LoneWolf

Like anything else in the game, it depends on the special effect, and what you want the pain to do. If the goal is to knock someone out some form of Stun only attack will work. This could be an NND or other exotic attack or just a plain Stun only attack. If you want the pain to cause other effects, you need to build those using other powers. One way would be to use a limited form of mind control. A single command drop the item you are holding because it is causing you great pain would simulate this. Another way would be a change environment requiring an ego roll to continue your action. Like I said it depends on what effects the pain causes. This question is kind of like asking, how would you build an electrical attack. There are many right answers to both of these questions.

I should have specified I was talking about damage negation in my comment on knockback. While normal defenses do not reduce knockback damage negation does. If I have -3 DC of damage negation the attacker rolls 3 less dice to determine damage on a normal attack. That is going to reduce the knockback the attack does.

Most super heroes have a CON of at least 18. With a CON that high you probably rarely get sick anyways. That same CON will mean your character probably handles the illness better than normal.

I have to agree with Hugh on this. What he is saying is a fundamental concept of the Hero System. A limitation that does not actually limit the power should not reduce the cost of the power. This has been explicitly stated in every edition in one form or another. The one thing that should be brought up, is that you don’t have to actually take body for it to have an impact on the game. Body also is also used to determine knockback. If a character has stun only, they can still be knocked around by the attack without actually taking BODY. If the campaign is using knockback than Stun only should be worth some limitation. At that point the argument is not whether it is a limitation, but rather how much it is worth.

I would say that if you can manage to totally destroy the head it counts as being decapitated.

Resistant Defense that works vs power is not power defense, it is still resistant defense. If you have stacking power defense from multiple sources it is still one pool of power defense. The only time having multiple sources might all get drained is if they have the limitation Unified Power. If you had power defense and resistant armor that provides power defense with Unified Power both would be drained when hit with a drain affecting either.

I am assuming you are talking about a drain that affects multiple things simultaneously. If that is the case you roll the damage and apply any power defense. If what you are draining is considered a defense (including the power defense) half the amount drained and apply that to the characteristic. If the characteristic is not considered a defense, then apply the damage after subtracting the power defense to the characteristic. The Linked limitation specifies that if either attack reduces your defenses the other attack the other attack applies first. This prevents you from linking one drain to another to be able to drain a character's power defense. So, basically you get the power defense vs all on the first attack.

I suggested basically the same thing in an earlier post. The book suggested that an impairing hit to the head kills an unimportant NPC or creature. Any hit to the head that instantly kills the creature could be considered a decapitation hit if the has any specific weakness vs decapitation.

It is in 6th edition 6E1 page 392.

Sounds like the limitation requires multiple users, combined with extra time and maybe a focus.

That is one reason I actually like getting rid of figured stats. It lowers the incentive to buy up primary stats. It seemed like every character had at least a 23 ST and 23 CON including the supposedly frail magic based character.

With figured stats buying a 40 CON cost 60 points but gave you 63 points of figured stats. If you bumped it up to 43 CON, it cost you 66 points for 71 points in figured stats. Bricks with figured stats cost less than other types of characters. If I bought 45 STR and 43 CON, it cost me 101 points and I got 117 points in figured stats. You could then buy down your END to save even more points.

I created a spreadsheet that you can change the base DEF to compare an equal amount of points in DR vs DN. DRvDN.xlsx

Don’t get me wrong I am a big fan of damage negation, but it is better at creating a high threshold of damage. It is great for characters that are immune to damage below a specific point. Damage Reduction is better for the character that is not immune but can take a lot of damage and still keep functioning. It really depends on how you want your character to work. If you want to be immune completely immune to small arms but take damage vs larger attacks DN works better. A character with moderate defenses and 50% DR can probably take one hit from DR Destroyer and still be able to stay in the combat. That same character can be nicked and dimed by enough agents. The character with the same defense and -6 DC of DN will completely ignore the agents, but likely be taken out by the same single hit by DR Destroyer. Both concepts are equally valid. If you scale up the defenses the results show similar results. With 15 defense vs a 12d6 attack 50% DR results in 13.5 points of damage, -6 DC of damage negation results in 6. At 15d6 the DR damage is 18.75, where the DN is 16.5. At 18d6, the DR damage is 24, and the DN becomes 24. For the same cost the results of DR and DN are fairy similar

If you want to have a chance to do body but limit the amount of stun using a killing attack and limiting resistant defense is probably the best way. This does assume you are using 6th edition rules and not using the hit locations. Normal attacks are designed to allow combat to be less lethal. Trying to make them lethal and limiting the stun is kind of like trying to force a square peg into a round whole. Instead of trying to figure a way to get normal attacks to act more like killing attack, why not simply change the assumption and have most attacks default to killing attacks. Martial arts often include a killing strike so make those more common also. Damage negation is better at lower end of the scale to the point it provides complete immunity to those attacks. It works really well for simulating something that ignores low level threats and provides some protection vs all attacks. Damage reduction is just the opposite, it provides marginal benefits vs the low level threat, but significant the higher end. What it does not do is to increase the dice where the character can ignore the attack. Since DR does not eliminate damage you could skip the STUN only and allow it to work on BODY. This could help if you want some BODY to get through, but don’t want things to get too lethal. By the way in 6th edition resistant DR also reduces AVAD and Drain STUN and BODY. @Unclevlad I based my analysis on the OP. That is why I used only 12 def. Steve posted in a follow up that he is trying to replicate a specific flavor of combat. Without knowing the full details of the campaign all we can do is base things on what is posted. From the sound of it defenses may be capped at a certain point, but that does not mean the GM cannot have an NPC outside of those limits.

