, he's able to hop around at will. As a plot device, that's extremely cool, but it's probably something both necessary to the plot, and partly out of the player's control to use (probably with no conscious control, or somesuch). Why should a player pay any points for something that doesn't make his character meaningfully more capable? On the other hand, if the player used time travel to solve problems at will, setting traps, knowing the future, or undoing misfortunes, 60 points doesn't come close to enough. The only way to balance time travel, or longevity, is to NOT use it as an "I win" button, and incorporate it into the FX of the campaign. At that point, it should be extremely inexpensive, or free, because it's not giving the characters anything they aren't already paying points for elsewhere.

This depends on heroic or superheroic games, but it sounds like this is for heroic based on your examples. The other option is building a power with the effect you want (e.g. an enchanted weapon does 3d6 killing damage whether it's a sword or a knife.), and a "Focus of Opportunity -0.5" limitation. As long as you have a suitable weapon available, it can be used to produce that effect, without worrying about what the weapon did before.

As a framework, the point costs don't seem incredibly hard to make work. If anything, you can rebuild martial arts cheaper. Martial Arts Maneuver framework (25 active points), lockout[can only use one maneuver at a time regardless of point costs] (-.5), restrainable (-.5), visible[obvious martial arts maneuvers](-.25), duration limitations[instant] (-.5), 8 real points After that, each maneuver looks like it can be built from the basic maneuvers on 25 active points of OCV/DCV/strength/HKA/naked advantages, and purchased with 1 real point after the common limitations are factored in. With the minimum of 10 points in MA, you'll have at least two maneuvers, which matches a minimal martial art. With that build, a few limitations, like the need to buy Weapon Elements, penalties to OCV/DCV, and restrictions on which basic maneuvers the bonuses are applied to, are being given away for free, and some maneuvers aren't even using the full 25 active points. Of course, buying all of those naked advantages and skill levels within a framework is normally "GM's permission" only, but if the game designer gave permission for these specific effects, that seems good enough for me.