LoneWolf

The easiest solution to slowing down the game is to simply require that when in combat the spells have to be prewritten. Allow the player to change the special effect as a long as there are no changes to the power. For example you have a generic blast prewritten and the player can define it as a fire, cold, electrical or any other allowed special effect on the fly. They cannot make it AP or penetrating unless they have a prewritten blast with those limitations. Before the game starts the character can the character should have a long list of spells already written out. If the character is actually out of combat allow them to write up a power if it can be done quickly. Give a time limit on how long the character can take. By out of combat I mean don’t mean don’t mean that the character is unaware he is about to be attacked or is ignoring what is going on. I mean the game is not in phases. Unless the focus is on another character about a minute is about all I would allow the player to create the power during the game. So, if the party split up and the GM is running the other group the character can do what they want. If the focus is on the group the player is in they are under the limit. This restriction is on the player not the character so the cost of the VPP is not affected in any way.

It also depends on how you define the power. If your body of stone or meatal skin made a lot of noise when you moved it would get the limitation.

The way to do this according to the rules would be to buy a cosmic VPP (No skill roll, can be changes as a 0 phase) and take the requires skill roll as a limitation. That would mean you can change the pool at will, but to cast the spell you need to make the skill roll. If you are the GM, you could simply hose rule it that the roll is to cast the spell instead of changing it. If I were doing this in my campaign, I would probably use the this. I would still have the character pay for changing the pool as a 0-phase action. To me having to make the roll to cast is more limiting than for changing it. The standard way you only need to make the roll once if you are going to cast it multiple times, the other way you have to make the roll each time you cast the spell.

The other thing that the limitation might do is to give the person more information about the power besides that the character has it. In the case of resistant defense it would give an idea of how tough the armor is. Knowing how much defense the character gives the attacker some tactical advantages. If I know you don’t have a lot of resistant defense it lets me know that my medium to high dice KA will probably still get some damage through. If I know you have a ton a resistant defense using any KA is probably a poor choice. It also might give information about the advantages on the armor. If I know the armor is hardened using an AP attack is a waste of time.

After the initial setup it usually takes me about a week to prepare for a session. For the main villain of the session I usually spend a day or two writing them up. The minor NPC’s don’t take long and I often simply modify the stat block of an existing character or creature. The rest of the time is spent on analysis of the session. I try and get an idea of how the party will match up and try to avoid either a TPK, or a cakewalk for the party. If the NPC’s is going to be a recurring major figure in the campaign, I take more time to write them up. I usually put as much effort into those characters as I would a PC I play. That includes multiple builds to make sure the character has everything they should and some analysis on how the character will do against the campaign limits I have setup.

My character Devil Advocate that has a 50 PRE would destroy some large object and deliver a good soliloquy and hit them with about a 12+ dice PRE attack. After that use his persuasion to get them to line up neatly for when the officers arrive on the scene from processing. It’s been a while since I played the character, but I think I had a couple of skill levels that I can use for persuasion. That should give me an 11 or less after taking the -10 penalty for extraordinary skill use.

This sounds similar to a sequence attack from page 253 of HSMA. The way I would do it would be to simply use a conditional limitation on the attack that it requires multiple successive hits. I think a -1/4 for each successful hit would be about right. So, buy the attack with whatever advantages and limitations are appropriate and add an additional -1/4 limitation for each required attack. This assumes that a missed roll ruins the attempt. If that is not the case, then increase the number of attacks required. I would probably use a -1/4 limitation for each 2 required hits., -1/4 for 2 hits, -1/2 for 4 hits and so on.

