indy523

You forgot to add Sticky

In fact as I understand it being immune to a disease because you have had a vaccination or because you had the disease and survived it does not stop the disease from again reentering your body. What happens is you now have antibodies to the disease which can effectively attack and destroy it before it can get into the cells and replicate and flood your body killing it. So there is a precedent for a transform version of this after healing the disease changing one point of the character to LS: Immune to one specific disease I survived or the GM can give this away free in the other.

I think the correct answer to this question is "It Depends" You state Life Support does not end the effect it is protecting against and use the example that "suddenly you can breathe water". The book defines a certain level of this as "Does not need to Breathe". In that case it does eliminate the effect it is protecting against which is the need to breathe. So Logic could support either way depending only on how you define the situational effects of how the power works. The issue is subjective enough that the best answer is "It Depends" on how you are using it.

The reason for this exercise was that in the discussion on how to make that adventure hook which defines the cure for diseases there was a lot of skepticism about defining it right. So I decided to try and use the real world definition to understand it. IT may vary well be that a separate power Disease needs to be created and defined. Perhaps it is a hole in the game.

Other Diseases: This can be as simple as a blast or RKA bought with a physical manifestation and damage over time. You can set the length of the disease with a trigger and charges. When the last charge runs out if the character survives they are now immune to the disease. So Healing such a character long enough can cure the disease. One can also attack the disease, it will have an ED however you have to use a damaging effect that won't kill the host so you need medicine, etc. Remove the disease through damage and the next charge will trigger but keep damaging it with more medicine and you can beat it. Bacteria have normal ED while a Virus has resistant ED. A supernatural disease might use power defense instead.

Cancer: So Game Mechanic wise a cancer is essentially a transform since this is what it is doing. A cancer is cured when all of the thransformed parts (cancer cells) are removed from the body. One can cut them out but that injures the body and might not get all the cancer. Doctors and patients never know if they are successful and even if the patient recovers they can relapse and the desease comes back. So the GM has to build this as a power that transforms the character based on the amount of cancer cells in the body. At a set point level of transform the character becomes sick and eventually dies. The transform thus is built as a constant persistant power with no end. It can be cut away, surgically removed, or it can be attacked with radiation and lasers. This damage reduces the transform and wekens its effect. So buy it as 1d6 transform with the limitation must have 1 body/point. Then each point further tranformed adds to the number of transform dice. Each further transfor creates more transform with the limitation physical manefestation -1/4L and the limitation AVAD from POW defense to PD or ED +1L. The transform ends when it is physically cut out. When the character has no body left he dies. For really nasty cancers give it difficult to dispel to double the effective points to remove. Each time it is removed the GM rolls a secret Medicine Skill roll to determine if and when it might come back or if it is cured. RSR -1/2L If no medical help use a Con roll.

I notice when I asked the question how do you define a cure for deseases and poisons that it generated a lot of varying answers and what I got the sense was genuine internal conflict with exactly the best way to do this and I got to thinking that it might be that "desease" is a nebulous concept when it comes to game mechanics. So maybe we can start with a general discussion of what a desease is and what a cure is. Deseases from my college entry Biology class come in three flavors that we can talk about generically. Cancers, bacterial born pathogens and viral pathogens. Cancers are technically not a foreign body. They are your cells gone haywire in their DNA coding. Instead of transmuting into one of the necessary replacement cells for your body a cancer is a cell that basically screws up reading the code. They don't perform a function but still take O2 and food from the bloodstream causing a drain on the body'resources. When they start multiplying they create more cancer cells that form tumors in the body, masses of useless flesh. When they overtake the normal cells of the body past a certain point we get sick and eventually die. Curing cancer which is difficult involves finding and killing and removing the cancer cells while leaving the body intact. Bacteria are foreign bodies and they are in and of themselves seperate cells themselves albeit signle celled organisms. As I understand it the way they work is the are smaller than our cells and they manage to enter one through its cell wall and start working inside the cell taking in nutrients and growing and dividing until the cell becomes full of several bacteria which burst the cell wall open and then flood the bloodstream each new bacteria cell looking for more cells of our body to invade. When they have killed enough of our cells we start to get sick and possibly we die. Curing bacteria starts automatically when they enter the body. White blood cells hunt them down and antibodies form chains that mimic their DNA patterns in reverse (not sure of remembering this correctly). If the bodies immune system manages to create enough antibodies before the bacteria can replicate in enough numbers the body will be flooded enough with antibodies that the disease can never overcome and gets killed off before it can grow. They are natural agents such as penicillin that can be introduced which essentially poison bacteria without harming our tissues. Bacteria therefore are easier to kill. A Virus is essentially just a string of RNA or DNA in a sugar cube packet. It has no cell membrane and none of the mitochondria and other parts of a cell that are required for life to function. One can argue that outside of a host cell a virus is not really alive. What a virus does is to enter into a cell and the strand of DNA breaks apart to create RNA or the RNA strand itself enters the cells own mitochondria where it takes over these cellular factories and start replicating RNA and DNA of the Virus instead of the proteins necessary to fuel the functions of life. When enough viruses are created in the cell it bursts open, dying as hundreds of new viruses flood the bloodstream. So this is how a disease is defined at a high level in reality. I'll reply to this post with game mechanic discussion possibilities.

