dsatow

I think the reason many people don't use them is because you are usually still limited to the number of dice in an attack. if you had say a 90 point multipower in a 60 active game but the slots were limited to about 60 active for an attack, you probably wouldn't invest in anything more than 30 active in defense. But then again, if the GM allows you to make that slot up to 90 active, you might be tempted to give up the defense if you could get a shot of at 18d6 without dying.

Their inclusion may be a bit Hit or Myth.

Spotlight - Whenever the character make a soliloquy or dramatic speech, the area they are standing in gets just a little brighter than everyone else's. If no one is listening to the speech or they failed to even get the target's attention in a presence attack, the sound of crickets can be heard as well.

Personally, I would just buy damage reduction stun only (-1/2). The cost increase would be countered by the extra benefits.

Yes, you are correct, at least to me, on all counts.

Some could say that they have the ability to shorten distances between two points. Like a teleporter. In which case, if you let someone dispel a modifier for night time, why not let them dispel a modifier for range? No and yes. To be honest, I haven't been arguing the use of a special effect to create light as Doc Democracy and the others have mentioned. Only the use of aid, dispel, and drain to change penalties or add bonus modifiers. Using a power in this way is a power trick as noted on 6e1p86. A person could use their Fire blast at 1d6 to create a torch or use their force field glow to read a newspaper at night. Its what the power skill was designed for. So yes, I would allow the dispel to dispel the ice. If you really want a cheap light, you could pay 1 point for an energy blast that does 1 STUN at no range if you had a power which didn't have a special effect which would produce usable light. But using aid, drain, and other adjustment powers on modifiers can disrupt the way the game works. If you allow it, it's your game, have at it. You, as GM, can control its use and make sure its used fairly. But if you came to me hoping to insert that power into my game, I would object on the grounds I noted before and would suggest a number of other ways to solve the design issue.

I think the problem here is that the penalty to seeing at night is a modifier. If you allow dispel to work on a modifier, then technically, you should allow dispel to work on any modifier, such as range, skill roll penalties, etc. Its a slippery slope.

Well say you have a 60 point multipower and a 6 DC attack with a total of +3/4 advantage. That would end up 52 active. You will not be able to use a 10 active point fixed slot in that situation if that power is used. Another minor issue is if the multipower has a common limitation of unified power limitation on it. Then, a 3d6 drain on one multipower slot would affect all slots individually. A 10 point active slot would disappear. A 60 point variable slot would just go down to 50.

To be honest, thinking about it overnight, to get the granularity and make your multipower efficient, you want to convert at least one of the 6 fixed slots to a variable. So 5 fixed +10 PD slots, 1 variable +10 PD slot. 7 points, infinite variability.

Not really, a club would have a handle and be balance for swinging. It could be crude but it couldn't be shaped like a standing dog with the tail as a handle. Anything could be used to club something, like say the phone reference above, but it wouldn't be described as a club, more like a blunt force object.

isn't that then just a variable slot of 5 points effectively? Why buy 30 slots of +1 when the cost is the same for 1 variable slot of +15. Fixed slots use set amount of points from the pool. So in the case of say 10 PD in a slot, even if you only want to use 5 PD, the slot uses 10 points from the multipower. Variable slots on the other hand can withdraw as much or as little as desired from the pool. Also if your GM allows you to use this kind of construct, what's wrong with that? Just understand, if a 1d6 drain to everything +10 adv* (110 points active) would drain each and every slot individually. * I am using +10 adv since hero designer maxes out at +10 on multiple powers affected simultaneous. In effect its over 20 separate powers being affected at the same time.

Yes, people use bombs as suicidal weapons. But the thing is, it doesn't have to be a bomb. Say he blocks a person with a sword with his hands. He can now take the sword away as well as use it himself. As for what can be used or defined as a weapon, lets say anything that is covered that is covered either as a weapon familiarity or weapon element is covered as defined in RaW. This would make a bomb a vehicular weapon and thus covered.

