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Demiurgos

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  1. Throughout human history, hatred of an entire group of people doesn't tend to be rational and well-reasoned.
  2. No need to apologize. After all, you're the one doing me a favor by replying to this thread. A hole deep at the edges as well as the center fits best, so I'd go with that. I thank both you and eepjr24 for your assistance. When I convert characters or powers from one system to another, I make notes of differences between the two and which system does what thing better, and, comparing the two, I like HERO System's construction better. It attests to HERO System's versatility. In the other system, their equivalent of Tunneling was used for an officially published build as well, but I do like using Blast better. Some may not like going into too much detail, but I like how in HERO you can know exactly how much damage an earthquake of x intensity will do, and you can actually quantify how intense an earthquake has to be to tear a hole in the ground, which in the other system would just be narrative. Additionally, not only is HERO System's construction more detailed, but it also happens to be cheaper to boot. Again, thank you both for your help.
  3. It was simply a straight conversion to HERO System, which uses the metric system, from a game that uses the imperial system. I said that because it's supposed to be large enough to pose a challenge, but not too large. 200m x 900m was much too large, which was why I gave the size of the original. Since I hadn't put numbers to anything (I generally don't, as that can always be filled in once you've decided what the component effects are going to be), no one had any way of knowing what was excessive. Though since HERO System has MegaScale, perhaps scale for a typical AoE attack in HERO is different.
  4. Well, as far as a character paying, most players seem to have cost first and foremost in mind, and paying the least amount of points possible. If I'm looking to create an effect, cost is secondary. So long as the desired effect is accomplished, it costs whatever it costs. Some concepts are pricier than others. Other concepts don't belong in the hands of a player character, in which case cost is irrelevant, since NPCs have no point budget to worry about. But as far as this specific instance, I said in the OP that there were two possibilities for the third part of the power: 1) "simply model the damage of the rocks, [which] would be a Killing Attack in game terms", or 2) "simply ... consult the falling rules, which would make it a matter of looking at the table for the velocity and the distance of the fall based on the depth of the pit. In which case it wouldn't actually be necessary to build anything for this part, since it would be included in the second part." Damage as a result of interaction with the environment was already mentioned in the OP. But since "you get what you pay for" (6E1 120), I simply went ahead and reasoned what the effect would be to have both options there. I don't care about cost. And, as I said, if someone looked at the sheet and saw the earthquake and the abyss, they wouldn't know there were sharp rocks at the bottom, which was another reason I just statted it up for the sake of doing so (it's also a matter of convenience to already know exactly how much damage would be sustained rather than having to look in the book since everyone doesn't have it with them). The "official" build hasn't been set in stone. Yeah, as said above , I realized in hindsight that 14d6 was chosen because that's the amount of dice needed to accomplish the effect, so 14d6 would be the "extra dice." I actually don't know what I was thinking. But wouldn't they need to be Linked, since the earthquake and the abyss are two different special effects? As aforementioned, Champions Powers had an identical AoE Blast Explosion of less intensity Linked to the original greater intensity AoE Blast that represented the earthquake to model an aftershock. That was a published example of lesser amount of dice added to the power, and this would be a greater amount of dice being added to the power. 10d6 is making the earth quake, and 14d6 is creating the abyss. The effect doesn't exist in a vacuum. This isn't a random happening, it's an effect for a specific character who's opening the ground. Just as the character is making the ground open up, he's also making sharp rocks at the bottom the same way he opened the earth. In comics, people routinely break the laws of physics and geniuses know everything about everything and whip up deus ex machinas whenever needed, so a character who can open up the ground making rocks at the bottom shouldn't be farfetched in such an environment. The character using the power is creating rocks on the bottom for non-fliers to hit. Attacks aren't sentient. Non-fliers wouldn't teleport into the rocks, they would fall the distance from the surface to the bottom and hit the rocks. Some things go without saying. The character wouldn't be using the powers on a bridge. Just like Avalanche, or some other terrakinetic or geokinetic, wouldn't be fighting on a bridge. They would be fighting on terrain advantageous to them and their abilities. Someone like Storm wouldn't be creating tornados in a room, she would be outdoors in the terrain in which she can use her weather powers. If she is indoors when a fight breaks out, she's going to want to take it outside. Both the initial earthquake build and eepjr24's suggestion are Blast Explosions, and Explosion is an AoE in 6e.