Rather than selective you could buy the RKA with a Naked advantage for it Personal Immunity. Then buy that power with an advantage Usable On Others such that the character being healed gets the benefit unless there are rules against that I am missing?

To misquote the wisdom of Forest Gump Simple is as Simple Does? I think that it is not that the market for gamers who like complex games has declined, rather I think it is the popularity of "geekdom" today made by shows like Big Bang Theory who have expanded the game beyond its starting base in the 1980s which was the gifted kids in the math club. Now that geek is shiek some of the stoners and jocks are checking out the game so for them simpler is easier. There very well maybe the same physical number of gamers that Hero's complexity appeals to as in the 1980's but that number is now a much smaller portion of market share. And in all business even gaming market share leaders dominate and influence the market because they have more capital to flood the market with their own product and to advertize. Those who are second fiddle will likewise imitate to stay competitive. So because Simple gets more play than complex it feels like all gaming is heading that direction. But that does not mean all of us want that. Some changes are able to be made, Hero system did away with the figured statistics but asposters here point out the core of the game requires more work because it allows for more imagination. The new Star Wars games are simple but there are really only so many characters one can actually make with that system that are different from one another. For old school gamer geeks like me who won Math awards in Jr. High Hero appeals more because I can do more with the game either as a GM or player. If we are a smaller share of the market the question is, does the complexity have a niche in the market of gamers who don't get what Hero is selling from the general gaming market, that is large enough to exploit even though Hero's market share will never dominate the market. If the answer is Yes then the goal is to find those gamers and appeal to them.

Sorry I can not find any mention of that in the 6e rules plus on page 6e 369 it states that the value of charges are capped at -0L for Persistent powers so applying that rule means that you are limiting the number of effects available to a character arbitrarily and not out of game balance reasons per se. The rules do state that they can be applied to constant powers such as growth and in that case turning the power on and off is just one charge. My version is more limiting that this. By in effect converting the power to an instant power and then buying it as a continuing charge this means that when you cast the spell on the gun it lasts for one turn. IF you have a phase or two that you can't shoot it for whatever reason you lose that time. The other way one could simply expend a charge and turn it off and then turn it on. Not what I what. The reason the charges are bought as recoverable is because you can regain then by recasting the spell. In games where spells are limited to INT/5 using delayed effect or similar limitation built into a VPP that effective limit the number of spells per day I can cast this is actually more limiting than the points allocated for and is why I went through this trouble. The spell gives you X charges and then you have to go back to your grimoire, arrange your Foci, spend the time needed to chant the power of course waiting for the correct time of day to collect the power etc.

Page 371 6e That is only for fuel charges so it does not apply here.

Hi Steve Question regarding piercing. Say I have a normal energy blast bought as 8d6 with 8 points of piercing (bought as normal PD since the attack uses normal PD) Total cost 56 points. Now assume the character is blasting an automation that has 16 res ED and no normal ED (Everything upgraded to resistant. Do I get to apply the 8 points of piercing to reduce the defence against the attack to 8? The attack still affects resistant defense, it just counts as PD. Does the Peircing bought with it count as well or does the automation get the full 16 res PD against the attack because the Piercing was bought at the 2 point level for nonresistant PD? If the case is the Piercing does not apply could I have bought the power with the 3 point res PD for 24 points for a total of 64 points so that it would affect resistant defences as well even though the attack does not affect resistant defences. Not sure the rules explain this well enough unless I am missing something.