You could use summon but it would be hella expensive RaW as it would have to be slavishly loyal (+2 I think). I'd bend the rules slightly. I would make it teleport UaA triggered megascaled only to teleport to a fixed location. I would buy a set location of myself. I would then remotely trigger the teleport. You probably need mind link to link to the triggerable items to set them off. The VPP would work but would have the slight issue of what if the target is using the weapon touched. You'd theoretically have two items then. For example, say a villain's bomb was touched by the hero. Using the VPP would give you the bomb in hand which is fine, but you would get the awesome ability of removing the bomb from its current location.

That's the point, outside the AoE radius, people would not have the aid to night vision and would not see people lit with the light. To them, they would still have the penalty to their night vision (-4). I do a lot. My mother in law has a hard time seeing in the dark with her macular degeneration so I use a cell phone light so she can see the menu. I turn on the light so another person can read the menu. I don't have to take any other action than that as she has enough sight to keep the menu in sight. But this again is besides the point, the point isn't that you have to take an action to use the power. The point is the power affects only one person per action. If you use your aid penlight to light up a statue, your version of the penlight means that the person with you sees the statue. But if you had 2 others with with you, only one would see the statue. You would have to hit the other person with the aid to see the statue, If then someone else came, you would have to hit that person with the aid. ad nauseum. I think you mis interpreting 6e1p374. What it means is that an instant power, such as an aid or flash, has a lasting effect. The effect of that instant power will cost end to maintain. Not paying the end for the power every phase means the effect disappears. Uncontrolled means the power will continue to run without your intervention. So an uncontrolled power using end would continue to burn end even if you are unconscious. That's why they use Images. While you still suffer range penalties, your chance of viewing the light image is at +4, cancelling the night penalty. Again, I think you are missing the point. Aid only to enhance someone up to normal values is a fine limitation it just doesn't fit here. Someone who is looking around at night gets a modifier to their sight perception roll. They aren't drained of perception, so the power would do nothing. Its like if you do a haymaker, you take a -5 DCV modifier to your DCV. Your DCV isn't drained, its a modifier to your DCV. Its the same with perception. If you like the idea of using Aid in your game for light, that's fine. To be honest, the mechanics are just a fun exercise we do here to convert things to RaW on stuff which really doesn't need to be designed unless they make a difference in the game (per 6e1p10,31,32). For most people a penlight would be covered in this. A police maglight would be more useful so a design would be interesting to see. When you do the police maglight, I would keep in mind this scenario. There is a darkened warehouse where a superhero and a supervillain are stalking each other in the dark. A police officer comes in after the silent alarm triggers and sweeps the warehouse with his light. The officer shines the light on the superhero. All people can now see the superhero. The superhero can't see the police officer clearly but knows his position as where the light is coming from. The supervillain can see the superhero and knows where the light source is. The police officer does not know where the supervillain is but can see the hero.

It would depend on what the players would be attempting. For instance, the easiest solution is mental illusions of a calm place. But that's a rare power. Conversation, charm, persuasion, KS/SS psychology would also work depending on how it was applied. The main thing would probably be to remove the frightening situation from Johnny at least over 200' away (64m or 32") and then use skills to console or redirect the child's attention. That's how I would see it, but other heroes might do something different. Players are a creative and mysterious bunch, so something creative should be awarded.

It would depend on your players and how they designed their characters but a scenario villain might be interesting. Here's the villain. Johnny is a little 4 year old kid. Unfortunately, he's a timid kid who has lived through some pretty f***'d up s#!+. He's afraid of the dark and easily afraid of violence (3 Pre). He has this power where his id manifests monsters to stop anything and everything he's afraid of. The monsters don't go away after he summons them and he's afraid of his own monsters. After the monsters stop whatever is frightening Johnny, they act like monsters would expect to act. 1) If players are fighting monsters or villains near Johnny, this scares Johnny into accidentally summoning more monsters. 2) If players kill or hurt Johnny, this is easily a public relations nightmare as Johnny seems to a simple innocent. 3) If players hurt Johnny, as soon as he wakes up, monstrous versions of their greatest foes come back to attack them. 4) If Johnny is isolated, monsters which kidnap people will kidnap people to keep Johnny happy. He's afraid of being alone. The best way to help Johnny is to isolate him from what's causing him fear and then treating him in a healthy happy environment until his psyche heals and solidifies, but I figure most players design their characters as straight forward combat monsters or mystery solving skill twids. In 30 years of gaming, I've only seen two PCs who can easily handle Johnny with skills.