  5. Ah. I stand corrected. Thank you. Actually, thinking about it now, I see that was a dumb question. You didn't type "14d6," randomly, you did it because that's the amount of dice it would take to accomplished the desired effect. Looking in Champions Powers, it says that a 6d6 Blast is "tremors," an 8d6 Blast is a "mini-quake," and a 10d6 Blast is a "major quake," so then, as you said, a 14d6 Blast would be what it would take to tear a hole in the ground. The intensity has to increase. There was a 33% increase from "tremors" to a "mini-quake," and again from "mini-quake" to "major quake," so then, as you said, a 40% increase from "major quake" to "earth opens up." That makes logical sense, so it seems you were right. Champions Powers has this as an option for the Earthquake build: Since it added another AoE Blast to the initial one modeling the earthquake to simulate an aftershock, the same can be done for the earthquake blast and the blast to create the abyss. The only thing, and I guess numbers have to be used now, is that the hole created by this was supposed to be 20m x 150m, and MegaScale would make it much more bigger than intended. While I'm open to adjustment for the HERO System conversion, 200m x 900m is far, far, more than needed. I guess if that's what the math says, that's what the math says, but the size of it is rather overkill.
  6. To be clear, I didn't put together that or the earthquake build, they were already in existing HERO System publications that I looked through for ideas of how to go about building it. The pit wouldn't have falling damage, since the intent of that wasn't to inflict injury, but entrapment. When people unwittingly step into what was a hidden pit, the problem is that they can't climb out. I said that that couldn't be used as is, unlike the earthquake build, and would need some changes. How much extra dice would be needed to achieve the effect? Since eepjr24 proposed a 14d6 Blast, and the earthquake is 10d6, would it be sufficient to just make those four dice the extra dice? Because that would fit. Transform was mentioned, as was Change Environment, but as I said, when I see Change Environment used, it's to model effects like fog, heat, cold, gravity, slippery terrain, etc., and not something as drastic as the ground being destroyed. I've also seen it used to do a point of NND damage to nearby buildings. How would Change Environment be used to create an abyss? Because in HERO System, you decide "what you want the power to be and do" (6E1 122), then decide what game effects works best for the intended effect. They hit rocks on the bottom because that's what the power does. Same reason why Cyclops's optic blast is concussive force instead of heat vision. That's what the guy who created him wanted his power to do. Similarly, every and anything that happens in a comic book, each and every choice by a character, happens because the writer wanted it to. The inspiration was Apocalypse from the X-Men: Animated Series from the '90s, when he said, “I am the rocks of the eternal shore: crash against me and be broken.” I made a power out of it. Crashing against the rocks is the entire point of it. The damage comes when they hit the bottom. If they don't, they're not hurt. As said above, I posted a template in a HERO System publication that wasn't built to cause falling damage. Mallet and I discussed the depth of the abyss, which is deep enough for falling damage to occur as per the falling rules. The build I proposed was directly under eepjr24's post. The Thing or Mr. Fantastic wouldn't be expected to be. Those are two characters custom chosen who wouldn't be. That was never said to be the best simulation. Everyone wouldn't be killed, the campaign wouldn't be over. I'm not going get into why at the moment, because that would derail the thread from the subject of the appropriate mechanics for the power. Perhaps after the best way to model the desired effect has been found. Prelude to the Abyss: Blast x, Only Does Knockdown, Not Knockback (+0), Personal Immunity (+1/4), Area Of Effect (20m Radius Explosion; +1/2), No Range Modifier (+1/2), Constant (+1/2); Only Affects Targets On The Ground So this has been the one thing no one has had a problem with, since all the discussion has been about the second or third parts of the power. Would an extra Linked 4d6 of Blast Explosion be enough to create the abyss?
  7. Hmm.. that's a possibility, although MegaScale is a bit overkill for the purposes of this. It doesn't need to be that big.
