SleepyDrug

Re: i feel humiliated

There is a good question of how the fight ended. Dr D could be worse in revenge then in the first round.

12 crits should be a fluke. I've seen it happen once in 20 years.

Re: Champs Worldwide: Whaddya want?

I'd like to see a actual accounting of the major super-teams/people in most nations. A EU team....an explanation why China doesn't have a 2000 person super-army....villains, heroes of a variety of point levels.

Re: Permanently large?

My longest standing character was Gorzubak the Gargoyle. He was a 10' tall statue of a gargoyle (complete with 16' wing span) animated by magic.

I had trouble getting into some doors and had to crawl awkwardly, a fight indoors was a recipe for property damage in most cases. He had clinging which helped but only a little due to his weight (the total of 4 levels of DI&Growth). He was the team computer expert but needed to use sticks (like chopsticks) to operate a keyboard making rush jobs impossible.

Re: How To: "Spirit Ward"

Why not use Hardened; only vs spirits. The rules already permit a wall to be hardened to prevent desolid from passing through.

Re: Weaponsmithing/Armorsmithing question

Fantasy HERO addresses this. I think outside Fantasy, not enough genre uses complex armor to justify it. But weapons fit in every genre.

Re: multiform - is this for real?

Lets not forget that ultimately, any power in the book (almost) can be abused if the GM doesn't monitor usage.

Re: Limb Paralysis

Have you looked at the Disable element in the UMA?

Re: Explosion meets Force Wall: what happens?

RE: The initial question...

 

Seems like it needs three questions...

 

1) Can a force wall (like in the example) stop an explosive attack from hitting it's target hex?

A force wall does does stop an explosive attack from hitting its target. The attack must go off at the wall or bounce if appropriate.

2) If an explosive attack doesn't reach it's target hex, does it still explode?

i'd say yes

3) If an explosive attack explodes where ever it lands (target hex or not) then can a defensive abort act as a missile reflection in some cases (with explosions.

Yes, but the move is entirely defensive. The wall can't be positioned with the intent to "aim" the reflection.

Re: Explosion meets Force Wall: what happens?

Interesting Teamwork possibility:

 

Hero A throws a big exploding attack at a villain. Hero B, using a held action, puts a bubble Force Wall around the Master Villain just before the attack explodes, protecting the team from the explosion, and maybe adding a couple of dice to the damage done to the villain.

Hawkeye and Songbird used this move on the Hulk in an issue of Thunderbolts. Songbird created a force wall (bubble around Hulk's head) to add potency to Hawkeye's arrow.

Re: Explosion meets Force Wall: what happens?

Absolutely....the explosion advantage doesn't let an EB go through a wall. That requires Indirect

Re: Green Lantern Object Creation...

I thought entangle was the bridge making power

Re: Goblin Glider

focus......

Re: Social "Combat' and "Duels"

Isn't this what role-playing is for? No combat, just social skills and intrigue?

Re: Shapeshifting

It actually seemed to imply he didn't read it carefully enough to note it WAS a multiform power pool, and not a standard VPP.

 

My take on the VPP approach is a pretty simple one. It cost you 60 points for a 300 point form, plus 45 for an unlimited number of them. If you bought Multiform, you could have spent 60 points for a 300 point form, and 45 for 512 different forms. 512 is enough to be practically unlimited anyway, so let it go.

Read Steve's answer again carefully. He also mentions this is a way to gain access to things not normally permitted in a VPP such as frameworks. But it is technically legal.

Where his answer becomes strange is that he mentions he uses Multi-Form for metamorphs but fails to emphasis that he does not use a VPP for this.

Re: Shapeshifting

1) Most shape shifters don't actually become the things they turn into, or else they'd lose all sentience and awareness of their surroundings when they turned into a chair or a mailbox.

 

2) In game terms, there isn't always a difference between looking like something else and being something else.

 

3) Truly becoming something else is the purpose of Multiform, not Shape Shift.

In order, if I may....

