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Gnome BODY (important!)

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Everything posted by Gnome BODY (important!)

  1. Sound is a decent SFX to base a character on. Deafen your foes, carry messages across miles, knock people around with blasts of sound, make "sound walls", navigate with sonar, etc. Sound is vibration is a decent SFX to base a character on. Shake objects apart, shake things out of people's hands, set up constructive interference to make things explode, knock people down by shaking the ground, etc. Sound is music brings emotions is a decent SFX to base a character on. Inspire courage in your allies, start infighting by inducing anger, drive off a foe by causing fear, sooth the angry mob with calming tunes, etc. A flute is a wind instrument is wind is etc. Blow your foes away, create walls of swirling wind, soar through the skies, make your flute play itself from a distance, etc. A flute is music is rhythm is etc. Force a bad pattern on your foes to throw them off, correct the rhythm of your ally's actions, coordinate a battlefield by sound alone, etc. A lot more abstract than the others. Flutes have iconic significance in snake charming. The flute has "suggestive qualities" that make it a fitting prop for a seductive villain(ess). Flutes are tolerable bludgeons, though that's likely better as a backup option. A flute could easily have a hidden compartment inside for a blade or other useful item.
  2. If the lack of a psylim doesn't indicate "can kill if player desires", then what would? A "casual killer" psylim would mean they kill when the player doesn't want to, after all. A soclim is based on how society perceives the character so is unfitting until the character kills and word spreads (and is compatible with CvK anyways).
  3. I feel that forcing a player to take advantages for incidental upsides because of their SFX puts a lot of mental load on the players during character generation that's not really necessary. My experience has been that descriptors in M&M help about as much as they hurt, and SFX in HERO so far hasn't been any different for my group. Along that same line of logic, I wouldn't require Indirect for lasering through glass unless a player decided to try to game the system. If Laser Guy wants to duck inside a glass phonebooth to take shelter from a swarm of killer rats while still returning fire, sure! That's just playing smart. It's also providing the GM the opportunity to send the Glass Gangster at him and force him to think outside the box. But if Laser Guy can also make invisible forcewalls and wants to shoot through them, he'd better have bought the right to do so. Then again, I use HERO for Champions so my wiggle room for realistic physics is pretty generous. It's my philosophy that things should default to working how people will naively expect them to work because that makes things flow better. As a side note, I'd also point out that not having to breath doesn't mean not being able to smell unless explicitly stated. The power would have to be NND Lack of Ability to Smell which is explicitly illegal since you can't have the defense against a NND be "lack of X".
  4. That's a trait of the SFX of the power. It's fine to leave that to SFX, we don't go around insisting that lasers be built with Can Shoot Through Transparent Objects or sound guns with Does Not Work Without Medium. SFX give some benefits and some drawbacks. E: Actually, you likely would want that limitation on sound guns in a space-heavy setting. But not in normal Champions play.
  5. I'd do it as something along the lines of Paralyzing Stench: Entangle 1d6, 1 DEF, Works Against CON, Not STR (+1/4), Takes No Damage From Attacks All Attacks (+1/2), Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2), Persistent (+1/2), Area Of Effect (4" Radius; +1), Continuous (+1) (47 Active Points); No Range (-1/2), Always On (-1/2), Cannot Form Barriers (-1/4) Adjust number of dice to fit tastes. Anyone who walks into the area has to make a Casual CON roll. If they don't get enough NDB on the CON roll, they're paralyzed until they get a good enough roll to break out.
  6. Luck 36d6, Limited -2 only at story's climax. What does the Power of Friendship need to make happen? Six successes of luck says that just happened. Implausible you say? Exactly!
  7. It's still based on their STR, unless they took a limitation on their Flight and/or Strength. There is an optional rule allowing for flight to be used to increase effective lifting ability at the cost of movement. See 6E2 page 25, under the heading "Movement and Strength".
  8. Once again, thank you. Unfortunately, the example provided for Suppress directly contradicts this. It shows a character using a Suppress STR on two separate targets and maintaining parallel instances. Wouldn't the PotUS have already paid for all the advantages of being PotUS and thus already be more expensive to Summon as a result? Why would, to give a slightly different example, Summon Senator Richard Burr be twice as expensive as Summon Senator?
  9. I happen to be moderately educated on this topic! Cutting ambient temperature by ~60 degrees C will reduce ambient air pressure by ~1/5th if the change occurs instantly. If it occurs over a long enough period of time in an open system, external air can enter the system and mitigate, prevent, and/or reverse the pressure drop. If the area suddenly warms back up when the effect is removed, a similar increase in pressure would occur as well. As to what these sudden changes would do to a person, I have no clue. Very likely unpleasant though.
  10. As few as possible, mainly as a holdover from my Mutants and Masterminds days where GMs rarely if ever invoked the drawback. If they're not making it a limitation, I shouldn't be taking the discount for it. I also refuse to put a combat-important power like defenses or my only attack in a Focus, since that just means I risk having to sit out a scene if the drawback ever comes into play. It's the same reason I shy away from power loss and vulnerability. Though that may change shortly, since I just trivialized a boss fight by shredding his armor. Will be interesting to see if our GM starts picking on other people's focuses.