  8. The reason I was leaning toward actually statting it up, is because if someone looks at the write-up and sees Energy Blast x, Explosion, Personal Immunity, No Range, Only Does Knockdown, Not Knockback plus Tunneling x, Personal Immunity, Hole In The Middle, Usable As Attack, Ranged, Area Of Effect, Only to Open Earth Beneath Targets, it might not be clear that the damage is part of it. Neither pit builds in 5e or 6e say anything about damage, and since you "get what you pay for," I don't have any problem with paying for exactly what I want. Take this for an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E33fYGJnQag This is similar, it's just that the victim is already conveniently standing at the edge of a cliff, which just breaks off without an earthquake. There's no Tunneling, since the empty space is already there and doesn't have to be created, but there's Killing, rather than Normal, Damage at the bottom, which is the entire point of it, since it's a Fatality. Now, with this power, there aren't spikes at the bottom to be impaled on, it's more like jagged rocks to be broken on. How would the impalement be modeled in HERO System if the spiked RKA (since, effect wise, there's absolutely no difference between the spike traveling through the air and impaling the victim and the victim traveling through the air and being impaled on the spike, it's just different special effects for what's going through the air for the same result) isn't included as part of the power? As far as avoidance, swinging would depend on the presence of something to attach a line to, and clinging would depend on being near a surface to cling to rather than being caught in the middle. You're close, 150m, so 5 segments. I actually wasn't sure if this power could be effectively modeled in HERO System, but I wanted to try anyway, 1) just to see how it would be done, and 2) to compare and contrast. In the system I originally built it in, if you fail the DEX roll, that's it and you fall. It's seems that HERO's greater detail might actually make this power less effective. I wasn't sure how it would work in HERO to begin with, since combat is different. There wouldn't be any reason for a hero to have a power like this. Damage to the city actually won't be an issue, but I wanted to get the mechanics down first and didn't want that to be derailed. No one's commented one way or the other on the actual mechanics, so I want to make sure that there isn't any issue with them. I'll use the 6e build since it's the latest one: Blast x, Only Does Knockdown, Not Knockback (+0), Personal Immunity (+1/4), Area Of Effect (20m Radius Explosion; +1/2), No Range Modifier (+1/2), Constant (+1/2); Only Affects Targets On The Ground (-1/4) plus Tunneling x, Hole In The Middle (fixed size; +1/4), Personal Immunity (+1/4), Ranged (+1/2), Area Of Effect (20m Radius; +1), Usable As Attack (does not affect characters who can avoid falling; +1 1/4), all targets standing within 20 meters of Grantor (+2); Only To Open Earth Beneath Targets (-1), Linked (Blast; Lesser Power can only be used when character uses greater Power at full value; Lesser Instant Power can be used in any Phase in which greater Constant Power is in use; -1/4) plus Killing Attack - Ranged x, Hole In The Middle (fixed size; +1/4), Personal Immunity (+1/4), Area Of Effect (20m Radius; +1), Trigger (Activating the Trigger is an Action that takes no time, Trigger resets automatically, immediately after it activates; When Targets Hit Rock Bottom; +1); Only Those Who Take The Fall (-1), No Range (-1/2), Linked (Blast; -1/4). Putting aside for a moment whether the third aspect should be a part of it, would this be the correct way to simulate this power? I noticed that Usable On Others can be used on inanimate objects, which means it could be used on the ground itself, but it's probably simpler to do it the conventional way.
  9. Oh, right. Of course. How much of a Limitation should that be, cost-wise?
  10. I thought I'd post here for feedback from the HERO Games board denizens. I was trying to build a power in HERO System, and there were a couple of things I've been mulling over. First and foremost, HERO System is an effects-based system, so you determine what it does, and choose the appropriate effect(s) from there. Okay, there are three different effects this power has: 1) The first effect is an earthquake. In both 5e and 6e, this effect is built the exact same way, with the only difference being the name of Energy Blast (5e) or Blast (6e): 5e: Energy Blast 10d6, Explosion (+½), Personal Immunity (+¼) (87 Active Points); No Range (-½), Only Affects Targets On The Ground (-¼), Only Does Knockdown, Not Knockback (-0). 6e: Blast 10d6, Area Of Effect (18m Radius Explosion; +½), Personal Immunity (+¼) (87 Active Points); No Range (-½), Only Affects Targets On The Ground (-¼), Only Does Knockdown, Not Knockback (-0). So that's pretty straightforward. Perhaps falling objects might be included, but that would depend on where it was happening. 2) The second effect is that the ground opens up in an abyss. There's a pit build in both 5e and 6e that, again, are built exactly the same way: 5e: Tunneling 8” through DEF 8 materials, Usable As Attack (does not affect characters with Flight or Gliding; +1), Ranged (+½) (100 Active Points); Only To Form Pits Beneath Targets (-1). 6e: Tunneling 16m through PD 8 materials, Usable As Attack (does not affect characters with Flight; +1¼), Ranged (+½) (88 Active Points); Only To Form Pits Beneath Targets (-1). The above build is for a pit, while this power is for an abyss, so it needs to be considerably bigger and deeper. The character using this power is actually going to be standing in the center of the area, which is unaffected, which would be mechanically represented by Hole In The Middle, and Ranged would be changed to Area of Effect. What's happening is after the quake, the area around the character is opening up into an abyss, and everything standing in the area falls into it. In the center of the area stands a pillar where the ground is in tact (the unaffected area), where the character is standing. I don't know if Desolidification, Usable As Attack to desolidify the ground in an area around the character (who has Hole In The Middle and Personal Immunity), given the SFX as the ground opening up would be a valid alternate approach. If Change Environment wasn't explicitly said to "create relatively subtle effects," it might have been a possibility. Transform seems to offer itself as a possibility, transforming the earth into a void. The earth falling away could be part of the transformation as it turns into thin air, which would also explain the lack of earth beneath the surface. Or, since it's actually a published build by the makers of HERO System, I could just go with Tunneling, Usable As Attack, Ranged (after thinking about it, Ranged is needed since the character isn't moving through the tunnel as it's being created, which is explicitly said to be what's being done), add Area of Effect and change the size. Looking at the published build, it has the limitation Only To Form Pits Beneath Target, so it seems Indirect isn't needed to define the point of origin of the tunnel as beneath him (which is what Tunneling is usually used for anyway). 