What it really comes down to is how much of a liability you are, and what do you bring to the table. If you require constant protection, have no magic and the only useful skill you have is trading then your character is going to be a drag on the party. On the other hand if you can have some defensive capability, have lots of utility spells and a ton of useful skills you are probably ok. For example, if I had a thief character with an 18 DEX, 18 INT, 5 DCV, 3 SPD, 5 PD & ED. Then give that character Acrobatics, Breakfall, Climbing, Concealment, Lockpicking, Security Systems, Stealth and Streetwise and 1 Overall level. For talents I have Combat Luck, Danger Sense and Lighsleep. He can also cast an a few spells say Invisibility, Nightvision and Shapeshift. Does this character seem like he would be useful in the game? He has no real offensive power but can probably survive combat by hiding or avoiding it.

In Pathfinder the classes, feats, skill, spells and equipment are rules. Go to the rules forum and you will see posts on all of those. You may consider archetypes fluff, but they are in part of the rules. Pathfinder is in fact a rules heavy system. If you show up at a Pathfinder table with a character with a bunch of custom-built spells 99% of the GM’s are going to veto that character. If you show up with a character using 3rd party published material most GM’s will not allow that. If you are talking about organized play those numbers jump to 100% Organized play is probably one of the biggest reasons Pathfinder became popular. I personally do play in organized play but recognize that it did help the system gain popularity. Being able to simply show up at a place with a character without having prearranged party and being able to play got the game out there. If Hero System did something similar it might start picking up more players. Most of the time if you build your character using only the core rule book, your character is a big disadvantage vs a character built with more sources allowed. The equivalent in Hero would be saying you cannot use advantages and disadvantages when building your Champions character.

Most of the pathfinder books have new classes, spell, feats and other significant things. Pathfinder is a class based system with defined spell lists so none of that should be considered fluff. It’s not like in the Hero System where you can easily build your own spells or abilities. You are limited to picking from prewritten options. In the Hero System all the information you need is in the main rule book(s). I can create a Fantasy Hero character with spells without needing more than a single book. In Pathfinder unless the GM is restricting you to core only, you typically need multiple books to create a character. You class could be in one book, and your spells and feats scattered through half a dozen other books.

It is more complicated than that because you have two variables that affect the stun. First you have to roll high enough BODY for the stun multiple to matter. There is a 56% chance of rolling at least 14 BODY on 4d6. After that you have a 1 in 3 chance of rolling a 3 on the stun multiple. That means you have a have a 19% chance of matching the stun from a normal attack. The law of averages is going to mean that the normal attack is far more consistent in how much stun is rolled.

I would say that penetrating being more expensive and having its own defense makes it worth the extra cost. It’s kind of like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Making hardened the defense against both actually makes penetrating worth less and almost worthless. It also weakens armor piercing at the same time. When it protects against both it becomes too effective and means that any player with at least moderate system mastery will probably end up hardening their defenses, which means if you want an armor piercing attack you are going to need to take it twice.

That may be true but when I stack up my Pathfinder books compared to the Hero System books the Pathfinder stacks is a lot higher. I have 15 1st edition Pathfinder books and that does not include all the splat books that I just bought the data packages for Hero Labs. Pathfinder definitely has more reading but is broken up into easier to manage packages.

The real value of penetrating is on killing attacks. If we take Hugh’s attacks and defenses against a killing attack and resistant defenses against a similar killing attack we get different results. For defenses 10 resistant defense costs about the same as 15 PD, 16 is about 25 and 22 works out to be about the same as 35. For the killing attack the normal will be a 4d6, the AP a 3d6+1 and the PEN will be a 2 1/2d6. VS the normal attack does 4 points to the DEF 10, and no damage to the 16 DEF or 22 DEF. The AP does 7 points to the 10 DEF, 4 points vs the 16 DEF and 1 point to the 22 DEF. The penetrating attack will do 2 points of damage vs any DEF. If we look at a low powered attack against the same DEF the PEN is the story is different. At 30 points the normal attack becomes a 2d6, the AP becomes a 1 ½ d6 and the penetrating is 1d6+1. The normal attack and the AP attack will on the average fail to get any BODY through. The normal attack has a 5% chance of getting damage through the DEF 10 and no chance on the other two DEF. The AP attack will get at least 1 BODY through as long as it rolls above average and about a 3% chance to get BODY through the DEF 16, and cannot harm the 22 DEF. The PEN attack will usually get 1 BODY through on any attack. This type of attack is perfect for delivering other attacks. For example, a 1d6+1 penetrating killing attack could be used to deliver a poison to its target. Penetrating is a complicated advantage. It is actually more effective at lower level and under specific circumstances. In those cases it can become very effective, but outside of that it is not as efficient as other attacks. Because it is not as efficient as AP under most circumstances impenetrable is probably going to be less common than hardened. In a strange way the higher cost becomes justification for the higher cost. If it was cheaper it would become more common which would mean the defense would be more common and its value would be less.