I have to disagree with DR 25% being useless. It is less effective vs low dice attacks, but more effective against high dice attacks. 25% damage reduction and 3 DC’s of damage negation will both mean that a character with it will take a 13d6 attack to stun a character with a 23 CON, given 12 PD. UP to about 16d6 the results are fairly similar, above 16d6 the damage reduction provides better defense. If we go up to 50% DR and -6 DC of damage negation the dynamics change. The Damage Negation provides near absolute protection up to 9d6, but reaches the stun point at 16d6 vs 17d6 for the 50% DR. Above that point the DR gives much better protection than the DN.

Normal attacks do a lot more stun than body by their very nature. If you want to do body, use a killing attack. In 6th edition they reduced the stun multiple on killing attacks so that they are no longer wild card they used to be. In 5th edition and below the single most powerful 60-point power was the plain 4d6 RKA. On a good roll it could take out anything. Now killing attacks do on the less stun, but more body than a normal attack. If we use a 4d6 RKA instead of a 12d6 normal attack the average damage is 14 body and 28 stun. Someone with 12 points of resistant defense is going to take 2 body and 16 stun assuming no other defenses. If they don’t have any resistant defense, they take 14 body and 16 stun. If you do want to have a chance of doing body with a normal attack and avoiding being stunned damage reduction might work better than damage negation. Damage negation is good at stopping x amount of damage, but once you go above its threshold it does nothing. Damage Reduction on the other hand is actually more effective on high dice attacks. Stun only damage negation is also going to slow down the game as it will require all attackers to roll and calculate two separate sets of dice. Stun only damage reduction will be easier to calculate.

Special effect based on real world sciences is usually fairly easy to understand. Fire or cold is something that is pretty obvious. Special effect based on rubber science on the other hand is something that needs to be defined before it is allowed in the game. Cosmic/Primal energy is rubber science so the person creating the vulnerability should be the one defining it.

For the most part mutants are pretty varied so a template would only have a complication of them being a mutant. One of the older books had a classification of mutants called advanced generation mutants that actually did have some common abilities. From what I recall they all had life support Immunity to all poison and disease, Increased lifespan to 1600 years and safe in high radiation. They also had power defense, mental defense and a small amount of regeneration. Most also had increased STR, CON and maybe INT. I think they may have also had some latent telepathy. I believe it was bought as mind link with other advanced generation mutations. I could see a template for this.

Speaking as a GM I would write this up as normal character instead of using the AI rules. Having a player use the AI rules for his character creates too many problems. Even using the automation powers can be problematic and will often be vetoed.

I am not familiar with the devil my cry weapons. Give some further details on what they do, and I can see about giving you some advice.

The first x2 for movement is free.

From what I understand you want an alien robot wearing a power suit. If that is the case the best way to do that would be to write up the alien robot first but save enough points to build a suit of powered armor. Depending on how the robot is constructed it could have some automation powers but could also be built like a standard character. The STUN, END and REC can be the special effect of a sophisticated robot with internal power source and repair capabilities. When it takes stun, that represents minor systems being damaged. You could also purchase some automation powers, but those tend to be powerful, and many GM’s might not allow that. With the remaining points purchase your powered armor. One thing to keep in mind with the Hero System is that special effect is everything. Almost any power can represent almost any special effect. There is no power in the Hero System called lighting, but you can use the powers to build it. Being an alien robot or having a suit of powered armor is simply a special effect. Think of what abilities the alien has and buy appropriate stats, powers and skill. Then think what you want the powered armor to do and buy those abilities.

Most of the time powered armor is just a special effect of the characters power. Typically you build the character like any other but his powers have a OIF limitation in addition to any others. Usually they have very good defenses and often have a lot of unusual defenses like power defense, flash defense as well. You can use a multipower for a weapons array to save some point. Also buy stats like STR, DEX, OCV, DCV, SPD through the armor. Probably also want flight through the armor.

You cannot use 2-point skill levels to increase damage, but I would still warry of allowing a character too many 2-point skill levels. Other than limiting the number of 2-point skill levels I would not put restriction on using them for called shots. A few 2-point skill levels allow a character to be an expert in a particular weapon. Having a specific weapon, you are an expert in is something that should be allowed. The section on penalty skill levels actually mentions targeting skill levels that offset the penalty for targeting and hit locations. If you are going to disallow that in all honesty, you should remove all penalty skill levels. I can see limiting the number of penalty skill levels to a reasonable number to keep things from getting out of hand. Allowing someone to take 8 1-point skill levels with Rapier vs called shot head is something I can see as being unbalanced.