3) The third, and final effect, is that anyone/thing that fell into the abyss fall and hits rocks at the bottom. The first thought was to simply model the damage of the rocks, but while it would be a Killing Attack in game terms, I wasn't sure if it would be a ranged RKA. But since it's an effects-based system, you disregard the name, so I thought that if you throw a knife at someone, or plant a spear into the ground and knock someone onto it from a distance above the ground, it's damage that involves a distance (throwing a spear at someone or "throwing" someone, so to speak, at the spear both have the same result), and clearly isn't an HKA. The second thought was simply to consult the falling rules, which would make it a matter of looking at the table for the velocity and the distance of the fall based on the depth of the pit. In which case it wouldn't actually be necessary to build anything for this part, since it would be included in the second part. But since this is part of the power (which might not be evident to someone looking at the sheet if I don't include it), I'm leaning toward building the RKA and looking at the falling table for how many d6s it should have. That's cut and dried since it's spelling out, so there's no guessing that needs to be done. Since it's a three-part power, I was thinking about how to put it all together since it's sequential rather than all the effects happening simultaneously. The Aftershock build in 5e and 6e's Champions Power has the Aftershock Triggered to occur after the Earthquake, and it seemed that this could also be done to Trigger the Abyss to come after the Earthquake, and the Killing Damage to happen after the Abyss. Or, with Linked powers, for -1/4 less Limitation, a lesser Linked power can be used in any phase the greater Constant power is in use, so the Earthquake could be bought as constant, so the character could pay END to maintain the Earthquake as long as he wants, then open the Abyss, and have the Killing Damage Triggered to happen after. Thoughts? Suggestions? Is that pretty much how it should be, so nothing else needs to be done?
  11. I don't know how useful this would be, but perhaps using scarecrows as Clairsentience with the Fixed Perception Point Limitation for observation? People might think the unexplained appearance of a scarecrow strange, but they wouldn't have any reason to believe it was actually watching them.
  12. Demiurgos

    Plot Ideas

    I was trying to think of possible plot ideas that would be interesting for an NPC, and thought it couldn't hurt to pose the question here. Fiction is full of geneticists whose work focuses on genetic engineering for the purposes of expediting human evolution. I was wondering if an evolutionary social scientist whose work is focused on attempting to do via social engineering what genetic biologists attempt to do through genetic engineering would be able to generate interesting stories. From this character's point of view, Evilutionary Biologists like Marvel Comic's Mister Sinister are misguided, because they're preoccupied with physical evolution while completely neglecting mental/social advancement. For example, in the Onslaught saga, Onslaught read Nate Grey's mind to see how mutants came to power in his world, and was upset to see that mutants were just as petty and venal as humans, and weren't any more suited to rule, which prompted his decision to destroy everyone. Despite their superhuman powers, so-called Homo superior wasn't any more mentally/socially advanced than Homo sapiens. The only difference between the two was the mutagenic gene. Since they shared the same evolutionary history, they had the same adaptations that were suited for an environment that no longer exists. Social scientists use scientific principles to analyze social systems, draw conclusions, and implement strategies toward affecting change in a given population. So this character tries to guide humanity's mental/social upliftment through social engineering, while geneticists try to genetically engineer superhumans as the next stage in human eingineering. Geneticists like Teleios might be easier to come up with plot ideas for, but would a social scientist equivalent of Teleios be something that would lend itself to interesting plot ideas for a supers campaign? . It would be in character to support research into isolating genes associated with asocial behaviors, but I'm trying to think of ways he could use social engineering to affect change in society to guide it's mental/social advancement.
  13. I'll keep an eye out for them. From what I understand, Stands don't enter the picture until the third part, and I'm on the second, where it's all about Ripples.
  14. Well, I can add Invisibility to Hearing Group, then, it isn't a problem. Since they're representatives of his mind/shards of consciousness that are split off for the sole purpose of preventing unwanted events from happening, they have no reason to speak, since speech isn't required for their function. Telekinesis doesn't talk either, after all, which it was initially built as. Though isn't this an issue of what Senses a Desolidified character can be perceived by rather than what Senses a Desolidified character can use? Invisibility makes a character unperceivable by whatever Sense Group it covers. There's nothing, for instance, that says someone with Invisibility to Hearing Group wouldn't be able to perceive anyone else with Hearing, whereas that would be exactly the case with Darkness to Hearing Groups.
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