It depends on the nature of the campaign. I was in a campaign using the old danger international rules focusing on supernatural monsters and the occult investigation. I wrote up a scientist character with almost no combat ability. He had familiarity with small arms and 2 overall levels he could use in combat. What he did have is skills to figure out what was going on. His job was to figure out how to kill the monster, but it was up to the other players to actually kill them. He did have a lot of technical skills so was often able to get the party in where then needed to be. And he was had a very good paramedic roll, so often ended up keeping the other party member alieve. Not sure how well that would work in Fantasy Hero.

You are missing the point about using a lower dice attack. All your examples start at 60 points before examples. A 2d6 penetrating RKA with 5 shot auto is 60 active points after the advantages. Assuming all 5 shots hit that means that 10 BODY gets through. Compare that to a 2d6+1 armor piercing RKA with 5 shot auto. Against the character with 30 resistant DEF the first attack the character takes 10 BODY, Against the second one he takes no BODY. Both attacks cost about the same with the armor piercing actually costing a point more. Unless the target has very little resistant defense the penetrating attack is usually going to do more body. Penetrating is more useful on killing attacks or other unusual attacks, but is less useful for normal attacks. With normal attacks under 6th edition armor piercing gives better results vs low defenses, but simply buying more dice is often more effective. Once you get past the defense the raw damage makes up for the extra defense.

A 12d6 attack is not a low dice attack and putting autofire or damage over time on it will make it a lot more expensive. Take a 1d6 RKA and apply Penetrating and damage over time with 6 increments that occurs every 4 segments, this costs 60 points. The character with 30 points of resistant defense will on the average take 6 BODY over a turn and a half. Now make the 1d6 RKA armor piercing and increase the damage over time to 8 segments this also costs 60 points. The character with 30 resistant defense will take no BODY and will probably not even take any stun. A character with only 12 resistant defense will not take any body and may take a few stun. Even 9 resistant defense will mean you probably don’t take body. The first power is a lot more effective than the second power. Penetrating is easier to abuse than armor piercing. Another thing to consider is that because penetrating is more expensive it will be less common, which means that less characters will have the advantage impenetrable. This means that a well-built penetrating attack will actually be more effective because fewer characters have the defense against it. In a strange way the reason penetrating is more expensive is that it is often less effective. Penetrating is kind of a corner case that is only useful in certain situations. By itself it is not worth it, but when combined with something else it can be effective.

Probably the reason is that penetrating guarantees damage gets through no matter how much defense you have. This allows low dice attacks to get damage through, especially with an auto fire attack or a continuing attack. An armor piercing attack halves the defense but if you have a lot of defense you can still end up stopping a lot of the damage. A low dice penetrating attack can be very effective, where armor piercing usually requires more dice to get the same effect.

I never hated Jester. His saving grace was that he never harmed anyone. You gave him a physical disadvantage so that he was unable to cause harm anyone no matter what he did. He could not even cause indirect harm. If he was not insane, he would have been a lot worse. If he was sane stopping him would have actually been a lot harder. When you have the ability to alter reality there are a lot worse things than wanting everyone to be happy. He was what CLOWN tried to be but failed at.

The better way to frame the question might be “the creation of irredeemable races”.