It usually depends on the age of the campaign or the amount of games under the belt of the player. I've played in campaigns with characters closing in on 4 digit of XP.

OK, according to the RaW on 6e2p77 (thanks for the reference!), then you just put a limitation on the 2 point level, only for multiattack on one of the attacks in the multiattack. This would probably be a -1 limitation making it 1 point per +1 OCV.

Sorry, I am to this discussion late, but if its compensating for the penalties for multiple attack, why not just use +1 CSL single attack (multi-attack) for 2 points or +1 OCV with the -1 limitation only with multiple attack?

As Hugh said, it depends on the campaign. Most GMs of HERO probably generally keep the power level consistent, which is fine, but the XP usually get spent somewhere else. Where the power (CVs, SPD, def, and damage) level remain consistent, I find that other areas begin to rise. After a while, even Mongo, the mentally retarded alien from planet Pugg is equivalent to a genius or a jack of all trades or has tools/wealth/etc. Personally, lately I try to target the players to a big bad at the end of an arc and then let the players spend to take on that villain. In my current campaign, they are aiming at Dr. Destroyer plus a mystery threat that they won't really know about until Destroyer is dealt with. In between, they fight lower level big bads. they've just thwarted Viper's US take over and now will be beefing up to fight Mechanon.

Personally on the whole issue of the ability to produce light in a supers game (or have a cell phone, or etc.) 1) You can purchase a $2 pen light from the store. It will not cost you points. It will not have def or body as it's a story prop. When the villain shows up, lights flicker and bulbs burn out or the first time you get knocked back, the thing breaks. If you want something more dependable, pay points for it. 2) I understand the concept of change environment and gut instinct tells me its the way to do it. After all, in D&D you get darkness penalties removed the farther out from the light source. But I've come to understand why they use light as an image. Using change environment means the effect is only applicable within the area. You can't really get the bonuses from the change environment outside the radius of the change environment effect. With images, you can still see the image within the effect (i.e. the image doesn't disappear if you go outside the effect. You still see it clearly with a +4 to see it. The image is the bright spot in the center.

RaW: The aid spell has problems. 1) Aid only affects those within the area of the spell. 2)The pen/cellphone light only allows others to see if you attack them with the aid. 3) Aid with costs end to maintain doesn't keep affecting new people to the aid, it just means you need to pay end for those already affected. You will need to make the Aid also constant. 4) The light spell can not be seen from a distance. In other words, if you wanted to use it to signal someone from across the darkness of night, they would not be able to see you. 5) Darkness modifiers are modifiers and do not drain anything from the character. So that limitation only works if someone has drained them of sight (see optional rules on draining senses).

Yes, it slows down certain progressions. It does not affect damage progression, as the costs to increase damage have stayed the same. Increasing one's CVs has changed slightly. Increasing one's OCV + DCV would normally cost about 8 points (9 points for Dex -1 for Spd). The effect of buying up your CV would also give you benefits in tripsheet placement and Dex rolls (like breakfall and diving for cover). Placing the conversation solely on CVs, raising OCV and DCV by 1 is 10 points. Likewise, most combat skill levels have gone up in cost by about 2 points. So, in changing CVs, the difference is about 1 extra game session for most people assuming at least 2-3 xp per session.

As a side note, the uses I usually see for Con Rolls at heroic level but not superheroics are Con rolls to prevent getting sick. Con rolls for sudden shock death or as a GM saving grace against a player suddenly dying due to bad rolls. Con rolls against poison (basically the poison defense is a successful Con roll). Con rolls against torture (this actually does come up in supers games enough to note but generally I frown on supers actually using torture). Con rolls for Sex. Don't ask. The GM set it up so that a success will represent a later positive on a pregnancy test. Con rolls for wounding.

You can still get the pdf for Robot Warriors at drivethrurpg. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/61459/Robot-Warriors-3rd-Edition And sometimes copies show up on ebay. Here's one on sale til the 21st. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Robot-Warriors-Hero-Games-System-Giant-Robot-RPG-Battle-Champions-compatible-/312624301072