OK so I want to in effect create a Enhance Deadly Aim Spell and translate certain skills to time limited effects for a spell caster. The problem at hand skills and talents are both permanent and constant. Buying charges that are for limited duration say one turn is not necessary. So we apply Nonpersistent -1/4L to make it constant and Instant -1/2L, then we can apply a +0A 8 continuing charges, one turn advantage. And we also need to buy the base level UOO at +1/4A to account for being able to give the power to others i.e. cast it on a weapon. The GM might also rule that this should be +3/4A (8 recipients +3/4A one at a time, -1/4A, plus +1/4UOO) to do more than one weapon at a time. For this we assume if the spell is cast on a ninth weapon it fades from the first previous one to be fair. I am assuming the above is correct. The usual rote of limitations is gestures -1/4L, incantations -1/4L, IAF Focus -1/2L, Arrangement (you have to put the formula together alchmically in advance -1/4L, Real Spell (spell comes from spell book, etc. if formula is lost one can research, experiment, extort others to get another copy (encompasses all similar limitations to real weapon) -1/4L Limitations -1&1/2L We add the -3/4L above for 2&1/4L with a +3/4A So say our power is add +5 combat skill levels to anyone who uses the weapon that this spell is cast on and further lets add one level of Weapon master. The minimum skill levels are three points (limited group of weapons) and the minimum Weapon master is 12 points (limited weapons) In the 6e book daggers, rifles, handguns fall into this area. This is 15 points for the skill levels and 12 points for the +3DC for weapon master for 27 points. Inherent in this is the limitation on the CSL (Only to improve OCV) which I will arbitrarily grant a -1/2L (Somewhat subjective you could expand it to -1L but I am not). This is on the 15 points Bought this way the spell is usable only for that weapon type. Five overall skill levels 8 points x5 for 25 points and the 24 point weapon master talent is 59 points. This is a spell that can be applied to any weapon. Certain more limitations apply: * their is the -1/2L on the 35 pt csl as explained above. *Although the power is broad (spell can be cast on any weapon) it is also limited to that specific weapon so one could argue the broad power has a limitation but I give it -1/4L at best. So this is CSLS Limited Group 15 pts at +3/4A = 26.25 @ -2&1/4 + 1/2L (2&3/4) = 7 real points Any Weapon 35 pts at +3/4A = 61.25 @ -2&1/4 + 3/4L (3) = 15 real points Weapon master Limited Group 12 pts @ 3/4A= 21 @ -2&1/4L + 1/4L (2&1/2L) = 6 real points Any Weapon 24 pts @ 3/4A= 42 @ -2&1/4L + 1/4L (2&1/2L) = 12 real points So the spell costs 13 points for being able to Bless handguns or any other limited group and 27 points to affect any weapon at all. This grants +5 OCV to hit and +1d6 KA or +3DC with the blessed weapon for one turn. Note Weapon master is technically for RKA and HKA attacks only however this could be expanded to weapons that are HTH attacks such as clubs if the GM wills it so.

OK so if I want my character to be immune to Deseases or Poisons it is 5 points, 10 for both. What if I want to cure said desease or poison. I can buy a Vaccine Regimen or Antidote as Usable on Others, without their permission, no control after administering. Figuring out all the permutations is not important to the topic so lets make it +1A. Per the rules however this technically describes preventing the desease or poison in advance granting immunity. Does this 20 point power also work if someone is ill and close to death? Is some combination of the immunity and the healing power needed in this circumstance? Not sure?

It seems to me that drains and change environment do not do what you want which is make it harder for one character affected by the power to hit you without affecting their ability to hit others. Put the whammy on them I guess. The first question I have for you is, does this affect all attacks including mental attacks. For sake of argument let's say yes since yo can edit out the point costs. The book has two methods for Don't Hit Me (sorry I have 6e) DCV characteristic for 5 points and DNCV for 3 points. The other method is combat skill levels for all attacks 10 points for normal and 6 points for mental. So 8 or 16 depending on if the GM will allow stats bought with limitations you could by the combat skill level with a -1L (only to increase DCV/DMCv) to reduce the 16 to 8 or you can use full cost and assume the whammy makes it easier to hit him and too damage the target as well. You have to purchase a limitation for only one target at a time which I would give only -1/4L since you can use the power on the next target or buy the power AEF with selective or with Autofire advantageous to get more. You also need to hit a target so buy it RSR attack roll vs targets defense to affect them -1/2L. I assume we can forgive the -1 per 10 points since it is vs a targets defenses for simplicities sake. If you want you can use trigger to make it automatic but either way I think you have to buy the power as constant however I assume skill levels or stats are by their nature constant. Me I'd use continuing charges, one turn should be enough. This gives you 8 charges for a +0A and 4 clips of 8 for +1/4A This simulates an attack power that affects one target's ability to attack you in combat. Make your attack and for one turn the target must effectively subtract one to hit you. For -1 is 16 points base, charges +1/4A for 20 AP. Limited by Defensive only -1L, RSR -1/2L one target only -1/4L for 7 real points. 4 clips of 8 charges. For extra flavor buy this ACV OMCV instead of OCV and LOS range to make it an effect of your character playing with their minds.