No all things with a special effect of magic count as magic for purpose of vulnerability. For example, if I have a spell that gives me a high STR TK and use that spell to hit someone with a car that should not trigger the vulnerability. On the other hand, if I directly attack a character with the spell that should count as magic. If my spell conjures a rock out of thin air and hurls it at the target that should also count as magic. Most of the time a complication should only come into effect when the special effect is directly interacting with the character with the complication.

Another factor to consider is the question of what is evil. Consuming sentient creature has been used as an example of evil, but what about eating animals. Is eating animals or even insects an evil act? If not at, what level of intelligence does it become an evil act? Would a species that is measurably more intelligent than humans be evil if they eat humans? What about a culture that believes that consuming the flesh of a loved one allows them to live on and failing to do so condemn them to the person’s soul to oblivion? From that perspective not eating someone could be considered an evil act. The idea of free will has also come up, but do all creatures have free will? Who is to say that this is a universal trait? In science fiction there are many intelligent species that have instincts they cannot overcome. The Vulcan’s Pon Far is a perfect example of a race where instinct can override free will in a sentient race. What about a race that goes berserk in battle or under stress? Maybe they have something similar to an adrenaline rush that causes them to kill and destroy things. What about hive minds were the individual is directed by some other creature or force? What about creatures that are completely different from humans and do not share their values. For example, humans usually are protective of their mates and offspring. But other species do not have this instinct. Many insects actually kill their mates after they have mated. Not all races are going to have human instincts and motivations. Imagine an insect like alien species that is more intelligent than humans. They live for thousands of years, and their technology is far more advanced than human. Their thought process is completely alien and incomprehensible. They are telepathic but their class of mind is alien so they cannot comprehend human thought. They feed off of mental energy of human and animals experiencing pain and suffering. This is their food and without it they will die. They reproduce by laying their eggs in the brain of a sentient host. When the egg hatches it takes over the body of the host until it matures. Would you consider this species evil? I think saying that there cannot be inherently evil races is extremely short sided. I can easily see a race that does not share human like values and senses existing. In some cases, they may have traits that we would consider evil. But at the same time I can see that the idea of a human like race being inherently evil is distasteful and feels wrong. There is no reason you cannot have a game where the humanoid species are not inherently evil, but species that are inherently good or evil exist. I think the universe is big enough to have both.

The 6th edition book says that you can use XDM to create gates and referrers you to the section on teleport for the details. The rules for creating gates state you need both the area of effect and extra mass for it to work. That seems to indicate you need both for this as well. Also, UAA normally only affects 100 kg and requires an advantage to increase that, but if the power has its own rules of increasing mass (which XDM does) to use those.

Another thing to consider is that that champions characters in most cases have a lot higher stats. Most Fantasy Hero games I have played in use NCM which means going over costs double. Looking over the sample characters in the 6th edition Fantasy Hero the sample party has an average of 16.2 DEX, 16.8 CON and 3.6 SPD. Those are very low STATs for a champions character especially the SPD. This gives the champions character a huge advantage. The higher SPD means the Champions characters get way more actions in a turn. Assuming the average Champions character has a SPD of 5 that means a party of 5 Champions characters get 25 actions per turn compared to the 18 of the Fantasy Hero sample characters. The Higher DEX means the Champions characters will also go first. Going first and having more actions gives the Champions characters a huge advantage in the action economy. You could of course boost up the stats of the Fantasy Hero characters and ignore the characteristic maximums to even things out. The thing is if you keep changing the rules are the characters still Fantasy Hero characters?

I have to agree with LL on this. It really depends on what optional rules are being used. Most Champions character will be at a disadvantage if hit location and critical hit are being used, especially in 6th edition. On the other hand the Fantasy Hero warrior is going be nerfed if the stun multiple from 6th edition champions is used. The slow easy to hit Champions brick hit with a critical hit to the head from 4d6 killing attack is not going to do well. Most Champions characters are not going to be able to take 120 STUN and 24 BODY. To make matters worse they take double any BODY that gets through their defenses.