1) actually, yes...they do. Thats the point, aside from retaining sentience and an awareness of surroundings a shapeshifter *is* something else. A shapeshifter that transforms into a chair is actually made of wood.

2) which only supports my comment in point 1. actually this point argues both ways.

3) Becoming another creature or person entirely is the purpose of Multi-Form. Becoming something else entirely is the purpose of shapeshift. Just as Energy Blast and RKA are different takes on a similiar power.

Steve,

we have been around and around on this. so now I turn to the master for an official answer for a Beast Boy style metamorph

60 pt Variable Power Pool, Zero Phase Shift (+ 1), No Skill Roll (+ 1), Multi-Form Only (- 1)

60 pool cost, 45 control cost

is that legal? or a cheap way to avoid the restriction on number of forms?

Re: Shapeshifting

Couple of things: the VPP multiform: I know I brought it up in this thread, but I quite agree: NOT IN MY GAME, chum. I was just pointing out that it was a legal build (and it is) and not much more expensive than the straight shapeshift power.

See...i'm not convinced it is a legal power build.

Here's one that might get you thinking. Hero ID.

 

How many characters do you know who say their magic word and...well...change shape. They mention Norse-Hammer-Thunder God's wimp alter ego in FRED. The normal and the hero will look and be perceived as entirely different by (probably) all senses.

 

Actually, this is a pretty expensive power if you buy it. One form, all senses, cellular...and we've been getting it for free all these years.

Nope...because it is the required visible effect of powers that we have been paying points for. The shapechange here is a SFX of the OIHID limit. If Norse-Hero-Hammer-God has +60 Str, OIHID (- 1/4)...thats not free it is 48 points.

Shapeshift is sfx, by and large. We know that, that's how we play it, have been for years. As a basically cosmetic power (to which you need to add growth/shrinking/extra limbs/HKA/stretching to make you a REAL shapechanger) it shouldn't cost so much. It is sometimes IMMENSELY useful if you can imitate people, if you are playing in that sort of game. If that is the only real objection, easy: make the power way cheaper and the adder way more expensive. 20 or even 30 points wouldn't be inappropriate.

 

The power istelf should be maybe 20 (MAYBE, top end, 30) points to look (broadly) like anything you want to (NOT imitate). It is not inherently invisible, so there would have to be 3 senses you could catch a metamorph out on unless they pay for the invisible effects advantage (PLASTIC MAN!). You can apply limitations to only effect certain senses (if you just want to change your smell, that is probably between -1 and -2).

 

Shapeshift, used the nasty way, is mainly a villain power anyway. It allows Professor Proteus to sneak up on the heroes, find out their plans and fake being a team member. Heroes just don't get to use it the same way in the vast majority of games (i.e. where there is at least one other non-shapeshifting player in the group).

Which is a line of logic to return to the wonderfully simple 4th edition version.

Re: Scoffing at Magic: What do people think in your game world?

In my world, magic isn't believed because it is not reproducible in any scientific way. People believe that some people have powers attributed to "magic" but that there is no proof of its existance. Most public mystics blend in with the super set and are thought to be mutants or other superhuman types using magic as a label.

Re: Force Field Limitation

I'd agree with the UBO write-up. Looks good to me. I'd also skip the adder and give the guy a break.

Re: Shapeshifting

Well' date=' if he's becoming Plas-as-mailbox so he won't be noticed, the power for that [i']is[/i] Invisibility.

 

Invisibility doesn't mean you can't notice someone invisible, it means you have to work at noticing them -- hence the PER roll. The fact that he's a red and yellow mailbox just means it's that easier to notice him (and thus the Fringe).

My point is the SFX of Plas as a mailbox is not to avoid notice. People easily notice him; far more than even the bright fringe option would entail. At best it could possibly be Images, which has PER penalties.

On to Plas as a dress...

Trickier to do this one without Shapeshift. But it doesn't seem that the effect of this one is at all "provide Barda with clothes".