I quoted the portion of your text that was relevant. Yes you do later discuss active cap rules but only to the extent you feel necessary to justify your premise which is that it is not a violation of the active capacity rules. That in one point of view. This in no way diminishes my point which is that while technically correct it still allows for players to create unbalanced characters. I apologize for not understanding that your tertiary acknowledgment of the AP rules negated any need to point this out.

I would give him motr leaping. He is able to fall from tall buildings and land on his feet but other than that should play as the movies.

Mrinku I guess the question is how useful is "Machine Class" of minds. The rules treat it as the same as human minds because it is essentially a 0 limitation to trade off. This means there must be a large enough number of AIs with ego out there to effect to make the power as useful. This is not the case, most programs don't have ego.at all. I for one see no problem allowing this power to affect soulless AIs (programs without EGO) however even the most mundane, such as your smart phone, will have commercial grade encryption, whereas the normal human does not BUT humans have an EGO score which soulless AIs do not so it works out. Any competent GM should be able to answer this with common sense. I want to use telepathy to read someone's text messages off their smart phone. OK well it is not easy to break encryption on an iPhone so it would have a 0 Ego but maybe an 18 Mental Defense. Use judgement, a CIA agent's might have double that 36 points. In this way overcoming a device is not easier than a human just different in the ways it works.

Rhino I would say that fiirst you have to determine how easy it is ro communicate with the device in question. A typical Luxory car with blue tooth, lojack and On star is pretty much open as far as a connection being available however there will be encryption and a unique OS as well as a firewall. The mind control may have to be telepathic or the teleopath won't understand the code, The encryption would act as a mental defense and the firewall may be a separate entity in cyberspace attempting to cutoff the connection (dispel). So a new device with a computer is easy to attack but has defenses. The Apollo 12 lander for the moon has a simple OS built on basic with no encryption but no ability for outside programs to affect much as it was driven by manual flipping of switches. Easy to overcome but not to connect with. y So if it is 2010 smart armor yes you can try but you have to overcome intruder alert systems. If it is 1960's style armor you are in but can only take over say the CB radio if that.

More than anything I think Champions with its varied systems of defense and attacks has the most ability to force players into having options. Take the Brickish Martial Arts fighter type AKA Luke Cage, Bullet proof, fairly good PD/ED bought resistant lets say 15 PD/!5 ED as such he does not waste points on deflection. He is strongish (just under Spider-Man) say a 35 and a dedicated street fighter so Martial arts, Block (again he don't need to dodge), a +2 DC strike and a +4 DC and maybe a +2DC grab or throw. Maybe add +2DC with the martial arts His favorite thing is to use ambidexterity two weapon fighting to pound with his fists twice a round for 11d6/11d6 or let loose with a kick for 13d6. Essentially the same attack each round when he requires just to knock the opponent out instead of capturing them. But let's change up the opponents abilities and give him a Telekenitic bad guy to fight AKA Push, he has a force field +30PDr but only 10rED. but the bad guy has an enhanced TK punch add +6d6 HA to his 20 STR and all of this bought as AP while attacking. Mr. Cage's direct effective attack is now not useful. So maybe he spends time with his pal Iron fist and learns to focus his chi and develops Chi Hands applying a +1/4A AVAD on his STR and martial Arts allowing him to effect ED instead of PD. Now he has a second option he keeps on hand for characters with more Physical Defense the ED and maybe he develops a version that AVAD to resistant defense or Power defense to handle even more exotic foes in the future (all could be bought with lockout because you use one at a time) -1/2L.