  11. Thank you for your insights! I think I understand Specific Being better now, I was approaching it (and Summon as a whole) as "Summon thing that would normally not be in campaign" without considering the possibility of "Summon thing from elsewhere in campaign". The answer to Grab and Knockback is, so far as I can tell, completely absent from 5E Revised.
  12. It sounds, honestly, like the grievances you had didn't make it through to your players. I can't really be sure without having been there, but the description you give of their response suggests they thought "He doesn't like our decisions" when you were trying to say "I don't like the tone of this game and don't want to run Dark Champions". If that's not made clear to them, they'll never change and they'll get (justifiably) angry if you 'punish' them for what they thought was fine. Moreover, if I'm reading you right you don't want to run 'suddenly, consequences' because you want heroics. If you want to keep the game going, definitely sit down with them and present the issue again. Be very clear that it's you not liking things, use I statements, etc. If it comes off as accusatory you risk hurting the friends you so clearly treasure enough to run an unfun game for. If you make it clear the issue lies on your side (even if you don't feel it does), then you place massively less strain on the relationship. Remember though, not having a game is better than having to deal with a bad game. If you're having no fun RPGing with your friends, it's time to tell them that and have fun doing something else with them. Just say "I'm not having fun, and would like to do X instead".
  13. 1: Range modifiers should work just fine. 2: Easiest method would likely to be to have everyone buy enhancements to their ranged attacks with the limitation that they only apply past a certain distance. For example, Blast 6d6, and Blast +2d6 only against targets more than 8m away. If you wanted this to be a universal mechanic, you could also just declare that every -N OCV from range modifiers also confers +X to DC. Likely a good idea to put some upper bound on it or even scale it back after a point, there's not much you can do with on confirm off a full-screen fireball in most games. If you're looking for a counter-hit mechanic, you could also assign DC bonuses to whoever wins the dex roll-off for simultaneous attacks.
  14. My group's picked up HERO System and been loving it for a couple months, but occasionally we've run into something that stumps us. We're using Fifth Edition Revised. Desolidification: A character with Desolid affected by magic is clearly blocked by a magic Force Wall. But can they use their attacks without Affects Physical World to affect said wall? What about a Force Wall with Affects Desolid? What about a magic Focus? Of particular interest to me is Entangle. Does an Affects Desolid Entangle force a desolid character to deactivate the desolidity to begin trying to escape (barring Affects Physical World)? Density Increase: It feels like the mass increase downside is trivially circumvented with Flight. What are ways to make sure a heavy flyer is still impacted by their mass? Can a character buy limitations on the Leaping increase that Density Increase provides? If so, how should that limitation be handled? Drain vs Suppress: Why would I want Drain instead of Suppress with Reduced Endurance 0 END? It seems like the former costs more and gives less. What am I overlooking? Same question regarding Aid and Succor. Leaping vs Running: What makes Running worth twice as much as Leaping? I can see some advantages, but not enough in my mind to merit twice the cost. What am I missing? Similar question for Running vs Flight with No Turn Mode and possibly Only In Contact With A Surface. Summon: What makes Specific Being worth +1? Why is "Summon my guardian angel" so much more expensive than "Summon guardian angel"? It seems more like a Limitation since conditions and damage accrue. What am I missing? Telekinesis vs Strength: Somebody in my group wants a high STR character with TK. They don't want to "pay twice" for the STR. Are there any good solutions beyond "Multipower it"? Grabs and Knockback: Character A has grabbed character B. B suffers knockback from an attack. What happens? Does it matter which direction the knockback is in? STUN Only: A player has expressed interest in being able to selectively apply the STUN Only limitation (-0) to their STR to comply with their Psychological Limitations without compromising their ability to break things. Since they're getting their STR through an Element Control, Multipower isn't an option. Is there a good way to do this?
  15. The writeup for Explosion states it removes 5 AP per 2M. But 6e1 p323 also states that at the GM's option an area other than that required to perfectly match the explosion dropoff can work how you describe. So basically, it's up to your GM.
  16. Killing Attacks are higher BODY damage and lower STUN damage. That is, they're better at dealing lethal damage but take longer to knock people out. They're also better for breaking objects. I'd have to know how big you made yours to say more, but if you're anywhere above 3d6 I'd argue you can cut dice and still be effective with it. Definitely ask your GM about Everyman Skills, that should shave a bunch of points. You could save a few points by putting the running and leaping into a multipower, since you're unlikely to need both at once. If the Mental Defense isn't core to the concept, I'd suggest cutting it. A full power Mental Blast has half the raw output of a normal attack, so 0 MD is "as good" as your current 20 PD/ED. I'll echo the people suggesting cutting speed. If everyone else in your group is SPD 4 or 5, definitely drop to match them. If SPD 6 is normal for PCs, stay where you are. Likewise, the strength stunts you're describing seem to be 30ish STR at most. Replacing 30 STR with 6 Damage Classes from Martial Arts should save a few points and dramatically reduce your END spending, something you've got a potential problem with right now depending on how long your GM makes the fights.
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