 

I suppose some kind of Invisibility + Desolidification + Clinging affects solid world might work... But I'd giggle at that on a character sheet so I'm not going to recommend it.

It is also silly to use 70 AP of powers to represent something so lacking in power. This effect includes many minor abilities such as being able to be folded and placed in a box. and i'm sure creative players can think of more uses.

It is difficult to define the effect of Shapeshift as "your shape changes", when quite a few other Powers can have that as the special effect of their own effect (e.g., your shape changes to flat and two-dimensional to slide under a door as the special effect of your Desolidification).

Why not have just two powers then? Seriously...EB, RKA, HKA, and HA all have the same effect -- they do damage. But with noticably different elements. Suggesting that shapeshift isn't unique enough to be its own power defined as "your shape changes" would suggest any power that overlaps any other power should also be eliminated.

Re: Shapeshifting

For that matter, Plas-as-mailbox isn't really getting the effects of being in a mailbox shape (... whatever those might be). The effect Plas-as-mailbox gets is "don't notice me here".

 

That's more like Invisibility, with a Fringe. And special effects visible to Sight Group ("What's this red-and-flesh colored mailbox doing here?").

Actually, since he'd be a bright red and yellow mailbox, the effect is not invisibility.

How about a better example? In an issue of JLA, Plastic Man shifted into the form of a dress that was worn by Big Barda. The effect of this is (1) not get noticed, (2) he is a dress and can be worn, folded, and neatly is wrapped around Barda's body (thereby occupying almost the same space - maybe we should have him get desolidification and invisibility).

This is not an illusion, this is not invisiblity. He is actually a dress being worn by Barda.

Re: Well, I finished reading Conquerors, Killers and Crooks, and...

Point of Order: In DC if you are refering to "the source" as seen in the 4th World books (New Gods, etc) then it is drawn upon by highfather and used for technology, the mother boxes

 

If you are refering to the Godwave then the gods of myth and those who are empowered by them (wonder Woman, Captain Marvel, etc) are powered by it.

I was refering to the source. Forgot about the mother boxes and ... is it Takion now? ... being able to draw on it. But then....as i think on it, the mother boxes and highfather are able to manipulate any special effect, aren't they?

Re: Shapeshifting

"Mmmm... Sure tastes like a Belgian Waffle."

"Grond hate Unluck."

 

There is a certain practically to having Shapeshift as Images (except Touch being the strange way that you shift mass around ). The BBB version of Shapeshift had lots of unanswered questions of just how good of a mimic could you be. The solution of breaking down into each sense group and Adders makes Shapeshift easier to GM (Sorry, your Shapeshift can't do that, you need THIS) but it makes it much more expensive to be a shapeshifter, with almost no bonus for (I can only change into these things).

 

It also makes Shapeshift almost exclusively the ability to deceive someone with your Shapeshift power rather than look at the shape I can shift into.

The problem with this is twofold.

1) There are very few shapeshifting SFX that would not involve all sense groups. The rare cases an exception is needed, just adjust with limitations. It also fails to be specific. Example: Plastic Man (DC) can change shape but not color. So does he or does he not need the sight group. Because if he shifts to be a chair, he looks like a chair except its a red and yellow chair.

2) Powers are intended to be based on function. the function of telepathy is to know someone's thoughts (which is why it includes empathy). the function of invisibility is to hide from a sense. the function of shapeshift is to alter your form into a different shape. hence, shape SHIFT. now, when i imagine this power....it doesn't sound sense effecting to me. The sense effecting rule is the result of a well-meant but incorrect use of the similiar basis rule that was used to determine the cost of Transform. But the logic doesn't flow here as well.

Re: How would you do this form of Teleportation?

Sounds like a multi-power of various teleport theme powers.

RKA/AVLD for the teleport item into a person.

Regular teleport

Re: New To Hero: Character Advancement

Banked and never spent?!?

 

That ain't right...

 

my first group....we all banked our xp until we reached 15-20 points and then all spent the entire bank at once. each of us got a new major ability between adventures.