pawsplay

It's just expensive. If everyone is talking it, either 1) you are giving them too many points for your concept, or 2) they all want to play weapon masters. If you ban it, they will do slightly less damage, but with the option of instead being very accurate when they feel like it. Literally, you are saying, "You can take CCLs at very high levels, but only if you don't put Limitations on them."

I've played Hero in many genres, and I've never been in a situation where I thought Background skills should be priced like standard skills. A successful PS: Dancer check is not going to have any truly predictable effect beyond going a dance. It might impress someone, or they might not care. It's not the same as Conversation, Acrobatics, Stealth, and so forth, which have defined roles in challenges. Just because a Background skill is prominent doesn't mean it stops being a Background skill. Such skills typically have a narrow focus, and that definitely describes dance. Even doing a cheerleader routine or performing a somersault is not a core use of the skill, and challenging attempts would be at a penalty. PS: Dancer does not at all substitute for adventuring uses of Acrobatics.

Weapon Master is actually just CSLs with a limitation.

Why? I've never seen a skill used that way. And I can't even imagine a game where dancing plays that role. There are no dance battle rules in Hero. If some noble challenges you to a dance-off, you could just refuse. Or kidnap them. Or something. Dancing as a skill is literally just used to dance.

Dodge and Block are basic combat options. We're not talking about Martial Maneuvers. I don't know why you think a magic-user shouldn't have access to Dodge unless they have some kind of Physical Limitation.

I don't really understand this reasoning. I'm not saying dancing is insignificant, I'm just saying, it's only as significant as its role as a professional skill one might have. It's not, in principle, different from PS: Play the lute, KS: Welsh history, or PS: Tanner. I definitely would not "elevate" it to being a "full-blown" skill because you are just basically saying you want to charge more points for a background skill.

It would be a PS skill you could choose to base on Dexterity. Its not like Acrobatics because it's not used in a general adventuring context. It's a skill you might have as part of your background as a dancer.

You mean classical magic users like Gandalf, who used a sword? The Grey Mouser, who was a thief and fencer? Or maybe Elric, who used a sword? Or Lythande, who used a sword? Or Richard Cypher, who used a sword? Or maybe more like the evil magician in the Golden Voyage of Sinband, who also used a sword? If a magician gets involved in combat, they are a "competent warrior," even if they aren't a knight.

A lot of it would be traveling or stage acts, not that different than vaudeville, conjuring, etc. "Dancer" is also an ancient euphemism for a companion-for-hire; in Ancient Greece, the preferred daytime profession was "flute-player."

That is an interesting observation, although I'm not sure I would automatically consider an ordinary sword blow "the means to do so" if they aren't capable of penetrating the hide at all in the first place

That's... remarkable. I used to play high Speed characters often, and I would be like attack, block, block, attack.

Weaken Speed?

I don't really see the obstacles to making a mega-villain. You can give them whatever numbers they need. For the Big Fight, you should have some kind of hazard or puzzle. So you would be fighting Mechanon but also his, you know, force field generator or whatever he has going on. For high point heroes, a lot of the assumptions break down, but I'm not convinced the game itself breaks down. Has anyone performed any play-tests?

Of course I read it, I just didn't find that it addressed my dissatisfaction. In movies, you slay dragons. You don't beat them unconscious, then slowly bludgeon them to death.

Let's say it is now knocked out. How do you kill it?

That's still 0 Body damage. Zero.

Sad Puppies was not hilarious, it was reprehensible, and the furor certainly took away from the time of energy of people on all sides of the issue.

Ok, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying a Limitation is generally priced according to how it affects your options. A power that harms evil, but doesn't harm non-evil, is not as limited because there are few situations where you want to harm non-evil beings but not harm evil ones. Assuming evil opponents are common in the campaign. And no, it's not really equivalent to Detect Evil, because you can't detect evil without doing some damage. That would be like saying Fiery Blast is a free detect on characters who are invulnerable to flame. The situation "I'm being attacked by a bunch of non-evil dogs" just isn't that likely to come up, and if it does, you would employ some other tactic. In my view it's very similar to Lockout in that respect, which is worth a -1/4.

I honestly don't know what you're getting at here.

The Charges modifier, same question. A Limitation that is less limiting is worth less of a value. If the user could purely control who was affected, that would actually be an Advantage, Selective on the Area Effect.

It may be sometimes advantageous. But it still limits its utility, against robots, police dogs, etc. But it's probably not worth -1/2. It affects a lot of opponents, and against other opponents, you probably still have the rest of your ability set.

This was for Fantasy Hero, but I had an animated statue once that had DS: Shrinking

You agree that LOS only applies to Mind Control as far as targeting it. It is the same with AOE powers. You don't require a sense to damage targets with a fiery explosion, and you do not to affect them with a radius fear effect. There is no special rule with Mental Powers requiring the effect to have LOS, just as you agree with as far as Mind Control. p.148 And there it is. Conventional barriers don't stop Mental Powers. So as long as you can target the area, you can affect everyone in the area.

I see your previous responses, and you don't seem to understand that LOS pertains to range. Can you clarify why you think walls block the area of mental powers, when there is nothing in the rules that says they do? Do you also think Mind Control instantly ends if someone walks behind a tree?

What's depressing about liking Faerun or Eberron? What's distressing about "how would you build cool X spell?" in Hero System? As to the original post, Hero handles "crits" differently. They don't exist as such. But that doesn't mean, for instance, you wouldn't convert the weapon.