LoneWolf

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.

Before you decide if a race can be inherently evil you have to decide what evil is. The most important thing to figure out is are you going with the concept of free will, or predestination? Both concepts have been debated in western theology and literature. Examples of absolute predestination include more than just the Calvinist religions, the book Story All You Zombies by Robert A. Heinlein is good example of non-religious predestination. If you favor the theory of absolute predestination over free will inherently evil races, make perfect sense. If you favor the idea of free will inherently evil races are harder to justify. Like anything else this can be a scale instead of a binary choice. How much free will exists and how much has already been determined can be different. This can also have a lot of impact on other parts of the game besides just the question of morality. If you favor the idea of free will then predicting the future is a lot harder, but if you are going with absolute predestination the future is set would be easier to predict. For those using the idea of angles and demons as being that are inherently good or evil, I want to point out that according to the original stories demons are the angels that followed the devil in rebellion to God. If Demons are not inherently evil, why would any race be? What it really comes down to is what type of game does the GM want to run?

In all honesty the reason he was annoying was for both of those reasons. The character mostly stole things because he was greedy so was not a bloodthirsty villain. The other thing is that the character almost always managed to get away. I think the only time he was captured in the campaign was the time I managed to get him. The campaign did have a lot of very deadly villains including some really vicious murderers. He was not the most hated villain just the most annoying. After watching him get away all the time it got old, but finial capturing him felt great. He usually knew when to leave, but that time got a little too cocky.

The most annoying villain I have encounters was Roadrunner. He was a speedster that was incredibly difficult to hit and like to go out of his way to be annoying. I still remember him dumping a McDonalds shake on my character and then dumping a coke on me, saying that shakes always made him thirsty. He had a high DCV that made him really hard to hit and had a running dodge and a high enough DEX and skill levels he could dive for cover out of most area of effect attacks. I managed to catch him one time by waiting till he was jumping over me (to pour the coke on me) and put my tear gas arrow in the hex he was going to land in. Not only did he not have the defense he took double damage from the attack so ended up getting stunned. The attack lasted a turn, so he ended up being knocked out in his next phase. I think I was one of the only characters to ever capture him.

I agree with @unclevlad about being able to dodge this. That makes it seem like you are trying to recreate a spell from a game like Pathfinder that allows a save. I don’t see a reason this should be able to be resisted like this. UAA requires you to define a way it can be resisted, but having XDM of your own would make more sense. This is going to be a very expensive power because you have to account for the total weight of the area. An 8m radius will need to be able to handle about 25 tons, which puts the active cost to 165 points. The 32M radius will cost you 260 points. For the altering of the terrain that was moved that sounds more like a change environment than a transformation attack. A penalty to running due to the fact there is probably a hole in the ground that may have bits sticking out and water leaking out of the pipes creating mud.

@Duke Bushido enjoy being a player for a change. How you build the character does not really matter as long as the GM and the player are good with it. For me one of the best parts of the Hero System is that it allows you to build things that work the way you want them. Sometimes other people may not understand your concept so may think your power should operate differently. My initial impression of what Duke wanted was the ability of a speedster to snatch things (including people) out of the grasp of others. To me that suggests a grab, but the standard grab has some problems, so I suggested a flying grab. It turns out that is not what Duke wanted.

I think the idea that the Hero System is more reading than other systems is not really true. Other game systems have more books and spread things out more. Hero System actually has fewer books than most current game systems, but each book has more content. Looking at the 2nd edition Pathfinder site I see 16 rule books listed with prices around $50 - $60 books. I am not familiar with 2nd edition Pathfinder, but in 1st edition each book had completely expansions of the base rules. So, while getting started is slightly easier having everything is a lot more complex and requires substantial investment. With the Hero System all you really need are the two rule books. Other books in the Hero System are more advice on how to run a specific campaign and some source material for those types of campaigns. Fantasy Hero for example has a lot of information for the GM to setup his campaign and has expanded lists of equipment and talents. Really only the GM needs to purchase Fantasy Hero. Other systems have a lower entry threshold but are a lot more difficult to master than Hero System.

HKA are often more powerful in 6h edition due to the maximum damage limit being removed. Under 5th edition a 30 STR character with a Karate Chop (Killing Strike) would do 1d6+1 damage, under 6th edition it now does 2 ½ D6 damage. The cost of the maneuver does not increase for the stronger character they simply do more damage. There is a suggestion that weapons that do more than double the damage might have a chance to break, but that is a suggestion. Another thing that changed is that now skill levels in all campaigns can be used to increase damage. In Earlier editions this was usually limited to heroic campaigns This is probably one of the reasons they increased the cost of skill levels. This can make certain characters more powerful in a superhero campaign. A highly skilled sniper is a more dangerous in a superhero campaign in 6th edition campaign than they are in a 5th edition. Some powers have changed how they work. Force Wall was replaced by Barrier and is quite different in how it works. Growth also changed a lot and is now more expensive but gives you a lot more. It also is less flexible. Each level of growth represents a full doubling in height not mass. All resistant defenses are now under a single power called resistant defense. If you want it to act like the old force field, you add the limitation cost END. They added a new defensive power called Damage Negation that reduces the DC of the attack hitting you instead reducing the damage rolled. Damage Negation can have some interesting effects on combat especially in games that use hit locations. As other have said most of the differences between 5th edition and 6th edition are in character creation instead of game play. Even in character creation it is not that big of a deal. Figured stats and the increased points are about 80% of the defenses between the editions. What really changed is that the new books are a lot bigger and go into a lot more detail. They give more details and examples of how things are supposed to work. This seems to bother some people who have been playing the game for years, but I find that most of the extra material is reasonable and well thought out. It does mean a lot more reading, which is probably why a lot of people don’t like it.

The grab weapon option allows you to grab accessible focus or other held or carried objects. A hostage would be considered a held or carried object. The grab weapon states it uses the normal grab rules, which means you have to make a STR vs STR roll to gain control of the object. The extra STR from a martial grab maneuver applies to the STR vs STR roll to gain control of the held object (hostage). The rules for a grab by state that it is usually used for grabbing focus but can be used to grab people. Since the flying grab is basically a martial version of the grab by it should be able to be used in the same way and be allowed to grab a hostage.

True, but the real benefit is it improves your chance of being able to pull the hostage free if they are being held. That is what the extra STR does allow you to do.

It needs to be built and paid for if this is something the character plans on using on a regular basis and having it work reliably. How to build it also depends on what the player wants to do with it. If this is just something that the character might do once or twice in a campaign it probably does not need to be built. If this is going to be a regular thing the character does, it needs to be defined. If all you want to do is to grab a single hostage, the grab by maneuver will allow you to do it but has penalties that make it difficult to count on. The grab by maneuver takes a -3 OCV and -4 DCV, which puts the character at a real disadvantage. By spending 5 points for a flying grab, it reduces the penalties to a -2 OCV and -1 DCV and Gives the character +10 STR to grab with. So, a character with a flying grab can probably safely get two hostages with only a -1 to his DCV. Using TK or Teleport as an attack would allow the character to save multiple targets without exposing the character to much danger. Like I said earlier it depends on what the player wants to be able to do.