So if there is cover from building on either side of the street and you have a character that has enough half movement to go across the street why would he not move to the middle of the street or even move in a little to get better range make his attack and then duck for cover unseen at turn's end, because it is cheesy! Denying that means you have to tell the characters to not do an obvious smart move because the rules have holes in them. Rules will always have holes in them but why get rid of the movement stops after an attack rule that solves more holes than it leaves open. The point of that rule is that once you shoot the gun you are getting the attention of every enemy in the room. This will be when they notice you most and so phases end then. In the example above if speedy runs 10m toward the character, 10m away, then 5m downstairs and 5m through the door without attacking Slowpoke without a held action would not be able to stop him as his attention is on the battle at hand. IF Speedy strikes him, this is a different story. At best he can move by and move in a straight line past Slow Poke.but otherwise Slowpoke will attempt to clothes line him because now Speedy has his attention..

Yes in real life Boxers can do that which is why the rule for aborting to a dodge exists or martial arts strikes that are +0OCV, +3DCV +1DC damage. In real fights opponents can attack each other without holding an action.. Speedy can rush Slow Poke and Slow Poke can swing back at him. To strike someone, correct that to move from outside a person's combat zone, dodge under his reach, then purposely strike him with a damaging blow, back out of the reach of that person and extract himself from combat and dodge out of sight is something that would take an incredible amount of skill and is not likely to ever happen to another fighter who is skilled even if they are bigger and slower. I am merely pointing out that the rules were developed for tis reason to simulate actual combat. If you run up and punch someone, even by surprise in real life and you don't knock them out, they are going to turn around and strike back. IF you turn tail and run afterward as fast as possible you make it easier for the individual to retaliate. In your scenario Speedy does not even need extra speed to outclass Slowpoke. He gets to move in to slowpoke, attack him and move out consistently. Slow Poke if he has the same speed as Speedy has to lose half his actions, holding them waiting on Speedy to come out and attack him. All speedy has to do is hold his next attack to one segment after it is Slowpoke's turn to attack. Slow Poke loses the held action, has to reset the next one and then Speedy strikes and Speedy halving SlowPoke's attacks always has that extra action to abort. Why? Because Speedy is a world class sprinter. You can apply that rule as a GM if you like but you will have a lot of pissed off players. The general rule of RPG's is, if you can see to attack me then I can attack you back. Rules are written this way because it grants a modicum of fairness to the game. But more importantly if you keep opening a closet door and running straight at me turn after turn striking me why do I have to hold an action to strike you. Your tactic by the third time you do this will be rote. If anything it would be easier to club you. Personally if you want to grant speedy characters some of this benefit then I would suggest it happen with martial arts maneuvers that allow a full move and do move by damage added (velocity/10). In that case the character strikes as he moves by, his momentum carrying him and the character had to learn a skill to do that (the martial arts maneuver). At least then it is palatable and not just because so and so has 4m more speed than I do.

Technically it is two different powers however the rule for power limits is to keep someone from munchkining a character by applying an unbalancing level of points to an attack at the expense of realism6c

The problem with allowing movement after the attack is you forget that in real fights I don't do all my moves and attacks and then you get to do yours in turns. In real fights combatants defend and attack together. So what happens if a fast character Speedy the Mouse with say 60m of running decides to move 10m in, attack Slow Poke the brick then run 10m back and 5m downstairs and into another room 5m to the left Technically this is a half move and attack. Slow Poke with 20m running has no chance to attack back. But in real life Slow Poke if he sees Speedy is going to swing at him when Speedy tries to get under his reach. In your system the attack cannot be made, Slow Poke cannot strike him. The reason a character stops after an attack is to best mimic the simultaneity of battle without the chaos of trying to account for simultaneity. Speedy ends his turn when he attacks, next phase slowpoke gets his retaliatory strike and next turn Speedy can go hide. You could adopt d20's AOO (attack of opportunity) rules but I know those are not the most popular of rules for that game. Plus Hero System works differently.

Are Killing attacks the most lethal? The average Viper agent is going to wear a 5 rPD/5 rED Kevlar Vest or Bullet proof rubber suit. USing a 4d6 RKA vs PD attack that is an average body roll of 3.5 *4 or 14 damage. So 14-5=9 damage body and 28-5 23 stun. Not dead but stunned for a phase Assume 13 bod and 26 stun Hmm.... Suppose our Viper Agent has 6 PD/ED normally 12d6 12 body -5+6 or-11 equals 1 Bod and 3.5*12 or average 42 Stun -11 is 33 which is lights out for the Viper Agent. Assuming you are fighting multiple agents the KA made a larger red gash on his side but after one phase someone has to waste another attack. How about 9d6 AP 9 Bod - (11/2=5) or 4 Bod and 3.5*9=31.5 -5 or 26.5 Stun, Bleeds more and still Nighty night Both cases the standard attack is more effective.